We're Safe for the Time Being. We Didn't Get Wet This Time Around

The water recedes. Again it rains. The water comes back up again, slightly higher than last week’s crest. It was all those levey breaks upstream, someone says. They saved us this time. I think we’re save now. There will be high water for anohter month but I don’t think there will be a repeat of ’93. It all adds up. But what does it add up too? Some people say it’s global warming. Other are saying it is simply climate change. There is a big fight about the terminology. Ideological battles are fought by shooting terminology at each other. Big guns shot big words. Sticks and stones may break my bones but names make the sea level change.

Do you have an amber? Amber is a color, the bartender replies. Other pubs have an amber, the man on the other side insists. Well it is a color and not a type of beer. You’re just being a hard case, he tells the bartender. No, amber is a color. What are you looking for in a beer? Something malty. Something like an ESB? That would be our Pony Express ale. We don’t currently have it available. Here try this. Have I had it already? No. Is it an Albatross? No. It’s our Emperor Norton. Ok, diffidently a lager. I am not real fond of lagers but will probably go for this one.

She wiggles her vibrating thigh like a frightened bird up against my thigh. We talk without any eye contact sitting at the bar facing a long mirror in which we watch each other. She is willing but not yet ready to give in. I am fascinated but unable to make my move. She brings up a reference to her boyfriend in an attempt to disengage and then she yields to her girlfriend’s desire to get something to eat. They leave after soliciting my recommendation on where to go. Another failed seduction. I give her friend a kiss on the cheek before they leave. The one with the quivering thigh glared at me with rejection and leaves with her. Paul is boasting of how he could have shown them both a good time. It was a fantasy, but nevertheless it is titillating. I am stimulated and anxiously watch the door for additional opportunities. A ménage a trois is a nice fantasy, but getting one to agree is hard enough. A man needs something to bargain with. You gotta have something obvious. Good girls like bad boys. Bad girls like bad boys too.

The neon lights were blinking around the sign at the Japanese restaurant next door. It reminds me of Paris. I have never been to Paris. But the trees and parked cars breaking up and reflecting the lights in this light rain is how I imagine Paris might be.

What if they paid you

            To watch TV

We could wipe out

            Unemployment

            With a single stroke

                        Of a pen

With everyone working

            Except when the lawn

                        Need mowing

            Or the car needed

                        To be driven

With the money thereby

            Earned  you could afford

            The utility bill and perhaps a

            Premium channel 

                        Subscription

With money left over there would be AC

            To make it all bearable

            Why with prudent savings

                        Even a big screen

                        Might be a possibility

For everyone. Wow! What that would do

            For our economy

Why when I last visited NYC

            I didn’t even think of looking

            Over the barriers and into the gapping hole

                        That was once the WTC

Because I hadn’t watched enough TV

            Since then there has been a debate

                        Sort of

            About preventing a mosque being built

                        Too near this sacred site

            And what exactly does too near mean

No it was not really a mosque someone else

            Claimed but a Muslim culture center

Well a prison is a type of culture center

            Isn’t it and would you want one

                        Near you. And there are
            More and more muslims in our prisons
            And more and more of all minorities
                         Whites are rapidly becoming
                         A minority too

But that has nothing to do with TV
                         Or does it

When I get back home I’ll watch it again

            On TV and see if I too can spot the

            Missiles being launched from

                        Beneath the airplanes

I’ve seen it all before

            On my TV

            In my house

With the AC on

            Full blast

One of the neighbor is out

            Mowing his lawn
Another is driving his car

Only in an age of speed could we stop time. Only in an age of speed would we want to – James Gleick – Faster, 1999  p63

A fourth of all U.S. computer hackers are reputed to be informers for the federal government

When the two toughs materialized behind him out of the fog that autumn evening he knew at once they were from that other world, the world that up to now he had only read about in the papers – John Banville – Christine Falls, 2006  p159

When the local NFL team unexpectedly loses a game the incidence rate of domestic violence increase by 10% but if the loss is to a traditional rival the rate will increase by 20%

Still beneath the frontal lobe of the stem of consciousness, is the reptilian speechless game. Man is amphibian to oblivion – Roland Johnson – ARK, 1996 BEAM 12

You will get out of debt

            In another dream

If you can’t get what

            You want go back

            To sleep

We work for our amusement – James Gleick – Faster, 1999  p10