Awake in Tierra del Fuego

It wasn't bad  pizza what made me start writing tonight, nor was it a virus, or too much alcohol (or any alcohol, for that matter).  This probably isn't my Jerry Maguire moment, supposing I ever have one of those.  No, really, this is the result, I think, maybe...

...see, I can't even pull the trigger on that thought.  'Cause apparently I have commitment issues.  Or something like that.  And I write a lot like I often talk.  In short, choppy disjointed sentences.  With odd punctuation.

So the problem is maybe the way I think.  My thoughts are like ball bearings rolling down a billion narrow tracks placed side by side on a shaker table, which itself is randomly whacked causing the bearings to jump their tracks and start all over again.

Gahhh.  Scrap that.  I don't like the machine analogy.  I am not a machine, although I sometimes feel like one.  A tired, stressed out machine about to be replaced by the next generation of shiny, noisy things.  They may not be better, but they look better, and therein lies the rub.  I may have the content, not sure I have the form.  My surface, maybe it ain't so shiny.

So there I go again, off on another tangent which barely makes sense to me.  If it doesn't make sense to me, I can't expect it to make sense to you, dear readers (to whom I'm very grateful that you've stuck it out this far).  Analogy, analogy, I'm looking for an analogy.  Or is it a metaphor?  A simile?  Gahhh, again.  See?  Distracted by my own self, or the shiny things that are my thoughts.

Crows.  My thoughts are like crows.  Bright, clever but so easily distracted.

This rambling edifice is the result of being tired and run-down.  "Shagged out from a long squawk" to borrow from Monty Python.  The stresses and strains of the week have taken the starch out of me, and tonight for the first time in a long time I laid down on the couch after eating alone (again) at my neighborhood tavern, and channel surfed the television.  Watching things about which I either cared too little or cared too much.  I melted into the couch cushions.  My eyes absorbed food porn and real-world obscenity, and suddenly I was off my feed.  Two sides of a very disturbing coin.

I gave up, eventually.  Watching stories about people stuffing their faces and about humans killing each other for the sake of flag and religion, well, it was too much.  I laid back on the couch and fidgeted with my camera, thinking I would take a picture of myself and use it as source material for a Really Intense Post about the life of a would-be Artist...and I did take some pictures of myself and the view from the couch.  But I don't know if I'll share any of those.  The notion took on some absurdity as I scrolled through the pictures I still haven't downloaded from the past week or so.  A strange melange of my daughter, an aunt of mine, and scenes from the church of my boyhood.

The images of my blood and kin, of the cross, of the stained glass panels aglow with afternoon sun...an intensity of emotions I am at a loss to describe.  I sat and stared at these images, scrolling back and forth, zooming in and out, while the radiators creaked and popped in little echoes resounding through the barren temple of my house.  Friday night, and a payday, and what am I doing?  Laying on the couch, wondering just how I got here, and analyzing the best angle to create a weird photo of the ceiling fan in my living/dining room.

I am attempting to surround myself with artifacts that mean something to me on a deep personal level.  I have a start with three big framed prints of mine, but it isn't enough.  The three prints only serve to highlight just how much room there is left to fill.  The echoes of the radiator gain amplitude in the remaining emptiness, a feeling only intensified when I look at the images on my camera, tiny pictures of a big lonely head.

It's cold here tonight, with the possibility of snow flurries.  Perhaps it is time to turn in, gather the blankets around and keep in the heat.  Yes, it is time.  I'd better get to it, because if I'm still awake when the next train horn blows, I may just jump in my car and drive to Tierra del Fuego.

Happy Friday: The Nice Files

Let's just get it out there that this week has been a stinker.  Not catastrophic, not my-house-just-fell-into-a-volcano kind of bad, but a stinker all the same.  A big, greasy wurst of Too much to do, wrapped in a charred pastry Blanket of Angst, topped off with a nasty dollop of Too Many Bills.  Oh, and I was going to be home later than usual.  So it is safe to say that I was all prepared to get home, change into my sweatpants and hide under the pillows on my bed.

Fortunately, there was an alternative waiting for me, times two.

NICE THING #1:  The tea I ordered a week ago, shipped the cheap, slooooow way, finally arrived and was perched on my doorstep.  Hooray!  I likes me some India black tea, of the Assam lineage, and now I have fresh malty/smoky/brisky to warm me up these chilly mornings.

EVEN NICER THING #2:  Earlier this month, I commented on this post by Unmitigated, and made a remark about a book in the background of the photo.  Well, to my pleasant surprise, the lurvely and thoughtful Mary replied to my comment and offered to send me the book if I would read it.  So today, in my mailbox, was the package containing the book*.  How about THAT, dear ones?  That is all kinds of nice, and that made my day.  In New Orleans, they would call that a 'lagniappe', a little something extra, which warms the heart.  If you can, drop by her place and say hello.  Thanks, Mary!

*"The Dymaxion World of Buckminster Fuller" in case you wanted to know.  Yeah, yeah, I'm a geek. 

El Tigre

The jaguar is the most feared and respected big cat in the Western hemisphere, according to some.  To be expected, I suppose, given that the jaguar has an incredibly powerful bite, is extremely fast and very lethal to its prey.  The jaguar, it is said, seldom goes hungry.

Jaguars are elusive.  They are hard to find, difficult to track.  There is a lot that isn't known about jaguars.  Maybe this is as it should be.  Maybe dangerous beauty isn't meant to be completely understood.  Yet know them we must, if they are to survive the insensate appetites of man.  So we keep studying, chasing, tracking.

In my more mytho-poetic moments, I feel el Tigre is my spirit brother from another mother.  I feel the jaguar, understand it, want to be in its skin.  Most days, though, I can only admire from afar, knowing that I have miles to go to match the power, vitality and mystery of the jaguar.  Maybe I never will, but find myself not wanting to give up.  I will probably go hungry more often than the jaguar would, I'm not so fast or powerful.  Still, I will hunt.  Someday, I will hold the keys to the spirit world, just like them.

Image from Wikimedia.org

Living the Dino Lif

A damp, gray day and warm for the season to boot.  It put a twist in my drawers and a pall on my demeanor, which spilled into the workday.  Today was a headphones-on-more-than-off kind of day.  The only thing that could have put the cap on it would have been to walk around with a lemon wedge in my mouth.

Her Majesty's evening swim class was cut short because one of the toddlers had a "bathroom incident" in the pool, so everyone had to exit and the pool was shut down for cleaning.  Poop in pool = total buzzkill + hilarity for the Lass.  To her credit, she did acknowledge that it was "gross".

"Soulshine" by Government Mule was playing on the radio when I arrived back at the Casa del Gumbo, and it put me further into the funk than I already was.  Pensive and soul-searching wasn't what I was in the mood to hear.  I was gearing up to write it all out, get the cynical and jaded pollution from my head to clear it.  I was thinking how I fall into that trap too often, seduced by the dark side, and how I was tired of being a grown-up.

Good thing I saw the picture.  Heh.

It has been sitting on my kitchen counter for about a week or so.  Wee Lass drew it for me as a gift, of her own accord.  It is of a happy little dinosaur, cheerily munching on what looks like carrot-shaped tree with a single large leaf at the top.  Overhead, a pale yellow sun shines down as a butterfly the size of a condor flies above the dinosaur.  At the top left hand corner is a title, scrawled in that unmistakable penmanship of one who is just learning to write.  It says "The Dino lif", and Wee Lass assures me that it does mean "The Dino Life", missing 'e' notwithstanding.

It makes me smile.  I forget, even for only a little while, about the crappy day and malaise and the cynical, corrosive air we often breathe as adults.

I sat down on the couch, with a glass of tea, and resolved to more often "live the Dino lif".  And I won't even worry about that missing 'e'.