Obama

Dear President Obama,

You are president. Yiiiiiiiiiiiipppppeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sincerely,
The Square Corner

What Have They Done to My Font?!?

What has blogspot done? They seemed to have taken away the option of enlarging the font size. I like writing in the bigger letters. It is part of my style, and I implore them to bring the option back. It's like taking away the colour blue from a young Picasso. I feel sooooooooooo damn frustrated. Wonder if some evil computer Hobbit at Blogspot headquarters is punishing me.

The Interview

I just read an on-line interview with a writer. He received a $75,000 advance to tell how his family was touched by madness, loss, and fate's broken promise. I guess a writer puts his life story into a book, while a songwriter does the same with a song, and an actor with his role. Everyone has a story and so many ways to tell it, if they tell it at all.

The Donation

I heard a loud knock at my door so I opened it with a wary hand. An intimidating 7ft. Zombie in a mask stood before me holding a large white flower. "I come in peace," he said.

With a deadpan voice he told me he was collecting contributions for a Zombie orphanage. His story moved me enough to hand over as large a donation as I could. I told him I had nothing more to give but a glass of sweetened fruit juice. A smile came to his giant face. He drank the juice in one monstrous gulp and went on his way, taking the glass with him.

The next morning I heard another knock at my door. But this time the knock was slight. It came from a Zombie child's small hand. He gave me a juice glass that held a large white flower. He smiled at me, I smiled back, and I've never seen nor heard from a Zombie since, even though I'd say we're the same kind of people.

Blinded By A Date

I went on a blind date with a chick who had a Carly Simon face and a British accent. It didn't work on her. Taken separately it would have been fine. In fact, either the face or manner of speech can be rather becoming in a woman. Put together it's like Stilton Cheese on apple pie.

Luck and Crackers

It was early evening when Tortelli walked through an alley that separated a grocery store from a church with a soup kitchen basement. He came across a tin can that he stooped to pick up. He decided to call his crazy friend Zigman Zibanski and tell him of his lucky find. With a quarter in his hand, Tortelli came across a pay phone.

Tortelli: "Hello, Zigman. You'll never guess what I found, a can of Campbell's tomato soup. You got any crackers?"

Zibanski: "Yeah, I got some. You wanna come over?"

Tortelli: "I'll be over in a flash."

He walked it to his friend's apartment and was surprised to find that all the utilities had been cut off except for the phone. They improvised heating the tomato soup by holding the open can above a candle flame with a monkey wrench. When it started to bubble they poured the soup into a couple of coffee mugs and added crushed crackers.

They drank from the mugs with small plastic spoons when Zigman spoke: "My ex-wife called. She wants the back payments from our alimony settlement by the end of the week. I told her I got laid off and she'll have to wait till I start working again."

"Why don't you send her an empty soup can?" Tortelli asked. They both laughed and Tortelli spoke again. "I saw something on TV about Japan. You know they got golf driving ranges on the top of office buildings. The ranges are surrounded by netting and Japanese guys stand on platforms and drive the balls as hard as they can."

"Crazy world," Zigman said. He took out a battery operated transistor radio and tuned it to an Oldies station that played songs they knew as teenagers when all in life seemed possible.

Zigman Zibanski and Tortelli quietly finished the soup and wished they had more.

The Long Walk

Some day I'm going to find 40 miles of rugged northern coastline and begin a long walk. It's going to be a solitary journey. On the small chance I come across a fellow traveler I'll smile, nod my head, maybe tip my cap, and continue on without breaking stride, my walking stick to keep me in a steady rhythm. This is what Thoreau would have done on a path along Walden Pond. Walt Whitman, too, would have looked at the moon and stars, watched the roar of an ocean, felt a salt breeze and felt closer to a God who created him and all that was around him. He would have come to a coast like this to quell his creative angst, to resolve his place in a world he sometimes thought incomprehensible in all its tumult. Read As I 'Ebbed With the Ocean of Life.

Occasionally a blogger just needs to clear his head, get some exercise along the wildness of God's ocean coast.