The maiden voyage of the "Catalyst of Fun".

First prize!

***

The naked man in the sun, casting a shadow on the sand by the ocean in the summer between work weeks, with months to go before any hint of cold in the fall with the leaves and the trees of pre snow and post heat, wearing nothing for lack of trying, staying warm in the hot breeze in the sun and on the warm sand, worried for nothing more than the times of the tides and where he left his towel and shoes and pants and wallet that holds his drinking money looks around at the clouds in the sky and the clean air all about him and thinks something plain, like:

"nice...".

Twenty miles off the coast, there's a head in the water. This head is larger than it at first appears.

scratchy

I cradle the paper cup in my hands and sip carefully from the steaming opening in the lid. I sprint awkwardly across the street and think about the frustration of having to work in the morning; and, behind me, the sun lowers behind the providence river bridge.

For the winter weary:

As you look out past the shady trees,
the palms with, maybe, too much leaf,
you see the bright, hot sand and surf,
the sunlit air laid off from clouds.
You touch the warm, dark bark of limb
and feel the warm, salt swells of sand,
like warm tar or sheets or dry, hot breeze.
You look and think light,
half entranced,
of somewhere in the world,
an alarm clock staring dimly at an empty bed
low lit and left in the corner on the table.
With concern, it beeps the time politely,
wondering where on earth from this half-lit room
you have gone.

Hunched over by the condiment bar at the restaurant, Ketchupman, with dirty hands, gathers his sandwich in its wrapper with the salty, orange goo from the bucket on his fingers. He palms the wrapper tight around the sweating, sesame buns and puts the burger in the linty side pocket of his navy blue windcoat. He strides out the door while sucking muck off his thumb and not noticing the mustard on the back of his pants. He adjusts his coiled hair with a greasy digit and walks out of sight into the dark. This man lives for his food.

The large eye of the world outside peers in on you at night and calls your name.

WINDOWS

On the corner of Brook and Transit there are two now-closed shops on the corner across the street that have large, plate glass window fronts with nothing behind them but a few tools and some drywall dust and maybe a bright orange bucket of plaster and thick, white wallpaint. There's a bumpy black fire hydrant growing out of the sidewalk near the gutter that stops cars from parking nearby. The edifice runs along the street for some time but is kind of disjointed from being completely parallel with it. The whole damn thing has character, and the kind of character that is appealing, in a way that can only come from lonely objects devoid of people and time and consequence.

I arrive at this complex to cross the street and head down to the road by the highways, and I find myself, as I cross, catching my reflection in the darkened glass for a few seconds before the moment is fairly over. I see this young man in a green coat in the winter. Short hair. Face fuzzed out for the distance and the scratchy glasses. A slight skip of step and click of shoe. Hands in pockets. Hood resting on shoulder and off to one side. Slight red in the cheek and slick black and light of the wet street.

I get to see a glimpse, this wavering span of time the goes on for only so long and would go on longer if I let it but I don't. I keep walking and keep it as a flighted blip. I get to cherish the moment of thinking past my self, of looking at the kind of glimpse that someone else might catch of me from a similar distance. I'm allowed to see the blurry, sketched imprint of my person and to peer into the world beyond that can distract another from the sight of me; past my moving body to the white house, blackened to half in the reflection in the window; past the pigeons in the feeder in the tree, and the tree itself; past that and up the street and around the corner to somewhere else.

I get to think of the world that I live in, as if that doing that really does mean taking the sight of me and throwing it off to one side in a half-grayed reflection of the damn thing. I get to feel a real connection with things in motion and with things staying stationary for years. A person moving along. A remaining place held for ransom to time for time in the wake of people existing and getting older and moving on. A world under a sky that bends and grows outward with the intention of changing itself in the mirror, an intention that is anything but phony, anything but fallacious or mean or sarcastic. A lonely block of street. The dark corners, freshly painted white in the new year to hold the hopes of some for a while before new dreams give way to new corners and better lights.

Finally, the moment passes and the store front is behind me. The far off glance of myself in motion in the windows is replaced by the bendy caricatures in the cars to my side as I walk. I'm given back my selfishness and the intimacy of being able to get close to yourself to block out the rest of the world and I'm fine with that. It's fine.


-January, 2010

Standing on the sidewalk in the sun with a bucket full of cold, soapy water, I slogged the front windows of my work with the squeegee. The light from the setting sun caught the drops in the air as I shook off the waste water. I stared at my reflection as I worked without a jacket and thought about how a nice day like this in the winter is worth ten in the summer. Mmmm....

***

Something to note: I'm thinking of changing the format of this blog from being a one-per-day kind of thing to being something less scheduled. Rest assured with the knowledge that I do work consistently every day. I'm far from the standard definition of lazy, but it makes more sense to scan in large groups and do that...thing...where I just...update with a bunch of work.

Yeah, I'm doing that - watch for it. For those looking for a stated distinction between this and my other blog: I'll be updating amarathas.blogspot.com with plain news and things. This will be something altogether more personal, like many of the secret blogs and journals I keep.

Sharetime, 2010. Success.

I know. I know. They're late. My dog ate my homework. Mmmmmmmm...hmm...

Here're three for tonight and yesterday, which I had skipped shamelessly!

I have the next two days off and have vague plans for them. Reading. Painting. Cleaning. Aimless brainstorming. Spacing out. Some movies, maybe. Showering: to be determined.

To be continued.

Happy new year, everyone. I'm reeling, at the moment, in the optimism I hold for this new decade. It's just another year, but a little enthusiasm never hurt anybody. Here's to not being a loser.