I'm not even sure who I am anymore. For the length of a grueling three-day business trip, I was Mr. Together, a real cool cucumber who doesn't sweat or worry no matter how much pressure he's under or how dire the situation is. Mr. Together always has a kind word for his peers and he's astonishingly calm in the face of other's panic.When Mr. T tells you that things are gonna be OK, you can take it to the bank.
I have no idea who this Mr. T guy is; the me that I'm used to seeing is the one who can be brought to a state of tearful incapacitation by the faintest first note of a lightly strummed minor chord and paralyzed with sorrow by a Facebook eulogy to a virtual stranger's dog. A real sap.
I expected some sort of depressive transformation once the job was done and I had time to grossly misjudge just how truly awful my life is. On the long ride home Friday, I stared through the window of my train, waiting for the misery to kick in. I was braced for the expected emotional impact of my own wayward thoughts, not exactly tense but not exactly mellow either.
After a half-hour had passed without any nascent despair, I ventured to the 'Cafe Car' for a cup of Amtrak coffee. If anything will make you miserable, it's a cup of Amtrak coffee coupled with the permeating, rubbery smell of microwaved cheeseburgers and the passengers who eat such fare- but this time the java tasted OK and the woman in front of me in line smelled good, like clean sheets and warm sun. Perplexed, I returned to my seat and waited for the train to derail. It didn't.
When I finally got to the station, I was surprised to find that I hadn't left my car lights on and that my battery wasn't dead. The sight of four fully inflated tires failed to inspire the slightest bit of anxiety. The car started right up and the late-night traffic was light on the short and shockingly uneventful drive home.
Home held no trauma, it was just as I left it, save for the not-unexpected presence of my imaginary friend Fancy. She was sitting on my couch, thumbing through my journal.
"Hi", I said.
"The Universe lives inside of you and what appear to be the pinpoint lights of distant stars are in fact the faintly glimmering last rays of your lost hopes reflecting off the tiny yet infinitely broken shards of your shattered dreams and scattered personalities", replied Fancy.
"Says you", I said by way of clever retort.
"No, you said that-well, you wrote it. It's right here after this awful poem..."
I snatched the notebook away from her, looked at the pages and read a few lines to myself.
"Wow. This really is dreadful."
Fancy nodded and we laughed together until she was gone.
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THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB, MARCH 19, 2011
Hot Tuna - Water Song
Planet Gong- Floating Anarchy
Gong- Oily Way/Outer Temple
ELP- Trilogy
Genesis- Can-Utlity and the Coastliners
Be Bop Deluxe- Japan
Stranglers- Nuclear Device
Stranglers- Something Better Change
Jeannine Hebb- Things Haven't Been So Bad Lately
Gary Numan- Engineers
Dave Cousins- Tears and Pavan
The Duhks- Mighty Storm
Lost in the Trees- Song For The Painter
Patti Smith- Wave
Allan Coberly- Fall and Reflect (demo version)
Monday Machines- Ruined Morning
Cursive- I Couldn't Love You
Golden Palominos- Faithless Heart
Capt. Beefheart- Same Old Blues
Peter Green - Fool No More
Ten Years After- Tomorrow I'll Be Out of Town
Robert Fripp- I May Not Have Enough of Me but I've Had Enough of You
Ozric Tentacles- Thyroid
3/19/2011 Podcast download here.
Archives here.
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4 comments:
quit looking for trouble...
I enjoyed this very, very much. A reminder to note when negative expectation does NOT come to pass! Who would have thought of it?
JS- Me? I quit looking for trouble back in 2005, mostly anyway.
JBC- Thanks! Once I finish learning how to accentuate the lack of negatives, I'm gonna start working on appreciating the positives.
the first two paragraphs ... sometimes I think you're stealing things out of my brain, writing them down.
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