brooding #12 & 35

i am 'on duty' on friday night (in-house-arrest, really, if one can call a spade a spade) at an isolated boarding school in the sticks, way north of philadelphia. i am nestled in a match-box sized look-out office painted in an imposing high-way sign green that really sets the scene... there are four (4) boxes of klennex, a stress ball, a stained coffee mug that reads: "this is what the world's greatest grandpa looks like," a fossil computer, a yellowing copy of john kennedy toole's  'a confederacy of dunces' and a swivel chair covered by a super-man towel. i can't even speculate as to why the latter item is in here. going on four hours now, i've developed an obsessive computer disorder, experienced drive-by friending on facebook, become "intexticated" on my annoyingly archaic phone (self-diagnosed 'smart phone' envy), and have developed post modern depression syndrome if i am deprived of any of the aforementioned items for longer than ten minutes. this is pitiful, admittedly, but for those of you who harbor a youtube attention span, here's hoping my plea wan't fall on deaf ears, blind eyes, closed minds, snotty noses or those too "cellfish" to actually read someones blog in its entirety. if you've made it this far, you're either a real friend or real bored. but you are real, nonetheless. 


today's caprice was simple; sometimes clarity emerges from the cloudiest doldrums of thought and spirit. a dear friend wrote a recent epistle that read something like "life has a funny way of leading one to a new destination even when we feel like we are being lead far away from where we want to be." and i take her written words in both literal and figurative form. today i was pondering the lyric "the dust blows forward n' the dust blows back (thanks in no small part to captain beefheart & his majic band's 1968 lp 'trout mask replica', one of the greatest album covers of all time in my humble opinion).

















but i digress: in other words, a half step forward, but heretofore a step back, and afterward a step & a 1/2 forward. something like the lyrics in the funkadelic ditty: "if you will suck my soul, i will lick your funky emotions," it's a raw and crude existence, (like a runner in a half marathon wearing baggy boxer shorts instead of true boxer briefs), but one that newbies can cut their teeth on and veterans can waddle in the bliss of knowing the wisdom that's gained not despite the suffering, but because of it. life is often suffering indeed, but it's the only time we really grow. (a grandma called missie relays this message rather often.) (that said, her logic is sometimes questionable; she once gifted my father at christmas her fire extinguisher because "she never uses it." moreover, once whilst riding in my car her seat-belt was not functioning. "not to worry" she affirmed. "i'll just hold it across myself for protection.")


i was on myspace tonight too (disclaimer: for music only ). elliot smith's 'angel in the snow' was the first number. 'needle in the hay' was the last. my plight today is to reverse that order....


autumn (september equinox to the december solstice) is seemingly a swell time to introspect. let's burn the leaves, and leave behind the burns.*




*this line is not to be misconstrued for any mawkish "maryjane" reference, please.