Schizznit for Beeyotches

Percussion.  You gotta love it.  Especially the ping-ride details.
I'm listening to 'Rush' on the Ipod right now.  Sublime.  And I still feel a connection to the place I was when I first heard them.  It was 1978.
I was still a kid, in the doldrums of Arlington Heights, WA.  Trees.  The eastern reaches of the 98223.  It was so far from civilization you could still SMELL the 50's.
Letterman's jackets.  Initiations.  Duck and Cover.  Skirts.  Rotten leaves.
The world seemed simpler, but was it because I was simpler then? (Now, I'm three instances away from being a masked and /or caped crusader.  Another story...)
Arlington was a football town then, and probably still wants to be.  In my freshman and senior years we won the State Championship, and I was a strong booster of such domination.  (In retrospect, I blame testosterone.  I was so hepped up, I would've supported totalitarianism, if that was what was given to me.)  I've learned a lot since then.
Rhythms never get easier.  Complexity always wins.  Chaos finds purchase.  We all suffer the outcomes.  Platitudes soothe the willing.  Idealism bears a false fruit - sweet, tart, yet unfulfilling...
Alas, I've been trying to pay attention to the details.  They vex me, those bastards.  Sometimes, keeping your eyes open can be nasty.  Three nights ago, I saw a dead body blown apart on the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Marysville.  First, I saw lights on top of the overpass - an ambulance, looked like.  I moved into the center lane.  Underneath the overpass, a State Trooper turned on his lights, and as I crossed into the left lane, he threw a flare into the right lane.  I slowed down to 40 or so.  The flare came up to full illumination, and I saw the trooper move alongside the the far side of his car.  The overpass seemed like a gate, lit from underneath.  A red gate.  My eyes drifted back to the road proper.
I didn't want to see what I saw.  My mind raced to find a better explanation.
Looked like a deer at first, a multiply-bruised, beaten, bloodied torso, basically devoid of limbs, haunting the center lane.(Human?)  Some scattered limbs away in the right lane, (LOOKS human.)  Lots of crimson spatter, bits of pink fluff, and then blue jeans, - holding a leg akimbo - all greeted me - I realized it was only attached because it hadn't been thrown off and away by centrifugal forces or direct battery.
I thank some Deity I didn't hit him as well.  I felt that he was gone.  Violently erased.  Reduced.
It WAS a him, I'm pretty sure.  I saw him closer than I would have liked to.  In some of my memory, I see him with a tattoo on his shoulder, just a few feet outside my truck.

Sha-muthah-frackin-zam!  I don't want to live with that as my dominant image this week.  Tonight, I made an alfredo with Indonesian shrimp over egg noodles and steamed some broccoli.  Lotsa sea salt, that's it.  A dash of paprika, oh yeah.  A shallot and four cloves of garlic - practically a gastronomic garter belt.  Parm, oh, the parm loved the heavy cream.  The basil was blushing.  I chopped it before it could protest further...

And life goes on...