But Enough About Me

Here are your waters and your watering place.

Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

—Robert Frost, “Directive”

I am looking back into a world now gone forever. Thinking of a time that will never return. A book of photographs is looking back at me. Twenty-five years of looking for the right road. Post cards from everywhere. If there are any answers I have lost them.

—Robert Frank, The Lines of My Hand

All I ask is for the recognition of me in you, and time, the enemy, in us all.

–Tennessee Williams, Sweet Bird of Youth

You were directionless for a brief time in the 1980s. Okay, for ten years in the eighties.

You’re trying, you swear.

You wouldn’t go that far.

You don’t really want to get into it tonight.

You’ve scratched mosquito bites until they bled.

Tom Cruise can kiss your ass.

You’ve been so drunk you thought you might never be sober.

You make frequent use of the phrase I never thought I’d see the day, and you mean it.

You once found it amusing to throw rocks at cattle, until you read somewhere that casual cruelty to animals was a frequent precursor to homicidal tendencies.

You were soundly defeated by algebra.

You used to think Howie Mandel was sort of funny.

In past lives you were a jack rabbit, an astronomer, and a concierge.

You’ve got a box of old letters around there somewhere, including one from either Hall or Oates (you can’t keep them straight anymore, but it was the shorter one with the curly black hair).

You don’t know what you were thinking when you bought that Cuisinart.

Your boss is a Jewish carpenter.

That? No, that’s not yours.

Briefly, you had a thing for that Julie girl at Arby’s.

Your get up and go got up and went, and then unexpectedly came back with renewed gusto (unrelated to directionless period in the 1980s).

Your refrigerator is full of mysterious condiments.

You still have a box set of James Herriot paperbacks on your bookshelf and, bless you, you’re not the slightest bit self-conscious about it.

You occasionally dream you are a fish.

You wished on the moon.

You once had a disastrous adolescent haircut that made you wish you’d never been born.

Sure, you once owned a pair of earth shoes. They were really comfortable, and went well with your painter’s pants.

You lost your virginity to a complete fucking asshole.

You have very little patience for the drum solo.

You can’t keep a secret.

Oatmeal was never your thing.

You sometimes look at your record collection and wonder what you could have been thinking.

You do not want a whale-sized penis, but thanks for asking.

To your eternal regret you did not buy that photo of the blind ventriloquist you once saw in a junk shop.

You forgot what you were going to tell me.

You’re sorry.

This wasn’t what you had in mind.

You regretted your words the instant they left your mouth.

You never should have sent that letter.

Etc.