That Instant

Your 58-year-old neighbor is on his sixth paragraph of your conversation about his new girlfriend and you can feel the pulse deep inside of him wishing he were gay because everything he has described about her is essentially you with the exception of genital make up and you notice on paragraph eight that you are biting your own lip and the conversation should've ended seven paragraphs and a sentence ago with "...doing great, it is indeed a beautiful afternoon."

That Instant

you realize you've had the sniffles since last August and the weather is probably not about to stabilize any time soon and it is not unrealistic to think (with allergy seasons still pending) it may roll straight on through until Christmas lights are back up.

Dear (_____)

Dear doorknobs,

We've had an on and off relationship.  I've torn the pockets out of my jeans on you.  That was not nice.  You've made me look a fool when I've shown up with the wrong set of keys or no keys at all.  You're okay though.  It's my own fault.

I realized today that the reason my shoulder joint was feeling achy was because, instead of using you for what you were put there for, I was disengaging you and then shoulder checking the door open, no matter the door, the situation, or the where.  That's my fault.  I was so used to my right hand and wrist having problems gripping and twisting from smashing it into surfaces with little give too many times that I got so used to using other body parts to operate doors that it felt normal and right.  That's on me.

In the future, with a good and healed hand, I will make better and more use of you.  My shoulder will knit now that I'm not banging on it and my entrances to domiciles and businesses will be much more appropriate instead of sounding like a police raid.

Thank you for being there.  You are deeply and newly appreciated.

Lovingly yours,

injury prone

Stand Up Act 12

Stand Up Act 11

Dysfunctional weather is becoming unbearable.  Life is unbelievably unpredictable at its root.  People are the problem.  You can wake up to a fabulous morning and have a wonderful shower and your pets were so well behaved through the morning hygiene routine they've actually made you a fresh sunny side egg on dry toast with a light coffee and a teaspoon of jam with three crackers and a pinch of parsley from the window box.  You can head down to your car where you inexplicably have more gas than you did the night before when you parked it and your mailbox has five dollars in it because why the hell not.  Your watch is five minutes fast, but you're ten minutes ahead of schedule anyway driving down to the metro station to take the train into town because suburban life is where you're at and the sun is beaming right above and slightly to your right along the drive, but clouds are providing enough shade to turn that eyebrow searing ball into a calendar photograph of light and deeper blues like an angel just mowed the sky and crystals of fresh cut sunshine are filling the nostrils of your eyes.  Your parking space is taken, but there's an entire row of empty spaces right at the metro entrance and you glide on in

and slam your hand in your own door and drop your phone and crack the screen.  The year long train pass you just bought is still at home thirty minutes away tucked in your wallet and the teller at the ticket booth inside the station is occupied outside of the booth talking with a police officer to a homeless man who appears to be shouting about how he has a right to sit in the station if he's bought a ticket if he isn't sleeping so you have to squeeze through the turnstile behind another guy who enjoys it a little too much and keeps standing way too close to you on the platform while you wait for the train to come, glancing at you sideways just long enough for you to feel it every time you glance away and you consider, hand throbbing, to turn back and go home before you realize your car keys are not in your pocket.  Which is about when the guy with the baby strapped to his chest and the double wide stroller sidles up to you just in time for the train to arrive and one of his three little mouths to immediately begin wailing with just too little time for you to try to sidle away and hopefully get a more favorable car, but you've hesitated a little too long, with a single step back, to allow a massive crush of other downtown hats to clog the train's entrance and with standing room only your tie gets stuck in a teenager's lattice of straps covering their high country winter-pacolypse knapsack and a cloud of fast-food hash, bacon, and cheese burps.

Just like that, a perfect day, a perfectly normal day goes straight to hell because life is unpredictable and people are the problem.  People are the problem including yourself.  That's fine.  I can deal with that.  I'm an adult and all of the years of dealing with family members and friends and sometimes enemies and strangers and acquaintances has lead me to a place in life where sharing a bus bench with someone who has the worst body odor I have ever had the pleasure of quaffing actually does not phase me so much as it brings me to a place of curiosity.  Is that odor being generated by dark magic?  Were they hexed in another life or did they run over a gypsy in a night of drunken driving a week before and the gypsy's son is still learning how to cast curses and the best he could manage was a stink hex?  How many days do you have to skip showering to reach an all star level of odor like that?  I've had my streaks, but hot damn that stink is transcendent.  Why are you on a bus right now?  I should've walked.  Why didn't I leave earlier so I could walk?  It's only 6 miles.

I can deal with the unpredictability of life due to people.  It's unavoidable.  If you don't get in your own way, someone else eventually will try to, whether they intend to or not.  What I cannot deal with is dysfunctional weather.  Global warming is completely screwing up my life.  Not, you know, in the sense that I have to move because my beach front shack is slowly being swallowed by the sea or out of season hurricanes have destroyed my high rise condos or winter flooding ate my car, but in the sense that I have no idea what to wear or what the hell to do in what order.  Gardening is a big part of my life.  It keeps me calm.  It keeps me peaceful.  I never have moments while gardening where I want to grab a plant by its collar and strangle it with the fabric of its own shirt until its eyes bulge out of its head and then drag it to an open window and hurl into the busy freeway below and cup an ear for the thud and splash.  I've never had the urge to shout at a plant until my vocal cords rupture and blood fires out of my nose and mouth and paints a wall canvas.  Gardening is a wonderful and peaceful and calming elemental thing.  Sliding my fingers through soil and plucking weeds, and wonderful quiet conversation while the wind whispers and maybe a little rain dots us all while the sun shines and we can laugh and smile at each other, but not with this backwards weather running all over everything.

Is it going to snow?  Who the hell knows.  Is it going to freeze tomorrow?  Who the hell knows.  I love sleeping.  Do I try to fall asleep with the windows open or closed?  Is the air temperature going to feel like the actual temperature or should I account for the wind kicking up to gale force speeds for absolutely no reason at all around 2 A.M. and wake me up in a hot sweat underneath too many blankets and then freeze my skin right through to the muscle as soon as I swing the blankets away to dry my body sized wet spot on my mattress.  Do I shower again at 2 A.M. or do I wait an hour and itch and scratch wind blown dry skin all night because I fell asleep again before remembering to close the windows and pull the blankets up tight?  Sleep has gone right down the tubes because even if the windows are closed and the right number of blankets and under sheets are in place there is still the very very good chance that the thermostat is set to the wrong number because it snowed the previous morning, warmed through the day, and then dropped again in the evening, but did not get cold enough to require the use of hot forced air to remain comfortable and now hot air is blasting all over my face and my lips are drying out like Sponge Bob underneath a heat lamp.  What is going on, planet Earth?

I'm getting old.  I've got back problems, man.  My hip hasn't been right for nearly half a year now.  You would think that I would know when the weather is about to start doing strange things simply by putting a stethoscope to my knee and a tuning fork on my elbow and turning around three times.  I should know when a miniature Nor' Easter is on the way down my street simply from all of the accumulated aches and bumps and "shoulda gone to the doctor, but still can't really afford it"s I've sucked up over the years.  I'm getting old, but I'm not old yet so I'm still learning how to listen to all the tiny little signals that hint at things like walking with a hobble all day because the gummy tissues in my ankle are going to be swollen all day because that's just what they do when it's going to be cold and rainy and there's nothing you can do about it except try to smooth it out into a young man's confident strut or at least hope that's what it looks like when people see me from across the street.  I'm a young old person so I don't have the practice yet and with weather spinning every which way I have no clue how I'm going to feel throughout the day or if I'll need to have the pain killers in my night stand for when I wake up or if I'll need four shots before bed to stay asleep because something bizarre is happening outside my window and stabbing knife edge pain will wake me up at some point during the evening without liquor blanketing my nerve endings.

I may not necessarily need stability from people.  Asking for stability from people is a lot like asking a dog to not bark.  Ever.  It may be able to shut up for a while, maybe most of  a day, maybe even a few days straight, but at some point its going to have that dream where a squirrel falls out of a tree and lands dead in its face and they'll lock eyes for a moment to figure out who will make the first move while John Wu doves rise from the long grass and samurai flick wisteria flower petals tumble through the breeze and it will bark so loud it wakes both of you up from a pleasant mid-afternoon nap.  What I do need is stability from nature.  I need to be able to know that I can hang up a jacket or put away a pair of pants or hang up my boots and blankets without fear of some ridiculous blizz-nado howling through the middle of my street at some unreasonable hour after a fine afternoon at the basketball court and catching pneumonia in my sleep.

"Why are you late for work today?"  Well, I left my windows open to listen to the first crickets of the Spring and a thin layer of frost covered my apartment and all of my joint and back injuries from the last four years flared up at once and when I woke up my face was stuck to my pillow with snot and I couldn't get out of bed for half an hour because of shooting pain throughout my body.  I took a good long bath with some Epsom salts and by then I was about an hour late so when I walked out to my car in a jacket and sweatshirt and gloves and scarf I got about halfway there before I started sweating bullets because it was on its way to a high of 65 so I had to walk back up to my apartment and change into something I wouldn't completely sweat through by the time I got here because I haven't showered in two days because its impossible for me to tell when to shower specifically because I never know if it will be a waste of water because I may sweat out a few gallons in my sleep and my pits still stink despite the bath so I had to make sure I wouldn't smell too bad by the time I arrived, because with my nose stuff up the way it is, I can only assume based on the length of time... "the day's half over, go home!"

Come on, nature!  Get it together.  This trickle down effect of dysfunction breeding dysfunction into my life is a no go.  Figure out what you want to do and let me know so I can get things in order in my own life and at least rely on the fact that it will be hot in Summer, cold in Winter, chilly in fall, and crisp in Spring.  Enough with this spin the wheel of seasons nonsense.  I can't get anything done when I have to keep changing things around to accommodate you.

Commercial Pitch A43-1 "Great Day"

Has your day gone incredibly well?  Have you set out successfully, avoided traffic, made it home in reasonable time and been fairly productive while at your work site?  Do you feel fairly confident in your abilities to produce results that justify your employment and pay and are you satisfied with what you have accomplished and ready to relax the night away?  Well, have we got the product for you!

From the makers of "It turned out my car keys fell under the car and were not locked inside", "I locked my front door after all", and "The stove was not on while I was away," comes the absolutely ground breaking "Today went so well I can't wait to relax!"

With each order of Tow Sow Lax you will receive a full sleeve of 25 medical grade razor blades and an easy change safety handle.  That's twenty five blades that a surgeon would be exceptionally impressed with.  These blades are so sharp they can cut through balsa wood simply by dropping them edge on.  Along with the 25 blades you will also receive one magnifying monocle with comfort grip foam eyepiece so that you never have to worry about it slipping away from your furrowed brow.  Also included is one 1000 lumens, rechargeable head lamp.  That's right, 1000 lumens that will follow your gaze wherever you direct it that will easily charge in hours from any USB port to full strength within hours!  Any USB port!  That means your wall charger for your phone, your computer, your monitor, your laptop, anything that has a compatible standard sized USB receptacle.

With all of that you don't need to ask what's more!  We'll tell you!  Included with your sleeve of 25 medical grade razor blades, easy change safety handle, comfort grip magnifying monocle, and 1000 lumens quick charge head lamp, comes a full assortment self adhesive, self sanitizing bandages in 8 different colors to fit whatever your style or mood may be.  Not only are they self adhering and sanitizing, but they are also water resistant and breathable!  With all of this included we will throw in with every order our patented easy open jar of foot glass.  With two different sizes of dispensing holes you can sprinkle along your walk paths in your apartments whatever sized shards of glass you want!

When you come home and feel absolutely stricken with a sense of general well being and feel like today went so well that you can't wait to relax, Tow Sow Lax is there for you.  Sprinkle a little in the kitchen before leaving for work, sprinkle a little near your bed when you wake up, pour a bunch into the carpet on the stairs to your laundry room, apply some to your slippers or your bath mat.  Come home after work, kick off your shoes, and let that good feeling melt away in eye watering stabs of agony and disgust.  And for a few cents more on the dollar we will throw in our extra Tow Sow Lax for tires and sneakers.  Don't have time to take off your shoes or slippers?  Going for a bike ride right after work instead of into your home?  Tow Sow Lax XL will have you sitting for hours going blind from brilliant light trying to find that tiny glimmer of glass between swiping blood from between your toes only to find you cannot see a damn thing once again and have in fact forced it deeper into your flesh.

Tow Sow Lax!  Keep on digging (tweezers sold separately, shipping and handling extra, cash and checks are not accepted).

That Instant

you stick your head in the ground and scream and laugh, thinking about the Simpsons episode where acid rain melts his uhf/vhf antenna in his yard and screams and runs out to fix it and then screams from the burn of the rain and runs back inside and then screams at the static hissing at him from his television and runs back outside to fix it and then screams from the burn of the acid rain and runs back inside... ...and you pull your head out of the ground and look around at the world and scream at the absurdity burning up the walls all around you and you stick your head back in the ground and scream at yourself for being close minded and believing it will sort itself out or go away if you ignore it long enough and then pull your head out of the ground and scream at the horror and violence and stupidity and ignorance infecting and eating the veins of the world around you and you stick your head back in the ground and scream and laugh until you pass you out from exhaustion.

That Instant

laying yourself to bed feels like hauling as hard as you can on the simple machines that make a crossbow go.

Dear (_____)

Dear automobiles,

The first one will hopefully make owning the second one a lot easier to own and work on.  I mean, it gets boggling building a complete tool set:

"You need a standard set of sockets, not metric.  Not standard regular sockets, you need deep metric sockets.  Standard pass through wrenches only.  Low profile wide mouth 12 point sockets only with a two foot cheater bar and universal joint."  The small costs add up quickly, but the things you cannot do shrink quickly too."

You're pretty alright, automobiles.  I plan on keeping the one of you I own until I've got every tool I'll ever need to keep you running forever.  Or until I can afford a new one.  Or 300,000 miles.  Whichever comes first.

Scratch that.  The first one or the second one.  Even if I can afford a new one, I'll keep you for as long as you'll keep running for me.

lovingly yours,

a shadetree

Dear (_____)

got himself a universe,

dear gaming,

I am not a peacemaker.  I feel terrible trying to play an even game with people that do not understand altruism.  I wonder why I continue to go back to them and try to make it go at a speed they can understand.  I fail every tine.   I try not to be sour or soggy about trying to change them.  It is incredibly frustrating.  I do not understand why they cannot see it.  They believe they are being pro.  Maybe what I have to do is treat them how they treat me instead of treating them how I want to be treated.  Maybe treating them is firing off signals they cannot comprehend.  Either way, what I think I am going to do is take the last ride and then cut him off.  Stay solvent.  Being someone else's crutch is  a bad way to be and I'm not about that life.

That Instant

you realize your friend is not into it for the fun and you are thoroughly disappointed.