Track 94

Driving along with #2-  just fine-    & then out of no/every-where she starts pointing and saying “bad guy-  bad guy out there.”  He lurked outside the  window I guess trying to bust in. The window was closed tight but he stuck with us wherever we turned and when a red light left us vulnerable he climbed inside the vehicle.  I could tell we were dealing with a dark and determined bad guy.  Things progressed from play to what seemed like real fear. She was becoming increasingly serious about this bad guy thing.  It was getting weird and she said “I’m scared” so I punched the bad guy, hard.  Then so did she.  It kind of worked but he was still around.   With my non-driving hand I uppercut that bad guy and for a moment    connected.  The blow calmed her young mind anyway or moved it on to something else, but I was still worked up and wondering.

My daughter turned her head away from the window and said some stuff I didn’t understand. Then I said some stuff she didn’t understand.  Somehow we understood each other.

 

 

Track 93

Surprised,  driving this morning on sports radio I heard a young man who’d recently failed/postponed his dreams of stardom on the American Idol    &     I missed the talking but got to hear him sing a melodic and tender version of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s  “Baby Got Back”  with just his voice and acoustic guitar.
It/his dream were really good and it almost made me cry but instead I laughed out loud and went on to the next thing.

Signs

Track 87

Like it’s OK to play Monster Mash at a Halloween party.  Quit worrying about if it’s cliché –> worrying about if something is cliché has become cliché.

Just stop it.  Understand the party sometimes wants expected and known. I like to think we are versatile enough as a species to enjoy both original thought and the story we’ve already heard before.  I get it I get it, I’m part of a generation charged with the serial killing of clichés, and as I’m writing this I’m reminded to avoid them at all costs. But if the shoe fits play the dang song.
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Track 85

We do weird ventures sometimes looking only for something else.

To see what’s atop the stairs or who’s at University during the summer. To the first half-hour a greasy spoon is open, the bus the mall the RE Store. At Park Bowl on a Tuesday early afternoon they took care of us. We never bowled. We ate hot fries and watched empty lanes before a couple we imagined on a second date started to change shoes.  They were not good bowlers, but an alley is lonely when quiet, and since there were no matching shirts or Lebowski characters to be seen it was nice to have the company. We were a big part of the environment there, a majority, and they took care of us with ketchup and extra napkins.  They helped with coins and rushed over to brush our air-hockey puck to make it go faster.