#25 MARIGOLD'S LOVE

Marigold Jenkins was a rather forlorn young woman as she raced across the campus on a frigid day in January, clutching her violin case to her chest.

She'd come from the student canteen where she'd been happy talking with her friend Lingay Mather-Polk, anxious to tell her she met someone, someone she could finally relate to in a positive, affectionate way, "that way...you know?" though never at a loss for words, this was a new experience and Marigold was giddy with emotional energy, proud to have shed virgin status happily with the first person she could "really" relate to.

"Tell me you envy me, you're jealous," she teased her friend Lingay who had never been on a date, but then regretting her words said "Don't worry, I'll find someone for you," feeling positively expansive.

"What is his name?"

"His name, you know, is Martin, I've mentioned him before, he brought me coffee and an apple Wednesday while I was working in the record store and we met up Friday night at that hangout on Liberty, next to that gift shop you like."

"Oh, I see," said Lingay biting her lip, afraid of what she knew; that Marigold's love was sitting across the the room making out with Salli Roman, who at that moment stood and announced they would soon be wed, and when Marigold finally saw for herself, with a swift aversion and a direct hit to the solar plexus, heard what everyone heard, she drew back sharply, crept out of the canteen and without buttoning her jacket or looking for her gloves ran through town at top speed, her deep breathing forming crystals in the air, her boots clomping with loud thwacks through the ice-packed snow, she ran until she exhausted herself then trudged up the back field leading to the dormitory, forlornly clutching her violin case to her chest, in the first phase of a long and rugged love life.

#24 EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR FOR THE UNEMPLOYED

(Or MY stupid fucking life)

For those of you who recently received the boot, the pink slip, pink the color of gentleness supposedly to take the sting off of what it contains, take heed: it will require all your strength to navigate mind and body through the angles, the misleading ideas, false loyalties and mania that for a time will only be quieted with alcohol. My name is Peter Kaufmann but I'm now a statistic, in the state of idle - not in any redeemable motion but still running.

You may find yourself here, so take heed: there is much to do and that is how I began this period - motivated to survive, to thrive even - but as the weeks wear on I've stopped striving, now have trouble caring. I stopped after the first ten weeks. "Immature," I have been called. But the infernal buzzing in the head of tedious choices, activities, the furious echoes of reason seem unreasonable. I am here, I am there but the activity is not any damn where at all. I am hyperventilating in the airstrip that has become life - specifically MY stupid fucking life.

Then there is my spouse. The enormity of lamenting regret only gets in the way. Useless regrets that successfully bring me down further. I had plans. As well as huge responsibility. I took on so much, didn't I? Rhetorical. Let's stay the focus; focus a noun. Not to be confused with the verb of the same. Focus yourself. We need an action word to give us motivation, to keep momentum. Yes, that's right. Never slip. I can pretend forever if we have to that we are only ever so slightly downgraded - merely sidetracked. Nothing serious. I will be on top again. I can always go back to Utah or Montana or Michigan or South Carolina...oh God. I will find a new niche, maybe find myself at long last. More BS. Who we know is who we want to find.

My job was my self and that was how I kept my world upright. I am now formless, foolish and fantastically blindsided, looking at a court date. Witness for the prosecution. My best reference, possibly doing jail time.

I loved going to work. I loved my suits, my expensive aftershave, the morning effervescence, my desk, the coffee manned and made by my exclusive assistant, I even must say I loved my co-workers who kept the atmosphere humming at a high frequency necessary for the maintenance of those high numbers, batted about as if they were actual matter. The martinis, the endless menu of hyperbole feeding the ego of the entire group.

I loved coming home after an honest day's toil that felt like the upper strata of gamesmanship. Now home is a prison and I'm doing soft time. I could suffocate on the darkly drama going on in one life lived, now fragmenting or pulling apart, next to another life that looks on with agitation or is it pity? Rhetorical once again but maybe not.

The panic; I haven't mentioned the panic I feel when my beloved asks me what I am going to do today. It's all forced fakery: looking for jobs online, keeping that appointment with the recruiting agency that has many recruits, not so many positions, making some calls to keep the lines of communication open, filling out the unemployment form, going to the bank still in panic, other times with a false sense of devil-may-care denial or then, complete indifference to what appears to be Reality. It changes by the hour - my modus operandi. The lid is coming off...burning with antipathy, unsure, robbed - is it supposed to be like this? I was lead to believe that certain things would be my due.

But all that is apparently over. This new era - "down styling," the newspaper headline reads - is code for bullshit and screams fatuity. The way has always been up. Everyone knows that. Trying to give the downward spiral a new twist may work with some, not with me. Definitely not with my spouse; she signed on for ascension.

On a good day, I take it for what it's worth but others are concerned. I'm starting to crackle. But in this I am not alone. All over the city we are crackling. Our film of endurance is shredding like our credit scores. How long will this last? I wonder throughout the day about the endgame but this gets me exactly nowhere and gives my solar plexus a jab to send me reeling. Takes all I've got to maneuver through the labyrinth of meaningless hours. It would be better to stay in bed, undercover. But that wouldn't look so good now would it? Again, rhetorical. Excuse me, I've forgotten the true meaning of serious dialogue, the give and take of ideas that surround a position. In the end, I've only a fragment to go on - pieced together for yet another day in the state of idle. Or is it exile?

To all of you in a similar circumstance, crumbling under the high-octane pressure that is the good life, take heed: This too shall pass, but that doesn't give much specific advice and certainly no edge. What we know is what we long for. Meanwhile, go to the park, read a paper...I see my precious stock that was supposed to yield our place in the sun as reached a new low. Maybe shop for dinner. Trying to economize, ha, ha, ha...makes me sick, maybe too sick to eat after all. I drown my hunger in the nearest bar where I'm sure to find all of you who also feel the clamor in your head...the sudden need for a cold, dark respite.

The personal has become the political though I am not sure which side I am on or the tactic to use. Should you think that all is lost, again remember, This too shall pass though platitudes will get you nowhere in the here and now of this lamentable pass, take heed...

Hey bartender, Gina honey, can you give us another round? What do you mean my card has been denied...fuck that, I just came from the bank..."

#23 MELVIN'S SON

When Melvin's son died he felt a great misalignment, his only son who took an overdose of heroin one night at a party and never came home - when that happened Melvin buried more than his son. His ego, what there was of it, was lain to rest. Melvin thereafter felt he might be invisible, he was beginning to doubt his solidity and he began to brood, unfamiliar with emotional states of any intensity. He was becoming less engaged each day and marveled that no one seemed to notice. He did not recognize himself. He expected to one day look into his mirror to shave and see a blank space. He was vaguely disavowed, he knew it, but was not prone to analysis.

After the funeral Melvin continued on as before; as if nothing had happened at all. His job hummed along although Melvin's wife Marietta took to drink until she started gaining weight and then took to pills to drown out Melvin and the dead son who slipped away from her at age sixteen when she couldn't reconcile motherhood with her darker side.

On a rainy day after his mother left him waiting downtown for hours on a street corner, his plans for the day ruined, Melvin's son returned home in a taxi, using his week's spending money, enraged beyond endurance, looked his mother in the eye and told her he wished she wasn't his mother, wished he had a strong mother, a sane mother, or just a nice mother, who showed up when she was supposed to, did normal things. Instead he had eternal guilt over his lost son-ship - he couldn't love his mother so delusional and irritating. "What have I got? A fucking head case and I can't take anymore of this crap around here"...he bellowed at her, he was close to crying but he refused, in her presence, and as he hurtled himself toward the door, he said a silent prayer in gratitude that he would be getting his driver's license in two weeks.

He finished high school living with his grandparents twelve miles away. He called his father now and again but did not speak to his mother. Melvin bought him a used Jeep and sometimes they'd take rides in the woods. He joined the army at eighteen and served a four-year hitch, saw combat in a war he considered dubious at best.

He entered college when he got back from the army, needing no money from his parents who seemed like a long-ago memory with no core. He wrote his father every three or four months because he was sensitive to his father's affection but said nothing about himself; neither where he was or what he was doing.

Melvin's son did finish two years of community college and had a degree in metallurgy and could accomplish alchemy with his skills. He was sought after by various high profile firms but after a night sitting in a restaurant in a necktie, listening to a stranger talk to him about a job he knew or cared nothing about - his uncle arranged the meeting and he was at that time, still trying not to offend - he knew if he turned this down, there was nowhere else to go so he began to drink much more and started taking cocaine with his girlfriend, Brenda, hanging out in the North Beach music scene trying to pretend that it had a big joyous meaning: he knew this wasn't likely the case, that this was a satire, a petty one at that, but he was there to drink vodka and see what else was available. Sometimes he would sit in with a band when they needed a drummer (in this too he was sought after) but never took music or himself seriously.

Melvin's son never got a job: Melvin found this incomprehensible having worked for the same company everyday of his working life, but in a way admired it: the pure spunk of thinking you would be absolved of the troubling dual between pleasure and toil though he himself found them interchangeable.

After a time, Brenda tired from so much partying, noticing her looks and health were failing fast, settled down with a job, partied less, turned instead to downers, and then after losing her job, heroin. Melvin's son followed her. He was just thirty years old, he had no reason to choose this path; he was handsome, intelligent, capable...Melvin did not understand his son and he felt a deep remorse as his wife found relief in anti-depressants and gossip and his job hummed along.

Melvin grew each day more certain that his life lacked any meaning, was without a touchstone. He knew he was losing himself in the mystery of what his son's life stood for but his son was dead and Melvin could not ask him the many questions that invaded his mind nightly.

He knew about drugs, he wasn't ignorant of the world, he just didn't understand the motivation; drugs were for sickness, disease. Recreational drug use had never entered the consciousness of Melvin. Alcohol he understood, his father drank heavily. Melvin and Marietta had a highball on Christmas Eve with his parents, a ritual long established.

He didn't get the value of artificial stimulants. What for? he'd sometimes ask. He encouraged his son in abstinence, to shun alcohol especially because it was socially encouraged. These were Melvin's views; he offered them to his son for what they were worth. In those innocent days, Melvin never worried about his son who was more intelligent than most and talented in numerous ways. Melvin was confident his son would never do anything stupid or shallow and would have a brilliant future, wrong on all counts.

Melvin's son did not get married but for a time lived with a woman named Eileen who had a daughter. She coddled him until he became too sick and then ditched him, left him for nothing, now dependent on one thing only. He never had any children, he did not fall into the usual traps men do but remained distant from all that life had to offer or claim. Melvin and Marietta often wondered what their son did with his time. He never spoke of much, though now Melvin searched his memory for clues, things spoken, but unheard...what was that comment he made at the dinner table before he left for the army? Melvin was trying to retrieve conversations he could vaguely remember for something he missed. Melvin would not accept that a man, his son would turn to such savage artificial means if he had any power in the world whatsoever. It wasn't exactly a suicide but Melvin, in his own mind, did not feel absolved. He expected a reckoning though nothing like it was ever forthcoming as his life hummed along and his wife remained in a state of numb.

Melvin was awakened at 3:14 in the morning two months after the death of his son. Marietta had been sleeping downstairs since shortly after the funeral. Somewhere in the late night sky with the cloud coverage moving swiftly across the window's frame, Melvin went on alert - maybe he was dreaming but he sensed an inner shift and heard the old Sycamore tree branches beating against the house; he saw that his son was in the bedroom looking placid only to begin to drift away when Melvin spotted him. Melvin saw him walking away with his back to the room and his son waved a casual goodbye, a gesture that lightened Melvin's heart: It was the same wave he gave Melvin as he walked to the bus that would take him to Fort Brass saying Don't worry Dad, I'll continue to show up like a bad penny, with a cartoonish walk and an idiosyncratic wave that Melvin couldn't help laughing at. Melvin saw him repeat this funny gesture as he drifted away into the night and he waved back or at least he thought he did.

A partial moon could now be seen in the window's frame but Melvin slept and when he awoke and found himself alone he bawled in a spontaneous burst of resonate sobbing that had been buried beneath his vacuous efforts at maintenance. He cried for everything lost and the utter futility of living with any certainty; it was all a riddle. His wife nor anyone else heard Melvin's sobbing, it did not last long and lingered only shortly in his chest but when he awoke the next morning he felt solidly stationed, he projected an air of slight bemusement lately missing in his demeanor; he thought it might have been only a dream, his son had not really appeared in the bedroom - but Melvin wasn't sure of anything now and it really didn't matter - when he looked in the mirror to shave he saw that he had been restored. He hoped his son would visit him now and again but was prepared to let him go.

#22 SPUD AND SPIFFY

Jennifer Greenleaf married a guy named Spud and even though she suspected no good could come from marrying a guy named Spud, even if it was a nickname, she threw all caution aside and not only married Spud, but bore him a son they nicknamed Spiffy.

Jennifer and Spud were married for five years when they noticed Spiffy did not speak and since he was to begin kindergarten that fall, Jennifer brought him to a specialist who then sent them to a speech therapist both agreeing there was nothing wrong with the boy but still Spiffy did not utter a word to his parents.

Jennifer and Spud grew more concerned with each passing day as Spiffy carried on in silence, though seemingly happy enough, while his mother anguished: How would he maneuver his way through what could be a harrowing experience as school is for some boys, especially those with impediments and in this case, an inability to speak up for himself?

Jennifer brought Spiffy to school that first day and with a worried heart, told his teacher, Mrs. Cunningham that her son wouldn't be saying much and to please protect him and try to draw him out as he was quite intelligent in many ways.

When class began, Mrs. C., as she liked to be called, having watched a lot of "Happy Days" in her youth, called out each of her student's names and they in turn said "here" including Thomas Michaelson, a.k.a., Spiffy who also answered "here" with a charming smile.

For the rest of the day Spiffy answered when spoken to and played nicely with the other children in the school yard and when Jennifer came to get Spiffy, nervous about his first day, as all mothers are, she was informed by Mrs. C. that her son had no problem at all and spoke beautifully.

Jennifer was wild with joy upon hearing this but later in a state of agitation as Spiffy was put to bed still mute. Spud just shook his head and said it wasn't his fault; everyone in his family spoke volumes.

This went on for several days until Mrs. C., being bombarded by an anxious Jennifer, had a heart-to-heart with her student Thomas Michaelson. "Why do you not speak at home, Thomas?" she asked. "What kind of game are you playing with your parents?"

"They keep talking to someone named Spiffy and I can't figure out who that is, my name is Thomas so I figure they have nothing much to say to me but I wish this Spiffy would either disappear or show his face. What kind of guy is named Spiffy anyway?"

Mrs. C. relayed this to Jennifer that afternoon and from then on Spiffy was no more; Thomas was restored although Spud forgot himself at times and called him Spiffy. He couldn't figure out why anyone would object to Spiffy. It was almost as good a nickname as Spud.

#21 THE PAWN

Here's another six-sentence story created for sixsentences.blogspot.com.

Shoshanna's lover Dr. Ivan Cohen had been detained in the Gaza strip for several weeks before he was able to notify her and tell her he was okay and that it would be some time before he would be coming back to Jerusalem, having been arrested in a roundup, innocently mistaken for an Israeli Commando he bore a startling resemblance to whom the Palestinian Authority deemed a winning ticket to securing the freedom of several top Hamas leaders currently residing in an Israeli jail who would then be used as bargaining chips closer to home.

Dr. Cohen would be a part of a prisoner swap even though he had nothing to do with anything the Palestinians were concerned with; he was merely a pawn in the game that continues year after year, and in the meantime his skills were useful to those in the jail, many prisoners with wounds of various seriousness that the doctor could tend to; his jailers knowing what the situation was and appreciating the care from such an eminent physician.

Shoshanna, however, was terrified for her lover and after contacting everyone she could think of to do whatever they could think of, she decided to go to the jail in person, take her chances with the Palestinian Authority and get her man released from jail on this trumped up charge--so convoluted that she, an able attorney was not even sure of what the charge was.

She swathed herself in black and hoped to go unnoticed on the streets of Gaza before she found her way to the jail and talked her way into a small waiting room where she was questioned for what seemed an eternity before her lover was brought into the room for a short visit.

Dr. Cohen was more than a little surprised to find Soshanna in the room and felt a little foolish over his mishap; insisted he was fine, would return eventually and not to worry, he was being treated in a civilized manner and was making use of his time by treating prisoners and staff alike and then sheepishly asked her if she could call his wife and assure Mrs. Cohen of his well-being and eventual return.

Shoshanna left the jail, made her way through Gaza and back to Jerusalem and the safety of the apartment she shared with her husband and children, no longer with the panic that had seized her upon hearing of her lover's arrest so that when she called Dr. Cohen's wife she was able to reassure her that her husband was fine, ask about her own safety and well-being and though she couldn't say exactly when Dr. Cohen would be released, it was expected he would be home by the end of the month, thinking to herself, in time to deliver my third child, Dr. Cohen's own son, though none of this she could tell Mrs. Cohen who had enough on her mind.

#20 GOLDIE'S SISTER

"We're always bailing her out of some unexpected trouble. She seems to have terrible luck with men and money. When she gets home she has to go back into therapy for sure, she can't keep going on this way and we can't keep bailing her out, her father is set on her getting in treatment this time."

Goldie's sister Karin listened patiently as her mother went on and on about Goldie who is a problem but Karin wished that her conversations with her mother could, every now and again, be about her and her troubles, God knows she has them, but it's always Goldie and Goldie's troubles.

Karin rarely gets to talk about her problems; it's not that she can't or they would stop her, it's just that they would not find her troubles worthy, these highly intellectual people must become interested, you must become interesting to merit their attention. As such, it's always Goldie this and Goldie that--her interesting troubles that defy logic or reason will capture the attention of her parents for days. Goldie broke in London in need of money, Goldie's clothing stolen in a laundromat in Madrid, her latest boyfriend arrested in Prague, her jumbled mind spinning a sort of familiar yarn interesting to her parents for days afterward as they hike to the bank or the travel agent to do Goldie's bidding, so very concerned for their eldest daughter.

Goldie and her problems change only in detail nor ever completely resolve but continue on in a steadfast monologue running through family life, all focus on Goldie's latest caper or dilemma and although she is more interesting, as a rule, than Karin or her troubles, Karin is sick of Goldie and her troubles; she would like to share her own troubles but the broken clothes dryer and what it would cost to fix or replace would not make rank. Her parents would glaze over simultaneously with the merest flicker of ennui, and Karin would retreat back into her shell and pretend to commiserate with her mother over Goldie's aberrant behavior and how much she costs them, and Karin decides not to ask for a small loan to repair the dryer; Goldie needs a fast ticket out if Istanbul where she feels political unrest will force her to leave, knowing exactly what spin her parents will fall for or rather, take an interest in, and her parents feeling the panic, respond appropriately and book her a ticket asking Karin if she could do it online before she has dinner as she is so good with computers...and she can do nothing but acquiesce because; "it's for your sister, and we have to help her," her mother would chirp gaily. "She will be going back into therapy, her father will insist on it."

#19 WOMEN TROUBLE

This six-sentence story was also published in a book called "6S Mind Games." See the link below.

Kenny has had a lot of trouble with women and has pretty much decided to give them up, unable to take much more vexation, the fighting instability and confusion they bring to his life, and though they slip away with a detachment Kenny wished he possessed, still they call and want to talk.

Why don't they leave me alone with the booze and TV if they don't want me around, he often thinks to himself.

Every day one or the other phones to ask how he is, is he back to painting, how the dog is, what he is doing, did he get his car fixed, his pancreas checked out, voicing a concern he doubts they really feel, having experienced the worst they have to offer.

Each day he dissembles, becoming adept at the meaningless rejoinder until they decide to hang up, after he's missed half the program he was watching.

Before the call he felt fine but now he's reminded of things he'd rather forget but they never let you entirely forget; women do not like to be relegated to history even though they were hellbent on leaving in the first place, at least the women Kenny has known.

After the call, he can't get back into the program, so rudely interrupted, he thinks, but fortunately, he can always get back into the booze which in the end, is all the company he really needs since giving up women, and that they know this is why they keep phoning, still bitter over coming in second and hoping to better their odds.

#18 FATE (AL)

Bucky Bellanger was on his way home from work one day when he decided to stop off for a drink in a bar he regularly passed by but had never been in. Bucky didn't know what prompted him to go in that day but something mysteriously drew him inside Clive's Corner where he ordered a scotch with a side of water and ate a few hot, salted peanuts from a dish placed in front of him.

A peanut lodged in his throat and he began coughing and sputtering and while he thought he grabbed the water to stop from choking, instead grabbed the scotch, bolted in down and involuntarily vomited the scotch and the peanuts onto the bar.

Penny Parker, two seats to Bucky's right was disgusted and moved to a small table in the window unable to stand anyone coughing in her vicinity much less vomiting.

Fate had planned for Penny to meet Bucky that day, it was all set up, she was to play an important part in his life, Bucky would be lonely no more.

After Bucky regained his composure, the bartender began wiping the entire bar down with a disinfectant that had an unpleasant smell and the few remaining customers started complaining.

"Fucking smells like a hospital in here," said one of Clive's more obnoxious regulars.

"Better than puke," added Penny from her table in the corner unaware that she was meant to meet Bucky that day so she too would not be lonely anymore.

Fate, not partial to being thwarted, vowed not to bother with these two hapless souls again, and leaving them to their own devices, Bucky and Penny were alone for a very long time though they occasionally stopped into Clive's for a drink, somehow never at the same time.

#17 AMERICAN DREAMING

Masao worked for a large Japanese corporation and was currently stationed in the New York headquarters - a situation that every day filled his heart with joy and expectation - where he would remain for five years before returning to Japan and a greater position within the company. Although Masao was prone to dreaming, a trait not especially favored in the Japanese corporate world, he was an ace golfer, the star of the company's baseball team and proficient in English.

Two years into his occupation of one of ten desks in a large room on the 24th floor of a mid-Manhattan skyscraper facing southeast, at a desk exactly like all the others in the the large room, a tall blond American woman of about 30 years old came to occupy the desk to his left, directly, and Masao without so much as a flickering eyelid nor a change in his vibrational frequency - his heart skipping only one beat - sat for the rest of the day contemplating this fantastic creature brought to his side, his dream girl, a temp, here for a three-month assignment as his assistant.

It was early spring and day after day they sat at their desks, close enough for Masao to exchange a word from time to time without attracting undue attention from his colleagues; there he and his assistant sat with the barest of communication, she reading her book on interior design and he driven numb by his job, his telephone, his future, with only an occasional furtive glance at her breasts, encased like monuments in her summer blouses so reassuringly in evidence while Masao, unable to wholly concentrate these days, felt no longer a Japanese businessman, one of thousands, millions, but the man he was in his dreams, Elvis Presley, able to approach a woman such as the one at the desk to his left with abandon and the assurance of reciprocation though he was shy and did nothing to forward himself.

The alluring assistant was with Masao's company for three months in her temporary status when she announced she would be leaving, she had been offered a job in a design firm though this confused the other men in the office; the pay was low by their standards and she could stay on with them if she wanted to but American women were unfathomable, they thought, so aggressive and willful, unlike the women in Japan.

On his assistant's last day Masao worked up the courage to ask her out for a drink, secretively by the teletype machine in a small separate room where she was busy sending a message to Japan, and to his great relief she accepted, his heart missing no more than two beats, a slight clip in his step as he walked back into the large office overlooking all of Manhattan to the southeast.

They met for drinks in a midtown hotel bar where they drank from the company bottle of Dewars after which he invited her to have dinner in a Japanese restaurant on 48th Street where he could also provision the company bottle of scotch and revel in being the only man in the place with a beautiful American woman who smiled at him with blushing eyes before the order of sushi he was encouraging her to try, while he continued drinking more than he should from the bottle of scotch.

Bucked up by her friendly spirit and plenty to drink, Masao invited her to a love hotel for something he said to her, he wanted.

The former assistant, a little drunk possibly after all that Dewars on the rocks, needed no cajoling, she went and once there, let herself be undressed, let herself be touched wherever Masao cared to touch and eventually touched back, but the ardor was more about a need to feel someone completely there, and then to look at that someone without separation...in this way they formed a childlike bond though Masao did not understand any of it at the time.

Masao that night was hoping to fulfill a fantasy that had something to do with Marilyn Monroe, with America, it had to do with escape and wide opportunity which he knew would always be a fantasy for a Japanese businessman, everything jumbled in his mind from popular culture mingled with his own desires and in a little hotel room in midtown, Masao fell in love with the temp and later bought her a small gold ring for her birthday though they could never marry.

With his former assistant, for six months, every Friday night, before she left New York, Masao found the key to his American dream: he found an open heart in this open country. He brooded less, played better ball, improved his English and bought a 1966 Pontiac Bonneville as big as the side of his house in New Jersey, too big for the city but he would drive around in the suburbs, to the golf course, the ball field, maneuvering cautiously at first, and then with a little more verve, laughed at by almost everyone he knew until he returned to Japan several years later where he would work at the same desk for several decades although his business travel was frequent enough to prevent lassitude.

A year before Masao was to retire, many years after this story began, occupying a desk in a room full of many desks in perfect symmetry in downtown Tokyo, he pulled a card out of the lining of his wallet for the restaurant on 48th Street in New York and noticed that her phone number was, in her handwriting, on the back. He smiled returning it to his wallet and opened his newspaper for coffee break only to find to his great astonishment, her name with a small picture of a middle-aged woman: she was an expert on design and would be giving a lecture on Japanese decorative techniques in the art of James McNeill Whistler and other nineteenth-century artists at the Imperial Design Center, for which Masao, having no real interest in design, immediately phoned in a reservation and then began calling every hotel in Tokyo catering to Americans.

Dedicated to film director Yasujirō Ozu.

#16 NOT SO DOGGONE FUNNY

The workshop on humorous writing was in full swing. We were told to write a couple of paragraphs about ourselves, something humorous; to make fun of ourselves which, we were told, is where all humor writing should begin. At the moment, I am homeless and sleeping on a funky couch in someone's trailer. At the moment, I smell like a dog because the couch actually belongs to a dog and I am the interloper. I did not take a shower this morning because I wanted to get out of the trailer first thing this morning and did not know I smelled like a dog. I don't find this particularly amusing as I am not a dog lover and feel somewhat chagrined. The dog probably does not like giving way to me either but has no choice as I am much bigger.

It is not amusing at all to be homeless even though I am not officially on the street. I do not consider it a winning point to crash with someone and uproot the dog who may or may not like its routine upset. I don't like crashing on someone's couch and smelling like a dog. I am a somewhat fussy about smells, buying very expensive cosmetics just for their fragrance but all that is negated by being homeless, crashing on a somewhat dirty couch and smelling like a dog.

I have done my couple of paragraphs and find nothing about this humorous. Maybe in time I will look back on it and find it so but today I am distracted by the smell coming from my hair which is similar to a wet dog's fur. The time is up for our humorous take on ourselves. I don't think I have been funny at all and I don't think I will find it funny to be on the same couch tonight. I will take a shower and put on clean clothes which is not funny but may make me feel a little better about myself.

So no, I'm not laughing. Homeless is not funny. Dogs can be funny if you have the right frame of mind to find them so but so far I haven't been able to see the humor. Very soon I will reread this and decide if it could be funny or possibly made funny with some artifice and then I will be pleased but for now I fail to see the humor and my writing will have to get less dire if I am ever to be funny. For now, we will accept that my humorous attempt to make a crummy situation funny has, to all intents and purposes, been a failure but the workshop does not end until six and I have time to laugh at my situation though there is not anything at all funny about sleeping on someone's couch and making the dog sleep in the chair. Now the chair smells like a wet dog and that is also not very funny. Some people find animals a source of humor and I'd like to give the dog that, but I can't find the humor in smelling like a dog. I know some might laugh at me, with my makeup and jewelry carefully in place, smelling like a wet dog but people like to laugh at others. We are told however, in this exercise not to laugh at others but at ourselves. This I have been unable to do in a couple of paragraphs even though I am typing like mad.

Well, enough of my situation, if there is no humor, better to let it go. I know we are supposed to be able to laugh at ourselves and I'm sure I will soon enough. I just don't like being homeless and sleeping on a couch belonging to a dog and seeing his sad eyes when I wake up in the morning in his spot, looking and smelling like a homeless person; this is not even funny to the dog though why would it be? I'm not sure dogs have a sense of humor but if they do, this one is not amused by my sleeping on his couch, being relegated to the chair or smelling the expensive French cosmetics I use hoping to not smell like a wet dog. Nothing funny about any of it but tomorrow I can try again.

#15 NON JUDGMENT

Here's another in six sentences. See sixsentences.blogspot.com.

Lately it has occurred to me that I judge people in many and varied ways: on their appearance, clothing, grooming, verbal skills or lack thereof, their car, pets, food choices, their use or non-use of technology, their use of profanity, alcohol, drugs and cigarettes and as always, their taste in music and art. I do not know where all this comes from as I am not so perfect myself.

I decided I needed help so I visited a a famous spiritual guru to see if together we could get a handle on so much judgment rattling around in my brain, day in and day out, because if I am not perfect, as I suspect I am not, I need to let up on everyone else--ho hum.

Non-judgment, this teacher says, is a state we should all cultivate and maintain, that creativity cannot sneak in amongst that manic categorizing.

That the monkey mind is spinning a web of deceit, despair, over-anxious seeking..."Just shut it down," he says.

And with that command I immediately begin to judge my spinning web of deceit, despair, over-anxious seeking...and know, henceforth, that the game cannot be won by me or anyone else.

Which is precisely why I got into this business of visiting gurus in the first place.