"Oh"

My friend and I left last Saturday, July 4, for western NY state and then to Canada, just barely. We flew into Buffalo, rented a car, and drove southwest along Lake Erie to a small community of homes dating from the mid 19th century.

We stayed there a few days, hung out, walked, visited the locals, and left. We stayed in a 150 year-old hotel with teeny rooms and few baths (We had one of them.)

There were signs that said: "No smoking. No incense. No candles." We like incense, yet deferred to the management. After all, the place was rickety. Old. A bit off-level, at a slight slant.

After a few days, we drove north to "the falls," i.e., Niagara Falls. Yes, we did. Oh... did we ever. Up that way, people say, "oh" a LOT. They say it like this: "Oh!" Yet they leave the sound wandering for a bit, like this: "Ohh!" Yet they don't say it with suddenness, as if surprised. It rolls out: "Ohh."

And they say, "holy moly." And, if surprised, mildly, they might say, "Oh no." Imagine the movie, "Fargo." The "o's" are very, very well enunciated, and long. Try this: "Oh my!"

Neither of us expected to be wowed much, except for the falls, and they are pretty dam wow. They're tall, 172 feet, and mighty. Walking up next to the top, where they spill over the edge, the energy's palpable. I had to lean back for a minute, then lean back in, just to feel familiar enough with the sound and sight of its fury, its rush, its might.

They are wet, too, as you might imagine. The spray shoots over a hundred feet above the top of the falls, and its mist is everywhere.

The only problem, as usual, is... there are so many people. They're from everywhere, no part of the world dominated. Gawky northern Europeans. Curious Asians. Seemingly preoccupied middle-Easterns, who came in large groups with kids. The Europeans seemed the most confused, turning around a lot, it seemed like, and asking the most questions.

We were the only southerners, I think. Pretty sure.

ACTING AS IF (as if...)

Okay so I'm sitting back on the porch beneath a Carolina blue sky - except I'm in Tennessee - and listening to a woodpecker furiously going at a Hickory tree. That's hard wood, fella, and that woodpecker will be at this a long, long time if he/she really wants to make an impression.

Beside me is a cup of coffee, a bottle of water, the cigarettes I quit smoking, and my cell phone. Nearby are tomato plants, a basil plant, and several feet away? My trusty dog, Barry. Just inside is a quiet house, waiting for the arrival of well over a dozen grrrrrls from the "Act Like A GRRRL" theater-camp, who will roost here this afternoon with movies, popcorn?, some billiards, and mucho satisfaction after last night's standing-ovation opening night of their performance, "Act Like A GRRRRRL."

The show was amazing. Girls and young ladies from age 12 to 18 presented their talent, their energy, and their soul before an audience of friends, peers, parents, artists, and the curious. All of the material is original: they wrote it, sang it, read it, spoke it, danced it. There were tears and there was laughter and many, many rounds of applause. To see and feel the energy of this troupe - who only had four weeks to create this masterpiece - was to have a brief, personal invitation into the feminine mystique; except this show? These grrrrls? They let us in the mystique so that it was mysterious no more. What a nice thing to do for us: people at large, being let in. Not often does this happen, be it male or female.

Can you a see a troupe of boys/men bonding in four weeks, writing new music and poetry and verse, and then performing it, vulnerable, for all of us to see and hear?

WAIT... Maybe we can... My friend Andrew and my friend Ross? We're thinking: why not "Act Like A Boy?" Not "Act Like A Man." We got told that, too, for years, only to miss the kid stuff, as in, being one. Now, decades later, we want to. Be one. We're seriously considering it.

Only, it dawns on me, if Vali Forrister, founder of Act Like A GRRRRRL, will allow it - there are copyrights and such - then maybe we can do this. Except this leads to another question: will we, as men/boys, have to ask Vali, a grrrrrl/woman, permission?

Interesting...

I HAVE A FRIEND                                                                                 

I have a friend who reminds me of my own thoughts, usually days or weeks after I've expressed them. She reminds me because, a. I didn't follow up, or b. She wonders what happened to them, or saw them finished, or something, and comments.

This is good.

My friend has her own thoughts too, and often expresses them. I'm grateful for this because, a. They are things I had not thought of, and are fresh and are usually good to hear, and/or b. They're simply great ideas that might be worth following up, acting on, or, perhaps, subtle suggestions to you-know-who...

Why do I write this? Because, while I often write while sitting on my back porch, NOW I'm writing while sitting on a nice, comfortable piece of outdoor furniture while sitting on my back porch - with more to come. There are dark wood rocking chairs and a love-seat-outdoor-thing, all with deep, pale green cushions. They are way-comfortable, and now I find myself out here all the damn time.

My friend reminded me some time ago I wanted these things. I had not acted on it. Usually stuff takes acting upon, I got reminded...

However, I wonder if my friend knew what might happen: that instead of hiking a couple miles this morning, like I told myself I'd do - I am still here, sitting, on my dark wood and light green sofa-thing...

Or... I wonder if, when I receive the new piece of furniture for the other balcony (my neato house came with two balconies, included), which will be a sort-of-chaise-yet-day-bed-yet-outdoor-kinda-thing-you-can-sit-read-lay-sleep-on, I will ever leave the other balcony, even for the one I'm sitting on now?

I ordered the new furniture for the neato-other-balcony just today, which is sorta why I write... yet I seriously digress.

Or do I?

Sometimes I make suggestions my friend likes, such as the U.S.-Canadian border (that's enough info there), or grilled shrimp on a Saturday night.

OR, sometimes neither one of us think of one single thing, even if we mean to, and end up staring at the sky, or feeling the heat of a hot, humid day, like yesterday, and do absolutely nothing, not even think of something "on an accident."

Other times we think of or do really dumb things that are hilarious and we laugh like little squirts who haven't a worry in the world, like this: one day my friend started winking at me, as if she were doing some kinda Sarah Palin routine, until I started winking back.

There was never an explanation for this, no need. Too funny.

Then sometimes one of us - usually we take turns, thank goodness - stresses over not-a-damn-thing, like, as in: nada - and maybe semi-flip-out until we catch ourselves or one catches the other, which, at times, the other doesn't like but GETS sooner or later, and once again it's all good.

And last but certainly not least sometimes one of us can stress over something worthy of stress, yet the other reminds the other it'll pass, which it ALWAYS does, and the stress becomes less stressful until - poof! - it's gone.

Just like that.

Poof!

When this happens there's a pretty good chance one of us says this: "huh..."

PRESENT

Presently I'm sitting on my back porch, my dog Barry nearby. He's playing with an empty water bottle which, to him, seems alive. I sometimes feel envious of the simplicity of a dog's life, despite their total dependence on us. Other than that, life always appears to be "now" to a dog; whereas to me - us? - staying in the present takes concentration, effort, prayer - something. It ain't natural, and oh do I wish it was.

I sit on the porch with my coffee and my dog and look directly into the trees of the forest that rests right here in front of me, literally steps from my back door. On some days the forest comforts me, like a big, godly blanket of living green, nature mothering me and anyone else who wants.

And other days the forest seems huge and ominous and creepy and encroaching, as if I'm trespassing with my little man-made house and coffee and occasional cigarette. Times like this I am small, too small, and feel threatened by an enveloping mass of living organism here long, long before me.

Today I'm simply aware of it all - neither here nor there, not in it or of it, just beside it.

Barry gets up now, and almost leaps to the edge because he hears something I don't. A rustling in the green, a scent of a deer. Something.

Now a train barrels by, a half-mile across a ridge yet here enough to hear loud and clear, its muscle propelling it forward on rails big enough to hold one-hundred tractor trucks. The engineer blasts the whistle that's got to send closer neighbors into their ceilings, no matter how used to it they are.

I'm maybe just now getting used to living, I don't know. Always, almost always... being here, on this earth, seems alien to me, as if there's somewhere else I've been or am going and know it so well it's in my bone marrow, yet where it is, or when it was, or what will be, I do not know.

LETTERMAN

I'm not old enough to remember Sen. Joseph McCarthy's blacklisting of Hollywood "communists" and the fear instilled in them and others of the time. I am present, now, though, for the spectacle sent forth by angry and lost "conservatives" like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and the crazy state senator from Tennessee, Diane Black of Gallatin.

The current insane reaction from these and other unthinking, hate-filled losers happens in nanoseconds, causing me to wonder what it'd been like had McCarthy been digital: imagine crazy Joe McCarthy on Twitter or facebook, his toxic sweat coming through the electronic waves into your living room. Jesus.

I watched Letterman last night and true to his genius, he followed up Monday night's "official" apology (for really nothing) to Sarah Palin's family with last night's offering of an apology to anyone, anywhere who may be offended by his humor. He even told the audience they could pick their apology up at the door as they left.

In his own way he diluted Monday night's Palinotomy to nothing but a handout to a needy reactionary, like baby food to a screaming infant. It was as if he said, "Here... now take your little apology and go home, please."

But no, that's not enough for those sickos. This morning in the news I see crazy people out there mocking Letterman, calling his young son, who Letterman so obviously loves, a "bastard child," and more. These are the same folks who are "God fearing Americans," Christians and patriots. These are the folks who have seizures if we limit the amount of ammo they can carry into public places, yet want to limit our free speech and right to make personal choices about religion or even our own bodies.

I understand differences, especially in opinion. That's what makes life interesting and livable. I do not understand intolerance, though, especially in the extreme to which an opposing point of view need not apply. Where in the right-wing's beloved constitution does it say this? Where did Jefferson and the like suggest we build a country of religious bigots and gun-toting crazies who enforce their rights and assassinate - both literally and figurately - those who happen to differ with them?

And as far as Jesus is concerned, well, frankly? I'm no Biblical scholar. I got raised by one, though - no piece of cake - and, even then, I've heard nothing about Jesus being intolerant. Nada. Negative. Nothing. If anything, the dude loved you, me, Palin, Franken, Limbaugh, Dr. Tilly, King and even Ray. That would be what I think Christianity is/was meant to be. Like the constitution, the "word" intends to breathe hope and tolerance and freedom.

However, those nuts out there are anything but fresh air - they are dangerous and dark and mean. And worse, they are more scared than ever. The state senator from Tennessee? Her "aide" sent out an email with a "group" photograph of all U.S. presidents to date, and instead of his picture she substituted a racist cartoon for President Barack H. Obama. This came from one of the flag-waving, Christian patriots.

So I ask: when someone like George W. Bush is president and he's criticized by (lots and lots of) those who disagree with him, why is that unpatriotic, and overt hate toward our current president is okay?

The irony is that both acts are okay because we have free speech - even though the unchecked hate on the racist email raises cause for questions and consequences for a variety of reasons (government employee, elected official's office, possible hate-crime inducing, etc etc). I simply would like - yet, like waiting for a 2nd grader to understand accountability, don't expect - an acknowledgement from the crazies that the very constitution they use to beat others over the head with enables them to do so. The very same protections they enjoy make free speech possible for both points of view (hence "free"); that if it were written that only one point of view's allowed they might just get ruled out.

Jesus.

Or should I say, "Jefferson."

THE SHORE

A poem

My breath rides like a feather on a wave.
It tickles me.

Something rolls beneath my ribs:
if still, I hear the shore inside me.

I see mist rise from the water,
like foam with nowhere to go.

I smell life spill into the sand like clean dirt from a garden:
now wet, and crumbly, and loose.

The water rises and cools my feet,
then warms my heart.

Like a feather on a wave, 

it comforts me.

KINDA DUMB

What's up with bugs flying into bright lights? Think about it: you turn on the porch light in what was a perfectly dark space, and here come the little flying bugs. Some are actually large flying bugs.

Well, honestly? They don't come right away. They wait for the light bulb to get hot - even more stupid of them. Once the bulb is hot, the bugs - and notice it doesn't matter whether the bug is a teeny gnat-like thing, or a large B-52 skeeter - fly directly at, if not into, the light bulb. In some cases, it kills them instantly. In others, they have to keep hitting the light bulb, like... to the point of bouncing against it, until they get it right, which, of course, means adios.

Jesus. Could you imagine doing that?

I never did well in science class, so I don't remember if we covered the subject of bugs hitting light bulbs at night, so forgive me. If we covered it, did anyone in class ask why just at night? I mean, during the day, at least, one might presume the light bulb isn't hot. But no. It's always at night.

Last night on my back porch, late, I turned on the big macho car-headlight-thing facing the woods, just for a minute, and "whoooooosh..." here come a bunch of different kinds of flying bugs, as if they were all out there waiting in the dark, whispering, "when's he gonna turn on the big car-headlight-thing so we can fly headfirst into it?"

Do you think they know that if they do, then tomorrow there's no more light-bulb-kamakaze-missions? (is that how you spell kamakaze? apparently it's how I do.)

Maybe they think a light bulb is the sun, kinda dumb, but a hunch. Even then, as much as we like the sun, would you fly right into it? Face first? And, assuming you got away with this once, or even twice, would you keep doing it over and over, bouncing off of it until your long, skinny legs kinda bend at 45 degrees and your little mesh-like bug wing gets all crumply?

Then go do it all over again? Whatsupwithdoinghtat?

To makes matters worse, when dog Barry's on the back porch at night, he jumps at the larger flying bugs as they approach the light over the back porch door, and he tries to catch them in his mouth. Even this doesn't deter the bug. Could you imagine wanting to fly into a large, blinding, burning hot object, while a large carnivorous animal tries to eat you?

The light bulb's oblivious. The dog's having a blast. The bug? Not smart. Not fun, even.  Meanwhile, doggie's in 7th heaven wondering why he got so lucky as to have: a. a new game that came seemingly out of nowhere; b. something to do - anything; and c. another odd, unknown thing to eat, then figure out later if it's worth it. (The other day Barry threw up two rocks each more than an inch deep, and what looked like a tiny rug sample. Not good, yet still above the food chain from the kamakaze bug.)

Maybe the light-bulb-flying-into-thing's in a bug's DNA, keeping their masses in check. Us? We don't do that. We human beings do some seriously stupid shit, for sure, but going cheek-to-cheek with a hot floodlight isn't one of them, and for that I'm grateful...