Break Time, Not Breakdown Time

BritBox is taking a little tiny bitty small break from posting. Thanks for stopping by to read this message.

In the meantime, why not visit BritBox's companion site, smithismyrealname.com?

Well, why not?

Here's to the perfect shift.

Cheers.

Consumed

Introducing

.gravy-flavored cough syrup

..color-coordinated foot powder

...self-tinting combs and brushes

....left-handed nonstick frying pans

.....non-denominational weed & feed.

Mouths turn arid from desire

and rattle with whispered devotions.

You can almost hear

synapses firing sparks;

particles of wishes disperse

then settle, bonfire ashes,

the remains of yearning.

If we say it the wrong way

enough times, we define

new parameters of truth—

the weight of which caresses

one's cheek like down, fleece

............of the most urgent priority,

............polyester beyond expectations.

Blistered palms are transient.

It's time to strain the rope,

pull harder, faster,

put our heads down

and get more stuff.

We'll find a way to want it

before it's even imagined.

Don't Bug BritBox

The insects are bad this year. They've become a nuisance much sooner in the season than they have in the past. Sure, there's chemicals and bug zappers and martins and bats and whatnot, but the best way to swat a bug is to use the windshield of a speedy little roadster. Think of the crusty insect-remains as being like notches in your motoring gun—the greenish-yellow badge of courage, if you will.

A formidable warrior is what you are. You can be found by following the trail of your enemies' dead bodies—except the little bitty corpses are stuck to your glass and grille.

It doesn't do any good to complain. After all, it was only a couple of months ago that the weather was too bitter for BritBox to even consider going out for a top-down scoot in a Sporty Red Car. Too cold, too hot, too buggy. Maybe BritBox should shut up and move Out West where the bugs are mostly on the ground or in your boots.

The Sporty Red Car got a long-overdue soak-scrub-and-rinse two nights ago. That was one skanky classic British sports car, BritBox assures you. A stucco of various insect species had formed a protective coating over the front-facing surfaces of the car. Dust from the recent (and current) drought clung to the Triumph like that shabby gray sweater your aunt wore, although hers probably lacked the bird poop accents. Does a clean car really go faster? It certainly feels like it does. BritBox thinks so. Something to do with reduced wind resistance, or more likely, the recovery of smooth and shiny dignity.

Oceanography

there is a drain at the bottom
of the ocean that balances the levels of:

iced tea glass condensation
intermittent summer showers
car wash runoff
lovers' sweat
wienie water

sometimes other things slip through:

bye bye sea turtle
so long shark
ciao anemone
bon voyage tuna
see you later coral

one day the drain will clog
and the ocean will rise and cover
the world:

wash over the Prairies
swallow up the Ozarks
higher than your old school
submerge the Eiffel Tower
way above the Rockies

the Himalayas become ocean canyons
and every time rain falls
there will be nothing left
to gauge the flood

Where My Car Sleeps

My car dozes in the garage,
talks in its sleep—
the tailpipe ticks, expanded metals
contract towards entropy,
displaced fluids find new levels
defined by the tiebreaker, gravity.

I die a little in bed each night
like my car.
Hands crossed over breast,
I unscrew the fine-threaded bolts
that connect reality to desire.
If time ran faster
my rust would hiss.

The sleeping car dreams
about driving me: it pushes me
to the limit of adhesion.
We drift through sudden apexes.
As I beetle down narrow roads,
my car opens me up all the way.

Spring Bling

The end of March is the gateway to Spring. It's a time of transition: the Northern Hemisphere peels off sensible layers, exposing its dark and sweaty mushroom-world of undergarments once again. The outdoors smell like something spoiled that's been taken out of the freezer to thaw on the kitchen counter and spoil some more. This is transient—all soon to be replaced by the fresh scent of fast-growing grasses and optimistic flowers.

Who are we kidding here? This is Ohio, and BritBox can count on frost up until Mother's Day in May. It would be a good idea to wait a few more weeks before getting all excited and putting expensive annuals into the ground. Relax. By August you'll be so sick of lawn and garden maintenance you'll be wishing everything was all dead and gone. You will find yourself idly flipping through the Yellow Pages, perusing asphalt and concrete contractors.

Go outside. Drive your sporty car if you can. Fix it if you must. These are the happy times, the habitable times, the hospitable times to own a classic British car. Even a Fiat, what the heck. BritBox ran into one of those guys last week at the Englewood Reserve (no, not literally) and he had just completed the restoration of his rear-engined 850 Spider. The powerplant is about the size of your grandma's Singer sewing machine, and probably has as much torque. Thank goodness for favorable power-to-weight ratios. The Fiat guy made nice comments about The Favorite TR250 and took pictures with his camera phone. A Triumph owner could begin to believe their car is big and powerful after hanging out with the Fiat crowd for a while.

Salt and Battery

What a harsh winter it's been. Not just the sub-frigid arctic temperatures, or the alternating blizzards and ice storms, or even the snot freezing inside one's nose. The worst part has been the sequence and frequency of these events. BritBox loves to brag about the number of miles The Sporty Red Car gets driven during the winter. Not necessarily with the top down—BritBox is boastful but not insane, this is OHIO, man!—but circumstances have conspired against BritBox and The Favorite TR250.

What's lacking here is the usual pattern of Snow, Salt, Thaw, Rain, Dry that creates a window of opportunity to keep car and driver's fluids stirred up from the bottom of the pot. Recharge the batteries and all that. This year's cycle has been more like Rain, Rain, Snow, Snow, Salt, Ice, Snow, Salt, Ice, Rain, Snow. The few clear days that even begin to suggest a quick blast down the gray lanes between canyons of snow are spoiled by the amazing skid marks of salt excreted by ODOT trucks at each and every intersection. They could probably get another day's ice control out of these deposits if they would scoop them up for redistribution.

BritBox has nothing against salt, not really. Well, maybe a little. Sure, in moderate amounts it is a necessary nutritional component, as well as the previously mentioned ice management compound of choice. Some people cannot eat a potato without it. It is great for rubbing into wounds when you want to, for example, add insult to injury or whatever. In BritBox's case, salt has kind of assumed the role of boogeyman—it is tough on the seasoned remains of forty-year-old British steel that forms the physical shell of The Sporty Red Car. It turns out that it is also tough on the seasoned remains that form the physical shell of BritBox's forty-year-old-plus ticker.

Note to self: lay off the salt while gazing through the back window at the garage where The Favorite TR250 slumbers in chilly hibernation. A relaxing little scoot down to the nature reserve would do wonders for blood pressure reduction, but it's not going to happen today. The salt on the roadways of Ohio wants to kill one of us, and the sodium in a can of soup will surely take out the other.