Changing my Mind

I am, on occasion, wrong. Mind you, this happens so infrequently that I generally mark the occasion on a piece of paper that I keep next to my bed, and I dare say I haven't had to turn the page in years. I believe I started keeping a record due to some obscure misreading of a Biblical passage in which it turns out to be true, in the Latin of course, that one is to keep a record of right and wrongs. The former list, however, would run as long as that scroll of clean animals that came down from the heavens in Acts. Ergo; I desisted immediately in deference to the rain forests.

We should probably start talking about the error my ways by discussing how I approach an argument, or, discussion if you'd prefer. Mind you, these "discussions" are infrequent occurrences in my life except with those that I am the closest, as for some reason I so often find their opinions in need of correction. It probably has to do with a charitable desire in me that is constantly thwarted in my job at the library that I feel I must have an outlet for. And so, I give when I can.

I approach an argument as a general does a "total war." I do not head into thinking that there is any possibility that I am wrong. This head strong sort of arguing is characteristic of people over the age of about twenty-five, as it is customary to start calcifying a bit in one's views of the world. In truth, we don't change much, though there is much to recommend to travel and falling in love when it comes to amending one's view of the world.

This style of argument can occasionally, mind you, only with those I know well, if I don't know you well enough I'm likely to just nod along while you proclaim an opinion such as, white wine being superior to red, or, the Russians shallow in spirit, and too long. But if I am comfortable enough I march like the French army under Napoleon through Russia in the depths of winter. Why? People always mark that as his major failure, however, what failure is there for a man who is still being studied in history books? He's almost more well known for his failings, in that we can find something that puts us on common ground.

The unfortunate part about wintering in Russia is that you don't always bring the right gear. Thus, your supply lines get cut, and well, just read War and Peace, and mind you everyone prattles on about how the war sections are interminable, but what in life isn't interminable? Who remembers the second grade. My God, the war sections are as nothing when compared to the time between first recess and lunch.

The point is that sometimes when I engage in an argument I have my supply lines cut. Thus, when I reach back for that fact that is going to stunningly amend my adversaries opinion I find myself grasping at air. Inevitably, this just makes me more upset as no one likes to be thought of as a fool, especially by oneself. Thus, I rage on into the Russian winter, not stopping until I reach the very gates of Moscow itself. And I burn it to the ground, and watch ashes settle in snow. But the victory turns out to have been hollow and misleading. And I have to head home, or to work, and ask a few questions as perhaps Napoleon did.

"Did we win the battle?"
"Yes, sir."
"But we've lost the war haven't we?"

Reader's Digest version of the events.

I proclaim that when a child wakes up in the middle of the night that only one parent, whoever is providing service, should wake up. A bunch of women in the room make guffawing noises. Naturally this troubles me, as I tend to get my ire raised by proto-feminist movements largely based on what has happened in the past. I don't see any reason why I should behave illogically in modern times because our society used to be (I know, argue away on that) particularly sexist. Thus, whoever can provide the child the needed item, (and at this point I volunteered to feed half and half or whatever) should probably be the one to wake up. I believed the adherence to a strict two parents must be awake rule an outmoded way of thinking, attributable to a latent sexism that arises in feminism. Ie, all must be equal even if it doesn't make a lick of a sense. The three women in question vociferously disagreed.

As it turns out, and that's why you want to maintain those supply lines, it's nearly impossible to sleep while the child is crying. Thus, both parents are up anyway, it's only a matter of who is more awake. Again, I just wish I had the money for a wet nurse. I'm just putting it out there. So, my idea, which was probably still correct, I'll go to my grave on that one, won't really work. So perhaps I'll have to go back with an eraser and remove that mark in the ledger on the wrong side of the column. I was right, just not right enough. As I always say, "It takes a big man to admit that he's wrong. But it takes an even bigger man to rationalize that being wrong back into him being right."


Fiction (Cont.)


If he didn’t return…Hart Crane made some sense at the very least. Cruise ships themselves were depressing enough, without someone beating you up for your sexuality. His gadar, not at all the term being used contemporaneously, having been peculiarly misaligned clearly. On this one particular visit, in fact, just this very morning, she had noted that the bookshelves in his office are full, slight traces of dust on the covers reminded her of her father. Who, the father, used to sit and read the evening newspaper after work and needed complete silence to do so. The kids, her sister and her, just being kids and occasionally making enough noise while playing house or fighting over the possession of My Little Ponies, the ownership rights not really having been hammered out properly due to their proximity in age, that they were forcibly removed from the room and pretty much locked in the study until his reading was complete. The light in the study was always dusty, due to darkly colored velour lamp shades and a north facing window. Where, truth be told, the two girls had a great deal of child variety fun playing games and acting out little scenes that typically involved the dusty books that Mommy had brought with her into the marriage from Smith. Mommy not being the name that Rebecca would use to refer to her mother now. It wasn’t that sort of relationship.

He had a mole on his upper lip, which moved rhythmically in his speech upwards in a way that she thought may have occluded one of his nasal passages. It was the sort of thing where she couldn’t help wondering why he didn’t have it taken off. Wondering this, even as he is calmly explaining the very real virtues of attempting to reach inner Zen. His eyes were: small, brown, and intensely focused. The whole scenario involved at least one other passenger, for logistics sake, just to keep flying the thing. The mole was either some complex entity that was tied to his self-worth, a veritable tattoo of his unwillingness to conform to externality, or he didn’t own any mirrors. She briefly considered the possibility that it was to serve as a distraction technique, the mole, to test the concentration of new devotees. She dismissed this out of hand.

She had a moderately complex relationship with her father, who unwittingly often demeaned her educational career. To his knowledge she had studied something about Shakespeare being gay. He had a red scar on his left hand that he had gotten at some point during his brief period as a bachelor in the early nineteen seventies. In old pictures, he often appeared surprised by the camera. She did not know if that was common for pictures in that era.

Everyone always referred to that ghastly story about the oven and everyone it seemed had read “The Bell Jar,” but no one ever thought of Georgette Agutte. “He left twelve hours ago. I’m late.” Her cat is playing with a small ball that rings when he pushes it. Rebecca wasn’t the sort of person to go in for sentiment, but she considered that particular incident to be something approaching art itself. Her neighbor’s door opens and closes, causing her heart rate to jump by fifty two beats per minute.
During that first meeting she had mentally carved away at the space on his upper lip, until the mole was entirely removed. Jaws swam in small circles, which was really all the space he was afforded. In removing the mole, she had been forced to take away part of his lips as well, and he was now a pair of talking eyes with no mouth to speak of. The irony was duly noted internally. When she was younger, her sister had filled out around the age of fourteen. Her own chest had remained decidedly spare and fence postish despite all of her mental encouragement. Some nights, when she was only fifteen herself, the sisters being a mere fourteen months apart and her father being snipped shortly thereafter as her mother called it, she had lain awake and stared at her sister’s body. One evening, fairly early on, going so far as to rise from bed and tip toe across the thankfully carpeted room and stand just over the newly formed mounds of flesh that rose and fell so rhythmically from her sister’s sleeping form. And at some point literally cupping her hands together and holding them over her sister, feeling the tops of the fattened flesh coalescing in her hands, feeling at that moment, a soul wrenching envy that she suspected she had never quite shaken entirely. Her sister had perhaps not even been sleeping, she suspected now, but had just enjoyed the feel of her new body being held.