Maybe the sun will shine today

Last night as i'm known to do, i left the house and wandered from bar to bar drinking, watching baseball, the Simpsons, talking to strangers, as i'm also know to do, running into friends acquantainces, guys in Cleveland Browns shirts and Tribe jerseys, which in the land of Yinzer and the Super Bowls is akin to finding a long lost brother, someone to sit at the pub with and reminesce about the losses and close calls about the almost that almost were or as the Limey so succinctly explained about the world of footie, "it's all about losing", being a Cleveland sports fan i know that all to well but this isn't about the tragedies of the past and more about the promise of the moment and the fact that though i live in the most oppressive society in the world (and don't i know the Christian conservatives would argue that one, ironic isn't it) it's still just a bunch of mostly decent human beings just trying to get by...

So i drank Guinness and someone bought me a large shot of Tullamore Dew and i ate one of those delicious vitamins before i left the house, i smoked cigarettes and wiped sweat from my brow due to the unnatural October heat, i wandered like i did in the previous life, when Kono roamed the earth looking for action except this time i wasn't looking for action i was just being, content to daydream about the imaginary boy, content to listen to the night-time wind and crickets and traffic and like most of these nights i ended up in an all night diner...

The landmark on Baum Blvd is a land that time forgot and an unfortunate remider of the present, when you sit alone in an all night diner you listen to the stories and study the faces, you wonder what brought these people here at this time on a Sunday night to drink weak coffee and eat greasy food, to say hi to their favorite old waitress, you hear the mother telling her daughter about the new rules on section 8 housing, see the old man reading the paper never looking at anybody, hear the laughter of drunks as they stuff french fries in their mouths, study the loner in the corner with his book, the girlfriends talking quietly about failed relationships, you watch the waitresses hustle and run for the small change that will be left on the counter...

I talked to my waitress and told her to tab me out cuz i knew her shift was over, she smiled and said don't worry about it honey and i told her i know how it is, i've dated waitresses and i myself hate getting stuck at work because of some straggler, she filled my coffee and smiled, talked about her grandkids, told me how she only remembers the assholes and the big tippers and i laughed and said hopefully i'll fall into the latter, we talked about the state of the universe in plain language with no abstractions, about the simple things that the conglomarates keep us from enjoying due to rent, bills, insurance, worry... it was one of the most pleasing conversations i'd had in a long time...

Walking home with cigarette in hand, stars beating down, misty eyed thinking about the imaginary boy i realized that it's all just one beautiful, horrific race to the grave and in between you work and sweat to carve out a little space to relax and laugh and drink and eat, maybe scrape together enough to see the ocean now and then and taste the salt, to watch an imaginary boy turn into an imaginary man, to read books or watch movies or stare at pictures on walls in the galleries of famous cities, i realized i had forgotten these things, realized the glory of sitting in a pub talking to a stranger or your best friend, laughing smiling crying cuz at times life is a simple beautiful thing and though the men of power and influence want us to compete with each other and beat up on each other to keep them on their thrones, we realize we are just people trying, trying to get through it and still smile at the end of the day, trying to get through it with a modicum of grace and dignity and no need for a throne.