Not a Bit

You don't have to look into my eyes, but it works better if you do.

Of course, those eyes can be alarming. Like a character actor (which I sometimes am) sometimes one eye will look right at you and the other, not quite. None of us are symmetrical, but as Groucho would say to me, you're abusing the privilege.

Or am I?

"You keep telling the same story."

"What story is that?"

"The one that sounds like a Coen brothers movie."

"Which one?"

"All of them."

"Starring Steve Buscemi?"

"All of those."

"Dude."

"That one, too."

"Now I've lost the story."

"Dude, you ARE the story."

I was thinking about another story. It was about the possibility of cousins. It was about the possibility of an unknown grandparent. It was a story about how an all-consuming love consumes all, and then like a zombie just won't completely die but just goes on consuming.

That's not fun.

"People have told me that I resemble Steve Buscemi...but that was a long time ago, before I got old."

"Clearly."

"Things are always what they seem until they aren't."

"Exactly. Or are they?"

"There you go again."

"Again?"

"Telling a different story."

"Got it."

"Got it."

"Got it."

"Have you?"

"If you go thru life as if it's a movie, it makes more sense."

"Until it doesn't. I wouldn't want that tedious repetition nonsense of having to gain it all just to lose it all just to have someone to take it away just to go from machine fighting to foot fighting to teeth and nails fighting to the closing credits to..."

"OK then."

"?"

"Then DON"T go thru it as if it's a movie."

"I don't enjoy movies about movies."

"Sure you do."

"OK."

"Has she allowed you to leave your toothbrush again yet?"

"No. But like any bad actor, I've got hope."

"Good. Good. Good. But pack a toothbrush just in case."

"Done."

-- doug smith