presto! magic, strangeness, alienation, life, ambiguity, mistakes, growth, forgiveness, change

- oh, i feel a blablabla coming on... re this poster, a friend said a better adjective might be "imaginative" or "creative," but i think "strange" is good-enough, the word not holding much negative connotation, in my mind... having grown up thinking i was so different, oddball, whacked -- but basically just your garden-variety neurotic & disaffected egomaniac w/inferiority complex -- i like this poster for its helpful spirit... not all "weirdos" are isolated or disgruntled or, at worst, aberrant... some eccentrics are the best kind of folks, making the world a better place cause, just in being themselves, they stretch constructed limitations & invite others to be themselves, too, perhaps be critical thinkers, be as "strange" (creative, imaginative) as they want w/o fearing they are somehow bad in so doing. there's room for all! i wish i'd learned this when i was young & felt alone & somewhat like a freak & loser & crazy person... my sense of alienation & of being inherently wrong swelled hugely, simply cause i lacked positive, productive, accepting "strange" role models & friends! - anyways, blablablablabla... etc... - and, heck, so much for texas... too far, not enough days... still gonna go, tho, maybe next month! - instead i got to do a bunch of cool things, including go to an awesome magic shop, an historical place where the 80-year old owner created many, many of the tricks, displayed in handwritten boxes on shelves stretching to the ceiling, old general store-style. the elderly magician, quite famous, is healing in the hospital, so another fellow, friendly & burly, demonstrated tricks on a black mat stretched across the store countertop, his hands & voice smooth & patient. the shop was pure nostalgia, rcalling for me so much from my nerd childhood-adolescence: comic books, snapping gum, cockroach gum (heck, i didn't check before buying, but hope the stupid roach gum doesn't read like those below... that would be embarrassing!), black soap, disappearing ink, fake poop & barf, magic kits, hats & masks, ventriloquist dummies, even fortune teller fish!, on up to gigantic tricks like a sturdy box enabling the illusion of knives-thru-head... once you agree to purchase a trick, you get demonstration of the secret solution, each one immediately seeming self-evident the millisecond it's unveiled... doh! ingeniously simple in each case... but solvable beforehand? no way -- my divergent thinking skills apparently have dulled a lot, only two years removed from teaching... - the overall theme of the last many days, i believe, aside from really considering & acting upon the concepts of "loyalty" & "love," is "things are not always what they appear to be"... i know when young, i thought the world was black & white, good & bad, but the older i get, the more shades i see... & the more i know what i think i know is just not the case, must step back & reconsider situations i'm certain i've in-a-snap read.... i'm wrong a lot. i make tons of mistakes. but grow? move forward? accept change? be patient, be less conditional, be more loving, less manipulative, and, especially, forgive? try to see both sides? must do so. must, no matter what. otherwise, got no peace. got no happiness. am back to having an existence rather than life. yecch!! - anyways, at the store i purchased a bagful of magic booty, some to display in the house here, just cause it's fun to look at, some to pull on my little cousins. i know the tricks'll confound & delight them. can't wait. :) - more later, maybe... now to settle down w/"the big book of weirdos," another awesome gift from my awesome friend who seems to always know just what i love!... hope besides adequate food & shelter, you have something good to read & a nice brightly-lit place in which to read it...