All Gas Jets Off

I barked out the command to Roto to cut all gas jets to the firing mechanism. He balked, as I knew he would, but I made it clear that that was an order. We're not going on with the firing, the heating of the water, or blowing the geyser just yet. This is something that needs to be done step by step and not all at once.

The serious stench of failure is in the air. I'm walking around smelling it. I'm seriously suffering from olfactory hallucinations, but this stench is all too real. The consequences of failure are too great, involving my self esteem and sense of worth. I am tied into deeds, the working out of my thoughts. I know it's wrong but I'm in a bad place. I know I should let it blow and not worry about it, but I'm not there yet.

I want to know my motives, expectations, the whole personal slate. Cousin Roto may be a savage beast driven by a lust for action but I'm a softer man, not a man of the hunt or field but a man of the salon, the house. I can swing both ways, since I was a boy, but with refinement and the polluting influences of education I'm torn. I look for nuance where others see clear cut distinctions. Roto wants to get it on, I want to step back and understand the implications.

You might say I'm a mental vivesectionist. Ha ha, kind of an amusing turn of phrase, no? Well, that's one of the big words I learned while away at school. I learned several big words, now that I think of it. 50 cent words, a dollar words. I still have a collegiate dictionary that I bought at the bookstore. It was $15, and since it's chockful of 50 cent words, I definitely got my money's worth. You flip through the pages and it's amazing. Like look at the section on "un-". They have lots of words with an "un" on the front, and that usually negates in someway the basic root word that follows. The only one I couldn't find was "Un-cola."

Old Faithful can wait! It must wait! I have all these head games to work through, the mental gymnastics that all geniuses step up and take their turn at.