happy blogaversary, selfie

Ten years ago, I started The Laughorist, appropriately enough on Bloomsday. I've kept at it. Not every day. I'm glad I did.

Thanks for reading my words.

I invite you to browse backwards into the archives, strolling through the streets of my imagination and the precincts of my world.

Call me Boulevardier.

family values

Each of the seven kids received a "diploma," a certificate. Pre-K graduation. They sang "Kindergarten, Here We Come." As each youngster went up to get his or her certificate, the daycare director made declarations of future aspirations, what they want to be when they grow up. One girl wants to be a mermaid, another "graduate" wants to work at the large factory down the hill and across the street. 

My grandson?

"When he grows up, he wants to be a . . . Dad."

What a testament to my son's fatherhood.

amid the geraniums

"Let's go outside. It's not too bad out there, Mom." We walked out of the dining room. She used her cane. I slowed my pace yet was slightly ahead of her. We found two chairs facing the setting sun, partly in the shade. A man to our right sat in a chair, slouched, eyes closed, mouth open. Facing us, a man and a woman, he in a wheelchair. "Those geraniums are really something, aren't they?" "They're beautiful." Eight hanging baskets in two parallel rows. Bright red geraniums, full, lush, some buds still to blossom. "I love that tree like an umbrella. They get it to be just right." Sparrows jumping into the bird bath or leaning over for a sip and then darting off. Bees landing on the ground-cover flowers. She kept coming back to the geraniums, mentioning them over and over, with the same phrase, as if we had not already spoken of them. And I'd reply likewise. The sun was too hot for her. I said it was because her black pants absorbed the heat. The couple in front had left. We took their seats. The sun was at our back; we were in the shade. She could smell the fragrance of flowers. I could not. Purple. White. Green. Yellow. "That guy is dozing off." She replied: "You never know. Maybe he just doesn't want to talk."

flinch

As the rebar comes flying through your windshield, you flinch. You flinch as the ponded puddle at the curb is about to inundate you. An infinitesimal moment before the crash, you flinch. As would I. Similarly, we hunch our shoulders against the wind, rain, or snow. We squint at the blinding light. We brace ourselves for the verbal daggers flying toward us.

Tell me. Does the flinching, hunching, squinting, bracing, wincing, cringing, or shrugging alter the results one iota? And yet we seek these armours, these paltry shields, involuntarily. (Are they ever voluntary?)

Powerlessness 101.

out of the blue

why blue

not azure cerulean opal hues

out of the blue

thin air

laden with promise

surprise

surging

possibility

nowhere

to

everywhere

in the space

of a heart-

beat