Around Here

Birdie was in town for a few days. We met up in Sarasota and spent the day together yesterday. After a chat at her mother's house in a lovely old neighborhood of the city, we headed out, found a parking spot downtown, and set off on foot. Well, I was on foot, Birdie was on skates. I threatened to take her shoes away if she didn't slow down. "This is my natural pace," she said. My natural pace is to consider moving. Sarasota is an arty town. We drifted around downtown for a while, peering in galleries and boutiques. We came upon this Calderesque chair, a moulded plastic rocker, rather deco in style. We each had our observations about its design and comfort... We stopped for lunch at the legendary and sprawling Columbia cafe at St. Armand's Circle off Lido Beach. Birdie suggested I try the legendary and sprawling Original 1905 Salad, which can be ordered by itself as an entree, or as a combo with either a Cuban sandwich or a cup of soup. I got ...

Zero gravity, hurtling through the breathless flight. A Debussian ripple skitters to the apogee, returning a tidal rush. The sea of tranquility was really deep that night. Two stars and a contrail adorn the dawn, an ideogram of a kiss. I can see, from here, how far a paradigm can shift. We chose to go to the moon.

I had the power to make myself disappear when I was a boy. Strange how so  many of these phenomena appear during adolescence... on the cusp of  acquiring unimagined carnal powers, while losing others, just as extraordinary, in  the exchange. I haven’t thought about this for years, though it really did happen. "There are  more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your  philosophy." I had read about how to do it in some comic book... the go-to  source, as every adolescent knows but has forgotten, for occult knowledge. It  had to do with completely emptying the mind. I think what appealed to me  about acquiring this staple of super powers was that it didn’t require muscles or  a laboratory. I practiced emptying my mind. Soon I got so good at it, achieved a  level of disassociation so profound, that it actually made my hair stand on end...  and I watched myself, albeit briefly, disappear. I watched it happen in the...