It always comes down to perception. Through which eyes do we see? I can’t help but feel that I sit on a cusp of something, not that I can articulate it, yet. Perhaps it is the first tastes of freedom. Maybe I’ll let myself out to play again. Still I must bring all of me inside. I must know the perception. I hope to find the minutia again.

I used to be able to see where the details disconnected from reality, now see only my own disconnect. I’m older and my vision has narrowed. Things get in the way; the job, the commute, the big little things. I haven’t bought into the big thing, politics, but it provides the illusion of control. Without the illusion I have to admit my own powerlessness. It is a rare man (and I’m not sure I am such a man,) who can accept that he is powerless to effect change at any level.

I used to be able to influence through words. Somehow my words had a following. Maybe I couldn’t change anything, but at least I was on the marketplace of ideas. Interestingly enough that is hubris. I should only have a place on the marketplace when I can articulate an idea that can stand on its own. An Idea of resonant force.

Everything I’ve ever written that’s been worth reading has been an internal mirror. It’s always been deeply personal and usually liberally dusted with pain. The motif of blood and tears has thus far been the trademark by which I define the fiction.

Oddly enough my fiction isn’t the only thing that gets read. My secular ten dollar bill and my interpretation of the Heaven’s Gate cult still seem to draw a crowd.

As it stands here and now in the DC area we have a mad sniper. I find it odd that he hasn’t gathered a more fanciful name. I guess the DC sniper is no different than the the Boston Strangler. But sniper and strangler are words of different character. Sniper, for good or ill, is a profession that people train for and get jobs doing. No only at our most violent do we hire stranglers in the belief we are doing good. I think that is the reason that DC sniper lacks the sinister undertone of a serial killer name, we employ so many DC snipers. They are sought by the metro police, the secret service, FBI, CIA, and probably even the park police. With such impressive company how can he be considered as out of the ordinary? I suppose someone will give him a proper serial killer name due time.

People have become skittish and irrational. There are some nine million of us in the area. So far nine people have died. That is your classic one in a million shot. Yet people carry on as if it were the black plague that killed 1/3rd of Europe. How many people were killed in car accidents in the last week?