My best friend, Justi, and I were talking about knives and axes, as weapons.  (I know, but we often have strange conversations with little memory of exactly how the subject came up).

Anyway, she liked the idea of using them as weapons –of throwing an axe at someone who was attacking her. And as usual added, “Don’t you?”

I said no, I don’t want to get that close to someone who is trying to kill me.

She said, “You don’t have to get close, it’s an axe. You can just throw it at them.”

I deftly spotting the flaw in her logic. “Yeah, then they could pull it out and throw it back.”

Laughter. “True.”

“No,” I continued. ” I’d rather have a gun and shoot them from far away. They aren’t likely to pull the bullet out and throw it back. And if they did, it wouldn’t hurt.”

It occurred to me then, that life has been feeling that way to me lately. Like I’m throwing bullets. Ineffectual, if not comical, but frustrating as hell.