This blog is about hobos.

"Train of thought". It's a nice little turn of phrase that got sucked into the lexicon. We hear it all the time without appreciating how apt the metaphor is. Somebody smart came up with that line; probably some 1890s newspaperman. The way our thoughts seem to follow one another in some organic sequential forward motion is fo sho like a train. With your thoughts chugging along one after the other, you go from thinking about wanting to drink a coke, to thinking about cocaine, and then you think about Len Bias and then you think about Boston and then you think about college and then you're thinking of your ex wife again. Maybe there are 12 carloads in a row of coal, and then you have several cars full of gravel after that followed by wheat and then hobos. So it's a good metaphor.

"Balloon of the mind" doesn't make it into as many conversations, but it's just as apt a metaphor as "train of thought". Both phrases attach concrete, easily comprehensible imagery to the abstract notion of thinking. Balloon of the mind comes from a W.B. Yeats poem about trying to wrangle the ornery balloon of the mind into it's shed. Maybe it's a mixed metaphor because not only does he compare fluid thought to the flight of a balloon in the wind, but also compares the balloon to something you'd put in a shed, like a Model T. In any case, it's a great metaphor about getting your hands to channel the raw buoyancy of your free flowing thoughts. It's about the effort of writing. But I think anyone can relate to the frustration of not being able to reliably focus their mental energy on productive behavior. The good thing about all this is that Yeats seems to have been able to wrangle that balloon into its shed on more than a few occasions. He won a Pulitzer. So this blog is about me and my balloon. It's also about those hobos that stowaway on trains of thought; getting a free ride, jamming on harmonica and sardines, pissing in jugs. I can do metaphors too.