Elocution and The Ear of Indian Corn

I’ve wondered, and been asked, just how an reasonably intelligent person like me can write one rambling wreck of a blog. This despite my well-known ability (at least at work) to put intelligent sentences together in to a paragraph.

Wow -- it’s all about me today - I’m Jones’ing now!

It’s simple, like dancing kernel-to-kernel across an ear of corn, preferably the multi-hued Indian corn that so confounds the eye. You pick a spot to start and, well, you start. It doesn’t matter where you start since it has no relationship or bearing on where you’ll end up. Kind of like the famous Hollywood game, ‘Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon,’ in which we all are related to Kevin at most seven times removed.

So, I skip-hop-dawdle-puddle hop-jump from topic to topic however I wish. At some point, I’m hit by time limits, common sense, aneurysm of the humor bone, or my keyboard’s refusal to type any more of my drivel.

BAM! The truth hurts, but some of my stuff confuses even me afterward. It’s a shame because my decoder ring should work retroactively, right? Hey, I hear laughter out in the gallery. Do you know something that I don’t?!

As revenge, I throw this (real) song quote at you as something that starts ordinarily and ends up on the dark side of some moon:

And the thing that you’re hearing

is the low spark of high-heeled boys.

Steve Winwood & Traffic

Soft Colors that fade to Grey

Autumn is so vibrant a time of year. I’m reminded of that illusion when reading books like S.M. Stirling’s post-apocalyptic series, where autumn was a harsh time of rushing to buttress the enclaves against the Oregonian winter.

For us, it’s about colors, smells wafting beneath the limbs and feelings that touch on the eternity around us. I see what I see, touch the roughness of the leaves and realize those feelings color how I in turn see the world. If that makes any bit of sense, congratulations on your intuitive prowess.

That thought chain is kind of like listening to Bruce Springsteen, during a 2005 VH1 Storytellers gig, explain some of his songs, with his comments being written down at his kitchen table. Wow, just wow, sweet chariot of musicality, take me away. That guy has a heckuva mind and some horse sense too.

And why is it ‘fall’ instead of the more noble, the more ethereal, “autumn?” Can we do an 'Occupy The Royal Academy of Sciences' and get them to agree to purge our lexicon of “fall?” That word conveys faltering, sad endings and such. As my Opa, my grandfather, would say, “Quatsch!” (aka Rubbish, Bull-puckies).

As the leaves brilliantly tumble, we get back to the garden, espying a change around us that reminds winter is here, a season of starkness that relaxes me because there’s no fluff – the trees stand barren, telling their own story, and it all is what it is.

The Waddling Matilda Waltz

It’s been a long time since I rock n’ rolled with pavement passion. You know, the cool pretense of jogging around a city and scoping the challenging blocks ahead. “You’re mine, baby!”

So it’s with humility that I say that a month ago I ran my furthest (non-stop) time in over ten years – 45 minutes at about a 11-12-minute pace. Sometimes faster, sometimes trudingly slower, but onward and onward I went. Especially when I got lost and took a left instead of a right back toward work. Oh well, I still found a highway underpass and just extended the run. Nice since just a few weeks ago I was capping runs at 30 minutes on purpose. But why be well-preserved later when today’s challenges need today’s vigor?

My Oma (German for grandmother) always said if you have your health then you can get on with life. Or something like that, lost in the muddled translation in my addled cortex. Whatever! She was right. But let’s see how this plays out when I try to get out of bed tomorrow. I mean, I already look like Humpty Dumpty, so maybe I’ll fall apart like Pinocchio (you know what, that name is FUN to type).

And, to the gentlemen in the audience I pose a question: bowties. Cool or not? Do they work for you? And just how does one tie it? [sigh] I figure out one thing and falter at the next step. Guess Mrs. TMM will continue to buy me the most awesome Jerry Garcia collection ties!

P.S. I wrote this last week and forgot to post it. So, last week, I hit 51 minutes. Not non-stop but it sure felt good…

‘Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace’

Today marks the end of a heckuva crazy 120 days of the eldest Junior-TMM-son (aka Chris) living back at home with us. Having taken a breather between rental leases, he now goes off to the wilds of the Petworth neighborhood of NW DC.

I type with a heavy heart, thinking of him again dervishly spiraling out of our daily lives, but with pride and a smile at the adventures ahead. Everyone should have such a smart and damned good looking son (the latter attribute from my wife’s gene pool).

To you, my son, the blog’s title is my dedication to your success. It's a song by the group Big ‘n Rich that so well paints the inspirational intensity you bring us all…

From the father, the friend, the fellow traveler,

TMM

About a Boy and his Toy

Are the stores closed?

Will the wind dream tonight?

Too many wonders, too much sorrow.

So walk on down .

Echoes of a wistful solo

may take flight as one's

angelic fury grips another twilight.

So walk on bye.

A rumble, a whisper and he's off.

Hoping not to listen,

to see, nor taste another roar

as heart’s crescendo pounds a beat.

So stop the ride.

Words – they mean, they wander,

trace, define and unravel

the wanderlust of this love.

So look to the west.

And catch the soft hope of dawn.

Did it all begin with someone?

Where we start, and where we end, are often so close it’s scary. Many folks travel the globe, literally or intellectually during their careers, and long to retire near where they grew up. Used to think it odd but the older I get, the more sense it makes.

Me, I figure to end up back in diapers, bib and drooling. “Yeah, baby, groovy!” Poor Mrs. TMM, having to deal with THAT picture. The drooling has started already, though usually as involves a nice Victorian house on some tree’d and nicely sidewalk’d Small Town America setting. And the bib comes out during the feasts on the campouts I so enjoy! Diapers? Not yet, amigo.

I think back to my mother. It began with her, something I rue to think I don’t often enough remember AND act on it. I have the regular phone calls down, more or less, but that’s lame after 48-odd years. There’s the substance, the meaning, and I need to keep working on it. TMM cannot stand telephones, a problem when mama is hundreds of miles away in the land of Sun, Fun & Developer/Consumer/Ecosystem Mayhem (aka, Florida).

I think back too to my wife, my life partner in crime. It continued and bloomed with her, something I NEVER forget. That was easy, eh? Life is love, love is sharing, and onward we go into the sunshine.

That means today’s referenced song (paraphrased below) is an absolute no-brainer: ‘Cut Across, Shorty’ by Rod Stewart, circa 1969-ish:

Cut across, Shorty, cut across

That’s what Miss Lucy said

It’s you that I want to wed.

……

There was a smile upon his face,

because Lucy had fixed the race.

……

Cut across, Shorty, cut across

Oh Lord, it’s you I want to wed.

Tumblin’ past the Stones in your Passway

(Note: "passway" is a word that appears to come from the 19th century Mississippi Delta Blues culture, meaning, yep, "path way.")

Ever have nothing useful to say when you talk to someone obviously in need? Someone who could use a kind word, help, hug or a thoughtfulness beyond the pithy motions of our usual day? That hit me twice the other day – no, three painful times – and I’m wondering why. I was in the moment, interacted and left each chat on a positive note, hopefully of help to the other person. That’s sooooo Jane Austen-ish, huh? But their problems/tragedies aren’t from a book, but painful realities that I only touch on.

I feel like I’m living a curse this week, that of an observer of life. It’s often easier to be in the thick of things, tackling the problems and just DOING. Instead, the watching, waiting and trying to help others can be tough, as you surely know. And life gives no quarter just because the going is tough.

TMM, like other typical guys, has taken deserved heat for trying to fix things that just shouldn’t/can’t be fixed. It’s often about listening. Yes, just listen. Don’t judge, don’t fix and definitely don’t read into things in life’s wide grey zone. Yes, just accept. As a father, as a friend, this can be the toughest damn thing I get to do.

To end today’s post also on a positive note, I reflect on a favorite comforting lyric when I encounter the troublesome ‘stones in my passway’:

I felt the coldness of my winter.

I curse the gloom that set upon us.

But I know that I love you so.

Robert Plant/Led Zeppelin

Machinations and Mutilations of the English Language

Yeah, I’m guilty as self-charged today. My weird idea of a psuedo-poem follows below.

(Note: this goofiness is done in appreciation to the hours spent with Mssr. Jon Bon Jovi and due to my life as a dedicated bureaucrat!)

I drive all night to get to that gold

And I feel so wanted

dead or alive.

(not!)

My executive correspondence

could ring a chord

like a guitar lick.

(sigh)

But no matter what Congress

does, doesn’t, should, could or would,

we trudge toward our deadlines.

(rumination)

“Be stiff of upper lip,

scowl your discontent

and rearrange those pretty chairs!,”

my mates in the

Dance Band of the Titanic.

A Whack Job

Yes, that’s what I almost became this morning, only 6 minutes into a 35-minute run. The ‘it’s all about me’ moron at the quiet residential intersection almost hit me WHILE I was jogging with-the-light. The aggravating part was that I was the second person on the crosswalk – and the other person hadn’t yet gotten to the curb!

More aggravating was the skid mark on the pavement … from a vehicle that a couple seconds earlier was completely stopped to make a left-hand turn. Marks. Three feet from my slow butt.

Maybe most aggravating was the letdown afterward – you ever have ‘buyer’s remorse’? I had ‘pissed -off jogger’s remorse’ due to what I said about the SUV-wielding gentlemen’s intelligence. He actually stopped and rolled down his window to try to blame me. That’s when I dragged his mother into the conversation. And threw in a nice suggestive gesture. Talk about an invite to a throw-down. I spent the next 29 minutes mulling over that I ain’t the smartest bulb in the box…

[sigh]

If you would like to accompany me on a jog, feel free! Or, if you have advice, feel free to educate TMM on the ways smarter people handle the world!

Pilot of a Storm that leaves no Trace

That little hurricane, one soon passed and left us wiser but not wise enough. Why? Is Mother Gaia speaking to more than Al Gore? I dunno.

But I also don’t care. Ever tell your kids or friends that you don’t always get to pick and choose your fights? Here’s one for ya. DC weathers (bad pun, eh?) earthquake, a windy hurricane, a soggy flooder of a tropical storm -- and probably fires and the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse down the street.

Injury? Yes, nearly since my poor shed started getting flooded and I was two inches from a heckuva lot of work. Poor roof really could some TLC or just replace it, though it’s not but ten years old. Hey, maybe the shed could sink Texas-style into a nice pond and up our property values.

Then we have Congress again living us on the edge of a shutdown. You goofballs. “We are Most Premium workers in Most Excellent country!” (now a shout-out to Everything is Illuminated – a superb movie with Frodo Boy as a worthy lead).

Storms pass and so too shall these eddies in the slipstream of life and chaos…

P.S. Do you know the Horsemen (traditional version): Conquest, War, Famine & Death (Pestilence replaced Conquest in modern pop culture)