L'essence...

Yep. Ran out of gas last night. Guess where… Right in front of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Embarrassing, sure.
But not bad.

Normally, of course, this kind of situation would make me nuts. I’m generally convinced that the universe sends us signals on how we’re doing. In other words, if you keep getting your buttons misaligned with your buttonholes, or you keep burning the toast in the toaster, it is somehow indicative that the universe disapproves of your current situation. You are off track. Your free will is getting in the way of your destiny. Time to step back and take a long cool look at yourself, rev up the engines and blast yourself to a different, perhaps higher, realm of being. Normally, I say.

But lately there is a giddiness. A firm sense of being in the right place, regardless of the signals. At any other time in my life, running out of gas would seem like a foreboding metaphor, a gargantuan buzz kill that would grind acidy compounds in the gristmill pit of my stomach. I would quietly beat myself up with scolding cries of, “Why?, How?, Now look what you’ve done,” and so on… But strangely, that’s all gone. I somehow took enormous pleasure in this experience. The opposite of routine. The what is not supposed to happen. A tiny piece of chaos dipped in chocolate. Look at the font on that hand scribbled note to roving meter maids. Does that seem like the font of a man who is beating himself up?

Either I am finally experiencing some benefit from years of holding out, sticking to my guns, not becoming a battery to be drained of its power and tossed aside by the marketplace, understanding my jerry-rigged Gazpachot machine and its quirky processes, being with people I love and who inspire me… Either I am some form of happy, or just as likely amigos, I’m afraid my cheese has completely slid off of the old cracker. Either way, things are bound to get more interesting from here on out, so stick around.

(photo by Paul Gachot)