Tuesday, September 13, 2011


--DIDN’T ANYONE EVER TELL YOU THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER LEAVE THE SCENE OF AN ACCIDENT?

…I am sitting in a coffee shop type place. Everything is humming. Really loudly, things are humming. Like zombies snoring. It’s kind of freaky, actually. I’m the only one here besides the girl who works the till, who always remembers my drink order but will never look me in the eye.
This place just opened a few minutes ago. It’s early. I’m trying to be productive. Don’t we all feel better when we get a lot of things done? Do you make To Do lists? Do you enjoy slicing a line through the various tasks you’ve listed on the list?

…Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is honesty. The idea of it, the utopian idea makes sense. But the raw reality of it is another thing altogether.
Who have you been utterly honest with? I mean, like told every solitary thing you’ve done to? Anyone? Really?
It’s hard to be honest, even with people we trust. Even to spouses and best friends.
It’s hard to be vulnerable when it comes from our own initiative.
I just read a blog where a writer panned another writer’s book. Both of them know each other. It must have taken some guts to be that honest, because there’s a profoundly (I hate adverbs in general and have never used this particular one in my life) good chance that the author will discover the reviewer’s review and not be happy.
How brave to be so honest. How delightful.
I am not so brave.
But I wish I was, and I’m working harder at it.
I really am.

…I am aging, too.
Every day I am.
I’ll be honest here and tell you that I am still not comfortable with this getting older idea.
It bugs me.
I see signs of my getting older all the time. Unless I was blind it’d be hard to escape them.
I keep thinking of all these things I want to accomplish or every once in a while I’ll realize the real meaning of a platitude or phrase or what some famous person said, and I’ll wonder how many others I never comprehended, and I’ll think, well, I still have a lot of living left.

…There are certain words I spell wrong all the time.
Words like—“occasion” and “initiative.” (I always spell “ocassion” this way.)
Do you ever do that—spell words wrong all the time, repeatedly, year after year?
There are certain words I like but can never recall how to spell.
A word like “surreptitious.” If you don’t misspell it close enough to the correct spelling the spell check device won’t even get you to the correct spelling and you’ll end up frustrated all day, or for several even, trying to figure out how to spell the damn word just as I was frustrated the other day—actually THREE days—trying to remember who sang “Sultans of Swing” (Dire Straits.)
And then there are those tricking words, syntax things, which I do not know when to use what.
“lay” or “lie,” for example. I just never know when to use which. “who” or “whom” is another example.

…Now it smells like eggs and bacon in this place. That’s a nice smell and so it’s not as freaky in here as it was, although since I’ve started this post, it’s still just me and the waitress girl.
After a stretch of near-ninety degree weather, things are gray and cloud-hooded outside.
I guess I feel a little lonely.
I wish you were here.
If you were we could chat a bit and I’d buy you coffee, and I just bet I’d make you laugh and you would do the same to me.

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