The strange thing about seeing somebody that you haven’t seen for a few years is that it’s so clearly evident that a long length of time has passed. Their hair has receded or thinned a bit, they look a bit more gaunt or a bit chubbier. Their eyes look a bit emptier than you remember.
It is obvious that they have been unlucky in love. Or maybe they were really lucky in love but then their lover died or got sent on a long Peace Corps mission or dissolved in the bathtub one day. That last bit might not be accurately categorized as death because we don’t fully know quite how humans suddenly dissolve in bathtubs yet. More research needs to be done in the area. Where are all the Suddenly Dissolving in Bathtubs telethons? Research needs $$.
And now he is alone, even though his date is standing right next to him, waiting to be introduced. That’s never going to happen. And there’s no need for it, as his date will later realize. I shake the hand of the Nameless, nevertheless.
There is a regret that it did not work out the first time around, or the second time around. Maybe that would be two regrets. There were small notions bubbling up every now and then that maybe there won’t be anyone else coming along that you just barely like enough as much as you just barely like him.
But that was silly. There will always(maybe/probably) be somebody else coming along that you can like just barely enough to warrant the pulling of heartstrings. This new person will look new in your eyes, and just the right age. You will not see them as an ever-decreasing number of telomeres standing before you.
They will say that the slight roundness of the tip of your nose pleases them. They will be patient when they make you learn how to drive a car even though all you want to do is ride your bicycle. And they will spoon with you after you wake up from a nightmare in which you are stabbed in the thigh with a fork (and you know that you aren’t even a piece of chicken).
The purity of thought is polluted by action.
It sounds like some sort of ancient Confucian pearl of wisdom, but it’s not. As far as he knows, my friend Brian(who isn’t even a philosopher) just came up with that nugget as we were discussing how we think of these great ideas for designs(in his case) or stories/writings(in mine). Everything is always so vivid and clear when it’s still an idea. The K/NaCl pumps of neurons illustrate it perfectly, completely. You can see it when you close your eyes. The whole story tells itself in less than a second. It evokes just the right amount of every applicable emotion.
It’s during their trips to reality that these creatures get sick and/or limbless. The ideas become affected by human hands. They become limited by the medium of physical creation. They get stifled by doubts and second-guessings, thoughts of audience or acclaim or grade points or what that person you have a little crush on would think of it and you. They grow lesions.
I wrote a lot when I was younger. I had ideas and feelings and angst, and it seemed important to let those creatures loose in as much entirety as was possible. Then rules were taught. We were reminded to convey cohesive, structured things that are going to be judged qualitatively and quantitatively by everyone and that they had a right to judge. We were assigned to become inspired by something, and then turn that forced inspiration into some sort of larger “creative” thing. I did not like that.
There is a guitar pick next to me. It is sitting on the floor watching television. I think about picking it up and playing a guitar that I don’t have. I hold this guitar comfortably and my right arm feels at home around it. The sounds emanating from this thought are classic, perhaps Fleetwood Mac-ish.
This thought is pure. I will keep it safe with inaction.
Seven days after I turned twenty-seven, a Trader Joe’s cashier said “Happy late birthday” upon checking my ID so that I can buy wine. That was nice, and totally unexpected. Even though it may be that they are mandated to be really nice and show interest in the lives of their customers, I liked it.
So far, all that I know of being twenty-seven is feeling sick. There is a sore throat and a nose that can’t make up its mind.
The twenty-seventh amendment is about Congressional pay raises.
Around the twenty-seventh week of pregnancy, a fetus may open its eyes for the first time.
In Abraham Lincoln talk, twenty seven is one score and seven.
27 is the atomic number of cobalt. I wonder if I own anything with cobalt in it. Batteries.
Uranus has 27 moons, allegedly.
In 27 AD, apricots were first brought to Rome, supposedly.
51 weeks left until I turn 28. Let’s enjoy them.