A Panoply of Randomness
Reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac is a fever dream. I never want to eat a muffuletta. I used to love wearing a suit and tie to work, and yesterday I wore shorts and a t-shirt. The hourglass dribbles sand, and we crane our necks to look at our phones in bed. The last place I want to be is where she is.
A panoply of randomness is like a circus. You don’t have to join the circus to ride the ferris wheel. A stick in mud is way more interesting to children, and decidedly unboring. Chex Mix is a top ten driving snack. I once peed in a large Burger King cup while I was driving and had to navigate not really being done at the same time I was trying to put it in the cup holder so I could add the lid. The smell was worse than I thought.
Have you ever gotten mad at the speed of the Internet? We are such babies. I only like apples if they are pre-cut. I miss taking my kids to the Kidrobot store in SoHo. I miss my kids being kids. Time fluffs the butterfly.
I once used a Chicago Cubs team card as toilet paper, mildly. I was such a collector that I did not throw out the card. I can’t explain this. I was an odd bird. Practice does not make perfect if your head isn’t in it. I saw a modern wood-paneled house last week, and it sparked something in me. When I started my own law practice, I had Mountain Dew and a Fast Break as a snack during the day. A Big Gulp size. Things were different.
Snap the button. Bake a cake. Burn incense. Crawl to the back of the closet and stay there a while.
Within an hour, I can feel overwhelmed, satisfied, thankful, and scared. Life is a tragic and attractive wildebeest. Paper bills are a silent assassin. Our mailboxes are the original spam holders. If there was one question I needed to know the answer to, it would be: “Does my mail person not close the top of my mailbox to fuck with me, or are they just that detached?”
I once worked at a day camp with Julianne Moore’s husband. He was my best friend. Life is a corn maze. Tetherball is an absolute killer on your wrists. Kids can handle a lot. I used to record myself singing in my room in California to see if I was any good. I was not. I kept doing it anyway. So many times in our lives, we do things that we know are shit. A learning curve is shaped differently than we think.
Hamburger Hamlet had a really good burger. Have you ever had a friend who you’ve watched slowly break into pieces over social media? It’s tragic. It’s mostly borne of loneliness, not psychosis. One of my best friends growing up became homeless for years. I used to send him Starbucks cards so he could eat. I haven’t heard from him in years now. I think he might be dead. I really wonder what his life was like. I feel fortunate and sad.
If it were acceptable with my nutritionist, I would have one small package of Jelly Bellys a day. Getting the coffee one ruins my day, but that’s part of the fun of the assorted package. That’s basically life in a nutshell. Walk the tightrope.
Late at night, dreams intersect. A caterpillar inches up a leaf. A dew drop forms on your front lawn. We are all one second from failure.
© Jonathan Greene, July 22, 2026
