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Flying Puss-Puss

Sitting Pretty

So What Are YOU Staring At??!!

White to Ashes

The first time I touched a cotton ball,
I noticed that it was soft, delicate.
The cotton threads clung slightly
to the grooves of my fingerprints,
as if someone were raking their nails
across a chalkboard without making any sound.
But the longer I caressed the cotton ball,
the less I could feel it.
Instead, my finger seemed to get heavier and heavier
as if someone were placing a tiny ball of lead
on my finger with each stroke.
The weight eventually became so great
that I could no longer lift my finger.
I can feel a cotton ball once,
but not a thousand times, not a million times.
And it’s a good idea not to try.
It’s a slow, creeping form of self-murder,
And there is no unmurder.

just your ordinary mammal

Dance Portly

S.H.O.R.T.Y.G.

sheepers creeperz

SCRATCHERS

Better than Eagle

Loud, but ...

The apartment across the hall from mine is occupied by a very lively lady. She’s 40 years old or so and originates from Ghana. I have no problem with her, but she is very loud. However, it doesn’t bother me much because it is a very happy loudness.

It is simply impossible for her to do anything quietly. On weekend nights, I’ve resigned myself to lots of partying until around midnight. This goes on every Friday and Saturday night. Lots of friends, relatives and everyone else it seems drops by for a few hours.

I probably would not notice it so much if she shut the door to the apartment. But it’s a small 1-room apartment that can hold no more than 8 or 9 people (standing, not sitting), and 15 to 20 people always show up. The only way to accommodate them all is to open the door and let them spill into the hall. So, they are basically partying right outside my door.

Amazingly, none of these parties have generated any trouble. The partyers do emit a lot of good-natured laughing. Even though it is loud laughing, it is always in fun and devoid of meanness. Somehow, it makes me feel content, as if the world is indeed in perfect order. I occasionally fall asleep listening to it.

The amazing thing about it all is that no loud disagreements or fights break out. That’s why I have come to be amazed by lady who lives there. She must have a very strong talent for keeping human relationships running smoothly. I could probably learn something from her.

More than just a Woof

The world is full of theories, rumors, hearsay and first-person accounts of making contact with space aliens. But few of them hold water, so I decided to come up with a theory of my own. In my theory, the aliens are already here, living among us and, sometimes, with us. Some have been here much longer than we have.

Now you may be asking what those aliens look like. All you have to do is look at all the wonderful animals around you. Those are the aliens, but it is hard to imagine them as such since they have been here so much longer than us and they are such a normal part of our everyday life. And that is exactly their plan.

If you find this theory a bit goofy, then just watch a hummingbird the next time it shows up in your yard. Note how its flying ability is virtually inexplicable, yet it does it so perfectly, stopping, starting, zooming, and keeping a close eye on you the entire time. It probably understands you much better than you it.

If that is not enough proof for you, then take a minute to think about your house pets, your cat, your dog. Have you noticed how perfectly these creatures mold themselves around your life, making you feel needed and loved when no one else seems to. And these animals understand you so well, at times seeming to read your mind and also to control you.

So the next time you find yourself getting annoyed by something in life, remember who’s here on earth with you. Take a second to think about exactly what that animal is and how it gives you so much. A space alien can be a very wonderful thing, sleeping there next to you.

Scene From a Flying Dream

Kwikeneezie

Gimme a kiss, babe

Here Longer Than Planned

When I first arrived, the night sky was sprinkled with stars,
the city below full of lights, each holding a million promises,
so many in all I could never fathom them.
But I noticed the lights were slowly vanishing,
one at a time, taking their promises with them.
The city grew darker and darker,
turning into isolated specks of white connected by black.
As sunup drew near, only a few lights were left,
enough to remember on one hand,
and each of them now bearing only a thimbleful of promises.
The sun began creeping up behind me,
its brightness gradually revealing what minutes before
had been hidden under the blanket of blackness.
I had no choice. I couldn’t delay any longer.
I set forth to find those few lights that had kept burning.
But I found none of them.
Light without darkness leaves no space for aliens.
I did the best I could, coming to terms with the visibility
and the things it showed me, some horrible
but some wonderful and worth all those lost promises,
the feel and smell of a dog, its tongue washing my face,
the taste of a peach right from the tree, and the magic of math.
I never found those last few lights
but quit searching.
There are so many other things to see, to do.
They’re here, waiting for me.


TT 2009

Mr. Longfingers Dancing to "Thriller"

Singalong

One Dozen Country-Western Titles Just Waiting for Some Lyrics:


My Nitty Ain’t Got no Gritty

XXXL Love

Nun With a Gun

He’s Gone Huntin’, But It Smells Mighty Fishy

I Got Life, But Nary a Wife

Bird Flu, Swine Flu, You Flu

Hollywood’s Fine, But Nashville’s Mine

She Stole My Heart and That Ain’t The Only Part

Smokin’ and Tokin’

Death Row Love

Man-Eatin’ Catfish

Gotta Big Ass, But a Much Bigger Heart

Here's lookin' atcha

Nutty Day

Today turned out to be a very pleasant, fluid, unplanned sort of day. I had to leave work at 4:30 because we are not allowed to work one minute of overtime until the economic crisis disappears. So I put in my time, walked to the bus and headed home.

But I quickly changed plans. The day was so absolutely beautiful that sitting around in an apartment would be a sin. The sky was crystal blue and the temperature was hovering around the 70 degree mark.

Given those conditions, I decided having dinner outside would be a wonderful thing to do. So I decided to head down to one of my favorite spots downtown: a somewhat funky, somewhat haphazard Vietnamese restaurant with a tiny Biergarten. Despite that description, the food there is great and cheap.

Yet I never got there. Instead, I took a stroll down the street, which was full of fruit and vegetable businesses that display their goods outside. I love looking at all the tasty things there. After passing two of them, I came upon one that was selling fresh, baby okra at an unbelievably low price. I had to have some, so I filled a bag full and went in to pay.

As I stood in line to pay, I spotted some hazelnut brittle on sale. It’s just like peanut brittle, but with hazelnuts. No peanut brittle was available, but didn’t bother me for long because I spotted some almond brittle, pistachio brittle, and mixed nut brittle right alongside the hazelnut brittle.
The line was moving fast , so I grabbed as many of the various kinds of brittle that I could hold and stood there trying not to let any of them slip to the floor. Fortunately, I succeeded.

Why I went crazy for all that brittle is a mystery to me, though I doubt that it will last long. It’s the kind of thing that will make me obsess for it day and night.

Anyway, I left the store with my okra and brittle, and decided to go to dinner before the brittle won all of my attention. As fate would have it, I ended up going to a completely different restaurant than I had planned, although it was still a Vietnamese restaurant. The food was great and low, low calorie, so I felt no guilt by finishing the evening with a couple bars of pistachio and hazelnut brittle. Almond will have to wait until tomorrow. Maybe.

Self-Portrait with USB Stick Do

No-Iron Man

Autumn swept into town last night. Actually, it did not have to do much sweeping because summer never really showed up here this year. It was the mildest summer I have ever experienced. There were a few days when the temp reached the upper 80s, but the nights always cooled down enough that I needed to sleep under a blanket or two.

So I wore a long-sleeve shirt all summer, just in case the weather dropped down into the 70s or 60s while I was at work or someplace else, and that did indeed happen. So that gave me good reason to wear all those shirts that I bought back in June.

Of course, long-sleeve dress shirts do have a severe downside: You have to iron them!

But I took the easy way out and took them to the cleaner down the street. I handed them 17 shirts on a Monday and picked them up on a Friday. It was so wonderful. They were all starchy clean and professionally pressed. And they only charged me one euro per shirt, a special price given only to those who bring in 10 or more shirts at a time.

What a magnificent system! Quick, painless, high-quality and unbelievably reasonable prices. Government should learn to work this way.

LOOK CLOSE 2

LOOK CLOSE 1

Well Dell

So back to the word world for a while. I just unpacked and got my spiffy new Dell computer set up and running. To be honest, it has been sitting in the middle of the floor for a month, just waiting for me to get around to it. I had the time, but not the courage. All the wires that must be hooked up and software installed is menacing, menacing to me.

But, to my surprise, everything worked smoothly on my first try. I found all the right connectors for the wires and all the software programs let themselves be installed error-free on my first attempt.

But I have not let this go to my head. In reality, I know that Dell has simply gotten so good at eliminating those nagging little headaches that even an amateur like me can succeed. So kudos to Dell (and that may be the one and only time that I ever praise a computer company).