3/9/2004
UNDER SUBURBAN SKIES
(Dedicated to Seldom Sober, and to the anticipated one.)
Towering garish plastic
breaks the silence
of a newsprint-colored
suburban sky,
a defiant middle finger raised
in the temple
of property values.
“Push me higher, daddy!” and he does
sharing a scarce fragment
of a life surrendered,
watching the small one
fly in an arc
both predictable
and fun.
ESPN is waiting.
“Honey-do”s are waiting.
The mortgage payment is waiting.
Tom Clancy is waiting.
The tips of small sneakers
peek over the top bar
of the “play system”
that was once just a swingset.
His past was filled
with long nights of philosophizing
dancing
drinking
pretending to be weirder than he was
but now there is only this.
Swift as a late fall weekend flies
so goes his youth
and the memory of what he once was:
ambitious
fierce
bohemian
acquisitive
independent
and the last of these is furthest gone.
As small feet clatter up the slide
the wrong way
he knows that
whatever else
sustained his weary soul
on all those lost weekends
now
he needs this.
Now
this is what puts him right with the world
and he breathes a quiet prayer
of thanks
that he no longer
has to pretend to enjoy this.
This post is filed under: Best of TBP & Writings
MICRO-MICROECONOMICS
So I took a day off today, after working the last 18 days in a row. I drove down to the People’s Republic of Madison and sold off some books at a used-book store. I took in four bags of books and walked out with one bag of books and a very small amount of cash.
Now I can’t decide if I got a good deal or not. I can see both sides of this.
On the “good deal” side of things, I essentially traded four bags full of books I don’t read anymore for one bag full of books I’ll at least read once. (I’ve gotten more careful about my book-buying over the years; if I don’t think I’ll read a book more than once, I usually won’t buy it.) I gained shelf space, I reduced clutter, and I had enough extra cash after the transaction to buy a cup of coffee for the drive home.
On the “bad deal” side of the ledger, I traded a lot of my property for a little of somebody else’s. The books I traded in were worth a lot more (at original prices) than the books I bought, if only because the difference in number was so great.
So what say you, readers–did I make a good deal, or no?