I made a pot-holder for Christ. Not recently of course but rather as a child. Popsicle sticks, marble squares, and Elmer's Glue. 
 
We found the masterpiece this weekend in a box of forgotten relics from my mother's attic. 
 
"What's this?" my daughter asked as she helped me sort through the musty piles. 
 
"That right there is a pot-holder for Christ," I told her in my own matter-of-fact way. 
 
I added that, when I was a child, Jesus would visit our homes after school and whip up a batch of Macaroni & Cheese. We used to enjoy Jesus' wholesome snack with a glass of juice and an episode or two of "Hogan's Heroes." 
 
"Really?" she wondered aloud. 
 
"No," I told her."Not really."

We talked about our teams today and one gentleman, with a particularly problematic name, came up in nearly every conversation. 
 
"What's with that name?" my boss lamented. "Can't we just call him 'BJ' or something?" 
 
"Oh, I think you can call him BJ once," I told her. "After that I'd say that I'm probably taking over your job." 
 
She blushed accordingly and we did our best to pretend the exchange had never occurred.

A co-worker reminded me this afternoon that today was "False Confession Day." She handed me a slip of paper and a pen and said, "There. Confess something." 
 
And so I wrote: "I look forward to participating in my co-workers' lame-ass life memes." 
 
I had operated under the mistaken assumption that my anonymity was to be preserved.

"Are you the person who called the police on our friends?" she wondered, more annoyed with me than I thought necessary. 
 
"I doubt it," I assured her. "That is, unless your friends are the hillbillies who parked in my yard last night." 
 
And so this is how I learned that the new neighbors had never really seen themselves as hillbillies before yesterday.

There are times when I don't recognize myself in my own voice. This morning offers up a good example. 
 
"Oh no," I said, cocking my head to one side. "Please tell me you weren't driving the Porsche..." 
 
To the casual observer it would likely have seemed that I bore a sincere interest in either the man or his car. Neither could be farther from the truth. 
 
I'll spend the day undoing this in my own mind.

From Trelvix: 
 
Our polling place was not equipped with "I Voted" stickers this year. I'm pretty sure I've never seen such a beast in our precinct and I was puzzled to hear the rumblings of those who were disappointed by the lack of the socio-political bling. 
 
"I know I don't need the sticker to make this official," the thirty-something woman whined to the old soldier by the door. "I just wanted some sort of affirmation." 
 
From behind the sign-in table, another ancient volunteer explained, “We don’t got no donuts neither so I hope you weren’t expecting breakfast.”  
 
The old folks cackled and the thirty-something woman walked out of the room with the confused and wounded air of a child who'd just received socks and underwear from Santa Claus. 

Waking from a fever is one of my least favourite things. 
 
For days I've floated through the world as a ghost but have found my way home each night. 
 
Now I'm coming out of the fog and need to sort the real from the rest and fix what's broken in my wake. 
 
Soaked sheets, shivering lights and fingers numb from lethargy. 
 
Quite the week indeed.

My entire team - women and men alike - came to work today decked out in matching white shirts, black trousers and ties. 
 
I noticed, of course, given that these are more the hemp overall, flip flop, patchouli crowd as a rule. The organized spy look impressed me but I rarely share my appreciation for such creativity. 
 
At around 3 o'clock one of the more outgoing women popped her head in my door and, with a perplexed air, asked, "So? Aren't you even going to ask about the outfits?" 
 
"Outfits?" I replied, peeking over the top of my glasses in her general direction. "I'm sorry. I hadn't noticed. Have you done something different?" 
 
She sighed heavily and walked off, visibly perturbed if not even dejected. 
 
I do wonder about the choice of attire but I'm not about to ask anyone. 
 
It would only discourage them from trying harder the next go-around.

Brokering a call between the coasts today I recalled a slogan that my father had used for a business venture many years ago. 
 
As a young man he'd owned and operated "Hoop's Bait Shack" and on packaging and promotional materials had printed: 
 
"Our worms are guaranteed to catch fish or die trying." 
 
I probably shouldn't have shared this on the call.  
 
Worms don't always realize that they're not fish. 

I finally caught the eye of my server at what used to be my favourite restaurant in the city. 
 
He sauntered to my table and asked if he could bring anything else.  
 
I told him, "Yes. A time machine set to take me back to a happier world where there still exists a chance that I might one day consider dining in this shit hole again." 

He sent a note that read: "I have six dozen farm-fresh eggs and some apples. We have too much of both." 
 
In my reply I told him that I liked his poem very much although I'll admit here that I really didn't get it.

I approached the demonstration more out of curiosity than compassion. 
 
They were a noisy lot. 
 
I tend to document as many of the intense, staged moments of my life as possible. I always assume that passionate people are, to some degree, making believe and acting out. Legitimizing their tantrums with my cameras makes it fun for all of us and is really the least I can do. 
 
As I clicked and maneuvered, the be-dogged officer approached and asked softly, "What are photographing, sir?" 
 
"Are you asking as man, as the uniform or on behalf of the dog?" I wondered aloud. 
 
"What difference does it make?" he pressed - annoyed and visibly incited to violate my right to privacy and free speech. 
 
"It would make no difference at all," I agreed, "if we lived in Cuba. Now why don't you fuck off and get out of my shot, officer? I don't need any more pictures of you." 
 
I made bail. 

She said, "I don't think that's really your name." 
 
I told her that it was a little late in the game for her thoughts on this question to matter but that I would take the issue up with you - in this forum. 
 
And so I guess we can check this off the list.

She was clearly put off by the manner in which I impugned her genius. 
 
"Well, you are a genius, are you not?" I asked. "The sign states clearly that you are." 
 
"I am a genius," she clarified. "But my name is not 'Genius'." 
 
And so when I started my sentence with, "Look, Genius," I'd found a way to call the distinction to light. 
 
We're close but have yet to reach a consensus as to the nature of her own particular ingenuity.

He splashed excitedly in the tub as any three-year-old is wont to do. 
 
And then he stopped flailing as he examined a puff of bubbles that had landed on his knee. 
 
"Ah! Bubbles!" he said. "I remember bubbles. When I was an old man I liked them a lot. I like bubbles." 
 
A somewhat subdued splashing brought the pause to a close and I think we both wondered what the child must have been like as an old man. 
 
Perhaps I'd known him then. 
 
What might I have recalled with fondness as an old man of three?

She wove through the crowd handing out leaflets that bore a simple message: "War is not the answer." 
 
I followed a fews steps behind her with leaflets of my own. Mine read: "What was the question again?" 
 
I've always been the Johnny Carson to her Ed McMahon.

We talked about what we'd wanted to be when grown. Someone made the requisite joke about still not knowing. 
 
New York feels like that conversation today. No-one here ever wanted to remember September 11, 2001 with lapel pins, tears or bluster. 
 
And before the day's done someone will point out that we still don't know what we still don't know.

And of course I knew that conversation would turn to dinner eventually. 
 
"You know what, I have plans," I told her. "I guess I knew that you would be in the city today but it just didn't occur to me..." 
 
"To think of me?" she interrupted. "That's okay, I get it," she continued. "I know how you are." 
 
She'd been waiting to use that line on me for a long time. 
 
For the record - it sounded better a few weeks back - when I used it on her.

He came in to my office today wearing a hideous red and blue striped tie that really made his orange plaid, short-sleeved shirt pop in the fluorescent lights. 
 
"What's with the tie?" I asked. 
 
"Oh it's a social experiment," he replied. "I want to see if people behave differently toward me when I'm dressed more formally." 
 
"Gotcha," I said. "How's it coming along? Notice any behavior that's out of the norm?" 
 
"Well, you asked me why I was wearing a tie," he answered. "That doesn't usually happen."

She caught me working a hangnail at my desk and told me something about herself. 
 
Among her pet peeves, she said, are the people who clip their fingernails in the workplace. 
 
I responded that among my pet peeves are the people who answer questions that I don't ask. 

As I walked along 46th Street toward Madison Avenue a street lamp next to me went dark. 
 
I don't know how many times I've seen this in my life and I wish now that I'd kept count. 
 
Sometimes the things that we forget with the greatest of facility are lights that are flickering on and off to get our attention. 
 
I think I was supposed to have kept a running tally but instead I quickened my pace.

They asked me to lead the group in grace and so I sat in silence and did just that. 
 
"We can't hear you down here, brother," they complained. 
 
"You weren't meant to," I explained. "I wasn't talking to you."

She'd borrowed volumes of bound funeral notices from an area funeral parlour and was thumbing through the pages contentedly as I approached. 
 
"What are you reading?" I asked, cocking my head to see a page. "Funeral notices?" 
 
She explained that she was combing through these and other artifacts to document the deaths of people-of-color in our area over the past century. 
 
I asked if she intended to use her research to support any particular position or hypothesis. 
 
"No," she answered. "I just want to know that they were here. Someday other people will want to know too." 
 
"Well then good luck," I said, turning away from the table. "Yours is an interesting and noble hobby." 
 
As I walked away my daughter complained, "I don't know why you have to pick fights with everyone you meet. Sometimes people are just doing what they're doing to be doing what they're doing." 
 
"No. People are never just doing what they're doing to be doing what they're doing," I replied, "and it's our job to point that out." 
 

We agreed that she never knew me but that perhaps her brother did. 
 
"Whatever happened to you?" she asked, ostensibly for the brother whom I'd only pretended to recall in the interest of expediency. 
 
"Well," I told her, "I left for a very long time, put all of you far out of my mind, learned wonderful things and passed them along to students whom I now miss dearly." 
 
"So random!" she replied, shaking her head. "You're funny. Just like I pictured you to be."

"If I needed to dump a body," he said, "this is where I would do it." 
 
And so this is how he asks if I'll drive the next time. 

"My phone is really quite the attention whore," she complained. "I just really don't need that today." 
 
I'm sure this was her attempt to be funny but I saw no reason to encourage such nonsense. 
 
"It acts that way because you encourage it," I told her. "Ignore it for a few days and it will quiet down considerably." 
 
"It's a phone, not a child," she explained, somewhat miffed. 
 
"I realize that," I said. "Had it been your child I'd have recommended you kill the thing in its sleep." 
 
And so this is how she learns that I'm not funny too.

The students are back in town. 
 
Fall semester used to be my Spring. Anything was possible and everything was new. 
 
Now Fall semester means shuffling armies of disconnected iZombies and articulate drive-thru. 
 
Did I stop seeing magic around me or did the magic choose to move on as well? 

She wondered why I'd taken so long to respond to her email. 
 
"Why did you ignore my email?" was her exact wording. 
 
"I didn't ignore anything," I told her. "I just didn't feel like talking to you." 
 
She called me a liar. 
 
We'll have the same conversation next month.

She said "smoking is bad for you, mister." 
 
I told her she was correct in thinking so. 
 
"You know what else is bad for you?" I continued. 
 
"What else?" she wondered. 
 
"A couple of things," I explained. "One is talking to strangers. Another is the apparent inability to mind one's own business."

That wisdom is awarded through tragedy and sadness is yet another of life's wicked secrets. 
 
We're better for learning them but the lessons are bruising and unflinching. 
 
I'm sorry for your education but glad that you've found specks of truth in the muddy waters of mourning.