Don't Trip on the Throw Rug When Shown the Door

I do wonder, as I should, if most people have something artificial in them as I do in my left hip and my right knee?

Replacement parts.

Leaves do fall, that’s what happens. And the Christmas tree by late January is so sad, thrown to the curb like a dog. It seems we’re throwing the country to the curb, but this assessment might be hyperbolic.

Just this morning, The Chronicle predicted the likelihood of a major earthquake in San Francisco happening sooner than later. I’m pairing this news with Samuel Beckett’s Molloy, the passage in which Molloy calculates the number of sucking stones he keeps in the pockets of his greatcoat and his trousers. My father used the word trousers, not pants, but never read Samuel Beckett, of this I’m sure. My father could laugh out loud at a clown, and did so while wearing trousers with no suspenders which my little brother and I thought might fall down around his ankles at any time.

Perhaps it’s the use of pathetic fallacy that gets writers into so much trouble? John Ruskin approved the phrase, which he coined in the first place in the mid-19th century. It takes a real man or woman to stand up to pathetic fallacy, to look it in the eye and see it for what it is.

I have a brand new idea: I need to glue the world down in the event of an earthquake or other natural disaster, so that it remains dependable even in the case of emergency. Elmer’s Glue won’t do it; I need something much stronger, a substance that’s resilient, will bend with the wind without showing scuff marks, and dries clearly so that no one will see it in the first place.

BTW, someone just texted me out of the blue! It seems that over the years we’d forgotten one another, and I just now ‘popped into his mind.’ I love the spontaneity of unplanned reunions, but at the moment can’t seem to remember his name.

However, it’s high time to say hello to Sunday, to shake Sunday’s hand while drinking black coffee and reading the morning paper, as is done in nation’s all over the world.

And don’t trip on the throw rug when shown the door.

‘Spring Chicken 1’ (right) and ‘Spring Chicken 2’ (left), 10” x 10”, acrylic, oil, emulsifier, gloss. January 2024. Photo by author