The Place I Am Bound pt. 1

Thank God it didn't end up like this...

Time: 3:42 a.m., Thursday, 7-27
Place: Intersection of Matlock and I-20
Scene: Green light (mine)- Red light (his). Turning left (me) - Going straight (him)
Background Music:Bob Bennett - The Place I Am Bound...

Background Music plays: "As my father before me and so now I, pause to reflect on the day I will die. As they lay me down in the cold of the ground. Remember I am closer to the place I am bound. A few final words will be spoken I trust. Be as kind as you can. Lie if you must. And remember me when I was at my best... instead of used up lying with these flowers on my chest."

Freeze Frame: I start to turn left at the green arrow and notice a new car has entered the scene: moving at about 60 miles an hour on a 40 mile an hour street. He hasn't noticed his red light or me moving into the intersection. Not enough time to reverse...

Background Music: "Sometimes death is like a theif in the night. It stills every treasure that is hidden in plain sight. But I do not flatter my own memory. I will miss you every bit as much as you'll be missing me. I wish I could be there to brighten the mood with friends and family and mountains of food. Stories and memories and tales all around... but it is late and I must travel the the place I am bound.

Time moves into slow motion: I don't know if he ever saw me at first. I was sure that he was going to hit me. And suddenly I had a lot of thoughts run through my head. I didn't know you could think that much in so little time. What should I do? Turn? Accelerate? What? If I die, will Dawn know where to find the life insurance papers? I want to play that video game with Joshua. If this doesn't kill me, I hope I'm conscious enough to remember to grab my laptop and my phone...Did I just think that?

Background Music: "And I hope that the Spirit of the Lord will not mind if you toast me with spirits of the Irish kind. Raise your glass as the blessing is said. You'll be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."

Tires squealing: He sees me! And swerves at the last second; heading into oncoming traffic and then crossing back into oncoming traffic again. I spin out in the opposite direction and notice how many cars are out this time of morning... three... at least three in danger, there are others, but they are onlookers.

I caught the curb and spun to a stop. The other innocent car banked left to avoid the nutcase in the black sports car. And the black sports car? It did a couple of 360s, gave me an obscene hand gesture (I think. It was dark you know.) and two wheeled over the curb. Then he slammed the gas and disappeared...

And sudddenly, I felt the need to pause and reflect...

Fading Music: "As my father before me and so now I, pause to reflect on the day I will die. As they lay me down in the cold of the ground. Remember I am closer to the place I am bound."

The Art of Giggling

I decided to google "giggle". Why? Because I have been doing a bunch of it lately. No, not googling, giggling. Stay with me here.

So as I glided my google to "giggle" I was greeted with generalities geared towards guys and girls with no great gumption for getting to the nitty gritty.

Ok, all alliteration aside (oops...), I found several online dictionaries and they all basically said the same thing.

giggle: to laugh with repeated short catches of the breath...

It can be a noun or a verb. And it is probably of imitative origin...

What does that mean? It means that thousands of years ago or something, someone somewhere at sometime in the past started to laugh and then, thought that maybe they shouldn't. But they couldn't help it as little high pitched noises and long streams of air began escaping from between their lips. They tried to stop the short spurts and snorts by covering their mouth but it only led to spasmodic shaking. Some liquid probably spewed from their nose or something. They tried with all their might to stop the rising laughter that was building up pressure like a steam boiler running in the red... which brought them dangerously close to releasing pressure and sounds from other places.... which would cause them to laugh more.

And in the middle of it all, some one said, "Be still and stop making that 'giggling' noise". And the rest is history.

I have played with the thought that "giggle" may be a combination of the word gas and jiggle. Because when I see people really trying to restrain a laugh, there are hints of an explosion building. Contents under pressure.

But that's the art of giggling. Contents under pressure if opened too fast, can explode, which would be embarrassing and painful. (Shake that soda can!) To safely extract the contents, you need a release valve. That's where giggling comes in. Restrained laughter. Not all at once, but a slight hissing sound as pressure escapes from under your cap. Come to think of it, maybe that's why I've been giggling a lot lately. Letting it out a little at a time. Slowly releasing the pressures of life. I haven't had a lot of time to laugh lately. And I haven't had a lot reasons to do so either. But in the middle of it all, someone sends me a joke or thought, and I take a moment to read it... And I hear the hiss as a little bit of the daily pressure evaporates into the atmosphere.

So take a moment to day and giggle. Laughter does good like a medicine. So take two giggles and call me in the morning.