Did you miss me? A digression into the Paleolithic era

7:20 A.M. Awake with a pounding headache. Briefly moan in an attempt to draw sympathy. Realize that I am in the house alone. Bemoan the fact that I am in the house alone. Fantasize about skipping work. Realize that my fantasies have really dropped in caliber as I've aged.

Ex:

The morning of December 24th I awoke from a sound sleep and suddenly remembered that I had not submitted my time card. I lay in bed waiting for my aunt to awake so I could submit my time card while trying to figure out whether I would get paid. I can still vaguely remember awakening on late December mornings just extraordinarily excited for what the day would bring. You know how people say they would never want to go back because they've learned so much in life? That's horse shit. I'd give someone five hundred dollars if I could get back the feeling that I used to have about Christmas morning instead of worrying about my time card.

Thought: Perhaps it's a good thing that we don't awake any more with a great deal of excitement at Christmas. Perhaps it's a sign that we've learned that things will never make us happy no matter how many we accrue. Perhaps it's a form of evolution. Or maybe adults are just sadder than little kids and we've forgotten how fun it is to play with G.I. Joe's or My Little Ponies and not worry so much about reality. I don't know.

7:40 A.M. Attempt to take a warm shower to alleviate the sinus pressure in my head/neck. Unfortunately our new low flow shower head doesn't ever provide enough pressure or a wide enough spray band to engulf me in the beautiful warmth of a morning shower.

8 A.M. Go downstairs. Eat a breakfast of Kashi cereal. Briefly debate using milk on said cereal. Pour a bit of water over the cereal instead. Scan the silverware drawer. No spoons. I sit down to a wonderful meal of Kashi cereal with water instead of milk and eat it with a fork. Life is good.

8:20 A.M. Step into the DC weather which was about 16 degrees with the wind chill. Mentally curse myself for ever having left CA. Mentally curse myself for recently buying a house in DC. Mentally curse the East Coast for ever having drifted off from Pangea.

The snow on the street is piled in dirty drifts. Strangers scurry by each other in the cold, hoods pulled tight.

8:40 A.M. Arrive at work with my ears frozen. I can't put my hood up because it would ruin my hair. Realize that this makes me sound a bit less mannish than I'd prefer. I'm running a hand across my beard right now to regain some lost confidence.

9-4:30=That big blank space of the day that we call work. Don't think too hard about work because it will most likely seem obscene. Count the hours until you leave. It's not even as though I dislike my job. I just dislike being told to do anything. Ask my mother.

The best job for me would be as follows:

I'm sitting on a couch with a number of video game systems. Outside is a full swimming pool and a basketball court. And maybe some flying horses. Yeah, a whole lot Pegasus' are just kind of flying around in the back yard. Anyhow, my job would be to do whatever the hell I wanted to do with my time.

Person: What do you want to do today?

M: I want to skin a tiger and then use its skin as a kite.

Person: Ok.

I think you can probably see what a great job that would be. And at some point I'm sure I'd get tired of the guy constantly asking me what I wanted to do, and maybe I'd feed him to the tiger instead of skinning it. The point is that most people don't really want to do what they're doing. But we continue to do it anyway because it's sort of what we do in life. I think the real problem as I see it is that people expect anything at all.

Paleolithic man: I don't want to go out and hunt today.

Wife: Grunts audibly.

PM: Just look at the rain. It's falling in sheets out there. And I was just out hunting yesterday.

Wife: Grunts in a way that indicates the need for the husband to hunt food in order for the family to survive. (Or so one thinks).

PM: Listen. Why don't I just write you a poem about the way the clouds look? Wouldn't that be just as good as brining you back a piece of Wooly Mammoth? And what's with eating mammoth everyday? I want something new, something different? Something....

Wife: Grunts audibly in a way that indicates she understands his mid-life crisis and the existential angst that he's feeling about being just one more being going through the motions of life. She (the grunt of course) really does enjoy some good cave man poetry. The water sits in the rock and the like. However, if he doesn't sack up (And here I'm perhaps making her speech a bit more colloquially appropriate for a twenty first century audience) she's going to go sleep in a different cave.

Just then, his son starts crying. The sound is softened by the rain. And his stone age heart goes a bit tender. He rises from his crouch before the fire. Their will be no more drawings on the wall. Today, he is meant to kill herds of animals. He is meant to blot them out from the face of the earth. His ancestors will be kings. They will bathe in blood.

Wife: Grunts audibly in a way that indicates that the last part was probably a bit much, and she'd settle for just a bit of a hot meal this evening. And really has no desire for any sort of Abrahamic covenant or anything, just food.

PM: He points to the sun setting somewhere in the West. He puts his knuckles to the ground and rubs two sticks together vigorously. "This I can do," he says. And she watches him and smiles.

I come bearing good news

Well, we've now returned from the land of endless summer into the cold of the East Coast. And yes, we were greeted with a random person gazing up at our house at 11:30 at night, from the street. No doubt trying to think of the myriad of ways in which he was going to rob our empty house. Not realizing that we rigged the place Home Alone style before leaving. And that he would have been greeted by a flooded basement and some empty paint cans. Which, in retrospect, we really should have thought through more because we've got quite a mess on our hands.

If you're fortunate enough to have a good family (I do) then returning home from a holiday trip can be a bit of a let down. It seems weird, that these people who are absolutely essential to your formation as a human being, that you only see them for about 2 percent of the year. How can this be? How can we only see the really important people in our life so infrequently? And yet, we will see our co-workers, and here I'm not even talking about the one's we might like but rather the guy who sits at the front desk who's name we're not entirely sure of, on about 80 percent of the days?

I'd like to propose some grand theory that claims the rise of secular humanism in the West, espoused by some sort of Jeffersonian individual pursuit of happiness has caused us to lose the important bonds that had previously been such an important part of our culture. Yet, something as basic as the good old King James Bible asserts that,
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

I'm also fairly convinced that though we are products of our culture, that we can still choose freely. Human beings are indeed like Sartre's waiter. We do not need to pursue our own happiness, (happiness here meaning whatever you want it to mean. The term can be broadly applied to education, marriage, job status, et al. I'm intending it as a catch all for whatever you value more highly than staying in a place that is near family) at the expense of severing daily family relations. We choose to sever those relationships.

I don't think I'm really saying anything radical here. I'm merely reiterating a simple fact of twenty-first century American life. And perhaps it's even more narrow than that, perhaps I'm merely highlighting the experience of the educated or overeducated twenty first century American. She who travels out into the world to find fulfillment from the world, job, marriage, apply catch all again here). So why are twenty first century educated to overeducated persons choosing to live away from families?

I probably need to think about this more and as it's nearly 1 A.M. I'll get around to it tomorrow. Either that or my movie review of Avatar, or why we need to keep kids out of Christmas. My sweater size is medium.

Because it's late and I'm tired

How strange it is to be lying on this bed, newly put together by S, drifting into the depths of sleep. And I know that scientifically speaking they estimate that our cells are completely changed every seven to ten years. So perhaps that’s why I feel so distant from that young man driving along the highway with his beautiful girlfriend. Perhaps I am not the same person at all, but a mere reflection still caught in the mirror of yesterday.
Time is an arrow disguised as a loop. I am lying on our new bed in our newly yellow room. The night sky is dark. The stars are hung like diamonds in the sky, and yet the words still won’t come.
Just sing it,” she said to me.
I don’t’ sing well.
“Just try it. I want to hear.”
The steps were cold. And I was eighteen, and the words wouldn’t come. I am not a good singer. But why did I want to hide that from her? The words never came that night. And here I am now singing along and thinking that things could have been different if I’d have had the words. If I hadn’t been so young perhaps we’d have a lain down beneath the moonless sky. The song ends, and I am silent once again. She will never ask me to sing again. I am silent like the wind. I am silent like the hidden moon.
I sit up. I turn down the fan. I walk into the other room and brush my teeth. I am returned from the world of dreams, from the world of what if’s. I am now twenty nine years old and sleeping in a bed of my own making. I do not think that nostalgia is a bad thing. Sometimes it is a good thing to reach into our past and try to touch the person we once were, even if it seems so damn distant.


“I am now 33 years old, and it feels like much time has passed and is passing faster and faster every day. Day to day I have to make all sorts of choices about what is good and important and fun, and then I have to live with the forfeiture of all the other options those choices foreclose. And I’m starting to see how as time gains momentum my choices will narrow and their foreclosures multiply exponentially until I arrive at some point on some branch of all life’s sumptuous branching complexity at which I am finally locked in and stuck on one path and time speeds me through stages of stasis and atrophy and decay until I go down for the third time, all struggle for naught, drowned by time. It is dreadful. But since it’s my own choices that’ll lock me in, it seems unavoidable – if I want to any kind of grownup, I have to make choices and regret foreclosures and try to live with them.”(pg. 267) DFW

Not a Dr. Seuss story

We had finished the tasks of the day and were lying on the bed frame. A song came on, playing low, but sliding into the moment as if it belonged, like white snow resting on the limbs of trees. I found myself drifting back seven years in a moments time, when we went to a Counting Crows concert after S had returned from New Zealand.
Signs that I am nearing thirty years old: Upon meeting a new person I have developed the odd habit of maneuvering the conversation towards a discussion of the weather. Invariably I feign interest as the new person tells me about their dog, cat, love of books or birding, until I can finally get in a word edgewise about brisk wind. “I’m from California,” I always say, expecting them to nod knowingly. “I hate the cold.” I cannot stop it. It has become such an ingrained habit. I am essentially Pavlov’s dog, except my dinner bell is whining about temperatures under fifty degrees. I suppose this is how you get as you age. You begin to find the things that you really love, and those you really hate, and talk about them frequently.
I remember the dark road, and the stream of lights along the freeway. I remember the softness of palm touching palm and the steady beating of my heart.
I’ve been reading a bit of Michel de Montaigne of late; the great French essayist who was tragically given the name of a twentieth century woman. The great Montaigne who would often have his own lines quoted back to him without ever realizing it. It is Montaigne’s legendary inability to remember what he’d written that lies at the heart of the book, “How to Talk about books you haven’t read” by Pierre Bayard. Anyhow, Montaigne’s first essay is about idleness.
I’d like to think that I write in fragments because it is the way I experience the world. Like a piece of large glass dropped from a great height.
I’ve been thinking about you of late, now that the sun is getting colder. How you used to say to me, “I love that we have four seasons here.” And I’d smile back as though I was listening because I liked to see your lips curve into a smile.
Of late I find myself cheating when I am doing sit-ups. Just who am I cheating? I suppose that any sports coach worth their weight in camels will say, “You’re only cheating yourself.” I cheat myself at a lot of things. I could probably kick my own ass in poker by cheating.
The concert ended. We wandered through the streets of San Diego in the warmth of June. We got lost from the group, and held hands in the dark while we looked for the lost car.
On Idleness
Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible” Mhatma Ghandi

I don’t think I’ve any earthly clue what idleness looks like in the twenty first century. Perhaps my whole life is based around the pursuit of idleness.
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.” Oscar Wilde
The wind was warm at our backs. You remember the strangest things in the middle of songs. It seems absurd that to think that I am the same person that I was seven years ago. Certainly that could not have been me. How strange that it was.
A cold wind is blowing in from the East. In the morning it will be cold. In the morning it will be winter. In the morning I’ll meet you in the street and tell you that I’m from CA. We’ll pretend that we’re strangers and start things all over.

Oh! The Places You'll Go

We have a three levels in our duplex, which clearly makes us rich. I used to always think of how rich people with multiple stories house must have been. Turns out they just had higher heating costs. I never read that story, oh the places that you will go, but I'm fairly certain that a rewrite is in order for new home owner's.

Oh the places you will go. Congratulations, This is your year! You've been married for a while and you don't drink beer.

So the bank may have taken all your money. You may think in you're in the clear. But oh wait, it's Home Depot somehow approaching from the rear view mirro.



Your wife can steer you in any direction that she chooses. But no matter what you'll end up spending more money on whatzits and hoozes. You'll argue about lighting late into the night. You'll walk down an aisle and have a big fight!

You'll be on the drive home.
You'll be imagining new lights.
And suddenly you'll realize you were not meant for such plights.

You'll look at carpets. She'll like the one with stripes. She'll like the one that you don't because it is her womanly right.

You'll stew in the living room, you'll talk about art. She'll pull you close and whisper, "Tea light."

You'll look at end tables but buy not a one. "We're gathering information," she'll say.

We're gathering information she'll say, we must find the right one. "I'm dying inside," you'll proclaim this shopping is no fun!

And everything will not be perfect, you'll be starved and uptight.
Your wife will remind you your going to Bed Bath and Beyond, a taxi driver will honk and yell, green light!



But life is not always simple as you'll be sure to find. When you go in the store, the lights will make you blind. You'll walk sideways and upwards, you'll grab things Seen on TV. You'll wife will proclaim, "this store was made for me!"

You'll get so confused just waiting in line. A store clerk will stop you and say, "Are you finding everything just fine?"

Some days will be like that. You'll just want to shout, you'll want to be like King Learn and put both your eyes out.

You'll move strange lamps into the rain. You'll smell a candle and decide they are mens bane. And just then your wife will shout, "Pull the car around. Our bank account is out."

You'll start to drive home in the rain and fog. You'll say something silly as if you were speaking in frog. Your wife will remind you to drive prudently slow. You'll flip off a cabby and off you go!

You'll arrive home at eleven past nine. You'll rue the day you bought yourself this mountain to climb.

And when you are lying in bed, and the doggy dogs start barking. You'll wonder if it's burglars to whom they are hearkening.

And just like that you'll curl up in bed. You'll lay your head on a latex pillow, which for thirty dollars conforms to your head. You'll lie on a cushy mattress and stare up the at the ceiling. You may have some darky dark feelings.

You'll close your eyes in your warm cushy bed while visions of home projects dance in your head.

Wait. Are those people under your stairs?

I like to start all of my blogs with the following sentence: The greatest part about being a homeowner is x, y, blah, blah, blah, followed by a brief rant. This formula is a pretty successful way for me to get enough content to make the page scroll down. With that in mind, the greatest thing about being a homeowner is....

Oh wait, no matter what, owning a home is not great. I lied. We put up Christmas ornaments the other day (Shaq is dunking on Santa) and played some Josh Groban and Amy Grant and it pretty much felt like home. And yes, I complained a few times about not having a fireplace, but I didn't so much mind owning a home.

However, in a related story, who cares? This blog depends upon my dissatisfaction. Ergo; our Saturday house chores were spent on two major tasks. Unfortunately, I only have time for one because tasks always take longer than you'd think.

1) Putting caulk around the wire that leads into our electrical box. Why? I guess because water and electricity don't mix as well as you think they might. Okay, really I'm hoping that one day I touch some switch in the electric box and it shocks me and terms me into some super genius with really crazy hair. And I would use my super genius to enslave the human race and put everyone to work mining diamonds. Also, I would make all currency 1980's mom jeans.

Unfortunately, the chances of that happening are slim. Unlike the jeans....I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your servers.

S and I blissfully stepped out into the twenty eight degree weather like so:

S: It's so bright and cheery outside.

M: I love it when it's this brisk. Can you smell that mountain air honey?

S: We don't live in the mountains.

M: What the f did you just say to me!!! You take that back!!!

Ah, weekends. Anyhow, we crawled underneath our porch into the little shanty, (Aside: just a fantastic place to store bodies, like top notch. Like the Ritz Carlton of places to put inconvenient neighbors. And yes, it smelled like feces down there. All the better. Nobody wants to check if someone has bodies underneath a porch if it smells like poop.

Cop: Let's check under here for those missing folks.

M: I wouldn't go down there.

Cop: Why not?

M: You'll see.

Cop: They've just got poop down here.

Low humor is the best. Read your Shakespeare. Anyhow, we climbed down underneath the porch past the detritus of owners long gone and looked at the hole in our wall. But, oh wait, the hole in the cement was way too big to do anything about. And just like every problem in a new/old home it turns from something small into something slightly to moderately to way larger, and always less convenient than you thought.

For instance. The toilet is leaking. No, the toilet is now flooding my bathroom.

Once I just get up the last of these leaves we'll be done for the season. No, the tree behind our house was holding onto leaves just to spite me.

I think we might need to fill in some of the cement on our steps to keep it from cracking. No, we bought a house entirely comprised of graham crackers and icing.

The shower is leaking a bit. The shower is holding on to water and then vindictively spitting it out at random times because it feels left out now that you have a new baby.


And it became clear why the Russian River was flowing into our electrical box and that we didn't have the tools to deal with it. We concluded after huddling in the dark around broken rakes and old lawnmowers with Lord only knows how many varieties of brown recluse spiders we left the job undone.

M: I can't wait to put people under the stairs.

Some meta-fiction book ended by actual conversations

L: You look like a happy camper.

M: L, Believe it or not I'm not often described as a chipper guy. In fact, I was talking to my wife the other day about being unhappy. She said,

S: I don't think since I've known you that you've ever been happy. It's just not your personality type.

L: That must have made you happy.

M: It did cheer me up a little bit.





She remembered, as she wiped the sweat from behind her knees with a wad of toilet paper, why she didn’t take naps in the middle of the day. When she awoke, she felt as though someone had dropped a piano on her head, and she had miraculously survived, much to her disappointment.

Never begin a story in which the main character is just waking from sleep something about it seems artificial. In the grand scheme of things we spend very little time actually waking from sleep. We pretty much only get the opportunity once a day.

She swam through fathoms of blankets to reach out from sleep. When she reaches the crest of the wave, she hangs there, looking down upon the sand. She can see each individual grain, she tries to fathom the thousands upon thousands of years that it has taken to be worn away into this fine dust.

Writers are always doing this. Imbuing mundane moments like waking from sleep as though it was something mystical. Today, as I was lifting weight, I watched a plane fly across an open blue sky through a rectangular window. It occurred to me as I watched the plane disappear how silly individual human beings are, how like ants.

See that's precisely the sort of thing that fiction writers are always doing. Why can't I have just been lifting weights?

What a shame, she thought, that she would turn to dust so much more quickly. Perhaps she could leave note indicating her desire to be spread upon the sand.

One could of course argue that artifice, the willing suspension of disbelief is at the heart of writing any narrative. If you believe in the character, if you can see her red gold hair, and the slight dimpling of her cheeks in a smile, than you can certainly believe that she began this whole story just waking from sleep. It wouldn't bother you in the slightest if someone looked out the window and thought that perhaps the whole human project civilization et al, was a bit of silly striving. But then again, that is my story and not hers.

She was thinking about dying in an abstract sort of way. She ran her hands across the smooth rails of her bed frame. Naps were hell, she concluded, rising from bed and standing at the window. The glass was warm, and she pressed her face against it. In the red sky of late summer a plane skirted the tops of buildings. She could not attach any meaning to it. Post-nap her IQ dropped by at least thirty percent.

I mean, really, when an author is writing something aren't they really just fictionalizing their own life? You can't really write about something that you don't know. I mean, isn't the writer saying that the woman is in fact thinking that her life is silly, and by extension his. You can't just have a plane flying by a window. It has to mean something.

A simple guide to marrying someone who is type A:

S: I went upstairs to get some hand lotion, but I would up organizing all of my toiletries.

The same situation if it had been me:

M: I went upstairs to get some lotion, forgot why I was up there, lost the lotion, checked ESPN.com and then took a nap.



She loved the heat island of Los Angeles, loved the way that the smog obscured the mountains and turned every sunset into something that rivaled the northern lights.

Okay, I'll grant that someone could actually love the colors of a Los Angeles smog. But obscuring the mountains? Pure fiction.



Training Day Conversation:

Trainer: You might have someone on the chat who is typing inappropriate sorts of things. It's only happened a time or two. You don't have to answer them.

M: OK.

Trainer: You don't have to keep reading it. You can just say, I consider what you're saying to be harassment. If they type something else you can just reply to them and say, "I'm getting off now" and leave the chat.

M: Mentally (Unintentional comedy is probably the greatest kind). Mentally: Wouldn't that sort of encourage the behavior?).

M: Externally (Shaking head in confirmation of her statement and even inserting the occasional mmmmm. mmmhhhmmmmm to indicate a heightened degree of both understanding of the situational dynamics, and how inappropriate any sort of joke might be. It's times like that, as I'm smiling along with the trainer that I wish that I worked at SNL or something, and that we could acknowledge that saying things like "I'm getting off" to a potential weirdo might not be the best idea. Oh well, maybe in another life.

Today

7:40 A.M. Wake from a blissful sleep on my new extra cushy yet surprisingly firm bed. Briefly remember tastes great and less filling commercials. Arise from bed ready to take on the day with a newfound sense of good mattress-induced purpose.

7:40-8 A.M. Eat cereal. I do not care that the taste is absent. Food is fuel. The body is a temple.

8:10 A.M. Make the mistake of wondering what to wear to work. Put on various collared shirt combinations before deciding on something stripey and nice. Note: I'm not sure that's how a fashion designer would describe it. Put lotion on my face. Mentally punch myself for putting lotion on my face.

8:20 A.M. Go out into the world on a blustery day. Reflect on the fact that I hate blustery days. Blustery day seems unfazed. Drive to work listening to NPR. Reflect on the fact that I hated NPR for a long time. Try to disregard the obvious fact that my enjoyment of NPR may be directly related to the wrinkles on my forehead.

9-12:45-Commence loaning books to student populations throughout the United States. Reflect on the fact that I'm probably the closest thing to Santa Claus that you'll see this Holiday season. Except that my gift is obscure journal articles and dusty books. Briefly think of demanding that everyone refer to me as good St. Nick at the office. Desist in favor of keeping my job.

11:30-Loan an article from the optimistic journal-the journal of divorce and remarriage. I'm glad they finally got their shi- together and got a publication going.

12:45-Go to Christmas Holiday party with co-workers. Immediately lament not wearing an ugly Christmas sweater. Think of adding ugly Christmas sweater to my wish list when I get home. Forget it until now.

1:00-I enjoy putting cookies and cake in my temple.

2:00-Cease eating after one hour solid of gluttony. Remind myself to have self-control, but not today.

2:15-The clouds are gunmetal. The wind is stiff and cold. No birds dot the sky. No leaves are in the trees. I talk with a co-worker about the job market. We conclude that it is bad. The wind is still blustery.

4:30-Go to the gym. Calculate that 3,289 sit-ups should off-set my caloric intake from lunch. Note: I was not a math major but my figures are unimpeachable. Cease after 300 because it's almost 3,000.

6-6:30-Drive home in the cold weather. I don't honk at anyone. I change lanes somewhat sporadically in an attempt to speed up. I do not cut anyone off. Have a conversation with an interlocutor Plato style.

Interlocutor: Why are you changing lanes so much? Do you really think that getting home two minutes earlier is worth it?

M: If I save two minutes over the course of 250 working days during a year that adds up to a total of five hundred minutes. So, yes, I'll take my five hundred minutes and use them as I please.

Interlocutor: You're probably going to use them to watch television.

M: You might be right. But I might use those minutes to write a really outstanding novel that will get me on Oprah and the view and the cover of US weekly.

Interlocutor: Unlikely.

M: We're done here.

An aside in honor of Christmas: Does anyone like ham? I know my family ate ham for Christmas for about fifteen years until we had this groundbreaking conversation.

M: Ham sucks.

P2: Yes it does!

M: Why have we been eating ham all these years?

Interlocutor: Actually, the answer is more complex than you might think. You're eating ham for a variety of reasons that include

M: He's a witch!

P2: Burn him!

And maybe on a good day I might like a ham sandwich. But in general I think that it's safe to say that ham is not one of our beloved meats. This year let me be the first to suggest a nice Tofurky as the new traditional Christmas dinner. It's available at your local grocer for a reasonable price. The prep and cook time are much lower than you get with meat. It is a more sustainable meal, which is important, it's good to feel like you're better than other people when you're having a meal.

And, here's the real plus. It tastes nothing like meat. Your guests are going to take one bite of it and ask, "What is this crap?" You can't really put a price tag on something like that. 12.95 at your local Trader Joe's.

But seriously the best part is that most of your guests probably won't say anything. They'll wait to get in the car and drive home with their loved ones, kids et al, before they start bitching about the quality of the cooking and excoriating their wives, husbands, et al for making them drive to that damn hippie house hold. And guess what? You don't have to hear any of it.

Then you have the added bonus/fun of watching them try and choke down your tasteless turkey constructed entirely of nuts and bits of grass that you've gathered from the yard and a few twigs from a bird's nest, with a smile on your face. Because you know it tastes like dirt but they can't say anything about it. Note: This whole scenario assumes that the person cooking the meal at Christmas has heavy misanthropic tendencies like this author.

Barring that just serve everyone ham because you're pretty much doing the same thing. Note: I expect an outraged number of comments from ham lovers and the pig growers of america. That may or may not be an organization.

nostalgia

In the morning I take out the trash in the freezing rain. The neighbors dog barks at me from behind a small chain link fence. If I had a way to threaten him, I would. We do not know when the garbage goes out. Some weeks I just leave the cans in the back alley so that they will be taken. This morning I watched them take away the garbage. The dog didn't even bother them.
Trash day is Wednesdays. Dogs and I don't get along.

Sometimes when I'm at work I forget what day it is. I end sentences with prepositions. I misplace commas. I begin reading short stories and then stop reading, right in the middle, because they are so good. Sometimes I lie to myself about why I stop reading short stories.

When it's cold outside I think people have a tendency to walk faster. Yesterday I saw two girls wearing skirts for no earthly reason at all. It's too damn cold to look cute. When the rain is freezing I have tendency to miss CA. I tend to miss things until I have them at hand.

Our mattress is firm and fluffy both. We both slept like rocks but not for eternity. Presumably rocks sleep for eternity. Perhaps I should throw a rock at the neighbor's dog. Perhaps I should always put an apostrophe when I'm dealing with the possessive.

The snow felt for what felt like days. A few squirrels burrowed into the blanket looking for acorns.
"We need a cat," she said.
"We'll feed him squirrels and roaches," I answered.

I can't tell the difference between Tuesday and Wednesday. They seem eerily reminiscent of one another. Sartre said some interesting things that occasionally make you want to quit work.

"Although circumstances may limit individuals (facticity), they cannot force persons as radically free beings to follow one course over another. For this reason, individuals choose in anguish: they know that they must make a choice, and that it will have consequences. For Sartre, to claim that one amongst many conscious possibilities takes undeniable precedence (for instance, "I cannot risk my life, because I must support my family") is to assume the role of an object in the world, merely at the mercy of circumstance—a being-in-itself that is only its own facticity."

"The more we use machines in our daily lives the more we come to resemble them."
"I disagree."
"You can't disagree. That's just the way it is."
"I don't have to like it."

I do not know where they take our trash in the morning. None of the men are smoking cigarettes. This shouldn't strike me as odd, but does. The dog growls from behind the chain link fence. You have nothing to fear but fear itself. I am not afraid of the dog per se. I am afraid of the dog attacking me. I am afraid of dying. Epicurus thought that this fear was at the root of all our unhappiness. Epicurus died. But did he do so unhappily?

The trash truck disappears back down the street. Our green trash can lies on its side, spilling bits of water from its concave roof onto the already muddy ground. It is time to start another day.

We bought a Christmas tree!

Undoubtedly the biggest bonus of owning a new home is finally having space to put up your very own Christmas tree. Some of my fondest memories of childhood are from Christmas tree hunts that we'd take as a family. I distinctly remember that special year when mom drove us up the snow and we hiked through the cold to cut our very own tree.

Kids: Are we there yet?
Mom: Isn't this fun?
Kids: This sucks.
Mom: We've got our very own ax.
Kids: Is this a death hike? Do these trails actually lead anywhere?
Mom: I don't know why I even bothered having kids.
Kids: What?
Mom: I said I love you.
Kids: This sucks.

Ah, Christmas trees. Other highlights include the year that my sister went dumpster diving to get our Christmas cheer as well as the numerous battles we had with the Christmas tree stand.

P: Is it straight?
P2: No. Take that one side out a little.
P: Begins to turn extremely hard piece of metal into hand causing mild to sever pain in the hands.
P: Is it good now?
P2: Close, but I actually think you may need to tighten it a bit more.
P: Mumbles under breath about the need for any damn tree at all while building calluses as they turn the metal piece.
P: Is it straight now?
P2: I think so. Try letting go.

P: Steps away and admires the tree for a moment. A feeling of accomplishment is felt throughout the room. The tree then topples over onto the ground.
P: That's it. F this, Christmas is cancelled this year.

Then when you finally battle the tree into a nice position mom takes one of your blankets and wraps it around the tree. Which fine, no problem. Except that the cats see a tree and a blanket and think of it as their personal toilet and by Christmas morning your new G.I. Joe's smell rather strongly of cat urine. (Obviously not a personal experience).

So it was with all of these positive memories of trees past that after running errands for roughly five hours or so S proposed that we buy a tree.

S: Let's get a tree.
M: Let's not.
S: We're here.
M: One of us is probably going to get murdered.
S: I hope it's not me.
M: Awkward.

Ergo; we trudged into Lowe's and bought ourselves a fine little Doug fir. I like to call it a Doug fir because it makes it sound like I know my Christmas trees. In fact, later in the evening after S had picked it out, I said, "You got a Doug Fir I see," and I could tell that she was impressed with my ability to recognize different varieties of pines. Granted I was reading the label at the time, but we all need crutches.

In our marriage, I'm right at least fifteen percent of the time. It's a low enough percentage that S has to be careful when to take my advice.

M: Let's just clean out the back of the car and hang it out the back window like we did with my surf board.

S: No, it will get pine needles all over the car.

M: The car is dirty anyway. Besides, didn't we just buy a tarp?

S: I'm an efficient person (or something to that affect).

We then commenced tying extremely loose knots to strap the key to our car. Which, thanks mom for never sending me to boy scouts because it is a creepy organization, but I don't really know how to tie a proper knot. Maybe if I was from New England...
Anyhow, we tied some shoddy knots and then blissfully drove onto the freeway while people in the parking lot pointed and laughed at our handy work. No really, I saw people laughing at us. Also, our car doesn't have any sort of roof rack, so we're up shi- creek with only these shoddy knots for paddles.

Needless to say, within a mile our tree was completely sideways on the car and falling off the back Griswold style. We managed to fit the tree into the back of our car and make the rest of the drive safely home with the windows rolled down on a beautiful thirty degree evening. And I drove home blissfully aware of how right I had been from the beginning. And I didn't even mention that I had been right, I was content to just feel the wind rushing through my hair, giving me a slight case of hypothermia. Sometimes it's enough to just know you were right.

S: You were right about the tree.
M: You're damn right I was!

I guess the real lesson in this story is that getting Christmas trees will always suck. I can't wait until the day that I take my own kids to cut down a Christmas tree of our own.

M: Put down your iPods and your phones for a minute. We've got no coverage out here.
Kids: Why are you torturing us?
M: Can you smell the pines kids?
Kids: What the hell's a pine?
M: That's Doug Fir you're smelling.
Kids: What did we ever do to you?
M: Isn't it nice to be outside for once?
Kids: Is this a death hike?
M: Sigh.

We bought a bed/38 goats is hard to pass up

Despite the fact that S has recently proclaimed on several different occasions that she'd like to stay in the guest room, we bought a bed for the master bedroom. Like most people I encounter during the course of the day, she clearly says things like, "We should just stay in this bedroom" to try and irritate me enough to drive me into an early grave, collect the insurance money, and live a happy life in Hawaii with a rich celebrity. Other annoying things like, "Can you answer this call? or Why don't you do your job? or how are you today?" are also offered up during the course of my day in an obvious attempt to drive me insane.

We had gone out to buy a bed previously and discovered that mattress stores are scary. We also met a few obnoxious salesmen in the process.

Sales: "You spend four tenths of your life sleeping? Don't be afraid to buy a quality mattress."
M: Yeah but those hours aren't exactly my most exciting.
Sales: "This bed is going to change your life."
M: Sigh.

Sales: "This mattress has individually wrapped coils."
M: "Like a present?"
Sales: Uh, yeah.
M: I love presents.

We finally went to a shop that seemed to be only minimally strange, and we found a salesmen who managed to not be entirely obnoxious. As such, we finally bought a mattress.

M: Now can we put down a glass of wine and jump around on the bed like in the commercial?
Sales: That's a different bed you're thinking of.
M: Honey, break out the merlot.

M: Does this mattress have a pillow top mattress?
Sales: Why yes.
M: Do any of these have the pillow bottom? I'm actually concerned about the way my box spring has been creaking. I'd like to give it some extra support.
Sales: Of course. We'll do anything to sell you a mattress. Do you want my kidney? I only need one

M: Does this mattress slide well down stairs? My wife and I like to hop on the mattress during the winter and ride it down the stairs like a sled.
Sales: I wouldn't use it for that.
M: Do you want to make a sale or not?
Sales: Great idea.
M: If you can throw in a copy of the claymation Rudolph movie you've got yourself a deal.

M: Would the stuffing in this mattress make good material for a nest? I love birds.

M: Would you sell this mattress to your grandmother?

M: Do you even like your grandmother?

M: What if I wanted to use this mattress to barricade the street and throw stones like in the French Revolution?
Sales: It will work like a charm.
M: Is it bullet proof?
Sales: Do I want to make a sale?

Look at how sleepy that lady is above. I love mattress ads because everyone looks so peaceful in their unitard, just sleeping the day away. I'd love it if the ads were of folks in pain or rather, drooling rather obviously on pillows, perhaps a picture of wife holding a pillow over her ears while her husband snores. Or perhaps a person making a list of things they have to do in the morning with a thought bubble that says, "Did I leave the stove on." I think the mattress buying public would appreciate the change.

Eventually we bought a mattress and soon our house will actually be a home instead of a place where someone appeared to have been storing some furniture for a while. Side Note: I also noticed that every mattress store has these really nefarious adds that claim things like "Seventy five percent off all mattresses" "Buy one get one free on all sizes" "Buy one mattress and we'll throw in a baby for free." I'm not even sure why they put in that last one.

One other thing that made me uncomfortable was how much bargaining you can do when buying a mattress. I just want the price at a set rate. I'm not the best haggler in the world.

Sales: The price is 1400.
M: I'll take it.

Sales: The price is 3800
M: I'll take it.

Sales: I'm going to need your first born
M: Okay, I guess.

Luckily S was prepared to lie about the other mattress estimates and make this poor man start sweating before we got our mattress. I mean, I genuinely felt bad for the guy. S noted that he may have been putting on a show for us, but even if he was, he did such a damn good job that I wanted to reward him by paying more.



Sales: I'll give you thirty five goats for your wife.
M: Thirty eight dammit!
S: No sale!
M: I thought I was learning to barter....

Some failed attempts at writing

A checklist of things he remembered.

1. When you’re preparing to meet her don’t panic too much.
2. Don't think about not thinking about panicking. This will only cause you to panic. 3. Don’t comb your hair over the top of your head to hide the bald spot which is so patently obvious.
4. Do not excuse yourself from dinner and then go to the bathroom and splash water on your face.
5. Wink at yourself in the bathroom mirror. It will make you feel like someone approves of you.
6. If she bends down to pick something up, and the hem of her shirt drops, look away.
7. Breathe deeply.
8. Perhaps put a handkerchief in your pocket. A white one. Women from any country find a bit of chivalry appealing.


A sort of traveler’s guide to Paris heavily abridged

The first day we disembarked from the plane and proceeded straight to the train station to purchase our tickets from the conveniently distributed electronic tellers. Though, unless you’ve arrived in Paris with some spare change from your last European vacation, you’ll find the convenient automated tellers a bit inconvenient. I pushed my way up to two different machines and stuffed in my credit card, bank card, and any other card that seemed like it might pay our passage before determining it a loss. We then went into the conveniently located train station where one person was helping roughly the population of South Dakota to purchase tickets out.

One of the first things that I learned on my trip to Paris is that it is important to sleep before seeing the sights. I remember Notre Dame as if through a fog. The day was of course sunny and bright. And to be honest, my hair had seen better days. Thus, after seeing the towering spires of Notre Dame, we traveled over to the church of Sainte Chapelle to see where the crown of thorns had been purchased for (insert) by Louis (IX)? Stopping along the way to purchase a crepe from a very brusque French lady who may have thought we were deaf and dumb. It was never clear.

The plane descended smoothly into the airport at Newark. On the sidewalks below, structures that had looked like metal brontosaurus were slowly coming back into view. And Paris, Paris was just one more thing that was now over. A place to tell other people that I had been. And we can admire it now, from the quiet of an American Starbucks, our fingers laced together to gather warmth, that city a hazy idea in our minds.


The First Line to a story that I promise was going places if only I could have written more than one sentence.

"And I assure you that he spoke so highly of you that I myself nearly fell in love with you."




The Beginning to a story that I've written poorly five separate times.

She had started thinking about it while she was at the zoo. It probably had something to do with reading that story about the tiger who jumped over the moat and mauled people. She held her hand against the railing. It was cold and felt dirty. The sun was near its zenith, and her friends were both wearing hats. She had a sinus headache. It was like she was wearing a mask on her face.

“I heard they had it coming,” her friend said, gesturing to the tiger.
“Typical male,” her other friend said, laughing a little.
“How far do you think a tiger can jump?”
“That’s why they’ve got the netting up.”
“You don’t think a tiger could cut right through the netting?”
“I know almost nothing about tigers.”
“I know they could cut right through this netting.”

That wasn’t the sort of way that she wanted to go. She’d long had an irrational fear about being eaten by a bear. Any time she wandered someplace that even remotely resembled the woods she obsessed about being eaten by a bear. It was central to who she conceived of herself being, this irrational fear of bears.

“But bear cubs are so cute,” her friend reminded her.
“I’m not scared of the gd cubs.”

None of them really knew much about tigers. Most of them worked at office jobs in the city. At night they complained about their bosses and co-workers over expensive drinks. None of them were happy. Nothing was going to change anytime soon.

They all had degrees in impractical things. They would have considered it a compliment to have called them failed artists.
In late October, even when the sun is at its peak it still didn’t feel quite warm enough to her. The tiny hairs on her arm were raised.

They got drinks at the zoo and sat for a while at a table and watched Panda bears munch contentedly on shoots of bamboo.

“That animal should be extinct,” Louis said. “If it weren’t for us humans going around babying the damn things they’d have already kicked off.” She wasn't sure if pandas counted as real bears.

Fences continued

Other options for fences include your traditional wooden fence. As it turns out wooden fences cost somewhere between 2,000 and 1 million dollars.

S: Can you go down and get the thyme? I need it for this recipe.

M: I guess I have the time to do it.

M: I am officially eighty years old.

Whenever you mention getting a nice privacy fence, people always feel that need to mention that you could do it yourself. Then a long explanation follows about laying concrete, (and I've no earthly idea how we're going to fit a cement mixer into our backyard) and just setting it up, and I glaze over and try to ask when the next football game starts. I mean, I suppose I could also build my own rocket and fly to the moon, but if I'm going to the moon, I'm going to let NASA build my rocket. Note: I think it's fair to compare building a rocket to building a fence. If I wanted to know how to build a fence I would have gone to fence building school. You build the fence, and I'll wrote a poem about it. Who is to say, which is more important?
Answer: The neighbor's dog, who is blocked out by the fence but tears through poetry like it's flesh.

Aside: I had to look up how to pronounce the word poem this evening due to a disturbing trend amongst people I know to pronounce it pome or pyme. For my money it is and always will be pronounced, poem. I guess I pronounce it that way because that's how it's spelled and always been done and always should be done. I'm willing to grant that pome or pyme might be an appropriate pronunciation if you are...no, I'm not willing to grant it. In fact, this whole pome craze started because one of our illustrious profs in the writing program, and a poet to boot, calls them pomes. To which, what the hell man? I don't know if anyone else has been wondering lately about how to pronounce poem or if they can reassure me that it's still just poem. I'd really appreciate some support here. This probably means that I'll receive a bunch of pomes in response because the world is a dark and dreary place.

(An episode in which a joke is made. And no, we're not).

S: It says here in this book that a husband shouldn't get drunk if the couple is trying to get pregnant.

M: How else is she going to get him to sleep with her?

S: I guess that was kind of an easy one.

M: I felt like letting it pass would have been a disservice to both of us.

At some point I was talking about fences. Anyhow, wooden fences cost a bit of cash, and my first novel hasn't hit the best seller list yet, so we're unsure if we can do it. The nice wooden fence is great because it gives the middle finger to the rest of your neighbors letting them know that you've got a yard that is better than the one they've got. And maybe you're nude sun bathing all day back there, it's none of their damn business! Note: S actually wants to get one of them fancy Yankee fenes that allows for breathing or something. Does wood breathe?

The downside of the wooden fence is that it rots. A wooden fence is like your basic dictatorship. At first everything looks fine and dandy, then someone peaks inside the fence and realizes that you've been handing out pamphlets about how great your fence is, and how everyone should have a fence just like it or be put to death. The upkeep on the fence turns out to be a pain in the ass and you're out another million or so.

Vinyl fences last longer. However, the down side of ownign a vinyl fene is that not everyone knows that it is a superior material for longevity. Your neighbor is going to see your vinyl fence and think to himself, "Damn, that poor bastard couldn't even afford a wood fence." And he'll leave shaking his head or perhaps offering you a dollar or something to replace the cheap plastic you've put up in place of solid chain link. Putting up a wall is all about impressing your neighbors. People in the middle ages knew this and so they erected castles with large walls knowing that their descendants would profit handsomely from tourists for the next thousand years. A lot of people will tell you some bunk about protecting from peasant revolts or marauding armies, but they are all liars. Walls were a long term investment in the future.

So now you can't put up vinyl. So what do you put up? Granted, this is only an answer in the front yard, but the answer is definitely wrought iron. Wikipedia gives you a nice update on why it's the best but it takes too damn long. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrought_iron. Here's my Andrewpedia definition. Wrought iron is the best because it looks simple, yet ornate. It lets your neighbors see into your yard, but it does more than that. It says to your neighbor, I could have afforded a big fence, but I didn't want to obstruct your view of how much better I am than you. It says, Oh look, in case of a peasant uprising, I could just pull one of these large stakes from the ground and smelt together some chain mail and a sword and sleigh them. It says, look at all the fancy grill work, look at how my wrought iron looks like wood only better. Wrought iron says, this fence is pretty much not functional, and I'm so much better than you that I don't even need a functional fence. I'm happy with this small, easily scaled, non-view obstructing piece of iron.

Man do I love wrought iron fences! One of the best things about owning a home is finding out about all these things that you never really knew you loved. Anyhow, I should probably get to bed as I'm planning on breaking the news to S tomorrow that our laundry room is going to be turned into a smithy. I can't wait to work the bellows! Wrought iron bit-h! Refer to picture above as referent for conversation.

Neighbor: I noticed you got a new fence there neighbor.

M: You're damn right I do! That's wrought iron.

Neighbor: Looks like those flowers are really coming in nicely.

M: Why don't you take a closer look at my wrought iron fence. Do you see what those are? Look closer. That's right. It's a human skull carved into my fence. So why don't you just save the comments about my flowers to yourself!

Neighbor: I was just trying to compliment you.

M: That's it. I'm going to the smith to smelt up a lance to impale you on.

Neighbor: This actually used to be a nice neighborhood.

M: Your skull will adorn my fence! Wrought iron!

Note: The author apologizes for his excitement over a type of fence. It is probably some sort of sign that his life has gone horribly wrong in a way that he cannot fathom.

Let's talk about fences

After you buy a house it's fun to walk around the surrounding neighborhoods and get some good ideas for your own home.

M: Oh,would you look at that. They put a green astro turf mat right over the front porch. Brilliant. You can play a game of mini-golf or just walk outside barefoot.

M: Oh, would you look at that! (The exclamation mark really denotes my excitement) They paved right over all that ugly grass and made a nice impervious surface parking lot in their backyard. That's great.

M: Check out that kiddie pool. I never would have thought to put it on the roof of the front porch like that. Awesome!

The original fence was created by Native Americans. This fence was known by the name of land. Land was pretty much free for people to use as they saw fit. Europeans saw this practice and came in and built fences. Thus, our first option in the history of fencing would be to take down our chain link and share our yard with the neighbors.
Ex:

M: Hey their neighbor. I see you're smoking some weed in the kiddie pool while your rabid dog gnaws (it took me an inordinate amount of time to spell gnaws correctly) on the entrails of our children. Do you mind if I pull up a folding chair and some lemonade. Note: This is a dramatization. None of our neighbors have kiddie pools.

Neighbor: Get the f out of my yard!

M: Wow there friend. I thought we might just share this space Stalin style.

Neighbor: Did you just say Stalin style?

M: Let's share it comrade!

Needless to say the idea of not having a fence in your backyard is communist, and neither I, nor Joseph McCarthy (bless his Irish heart and brain) will stand for it. Good fences make good neighbors. If it's good enough for Robert Frost it's good enough for me.

I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."


Let's just ignore the fact that Robert is clearly against the idea of fences because it weakens my argument. I'm wondering if I can get my hands on this old stone savage to come make our fence...

The second type of fence is a chain-link one. We currently have a beautiful little piece of chain link spanning the length of our yard. The chain-link is a slight step up from the free land of the Wild West. A chain-link fence says, "Hey, look, I'd prefer if you stay off my property. And to reinforce that idea I've put this crude small fence together. Now, I'll grant that you can still see over, through, under my crude fence, but I'd rather you stayed out of my yard. This is my crappy yard. It's not your crappy yard. And no, I didn't care enough to do something better. Who do yo think I am? an old stone savage?"

Plus we all remember the chain link fences of our childhood, hopping the fence and getting stuck on the top. Or not really hopping that many fences as I was afraid of heights.

Chain-link fences are a slight step up from Communist non-fenced yards. Chain-link is a crude kind of socialism. It indicates a certain lack of status that you just don't get with any other brand of fence. It says, "I care, but not very much, in fact, maybe I don't care. Maybe I'm just leaving this rusty old piece of crap fence up because I'm too lazy to pull it out. Now stay the hell away from my dog or it will gnaw on your child's entrails."

The old stone wall that Frost describes is pretty much only for people from New England. People from New England love things like old stone walls and trees to climb through. They love to talk quietly and whisper about their childhoods romping through the forests of New England while listening to episodes of Garrison Keeler. These are the sorts of folks who might shush you during a really good political conversation just to try and identify a bird's call. People from New England are genuinely regarded as pretty obnoxious by the rest of the known world because of their proclivity for being different, and for the Patriots winning, and because even if a snowy owl is hooting away nobody likes be cut off when they are getting really wound up about the state of US health care. (accepting my brother-in-law, who though he is a New Englander through and through manages to be a pretty great guy. I suspect that he and his family are going to discover at some point in time that they are actually from the West Coast).

People from New England enjoy a good stone wall because it looks rustic and reminds them of something they saw in an L.L. Bean catalog. We don't go in for that kind of crap in the big city. If we want to see trees we'll cut them down and make a building out of them. We listen to NPR, but we do it for All Things Considered, not the funny Saturday shows. We take public transit and lament the fact that people still live off in the woods where they have to drive miles and miles to get anything done. We don't build stone fences because we're not from New England.

(I'm going to go ahead and just try and offend everyone in the known world by the end of this blog post. Thus, if you are from New England you probably are a wonderful person, who enjoys the outdoors, but in a healthy way. And sure, your friends might describe you as earthy-crunchy but they say it with a bit of delight in their voices. They love you. And if you have astro turf on your front porch it's just so you don't have to repaint the damn thing every spring. And if you have a kiddie pool, it's because kiddie pools are great. And you just can't afford to own anything more than a chain-link and maybe you like being able to call to your neighbors over the chain-link fence and show them that your dog can be loving.

But probably not...More on fencing choices tomorrow. When I'll finally let everyone know what the top of the line is for us big city folk.

Expendable?

I was so tired after work that I could not remember your name.

When I was but a child I was told that the Eskimos (and mind you, I was but a child, so we still used words like Eskimo instead of Inuit) had a practice of shoving their elderly off on a block of ice when they had outlived their usefulness. The way the story was told, (and I'm sure I could Wikipedia this story and find out the veracity of it. But that's not always the point, facts, facts, facts. Sometimes you need to listen to the damn story. The world was not made inside a computer. F facts) ((Written like a true artiste)) (((E included for emphasis))). the elderly person was a willing partner in this sacrifice. They realized that they were a burden to the community and that their time to go had come. It's a beautiful story whether Wikipedia believes it or not.

I'm sorry that we talked for so long, in the shadow of the building, without me ever remembering.

Friends, colleagues, other people. A less beautiful story took place a mere week or so ago on the AU college campus. I walked briskly to work (whistling joyously) ((those who know me best know that I am prone to fits of joyful whistling even on the darkest of days)). I often lie. And as I smiled my way into that beautiful crisp Autumn morning, the trees all shedding leaves, like red tears of long forgotten lovers, (I mean that's literally what I was thinking as I was walking underneath those trees...or not. Refer above) I noticed a line of youthful people spreading across the quad.

Perhaps it started with an R? And if it started with an R, maybe this time it will be different.

I gamboled (something I do often) my way over to the gathering of beautiful young minds and made an inquiry of them.

M: Perchance, fair ho (You'll have to forgive my poor verbiage. Understand, I've not been to Knights of the Round Table or a Renaissance fair. Quite frankly, I can barely handle the word Renaissance. I always want to spell it Renassaince. I bet Chaucer spelled it that way. That crazy bastard.) you can tell me whilst you have all been gathering?

Maybe things will be different for me because you'll be a different you.

FH: (At this point the FH explained to me that the young folks were all gathered together to receive a vaccine for the H1N1, which translated loosely in to terms that non-scientists can understand is, "Imminent doom and death for all those who don't get immunized."

M: Oh, shall I wait in line to obtain thine elixir?

FH: (FH, quite rudely I might add, pointed out the lines on my forehead and asked whether I was indeed worthy to actually get the vaccine).

That's when I realized that I was essentially an elderly person in an Eskimo village. My best years behind me. There I was, standing in line to get the vaccine, but I was too damn old. I tried to explain to the FH that I didn't want to be pushed out on the iceberg yet.
M: I haven't even written my novel yet. I've got a novel in me. (Eighty five percent of the population thinks they've got a novel in them somewhere. I'm guessing that the percentage is higher if add in memoirs). The FH was unswayed by my pleas for mercy and I walked slowly to work, alone, old, confused, trying to think of all the things I had left undone.

Maybe this time we'll introduce ourselves before we start talking. We'll say witty things while the weather gets colder.A sense of humor is what's most needed in December.

On Television and nostalgia

And you could even argue that a great deal of this blog is dependent on television as a common cultural text. Note: always describe things as texts when attempting to write a graduate level thesis. I believe Shakespeare captured it with a bit more flair in As You Like it than all the dreary literary critics who followed him:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

And that brief quote darlings clearly shows why it is a good thing to occasionally turn off our dear friend the television and pick up a book. Anyhow, the original point was something along the lines of this very blog needing a common cultural text of television to make jokes about the Snorks, Inspector Gadget, Duck Tales, Care Bears et al. I have a feeling that if I used Ulysses or even a contemporary classic like Beloved as a common text I would find myself preaching to a rather empty choir loft beyond a few graduate students who would profess their love for the high modernist tome or the lyrical language of dear Miss Morrison.

Home Improvement is a much more universal tool for describing my housing troubles than Song of Solomon. Wilson, standing on the other side of the fence makes more sense than Rabbit running down to talk with his local pastor. Which, to that point, our toilet overflowed again tonight, despite the fact that we had a plumber fix it. And, at some point as I was hauling the mop upstairs, in my sweatshirt and long pants because we can't turn up the heat, that this home ownership thing is a damn racket. American dream my ass. Thank the good Lord the real American Dream now is to be famous, even if it's only for fifteen seconds. I recommend becoming independently wealthy before you ever buy a home because the cost of keeping it functional will sink you faster than the Titanic and without the symphony playing.

In my mind, television winds up doing double duty in most households. We are simultaneously inspired and depressed by it. We see people on television, particularly the reality TV craze, and think that perhaps we could join them in the world of fame, or perhaps we watch a transcendent athlete like Michael Jordan and then go out in the yard and shoot hoops. However, we are simultaneously often discouraged by what we watch on television. We watch other talented individuals doing things with the same slack jawed amusement that our parents feared. Is it better to watch someone dance or to learn how to do the damn thing yourself? But who has the time or the energy? How different are the stories on television than the ones we used to hear from books? What makes Peter Pan the book so much better than Hook? Pure snobbery? Perhaps. I'd argue, and did previously, that good television and good books both exist. It's merely a matter of cultivating a taste for what is fine and good.

Note: A good start would be to read the finest critics of both television and literature. Snobs don't exist in vacuums. They become snobs by studying a hell of a lot harder than your garden variety individual. Our current cultural disdain for cultural elites seems a bit misguided. I'd rather have the plumber fix my shower than a roofer. Of course, the plumber didn't do the damn job either so perhaps, in the spirit of being a true self-made American man, I should just do it myself. It's like I always say to S, "I got my master's degree so that I can pay other people to fix my stuff." Of course, my master's degree is entirely useless when it comes to monetary gain, and the real reason that I shy away from home improvement projects is that I take to them like a hippo takes to people wandering through his patch of grass...Not well.

Anyhow, not sure I've said anything of real consequence herein, but at least you got some Shakespeare. And I've got to go check and make sure that my bathroom is not flooded again and making more water spots in the ceiling below. I have a sinking feeling that real life is going to turn out to be a hell of a lot less entertaining than what I've seen in movies....

On Television and nostalgia

It's funny how swayed we are by articles that we read or interesting radio stories. All it takes is reading some blurb about carbs making us fat and suddenly the whole population is an expert on losing weight and what the body needs. These sorts of things come up often within the bonds of marriage because as we all know, spouses or sig. others are the people we get to tell all the boring/complaining/possibly interesting stuff that we bottle up all day while pleasantly smiling at co-workers whose name we're not quite sure of.

S: I read that dancing is supposed to make you smarter.
M: That's why I'm always trying to get you to go to the club.
S: The article also mentioned that you should only watch, at maximum, two hours of television a day.
M: What a shocker. Finally an article that let's us know that television isn't great for us.

M: New stunning research comes out, "If you punch babies in the face you may be an asshole. More to come on Channel 7 news.

Time passes.
S: Let's do the dishes.
M: I'll be downstairs lowering my IQ.

I have conflicted feelings about television. Television was something that I used to watch with my dad and my brother. We'd bond over sports games, exulting in the win, or feeling downtrodden with each loss. We still talk about what is on television, it somehow manages to tie us together across all these thousands of miles. It's amazing to think we can be witnessing the same events simultaneously from all across the country.

I remember watching X-files with my mother when I was the only child still left at home. The special treat that it was to call her into the living room and watch that show. My mother rarely watched television but for those two years we rarely missed an episode. When I think of Thanksgiving I think of family, of turkey, and of television. I think of watching the game, or being told to stop watching the game and socialize. I think of the hours spent early in our marriage watching episodes of AD on those Friday's when we were too worn out from work to do anything else. I remember being in college, and watching episodes of Family Guy, ordering pizza, and sitting together and sharing in communal laughter.

I listen to NPR. I have a Masters degree. Some days I still think I want to be a writer. This pretty much makes me the sort of person who has complicated feelings about television. I'm simultaneously annoyed and thrilled by people who don't own televisions. I can't imagine how much time they must have, not spending hours upon hours in front of the television. Privately, I loathe the time I spend watching television. I berate myself or S for watching too much and claim that we should be out making meaningful relationships or writing or serving the homeless.

I am of the generation that knows that television makes you less intelligent. My God, just look at the awkward construction of that previous sentence as proof. This study wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know. But what about all the good television shows that are on right now? What about the shared enjoyment of an episode of AD? or the fantasy of Lost that reminds me of being curled up in my mother's lap listening to Tolkein? I actually think television is getting better. But is it making us better? I occasionally have feelings of guilt when I watch television. I imagine that I should be reading, or writing, or listening to a podcast about philosophy. I think of all the other things that I could be doing that would make me a better human being.

Are they all better things? Were human beings a more moral or happy species before the advent of television? Were families and marriages less likely to break up? Did people gather round and sing folk songs late into the night? Is it a compelling argument to ask, "At the end of your days will you be remembered for all the television shows you watched?" Or is that just implicitly a bullshit question? What else are you likely to be remembered for? Ashes to ashes dust to dust. How much does the interim matter in any grand scheme? Do people who watch less television really enjoy life more? Or are they just smug bastards who can't afford cable and enjoy feeling better than other people? Is TV the devil?

My current opinion about the old boob tube is that it's not all bad. I think that watching a good television show can be a worthwhile experience. I think that the insidious trap of television is no different than that offered by any other things we humans partake of. It is good in small doses. The ubiquity of television makes it perhaps a bit more dangerous than other options. But you can watch television shows that make you a more well connected and intelligent human being? Or you can watch two and a half men. The real trick, I suppose, when watching television or doing anything else for that matter, is to figure out when you've had enough enjoyment out of it and when it's time to move on to something else. Let that be a self-reminder for Thanksgiving meal as well. Learning to be grateful for the good things and not gorging oneself is a damn near impossible lesson to learn.

Because the temptation (often given into in my case) is to sit until I am well past the point of satiated. That's not actually televisions fault though, it's mine. Treating television like it's the problem seems a bit short sighted. Humanity tends to have one major problem and that problem is humanity. The self. We have a tendency to demonize things that are really only symptomatic of our own inability to control impulses. Certainly their is something to be said for not tempting yourself, but applying negative connotations to something that is essentially a non-entity seems like a misstep. And perhaps related to my own inability to slip out of its grasp. And you risk making something compelling when you outlaw it. If television is restricted it often becomes something that is desired all the more. It's a tough balance to strike, and I don't envy parents of our generation. The best way to show control over the television is probably to illustrate a healthy relationship with watching it yourself, not treating it like a long lost lover nor like Lucifer himself.

Related story. Every time that I hear this song on Pandora with the refrain, "if you could only change one thing in the world, what would it be?" I think... myself. Sure it's easy to say world hunger, poverty, oppression of all kinds. However, Michael Jackson esque though it may be, I'd have to say the most problematic thing in the world that I have any semblance of real control over is me. And I'd like to change that first. I don't think I'm alone in this. I think St. Paul pointed this problem out long ago.

For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. Romans.

This from one of the most hard ass Christians you'll find. Point being, I'll probably always have conflicted feelings about television and they are likely related to conflicted feelings I have about a number of things like what is the good? how does a man/woman spend his/her time on the earth? what gives meaning? All that to say that I'm really enjoying Modern Family, V, Flash Forward, The Office et al, but I do listen to NPR on the way to work...

To be continued....

Stalking

S and I spent the evening putting together a bed from IKEA. This largely consisted of S asking for tools from me while I begged to be allowed to back to the basement to watch my recorded episodes of V. We (the term is obviously being used pretty loosely) successfully put together the beginning of the frame and now our guest bedroom.

I hold unpopular opinions about IKEA. That is, despite being a newbie to the realm of house shopping and furniture buying, I sort of hate IKEA. I don't like putting together furniture. I don't like walking through the store and being overwhelmed by the fact that everything is for sale. I do like that birds live in the rafters at IKEA. I like that when you put together a piece of IKEA furniture it looks just like the real thing but doesn't cause your back to go out when you lift it.

After putting together the bed.

S: That bed looks too big in there.
M: (Blogging).
S: Can you help me put this bed caddy corner?
M: Are you doing it because you need to or are you just futzing around?
S: I'll just go do it myself and break my back.
M: Remember, lift with your lower back. The legs are weak.

It was nice to receive an e-mail from a friend this week congratulating us on our new home. Now, this friend doesn't read my blog or check our facebook statuses, but he found out anyway. Why? Well, he attached the link to this decidedly more creepy and less entertaining blog about DC housing.

http://dc.blockshopper.com/news/story/1700045131-Environmental_policy_analyst_buys_Manor_Park_home,

While it was nice to know that we actually bought our home in Manor Park, and here I'd been telling people Brightwood, I was a bit disturbed to find a pictures of yours truly painting away in his yellow room. The picture was lifted from this very blog. Which, if you click on the external link and then click on Mr. Bertaina (I would prefer that everyone now start calling me that so that I can say, "Mr. Bertaina, that's my dad. Call me sir.") and it takes you back to this blog. It's an incredibly insidious loop that keeps leading you back to the blog. Thank you strange other blog.

Note: Please disregard all the information in the enclosure link as it's drastically wrong and just in bad form. It may not all be wrong, but I've been asked to keep all of our financial records a secret. The last time this happened I wound up burying all of our savings in the backyard and making a map to it. Apparently that is not exactly whas S had in mind. Women.

I look forward to raking more leaves this weekend while the neighbor's dog/death wolf growls and barks at me until I retreat inside to the comfort of my cold dark home. Yay!

GPS voices and couches and shopping fatigue

We finally settled on a couch. We finally made this complex decision by equitably splitting up the marital duties. I watched the Michigan football game, got slightly buzzed, and took a two hour afternoon nap. Meanwhile, S made pizzas and bought two couches while I was sleeping. Then, she came downstairs and woke me up to tell me that she had purchased them. Like most afternoon naps, I woke up from this one feeling like someone had been hitting me solidly with a wooden post for the past hour and that a gremlin had been stealing my sleep. Needless to say I groggily congratulated her on the purchases and tried to go back to sleep in a futile attempt to attain actual rest.

Friend: Can you choose the different GPS voices?
M: Yes.
S: You can choose British, Australian, American English, male or female.
M: The problem with turning on the female one is I always disregard the instructions. She doesn't know what she's talking about.
Friend: That's what I expected to hear.
S: Yeah, we have this great idea to make a GPS that interacts with you like a real person.

So we ended up with a nice new couch with a chaise. And yes, I did have to say at one point today that if I heard the word chaise again that someone was going to die horribly somewhere in my vicinity. I'm not exactly patient when it comes to making decisions. I blame biology.

Ex: (Buffalo herd capering by).
M: (Charges into buffalo herd wielding a large rock attempting to brain (I do love that term) everything in sight.) And yes, occasionally when you charge into the buffalo herd they all escape, but more often than not you at least end up with the satisfaction of having attempted to brain something.

Other Ex: (Buffalo herd grazing peacefully)
S: I want to eat, but I'm just not sure how to go about it in the right way. Does that little calf look the best to you? His haunches seem a little slight, and I notice that the mother seems particularly protective.
M: Grunts in disapproval.
S: Are you sure you really want to do this? We could wait for nightfall and set up an elaborate trap with maybe some of our fellow cave men friends braining them with large rocks as they attempted to go through that small pass.
M: Grunts in frustration.
S: I mean, I think it's the best way but maybe we should pick on a juvenile one instead of the baby to increase the odds of sustainability.
M: Grunts signifying "Ah dammit the whole herd just left for greener pastures.

Other GPS ideas.

Female voice after a wrong turn: Are you lost? Perhaps you should pull over and ask for some directions.

Male angry voice: Did you really just miss that turn? I'd like to say something like, "When possible make a u-turn" but you'd probably just fu-- that up as well. Do you think I like being trapped inside a machine? If you rub me three times...sorry, this apparently devolved into I dream of Jeannie.

I think the above passage pretty much illustrated the essential differences between the sexes. I'm going to write a book about the differences between men and women, loosely based off men are from mars and women are from Venus. Seminar announcements to come soon.

M: I've been watching a lot of television lately because S has been gone.
Friend: Yeah me too.
M: Turning on the television is kind of like having a spouse.
Friend: You should write a book about marriage.
M: Really?

I also would like to know if any research has been done on the extreme pain that shopping inflicts upon my body. It's one of those cliches that we've grown up with,"Oh men, they just don't like shopping. Hah, hah, silly men." But let me tell you that I literally get a headache after about twenty minutes of wandering through IKEA and also begin to feel extremely tired. And I could make a joke about being a petulant child, but I literally begin to feel ill while shopping. The counter point is that if I'm shopping by myself and know exactly what I'm getting it can be a pleasant experience. But, shopping with only a vague idea of what you are going to get or just to get ideas would have appeared as a level in Dante's Inferno if he'd have had the forethought.

The real long and the short of the couch lesson is that I suspect that I've been misled at some point along the way about what a good decision making couple looks like. I purport that part of learning to compromise is occasionally letting your spouse make a decision without any of your input at all. The real act of compromise afterwards is figuring out how to struggle through the real hard decisions that you have to make together. In general I'd say that the lesson that I learned is that I'm a pretty flexible person. And even though a small part of me dies inside when we buy a wire bed frame instead of a solid one, I'll still probably be able to sleep on it. And after a week or ten years I won't even bring up that awesome bed frame that we could have had. And it's best to just save my breath for something that's really worth arguing over like whether I misplaced my bag after work or whether S "cleaned it up" read: hid intentionally to punish me. Life's too short to sweat couches.