This morning, as I sat staring at a tree while the coffeemaker labored through its agonizingly slow drip, drip, drip, a crow crossed my field of vision, coming in for a landing on a dead branch protruding from the leafy green. The branch snapped just as the bird's feet made contact, sending a shower of splintered wood to the ground below. This must have confused and angered the crow, because it immediately reversed thrusters and flapped off in a different direction, possibly toward home to reconsider the day's trajectory over a second cup of joe.
After fetching—finally, and with gratitude—some coffee of my own, I returned to my bench and locked onto another tree where a blackbird sat clacking at one of its many foes. An old Beatles song began playing in my head, and I wondered if this blackbird knew how to sing at all, never mind the time of day. I don't remember hearing a blackbird sing, ever, but especially not in one of those night-of-the-dead zombie flicks. Silly Beatles.
I had just finished my eleventh cup when I discovered another tree halfway between the first and second. As I stood scrutinizing its rough bark, I thought about the troubling wetness on my right foot, and how much coffeemakers and zippers have in common, speedwise. A robin peered at me, head cocked to one side as if listening for a meal. I shook my head, which discouraged the robin and made it fly away. I like trees, but birds sure can be pesky.
In the rational world, facts result in perceptions, and not the other way around. But there's another, parallel world where a different sort of perception takes the place of observation, and renders the final verdict on what's real, and what's merely an aberration. In that shadowy world, decisions are made—and lives hopelessly derailed—based on nothing more than a feeling within a mood. 
Stress is a killer. It may not automatically result in heart attack, or stroke, or even the infamous stomach ulcer your parents may have equated with excess worry. But it always results in something, even though that something may be so elusive that it avoids detection entirely, especially by that nebulous entity commonly referred to as the self. 
I hate shopping for lingerie. The terminology is foreign to me, and it doesn't take long for the salesperson to figure out that I don't know 
Most of us know at least one person who's habitually late. While the underlying reasons for chronic tardiness range from simple forgetfulness to full-on passive aggression, the effect on those doing the waiting is always the same. In my particular case, the perpetrator only adds to the frustration by arranging highly specific meeting times that, in the end, have nothing in common with the actual time of the event. The meeting, when it occurs, may be anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes on either side of the prearranged time. 
If I had to choose between fame and infamy, the latter would be the more appealing choice. Becoming entangled in politics is one way to achieve it, but religion is preferable because it's more likely to get you killed. While the need for this level of negative attention may fly in the face of reason and logic, there's nothing reasonable about politics, either, which is where the whole thing begins to make sense. 
Hi. My name is Jeff, and I'm a Grammar Nazi. I'd like to believe I'm over it, but recovering is the label I use to describe my illness. I know I can slide backward into old ways at any moment; my earliest blog posts are proof enough of that. But I have the support of those closest to me—they smack me on the head when I show signs of relapse—and I have my prescription, so things could be a lot worse. 
Yesterday was, of course, Father's Day. This could be good or bad, depending on the distance between you and your progeny—physically and otherwise—and whether or not the child units are bearing gifts when they arrive. Although I've been blessed with a daughter whose proximity is—as it's always been—entirely positive, and even though I remain as proud of who she is as ever, yesterday was historic for a couple reasons. 
I might also point out another high point of the day, which involves the teetering chunk of granite on the hillside above this place. On any other day, I know the eroding forces of Mother Nature and bad luck could come together, resulting in a rather rude awakening—if only for an instant—as the monolith passes through my bedroom on its way to Kansas. But this is, as I mentioned, my lucky day. 
Fridays, and their relationship in the larger context of serendipity, and perhaps the grandeur of the thing has already blown your so-called mind. If so, you've probably also come to grips with the evil of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, especially when those days fall on any date containing the number two. It's a problem. 
Mark Twain has always been among my 
Looking back on it from yesterday's vantage point, last week had such a dreamlike quality that I wondered if I had been in a coma. Looking back on yesterday from today's compos mentis vantage point, I now understand that I wasn't in a coma at all. I was in a comma. 
At dusk I watched a hawk float high in the darkening sky. Above the green, below the stars, its silhouette in fading light became the outline of the moon. When it dropped toward the field and up again, away into the western sky, its wings held the rhythm of the rain that started just as lights came on. 
