Stepped in it Now

It’s on my shoe
and I’ve tracked it
all through the
apartment.

I waded through it.

I mashed it.
It’s radiant.
It’s colorful.
It’s everywhere.

I need a sharp

stick to scrape
the joy from my soles.
I stepped in it deep.
It smells like electric roses.

I’m happy to see it.

I’m happy its aroma is
filling my nose.
It’s about time.

I usually just track in

dirt and misery.
But not today, today
I stepped in an ocean of joy.

Rainbow patterned puddles

finally in my path, worthy of
splashing in. I’d swim in it if
I could.

But that somehow seems like

too much. I don’t want to
overdo the joy. Just tracking
it in, through the hall, on the carpet
is more than enough for now.

Words of Curse

            “Curse this malaise,” cried Rory. He turned off the TV and tossed the remote control to the furthest couch cushion and slowly rose to his feet. His knees cracked.

            “Curse my rickety bones,” shouted Rory. He stretched his legs out and felt the twinge of age in his joints. Cars on the street outside started honking their horns.

            “Curse this noise,” yelled Rory. He went to his window and peered out over the bustling intersection. A plane flew low overhead.

            “Curse this flightpath,” sneered Rory. He looked up to the bright blue summer sky and the winking glint of the metal airplane. A dog started barking.

            “Curse that damn dog,” swore Rory. The dog was barking at a squirrel that had climbed up a nearby tree. Rory’s cell phone buzzed and vibrated.

            “Curse all this technology,” said Rory. He checked his cell phone e-mail and had received a message about new vinyl siding at a low cost. He moved toward the right and stepped on a small pebble that had somehow found its way into Rory’s home.

            “Curse you bare feet,” exclaimed Rory. He hopped on one foot and brushed the small stone off onto the hall carpet. He checked his foot to see if he was bleeding. He caught his awkward reflection in the hallway mirror.

            “Curse you…,” stopped Rory. He pat at his growing middle aged belly. He rubbed the scruff on his chin. He ran his fingers through his too long hair. It was grayer now than before.

            “Curses,” said Rory. He hung his head until his chin touched his chest. He shuffled back toward the couch and sat. He turned the TV back on.

            “Curses,” cried Rory’s guardian angel, “I almost had him up that time! I don’t know what I gotta do to get that guy up and back into the world.”

            “Patience,” said the guardian angel’s guardian angel. “Patience and a little more stimulation. Something more than dogs barking or planes and traffic, bones creaking and pebbles left about.”

            “I’ll try,” said Rory’s guardian angel. The guardian angel’s guardian angel nodded and went about her duties.

“Cursed guardian angel, telling me what to do, phht,” mumbled Rory’s guardian angel. He turned on Earth TV and flipped through the channels. A harp played in the distance.

            “Curse those noisy harps.”

15 Minutes of Cool

It happens every once in a while
where I’m very cool for a
short period of time.

I mean like, Steve McQueen style

coolness.
For exceptionally brief moments.

I glide through the room, a slight

knowing smile on my face,
a casual grace electrifies my body
and I just look good.

I say the right thing,

I joke just right,
I smile and wink and nod
like I’m part of the whole big
thing.

My hair is perfect,

My smile is clean,
My outfight is tight,
My words are sharp.

I’m cool for a very short

period of time, but then,
I ruin it.

I guffaw, I snort, I chuckle at my

own joke.
I awkwardly tuck in my shirt in front
of everybody,
I clean my glasses.
I fart.
I burp mid-sentence.

I shuffle on my feet,

I say the worst possible thing
that is totally contrary to
everything that is cool.

Fonzie was a dork.

Todayland

            “Is there a button I can push to make today better,” asked Roger.

            The clerk at the DMV didn’t look up from her computer screen. She barely acknowledged Roger’s attempt at humor.  She kept typing while Roger stared at her. Roger wondered why she was typing so much since there was so little information that needed to be added to update his address information on his driver’s license. It seemed insane.

            “Date a birth,” asked the clerk.

            “June sixth, nineteen seventy five,” said Roger.

            The clerk snapped her bubble gum in her mouth and typed for another extended period. Roger tapped his fingers on the Formica counter top at the service window. He looked around at the other late afternoon DMV patrons in their communal states of disarray. Roger thought of the Road Warrior and that dystopian future and wondered if, in fact, that dystopian future had become the dystopian present.  

            “Mother’s Maiden name,” asked the clerk.

            “Why do you need to know that,” asked Roger.
            “Sir, please,” said the clerk.
            “Carter,” said Roger with a sigh.

            There was no use in arguing with the wheels of government. Why they needed to know his mother’s maiden name was a mystery but he figured he just have to go with the flow if he wanted to get out of there before hell completely froze over.

            “Old address,” asked the clerk.

            “It’s right there on my license,” said Roger.
            “Sir, please just tell me your old address.”

            Roger told her his old address. She started some further excessive typing and mouse clicking at her computer. Roger looked up at the clock over the clerk’s shoulders. He’d been at the DMV for nearly three hours now. He was trying his best to remain cool and calm about the massive waste of time he was currently embroiled.

            A dystopian present, less one of wild gangs of rape hungry fuel goblins scorching the wastelands with flamethrowers and drowning the ground in blood, but one of incredible inefficient government services designed to drive the weak into  madness.

            “Social Security Number,” asked the clerk with a sigh.

      
            Roger rattled off his social security number, hoping no one nearby would write it down and use it to steal his identity. Although with the life he’d been living for the last few years he wouldn’t actually mind if some other poor soul took up his life and absorbed all the troubles he’d had. Roger thought it might be the best thing for him actually.

            “New address,” asked the frowning clerk.

            Roger was about to tell her that it was clearly written on form C-198B-23 but he decided it wasn’t worth another one of the clerk’s stinging, hurtful, glares. She nodded and continued her furious typing.

            There was a scuffling noise behind Roger and then a scream for help. Roger turned around and saw an old man lying on the ground, His walker strewn to the side of the waiting area’s uncomfortable plastic chairs. A younger woman was kneeling over the older man, calling out for someone to help.

            “He just collapsed. He just was standing here and just fell to the ground,” said the panicked young woman.  

            The glassy eyes of the other DMV patrons rolled lazily in their heads toward the commotion. A security guard rushed over to the scene knelt next to the old man and felt for a pulse. A slow moving crowd started to gather around the old man. Roger realized that the clerk behind him had finally stopped typing. There was a silence that fell over the usual murmured hum of a governmental building. Roger turned back to the clerk at the counter.

            “I hope someone has called for an ambulance,” said Roger.

            “I’m sure they have,” said the Clerk, “take this form to the payment window and then get in that line to take your new I.D. photo.”

            Roger took the paperwork from the clerk and looked back toward the man on the ground. He could tell from there that the old man was dead. Roger started toward the payment window.

            “Next,” shouted the clerk.  

Put Away

When did I stop?

I turned off,

tuned out,
shut down
and left
my clothes and skin on the
beach of a previous
decade.

Two decades ago…

I put my things

down,
in a box under the bed
to gather dust
and rot.

I found other things to

pretend about,
to be annoyed about,
to be angry about.

I left my angst in the music,

my youth in wasted nights,
my joys in shallow pursuits,
but kept my sorrows
close.

It’s diluted now

in the haze of time,
but every once in a while
I peek in the box under the bed
and stare at the old photos,
the old letters,
the old trinkets of the days
before.

And wonder…

Why did I stop?

I Love Times New Roman

             Where has all this hatred for Times New Roman come from? I think it is official looking and crisp. Yet the rest of the universe has deemed it un-cool and illegible. It’s the standard bearer of my entire typing history. It’s the closest to the actual typewriter font that my heart normally yearns for. I have, however, seen several articles on the never wrong internet that Times New Roman is antiquated and should be thrown into the sun.

            I love the indent (even if my blog site doesn’t seem to care about indenting) on Times New Roman; it is clean and illustrates the movement of a thought along a page. I just don’t like the new look of things and maybe that’s due to my tenuous grasp on the past, a past that keeps getting longer as my future gets shorter, relatively speaking of course. So of course I want to keep the things that make me feel secure as close as possible. I mean, I still have my VHS copies of Star Wars and Saving Private Ryan, still wrapped in the original shrink wrap.

            That’s me though. I’ve been told I have to change the font on my resume since Times New Roman is no longer the acceptable business font. It’s something called Calibri, which looks far too skinny to me to be official in any way. It looks anemic and hungry. I imagine it crawling across the desert for weeks searching for food and water, only to waste away into thin nothingness.

Times New Roman is bold and forceful. Heck, it has the word ROMAN in it, which as you well know, the Roman people were once the dominating super power on the planet. I’ve never heard of the Calibri Dynasty or even what peoples they might have conquered in their march toward early globalization and domination. Calibri seems to whither in the mere shadow of Times New Roman.

Times New Roman is a gladiator of several computer ages, while Calibri is the new upstart on the block, pushing the other fonts around like he owns the joint, without the actual street cred. Probably wasn’t even there at the start of the whole internet thing. Calibri was probably crying into its elbow like a kid at the playground that was ironically pushed down by Times New Roman.

Although I suppose every Empire eventually crumbles and the Fall of Times New Roman has finally come. It’s a sad time for me but it doesn’t mean I have to stop using it at home. Hopefully, once I get a job and they have their own format for letters and mailings and e-mails, probably using Calibri, I will just have to accept it and smile. It’s at home I’ll get to enjoy the noble and crisp character of Times New Roman.

I just hope the unwarranted hate for Times New Roman turns into respect and gratitude, much like our human appreciation for the ruins of Rome.

And So, Here it is...

             I really wanted to commemorate this eight hundredth post with something really profound and thoughtful. I wanted it to be something provocative and indelibly interesting but my mind wanders too much for that. There’s a bunch of guys using a jackhammer across the street at the orphaned children’s home, they’re rebuilding the concrete around the play area and it’s terribly distracting. It makes it really hard to actually sit here and concentrate on saying something undeniably awesome.

            I wanted to be like, “A Man that takes the few words available to him in his life and crafts them from the mud of language into the songs of the heart… blah, blah, blah…”, but this freaking jackhammer is just not conducive to creativity like that. I mean, come on… I know it’s your job and you’re doing it, but Jesus, I’m trying to create here in my shitty apartment. And I just realized Windows is Catholic since it automatically capitalized the word “Jesus”. 

            Oh man, now they have a saw to go along with the jackhammer.  And a dog is barking. Seriously, I’m trying to write here guys. I mean, if writing 800 of these blasted blog posts has taught me anything… I’d be happy to tell you about it but since there’s so MUCH GOD DAMN NOISE I CAN’T FIGURE IT OUT.

             I’M JUST GOING TO YELL FOR THE REST OF THIS SO MAYBE I CAN HEAR MYSELF THINK. SO…, ANYWAY… THE POINT I WAS TRYING TO MAKE IS THAT I HAVE WRITTEN 800 OF THESE BLOGS AND I THINK IT’S FITTING THAT IT’S ALSO THE FIRST DAY OF MAY AND… GOD DAMN IT, NOW THERE’S A GARBAGE TRUCK OUTSIDE. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? IS IT THE FREAKING NOISE HOUR?! I THANK GOD I’M NOT A NURSE WHO HAS TO WORK THE NIGHT SHIFT AND THIS IS THE ONLY TIME I GET TO SLEEP DURING THE DAY. I MEAN, THERE WOULD BE SO MANY MURDERS IF I COULDN’T SLEEP BECAUSE OF THE NOISE.

            AMBULANCE GOING BY NOW, SIRENS WAIILING. I JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL THE FAITHFUL READING A LOT OF YOU GUYS HAVE DONE OVER THE YEARS. IT REALLY MEANS… GOD DAMN IT, IT’S SO NOISY. MAYBE I SHOULD DO THIS LATER…

            Okay, it’s still noisy but I closed a window. It’s a little better. Except it gets immediately stuffy in here. And that dog, that damn dog, what the hell man…

            So, as I was trying to say, it’s been my privilege to write this blog in a country where writing is an acceptable way to attempt to live. I mean, I’m sure they write in other countries but they certainly might not have the wildly awesome blog audience that I have. Or maybe they get paid in other countries.

            So as I sit here, at my little computer desk, in my underwear, I want to thank you, the passionate reader and friend, for taking the time out of each and almost every day to take a look at the literary fumbling I commit to these pages. It’s been so fun to say, “Why yes, I do have a blog”, to so many people over the years. It’s been a real treat to laud my alleged creativity over so many. I mean, thanks so much for recognizing the genius in your midst. I’ll try not to let it go to my incredibly awesome head.

            I think there’s a guy just hitting the ground with a hammer for no reason out there. I mean, what’s he hitting. There’s no nail, or post or anything. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BANGING?

Heheheh, banging….

            So in closing, I’m actually really proud of this 800^th blog post and I really hope to see my readership steadily increase over the course of the next millennium. I am deeply indebted to so many people, especially my Mother, who has been nothing but a Saint on Earth for me, as well as those that have supported me in my quest for literary supremacy.  Here’s to 800 more! Cheers!