#zzzzzzzz
It wasn't that he didn't remember the lay of the land;
Hell, knew it as well as his own name,
(Even though, he noted with some disquiet,
The pavement had crept a bit farther up Bootjack Hill,
And there was a driveway or two,
Not to mention the odd electric meter,
That hadn't been there some years before)
But there were considerations now,
Things which needed to be taken into account
Which, in his days of rattle-assing in these hills
In his third-hand '75 Nova
(Last of the Rochester straight-sixes,
As so many bottles and cans raised in tribute noted
Before he sold it to some kid from the neighborhood
For fifty bucks, probably forty more than it was worth.)
Had been under his radar, if not beneath his contempt,
But he wasn't driving a beater with a cracked manifold now,
And his hips and knees were less than amenable
To changing a tire on a narrow strip
Of packed dirt and gravel,
And if you moved at more than a snail's pace up there,
You could bust a brake line in short order,
And if even you could walk to a point
Where you had cell service,
You had to convince someone from the garage in town
To send someone up to those hills
(He could just imagine someone on the other end
After an incredulous pause saying
You up where, now?)
And he'd decided to tuck his car
Into one of those **** new driveways
(He'd have just K-turned it back in the day,
But he knew those culverts were deep and serpentine)
And headed back downhill,
Reaching the Irish Settlement road
(Itself only paved completely back in '84 or so)
The drone of the tires on the tarmac
Faintly irritating and mosquito-like.
Jul 17, 2020
Jul 17, 2020 at 4:20 PM UTC
We all get there sometimes
When the world is a fun house mirror that is only slightly off
And my head is pinched until there is no room for complete thoughts
So the words bounce around in my head like hyperactive toddlers
Or 3 little girls who have been in the car too long
My parents called it being squirrelly
An appended description for the utter chaos scampering out of my mouth
Then the little worms come out, too, like the earthworms in a rainstorm
except the rain in a barrage of obscure cartoon references
or the repeated sound of the squeaky door
Then we try to be serious
No more funny business, I am a mature adult with a J.O.B.
Jellyfish Obsession and Boundaries, which are minimally helpful
So now I either have unhealthy co-dependent behaviors (probably)
or a sense of brutal honesty and a tendency to overshare
Now, a quick haiku
That leafy sea dragon is
not a piece of kelp
Yes, I like the ocean
For all intensive purposes, this should not make sense
If it does, then that is a sign of deep burrowing by earworms
or the desperate last beat of Circadian Rhythm
Good Night
May 9
May 9, 2026 at 12:40 AM UTC