Boredom is a sad and dangerous thing that sometimes results in couplets:

(Though not surprising when working late on a Friday night in an empty store)

My friend Jason is a new father and I imagine that he is wide eyed trying to soak up as much of the reality of this new life as his vision will allow. My sister has a foreign exchange student living with her, who arrived earlier today. They came by my apartment to buy my roommate Mary Beth’s old futon for her to use this academic year. She was calm and at the same time immersed in the unfamiliar with a year of insanity and experience stretched before her, luxurious and unimaginable, painful and forever. Mary has her possessions at last from the storage unit, each box a glimpse into some corner of her past and a possibility for future sharing with students and friends. Instead of unpacking all that is old, she spent today painting her new gnome Gunther the Grunter that we purchased outside of Oklahoma City on our recent road trip from Stockton California along the mother road: historic route 66. This gnome’s future rests in semi-permanent attachment to Mary’s front porch, where he will greet all comers with a grimace owing to the two large planters under either arm. These have rendered his imaginary spinal column crooked and suggest the grunt that might be escaping from his frozen lips. The gnome’s ensconcing may render all of Mary’s many youthful abstract aspirations “concrete” and ideologically anchor her to her new home in this new city.

I am in an old home cluttered with Richard and Ruthann, a three year old job that reminds me of the parable of the talents. I disappoint the king by burying his money in the basement, risking and thereby gaining nothing. The fall air of our unseasonably cool St. Louis seems, in contrast to the newness I sense around me, as stale as the haze of cigarette smoke that I meet at eye level most mornings when I descend the stairs for my coffee. Some satirists and cynics conclude that all of life’s games are equally foolish and so why not be the clown. Were I a vaudeville act, or a TV time filler awaiting the inevitable gong, I would be the plate spinner; the man with junk shop china and dime store doweling wowing the crowd through his imitation of perpetual motion.

“Doctor, I sense a psychic wound. I suggest we apply humor in some sort of annoying rhyme scheme to undercut the patient’s attempts to take himself and his life seriously in a patently ridiculous world.” said Nurse Allen to Doctor Burns, eyeing his cigar with the innocence of a foregone age.

All my dishes are stationary wishes that go round and round like the eye of the storm. Be it window or door I am looking for an opening, a chance to find something more.

Gnomenclature:

Gunther the Grunter, that grimaced old Gnome, has some words for fools such as me. Discounting his visage as signs of impaction we take satisfaction walking past his illustrious perch. Herniation? Constipation? A clear intoxication! That gnome is headed for the floor. Yet by the twinkle in his eye I bet he just sighed with a smirk that expressed some old lore, “Your rhyming’s a bore, now come help with my chore. I’ve a basket for each (your calling’s to teach), now go quick and knock on the door. Remember that angst is what drinking's for, but drinking too much becomes such a crutch you’ll forget what the fuck you’re here for!”

Thanks Gunther, I needed a kick in the ass.