What you find out

This thing about writing posts in a blog – at first it seems so what? so paper and pencil, only easier. So telling about something, but, gee, here you are all alone in a room by yourself – and you have no stamp. So who are you telling and why?

Of course, there are those times when it is such a nice way to share, with pictures that can expand and fill the whole screen or be sent miles away. And they just happened a few seconds ago.

But, I guess, some people use it to sort of share the things they really feel awkward about sharing. Maybe a writer is creating a scene in a movie that captures some emotion that will reach deep inside another. Because isn’t that what words are – coded pictures of life and how real it feels in your gut. How it makes your eyes brim, your throat constrict.

You write it up and there it is and you know pretty soon you are sending it across airwaves to maybe someone else, but you let that stay a little foggy in your mind. I mean, who are you to cry on someone’s shoulder. And then, finally, you realize one or two are there . . . and you stop being you – not all at once, not completely; but you protect them, misdirect them and sometimes entertain them. You do this because you cannot bring yourself to write you are frightened and sad and at a loss.

But you do write it, finally, because you are the type of person who just can’t be satisfied with a page of paper in a journal. You don’t want sympathy, really, you don’t. But for some reason in your tears and fears, you don’t want to be alone.

It could be that is where stories come from; they are just tales of a character wearing a mask on your face. Perhaps there are those of us who are, in our essence, a Budweiser commercial. See, I’m not at the end of my rope – not when there’s a puppy and big old horse tugging a smile at the corners of eyes and mouth.

Tanked

I am writing this on what to you is now yesterday; I just didn’t want to write anything else on Jody’s birthday and, even though, she was the happiest little girl, not even humor. And especially, because it is toilet humor – not scatological, but ceramic.

My grandson lost his balance in the bathroom; he is autistic and has a severe weight problem related to his mental state. He fell against the toilet and broke the tank. He did not break the tank off the toilet; he broke the tank itself, just as if it were a cooking dish.

We got the main water switched off and then the more delicate valve to the tank adjusted; Cameron got on his cell phone at the main valve and I was at the tank valve on my phone. He was prepared to turn the water back on, listen to see if I yelled, “It’s not holding” and react accordingly.

We got things mopped up and because we have other toilets – all upstairs – I decided I could do a little research on this subject. And I have been; you would not expect it to be so confusing. A plumber will be here this morning and we shall see.