The Last Sonnet for
This Particular September
This year is the future. A past that,
as I’m listening to the baloney of
the week that ends with this day
and that ends this month, which,
despite the death of all of the inno
cent people, is more than a bit hil
arious. Hilariously political. Do we
remember our dear hardcore
pillow hawker? Well, he can’t
move money from one of his
accounts to another of his ac
counts because the FBI took
his cellphone while he was
driving through a Hardee’s.
Gosh, there’s so much more
to discuss, and you’d all be
ROFL, I could almost guar
antee it (you might actually
know this because you know
this). So, my question is that
if an American guy has been
given an honorary knighthood
should we call him Sir? I can
imagine maybe one adult per
son in the universe for whom
it might be a disservice to hu
manity to literally suggest any
hello or what the hell to this
particular mammal by starting
with the assertion of “Sir.” “Sir
Rudy?” Yuck! How am I trying
to end this (clearly not yet)? This
apocalyptic month, one in which I’ve
been so broke I’ve found it impossible
to concentrate on the one act, the only
real action item for which I should
be giving my all (the job of
getting a job), which, oh my
beautiful dears, if I were to
write about this one vast seg
ment of my life, that has taken
up so much of the last decade,
wherein I’ve only held ones that
were contractual – a thing I
blame on the economy for niching me
into these circa 2013 – and which I have
now been doing double duty to avoid, only
applying for jobs that are permanent,
or at least temp-to-perm (which, his
torically for me meant I was only to
work a couple or three days, by which
time, I’d be hired just so that I could
attend the firm’s full San Francisco office’s
summer retreat to Yosemite.). What a treat
to be outed in the introductory note that went
out to the rest of the staff (I’d barely men
tioned the partner with whom I’d reluctantly
moved here from Boston so that he could go to
graduate school; now he’s in Austin, and I very
rarely hear from him – same as I almost never
hear from anyone else from that time, or any time
during my over 22 years in San Francisco thus far.)
I’m complaining again. It’s not that I have not tried so
creatively to remedy that. In general. I mean what a waste,
I tend to think, before giving into the ephemerality (if not,
as I recently mentioned, the illusory nature) of so-called
friendship. I stay on subject sometimes interminably.
But what if things literally are about to change? And
dramatically? It certainly feels as if this might be the
case. But wow, do the dominoes have to fall just so!
This constant falling and flailing just for movement
in any direction; I’ve stood stubbornly immobile for
far too long now. But because I did try. I failed and
I failed and I failed and nobody handles failure well. A
failed friend is no friend at all. Who teaches this? A
friend in need is a friend in what? All the bullshit goes
out the window of a car I drove for 3 years with no air
conditioner or heater – these were the years I lived in
the snow belt. It was an Audi, a name that perks an
ear or two. And what am I back to by mentioning this?
Class. I attended so many of them, became known
as such an aficionado of information, a curious
enough human to do whatever it might take to
get to the why and the how and the how come
of things that the thought that, even growing
up inches above the poorest of the poor in
tiny white town Arkansas instilled within
me, what, a curiosity? The desperate need
to rise above? The good sense not to com
pete just for a good grade but to leave what
I thought at the time was a godforsaken town
instilled with enough knowledge that I might
beat the odds and rise a caste above. And I
did, did I not? And so what? What was the
big deal? Besides being okay enough to the
eyes of others for them to begin to believe that
I belonged in this new area of existence, just
enough so that I could believe it myself. It
was a lot of work, just that aspect of this trek,
this goal, which, truth be told, was almost every
aspect of me. And yet me. I could shrug it off
as if it were nothing when in fact, what was it?
I can’t be too sure now. Didn’t know until I then
suddenly didn’t have it. Just like that it was gone.
Although it’s not as if I haven’t kept this outward
gaze about me that I must hope shows me as some
thing akin to what I was but am not, what I wasn’t but
wanted to be, but what I’d now call, sure, even now,
I’d call it a sort of necessary illusion. And yet, I’m
not fooling many any more. And why the hell should
I? Buck the system, I say. When I’d be with someone
out and about with whom I was partnered, oh how I
got a kick out of presenting as a stereotype that I’d
then knock down. Just to show ’em. To not judge a
book by its cover. How silly it all was. And how funny
it always was to me to have people think one thing about
me only to realize (and, unfortunately, all too often,
never realize) how wrong that imaginary cover of who I
was, who we were, of who I am. Was not me. Not me.
Not me at all. Think again. Think hard. It was a way to
get attention, but what was that attention for, I’d wonder.
Did i just want attention? Nope. As it turned out, I got
a huge kick out of shocking people who thought things
were only one way; to see their look, the way their bodies
contorted, to hear the faster-than-normal questions coming
at me (if we were that ‘close’ – and now I remember how
tenuous that closeness was–and why that was why, of course).
This Particular September
This year is the future. A past that,
as I’m listening to the baloney of
the week that ends with this day
and that ends this month, which,
despite the death of all of the inno
cent people, is more than a bit hil
arious. Hilariously political. Do we
remember our dear hardcore
pillow hawker? Well, he can’t
move money from one of his
accounts to another of his ac
counts because the FBI took
his cellphone while he was
driving through a Hardee’s.
Gosh, there’s so much more
to discuss, and you’d all be
ROFL, I could almost guar
antee it (you might actually
know this because you know
this). So, my question is that
if an American guy has been
given an honorary knighthood
should we call him Sir? I can
imagine maybe one adult per
son in the universe for whom
it might be a disservice to hu
manity to literally suggest any
hello or what the hell to this
particular mammal by starting
with the assertion of “Sir.” “Sir
Rudy?” Yuck! How am I trying
to end this (clearly not yet)? This
apocalyptic month, one in which I’ve
been so broke I’ve found it impossible
to concentrate on the one act, the only
real action item for which I should
be giving my all (the job of
getting a job), which, oh my
beautiful dears, if I were to
write about this one vast seg
ment of my life, that has taken
up so much of the last decade,
wherein I’ve only held ones that
were contractual – a thing I
blame on the economy for niching me
into these circa 2013 – and which I have
now been doing double duty to avoid, only
applying for jobs that are permanent,
or at least temp-to-perm (which, his
torically for me meant I was only to
work a couple or three days, by which
time, I’d be hired just so that I could
attend the firm’s full San Francisco office’s
summer retreat to Yosemite.). What a treat
to be outed in the introductory note that went
out to the rest of the staff (I’d barely men
tioned the partner with whom I’d reluctantly
moved here from Boston so that he could go to
graduate school; now he’s in Austin, and I very
rarely hear from him – same as I almost never
hear from anyone else from that time, or any time
during my over 22 years in San Francisco thus far.)
I’m complaining again. It’s not that I have not tried so
creatively to remedy that. In general. I mean what a waste,
I tend to think, before giving into the ephemerality (if not,
as I recently mentioned, the illusory nature) of so-called
friendship. I stay on subject sometimes interminably.
But what if things literally are about to change? And
dramatically? It certainly feels as if this might be the
case. But wow, do the dominoes have to fall just so!
This constant falling and flailing just for movement
in any direction; I’ve stood stubbornly immobile for
far too long now. But because I did try. I failed and
I failed and I failed and nobody handles failure well. A
failed friend is no friend at all. Who teaches this? A
friend in need is a friend in what? All the bullshit goes
out the window of a car I drove for 3 years with no air
conditioner or heater – these were the years I lived in
the snow belt. It was an Audi, a name that perks an
ear or two. And what am I back to by mentioning this?
Class. I attended so many of them, became known
as such an aficionado of information, a curious
enough human to do whatever it might take to
get to the why and the how and the how come
of things that the thought that, even growing
up inches above the poorest of the poor in
tiny white town Arkansas instilled within
me, what, a curiosity? The desperate need
to rise above? The good sense not to com
pete just for a good grade but to leave what
I thought at the time was a godforsaken town
instilled with enough knowledge that I might
beat the odds and rise a caste above. And I
did, did I not? And so what? What was the
big deal? Besides being okay enough to the
eyes of others for them to begin to believe that
I belonged in this new area of existence, just
enough so that I could believe it myself. It
was a lot of work, just that aspect of this trek,
this goal, which, truth be told, was almost every
aspect of me. And yet me. I could shrug it off
as if it were nothing when in fact, what was it?
I can’t be too sure now. Didn’t know until I then
suddenly didn’t have it. Just like that it was gone.
Although it’s not as if I haven’t kept this outward
gaze about me that I must hope shows me as some
thing akin to what I was but am not, what I wasn’t but
wanted to be, but what I’d now call, sure, even now,
I’d call it a sort of necessary illusion. And yet, I’m
not fooling many any more. And why the hell should
I? Buck the system, I say. When I’d be with someone
out and about with whom I was partnered, oh how I
got a kick out of presenting as a stereotype that I’d
then knock down. Just to show ’em. To not judge a
book by its cover. How silly it all was. And how funny
it always was to me to have people think one thing about
me only to realize (and, unfortunately, all too often,
never realize) how wrong that imaginary cover of who I
was, who we were, of who I am. Was not me. Not me.
Not me at all. Think again. Think hard. It was a way to
get attention, but what was that attention for, I’d wonder.
Did i just want attention? Nope. As it turned out, I got
a huge kick out of shocking people who thought things
were only one way; to see their look, the way their bodies
contorted, to hear the faster-than-normal questions coming
at me (if we were that ‘close’ – and now I remember how
tenuous that closeness was–and why that was why, of course).
Our expectations are so easy, based on such little information.
Isn’t that something? The world, its people, sure, many
are as simple as they come, but even the simplicity has no
easiness to it. It’s complicated. I’m complicated. What
am I saying here? Please, I beseech you, if you disagree
with me, be vocal about it. Ask me what I mean. I
mean, I wish. I truly wish. But there’s that ephemerality.
There are these endless illusory dioramas. Spin a full 360.
Do you think you get it? And if you don’t, do you want to?
I do. I really do. No matter what I learn. It’s my everything.
Well, my almost everything; my true all has more to do with
when I do get something. Or believe I get it, having studied him
and his ways for what seems like forever. I’ll get it mostly right.
And when I do. . . .
Isn’t that something? The world, its people, sure, many
are as simple as they come, but even the simplicity has no
easiness to it. It’s complicated. I’m complicated. What
am I saying here? Please, I beseech you, if you disagree
with me, be vocal about it. Ask me what I mean. I
mean, I wish. I truly wish. But there’s that ephemerality.
There are these endless illusory dioramas. Spin a full 360.
Do you think you get it? And if you don’t, do you want to?
I do. I really do. No matter what I learn. It’s my everything.
Well, my almost everything; my true all has more to do with
when I do get something. Or believe I get it, having studied him
and his ways for what seems like forever. I’ll get it mostly right.
And when I do. . . .
