The search for the perfect cello goes on. Wood or carbon fiber? Have tickets to the Apocalyptica concert in Vienna this coming Monday, so I’ll finally hear the Luis & Clarke played by Perttu Kivilaakso, but only (greatly) amplified, and not solo, which makes it nearly impossible to judge its tonal qualities. The search goes on.

Insight comes to us at the oddest times.

Or maybe it’s not odd, maybe we are more receptive when our mind is blank, when we are showering, or driving, or someone is talking to us. Like this morning, on the freeway, with perfect clarity it occurred to me that I was so hungry because I had forgotten to eat breakfast.

If I could only forget to eat Gamma’s chocolate Easter bunnies, I’d be slim, as slim as… quick, who’s a slim male celebrity, all I can think of is Mr. Rogers.

Person one: And the secretary said her boss and the big boss were both freaking out and cranky.
Person two: Uh huh.

Person one: So I wasn’t the only one. Maybe there was something in the air making menopausal men crazy.
Person two: Uh huh. So anyway, what’s-her-face said to me…
Person one: Can you talk to her without thinking of her eyebrows? I mean, you and I, together we have average eyebrows, but because we have average eyebrows to begin with. She and her husband do too, though — I mean, she has that freaky cyborgian no-eyebrow look going, and man, his look like they just crawled onto his face at night to build coccoons. Or that they’ll start burning soon and God will talk out of them
Person two: I never notice people’s eyebrows.
Person one: And that other couple we met. I can’t remember her eyebrows, so I assume they were within a normal range. But her husband’s!
Person two: Bushy?
Person one: Like two squirrel tails. Like antennae. Like…
Person two: You sure talk a lot for it being not even six in the morning yet.
Person one: Don’t they see it? Why don’t guys my age trim their eyebrows? Seriously. Just a little clipping now and then. Nothing drastic.

Person two: [Sets teacup on table thoughtfully] You. Pluck. Your. Eyebrows?
Person one: Huh? Pluck? Me? No. No way. No, no.
Person two: Uh huh.
Person one: A little trim now and then…

I mean, the table I designed all those years ago by making a little one out of wood scraps and giving that to the carpenter is still working, we still eat breakfast on it every morning. And we still love each other most days. And you like that we have five different kinds of daffodils blooming in the flower bed in front of the house, and that makes me happy because I planted them last autumn in the hope that you would see them and smile this spring, and here you are, smiling. And the little one’s across the street in her pyjamas and house slippers, stealing dandelions from the neighbor for the tortoise, who’s out in the flowerbed. Jesus I hope she doesn’t get hit by a distracted commuter on her way back across the street. We could use a new welcome mat, all the nubbins are starting to break off. And the front steps, largely concrete with slate over them, are still settling and now there’s a half-inch gap between them and the house I’ll eventually have to figure out how to fill with something sometime. And the cars need to be washed, and my tank’s empty. But the weather is warm and the forsythia is blooming and the new flowerbed in back of the house is looking good. And Gamma made it back across the street and I got two braids into her hair without too much screaming.

You know what? Fuck the bright side. Why always look just on one side of things? Look on the bright side, the glass is half full. Look on the bright side, cats can’t talk — think what a pain in the ass that would be, cats bossing you around. Look on the bright side, pal, until it’s too late. Look on the bright side until, shit, zombies grabbing me! How’d those zombies get in the house? So I think it’s not a bad idea to look on the dark side now and then, in case of zombies.

If only I could change perspective in time.

If only the door on the medicine cabinet would swing open a few degrees in time, revealing the madman before he buried the red fireaxe between the starlet’s scapulae.

If only it occurred to you in time that no, you don’t have to take this shit from this person at this time.

Shaving this morning, I paused and wondered if lonely people, when they are adults, have invisible friends or if they, like I just had in the shower [those of you who have seen American Beauty are going Ew right now, aren't you?] have whole invisible pubs they go to, where they sit down and strike up conversations, or allow conversations to be struck up, that they never would or at least never end up doing in real life.

Do you do this? Sit down for a drink in your imaginary bar and someone sits down at your table, This seat taken?, and from the way the regulars are ignoring this person, you know that they must be a bit odd if not dangerous, and very possibly dangerous. At my bar, the person is often Howard Hughes. But before I can ask him about Gwen Stefani or what it’s like to wander around Death Valley he’s explaining my life to me.

Saying things like, You must dig up the .38 from where you buried it in greasy rags beneath the bridge and complete your mission.

No, he says things like, What did you expect? Have an insight into your life and They give you a prize, whoever They are? Things suddenly get easier? That’s magical thinking, pal.

And a bunch of other stuff.