It is in the air, in the taste
of the food
and at night it enters dreams
and flings porcupine stings.
My prison-cell grey. I wear it like sin".--Jean Norris, from "It is Sometimes Grey"
1. When the bottle says "Colgate", a toothpaste brand, but looks like a shaving cream dispenser, the safer bet to place is that it is shaving cream.
2. When the coin counter says 2,000 nickels, that means that instead of putting in a twenty dollar bill, then one has placed a one hundred dollar bill into the airport nickel slot machine by mistake.The correct procedure at this point is not to punch the buttons to play 75 coins, and in effect "let it ride", but instead to retrieve the 2000 nickels, and start over. The potential consequence of failure to follow this injunction is to watch the 2000 coins reduce, over time, to zero coins. I am not much of a gambler, but it surprises me to feel guilty over such a loss.
3. On the airport nickel slot machine, the friendly lobsterman who appears on the animated screen whenever one hits the bonus is neither truly friendly nor truly a lobsterman. He's just part of the entertainment.
4. It's a curious anomaly to think all weekend of calling one's parents, finally doing so on Monday night, and then suddenly having nothing to say, as if struck mentally clueless in an instant.
5.The wonderful thing about the internet is that some magazines let you submit poetry by e mail. Even a rejection slip is more fun when it comes the day after the submission, with a nice comment. "Evocative, but not quite right....". That should be the title of my autobiography.
6. I think lately about trying to write something useful and non-fiction. I like those little books that tell something about some useful little thing. I wonder if I know anything I can share with anyone.
7.Next month my law school class has its 20th reunion. They called me from the school to ask if I would be willing to have my name appear on the invitation. That's curious to me, because lots of other kids "matter" in this world a lot more than I do. My class hasn't had a reunion before, at least, not to my knowledge. It'll be good to go to Little Rock again, and see people I liked so much. I found undergraduate school much less enjoyable than law school. Law schools was the place where people acted as if school mattered. I always worry about my high school reunions when people say "You haven't changed A BIT!", which somehow makes me realize that I never really had a moment of shining glory to look back upon, but always was about this drab.
8.My weekend drives to hiking locales was too much for one weekend. I was tired and depressed all day yesterday. Sometimes I see that age makes some difference in stamina about such things. It's not a huge difference, but I cannot quite do what I did at 25.
9.I grew up in a time when rock music criticism really mattered. It's curious living in a time when it is so irrelevant. I even went so far as to drop an e-mail to the local newspaper reviewer when she posited the question about a band's cover song--"can anyone play 'Free Bird' without irony anymore?". I wrote to her that I thought this was why music criticism has gotten so off the track--because folks get so "in the know" they cannot hear "Free Bird" without irony anymore. She didn't write back. Sunday I noticed another critic fretting that Liz Phair wore a headset at the SXSW festival.If I were a rocker, I'd have a headset and some of those absurd electronic drums. But really, what does it matter if a singer wears a headset--particularly if that singer actually plays guitar?
10.I noticed that despite game after game of on-line chess, my chess does not really improve at all. I am tempted to get a bit more serious about getting good again.
11. North Texas Spring--70s and gorgeous each weekday, 60s and rainy each weekend.
12.Sometimes I have to pause and remind myself that all the things that stress me out are sometimes the things I am thankful to have.