I see happy families taking Christmas pictures with Santa Claus at the mall…
I see happy families lighting candles at home…
I see happy moms preparing elaborate holiday meals…
I see smiling dads putting up Christmas decorations outside…
I see eager children waiting for presents…
I see the bottom of a glass of Scotch, alone in an empty house… But I’m not alone, I have loneliness, melancholy, and Cutty Sark to keep me company.
If I die, I’d like to have a glass of Johnnie Walker Black with Christopher Hitchens, and a cup of tea with Carl Sagan. Zealots want virgins. I’d much prefer discussion and a good library.
And God asked man, “What is your purpose? Why did I create you?”
Man doesn’t know. For what is a man’s purpose? To be fruitful and multiply? Why? To make more men who do not know their purpose?
To attain glory? For whom, God or man? Why would either need such a thing?
Man exists, he’s tangible. God exists, he’s intangible. You can touch Man. Can you touch God?
They say you just have to Believe. But Man believes a lot of things.
Oh, but you have to have Faith to Understand, you see? Is that Man’s purpose, perhaps, to find Faith?
Dublin, Thomas. When the Mines Closed: Stories of Struggles in Hard Times. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
My friend Maria wrote this, and I thought it was worthy of sharing on RM.
“So I am thinking, maybe it’s the seeking that is so important, and so very painful at the same time? I mean, the seeking of love, or of parenting, or of great partnership? You just kind of want it. Right there, or nearby, as my son expresses. But how? Still it is only through the painful how, that it can actually be found? I mean, how are you supposed to find it otherwise?”
-Maria Nilsson
There are websites with handy
Safety tips.
For surviving the coming
Apocalypse.
That moment we all dread
And fear.
It’s fast approaching,
Nearly here.
But no one seems to know
Just how.
Just that it’ll happen
Any day now.
Perhaps the Apocalypse
Will come,
From Space, the Solar
Maximum.
The end of all our hopes
And cares,
Will be the solar winds
And flares.
It’s anyone’s guess what fate,
Awaits us.
Maybe someone just really,
Hates us.
Therefore, should we bother
Asking why?
Either way we’ll freeze
Or fry.
No one can stop it, not you,
Nor me.
So I say, fuck it. Let’s have
An orgy.
“Today was kind of a difficult day,” he said as we were walking back to our apartment. We had just been to the first get-together at his sister’s new place. She and her boyfriend had moved in a few days ago. They were still unpacking boxes and hanging shelves on the walls. “How old is she, again?” he asked, not quite believing that his baby sister was old enough to be moving in with her boyfriend. “She’s twenty,” I reminded him. “That just seems too young to be getting her own apartment,” he said.
I pointed out that he was actually younger than that when he got his first apartment. “Yeah, I know…but…she’s so young.” Not any more, I told him. She’s all grown up now. And I’d seen her grow up. I’d first met her when she was a girl of thirteen. Now she’s getting a place with her boyfriend. No wonder he was feeling all brotherly and slightly protective over her. Where did the time go?
And I thought about my feelings about my own little sister, ten years my junior. I missed most of her childhood. I moved out when I was eighteen and she was only eight. Even though she’s a now grown woman living with her boyfriend, I still think of her as a little girl. Maybe that’s because I didn’t get to see her grow into an adult woman. She was eight and then she was an adult in her mid-twenties. Likewise, he moved in with me when his sister was just thirteen, so maybe she’ll always be thirteen to him.
But they’re not little girls anymore, are they? They’re young adults just starting out in life, about to make a lot of the same mistakes we made. And it’s so hard to let them.
f
l
y
s
t
r
i
p
sticky strip
long and yellow
no slip
fly catching
death grip
they land there
unaware
last stop
to nowhere
but watch out
for your hair
in the
f
l
y
s
t
r
i
p
“Girls are made of sugar and spice, and everything nice, as wonderful as can be,
With just a twist of narcissist, and a pinch of OCD.”
We are complex creatures,
Beyond our own ken,
Thinking we know ourselves,
But suddenly then,
A memory pops up,
From where we not know when,
And we find ourselves crumbled,
And building again.
Random Misanthrope 