All My Children

I am sitting on a chair in the hospital. My Mom is lying to my right asleep and my grandma is lying to my left asleep. All My Children is on the tv, my grandma's favorite show. She has been watching it everyday for almost 40 years. It has been several years since I have watched All My Children, so most of the the characters who were children six years ago are now shriveled up and old. In this episode, a character named Reese has been blinded in some sort of accident. She has gauze over her eyes. She also seems to be going through a sexual identity crisis and her parents keep telling her to do what Simon says and Simon says she is straight. Another character is in the hospital after apparently being poisoned. It appears Pine Valley has seen a lot of changes since I last tuned in, but it's the same old drama.

The machine behind my head is making a lot of noise. I don't know what it is, I guess it keeps track of my grandma's pulse and something else. I timed it and it makes a honky noise every 15 seconds. In-between the mechanical honky noises, are the snores of my mom and grandma. Breathing, the signs of life are music to my ears.

Random Thoughts at SeaTac Airport Wednesday

Why is it that we only rush home when something bad has happened? Why don’t we rush home when something fantastic has happened? Just a phone call will suffice and we’ll recollect that joyous phone call the day we are summoned home, because something bad has happened.
I saw a button on the floor of the airport bathroom. I thought about picking it up, but it was resting slightly on the other side of my stall and I didn’t think my neighbor would appreciate my reach. Still, something about that button, perhaps the way it peeped on me through its four eyes, made me want to snatch it. My grandma loves buttons. After a fresh dirt pile was swept, my cousins and I were instructed to sort out the nickels and lost buttons. Buttons. Why buttons? Are we, as citizens of the United States, in short supply of buttons? No; I doubt that this is the case. Perhaps it is because every button is different, I think. Have you ever seen two lost buttons that are the same? I suppose this is completely possible. Buttons are not quite like snowflakes and in this mass produce society, some buttons are the same, but not the ones found in button jars.
I don’t like dinner rolls and ham. They remind of the refreshments after the funeral service. The ham is always fatty and cold and the dinner role has always been brushed with too much flour, so it sticks to the roof of your mouth. If you skip the ham in favor of butter, the flour rubs off onto your fingers and eventually ends up on the tip of your nose. If you choose to scrape butter on the top on the roll, it feels and similar to nails on a chalkboard.

Talking To Thyself

I talk to myself all day long - I walk and talk, walk and talk. Some people call this insanity, loneliness, even schizophrenia. I don't really care what you call it. I call it my life, so deal with it. Today I've been giving myself a talk on time and space and what is this? My good friend and I were chatting on gmail chat. She said that today, for the second time is a short time, she has gotten a splinter in her finger after scratching her head. I hypothesized that her head may be turning to wood and consequently her body into a tree. Xylem is taking substances up and Phloem is taking substances down. My friend replied with glee stating that she hopes she is becoming a large decaying, moss covered stump like the one she recently laid on. However, my friend wrote, it would take centuries for this morph to happen. How does she know this? I informed her that time does not really exist and time and morphology are understood only as humans have created them. Time, like heaven and hell, was created by man in an effort to simplistically understand the universe. Thus, it is possible for one to turn into a decaying stump. Why not? This is just as possible as it is that one who believes in Jesus Christ, a fictional character from an ancient fictional book, is upon death going to float to some magical kingdom in the sky. Thus, everything is possible and equally impossible. The world is completely fabricated in our minds.

When Two Worlds Converge

I wrote most of this while resting by a tree in 9 feet of snow - snowshoeing

I smell a little bit like tobacco - that cigarette I shouldn't have smoked last night. I put it out on the palm of my hand half finished and stowed it away in my pocket, but the scent remains - stale smoke and bottled beer - remnants of last night's party that I was at, but not present, quietly drifting into subtle contemplation. Who is hooping beside me? - a man with a drunken grin, grinding his hips and making obnoxious comments to his supposed wife. Who is hooping in front of me? - a young woman sloppily sobbing, because she is unable to hoop. I stand up and try to help her, explaining the simple trick to hoop dreams. I am quickly admonished by the drunken men on the truck bed, "Hey dude - who do you think you are? - Trying to show us up and take our women?" I tell them my name upon request and they apologize for the gender mix-up. I sit down, tired and anxious for sleep. I didn't want to be here, but the chance to trek through virgin snow, alone on my snowshoes the next day was far too temping to pass. In the end it was a good decision. I had to sleep in a vanagon with a woman peeing into a yogurt container and her eight year-old son who eventually spilled the contents of the yogurt container all over the van's floor, but the twisting trails of mountain solitude swept away all traces urine and in the end it all returned to the waters.

Don't happen around the world. Let the world happen around you.
C. McCan'tless