Brighter Days

~An Update of sorts to “…And Laugh” dated September 18 th ….. I suggest skipping to the next post before returning here to glimpse these most recent macabre developments… So anyhow it has become increasingly apparent that inanimate objects (-in particular Automobiles) and me have some innate problem in the development of “healthy” long lasting and fruitful relationships. Actually in retrospect my ability to maintain any realistic normalcy in basic fundamentally social interactions is likely questionable too –but for now let’s just stick to cars in order to retain some focus, some succinctness…. In case you choose to first read this instead of taking my advice and skipping below for some relatively important background information regarding these most recent developments of the last 48 hours, I’ll try and relate a quick (-impossible for me) synopsis to get us up to speed-: My Honda has had some fairly unacceptable misfortunes over the last several weeks and my ability to...

These last few months or so I’ve been responsible for taking care of a young man who happens to have some substantial challenges in his life. Terrific guy and who among us can truly say that we are without the need for help in some form or another from the others in our daily migrations within our often, at times, chaotic existences…. At any rate, several weeks ago my friend and I were travelling in my car on a Saturday towards one of the movie theatres here in the western “hills” of North Carolina where we now both live. As we approached our destination that afternoon my cellphone rang w/a caller ID which indicated that it was a friend calling not for me but for my current travelling companion, who, at the time, was napping. As I swung into the theatre parking lot I nudged this sleeping person awake and handed him the phone w/his buddy holding on the other line. ~Now I probably should mention that at times I can be cheap and that my cellphone and network carrier reflect this...

~The path hemmed and hawed its way through tree lined latticework, mountain laurels and magnolias, bloodroot and bluet crowding for space in the meandering dirt and stone strewn expanse. Larger rocks and stray boulders some cleaved in two stricken perhaps by lightening or from earths great hellish heaving’s during some long ago terrestrial cataclysm and then pitched down the hillsides hither and yon to stand randomly like sentries from another world. Marauding old and twisted knees and elbows of larger trees broke up and through the surface of the lane as if requesting help, pleading their case. An occasional glimpse through wrecked and fallen timbers displaced a thick and gauzy haze exploding heavenward from out of the earth itself, silent, erect and vertically swirling, smoke-like apparitions, the ghosts of morning dew, damp fire pouring forth from the dawn of the newly baptized day, as if the mountains themselves were aflame and retching out some demented and forsaken anguish....

~The Old man snatched up his cards and ferried them broadways across the table to the dealer. He’d stayed long into the night and the time to leave this place had long since passed. He scooped up the tokens that were his and counted them out stacking them orderly by color and pushing them forward towards the man whose shack he and the rest had been sharing the evening with. The host recounted the stacks setting them back neatly into the stained   and leathered box that housed the chips and cards along with an old worn Texas Instruments calculator he’d used to total up the dividends of many an evening past spent. The host tallied up the count and uncoupled the hasp of the old cigar box that he’d used to ferret away the notes and coins which the players had traded for earlier in the evening and as necessary throughout the game. He pulled out a small sheaf of bills and a handful of assorted pocket change and handed the folded notes and coins to the old man. The old man crumpled ...

~The sleepy child ambled up clumsily to a kneeling position in order to better survey his surroundings. The room where he awoke was semi-dark and the midafternoon light played across the white bed linens laddering them as it exited through the venetians on the eastern windowed wall. Small motes of dust and other particulate matter floated eerily and caught in the sun’s rays forming disorganized patterns and glowing dramatically in the vertical eddies created by the heat in the stillness of the room. The queen sized bed from where he drew his bearings rose scarcely three feet as it surfaced from the floor but could just as well have been The Eiger or perhaps even the southwestern face of El Capitan such were his juvenile negotiating skills.   The room itself was small by adult standards but, for the toddlers’ perspective, loomed large and profound with shapes contemplative and angular, and silence everywhere both distracting and oddly frightful.   Translucent and bon...

Well it’s been close to 30 days since I last decided to weigh in on anything ~ New ~ and I suppose that it’s about that time again , so here goes… Maybe it’s best to begin by saying that I’m a fairly progressive thinking kind of guy. I try to remain moderately open to new things and ideas and I‘ve been known to be persuaded by logical and impassioned rhetoric even when I’ve previously held some sort of stubborn position on a particular topic. I believe in diversity and am intrigued, to a degree, by the way in which it can inject sometimes dramatic affect and change in socially stoic ideations regarding all manner of “ things ” different. God only knows - I take some getting used too, not necessarily for the way that I look or dress but most certainly for my odd way of looking at and describing the things that cross my gaze from time to time. I too can only assume that I require some degree of patience and understanding when it comes to listening to the driveling prattle that es...

It’s been a little while since I’ve had anything new to add here to this semi-autobiographical forum of mine and I suppose that it’s due at least in part to some degree of laziness from my end. The potential for commentary happens daily and frequently is filtered and modified by the confluence of events and conversations that I have with others as well as those that take place within the narrow boundaries of my own soul. Let’s get started shall we…… It’s not always what you may think “it” is . There’s a certain distinction to be noted, one that periodically gets redrawn, depending upon one’s point of view, one’s own unique point of reference. Lines of thought, beliefs, goals, the daily maps that we attempt to adhere to as we make our way into the fray of our heavily populated lives…..the plans that we formulate in an attempt to influence the events that swirl discordantly about us. There seems to be by necessity the need to build in layer upon layer of contingency……escape hatches...