i’m such a fool,
and life in all of it’s infinite majesty,
seems to offer so many chances
to prove that

what never ceases to amaze me (although i do hope to rectify this behavior sooner rather than later, and thus negate its ability to amaze me) is the fact that when i have the proper motivation; be that alcohol, boredom, or just a surge of jester related impulses; i am capable of approaching almost anyone and saying almost anything.

- there is of course one terrible proviso, but we’ll get to that -

i approach frat-boy looking fools at the bar and ask them -

“so what is it that you are engaged in, here in the contemporary world-sphere?”

nothing like the look of utter consternation that i’ve been known to win, and what’s really fun is when you can play the role of the harmless lunatic well enough to get them to open up to you; complete strangers have been known to spill significant portions of their life stories to me, admitting fears and dreams in earnest little sentence fragments . . .

it’s just fun

the other night i managed to somehow enrage an individual in a car by asking the seemingly innocuous question -

“so what are you doing with your life?”

apparently i touched a nerve,
from the ensuing onslaught of profanity
i can only guess
that he wasn’t particularly pleased
with the activities he was engaged in
and didn’t want anyone to bring it up

he called me a communist
which didn’t make the slightest bit of sense,
but apparently the red menace
is now undermining american values
by questioning how people are
using their freedom

terrifying prospect ain’t it?

so what i want to know, (and here enters said terrifying proviso) is why is it that i can’t say even the simplest ‘hello’ to anyone who actually seems as though they may be interesting?

the other day, as i was sweating away the hours, having a few beers (strictly for the cooling factor involved), i got an instant message from a friend, and suddenly the opportunity for spending the rest of my evening sitting around a fire out in the country became a possibility.

you can’t let these opportunities slip by, you’ve got to grab ‘em when they’re there . . . i was fully packed and out the door in five minutes; sleeping bag with one person tent rolled up inside (in case it rained), pair of long pants and a hooded sweatshirt (in case it got cold), copy of ‘finnegans wake’ (in case things got really weird, as they often do)

before we hit the road, we had to stop for beer (of course), and in the process of wandering the aisles for munchie food-type substances, i kept seeing this beautiful girl -

you know how the process of
two separate parties shopping
can lead to all manner of
almost interactions
as the dictates of needed commodities
pull people along their separate
and overlapping paths

as we’re headed for the check-out, it turned out that we were following her -

beautiful girl . . . really,
something in the way
she carried herself,
the clothes she wore
and how she wore them
suggested (to this thoroughly
jaded perspective)
more than just raw
physical beauty

she glanced back as we moved closer to the check-out, turned a corner, and as soon as i was able to follow her with my eyes, i did . . . and she was smiling at me.

the two open lanes both had lines, we danced about in the space reserved for those queuing up to purchase, darting eyes, subtle smiles and my heart starts racing.

she stepped into line
immediately behind me
tantalizing presence
of female
closer than she ought
to be-
if being ignored
was the point,
and i didn’t think
that it was

i’ve gone door to door to intrude on the lives of strangers and ask them for money

i’ve stood on stage in a crowded bar and bared my innermost emotions in patterned prose

i’ve taken my chances, risked more than i care to admit risking, darted into the sudden pathways of opportunities whose end was an utter mystery . . .

in that check-out line
i didn’t say a thing
i couldn’t even look
at her

she was a beautiful silhouette
stranded in my periphery

my guts were twisting
my head aboil with
opening line
after opening line
after opening line

in that check-out line
i failed miserably

what i really need is a t-shirt that says -

if i appear at all shy or nervous
it’s only because you actually
interest me . . .
not many people do

the things that we really want scare us the most.

the biggest regrets i have in my life are those opportunities that i’ve let slip by.

even though i’d promised that i’d only allow myself the car-ride out to wallow in my misery, that night around the bonfire i came up with at least million acceptable things that i could, no should, have said to her

that night i slept under the stars, and i felt much more alone than i would have if i’d simply tried to talk to her, even if she ultimately laughed in my face and told me that i stood no chance;
as it is, i’ll never know.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 at 10:10 pm and is filed under indiscriminate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.