Buster Keaton

I’m building a deck for my cabin and yesterday I was sitting inside with the French doors open admiring what I’ve built so far. I have a frame and a couple of ten-foot boards laid across the frame. I need to buy more boards to finish the job. I placed the two boards I have in the middle of the deck and imagined how it would look when I finished.

I decided to walk across the deck to get perspective. The boards weren’t nailed in, but I had wedged them so they wouldn't move when I walked across them. I stepped down on a board and I felt it sink beneath my foot. I guess I didn’t wedge it the way I thought I did. The far end of the board started to lift up and to save myself from total disaster I fell butt first backwards into my cabin. The board went vertical and crashed to the ground. I started to laugh. It was a Buster Keaton moment.

              I’m glad I didn’t hurt myself. It would've been days before someone realized I was missing. 

Misophonia

I’ve diagnosed myself as having misophonia, which is a hypersensitivity to some sounds. I’m particularly sensitive to the sound of dogs barking. It’s okay if they bark once or twice, or occasionally. I only react to excessive, continual, barking. I use to think I was just an asshole with no patience for common things. I was relieved when I stumbled upon the condition of misophonia. I suppose there’s still some asshole in me, and try as I might, I can’t blame everything on my condition, although it does explain my irrational thinking, my emotional outburst, my pent up anger, and my desire to run away from repetitive sounds.

            I’m wondering if there’s a condition for the hypersensitivity to questions? That’s another thing I have trouble with. I can only answer a limited amount of questions before I find myself in an agitated state. It could be acute asshole syndrome, or AAS, I’m not sure, I’m just asking. 

Koi Fish and Hummingbirds

I’m being followed by a hummingbird. The minute I leave my cabin, the hummingbird flies up next to me. I can hear his wings as he approaches. His wings sound like "the force" from Star Wars.

I told my friend Sammy about the hummingbird. He looked at me unimpressed.

“Do you know Moxie?" he asked.

“Yeah, I know Moxie.”

"I was walking with Moxie once and two hummingbirds flew from opposite ends, one from the right and one from the left, and stopped mid-flight right in front of him, at eye level, and kissed beak to beak. It was amazing!"

“That is amazing. I didn’t know hummingbirds kissed,” I said.

                “A week or so after that," Sammy continued, "Moxie and I went to a fancy restaurant in Silverlake. There was a Koi fish pond. We were walking by the pond when one of the Koi fish saw Moxie and jumped out of the water to get at him. The fish fell in love with him right then and there. Moxie played it off. It’s my salmon colored shirt, he said, he thinks I’m a fish.” 

Blogs and Poems

            I worry about the poem with the advent of the blog. More specifically, I worry about my poems for I haven’t written any in some time.

            The ideas I’ve used in the past for poems are now blogs. Sometimes I think the poem is dead, although I know in my heart the poem will never die. Some of my favorite poems are over a thousand years old. I love the simplicity of the Chinese poets. Simplicity is a knife to Filet Mignon. A knife cuts through the fancy title and reveals flesh as flesh. Of course every poet is different and every poem is unique, generally speaking. I suppose if you break it down, if you simplify it, what separates the poem from the blog in this instance is the formatting.   

The Art of Listening

I’ve noticed something about myself. I’ve become acutely adept at giving the illusion that I’m listening when I’m not listening at all. I’ll look somebody straight in the eyes, and focus real hard, and not hear a word that they’re saying.
                A week or two will pass and someone will mention a conversation we had and I’ll have no idea what they’re talking about. To my surprise, they’ll reveal to me that I agreed to attend a recital or a dinner party, and with some trepidation I’ll have to capitulate to their demands. I want to listen, but sometimes being the listener is more difficult than it seems.

                I’m attending a cello recital tomorrow. Don’t ask me, I wasn’t listening. 

Pajamas, Tops and Bottoms

I’m thinking about inventing pajama bottoms to look like dress pants; that way I won’t have to change in the morning if I need to go outside.

Having to change from pajamas to pants is an unfortunate sequence of events in my estimation. I ask myself, is going outside absolutely necessary? If the answer is yes, I begrudgingly change out of my pajamas and into my pants.

If my pajamas looked more like pants I wouldn’t have to sacrifice comfort for social standing; it would be all-inclusive.

               While I’m at it, I might as well invent pajamas tops to look like dress shirts. Or if I really want to knock the socks off my neighbors, I could invent a pajama top to look like a tuxedo shirt and bow tie.  

The Girl Next Door

I saw the heavyset woman that I thought Harvard Tom liked. She was pushing a Bundle Buggy up the hill. She had on a pair of headphones, and on closer inspection there was a small dog in the Bundle Buggy. The buggy was lined with pillows and blankets. The dog looked nervous, as if he thought he was being marched off to his own death. I’m not sure why she wasn’t just walking the dog. Maybe he has a condition of some sort.

If I had to guess, I’d guess that Tom’s girl is a little off in the ticker. She looked like she was on medication. There was a slow stoic quality to her movement. Hypnotic is another word for it.

I’d like to talk to her some day, but she seems like an introvert. Headphones and introspection, the Bundle Buggy, and the girl next door.