Peace, Motherf#$&a!

I've noticed that when people are into peace, and they use their cars to express how much they're into peace, they're usually really, really into peace.

It's rare that I ever see a car with just one or two bumper stickers.

You know, a modest-sized, flowered peace symbol centered just above the rear-window brake light? Or a simple "What Would Jesus Bomb?" sticker on the bumper of a Prius?

No, if you're into peace, and you're really into peace, nothing less than a Peacemobile will do.



I did see a minivan the other day with one simple sticker: "GOD is NOT a REPUBLICAN ... or a Democrat."

That helps me lend a person some measure of credibility, knowing that a conversation isn't going to devolve into an eyes-glazed-over treatise on how communism actually won but the media covered it up.

But if you really want to enforce the one-car-length rule of road safety with me, get me behind a car with a bunch of peace stickers on it. It's not a roadside conversation I want to have while we wait for the jackbooted, fascist agents of pain to scribble down an incident report.

And if you want me to screech over to the shoulder, put on my hazard lights and beg 911 to send an ambulance to extract me from my truck and spirit me home ... put me behind a Patriotmobile.

Some Days ...

Some days, I just can't believe some of the things I find myself saying.

Or, I guess, how I find myself saying them and how unaware I am of how strange they sound until I do some self-conscious meta-reflection.

"So, what's going on today?" a colleague asks me.

"Oh, not much," I say. "Jesse Jackson showed me some pictures of a dead guy. And a guy stabbed his girlfriend with an ice pick. Not too much, really."

You want to know the scary thing?

His response.

"Yeah."

If You're A Dreamer ...

I will not play at Tug O' War.
I'd rather play at Hug O' War,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

It's not always the exact one my 4-year-old son wants me to read from his favorite book, but I always find a way to add it to the list of poems he challenges me to do justice to.

One day, we all will leave this world as we know it. Leave behind the shells of ourselves.

And what is it that we will have offered the world?

My occupation these days is to describe, day in and day out, how people destroy their lives and destroy the lives of others. And these are my dreams.

Man, it sure is a struggle these days to offer something.

...

They say summer's over. And I suppose it is.

I noticed this evening that there were no fireflies.

And while it's hot still, the water in the pool today somehow managed to have the slightest chill to it.

As I look back on the summer, I remember everything you remember about a summer. I've lived a a few summers now, so not a whole lot of it seems as new as it used to be.

But one thing I think about is the smell of my home.

It's something I noticed over the summer.

When you spend several days away from home, you return to find that you actually can smell exactly what it is your home smells like. That won't be happening now. Summer's over, and I won't be away from home long enough to notice.

It's kind of like when I went off to college and then realized how badly my Mom's apartment smelled of cigarette smoke because everybody smoked inside and how I went to school for all those years with my clothes smelling like that.

Except better.

Our home has a natural, wooden kind of smell to it. With a little hint of something that I can't quite express.

(It's difficult with smell. It's one of the senses that you can't recreate for someone else in secondary form. You can't record it for posterity. Simple memory won't do. You have to have the original).

It's a pleasant smell. I'm happy to know that when people come into my home that it's that smell that leaves them with the impression that we all get when we first enter a home.

It reflects what I would want people to think about my home.

The thing I don't think I'll ever know is whether my clothes smell like that.

I suppose I'd have to go without clothes for a while to know.

But it'd be nice if they did.

The Factor Of X

The other day, I didn't feel like playing basketball anymore.

But a 6 ' 7" guy with dreadlocks told me it took him too long to wash his hair, so he needed to go ahead and give himself enough time and hit the showers before heading back to work, so I agreed to play so that the numbers worked.

As I walked onto the court, I told them, "I know why you want me to play. I'm the X Factor."

Now, that's a term used often in sports to describe ... well, I think it's to describe someone whose performance is critical to the game but in an unknown way.

Bob, the Braves can win this game, but the X Factor is going to be Oscar Villarreal, whether this everyday, forgettable pitcher can strike out a left-hander in a crucial situation that might or might not arise.

When I thought about what I said, I felt compelled to ask aloud the crucial question, the question that is the X Factor in determining the usefulness and very meaning of this term:

What is the value of X?

And that's when you realize.

Everyone is the X Factor. You can't predict what anyone's going to do.

You can't predict that the guy who sucks is going to suck worse than he normally sucks or will not suck enough to change things in your favor.

You can't predict how on his game your best player is going to be. Whether he'll score 46 points or just his regular -- but stellar -- 30.

The truth is, everything and everybody's an X Factor. Everything and everybody is something that is but isn't known until the future fulfills it.

These sportscasters really need to examine their metaphysics before stating the obvious.