Clear air, bright sunshine, a beautiful woman's soft caress... does it get any better than this?

Yes it does.  Every day.

And I'm fine with that.

"I was walking down a very crowded street. Woolen coats seemed to be everywhere, elbows were bumping into each other, eyes were getting poked with umbrellas. Some umbrellas looked higher than others, but I guess that was because of the... um..."

"Because of the what?"

The doctor held his breath, hoping for a word about the height of the umbrellas.

"Well... I guess it was because some people were taller than others... I mean, I thought so at the time, in my dream, you know?"

"I know".

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His fingers interlaced and he took a deep breath.

"The umbrellas were different colors and the sky was so dark... It was a really nice contrast... but... I don't know, I kind of felt like... like..."

"Like...?"

"Running"

The doctor exhaled long and deeply. Running. What an interesting choice of word.

"Why did you feel like running?"

"It was too bright. All those colors. All of them against a dark sky. I got scared".

"Did the umbrellas communicate anything to you? Anything at all?"

"What do you mean communicate?"

"Communicate as in tell you something, make you feel something."

"Yeah, scared."

"Other than that..."

"For a minute I was under the impression I had to choose one."

"How did this make you feel?"

"Overwhelmed. The choice was so difficult. There were so many..."

The doctor nodded.

"It felt pretty lonely. There was no one to tell me which umbrella to choose."

"You wanted someone to guide you?"

"Yeah. Someone to tell me no matter what umbrella I chose it would be OK. If I failed, I could always try again..." 

The patient stood up and looked at the doctor.

"Someone... Anyone."

He didn't say good bye as he closed the door.

Whoever the hell is responsible for Medicare part D needs to be kicked in the ass with a jack boot wired with a couple thousand volts of electricity.  How many hours of my time am I going to have to waste trying to figure out and explain the whimsical madness of a beaurocratic brain fart to a bunch of half-mad old people with the comprehension level of a peon??  Geeeze!!!  If I get one more ear-full of that crap, I'm going to take someone's teeth out.  Literally.  Without even throwing a punch.

A few nights ago I was so tired and annoyed I accidentally said what I was thinking, and it took me a full five minutes to realize that I'd actually said it out loud.  Coincidentally, five minutes was how long it took for the customer's husband to reach the pharmacy and confront me.  Luckily, he was very understanding when I explained to him, "what I MEANT to say was, 'it's not our fault,' instead of, 'it's not our problem'".

Alka-seltzer provides priceless entertainment when you're really bored and have no access to the internet while you're working.  Next week's fun is already being formulated in my brain.  Although I haven't quite worked out all the details yet, nitroglycerin and a microwave oven will likely play major roles.  I'll blog about it after I get out of prison....

I don't want rain tonight.  Not when I should be having snow.

Not tonight.

My heart is breaking from the weight of it all.

My breath escapes my lungs in search of her.

I am in a really bad way right now.  Always open to the mysteries of love, my soul now clings forever to its rapture.

I am in love.  Knocked down and dragged under by a tidal wave.  Crushed by an ACME anvil.  Forever frozen in a Matrix-style stop-motion mid-air swoon.

She is IT.  THE ONE.  IT WITH A CAPITAL T.  AND AN I.  ALSO IN CAPS.

FUCKING **IT**

I love her with every cosmic shred of my being.  Every glorified dust-partical.  Every bacterialized cell.  Every cell within a cell within a cell. 

Whenever anyone gets like this, people are concerned.  Something MUST be wrong.  People are living in a fantasy world if they seem truly happy or in love.

Yes, I get it.  I am not truly happy.  I am floating on a cloud which I will one day fall through and land on my ass with a bone-crunching THUD at a speed accelerating 9.8 meters per second squared.

Yeah.  Whatever.

I don't care.  I know what I know.  I feel what I feel. 

She is perfect.  Her skin is foreplay to my fingers.  Her smile leaves me breathless.  Her hair is radiant and twirls around my hands.  I hear her whisper and melt into mush.

She is heaven to me.  My true calling.  My path.  My EVERYTHING.

So tell me I'm not really happy.  Tell me it's just a fling.  Tell me the love I feel is a sin.  Tell me the feeling which makes me want to celebrate every minute of every day is ridiculous and foolish.  Tell me to go back into the closet and bask in the darkness once again.  Tell me that God hates love as much as those who seek to break me from within.

That's what I thought.

So rich.  So pure.  This love they call a sin....

The moon is pregnant with metaphor. You look up and see a fingernail or a benevolent loopy face. Think of a harvest moon, dark as pumpkin or winter’s white gold shifting in and out of gray, hanging like an ornament in a snow globe. The delicate spring moon is balanced in night, a promise lighting copses’ hidden bowers, glowing on whispers, laughter, yours and mine, a promise kept in summer in its translucent descent kissing rivers and ocean, so full of itself, dancing joy on water, but it’s shy and unsure, too, a bumpkin moon sneaking behind the Sun's skirts, sometimes all the way.

Nothing is so cold as that moment when it’s blotted away by darkness or so reassuring as the eve of its return. We daydream about the cow’s high jump, the silly dish and spoon eloping, and we feel safe and sleep or sing about its glow, how it shines on because it has to be moonlight or shadow or some other thing that it is and isn’t everywhere.

The Lady in the moon plays on. Light beams. Cool blues flowers fall into ballads. One gardenia lands behind my ear, whispers languid rhythms, drags drifts of Stardust behind the beat. Fine and mellow, that yellow light, closes eyes. Jazz blooms at night, thick and luscious, sultry scented lily tone.

Moon escapes its reclusive home, slides down vines, beats, snakes in golden boughs.  Moon moans.  Wish on her. She loves me, she loves me not. She dances, she dances bop, uncurls, spoons into later bliss.

O kiss the night, Lady moon. Soft soprano.  Kiss me with your petal kiss....

I wish the fog would swallow me -- it swallows trees in white oceans where I could swim across valleys, peering at birds asleep below.  I would ride slow currents of clouds catching the crest of the morning until soft waves slip me ashore then drift away to summer skies....

Okay, so yesterday I sort of made another lap around the bright glowing ball of fusion we call the sun....

It was another nice trip.  I must say, the earth gives us all a pretty smooth ride.  Which is amazing considering it's round.  Not exactly the most aerodynamic choice in spacecraftiness.  Me, I'd have us all flying around in a star-destroyer or something cool right out of Star Wars.  But, lame as it seems, we're stuck on a large spherical object riding around in endless circles around a big nuclear time bomb.

Well, to those of you who have known me long enough to remember me talking about my birthday last year, I must ask why the hell have you kept reading the incessant drivel that spews interminably from my cranium??

This has truly been a year of great change.  I am no longer drifting and searching for impossibilities.  I have landed safely in the tender arms of a benevolent Angel, and I will never hit the ground again.

To the Angel that saved me -- THANK YOU.  Your light may fade, but your love will be with me forever. 

I am exhausted into happiness.

No time to waste.  No dreams to dream.  I'm living what I feel, and I'm feeling every breath of it.

Like an SUV getting blown all over the highway during a windy day, I have found myself knocked around quite violently.  And I have learned, for now at least, I have only one I can intimately rely on.  Too many would rather see me suffer than to go all out for what I truly desire.... to love -- and to be loved... 

I have finally broken free from the outside looking in.  The world is bright blue with rainbow dreams.  Butterflies on my shoulders.  A dragonfly on my nose.

There is no second-guess.  No turning back.  I am on the path.  I am walking side-by-side with a love beyond the deepest corners of my soul.  Stride for stride, breath for breath.  The world is beautifully drawn and the moon glows pink in twilight....

And I whisper softly words which rumble into dark... she looks at me and smiles... I hold her hand in mine and disappear into the moonlit path...