I bought this house two months ago.  Two months ago, we were sitting in a small room with not nearly enough ventiation; across from us: three people with whom we could barely communiate.  They spoke Korean and a little bit of English.  I knew how to say “no” in Korean, a vestige from a party with me and a guy who had a crush on my sister in high school.  I barely knew it, actually, and I think it might have sounded something like “no.”   It’s weird, but “no” almost always sounds the same in all languages.

Ever since then I’ve meant to fix the lights in our bedroom.  I meant to take those two cords, swinging merrily in the breeze, and unify them so they weren’t low enough to hit our heads.  I’ve never gotten around to it.  Tonight, I’m looking at them yet again.  They’re just another in a long line of projects I’ve never finished.  I’ve yet to fix the kitchen.  I haven’t called the radon remediation company.  I am miles away from sending out a slew of E-mails my boss has been on my ass for since three weeks ago.  But I’m staring at these light fixture pullchains, with my partner’s head in the nook of my arm.

The chains are two different sizes.  I just now noticed.

I’d never be able to unify those two chains, it just plain couldn’t happen.  It’s a stupid little thought, but for some reason it’s sticking with me.  After all these things that happen during the day, just one thought sticks out.  It’s because it’s so useless, so pointless, that I can’t get it out of my head.  We, as human beings, have about 10,000 useless thoughts run through our heads every day.  Some, they’re just temptations and easily forgotten; others, they’re desires never to be fulfilled.  What happens to them?  Like us, they are ephemeral: fleeting electrical impulses soon thrust out of our brains and never existing again.

I’m still thinking about those chains though.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll make a special trip to Home Depot, or Lowe’s because they’ve been caught less often trying to put a value on customers’ lives in court cases about safety.  Maybe sometimes, our thoughts, like us, can be held on to, made important.  There are six billion people, we’ve each thought more thoughts in a year.  Thoughts can cling to you, can make themselves heard.  Will you be heard?  Will I?  Time will tell, and time will make fools or heroes of all of us.