Dan Posluns

The past couple of weeks I’ve been feeling somewhat worthless and crappy. Not because of big, sweeping things, but rather little niggling things, none of which individually amounts to much or which I feel compelled to write about in this blog, where I keep trying to accentuate the positive as the song goes. I need more sleep. I’m glad I’m busy most nights… I’d rather be busy than bored. But lately I’ve been questioning if I’m getting as much out of staying busy as the effort I pour into it, and if a happy medium exists it continues to elude me.

I went to traffic court and had the more expensive count of my ticket dismissed “in the interests of justice” (that was cool to hear). The other count was reduced to $99. I think I may have misstepped in that I could have had that $99 fine “deferred” and kept off my record entirely if I managed to avoid another moving violation for a year. But they only let you do that every seven years, apparently, and they don’t let you weigh the option of deferring against whatever leniency the judge might show you… you have to choose and then present your case, not the other way around.

Being in court was a little intimidating, although I learned that you apparently don’t have to dress up nearly as nice as I did for traffic court. Or even be very coherent. Still, there’s something about the formality of all of it, surrounded by a couple dozen of your peers, being asked to give your “excuse”… it’s a bit like being called to the front of the class when you secretly only watched the movie and never read the book you’re supposed to be reporting on. (Tess of the D’Urbervilles, 10th grade, I believe I got the highest mark out of anyone who was assigned that book.)

I went to the farmer’s market that’s kittycorner to me and bought some more Rainier cherries, plums and peaches. The cherries we get out here are excellent, but I’ve had some difficulty coming to terms with the reality that the peaches simply won’t ever be as good as the ones I could get in Ontario or New York… they’re either artificially ripened on their way from California or if they’re local they’re usually undersized and covered in bruises and other defects. Plums aren’t my favourite fruit, but at least they’re usually pretty reliable… I am annoyed by how deceptive fruit can be, and how the quality of its flesh so rarely speaks to what lies beneath. That is, of course, true of so many things… I guess that’s what makes them so ripe for metaphor. (Pun unintended, but still clever.)

Dan.

Tags: fruit, metaphors, sadness, traffic court

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