Sunday. Brunch with David and his family at some diner style restaurant. My discussion with the limp fries went well. They agreed. The cook is not winning any food Oscars for hi skills. But the peppering of conversation with the group, a bit of salt and sugar over which movies were good this year and which weren't, mad the food taste better.
I sort of fell into a bit of love with this girl writing me a poem during Art Walk. Thin, light hair that sort of snaked down over the left side of her face . . . like a waterfall it fell . . . forming a blond question mark when it reached her shoulder. I smiled as I watched her search for the "right" words, the right phrasing for my poem. I know I was smiling. Guess I was thinking, "
I'm in love with this woman, deeply and profoundly . . . and she'll never know." I always feel good when I know something that the other person doesn't know. I like secret loves. They seem more honest than that love you express to someone. You know? Once you say something all the magic drains out of the feeling. Well, maybe that's always been my problem.
Monday, November 16, 2o15
Rained all day and into the night. Not a drop falling from the sky right now, but more to come the cute weather lady said. Warm, bright smile she has. I don't know how bad weather could even think of being rainy . . . if it saw that smile. The tree outside my apartment, it's leaves turned a beautiful yellow, red and orange, and is now quickly going bald. I don't feel sorry for it, though. He'll have a full head of leaves come spring.
Got to go to OKC about 7am tomorrow morning. That's just about the time I've been going to bed! I'll try and sleep a few hours, but it may turn into . . . no sleep at all. I like a bit of sleep at least every night. Take a break from my retired reality, my stare at the TV or out the window to watch that tree go comatose for the winter reality. To tell the truth? A dreamless sleep sort of gives me some idea what being dead forever will be like. In a funny way that experience makes me appreciate this "awake" life a lot more than I do.
Wednesday, November 18, 2o15
Today. Sluggish. My body feels like a lump of mud. My mind not in any better shape. I think I have a headache. Hell, my whole body aches. the universe is having a migraine attack. No, more 24 hours without sleep. I have, however, found the strength of will to write on the blog. Yesterday-
"
Do you want my e-mail address?" The busy receptionist looked up from her computer. Seeing that I was a harmless old man, she smiled. "
Yes, what we like to do is send our patients notices over the internet to save on postage." She smiled again. "
You a patient?" ""
No, I'm not a patient. I just saw your sign . . .?" I pointed to the paper taped to the top of the receptionist's counter:
Please leave us
your e-mail
address
The once friendly receptionist now looked angry and confused until her desk-mate (a very handsome, young African-American man) started to chuckle. "
I'm compelled to always do what signs tell me to do," I smiled back. Finally, she got it and we all laughed . . . quietly, of course, because we were, after all, in a doctor's office, for goodness sake.
A screech of tires, I'm thrown forward. "
What the fuck, David?!" "
That's the entrance to I-40 East. I almost passed it." "
Yeah, but don't slam on the breaks at 50 miles an hour and stop the car. . . IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING ROAD!" I can see that I've hurt his feelings . . . made him mad. So, I laugh as if I was just joking. But I wasn't joking and I wasn't mad . . . just scared shitless.
The Present
I feel much better. Maybe I just needed to vomit out a few moments from yesterday's adventure which ended with us going to Popeye's for fried chicken. I bought too much spicy Cajun (12 pieces, mixed, no sides). The old cowboy waiting in line with us (David and me) seems some what astonished with the "white" woman carrying a "black" baby. His "
Humph!" of dislike or confusion isn't heard by anyone . . . but me. "
Look how curly that baby's hair is." "
Yeah, it sure is curly," I said but was thinking about how curly my hair was when I was a baby. My mother thought it made me look like a little girl so she had it all cut off . . . and now I'm burdened with this thinning, straight mess of fading red hair. "
But the mother has straight hair." He laughed quietly (just like we did at the doctor's office) as if it was some sort of top secret statement of fact. Yeah, I got what he was saying. I don't understand fucking old, redneck people. I really don't.
I'm time warping again. Instead of writing about "now," I'm writing "now" about the "past." Makes me wonder . . . Do I appreciate my memories more than the present moment?
10:30pm
There's voices out on Trout Avenue. Shouting voices disturbing my evening. But I don't look. They're loud but they're not frightening. A dog sound made by a human animal. A howling at the coming of winter? Or maybe a bit too much 3 point 2 brew? Or a little of both. Feeling a little doggy, are we? Maybe there's a poem in this moment . . . somewhere. {
smile} The "girl" who wrote me an improv poem during Art Walk IMed me today. She liked my poem that I wrote for her. But nothing else. Well, even old men can wish a bit. A sort of date. Nothing big, just a movie, maybe? A burger at a favorite restaurant? Probably not. {
no smile}
I'm beginning to sort through the drawers.
Gathering up the holy socks the underwear,
both have lost their shape, their practical functionality.
Even this old cap, the red and black Spider-Man cap
needs to be bagged, tagged and thrown in the dumpster.
Maybe a homeless guy will find it. Its frayed bill,
the faded Spider-Man face on the front panel, the sweat stains
that have multiplied on the inside on the sweat band,
the squatchee on top has worn-out its cloth covering
all that remains is a gray metal button rusted and dented.
Maybe all those things that I no longer find appealing,
he'll love. People who having nothing most often find
pleasures in things best left thrown away.
11:56pm
I'm running out of time to write for this day. Which is okay 'cause I'm running out of things to say. They say the bad,
bad weather is coming. How bad and what kind of bad? The weather guy on channel 4 said if I wanted to know I needed to tune into the 10:00 o'clock news. I forgot to do that. Guess I'll just have to get up in the morning, look out the window and see. {
smile}
Thursday, November 19, 2o15
David is still feeling sick. Started on Sunday. Upset stomach that hasn't gone away. I worry about my friend. And I'm pretty sure he worries about me because I ain't got them lungs I use to have. And slowly other body parts are beginning to weaken. I sometimes feel like a kitten. I hate feeling that way because . . . I hate fucking kittens. {
sigh}The little bit of poetry I wrote on Wednesday's post? I decided to work on it, fill it out a bit more. Not sure where it's going or if this rework will be any longer than the one above, but I got hope for it. {pause} There's a lamppost on the corner, amber light, a very dirty gray pole holds it out over the two streets. I gotta say, that streetlight has been a great model along with the stop sign that stands next to it and the trees that line the Northwest side of the secondary road. The picture on the left . . . a very rainy night in the spring of 2o14, I think. Anyway, always some great pictures to take day or night. Of course, the backdrop, the western sky always adds a lot to any shot, it knows how to be just majestic enough to make the rather shabby, utilitarian lamppost look like a king! Hmmm. Hope that doesn't sound too weird. {
smile}
Friday, November 2o, 2o15
"
Clickety-clickety-clickety-clickety . . ." that's the noise brittle autumn leaves make as they tumble down the sidewalk, down the pot marked street, Trout Avenue. A southern wind sweeps the bodies up into uneven piles on my front lawn. Not extremely tidy but better than the dead and dying leaves lying stacked on top each other in the rain gutter across the street. The yellow curb watches over the heap as it grows in size with every
whoosh! of wind. Too many young leaves this year met thire fate long before their time. Much smaller than their uncles and brothers, they will decay faster become nothing more than a lost memory in the minds of we humans who watch mesmerized at the autumn leaf round up that mother Nature orchestrates every year about this time. "
Clickety-clickety-clickety-clickety . . ." sounds like a million tap dancers gone crazy.
November days. The Earth on a respirator. Great gasps of air from her northern regions. Nature turns, spins in too many directions while always heading in an unchangeable straight line. I do have a sense of the heartfelt, I do mourn each leaf, each branch on the Elm trees that watch themselves, their children die. November days, the cancer that eats away at everything that lives, turning life into a winter that continues lunching on the bodies long after the flesh has turned to dust and this existence becomes a thought without purpose.
Saturday, November 21, 2o15
Last day in this sweet week of November and it just got really cold. I thought that we might get a light winter this year since the summer was pretty mild, but it looks like MoNa is not going to be gentle with us. The weather folk on channel 4 are already talking snow and ice. Already, my apartment is starting to cool down . . . I feel the winter stroking the edges of my spine as I type. Need to put on a sweater, my hoodie, something that can combat MoNa's icy fingers.
It was the last Norman Game Day today . . . or I guess to be accurate . . . . Norman Game Night because the game didn't start until 7pm. The OU fans were dressed in stocking caps and coats, many layers of shirts and possibly other undergarments. But as cold as it is the fans still tailgate party, still fill the stands. Beer is more antifreeze than intoxicant during winter . . . although it still fucks you up. {
knowing smile} There 's a monologue about Mother Nature from the movie
World War Z that I think is appropriate for the weather change we are going through:
Andrew Fassbach: Mother Nature is a serial killer. No one's better. Or more creative. Like all serial killers, she can't help the urge to want to get caught. What good are all those brilliant crimes if no one takes the credit? So she leaves crumbs. Now the hard part, why you spend a decade in school, is seeing the crumbs. But the clue's there. Sometimes the thing you thought was the most brutal aspect of the virus, turns out to be the chink in its armor. And she loves disguising her weaknesses as strengths. She's a bitch.
It's nights like this, one where the weather gets mean that I start to think . . . maybe MoNa just doesn't like us very much. And I can't blame her. The shitty way we treat her? Hell a little payback should be expected. Morrison said a little about it too in the song
When the Music's Over:
. . . What have they done to the earth?/What have they done to our fair sister?/Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her/Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn/And tied her with fences and dragged her down . . . Morrison was a hell of a writer. Wish I could write as well. Here's one out of a three poem set I titled Seasonal Change. Written around 2o11 or so, and revised many, many times:
II
Fall
What?
Across the footbridge? This time a year? Quite hazardous
a walk,
you know? It’s become nothing more than a cold grave for
autumn
leaves, broken tree branches and patches of treacherous
black
ice, which forces heroic fools like you and
me (who pay very
little
attention to the weatherman’s predictions) to step cautiously
across
its splintered face. When the seasons change, we become
suspicious,
superstitious, wary of the very ground beneath our feet;
as
the landscape shifts so must we. A heavy coat tugged tight around
me,
wool cap, thick gloves… makes difficult my ability to touch, to feel
your
face. But no worries. Soon we’ll be at that small café near Bridge St.
it
smells of used books, freshly baked bread, the harsh aroma of hickory
chips
blazing in a wood burning stove…and that
other smell which neither
one
of us has of yet identified. At least we can shed our bulky, outer skins,
leave
them toasting on that rickety coat rack and sooth ourselves with
coffee
(for me) and tea (for you) and balmy conversations about spring
flowers
and summer moons, and that short but happy trip we took last
year
to the Gulf of Mexico. We can pretend (if only for a little while)
that Christmas isn’t just around the corner, that
soon that old bridge
that leads home won’t
all together disappear beneath the frozen snow.
See you next week,
