I remember a conversation I had with Imaginary Keith one day.  He couldn’t have been a day over thirty at the time, thirty one tops, and we were discussing the differences between men and women.  It wasn’t one of our higher education moments, but more of a “would you rather” moment.  Neither one of us knew what we were talking about, and in the end, that conversation always boiled down to the same, one question.

“So, Imaginary Keith, would you rather be a woman or a man?”

“Oh come on, that’s a no-brainer.  Give me something hard.”

Something harder then deciding whether to be a woman or a man, I thought.  What could be harder then that?  It seemed like the ultimate impossible choice.

“Okay then.  Would you rather be a woman or a two-inch tall man?” Our conversations always went the same, the only difference really being in who did the asking and who did the answering.  Truth is, I always preferred being the asker.  Answers are hard; questions are easy.

And as long as we’re worrying about the truth, I might as well admit that I can’t actually remember what Imaginary Keith’s answer was that day.  As a matter of fact, I can’t even remember if he ever did answer.  I remember the two of us, sitting somewhere in the sun, sweating but too lazy to move.  I remember both of us starting to smirk, then smile, and finally laughing out loud.

A two-inch tall man.  Can you imagine such a thing?  I think it’s perfect.

Friday night there was a message on the answering machine.  No hello, no goodbye, just one long continuous sentence.  One big breath of words.

“Is a woman lying in front of a motorcycle good photography or just more bullshit, or is it about the lines and curves of the bike or the lines and curves of the woman, or is it just all about our taste for opposites, like we’re supposed to believe the idea that the motorcycle is raw power, waiting for release, and the woman is just softness and innocence and vulnerability?  Are we supposed to believe that?  Has one single goddamned photographer ever even met a woman?  What the . . . “

And that was it.  No second call.  No second message.  The Caller ID said Unknown, although I knew perfectly well who it was.  I just didn’t know where.

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I’ve started making a list of all the questions that Imaginary Keith never answered.  I’m thinking that there has to be some logical reason that my friend has disappeared.  Hidden amongst the thousands of unanswered questions must be something tangible that would explain everything, so this morning, bright and early, I started making my list.  It’s called, Questions Friends Never Answer.  It’s a working title, so cut me some slack.  At first, I’d written down Where The Fuck Are You?, but knew right away it was too emotional.  I’d never get anywhere like that.  Like I’ve always said, never start a day with an emotional, hysterical rant.  It’s not really a philosophy, just common sense.  Like avoiding warm mayonaise. 

I had to have a different approach.  If I was going to be able to think of everything, come up with all of the right questions, and track down Imaginary Keith, I was going to have to turn over a few stones.  If Imaginary Keith was hiding under a rock, and I was going to find him, I would need something new.  I would have to think differently.  I would need to get outside of myself.  Somehow, I would have to go places mentally that I’d never been before.  I would need to find some uncharted territory.

And then it hit me.  What would a two-inch tall man do?  How would he get to the bottom of this? That’s when I scratched out that first burst of emotion and wrote the new working title.  Let’s face it, a two-inch tall man would need to know what his friends were thinking.  A two-inch tall man would need some help.  He would ask a lot of questions and would know how to not beat around the bush.  If you were a two-inch tall man, I imagine you would need some answers. 

The other night I stumbled into a combination donut shop / coin shop sort of place, and was handed four, foil wrapped silver dollar proofs as part of my change.  I couldn’t believe it, and just stood there, staring at the coins.  What were the odds of this happening, I thought.  And what would happen if . . .

I ordered more donuts and handed the girl another twenty dollar bill.

“You don’t have to buy donuts, you know,” she said.  “I can just sell you silver dollar proofs at face value.  Actually, I can do better then that.  I can give them to you at 80%.  We’re mint brokers.”

It’s too bad that I’m such a procrastinator, because procrastinators are the kind of people who will never understand their dreams.  We’re just too lazy.  We wake up and tell ourselves, every single time, that we’ll remember the whole thing later on.  And everyone knows it doesn’t work that way with dreams.  Even procrastinators.  But we keep doing it, and we keep forgetting.

So I’ll never really be able to explain just what it is my subconscious thinks a mint broker is.  My best wide awake, two day’s late guess would be that they’re something like a Wal-Mart, except with coins, and not all that other junk.

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I wish I was one of those people who could pop out of bed and immediately write everything down.  If I was one of those people, I might be able to tell you about the mint brokers.  I could probably tell you a lot about alien fighting and looking through plate glass windows.  I could explain in detail how a person might will himself to fly without moving a muscle, just like I could speak volumes about the politics behind the battle of good versus evil.

There are a lot of things I could do if I weren’t such a procrastinator.  Knowing more about my dreams would be just one of them.

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I’ve started to feel the mild aftershocks of having lived the last two years with my “fuck off” attitude.  Maybe that’s putting it a bit harse.  Maybe it’s only been a “what the hell” attitude.  Whatever it’s been, I’ve begun to feel the slight tremors as I encounter people who’ve existed on it’s fringes.  I knew that they would appear one day, but I hadn’t given it much thought.  Blame it on the attitude, or just call it wishful thinking.  Either way.

I bump into a woman who lives next door to a customer who received less then satisfactory service to a waterfall problem, almost two years ago today.  Nothing is said, and I get the feeling that she knows nothing of my past working discretion, and yet, I walk away with a strange feeling.  She might not know, but I do. 

Then, the very next morning, another old customer, this time a satisfied one who had passed our company’s name onto her son.  But, of course, the timing couldn’t have been worse, and her son’s job fell through the cracks.  Nothing was done.  Nothing happened.  As far as he knew, one day he was talking to me, listening as I suggested improvements for his front entry and landscaping, and the next I had simply disappeared.  But, of course, I hadn’t disappeared, because there I was, sitting in plain sight at a restaurant two years later.  This time I know that she knows, and I wonder what my face looks like, as we exchange pleasantries, avoiding all mention of my disappearance.  Does my negligence show?  Do the newest lines around my eyes scream guilt or pain or forgiveness?  Is my smile genuine, or do I hedge my bet, holding back, feeling for some firm ground?

I sometimes think that the world would be a better place if we all had the opportunity to watch ourselves.  We hear our own thoughts, but we never have a chance to see us as others see us.  We like to think that we cut a swath through the world, but maybe we’re just another obstacle in everyone else’s way.  It’s no wonder that self awareness takes us by such surprise.  That when it happens, it feels as stiff and unfamiliar as a pair of new shoes.

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An organized dreamer could give you a detailed, blow by blow account of the action and drama of my Mexican artifact, murder mystery, train ride thriller.  It seems a large gang of ruthless villains were going around Mexico, killing all of the railroad employees so that they could take over the trains, which in the dream, would give them a free and easy way to transport millions of dollars worth of artifacts out of the country.

But, like I’ve said, I’m no organized dreamer.  The procrastinator is never organized.  Organization, by definition, precludes the very idea of putting off anything.  An organized dreamer, for example, might be able to tell you just what kind of artifacts one would find aboard a hijacked, Mexican steam engine.  But because of my laziness, I am forced to rely upon imagination.

For arguments sake, let’s just pretend that there is a network of railways going all around Mexico, all steam driven, and that they are being systematically taken over by a gang of killers who are stealing trainloads of artifacts.  And for arguments sake, we’ll also pretend that everything is being shipped to a black market in the United States, because as we all know, everything in America has a price tag.  (This may very well border on what is known as lucid dreaming.  But I’m not quite sure, being a procrastinator and all.)

I wish I could tell you exactly what happened, but it’s so hard to remember a dream from two or three nights ago.  But I do remember a few of the highlights.  I remember being forced to make a decision - do I stay in Mexico and fight the battle against the murderous thieves, possibly saving the lives of hundreds of unknown railroad employees, or do I get on the train with my son, all of the other passengers, and a waitress named Marla who I worked with fifteen years ago (I have no idea where she came from), protect all of them, and fight only a small part of the larger problem? 

I can tell you with complete certainty that I did get on that train.  I also remember that no harm came to my son or Marla the waitress (I think I may have gotten a kiss).  I know that there were plenty of tense moments aboard the train, and that I had to do some unmentionable things.  Things that I didn’t want my son to see.  I know that one employee was thrown to his death from a boxcar, tossed before I could get close enough to help, and I remember listening for the sound of him, expecting a dull thud as he hit the ground.  But the train was moving too fast, and the man simply disappeared.

It took a long time for the sound of the steam engine to fade from my ears.  Even after I woke up, I could still feel the train lurching beneath my feet, and the hot, dry desert air on the back of my neck as I leaned out against the wind, looking for the man who was gone without a sound.

The good news is that the depression doesn’t go on for months anymore.  Not even a week.  One, two days tops, and then . . . POP . . . I’m back in business.  I think my plan may be working.

The plan was simple.  I would stop doing things and my head would slowly clear.  I would stop thinking so much and I would barely write.  And I would sleep like a winter bear.  Instead of going to bed around 1:00 in the morning, only to get up and wander around an hour or two later, I would scratch my belly, roll over and go back to sleep.  I would resist the urge to forage for food and thoughts.  I would hibernate.

Why is it that humans never took up hibernation?  I really think that we missed the evolutionary boat on that one.  Hibernation has been everything I imagined.  I am refreshed and ready for action.  I’m working again - two bids in two days.  This actually isn’t much work at all, but compared to what I’ve been able to accomplish during the last two years, it’s worthy of mention.  I might even think about giving myself a pat on the back if I could reach it.

What’s happened to me?  My two year mental hibernation has resulted in a much rounder body then I remember.  Something needs to be done.  My guess is that the mind knew that the hibernation was looming in my future, and subconsciously I began to prepare.  The problem, I see now, is that my subconscious must have thought that I’d be taking a much longer hibernation. 

Anyway, like I said . . . POP . . . it’s time for action.  If depression can fall away like old, loose clothing, let’s hope that pounds can do the same.  I will walk around the park today.  I will exercise.  I will break into a run.  A short one, perhaps.  I can’t depend on the squirrels to know CPR.  It might look like they are giving my heart the necessary compressions to keep me alive, but really they’d just be looking for peanuts.

Did I ever mention that my parents took me to the park one day when I was a baby, just old enough to sit up on my own, and that when they walked a short distance away and weren’t looking, a weasel snuck up to the picnic blanket and began running around on me?  Although I can’t remember it myself, it somehow seems important.

Other then needing some exercise, I’m not quite sure what is going on.  I realized yesterday that I didn’t think about terrorism enough.  I need to do some serious terrorism contemplation so that I can properly fear it.  What am I going to do when it sneaks up on me and begins running around on me like a weasel?  Life sure is funny.  No matter how many generations of information we are capable of gathering, we just never seem to see anything coming.

Like Cat Stevens, or Yusuf Islam, or Stephen Georgiou, or whatever it is you want to call him.  I bet he never thought he’d get kicked out of the country as a suspected terrorist.  You have to wonder just what you have to do to get put on a watch list, so that when your name pops up, they divert your plane and send you places you weren’t expecting. 

I’m thinking that I wouldn’t mind being on a watch list.  I mean, think about the advantages.  If I get on a plane, say heading for Washington D.C., Homeland Security will see to it that I go to both Maine and Britain.  It’s a win-win situation - I’ve never been to either one.  It’s like winning a surprise vacation, and believe me, that just doesn’t happen every day.

I suppose the closest I’ve ever come to being an actual terrorist was when I was five and disappeared in the middle of Minneapolis for five or six hours.  Where was I?  Where would I turn up?  Would I turn up?  What could I possibly be doing?  The sheer mystery of me struck fear into the hearts and minds of my frantic parents.  They were overwhelmed by their fear.  They searched everywhere.  I believe our house may have even went to code red, although that may have just been something my sister colored and taped to the refrigerator.  It’s been a long time.

But eventually I turned up on the grid, and the authorities swept down on me and my playmates as we sat on the railroad tracks, minding our own business.  They say that when they found us, we all had old cigarette butts sticking out of our lips as we played a game of Hobo.  We had sticks over our shoulders with bandanas tied onto them, lugging around our earthly possessions, which I believe at that moment amounted to a pack of gum and whatever junk we’d picked up along the railroad tracks.

The funny thing is, I never did take up smoking.  And I never took up terrorism either.  But I still play Hobo once in awhile, just for fun, although these days I can’t seem to find a bandana big enough to hold all of this junk I’ve picked up.

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Someone recently commented that they were searching for the common thread that ran through everything I wrote.  Well, at least the thread that ran through that particular entry.  What was it that I was trying to say?  Where was the connection?

I’ve been thinking about that lately.  It’s a good question.  And although I can’t claim to know the answer, I do know that there must be a string inside of me and my writing somewhere.  Something that runs through everything.  Something that you could give a tug and unravel the whole thing, if you could only find it.

Today’s thread?  Who knows.  But with Cat Stevens and terror and little boys playing Hobo along the railroad tracks, I can only think of one thing.

Peace Train, by Cat Stevens, of course.

The problem with posting only once a week or so is that too much builds up.  By the time I sit down to write, there’s just too much.  There’s just no logical starting point.

I could write about yesterday morning’s breakfast, where I was handed the newspaper’s annual Best Of entry form, and asked by the waitress if I’d like to vote.  The categories ranged from Best Asian Restaurant to Best BBQ Restaurant.  Best Dessert.  Best “Undiscovered” Restaurant.  How about Best Place To Impress A Date?  I called over the waitress and asked for some help.  I haven’t been on a date in more then a decade, how was I supposed to answer such a thing?  I was still under the impression that impressing a date was somehow up to the individual.  I looked over the entry form for Closest Restaurant, but there wasn’t one.  Too bad.  The city could learn where all of its urban hermits are living just by adding this one category alone.  Everyone knows that a recluse will only venture as far as the closest restaurant.

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And I suppose I could write about the woman with the sparkly green eyes and hair wisping around her temples, who I happened to meet when I ventured out for a bit of work.  I think it may have been the first actual bid I’ve done in a month, it’s hard to say.  Work has been slow.  I’ve made sure of that.  She and I walked around in the mud and light rain for more then an hour, talking about my work and hers.  I had the feeling that both of us were lingering.  I know I was.  It’s always hard to walk away from friendly eyes.  But without an outright question, there would be no way to know for sure what was on her mind.  In the end, the interests of business were more powerful then the interests of curiosity.  I gathered my necessary information, transformed her entire landscape in my mind so that I could filter out the costs later in the office, then settled for a smile, a handshake, and the drive home.

And, of course, I could write about the daily events of impending divorce.  I suppose that could be therapeutic at some level.  But I’m still recovering from the sticker shock of refinancing the house to know exactly what to say.  The original plan, an excellent one that was set in motion about four years ago, involving high house payments, a committed couple, and the promise of a fast payoff, has been scrapped.  What was only 11 more years of payments has suddenly turned into 30 years of payments.  I tried cramming the idea of a $600,000 debt into my head, but the extra zeros kept sticking out my right ear and didn’t look right.  But I suppose I’ll get used to the fact.  It’s like torture.  It’s all about endurance and effectively blacking out.  But if I am to reclaim the house and the farm, move back into my home-based business, and have the peace and quiet of country life once again, I could come up with no other way.  The alternative, and one that I thought very seriously about, was to walk away from all of the material trappings.  All of it.

But for the time being, I’ll give huge debt a try.  As I signed the loan application papers, I told the woman, “I’ll be 73 when I write my last check.  Can you imagine that?  Just think how proud and shaky my hand will be.” I signed and joked.  Humor, as we all know, is an excellent way to hide that something is irritating the living hell out of you.

“Hey, did you hear the one about the wife who caused so much trouble that it cost the husband roughly $400,000?”

“Is this a joke?”

“I sure hope so.  I was saving that money, you know.  I wanted to buy a really fancy wheelchair when I was old and hire a beautiful private nurse.”

“Is that a joke?”

“It is now.”

Okay, I didn’t really have that conversation with my loan broker.  No need to scare her before she’s done manipulating the paperwork.  She works the magic, and I sign the papers.  That’s all I really need to know.  Anymore then that and it just becomes another damn thing to worry about.

Or how about the fight I saw at the roller skating rink.  That was certainly an odd enough event to make excellent catch-up material.  Apparently two 20-something women decided, during a children’s birthday party at the Sunday skating session, that things needed shaking up.  By the time I looked over, they were busy punching and grabbing and rolling around on the floor, while a couple of guys tried to drag them apart.  And then, once separated, they continued to lunge and menace.  It was all very Springer-esque.

I’ve always had a penchant for observing, so naturally my skates guided me closer.  The crying woman gathered her things and left with her family and friends, but the other woman, still resembling an enraged ox, was having a hard time holding still and keeping quiet, and kept telling the children of the birthday party “I coulda fucked her up.” Well, she wasn’t actually telling the children, but just bouncing around saying it to anyone who would listen.  But I’m pretty sure if you’re a nine or ten year old kid, trying to eat cake and drink pop, that the words go straight into your head.

I did notice a couple of interesting things that may have contributed to the fight.  Let’s see what you think.  First off, the song playing at the time was Let’s Get Ready to Rumble.  I wouldn’t have known this if it hadn’t been for my son.  He liked the song enough that he forced me to ask the DJ, who popped a headset over my son’s ears to verify if, in fact, that was the song he was curious about.  It was all too exciting for the boy.  Between the fast skating, the idea of fancy new, inline skates, watching the teenage boys who worked there doing tricks and fending off young teen girls, and now this exposure to the inner world of the roller rink sound system, he was overwhelmed.

“This is where I’m going to work when I get older,” he stated.  “I’ll start when I’m 14.” And this was without any knowledge of the earlier fight.  I didn’t dare tell him or he’d want to punch in right then and there.  The time clock, that is, not the angry ox-like woman.  I outweighed her myself by 50 pounds, and even I wouldn’t have dared take a poke at her.

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But I suppose I’ll just end up writing about Imaginary Keith.  I’m not even sure where he is right now, but I did get a phone call this morning.  It was 4:00 a.m.

“I’ve been thinking about tryptophan,” the voice on the other end of the phone said.  No one calls that early unless it’s an emergency, and I’d answered without thinking. 

“What?”

“I’ve been thinking about tryptophan.” It wasn’t until the voice repeated itself that I recognized who it was - Imaginary Keith, of course.  Who else would be sitting around thinking of amino acids at four in the morning and find the need to tell someone about it?

“Are you aware of what time it is?”

“Sure, it’s six.  Time to get up.”

“No, it’s not.  It’s four in the morning, and it’s not time to get up.  Not even close.”

“No, it’s six.  You’re mistaken about the time.  You know I don’t believe in time zones, and since I was born in the Central Time Zone, I will always function in the Central Time Zone, no matter where I am.  Once you’re born, your body is just programmed and there is no changing it.  There’s no getting around it.  You know that.”

“You don’t believe in time zones?”

“Of course not,” Imaginary Keith said.  “You wouldn’t either if you’d think the thing through.”

“Well, if you don’t believe in them, how can you defend your beliefs with them?  That doesn’t make any sense.  You’re not making sense.  And why are you calling me so early?”

“You really were still asleep, weren’t you?”

“Yes.  I was asleep and I believe in time zones.  For me it is four in the morning.”

“Yea, yea, yea, and you’re also eight and think you have all the time in the world.  Well, you don’t.  How can I explain this to you so you’ll understand?  Hmmm.  Do you know what a lowest common denominator is?”

“I don’t have that much sleep in my eyes.  Yes, of course I do.  You know that.”

“Well, time zones are just lowest common denominators for people’s imaginations.  We use them to trick ourselves.”

“How can time zones be a trick?”

“Do you remember the first thing you said to me when I called?”

“No.”

“You asked me if I knew what time it was.  You were worried about the time.  You, me, everyone.  Everyone worries about time, and that’s the problem.  You see, once people came up with the idea of time and strapped watches around everything, they were in trouble.  Once we decided that time was important, suddenly nothing made sense.  Time zones are all about the sun.  The sun has to come up in the morning.  It can’t be any other way or people get all bent out of shape.  Well, most of them, anyway.  So, in order to make sure the sun marched to the beat of our newly invented watches, people invented time zones.  Now the sun miraculously rises for everyone each morning just around the same time.  It’s all so neat and tidy that it just about makes me vomit.  To understand time . . . no, wait, let me rephrase that.  To convince our underused, under-imaginative brains that we were the most important element of the universe, we invented time zones.  If you want everyone to feel comfortable, you need a lowest common denominator, so in this case, you get time zones.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me?”

“Of course I’m not kidding you.  I never joke around about the important stuff.  I wouldn’t call just to tell a joke.  What’s the point in that?”

“So what is your point?  I wouldn’t mind going back to sleep, you know.”

“I’ve had an idea that the secret lies with tryptophan.  It’s the stuff in turkey that’s supposed to make you sleepy.  You’ve heard of that, haven’t you?”

“Yes.  And what secret are you talking about?”

“The secret of everything.  The secret of happiness.  The secret of success.  The secret of a good night’s sleep.  I don’t know yet, but I’m pretty sure I’ve stumbled onto the secret of something.  Something big.”

“So eating turkey is going to be the one universal secret of the universe?  Is that what you’re about to discover?”

“Listen, I’m going to hang up and call back later after you’ve had a chance to wake up.  Go drink some coffee or eat some cereal or whatever it is you need to do.  But wake up so you can listen.  I’m going to tell you all about the secret of tryptophan and the mysterious power it has to control us.”

“That sounds, ahh, interesting.  Okay, call me back.  Besides, I have some things to tell you.  In case you’ve forgotten, while you’re off prancing around the world solving the secrets of the universe, I’ve been here fending off the wolves.  I’ve signed a few papers with your name, you know.  You’d be surprised what a small boy can get away with in the financial world.”

“Nothing surprises me, K.  Nothing.”

Dear Imaginary Keith,

It is hard to believe that you’ve been gone for as long as you have now.  How long has it been?  Two weeks?  Certainly more then one, I know that much.  But you know me, I’ve always been bad with time.  I guess in some ways we are very much alike.

So, my friend, how are your travels treating you?  Or should I ask how you are treating them?  I suppose it could go either way.  It isn’t quite the same around here without you, and I can’t wait for you to get back.  I’m anxious to hear of your adventures.  They say that the world is a big and wonderful place, filled with many wonders, and I like to think that you are out there, finding them all.  Of course, you could just as easily be stuck somewhere along the edge of town, camping under a bridge with a small band of hobos.  Until I hear from you, I really have no way of knowing.

I bet you thought that everything would just stay the same while you were gone.  Think again.  You may be the world’s greatest lounge-about thinker, but I am not.  I am a small boy of action.  I make lists.  I plan and I attack.  In the world of eight year olds, I am a real kick ass and take names later kind of boy.  Metaphorically speaking, of course.  But I am kicking the hell out of my lists these days.

Now that you’re gone on your trip, I sat down and made a list of the things that you should have done more then a year ago.  You know what I’m talking about, so don’t play stupid.  I don’t care if you’re lying face down in a heap of stinking, drunk hobos, trying to decide whose urine stained pants smell most like last night’s Mad Dog, you’d still know what it is I’m talking about, wouldn’t you?  There’s no stink in the world strong enough to wash away everything you’ve been putting off doing.  So roll off the pile, if that’s in fact what you’re doing, and listen up.

Yesterday (which was Monday, September 14, 2004, in case you’ve completely lost track of time) I told her to come over so that we could discuss our options.  Now, I won’t go into great detail, because I know full well that you’d only begin to black out with the overload of information.  Your mind seems to float on clouds, Imaginary Keith, and I’m well aware that reality has a way of evaporating your protective, cushiony layer.  And since you are on vacation, a sabbatical of sorts, I will spare you the total harshness of reality.  But you should know that a few things have been set in motion.  Things that effect you.  Big things, actually.  Really big things.

But until I know for sure that this letter has reached you safely, I will hold back on any further details.  If you’re curious, write me.  If you have the time, inclination, or energy, pick up a phone.  I may write a mean to-do list, but not one of them seems to replace the sound of your voice.

I await your reply,

K

Dear K,

Rolling around with drunk hobos!  Honestly, just whose imagination is floating around on clouds this time?  For your information, I am clean and sober and hardly rolling around at all.  As a matter of fact, yesterday I watched more continuous television then I think I ever have in my whole life.  As a matter of fact, I may have watched more hours yesterday then I watched all of last year.  Did you know that you can solve any murder just by understanding chemistry?  I watched several back to back episodes of CSI, and now deeply regret the disdain I had for chemistry class back in college.  I could have been a great detective.  Those damn professors never said a word about that.  Not back then.  But I don’t blame them.  I don’t think even they knew how fascinating crime would become.  I don’t think anyone knew.

I’ve read your letter, several times in fact, and can only begin to guess what mischief you’re up to with my life.  What are you doing?  I think you better tell me, pronto, before things get too out of hand.  The last thing I want to do is return home, only to find that every single thing about me has changed.  Can you blame me?  It’s the single greatest fear of any imaginary friend.  It’s quite a paradox.  Imagination is all about change, and yet it is the one thing we fear the most.  Go figure.

Do you know what television is teaching me?  That life basically boils down to a constant battle of one thing trying to outmaneuver another thing.  The characters in the shows are always trying to outsmart or outjoke the other characters.  The shows themselves wrestle for position, and their scripts are constant attempts to recreate interesting ways for us to watch this nonstop maneuvering.  I wonder what things would have been like if television had always existed?  When Darwin decided that life was all about survival of the fittest, would we have watched it as a sitcom or a reality show?  And what about religion?  What about Jesus wandering around, tipping over carts and whipping up miracles?  Inspirational television?  Soap opera?  Game show, perhaps?  I suppose any of it could go any direction.  If you pardon the pun, when it comes to television, nothing is set in stone.  There are no television commandments.  Anything goes.  Just like life.

Today I think I’ll watch 12 Monkeys and several episodes of The District.  I’m sorry, but I can’t get enough of that police chief, wandering around the streets of Washington D.C., singlehandedly cleaning up crime.  The beauty of television, you see, is that time doesn’t exist.  Or if it does, it isn’t a factor.  I’ve watched quite a few episodes where all that chief does is walk around town, pointing his finger at drug dealers and gangsters and saying things like, “I see you,” and “I’ve got my eye on you.” And that’s just about all it takes, because obviously crime doesn’t like to be seen and will zoom off in a fancy car if you keep your eye on it long enough.

Say hi to my son for me.  I do hope he’s not giving you too much trouble.

Watching,

Imaginary Keith

I hope you haven’t forgotten about B. Kliban.

I am definitely at a crossroads.  I can sit in that intersection for hours on end, staring at the possibilities, hardly moving a muscle.  The sad part is, I hardly think of anything at all.  I mostly just stare.

There is a cafe that I like to go to in the mornings.  The food is good.  The coffee is good.  And if you go in around 7:30, the sun will catch the corner booth at just enough of an angle that you are warmed but not blinded.  But mostly I go because I miss being smiled at once in awhile.  The cafe becomes about human contact, and not about food and drink.  But maybe that’s all cafes have ever been about.  I don’t know.

But I do know that I miss the smiles.  I miss eye contact and the feeling of connection.  I miss the thought that someone may draw something out of me that I didn’t know was there.  I miss sharing things with people.  Living alone can do that to a person.  It has a way of driving a wedge between so many of the things that were once not given a second thought.  Things like two people smiling at one another.  Things like conversation and watching how someone else’s eyes move when they talk.

I have begun to tell people about these things.  Not about the things that I miss, but about the things that are good in them.  If someone has a smile that washes over a table like sunlight, I’ve come to think that they should hear about it.  Where, I ask myself, is the harm in a few honest words?

In a dream last night, one of her friends came by and asked me to walk with her.  I remember she put an arm around my waist at one point, stopping us, so that she could ask me a question.

“Does anything make you happy?” she asked.  I remember she dropped her arm and stood there, beside me, looking up into my face, waiting for an answer.

“No.  Nothing,” I finally said.  I am not trying to be dramatic.  I answer slowly, giving her question great thought.  The dream seems to go on forever, with her just standing there, waiting, and me just standing there, looking back at her, thinking.  It is a serious question and deserves a serious answer.

“No.  Nothing,” I repeat.  I can see the pain and concern in her face.  My answer is not what she was expecting, that much is clear.  Somehow, over the last couple of years, I have become a very serious man, faced with, it seems, only serious questions.  Her friend puts her arm back around my waist, and together we walk along in silence, thinking about what this can all mean.

If you’ve been wondering if I’m divorced yet, the answer is no.  That hasn’t changed.  But I do have a new favorite commercial.

The center of the universe spins around us faster then any of us could ever have imagined.  Without effort or sound, it moves in and out of our lives quicker then the human eye will ever be able to see.  Beyond, I am almost sure, anything that the human imagination will ever be able to entertain.  It circles us with such ferocity that we can feel it’s breeze, both on the hair of our arms and the tips of our intuitions.  At night, alone In the dark, we sometimes squeeze our eyes closed tight, holding them that way with our hand in order to catch a glimpse of it’s light bouncing off the backs of our minds, knowing even before we begin that the moment we take our hand away and open our eyes, it seems to be gone.

There, but gone. 

And in our excitement, or our fear, or our pain, or desire or love or hate or need or any of a thousand light-driven emotions, we come up with ways to explain and comfort.  We jump out of bed and write a poem.  Or maybe we pull up the covers around our necks and pray.  Some search for words that can explain what they’ve seen, others search for money.  We write books and paint pictures and sculpt and form and reshape anything and everything we can get our hands on.  We build buildings, then cities, then worlds, and then, when we can imagine no further, we tear everything down and begin again.  That is our understanding of power - the mistake of thinking that we are in pursuit of something that is running away.  I often think of it as our greatest weakness.  And if not our greatest, then certainly our most destructive.

But the universe is not running away from us.  As a matter of fact, the center of the universe is blowing up against us all of the time.  It runs into us so much that we begin to make the mistake of thinking that we are one in the same thing, or that we are somehow part of it.  Or worse yet, that the center of universe is like a tool, best used by us to realize our pursuits.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  The universe is not a tool, and it is certainly not running away from us.  As a matter of fact, the center of the universe has been blowing up against me so much lately that it is beginning to get on my nerves.

*     *     *     *     *    

In the park one day, the center of the universe slapped up against my leg, disguised as a rumpled sheet of notebook paper, trying to look as if it had been blowing around the park for weeks.  I only had to glance down to recognize the writing - that scratchy, fat-tipped pencil scrawl that I’d seen so many time before.  I knew what it was and couldn’t resist grabbing at it.  Is it the allure of complex things written in a simple way that makes us so curious?  Is it just an innate need to know?  The inability to step aside as life blows by?  I don’t know, but I grabbed the paper off of my leg and held it up to my face, trying to read the lines.  You see, this has happened to me before, and each time I’ve seen that paper it looks the same.  Like some sort of random, unorganized list, written for quicker eyes then my own.  If you don’t know any better, you’d just think it was a piece of old paper, blowing across the park, rather then the center of the universe.  But like I said, that particular piece of paper had stuck to me more then once and I knew what it was.  My eyes scanned the page, fast, hoping that this time they would grab onto something that made any sense. 

But just like the time before, and the time before that, the center of the universe knew what I was up to, and ripped through my fingers and was gone before I could finish reading even one sentence.  It spun around my feet in the wind, then blew across the park faster then my eyes could follow.  The universe, it seems, moves much the same way that it is read - random and fast and one step beyond sight.  After it was gone that day, I kept walking, my back to the wind, hoping that the paper would blow my way again.  I turned, more then once I’ll admit, thinking that it’d be there, fluttering against the ground by my heels.  Laughing at my slowness.  But every time I turned, there was nothing but leaves and brown grass and dry ground, staring blankly back at me.

*     *     *     *     *    

A long time ago, I remember sitting in a parking lot in the dark, waiting for a bus to take me north.  As I sat there, talking with several others who for one reason or another were sitting around an empty bus station, someone’s words crossed the small space between us like a knife.  Something about the Klan, and something about they.  I wish I could remember better just what was said, but I don’t.  Time has taken care of that memory.  But I do remember that I objected to what was said, out loud, there in the dark, with those others, all of us sitting on curbs or leaning against the closed, concrete, bus station.

And I remember that I thought the bus was pulling into the parking lot at that very moment, the way everyone’s breath drew in and the parking lot grew quiet.  But it wasn’t the bus at all, but the center of the universe, sweeping in to remind me that I wasn’t among friends, and that if I could be just a bit more foolish I could join her as she blew around the world, collecting up the dead.  I thanked her for her offer, but choose instead to keep my mouth shut for the next two hours, hoping that I would make it out of that dark parking lot alive.

When the headlights of the bus finally swept over us, I grabbed my bag and climbed aboard as quickly as the others seemed to scatter into the shadows.  All of us have our fears, I guess.  For some it is the thought of being seen, while for others, it is just the opposite.  As I found a seat, I imagined those others, hiding just outside the reach of the light, with their drinks and dirty clothes and all their fears, and somehow felt ashamed that I could allow myself to feel safe inside of a bus filled with sleeping old people.  As the bus edged its way out of the parking lot, I felt pathetic and small, wondering why I lived in a world where running away sometimes seems like the only option.