Sometimes you are handcuffed to people and things you’d rather not be attached to and sometimes those handcuffs connect you to those you can’t imagine being without.
It is a peculiar contradiction, these conversations about submission.
Sometimes you don’t realize what side you are on until an odd comment from another wakes you up and you wonder why they said a particular thing.
How could they see you in such a way and yet how could they not. It is the most obvious thing about you and for some ridiculous reason you thought it was hidden from all.
David Byrne sings about it in Once In a Lifetime when he sings, “how did I get here?’
I think about it periodically and wonder this August could possibly mark four years since I moved back to Texas,.
And then I think about some of the things I hear about LA and whether they are true and remember I have been gone for a while.
The tuxedo and bridal gown shops from the wedding are gone. The florist is out of business and half the guests are dead.
Ok, that last line is an exaggeration but not as much of one as I would like and the truth is most of the vendors really are out of business.
I am closer to the end of some things and the beginning of others than I have ever been. Don’t ask me to tell you what those are because I won’t.
You can blame it on superstition or you can say I am only willing to say such things with a select crowd and even then I might not.
Sometimes you choke on air and sometimes it is the sweetest thing ever but again these are contradictions that one encounters in life.
Tomorrow I have a meeting in Addison at a restaurant called Taste Of Chicago and inevitably my thoughts will go to dad.
He was a native Angeleno like me and spent most of his life there, but he spent a chunk in Chicago and Pittsburgh too, but more Chicago.
Dad would talk about hot beef sandwiches in Chicago in a way that always made me want to have one with him there.
The strange thing to me is I have been there a bunch of times but never with either parent and now it looks like there is a good chance I may get there later this year.
But tomorrow comes first and I’ll finally determine what I think of the fare at this particular restaurant.
Tomorrow I’ll pay attention again to whether the people around me are shaking hands and or acting like it is business as usual.
There will be conversations about the the current state of affairs and I’ll wonder as I do today where it all goes and what happens when we get there.
Will this be Y2k revisited or something else.
More than a few people ask me to share my thoughts about circumstances and where we all go from here.
Some do it because they are nervous and hope I have some nugget of wisdom they haven’t considered and some because they don’t know what do say.
I tell some I feel the panic and uncertainty radiating from some people around me but I am not panicked.
Perhaps a bit uncertain, but not panicked.
My 401k has taken a hit but I haven’t enough to really retire and short of something big that is not anything in the picture for years.
So while I don’t like the hit I am not worrying about it because I am going to ride this storm out. I am good at riding storms and dancing in the fire.
I don’t like it much, but I excel at it so I’ll roll with whatever comes.
Got some good stories to tell now, but I am going to have better ones soon. Going to have the kind that make you smile broadly and the ones that make you tear up in a good way.
Don’t ask me when, but it is coming.
And that is my submission to you.
