Tuesday, February 24, 2015

I bought jackets tonight. Odd phrasing, to be sure, but when you’re opposed to the very idea of jackets, how the tyranny of thread oppresses mobility, then procuring even a single coat is a seismic shift. So, I bought two. You’d think this change of heart was driven by the frigid weather yesterday, when I slid across the parking lot on foot to Firehouse Subs for lunch, in a sequence of words no man should ever suffer to form.

I’ve stubbornly braved the elements before without outerwear, though, so why change now? I think there’s something special about the cold in Dallas. Practically speaking, the entire city grinds to a halt, with empty schools and sepulchral storefronts, and it’s no wonder people sequester themselves. With the exception of freeways, everything–everything, from streets to sidewalks to parking lots–is free of salt. It’s like a healthy snack nut’s dream, really, with 100% less sodium–and 200% more peril in every step, and it isn’t until much later in the day when sunlight and some begrudging handfuls of salt make safe the paths of man.

But the brief spell of cold also brings with it a kind of reboot, and that’s how my jacket binge materialized, frankly. I have this space in my mind that’s a huge, white expanse, not unlike the loading program in The Matrix. Here, in this space, I write turns of phrase, agonize over the angles for a given situation, and project conversations to different ends. Here, I pictured myself in a specific coat yesterday, and then set about finding this coat today, perusing different online stores until I found JPGs that matched what I saw in my mind.

Out of the ice, too, came a harebrained idea from the Professor to write and then attempt to sell a screenplay, if only for the experience itself. I’ll be content if we even make it to the selling part, but we shall see. I’ve also started reading in earnest again, something that hasn’t happened in the better half of a decade, and it’s wholly because of her. Don’t want to jinx it, but what does it mean if you’re the only two fools in the botanical gardens on a cold Sunday afternoon, single ratty umbrella poised defiantly at the freezing rain, and you’re still happy? It means you just have to try that much harder to not have expectations.