The garage/workshop was filled with wonderful trash. Four hundred ballpoint pens in sparkle plastic that didn’t work. Eight hundred heavy-duty industrial coffee filters. Thirty pounds of defective acrylic balls for making plastic flower arrangements. Two hundred dowels from the closed down building supply. A large box of dolls eyes from god knows where.
they were doing nothing
they were sitting around
telling stories about the way the world is
and I could not argue
with the truth
of their sad conclusions
My friend Molly saw a movie documentry called African Cats. I like cats. I like big cats and little cats. Molly’s mom Cheryl said they show the prey getting killed in African Cats. I don’t want to see that. My cat Penny gets prey but it’s different. Today she had a big chipmunk in her mouth that daddy tried to get from her. She ran away fast and over the fence into our neybor Jane’s yard. She still had the chipmunk. I watched her play with her prey. She threw it up in the air and jumped on it. Then she ate it all. Just not the tail. She’s a good hunter.
How could he have known? It surely wasn’t his fault. For five years he had to beat…
Sitting on the tiny front porch, she looked out on a scene that had gone unchanged for almost forty-four years. New growth on the trees, a few more shrubs, and age enveloping poorly made houses that could not hide their faults. But, still the same.
“But education, since it deals in the first place with human organisms, and in the second place with individualities, is not analogous to a standardizable manufacturing process. Education must measure its efficiency not in terms of so many promotions per dollar of expenditure, nor even in terms of so many student-hours per dollar of salary; it must measure its efficiency in terms of increased humanism, increased power to do, increased capacity to appreciate.”
It was his first trip out of the tiny town. He arrived early. He was nervous and…
“There are no two finer words in the English language than ‘encased meat,’ my friend.”
–The motto attributed to Secret Robbie on the wall at Hot Doug’s
“This is what happens to me always. I want to write so many things but I get tired.”
I just got back from the eye doctor after first having lunch at Hot Doug’s — the Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium. After last night’s Bulls loss, I needed to nurse my pain and get my vision checked; I’m sure I was not watching the same game as the referees.
So that didn’t happen.
The end of the world or the rapture or whatever the heck was supposed to happen on Saturday.
And what did we learn?
He waited for another customer to enter. Through the glass in his little cubicle he could see…
All his friend and loved ones were there. The party was a surprise. He had appeared to be genuinely happy. He was genuinely older.
The Last Temptation of Osama bin Laden II Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our regularly scheduled program…
She stood there for the longest time. She had trouble making herself believe what she had seen was real. However, as she closed and opened her eyes several times, the truth of it persisted. The cool air conditioning inside the mall helped to steady her as she found an empty bench near the fountain. Right there in the parking lot! In broad daylight! She reached in her purse for a handkerchief.