10:52 p.m. - 2002-12-22
tree lot
Three things I lack in my quest to be a professional poet:
1. trust fund
2. dreadlocks
3. any interest in poetry whatsoever
Three things that uniquely qualify me for a career as professional poet:
1. perpetually wrinkled sport coat
2. love of free Merlot
3. inability to establish other, legitimate, career
Went down to the x-mass tree lot the other night. Kind of a surreal oasis, the urban tree lot. Smells like pines, sounds like freeway. The economy-class trees were all in one corner, piled horizontally where they'd rolled 'em off the tree truck, still wrapped tight with the twine they'd traveled in. This corner also played host to an excited group of immigrant families, shouting comments in Spanish or Armenian as the patriarch of each would cut a tree's bindings, shake out the boughs, and hold it up for general review. Grandma doesn't like that bare spot towards the back, Mom thinks this one's too short. Doesn't that trunk look crooked to you? This one's clearly lopsided. Trees that couldn't pass muster were unceremoniously tossed in the reject pile and a new candidate would be unwrapped and subjected to critique.
Now I too believe in getting my money's worth, and I can appreciate the fact that folks are entertaining over the holiday and want the crib to look sharp etc., but c'mon. We're talking tree here. Like, God made this. And he made it like he made it. So take that scraggly fucker home, cover its ass in red tinsel and let's celebrate it. In all its lopsided Christmas glory.
Cheers.
