Open Mic Night, January 6, 2025 at Kind Origins Cannabis

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My Ten Commandments by Richard R. Barron

  1. This above all: to thine own self be true.
  2. Better to remain silents and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
  3. Light and love, while you still have the chance
  4. It’s only 1/8000000000th about you.
  5. Stop thinking you have all the answers. That’s a conceit. Instead, justice, mercy, humility
  6. Dream and hope, then make them come true.
  7. Give up on the past. If you could turn back time, you’d probably screw it up worse than you did the first time. And tomorrow is coming.
  8. Smile. Make eye contact. Hold the door. Say thank you. Be a person.
  9. Welcome the quiet, the sunshine, the day, the night.
  10. Be here now.

I Was Ugly by Richard R. Barron

It’s true. I was ugly.

My sister and I share and firmly believe the narrative that we were both really cute kids, turned into monstrously ugly teenagers, then became reasonably attractive adults.

Sure, we all think we’re ugly at times. We all look at those pictures: the zits, the garish clothes, the awkward eye contact, the crooked posture, the underdeveloped style, the poison of the decade of Nylon or taffeta or parachute pants or Uggs.

But I have real, actual evidence that I was ugly.

One day I was riding the sixth-hour bus home because I stayed late to help a teacher move some chairs. There were only a few of us on the bus. Two rows behind me were two girls my age, about 12 or 13. I could hear them talk, and I heard one of them say, “Look at that guy’s hair. It’s so pretty!”

This got my attention, since they were undoubtedly talking about my hair, so I turned my head slightly so I could hear a little better. She obviously got a glimpse of my face at that point, because she immediately added, “Oh, but he’s ugly.”

So, a jury of my peers, with no prejudice , had convicted me. I was ugly.

Richard Like Hands by Richard R. Barron

“Richard likes hands,” Mackenzee said after I photographed her hands wrapped around a coffee mug.

I tried not to blush or even react, because my love of women’s hands is the worst-kept secret of my life.

At one time, Mackenzee photographed my hands and my wife’s hands together, Abby’s soft grey sweater around her slender wrist, my freckled fingers touching her palm.

The hollow of her hand was one of my favorite places on earth. Her fingertips in my hair was the most intoxicating thing I have ever experienced.

In our sleep, our hands together
One the road, our hands together
In a café, our hands together
At the end, our hands together

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