the piper

during my daily commute from work to home (i lose many hours of my life this way each week) i take the same interchange between two trains. there i encounter a man i wish i didn't hear every day. i can still remember the first time i heard him (cue wayne and garth saying doo-doo-doo-doo and waving their hands vertically).

at the fifth stair from the bottom i heard the sound of an ambiguous wind instrument playing a wistful tune. when i reached the bottom of the staircase i saw a very wise-looking man with long, greying brown hair standing in front of a bench and playing a wooden instrument that i didn't recognize.

immediately, i sized him up to see if i would give him money. i give money to people playing music for one of two reasons: either they play or sing darn well or they look like they really need the money. this guy didn't really fit into either category. his tune wandered; it fit the mental stereotype i have of hippie-new age-midlife crisis music, but it didn't appeal to me. his clothes didn't look new, but they seemed clean. he wore khaki cargo pants, a vest over a colorful sweater and hiking boots. his hair was partly covered by a woolen cap.

i wasn't so sure that he wasn't destitute or secretly playing good music, so i described a circle around the bench where he was playing, all the while listening intently to his song. when i reached about 240 degrees he squeaked, which is bad form, but forgivable considering the conditions under which he was playing. i thought about the lonely, stiff dollar bill standing in his cup next to his instrument case. at 360 degrees i was still undecided, so i watched, listened and waited next to the staircase.

that was where i discovered that the piper, as he will henceforth be known, had no clue what he was doing. there were smooth notes transitioning to smooth notes, fading into squawks. in the middle of what seemed like a melody, he made his pipe shriek staccato notes in an attempt at a light, impish tune. disgusted, i walked to the other end of the platform.

effing punxsutawney phil!

it is freezing outside. it has been exactly eleven days since phil peeked his head out of his hole in the ground, then hid from his shadow (or the hordes of reporters and camerapeople standing around him). since then, my city been windy and frigid. plus, last night it snowed! not pretty snow, but yucky, wet, pellet-shaped snow. when i looked out my window in the morning i saw people shielding themselves with umbrellas, which i found ridiculous, 'cause it's snow. then i went outside and realized that they were onto something.

next year i hope the powers that be set up a (baited) webcam to film the little coward.

reintroduction

i bet you thought i wasn't coming back, right? wrong--i thought about you every day, almost.

i didn't mean to sound so cryptic in my last post before my sabbatical*. it just came out that way because i kept forgetting to hit the button that said "publish" in the edit field for the entry that would have allayed any fears for my well-being.

apologies/excuses finished, here follows my update.

last spring my teaching contract ended and i didn't renew it, so i moved back in with my family for the summer. it wasn't nearly the disaster i had expected, but it wasn't quite delightful. i worked forty hours per week in a local business, while looking for almost any job anywhere else and applying to grad school programs. meanwhile, i was supposed to help my family move into a new house. you probably won't be surprised to learn that i failed in every one of these endeavors.

now, many months later, i'm in the city and able to plan my life in (relative) peace**. what will follow, in this blog, will be a series of posts that exist in two different time periods, now and then. i hope i remember "then" well enough to do it justice.

*has a nicer ring than abandonment
**pun

out with the old, in with the older

as some of you might know, my favorite blog no longer exists. another good one has replaced it in my favorites list, though not in my heart. dan, i like you a lot, but tcb, i love you.

bringing messy back

hey everyone! i hope you're all ready for me to continue my scatter-brained posts. life has been crazy since may of last year: i've moved four times and have begun and finished a relationship.

don't worry that you're the only ones that i've neglected--i sent out my holiday cards on friday of last week. i wished the recipients a merry christmas, happy new year and happy epiphany and still managed to be late. i'll fill you in as much as possible.

an explanation, not an apology

hi. i know it's been a while. i'm not going to use the s-word (again), so here's an explanation for my sudden silence:

all that weird attention i was getting from the opposite sex earlier in the blog blew up. and it wasn't funny.

my computer's back!

hey, i'm back and so is my computer. i don't know where to start, because my life has been so eventful since my last post. so i'll do it another day. ciao.