Plan for the day

I'm on a hot, crowded bus.

Two grungy men sit in front of me. One has a small suitcase.

"Here is what we'll do" he says. "We will get off the bus. We will find a watering hole. We will get a big, cold beer. And we will color".

He opens a smidgen of the suitcase, revealing dozens of coloring books.

"You color inside the lines" he instructs. "I will color outside, and by end of the day we will see how we are doing."

He pulls out two packages of crayons from his jacket pocket. He hands one over.

"This is yours. It's new. All I did was throw out the pink one. I don't believe in pink."

This is why I don't drive into work.

Caulk gun

I want a caulk gun
To fill the cracks in my character
Before I go holding someone else responsible
For any ancestral discomfort.

I also want a crescent wrench
But only because it sounds poetic.

Love story, maybe

Last night Andrew and I drove up to Twin Peaks to look at the sunset. In front of us, the following scene unfolds:

Guy – Hey. You’re in my time lapse.

Girl – So sorry! (starts getting up.)

Guy – Don’t worry about it. It’s a feature.

Girl laughs.

Guy – Alison?

Girl – (Freaked out) Yes. How did you know?

Guy – Are you Alison? (Removes his hat and glasses.) It’s Chuck!

Girl – What? Chuck!

I (excitedly) point out we are in the presence of a nascent romance: two people who knew each other long ago find each other at sunset 10 years later. 

Naturally, Instead of looking at the view, we watch them. We hope to witness them inching closer together, possibly kiss.

We get hungry and end up leaving before we find out how the story unfolds.

Over dinner we toast to love.

It's not hope

I don't think that hope was what was left at the bottom of Pandora's box. Hope implies the expectation that things will turn out a desired way. I believe that what we find is instead a mix of trust + faith + surrender. A blind sense that it will all work out even if we don't yet know exactly how. I bet something got lost in translation.

Soul Mate

On the bus today I overheard two women talking really unfavorably about another. I was going to post a transcript of the exchange but decided it made me sad.

I can't imagine why we'd resort to tearing each other down when the greatest gift we have ever been given is each other. Girlfriends are soul mates.

You can be different

On the bus -

Boy - (Pointing at ad with photo of a family) Mommy! I want to be like that!
Mom - We are, honey! We are like that!
Boy - But they are all smiling!
Mom - We smile too! We are happy!
Boy - But there is a dad. There is a dad in the photo.
Mom - You can be different from that and be just as happy. We can take a photo with uncle Charlie.

Moms tend to be right, kid.

Contortionist

I'm on a very crowded bus. I get to talking to the guy crammed next to me. His name is Xzisto and he's a vegan singer hip hop dancer contortionist who works in circus burlesque acts. His troupe is called Tourette's without Regrets. 

Just when I thought I couldn't love San Francisco any more.