My Dirty Secret

Been reading this blog? Or maybe you know me?

Then you may have some ideas of the cartography of my character. Lopsided to the left, borders with the Right and rich fortified. A river of scorn and ire draining a vast watershed of political and economic opinion. Shifting sands and a wandering north pole. Lands of yore and fakelore. Criss-crossed by narrow roads. Occasional lyric naturescapes. Ponds most caustic. Winds that blow on and on without going anywhere, circling back again and again. Rocky harsh frontiers, unwelcoming.


Not long ago, someone spotted a discontinuity, a hint of some unexpected geology underlying the public lands that are this blog. It was in the form of a reference to Marie Antoinette's garden a topic that seems awfully girly and Francophilic to be showing up in these parts.


 
But I am not afraid to love incongruously. Long ago, in the grips of surging testosterone and flagging confidence, it was important to maintain consistency. To stick with the caustic wit without letting down my guard. To steer clear of anything mainstream. To listen not to hippie stuff or new wave fluff, but to be hardcore. 


Then I learned to live for myself instead of an image, and to revel in the land, not the map. 


So I admit to you that this weekend I reveled in the goofy spectacle of Olympia's best parade, the Procession of the Species. This photo is part of that, a troupe of mandolin, banjo, and guitar-playing butterflies singing about caterpillars and love. Punk me would have turned away from this spectacle of hippidiculousness, maybe. But now, I love it. Just some people having fun, celebrating life. I cannot remember their song (simple as it was), but bask in the REMemory, lyrics of "Shiny Happy People" running through my mind in a holey loop.