Eighteen Short Journal Entries From
2010
by Dave Woehrle
1.
A hornet walks the hair on my pinkie
toe. I watch. I don't flinch. I'm tired of preemptive strikes, that
dangerous enemy called Maybe. Accepting a potential sting, I laugh
because his six legs tickle me, exploring toe knuckles, those pink
hills, then the small yellow valley of toenail. “No fear, no
sting”: it could be on a T-shirt.
2.
Where would we be without malice and
neglect, our dark secrets playing poker and laughing cigar breath,
celebrating our silences? Like a funeral that doesn't feature rain,
but warm June shadows and sounds of distant softball games. Where
would we be without cliches? Probably even more disturbed.
3.
The September breeze over the prairie
wildflowers near the bike path, like a crowd swaying their arms
during a hot, slow ballad. When I woke up today, I thought of the
child in the coffee shop, years ago, who asked me if ants could jump,
and I didn't know. And I still don't know if ants can jump.
4.
“You can't expect your whole life to
be caught in a kiss.”
---Man on MegaBus to Wisconsin
5.
Went to the dentist this morning. No
cavities. I wonder what dentists think of having to see
so much nostril depth in one day, a
tapestry of boogery nose hair, like wheat fields covered with fat
yellow birds.
6.
My father, alone in the basement,
cleaning his guns, like me on the piano, learning a song, a sweet
distraction, chords being cleaned in their own oil. The mind focused
on present activity, not the world itself, with its wind-slapped
trapdoors the sound of bullets.
7.
An old man is trying to start his gas
grill: there's clicking, a button repeatedly pushed, an adjusting of
valves and tubes, a few grunts, and finally, “Fuck it. Where the
Weber?”
8.
I walked down to the Scarecrow
Festival, the highlight being a Noah's Ark display, complete with
music and moving animal parts (the giraffe's tongue being the most
frightening). Lots of MILFs in sunglasses. Joe was there. He wanted
me to buy him a corn dog. I did not. We walked by the petting and Joe
said, “Dude, this is organized torture.” Goats, sheep, ducks,
pigs, chickens – all of them being groped by fat, frustrated
children who handed out “food pellets,” as parents snapped
pictures and fussed with strollers. One girl kept lifting up a
chicken and tilting it to look between its legs. She did this several
times, wearing an odd grin. I realized, as I watched her stare at a
chicken twat, that I never had an urge to pick up a chicken in my
entire life. They are hideous creatures. I've never seen a chicken
and thought, “I just need
that in my hands.”
9.
I'm the worst kind of lazy person
because I'm clever. I can rationalize gluttony and sloth with winked,
existential loopholes, dark jokes and word play. Now, however, no
one's laughing, not even myself. My life coach neighbor had me take
the Birkman Personality Test. I was Three Blues, which means I'm
sensitive, intuitive, and value abstract thought. Also, I'm very
unemployed.
10.
“After the horse thing, I went
straight to the whale thing.”
-Sky (on girlhood obsessions)
11.
I admire cities that exist in the
shadow of a volcano. It's mentally healthy to have uncertainty
geographically personified. Life must be more spicy and humbling when
lava looms so close to home.
12.
With a grain of salt, take it all that
way, even other grains of salt, sodium as a Who Knows proverb.
Sometimes I worry that we live in an age where anticipation dies. We
can't wait for sunsets or status updates. The death of gradual.
13.
Carl Sandburg's poetry reminds me of
Midwest autumn sunsets, the cold kind, and I think cold weather makes
us kind. It's October and it's too brisk to smoke cigarettes and
watch baseball in the garage. We take to couches, sweatshirts and
college football. We drive out west of town on Sundays, gold fields
and new wind and diner windows full of old men slowly nodding.
14.
“The success of the Snuggie really
proves our deep-seeded subconscious social urge to wear capes.”
---Alfonso
15.
This autumn saw a new large infestation
of red and black Boxelder bugs. Thousands upon thousands blossoming
on the white aluminum siding of our house, like demonic freckles.
The young ones are all red, small, a blood drop with legs,
congregating on fence posts and porches, so abundant you can hear
them walk in the grass and leaves. Toads and spiders are eating well,
I suspect. And the coming cold will take care of the rest. Nature's
fecundity sweeps up the surplus.
16.
Dogs and toddlers can teach us a few
things: naps and snacks help. So does running around outside, getting
mud on your feet, chasing squirrels, and sniffing a few trees.
17.
“My uncle was tricked into eating a
monkey.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah. He was in New Guinea.”
18.
“I mean I want to dedicate my life to
those who keep going just to see how it isn't ending.”
---Ralph Angel
