—MIGHT AS WELL JUMP

  

…Friday, you sneaky bastard, be good to me today, please.

 

…I get fined a lot, though.

 

…Things that make me feel safe: warmth, books, puppies.

    Things that make me feel unsafe: Satan, T.

 

…Do you believe in signs? I wish I didn’t. 

 

…I’m tired of losing all the time. I forgot what it feels like to be a winner.

 

…Today’s song is “Lullaby.” Probably not the one you think. Until just now, I always thought it was “Rock-a-bye.”

...I definitely have a positive bias when it comes to book readers.

 

…It’s a little unnerving to get a buzzing notice on your watch and not be able to do anything about it other than gaze at the leap or divot of a beat.

 

…The thing is, everybody’s a little full of shit. So, try not to take it personally.

 

…It might not mean anything to you, but it means something to me.

 

…I guess it depends on your definition of close.

 

…Sometimes I’ll read back fragments of weeks-old writing and think, Who the hell wrote that?

 

…Two things I hate: Getting in the shower, and getting out of the shower.

 

…Nobody looks good when things go south, but that’s when you find out who the frauds are.

 

…Somebody’s got to do it, but I’m still sick of companies trying to get me to buy needless stuff. 

 

--Reporter:   “How much of your songwriting is true?” 

--Dylan:         “Let me put it this way: when Johnny Cash sings, ‘I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,' do you really think he’s a murderer?”

 

…I may be turning into a moody F*&%#.

 

…Ultimately, especially now, it all comes down to the things you care most about, and what you’re willing to do for those things. 

 

…Who doesn’t enjoy a good rocket launch?

 

…It’s pretty easy to find new things to worry about. 

 

…What if there was no “best part” of your day?

 

…Scented soaps are something I miss. Especially citrus, green tea and mango.

 

…Can’t a guy just write what he wants to write?

 

…Twelve days…

 

…Whenever I realize I have to pee, the urgency ramps up by ten. Especially in a car. Especially on a plane that’s just landed.

 

…I’ve never found it harder to be less judgmental than right now.

 

…I don’t know if I really want to know what other people are thinking. Maybe that makes me close-minded.

 

…Listening to my stomach gurgle sometimes is akin to that cassette tape in The Sixth Sense.

 

…I can sometimes go an entire day without saying more than 100 words. Seems like there should be some kind of award for that.

 

…Other than Cinema and History with Leroy Ashby, Environmental Science was my favorite class in college. The professor warned us on the first day that we might get depressed when shown all of the pressing threats to the planet—pollution, overpopulation, starvation, a hole in the ozone… He was right to do so. 

Remarkably, we’ve since fixed some of those problems, while even more glaring ones have emerged. Even though they look daunting, I keep thinking smart people will find solutions eventually. So it was nice, yesterday, to read that scientists have created COF-999, a chemical compound/powder, that can suck carbon dioxide out of the air even better than a tree which, over the course of a year, removes 40 kilograms of CO2. So, yay. A small victory among all the outlying gloom. 

 

…If the planet’s still here in 100 years from now, I wonder if there will still be conflict in the Middle East.

 

…“Who is sitting in that empty chair?” Eugene Ormandy

 

…

On Another Panel About Climate, They Ask Me to Sell the Future and All I’ve Got Is a Love Poem

 

   How rare and beautiful it is that we exist.

What if we stun existence one more time?

The earth remembers everything, our bodies are the color of the earth and we are nobodies.

Been born from so many apocalypses, what’s one more?

Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire.

But for what it’s worth, I’d do this again.

Gamble on humanity one hundred times over.

Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them.

I’d follow love into extinction.

--Ayisha Siddiqa