Lyrical list

In Don Lee’s novel Wrack and Ruin, artist/welder/Brussels sprouts farmer Lyndon Song confesses to his masseuse that he stays awake nights thinking about things. 

What things? These things:

 

His life, money, weeds and aphids, sparks and puddles and slag, sex, his aloneness, cormorants and least terns, reality TV, blue elderberries and flannel bush and cellulose and lamina and the transparency of shed snakeskin, the fetch of wind swells, pecorino cheese, the cholo in the low-rider who had nodded and let him go through the intersection first, X-ray machines, global destruction. A few other things.

Last night I stayed awake far too long thinking not about these things but about the throbbing pain in my right foot caused by an unfortunate dishwasher-related incident. (Hint: don't dash across the kitchen with an armload of dishes without first ascertaining whether the door of the dishwasher is blocking your path.)

But at least I didn't have to think about pecorino cheese! It's amazing how a little pain can push all other worries right out of the bed.