Going Postal

Do you see what I did there? I've incorporated the word post, which is what a blogger does into the larger term "going postal," which means being really upset. Jokes are always funnier when explained in detail. In this way jokes are like long stories that you can't wait to tell all of your friends, guess what, unless the story ends with you pooping your pants in delirium it's probably worth abridging. Don't worry (name excised), your secret is safe with me.

I heard the most interesting story on NPR the other day. (Don't worry, my initial reaction to hearing anyone offering an anecdote based off an NPR story is also to rip my ears off and dance around a fire while chanting in Syriac)The story seemed like an apt metaphor for modern life. I'd link it here, but I couldn't find it in two seconds. And, as we all now know, if it can't be googled immediately it probably isn't worth knowing. Digression complete. Maybe. Anyhow, the story was about the Chinese discovering how amazing fast food is, welcome to the club my dear friends. Unfortunately, as a result of the increased consumption and increased creation of trash they have started to develop really unsightly and incredibly smelly trash heaps near cities.

Solution:
A) Employ a band of renegade raccoons to scour the trash heaps at night in order to reduce the wasted food. The obvious drawback being that raccoons are notoriously unpredictable.

B) Assume that continuing overconsumption is going to present a long-term ecological disaster, and that you should begin to draw back from these short-term easier comforts in order to maintain at a stable state for generations to come.

C) Throw all of the trash into rivers. The rivers are pretty large, and now that the dolphins are gone, who cares anyway? The fish will grow back. Do fish grow like plants?

D) Burn it. Nothing says modern industrial power like burning heaps of trash and creating an even more intense smog to form over your country. Added benefit being that if you get a good enough fog going foreigners can't spy on your country with satellites.

E) Get a bunch of huge industrial fans and mount large perfume bottles in front of them and intermittently spraying something fresh over the rotten stench of garbage. Added bonus: Who the hell knows what vast amounts of perfume will do to the populous. The science experiment is just for funsies.

F) Pretend like it's not there. Tourist: Is that a giant trash heap I'm seeing right there? Guide: What. I see a skyscraper.

Choose one.

If you chose E, then you know the way that our modern world is headed. The best way to solve a shitty problem is to cover it up with something that smells pretty.

Incidentally, the whole going postal thing has nothing to do with my day, and I'm now regretting the title, which could have been used more effectively on a day when I actually got angry, perhaps at the post office. Who knows? Endless possibilities. It's like having a handful of tokens at Chuck E. Cheese. Only good things can happen from here.

Added bit of existential sort of dread that occasionally characterizes these otherwise droll blogs.

I was talking with a friend today about the inability of human beings to remain present to the moment. He confirmed that human beings future tense thinking was both a great source of strength and weakness. It strikes me as a particularly Western view of the world, whereby, the only thing that keeps us going is what we will be doing in the future. Occasionally it just strikes me as odd that we have to remind ourselves as a species (and I realize that this is probably most relevant in the West, particularly America perhaps) to be actively engaged in the moment and not dreaming of where we'll be next. I suppose that's why I've been a fan of the Eastern monastic tradition, the strict attention paid to each breath.

Why is it so hard to be here though? Are we that unhappy with our present state or have we been trained to only think of our futures, money, cars, marriages, children, so that we can't actually enjoy the moments we are in. Or is it a blessing that we aren't satisfied? Perhaps we'd still be wandering around chasing herds of buffalo if we weren't filled with dread that we could be doing something better. These sorts of questions really aren't appropriate to bring up in a blog post, so let's just forget the whole thing and talk about some things I know.

As I've aged I've become more partial to the color red. At night sometimes when I hear creaks in our house I am still certain that my death is imminent. Cooking for one person is a giant waste of time. I eat too quickly. I don't pay enough attention to important things. I am highly internally mentally motivated and externally lazy. Life does actually pass by faster with each passing year. It is a good thing to be warm, perhaps a holy thing.

We retreat

Nothing gets the day off to a better start then completely forgetting to set your alarm the night before. Nothing screams today is going to a wonderful day like realizing that you have woken up about five minutes after you usually leave for work. This unfortunate occurrence made me forgo my usual morning routine of sipping coffee in the sun and listening to birds singing to one another from opposite branches while squirrels hippity hop on to the....F-ing squirrels.

Anyhow, at moments like that you realize how incredibly fast you actually are getting ready for work. It took me roughly twelve minutes to do the requisite grooming, eat breakfast and make lunch. I mean, if I worked as hard at anything as I did in those twelve minutes I'd probably be the president of something. Sure maybe it would be a club that I made up, but I'd still be president.

I now realize that I can sleep an extra thirty minutes every night and the only thing that I'd be missing is a consistent shower, which are overrated past the age of thirty anyway. I've got better things to do with my time like watch old VCR episodes of Macgyver.
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In other news, I am now officially the lone male in my yoga class. I haven't quite gotten to stretchy pants and doing headstands in the hallway, but I'm waiting for my hairline to recede in order to really get the creepiness going.

Aside: At some point of time in my life I think I must have been capable of opening mail. I no doubt would get a bill from some random company, and I would extract the bill and remit payment in one form or another. I say this because now when S leaves town I let the mail pile up like I'm a twelve year old house sitting for the friendly neighbors. I act as though I have no earthly clue what you do when the water company sends you a bill.

Enactment:
M: Do we need a wizard to do this?
S: No. No. You just need to go upstairs and use online bill payment.
M: At what point do we get the wizard to help us?
S: And then I need you to print the bill out after you pay it online, so we can have it in our records.
M: Does it print magically?
S: I'll do it myself.

Okay, so that's only fifty percent true. However, I blame S as much as myself because she's developed an elaborate filing system worthy of the Hapsburg Empire's family tree. Too obscure? Anyhow, when you have like a ten step process to pay a damn bill it demoralizes a romantic and poetic soul like mine. I think that the bills should pay themselves.

I insist that this tyrannical rule based on elaborate record keeping is a design to keep me from noticing that she's actually funneling money into a Cayman islands bank account. However, I'm too lazy to check. Maybe I'll write a poem about it.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

I found out it would be easier if Elizabeth Barrett Browning just did it instead. I wonder if she pays bill?

Worms or the bears came down into the valley

Today, I was going to write about worms. Everyone has sat in the window seat of plane looked down at the clouds, through the ice blue sky to the cities below and realized that their place in things is limited. Or they have sat in front of the ocean in silence, watching the tide come in and out or listened to a slow rain tapping its way along the roof. I don't know whether these moments bring people a profound sense of peace, or profound sense of dread at the vastness of the world and our fairly limited part in its continuance. If I'm honest, it really depends on the day, which makes the whole thing even more confusing.

That's why I wanted to write about worms. Today, after the rains all the worms crawled up to the cement to die. They lined up in rows on the long cold surface and spent their final minutes escaping the flood only to die in a place rarely seen, a new world.

I've been having a recurring dream lately. I'm the sort of person who doesn't remember dreams, and I've never had a recurring dream before. In the dream, I'm traveling in an extreme wilderness towards the top of a distant mountain. In the dream, like in ever dream, I'm traveling with people who are some vague amalgamation of all the people that I know. And in every dream we reach a point where the wilderness turns dangerous. It's some sort of valley where hundreds of bears are fishing for salmon. And because its' a dream a portion of this valley is patrolled by dinosaurs. Once, I got the people in the dream to travel with me beyond the point of safety. And when I woke up we were running from these monstrous bears that were going to catch us. And here's the part that I don't understand. Every time I have this dream, no matter who I am traveling with, I always reach the signpost where the valley turns dangerous, and I beg them all to come with me. I plead for them to travel through the valley and towards the mountain, knowing that we may all die.

I've never put much stock in dreams. Perhaps because I don't do it often, or don't remember it often. Freud kind of spoiled it for us all. Here's a guess, like a traveler in the night sky looking at a large island of lights in the darkness below, "that's Kansas City," someone says. Who the hell knows?

I think perhaps that the reason that I want to climb the mountain and to walk through the valley of the shadow of death is to experience something firsthand. It seems to me that a good deal of the modern life that we've crafted for ourselves is contingent upon the industriousness of others. I watch people on television performing an act. The actors and writers all busily going about the business of keeping me entertained. Are we Rome? While I sit and watch or listen or read and do nothing myself. I watch all of these busy people as far away as if I was traveling in plane overhead through acres of darkness. I suspect that when I sleep my sub-conscious craves for something real, something that is uniquely mine, a new world.

But then again, and I mean this, perhaps it's just because I've got such a deep seated fear of being eaten by bears and the explanation is just psychological fluff piled on top. Because we need an explanation for everything now where do we go to when we've killed off all the mysteries of our childhood? We look at the stars, I suppose, and reflect on what a small part we play in this dark, cold, and ever expanding universe.

In the middle of the night

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I seem to have developed allergies. Either that, or a serious addiction to cocaine that has gone unnoticed. I'm kind of hoping for the latter because the former may be a problem as long as we live on this inferior coast. One of the things I miss most about living on the West Coast is reading my local newspaper. It has this section called tell it to the "ER" (Enterprise Record) where any old crank can call in, call mind you, not write, that would be too coherent, and complain about something. Then, the next day, it is published in the newspaper anonymously for all the locals to read. This blog is in honor of tell it to the ER.

Tell it to the Washington Post:

1) We have several potholes on our street that have gone unfilled. Mayor Fenty promised to personally fill all potholes by hand and dammit, his shadow hasn't darkened the cheap asphalt on our street in weeks. Ergo; we should get rid of all the crooks in the government and put them to real work like I do every day of the week. What? Me. I'm retired. How else would I have this much time to complain about things?

2) Rock Creek Park is a big park but often when I'm walking around in it I can still hear street noise. The city should either put in more trees as a sound barrier, or develop some sort of cube that could be dropped over it that would keep out all that damn city noise. And that reminds me, why can't they make cars that are silent? And why doesn't the park have bears? We need something to cull that mangy deer population. The sun is too hot in the summer. What is the city doing about that?

3) Traffic. I've noticed that when I'm driving to work the road is often full of other cars. Why doesn't our lazy government come up with some sort of mandatory flex working day that would allow hard working people like me to get to work on time? I'll tell you why because they are all crooks. Why yes, I do enjoy broad sweeping statements.

4) Squirrels. I don't even know why scientists make them.
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So yeah, that's pretty much why I'm excited about old age. Robot insurance. You can never be too careful.

5) The dog in my neighbor's back yard is always growing at me. I don't know why people who have dogs can't keep them on a leash at all times. I'll tell you why because they are inconsiderate. You know, (channeling my inner tell it to the ER) people complain about these dogs when they bite people, but I think the owners are the ones who should be put down. Note: I also hate teachers and whatever party happens to be currently controlling the government. Please insert rant here.

6) Patches of lawn between the sidewalk and the street. Why am I responsible for that area? Why can't the city take care of it? I don't want that crappy strip of grass? What am I supposed to do with that? Grow weed like some damn hippie?

7) The Lincoln Memorial. His hands are way too big. What the hell were the sculptures thinking. Oh, and sometimes I've caught him looking at me in a manner that I could only characterize as lascivious. What is our government doing about Lincoln's lascivious stare? Nothing. That's what. Who wants to have a rally with me? Who is with me? Anyone?
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Anyhow, I could go on all night about all the things that are wrong with this city. But right now I need to get some sleep, so I can wake up in the morning and yell at the local youth as they head off to school. Goodnight DC.

P.S.
As I finish this post I sneeze.

S: Are you allergic?
M: Yup.
S: Looking at me confusedly. Are you allergic?
M: Yup.
S: Are you allergic to sneeze?
M: I sure am.
S: Looking confused. Are you allergic to daisies? To running?
M: All of those things.
S: Rolls over and goes back to sleep.
M: Good talk.

The back yard

Years ago now my mother decided that she no longer wanted grass in the back yard. That long strip of grass that had been the witness to endless games of tackle football was to be replaced by an English garden. I believe that an English garden is made distinct by its lack of perfection. Rather, the garden seems to flow naturally into their surroundings Unfortunately, we were people of modest means, so we were only able to put in a small pond and no wonderful Ionic columns or the like. What I remember most about digging up that grass was what relentlessly hard work it was. Though, to be fair, my sister did the yeoman's work of pulling up those seemingly endless roots.

The long and the short of it is that I spent many summer days as a teenager digging holes or hauling dirt into the backyard. You would think that such work would prepare someone when they finally got a little bit of space of their own. And yet, here I am, years later, looking at our little piece of grass and chain link fence, and I can't picture anything. In fact, the only thing that I seemed to have learned from my mother is that the grass must come out. So today I set about digging meaningless holes in our backyard and mentally filling them with plans that have not yet been purchased while the neighbor's dog growled at me fiendishly.

And as I was piling the dirt into the middle of our yard I tried to picture what an English garden might look like on our small bit of property. I couldn't. I think I need to hire an old English fellow who loves his pipe, and who speaks with a cockney accent, though infrequently, the speaking that is. I fear that if I don't at the rate that I'm going I'll have made a yard worthy of the world's finest dogs, a collection of aimless holes. Perhaps if I buried a bone in them it would make more sense.

I fear that we again won't have room for a lake or Gothic ruins. Our means are a bit more modest than all that. I've got an idea that our side yard should be comprised of bricks and lined by trees. Unfortunately, that's all I've got, an idea. I've no earthly clue how one goes about putting in those bricks or finding the right sort of plant to obscure your neighbor's house in a natural Frostian way. Anyhow, if anyone out there enjoys hard labor and has a good eye for a back yard space you're welcome to come by on a Saturday and mop your brow of sweat while S makes lemonade in the kitchen.

Some nights I dream myself out of the back yard and onto our roof, where I can sit and watch the city go dark. And above, I can watch the shapes of clouds passing in front of the moon and remember back to a time, eight years ago, when a young woman once asked me if clouds were visible at night. And I'll remember that I answered her with a laugh and how much that particular night meant to who I am now. And how distant it seems, how estranged I am from that person in the back seat of the car, who got out, and looked at the same night sky, pointing an index at the dark shapes moving through the atmosphere, shrouding the lower portion of the moon, miles away from the cement and the cold.

Etymology

I was all set to do a blog on the etymology of the phrase "sick as a dog," which I heard twice today. However, apparently other bloggers have beaten me to it. Apparently their is a large portion of the population that is concerned about this phrase, and I am only one small part of that population and a johnny come lately to boot.

Reader's digest version. When dogs eat something that disagrees with their constitution they pretty much toss it up on your nice new rug. Thus, sick as a dog. Apparently the Brits use the word sick to mean actually vomiting, while we weaker Americans are apt to use it for those minor aches and pains. This over usage causes the term to be a bit confusing because it is applied too liberally. Anyhow, the point is that I was sick as a dog last week.

An aside in which I talk about a novel. You know, those things that people no longer read. I just finished Netherland by Joseph O'neill, a book widely hailed as the remedy to the dearth of good post 9/11 literature. And I must admit, that while I found the book to be beautiful, it's surface remained almost too pristine for me. It's a problem I have with some very good books. I want a book to shock me a bit, get me a bit dirty. I'm afraid that as wonderful as Netherland is (if you're just looking for a very good read by all means pick it up immediately) I wasn't ever drawn out of myself while reading it. I was conscious almost the entire time that I was reading an excellently crafted piece of fiction. That's not the sort of fiction that I find myself gravitating to as I age. Instead, I find myself wanting to read things that make me feel connected. (This is in no way an appeal to read more Nicholas Sparks. I want to feel organically, not be manipulated into it. If I want cheap entertainment I'd rather watch film). I think what I'm trying say is that you should all go read Netherland and then tell me how wrong I am about it. Your welcome Penn-Faulkner.


In other news, we've recently obtained a space heater for our basement. (Rough guestimate picture shown above). We hadn't gotten a space heater because an electrician told us not to.

Elec: No space heater.
M: Why not?
Elec: The wiring is too old?
M: But it's freezing down here.
Elec: Will be good in the summer.
M: I don't see how blowing out the electricity is all that bad. A house fire would just make things warmer.
Elec: I think I need to leave.

However, we finally decided (with the aid of our in-laws) that it was time to repeal the no warmth in our basement act. Though, I will miss the baby penguins that have been hatching over the past few weeks and the occasional viking raid. Now our basement looks like this:


I'm pretty sure that most people haven't heard of these little and highly inefficient things called space heaters, so I'm going to tell you about them. Sure, they may be energy hogs, and they may burn down your house, but imagine how warm you'll be when you're sitting in front of one. It's pretty much like being in a mildly pleasant version of hell. The version where you're just feeling nice and toasty and you're not certain when the devil is going to get back with those marshmallows so you can all make s'mores.

Ergo; I recommend that people rush out and buy themselves space heaters right now. Especially if they have ever felt cold, or have thought to themselves, it's almost chilly in here. You should probably go buy a space heater because it's going to change your life. You're going to be walking around town and people are going to nudge each other and go, "What the f--ck is wrong with that guy? Why is he so happy? But they can't share your joy because space heaters are best used alone. Other folks can take up the heat.

After some strong reconsideration I've decided that I'd like to come back in my next life as a space heater rather than a cat because I love being warm. What's that you say, a space heater is inanimate. Oh well. At least I'd be warm.

Today

Nothing quite like arriving home to see yet another squirrel in the trap on your roof to brighten things up. And when I say, "brighten things up," I mean, put a fifty dollar damper on. I'm hoping that in my next life I come back as a large squirrel terrorizing alley cat who lives on the outskirts of a small European village, and who is fed the leftovers from fine meals of middle aged women. Is that too much to ask for?

We're in a down phase of the home planning projects. We've painted almost every room, snaked out every pipe available, we're in the midst of conducting a large scale reduction in the local squirrel population, so we're pretty much done with this house. It was a fun ride, but I'm going to put it on the market and move back to CA.

Okay, so we've still got a couple of things that will really make our house pop. I think that pop can now be used as a term that means roughly, "appeal in an slightly ostentatious yet perfectly acceptable way." Their is only one way to this when you are a youngish and childless married couple. You need to buy a painting. Paintings signify to people that you've proudly accepted the wine and imported beers stage of your life. It signifies that you've got the sort of extra income to spend on something signed by a local artiste. It signifies that in lieu of children you'll be spending your money at art galleries, sipping wine, and exchanging stories with other hip young people who you don't really care for. In short, you've got it made.

However, I think it is imperative that the painting matches the color of our dining room in some small way. Even if it's just a window pane catching light that is the exact same shade. Unfortunately, off the top of my head I can't think of any beautiful pictures that have a splash of yellow that will fit into our dining room. I'm flummoxed. And that's not a word I use lightly. I use it heavily. Where can we find a picture that will define our space, and therefore, define us, that will also match our goldenrod (or whatever) wall?


I wonder if the halo from this Rimbaud would match? I think it's a bit duller. Besides, I'm not certain that the Louvre would loan it to us, and I'd only want the original. Note: Whenever possible make it insufferably clear to people that you've recently been to the Louvre and admired pictures like this, "A Christian Martyr." By no means should you relate the story of recommending Chekhov to a vacuous young student, only to run into her two weeks later and have her tell you how great his plays are and ask you if you've ever read them to which you have to reply, "no." Thus, perhaps making you appear a bit vacuous.

Plus of the painting: You've seen it in person and were quite impressed.
Minus: Is it okay to have a floating dead woman in your dining room? or will it creep out your guests.
Plus: You can always say, "Oh, that's by Rimbaud." And if you're lucky someone will think you've made a mistake with the play write, and you can correct them again saying, "Different Rimbaud." And then quote them this poem about a different women floating in the water.
I

On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils...
- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.

The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings;
- A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.

II

O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river!
- It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway
That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.

It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,
Brought strange rumors to your dreaming mind;
It was your heart listening to the song of Nature
In the groans of the tree and the sighs of the nights;

It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,
That shattered your child's heart, too human and too soft;
It was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman
Who one April morning sate mute at your knees!

Heaven! Love! Freedom! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl!
You melted to him as snow does to a fire;
Your great visions strangled your words
- And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye!

III

- And the poet says that by starlight
You come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked
And that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.

Arthur Rimbaud


Perhaps you could try this painting instead.


On the bright side (pun intended) you have a nice color match. And, you have a monkey trap set up on your wall. Monkey's are one of the few animals that I genuinely find to be cute, particularly if wearing diapers. On the down side you have a painting of bananas on your wall. Bananas are slightly below dead floating damsels in the pantheon of emotive pictures.

Then again, maybe you don't need a painting at all. Maybe you just need to keep a blank yellow wall that occasionally reflects the monstrous shadow of the chandelier. Maybe it is best this time to let things stay the same, to not rush to fill every last space with something that will define it. Perhaps it is time to let the sun come in through the back window to alight in a square at the back edge of the table, and to trade stories with people you've grown to love. And perhaps it is time to not reflect on how strange it is that your life has turned out this way, drinking coffee in a warm dining room, in the middle of Washington D.C. To think that you entered and lived most of your life as a stranger to the people who now consume most of your thoughts. Perhaps it is time to grab the shovel from where it has rested against the back of the house, and to dig a hole in the ground, and to bend down, mid dig, the sweat collecting on your brows, and to peer into the hole as if you might see dinosaur bones as if you were still young.

Sartre

I remember reading this interesting thing about Sartre when we were in Paris. Apparently he became such an eminent cultural critic during the height of his philosophizing that he began having to write for the newspapers ever day. His opinions would fluctuate wildly, and he would say more and more incendiary things because that's the sort of thing you do when you write ever day, even if you are a French existentialist. I'm merely pointing out that Sartre was one of the world's first bloggers, and I think it's fair to say that I am picking up in his fine tradition when I blog each evening.

With that in mind:

I am excited about the health care legislation. Why? I'm not sure. I started to read how it might affect me but then I got bored and started checking scores in inconsequential NBA games. I'm pretty much the bar when it comes to how much Americans know about legislation. The only people who know as much as they should are way too polarized to have anything useful to say to us neophytes.

I am firmly anti-Communist. I don't know exactly when American went astray, but I imagine it was somewhere around the time when kids stopped growing up in fear of being punched to death by Ivan Drago. I've always said that American functions at its best when it has something red to fear. And if you don't agree with me, well then, you're probably a commy. See how that works? Why did we ever get away from this circular logic? It was certainly this sort of fear that drove us to fake a landing on the moon. Do you know how hard that was? I can only imagine what my life would be like if I woke up every day with a fear that some Rusky was working harder than I was. I'd probably be a high level business man or something, pulling myself up by my boot straps. I'd probably have to buy some boots with straps though, mine just have laces.

6:13 A.M. Awake to find myself denuded of covers. Glance over at my wife sleeping peacefully under two sheets and our comforter with a duvet cover. Spend ten minutes angrily contemplating blankets back/somehow strangling her with them. But lovingly mind you. Don't actually do so for fear that the movement will keep me from being able to fall back asleep.

6:34 A.M. Awake to find S tucking the covers over me lovingly. "There you go," she says, as if she's been planning this all morning. Secretly begin plotting ways to poison her. Fall asleep mid-plot and like a dream, I forget that I was even planning to until now.

7:17 A.M. Awake to S shaking my shoulder. (Grunts) "Oh, I'm sorry, I just couldn't tell if you were in there." Imagine myself saying something like, "Was that really the best way to figure it out? Why didn't you just pour a bucket of water on me? Or hell, why not light the bed on fire and see if I got up to put the flames out? Is that you? I'm sorry, I just thought the best way to check would be to put these bamboo splinters underneath your fingernails?" (I think it's fair to say that a shake of the shoulder is almost akin to these things when the person in question is enjoying a night's rest/dreading the arrival of the morning). I didn't say any of this because I was tired. My response was more akin to: squinty eyed look filled with confusion followed by a grunt.

7:40 A.M. Wake up to my alarm and walk to the shower. Mumble "Oh shi-" to myself. A phrase which has pretty much become a mantra for me at the start of the day. I consider it my embracing of this next decade. My utter surprise that the morning will continue arriving early and that the world will still have expectations for me. I seem constantly surprised and disappointed that the day would have the audacity to ever start before about 9:30 A.M.

8:00 A.M. Eat a bowl of Kashi cereal in the dark, alone at the dining room table.

8:20 A.M. Navigate my way through traffic in our neighborhood. Aside: (kind of) The worst of which is the people who are exiting the Mcdonald's that is on the corner. They wedge out into traffic blocking the far right lane, which is otherwise car less, that I need to get to work. And something about the fact that these people are starting the day with Egg McMuffin's just enrages me even more. No wonder we need health care. Aside: I could really go for some delicious grease soaked, beef infused fries right now.

8:45-4:15-Work.

5:30-Proceed to my yoga class in clothes that smell like the inside of a shoe. Wonder briefly if anyone else is conscious of it. Stop wondering. Begin doing poses in my completely normal yoga class. 15 women and me. I do my yoga in the far corner and try to keep the groans, as my back gives way, to a minimum.

7:00 Read the update on the squirrels. Apparently they've chewed through the cardboard again and the trap has been re-set. I'm considering taking bets on how many squirrels we catch before they actually seal up the hole. My guess is twelve. We're at five right now. Luckily, they charge by the squirrel. When we can't pay our mortgage I'll have those little rodents to thank.

S: (Laughing in her sleep)

M: What?

S:(Still sort of sleeping) I'm just dreaming that you're writing this really funny blog about the squirrels eating our pillows.

M: That's depressing.

S: (Sleeping again).

"If I had to do life over again, I'd probably have chosen the steak over the chicken at that restaurant on the corner of R and Captiol. But, then again, hindsight is 20/20."
APB Modern existentialist philosopher/probably should buy a pipe to smoke guy.

St. Patrick's Day

Yeah, I'm celebrating a little bit late because I spent that whole evening throwing up in a toilet. What's that you say? You did that on good old St. Patty's day as well? Before I go too far afield, I feel it's important to give a brief history lesson on Saint Patrick's Day for the uninitiated who think it's entirely about getting drunk. In fact, St. Patrick was a Catholic Priest who, against the wishes of the Roman government, married young people in secret. Or, was that Saint Valentine? It's hard to explain all of these holidays at once.

I think the actual story is that St. Patrick liked dancing with snakes or something, but he managed to Christianize Ireland by beating the whole country in a drinking game. My Christian Missions teacher would be so proud of how much I've retained.

Somehow, despite my only mildly advanced years, (this is a bone that I'm throwing to my reading audience, hi mom and dad! who are about twice as old as I am)I managed to spend the evening vomiting. Granted, it was because I had the stomach flu, but I'd still consider it a wildly successful night worthy of praise from people of the collegial age. I'm intending it to mean two things.

So, despite the fact that I saw no one, forgot to wear green, (I remember this being a big deal when I was a child, and I would try to remember to wear something very small to avoid other kids pinches. However, I seem to remember that I forgot on a number of occasions, and I'm wondering now if it was intentional. Who can know the mind of a child? Certainly not that same child all growed's up. Woops. I got a little sidetracked and started watching Swingers.

Almost entirely unrelated brought on by looking at a picture of a Leprechaun: Is there some small part of you that still wonders if a pot of gold lies at the end of a rainbow. Even though you know that it's entirely implausible, and that rainbows don't really hit the ground at all. But maybe, just maybe, in that small part of your brain that still vaguely remembers being a child, the tiniest little sliver of you would like to one day see the end of the rainbow, and know, once and for all that the rumor is false.

Me neither. But imagine what a crazy person you'd be if you still thought that. Whew! Obligatory youtube video tangentially related, probably more, to the leprechaun fantasy.

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I guess at the end of the day the strange fascination with St. Patrick's Day will always remain a mystery. I simply don't get it. Aren't Thursday through Saturday nights enough? Do we really need an extra day? Is it some last vestige of community that we're valuing?

Here's an extremely long and interesting article in the Atlantic that you likely won't read

Here is a picture of a puppy. No. Actually. You don't get a picture of the puppy because you didn't read the article. Please feel free to let me know if you read the article because I will then furnish you with a picture of a cute puppy. It seems like a small price to pay.

In the end, if this seems rather odd and disjointed that's because it is. I'm not sure what project to take on next. I'm still waiting for the wisdom of this new decade to sink in.

30 part 2

I believe I am now officially the guy who refuses to leave the stage. The boxer who thinks he can take one more punch before retirement. It's time Evander. But I feel the need to make sense of the past thirty days (technically thirty-one, as I accidentally miscounted, damn math) and bring some sort of cohesion to this little project of megalomania.

However, I think the chief thing that I learned while blogging about my life is that it's nearly impossible to come up with a coherent narrative that exemplifies my life. Rather, any sort of linear structure that I give to my life is really being imposed rather than arising organically. What I'm saying is that coherence doesn't exactly jive with growing up. You change, sometimes rapidly, seemingly from one person to another. This begins of course when you look at a picture of yourself as a child, and though you no that it's you, a great deal of cognitive dissonance arises because it appears to be you in name only. I don't bear any relation to the little baby on my parent's bed in that first picture.

But then, strangely, as you get older you begin to recognize yourself in pictures but not in actions. I realize (and this may be more of a personal failing rather than an overarching sort of point. Thus, the switch back from you to I) that I don't bear any great relation to myself at twenty-one either. Or Twenty-six. I can see now that my only constant state is flux. Though I've developed into the person I am through all of these years and experiences, I am still constantly changing. (I look forward to being sixty-five and not being interested in changing at all. Caveat, as I near thirty some of the most important people in my life are nearing sixty-five, and so I'll probably have to up this platonic old age thing to eighty or so).

"The time to make up your mind about people is never!"

Thus, I may have known you when you were three, or seven, or twenty, or ninety. And I'm certain that I created an idea of who you were, and who you probably are now. And the reality is that that picture is probably inaccurate. We are infinitely more complex and nuanced than the small snippets of self that we reveal to people. I remember in college getting to know a lot of people really well and being surprised at how many of them were deep, complex and interesting people. The moralizing will end soon. The moral being, as if it hasn't been clear already, that this blog, which has presumably been about getting to know myself again, has only made it clear what a mystery I, (and here I think it's safe to say we) are.

So I find myself having to resist the impulse to pin people down during the course of writing this blog, resist turning them into two-dimensional characters that played a bit part in the starring role of my life. Forgive me, I know so little about everything. And now, I demure to texts greater than mine. The first from Virginia Woolf:

"Like a work of art," she repeated, looking from her canvas to the drawing-room steps and back again. She must rest for a moment. And, resting, looking from one to the other vaguely, the old question which transversed the sky of the soul perpetually, the vast, the general question which was apt to particularise itself at such moments as these, when she released faculties that had been on the strain, stood over her, paused over her, darkened over her. What is the meaning of life? That was all — a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.

And of course, if I'm going to take my own advice and go on trying to never make up my mind about people (obviously meant to be interpreted as a positive mental state, not as an inability to form any sort of opinion at all about one's acquaintances/friends)

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

30!

I don't have a lot of stuff to work with yet for thirty though I'm intrigued by the suggestion that I should project my life into the future. You remember turning thirty three and accepting the national book award...

You remember waking up in a gutter in Mexico at sixty seven. Anyhow, I suppose that would just be fiction writing and as everyone knows, you can't make any money doing that. So, if you'll excuse me I have a couple more things to say before I drift off into decrepitude. This will probably take three days to get through, and I'll probably remain thirty for the duration. It's not nearly as exciting as aging a year every day, but I thought it might be worthwhile to actually reflect on this little project I've been churning out each night.

Tonight, I want to talk about some things that I forgot. Firstly, my first memory ever comes from Mrs. Lake's house in Merced when I was one, perhaps two. I remember playing with one of those toys that is comprised of a series of wires that you can push various shapes around on. They were pretty much ubiquitous in dentists offices during the eighties, but I think they've gone out of style. I wasn't crazy about Mrs. Lake. She wasn't my mother, or anyone really significant. So why exactly did my mind cling to that? Strange.

I already wrote about the small cul-de-sac that I grew up on, but what I didn't mention was how enormous it seemed to me as a child. It's comprised of exactly six houses. But, I can remember the people who lived in five out of the six houses. Now I live in a big city and I know exactly one person's name on my entire block. Ruth. Things were a bit different when I was younger. You were allowed to walk home from school in the second grade in the company of just another friend.

I remember very clearly singing to Lionel Richie records while standing on top of chairs in our house. Lionel Richie is a bad ass. I blame this whole scenario on my older sister who took advantage of my gullibility and had me belting out crap like this from an early age.
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For a period of time I liked songs like this. Again, I can only blame my sister.

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I also briefly felt that the theme for the Robin Hood movie was written on my behalf by Mr. Bryan Adams. I was fairly certain that their was someone out there who was worthy of feeling my enduring love as exemplified in the magnificent bridge. I may not have listened to it as much as "How Do You talk to an Angel," but I was definitely pushing it. And why? Because it's hard to be young, and it's easy to forget that when you're old. It's easy to reminisce and create some sort of magical time in your life that never actually existed. I suppose that's why everyone (almost) loves Catcher in the Rye because in many ways, being young sucks, precisely because you are young. You have no conception of how good you actually have it. "Youth is wasted on the Young" George Bernard Shaw kind of beat me to this point and did it in a much pithier manner. However, he didn't have a magnificent song to drive home his point like I do now. But no, Mr. Bryan Adams has denied you and me and the rest of the world the life changing power of his song. Ergo; I'm forced to paste the link below, which has about a zero percent chance of being utilized unless you really want your soul to be touched by music, then you might. You might paste that in your tool bar and fall in love with Mr. Adams and the stoic Kevin Costner all over again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGoWtY_h4xo&feature=related

I forgot to mention my favorite moment playing basketball. It was in the summer before my junior year of high school, and I was coming down the right lane on a fast break and my now aged and decrepit, then young and vital, friend Josh was trailing a bit on the left, and I threw it off the backboard just hard enough and to his side, and when I looked up he was hanging on the rim. I'd like to think the fact that my favorite moment in basketball was a pass says something good about me. However, it might just be pointing out my lack of hops and enviousness over people who could dunk. Who knows.

Other things I forgot. My co-workers were kind enough to give me a birthday card today with He-Man (what overwhelming masculinity, he and man), and I realized that I'd forgotten totally about Orko I'd also forgot almost entirely about Cringer, and had only vague memories of the Battlecat. I think I spent a number of years secretly hoping that this was the year that mom was going to break down and get us a Battlecat. Sure it might eat us in our sleep, but, it might not.

And no, we've no earthly clue what the hell it is that he won't do, but we do know that he'll include hot models (at the time) who only lip synch in his videos. And for that, I think we'll always remember Meatloaf fondly.

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You forgot to mention a thousand different things and hundreds of different people.

On the day you turn thirty you are surprised by the number of people who wish you a happy birthday, or who gather in the small office where you work to eat ice cream cake. You think, still in that way of a shy five year old, that some mistake has been made and that they don't know the real you.Or were perhaps just excited by the cake or reminded by facebook that you still exist. It's strange to think of how infrequently some people who seemingly left indelible marks on your life cross your mind, but how you can conjure up those wires in Mrs. Lake's house, or the stench of coffee on the breath of your kindergarten teacher. Memory is a strange and twisted think like that. Apparently, (and of course I realize all statistics are made up on the spot) we remember negative things for ten times as long as we remember positive things. So, that c- stuck with me, the misspelled encyclopedia, the struggles in algebra. I do not remember any of my other grades from third grade, but I'm almost certain they were better. I remember the slights, the things that I could have done. Why does the mind persist in this way? Perhaps that's why it's so nice to watch television, put thoughts to rest. The reality is, that today has been a great day, and the chief reason for that has been the number of fantastic people who I've come across at different points in my life and my wonderful family and adopted family. It's not so bad to be thirty.


In your thirtieth year you listen to this song. And yes, their remain a shi- load of things that you haven't done or haven't done well. Luckily, you're hoping that you've still got a few years to amend some of those shortcomings, though not all. That would be a hopeless task.

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End of Elegy for a Silk Tree

You remember coming home from school that Wednesday afternoon that you decided that the tree didn’t have any sort of soul. That it was just a thing among things that would pass out of existence like any other. You rested your bike carelessly against the trunk, the front wheel abrading the trunk like a bird’s harsh beak. You placed your foot in the familiar crook, hoisted yourself up, and began to climb. Your hands moved so quickly across the bark that you did not feel the thousands of scars of birds flown south for winter. That day, you were not content to sit in the crook of the tree and let it lull into that place outside of time, outside of obligation, scissors and Elmer’s. You wanted to climb beyond the branches, to break through the dying pods, the bowing leaves, and look down into the yard, your whole world until a scant few weeks ago. The sky was gunmetal. From up there you could see the spate of parallel holes that you’d put in the dirt next to your house while digging for dinosaur bones, chipping away at the foundation of the house. You could see the hole in the fence, two broken boards leaning on top of one another, where you and the neighbor kids used to sneak through. A rosebush is beginning to close the hole, the roses themselves, pressing through the opening, wilting in the late stages of Autumn. You could see from there, the green shrubs and birch trees that shrouded the tiny fort you played in until a few months ago. A place that you, and your siblings in their own time had marked with streams of yellow urine shot off into a space between the bushes. And the blackberry bushes, that grew tall, above the low fence line, above the black power lines, bent in a slight breeze, that dropped rich fruit into your greedy fingers.
From here you could see everything that had remained hidden in that vortex of time. As the sun was setting, you remember, or think you remember, everything around turning the exact same shade of blue, a cruel sort of uniformity that made you feel, for the first time, a kind of sadness that cut you down to the bone. Your mother was calling from the distance to remind you to wash your hands before dinner. And you climbed down the maze of branches that lined the smooth trunk of the tree and went inside. There, you turned on the television and began to watch something that sometimes made you laugh.

Twenty Nine

Now you sit on the edge of something. A new world lies at your feet.

Pros-When you play basketball it is now okay for you to grab, foul, and throw up random hook shots from anywhere on the court. You'll be thirty.

Pros-You can grow a mustache and wear it with pride.

Cons-What the hell happened to the last ten years? Wasn't I just turning twenty? Wasn't I just sitting on those cold steps beneath the veil of evening with words not coming to my lips? Wasn't I just playing a game of one on two in the yard with my best friend's father now passed away? Wasn't I just lying in my mother's lap as she read us all to sleep? Wasn't I just sitting at the edge of a cliff watching the sun drop behind the ocean? Wasn't I just sitting in that small classroom looking out the window and wishing to be older? Wasn't I just at Fort Bragg with my family, throwing the football around at the Inn now burned down? Wasn't I just walking in the backyard of my grandparents or my grandmother now gone, and playing amongst the white rocks? Wasn't I just striking out eight batters in a Little League game? Wasn't I just walking down the streets side by side with my mother talking about the women I almost loved? Wasn't I just pissing in the backyard in our tree fort, or eating the fresh blackberries that came from over the fence? Wasn't I just hanging upside down in a tree after falling ten feet, caught in its saving grasp? Wasn't I just crying at swimming lessons because the water is so damn cold? Wasn't I just posing for a picture with someone who is already gone and perhaps will never remember me? Wasn't I just blowing out three birthday candles and silking my hair? Wasn't I just pushing hot wheels with Charlie down our perfectly sloped driveway, smelling the hot asphalt cooking in the sun? Wasn't I just walking home in the rain with my best friend collecting earthworms from large puddles? Wasn't I just playing one on one with my best friend for the 100th time? Wasn't I just doing a thousand things that I'll never do again? Wasn't I just sitting alone, in a bright yellow room, looking at the pictures my mind conjures up of the people I used to know?


In your twenty ninth year you finish get a Master of Fine Arts degree, go to Paris, and buy a house. Thank God for twenty-nine. Really, this whole project isn't really about aging. Sure, I have your usual anxieties about time passing rather quickly, but it's far more related to the things I have left undone, the places I haven't been, the books I haven't read or written. That's why it's easier to be turning thirty than to be turning twenty-five. I feel as though I've done a thing or two.

Bonus-At a bar this evening the waitress asked to see my ID When I smiled and told her my thirtieth birthday was tomorrow she said, "Well, you look young." I understand that she was merely defending her request for my ID, but I took it as a huge compliment. I was beaming. And if you know me, I don't beam at just anything.

The degree. What do say after you've gotten an impractical degree and are fast approaching a new decade. So long and thanks for all the fish? During my last year as a student I wrote some pretty damn good stories. However, these stories aren't currently getting published, so it's hard to quantify the positive impact that this time in my life had. It depends on whether you need quantifiable results to believe that you've achieved something. Of course, I do, so the MFA is sort of a wash. The only quantifiable fantastic decision that I've made is sleeping in the next room. However, all it takes is being asked to take out the trash and suddenly I'm wondering if life and love have any meaning. I mean, I'm fickle. I forget important things that I've learned very easily. I suppose that's why I have an affinity for cats, they're unpredictable.

M: I like it when the light in your eyes dies.
S: Why?
M: Because sometimes it takes a lot of work.


We bought a house. I blogged a lot about it.Some of them I liked
Or this one

The main thing that I can take from the housing project is that housing is hard because you discover that you care about everything. And you discover that your spouse may not like the exact same style of bed as you do and the two of you will then spend hours arguing about stain color, door knobs, shower flow, picture frames, swiffers, paint colors, duvet covers, decorative pillows, mattresses et al. So, be prepared to disagree.

Paris is a great city if only you could get rid of the Parisians. Zing! You stood on the balcony and looked outside the window at the rain, then walking back towards the bed and wrapping yourself in warm blankets and sweat tinged skin.

Now I look forward to tomorrow without trepidation. I'm excited. It's the first anniversary of my twenty-ninth birthday!

Elegy for a Silk Tree

The two of you walk through the graveyard arm in arm. She feels brittle, old. The graves are next to one another, beneath the black limbs of some ancient elm. The two of you bend in the wind, put flowers down, and then go home. “If not for the children,” she says, on the ride home, shaking her white mane slowly. You turn up the radio, and watch the moon replace the sun.
At the nursing home, your mother watches television with her friends. You don’t recognize any of them from your previous visit. You imagine that old country road leading to a row of grey stone slabs, an ivy colored wall to take pictures of, and picnic with the dead. Driving alone. The elderly have a strange unanimity about them that confounds you, reminds you of something from your youth, laughter, not being known. The slight burn on skin of being mocked. They are watching The Price Is Right, trying to guess how much a box of Tide costs, the familiar orange bottle, filling up the screen. They shout out seemingly inane things, and your mother pulls you down, close, like when you were a child, to whisper in your ear. “They’re a bunch of morons,” she says, “the whole lot of them. I hope they rot,” she says, half-serious, half-fearful. You pull away from the cloying scent of her neck, the smell of the old, the infirm. She turns from you as well, pulling the wheels of her chair with a strength you thought had gone out of her to yell three forty nine at the bright orange face of Bob Barker.

Year 28

"Say cheese?"
"Why aren't you smiling, you've got such a nice smile?"
Let me tell you why. I'm twenty eight. When I smile large crow's feet appear and my forehead starts to grow lines like it's getting paid to do it. Smile. Hell no. I'm going to stare off into the distance and then put the picture on the front of a book that I'm going to write about Italy.

Some mornings I dream of Italy, during the time when you are walking that thin tightrope between sleeping and waking. I dream of the graveyards that are at the tops of hills in small towns. I remember thinking how strange it was that the dead always had a much grander view than the living, how the reason for this was a dictate by Napoleon that commanded that it be this way. But on this morning that I dream of it is warm. We are eating prosciutto on fresh bread with soft parmigiano cheese the likes of which we’ve never tasted before. The smell is of freshly mown hay, and a few hundred feet below, we hear the whisper of water coming together with rocks. This is how I remember Italy.

You start your twenty eighth birthday with a cake. Unfortunately the cake is made of ice cream and lit up like a blow torch. On the positive side you're old enough to not start crying when the fake candles won't go out. On the down side, you wind up tossing the candles into bowls of cold water because they will not ever be extinguished. In fact the birthday wish that you wished as you attempted to blow the candles out was a hope that your birthday cake wouldn't burn down your apartment building. That's a lie, but that's the sort of thing that you can lie about when you're twenty eight. However, you still love cake, just the same as you did when you were eight.


There are a few downsides to being twenty eight.
Con-You're in the midst of getting an MFA in creative writing.
In the immortal words of Gob Bluth, "I've made a huge mistake."
Con-They are also charging you an obscene amount of money to obtain your impractical degree. Somewhere in a mansion comprised entirely of diamonds, a man is cackling with glee about creating yet another impractical degree in the humanities.

Pro-You have like a million hours a day in which to not write the next great American novel. You get in the best shape of your life. Your sister constantly e-mails to remind you to occasionally eat food. You do eat food. But the glorious life of a graduate student leaves you enough time to work at for over an hour a day. Yes, you're acquiring massive amounts of debt but at least you got in good shape. Note to others: Please just use your local gym for this purpose rather than frittering away tens of thousands of dollars on an MFA. This is the best shape you will ever be in for the rest of your life unless you can snag that job as an American Gladiator that you've always dreamed of.





You listen to this song, but it is hard to listen to because it is long and slow, and you have to listen to the words for it to make sense. And we don't usually have time for that by the time you're twenty eight you're certain someone has e-mailed you or posted something on your facebook wall that's more important than just being where you are for eight minutes. You listen to this song on the way home after learning that a friend has been paralyzed in a car accident, the world, even now, still not managing to make sense.

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But really, twenty eight is about Italy. It is about taking a nap in the Cinque Terre and waking up to find the people of the town parading through the streets and spreading rose petals on the ground. It is about buying a belt on the frenzied streets of Florence that you still treasure. It is about meeting your amazing sister's new husband. It is about climbing to the top of buildings touched by the hands of the one of, if not the greatest artistic geniuses Michelangelo and looking down at the city below. It is about learning that you love to travel.



It is about stories like the following:

Fine story. As you become acculturated to a foreign country you begin to pronounce all of the words in that particular accent. Thus, when in Italy, we begin to emphasize certain portions of words that we would not otherwise. In every place we go we follow our guide book as if it were the Bible. The Vatican museum is overwhelming and as we tried to stay on track we read about a statue of the peena coneh (phonetically) applying our newly discovered Italian accents to the word. Well, we wandered around the sun splashed courtyard past statues formed by the hands of long dead men, the statues themselves of long dead gods, forgotten in time except as relics of another age. We stood beside a huge circular black ball that seemed to absorb all of the sunlight around it as if it were a black hole. We went in lock step around that rectangular courtyard without ever finding the peenah coneh. Finally, as we stood at the opposite edge of the courtyard, where we had entered and looked up into the distance, where the sun was brightest at a large statue of a pine cone, which we’d been pronouncing peenah coneh. And then we laughed.


My wife and I sat in the airport at a small sandwich shop practicing important Italian phrases from dueling books. The phrases define us as outsiders, Dove il bano? Non parlo Italiano. Parla Inglese? The coffee steams between us as we lean over a map of Florence. I’ve finally started engaging in the trip planning now that we’re hours away from being in a foreign country. “We’ll go there,” I say, pointing to the Piazzale Michelangelo, with its incredible view of Florence and its chintzy copy of David, making decisions almost instantly, like I was created for this.




In the Accademia, when I first saw the David by Michelangelo I was stunned, the seventeen foot marble statue is the closest I have seen to an artist to achieving the handiwork of God. The white stone is lit from three sides by the sun and placed in the transept of a church-like building. David is 504 years old. Adam lived to 923. Only one outlived his creator, which is I suppose the difference between man and God.











In Vernazza the cats line the streets like flowers: a tabby sleeping in a red planter six feet off the ground, a black and white cat eating fish from a silver can, a one eyed grey purring in front of the gelateria. In the Cinque Terre region, we drink the local dry white, and take a thousand pictures of the picturesque towns tucked into harbors, and beyond, the great unknowable sea that one day perhaps flooded the earth.


It is hot in Rome. All the touring groups in the Forum and on Palatine Hill are hiding in the shade. I’ve read a book about the history of Rome and I want to see the house of Caesar Augustus. My wife tells me that it is too hot and the line is too long. And I relent, so we sit in the shade passing a loaf of bread and cheese back and forth in the shade of silver leafed olive trees. And I think about how I’ll see the house next time, in some other life. I do not think I believe in reincarnation.



In Vernazza the small fishing boats and long lights of the small city lay across the harbor like a lover’s silky slip, and the combination of the dark ocean water and being stranded from even language, made us feel so gloriously alone. When we left, the tracks wandered through hills striped by vineyards and into mountain tunnels that opened onto views of the Mediterranean, and the whole ride my wife took pictures while I read a book about the founding of Rome, and no one bothered to check our tickets or ask us any questions to make sure we belonged, and we still arrived safely, in the arms of some far away heavenly city.

Elegy For a Silk Tree

A few years ago, long after the girlfriend had left you, married some other man a few states away, you sat at the kitchen table talking to your mother. The two of you had finished your water’s. You were each taking out the ice, she with her fingers, you by shaking the glass, and chewing it slowly, grinding it between your teeth. She was beginning to show her age, her hair peppered with salt. The afternoon light was golden. She puts her left hand on yours, a thin band of white skin around her ring finger, pale moon. You notice the gesture, look idly at the hand, feel the annulations of time. Your brother is dead, passed away in a car accident somewhere in the Midwest. That is why you are here. The table cloth has changed colors, a solid red now. She says to you, in that calm, quiet way of hers, something about children. Her mouth barely forms the words, and her tongue pushes them forth into the room with all the softness of the wings of summer butterflies. The ice is crunchy and cold in your mouth. You are focusing on your bottom lip, which has gone numb. The words don’t sink in right away, it is as if you are far away, in the yard somewhere, and she is calling you to dinner. Dinner? What a silly thing to spend your time on. “They change things,” she said, the wrinkles around her eyes tightening as if expecting something to come of this.
The tree is a boundless thing, untethered in time. You have spent an entire summer in the crook of its arm, watching the pods go brown, and fly away like migrating birds. The two of you have watched time unfurl its sail and pass you by. You wave hello from that tiny depression, unsure when things will change, when time will pull you along, like your brother who no longer talks about trees having spirits, even in jest.

Year 27

Twenty Seven
In your twenty seventh year you leave Washington, D.C. in the rear view mirror and head back to CA. You spend the summer driving up and down the beautiful feather river canyon. The scenic highway snakes along the thin gorge carved out by the river passing bridges that you stop and take pictures of, past railroad tracks that weave in and out of mountains. It is good to leave D.C. behind for the brown hills of northern CA that guide you down into the Sacramento Valley.
Unfortunately for the first part of your stint in Quincy you lived in a hovel. A hovel is defined as a pretty crappy place to live by three out of the five leading dictionaries. Somehow the foundation of the house had eroded away enough so that spiders could gain ingress into your house with impunity. Unfortunately, the ingress was apparently right above your bed as between the two of you, you killed no less than ten spiders that had crawled in to sleep with you. The cabin was decorated with a moose theme. I believe the motif of brown was picked up upon because brown hides a lot.
You didn’t have a job that summer. Your job was to beat Dark Wizard and relive your eighth grade years. Your job was to visit your family practically every weekend and to go to the gym. It is good that you spent that summer in Chico. You were there to lay your grandmother’s ashes to rest only an hour away from the town where you lived that summer. A place you’d rarely been. You were glad to have been there, to have seen all that sunlight, all those pine trees, and bits of her ashes floating in the wind, against a clear blue sky.
You took this infamous picture.

Thank goodness only you know that this edition of the photo has been edited to crop out your prominent knee braces.

To reward yourself for a busy summer of not working, except at mom’s house

Working at mom's house. This was also the summer that I decided to do a cowboy theme and use words like britches and spurs frequently.

you take a family vacation to Colorado. Sadly, you didn’t have any near death experiences. You saw a lot of beautiful things but nobody ran around with lightning targeting them or stared down buffalo’s. You just kind of threw around horse shoes, played ping pong, and looked at pretty stuff. Life is not about the good times, it’s about the crazy stuff.

Heaven on Earth. Yankee Boy Basin.
Strangely, the thing you remember the most is Yankee Boy Basin, a place that was only accessible by jeep. You passed a massive white glacier, and sat at the edge of a pure waterfall overlooking untouched nature. You’re still five years old wanting to discover dinosaur bones in the side yard. A place like that reminds you that on earth is a piece of heaven. But you can tell, even now, that you’re not doing it justice. And you remember that when you came back down and tried to share the beauty of that place with those who had been unable to go that an argument ensued. The gist of which was explained long ago by Plato.
That winter you travel to Maine. You discover that Maine has lots of lighthouses. You also discover that Maine is ungodly cold and that lighthouses are best viewed on postcards from people you used to know and not in person. When you are done looking at lighthouses you drive around until you can find more lighthouses. You ask to see a place in Maine that has a lighthouse built inside a lighthouse.

Lighthouses are pretty aren't they.

Then you and T stand on some large rocks and watch the grandeur of waves striking shore while your wives yell about “rogue waves.” By the time you’re twenty seven everyone’s wife starts sounding like your mother.

Rogue Wave=instant death/harpies yelling from above.

This is the first year of the rest of your life. You are going to travel more. You are going to use handrails when going up stairs not because your knees hurt but because it’s safer. You’re going to spread ashes and start things like book clubs. You are not going to be ashamed of things like book clubs because you are no longer afraid of being compared to a middle-aged woman. You are still flawed. This is something that will never change no matter how many years pass. You will go to CA and Maine and Colorado. You will pray in Yankee Boy Basin amazed at God’s grandeur and then you will argue when you leave. T.S. Eliot “Till Human Voices Wake us and we Drown.” You will start to get more comfortable with getting older. You’ll think that if you could just get four months away from the world perhaps you’d write a novel. You’ll dig in the dirt in the backyard of your childhood trying to help your mother put back together her garden. You will begin to age more gracefully.