Answer #142 - I see a yacht in your future

I've seen two psychics in my life.

One by accident, because a friend introduced me to him in a bar. One on purpose because I was in college and all my friends said I should because she was amazing. In those days, I succombed to pressure much more easily. Which is not to say that some folks aren't actually psychic - and maybe 'psychic' ability is in fact part of the evolution of the human brain - I'm open to possibilities. And I've seen and heard some amazing stuff.. It's just that many folks who say they are maybe aren't.

Further, the succombing to pressure does explain why, in college, I learned to roll a quarter off my nose, bounce it off a table and into a glass of beer.

Anyway, the psychic in the bar asked if I'd been in some terrible auto accident.  He had a British accent, so was convincing. That's just the way it is with us Americans.  We succomb to the power of the British accent. It's true. If it's spoken with an authentic British accent, we believe it, and it really doesn't matter what's being said. That's why we believed
Tony Blair when he prattled on about the 'weapons of mass destruction' - and though I hold him personally responsible for every bad thing that's happened since*, I'm still not immune to it. The accent, I mean.

Anyway, when I said I hadn't been, he went on to tell me that I would.  The psychic. Be in a terrible auto accident, that is.

"Will I survive?"

"It would seem.  More or less."

He didn't elaborate, and couldn't be cajoled into revealing more information. And there's me, imagining the worst, as is my tendency.  Life in an iron lung, for example.

What an ass. Him, I mean.

With my penchant for drama, this of course led to years of me fearing the 'terrible auto accident' - and thus turned me into the world's worst back seat driver - what with seeing the spectre of death at every fork in the road... just hanging out there, on the side of the highways.. scythe in hand, black-hooded and looming, waving as I drove past... and then me kicking myself for being such a chump.  Damn it, like a hundred more IQ points and I'd never think on this crap...

The second one asked me if my brother was terminally ill.  When I answered, "I don't think so," she insisted that I insist that he see a doctor.  I remember broaching the subject with my brother, and I remember him laughing, and I remember me laughing nervously in response to his laughter, and I remember me remembering that she (the psychic) told me I should eat more yellow squash.

So, of course, to this day, every time I eat any kind of yellow squash, there she is, long black witchy hair and the sweet, viscous cigarette/incense mix lingering on the curtains and china red tablecloth.

It's conceivable - I still could be in a terrible auto accident.  Eventually, my brother, like all of us, will be terminally ill, and yes, we all should eat more yellow squash.  Just because.

But were they psychic?

And if so, then where's my yacht?  Because, damn it, she said I'd have one.


*No, I actually don't.

Answer #141 - You get it ginger ale and beg it to stay

The tinted photo of my parents hangs in my hallway.  Color saturations of bright blue in the eyes and pink on the lips. Taken when color photography was everywhere, but painted black and white portraiture was stylish.

You can't know what will grab your attention until the the thing is swirling in the air, just out of reach.  So you stop what you're doing and write it down.

Or do you wrestle it to the ground?

Honey down a string

Sun on wheat against the Autumn hillside
just about a mile wide- about a mile a way
are tinted lips and a pale blue shadow
in a little photo
in a silver frame -
Lovers speak the untrue and promise someone I do
that someone never was you

Ginger ale left out on a walkway
probably been there all day- warm as morning tea
smooth and sweet like honey down a string, oh
that's all that I can think of
thick and sweet must be -
Lovers speak the untrue and someone hopes it will do
that someone never was you

In the muddy mile, in the rutted bend
maybe sit a while til the scarlet sky is blue again
and stars come out

Don't  you go carrying on so carelessly
when you are so close to me- when you are so near
cause someone somewhere's singing Autumn Leaves, oh
outside someone's window
darling, can you hear?
Lovers speak the untrue and someone hopes it will do
that someone never was you

glassy-eyed in the scarlet light
just like the photograph- not a trace of pride
Wishing on star

Someone's singing Autumn Leaves, oh
outside a window
darling, when they fall
smooth and sweet like honey down a string, oh
that's all that I can think of
when I miss you most of all - k. detor

Answer #140 - Robert Service told me to do it.

Wine Bibber

I would rather drink than eat,
         And though I superbly sup,
Food, I feel, can never beat
         Delectation of the cup.
Wine it is that crowns the feast;
         Fish and fowl and fancy meat
Are of my delight the least:
         I would rather drink than eat.

Though no Puritan I be,
         And have doubts of Kingdom Come,
With those fellows I agree
         Who deplore the Demon Rum.
Gin and brandy I decline,
         And I shy at whisky neat;
But give me rare vintage wine,--
         Gad! I'd rather drink than eat.

Food surfeit is of the beast;
         Wine is from the gods a gift.
All from prostitute to priest
         Can attest to its uplift.
Green and garnet glows the vine;
         Grapes grow plump in happy heat;
Gold and ruby winks the wine . . .
         Come! Let's rather drink than eat. - Robert Service

What can I say?
As Adventure Boy heads off to an overnight with his buddies

(I like to call it Guns & Beer), involving horseshoes, blow darts, knife throwing, and much libation - well, it's just a Robert Service weekend.  Cheers!

Answer #139 - It's called the Art of Deception

The Madonna


I hiled me a woman from the street
Shameless, but oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat
And I painted her sitting there.

I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.

She laughed at my picture and went away
Then came with a knowing nod,
A connoisseur, and I heard him say,
"Tis Mary, the Mother of God."

So I painted a halo round her hair,
And I sold her and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of Saint Hilaire,
Where you and all may see. - Robert Service

Isn't it funny, how easily a lie can be perpetrated - and stands, with the blessing of history, for all time?

There's a painting on my kitchen wall, mixed in with all of the religious artifacts I've collected (my homage to Roman Catholicism in all it's splendiferousness). It's of a young boy, near the turn of last century. When people ask, I've taken lately to referring to it as my 'grandfather.' Though I bought it in a Goodwill in Florida years ago for $3 bucks, I believe that, over time, the painting will be passed down, generation to generation, as an ancestor.

It doesn't matter that I'm no relation to the tyke. It's a representation, is all. A tangible chunk of history on a wall. Maybe not mine - but someone else was willing to give it up - so I take it now, and make it my own.

It's an experiment. Don't tell anyone.


Besides, he looks happy on my kitchen wall. Almost as happy as the
Mexican marionettes in the living room.

Answers #137 & 138 - Dig a well, Fry a Zombie

Question #137:

Should I dig a well?

I keep mentioning this to Adventure Boy. The well-digging proposal, I mean. It just makes sense to me, in light of the rapidly changing world.. er.. situation.

My contention is that water is becoming a premium and will continue to be as such, since greed and avarice seem to be human traits that override many of the worthier traits, and well, won't be leaving the monkey brain anytime soon. So - while everybody else is walking around throwing handfuls of monkey poo, in the form of right-veering or left-veering poo, screaming about the Constitutionality of greed and avarice as basic American (I mean Corporate Personhood) Rights! and as the last tree is turned into a surfboard for some boy billionaire, I'll have a well. And a shotgun.

My contention, further, is that when all of the poison that the Corporate Personhooders have dumped into the ground (of course well within their legal and constitutional rights) finally hits critical mass and leaches into all of the ground water and food supply, it's entirely possible that some folks will become zombies.


Which leads me to my next Question #138:

Should I build an electric fence?

Zombies are notoriously slow-witted and singularly-focused. I've considered this.  They're always walking into electric fences and frying themselves in big bursts of light and AAARRRUUUUUGGGHHHHHHs.

On the other hand, there's the guy who's developed the first synthetic dna strand (dubbed 'Synthia.It's true). He could turn his attention to the zombie problem, and basically just develop gigantic vats of synthetic brains, which could then be distributed to the zombies by whatever Nat'l Guardspeople aren't fighting for those last few precious drops of oil that aren't in the Gulf of Mexico at the time, and thus keeping the zombies satiated and the non-zombies less frazzled.

However, should the synthetic brain vats be too long in coming, the electric fence would come in handy. And better yet, I have my neighbors.  They all have shotguns and axes. I live at the top of the hill, and all along the way down it are the first, second and third lines of defense. These are people who've lived on the land and in the country for generations. Zombies will not make it past the stop sign a mile below.

I also have a gun. I know, for those of you who aren't Corporate Personhooders, this is appalling. But, well, I live in the country and I have a .22. Yes, I could kill a squirrel (not that I would, unless of course his furry little tail would make a fetching bracelet!), and if I hit it just exactly right, I could maybe slow down a zombie.  Mostly, I just kill cans.

And not very easily.  Cans are wily.  Especially if you have crap aim and undiagnosed issues.

But, well, guns and issues aside, I think you can see that the answers are clear.

So, if you need a cool drink down the road a ways, and you can prove you're not a zombie, give me a call.  
I'll power down the fence.

Answer #136 - you buy a puppy

What do you do when the past comes back to haunt you?


I mean,

What do you do when the past comes back to haunt you?


Let's just say you're given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you choke.

Choke hard.  Because you've been driving for 15 hours, flying for 6, haven't had any sleep and look around and everybody else on the starting line is 16.  Or maybe 20.  But not older than 20.  And suddenly, you know, you've choked and you're drowning your sorrows in rot gut back stage, and calling Upper Slobovia to at least hear the Slobovians sing your praises... Even  though you don't speak Slobovian, they claim to love you...

cough. sputter. ack.

Do you acknowledge the choke.. do you cry yourself to sleep... do you pretend it didn't happen... do you set it aside, somewhere out of the 'once in a lifetime' category, and instead minimalize it and tell yourself that everybody chokes once in a while - except, you know, Olympic athletes and people who are destined never to choke - and that there are more important things in life than success? 

Well, damn it, there are.  Lots of things. 

 Like puppies and moonbeams.  Like rainbows and wishes on stars. 

Like warm guns and the heady smell of revenge.. er...
 

No, I mean, like sunrises and the heady smell of Vic's vapor rub from your hiding place in the bushes.

NO.  I mean, like puppies and moonbeams... like...

ah...

You suck it up.  You plod on.  You avoid mirrors for a while.  Then you buy a puppy.

Answer #135 - Not much.

My aunt had a small, lake cabin. I spent a few summers there. There was a swimming platform just past the dock. A conversation, years later, when the big houses filled the shoreline.

Call my mother, tell her I will be late. Give whatever is still warm on my plate to the dog or the orphans - I won't be home until morning.

Walk with me, he said, out to the water and we'll dangle our feet off the dock and the fish will come by. Just this time, let's swim out to the platform and we'll lay on our backs and we'll stare at the sky.

We marched to the tree line and found the old path - painted with berries on our face and our hands - and sat on the branches, building bridges for ants.

We declared war on an enemy state- across the lake where the houses were bigger and the children jumped from high rope swings, and mothers looked on, happily, and served them lemonade on sailboats of their own.

Sometimes after that, you and I didn't even go home.

Walk with me, he said, out to the water and we'll dangle our feet off the dock and the years'll blow by - one more time, let's swim out to the platform and we'll lay on our backs and we'll stare at the wild black sky -

- and we'll never ask why the stars blink out all at once - and why the sun goes down like it does - and why we did what we did, growing up like we did, and why we fell for the ones that we did.

Because here in the real world of blood and charades, where right moral men deal in slavery trades - what little I knew of the good and the bad is a lie, and most days, it was all that I had.

Now my dinner is always cold. And now I always do what I'm told.

But I would, if I could, I'd march to the tree line and find the old path and I'd paint with berries with my face and my hands - and set fire to the shadows that block out the view of the glassy black water and that's what I'd do.

He said, that's what I'd do.

The line between here and there.. would you have changed any of it?