quarterly meltdown

imported my ass

2006 Somewhere over Western Washington
She finishes and we all applaud, and it’s a shame she won’t remember this moment, it’s not often in adulthood we receive such high praise, and by then it’s too late, leading to resentment from parties (friend and foe) elsewhere. She asks for candy, we willingly oblige, holding out the tin, from which she removes red and yellow gummi, replacing all that’s green.

2006 ibid.
Tossing up whatever remains on the palette, hoping what sticks might be inoffensive to the eye, this is how I write, of late, trying to be brief, but flexible, like bendy straws. But today, all I had left was a few drops of green on the brush, and green is displeasing to the children, like fruitcake aspic.

2006 ibid.
On the drive home, I tilt my head 90 degrees, and find that it makes ascertaining distance nearly impossible, as though there is some mystical fluid inside my head that controls equilibrium, but I know from head liquids that this mind’s-eye jelly, if it truly existed, would be green and viscous.

Viscosity is green and slow, like gummi bears.

2007 ???
It’s not the buzzards circling overhead that worry me, it’s the actuaries at the doorstep.

1982 (Don’t Fuck with) Texas
We ate the cake, not minding it so much, I learned very early on that not eating the presentation could be very painful, and always laughed when the stereotypical cartoon of bed without dinner made itself known. I would have loved that option.

2006 Bavaria
I’m tempted to bite down on the bruises to keep them from fading away.

2006 Blogosphere
I love the idea of putting a bell on me to alert others when I’m coming. So that the next time you hear a bell, you’ll think, he’s coming. Ring-a-ding-ding, here I come.

It will take some getting used to, I know. When I hear bells mostly I think of Pop Tart knock-offs in a toaster oven, or Monte Carlos pulling into the full-service station for leaded gas and a windshield wipe. And I don’t want to think of anybody coming in the back of a 1978 Chevrolet.

2006 Somewhere over Western Washington
We’ve reached the end of our time in training, and sadly, the graduation ceremony is lacking in pomp and especially circumstance. She walks across the stage, and though she is the graduate, she is the one who hands me a gift. It is a candy tin. I know without opening it that inside are a handful of green gummis.