Tiny White Box

Please excuse the rest of this column. I take pride in my contrarian nature, in my ability to identify clouds on any horizon. Today, though, is not a day for me to be philosophical or intellectual. It’s a day to freaking celebrate!

I’ve decided it’s time to buy a home, preferably one with running hot and cold water, a flush toilet and more than the box’s 72 square feet, of which fewer than 27 square feet is floor space. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

I came north last August, planning for the beauty of the fall, the frigid isolation of winter, the softness of spring and the joys of summer. Some of those things have happened. The rest won’t, at least not for me, but I’ll get to that by and by.

Mr. Lefave was a kind man, a smart man, a patient man. In other words, he was the sort of teacher I wanted to upset, whose face I wanted to turn red, whose tongue I wanted to turn to butter with my nonsense. In the words of Bugs Bunny, I was a stinker and I wanted to make Mr. Lefave my stinkee. 

Suicide. Offing yourself. Doing yourself in. That seemed like the only option to me 10 years ago, and that’s where Larissa is now. Each night she passes out with the hope she’ll die in her sleep, and when she wakes up in the morning with a foggy and throbbing head, shaky hands and a bellyful of dread, she asks for the courage to kill herself today. So far, thank God, she hasn’t found it.

An arrhythmic tuba player does not blend in. Just as gluttony leads to weight gain leads to mockery, so a bad tuba player’s sins are readily apparent to all with ears to hear. Or plug.

Keith Howard’s just sent out his virtual resume into the ether. Share for a chance to help him manifest his destiny, and earn yourself some cookies, and a sonnet.

Knowing I’m going to anger three-quarters of the Dylan fans who read this, these songs make up the heart of the canon. They are the 12 Greatest Bob Dylan songs, properly sequenced for an album, a list for which I will brook no argument.

Mother Theresa may have been short-tempered and cranky with her underlings – that doesn’t take away from the good work she did. Contrariwise, Bill Cosby was an incredibly funny role model for Americans – until it came out he was a chemically-enabled rapist. Anecdotes are just pieces of information, and they don’t compose an argument by themselves.

Monday, the Tiny White Box will host a visitor, Sean McDonald from Channel 9 News in Manchester. Sean hosts the morning news and a TV magazine show called “Chronicle.” For the latter, he and a crew are driving to the Tiny White Box, likely for a segment to be called “Eccentrics of the North Woods — And Why They Should be Kept There.”

I discovered a serious blow to my solitary life, a slap to my hermitic face, a forced attack on my writer’s retreat. Some bastard left a bushel of progress at the Tiny White Box, and I didn’t have the opportunity to refuse to sign for it. Let me explain.

To kick off this beautiful new year, I’ve invented a game, a challenge that I’m pretty sure I will be very good at, and no one else will be able to beat me. Doesn’t that sound like fun????. Get your bets in, and I’ll explain.