Natural Selection (a fast-talking blues)

Conventional wisdom tells us that opposites attract.
Well, I guess that's true if you're magnets or a couple of snaps;
But when you're pairing up the more sophisticated organisms
Like you and me, you're better off choosing some other syllogism,
More like birds of a feather, or sheep in the fold.
We tend to like the same music, and the same jokes were told
By our great-grandfathers, and we'll pass them all along
To our great-grandchildren someday. Now, don't get me wrong,
I don't claim to be entirely resistant to change
And I've encountered total strangers who weren't totally strange,
But when you're looking for companionship that's certain to please,
What you want to find is someone with irreconcilable similarities.

Now, here's how you do it: Don't be harsh or selective,
Just be creative in the way you see whatever's reflective.
First you mutter something witty that's opaque or obscure,
In a crowd, and if some girl laughs, you sidle over to her.
If she isn't so tipsy that she's laughing without cause,
You can toss off another – I tell you, it's better than applause
When that one, single person you've been trying to attract
Turns back around and she's smiling right at you.
So she's thinking you're not ugly, maybe thinks you're pretty funny,
That's great! Who cares if you haven't got money?
Your looks and your charm have won you a new main squeeze,
Maybe someone with irreconcilable similarities.

Now of course there's always one more side to a coin.
Some folks could be joined at the hip, but they're just too hip to be joined.
And remember, just 'cause someone happens to be whole lot like you
Doesn't mean she's gonna happen to like you a whole lot. Sad, but true.
You gotta roll with the punches, learn to live with rejection.
You won't always be everybody's idea of perfection.
But if you keep on trying, soon you'll make that connection.
There's something almost supernatural about natural selection.
And you'll know that it's right just as soon as you've found it --
Even if you've been around some, you just can't get around it.
And before long you'll both be humming with the birds and the bees
About all your irreconcilable similarities.

You'll be grinning and humming with the birds and the bees
Humming about all of your
Irreconcilable
Similarities.

Squaring the Circle

So I'm on my way to the men's room at work, pondering the infinite (as usual), and I've got these two simple images in my mind: a simple line circle and the immediately visible portion of an infinitely long straight line. Just two black lines next to each other on a white piece of paper: one circular, the other straight. And I think, "They're both infinitely long, in one way or another, since neither has an end." Then I think of a graph of that logarithmic approach to infinity, or to light speed, the curve getting ever closer to the limit line but never quite reaching, and never quite flattening out. I see the curve of the circle next to the straight line appear to become flatter and flatter as the circle gets bigger and bigger around, but the circle's line never really becomes flat because, of course, it's still got to have a curve if it's a circle. And then I think of the circle pivoting away from me, as if hung by a single hinge at the point closest to the infinitely long straight line, so that the circle swings downward into the piece of paper until I'm looking at the circle edge-on. And it's a perfectly straight line.

And I'm thinking, two things that appear to be fundamentally dissimilar from one perspective can appear to be essentially identical from another. And is that a way to make the conceptual leap from the finite to the infinite, or from sub-light-speed matter to light-speed energy? Is it just a matter of looking at things differently, and that's the way they are, like in Madelein's L'Engle's books?

Is perfect understanding always there, everywhere, waiting for us to see it as it truly is?

Separation Anxiety

How can I tell?
How shall I know?
When are you old enough to go?
When do you stop being a child?

You wobble at first, walking upright in sheer defiance of gravity,
Each downward slam of foot a deliberate effort to prevent otherwise-certain prostration,
Then gradually you gain your legs, and soon you gamely walk, skip, frolic, and dance,
And can look, in motion, off to the side or into the sky without calamity.
This is your sense of balance.
And this is a blessing,
And now you can stand on your own.

With mobility then comes the urge to explore – Adventure! –
Paired with the equal urge to cling that much stronger
To me, to your mother, we who mean home to you.
With every stepping out you test your knowledge and judgment in the world
And with every misstep you cling (albeit more and more briefly) to those
Who brought you into this world,
Your guides into adulthood,
Just as they make missteps and afterward cling to you
(Largely in gratitude that their mistakes were not too severe, as evidenced by your survival).
Then gradually you gain your strength, your judgment, your agility in adjusting to the shifting circumstances that you face,
And you make your own personal choices that adapt to the conditions around you and that have no fatal consequences.
These are the beginnings of common sense.
And this too is a blessing,
And you can walk on your own out into the world,
Knowing when to step, when to stand still, and when turn back to home.

This is how I tell.
This is how I know.
I will gradually become less and less necessary.
You will gradually share more and more your friendship, your love,
While looking back neither for approval, nor advice, nor direction,
And gradually I will look to you for less and less of these things.

And I will never tell.
And I will never know.
And I will always love you.
And you will always be my infant child.
Your glow of trusting, innocent warmth
Long ago laid a foundation in my heart.

Still today you find comfort in my arms
And still today you give comfort back in kind.

The Old Corner Bar

The downtown streets were deserted one scorching afternoon last week when, looking for shelter, I spotted the sign of the tipped cocktail glass in the concrete floor of an entryway where an unfamiliar, dark doorway stood open, and in search of relief from the stifling heat I stepped inside. Cool, still air met my face and a blinding darkness filled my eyes. I touched my left hand to the paneled wall for balance, and waited. Familiar sounds -- liquor and ice into glass, glass onto wood, a wooden chairleg's judder as it shifted on a worn linoleum floor, low voices, subdued laughter -- all circulated through the ebbing darkness as, one by one, elements of vision revealed themselves to me. The bottles, beer mats, glassware, the long-polished brass, were comforting, just what I expected to see. And then there were the faces. One by one the faces of a barmaid and ten or so regulars (or so they appeared to be) became visible to my blinking eyes, all of them, men and women, in their 70s or 80s I would guess, and every one of them dead.

Odd enough to find a bar filled with dead people; odder still to see them talking with each other, playing cards, walking back from the restrooms. But they were dead, alright. These were faces I'd seen, smiling or stern, in the obituary pages, their lives summed up in a paragraph or two. "Loving husband," "Devoted daughter," "Avid sportsman;" dates in, dates out; survived or preceded by any number of dear friends and relations. Cherished in the hearts of.

Some of these I had known in life, at least in passing. There was Fred Miller the retired postman. Mrs. Belson, who volunteered at the library and was a great-grandmother. Others were less familiar. But they all seemed to know one another. And they all had an air of calm, and absence of urgency that would put the retired seniors of life to shame.

The barmaid seemed to sense my unease and beckoned me over. "Don't worry," she said. "You don't have to stay. You can just have a drink if you like."

"What is this place?" I asked her, accepting the scotch on the rocks I hadn't even named. Some bartenders know.