The Box is on the Wrong Side
“The box is on the wrong side.”, she said. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. Here she was, my 55 year old co-worker, telling me what the side the box should be on.
What box was she talking about anyway? Could it have anything to do with my constant fear that the only difference between us and the robots is a tiny dose of schizophrenia? Was, “the box”, she referred to a code for “the black box”. That infernal machine in which something goes in, but inevitably, never comes out the same?
A cold sweat came over me. How to respond? I mean, I know she’s a republican, but she’s never come at me like this before. My worst fears realized, I glanced around me for the nearest letter opener, scissors, clip board, anything I could use to bludgeon the coming attackers.
But then I realized, isn’t this all part of their plan? Is this not just another of their tests? I took a deep breath, wiped the sweat off my brow, and just, “let it go”.
You amaze me! You have the greenest thumb of any human I know… You plant it… It grows… Period… Growing carrots is tricky. And, although one needs sandy earth, you grew carrots! (Mind you, they were a bit small… But, you didn’t care! They were worth waiting for… And, we enjoyed them!)
Things that totally freakin’ piss me off… Number one… well, close to number one, at least… Crosses in the front of Catholic churches that represent the number of aborted babies (in the city, nation, who knows)… Who the hell are they to judge anyone?… Weird though… I do love the effect, artistically, of all of those crosses… The patterns, the texture, the values (tonally speaking)… I had to finally shoot this photo, but… It still makes my Top Ten List of Things that Piss Me Off, for life…
Where I come from is….
Looks like I can’t get out of this.
I come from Akron. It’s an old
plain rubber town that lost its bounce then
got some other kind of
mojo I don’t recognize but I keep fucking
going back trying to fall in love
all over again. A girl I used to date—
she was so Akron—Mary Murgatroyd
had it right when she said, “I don’t
give a damn about Cleveland and there’s nothin’
south of Barberton.” Maybe I
should have listened to her. For years I
thought where you were from was wherever
you were going. That hippie mantra shit
hasn’t played so well. You wanna get
a case of chicken paprikash and go
see if the stars are up over Summit Lake?
I came from two people who both attended the church that this stained glass window watches over. They both went to the same grade school. They met on a bus back to Sayler Park, Ohio… They both lived there. They married each other. They lived there… in Sayler Park, between two families that hated each other… They never had a chance… They got divorced, of course…
