Sometimes it seems to me that life is like a top, spinning aimlessly across God’s linoleum floor.

Then again, perhaps God doesn’t have linoleum. Maybe He opted for the Spanish tile or some puffy cloud-like material, but I rather think his kitchen floor is what we would call ‘outer-space.’

Perhaps the planets are the tops, which have been spinning for some time now. It is like one of those pictures within a picture. You look at the spinning cosmos, the spinning galaxy, the spinning solar systems, this particular spinning solar system, this particular little planet, this particular area on the map and finally down to the tiny little office where I am typing right now.

Thinking about this stuff really makes me feel pretty small. Like a bug in a rug. Maybe even a flea on a dog.

I had a fellow tell me once, about half jokingly, “I thought we had already gotten rid of you.” I had just returned to the room after being somewhere else for a little while.

“I’m just like a bad case of the fleas,” I told him, “You can just scratch and scratch but I keep coming back.”

I got to see some old friends the other night, some of whom I hadn’t run into for several years. We all talked for a while and I realized how little they had changed.

It was rather comforting to know that I could just leave for four or five years and return to find them right where they were last time I saw them.

I wonder if they were comforted to know they always find themselves at the same place, too? It really isn’t one of those things that a body can change once they get going. Either you try to catch up with them or you just let it go and start over.

I did a little bit of both. I caught up on the details as best I could, especially stuff like who is married to whom and all that, and then just let the rest of it go. It is much easier than listening to a three-hour autobiography of each and every person you ever knew.

I just don’t have the patience to go through all of that. Just sum it up in a few sentences and be done with it, since I wasn’t around to see it the first time, it couldn’t have been that important. I did the same for myself. Save the deep stuff for some other time. “What are you doing with yourself?” Someone invariably asks. “As little as possible,” I say. Sometimes the answer is working, working at the same place, just having fun with my 12 children or some other half-hearted attempt at real humor and no real attempt at truth.

It is about all anyone wants to know, anyway. It isn’t where you’ve been that matters, it’s the fact that you made it back to the same spot again. It is one of those free round-trip life tickets, where you look around and you realize you’ve been there before.

Not like deja vous, which is more like feeling that you might have done something or been somewhere before. When you go back, you know you’ve been there before and done that. It was nice to visit, but I don’t want to live it all again.

I don’t really think I have evolved too incredibly much in the last five years, but I can tell I have changed more than some of my old friends. Some of them are still pretending they are in high school, chasing lost youth with all the vigor of a dog on a rabbit.

Some were recently married, recently divorced or recently dating, which sometimes is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Others have given up on youth and are simply not chasing anything, just mounting up experiences and days like my desk takes to stacks of papers of all descriptions. Sooner or later, someone will just sweep them away and they will be replaced by a new stack of papers in the same old place.

I noticed that some folks had given up smoking, while others had just begun. I heard it all at least a few times, which is probably alright as well.

My most favorite thing was getting the opportunity to play a little music and try to entertain a few people, which sort of happened and sort of didn’t. I think we played enough of a variety to hit everyone in the crowd at least once, but sometimes that is enough.

You can’t please all of the people all of the time and sometimes you can’t please any of the people any of the time. I guess I’ll just have to learn to be satisfied entertaining for some of the people just a little of the time.

The phrase, “Don’t quit your day job,” comes to mind occasionally, but, then again, so does the theme to Cheers.

I still have the ability to tune up and tune it all out when I feel the need. That is what really makes life worth living sometimes. I think Waylon Jennings already wrote that one, but I bet he’s never been around these parts. I try not to hold it against him.

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