A Little Encouragement

I was inexplicably happy yesterday.  Don't know why, really, but I suspect it was the residue from going out the night before, just being somewhere unexpected.  Breakfast at the diner seemed a celebration, and, unusual for me, surrounded by rednecks and hipsters, I received texts and phone calls as if I were some college socialite.  Nothing much happened that day.  I worked in the studio cleaning up the accumulated mess from an enormous number of shoots, chatting with the fellow working on big encaustic pieces out the back door.  The anime geeks were emptying a box truck filled with equipment they had taken to Geekfest, and I had chuckles with them as well.  More emails and texts and an invitation out that night.  Boy not girl.  My luck.  Still, I found myself in a small pub I've not been to for years listening to a fellow with a guitar and a gal with a fiddle playing most fantastically.  A drunken girl bumped into me on the way somewhere, and it felt purposeful.  On her way back she stopped to apologize.  "I think you are just the neighborhood bully, " I said.  She told me no, that her tits were just too big, but that they were pretty, and then she showed me.  You know that I see a lot of breasts, but her offering made me happy, and I'm sure it inspired me as I went on to run the pool table and win the game having not played in many, many years.  When things go right, the tumblers all fall into place.  More beer and more pool as the couple onstage were joined by other musicians--an upright bass, a steel guitar, a drum set--the night was kicking.

I got home too late and stood in the cool night air with mon chat at my feet.  The only sounds came from things that stir in the night and the kids from Country Club College making their rounds.  Hungry, I grabbed the pistachios from the kitchen and thought awhile as I broke open the shells with my thumbnails.    I'd peed before I left the bar which was disappointing me as I stood in the kitchen's half light.  There is nothing like peeing outside in the late night before turning in.  But it had been a good day, nonetheless, and I was happy.  I dared not think ahead.

Sometimes, all it takes is a little encouragement.