Thought-Drive

March is coming. Earlier this year, or rather very, very late last year, I called myself making some resolutions. I said I was going to exercise more. I said I was going to write more; I have a deadline in early April, two in fact, one of which I didn't find out about until earlier this month. So how am I doing? I park farther from the job so I walk more at work. I take the stairs (doesn't really count, there is no elevator). The push ups and sit ups continue. Overall, it's a bit of a bust, but with warmer weather comes the avalanche of guilt. "Well, it's still cold out." Over the next six weeks, I'm going to have to finish an art project, submit about fifteen pages of sterling prose, and marry some friends in holy matrimony. The project has been mired in the sort of dust and minutia that populates the back burner, and the prose isn't sterling, and there certainly isn't fifteen pages of it (rather, I have a running tally of the absolute dumbest...

On Wednesday morning, I was served with papers at my residence by a county sheriff. I didn't immediately look for hidden cameras or a punchline. It was 7:00 am. What I did do was promptly, in my own reserved, laconic way, freak out. I showered early, ate breakfast numbly, and dressed hastily. When my hands were free, they were attached to the document. In the beginning, because the pages were filled with unwieldy, archaic language, the only thing that made sense was the dollar amount that I was being sued for. I thought about losing my grip while climbing out of the hole I was already in, and falling even deeper; I thought about those numbers plus the numbers I already owed for student loans like decreasing altitude. I felt guilty, not guilty like I had done wrong, but guilty in that the verdict had already been delivered. I was at the point when an author might write: "things had come to a pretty pass." Eventually, I got around to calling people, scrolling through my...

"I guess this is turning into a weekly thing." - Me, about my blog. Also a man, commenting clumsily about the status of his relationship with some other person. Is this getting serious, he might ask then. I have a lot of things rolling around in my head, mostly about writing. But today, tonight, as many of you may know is special. Being single, I really don't have any viability in the realm of relationships, or much of anything to celebrate on Valentine's Day (no, I'm not that guy that celebrates in mockery of the those people too "stupid" to attach themselves to someone else). But I did spend the evening with a friend. He poured himself onto the table for us to introspect on about the foibles of the romantic overture while he spent some time pouring alcohol into his body. I tried to empathize. And if not, sympathize. Together, we tried to understand. As they say, you only have to get it right once, 'it' being a good and lasting relationshi...

I watched a revolving door of hospital staff walk in and out of my friend's room, asking her the same questions and getting the same answers, never talking to one another, and not investing a great deal of empathy either. They had seen a hundred cases that day, had seen a hundred more the day before, and would see a hundred more the day after. The surgeon of my friend, whose work was partially at fault for her visit to the emergency room, showed up as well; she smiled and she soothed. She outlined a plan and struck out confidently into the hallway, where she announced "I'm admitting room 32." Later, I passed a slack-shouldered boy facing the open back of an ambulance, holding onto the nothing inside his pockets. As I went, I could see paramedics inside working hurriedly over someone I didn't know, but likely connected to the boy, who I also didn't know. But I fabled about him a little, while I tried to remember where I parked my car, and how badly the person...