FINGERNAIL CLIPPINGS

One of the things about me and wanting to write is growing closer to some of what passes for pain and agony in my life. It has been so incredibly difficult for me to do that, though the PMS I have been suffering through the past six or so months and sharing here, would not leave me suprised if I've cast doubt over that opinion.

It has been evident to me, as I spare some of the 'less than' details about how things have shaken out around here and around town. For instance, I have been trying to come up with a balance observation about the men in the hood and not simply hide behind my sexual identity as a reason that I don't make the same kind of commentary about the men that I see as I 'jog 'round town'.

One of the reason became clear outside the Federal Building on Michigan Avenue, across from the Rosa Parks Transit Center one morning. A cat recognized me from a long time ago, greeting me like most local men who know of me, pantomiming to box as they approach me with their faces glowing. I wonder why it is that I get such a reception from essential strangers but not so much with my family. Anyway, moving right along, we spent 20 or so minutes catching up, me mainly listening to his story of partial recovery and his low moment, I was trying as hard as I could to place him. I didn't want to call out the wrong name or association, so I listened to his remarkable story. I didn't have to question whether it was taken from real events as much as I there would be some question about the embellishing details. I am going to have to notate them, as they would provide a story segment at some time in the future.

When I finally 'got it' and it wasn't from his conversation, I remembered where I knew him from and why I don't comment on men as I do the women that I see in passing. It is because the men look so beaten and defeated. Looking at them in their juvenile clothing and assymetrical facial hair, they have done worse than commit fashion crime. They have regressed to such a delusional level of development that they have stopped mentally aging in defiance of their physical changes. I don't really know how to describe the way I feel or what it is I mentally record when I see a 'grown man' dressed as a teenager, wearing long floppy shorts with the hem of their pants at the wearers' knees. That means belted or no, the waist is STILL not above his hips. The long, oversized digny tee-shirt, extolling some unaffordable high end product, so very could be me. I know because I am me, that it could not have been and never will be, still, the possiblity exists.

That is what makes it so difficult for me to look at men and describe them. It is more difficult for me to do objectively.

SMILE, BREATHE, AND GO SLOWLY - Thict Nacht Hanh

This has been a tough go, getting ready to ship out. There is so much that is different from other moves that I have made and it has unnerved me a bit. Also I am QUITE a different person that I was before and I can't expect to perform as my memory would lead me to believe. In fact, in catching up with my man, he remarked on how it seemed like I was always "going somewhere" whenever he has ran into me, either from or to another place. Here I am again, going from here to there, and 'there' being totally unknown.

Somehow, I know things aren't only not going to be 'that bad' but that things will end up being very good. As much as things may seem up in the air, whenever you are working towards a solution, things come together rapidly as think that as well as timely, as long as you are working towards an end.

Re-reading the scramble of my most recent entry, it isn't that I deliberately try to befuddle anyone ever. Most of the time, as I scanned for errata, I DON'T even know what may come 'up and out'. I think that a lot of my writing is garbled because it has been a really long time since I have been where I can expand on thoughts and be motivated to be clearer when I speak and write. Being the smartest cat in the room bothers me, not that I don't think I am smart or anything, because I would rather learn from you than prove you need to learn more.

I can always learn from someone who is brave enough to work with what they know. In my opinion, people can surprise themselves when they realize how much they do understand about a subject when they let themselves think. Nationally, I think that we have told ourselves that our education system is so bad that the bar for 'elites' and 'the proletariat' thinkers has been lowered. That is one way of explaining the popularity of nameless people that if you are thinking to yourself, "is so-and-so part of this manipulative mess?", they prolly is. Anywho, I think that if we were sitting over a dinner table in a restaurant, that the 'true north' of that entry would have been more understandable and we'd have a decent conversation.

OH YEAH...

...I did mention 'her', didn't I? Not directly but by the title of the song I selected. I could have only meant to describe one person in my life, like, ever, with those words. And that person is my ex-wife.

Nothing really sticks about her or anything. It is not easy knowing that my daughter doesn't care to share any of her life with me, but that is the way the cards were played. I wished that I had held my cards differently, but I played what I was dealt the best that I could.

The song, a cover of the Buzzcocks way cool original, just sounded like my feelings when the thought of leaving my ex-wife first cropped up in my mind. I always have maintained that we never should have exchanged phone numbers, not out of cynic bitterness, but because we never were each others' type, not in the least. That is all to say about that.