You Can Talk While the Wind is Blowing

Now Playing: “Handlebars” by Flobots

(Re: Handlebars lyrics: I can tie a knot in a cherry stem. But I learned in the most innocent way ever: my son told me he could and I was like, do I want to know how you know, and then he challenged me to try, so I did.)

It’s not difficult. But it’s not a party trick I’m going to be trotting out any time soon, either.

Wednesday Was

When part of you says “Any more deadlines?” and another part yells “I don’t care; my eyes are exhausted.”

When you’ve managed to submit to four places and make a pork loin in the Crockpot with baked potatoes and green beans on the side and call it good.

When you tidied your chapbook and sent it out to four places, and even managed to, you hope, nail the dedication that you wouldn’t have written yet, but a place asked for it and you thought, yes, yes, that needs doing.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, writing one, at least not for me. A Japanese maple made its way into this one.

When restlessness rattles in you like sere leaves during a wind advisory, and you feel like you have to create something bigger than it.

The kitchen is tidy. Household fed.

Word Raccoon is hiding out, playing dead, saying she is DONE for the day.

Nothing on Netflix, Hulu, or Disney. Forget about Paramount or Prime. YouTube is only good for music videos right now.

You’ve had chocolate, water, and Coke Zero.

You get that itch that says you’ve got to write something besides another cover letter.

But what? What is this restlessness, and why are you now listening to The Killers? You started the morning with music, and now you’re maybe ending with it and hey, listen, maybe you should wake WR and see if she’s up to a poem.

“Didn’t we start one about Josh Tillman earlier?” WR asks sleepily from the chair with Book Goblin and the enormous pink heart-shaped pillow she’s cuddling up to. “Here’s a line you wrote earlier, build on it.”

Ah, yes: “You can talk while the wind is blowing and still be heard.”
What are we going to do with that line, Word Raccoon?

What I keep coming back to is this: FJM doesn’t owe us anything, whichever persona he chooses. Maybe Josh became Father John Misty to escape himself. Maybe he thinks we only want the struggle. But I’d listen to the joy, too. I’d be glad to hear him bloom. Maybe he already has.

(Why am I playing The Killers if I’m writing about FJM?)

Someone of my acquaintance went to hear a concert of his a while back and said, when I saw her next, he is SEXY?

The man drips blood when he sings, and all you can see is his sex appeal? Ma’am. Ma’am.

Word Raccoon gave her a look that could’ve boiled her iced coffee.

To be fair, the woman tried to clarify and qualify her remark, but WR had already heard her and wasn’t having it.

Go on, Josh. Be Father John Misty. Be Josh, if you prefer. Be yourself, dude.

I’ll gnaw on my line while WR naps. I need to.

I can see my muse’s reaction now: “Oh, so close.” Or, “Ew. What?” Sigh.

That’s the damndest thing about muses: they provide the voltage, not the material.

I feel like I need to label these “midnight missives.”

You can talk while the wind is blowing and still be heard.

Wait, I was supposed to stop the post there, but I’m not going to, not even though I need to charge my laptop battery. This is my Rooftop Concert and let them come drag me away from it, LOL.