The Thoughts We Think

This wasn't supposed to happen. I was just chillin', flipping between the NBA playoffs and Law & Order, hoping against hope that somehow, someway, somewhere, the Lakers would lose and the bad guy would outsmart those crafty cops and DA's. When all of a sudden, a thought popped unbidden into my head.

Listen, I'm telling (the truth with) my slant -

I thought of my cat Bruce, and how I control his life; when he eats, when he drinks, when he sleeps, and of how Bruce controls me. I thought of my baseball fantasy league, and how I'm losing because I don't drop feelgood players like my name starts Stein and ends brenner. I thought of my home, and of Mum and Dad and Sis and Bro and Grandma and my niece Amanda, and of the lives I'm missing and we talk and write often but just - why wasn't I home for Amanda's 4th birthday or for Mother's Day, anyway?

Then I flipped and thought about beheading in Iraq and about people there, what they're doing, how their lives have changed or not changed. I thought about what they think and why they think that. I thought about China and Mongolia and Tibet and Somalia and Uganda and and Indonesia and Kendra (wait, Kendra, that's not a country or a place, that's a girl that I love...c'mon, back to selfless proselytizing) and about raw hunger and calculated fear. I thought about a crackpot idea to start a clothing company printing "Valley Pride" t-shirts and hats. I thought about morning lethargy and why some people say leth-AR-gee and other say LETH-ar-gee, and about which way sounds cooler and which way sounds correcter - dammit, that's not a word. I thought about how my standard of living, how my life, was and is borne upon the backs of laborers, of factory workers, of children and of billionaires. I thought about how hot it was last week and how nice it would be to have a pool. Or air conditioning.

I thought about bills and credit, about the Joneses and the Gateses. I thought about Oscar Wilde and Denzel Washington (The Siege was on USA) and Kobe Bryant and the fine handcrafted beer I was drinking alone. I thought about life as a schoolteacher, a clerk, a cop, a soldier, a priest, a derelict. I thought about things that I'm supposed to think about and about things I think I'm not supposed to think about and why I think about the things I think about and why I think I'm not supposed to think them. I thought about Thailand. I thought about the smiles you see at McDonald's and Starbucks and the local grocery store and are those folks really that happy to give me my Big Mac, my americano, my vegetables?

I thought about amazing artists making prints for hotel room walls and singers singing songs about bubblegum and lost love. I thought about my hatred for pop culture and Friends and my unique facelessness (psst - it's not really unique) and about how if you wanted that part in quotations that I'm a bad writer and you're a complacent reader.

I thought about that guy at the corner market that tries to bum cigarettes or change from people, and about how I feel when I tell him "no change, man, sorry," and why I tell him that when I have change in my pockets and how can I tell him that while I'm muffling the sound of the change with my hand as I walk by? I thought about my grandmother's stories of Religion in the 30's, 40's and 50's, and about how she had to sign official Catholic Church documents denouncing her Lutheranism and swearing by Grandpa's Catholicism, when their faiths really weren't that far apart. And I thought about all the thought that went into the importances of her era, and the thought that goes into the importances of ours.

So, really, I thought about you (me). What do you (no, me) think about? Why do you (ME, you idiot) think you think about the things you (HELLO, I'm talking about myself [ed: they get it already, you heavyhanded hack]) think about? Are you (no really, me) supposed to think those things or are you thinking those things because you're you (umm, me?)?

Let me repeat, sans distracting parentheses and faux editorial comment - So, really, I thought about you. What do you think about? Why do you think you think about the things you think about? Are you supposed to think those things or are you thinking those things because you're you?

And just who are you (me) anyway?

-tn

[ed: this is, in some strange, distorted, convoluted, adjective-bombed way, a call for ideas - all of these words are just trying to ask the question "what occupies your mind?". Really. Email me at teddynutmeg@hotmail.com. Please?]

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