Lost in Thought

WARNING: I have nothing to write about this week ... really ... even The Little Red Car has been behaving ... and Professor Squigglee ... well, we all know he’s famous for dozing off ... even when exciting things are happening all around him.

The reason I start off with a warning?

We all also know that my inclination is to write endlessly ... about this and that ... then about that and this ... when I have nothing ... really nothing ... to write about.

But this week I am going to try very hard to avoid going off in all directions ... just because I have nothing of substance to say.

I almost said I was going to PROMISE not to do that ... but promises are so fragile ... so easily broken ... I’m just going to TRY, rather than promise ... and leave it at that.

-S&G-

SPEAKING OF TRYING, I always try to find a piece of art ... something I’ve turned out ... a drawing ... a painting ... a photo taken with my cheapo digital camera ... maybe a doodle ... just something to go along with the accumulation of words.

Today, if I can put my hands on it, I’m sharing an acrylic painting that you may have seen before. I call it "Splash!" Hope you like it.

-S&G-

TODAY’S QUOTE: "Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers (courtesy of WALT, Ohio)

-S&G-

LOREE (Kansas) was looking for a man ... but not just any man, mind you. She was looking for the mechanic where she had bought her riding mower.

"I threw the belt off my pretty new lawn mower," she explains, "so the blades would not engage, and I couldn’t mow."

When she called him, the mechanic promised her he would come out the next day, armed with a new belt, "just in case." No problem, right?

Days passed ... no mechanic, no belt, and NO phoned explanation.

Plan B: Loree called a friend ... and she sent her currently unemployed son out to take a look.

Loree continues: "I got my little trusty floor jack out, and in no time at all we had the mower all jacked up. I got the manual ... and we followed the pattern, around all FIVE pulleys, and, in no time at all, I took it for a test drive."

It was WORKING again. And that absent mechanic? Who needs HIM?

-S&G-

BOOK NOOK – After a delightful interlude with Imagining a Life, by Jane K. Kretschmann, I’ve dusted off one that I started a long time ago. It’s not light reading, by any means, but I’m enjoying bits and pieces of Poetry and Experience, by Archibald MacLeish ... as I’m winding down late in the evening. Admittedly, I may have to backtrack to pick up some of the threads ... but I’ve done that before, too ...

-S&G-

TODAY’S POEM - Admittedly, I’m not always sure exactly what the trigger is for a particular poem. What I’ve jotted down on a scrap of paper may not even be headed in the direction of a bit of free verse when I first scribble it. Later, it may grow into something worth sharing with others ... maybe not.

Sometimes I simply go off the deep end with a word or phrase so common in our lingo that we don’t even give it a second thought. I like to take a look, sometimes, at what the word or phrase’s mirror image might really be.

Take "lost in thought," for example. We all know what it really means, that we are engrossed in our own thoughts to the extent that we’re not really aware of our surroundings.

Then one day I took a look at it from the prospective of really being physically LOST in thought ... not likely to happen ... but it did turn out to be a poem, accepted and published by ByLine Magazine.

The poem:

LOST IN THOUGHT

If I were to become
lost in thought,
would I wander forever?
Would anybody notice
that I hadn't come
home for supper?
Would search parties
form sagging lines, go out
into the darkness,
beating the bushes
and calling my name?
Would I be
on the six o'clock news?
Would I ever
be myself again,
or would I return
as someone completely
different, a person
I have never met?

-S&G-

COMMENT? Feel free ... below the current installment, if you like.

Or if you'd prefer e-mail, that's fine, too ... especially for more detailed observations, to rbrimm@peoplepc.com... and it helps if you put "Squiggles" or "S&G" ... something like that ... in the subject line (just remember, no religion or politics ... please!)

-S&G-

UNTIL NEXT week ... take care ... see ya.

-S&G-
© 2009

Afterthoughts ... in response to your comments:

Thank you, This and That. I'm glad the painting ... a bit of a departure for me ... hit the spot for you on a mid-winter's day. I also hope the sound site gets things straightened out ... meanwhile, I'm looking at other possibilities ... in my spare time, of course ... now where did I put that digital recorder?