August 12: Strange Old Man, Normal People, Displays of Nudity

Santiago knows he's a strange old man . . .

Although it is unjust, he thought. But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures.

"I told the boy I was a strange old man," he said. "Now is when I must prove it."

The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it.

I think a lot of people would characterize me as strange.  My son certainly would.  I write poems about Bigfoot.  Play organ/keyboard at two Catholic churches, two Lutheran churches, and a Methodist church (occasionally).  Watch depressing films compulsively (River Phoenix marathon at my house, anyone?).  Teach writing, film, literature, and mythology.  Get excited about things like Nobel Prize announcements.  I. Am. Strange.

I wear that badge proudly.  Normal people bore me.  If you see me at a social gathering (which doesn't happen very often--I detest small talk), please don't try to engage me in conversation about the weather, Green Bay Packers, or the price of gasoline.  I will quickly extricate myself by feigning a stroke and disappear.

However, if you approach me and say, "I once saw Adrienne Rich picking out tomatoes at the grocery store," you will have my complete and undivided attention.  I may, in fact, ask you what kind of tomatoes she was looking at and if there was any other produce in her shopping cart.  Spinach.  Kale.  Kumquats.  That's kind of shit is interesting.

I don't think strangeness is a bad quality, unless it involves public displays of nudity during a Christmas Eve church service, and, even then, I may ask if said nudity involved a well-placed Christmas bow or wreath.  I'd rather be remembered as "the Bigfoot poet" than "that guy whose lawn was always really green."

So, if you are an oddball, embrace it.  Climb onto your roof and shout it to the moon.  (Do this especially on a night when your neighbor--the one who has a "Trump 2024" sign in his yard--is waxing his car.)  Give people something to talk about.

Life is too short to be boring.

Saint Marty's blessing for tonight:  sunrise on the roof of the library.