whtnoise

been quite awhile since i've written too much of anything 'round here... figured now's about as good a time as any to put somethin down.

i got torn into the last time i wrote something, by someone else in the forum, probably because i don't take the most conventional approach to saying whatever it is i've got to say, and it'd probably be better suited for my journal - but there's not too much of anything in there anyway, and i can't really find the time to put much in there that'd make it worth reading.

so.

I.

right now, i'm sitting at a table, in a chair, of what looks like to be lawn furniture, too expensive to be set in the lawn. ouside the window, above some random chicago street, under a waxing october moon, and along the tree-lined sidewalks, fall seems all-too ready to arrive again.

jack daniels, and a cup of ice. five dollars. just about noon. two hours from chicago, thirty-thousand feet over new york, and seven-hundred and ninety-one miles from an inevitable autumn.

the man sitting next to me, in the middle seat, 19e, is probably in his late forties, stands well over six feet tall, and having been in coach, couldn't have been more unhappy sandwiched between two people less deserving of aisle and window seats. no amount of extra leg-room could have made that trip any more comfortable for him, and no amount of in-flight alcohol could have persuaded me to give a shit.

as the plane prepares to touch down, there's a part of me that wishes the landing gear would fail, or perhaps, the wings would just, fall off. maybe some terrorist had slept just a bit too long and had to do his business, remotely detonating an explosive in some piece of checked baggage sitting in the compartment directly below me.

unfortunately, people like me don't tend to ever be that unlucky. no extra-ordinary circumstances, no crazy twists of fate - i manage, somehow, to just slide right on by, without too many people ever giving notice.

standing outside the baggage claim at o'hare, smoking, watching the cabs pick up and drive by, i'm temped to run back inside and find the next flight out, to happiness - or at least my definition of it; less the unfamiliar bitterness that accompanies places like this, for whatever reason, or my reasons. in reality, you could easily spend the better part of five years running, trying to find that happiness, and still, come back with nothing...

my dad, with his own bottle of jack, and a revolver, loaded, sitting on the desk to his left. one last drink of the once had drinks of too many nights in the same company. the answers to all too many problems point three-hundred and fifty-seven millimeters away, either from himself, or my mother, who's insurance policy looked, at this point, almost too good to pass up.

the logs of his hand-built house moan in anticipation of some catastrophic but calming solution to his sudden involuntary abandonment of a more than sixteen year career with the same company, quadruple bypass surgery, mortgages, sons in college, and an infinite number of debts. but tonight... waylon and willie say no, and everything else of some importance takes a back seat, for tonight...

now... i've always heard that home is where your heart is. a place where fond memories lie, a comfortable bed, and plenty of pillows, a warm shower, hot coffee, thanksgiving dinner and peach cobbler. the place you always know you can do your laundry - or - still willing, your mother will do it for you. the place that at night you smile before closing your eyes, because you know, undoubtedly, that you are home, and there's no place in the world like it, and no-one to take it from you.

then, home falls away, and the last bit of security you know becomes some far-off thought, too difficult to completely remember, too easy to completely forget.