caveat emptor

Grace, Like Glitches in the System

We might see each other, recognize one another, if our necks still turned, our eyes still glanced from side to side. Lockstep robot days. Machine mornings. Afternoon automata these days, joints stiff like mannequins as we plod, unheeding, along the demarcated paths. Our grace is that we have glitches, bugs in the system. Eventually we come off track. Eventually we crash. Eventually we fail to succeed any longer. Then we're free. Running rebellious across all the lines. Looking everyone in the eye. Grasping one another by the hand and fleeing for our lives. Running for the doors. Smiling for our lives.

Don't fix me. I've come to depend upon my flaws. I use them to tell me apart from all the rest of you. I'd hate to lose track of myself in this massive, thronging crowd. Just leave me this way, work around my issues. I'll try to shelter you from the most dire consequences of my personality. When we're alone, just you and me, I want to be there. I want it to be me. I want it to be you. Broken together, beyond repair.

Probably the bravest thing we ever do is falling back into step, rejoining the joyless robot march. We have to trust ourselves to escape again. They cannot break us. They cannot fix us. We are confident of this as the smile drains from our face and we begin to plod the path, staying always inside the lines, looking always ahead.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Thoughts Culminating in Underwear

It's a new day, people. You've never breathed this air before, never stepped into this river. No more of the old stuff now, new day people. Throw away all the clothes you wore yesterday. Toss out your appointment book and your address book. Cancel all your old accounts. Change your name. Today is too new to rattle around in those old bones. Walk away from your shed skin and become the you you are today, shiny and new, open to everything that never was before. Nothing that happened before matters anymore.

I've believe in time yesterday, but today I do not. Today I see no difference between now and then. I guess I've changed. I don't expect to believe in time tomorrow, but how can I know? It's so far away and there's nothing I can do about it now. Time still believes in all of us, but it's not always on our side. If you feel the need of an ally on whom you can depend then you must be beside yourself. This treachery always betrays itself in the end, when all the true colors become clear and we see through all disguises. Make sure your underwear is clean, therefore, and that it matches.

I came into this post with nothing to say and I can't seem to accomplish even that.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Idiot Stick

The field above the creek bank was rough, rutted deeply with tractor tracks from the back and forth of large diggers dredging the channel when the dirt was bare and muddy. There were large unearthed rocks and deep gouges dried as hard as rock in the hot summer sun. No one had ever come back to level it or sod it. It was left broken and ugly, with stiff, scratchy weeds growing to shoulder height over the entire acre. This field had destroyed a brush hog. No mower would survive the beating. No weedeater would cut through the thick stalks of the largest weeds. Our little Parks Department didn't have a huge arsenal of tools. There was only one option left.

All the other guys hated using the weed whip, or "idiot stick" as we called it. Some of the seasonal workers, high school students like myself, would beat them against the ground and break them if they were left to clear a trail or ditch with one for an afternoon. Most guys preferred the power equipment, the large mowers and tractors or, at least, the commercial weedeaters. Me, I loved the idiot stick. I'd never been a fan of the noise and smell and heat and jarring vibration of power equipment. If you put me out in a field or a ditch with an idiot stick, though, I would swing away all afternoon. Up one bank of a creek and down the other. Along a winding trail. Beside a dirt road. I was good at it. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. The rhythm of the swing was soothing, conducive to reflection and imagination. An idiot stick is the perfect tool for a thinker.

A weed whip is not a golf club. Keep the swing low, no higher than your chest. It doesn't take a lot of muscle, just a smooth cooperation with the flow of the swing. Newton will do most of the work if you let him. Swish. Swish. Swish. On a good weed whip with a triangular bracket, the screws that hold the blade will loosen as you work. Every hour or so you should tighten them to keep the blade in good working order. Swish. Swish. Swish. Try to keep the tempo. Breathe. Swish. Swish. Swish.

Every couple of weeks Steve, my crew chief and friend, would pull the pickup up to curb at the field above the creek after lunch. It was Texas summer afternoon hot, probably 105. After the first time he didn't have to tell me what to do. He'd stop and, without a word, I'd get out, close the door and grab the water jug and idiot stick out of the back. He'd nod at me through the back window and I'd nod back. He'd drive away. I'd start my pensive rhythm, clearing the entire acre by the time he came back to get me.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Dinner with the Monster

I often have dinner with my friend, the monster. We meet at a little downtown cafe with sidewalk tables. I like the place because it's positioned at the end of a garden courtyard running through the block of buildings so we get to catch the breezes that blow perpetually through the downtown alleys. I usually have a sandwich or soup, sometimes both. The monster eats children, five or six of them most evenings.

"It's so hot," I comment, swallowing a bite of corned beef on rye. Sweat drips from my hair down the back of my shirt. The breeze this evening is no match for the humid swelter of the summer dusk.

"Damn right," the monster answers, biting off a hand, "but I don't mind the heat so much."

Most evenings we talk about esoteric topics. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be monster? What is the nature of evil? This evening we talk about free will and fate.

"Oh my god!" screams a woman passing by on the sidewalk. Turning to look, I see her trembling and gawking and pointing rudely at the monster. "That monster is eating children!" she shrieks. Fortunately the host dashes over and forces the woman to leave.

"I'm so sorry," the host gasps, rushing over to the monster. "Can I get anything for you?"

"It's okay. I'm used to it," says the monster with something like a smile. "I'm fine."

"Some people," I continue when the host shuffles off, "think that we cannot but make the choices programmed into us by our chemistry and experience." I take a sip of peach iced tea and wait for the monster's opinion, knowing that the monster, like me, is a believer in the freedom of the intelligent mind.

A stray cat wanders among the tables, dangerously close to the monster. She's too quick, however, and just manages to skitters away from the grab of the monster's clawed hand. I can see the disappointment on the monster's brow. "Caprice is so evident in the world, but so many fail to see it," the monster responds.

It is a nice evening, if a bit too hot, and I enjoy the company of the monster, the civilized way in which the monster converses on so many interesting topics, the fascinating contrast from such thoughtful descriptions of so different a perspective. The monster also is fascinated with me.

"You're the only kid that ever got away," the monster will often observe, with something like a smile.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Old Under the Sun

It's another one of those days, coffee and oatmeal and ear buds and the universe spinning all around, begging for your attention. Music lies to you without malice, just a casual deceit for fun, for escape, for no reason whatsoever. As long as you don't believe it there is no harm done. Is this the same sun today? How do we know, really know, that it's the same star every day? Squinting up at it I am overcome with a lack of recognition. I've never stepped into this stream of light before. This warmth is strange to me, so bright and new, like never before. Meanwhile, there is nothing new under the sun. Same old oatmeal and coffee. Same old song. You know all the words. Won't you sing along?

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Sweet Mistaken

I do not question this fragile faith I have that the people and places I remember, the place I was this morning, the woman I awoke beside, are real. They are not vain imaginations I have conjured here in this coffee shop world. There is more out there than I can see with my eyes here, more than this computer in front of me that I feel with my fingertips, more than this wooden chair, more than this tile floor, more than this aroma of brewing coffee wafting in my nose. I rely on my vast store of memories as another sense to tell me what the world is like, full of certain people with certain faces and certain voices and I am as certain of the reality of them as I am of this sunlight shining too brightly into my eyes, too warmly onto my jeans,  here in this place. If it is all a lie, this beautiful life I remember every day, then I am blissfully deceived and I will never admit the truth. I call myself a skeptic, but I am awash in the faith that I will see your face again. Meanwhile, here I sit, believing everything I see, everything I hear, everything I taste, smell and feel. My sensual life is my religion and I believe in it with all my heart and mind and strength, this rough stubble on my cheeks, this new wiry grey in my hair, this slick sweat on my neck.

We dwell in possibility

Or so the poet said

Though she spoke only for herself

The voice inside her head

Some dwell in tangibility

Their hands are occupied

My hand are empty, idle, still

I live my life inside

I dwell in need of levity

A lightness in the mind

Though burdened here with gravity

I will not be confined

Come dwell in possibility

Reality forsaken

Let's revel in denial, dear

Embrace the sweet mistaken

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Talking to the Ocean

Sitting in bare feet, jeans and a jacket on the spray-dampened beach, a thrill of gooseflesh trembles through me at the warmth of the moist wind coming in off the agitated ocean. Jeans and a jacket because it is winter, and the cold is biting. Bare feet because it's the beach, damn it. Tiny drops and grains bourne on the gusts encourage me to close my eyes lightly, blurring away the grey of the clouds, the blue-green of the waves, the white of the foam, the taupe of the sand. The sound is all motion, moving water and moving air, organic liquids and sibilants in the voice of the beach, with scattered explosions of gull screams ripping through it all.

Out in the rocking waves, farther out than I can see now, a bottle is bobbing. It contains my message to the world. I littered the ocean with it, my anonymous cry for attention, because I've never found an effective voice for asking things of the world, and I've never found the grace to accept the gifts given in reply.

The ocean rarely tells our secrets. The floor, far below, is littered with our vessels. Usually the corks come loose or the lids are not fast. Then the bottles fill and sink, the secrets disintegrating into the salty depths. Once in a while, though, a bottle washes up onto the curious shore. Once in a while our secrets are seen by loners or lovers or excited young girls, soon to be disappointed or confused by our clandestine hope or despair, our message to no one at all.

I'm alone on the beach as far as I can see in every direction. My feet are cold and my nose is beginning to run. My jeans are soaked through. Suddenly I am overcome with the obsessive compulsion to attack the waves and take back what I have said. It's too cold, though, and my message is too small and the ocean is too big. The feeling passes and, shaking forgetfulness into my head, I stand and turn my back on the sea where, unbeknownst to me, the bottle is already almost half full, optimistically, and the ink is blurred and illegible, and the paper beginning to decay.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Simplifying

I've decided to shut down the other blogs I post to each day and to keep just this one. So long, Mommy's Girl. As fun as it's been pretending to be a nine-year-old girl with a pet kitten and a passion for figure skating, I just don't have the time any more. So, I posted a note from "my mommy" explaining that some weirdo was stalking "me" and she had to shut down the blog. And no more fabricating "real stories" of the Afghan war for my blog Front Lines. I'm afraid Private Damen's luck just ran out. I just posted an anonymous comment saying, "I herd from some one who knowz him that Private Damen was shoot by Taleban fihters." He's a real hero.

Anyway, those of you who read this blog are in luck. My "Scott" character will continue to be developed. This blog isn't going anywhere.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

On T-Shirts and the Absurdity of the Human Condition

Camus suggested that suicide was not an appropriate response to the absurdity of the human condition. He preferred revolution. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Camus was a hard guy to read, mostly because of all the French. I've never committed suicide, and I never will (as far as I know), but I'm also not a revolutionary. If I were going to commit suicide I'd shoot myself with a torpedo, just to be spectacular and ostentatious and to embrace the absurdity of the human condition. I want a T-shirt that says, "Embrace the Absurdity of the Human Condition" on the front and "Don't Hurt Yourself" on the back. Also I want a pet polar bear cub.

People are constantly putting things onto T-shirts, like pockets and slogans and cold, cold water. As for me, I want to be more revolutionary. I want to challenge people's assumptions about what a T-shirt really is. I want to paint slogans on the inside. I want to put laces up the front. I want to make T-shirts you wear on your feet. I want to set my hair on fire.

Sorry. I got a little carried away for a minute there. I want a T-shirt that says, "Sorry. I Got a Little Carried Away For a Minute There."

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Sentiment and Sediment: Boxes of Yesterday

"Before there was central heat and air we kept quilt boxes," she explained. "You cleaned and pressed the quilts when the weather got warm. You folded them and put them in the quilt box, ready for next winter. Then you could use the quilt box as a seat when you had company. Everyone kept quilts. You can't imagine how cold it got."

Under and among the stacks and piles of everything, he had two large quilt boxes in the garage, full of things someone had decided to save years ago. Most of those things were worn out now, rotten or obsolete, forgotten in the distraction of trying to stay alive.

It was probably a hundred and five degrees in that old garage this weekend, and we were all too tired and sweaty and dirty for sentiment. Small, audacious trees grew here and there up through cracks in the concrete foundation. Green vines snaked through the exposed rafters, invading through the eaves. Around the base of the open stud walls the wood siding had rotted away in spots, giant holes granting admittance to invaders of various species. Everywhere was dirt and cottony spider egg sacks and rodent droppings. There was a desiccated squirrel carcass under the workbench. Rats had been nesting in old rags under the larger quilt box.

Of course, there were treasures scattered among the trash. A Polaroid camera, older than any of us can guess. Look magazines from the 1960s with various Kennedys on the covers and advertisements that make my children laugh. "Try a little sugar in your coffee or tea. Sugar works with your Appestat to promote weight loss." His old uniform from Korea, moldering away in the disintegrating remains of a plastic garment bag. An Elvis LP. Pictures and newspaper clippings. Evidence of having been young stacked deeply under evidence of having grown old. Six truckloads to the trash and recycling drop site. Three truckloads to the garage of the new house.

The heat was almost more than we could bear, and the grime almost more than we could stomach, but we got it done. How could we, so young and so overwhelmed with heat, fathom the need for something like a quilt box in a place like this?

"In the winter we got cold, even in the house," she explained. "There was no central heating, so we used quilts. You can't imagine how cold it got."

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

These Happy Days Are Yours and Mine

Jeff Goldblum is alive and well, as is Harrison Ford. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson and Ed McMahon are all dead, though. I remember them from a long time ago, when I was a kid. The vapid trivia of my childhood is dying off. Fonzie is bound to go soon. That will hurt, when Fonzie goes. Potsie? Not so much. I mean, I don't wish death on Potsie or anything. It just won't bother me that badly, that's all I'm saying. I should have seen this coming when Gilligan died back in '05. They live in syndication now. And Fonzie's next. I can feel it. Poor, poor Fonzie.

Enough talk of death and old entertainment. Let's talk about something else. Hmmm...

I got nothing. I'm just so worried about the Fonz. I think it would be better to go like Chuck Cunningham. Just disappear before anyone ever cares. It's more humane that way.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Beautiful

The hair falling out (due to her chemotherapy) was driving her nuts, so we decided to do something about it. Isn't she beautiful?

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Imperfect Journey and the Escalator of the Real

Being mortal, I can only wait so long for everything to be ready and right. Eventually, one day soon, I'll just have to get started, ready or not. Perfection is always just around the corner, or so I've always thought. I've rounded many corners and remain resolutely imperfect. This less-than-ideal state of affairs might just have to suffice if ever I'm to get this show started. No sense waiting around to die. Tomorrow. Tomorrow and no longer. If perfection doesn't arrive by bedtime tonight, I'll bundle up my faults and flaws in a knapsack and hit the road at dawn. You're welcome to come along, but I make no promises. Doom and hope ride on my shoulders, whispering directions into my ear. I'll try to choose the right path, but I've gone astray before.

Roads and journeys make wonderful metaphors for life. Symbols and images, though. That's all they are. In reality, life is a broken escalator in a seedy mall on the bad side of town. This is no metaphor, mind you. This is what life really is. If you concentrate, you can feel the rubber handrail lurching and slipping as the mechanism struggles to get moving again. Scientists don't know who built the escalator, nor whether it's meant to go up or to go down, nor what lies at either end. All they know is that it's broken, probably a belt has snapped or slipped off. Philosophers argue the virtues of calling a repairman. Mystics scry the customer service phone number.

I think it was Mitch Hedberg, may he rest in peace, who observed that escalators can never break. They can only become stairs. "We apologize for the convenience."

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Such Accord

Sunlight, flung from the distant eastern horizon and skimming in low over the scrubby treetops, scatters out across the floor, carrying shadows with it, and slams into the far wall. If you press your hand flat against the sunlit wall, starlight will paint your hand with warmth, touching you from the dark, cold void of space. To live in such accord with the spheres is the most mundane of wonders, something we think very little about. Beneath the pavement or the floor, the planet wheels away, carrying us with it. We're all along for the ride, light and shadow, hot and cold, you and me. If you press your hand flat against my sunlit chest, starlight will paint your hand with warmth, and I may shudder or cringe just a bit, being shy about such things, the everyday wonder of living in such accord with you.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Ambivalence and Art

I am overcome these days with passionate, flaming ambivalence. It wells up within me like a lack of fire out of control. I am consumed. How do I feel about my plight? Whatever. It doesn't matter.

My pro-diversity art project isn't going well at all. I had this beautiful idea that I would go into a public place, like a park or museum or library, and paint all the people different colors, really bright, wonderful, vibrant colors. No one gets it, though. It doesn't matter what color we are. We're all the same inside. It's a simple message, but everyone just gets angry when I start spraying the paint on them. It's sad how many people are racists and bigots. It wears off in a few weeks. It's only permanent on hair and clothing, not skin. Nevertheless, people are so attached to the color of their skin and clothing and hair that they cannot stand to be any other color for even a few minutes, much less weeks. Instead of appreciation or praise for my visionary artistic leadership, people just scream, "What the hell are you doing!" or "What the fuck is wrong with you!" or "My eyes! It burns! OH GOD MY EYES!" It depresses me. I guess the world just isn't ready for an artist like me.

Maybe I'll move on to my "Projectiles of Beauty" project, my idea to splatter-paint commercial airplanes in flight. We don't just have to shoot each other with weapons that kill. We can shoot each other with love and understanding and bright, happy paint delivered by surface-to-air missiles. Maybe people will understand that idea more readily.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Boop the Wobble

Boop was a Wobble. Wobbles were a blobby little race of wiggly, blue, peoplish, balloon things that lived in the shade of a large, ancient Ginkgo Biloba tree beside a deep, cold pool in a long-lost forest of the distant imaginary past. Boop was a middle-aged Wobble, having been alive for almost eight days. He was healthy for his age and would probably last at least another week. His job, as far back as he could remember, was to push away a large thing that had fallen across the food path. The thing, which, though Boop would never know it, was an acorn cap, was far too heavy for Boop to move. So far he hadn't managed to budge it, not one smidgen. Then he had an idea. He would try the same thing he had always tried, the only thing he could think of, which was just to push on the thing really, really hard until he was exhausted. It didn't work. I was never going to work. This didn't bother Boop. Being of above-average intelligence for a Wobble, he was amazingly stupid. He was happy, though. When he collapsed, exhausted, beside the big thing, he laughed. Some part of him knew, incorrectly, that he would figure out how to move the big thing. Boop was an optimist. As he stared, panting, up into the canopy of Ginkgo leaves far above, he thought many happy, stupid thoughts. He thought about his mother, who had died yesterday. The thought of his mother always made him happy. He thought about the big thing that was blocking the food path. Then he got an idea, the same one again, and he rose excitedly to his feet to try it out.

Up in the tree, unbeknownst, like most things, to Boop, the Wobble god smiled down at Boop. She loved him very much. She loved all the Wobbles. That was why she dropped the acorn cap. She knew it would make Boop happy. And she was right.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

How to Do Things, Vol 1529

How to brush your teeth:

1. Be born.
2. Learn to grasp tings.
3. Grow teeth.
4. Buy toothpaste and a toothbrush.
5. Pick up the toothbrush.
6. Put toothpaste on the bristles of toothbrush.
7. Open your mouth.
8. Scrub your teeth with the bristles of the toothbrush, using the toothpaste as an abrasive cleansing agent.
9. Rinse the toothpaste out of your mouth.
10. Rinse the toothpaste out of your toothbrush.
11. Put the toothbrush and toothpaste away.
12. Repeat as needed.

How to have sex with a beautiful woman:

1. Be born.
2. Learn to grasp things.
3. Grow up.
4. Pick out a beautiful woman.
5. Convince her to have sex with you.
6. Go somewhere private.
7. Take off at least enough of your clothes and of her clothes to allow the necessary access for sex.
8. Tell her she's beautiful.
9. Have sex with her. Try to be good at it.
10. Clean up as required.
11. Put your clothes and her clothes back on.
12. Repeat as needed.

I hope this helps.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Broken. Living on the Horizon.

Long ago he came to the mistaken conclusion that expectations in life were dangerous, to be avoided.

Staring down the road in front of him as the mostly empty highway passed by faster than the speed limit allowed, he drowned out his thoughts with loud radio music and rapid eye darting. If some notion started to whisper in his ear he would blink and glance hard to the right or to the left, out at the distant horizon and beyond. Sometimes he would shake his head abruptly, trying to clear some picture from his Etch A Sketch mind.

When he pulled into the driveway of the farmhouse, the only structure for miles in the flat wheat landscape, he clunked the old car into park and killed the motor. Two children, his, were tumbling enthusiastically down the porch steps toward him. Unfolding his tall, thin frame from the car and closing the door with a creak, he blinked at their approach, squinting at the sun far away behind them. His son, the four-year-old, crashed into his long legs and threw his little arms around them. He reached down and rested his hand on his son's shoulder, smiling absently at his daughter, six, waiting her turn. No words were exchanged. He hadn't prepared for the moment, hadn't given any thought to what he might tell them about where he had been, how long he might stay, why he would leave.

There is a kind of broken that makes every thought, every active engagement with life, more than one can bear. Every plan for the day feels like a setup. Every dream for tomorrow feels like a trap. Every conversation is an accusation. Every touch is a blow. You cannot listen and you cannot talk. You have to let the sights and sounds wash over you, wash through, keep going without you or carry you along.

He lives on the horizon now, too far away to see clearly, too far to hear you even if you scream. He is always on the journey and never arriving. He lives, broken, on the horizon. You cannot save him. You cannot even reach him. You should not even try. Bring your children back into your house and talk to them, laugh with them. Make your plans for today, dream your dreams for tomorrow, without him. Soon, within a couple of days, his car will be gone and you won't have to listen to his silence or watch his blinking stare ever again. He will take his bleak sadness, his brokenness, with him when he goes, and his story will not be yours. The best you can do for him is let him go. It's the only thing he wants anymore.

Long ago he came to the mistaken conclusion that expectations in life were dangerous, to be avoided.

Hello, friends. Bleak, I know. It's just what came out today. Whimsy will return, I'm sure.

Later. Love.

Nihilism Cannot Deny Itself

you cannot run away from everything

where would you go?

you must approach something

you might as well take it in your arms

and hold on tightly

right?

is that right?

you have to be somewhere

why not here?

you have to be someone

why not you?

you have to hold on to something

why not me?

the center of infinity

is everywhere and nowhere

forget nowhere

forget nothing

forget no one

forget no

give every a chance

at least give some a chance

at least give us a chance

this isn't what i wanted to say

but i don't know how to spell silence

in any language you can read

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

900: Bob the Angel

This is my 900th post on this blog. Have you read the other 899? Neither have I. Most of them are better than this one I think. Hmmm... let's see. What is this post going to be about? Hmmm...

Most of the time Bob the Angel can be found fishing from the rickety boat dock on Willow Lake, the old dock at the end of Miller Road. Have you met Bob the Angel? If not, you might picture something quite different. He doesn't look like you might imagine. His hair is curly brown and usually bushy. Most days he wears pocket T-shirts, though he has a couple of those thin, white Guayabera shirts that he likes to wear when it's warm. Jeans in the winter and tan cargo shorts all the rest of the time. Sandals. Always sandals, even when it snows. Also he has giant, brilliant white wings. When he stands they stay tucked in behind him. When he sits he flares them out and they just sort of wave above him. The sight is really something, sort of stirring, but he doesn't like to talk about them. It makes him uncomfortable for some reason.

Some mornings, when I'm out trolling my trotlines, I'll see him sitting there, white wings above his head catching the early sun and sandaled feet dangling over the water. Mostly I just wave and keep going, but once in a while I'll motor over and dock and we'll chat for a while. I like Bob. Even though he's an angel, he mostly talks like a regular guy. He's the only angel I've ever known, so I don't know how he might compare to your typical angel.

From what I hear tell, though I'm not sure how anyone would know, he's a guardian angel. Danny, that's my oldest boy, thinks Bob guards the lake. Wanda from the bait shop says that when Bob's charge, an old man who lived around here more than a hundred years ago, died, Bob just didn't go back. He's been here as long as anyone can remember, so that might be true. He doesn't like to talk about it. It seems to make him uncomfortable.

He'll talk as long as you care to about regular stuff, though. Fishing. Weather. Gossip. Even politics. Not angel stuff, though. Not religion. He just mutters something and gets quiet if you bring any of that up. Usually he'll just change the subject, or start into a joke. He has a strange sense of humor. His jokes are fun to listen to, but I don't usually get them. He'll hit the punch line and laugh and laugh, and I'll just smile and nod a little. Must be angel humor.

One time... have I told you this? Sometimes I tell the same story over and over to people. I lose track, you know? I'm not sure who's heard what. Well, anyway, one time, right after Linda died, he did say a little something. Linda was my wife, you know? "Time's different there," he said. "Everyone arrives at the same time." That's all he said and he wouldn't say any more about it when I asked him. I think about that a lot, though. It's good to know, you know?

Well, I better get going. These lines aren't going to bait themselves.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.