Overwhelmed

Consider that:

The Giai spacecraft launched in 2013 and is orbiting our sun, about a million miles away from Earth. Although it's surveyed a huge number of stars, Giai is charting only about 1 percent of what's out there...

and that:

The Milky Way contains around 100 billion stars.

You sit and breathe on just one paltry star heated by another trivial star in a unfathomable number of stars and somehow, you think you are important.

How?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/25/605622779/you-are-here-scientists-unveil-precise-map-of-more-than-a-billion-stars

I Don't Know _____ From _____

When I’m famous I feel like the late night hosts or whomever is interviewing me for my thoughts on such and such is going to ask me about a person, so I’m practicing my spin/pivot/avoidance because 1. I don’t know anything and 2. I don’t know anyone.

So it takes the form of the old saw I don’t know ____ from Adam (of Eden, father of fathers, banger of Eve)

So you (famous person interviewing me) say something like what do you think about Kevin Hart drunk after the Superbowl and I say “I don’t know Kevin Hart from having a heart to heart with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.”

Grade: B-

Again:

What do you think about Megyn Kelly? “I don’t know Megyn Kelly from Kelly Tripucka. Though to be fair he could shoot.”

Grade: C-

What are your thoughts on Chiwetel Ejifor’s performance in Come Sunday? “I don’t know what Chiwetel’s eyes are for, apart from seeing of course.”

Grade: D

What did you think of Charles Barkley’s latest incident? “I don’t know Charles Barkley from Charles Manson.”

Grade: C+

Did you hear about the moral failings of Blake Lively? “Man I don’t know Blake Lively from Blake Lethargic.”

Grade: F

Tim Robbins was recently indicted: your thoughts. “I don’t know Tim Robbins from Baskin Robbins!”

Grade: A+

I Don't Know I Do Know

It’s hard not to feel that things are fated. 

Shoreless and carried only by the tide.

That so much is actually out of our hands.

I just finished Junot Diaz’s piece and it’s so heartbreaking to think that he’ll never be right; to think that the actions upon an eight year old will damage him until he’s 48.

Is it minimizing to ask about the proximate and ultimate causes of sexual abuse? Is that question mechanical and avoiding the pain and the suffering – missing the point?

I don’t know.

Can we end or even curb sexual abuse if we don’t ask about proximate and ultimate causes?

I don’t know.

Why are some traumatized by poverty and alcoholic parents and abusive fathers and others not?

I don’t know.

It’s these kinds of essays that really make you wonder why it isn’t more people: suffering, living tragic lives, spreading pain while trying to cope, recover...live.

I do know I don’t want to be afraid to ask questions. That is a Rubicon that, just trying to cross, renders both shores untouchable.

What Did You Have For Dinner Last Night?

What did you have for dinner last night?

Croutons.

Boy, you and the salads. You don’t look all the chunky to me. And you have to know that diets don’t work and that ultimately they are more hurtful than helpful due to what they refer to as weight cycling.

I’m not dieting.

But you said you had croutons and a salad for dinner last night.

No I didn’t. I said I had croutons.

You had croutons? For dinner?

Good deal on a 3lb bag from BJ’s.

You didn’t put them on a salad?

No.

You just ate a bunch of crunchy croutons…crunching away baked bread bits in your craw?

Uh-huh.

The Royal You

We asked, the royal you answered.

Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of congress for two days. Are you worried about your personal information on Facebook and how corporations can mine troves of personal information and ultimately topple democracy as we know it through a de facto fascist social media ruse?

 

What was the middle part again? - Dak Unsage, Puppet Defiler

 

I’m only on myspace. - Tom Anderson, Obsolete Expert

 

It’s fine, I delete my browser history every four years. - Gurty Sandstone, Bully Pulpit

What Did You Have For Dinner Last Night?

What did you have for dinner last night?

Kale.

Ah, the ole belt getting’ a little tight is it? Gotta green it up do ya; a couple more salads for dinner these days? Can’t blame ya: it’s been a long winter. What did you do: Caesar? Cobb? Garden? Waldorf Astoria?

Just kale.

What do you mean?

I just had kale.

Just kale?

Kale.

No other vegetables or nuts or bacon or cheese or croutons or ham or… Was it on a plate? Did you just put kale on a plate?

In a bowl. 

Roughage never sounded rougher.

Put Me There

Isn't that beautiful? Can'y you feel the cold air on your skin? The smell of the water and the silence from within melding softly to the sounds without: birds, crickets, frogs. Don't you want to be on a  canoe softly rippling with an oar - no consciousness of your me-machine? 

no consciousness of your me-machine?

Put me there
We need to go back in time sometimes
Wistfulness is everything
Let it fall over me - primordial and basic
Breathing and hearing
in that fog, in that cold air
like a person in the world

Corporeal Toil

I actually had to do some work yesterday.

By that I mean physical labor.

My wife likes a certain consignment sale and when one works the consignment sale, one gets a discount at said consignment sale...so you know who works the consignment sale.

Doing physical labor.

I delight you with this domestic banality to inform you that I really respect my father.

I packed up various clothing racks and what-not and loaded all the what-not onto a truck.

For a mere 4 hours.

My Dad did physical labor for 40+ YEARS.

The heaviest what-not I loaded yesterday was maybe a colossal 40lbs.

My father could load 250lbs of carpet off a van and into a house and up a flight of stairs by himself.

All day long.

A tough son-of-a-bitch was my old man.

I know this because I worked with my father right after high school and during undergrad.

From my first day of work with him I thought something was wrong with him; he ran around like a Tasmanian devil with a hook knife as if there was some sort of carpet emergency.

What my father knew was that time is money.

So he worked hard and quickly. Finish one job so you can get to the next.

Even if the next job was on a saturday or a sunday or a holiday.

Work.

But here's the thing. With 6 kids and all of them involved in sports, I can't remember my father missing a game or an event.

As I lament labor on a sunday afternoon I have to laugh at myself and how soft I am. My father would start a job at 8 in the morning, break to attend a game, go back and finish the job, then be willing to play catch as long as you wanted.

I whine about organizing for cryin' out loud.

So raise your hook knives and clink your straight edges, this one's for you Dad.