Chicken skin

Mottled chicken skin
Appears on my legs when cold
I am always cold.

Iodine

Iodine burns most
Of all the disinfectants
Savor the small hurt.

Quote of the day

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. ~Albert Einstein

blister

There is a blood blister on my knuckle, and I can't seem to leave it alone. Fills with blood, then I squeeze it out, then the blood turns to clear plasma and I squeeze that out. Blood blister becomes flat, and in a matter of minutes its risen once again like that thing from out of the swamp. Only my knuckle is not a swamp. However, thus repeats the cycle. Blood bubble under the skin, squeeze it out until it turns clear, squeeze that out until it flattens and wait for it to rise.

For some odd reason this is making me think about life in general. I'm not really certain of the relation exactly, but it seems like we go through the motions of life in order to make it coincide with our views on happiness, only to have to pop that metaphorical blood blister over and over again. Perhaps I'm missing a lesson here... ahh yes. Leave it alone and let it heal. Can we do that in life?

Common courtesy

Why do some people insist on holding the door open for others, yet if those having the door held open for them do not immediately say "thank you" or say it loudly enough, they get miffed?

Why do something nice for someone just to be acknowledged? Why not just be nice?

Had a woman about my age hold the door open for me this morning, and before I had a chance to say "thank you," she very rudely says "your welcome." I don't get it. Why even bother holding the door open at all?

early morning

Crack of thunder woke me up this morning at 4:00 am and intruded my dreams. In pitch black darkness, waited with my eyes closed to fall back asleep... but nothing. Just that familiar grasping of the invisible hand inside my chest each time I thought of the consequences of having my morning interrupted so early. I sat and waited for the second crack of thunder, at the very least if the weather was inconsiderate enough to wake me at four, at least it should have the decency of giving me a great thunderstorm to listen to.

No such luck. The room stayed quiet except for the faint murmurings of things I could hear while wearing earplugs. Underwater muffled sounds of a fan blowing and the sound of someone snoring far in the distance. After an hour of listening and feigning sleep, I decided to remove those foam cylinders from my ear cavities so I could scratch the inside of my ears and searched for a possible cat above my head. No such luck. It was decided that coffee should be made and I should stop torturing myself. This likely is a mistake, waking up, which I will probably discover some time mid afternoon, but one can only stay in bed for so long.

I tiptoe through a pitch black apartment, imagining that perhaps there is someone in the apartment watching me. I feel someone watching me, feel a presence there, somewhere... but I'm just scaring myself again. I imagine maybe its the ghost of my grandmother whose ashes I keep in a closet full of old Halloween costumes and large, rolled up charcoal drawings of nude figures on butcher paper. Perhaps it is her in the apartment. Walking to the kitchen, I stir the air and the paper towels whisper. This does not diminish the illusion that there is some unknown presence wandering around the dark morning with me. Like a child afraid of the dark, I switch on the oven light, as turning on the light has always been the only real way to get rid of the monsters hiding in the closet.

Coffee always seems to taste better in a coffee shop. I think there is something about being completely surrounded by the smells of coffee, the clinks and clanks and whizzing sounds of the espresso machine, bad indie folk in the background. Certain foods and beverages always seem to taste better if imbibed in the right atmosphere. Skim milk in my coffee this morning turns it an odd shade of gray, like the pallor of death. The taste is there, and the caffeine seems to do the trick, or does something anyways. I envy the cat who is able to fall asleep anywhere she pleases, curled up in the most impossible of places at any old time she chooses. If only sleep were so easy.

I think I'm more tired than I'm letting myself believe. The weather report is not showing any rain. I think that crack of thunder was part of a dream.

VI

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives fly by.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Dieman's land.

If certain, when this life was out
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee.
That will not state its sting.

~Emily Dickinson

Johnny

He was iconic
A dancer and gentleman
We will remember

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvcqt_4NOds

"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled." --Sir Barnett Cocks

Bored

I have not written
A haiku in quite some time
Perhaps I am bored.

Searchers

Some people do not have to search -
they find their niche early in life and rest there, seemingly contented and resigned.
They do not seem to ask much of life,
sometimes they do not seem to take it seriously.
At times I envy them,
but usually I do not understand them -
seldom do they understand me.

I am one of the searchers.
There are, I believe, millions of us.
We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life,
hoping to uncover its ultimate secret.
We continue to explore ourselves,
hoping to understand.

We like to walk along the beach -
we are drawn by the ocean,
taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty.
We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well.

Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter.
To share our sadness with the one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know -
unless it is to share our laughter.

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself,
for everything beautiful it can provide.
Most of all we want to love and be loved.
We want to live in a relationship that will not impede
our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls.

We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.
We are wanderers, dreamers and lovers,
lonely souls who dare ask of life everything good and
beautiful.

- - James Kavanaugh

Late times with myself

Loneliness ain't new
I've done it for a long time
But I'm not alone.

Sometimes a cold shower is best