100 Words - Meditation Anxiety

My attempts at meditation are without discipline. I've got the sitting quietly part down pretty good and I'm very good at breathing. Then comes the clearing your head part. I start off good, letting thoughts enter my head and float away like clouds, passing through my consciousness barely acknowledged. Then a thought will catch my attention. An epiphany? Some great truth revealed? No, some trivial idea burlesqued into a story idea. The next twenty minutes spent pursuing the idea to usually unsatisfactory results. Then I realize what I've done, return to my breathing, but the moment for reflection has passed.

Book Review - Passion Play by Jerzy Kosinski

In this 1979 novel Jerzy projects himself into the role of errant knight polo player Fabian. Aging seducer of young girls, wandering the country in his camper/stable on wheels, looking for polo matches or a short teaching gig, with occasional diversions into sex clubs and pre-op transsexuals.

Fabian's main problem is that he's too good at the game for his own good. So good in fact that no one will play with him or against him. Kosinski repeats this theme in 1982's PINBALL, only in that case it's an aging composer who was too good for his own good. It might be argued that Kosinski considered his writing to be too good, or at least too far over the heads of most readers. I think most writers feel that at some point in their careers, though almost none of them can back that sentiment up with a masterpieces like THE PAINTED BIRD or BEING THERE.

That is of course the problem with most of Kosinski's books; They are only very good. Always people look back to his crowning glories and ask, "why isn't this new book that great?"

I enjoyed this book. It was at points more cynical and conversely more romantic than I expected. I like being surprised. One difficulty I imagine some readers would have is not knowing, or at least not believing, that a polo player would illicit such lust in the hearts of women. Well, then you've never known a young female equestrian. I lost more than one object of desire to the visiting polo scoundrel, so no suspension of disbelief was required on my part.

One of the things I did not like were some of the more tediously drawn out sex scenes. I think Kosinski was aware of this and worked on it because his next book PINBALL has several of the hottest sex scenes I've ever read.

100 words - Another Dance

Hello June. Teach me to waltz and I'll buy you a rose. Then we'll sit in the balcony, you smelling your new flower and me eating chocolate Pez from Winnie the Pooh's goiter. The dancers below will twirl and swirl and unfurl. You'll laugh at my silly alliterations. Then we'll sit quietly for a while, both dreading what will happen next. You, for the rejection you must give. Me, knowing of the impending rejection but driven by needs unrelenting. Sex always gets in the way, especially when there isn't any. I try to lose myself in distraction. You're crying again.

100 Words - Spit

I try to write. I'm hesitant, Afraid. That's the key word isn't it, afraid? Not of failure. Not of criticism. Fear of indifference. Sometimes I want to spit in people's faces. Sure they'll hate me for it, but they'll acknowledge me. They'll scream that my writing is foul and worthless and I'll smile because they are talking about my writing. I will stand on a pedestal of their hatred and and pity them. So easy they are to manipulate. The howling masses feeding my ego. Hating me. I am important. I matter. Hey, someone has to wear the black hat.

100 Words - Wounded

There is a wounded bike out there somewhere. It calls to me. I try not to listen. I have too many strays already. They clutter up the cottage in various states of assembly. Some need wheels. Some need gears. Others just need some love and attention. They wait. Wait for me to make them whole again so they can go off and be abused by some new kid somewhere. Muddy sneakers on pristine pedals. Peanut butter stains on the handlebars. The stuff of kid bike dreams. They must wait. A bent and broken bike calls me. Somewhere in the dark.