in progress

I don't know what to do with this post; don't know what to title it. Over the past week it's been a blank draft page labeled "in progress" but I am brave and foolish enough to proceed at random. Let's look at photos. These are Normaphotos of her kitchen counter. I'm behind the silver teapot on the right. My glasses are on the table, so you can't see me.

I don't know how this 2nd photo got in there but getting persistent pop-up declaring "update failed". It's another Normaphoto so I'll leave it because, for some reason, I can't knock it off the draft. Anybody else having this problem?

Oh, ok, I'll proceed with or without success to post a Normaphoto of our south-east porch and see what happens:

Ok, that came through pretty good. I'll try one more. For 3 or 4 years we've had a night-vision camera mounted by our back door.  Images go automatically to Norma's tablet. Last night I tried to sneak up on that device. I held my hands in the universal position of "being sneaky". The result:

It is how I look without makeup. Is anybody working on this?

The Enigma of Incoherence

 I'll begin with a favorite photo:

      As sandstone and shale succumb to the sea,

      Our souls' erosion forms what we will be. 

I believe we will become beautiful and full of mystery. Norma is. She telephones our San Francisco kids then predicts our valley weather. She says, "We get their weather when they're done with it." 2nd-hand weather. I don't mind. In 1967, two figments imagined each other, dreamt each other up and fell in love. We are still together. She is always right. Her cousins are never wrong. When they all visit, I run like hell. 

There are times when I am needed --when one appliance, waterpump, vehicle, toilet or another is churning in disrepair. My talent with such events is mirific. I excite wonder and astonishment among relatives. They mainly leave this hick alone.  However, a wooden fence I built 40 years ago recently showed signs of wear. It ran about 90 feet down our lane back to the barn I built 35 years ago. Norma wanted to rebuild it. Because I too was churning in disrepair, I suggested she hire it done. She emailed her brother, Bill:"The fencers are here planning to fence all morning!" 

Bill replied, "En garde!"

I sure like Bill.

 

 

Ensemble and Job Safety!

Here I am on the day election resolved into conniption, or vice versa. I am happy --perhaps I never look down. My forearms are mostly scar tissue now, after outdoor work in 2 strangely connected centuries. Yes, off and early on, I worked indoors and suffered 10 years of jumps, tyrants, subterfuges, people crying "out damned spot!" (Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 1), which causes Spot to dash out onto the street, get run over and likewise does damage to humans --even those not named Spot. Ergo, "Now thrive the armorers..." (Shakespeare, Henry V, prologue Act 2). This brings us to Don Santino:

It is not Spot. Don is an early 21st century gift from a beloved occupational-safety consultant. Despite my having retired from gardening public places in 2009, we have kept this outfit. As a wearable collection of hinges, levers, inclined planes and other safety devices it is unparalleled. I should have worn it oftener.

 

Looking For Answers Above

The enigma of mind that seeks information and guidance above and beyond one's own perceptions puzzles me.  I try to reply to such questions with respect, compassion and rely on what suave elocution a man of my age ought to have.

"Duh, hamina hamina hamina." I reply suavely. Then Norma sends me a photo:

It's as if we are in submarines, needing to see what's on and over the surface. We want periscopes. Cats already have them.

There are admittedly some puzzles we can solve with guesswork and logic. Example: What is the chief commercial export of the Arctic?

Frozen fish, of course.

But other questions need Science: like what happens when sunlight strikes an atmosphere of water, methane, ammonia, in combination with molecular hydrogen and atomic helium floating around a rockbound planet?

Why, it causes Uranus to turn blue.

 For all other speculation, spiritual and otherwise, I confidently refer readers to one of my favorite C&W performers, Slim Whitman:

"When my life is through, and the angels ask me to recall

The thrill of it all... I'll tell them I remember you." 

[I'd like to dedicate this post to all who have suffered loss]

 

Mysterious Movements Afoot!!

There are mysterious movements afoot! They are social, political, individual and seldom, if ever, addressed by news media. Surely we have all seen this sign protesting road work:

Add caption

When I was young, we used to contract dinosaurs to discourage unfair excesses of highway maintenance. It worked until their tails fell off and their teeth grew to where I couldn't tell them from relatives. It's getting rather late and I ought to include at least one more event  anent this subject. It is a demonstration conducted by strangely-dressed foreign people concerning Baron Geo.-Eugène Haussmann's 1853 urban renewal program in Paris. He retired in 1870 after snapping the curly streets straight but the work wasn't complete until the 1920s --which, as we were all taught in grammar school, touched off the French Revolution in 1789.

Their sign reads, of course, "END ROAD WORK!!!!!" 

Strange thing (enigmatic thing even) is I approve of road work. I mean people are safer without potholes and but sometimes I have to try looking at the other side of a thing and...well, it's getting on to 2 a.m. and I need to go to bed.  Anybody else going nuts in quarantine?

 

Devil In The Details

I'll begin with a Normaphoto taken last week. Somehow it captured my theological posture toward existence. It shows how I look from behind where horns hold my halo up. Hopefully it confuses demonic attackers who strike from the rear, or avenging angels above. A personal detail.

I don't begrudge this confusing feature.  I accept surreality, and yes reality , even though I don't always approve of it. A detail. Let us consider another detail: paper towels and the 20th century:
 Caption: He's one of the few physicists who has
                     conceptualized  Black-hole Theory:

I drew this on a paper towel many years ago --during my 1/2-hour lunch break at someplace I worked, possibly in the early 1970s. It may easily be the last surviving paper towel of the 20th century. I never made a fair copy of this doodle to submit to a periodical, as I sometimes did. It is just a detail. 

Then there's the big detail of the California sky. It has been brown again, very brown. It turns brown every summer and every fall brings out a tremendous amount of painters and scaffolding. Here is a photo over the Vineyard:

It usually consumes 8 or 9 months for crews to get the sky blue again, but this summer's been bad. Could take 2 or 3 coats. So our taxes go up. Small price to be penniless under blue sky.

Point is, Brain sometimes yields a pleasant, fun memory or constructive fantasy, even in these hard times. It's Brain's way of saying, "Just details. We got this." Don't forget to thank your Brain when that happens.

 

The Enigma of Growing Up

This is Hairy Tux.  He is thinking intently about something. In the past year, all he has done is grow up. I believe his meditation must be focused on that.

I don't ordinarily discount physical education. In fact, I have several friends who entered gainful employment as gym-coaches and freelance toilet trainers (doubtless seduced by the glamor of it all) . But I recall those days, deep in another century, when 9th grade choice consisted of gym class or the cacophony of marching band. Although I played 3 --or so--guitar chords, I never mastered the cacophone and took gym.  Gym class was full of psychologically isolated boys who exhausted themselves --whose only other exercise was falling in love, even when nobody else was around.

A year or more later, we were mobbing the DMV to get our drivers' licenses. Girls were warm, soft and smelled really good but, if boys were foolish enough to ask them out without a driver's license, they were soundly skunked. We mainly just had fun.

Years later, I met a girl in a library and wondered: how could such a perfectly fragrant creature appear under my very nose? I asked the cat, "Is that the sort of thing you're focused on?"

Hairy answered, "No, I'm concentrating on making my white eyebrows grow. It makes me more attractive."

No argument there, Hairy. You got this.

How Is It Still Here?

California burns spectacularly every summer. Nasaphoto below is from 2007 but we've burned down every summer that I remember and I shall be 71 this year. Certainly it's not a conflagratinous attack on me alone --there are many local infernos recorded before I was born and renounced Hell. Also, we Californians have got very careful with matches and have used ashtrays for several days.

But most puzzling, yes enigmatic, of all is this: After centuries of devastating wildfires, how could anything combustible still remain in our state? Like any Rationalist, I went outside and asked my cat.

                                           [Normaphoto]
I found Tux. He was doing sentry duty on an old dead tree stump. I asked what was going on. He said:
"My brother, Hairy, is sneaking through the fence to see why our neighboring field is all dried up and flammable."

"Tux, there's been tragedy over there. My friend of over 60 years died last week and there's nobody to plant or water anything. Another friend from childhood moved back to the Vineyard 2 years ago and he'll see to the mowing. We're safe enough."

"Can we discuss this over a meal of dehydrated mice?"

"Oh Tux, I'm no deipnosophist, but appreciate the offer. Now I must try to address the world."

"Sure, do it!"

"Dear world, is anybody besides me having horrible problems uploading images onto Blogger from PC "pictures". Never happened to me before but tonight it's a major enigma."

My First Ever Rant!

Today, I received the following comment on a prior post   (Why does Hercules etc.) and it got me thinking. I will show you its unclickable version which I, myself have sanitized. Lookie:

"Unknown Unsubscribe," to me: " Push me up against the wall and do dirty things to me. Click here and Check me out i am getting naked here:)."

It's an offer I've never gotten before, especially the "clicking" part. I mean, I click light switches on and off like everybody, and power tools. I even click my fingers when I like a musical rhythm, but I can't get myself that excited just by snapping my fingers. So I present it here as an enigma.

Then! Then, couple hours ago I got an email, purportedly from Google Plus, inviting me to request forms and other legal confustications regarding a class action lawsuit against Google for bugs. Bugs. I had bugs once and there are OTC products  available to rid oneself  and pets of them. Here's an excerpt:

Summary of Litigation

Google operated the Google+ social media platform for consumers from June 2011 to April 2019. In 2018, Google announced that the Google+ platform had experienced software bugs between 2015 and 2018, which allowed app developers to access certain Google+ profile field information in an unintended manner. Plaintiffs Matthew Matic, Zak Harris, Charles Olson, and Eileen M. Pinkowski thereafter filed this lawsuit asserting various legal claims on behalf of a putative class of Google+ users who were allegedly harmed by the software bugs (“Class”). Google denies Plaintiffs’ allegations, denies any wrongdoing and any liability whatsoever, and believes that no Class Members, including the Plaintiffs, have sustained any damages or injuries due to the software bugs...
 
The suit demands recompense for Google users in the amount of Godawful gazillions of dollars, which divides out among users to between $5 and $12 each .  Even when I was young and raising 4 kids, I knew there were easier ways to earn 12 bucks. What's the point? Where there is no point, can there be an enigma?

Please comment. Ranting leaves me a bit unsettled.

Two Bees

I have just returned from the pharmacy with a filled script and two bottles of Woodbridge Pinot Noir --from nearby Lodi. I still have not convinced my medigap insurance to let me buy wine at discount with a small co-pay --even at a pharmacy!  I mean, is this California or isn't it? Well, perhaps by way of apology, they did send me some free face masks with their logo on them --quite comfortable and considerate of wearers who must inhale air sometimes,  in addition to containing their own expectorants.

So yes, I've been outdoors, leaving my shoes in the mudroom --Norma Law, cannot be rescinded-- and reentered our house shoeless but undefeeted-- which reminds me this post was intended to be about bees, or something with lots of "e's" in it. Recent Normaphoto above is of a pumpkin flower and a bee who says, "Hmm." They say that a lot. He heads into this giant blossom in hopes of big rewards.  Then something topples and he says, "Oops!"....

...and activates his antennae. Standard distress call is received and prioritized. Reply:"On my way. What is the nature of your emergency?"

"I'm trapped under a toppled stigma."

"Oooh that sounds serious."

"Could be a style, stamen or sizable ovary."

"En route!"

" I'm  in the nectary at the floral axis and need a hand getting out."

"Hand?"

"Oh that hooky thing on your foreleg, the one you use to groom your antennas."

"Ah, understood!"

"Ewww no! that's your tongue!"

"Sorry, they're all about the same length. I'm sure many creatures have trouble telling them apart."

"That's what they all say...Hey I think we got some leverage here!

"YES!I feel the barriers shifting! I'm Free! How'd we do that?"

"Do what?"

"I dunno. Bees don't have a lot of memory."

"'Cause why?"

"'Cause Shut Up. That's why!"

"Dang, I do believe we're evolving."

***********************************

I dedicate this post to the rude imposition

of Google Blogger's new and incomprehensible

format. Anybody else having problems?

Enigmatic Evolution of Pragmatic and Interpretive Philosophies

Let's begin with a couple Normaphotos, which she titled "His and Her Groceries." During this quarantined time, she orders comestibles from our corner store, which I pick up at their loading dock. All I do is pop the trunk and let them earn their pay. Norma checks the garden first and reaps much of the "hers" part.

Then we collaborate on the "his" part and I go get it.

I built that table 40+ years ago after Norma, kids and I repeatedly dined in a Refectory. The tabletops were inset with ceramic Mexican tiles, and that looked practical to me. So we hunted around and found them at Pier One Imports. The rest is local pine with teak stain. By and by we outgrew the thing but it serves still in the back porch. There is a practical logic (set hot stuff on ceramic instead of wood) to it and an abstract principle --I liked how it looked-- which of course brought the James brothers to mind.

William James was a psychologist, paranormalist  and pragmatic philosopher. His brother, Henry James, was a writer who focused upon the mind in moral dilemma. When they were little they had an argument:
Wm.: Life is based on practical logic.
Hen.: Nuh uhh!
Wm.: What then?
Hen,: Abstract principles.
Wm: Nuh uhh!
Hen.: Yuh Huhh!

The rest is history. Other  James brothers went west to investigate more fungible philosophies, like bank and train robberies. Jesse got his brains blown out by a trusted gangster named Bob (it happens sometimes). Then Frank James quit the band to live to a ripe old age. I have no idea what all this has to do with philosophy and let that be a lesson to you.

Pumpkin Demon

It began, safely enough, with a normal Normaphoto of a pumpkin vine but, by and by, my sequestration frustration kicked in...

...and I was agitated into what is medically termed Hallucinatory Apeshitosis and began to see nothing where things aren't (first stage!) followed by seeing something where things are (second stage!). It gets worse from there: Pumpkin Imps!!!! Lookie:

It Changes into something with eyes and hands and boots from my high school drill team!  I suppose these demons can arrange leaves into capes and be little vampires...or umpires --never got that straight. Which one stays up all night, calls plays and drinks blood?

I forget a lot of stuff. Sheltering in place doesn't help. Sometimes I go to the grocery store and forget what we need. So I write a list ahead but, with remembering to wear gloves and mask, I often forget my list. I find myself surrounded by choices but sadly listless. Now Norma orders our supplies and I go pick them up at the loading dock. Listlessness is a big problem generally, and sufferers must marry people like Norma.

I believe I've gone off-subject, whatever it was, something about something's got to restock the shelves our memories fell out of --and pumpkins. If pumpkins really contain demons, be sure to bake the Hell out of them before consumption.

That Blue Thing

12 years ago I posted a poem without a photo. There was a NASA photo of  the Blue Thing, but I didn't know how to extract and transport it, so I didn't, until now. I've been using public-domain photos for years, but this time the result included a vertical white line which I covered up by smearing white down its left side. Is anybody else having this problem?

                                                                                    Nasa Image, Spitzer, Star Vega 
 Here is the poem:                                      

Saturday, November 1, 2008

That Blue Thing

Darkness spills downhill,
Pools under trees and
Earth turns me to stars.
I locate Venus, Mars,
And that blue thing,
Then head home.
Doppler effect and
Some old ricochet you see,
Astonishingly old,
It or us rebounding,
Heading here, this garden--
A bridge of light sounding
Blue notes to this
Transpontine eye.
I don't know why, but
I think of love under
The blue thing,
Cross the shadows
And always head home.
********************************

Blue Thing is star Vega, which served for billions of years as the North Star, until she retired and the job was awarded Polaris --who apprenticed as handle tip of one of the dippers; forgot which one-- who is 400 lightyears more distant than Vega. Why am I telling you this?

I don't know! I'm  just sheltering in place. Brain's wandering in time and space --you know the feeling. We've already been invaded by beings from star Vega. They are called Vegans and they're ok. 

We have endured worse. In 1967 all the boys in my high school got called into assembly for a pitch from a member of the U.S. War Dept., Public Relations, General Staff.  At question time, I stood and asked how conscription could be reconciled with the 13th amendment. He said the president's power to raise armies took precedence over the 13th Amendment.I considered this a general Staff infection. But we mainly got through it.

Somewhere over this closing paragraph is Norma's view of the globe right now. She recently had a birthday that started with a dental appointment to get a crown installed. I consider it her coronation day, and suspect the handmade mask indicates regal defiance of corona virus. Let's all mainly get through it and be OK, like the Vegans.

Odds, Gods and Cephalopods

I have been pondering in lockdown --as have we all, but it's still a lonely deal-- and have reached a point where memories intrude upon the present. They are fragmented things, but claim to have lessons  of continuance and triumph in them. Let's begin with government in a nutshell. I mean, everybody comes to Rick's. Metaphor: a place of odds, tin gods, possibility, chance that sometimes gets shut down by Inspector Renault when it suits survival (https://youtu.be/SjbPi00k_ME):


One finds oneself in a strange position of authority and disadvantage, obeying tyrannical orders versus personal equilibrium in state of awkward imbalance.

One finds oneself. Happily, many of us have never had to find ourselves because we were never missing. Others simply weren't careless enough to lose themselves.  However, too many settled their allegiance to 8-legged psychic monsters that clamped down their brains.

Some wait in Casablanca ("White House", en Espanõl) and wait and wait for the plane to Lisbon. My Portuguese Grandma Filamina would wag her finger and say, "Não fàceis!" And no, it is not easy.

As I've mentioned, the tenor of this post is a product of  lockdown, and not my finest work. I have been clearing my house of octopi -- 8-legged godless brain mollusks that get in through old plumbing.

What're the odds, eh? 

The Enigmatic Evolution Of Normative Statements

It is a strange title, I admit, but these are strange times. I haven't had to gas up the car in months. Still, I'll invent some reason to get out among people --matches, toilet paper, wine, prescriptions. Everything else gets delivered to the house. I would have prescriptions delivered, but declined years ago to have my life depend on our often dyslexic rural post office. Do I sound stir-crazy? I think so.

Sometimes I watch clips of road-rage and bad drivers on Youtube just to feel better about sheltering indoors. Fortunately, we have an abundance of outdoors, which Norma has been very busy with.

As you can see, the foreground object is la Tour Eiffel, so those roses are really big! I like the Eiffel Tower, and many other ingenious appointments added to Baron Haussmann's improvements to a squiggly-streeted city that could forever be controlled by cannon-fire down straight streets from a central point. No more revolutions? It is, I suppose (and I HATE this expression!) what it is. I believe it was David Hume who argued there is no coherent transition from a positive statement (what is) to a normative one (what could or should be). Uh, time for another Normaphoto:

The universe put her in my path and me in hers. Now she puts plants in my path and Normaphotos them.  Imagine a library,1968, a stunningly beautiful Norma and a suave, debonair me. I walk in, sit and notice something quietly elegant on my right. I couldn't help sneaking glances. She finally said,"What?"

I debonairly and suavely said,"Buh, hamina dut?"
This confused her so I tried again:
"I'm Geo., would you like to go out?" I knew her name was Norma because it was written neatly on her flute case --still is.

She said, "No."

I replied, "What if I persist?"

She quietly and forcefully said,"Well, then I'll have to beat-choo up."

I'd give worlds to know how that turned out.

Letting Ivy Grow

I have nothing in mind but a doodle done years ago and

       its little poem: I have let ivy 
                               Grow across
                               A disused door.
I am reminded of it by frequent encounters lately with symbols like this:

They announce May as our National Mental Health Month. I imagine a door in there somewhere but don't know which side of it we're on.

May has been Mental Health Awareness Month since 1949. I was born in 1949. I do not think this was mere coincidence.

May is now about 1/2 over-with, hence my fractional observance. Mid-month is an appropriate celebration to those of us who are half nuts.

Life is a responsibility, and it is up to half-sane people like me to set a good example.

Go thou and do likewise.

Brothers And The Permanent Jumps

(Yes, I am back to cat photos. This pandemic has revived some agitation in me and I had to go out and look at them. They are strangely and effortlessly calming --they invite imagination.)

I have been trying to write poetry lately. It usually gives me some escape from enforced social precaution and its surfeit of isolation. 

I believe I have just described the permanent jumps. I'd ask the government about it but they'd just tell me to mainline Lysol, so I won't.

However, I remember when we were kids, my brother and I would wrestle --he'd go easy on me as he was older, taller, bigger and stronger (still is!). This leads us to the introductory Normaphoto  available over this text.

What you see is two brothers, Tux and Hairy Tux. They are about do this:

Let's listen in:

Hairytux: Why is Uranus blue?

Tux: My what? Oh, U know, it's a thing in space with an atmosphere of water, methane, ammonia, helium and hydrogen. Under that influence, methane reflects only sunlight's blue wavelength into outer space. But just to make sure, I'll ask my vet.

Hairytux: What is the chief export of the Arctic?

Tux: Frozen fish, of course!

Tux: Hey, get off me or I'll call Geo.! 

Hairytux:He's too busy watching Nature reclaim his bathroom!

Tux: You seem to know so much. I am frightened!

Hairytux: Méfiez-vous de l'illusion de la connaissance!

Tux: Yes, yes! We are in accord.

Hairytux: Of course, dear brother. But hopefully we've helped Geo. stop sneaking up behind himself and yelling "BOO!"

Geo.: So far, so good. Anything for a treat, guys.

Speedbump Enigma

I'm going to risk a break from adorable cat photos --which have admittedly distracted me from current ills-- and address a problem of societal conscience. Here is an illustration:

It has got us stuck like a big boat running up a shoal, a speedbump of mind, and getting stuck. Impact alone succeeds in knocking our moral compass out of its binnacle. Subsequently, our ship of state is unled. But enough about the world, let's consider me.

Norma has an envelope labeled "Money"--sure to foil burglars. It's for household expenses. She asked me to drop by the bank, while I do errands, to restock it for another month --or whenever this lockdown ends. She said, "Oh, and wear your gloves."

"I do." I said, but she wasn't finished. 

"Also", she said, "Governor Newsom says you should wear a mask."

I thought a moment and replied with a question. "I already wear rubber surgical gloves in public, but a mask? I have trouble with the idea of entering a bank with a mask on. Does our governor also want me to carry a black sack labeled LOOT?

I'll find out tomorrow if tellers can call me by name and smile or say,"Well, aren't you whoever you are?"

Gray, Noire

These little girls are sisters, twins really --same mother, same birthday. You can tell they're related because there's some slight resemblance around the eyes (ya think?):

I post their pretty faces because we are living in strange times --overwhelming, underwhelming. Who's doing all this whelming in the first place? "Don't ask me, I don't give a damn." I sure miss Country Joe. There seems to be a Hadean ambience returning to earth. But that was the '60s --or is it?-- and I get blue if I don't watch life, its gray and black fur, pleasantly psychotic eyes. Also, I'm in my private, internal 70s and have slowed posting because I'm too busy forgetting where I leave everything. Well, maybe not so blue as gray and black, like my hair these days.

Sequestered, I become more bibulous. It helps actual humans cope with the wisdom of their leadership. 

Indeed, the 1960s were full of moral indignation, relieved only by gym classes smelling of sweat and foot fungus --constructive human smells. The rest was debate and tension that sent us glissading down into the 23rd Psalm valley.

We are watched, if not from above then from below, observed by Nature. Can we hold our place of responsibility on Earth, or be crippled by mismatched socks? We need to learn by what learns from us, to feel at peace with our place in the Universe, to love.

Triple-glazed Poetry

It's nearly impossible to tickle yourself--
Or dominate oneself without a mind -- 
So I remember springtimes more kind,
Like this...

            ...in 1995, we fit together like puzzle
Pieces --kept alive its mysteries, and now
Look back twenty-five years after , through 
All the tears and laughter , another 25
Years from this dangerous future, where
Optimism,(thrifty); the sum is fifty, looking
Back, a half-century as only she could, watch
Me pull in...

                   ...and proclaim me "still good".

Double Glazed Poetry

Wallace Stevens wrote in his beautiful poem, "Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird":
      
"I do not know which to prefer,
       The beauty of inflections
       Or the beauty of innuendoes..." 

This Normaphoto, yesterday taken and titled by Norma offers a solution.  We see four young cats left by their tiny blackfurred mother on our property five months ago. I saw her. She looked weak and unhappy, then crept off into the prairie. We fed them cow's milk, then dry cat food topped with tuna. They stayed --remained feral, only one allows us to touch him (Tux, second from front).

So let's identify them: Hairytux (closest); Tux, behind Hairy; Queen Noire, on bench; Ms. Grayboy,  who surprised us with her well-disguised gender until we had them all trapped, neutered, vaccinated and returned by a wonderful local non-profit group. But, by then she was already named Grayboy. 

I think of their little mother, her sad and frightened expression and pendulous, exhausted teats, heading off in tall grass to heal. We buy milk, and it has dates stamped on it, but there's no expiration date on the healing process. I felt a kinship there. Yes, I told her they'd be ok.  She couldn't possibly understand. I too am a child of Nature. In winter I froze. In autumn I dried, puckered and fell from trees. SO:
      
      Innuendo or out-you(r)-window?
      What does it matter?
       I prefer the former far
       Less than the latter.
      

Nacre, Pearls,Swine, Oh My!

I find myself. Resulting interview disjointed.

"Oh, hello, fancy meeting me here."

You're mistaken. I'm just somebody who looks like me.

"You incline toward personal fiction."

Even fiction is not entirely fictional.

"Meaning what?

Meaning, what's the difference between a tyrannical puppeteer controlling the impressionable with taut strings and another using stale rubber bands?

"Difference being?"

Taut means tightly stretched. Taunt means ridicule and other semantic bullyisms toward the same effect, but slower and subtler; stale rubber bands.

"Where are your feet?"

In the bedroom.

"Where is your head?"

Kitchen table, usually.

"Are there pearls of wisdom in your head?"

I don't know pearls  from calcified clam snot.

"Is that not what nacre is?"

In school I learned nacre is snot, which shellfish secrete around a grain of sand. It boogerizes, calcifies and ends up on an expensive necklace.


"Yes, a simple truth. Would you cast them before swine (Matthew 7:6) ?"

No, pigs have their own snot.They would perceive them as little rocks and start asking questions.

"What sorts of questions?"

Uncomfortable ones, like 'If we like jewelry, can we not invade your chifferobes and try your clothes on?' We who work the outer limits of  feet, mind and mathematics must consider these enigmas in our calculations. Go thou and do likewise. Your regular pastor will return next Sunday, same as yesterday --this is Monday.