today is a new month with 30 days to make a fate better than the last. its how the eternal November has settled over my eyes nearly a decade ago. when i awoke at 6:26 am the coffee pot spit hot vapor into the air, like a dragon slowly coming to life, it always roars and mumbles nonplus profanities at the morning light. it must fulfill its purpose to its human counterpart. i said, "Mr. Coffee Pot, you should do well to put any thoughts of self-effacing sorrow out of your troubled little mind. rejoice my dearest friend, for without me to brew for, you would cease to be of any use." to which he most candidly replied with a wit and air of most sardonic proportions, "I am most grateful! i cherish living in mediocrity, in circles, in hell!" I smiled. then i said, "you know, i am talking to a coffee pot." Something about the blinking red LED lights that read an obstinate 12:00, conveyed to me he didn't care. I suppose the obvious has a way of diluting things. i walked over to the gaping bay windows looking out over Great James Lake, named after my late great grandfather, James Churchill who won it off a vagabond Swiss trapper in a bet over the number of sides on a penny. apparently there are 3. the Swiss man claimed that he thought the question was phrased strangely, but being outnumbered he couldn't argue. but finding a loyal coffee pot is nearly as hard as finding the right girl. there isnt a price you can put on either, less two decades of fruitless searching. Last May we went to the Jersey shore to revisit the roots of my alter ego's past. That was a blast from the past. I never did like going back, it reminded me of how time stands still for most people, 6 years some how seems like a month. A week after we got back i inadvertently knocked the glass basin pot off the corner of the island countertop in our kitchen. Rest in pieces--the best coffee pot i ever had. Always such a gentleman. so civilized. farewell. that is what i would say for a eulogy. people try too hard to sound overly human. no one likes someone who loves people that much. i don't. my coffee pot certainly didn't. but that is just a metaphor, or a shadow, i am never too sure which. the curious thing about making such an audacious proposal, is that people aspire to it, and when they finally become what they want they suddenly are lost. like my coffee pot. i set him free.