GIVEN THE POSSIBILITY OF EARTH’S demise-by-asteroid in 25 years, we at The Metaphorager will be trying to stay awake, aware, conscious, intent, productive, or otherwise engaged for the next
days:hours:etc. (Live it up, fellow Earthlings.)
Category: Life
Each moment is different. Here are some of mine.
Bicycle Safety 101
THERE IS ONE INFLEXIBLE RULE which, if followed diligently, will result in years if not decades of safe bicycling: Pretend you’re invisible.
Now, many get the wrong impression on first hearing this advice — they hear “invisible” and think “invincible,” as if an inability to be seen were some sort of safety asset. As a former bike messenger and longtime bike enthusiast, it’s been my observation that many drivers either can’t or won’t see you — especially in city conditions. And that can be … problematic. Continue reading “Bicycle Safety 101”
Ol’ Thinkypants Groks
“HEY, MAN, IF YOU WERE in high school when the original Star Wars came out, you know exactly what I mean.”
Touching With Words
THE FIRST TIME I DISCOVERED that my words had an effect on other people was when something I wrote made other people cry.
The people were my fellow high-school English students, and the topic was a personal essay we’d been assigned. My take on it was to write about loneliness, and I wish I still had the essay because I can’t even remotely reconstruct it after 31 years and thousands of more words down the line. Continue reading “Touching With Words”
Echo (Pithyism #18)
Pithyism #+/-1
Thank God or your equivalent that the uttermost limits of joy and misery remain mostly unexplored — and largely uncommunicated.
Two Indigent Sketches
1. HITCHHIKING THROUGH RENO IN 1985, I wandered by the green banks of the Truckee River, where a number of seen-better-days men lived in the park, in what apparently remained of their business suits.
“Hey buddy, you got a second?” An older man, anyway older than I was — maybe 35. Dirty face, dirtier clothes.
“I don’t have any money, man, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, I wonder if you have a can opener.” He produced a can of Beanee-Weanees. “I haven’t eaten in two days.” Continue reading “Two Indigent Sketches”
Three More Tender Words Than “I Love You”
“TAKE YOUR TIME.”
The Bright Side
IT’S ALWAYS A NICE DAY at 35,000 feet.
Advice to The Younger Self
TAKE THE WORLD AND YOUR part in it seriously, but not yourself.
Never refuse anything offered, but be careful about entanglements.
You’ll need computer skills, but you’ll also enjoy them.
Write.
Stake out early your points of honor.
Dream. Then write it down.
Hold on to your comic books, graphic novels, ephemera and trading cards. (Science fiction will be some seriously big business in a few years.) Continue reading “Advice to The Younger Self”
Pithyism #36
IF A PREGNANT WOMAN ASKS you for anything — and I mean anything, no matter how odd-sounding or inconvenient — give it to her immediately or sooner. (This rule does not necessarily apply to any other human situation.)
Thumbs Up
THE PACK ON YOUR BACK is both reassuring and cumbersome for what seems the third hour of shadeless noon as you think at a passing car, “This one will definitely stop.”
(Actually, if it were really three hours you’d have slumped your pack against your knee, or at your feet, or otherwise at ease, but within grabbing distance since it literally contains everything you own — and the territory is much, much, MUCH bigger than than the map. Besides, that way it’s easier to hold a sign reading, say, “Reno” or “I Know A Joke.”)
It’s been more than two dozen years since I set forth on my first hitchhiking trip (of four) Continue reading “Thumbs Up”