Beneath the Fold

I have a habit of folding a piece of paper after I am done writing or doodling on it. When I am lazy, and my room is messy, I will usually let it fall behind my desk or under my bed, or behind the bookshelf. Sometimes, I will throw these notes in my backpack, and they will settle near the bottom and turn yellow, stiff. Finding these folded pieces of paper later is fun, though. I find it very difficult to throw away an old, folded piece of paper without first peeling apart the crease and exposing the note inside. There is something so much more intriguing about the hidden message. Usually I'll open it up and it will be an old homework assignment or reminder, maybe a small sketch, but sometimes I write some random things that really bring me back to a moment I would have otherwise forgotten completely. I like coming across these folded memories. 

I think there are a lot of things that aren't paper that are folded and need to be opened. People are often folded up. You come across them and you can toss 'em aside like an old, yellowed piece of garbage, or you can take the time to uncover a message you might have missed. Sometimes I think I like to fold myself up, and let one or two people uncover things as they find me floating along. I also like to unfold other people. I find a folded piece of paper much more intriguing than a bold billboard. You know what you are going to get from a mile away with the billboard! I like that unexpected treasure in the small fold. I like the unexpected, great or small.

You Ewe

Hey, ewe.

I like you, ewe.

You stand like a ewe should stand.

You eat like a ewe should eat.

You look like a ewe should look.

Good ewe.

You ewe.

Stay ewe.

Hermitage

When I crawl into this familiar blanket, night after night, and tuck it between these bony knees, it falls into place. It creases along and caresses my form. It translates and adapts to hands folded in a lap. It warms these numb toes, loosens stiff bones. It breathes when I breathe, shifts when I shift, and doesn't leave when I leave. And, snug and protected, I curl my hidden limbs and bury my head deep into the bosom of great nature's second course, sweet sleep.

Jimmy Blue Hands

I call him Jimmy Blue Hands.  I call him that because Jimmy was rubbin' his knuckles along the sides of his new dark blue denims the day I sat with him.  He was real fidgety and all, couldn't keep himself still. Nervous. A bothered guy. Dyed his hands blue, he rubbed so much. Smoothing the palms of his hands along the tops of his thighs; running his fingers along the seams; scratching his nails against the vertical denim grain; tucking his hands underneath his bottom; slappin' his knees like two bony tom-toms; Jimmy Blue Hands, yesiree. 

 I don't know why he was so wound up, really. He was stretched taut like a piano string, though. Yeah, that's right, like an old piano string a child wants to reach in and pluck but can't because this child keeps hearing his father yellin', "Dammit, don't touch those strings! You'll cut your hand off if one snaps! I'm tellin' ya!" No, no, we certainly don't want any snappin' strings. That would cause all sorts of problems. The piano would fall out of tune. Things would be shifting all over the place with the snappin' of that string, not to mention the loss of the curious hand that was tuggin' at it! Yes, let's listen to father's admonition and let the old piano sit as it may.

I was sitting across from Jimmy Blue in a dark waiting room/lounge/whatever-you-call-it of a dingy tire shop, and it was just him and I in there after a nice old lady was called out to pick up her car. "Janice, your Honda's ready." She stood up and a distinct scent bellowed out of her folded garments and overwhelmed my nostrils. She was wearing perfume that smelled like it came from the bottom of a drug store's 99 cent item clearance bin. It's awful, thick as it hangs in the air. It comes in a gaudy, gold bottle and has one of those old-fashioned lavender puffer-thingamajigs that pumps the dense miasma into the air. It felt like I was breathing in cotton candy. But she was nice. And that's all that matters, right? She was nice. She greeted me as I walked into the dingy waiting room. That's nice. That trumps her awful sense of tasteful perfume, I suppose. And Janice, the nice old smelly lady, drove away in her Honda, and then there was rickety ol' Jimmy Blue and I, sitting in Janice's fog. Waiting. Rubby Blue Hands. Fidgety McGee over there in the corner. 

I picked up a tattered magazine from a pile on the coffee table sitting next to me: Popular Mechanics. It was five years old. I wondered if the mechanics were still popular. Jimmy was shakin' and mumbling words under his breath to himself. The magazine was my comfort as I held it close to my face and tried to tune out. I picked up his nervous tick immediately, though, and started wondering all sorts of things. I had been in the room less than a minute and Jimmy started getting to me. I was in a good mood, too, before my tire blew out in the rain and I had to call a tow truck to rip me off and tow my car 2 miles down the street to this dump shop. But that smelly old lady was nice. There's always that smelly old lady. She gave a soft "hello." I then wondered what she was thinkin' when she was in there all alone with Jimmy Blue Hands. I wondered if she talked to him at all. I wondered how long they had been sitting together. I wondered if she said something nasty to him. Something nice? I wondered a lot of things, and then Jimmy stood up and my mind hushed. I kept my nose down and watched him drag himself slowly into the restroom and then shut the door. Click.  

I heard water rushing and imagined Jimmy's blue hands turning the sink blue leaving a blue ring around the bowl. Washing away the blue physical markings of a blue nervous man. 

Bustin' Your Chops

Bube and I brought back the chops. Motorhead is appropriate now.

A Clean, Cool Glass of Water Thirty Minutes Before 2009

Thirty minutes before we jumped into the year 2009, I drank a glass of clean, cool water. It was the best tasting glass of water of 2008, there's just no doubt about it. I sat there amongst friends, holding my glass, watching the water level sink as I took each sip. 

Everyone checked their watches, pulled out their cell phones, peaked over shoulders and asked the person sitting next to them, "Is it time yet?! What time is it?!"

My glass of water had gone from full to half-full. I say half-full and not half-empty because that's what you are supposed to say to sound optimistic and upbeat about the coming year.

My clean, cool glass of water opened its mouth. It spoke to me with more sagacity and simplicity than any man ever could have. The water of 2008 went into my body and I had plans to let it "out" in 2009. I will never be able to have 2008 water ever again. I was able to carry it into 2009, though. I just had to store it in my body for a short period of time. It would come out as 2009 waste water. Excuse the imagery, but this was my own little, personal New Years project I had created on the spot and just went with it. 

What does it mean? Well, create your own metaphor. I think I could create several New Years metaphors around drinking a glass of water, and I thought about many of them as I sipped down the water that night.

One resolution I have this year, 2009, is to let the seemingly mundane, the ordinary, the humdrum, the routine seep deep into my senses. To become porous like I have never been before. To let them give me lessons. To stop searching for the extravagant and extraordinary as a means of gaining purpose and value. 

It's funny how much mental and physical wealth a glass of water can give you.

Small Talk at the Superior Court

The Superior Courthouse doesn't really exude superiority. The courthouses near tract developments never do. They are always inconveniently placed in the middle of a business park where the boat and RV companies do whatever boat and RV companies do among several other large warehouses. 

What happened to courthouses? They used to build them up dark, concrete and grey.  Slick, thick, powerful slabs of concrete, maybe a couple of stoic lion sculptures at the base of a daunting stairway. Superior, you know? Something you might see in Gotham. Something you would see Bruce Wayne walking in front of. No. What we have now is a hollowed out preschool building turned courthouse. We also have a mental health facility and a public library in the same complex of buildings. Down the street, a sports park. Very family oriented. Very friendly. Very pre-manufactured. 

You pull into a parking lot too small filled with SUVs too large and families walking with McDonald's bags too full. Outside the preschool-- excuse me, the "Superior Courthouse"-- a string of people are lined up, arms folded, citations, papers, and cell phones in hand. The melting pot meets here to deal with the Man. Slowly, we file in.

A skateboarder who didn't wear his helmet. A proud mother who plans to dispute a ticket her sixteen year old daughter received last Friday. The sixteen year old on her cell phone, smacking some gum and bantering with a friend about what an idiot "Chad" is.  A kid I recognize from high school. A roughed-up lookin' landscaper who works at Pechanga Casino. A woman and her daughter looking at cell phone pictures and laughing. A middle-aged woman violently huffing air and looking at her watch, rubbing her temples, looking toward the sky and mumbling what seem to be small prayers. A man with a funny lookin' haircut and and a young son with the same funny lookin' haircut. A pair of twin girls tapping their feet incessantly. An old man who reads his book out loud and doesn't realize it. And Debra, the tired old lady who is directly behind me in line. 

Debra wears burgundy scrub pants, those sterile white nursing shoes, a floral smock, and a matching burgundy coat. Her hair is silver and held back with a floral hair clip. She looks like the standard nurse, except she seems way too old. Two glossy, cataract eyes and a sun-beaten face with the marks to prove it. Retired nurse, maybe? One who enjoyed the beach?

 I saw Debra earlier in the parking lot. Actually, I let her have the open space that was made available when a hot shot backed out his Caddy. I waved her in, and she gave me the head nod of gratitude.  I still beat her to the line, though. I am young and she is old with a titanium knee. 

 I know she has a titanium knee because she made sure that I knew standing in long lines is "extremely painful" for her and that she hates it very much. She told me this after she noticed that I was pretty tall and asked if she could stand behind me in order to block her from the sun because she "burns so easily." I laughed. "Of course you can," I said.  "I also burn easily." She closely examined my face and said, "Oh, that's right! You sure do." Debra pokes my back with her pudgy fingers and points to the young man a few spots ahead of me. "You're out of fashion," she tells me with a smile. I glance at the young man and notice that he is wearing extremely baggy, loose-fitting pants with a shirt twice the length of my own. I half-laugh. "Oh, ha ha. Well, I guess I am not very cool, but at least I am comfortable," I tell her. She says, "Well, I guess you and I are just the oddballs here, aren't we?" "Yep. Such is life" I say. So, now I know that Debra has a titanium knee, a distaste for the sun and baggy pants, but a love for floral print. I also know she is eager for a little conversation by the way she keeps telling me her thoughts. There are at least thirty-five people in front of us and the line is moving at a grueling pace. "So, were you a bad boy?" Debra asks me ten minutes later. "Ha ha, yes, unfortunately I was caught speeding in a construction zone and, well, here I am paying it off. You?" She tells me she ran a stop sign. "Oops," she says. I can't seem to think of anything else to say after I answer her questions or respond to her small statements. A series of half-laughs and a slow turn back in line. I have never been good at small talk. Either I am really going to get to know you, or not at all. Especially in line at a courthouse. Sad, I know, but small talk is just not my thing. Sorry, Debra. I am getting hungry and now that the line is finally inside the courthouse, I am getting stuffy and cranky, too. It has been nearly an hour and a half of standing in line, 4 o' clock, and Debra says, "Are they going to feed us dinner, too?" Half-laugh and, "I sure hope so! I am hungry!" The clerk calls me forward, finally. I look back at Debra and smile and say "Almost your turn."

I pay my ticket and begin to walk past maybe fifty people who were behind me. They stare me up and down because they have nothing better to do in that stupid line. I am flapping my receipt and walking with a little more enthusiasm through the gauntlet. I walk to my car and see Debra's purple Tercel where I let her take that hot shot's parking space. I stop and think to myself as I put my car in gear, "Debra might go home alone tonight with her titanium knee, her distaste for the sun and baggy pants, her love for floral print, and her hungry belly."I think about where I am going: a warm house with a loving family, friends, and food. I think, "Maybe I am the only person Debra will have spoken to today. Maybe I should have let her in a little bit more." 

I think more.