Show Some Love

To false ceilings at restaurants that mask the air ducts and vents of the real ceiling.
Decorations and lighting at Tex Mex and Mexican restaurants, waitresses who don't speak English well, and do so in the softest of voices so as not to disturb the rowdy Americans. The seasoning on those potato wedges. The real Neapolitan Pizza at Punch that makes me a hypocrite when I say I don't like food and makes me sick within a day, but I eat it anyway. Books and books and books that remind me of my passion for learning and teaching. Jokes on philosophy, comic books, atlases and travel guides, languages and poetry, politics and advice, self help books and spiritual guides to life. "Dirt" and "Piper" and "Farmhouse" and "Sleep" songs that stand out on an already remarkable CD of beautiful songs, because they are simple and because they have heart. Spoken word poets who speak with conviction, speak with jokes and tears, speak like they love and care for more than you or I and certainly more than themselves, but for a humanity facing extinction, facing invisibility to their plight. Tires and breaks that catch when it seems like they should continue to slide. Fortunes (removed from tasty cookies) that brighten already bright days, offering hope with sincerity. Tattoos that offer glimmers into the torment and confusion of a mind that seems straightened by experience and time, that speaks with dignity in one hand and flirtation in the other. Tequila and Cerveza that loosens lips so that smiles with suburban gleaming teeth pull through, from strained grad school tightened faces. To a table rich with intelligence, luxury and camaraderie promising to learn humility with time. To angels who seem brighter every time I see her (both of them), who live and love the way it ought to be.
To shared past - and bright future masqueraded in decaying times.