I’m considering open mic tonight. The poetry kind. I scribble notes that look like poems but they don’t have life until spoken. Words on the page are limp and cold. Coming from my mouth they take form, develop spirit, breathe with life. No performance is the same as my mood tints the tone and time captures the meaning in that single moment. Other words are carved in stone and can only be repeated.
I’m at the P&H Cafe in Memphis listening to Zeke Johnson play the blues. He writes songs and tells stories. Plays guitar like a teenager sends a text – casually accurate.
Following him is Rum Rebellion. I’m a fan.
These two artists may never appear on the same stage again. You’re missing a great time.
I surprise myself more often than not. Engaging in antics that most people pass by unnoticed. I have a strange sense of existence and only invest in creatures that seem to share my sensibility. I’m crazy. Don’t take anything I say seriously. If you want to learn something it takes prolonged exposure and suspension of all previous assumptions.
Sitting on a ledge
Peering over and out
Into the dark mess
Five feet below
Countless yards ahead
Creatures moving
Through the filth
Wiping clean against
The newest comer.
Why won’t he talk to me.
What did she just say?
From up here it all
Swirls together
in an eddy of sweat
and desperation.
No way down
Too far to jump
Sitting and waiting
For someone
Or something
To let up.
The games I play focus on escape. A chance to escape…
Danger, sometimes. I live next to danger every day. Technically at least. I’m on the 6th floor of a tower in the heart of midtown Memphis. Not Midtown, midtown. Midtown, capital M, is the east section in the middle area of Memphis. The edge of danger. A place to dip your toe and pretend you live in a big city. Midtown is a destination spot. Midtown (the non-proper noun) is the middle of the town. Where the oil and water meet. The small cross-section in the middle of a still segregated town. So I play games and pretend it’s the way of the world and try not to notice that I’m a symbol of the problem.
Escaping reality is the best.
The main thing is honesty.
When we discuss the American Dream it’s often in terms of what we want to happen – not how we get there. The journey is the point. I’ll end up in the same place no matter what because everywhere is pretty much the same. I’ll be there and that is what makes the place special.
I just hope someone there loves me as much as I love me.
Likely.
Geena Davis’s little sister from A League of Their Own is in prison!? This changes everything. Fun fact: the actress is from Chattanooga.
Orange Is the New Black is a comedy, right? Well, Season 3 is hilarious… if you can handle a little darkness. The writers are getting real about some things while keeping other aspects completely hyperbolic. 3 episodes in, I’m sold.
The tone is best expressed by Big Boo [to Pennsatucky]: Being too militant about anything, never ends well. #moderationiskey #orangeisthenewblack #Boowouldbeintome
Yoga is about stillness. I’m missing the chance to learn from women that understand this far better than I do. I’m staying home because the stillness of today is amazing. I’m alone. I don’t have work today. I don’t have chores. I don’t have responsibility. At least nothing pressing. The list of shoulds in my head could take over if I think too hard. So my yoga practice today is to remain still.
Eventually I’ll need food.
I got distracted and didn’t post yesterday. So as a special treat…
Blue eyes capture me
Honest
Sincere
Clearly wanting what I have
I will give it up
And then move on.