It was up to 105.8 degrees fahrenheit here in Austin, TX today. That was the high reading on my thermometer, though nearby temperatures were recorded at 107 or even 108. I was outside in the morning and started sweating after walking only a couple of hundred feet. Forecast: Monday, tomorrow (9.26.05), also will be hot. … Continue reading Austin High Temp
Author: johnbrandall
John Randall is a writer living in Missouri. His interests include camping, running, walking, cutting and burning wood, messing around with magnets, foraging, and listening to podcasts, many of them about baseball.
The Bowflex
Coffee at ten has to be a large part of why I’m up right now. But I’m also up because I want to be up. I imagine someone walking in here and saying, “Is it the coffee, John?” I’d say, “The coffee and a whole lot else.”
I was lying in bed and all sorts of thoughts—memories I hadn’t come across in a while—were keeping me awake. I thought about how I sold my Bowflex workout machine—probably right around this time last year—for $500 cash. It was my parents’ money really. I had bought the Bowflex on a credit card that I wasn’t funding. And I’m just so goddamned sorry that I’ve gotten this far off track and all I can think about is how my parents are seeing this situation.
Their child with promise and potential. What is he doing with his life? Not squandering it anymore than I already have. I’m just so sorry for myself and I know that’s now way to go about it but I was recalling that Bowflex transaction. With half of the cash I bought about two ounces of freeze-dried fungi. Just pathetic, just pathetic. And, of course, to whom can I confess this? Those who already know haven’t realized that they care...
Continue with essay...Deflation
Hope is thefeathery, leatherydollar. Floating,dropping,slowly on the breeze. Down from Heaven,to purchase the soul.
Chaser
I have devised a new darts game called "Chaser" where darters get a point when they hit a sector (what is a point area called, a block, a slice?) with the third consecutive dart that's hit that area (they do not have to hit it three straight times themself, they pick up where the previous … Continue reading Chaser
When Matter and Antimatter Come Together
How much choice did he have when constructing the universe? Did contractors foul up his orders?Was he beset by floods and tornadoes?Did he get called in for jury duty?Did he run out money, half-way through?Did environmental permits tone him down? What was accident?What was fundamental? When his children nagged himdid he turn around to yell,"Ordinary … Continue reading When Matter and Antimatter Come Together
My Father on an Elevator With George Steinbrenner
Outside, in the slop,
horses run, glistening
with rain and sweat.
***
My father knows a guy
who has horses, a trainer,
and seats at club level.
Dad presses a button to go up,
and enters the car with three others.
Two who are bodyguards soon get off.
Now it’s just them inside, where
matter comes together with other matter.
Did Dad make bad wardrobe choices that morning?
No. Both wear sport coats, collared shirts, no ties.
Dad has on navy blue Ballys,
from his Puerto Rican honeymoon.
Got them shined at Lambert Airport,
tipped the guy a $2 bill.
But what does a Sox fan
say to The Boss in intimate quarters?
***
“I said nothing about baseball
and talked only about horses,
where he and his sister went to college—
Williams, Skidmore, etc.”
(My father a Dartmouth man himself.)
“He was very cordial.”
***
“I met a man who had
a horse running in the next race,”
he said, once home, as we played guess who.
“I asked him how his horses
were doing, but not about the failings
of his Japanese pitcher!”
Thoughts Nearing Sleep
A lady inaristocratic trousers Holding four concert ticketsin front of her face
You say what?
hierophany search it at technorati.com hello, Ray birthdays suck anyway should I celebrate it, or is that copping out of a day as in, well, i can sit on the couch and drink high life and eat cheese puffs because it's my birthday whereas, who cares? it's your birthday so what? waste it and that's … Continue reading You say what?
Aardvark dream
Aardvark I am in the back of a taxi with a girl who has an aardvark, maybe an anteater, colored black and white like a badger. There is a weird morphing accomplished by the aardvark because at various times there are two girls in the backseat vs. one girl and one aardvark. At one point … Continue reading Aardvark dream
5.29.2002
May 29, 2002 [7:08 am]DREAMS Went to sleep last night pretty early, somewhere around ten o’clock. I was not in a very good mood. At midnight I woke up with a terrible headache, got up and took some aspirin. Advil. Three. With tap water. Lay back down. The mattresses here at West End are easily … Continue reading 5.29.2002
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