when i was little, i remember we had this office chair. one of those really great spinning ones. except it wasn't great. i remember that i always wanted to spin around and around in it, and everytime i did it, id end up nauseated. but it always still seemed like a good idea to me to start spinning, and i could never quite resist the temptation.

sometimes i think id still sit down for a spin if i had a chair like that.

i hate this part of myself. for gods sake STOP SPINNING.

i would like to be a person who sits quietly in an easy chair instead.

sometimes i am that kind of person for a while.

but now i am not; now i am spinning and its getting to be dizzying and i am trying to grab onto things to make it slow down.

the world is so funny. it is full of little unpredictable events that make me fall in love with it over and over again.

last night on my way home from my martial arts class i stopped at the gas station. i went inside, bought some water (the lemon flavored kind is worth paying money for!...sort of...ok, not.) and paid for some gas, then came back outside to fill up. and there's this older black guy standing in the middle of the lot drinking a beer and bellowing jazz tunes. he doesn't appear to be homeless, except for the fact that he's traipsing around a gas station parking lot. what i mean to say is, he is wearing a clean collared shirt, tucked into a clean pair of slacks, he seems well groomed, except for a few missing teeth... the typical dis-sheveledness of homelessness is absent. but maybe he is schizophrenic, maybe drunk, maybe just feeling good, maybe a little of each. so he is singing his heart out, and one other guy pumping gas dances a little and everyone else makes a concerted effort to ignore him, as if to acknowledge him would cause some sort of irreversible damage to (drumroll...da, da, da, duhhhhhhh....): THE WAY THINGS ARE and THE WAY PEOPLE OUGHT TO BEHAVE. anyway, i was in a good, sort of transcendent mood so i finished pumping my gas and watched him for a second and smiled a bit and he walks over and asks how i am. i tell him im okay, then correct myself and tell him im actually pretty good, and he laughs and says he loves me. says he doesn't have to like me, no, no, he's got to looooooove me. ok, crazy gas station man. i laugh and tell him good night, then get in my car and he walks up next to the door. now im not going to lie: i know the WAY THINGS ARE and THE WAY PEOPLE OUGHT TO BEHAVE and i worry a bit when he approaches the car and i'm sitting in it. he tells me its a nice car (it's not that nice) and i thank him... he's still standing there, i'm a bit nervous now, my guard is up, but i still smile as though i'm not and it's not, because what else is there to do? and crazy gas station jazz singing man looks at me and he goes, in a sort of melodious way that's half song, half prophecy, "yeah. that's how you're gonna make it in the world. by bein' real..." and then he winks and walks back to center stage where he resumes his song. i buckle up, drive away, and i smile a real smile.

i am in love with the idiosyncrasies of this world.