Had the passenger side airbag inflator replaced in my truck, today. The dealership does a pretty fair job of making the wait for auto service pretty painless. Wi-fi available, three varieties of coffee plus decaf, and three varieties of tea bags available, along with bottled water and four varieties of cookies, all free. There are six large, flat screen televisions scattered around the waiting room, as well, so the entertainment options are plentiful.
 
The only problem with all of this, is that it takes some of the martyrdom out of having to take over two hours of my day off to drive all the way, the whole six point one miles each way, to the dealership, and wait for the work to be done. I brought my computer along, because I thought I’d write for the blog about what a miserable waste of time it was going to be to have to sit there and wait, and then it turned out not to be even uncomfortable.
 
Since I didn’t have anything negative to rant about, I looked up from the computer. I noted that the young women who were keeping the refreshment area stocked and clean were both very pleasant to watch, while they performed these small duties. The young man that brought out one tray might have been just as pleasant to watch, but I was distracted by an email notification that my vehicle was ready, just as he entered the area.
 
Heck, the whole experience was so positive, I’m thinking I might start hanging out there, even when I don’t need any vehicle work done. The place has everything I need to recreate or do poet’s work, with food and drink, internet access, entertainment, and other useful distractions for those non-working moments.
 
Back to the problem of the moment, though, I still don’t know what I’m going write about this week.
 
3/30/17
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​Okay, so I’ve published a book, and a few people have purchased copies or downloads. Now, Publisher Guy wants me to write regular entries for this blog. That’s a great idea, but there’s a problem…I’m seriously lazy as a writer, it’s one of the reasons that I’m a poet. Poetry is easy, I either wait for inspiration or sit down and doodle on the computer keyboard and see what happens.
 
I tried freelance writing a few years ago, and discovered that one sure way to turn off my writing energy was to apply a deadline. Tell me that I have to have something written and ready by a week from Thursday at 3pm, and regardless of my earnest intentions my muse hears, “You’ve got 6-1/2 days to stress yourself out over this before flailing around and finally sitting down to do it at 12:52pm next Thursday.”
 
So, I’m going to try and get something written and entered here every week, but I’m not going to stress myself over it. Can’t swear the subject matter will always or even ever be profound or entertaining, but perhaps I will come up with something amusing or interesting from time to time. I’ll keep the entries fairly short, for the sake of all of our attention spans.
 
This week, I’m writing while doing laundry. I love the phrase “doing laundry,” because it sounds like an activity when it’s mostly sitting around and waiting. “I’m doing laundry” sounds a lot better when answering a text asking what I’m up to, than it does to say that I’m sitting in my basement in front of the computer imitating a vegetable with eyes, while the clothes washing equipment drones in the background.
 
Funny thing about laundry, it requires a large block of time to be set aside in order to spend a very little bit of that time doing anything to accomplish the goal of clean clothing. Gather and sort, load machine, wait. Unload machine, move clothes to dryer or hanger, wait. Unload dryer and hang or fold clothing, wait. Repeat with subsequent loads until finished. So now, when I meet my friends for breakfast tomorrow and they ask me what I did today, I can say that I spent the morning doing laundry, when I’ve really just been sitting around in my sleeping shorts, playing on the computer and waiting for the next 3 minute burst of activity.
 
I’ll see y’all here next week.
 
Maybe.

What price are we willing to pay for a functional future of civil society? Are we willing each to forgive others for all of our stumblings and stupidities and simple misperceptions? Are we willing to accept the forgiveness of others, and accept with it the implications of our own imperfections of perception and intention?
 
I don’t know, but I hope so, because we have left ourselves rudderless and flailing in the currents of ongoing history, incapable of choosing a direction in which to all begin rowing. We’re drifting downstream with rapids visible ahead, and with some potential precipice some unknown possible distance ahead.
 
And so, since I don’t know if we are willing or able to find common ground in our failings, I write. And, since I don’t have the attention span to write long dissertations on how to fix our broken civil contracts with each other or otherwise make things work well, I write poetry. I write poetry, sometimes to shed light on dark things I think should be exposed, sometimes to reflect beautiful things to distract from distress, and sometimes just to lay my vulnerabilities out in hopes of finding connection.
 
In this way, perhaps, I can contribute some small bits of fiber to the yarn we’ll use to stitch us together and take one more step toward a more perfect union.
​3/9/2017