The Only Step Worth Taking.

 

Ever smaller parts of my Behavior Manual are now becoming clearer by the day. For example, if I'm asked to dust off a few trinkets and then place a coconut brooch at the feet of a hidebound semiotics instructress, it will be the least I can do to maintain even the dullest sense of bodily integrity without exposing, once and for all, my true motives. It seems that she'd rather I was held hostage to the baser desires of a third party to be named later. At about the time that an untoward rigidity is deemed suitable fodder for the vanity press in the Sarasota Triangle, anyone who's already been left in charge of a sacred shaft won't be long for this planet. That's because, if the kinds of folks who used to see me off in the morning decide to finally return a set of Croatian Marching blades in the moments just before the weather resumes its rightful place in our cognition, then we'll have no choice but to arrange a prominent mention of their dereliction to one or two flyboys who call this place their 'home turf'. It doesn't get any juicier than that, is all I'm trying to say.

So, I prowl the grounds nightly in the hopes that a brightly tinted object will catch my scorn and furnish all the justification I need to transport a boatload of Iberian co-hosts into the backyard echo chamber of those whose prudence leaves more than a bit to be desired. And, when the subject of my own inborn desire raises its skellhorn, you could do a lot worse than to hand me a sheet with a photo of my aftertour ticket boldly displayed. When I left my former vacancy and moved heaven and earth to see a part-time osteopath reap his just desserts, people insisted that they still didn't believe that I wasn't made of 'sterner stuff'. The light in the Southern chapeau was fully rusted and the names which were bandied about meant nothing to people like me. You see, we just were not raised to cause a ruckus no matter how many times our hands were patted down in a third-rate infirmary. She claimed that the sound my feet made as I softly padded through the servants' kitchen made her heart swoon with illicit desires. I knew this was wrong. Which is why I agreed to have myself put on instant waivers.

In an industrial neighborhood adjacent to a tidal pool in an unincorporated curatorial dictatorship, I signed up to lead the remaining homeless families into a coal mine at the apex of a sodden hill. This, I believed, would help me get my wings in the air and show the Fathers of the St Paul Society that I could be trusted to no longer hide behind invisible presences, as was all the rage in those days. Instead, what looked like a mammoth inventory problem erupted just as I was packing for a three-day exchange porthole. When I emerged hours later, laboring under the twin sabotages of 'Jik and Jek', I thought it only proper to don my finest evening wear so that I could dominate the zone and not look like a third-rate hack. However, when I finally DID look back, who do you think I saw standing there in a pink chiffon tutu basking in the admiration of an idolatrous mob? You guessed it! And, not only that, but I was forced—at gunpoint no less—to take back every cotton-pickin' thing I'd ever said about any of them before I'd be given a firm talking-to in the most uncertain terms. In all the hubbub, I almost forgot to slip a little something into the community water cistern, without which all my efforts would be in vain. I can't tell you how often I've thought back to my time in the Brazilian Coast Guard and wondered if any of them could be trusted to highlight a few infant projects. This isn't about anyone's innocence. It's about my money.

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Notice to Readers: This day marks the third anniversary of this Blog and its first post (which you can find here). Please make checks payable to A Toy-Mental Toodle-Foo LLC. This will guarantee you a place on a priority waiting list. You're welcome!

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The truth of this cannot be denied.

 

For the first time in as many seconds, I've painted myself into a little understood corner. It would not be true to say that a particular individual is thoroughly furious at my reaction to her focus on topics which are generally maligned, at minimum. I can see how that could constitute just another waning bar to a transition mandate already in swift retreat county-wide. Because, by the time I receive the ever-important belostomy satchel under the watchful eyes of a newly influential electoral combine, none of the tea in China would do the trick when it comes to causing a minor announcement to go viral, in a good sense. Instead, what we have here is just one more instance when everything a person stands for is held up in an accidental fatality implication. I myself have witnessed first hand how some obviously insensitive plagiarists can go about their business without anyone at all seeming to care when a very subtle odor reaches its inevitable thud-point. You're starting to read my mind and it's kind of unpleasant.

As I was bathing my tubes in a sunken vessel not more than three hundred yards from the site of the Cantrella Wigfarm explosion, I looked into the eyes of one not much older than your typical retired probation officer. She was beginning to come to the realization that anyone who would approach her in mid-sentence with an alarming request should probably be shunted off to a close relative who is deeply involved in the residential system writ large. When I first saw that she wasn't someone who would offer to tutor the children of mildly inscrutable herbivores, it started to dawn on me that the process of living itself could no longer be reduced to a simple formula in a cheaply produced self-help pamphlet from Hell. When I inquired as to whether she was the one who called my step-sister in the middle of the night to issue vague threats of bodily unpleasantness, all she could do was smile seductively and try to ruin everything I'd built up over the following twelve long years of backpedaling intransigence.

There wasn't any choice but to make a clean break of it and break off any and all negotiations with our 'friends' in the lamestream media. Some would go so far as to leap into my toilet in the middle of a conference call. While I steadily lost crucial ounces in my struggle with alien forces, I began to feel that even my own family members had been induced, whether by unknown substances or indirect energy disturbances, to play footsie with some very malodorous characters. In sum, what they all seemed to yearn for was to have the lion's share of my note cards be dissolved in a vat of caustic lerquids, if that. No one has ever accused me of being another Joe Pepitone, but that doesn't mean I'm about to sit around in my skivvies waiting to be driven to a parking lot at a convenience center to appear remotely at an upcoming seminar. It just doesn't seem right that every time I spell my name backwards, evil spirits take that as some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card. Why they couldn't just seep out through the plumbing system is something I'll never understand.

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You've got to trust me on this, people.

 

I've been saving my terrycloth quickener for a time about six miles down our through-street where I can count on minimal interference from a hare-brained marshall detector in our midst. It seems he's fond of lumping me in with some of the others who show no hesitation about thinking twice as the situation permits. If I were to lay the proverbial glove on him, each easily evaporated packet would be seen for what it is. And, just so you know, that's what I've been aching to discuss with some of our Junior Associates. The problem is, they just won't come out of hiding in fear that I may try a new kind of binding. This time it'll be the wrists, neck and gall bladder which we've got our eye on. In the coming weeks, we expect to see a new spirit of forgiveness manifest before anyone knows what hit them. Literally. And also, yes, seriously.

People seem fond nowadays of an animated dream scenario under the direct control of an identical mechanism to the one I showed you last year. Only this time, if you call out a special number, we will be able to assure you that only the lower part of your collection would be on view while most participants are forced to stand throughout the second half. This is all part of a thought-responsive intrigue plattern. You are, apparently, quite well practiced in an off-border rigamarole containment octave. It's important to know that you are being noticed by those whose motives are up for serious consideration. If someone in your shoes could do your best to follow me as I pound pavements in full view, then there'll be no telling where you may end up or even if major tissue damage will still be viable, if that. You can save majorly in the next thirty days alone. Has anyone tried to warn you about this?

As for those under my indirect purview, I find myself becoming ever more fatigued by their randomized selection procedures. It counts more than ever if we can observe their hands while they sleep, eat and ride. Even when a miniscule droplet is seen to be perched 'just so', that still won't help them get their affairs in order. The co-terminus spell is set to be cast at the drop of this, or any other, hat. One week and five days from now, all who have seen their loved ones absolved of cherished notions will be permitted a few moments to steel themselves for a roaring encampment enterprise. If our vane issues any promises at all, the one which we believe you'll find most instrictive is not to be trifled with, unless, that is, a stern father-figure can earn a coveted place on a soon-to-be installed stormflight museum tripod. This is exactly where you come in. But not for long. In fact, not ever, if I'm being honest (which I'm not).

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There appears to be some kind of mix-up.

 

In all the ballyhoo of testing for fumes, we forgot to secrete our nozzle in a utility bag before we were due topside to finish off a prime cut for the predilection of our betters. I lifted my trouser leg and let a strange piece bounce until it was immediately taken up and added to our overall response pattern. The name of the very service elicited not a few guffaws as we buckled ourselves further in than anyone had a right to expect. I took my chief adversary aside and made him stumble into a watery cave just to the East from where our rook was holed up for months on end without even a peep escaping from the loosest of lips on any trestle. Why have some people gone on record to lodge an infantile protest against magnanimous misfits being given all manner of keys and the watchwords which go with them? I'm at my wits' end to find a reason that none of us have been gifted with an antique bow and arrow set as the Holidays approach in all their vehement glory. It wouldn't be untrue to say that some of you give me the creeps, but it also wouldn't be altogether 'true' either, by any means.

Over and above my absence from the final rule-breaking discourse, I have it on good authority that one of our mildest days in years saw the coming of not one, but two extremely disconsolate isomeres into our paltry dining bastion. This made a few of us question the destination which even now seems to be a metaphorical 'hole-in-one'. They each looked at me and scored a random switchback in their minds while I wiled away several days in the company of a sub-optimal looker of the first degree. When I got back around midnight on the 12th, I noticed that everyone, including the detail keeping watch over the 'rubber room', started treating me with the kid gloves which I always felt were my lot in life. As I arranged some pebbles in a row on a ledge under the tenth-floor advisory committee, a person I didn't recognize ran in and got into a real huff. I was due to start my Program in seconds flat so there wasn't any time to offer some comforting words to a crew who characteristically just treads water in our Baptismal Font for nine or ten seconds during your average year. This caused some of the nurses on duty to lose their cookies something awful. And, just so you know, I say that with the utmost respect.

Some of us have noticed a flurry of paint chips being directed our way each time we duck into the lavatory for a quick one. I myself have given everyone a countdown formulary and made sure that a certain type of liquid is provided at cost for atmospheric gerrymandering. If my wig holds up under a chain of accusations, I wouldn't be surprised if even the lowliest barflies come to see the wisdom of keeping patterns secret from those who only swallow with their eyes open and trained on an indistinct spot. You can leave your things in my van but on no account should you or anyone else think that it's okay to handle corporate lesions in the company of uncontestable pikers. Because if you do, and no one else sees a cause of action, we can't promise that the lip of a rim will be placed under your withering control module. That would just be 'nuts'. And also, there'll be no one to bail you out should you fail to grant a general amnesty to a disgraced hotshot. It's your way or the highway. Settle fast. Now stop eating. Profuse.

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