Vibe-check, it’s Friday. Yay! A delightfully cool Friday at that! I’d like to thank the democratic party (which I’ve heard controls the weather now). Has the heat finally surrendered to the inevitable freshness of fall?
Can we please proceed directly to a cruel winter?

“What are we doing tonight?” I asked Lisa as she sat on the edge of a chair to put on her Nine West tunic pointed-toe booties. She has class this morning and I don’t. I’m sipping coffee, curled up on our red-corduroy couch, under a school themed throw, trying to grasp the plot of a fascinating chemistry book.

“Something fun,” she said, verbatim, offering little concrete as she picked up her slouchy silhouette, hobo bag.
“See ya,” she said, shouldering the door open with her right arm and securing her coffee with her left.
She’s got one of those giant coffee cups that are so vogue. She gives herself 30 minutes, after our morning jog, to get ready for class and that whole time, she’s brewing cup after k-cup of Keurig coffee to fill that monster.
“Byeeeeee,” I responded, before the door clunked closed.

Sunny, came to the door of her room, “Do you separate your whites and darks?” She asked.
“Of course,” I said, not looking up, to save my page-place, “we’re not animals.”
“I never separate,” she confessed.
“That’s why your white socks are pink,” I updogged.
“They are pink,” she said, pulling up her pajama leg to expose her pink socks, “bright pink.”

The serious events have started. Parties thrown by groups, always to a theme, offering whimsical, rainbow palates of fun. We’re here for it, my room and suitemates, all of us. There’s no better way to spend a Friday or Saturday night, than dressing up as a Disney princess, jedi princess or streetwalking zombie princess.

Some nights, there’s more than one and we jump gatherings until we find the perfect one. We easily feed off of each another’s energy. We’re all 21-year-olds now and pushing past painfully obvious insecurities, legal restrictions and occasionally, moral boundaries.

Ok, let’s reach for some Friday night rhymes:

Fridays are reserved for revelry, for noise and crazy mirth,
you can find a rave or masquerade with very little research.

The venues are themed and adorned for festive cheer,
and the turned-up music ignites those dance-like atmospheres.

Picture tapestries of youthful fun and you’ve grasped the vibe of the night.
In fleeting moments, we reach for it - I hope you brought your invite.

There was a disappointing ‘jungle rave’ where people were smoking inside!
Are you a ‘master of the universe,’ if you can’t get air-quality right?

Way too soon the revels cease
and in the Saturday morning quiet, we search out tasty eats.
We did it for memories, to give our dull lives a makeover
and good news! I didn’t wake up with a hangover.
.
.
Songs for this:
Nite Becomes Day by Citizen Cope
Breathe In by Frou Frou

During our recent, year-long pandemic imprisonment, my room - which, objectively, is a very nice room - seemed to transform, late-nights, into a tomb. I had to open all the windows just to feel like I could breathe.

Night after night, when the lights were out, I’d lay perfectly still, perfectly awake until all-hours, listening to crickets. There must be a billion of them in Georgia.

Persistent consciousness can drive you mad.

“Why are your windows open?”, my mom would say, hurrying to close them in winter (to save heat) and summer (to save cool).

I wouldn’t argue - I’d just shrug, wordlessly and reopen them once she left. I seldom argue anymore - I surreptitiously do whatever I want to.

We live in A world of bad thoughts today,
We accept people are satisfied, when they have nothing to say.

There are many helpful, generous actions, that happen all of the time,
From the news media, to daily conversations, the worst is the subject,
In everyone’s mind.

The people that announce the weather, A daily number game,
Thirty per cent chance of rain, why not seventy per cent, it won’t,
They get paid the same.

We know we will die, not the time or way,
If an investigation, finds alcohol or drugs, they are sure that was the
cause, how do they know, it could have just been that person’s day.

Actually, this world is not so bad, and unkind,
It’s the way, ideas, and words are presented,
To make us think, it is getting worse all the time.


                                                                                                    Tom Maxwell © 07/28/2006 AD

A city man met with a villager man.

The village man talked about his work in the fields when the city man stopped  him by saying:

“ Do you know that the city people have invented large airplanes that can fly through the air?”

The villager was deeply impressed.

The city man went on “We have got great boats that can cross the oceans”

The villager was even more impressed.

The city man continued “ We’ve got cars on the road that drive at tremendous speed”.

After all,
The villager asked the city man:

“ The man in the city, you are talking about,
Who flies through the air, and moves through the ocean can he still walk on his two legs?”

There were two good friends,
The flower-woman and the fisher-woman,
One was selling flowers at the market, and the other one was selling fish.

On the weekend the fisher-woman  invited the flower-woman for a sleep over.
After talking for a long time they were tired and want to bed.
The fisher-woman  fall asleep immediately, as she was sleeping in her home.
The flowers-woman could not fall asleep.
She was tossing because of the smell of fish in the house.

She woke up, and got a few flowers from her basket, and put them on the table.
The flowers smell helped her easily fall asleep.
Suddenly,
The fisher-woman got up wondering from where this awful
smell was coming.
“ I can’t tolerate flowers smell. “
She removed the flowers from the table.
The fish smell again helped her fall asleep.

All felt the fable
Dwindle & swell
The swindle whispered
Into every eyeball
The tramelled multifarious
Steady steady
Soft sell
Who'd fall for that
We say
As it settles down to dwell
In our depths & recesses
Tales of decline & progress
Denied

platitudes and attitudes
she said
“to find good love,
be receptive, never deceptive,
always ever, never never.”

I listened, warming,
but warning her,
“rhyming is the sophistry
of those who cannot
decide what to write
next”

I drove away,
in just my pajama top,
(my bottoms
retired at the crime scene)
lest she
****** macabre me
like in an Agatha Christie.

I foresaw a drama
developing of her
hanging me by
my bottoms pj,
knotted two by too
tightly trite my leggings
drawn to prevent
the rhyming of my breathing,
each pant to
peeve me
into panting:
one leg named
moon and
the other,
June.

so I decided
what the heck!
I’ll go firstly,
hanging her early,
for the greater sake
of literature