No excuses, my mind lets loose as I try to explore the caves in the recesses of it.  The one who no more behaves feels the stresses in a fit.  Blowing past the idea that anything is impossible.  Staring out the window evening before last, she spots a raccoon approximately twenty feet away on a broken off limb at eye level in a tree.  She draws it to my attention.  I begin to wonder if I can open the windows, and pelt it with a rock from my collection.  We have a stare off.  I open the window.  She is scared and thinks the raccoon is going to get us.  He assures her that it has no way of getting onto the house from where it is, and that it couldn’t get in the window anyway.  She seems panicked.  He gives up the plan to chuck a rock at the raccoon.  He appears bummed.  She feels bummed that he feels bummed.  She says “go ahead” but then quickly says “close the window more” because she is still scared.  He assures her again that the raccoon is atleast twenty feet away from his visual approximation.  And he tells her that the window shouldn’t be closed at all because he doesn’t want to break the window with his throw.  She acquiesses.  He goes through his rock collection and decides upon something that isn’t even technically a rock.  A broken worn section of durable tile is selected.  Approximately half an inch thick, maybe three quarters.  He will throw it with the same hold as if he were going to skip a rock in a wide river.  He assures the raccoon verbally that he is going to get him or her.  The raccoon does not move from his post.  He squares himself at the window.  He places one foot (with shoe attached) upon the lime green couch which was left by the previous tennant.  She does not approve later, but he is focused on making the one throw count and doesn’t think about his foot.  His footing is sure.  That is his focus.  One last stare, and then he lets it fly.  Whammo!  Right in the head.  Thinking he would knock him out of the tree with the surprise factor and the velocity behind it, he is amazed to see the raccoons ability to be whipped around to the bottom of the limb and still be able to hang on.  Perhaps the raccoon will be back.  Perhaps it won’t.  The throw made it.  For an instant he was an NFL quarterback in the Super Bowl.  For an instant.  Back to life.  Back to reality.  Back to the Pay Pal account that we purchase random items through.  When I lay in Shangri-La, dreaming of playing Carcassonne on a nice wooden table, I exhale loudly to hear my own voice, and feel my own breath.  I need reminders that I am actually alive sometimes.  Sometimes I run short distances for no reason other than a brief burst of energy and perhaps some mild laughter from the crowd.  Sometimes I do things just to make myself laugh.  Sometimes I cry until I laugh.  Sometimes I laugh until I cry.  Sometimes I think the world would be a better place if I had never been born.  Sometimes I think I should have gone into the FBI.  Sometimes I want to be a travelling writer for National Geographic.  Sometimes I wish that poetry didn’t interest me so much.  Sometimes I wish I would die saving someone elses’ life.  Sometimes I try to grow organic vegetables in small pots on our rooftop deck balcony.  Sometimes I remember firing my rifle into the river in Montana.  Sometimes I think about moving to Bolivia.  Sometimes I get so angry that I can feel my whole body shaking.  Sometimes I just want to die.  Sometimes I feel young.  Sometimes I feel like an old soul.  Sometimes I resent politics, big business, the entire body of armed forces, and most of the state of Texas (not Austin).  Always there is a love for exploration of the landscape and mindscape.  Always there is the idea of one life imprinting upon another.  Mostly there is a desire to love and to be loved.  Evidently, all you need is love.  Da da, dada da.  I will keep sending smoke signals into the leaves of the trees of autumn soon to be falling for Bareilles again and her Winter Song.  What wonderful moments we can have when we stop wanting to die, and start wanting to live.  Where am I right now?  I’m trying to figure it out as I go along.