The river is blustery and the silt whirls up like popped smoke and curls in twisted mini-cyclones along the streambed. I went there yesterday and walked the sand. Eric Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes supplied the soundtrack and I wandered around aimlessly and wept. An eagle sat perched in its nest, hopefully atop an egg or, better yet, warming a fully hatched chick. A magpie called from the bush, unseen, eventhough I addressed her. There was a rubbish pile, seemingly from a small motor repair shop and among the rubble was a notebook whose front cover was affixed with a former felon's prison ID badge. In my probabilistic stroll, I passed a man sitting on a folding chair at the treeline. He had been close enough to possibly mistake my call to the magpie as a greeting to him but said nothing as I passed by. Another enigma. Another character. Both of us NPC's in each other's MMORPG.
Yesterday was busy. I saw this dummy compete in his final home soccer game for high school where he got an assist and, late in the game, had two quality scoring chances where the ball sailed on him. Not by much, but enough to clear the crossbar. Unfortunate. When I opened the Zuck machine yesterday morning in the futon bed that's too small such that my feet dangle off the edge like some Raymond Carver protagonist, I saw a bevy of varsity soccer photos and this was one of them and I laughed and I cried like some demented inmate confined to the SHU. He finished high school, not without serious forbearance on everyone but his part, and I've never been more proud of him and more fearful of how life is going to ruin him. But that's just the negativity speaking.
Go cop the new-ish Kendrick record and pre-order the new QOTSA joint.
