The Things I Miss

God, I miss being an old blues player in the 1920s.  I absolutely loved that.  I would sit on my porch all day and play the slide guitar, my old cracked fingers moving effortlessly.  A car would pass maybe twice or three times a day, kicking up the dust in the dirt road.  The birds were chirping.  It was hot, but not too hot.  And all I had to worry about was my big legged woman and whether or not she was being true.

And I miss that time I was an old Japanese fisherman.  I would sit and stare out into the waters, my bamboo rod still for most of the day.  My feet and toes were rough and brown in my rope sandals.  Sometimes I'd stop and lay the rod down to pick up my old wooden Japanese flute or whistle (I can't remember what we called it).  The white blossoms of the trees, the sweet and cool salt air, the mountains in the background...aw shit, that was Heaven.

And I miss being the barman in recent post-prohibition New York City.  It was slow, easy, and FDR had said, "what America needs now is a drink."  I'd listen to slow jazz on an old piano, wipe the same glass down for hours if I wanted to.  Big Fred was in the back playing cards...big hands, too...but I knew it would never get out of control.  I had a little place that was perfect for me for a few bucks a month.  It was just down the street.  A sad guy would come in and plop himself down and tell me his troubles.  I wouldn't even make him take his hat off.

Yes, I miss those times.  And what really fucking sucks is I'm 99.9% sure I was never anyone of those guys.  Just a dude born in 1978.  That's all I've been.

And what's worse is I'm 99.9% sure that even if I was those guys, things wouldn't have been like that.  I would have had a lot more than a big legged woman to worry about.  Try 1920s southern racism on for size.  And could it have really been that peaceful every single day fishing there in Japan?  Was the jazz really sweeter back then?  Could I have really afforded the perfect place on a barman's earnings for an entire life in the late 1930s?  And an entire life lasts longer than a decade.  The 1940s would have come along.  Then the 50s...

No...I probably wasn't a blues guy, a fisherman, a barman...I didn't have an old wooden porch, rope sandals, or a nice stool to lean against.  I'm 99.9% sure of it.  And another 99.9% sure if I was, it wouldn't be so romantic.

But you know what I like?  The 00.1% part of me.

That's what makes it so infuriating.  That's what makes me so infuriating.

Thanks everyone.  Sorry I was away so long.  I'll talk to you later.

A History of Snow

Was Curious George playing in it?  Didn't Burt and Ernie go skiing?  Larry and Balki did.

"There...if you look closely, you can see it on top of the mountain.  See there?  And those dark shapes there?  Those are elk or moose.  Yes, like Bullwinkle.  No, it's too hot back home."

"No, this is sleet."

"No, I'm telling you, it was a flurry!  I swear!"  I didn't believe her.  Plus, I was too worried about those high school exams to care.

"I never want to see the stuff.  Grew up in Florida and I'm going to Arizona State for college and then on to Hollywood."

1997 I arrive in Chicago, much different than Tempe.

He was blowing leaves as the cold wind gusted down Kenmore.  He smiled at me with his toothy, wicked grin.  "Here it comes, boy!"  A wave of fear and nausea rushed through me, starting at the mouth and exiting out of my ass.

Again on Kenmore.  "What is this?  Is someone burning something?  Is this ash?  Wait...is this?  Is this it?  Wow!"  I stood at the window in the lobby and stared at it like a fool, gaping in amazement.  The others rolled their eyes and lamented the end of autumn and the beginning of a long Chicago winter.  I doubt anyone thought I was adorable.

He laughed and pushed her in the yellow patches as she screamed.  In the summer, he would push her in the grass and she only giggled until he reminded her of winter's yellow.  "It's still there, you know."

She loved it, would kick a chunk of it and stomp it to oblivion.  That's how I knew I was in love with her.

She hated it and asked, "what is this?  I mean, I know what it is, but come on..."  That's how I knew I was in love with her.

We made a corpse out of it in a baseball field in Grant Park.  Later that day a beluga whale spit on me.  I held her hand but didn't kiss her, like we were children.  I was never in love with her.

I had to be there at five in the morning.  I shoveled the doorway and a path to the intersection.  Quitting felt so good.

I slipped and fell backwards.  I just stayed on the ground, feeling it lightly fall on my face.  It felt good to rest on the sidewalk like that.  Eventually a woman walked by and said, "oh my!  Are you alright?"  I assured her I was, but I wasn't quite ready to move yet.  "I thought you were a dog from back there."

"Hold my mitted fist!"  She made me laugh when she said that.  She moved so quickly in it.  Later, when it was ending, she told me we moved at different speeds.  I thought maybe she was referring to foot speed, but...no...probably not.  It's ok.  I was never in love with her.

It was the biggest blizzard in Chicago in years.  I can't remember, but I most likely drank through it.  I was alone, staring out of the window at it all, wishing it were worse.  Or better, depending on your point of view.

They said it would be the winter that would make us all want to move.  It was the most mild winter in years.  You couldn't ever get me to move anyway.

I was feeling better than I had in possibly years.  I loved the way the ice cracked under my feet.  I loved how untouched it was.  I loved the screaming geese and ducks that refused to leave Chicago in the winter...just like me.  I found warmth in the conservatory and smiled, smiled, smiled...

I came home grinning like some goofball.  I heard a bird chirping and asked her why in hell she was acting like it was spring.  She didn't have an answer.  I went upstairs and made dinner.  I looked out of my window and watched it come down, as it had been coming down all day, with such endurance.  I decided to write about my history with the stuff from as far back as I could remember.  And while it feels like it has lost its value over the years, I also understand there are memories with it that have not yet been made.  It will be valuable again, I'm sure.

Stay warm, stay dry, and thanks for reading.  I'll talk to you later.

Only 364 More Days Until Valentine's Day!

Hey there.  How you doin'?  God damn you're looking good...

So...how excited are you?  Hm?  It's coming up, isn't it?  It's right around the corner, huh?  Yeah...I bet you're so excited you can hardly control yourself...I can see the way you're looking at me right now...all intense, trembling slightly, that mean look on your face like you're just going to throw me down on the bed and have your way with me...

That's what usually happens to a woman when Valentine's Day is right around the corner.  And I can't wait either, baby.  Only 364 more days until we get to celebrate that special day together...only 364 more days until Valentine's Day...

I know, my darling, last year I forgot.  But the past is in the past and here we are today, a brand new day, with Valentine's Day just staring at us 364 short days away.  Before you know it, it will be only 284 days away.  And then 212 days.  In the blink of an eye it will be 179 days away.  I'd better start looking for reservations now, huh?!

What's that?  What's that you say?  Yesterday?  Sweetie, our lives are filled with yesterdays.  Don't get hung up on yesterdays.  Focus on tomorrow (when it will be 363 short days until Valentine's Day).  I used to live life looking backwards too, honey, but now I'm looking straight ahead...

What's that?  How could I forget what?  I haven't forgotten anything...I'm telling you...it's only 364 days away!  Think about that.  Your boyfriend knows exactly how many days there are until Valentine's Day.  How many of your lady friends can say that?  That they have a boyfriend wonderful enough to know exactly how many days there are until Valentine's Day?  I'll tell you how many...that's a number that's easy to count...zero.

What was I doing last night?  Wouldn't you rather know what we are doing tonight?  Guess.  I'll give you a hint.  It rhymes with "mitza and a boovie."  Oh, and a 24 pack of "Mudweiser" so we can get nice and "brunk."

I'm sorry?  Who saw me where?  With who?  I'll one-up you...who are you with right now?  Me!  That's right!  The greatest boyfriend in the world!  Oh, my sweet little confused Valenti- whoops!  Shouldn't get ahead of myself!

Well, anyway, I'm pretty tired...I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.  I'm gonna catch a few winks before we watch our "boovie" so wake me when the "mitza" gets delivered.

363 and a half days until Valentine's Day!  Seriously...how much do you love me!  Oh, and could you drop for the "mitza," babe?  I'm tapped out.

***********************************

Thanks for reading, everyone.  That was just a little piece I wrote a few years ago and sort of changed around a little bit.  I might do that from time to time.  Look for me to get back to the magic next time.  Thanks again, have a great weekend, and I'll talk to you later.

The Canary Flaxseed Story

Say hello to your mother for me.

I'm sorry, I'm nervous.  And when I get nervous, I get mean.

Here's the story.

Her name was Canary Flaxseed.  Ok, obviously her name wasn't actually Canary Flaxseed, but I thought I'd use a fictional name that closely resembles her real name.  Now that I've got that established...

Her name was Canary Flaxseed.  She was 15.  So was I.  We were high school freshmen.  Everyone was in love with Canary Flaxseed.  The boys all wanted to be with Canary Flaxseed, and the girls...well the girls were glad they weren't Canary Flaxseed because 15 year old boys are gross and ridiculous.

Yes, we were all boys and girls.  All of us, that is, except Canary Flaxseed.  She was a woman.  With the body of a woman.  And she was a dancer.  I like dancers, always have.

So everyone loved Canary Flaxseed, everyone lusted after Canary Flaxseed...everyone, that is, except for me.  And do you know why?  It's because I'm an individual, it's because I'm an independent thinker, it's because I don't follow the crowd...

I was madly in love with Canary Flaxseed.

I went to great lengths to be Canary Flaxseed's best friend.  Best friend!  Friends, we were friends, yes, friends...we hung out all the time!  We were study partners, we played tennis together, tennis.

We were friends.

So even when Maxwell Boulevard (not a real name) pulled me aside and said, "so I hear Canary Flaxseed has a huge crush on you," I didn't let it bother me.  I didn't let it affect me.  I said, "nah...we're just friends."

I went to her house in Gobbler's Cove (not a real place) and there she made me cornbread.  She made me cornbread.  And she fed it to me...with her hand!  Into my mouth!  Do you understand?  Do you understand how sensual that is?  To feed somebody with your hand?  Into their mouth?  Cornbread?  It's the most sexual oven baked good there is!  She fed me cornbread with her hand into my mouth!

So I made up my mind...I had to ask Canary Flaxseed out on a date.  What are we going to do on this date?  I don't know, I'm 15, I don't have a car, I can't drive; I'll worry about that later...

We had a study group.  It was me, Canary Flaxseed, my friend Wolf Jones (not a real name), and Canary's friend Spuds Forest (nope).  Now, Spuds...she had these insane feet.  She could staple things with them, she could eat an apple with them...one time she was sitting behind Maxwell Boulevard in geometry class and Maxwell suddenly began to feel one of the most amazing neck massages he had ever received.  It was Spuds' feet!  She was giving him a neck massage, a solid one, with her damn feet!  They were just like hands, these feet.

So anyway, we were at the library, and Canary and Spuds were talking about some guy named Sploodge (it was actually Robbie).  I had heard the two of them mention this Sploodge guy before and it was never good.  Apparently, Sploodge had called Canary the night before around midnight and wouldn't get off the phone until two in the morning.  "What an idiot," says Canary.  "I know, right?  What a tool," says Spuds.

So I turn to the two of them and I say, "wow, this Sploodge sounds like a real douche bucket."

"That's Canary's boyfriend," said Spuds.  She actually signed it to me with her insane hands feet.

I was devastated.  Absolutely crushed.  My eyes welled up with tears.  You can't hide that shit; she noticed.  I tried to play it off..."oh, that's cool.  Yeah, far out...word...neato mosquito..."  I spanned three decades of general agreement slang.

As we were leaving the library, Canary pulled me aside and said, "hey, you look a little bummed."  Isn't that sad?  Isn't that pathetic?  I wanted her to say, "Sploodge means nothing to me, it's you!  It's always been you!  I'm in love with you!"

No.  "Hey, you look a little bummed.  Is everything alright?  Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Yeah, say hello to your mother for me!"

I didn't say that.  I told her I was tired.

Not too long after that, Canary Flaxseed moved.  She went to a different school.  We lost touch.

As coincidence would have it (or as magic would have it), Canary and I ended up both moving up to Chicago for college.  Well, I attended college, she joined a professional dance troop in Evanston.  We reconnected and I went up there to visit her.  I had dinner with her and her mother.  I had met her mother before...wonderful woman.  Always laughed at my jokes.  We hung out a few times in my freshman year.  By my sophomore year, we had lost touch again.

Then, halfway through that second year of college, I had an intense dream about Canary.  And the night after that, another vivid dream about her.  I wrote in my journal at the time that I felt I would be back in contact with Canary again soon and, wouldn't you know it, the guy who had my old dorm phone number from the year before came up to me and said, "some girl named Canary Flaxseed called for you.  I wrote her number down but I put it in my jeans and now those jeans are in the wash."

"You get me that number."

And so I got the number.  We spoke, Canary and I, over the phone for eight hours.  Eight...all night long.  She had been dating one of the Northwestern football coaches or something insane like that.  I was single.

Sadly, we fell out of touch once again after that.

Years later, when it became easy to stalk people on the internet, she found me.  She was married and living in Orlando.  She had her own dance company now.  She looked great, judging by the online pictures of her.  She wrote me a very sweet message, one filled with the stars of youth and the dreams we lose in the shadows like runaway ghosts...

"OMG, lol!  How r u?!  How's Chicago?  Cold enough for you?!  lmao!  You look great!  KIT."

I wrote her back.

"So good to hear from you.  Hey, you're married!  Chicago is great, I'm doing well.  You know, I had the biggest crush on you back in high school.  I miss you.  Your husband's a real lucky guy.  You probably make him real happy.  Take care.  I wish you all the best.  And say hello to your mother for me."

Thanks everyone.  Have a great weekend, I'll talk to you later.

Chance and Choice

I went on a designed magic hunt on Sunday.

I stepped out of my apartment building and flipped a coin.  Heads I go right, tails I go left.  It was tails.  So on I walked to Halsted.   There, I flipped the coin again.  Heads I go straight, tails I turn.  Tails again.  Which way should I turn?  Heads right, tails left.  Heads.  I went right, north on Halsted.

This went on for quite a while.  Each intersection presented me with three choices; keep walking straight, turn right, or turn left.  I let chance decide my choice for me.  But what about the choice of which side of the street to walk on?  That I didn't leave up to chance, but to my own personal feelings.  Whatever felt right.  What if I was on one side of the street, but there was a side street shooting off from the other side of the street?  Again, I would go with gut feeling on that, making up these rules as I went along, realizing there are way more choices out there than I had planned on.

And what about alleys?  What about shops?  Do I go in places?  Do I not?  How many times am I going to stop on the sidewalk to flip a coin like an insane eccentric person?  No...the coin will only be used for straight or turn, right or left.

And where does the magic come into play?  The idea was that through fate, I would be led to magic.  Through the coin and not my agenda, I would be brought someplace important.  Why would this even work?  Well, I looked at the coin...a quarter from 1978.  I was born in 1978.  I took this as enough of a sign to believe in what I was doing.

I found myself winding back and forth on the streets between Halsted and Clark.  I was looking for magic...just being open...

That's a little something I'm trying to really practice; leaving myself open to magic.  I've learned recently that there is sort of a series of things one has to do in order to be open to all of the amazing things that go on around us day after day after day.  First of all, you've got to take care of yourself.  The little things.  Take a shower.  Brush your teeth.  Laundry, dishes, eating right, all of those little simple things that are so easy to take for granted.  Clothes pile up, dishes pile up, it's easier to order some gross take out than to go to the grocery store, and on and on.

But when you take care of yourself, you have a better chance of being grounded.  Once grounded, it becomes easier to be in the present, to open yourself up to the world around you.  And weird things are happening all of the time in this world.  Strange and amazing coincidences.  Magic.

The coin I was using just happened to be from the same year as me.  Big deal, right?  But then walking down Kenmore I noticed a small slice from a tree branch lying on the ground.  It caught my attention.  I looked up at the tree it was next to and saw that recently several branches had been sawed off and taken away.

The realist way to describe this moment was that the tree caught my attention.  A more mystical way of putting it would be to say the tree held a certain kind of energy that I was attracted to and wank wank wank let's all hold hands and believe we can fly.  I know.  But check this out...

I look to my right, thinking this house, a three flat I think, could hold some significance.  The address on the front was...are you ready for this?

...my PIN for my debit card!  I'm not going to tell you what the PIN is, obviously.  But weird, right?

I'm saying this with a little projected sarcasm, but I just happened to stop at that spot and I just happened to have a connection with the number on the front of the house.  And the quarter just happened to share a birthday with me.  I walked on...

My coin flipping took me to Slaymaker, a fine art gallery on Clark and Roscoe.  I'm an artist!  Is it in the stars for me to go in there and make some sort of connection?  I became excited and went to the front door.  You couldn't just walk in, you had to ring a bell.  Suddenly, I decided that I shouldn't go inside.  Any place with a bell...the exclusiveness of that...it turned me off.  Chance brought me there, choice kept me out of there.  On I walked...

I started noticing that the majority of other people walking around, going in and out of bars on this football-less Sunday, seemed to be wearing sweatpants or pajama bottoms.  Not just dog walkers, but people together or in groups.  85% of folks, I would say, were wearing sweatpants.  Mostly light gray sweatpants.  A sign?  Something mystical?  Was this National Sweatpants Day?  What was this interesting development?  I walked on...

Eventually, a sleet storm began.  "The coin will take me home," I thought.  It didn't.  And I really had to take a crap.  So I abandoned chance and made a choice to get out of the sleet storm and get home.

A magical day?  I don't know...sort of?  A couple of interesting moments, sure.  But those brief little hints of magic occurred in only an hour's time.  Imagine if you lived most of your day, everyday, with the same focus?  Every time you walk out the door, you put out your feelers, your antennae, open to coincidence or, as it might be more fun to call it, magic?  What could happen?

I may not be using the coin very often as that was just sort of a fun experiment.  It takes away choice.  But other things happen in life too that remove choice.  The bus will come at a specific time.  It will get to your destination at its own pace.  That's chance.  But you can skip that bus and take the next one.  Or walk.  That's a choice.  And through the relationship between chance and choice comes an opportunity to be open to possible magic.

Ok, that's enough of that.  Have a great day and I'll talk to you later.

The Two Contenders

Well, I've been up since around 4 a.m.

I'm an extremely active dreamer.  Almost every night I have some sort of epic dream and, quite frankly, it's exhausting.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love them, but at times I get so into remembering them and writing them down and analyzing them that I can't find any time for actual rest and rejuvenation.  In the past, to better remember my dreams, I've kept a blank sheet of paper and a sharpie by my bed.  When I wake up from a dream, I clumsily lean over and jot down, in the dark of my apartment (which isn't really that dark what with the fire escape lights and all), a few key words to help me better remember my dreams the next morning.  I tried using a regular pen but found I couldn't see what I was writing, hence the sharpie.

After a night of that, I wake up to find a couple of sheets of paper with such cryptic clues as "old playground, bubble stank, hits with miss, the one that isn't on the right of things but is."

Sometimes I'm able to jump right back into the dream and type it all out in my little computer dream journal, but other times I just stare blankly at it and mutter, "...the hell?"

Last night I tried keeping my phone by the bed with the voice memo app all ready to go.  I would wake up and mumble my dream into the phone and then try to fall back asleep.  After my four o'clock dream, I couldn't go back to sleep.

And then there's sleep paralysis.  Know what this is?  Well, I'll tell you.  When you go to sleep, your body locks up so you don't act out all of those things in your dreams.  People who sleepwalk have a body that won't lock up.  I have the opposite problem.  I'll wake up when my body is still paralyzed.  It can be a very frightening experience.  This phenomenon has been recorded throughout history, but usually thought of as demonic possession or "hag attacks."  It's neither.  It is also not an alien abduction.

You do have, however, weird waking dreams or hallucinations during these moments of paralysis.  At times I'll wake up in this frozen state and be convinced someone is in the room and that I'm vulnerable to whatever perversions the intruder has in mind.  I'll struggle and fight to move, uttering little pathetic noises, sometimes even forming the word "help," until I finally jerk awake.  This jerk is often accompanied by a scream.

But there was one time I was simply too exhausted to jerk out of it.  I fell into the waking dream and it became a fantastic experience.

So it all started the same...I woke up and couldn't move.  I was completely aware that I was in my little studio apartment and in this state of paralysis.  So I started struggling when the hallucination bit started.  It seemed as though the front door of my apartment was opening.  I saw through dreaming eyes what I later described as Satan's bedroom.  There were maroon silk curtains covering the back wall and a bed with silver sheets.  Out of the bed rose a large and extremely fit African-American man in silver silk boxers.  He started to stride towards me.

I noticed that in the bed was an overweight, pony tailed, balding white man curled up and facing away.  I wondered if this was somehow me in the future.  And then I had the following thought:

"Oh shit...is this the dream that tells me I'm gay?"

Suddenly, I found this situation to be extremely funny.  I had never made it this far in a state of paralysis.  Usually I was able to jerk myself awake before the danger got too close.  But here I was suddenly finding it all very amusing.  And then I was able to start lucid dreaming...taking control of the dream.  I conjured up a banana and asked the silver boxered man if he wanted a bite.  Nothing like a nice phallic dream symbol to lighten the mood.

And that's when the magic happened.  Suddenly from my left a man in a full white tux came shuffling over to me and asked me, with a smile, to come with him.  So I followed and found myself in a beautiful sun streaked marble courtyard filled with people.

Then, a woman's voice, in my head, told me that these were the people that I would meet in my life.  I looked around and saw a very tall and lanky red headed young man.  "Who is that guy?" I asked.

"He just had a small part in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  They aren't all going to be stars."

Suddenly there was this very cute blonde girl hugging me and looking up with seductive eyes into mine.  "Who is this?"

"She's a distraction."

And then I was introduced to The Two Contenders.

The first was a young woman to my right.  She was dressed in blue.  She may or may not have had white pants.  She wasn't looking at me but straight ahead.  Her hair was short and curly and a dark brown, almost black.

The second was a young woman further back, behind the crowd.  She was wearing a bright green bikini, not in a sexy way, but just in a girl wearing a bathing suit kind of way.  She, too, had dark brown hair, but hers was straight with bangs.

I woke up firmly believing that I had somehow tapped into something important.  By overcoming fear with humor, I rocketed into some sort of deep journey into my subconscious.  What does it all mean?  I have some theories, but really I have no idea.

If you are, however, one of the Two Contenders or you know where I might find one or the other (or the set), please let me know.

Ok, thanks for reading.  I'll talk to you later.

In The Brown Bag

The hope was to find a bag of money.  Some children dream of becoming astronauts, some of firemen, some of ballerinas.  Often, the jobs available to us as children are limited to the jobs we are introduced to on Sesame Street.  Some kids branch out from the options of police officer, teacher, and mailman to more fantastical occupations such as monster, princess, or wizard.

I bought into the more conservative path of future possibilities and wanted to be an astronaut for a bit.  Then I wanted to be a professional baseball player.  Then, a teacher of American history who also coached the basketball team.  Then, an actor.  And that's what I earned a degree in.  Acting.

After college, when the luster of acting wore off (and the reality of the business set in), I wanted to be a musician.  Then a writer.  An artist.  Maybe all of the above.  Currently, I'd like to just be able to pay rent.

But stronger than my desire to make a living off of any of these options was my desire to find a bag of money.

I've always loved treasure.  The idea of finding treasure is incredibly appealing to me and I'm not quite sure why.  The height of this desire was reached between 2008 and 2010 when I would go on change hunts through the streets of Chicago.  I would record how much change I would find, how many pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, dollar coins, dollar bills, and those wonderful rare times I would find five, ten, and twenty dollar bills.  Each time I found a penny or a twenty, it was like some wonderful discovery in the greatest Easter Egg Hunt of all time.  I would check the parking meters and would frequently find ten to twenty quarters at once inside of the change dispenser.  There was a stretch where I found five twenty dollar bills, one each in March, April, May, June, and July.  When my change hunts came to an abrupt ending in August of 2010, I was finding between $80 and $100 a month.  It was incredible.

But I still never found that one brown paper sack filled with money.  The one with rolls and rolls, or stacks and stacks, of $100 bills.  My attention would perk up in an alley when I saw an old brown bag leaning against a dumpster.  Could this be it?  Nope...greasy paper towels and banana peels.  Here, on the sidewalk?  Nope...left over and forgotten Chinese food.

Once, when walking through Graceland Cemetery, I saw a brown paper bag packed with some sort of mystery.  This must be it!  My bag of money!  I walked towards the bag carefully, knelt down, and cautiously opened it up.  I found cloth...ribbons of cloth, scarves, perhaps.  And candles.  And then something that looked a little bit like meat.

Being careful not to touch it and now assuming the worst, I was able, with the aid of a stick that had fallen from a nearby winter tree, to see that what I was looking at was a dead, plucked chicken.  Head, wings, feet, everything intact.

I closed up the paper sack and brought it to the front building.  I went inside and said, "excuse me, but I found this brown paper bag out there with scarves, candles, and a dead chicken in it."

I expected the reaction to be shock or surprise, but without even looking at me, a man behind a counter said, "oh it's those Voodoo people again...just leave it on the table."

What is it about an anonymous paper bag that I love so much?  I acknowledge that a big part of it is the mystery of what could be inside...by why does my treasure lie within such a plain and common container?  My vision isn't of a treasure chest or an old tin box with valuables inside, though those are appealing visions in their own right.  My ideal transportation for my treasure is an old, greasy, forgotten brown paper bag.  Probably in the woods or in the park or cemetery someplace.

So while I continue to search for my disgusting bag treasure in the literal world, I'll attempt to fill up this literary brown bag with stories of treasure, of magic, and of discovery.  Strange things seem to happen to me and it's time I started writing them down and sharing them with the world.

And perhaps you too are searching for an old sack of treasure.  If I may be so bold, and if it doesn't sound too incredibly corny, maybe you've got my treasure sack and I've got yours.

On second thought, that doesn't sound corny.  It sounds dirty.

Thanks for reading.  Have a great day and I'll talk to you later.