Daily Constitutional

...all the leaves are brown/and the sky is grey....

My neighborhood is alive with sound and color. Kids play football in the street. Old men pass with grocery sacks, parents rake while tots tumble in piles of leaves. A crew works on the roof of a house, one of the men shirtless. Neither the temperature nor his physique support such a display. Falling chunks of space rock decorate the sky.

I hope it's chunks of space rock.

Fancy demands it.


(California Dreamin', The Mamas and The Papas)

Back Later

"There will be no stripping during the Critique Session." -Dave Walbridge

The light changes. My hand drops to familiar knob. Left foot reaches, gropes, seeks empty space for a clutch pedal missing from this vehicle, by design.

Half a day in the truck and my kinesthetic memory resets itself to a standard transmission.

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

"Slacker," says he.

"Wiseass," says I.

Since he’s produced several columns to my few meager paragraphs, go read his stuff. He’s the Political Animal.

After you read The Pain, When Will It End? send Tim a soothing message. He’s pretty upset about the outcome of the election. Even so, he takes words from my mind and prints them on a page, calling them his own, which they paradoxically are.

...governments have always been corrupt, duplicitous, and brutal. Patriotism is just a scam used by villains to get morons and suckers to pay taxes and kill strangers. The only loyalties in life that are worth shit are those between people who actually care for each other.

Yeah. What he said.

Me? I’m busy being Michael's gadabout lackey for MotionFest, The Finale. Come see the public show, at the Boston Street Theater inside Best Western of the Baltimore Travel Plaza. Tonight, 8 PM. Wear a beret and a red carnation so I’ll know you.

Symbiotic, patriotic

...a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions/ Offer me alternatives and I decline....

Water stands in small smutty patches, trying to decide whether or not to freeze. The woman in the white sedan who nearly runs me down in the parking lot is forgiven because of what's playing on her stereo.

It's time I had some time alone...and I feel fine.

(It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine); REM)

Itsy Bitsy

...summer days drifting away ....


Don’t go to Spike and Charlie’s. It’s been closed, sold, renovated, or some combination thereof. We ended up at Abecrombie’s where cocktails were smooth and staff disdainful. I recommend the chocolate martini, and was entertained by crunchable wasabi-encrusted peas.

I’ve been toying with the idea of a reading list, much like my movie list, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Right now, despite the calendar designation of ‘November’, it seems to be bikini weather.

(Summer Nights; Grease)

The Question

...you don't have to wear that dress tonight....

We gather tonight to drink fifteen-dollar cocktails at Spike and Charlie’s, (who I’d link to but their account has been disabled), watch one of the Gorgeous Girls in the tackily cultish Rocky Horror Show, and dine at The Brass Elephant (whose logo is exceptionally phallic, especially if you squint) afterwards. This is good. Entertaining oneself is the Prime Directive. The dress code is Urban Chic, whatever that means, and I wear flats now, anticipating heels later. I think this is the perfect opportunity to trot out my coolly vintage but politically incorrect mink. However.

The decision-making area of my brain being somewhat underdeveloped, some time after the birth of my first child, I switched to a monochrome wardrobe. Shoe buying instantly was simplified, as was matching tops to bottoms.

I have always been inclined to take both, when faced with a choice. It creates a certain broad-mindedness that is actively immobilizing in certain situations.

As in, what shall I wear?




(Roxanne; The Police)

Sweet Nothing

...candy on the beach, there's nothing better/ but I like candy when it's wrapped in a sweater....

His eyes are warmer than I am used to. He’s on the phone. He reaches with one arm, fingers urging me forward. Naturally, I drop what I’m holding and walk into it. He holds me longer than I am used to, affording me extra moments to nuzzle his neck, to inhale him, to take advantage of our well matched size. I feel his smile against my hair.


(I Want Candy; Bow Wow Wow)

The System

...Drifting with the tide/ Never quite knowing why/ Sometimes it makes no sense at all....

I walk to the polls with a sense of doom. This voting thing, how much difference does it make? They're all liars. Who remembers "no new taxes"? Or, "I did not have sex with That Woman"? Or, "the United States does not deal with terrorists"? I have no faith in anybody. I idolize former President Jimmy Carter…since he stopped 'leading' the country. The Democratic Party has been criticized for having more anti-Bush rhetoric than pro-Kerry rhetoric, with good reason. None of the Democratic candidates gave me the impression that they really truly have my best interests at heart. John Kerry is the most electable of a long-shot lot, and seems only somewhat less offensive than GWB. Is his agenda different? He says it is, but who knows?

With the appearance of no-backup Diebold machines, I become increasingly nervous. I know that computerized voting can, and will, be determined by he who has the most money for payoffs. Meanwhile, the ethics of the Bush Administration makes the Nixon Administration look like the Kennedy Administration. We have a Texan for President, and a Texan for Vice President (despite the fact that he owns a house in Wyoming or wherever) and it’s because of Texan Florida Governor Jeb Bush that these people are in office. And Diebold is Texas-based. Not to be bashing Texas, but these slippery men stick together more like Velcro than oil.

Really, though: how much difference does it make? My life under GWB is not significantly different than it was under Clinton, Regan, or even Carter. And the next four years of a lying republican versus the next four years of a lying democrat will not even be a smudge on the geologic record. Human history is short, and we spend the bulk of it lying to one another and ourselves.

It’s enough to darken even the most dedicated of Pollyanna Merry Sunshine hearts.

Then something happened. There, on my paper Provisional ballot, which I filled out with a reassuringly familiar Number Two pencil, appeared a name to give me hope. There on the ballot was a candidate who has dedicated his life to my safety, and the safety of my family. There was the name of a man who has never lied to me, even when it made him unpopular. There was a name of a man I could feel good about voting for.

A small voice rings in the wilderness, but my conscience is happy.

(Man In The Wilderness; Styx)