If anyone is looking for a last minute gift idea the above item can be found on an online marketplace for only $9995.00. A steal, really, and an easy way to ensure happiness for yours truly with this gorgeous hunk of office decor/conversation piece. Even if some of those conversations start with the phrase “Why the crap do you have this huge monstrosity in your office?”

Well, to me it’s beautiful. Metal and glass an rubber and the hallmark of another age when a fifty pound hunk of brass was your ticket to the murky, unexplored depths that only the mad and the brave would dare explore. When my novel is released, readers will appreciate another aspect of my fascination with this item, also.

Sometimes one must face one’s darkest fears.

In the random thought category: Perhaps it is only after we truly discover and accept how utterly imperfect we are that we can be happy. Or seek some measure of peace within and without ourselves. I am flawed, so very flawed. But any quest to become perfect or to rise to what others imagine you should be, especially one that takes you away from yourself, your true self, may simply lead to misery or madness.

Learn to be comfortable in your own skin. And if that skin is tarnished brass, beat up canvas and unreliable rubber that brings you to the bottom of a deep, dark expanse of the glorious unknown then so be it.

Maybe that’s where you belong.

• Crash LaRue, December 24th, 2023