I Went Out

It was a night that seems like just a blur now. Nothing really seemed to line up right. Shadows fell in unnatural patterns. Buildings looked mis-shapen, giving the illusion that they might be further away or closer than they really were. I felt like I had "been there," and "done that." Things like windows seemed like they had been placed haphazardly. Everything looked just a little "off" to me, it's hard to put in words....

I wound up at the Lilly Pad just before 11 PM, after having had the same issues surrounding getting myself out there.

There is the bowl that I smoke that makes me sit there and jam on the guitar for at least a half hour, thinking that I should be playing "this" at the Lilly Pad where it could, at least fetch 11 dollars an hour, on a Monday night.

13 Dollar Monday

I sat and played.

Soon, a young Russian lady, who lives in Illinois now, stopped as I was playing on of my originals, and listened until such a point when, I felt like I should stop and try to gauge what it was, musically, which made her stop. Sometimes people will hear me playing the harmonica and will come closer to hear more but, at that point, I will launch into 3 verses of one of my originals, and then will throw in a harmonica part, listening for sounds of approval out of them, such as one of them saying: "Yeah, play the harmonica!"

So, I stopped at one point and said "I'm still working on that one..."

To which she returned that she had enjoyed it. She put a dollar in my jar.

I had given away the fact that it was one of my originals.

We had a conversation, about New England and my impressions of having grown up there, and about Russia, which she described as having been "very open" a hundred years ago; something I didn't press her to elaborate upon.

I had compared the "polite" society that I had been groomed for, if just a level "below," as a youth, to the way that Charles Dickens depicted human intercourse in his novels. That's what started the "a hundred years ago" conversation.

We talked for a while, with myself interposing little musical snippets here and there.

I told her about my friends who came from the city of Baku, on the Caspian Sea.

She was familiar with their city.

I told her about their having had flown in for a party from that city a crate of freshly caught and frozen sturgeon fish; something that, I believe swims in very few, if any, other waters in the world, and from within which comes caviar. I don't know if it is "caviar as we know it," i.e. if there is only one kind of caviar and it too is found in few, if any, other waters; and neither did Tanya, as that was the name of the young Russian lady.

She had her hair cut very close, into what I have always thought of as a "boys" cut.

She doesn't smoke and she is majoring in Biophysics at some college.

"Yeah, I guess there would be an irony in a medical student smoking," I observed.

"Oh, I'm not a medical student!" she said in a way that implied that her chosen discipline is to be much less exulted than that.

I told her about my idea for a substance which could be injected into the facial bones of humans by plastic surgeons, which would soften the bones for a brief period of time, turning it into a plasma similar to what envelopes broken bones in a cocoon around the fracture. Then, artists in cosmetology -as sought out for their skills as tattoo artists- would come in and mold the face into a "Tom Cruise," or the ever popular "Jennifer Lopez."

"Could I copy write that idea?" I asked.

I was hoping that she was going to tell me that it was a great idea and that we could partnership, get the idea copy written, and then she, bolstered by her degree in biophysics could win us a huge grant, in order that she could could get started right away on developing the serum, while I encouraged and supported her and handled menial tasks like running our bio-tech firm from behind a laptop, while living high off the hog; that bears mentioning.

"I don't know," shrugged Tanya, and my dreams, once again, turned into the pipe type.

She did throw 3 more dollars towards what would turn into a 13 dollar Monday night on about 2 hours of playing.

The Year In Sheep

Lidgley's Send Gift

I went to my mailbox, telling myself: "You never know..." in regards to the possible arrival of the harmonica that I had ordered Sunday night.

There was a thick envelope from The Lidgley's Of London in there. I was pretty sure it was going to be a magazine, but it turned out to be a 2017 calendar.

Inside the front cover were a 20 dollar bill and a Starbucks card affixed. Such a comfort on a Tuesday night when I will ride to the Lilly Pad telling myself: "You never know..." in regards to my having a lucrative night.

The weather is still blessedly warm and I will be telling myself: "Man, I could have been out there 5 hours a night" as soon as the next cold front blows in with finger numbing temperatures, unless I go out and play. No pressure; I've got a Starbucks card and 20 bucks.

And, when I get back home tonight, I can lay my head down on my new "sheep" pillowcase which I found sandwiched in between the pages of August in the calendar.

Just one more byproduct of sheep, as if their cozy wool wasn't enough, their slumber inducing potential when counted.

The area where all the sheep are; well, that's kind of like their Bourbon Street

Incidentally, how many are on the pillow case? Let me see, it looks like there are, one, two, three there in the corner, four and five there in the right front and.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz