Yet again, "Aventis fortuna iuvat"*

Wandering around the city again tonight, armed with a mission from dpchallenge.com at Karcy's advice, I was trying to look at everything through upside-down. I wasn't trying so much to look at things upside-down as I was just concentrating on the idea and the word alone while simply experiencing the city night. This was made especially difficult by the disney quality of the part that I was wondering around in at the time. I needed ideas.

I decided to take a break in a coffee shop, ordering an iced coffee, drunk black, and sitting down in a rather beat up arm chair (odd for such a new store) with a book that I've been wandering furthur through.

"Oh, the vi-bra-tions...
Oh, the Unitarians...
Apostate seminarians...
Grok the goovy
Pranksters and Hell's Angels...
Whose Angels?--"**

Somehow I became both completely absorbed by the narrative, which was at the same time exhilarating and frightening, and constantly interrupted in my train of thought by the question of the essence of upside-down ness. Could upside-down ness be applied to something such as the essence of a bottle that defines a bottle and the way certain things have more bottle ness than others? Moreover, could I find something that would let me capture its expression of that certain upside-down ness? Better yet, could I find something that destroyed the idea of upside-down. Unfortunately, this is more easily said than down.

Amuse

there's another out here

watching wandering

jot

         ing

                 it

                     down.

experience anew

street lamp justice

a point

source of it

his muse perhaps

orating for luck

to find the



A faded denim pocket fuzzes swiftly by

snuck out from beyond periphery



reality flash

ing back like a switch

to scold the mind from wandering so



there she goes

gone again...

Eventually I wondered outside and back into the cool breeze of the city night. I lingered a bit outside of the coffee shop, staring at things that I normally wouldn't even notice, trying to see their substance for what it was or what I could try to make it be. Then I saw her.

She had elegant shoulders and soft hair, sitting subtly on one side of a bench. After working up a bit of courage I took a seat on the other side of that bench. There I muddled for what must have been a while. Upside-down. Upside-down? Girl. Upside-down. From a certain angle how ... a slight lock breaks free from the rest and floats on the night... that would look. It became clear that I had begun to lock myself into a dead-end mode of thought. Further, I was becoming more and more distracted.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was asking her about her thoughts about the upside-down ness of things, explaining the challenge, and probing her for inspiration. I don't yet know how I managed this amazing feet of bravery, but it must have been amusing considering that I was already a bit jittery from the coffee, my stomach was asserting its upside-down ness since I had sat down, and my nerves felt like a bundle of thin wires about to explode with current. I was sure that every minute I said something more foolish than the last, but at least I was talking.

We had a pleasant kind of conversation, drifting from upside-down to other things. She thought about my upside-down question for longer than I would have expected, which I took as a boost to my confidence in the conversation. Honestly, I had not been able to concentrate faithfully on the subject of my challenge since I had begun this conversation with her.

Eventually she had to leave. I hope that I did not distract her to lateness. I may not and likely won't see or hear of her again and I wish that I had asked her the spelling of her name, (I'm no good at getting names spelled right.) but it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless. Thank-you.

* Fortune aids those who dare. Virgil. Aen. X.284
** Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test. New York: Bantam Books, 1968.