A reader asked me today
January 03, 2004
A reader asked me today whether my last posting was based on something that actually happened. Its a legitimate question that brought me closer to understanding what made this whole journal experience interesting. I had been operating under the assumption that people could tell when my wheels left the road and I started on a tear through the sweet cornfield of embellishment and pure fiction. Yesterday’s story was pure reality. To me these ramblings are pretty literal accounts of events in my day that somehow kick my brain over the high fence and into the weird neighbour’s yard. I might paraphrase something but I try to stay close to what I remember happening. Sometimes its pure fiction. I should have know that the distinction wouldn’t be obvious. The cliché holds true about truth being stranger.
The weird neighbour’s yard is where I always love to hang out. If any of my neighbours are reading this I must say now that this is merely metaphor and I haven’t actually earmarked any of you as weirdoes. That is the last time I will draw a line around truth or fiction. It will et boring if I do that. Everyone is weird. Weird is good. Christ almighty. Here I am at an Odds album title. I loved that title. It came from the idea that we loved all things that were “Good weird”. Someone would say, “that was weird”. The next person would ask, “good weird or bad weird?”. “Good weird” was always the highest compliment. Originality and adventure lie in the good weird world. This is where I like to go when I write. Weird just means there is something you can’t quite understand and something you wouldn’t have expected in an ordered universe. The wrong shoes. An oblique statement. An ugly garden ornament. A Soldier of Fortune magazine in the guidance counselour’s waiting room. No matter how routine a day seems there is always something out of place. Kick at that thing and you might find the entrance to the underground river of actual meaning. You might not understand the meaning but you can feel it do something to you. Maybe tapping into the foreign subtitles below your day can maintain a sense of magic and add another hour or two to the back end of your life. I dunno. I just dunno.