For those of you who weren't smoking dope in the 60's and 70's (that's the 20th century, by the way) Firesign Theatre is a group of guys who record bizarre . . . radio plays? Oh God! What do you mean, "What's a radio?" Okay, do you know about National Public Radio? It's sort of like PBS only you can't see anything, well . . . unless you're stoned. Right! Right! Well, when my friends and I were children and didn't even have Pong, we were forced to play with our minds. And words. And music. And drugs. And sex. And alcohol. Firesign Theatre was sort of a mood enhancer for us. Even though these Firesign men continue to record and profit from their silliness, my friends and I stopped listening long about the time of I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus. This end-of-listening coincided with our being smacked in the face by the cruel realities of life. Gawd, I hate cruel realities.

http://www.firesigntheatre.com

So yesterday I was once again discussing life with my best friend, Carol. She and I have been bouncing random thoughts off each other for about forty years. It seems to be her turn to wade through some of life's worst . . . shit. There! I said it! And it's my turn to help in any way possible; which presents her with a dilemma. If you've read much of my other stuff, you'll understand why. But at this point in time I'm relatively stable and am at least able to listen.

This morning I realized life is like a revolving door and we're stuck in it until we die. (Carol's thinking, "Oh, that helped!") But consider the possibilities: since this is an imaginary life (That's right!), and an imaginary revolving door, we can imagine the door is spinning us in and out of any type of store. (The world ends when we run out of analogies, perhaps in 2012!!) In the store, out of the store, in the store out of the store, around and around we go. Let's say the door leads us into a candy store. We want to go in and we're happy, but we know we can't stay in there forever; we may be able to stay in there all day, but the store has a closing time. So we're revolved back out onto the streets of cruel reality, but we have the memories of being in the candy store to sustain us until the store opens again--we maybe were even able to buy some candy to take with us. Let's say the door revolves into a job we hate (hard to think of one in this economy, but we've all had one). This one is more like one of those bank deposit tube sucking machines than a revolving door. We get sucked in screaming, but we know this store will also close at the appointed time. We will then be spit out into the light of day where birds are twittering, the sun is shining and (back in the old days) our husband was waiting for us in the car with a mixed drink in hand (No kid! we used to pull crap like that.)

So, what does it all mean? Hell, I don't know; I'm asking you. But I suspect we ARE all Bozos on this bus and sometimes it's our turn to talk, and sometimes it's our turn to listen, or console, or offer advice, or a shoulder. And if you're one of the lucky ones, it's your turn to fire up that joint. Don't pass it to me, though; I'm one of those freaks who gets paranoid. Damn.

Love you, Carol.