And You're Not So Big

There is no point explaining...

"I was gonna say something. I was gonna write it down."

Nothing. No sound. No response.

"I was about to do it. I was looking for the words."

And yet.

Nothing.

The words don't come.

The words are somewhere else. Doing something fun.

They don't want to come in here and hear me torture them.

"I thought --"

Waiting. Thinking. Wondering how the sentence ends.

And then. And yet. And still.

"Listen."



Life is unfair.

In Which I Save You 9 Hours on Super Bowl Sunday

You're welcome.

Long Blue Shadows of the Jackals

And eyes like ice don't move...

Sheila stands with a chainsaw in her hand.

I walk up to her. “How do you know where to cut?”

She stares at the block of ice before her.

“It’s easy,” she says. “I take away everything that doesn’t remind me of a man.”



She fires up the chainsaw and quickly cuts the heart out of the block of ice.

I want to tell her she’s made a mistake, but I hold back.

Let her discover it herself.

She turns off the chainsaw. Turns with a smile. Pronounces it done.

I raise an eyebrow, questioningly.

“I’ve never met a man who actually had a heart,” she says.

And she walks away, leaving the heartless block of ice in her wake.

Worlds WIll Be Changing When I Get Through

Austere and Lost

"You believe in some ridiculous things."

I know. But lots of people do.

"I'm not talking about the ridiculous things in religions. Or the shit you see on TV."

Yeah. I know.

"You believe in the phone call. The phone call that will change the world."

Not the entire world. Just my world.

"Your world doesn't change with a phone call."

Not yet.

"A single phone call?"

Not yet.

"Shouldn't there be some process? Something that takes a while to play out?"

Maybe. But maybe the world just changes with a phone call. Maybe you look back later and you see the difference. Maybe you divide everything into before and after the phone call.

"Has that happened?"

No.

Not yet.

"But still you believe."

Yes.

Did I Hear You Say That There Must Be a Catch?

Better Hurry Cause It's Going Fast

42 years after writing this song, Paul McCartney finally gets around to singing it live on stage.



And, just for good measure, here's the "original" Badfinger version:

Yonder Stands Your Orphan With His Gun

Compare and Contrast

This will count for 50% of your final grade.



Maybe 60%.

Let it Ring in the Air

Respect.

One of my college professors loved to say "where there's poetry, there's hope. Hope for redemption, hope for change."

Sheila, who never met that professor, bit into her bottom lip, her voice quivering. "How do I know I'm not just a bad person? Maybe that's why these things keep happening to me."

And I stared at her, wondering what to say.

"I've done some bad things," she said, almost whispering.

And she listed them. And I tried not to look shocked.

Because some of them were bad. Really bad.

And before I could answer, before I could reassure her, she said "But I know I'm a good person."



And she left, reassured.

Ironically, I wasn't so sure.

Because she didn't seem to learn from what had happened. She repeated the same behaviors. The ones we both thought were bad.

Except that she pulled back and decided that, even if they were bad, she was good.

It seemed absurd.

But who was I to judge? I didn't know her heart. I didn't know her intentions.

Besides, shouldn't it count for something that she was asking the question... even if she wasn't getting the right answer?