reporter, blogger, songwriter, cat toy.

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    Willful exercise cut me off, jumped me into old places and new timelines, and jumpcut me into roles I’m unsure I recognize: first, the out-of-towner hearing the radio station spinning the same format decades later; next, the prodigal son eating fatted calf and seaweed salad, neither surf nor turf.

    A centered shot of people mover sidewalks carrying travelers with rolling suitcases along either side of a traveler walking hers between two floor-reflected rows of overhead ceiling lights on the way to an airport terminal.

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    Maybe I mistook kindness for control, with the choices that followed compounding over time like interest. Maybe I spent too long in the gap between what I thought I heard and what I believed it might mean. There’s no way to unring the bell: doesn’t science say it is ringing somewhere for all time?

    A view across the dark waters of a river toward distant lights on a horizon from the edge of a gray wooden pier lot with small blue lights shortly after sunset on a high gray cloudy day.

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    Running shotgun in a borrowed SUV through a hollowed out hometown, we ran errands, marveled at gloomy skies and tried to take our minds off early starts with road perspectives, ancient and all-too-modern neighborhood changes, parkways blocked off by police and hot French fries while racing sunset.

    Beyond the hood of a dark colored SUV, crosswalks set boundaries on an intersection in a capital city.

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    Nothing rides rails like trains of thought, neither wish nor may, neither would nor ought. From a station gate, a stairstep rise, a platform bench under watchful eyes, there are lights that stand, sound to enthrall riders answering distant calls to pull onward out of view of the likes of me and you.

    A subway train gliding into a metro station platform.

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    So planes are still planes: you buy a ticket, you board, they go up, you freak out over turbulence, you sip V8 or juice, they come down, and you’re thousands of miles from where you started out in a different time zone. But that bit’s just space, and doesn’t even account for That Other Time Stuff.

    Green LED lights shine up in a curved pattern next to a yellow painted blacked bordered line on an airport runway under flat gray morning skies.

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    I’ve no local yet to replace my old spot, which closed in September. I did find myself at World Grounds this morning with an hour free. There was coffee, à la carte menu items, weeklies on tables: if not for the running industrial floor fan in the open doorway, it could’ve been 2019, or even 1995.

    A wooden tabletop with a leaf pattern or motif and a white paper bag on it containing a cardboard tray with sliced grilled sausages and turkey bacon, near a large white cardboard sleeved paper cup with coffee.

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    In the bookstore, already wall to wall Christmas carols out of overhead speakers. At the pet store, more carols rain down in advance of an actual pet Santa appearance. At the chaat house, blessed respite. Then to the grocery store, with tiny trees for sale outside and carols with autotune blaring.

    A glowing red fake log on a constructed glassed in fake brick hearth as part of a firewood sale display at a grocery store, with sprigs of evergreen branches laying on a plain white painted sill outside.

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    Up goes the music, down comes the noise. If I’m still for a moment, I realize I’m not working. I didn’t have to over the last two holidays. Will I figure out how to be efficient, useful, willing to gloss over annoying stressful moments? Hell, can that happen here? I’ll get some reading in and see.

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    Sometimes there’s symmetry, but only if perception permits it. Toggle a domain’s PHP upgrade settings, then notice it’s about to expire so you renew it. Pick up a notepad, then realize it’s opposite the calendar from the last one started. Squint into the mirror while shaving and, well, say no more.

    A Portage brand reporter's notebook with a blue on white glossy cover sits on a thick wooden block table surface next to a similar table held up by metal legs on top of a larger wooden beam floor.

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    There was some Ceiling and Walls discourse early on. The day and its demands intruded soon enough, from early rain to an ocean of numbers into an empty hundred years of nothingness, with a looming gauntlet of words ahead. Tomorrow marks a half year, barely two hundredths of that. But first, sleep.

    Light colored horizontal blinds hanging down over a window while dark colored curtains cover another almost entirely against light gray walls and a ceiling, with a warm, low light source near floorboards softly glowing.

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