My Possible Pasts

This is a story about a sock.

Or rather, it is not about A sock so much as THE sock. The sock at the beginning of the whole Universe, yeah, way, way back at the start. The point to which every line can be traced back, if you only had the patience to trace back every line. Why, even the things that look  like they came before it – the oceans and the canyons and the fossilized reptiles, the comets and the planets, old light and ageless black holes – those things were just thrown backwards in time from the story of the sock, instead of forward, like you and I were.

This is the way it all appears from my perspective, anyway, after years of thought and of measurement and research.

For you, maybe it is different.

I hope that I am not overselling this particular piece of men’s footwear.

Something's End, Part 2

If you read Part 2 without reading Part 1 first, well, that is just like cutting in line, now isn’t it? We take cutting in line very seriously around here. Do not test us on this. Go read Part 1. Go! We will still be here when you get back.

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Back when 3400 Montrose was mine, I usually slept on the fourth floor of the building, right there at the northeast corner that overlooked the Kroger store next door.

The room I slept in, it was completely sealed off, with no doors to the hallway or to any other suite. I had to climb down through the ceiling from a utility closet on the fifth floor to reach it.

It stank. Whenever I slept there, I stank, too.

But it was mine and I had somewhere to sleep and I had to sleep somewhere.

I still have the master keys to the whole building. Right here. I keep them with me even after all of these years, just in case. I figure if ever everything else in my life falls through, I still have the keys to the bathrooms for 3400 Montrose, you know? I mean, you never know…

Something's End, Part 1

I have been giving a lot of thought to endings lately.

I believe I have been giving a lot of thought to endings lately because for me, a lot of things have been ending lately.

Relationships done. School finished. My lease ended. “Lesbians in My Soup”  ending…

So much around here has been going, going, gone.

Then this morning, which was Sunday morning, I was out on Montrose Boulevard, dumpster diving like I do every Sunday morning. I had just come up for air with a box fan in my left hand and a brown corduroy Stafford suit jacket in my right. I admit that I was really pleased with myself because, I mean, who wouldn’t be? A brown corduroy Stafford suit jacket goes with almost anything and it can be casual or  formal.

And that was when I saw it. Across the street.

I saw that old office building at 3400 Montrose.