PurpleProse

I drove through downtown today to get to work, northeast of downtown.

Usually, I head east first, taking the "scenic" route of urban decay. Downtown, directly north of my home, used to be mostly decay as well. Now, there's a loft-glut (in my opinion, being of the income that can't afford to pay a lease of $1,000/mo. for half as much space as we have now for which we pay less than half that), and a couple of new, big and expensive things are being built in place of lingering, little old-fashioned "blighted" ones (an arena and an "entertainment district," to be precise). The old downtown I shall miss. The one that was "ours" because no one else went there. I enjoy false solitude, you know.

Remember, though, we're not alone!

Driving up Broadway, one passes something Catholic. It's attached to or an integral part of the main cathedral, which has a golden-roof tower. Did I see metal letters or was it mere paint: "Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us?"

Being literate, of course, seeing is reading. The words ran through the voice of my mind. Being post-Catholic, I've been told that to ask for help from anyone but the Father-God or the Jesus-part of Him/Them is blasphemy.

Is a prayer blandly read upon arbitrary encounter still a prayer?

There are faded block letters and an image of a heart on the back wall of a service station in Westport. The wall faces east, into the parking lot of another gas station, QuikTrip. It's the classic "Abortion Stops a Beating Heart."

No praying there, just a scientific fact.

What we put on walls in public view is interesting. Conception, birth, abortion, death.

I have no time to be "offended" by any of it. Apparently, I have time to blather about it, but that's the limit.

For the real things of today are nothing we'd really want to discuss.