Fading youth be damned, my car always picks up speed whenever this one hits the deck.
Oh my god.
Moon Photo
This is a moon photo. I took it at about 6:45PM on January 2, 2018 in London, Ontario, where I live. It was very cold out, and I was just in a shirt.
My daughter and I spotted the moon while eating dinner. Not for the first time, of course, but incidentally, as we chatted. Upon seeing the moon we agreed that it was full, and not of food, but of phase (the latter insight being more mine than hers- she's young, after all).
It had to be full. Look at it. Look at the moon.
It turns out that this moon is not full. The Internet tells me is that this moon is 98.3% full and in waning gibbous phase, which is an excellent term for a moon that is nearly full.
"Tell me how to wax when you're on the wane," an old song of mine goes.
It turns out that the full moon occurred the day before - January 1, no less - and more to that was called the Super Moon, or Wolf Moon: beautiful names for something as beautiful as the moon. I will have to share them with my daughter, as she comes quite close herself.
A Hot, Trashy Day at the Fair
It was a hot, trashy day at the fair. The kind of hot that leaves you with a headache. A concrete, sugary, carbonated hot that burns your skin and dulls your mind. Across a few weeks the fair manages, at best, a sticky, dirty version of its opening day polish: trash everywhere; cables hanging loose where they were once taut. The eyes of its visitors vacant and tired, their skin tight and clammy from soda and pizza.
The fair is aimed at the young (I believe), and for this audience the facade remains barely intact . I walked past a talent show. Let's get this hashtag going. I walked by the Euroslide, its hot plastic squeaking against the skin of youngsters not covered by the rubber mat. The tilt-a-whirl goes up and around, through the day and into the night. The occasional scream. Laughter and tears mixing together. Happy or sad, this all becomes part of people's memories. Happy, or sad, a hot, trashy day at the fair will stick with you for a very long time.
Plane Dream
I woke up in a small plane speeding down a runway in take off mode. At first I saw the whole scene in profile view, and then I was inside, facing backward in the front seat on the left-hand side.
The plane lifted away from the ground- a strange, shaky feeling. Who was the pilot? I tried looking over, but with those fuzzy, dreamy eyes, I couldn't see anything. I could only hear.
-Relax, kid, the pilot said.
I was uncomfortable. I wanted to turn around.
-Can I turn around? I said
-Wait til after we hit the clouds. It'll be bumpy just now.
-Ok. Dude, I'm cold.
-Yeah dude. Just give it a few minutes.
And so I waited. It was bumpy. I was frightened.
-Ok dude, he said. Turn around. It's fine now. Grab your coat and get warm.
And then I turned around and I could see. I put my coat on. And it was fine, just like he said.
It was Dale. I was with Dale, so I wasn't worried.
Somewhere in Texas
This doesn’t happen very often: a few days together, spaced apart by a few years. We do what we want in the humid air of this outback. Racing, lazing, laughing and gazing back at the potent past. We revert and move ahead, fueled by booze, love, and the certainty that an off-season of a few more years, looming large on the ride at dawn, begins to shrink the moment we step off the plane and back into our homes.