Jon M. > Jon's Quotes

“Your destiny is tiny.
It says so right there in the word “des-tiny.”
That means its really not that big a deal.
Destiny is a pebble in your shoe.”
― Jon Obermeyer

“Everywhere you lived
is just a ledge, a place
you could have tumbled
from. Your hometown
is a precipice, you’ll learn
someday. What the realtor
sold to you is merely
a coat hook, an excuse
for the roof to settle
atop your head, like
a butterfly”
― Jon Obermeyer

“She is Sisyphus. All day long she pushes that rock and when she is almost to the top, something happens to distract her and it all rolls back to the very place the journey began. Some day she will make it to the top. Some perfect day she will stand, wind in her face and watch it barreling down the other side, taking anything and anybody in its path. But until then she will travel this worn and familiar road, sure-footed and steady in real time, eyes vigilantly focused on the life before her. She is the cobbler of her own heart and this will save her soul.”
― Jill McCorkle

“Eventually, science finds a cure: polio, smallpox, measels, whooping cough, rinderpest (look it up), all gone. Eventually, those ladies and gents in the white lab coats wielding pipettes will get around to the debilitating condition known as Writer's Block.

Imagine if Big Pharma spent $1 Billion and 14 years of R&D effort, just like they do on allergy medicine and mood lifters: "Ask your doctor if Narrativa is right for you. Narrativa is a fast-flow, editor-inhibitor (FFEI) that works in your bloodstream to initiate poetry, prose, and young adult fiction. Side effects of Narrativa include job loss, missed meals, laptop battery wear, comma splices, and of course, death. For impoverished literary journal writers and creative writing program faculty adjuncts, Pfizer may be willing to subsidize the cost of your Narrativa dosing.”
― Jon Obermeyer

“Maybe it's my undiagnosed, adult-onset ADD, but I rarely have a problem with writer's block, a daunting blank page, or picking a topic. I read a lot and that helps”
― Jon Obermeyer

“The poet walks the earth in relative obscurity. You might see him surface briefly at an open microphone event or at a workshop, but for the most part he stays in his burrow.
His bosses love him. He writes elegant copy and sticks to his knitting. You hardly know he’s there in his cubicle.”
― Jon Obermeyer

“The poet is happiest with the simplest of things: sourdough toast and apricot jam, an etymology dictionary, and a biography of Josef Stalin (also a poet, in his younger pre-purge days).
He is interested and amused by just about anything lying around: last month’s light bill (especially the four-color chart explaining hot water usage), the Thai menu (with typos) at lunch, an old airplane boarding pass. His ADD serves him well.
The poet is an introvert, but not really. He reaches out to every parcel of the planet, because everything is subject to him (he delights in this double meaning).”
― Jon Obermeyer

“If you live on Statin Island, cholesterol is not a problem.”
― Jon Obermeyer

“Everyone in California outside Sacramento thinks of it as the place where laws are created, where regulations are invented, and white-shoed lobbyists entertain elected officials from Tarzana and Tehachapi with filet mignon and garlic mashed potato dinners.

I’m sure it is the same way in Albany, Springfield, Baton Rogue and Raleigh. State Government is like an ingrown toenail. Put your sock over it, slip your foot into a shoe and limp to work. Don’t let anyone else see it.”
― Jon Obermeyer

“My Uber driver in Sacramento was not like my San Franciso Uber from earlier that day at SFO. My SAC Uber driver’s first presdential election was JFK-Nixon (or Eisenhower in 1956) and he was already drawing a Social Security check. "Father Time" overshot my fixed location (twice) and then didn’t listen to the navigation instructions. This guy’s signature move (and totem animal) is a U-Turn, a mile past the original juncture.”
― Jon Obermeyer

“I have probably seen the airline belt buckle demonstration 400 times, maybe more.

They won’t even start the airplane safety demonstration until everyone has their seat buckle on. That's weird.

Here’s my suggestion. We are all savvy, digital travelers, tracked by the FAA by our drivers licenses (used for operating automobiles, where we also have seatbelts). We shouldn’t be penalized (or paralyzed) by watching the darn seatbelt buckle demo after we’re already buckled in.

Create boarding group “R” for Rookie. Before boarding, everyone who hasn’t flown 5 times within the last 10 years has to get in a room in the departure lounge to have the mandatory seatbelt buckle demo privately, including the “helpful” tips about the direction of roller board wheels (pointing out), and how to pull the strap and inflate the life vest.”
― Jon Obermeyer

“I assume a constant state
of genuflection, retrieving
pills, pens, coins: they flee
my grasp like Mexican jumping
beans. Please do not ask me
to carry the groceries, hang
pictures, dust the mantle. I
succumb to indexterity.”
― Jon Obermeyer

“Elevate your inside game. A negative attitude is below the horizon...a place for lonesome hearts.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence