Thursday, March 30, 2006

From Beeing To Uncertainty

I like reading maps.  A while ago I was reading a map of Texas, and I saw a few items on the map that seemed interesting to me - provocative, even.  These were interesting place-names.  They sent me to Google Maps to learn more, and then to my notepad, and eventually I found that all that cartography was turning into a poem, and here it is:

From Beeing to Uncertainty

Out in the middle of all the everything
a man can’t help but be right there
reality can overwhelm
and the opposite of nothingness
is being in Bee County
I think we sometimes all wake up
in Beeville, down in south-east Texas
a bit too real for our liking
a cold sweat on our cotton sheets
a petrifying need to flee
to someplace that’s a little less
a place that can admit essential
mystery
or someplace anyhow that’s not
so goddamn real
as Beeville Texas
and the opposite of Beeville
is Uncertainty
so you start driving east one short block south
of the body of Jesus
who lies with Sam Houston
but since this is Texas
it’s His street you take
east past Deaf Smith on your catfeet
escaping next through grasping Cobb Webb
next comes Goliad, battlefield
on your left, the waters on the other side,
now you’re into open country
don’t linger in Moody
unless you’re a swinger
storm Port Lavaca, debouche on Highway 59
Zac Lentz Parkway, Lake Texana
Ganado and the Spanish Camp
exotic names that amplify
the pang you feel in Beasley-Needville
that town that makes you need to be
but you’re bound for Uncertainty
just barrel down that Southwest Highway
straight past Houston on the Mobius Belt
Eastex Free Way, Humble little spots
Hill & Dale and Bedspread Road
get some coffee in Splendora
don’t be tempted by the lure
of those that offer easy answers
Security or Cut-and-Shoot
a Shepherd leads you, Hallelulah
in Corrigan the road’s your Home
you find your quest has grown to suit you
pause at Fiberboard Lake’s broad vista
drink it’s vast surreal beauty
and keep on driving
Burketown, thence 287
69 around Lufkin and 59 out
till you’re south of Nagadoches
in a clutch of homey little places
Freedonia, Gasaway, and Lamp-lite
fetterless and luminescent
grab a postcard to remind you
getting into vaguer regions
loop clockwise, take 259
northward through Mt. Enterprise
let its ethic slip behind you
you still quest is for something truer
more true for its very vagueness
as you go through Henderson
43 splits like a photon
through a prism full five fold
just focus on the middle course
the road is rising through the foothills
take it on past Brandy Branch
ambrosial stream
and lo, Elysian Victory
is yours at last
the Karnak Highway
clouds your mind
just get to Rayburn
Cowpen Road
and welcome to Uncertainty.

Now that you’re here
what do you plan to do about it? 

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Long Live the Spider King

Remonstrations to the contrary notwithstanding, the impossible has happened.  I thought it never could, but then it did.  And then it happened again.  And again and again and again.  On the night of March 26, 2006, it happened for the fifth time.  Now I finally feel as if I can tell you about it. 

The first two or three times were each momentous events, and left me shaken to my core.  The fourth time still left me powerfully flushed with excitement and pride, but a degree of familiarity, of ownership if you will, was also creeping into my experience. 

And now, most lately, when I stood (or, technically, sat) at the cusp of my fifth victory, clearing my third stack with two deals yet to go and realizing that vindication was mine to earn or spurn, my pulse did not race and my extremities didn’t tingle.  Rather, I was suffused with a quiet confidence, a power that shone through my skin.  I was invincible, yes, but I didn’t need to make some kind of big thing about it. 

I mean, sure, I’ve won five games of four-suit Spider solitaire.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t still hang out with all you regular mortals anyway.  I’m cool like that. 

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Catch-up Ball: An Alloy of Work and Play Makes Chuckles Nigh Indestructable

It’s been a while since I just caught you all up on things.  Let’s give that a try.

Zach seems to be over his sniffles, which is a friendly, benign word for his two-week transformation into Mt. Snotuvius.  I stayed home with him on Thursday so he wouldn’t glaze the other kids in day care.  He hasn’t been sleeping very well lately either, but at least he’s eating like a champ.  A tofu-loving, lentil-sucking champ in a bib with a zebra driving a bus. Makes you wonder what kind of champs we’re minting these days.

Because I spent Thursday at home, I got to spend Saturday at work.  That was one of those “better to do the right thing” situations and in retrospect I’m glad I went.  It was a bit of a pain to be there though, palliated mainly by my heading straight over afterwards to Chez Lorson for Big Spaghetti Dinner, which I’ve been excited about for more than a month.  The spaghetti was actually normal sized, but there were rashers of sausages and talus-slopes of meatballs and more than a gallon of rich, heavy valpollicella-laden sauce, and sugar cookies for the kids to press and bake and Ace Cafe Happy Sandwiches (or “death patties") for the grownups - slices of poppy-lemon pound cake, drowned in marscapone and toasted pine nuts, and then drizzled with chocolate sauce.  With the cheeses and olives as appetizers first, I truly ate beyond my own capacity and didn’t stay up long once I got home. 

And that leaves today, Sunday, whereon we’ve done some laundry and taken a nice walk in the Presidio, as we did last weekend.  In fact, to make up for the lack of substance in this post, here’s some of the photos I took there.  Enjoy, and you can expect a normal essay or something soon.

That’s it for now.  Oh, but what do you think - will Evite suffer the same fate in Latin America as the Nova did?  Discuss.