April 12, 2007

• Lurk
  

  When I looked up the word there was a certain, unusual sense of satisfaction accompanied by some pleasant sensations. Who knew? For once the damned dictionary and I agreed. Of course, this is no fault of the writers of the dictionary. It was one of those happy accidents happens to everyone at least once in his life. Oh well, there go the pleasant sensations. Smiling is a pleasant sensation. It's convenient because I smile a lot. It may be because I'm getting happier in my old age or perhaps I'm just addled. Whichever the case may be matters little to me. It's the happiness I enjoy and the smiling seems to accompany it. My happiness is always lurking just below the surface. It's like, forgive me Leonardo, my mouth has a kind of Mona Lisa quality. A hair trigger smile waiting to go off for no particular reason. Yes, I'm being stalked by happiness. Yesterday I answered the phone and was so happy to hear the person's voice I gushed. How uncool of me. I simply gushed like a silly child. It was so gushy he was silent for a moment before remarking on my gush. He said I was usually more business like. Oops, there goes the smile again.

  This morning I absent mindedly followed my naked wife around the bathroom. It was one of those strange conversations about nothing of any importance. A neutral conversation about how long we've lived in this house, how a twenty-five year roof seemed forever just fifteen years ago and now its life is more than half over. How we'll be married twenty-five years next month. She remembered, with no small amount of laughter, the guy I knew who opined, upon hearing of the wedding, our marriage wouldn't last three months. Apparently I knew him better than he knew me. He too got married shortly thereafter and, you guessed it, his marriage, about which I had no opinion, lasted about three months. I'd thought about him recently and forgot to look up his name on the internet to see if I could find him. I just looked. Nothing. This diminishes my happiness not at all. I have no old friends. There are people in my present and people in my past. But I didn't mean to tell you all this. What I meant to say is boring, well, more boring than all this. Ha! I'm smiling again.

  Yesterday I got an email request from a young man. It was serendipitous. So much of life is that way for me. The point is he, like so many others, is a lurker. Lurk -  [ intrans. ] read communications on an electronic network without making one's presence known. Alas, due to his request he has made his presence known. I lived in the town in which he currently resides before he was born. I'm smiling. Long before he was born. He asked a couple of favors of me. I'm going to do them because I am able. Because he asked. Because life is happier when you can do favors for strangers or familiars with no regard to which they be. I wonder why I'm so happy? Someone looking from the outside might say he's happy because he lives in a big house, drives a nice car and has a wife who looks great naked or clothed. But I know lots of people live in bigger houses, drive nicer cars and have a wife and mistress who look good naked or clothed. But they're not happy. I'm not ruling out the car. It's a great car!
  

  • 8:06 pm
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