Because I Was in the Mood

We're in Houston and not sure what that means.

We're on earth and not sure if we want any of it.

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Last night, I slept in a seven-dwarf-like bed with a tiny four year old girl, at her request. She tucked me in, she tucked me in again, she briefly picked up my hand and stroked it and then gently returned it to my chest. I scrunched there next to her and I could feel her baby skin against my arm and it was then that it struck me that this was a precious moment in my life.

I just finished a tupperware of really, really good mac n cheese and desperately-desperado want some more. The way the noodle gives out under my teeth, you know.

I think it's a miracle there's a world beyond my own self. Thank God. (Now, if only we'd been given the tools to experience some of it without our selves present.)

A lot of the food that I like, my sisters don't. A lot of the food they like, I don't. Kind of like a genetic clique or something. It's strange how I literally feel left out when they enjoy their steak and roast potatoes.

In one of my classic "now I feel super smart/what a great insight I have for life" moments (which means that these moments make me cringe later on down the line), I realized that the reason I want so badly to be in love is because I have an unconscious idea that love of the soul-pouring variety blankets all the hurt, like it never existed, like I don't need to think about it anymore just because I'm in love.

True?

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Here, I get absolutely exhausted by the thickness of heat. Because it means sweat no matter what I'm doing. That translates to a lot of showers, whose steam make me sweat more, til I'm frosted in it, if that makes any sense.

But sometimes, there are days, such as this one, where all it does is rain. The heat lifts off the ground and I'm finally comfortable. I feel like my name could be Rupert and that I'm just barely avoiding wetting my British Indian Army uniform, the eaves of my canvas tent caving in with all the water. I'm cupping a travelogue to my wife, Betsy, so that the ink doesn't run down into the mud. Signing it, "Yours, R. W. Sanford." So formal, Rupert.

The one good thing that I have to say about PCs: they, at least, have that handy 'delete' button, where you can erase forward, as well as backward. Metaphor not intended, although I appreciate the poetry of it.

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If Freud was in the room with us today, he'd tell us that there are things we want that we don't even know we want. I'd buy that, plus it makes me feel more exotic.

Things I do know I want: eventually, a sweet little baby who I can just hold and hold and rub his/her little nose, and look at those barely fingers forever and kiss the soft little daffodil head. To sing at a coffeehouse, although this is slightly abstract as I don't know how to play the guitar or anything--I can only sing. But it's something that I know I'd love. Also, "ageless, timeless, lace-and-fineness, every young boy's dream."

Things I conceivably could want but don't know it yet (does this make this paragraph senseless?...): Somebody in my life who is something that I could have never known to wish for beforehand. A poem written on a scroll 15 yards long, signed by me, written in crushed petals. To be a fondant baker. To run away and live like a bear. Brambles and trout all around. To be Jewish. Or Buddhist, or Muslim, or anything other than Catholic (not sure about this one...how do you leave what you know? and love.) Also, a screenwriter or a stay-at-home mom. Maybe just a stay-at-home person.

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Like Johnny Cash always said:

"And you could have it all,

My empire of dirt."