\AHB-fuh-skayt\
verb
1 a : darken b : to make obscure
2 : confuse
3 : to be evasive, unclear, or confusing
okay. this word traces back to the latin "fuscus" which means dark brown, hence the meaning to darken, or cloud over. a dirty window. a neglected aquarium. my judgment, on occasion.
can one OBFUSCATE the self? because i think i do this all the time. and purposefully. as though there is a little mental curtain that i pull over my eyes in order to not observe the lies that i actively tell myself. not that those lies are all bad; sometimes i lie to myself about my confidence on the days i need to be tricked into believing i have more than i do.
(the above is what was actually written on sunday, march 21. the below was written late, on a tired monday morning.)
i woke up in seattle yesterday morning and checked my email from the holiday inn. i wrote the word OBFUSCATE on my hand so i would spend the day thinking about what i was going to write. i did not think about it. i ate breakfast with my sister, we drove back to portland, i wrote two short paragraphs about the word, and then i went on a date. it is now monday morning. i am a day late in writing my blog and the word OBFUSCATE is fading from the back of my left hand.
today there are errands. i have to return the rental car in a half hour. i'm not ready. i'm only partially dressed and there's still half a cup of tea to drink. i'm all out of vanilla yogurt and the bed sheets need to make it to the washer. i try to wash the word off my hand in the shower, but i can still see it. the OBFUSCATIONS need to be OBFUSCATED, darkened, clouded, hidden, shrouded. a glove perhaps?
i go to the gas station to put $5 in the chevy cobalt so i can return it to enterprise at the appropriate 5/8 of a tank. i get out of the car to dispose of a day-old apple core and look at the sky.
it looks like it wants to be nice out, i say to the attendant. my mother says things like this about the weather, as if the weather has a conscience.
i heard 50/50 chance of rain—i hope i'm on the good side! he laughs.
i guess there's always a 50/50 chance of everything. either it happens or it doesn't. right? i say. he just smiles. i don't think he wants to get deep. it is just a gas station. i wish i didn't always try to take conversations to the next level.
i leave, wishing just a little bit that i was a gas station attendant. piano man is on the radio. i turn it up really loud and sing along, wanting it to mean something, but it doesn't. so i laugh. because i'm always trying to put it where it doesn't belong. meaning, that is. after all, there's a 50/50 chance that everything means nothing.
fortunately for us, OBFUSCATE means something. although i'm not sure i've figured out what that is yet.
You had me laughing out loud when you said that I think that the weather has a conscience! Maybe it's true. I want to make IT feel guilty for giving CT so much rain this month.....water in the basement 3 times! Love U!
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