Ice and Frailty

It isn't often that I find myself contemplating death; I can find no reason for my dwelling on it now, but here I am. My thought is that it would be good to be killed by an icicle, a giant, conical spear that has been dangling precariously from a department store overhang for days, stirring with the wind but never falling, waiting for me to step outside to light a cigarette and call my girlfriend while my mom putters about the Clairol and Lacôme in the vast, cheery warmth of the indoors. An unusual breeze, a warm breath of Southern air, will sweep in just as my girlfriend finishes telling me about how her manager won't let her take next Monday and Tuesday off, so our little excursion to the Cape Cod is postponed again, and this quick movement of tepid air will betray the bonds of ice and steel and the icicle will declare independence and wreak rather unnecessary havoc below. And that will be the end of me.

Why do I consider this situation, of the many possibilities? It's not even creative. There is one reason, and it has something to do with the idea of being pierced to death by that which would just as quickly be liquified into oblivion in the very warmth of my motionless palm. 

Straight out of TextEdit

"And you know what this kind of talk is?" she asked.
"No, what," he said, suddenly exhausted and stifling a yawn.
"It's the worthless drivel of psychoanalysis, passed off as friendly conversation."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"I think that's why I like it."
"I know," she said. "Me, too."

"He wore his beard comfortably, like a peasant."

I'm letting my beard grow out. It has lined my face somewhat sparsely for years (I'm proud to say that I both liked Pinback before most people had heard of them and had a beard before it was hip to have one) but has never been allowed to, well, do its own thing. The only thing mind-boggling about my decision is the timing: I've chosen to add a thicker, more insulating layer to a large portion of my face in the middle of one of the worst droughts that Middle Tennessee has ever seen.

It has reached 100 and exceeded this mark substantially almost every day for the last two and a half weeks. It's not supposed to break for another couple of days. From what I understand, it has claimed the lives of seven thus far (elderly or otherwise, this is still considerable). Yesterday afternoon, I was quite sure that it was about to claim my own. As I tramped as softly and bravely as I could out of the air-conditioned bakery just outside of downtown, my shoulder started aching, and the muscle above my left shoulderblade. It throbbed, it hurt to breathe, but I had no choice but to press on. I climbed onto a bus, fearing that I might pass out, and clung for dear life as it careened around the tight corners towards downtown Nashville. As I stumbled to the post office in the Arcade to drop a postcard to a sweetheart, I was struck by the thought that it might be the last thing that I do. I could not feel life slipping out of me; no, I could simply feel it preparing to slip out all at once.

It was intimidating, but I made it through the postcard fiasco; I even made it over to a cafe for a sandwich and pasta salad before locating my bus home. I passed out several times during the brief ride, but I survived.

The adventures never cease, never cease.

Accidents

That lost post was a fluke. The aforementioned work computer is not a terribly fast machine and, since I tend to have at least four rather sizeable programs running simultaneously at all times, it tends to trip over its own, oversized feet fairly often. I recall pulling open the Blogger widget to write something but watching my computer jerkily refuse to let me type properly, so I closed it. A letter must have snuck on out to the internet regardless (a bold character, indeed!) and, given the context of this freak occurance, it is rather uncanny.

I had a fairly miserable Tuesday (heavy drinking and female Irish (/Aussie) fiddlers aside). There's not much to say beyond that, really. As I tiptoed into the kitchen to (quietly) dump some vitamins into a Zip-Loc bag (I've heard that you're not supposed to take anything on an empty stomach) in the morning, my friend Jessi stirred and pulled herself upright on the pull-out couch in the living room. I hate waking people up, even if they don't mind being awoken. She seemed to be dripping with the soft sorts of dreams that you have when you sleep lightly. She thanked me four or five times for letting her stay on the couch and we bade each other good-bye.

And there was the problem. As I walked away from my house, up the street, around the corners, down the hill and up the hill, further and deeper into the city, my heart sank lower and lower. She's not a new friend of mine but she is definitely a new close friend of mine. And when we said good-bye, it smacked of finality. I know, nothing is ever set in stone, but at some point yesterday morning, Jessi climbed into her white SUV and rolled out to I-65 North towards Louisville while I was heading, step by step, further and deeper south.

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Innnnteresting!

This is a test post from my new Blogger widget on my iMac at work which was purchased just for me. I guess maybe this works!