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Today, I lift a sigh and let my stiff shoulders relax with the Japanese Bath qualities of my local El Pollo Loco.  Latin rhythms pouring their trumpet Mariachi sounds right above my head, I think of why I love LA.  Behind me, a Latino man, tired and dirty from maybe construction work.  Next to me, an African-American woman – wrinkled and colorfully adorned – leaning over her bounty, offering grace.  In the corner, a unique goth-punk couple are playing tonsil hockey.  Passing by, a group of punk junior high kids rough-housing, thinking they’re cooooool.  …

 

About halfway into my meal, a mother and nana walk in with three wild kids, the oldest sobbing with that distinctive you-didn’t-buy-me-what-I-want sound.  They leave him to cry while they order their roasted chicken family meal.  Nana gives him a little arm slap that says, “Now, this hit looks soft and imploringly affectionate but keep this up and I’ll pull out the paddle at home.”  Well, he cries some more.

 

But I see Something Pretty.  Chomping my chicken burrito, thinking of something much too serious for a young, handsome man (Ha!), the grandma adjacent says loudly, What you got on your feet?!?  Crying boy looks up and is confused.  I said, what you got on your feet?!?

 

Spiderman, trembles his shaky reply.

 

You kidding me?!?  Let me see that! Shy at first but increasingly bold, he walks over to her and lifts his right foot. Ooooh my!!!  That is Spiderman!  He’s mah favorite!  YEAH.  Tilting her head, feigning a squint: You kinda look like Spiderman. 

 

By this point, the beautiful cunning wisdom of age is in full bloom.  Gone are the tantrum tears of two minutes prior and in its place, the pride of wearing the coolest shoes this side of Olympic and Vermont.  The next five minutes are spent on demonstrating Spidey’s appropriate web-slinging hand techniques.  He corrects her at least four times, thinking: Silly woman, how can you not know!?  The thumb goes HERE.  She plays dumb and has the hardest time “learning.”

 

I am seriously moved by all this and can’t help from chuckling.  It is one of those sequences that capture Life in momentary purity.  I want to go over and say:

 

Ma’am.  You are a beautiful person – a Painting.  You are the beauty of humanity captured: breathing, eating guacamole, laughing, playfully ignorant of Spiderman’s superhero ways. Here in a bless-ed, busy, dirty little corner of this City of Angels.

 

And then she says to me:

What you got on your feet?!? 

 

We laugh.  She wins me over. 

           A sweet ol’ lady I’ll never see again

           Til we’re standing at the Gates

           With our Peter Parker shoes.

 

————–

 

 

The military art of Woody Ishmael

 

 

 Sometimes Apologia

 

What’s your take on the

State of Humanity

While we’re all grappling

With the terms of We

When we’re just beasts

Inside slumbering Snores

Who don’t really give much

Damn

My apologies.

 

 

 

What a France Wants, What a France Needs…  if you read only one article, read this one.  insightful for all sides of the debate.  Goes well with William Safire’s latest blurb in the NY Times.  For the war or against it, don’t glorify France in the process.

Enjoy the day/night.

click Matt11:28

Hombre Waiting at the Train Station

 

You are a somber hombre

Who sits dejected in an alley

Shadowed by your own volition

Poured throat through tequila

Into your Piggy belly

That oinks for more

But you’re just tired

Of the haberdash

And mish-mash

The people-feature,

The Nomencreature,

The huddled mass of

Fingers (pointing) and cultures (dancing):

Stupefied by the idiocy

Of my and Mostly your

Expectations.

 

———-

 

 

Lakers aren’t lookin’ so hot now.  That may have been the worst rejection of Shaq’s illustrous, monster-sized career … that ball went clean flyin’.  I cringed and shouted involuntarily right then.    And Chauncey Billups!  The man was on.  Whew.

 

I’ve been reading some great books lately and I’ll get to posting some thoughts on ‘em soon.  Got a much-delayed, mixed shipment of books yesterday: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Moore et al), The Rights of Labor (C. Truant), Life is a Miracle (W. Berry), Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (F. Flagg), .  I’ve been lagging with Kavalier & Clay though… been too sleepy at night.  Good stuff nonetheless.  Oh, I told some of you I was reading E. Welty – she’s a hoot.

 

Parallels between the past and present are never quite parallel, and looking to the past for guidance is apt to distort the past as much as the present.  You may find stark similarities but always within the context of dramatically different circumstances which in turn, turn those similarities into Jello.  Still, we can appreciate the values and ideas that’ve shaped history.  Anyhow…

 

I think I’m gonna attack the Pacific Crest Trail this weekend: if any of you are in the area, let’s go.  Let’s get our H.D. Thoreau game on.

 

My new Deuter Aircontact.  Gosh, I’m cool.  <happy grin>

 

 

G’night.

 

READ THIS, yo! the Atlantic

 

phat news click here…  Matt11:28 (to the end, my friends, to the end)

 

sigh, step, sigh, step

He sidesteps and ducks with little visible movement, dodging the subtle jabs and pokes of oncoming walkers, avoiding the swing of jingling doors, tiptoeing along garden sidewalks, slipping through openings with the minimal touch of cotton to cotton.  Like any other native city dweller, he’s learned to casually avert his eyes from the twitching loners and unkempt, toothless grins of bagladies and sleepy drunks.  A stocky, smiling man, he threads the crowd with aplomb, walking in that determined but still casual, sauntering way.  It’s an affected walk that usually serves him well – a gait often mistaken for quiet confidence or brooding wisdom – doing wonders with a certain type of woman.  No fratboy cool here, just feet steady and thoughtful, accompanied by unblinking eyes that seem to see book irony or when tired, boyish amusement in everything.  Still, reaching the stairs, book in hand, he has none of it.  The air markedly warmer than a few hours back, he draws his collar, wipes his furrowed brow, slicks his quietly receding hair and raps quickly – lest he think too much – on the door.  Moment of truth: feign a bold smile and say a simple hello or make a run for the hills, arms flailing.  His joshing friends would laugh either way, their constant ribbing a steady drum for the backdrop of life.

——— 

A picture to make you smile.  Rock n Roll sue les Quais de Paris (Paul Almasy)

Had dinner @ Hop Li, a Chinese restaurant a block from the Westside Pavilion with Dale, Sam, Anna (my bro’s lady friend), and David (his roommate).  It was good!  The food was  mighty tasty – two thumbs up.  The glazed walnut shrimp is money.  Also, it was good to see all of them.  I like Anna; I’m glad for my brother.

A Thought:  for some reason, I’ve always rooted for Jake Plummer.  I know his past numbers haven’t been great but I think good things are going to happen in Denver.  He’s mobile and he’s been scrappy in Arizona even when things were looking ugly… often. 

 click! Matt11:28

Monday Morning

Life is good.  What a weekend.  Saturday’s big BBQ extravaganza actually turned out really well.  Everybody seemed to have a good time and lots of new folk made some friends.  I strrruggled with the grill at first but with everyone watching, my manhood was on the line so I kicked it up a notch and we had a steady stream of cheeseburgers once the coals got hot.  Played some 21 with my brother and Lady’s Man Dave and I made a few nice shots from Downtown but… I didn’t win.  <smile>  Love the outdoors – that’s the place for me.

On a serious sidenote, I’m taken aback by how cynical ppl. can be.  Nobody likes a Pollyanna – bright eyed but blind to Real Life – but to be fair, there’s no need to destroy belief in everything.  It’s ultra hip to bash things – even the Sacred.  I imagine some ppl. speak with an invisible cigarette in hand, a brooding wisdom spilling from their lips.  They think they’re James Dean, leaning against a lightpost, speaking of religion and politics with a flick of a wrist; thousands of years of debate, rebuttal and evolution – disappearing with the ashes. 

view of synagogue from St. Basil’s west entrance

 

Mud

 

Enjoy the sun-baked Coolness of

Your politico-slop and postmod-muck

Flinging it around like it’s the

Greatest Thing on Earth

When all you’re doing is robbing

Hope and Throwing it

Up against a wall

 

Those Marlboro fools

It’s Hollywood cool

To be cynical.

 

—-

 

Anyhow, it’s a good morning.  I’m off to grab my hasbrowns and coffee.  Check out Jordan on a rampage! I think I’m gonna cry.  Let’s see Kobe do that when he’s 40.  Shoooot. 

 

 

Matt11:28

 

 

Mingling: Best Western Lobby

 

  Sauntering through the Cabana

  The party in full rosy swing,

  Einstein and Hepburn are laughing

  Gandhi, Mandela, they sing.

 

          Acquaintance is auld and forgotten

          Oppenheimer juggles a bomb!

          Alfred Nobel waiting patiently -

          His reward, a dance to this song.

 

                   Limelight on stage, Marilyn whispers

                   Sultry: a World is progressing.

                   Thesis, antithesis, synthesis, new -

                   Innovation and violence undressing.

 

                              LittleBoy and FatMan are boisterous

                              Wayfaring gringos asleep

                              Drunk on antipathy whiskey

                              Ambivalence dragging them deep.

 

                                          Atlas is straining, globe shifting

                                          Cubism blends our worldviews,

                                          Nouns in the bag, looking for light

                                          We’re boarding the Ark - two by two.

 

                                                            ———-

 

I am freezing my butt off in here.  What the heck?

 

Here’s some Digable Planets for those who’ll remember:

 

           Who freaks the clips with mad amount percussion
           Where kinky hair goes to unthought-of dimensions
           Why’s it so fly cause hip hop kept some drama
           When Butterfly rocked his light blue-suede Pumas

 

 

Click! R.D.  Matt11:28

 

Currently Playing: Midnight Marauders.  

Postcards

Here’s the church.  He spent most of the hour thinking of a pending Tuesday.  Sitting uncomfortably in a plush leather chair – burgundy, made abroad and expensive - the whining, nasal voice drew fingers to temple like habitual Born Agains to wooden pews.  Resigned and bothered, fidgeting on a subway unmoving.

Here’s the steeple.  Impatience eats away at a man.  Ten minutes, five hours, two days, the deadening of the senses throws it all into a pot and boils it all the same.  Speech comes thick and slow, sound arrives like old molasses, pungent, ambiguously good and bad, dripping from the sides.  Languid down to mahogany in need of golden coasters.

Open the door.  The jungles of the Amazon used to be haunted by stories of man-eating vines and cartoon Venus humantraps.  Thick with a rainy day’s humidity, it’s hard to breathe as a tired group pummels, pulls, spits into the mouth of a Big Green Thing.  Wide-eyed and tired, they’re just looking for a way back.  No rest for the weary but lots of sweat mixed with salty tears, future Livingstons we presume.

Here’re the people.  Scraggly hair, ten days in need of a shave, his shoes show dirt but the dirt comes from all places: seedy, plain, ambitious, majestic, urban, dramatic, noble, sincere and generally content.  One Adam – that rascal – standing on a square that rests on a plate that floats through an ocean that’s painted on a globe spinning in a Big Man’s den. 

A burgundy cardigan, nice indoor shoes, an unwavering, gentle voice from a place only a lazy Train can take you.

————–

Los Angeles.  I’ve been seeing all sorts of things while driving and running through this plot of  LA.  Some of it was just strange (made double strange because I’m groggy driving to work): A pickup with a tilting pile of cardboard scraps, moving at 10 m/hr on a 40 m/hr street; a nice-looking old grandpa lugging a huge stuffed carnival Tweety Bird; a bigrig trailer bed sitting in the middle of the road (we all had to drive around it).

There’s a lot to like in this part of Los Angeles.  I don’t say it sarcastically, but I really do like the dirtiness.  Running through the Fashion and Jewelry districts and through the Pico-Union neighborhoods, you learn where the communal pee corners are and hold your breath.  But what’s more, you realize you’re in such a rich cultural hub (mostly Latino, sure).  There are few things more devastating to a runner’s mind than the smells wafting from a Panaderia.  The place has character <used car salesman voice>.  While running up Hoover, a toddler boy wearing a puffy jacket ran a few steps in my direction, arms flailing, a goofy smile on his face.  Couldn’t help but smile and laugh as his nana bolted and snagged him off the ground.  She spanked him but he wasn’t aware of it with all his padding and he just continued his grin.

On the final stretch, I saw two things: one funny, one random.  One woman pushed her two kids across the street in a shopping cart.  I thought it was a great picture – as if parents go off and buy their kids in some pre-born cosmic supermarket (for the next five minutes -blue-light special! on baseball stars and sensitive weepers).  Who didn’t love riding in a shopping cart back in the day.  Then, I saw a man leaning against a post in a very awkward position – one foot down, the other kicked back high against the metal, his arms stretched above his head, fingers intertwined.  Hard to describe but I’ll demonstrate if you want me to. 

I suppose I love this part of LA because everything here is real.  There’s no bubble to burst.

Chargers football, ladies and gents.  I said it would be 2002 but I was just being hopeful.  This is it! Boston, yo.  Just wait and see.   And someone just might break out. Remember Aeneas Williams.  Arizona saps the life out of you until you leave.

click! Matt11:28

Opening Wonder: Death and Taxes.

 

Small Wonder: Robot girl sleeps in a musty closet and her inventor loves her like a daughter. She’s as strong as a mechanical ox and she has a monotonous voice.  Come to think of it, she never shows emotions. Calling child services. 

Big Wonder: Standing as a small child, taking pictures of the Grand Canyon.  Carved under the guiding hand of nature’s ages.  Holding onto the rail because that’s a long way down.  I’m not that stupid boy from the Superman movie. The Niagara Falls scene. 

Normal Wonder: Birds flying in formation, turning collectively as if they’ve trained for this all their lives.  The Discovery Channel explanation was a paltry one.  How do they know where to fly for the winter.  How did that data get imprinted in their nature. 

Peculiar Wonder: Listening to the Girl from Ipanema twenty times in a row and it seems like it’s the first time through.  And when she passes each one, each one she passes goes.  Such a happy sad song.  And now it is the twenty-first time.

Angry Wonder: Why do women marry abusive men.  Why do good girls knowingly date cold, moody guys.  Why don’t we arrest these men.  Why aren’t they reported. If a man abuses a child, he deserves a bat on the head. 

Pleading Wonder: Why does the Maker allow so much pain and suffering in the world.  Pain may be necessary but why so much.  Just a little would allow for the necessary dichotomy.  If not for the rain, there would be no sun.  That spiel.  Was the godless Karamazov wrong.

Political Wonder: Do activists really want a Living Wage. Act as if they are helping the poor. It seldom helps the poor but only helps municipal labor unions.  Hiring criteria more stringent for the already down/out.  Are they aware of their own rhetoric. Does the public listen beyond rhetoric. 

Needless Wonder: If we’re all moving in the same direction, why is the freeway frozen.  Why don’t you turn off your signal light.  I’m letting you in.  Are you coming in or not.  Okay, I’ll pass you then.  Oh now you want to merge. You don’t need to break at every curve because you’re only going ten miles an hour. Break.

Practical Wonder: How much longer until my shinsplints go away for good. Running around town, they tense up and hurt like a mother. I am running a marathon in June with an old friend I hope she is doing well. Running is cathartic am I the only one.

Hopeful Wonder: Everything will work out well.  My steps are ordered by Someone Greater.  Good things are going to happen this month.  I should be thankful for options.  Options are good and I’m excited.

Thinking Wonder: What did Nietzsche really see before he died.  Did he really see Something Scary and scream.  What must it be like to see the world through the eyes of a man who stares into the abyss and finds the abyss staring right back - unblinking.  We read his ideas but none of us know.  Who’s cooler Nietzsche or Schopenhauer.

Understanding Wonder: Believing in the unseen and supposedly eternal.  People see an active belief in God as being something childish not to be taken too seriously.  I can only nod my head but that is actually what Jesus said.  We need to be like little children and it can be embarrassing.  That’s what faith is though, right.  Are my beliefs active or passive.

pause

Tired Wonder: Bacon and eggs at the cafeteria.  Hashbrowns for $1.99 and a small coffee. Why aren’t I sleeping. 

 

 King Kong!                                  

Matt11:28

 

Say it ain’t so!  Playoffs Are Within Reach, MJ!

 

Knuckle-sandwich

My brother Sam is in dental school.  He’s a nice guy and I think he’s got a great sense of humour though ppl. don’t always get his deadpan delivery.  I think I may be adopted considering how I look nothing like the rest of my family.  When my brother and I are meeting new folk, few realize we’re related: our skin tone, our faces, our hair, our clothes, and our speech cadence are just so different. 

The irony?  We’re definitely closer than most siblings; we’re just friends, I suppose.  Back in the day, he once bashed me on the head with his keys and oh how the Mighty fell.  Fighting teaches a man tenacity… the man who wants it most, usually wins.  I was wily too… ppl. holding me back, I once pretended to calm down and the moment they let me go, a jab and left hook.  King for a Day.  haha! One day, we just stopped fighting.  Strange, eh?  If you ever have sons close in age, trust me, they’ll fight unbeknownst to you.  As birds swim and fish sing, it’s just the way God designed things.  And it’ll make ‘em stronger.

Roy Jones Jr. – Pound for Pound, Best Fighter in the World

When a rooster’s got one eye, he becomes dangerous, because he knows every lick could be his last lick. So he puts everything he’s got into that lick. Same with boxing. Every punch from a man with one eye is going to have kill in it. You better be careful.

We grew up watching all of those crazy HBO fights back when Tyson was King.  Then came Buster Douglas – who wasn’t surprised?  Even then, Jones Jr. was somethin’ else – a real brawler - you actually felt he was holding back.  Since then, he’s become the first man to win four (credits to Eky) separate weight divisions in centuries.  About resilience: A man takes a big one on the chin, dazed, he staggers around the square, and just like that, he charges back into the fray.  I Corinthians 9:26-27.  There are prettyboys like De la Hoya, big punchers like Tyson and the younger Foreman, and big grappling tanks like Carmen Basilio way back when.  The few and proud are the Joneses – real fighters – hard-knocking, ring-dancing pugilists.

Looks like rain again.  I’ll let you know about some great short stories I’ve been reading (Chabon et al.).

Tap Your Foot on a Crowded Place

 

Scooting my Vespa

A giggly Hepburn in tow.

 

Street urchin – searchin’

Little car – goin’ far

 

Have you ever squirmed yourself

Drenched in a dark pool of

Flip-flip sardines.

Oily muck – your briny

Luck

 

Drink a hot Mediterraneo day.

Your shirt sticks to your back so

        Peel it like an orange or a wet piece of

        Paper that lands on a tile

        Awhile

      

Waiting patiently for

Something to Change

Because clock fixation lasts

Only a few weeks or

A short season

Even.

 

—-

<smile>

I saw an ad somewhere on Sunday offering a new Vespa as a contest prize… those new ones are around $4k!  Probably money better spent elsewhere but if free… <shrug>  Went to Todai for dinner.  The food quality has gone south for the winter.  But it’s still Todai for.  Rimshot!

 

Brain spills over with thoughts from the weekend.  Great conversations and too much coffee for me own good.  Did some reading, did some writing, snoozed on a park bench, woke up on a park bench with kids laughing at me, watched a movie, went running, inhaled too much food, met an old teacher, learned a bit about Humanity’s Better Half, considered old convictions about the Good Man Upstairs.  I’ll spill some of the dirt at a more reasonable hour.  Mark my words: This is a Special Month.

 

—-

Verklempt: Talk Amongst Yourselves

 

Anna Quidlen’s latest essay is problematic in that she offers only two options: America the Leader or American the Bully.   No country lives by one or the other except in cartoons, dude.   She refers to history and freedom but she’s just talking about the myth of America.  Trust me, I love that myth.  But a person has to live in reality too.  It seems schizo, but one can alternate between the two.  This is ironic in that she blasts Bush for his two-option outlook on life: Good or Evil.   Here’s an example to consider (since she refers to history)…

 

We all agree that what happened to the Native Americans was a cruel, violent travesty.  They were beaten, killed, robbed of everything.  But if I were to tell you that the land you own was stolen from the Nez Perce years back, will you return it to the tribe for a government funded apartment a few blocks away?  No, you’ll agree with the principle that stolen goods should be returned, but in practice, you’ll have none of it (though you may donate some time and money to Native American concerns).  What’s more, would you support legislation that took all former lands and returned them?  No, because you know the world and a nation can’t exist that way.   

 

This isn’t an argument for or against war with Iraq.  Through all the debate though, you just can’t look for black and white.  A nation exists on principles but it also exists on dropping bombs (and principles are seldom clear with that).  If one tries to make absolute moral sense of war, good luck.   Except for the Israelites of the Old Testament, nobody has absolute moral clarity on the battlefield.  (Or in the postmodern sense, Everyone does!).  Woohoo!  <raise one eyebrow> 

 

click! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/daily/graphics/yao.pdf Yao Ming’s Foot

click! http://www.lamag.com/cover.htm - Top 25 films about LA. Pretty slick list.

click! http://www.msnbc.com/news/879718.asp?0bl=-0 Plans changing!

—

 

Just have a good day wherever you are.  Matt11:28

 

And the Heavens Declared

http://www.micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/ <click!>

Check out the above link.  You should find it worthwhile.  WORTHWHILE, man!

___

Today: A Run-down Story

History is made.  Accustomed to dry conditions, the citizens of Zahedan were surprised to find falling snow over the past three days.  Not just haphazard flakes drifting with surprise over an unexpecting city, but rather, heavy drifts of white that soon came to blanket every flat-roof building and Soviet-made automobile.  Under heavy trade sanctions, Western supplies and imported materials are hard to come by – Schwinn bicycles, Pokemon dolls, Sanyo TVs, Airplane parts aren’t easily found.  Around the more dangerous border regions, the Ayatollah sends his most ardent followers.  These are elite soldiers ready to die and fight intractably for the incumbent hardliners ruling the State.  En route to Kerman (500 miles away), shaking violently, aching mechanic groans, the transport plane falls to the earth.  All 302 soldiers are killed.  The worst airline disaster in Iranian history.

Ambitions take control.  In a prototypical midwestern gymnasium, an excited crowd of well-wishers and brown-nosing sycophants surround an intentionally modest podium – smiles all around, clapping hands at the ready.  A savvy Democrat, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, takes the stand and declares his bid for the Democratic nomination.  He is dressed modestly; gone are the custom-tailored suits of his Washington mode.  His posh home and three cars left unspoken, he appeals to the blue-collar masses.  My dad was a milkman.  And a proud Teamster!  Now, he is a man of masses.  He will criticize and blast a President he laughs and banters with on a daily basis.  He will mock his own Democratic fellows-at-arms who will declare their own bids.  He will compromise a few personal opinions in the hope of accomplishing some ultimate, greater good.  He won’t be the only one. 

A star shines brighter.  Deep in Mormon country, two teams battle for an important win, the playoff picture yet unclear.  A giant of a man (named Shaquille) sits with forced enthusiasm on a bench, in pain from the growth of nagging injuries.  The Lakers and the Jazz play a hard game, driven by so much history of hatred between them.  As always, the pick-and-roll is run to perfection and a number of high-flying dunks leave the crowd pumping their fists, cheering like angry spectators at a Roman Circus.  A young man is on a torrid rampage of hardcourt skill.  Single-handedly, he takes control of the game, making every shot that counts – even absurd ones, dangling in the air longer than necessary.  Lauded as the next MJ, he makes his case with public modesty and a drive to just win.  He scores over 35 for his 11th straight game; he scores 40.  All this on a sore knee.  Kobe walks to the locker room, ready to unwind, offer high-fives, take a shower, go home to his wife. 

Things get worse before they get better.  In France, thousands upon thousands of people – young and old – take to the streets, raging against the most powerful country on earth.  Moving en masse around a city no stranger to protests and revolution, angry youth carry mocking effigies of Dubya – a Western cowboy too quick with his six-shooter.  A hundred trees fall under the burden of picket signs.  An earlier September declared that We Are All Americans Now (in French) but a new year brings nothing but resentment.  An entire country mobilizes to show solidarity with its stubborn government, only 60 or so years removed from Fascist beatdown (the Maginot Line was useless).  A few days before, the most formidable military alliance was put in jeopardy and almost fell apart at the seams (NATO).  Protest leads to more protest and Saddam Hussein is enboldened in his defiance of UN Resolutions.  Where he once consented to more cooperation just days earlier, now he hesitates, continuing a pattern of giving in at the last minute, only to stave off int’l aggression. 

I bob my mussed head to music.  Right now,  I am drinking a bottle of water (Kirkland) while listening to The Girl from Ipanema for the 5th straight time.  An hour earlier, I went for a nice run around the Staples Center while listening to my favorite tunes.  I can feel those shinsplints creeping up on me.  But I kicked their butt today and ignored them.  I think I’m going to read a little bit of this month’s Atlantic before I hit the sack.  You’re right, I’ll read the Good Book instead.  Just thinking… no need for drama…how about something trite: the world is a big place.  <sincere smile>  That’s humbling, liberating, and well, fascinating.  So, I tilt my head and grin.  Tomorrow’s a brand new day.

Matt11:28