My understanding

Take everything in this world that I understand and put it in a pile.

Then take everything in this world that I don’t understand and put it in a different pile, all its own.

In the first pile – the one with the things I understand – you’ve got about three things:

• The lyrics to Aesop Rock’s 2012 LP, Skelethon, certainly;
• The basic prayer and fasting rules for Islam, I think; and
• My brother’s wry sense of humor. 

The other pile – the one with the things I don’t understand – now, that one is taller. Dramatically so. Even prohibitively so, perhaps. Nearly everything is in there. It is a mountain. Teetering.

This Saturday, there is to be a protest. That has been decided. The protest is of a library. The library contains books on Islam.

They call themselves Heart of Texas – the protesters, I mean – and they are a group that fights for Texas secession from America. This is their whole mission and purpose, in fact.

They want to leave America.

I don’t want to leave America, but I went to their facebook page and the people there told me I should:

What does it mean when people who want to leave America tell me that I should leave America?

Is it an insult or a statement of camaraderie?

You can add this to the pile of things that I don’t understand. 

Curbside

There are tadpoles in the street.

We go and get them. Some of them, we go and get. Not all of them, for there are many thousands of tadpoles or maybe more. I don’t know. I cannot be expected to count all of the tadpoles.

It seems a strange place for tadpoles to be, doesn’t it? Yet they are there every year. First, the rains come and then when they go, they leave small puddles behind, right up against the curb.

This is where the tadpoles are.

How we got here, vol. 2

By now, some of you perhaps have recognized “How we got here, vol. 1” as a history. A history of sorts, at any rate. A history lesson at best, which is not the same as to say that I know more history than the next person. I do not.

Depending on who the next person is, I do not.

I say only that it is a history lesson and that I am the one writing it, for good or ill.

When we last saw Steve and Bill, you’ll remember, they were back in their small town staring at the desert, having made a real balls of it.

How we got here, vol. 1

This could be how it happened. This is my understanding of how it happened:

Once upon a time, there was a small-time mayor named Muhammad ibn Saud.

Muhammad ibn Saud.

Now, for all my non-Middle Eastern readers, do not let the exotic name intimidate you. No. In fact, let’s just call him “Steve.”

Steve wasn’t really much of a leader. He didn’t have much power, but he wanted it. He sat around like small-timers do and schemed of ways to get more power. Much more.

A near miss

To you, that fortunate jogger who narrowly avoided getting smashed by my automobile yesterday:

You are fortunate.

You have no idea how fortunate you are.

Probably you don’t even know how close to death you came. Or, if not coming to death per se, then to serious injury. Serious enough that any health benefits of your jogging regimen would pale in comparison.