Random fact…
This isn’t a hieroglyph. If you have a careful eye, you might see them in odd places. This one is supposed to mean “Do not climb.” Typically it’s placed on poles needing replacement.
Over time, I’ve concluded that many of these are nailed into poles that are, in fact, way easier to climb than normal poles.
I’ve ordered 535 of them. One for each member of Congress.
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Rule 47
“Anyone who posts words, policy, or statements by our current president for any purpose other than mockery or excoriation can no longer be taken seriously regarding any societal, political, or economic consideration.”
I can cite countless examples. The government shutdown can be ended without any Democrats voting in favor of it. By changing the filibuster rules, Trump and his Republican devotees can pass the budget bill immediately if they choose to do so. Given the increasing risk that Congress shall soon become an anachronism without teeth, it’s ridiculous to worry about tomorrow’s fire when our shoes are melting today.
People reposting Trump’s ill-informed and uneducated rants in support of something that’s factually untrue isn’t surprising. If racism, misogyny, fraud, and incitement toward insurrection aren’t deal breakers, it’s a deep well from which to draw an infinite spiral of malevolent ridiculousness.
If Trump wishes to be king, then let’s proceed with the coronation so that we can move on to a broken democracy. At least under that scenario, we will not be victim to an ongoing onslaught of “WTF”
moments, nor continue to hope for an end to the madness.
We can acclimate ourselves to the loss of the country we grew up in because we’ll have no other choice.
This isn’t politics. It’s madness and mayhem, driven by someone completely unfit to run a household, country, or company.
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something wicked this way comes
with unhurried and deceitful feet
camouflaged with righteousness, smirking with weaponized ignorance
flame heats but also burns
love amplifies but brings stagnation
comfort stills us yet closes doors
silence is not peace, no more than lightning is the thunder
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This picture was taken 29 years ago, 10,592 days. Almost half a life ago, a fulcrum that seems impossible at this point. It was supposed to happen on Halloween that year, but logistics conspired to make that difficult.
Most of us like to imagine going back and being able to look forward, seeing the relentless incremental changes that we choose or are foisted on us. The acceleration of change that’s almost invisible while we’re experiecing it. Can you imagine reliving the moments as instantaneous bullets of laughter, agony, and experience? Most of us would choose it, even if it’s a roller coaster that leaves us lying on the pavement, asking ourselves why we got back on the ride, knowing how it would end.
Every cell of our bodies has changed, but the memories remain – if we’re lucky. I took a moment to fling open the door early this morning, remembering, and then bolted it shut afterward.
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I know I drone on and on sometimes about the difference in colors during the vampire hours. It’s twice as pronounced after a rainy day like yesterday. No matter how high my heart rate got at the top of some of the hills this morning, each time I reached a crest, the blustery wind quickly and insistently reminded me that the cold approaches. This type of beautiful October morning is a warning for anybody trying to keep their hair straight.
I found some beautiful Halloween decorations. There were houses more ornately adorned than that of the picture I’m sharing. But none surpassed the amazing saffron glow emitted by the house in the picture. I could see it from quite a distance. It does not razzle dazzle with complexity but passersby will strain their necks to determine the origin of the beautiful lights.
The picture I took from one of the hilltops is a failure. I love the way it looks, though. Taking pictures like that is drunk poetry. A lot of mumbling, and sometimes a random truth coherently stated.
Yesterday, I made a ginormous pot of homemade chili, using five different types of beans. Coincidentally, I think I solved our energy problem, but decorum inhibits me from further explanation.
I forgot to mention that I got dragged into the hunt for a fugitive last week. This is one of those things that initially sounds like I’m kidding. I wasn’t worried about my safety. Fugitives tend to try to keep a low profile, unlike people who have recently discovered a low carb diet, pilates, or a social/political issue they know nothing about.
As I wandered around this morning, I took note of all the vehicles crammed into unusual places due to the football game. A lot of my neighbors don’t know there is a small police impound for cars right across the street. There were two extra long flat tow trucks blaring their horns constantly as they dropped off vehicles. It was an annoying series of drop-offs. Because I am comedically inclined, I will point out that the security system consists of one singular camera pointed at the gate. I was originally going to post a picture of the gate, but I don’t want to encourage thievery. Anyone who needs money should do it the old fashioned way and become a congressman. Why steal a $10,000 car when you can become a millionaire without accountability?
“Learning without thinking is labor lost and thinking without learning is perilous.” Confucius warned us about the futility of unanchored ideas. But then again, his name suggests he was always a little confused. His real name was Kong Qui, which reminds me of the name of an algebraic equation. Also, while Confucius emphasized family life and values, he was divorced. I bet his wife wouldn’t stop nagging him to do the dishes.
Deja Vu View
I’m not one prone to superstition. But I do love glitches in the matrix, déjà vu, or those weird moments that have an explanation but seem sublime at the time.
I walked a massive loop so that I could traverse 112 in the dark. To hear the horses answer me as I called, because they want to be petted even at 3:00 a.m. To stand in the middle of the darkness and be blanketed by the thunder of insects.
Coming back, I didn’t realize I overshot the connecting road back to my apartment. I turned down Sycamore heading east as I admired the beautiful brick inlay crosswalk. A man on a three-wheeled bicycle startled me just as much as I startled him. He wasn’t there a second before and he certainly seemed surprised for me to appear in front of him. On the back of his bicycle was a stack of bread rolls. It’s not something you see every day, a man on a three-wheeled bicycle with a cart in the back, holding bread rolls that early in the morning.
Even though I was heading east toward home, I realized I had turned south on Lawson. I started getting that weird vibe. So instead of turning back, I kept going. I hadn’t been to the next block in a few weeks. They’re building some beautiful residences along there.
When I hit the corner of Lawson and Oakland, I was astonished to see a fully finished two-story building on the corner. I couldn’t believe the building appeared in an empty lot so quickly. A white four-door sedan was too close to the corner. I noticed it because the overhead street light illuminated the interior of the car. I noticed no one was in the car, even though it felt like I was going to see someone behind the wheel. I also took a moment to smell the scent of wood smoke from somewhere nearby. It’s too early in the year to smell it, but it was a welcome preface to the October just around the corner.
After a block, I turned to head back around to home. Even though I wanted to, I knew I couldn’t walk forever. I’d already forgotten about my astonishment at seeing the new construction being finished on the corner.
Walking back along the same street from the other direction, I noticed the huge vertical stack of wooden pallets next to the street sign. The light coming through them made a really interesting pattern. I took out my phone to take a picture.
That’s when the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I was standing at the corner of Oakland and Lawson, the same corner where I’d experienced the surprise of seeing the building appear so quickly since the last time I went through.
The corner doesn’t have a building on it. It’s just foundations. And of course there was no white four-door sedan under the street light.
I had a cup of coffee before I started my long walk, and even though I had walked a couple of hours, tiredness didn’t explain the hallucination of seeing the completed building or the car parked under the steet light.
All I could do was laugh at the absurdity of attributing it to my overactive imagination or unexpected deja vu.
If I come back to Oakland and Lawson in a few months, I expect to see two-story buildings on the corner. They’ll be dark blue or dark gray with the windows trimmed in white. And maybe there will be a white four-door car under the street light.
I didn’t capture the stack of pallets that would be on the right side of the picture. It took quite a bit for the feeling of deja vu to disappear. I finally gave in to the urge to look at my watch to see that it was really the 27th of September. I would not have been surprised if the date wasn’t what I expected.
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As for this morning’s long walk, it was interspersed with too many people suffering from yesterday’s choices and last night’s anger. The contradiction of one of the last summer mornings cool breeze and moisture-laden air. The distant lightning flashing like old memories. I will wager that all of the people I witnessed suffering from their inability to take a chill pill and go to sleep will one day think back and wonder what made everything feel so urgent and dramatic. That’s what age gives you; a recognition that one of the ways to try to be happier is to remember all the times It felt like everything was an emergency, or that your feelings that seemed so monumental will soon be forgotten. Replaced by new emergencies.
When I passed the two beautiful young people arguing relentlessly on the curb along Leverett, I wanted to stop instead of passing by without comment. I wanted to tell them that they had youth, beauty, and the luxury of a good education. And maybe it would be better for them to stop opening bottles until they had control of their emotions. I didn’t, of course. Almost a block away, the strong wind carried their fruitless words to me. They might as well have been shouting into the wind instead of each other.
I took a few pictures, but none was so eerie as that of the forgotten streetside vehicle. In a good world, I wouldn’t hesitate to check the doors in order to save somebody the surprise of a dead battery. After checking to ensure that no one was passed out inside, I took a long exposure to illuminate the incredibly dark neighborhood, one in which the railside and gentrified beautiful houses sit quietly.
“I couldn’t be around them. They all had smoke on their tongues. You know who I mean. The energy vampires who you never catch being encouraging. The ones who complain just eloquently enough to make you forget they are problem-oriented. They don’t look for glimmers or things to be happy about. Nah, they search for proof that they are right to be unhappy and cynical. And guess what? They find them around every corner. You might not be wise enough to recognize it yet, but they’re trying to recruit you. Misery loves company and it is always trying to find ways to get you to sign up.”
-The Book Of Experience
The weirdest moment this morning was another one of those slow creeping realizations. Wearing Bose headphones that were given to me, I wasn’t listening to anything. I was only about thirty minutes into my long walk, heading toward the terminus of Leverett. Some kind of small animal darted out of the forgotten brush of Narnia a foot in front of me. I’m glad it wasn’t a dinosaur because I had no warning. I dropped my phone as my heart raced.
Picking up my phone, I kept walking after looking around for the phantom animal. The light breeze shifted and became much stronger. When the sound started, I presumed it to be something connecting to my headphones. Traveling overhead like the Doppler effect, the high metallic twang raced from behind me overhead and flew past. I pulled my headphones down and stopped. Nothing happened as I stood motionless in the middle of the road. Two steps after I started walking, the twang came up fast behind me. This time, the lack of headphones not only confirmed it with real but that it was loud and traveling fast. The muscles in my back tensed because instinct made me want to duck.
Looking up, I expected to see a huge power surge or crackling line of static running along the huge high voltage power lines overhead. Nothing.
As I neared the literal end of the road, I expected the smell of ozone or burned arc lighting. Nothing again.
I stopped and took a picture. One of the things that makes vampire walks so beautiful is that all the lights seem both bright and indistinct at the same time. If you look at the upper portion of both sides of my picture, you can see anomalies.
I’m sure my lizard brain wasn’t dealing well with whatever stimulus had just happened. I walked really fast and made a left, leaving the area as quickly as I could without running.
112/Garland was stunningly quiet and beautiful. I circled the 8 acre Agri Park several times because I didn’t want to leave the thundering insects or the peaceful quiet that surrounded me there. Not to mention the absence of strange electrical zooming overhead.
The rain came at 5:32 a.m.
PS Did you know that you’re five times more likely to be incarcerated in the United States compared to China? A random fact that doesn’t seem possible.
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The summer afternoon baptism finally visited. A petrichor at first, followed by a gulley washer.
I made a wish, foolishly wishing for people to drink a big cup of live and let live. And to look out the window at the rain and realize that even though we are all seeing rain, it means different things to different people.
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“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” Amy Lammot
If my ex-wife calls me a jerk, she earned the right.
If the friend I let down thinks poorly of me for failing to step in when I could have, that’s his story to share.
If I tell violent stories about my dad, they’re just as true as humorous stories about him.
If you had a toxic boss who drove you to near insanity, he or she can’t fault you for expressing it.
Every time I share this quote, someone discovers it for the first time. It’s liberating. But it also can be terrifying for people who’ve lived outside the bounds of kindness.
The Golden Rule perfectly encapsulates what we should strive for. Yet, people are surprised when we sometimes appropriately repay unkindness with healthy criticism.
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P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 