Imprudent thinking

Have you ever done something that you knew in there somewhere you really shouldn't do, but you just went ahead and did it anyway? And then you got nailed for it? Inside that pussycat up there there is a small voice saying, "I probably shouldn't do this, but what the heck, it's just a bird. How much trouble can I get into with a bird?"

And then the thought, "Big bird, mind you." Followed by, " Oh well..."

I do such things. I agree to take on tasks that I have no idea how to do. In there somewhere I know that I should just say no, just like the drug people tell me. Once I decided to back my car through a narrow space that I couldn't really see all that well. In there somewhere I knew it wasn't a good idea, and then I floored it and stripped the side mirrors off, clean as a whistle.

I am interested in the area that I referred to earlier as in there somewhere. What is that, exactly?

In my case I know where it is, more or less. It's in my stomach. I can feel it when I am acting imprudently. It feels like the memory of the echo of a pain... That's backwards... It feels like the foreshadowing... I don't what foreshadowing feels like...

In there, there are all these little guys like old fashioned bank clerks. They are wearing those funny visors, and their shirtsleeves are rolled up and held in place with elastic bands of some kind. They are smoking, they are nervous, there is sweat on their foreheads. They are not happy and they are trying to get my attention. Each of them is feeling faintly sick to his stomache, as if inside his stomache there were all these little guys like old fashioned bank clerks... On and on down through layers of hurty tummies all trying to warn one another that it's not a very good idea tell the boss that his wife dresses like a tramp even though that's important information that he ought to have.

The thing of it this: those sweaty little guys with the hurty tummies, by trying to help you, they also really really limit you. The best moment of my life came when they were screaming the loudest and I chose to ignore them.

I was in a lovely, peaceful, tranquil place and my heart was beating wildly. I had just realized that I was completely in love with the woman I was sitting with. She was married, and so was I (but not to her!) and I was in love head over heels for the first time in my life. Suddenly I knew what love felt like. She was married, I was too. Oh Jesus!

Inside me the bank clerks were raising merry hell. They were pounding on the walls, screaming at me, "Stop it you fool! Stop it! Don't! Don't! Do! It!" I could feel each of their little fists hammering against the inside of my belly. I must not say a word to her... If I do she will never speak to me again, she will hit me, she will hate me... I should just stay quiet for ever, suck it up... Don't say a word you fool...

I said a word. And then another.

Before I knew it I had told her everything, and then she told me everything back, and that was almost twenty years ago and we haven't ever stopped telling one another those things, back and forth, every day.

That's why I stripped the mirrors off my car, because when the little bank clerks start telling me what to do, I do the opposite.

The cat with the eagle up there? Maybe that could work out really well. Frankly, I don't see it myself, but it's his life he's living. There is a time to go out on a railing towards an eagle.