Comin straight on for you

More, as I mentioned below. Always more. So I went to see Don. Today was the "Bolder Boulder" 10k race, in which 49,000 people were running. What a perfect metaphor for an aspiring society going nowhere fast. Even with the race long over, I thought that part of the city would still be clogged with people, but I've never seen Boulder so empty. It was like a ghost town. Another perfect metaphor. They're coming thick and fast today. The metaphors, the ghosts, the sense that something's shaking, on the tip of my tongue, in the beat of my heart. Which, as I said on the phone, is a lonely hunter. Apropos of what, exactly, I can't recall now. But you can imagine. I imagine you did. Carson McCullers, I said, as if I'd read it, but I never read it. The little scroll atop every crucifix, I said... and you got it immediately: INRI. I was impressed. Doesn't mean Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, I said. Means I never read it. And how long, you asked, have you been harboring that little delusion? For a while, I said, a few months anyway. Have to make light of my Christ complex somehow. I never asked for it. Christened Christopher before I could protest. To drive the demons out, you know? Doesn't seem to have worked.

you made my mind

But maybe I should read it, I was thinking after the session with Don. So I go to Barnes & Noble, find it easily. I remembered I was looking at it just a couple days ago, something on the back about the first time it's been published standalone. Oh, and right, that Oprah sticker. McCullers looks not just lonely. She looks miserable. I would be too if I had to sit and look at that damn sticker after I was dead. I tried to peel it off, but no dice. Sorry, Carson. I guess we're both stuck with it. A perfect metaphor, must be. For something. It's a paperback, but on Amazon I can read the inside flap copy. "...shattering voyages into the depths of the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition." Great, I'm thinking, good pick. I was looking for a good travel guide.

now I'm stronger

And while I'm at it, and speaking of dreams, why not Jude the Obscure? I had a dream about that book a very long time ago, 20 years at least. But INRI (see how it saves bandwidth?) I did, however, read something about what it was about. This was a less long time ago, but not anytime lately. And it seemed to be such a thorough bummer about the impossibility of love, that I asked myself: Do I really need this now? Do I really need another reminder? And anyway, I am not going to believe that, no matter what anyone says. Fuck all that negativity. You know? Because I am nothing if not the eternal optimist. Glass 1/2 full, that sort of thing. Hell, glass 15/16^ths full. Best of times. Best of all possible worlds. And white people will get soul. You thought I forgot about that part, did you? No. The answer to the previous question, it turns out, is not one for the anthropologists, but one for the paleo-epidemiologists, if such there be. Because it was the dreaded Psychic Ebola that turned us white. Abandoned out there on the ice, our hearts bled out. Way back there somewhere. Neolithic, I'm thinking. And our faces, first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale. Chaucer got it. Procul Harum got it.

now I'm comin through

All this, and yet so far no mention of the other one who's been visiting my dreams. The pronouns are bound to get a little sticky here, for the sake of privacy. For which I have little regard, myself, but I'm trying to empathize these days. Trying to feel my way into another heart, and so going more carefully this time. Hey, Jude, don't make it bad. So I tell myself. So I like to think. But it's all still pretty obscure to me, I have to admit. Now you've found her, go out and get her. And just like that, the old thinking is back: take no prisoners! What can I say? Bad habits are hardy. Old habits die hard.

And before you know it, it's yippee-eye-oh-kayay, motherfucker! Bruce Willis, I am with you in Rockland. That obscure enough for you?

straight on

Because the other one is you. You know who you are. Of whom it was said by the Stones: When the Lord gets ready... you gotta move! And me nonetheless keeping you up so late and all. Abashed by my own effrontery. May it ever wave. Despite the Klute Syndrome (site search available on this page). Or more likely, because of it. I didn't mention that at the time, no. I am trying to be a gentleman. Though I always suspected that to be nothing better than a double-standard hoax. Personally, I prefer the double-helix handstand. And I could show you things you'd swear had not been there a moment earlier. And I almost called back to say limbic resonance works at a distance, too. Over the phone, say. And I got my mojo workin again. And now don' be tellin me it don't work on you!

Hi, I'm Chris. I'm a recovering White Person. (HI CHRIS!) And I know I'll always be a White Person. But I feel as if, by the grace of God, one day at a time, I've finally got my whiteness under control...

straight on for you

Been thinking about you, girl, all-a this whole long old weekend. Letting myself fall. Apart, together, who knows? Leap of faith. Hard to imagine we've never met. Yeah. Seems that way to me, too. So come on over. We can listen to Dr. John in the dark. Get you some gris-gris gumbo hot. Never mind the mojo. Letting myself want you, bad. Whatever I may have told myself before. That maybe it wasn't that good an idea after all. That maybe... hell, I don't know. But hell if I didn't. If I was honest, which I wasn't, that I was scared. Out on the ice too far again, burning with passion. Spark and pure oxygen, absolute zero Kelvin. Sumpin's gotta give. I gave. I caved. And it felt too right to quit.

straight
on
for
you!

Because I can't live without love. Not really. I could go through the motions, I guess. Though I've tried, Lord knows, and I'm no goddam good at the motions. Ask anyone. So it only seems fair to let you know in advance that you're at risk. In case you somehow missed that. Which I doubt. Or maybe you were being kind. Which I don't doubt at all. Lovers always start out as strangers. Too often end that way, never having really said hello. Let me get this out of the way, then. Hello. My name is Chris. I want your strawberry shortcake. Yes, and eat it too. It's that simple. You make me glad. I am coming to get you. Ready or not.