WORKS ON DIGITAL PAPER

Courtesy of MLusk, Weather Records

I sit at the round picnic table, octagonal actually, in the shade of a maple, cicadas belting a baleful wail of disinterest in intervals from a distance.  The windchimes outside the door of the shop ping and bong with meaningful intent.  I read words like inveterate and hecatomb and imagine that I might be a very successful vagrant if that were my lot.
I have always been around places like this. Pleasant places, particularly in summer, where the affluent mingle with a hippy sensibility and garner a little faux hippy-sensibility themselves, if just enough to make themselves feel more earthy in lieu of their ease.
There are other places I've been, less affluent at heart, where the people are really hippies, if just to feel better about their spoiled nature, unable to deal with the possible rigors of a working life by setting the conceptual bar as high as to avoid responsibility.
"Responsibility for what?" they ask, crinkling their nose and narrowing their eyes knowingly while maintaining their smile and slack shoulders.
All of a sudden you feel like you are wearing a bad suit and loafers even as you stand there in your flip flops and cut-offs.  For they know the answer and they know they have the answer to the answer and they know they can beat the system if only they could just get lucky enough to pickle and jar something everyone will want to buy.