Plum Right

Just finished Janet Evanovich's twenty-first
Stephanie Plum Novel.  Nothing really new-- her heroine is again charmingly inept and hilariously funny as she works through the strange but somehow familiar absurdities of her mixed-up life.

Though she never changes, never draws big conclusions, I wondered what philosophy of life Stephanie might endorse?

I've come up with five basic tenants:


1. Disasters are temporary.  Incompetence just inconvenience.  Never Give Up.

2. Like you, everyone else is just stumbling through life.

3. Laugh often

4. Don't take yourself too seriously.

5. And if everything fails--eat a meatball sandwich, order out for pizza.

Checking My Balance

Tuesday’s child or Wednesday’s?

Well, one of them worked hard for living.

 

I did

though some days it didn’t seem so hard 

As the plastic chair supporting my rear

on the deck of this trailer park home

 

where I gaze above a laptop computer

to discover my account has been adjusted.

Above distant rooflines, within a sliver ocean view,

the splashing energy of a passing whale.

 

I am rich now.  Maybe I always was.

Just didn’t know where to look.

Addendum to Fisher King

Several days later I returned to that section of the coast. 

The tide was higher, throwing itself onto the beach with such force it seemed furious with everything terrestrial.

 

I’ve known people like that.  Some are no longer with us.

 

I used to believe low tides ideal for collecting rocks.

Not so.

 

When waves land hard and so far beyond their usual mark (mean tidal zone), they stir up everything in their wake.

 

Dodging waves on this now uncomfortably narrow strip of beach, I found some new stuff, rocks that, once polished, could look like nothing I’ve ever seen or done before.

 

Yeah, yeah, but did I find that “mother load”?

Well, I found smaller stones like it.
And once in a turbulent mixture water, air and light, I might have enjoyed a glimpse of it. 

But the answer is “no”.  I didn’t find it.

Not this time.

The Fisher King

Please, don't worry so much. Because in the end, none of us have very long on this Earth. Life is fleeting. And if you're ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky when the stars are strung across the velvety night. And when a shooting star streaks through the blackness, turning night into day... make a wish and think of me. Make your life spectacular.
                                                                              --DPS

Sometimes the best way to stop crying is to start writing.

Robin Williams is dead.

Morning

and in San Simeon, California two men restock the shelves of a local mini market. 

“Get out!  He was so funny!”

“Didn't he do the 'Nam DJ movie, oh yeah, and that Doubtfire thing?” 

“Uh huh, and he probably had more money than God.  What’s up with that?”

“No freakin’ idea.  He should’ve just gone fishing.”

Indeed.  I pay for my coffee and untie the dog that waits for me outside the store.

I think of Mr. Williams' more serious roles--Dead Poet’s Society and Awakenings--and how many times I had to step outside my classroom, ostensibly to blow my nose--actually to wipe my tears--while showing these videos.

Why didn't he go fishing?

 

For that matter, why didn't the equally brilliant and talented Philip Seymour Hoffman join him?  Look at the ocean and feel the sun one more time.  Take your kids or grand kids somewhere, see things through their eyes, just one more time.

Afternoon--

and I am eating a tasteless Hearst burger which I thought it would be good idea to bring down to this isolated beach.

Something kind of “off putting” about my meal.  Is it the smell of rotten seaweed that's so common this time of year?

I collect my trash and walk toward the surf.  I’m not so much into fishing these days.  But I’m still angling for some incredible rocks here, just got to find them.

For a brief moment, I see “motherload,” that one rock special enough to make long a term crazy hobby seem sane.

And there it is, just off the surf’s edge and the size of my fist.  Not just another “moonstone” agate, either, this one is clear as ice.  You can see straight through it to the wet pebbles underneath.

I reach out and lunge, but remember to look up.  Oh, no...

Hell sent from a retreating +5.0 high tide comes that seventh alternate set, the wild wave that says, “Hold on there!  I’m not done just yet…”

Running full bore toward the cliff wall, I feel a wall of 55 degree water slap my ass like a bad boy getting a deserved spanking.  I laugh.  Shockingly cold but refreshingly fun, I tell myself.

Then I go back to the water’s edge, hoping that somehow, through some miracle that special rock might still be there.

No.

Maybe after a couple of sets.  I wait.

Nope and nothing.

Still waiting, sensing a familiar irony.

Now you see it, now you don’t.  The ocean giveth and taketh away.

Not a problem.  The rock is still out there.  Just not going to happen today. 

But from my right field of vision, there's movement.  Something big.  A few yards to my left a bloated sea lion floats back and forth with the waves, its bare ribs grinding against the shoreline.  The remainder of its putrid flesh is of vital interest to nearby seagulls.

Inevitable and not surprising, I tell myself, given the time of year and degree to which warming has affected marine life.  It's odor becomes less detectable as the carcass washes north.

I continue my vigil a while.  Eventually, I shrug  and begin to pack. Like McArthur, I will return.  I will find that rock, that "motherload".

Evening,

and I listen to happy rock, FM 103.5,  musicians now gone.  The message is clear.
 

Don’t wait too long.

Never stop fishing.

8/12/14

Promises, Promises (A Pretend Eulogy)

Robert Frost (in poetry) traversed a snowy wood.
"Dark and deep"
But he had promises he had tokeep.

I broke some promises just tonight.
Sorry Andrew, Noah, Lucas, Phoenix, Griffen, and Kay.
Any chance,  forgiveness, anyway?

My body's tired.
Many more  miles ahead before I sleep.
If I don't make it, please don't weep.

Noah/Reset

This is the darkest August day I can remember.  Sunless at 7:30 am, no lighter now and no lighter in between.  But no rain. I wonder (in the weird corners of my imagination) if something isn't building, has been building, and is now just bout to burst...


There's operation out there done by cardiac surgeons.

I've had one, and recently so has my father-in-law.  It's called cardio-version.

My understanding is that it's a short "time out" for the heart.  Stop, start again, let's try to get it right this time.

No sure thing.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not. As I write this, someone I love is sitting beside a hospital bed and watching a monitor displaying her father's vital statistics.

Me, well, for reasons not worth your time to explain it, I'm 150 miles south watching a movie.

The title is Noah.  There are several things about this movie I could make fun of.  But I've decided not to.

Go back and read Genesis again.  There are some sketchy, weird things going on about the "sons of men" and the "sons of God" and I'm not too bothered that one of latter speaks with Sean Connery's voice.

But when things get bad, irredeemably and hopelessly bad--kind of like the saying "winter is coming" (from Game of Thrones novel and series)...except now, winter is come and gone...

Well, then cardioversion, or some kind of major reset is entirely in order. and this idea that just hit me upside the head with the emotional force of a 2 x 4.

And if you're waiting to see where this line of thought is leading me, that makes two of us.

8/3/14

(And should you happen run into Methuselah, give him some damn berries!)

Just Laugh (if not at this, than other things)

I had story.  Lost it.
No wait, it's coming back to me.

I was temporarily distracted by the grammatical errors in my last two attempts to write a story.

Now, I remember.

Every real man does work in his garage.  And super testosterone men have stereos and 
 cd players.  So they can control what they listen to.

Call me crazy.  My testosterone levels vary.  Some nights I listen to Alice Cooper.  Frankly, he's a dildo and most of his snide comments about famous rockers (of which he barely qualifies) are shit.

But once in a while he surprises me with a song I didn't expect and barely remember.

I do rocks. Not sure why.  Makes a little money but not enough to buy a Corvette.

But occasionally I do rocks with all the intensity my weak-assed 62 year old body will allow. 

Tonight Alice plays something that makes me crank up the volume: "38 Special" if I'm not mistaken


Waitin', anticipatin' For the fireworks in the night 
Well, I swear we were doin' eighty 
When we saw those motel lights 
And we were rockin' into the night 
Rockin' into the night, ooh hoo, rockin' Rockin' into the night Rockin' into the night, yeah

I start to laugh, a deep belly laugh.  I feel good.  So good I almost cut my finger off against the  hard edge of a diamond grinding wheel.

Blood drops down into the well, swished away by flowing water. I'm still happy.

I just learned through Facebook that I have a nephew.   His name is Andrew. 

Some things matter.  Some things don't.