From Ploughshares to sword

The title of an e-mail that I received from another person in InterLibrary Loan. Do I immediately assume that it's a book about the evolution of tools and weapons in the distant past. No. I am an idiot. I immediately assumed, due to my MFA, that the person was talking about a literary journal Ploushares, and I began trying to figure out why I had never heard of the journal Sword. Life fail.

Some e-mails related to my wife's apparent belief that I spend a good portion of the day napping at work and a related argument we've been having about getting g-mail and leaving behind good old Hotmail. Hotmail, whose virtues I have extolled to the nth degree in order to try and sway the idiot masses back to their proper home at hotmail. I think when all is said and done a paltry company like Google is not going to stand the test of time.

abertain@hotmail.com: Napping.

sbertain@hotmail.com: Does this mean you were napping at work, or just wishing you were napping?

sbertain@hotmail.com:
Also, I created a Google Calendar for us. I will send it to you.

abertain@hotmail.com: Dammit Stephanie! Hotmail has the function. Do not go quietly into the night.

I prefer to present rather dramatic e-mails to Stephanie during the course of the day to try and dissuade her from rash action. Generally this involves Mel Gibson like (too soon) death threats if she suggests purchasing something from the vending machine.

sbertain@hotmail.com: I'm hungry.

abertain@hotmail.com: So are children in Africa, but you don't see them taking up my valuable time with e-mailing.

sbertain@hotmail.com: Are you sure?

abertain@hotmail.com: No. Actually people from Africa e-mail me all the time promising large sums of money.

Later:

Sbertain@hotmail.com: I didn't sleep well last night.

abertain@hotmail.com: Don't blame me. I didn't do anything.

sbertain@hotmail.com: I wasn't blaming you. I was just pointing out that I was tired.

abertain@hotmail.com: Carry on then.




For my wife, who excels at logistics.

From the book Remainder by Tom McCarthy:

It struck me as I waited that all the great enterprises are about logistics. Not genius or inspiration or flights of imagination, skill or cunning, but logistics. Building pyramids or landing spacecraft on Jupiter or invading whole continents or painting divine scenes over the roofs of chapels: logistics. I decided that in the caste scale of things, people who dealt with logistics were higher even than the ones who made connections.


From the wonderful book, The Whale by Philip Hoare written about the history whale and the development of the whaling industry. I'm reading it concurrently with Moby Dick.

After years living in London, the city had begun to press down on me. I sometimes felt as if all the sky were sea, and we citizens mere bottom-feeders, held down by its great pressure as we moved around the caverns and boulders of the streets.

On the young men who went whaling in the 19th century:

And down at the quayside late at night, where the fishing fleet lies tethered to rusty piles, hulls bumping gently and engines purring, I wonder how it must have been for these young men to ship out from this port, to leave these homely waters for uncertain seas. A sense of utter abandonment to fate, disconnecting from America, seeking escape wandering the oceans in search of a new home among a family of men, yet enslaved to the movements of the whale, man and animal forever linked.


This link is very funny. It has to do with the 1950's, which are also funny.

Say Hi to me on an elevator it will increase my life span

I heard about a study on NPR yesterday that found that people who have more social interactions during the course of their day, regardless of the quality of the interaction, which they didn't measure, had a tendency to live longer. I'm as shocked as you are by these findings, like most Americans I tend to regard people, unless I know them previously and have set up a time to meet them, as egregious nuisances placed on the earth to thwart my good intentions. How could more interaction with these scurrying insects result in any benefit to my life? I've been told that I should probably refrain from referring to my fellow humans as scurrying insects if I ever decide to run for political office.

Well, I suppose that's the trick. If I stand behind you in the grocery store as you fumble with your coupons and heckle the cashier over the price of artichokes, you are, annoying sub-species of person specifically designed to enact the most amount of irritation into my day. However, if you turn around and say, "I'm sorry," or even, "It sure is hot out there," you immediately become charming old woman who just can't find her coupons this one time and who is justly arguing against the corporate bastards trying to overcharge her for an artichoke. It's pretty much that simple. I like Jane Austen anyway but when I came across this quote I liked her even more,
I DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO BE AGREEABLE...IT SAVES ME THE TROUBLE OF LIKING THEM. --JANE AUSTEN
Apologies, Jane was always bit of a shouter surprisingly. This takes me back on a little trip earlier in my day, when, an unnamed party, stood next to me on an elevator without saying a word. Now, this is not entirely unusual behavior for an elevator. I don't get on elevators hoping to have delightful little chats with the people around me. In fact, in the enclosed space of an elevator silence can often feel oppressive, and I find myself doing things like whistling, even though I don't whistle, to try and alleviate stress. Or I stare at the top portion of the elevator as if it is a mobile and I am a child.
However, in this case, the subject and I had shared an elevator ride on the previous day. A ride in which I had magnanimously lightened the mood by querying said subject about his/her job, and we exchanged the usual sort of pleasantries before departing for our respective posts. Which means, that I was kind enough to break the seal of silence and relative anonymity that can exist between two parties, neigh, between any two human beings and my repayment for this indescribably bold action! Nothing. No repayment of the gesture. The subject stood solidly, no, bovinely whilst the elevator bounded around inside the building. Not a word was passed between the two of us. The onus, in the second case, not being up on me, but upon the non-interlocutor for the second interaction, which is to say, I'm tired of being friendly without any friendliness in return. And now, without really breaking down just what the term friendly means, if one is only friendly in order to receive friendliness in return, is that truly being friendly? or should we call it something else? Desiring reciprocity.
The point being, that, not only was the non-interlocutor being annoying only one day after I had bridged the gap as it were, but, they were also depriving me of my very own life source. Perhaps I shall live five seconds shorter because of the non-interlocutor. This is a tragedy that knows no bounds. That being said, I often find people, even those I love irritating, and interacting with them constantly would leave me devoid of any of the quality time that I get to spend writing. So, moderation in all things I suppose. But NO!
My only mild sense of pleasure came upon the exit of the non-interlocutor, when I realized that such behavior would no doubt result in an earlier grave for that personage, and if the behavior was consistent, perhaps as early as four decades or so.
At which point, I found myself engaged in a bit of self-interrogation, wondering whether the sort of slight on an elevator for a mere seven seconds should insight such remonstrations and sentencing to early graves. However, I've always found self-reflection a bit too reflexive, and not entirely useful, so I went back downstairs and made sure to say hi to the cleaning lady on my way to try and gain back a fraction of one of those seconds that I had lost.

The Remainder

At some point we're going to have to go the mountains.

I don't see why we can't just have them brought to us.

Do mean a poster or something?

I was thinking of a painting.

When we were in Quebec City I felt the first little push of my baby girl's foot against her mother's uterus. Anytime you use the word uterus, the tenderness of the moment is kind of just sucked out of the experience. Anyhow, it was very exciting. So exciting that I suggested punishing the child, maybe giving her a little taste of her own medicine, but I was told that babies, in general, are not noted for their in utero comprehension levels.

I didn't mow the lawn for weeks. The strange thing about grass is, unless you're watching it in time lapse photography, it doesn't seem to grow at all. Thus, I turned off the camera and thought I could put the mower away for the rest of the summer. However, after a few weeks went by the grass was at knee height anyway. I felt betrayed by the camera and the grass both, so I just started drinking wine.

S said that I am passing up all sorts of fodder on this whole parenthood thing and that I shouldn't quit blogging.

Here's what I know about being a father

1) Constantly monitoring the thermostat and taking full advantage of cross ventilation opportunities.

2) Dads have mustaches.

Okay, I've sort of exhausted my list. Apparently they have written like nine thousand books for men about how it's going to feel to be a parent, and what it's like to go through the pregnancy experience, but guess what? I have that experience coming up first hand. I don't need to read a book. I can just sit on my couch and type on the computer and know exactly what it's like to be an expectant parent, and I've already saved myself like ten hours. I'm a natural at this.

3) Dads don't read books about what it's like to be a dad. Unless it's that John Eldridge book "Wild at Heart" about teaching your good little Christian kids to pop other kids in the face.

I also know that babies have been born for thousands of years without people reading ten books about the process, and they'll probably continue to be born long after we become a post literate society after that asteroid hits in 2182. It's really a matter of how you want to spend your time.

When I was walking through the library I noticed how all the bulletin boards and walls, and display cases, and little sheets of paper, and stairs, were all different variations on squares and rectangles. I was relieved to reach the top floor and see a sign cut into the shape of a circle. It brought me peace. There is a strange and terrifying beauty in all those angles endlessly reproduced.

4) I know that dads are no longer able to smoke cigars and drink cognac while the baby is being born that they aren't allowed to celebrate with some good friends in the waiting room. I know that now they have to stand at the bottom of the bed and practice yogic breathing techniques that they've been practicing together for weeks. And they have to be there so that the women can yell "You did this too me," really loud, but don't sorry, soon after she yells this the baby will be born and look about six weeks old. Oh movies.

The cicadas make noise that reminds me of the city. When the noise begins to recede and build, it reminds me of an old sprinkler turning in an endless circle. By mid-week I can never get enough sleep, and by eight o'clock I'm just sitting on the couch waiting for time to march on, hoping to slip through it like liquid and fall into the steady rhythm of artificial light.

Some books I should reread before I die

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

I first read this book in a high school English class in 1997. The class was an honors one. I remember sitting on the far right wall, trying to feign an indifference to school that was and still is unclear to me. I was already in an honors English course. You've already kind of jumped onto that express train, so why not just commit the full way?

Everybody has an opinion about Hemingway.

He drank too much.

He's a misogynist.

The man knows nothing about war. He spent the whole war time at a bar.

A note on the title: a reference to Ecclesiastes, one of the greatest books in the history of literature in its own right.

Hemingway wrote really short sentences. He cut through the pretty dross to get down to the basics, all clean edges and sharp lines. When he didn't, you end up with pretty little things like A Farewell to Arms that don't land in quite the same was as The Sun Also Rises, rainy days be damned.

Most days I wore a hat to class, and I would turn it in varying directions depending on my mood. The class wasn't entirely full. A bunch of kids had dropped out by then, moved into calculus and dropped the unworthy humanities. Then again, maybe they didn't allow hats by that time in my high school. Maybe I was sitting in the second row, in the second seat.

To appreciate Hemingway is to appreciate the beauty of a rock worn smooth by the passing water. I don't think it came naturally, that sort of style. It was honed by rough edges. He said that when he wrote The Sun Also Rises it was because of some guys he heard about during the war. Guys who couldn't return to the lives they had lead before in a tangible way. Imagine a love like that. It's so sad it's perfect.

Honestly though, I promise you that I was sitting somewhere in that classroom when I first read The Sun Also Rises, and I didn't even get the play on words. It just sounded like a tough type of guy trying to feel. I remember our teacher telling us a story about a commune that she lived in just after college. She told us that she was a stunner back then. We listened, rapt in the way of teenagers listening to secrets as if we were still children.

T: A good looking guy moved in. That was the end of all the that. We were all at each other's throats. He slept with almost everyone.

In The Sun Also Rises Hemingway has the perfect meat to hang on the clean bone of his prose. These are recognizable people, overwhelmed by desires that they know will go unfilled they pursue them nonetheless. I suppose Sophocles captured it when we were first getting around to this art business, "There is much that is strange, but nothing that surpasses man in strangeness."

That was the first year that I ever asked a girl to a dance. Years before I'd always waited to be asked. In high school honors classes you hover over books like anorexic carrion crows, nibbling hesitantly, at the feast of words on the road below. And when we approach, we pull up at the last instant, afraid of the pavement and something deeper. Ennui was just a vocabulary word.

You should read The Sun Also Rises because it is the best book written by one of the best writers of the 20th century. You should read it as a counterpoint to the playful language of Joyce, and an alternative to the waves of Woolf. You should read it because it is about simple things like love and heartbreak and drinking and bull fights. It is about the things we do to pass the time between waves of sadness, the little buoys we construct, or the lighthouses in the distance.

In truth, I did sit on the wall in the third row. And I may or may not have worn a hat. It is not really important either way, whether Grant got a better score on the first exam. Those sorts of things fade in time, like the words in all the books I've ever read. What's important is that when I first read Hemingway, at 17, he didn't strike me as special. Later, after many other things had happened, which I won't go into too much detail about here, I wanted to sit down and have a beer with him, catch him while he was lucid, and talk about those months in southern Spain, even if they were only a figment of his imagination.

Years later, when I sat with one of my college professors he said, "Every writer has about one good book in them and then they just keeping writing that same book over and over again or they do something that isn't as good. What's that book by Hemingway?"

M: The Sun Also Rises.

P: Yes. That one! Everything else is just different iterations on the same thing. That is his best.

Energy Conitnued

We were at the beach this weekend. The sunset on the way back was glorious, and when it was finally done, I sighed, and I told Stephanie that it felt as if I had to return to the world of men. Till human voices wake us and we drown and all that.

In the meantime I've been busily captioning photos. I will be on blog hiatus for only more day of captioning photos before I get back to the old meat grinder of boring people with my thoughts about meetings.

All of my Energy

All of my blogging energy has been devoted to captioning pictures from our trip to Montreal and giving them random tags. Ergo; if you scroll through the pictures be sure to read the captions and look at the random tags. Consider it a rehasing of my earlier blogs about our trip, only more boring, with pictures.

Fiction (Cont.)

Jason and I sit in the living room and watch the Discovery Channel.
“Did you know that elephants have a specific call to warn one another about angry bees?” Jason said.

“Are they telling them to buzz off,” I said, which should have made him laugh.

He sighed and went back to watching little prairie dogs scuttle around in the cover of night.

Because of the table’s unusual size, I usually take my dinners at the window, watching cars pass by like the quicksilver backs of fish headed for the sea. Sometimes, if I notice I’ve been at the window too long, I look at my phone intently, literally furrowing my brow, even as far away as I am, as if I have just received a text from the President himself. Hell, maybe I have. It’s okay to dream. Sometimes, I get so caught up with faux texting, I send a real one, and I say something like, “How’s it going lady?” By then I feel safe closing my phone and gazing outside because if anyone was still watching, they’d realize how busy and important I am, and that I need a break every once in a while, just time to spend gazing out a window to keep from going bonkers.

“Three toed sloths, who travel very rarely, have been known to leave trees to eat out of human latrines,” Jason said, running a hand across the stubble on his cheeks.

“Do you think that a sloth mother ever has to tell her child to slow down when he’s eating?” I ask. And he smiles back at me, a cockeyed grin, full of so much boyish charm that it is all I can do keep myself from shattering a vase on it.

The phone rings and I answer it like my mother by saying, “Yes,” pausing for a while and then saying “Hello.” My mother doesn’t answer the phone that way anymore because she’s gone batty. Now she yells, “Who is it?” increasing her decibel level and consternation each time, until a nurse reminds her who I am.

Thoughts

On Housing:

S: Why does our house smell?

M: I don’t think it smells anymore. It used to smell like an old lady.

S: I think it still smells like an old lady.

M: Maybe, but I think it’s a different old lady

On Blueberries:

S: I love these blueberries.

M: Yeah, I heard you the first time.

S: Sometimes I just get fixated on weird things.

(Minutes Later)

S: I love these blueberries! They taste like candy.

M: You're like George Sr. with his ice cream sandwiches.


On pet names:

M: Oh, that was a good spot to hide my bag from me you crafty bastard.

(Twenty minutes later while doing dishes)

M: Oh come on. Get serious Steph.

S: I only answer to crafty bastard.


On naming:

M: I like Sadie kay that sounds like something you could yell upstairs pretty easily.


On being easygoing:

S: I read the entire baby names book through while I was at K and T's.

M: You what?

S: I came up with a few--

M: I just think that's a huge waste of your time. I can't believe you'd spend an entire evening reading through a names book. It's just a name.

S: It took me like half an hour.

M: We're deciding this name right now!

(Minutes Later)

M: Sometimes I forget that I'm easygoing.


Type A vs. Type B:

S: We could either do plan a or b. Or c or do. or some combination of a and b contingent on whether M is around or not.

M: Why are you even asking me? We both know you're just going to create a thousand scenarios to bludgeon me with and then just pick whatever you want.

S: You're probably right. I'll let you know what I decide.

Fiction (Cont)

I am in a double bind because I do not want to be alone, and I do not want to see Jason. I solve the problem by calling Jason and inviting him over, so I guess it wasn’t really a bind, but more like a conundrum. I know that since he’s coming from the zoo and that he’ll smell like crap.

I am in a tizzy before Jason arrives because that is how I am before company arrive. I worry what they will think of my hair, or the style of the pictutres on my wall, even people I don’t give a damn about. I check myself out in the mirror but then remember that I didn’t even want Jason to come over. So, “screw it,” I say and run a hand through my hair and flatten the left side to make it look as though I’ve just awoken from an afternoon nap, or that I’ve used a flat iron on only one side of my head. , I don’t give a shit what you think, world, is what my hair seems to say.

The soap operas conclude dramatically and Jason arrives at my house. He is wearing a pair of leather sandals that sort of piss me off, and his hair is unwashed. I get him a drink, ice water for the hangover. “It’s Tuesday,” I say. His sandals are already on the ottoman.

For a while, we talk to each other about our days, complaining about co-workers and imagined slights, until we realize that we are boring even to ourselves.

“Some days,” I confide to Jason, “I just want to fire her.”

“Who?” He asks.

“My secretary, Janice.”

“How progressive of you,” he says, but he’s got a piece of popcorn lodged between his mismatched British teeth, so I don’t pay attention to anything that he says. When it suits me, I am the shallowest person in the world.

The problem with eating alone is that I can never figure out where I’m supposed to sit. It’s kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears except I always keep searching, moving from chair to chair without anything ever feeling right. I bought the table a few months ago with Jason. When I asked what the hell I needed a six person table for, he said, “Entertaining,” as though it was something I’d do. The truth is, it would be a great table for entertaining. I’d almost invited Janice over once with just that in mind, but then I remembered that she couldn’t drink, and I thought, to hell with Janice and her Puritanism.

Problems

S, and women in general, (this particular blog is going to make all sorts of blanket statements about women in general, none of which are to be taken with a grain of salt because grains of salt are not as good as just liberally applying a good portion of salt to your chips or fries) get all concerned about various unimportant things when a baby is born. Irrelevant things really, like, a crib and diapers and what color the room will be painted et al. These are obviously mere unnecessary appurtenances thrust upon us by the money grubbing capitalist society. Babies have been sleeping fine on various surfaces, rock, dirt, sheep skin, for time en memoriam. And diapers have always been found, and rooms haven't always been certain colors. In fact, sometimes they haven't even been rooms. As for strollers, well, that's why the good Lord gave us arms and backs and good grabby hands and the like. Grabby hands is mine.

Anyhow, as the male in the relationship I can't get caught up in all of these irrelevant things. No. I've got to be concerned about the single most important thing when you have a girl child. A dowry. We've got to start saving our money and estates and goats and sheep and stuff, so that a man will one day marry our daughter.

Can you imagine the embarrassment that would ensue if a young gentleman called me on the phone to ask for my daughter's hand, and I couldn't offer him up a solid dowry? Shame. And look, I haven't been a dad for very long I've no earthly clue what the going rate is for a young lady from the United States. Lord knows in order to make this all work, S and I will be forced to spend a few more Saturdays down at the horse tracks. Mind you, I'm not suggesting it for my benefit, I'm doing it for the sake of our little one. How else can you earn an honest day's wages without working?

Luckily I clicked on that wikipedia page and learned that we get a bride price. This is just further impetus for us to really push her to get a quality score on the SAT. Otherwise, she'll be forced to take on mommy and daddy in their dotage (just a reminder that one of the things I look forward to most in my dotage is telling a story, waiting ten seconds, then telling the exact same story again while younger people squirm uncomfortably and try and figure out if they can say something to me) as opposed to putting us up in a nice facility where we can play bingo and complain about young people and the like.

A lot of people who have heard this idea have said things to me like, "You idiot. Do you realize that we don't require dowries in our country anymore." Guess what? Most of my friends are young people who haven't had kids yet, and they pretty much know nothing about strollers handling and little swings that play sweet violin music or what the going rate is for a girl child on the open dowry market. Ergo; I don't pay any attention to them.

In the end, I guess the point that I'm getting at is that if love isn't enough, I'm hoping that an extra fifteen thousand, two horse drawn carriages (in moderate to fair condition), a gold finch, two stuffed cats (family pets), a ticket stub from the movie Joe vs. the Volcano (not included), seventeen journals (in middling shape), a painting of either the English coast or a poorly rendered night sky (original), three copies of the book, The Mystery of Marriage, a poorly constructed plan to take over the world's supply of Oxygen (done on napkins), a well-loved teddy bear with an apple on his bib (bib not included), an affidavit signed by both parents, plus witnesses, that grants full access to any items discovered at the end of any rainbows in the next ten calendar years (giraffe negotiable), a cat (in poor condition), a commode and an old Trombone of indefinite lineage (possibly from the future) will be enough to sway the fellow!

Some thoughts

Fiction (Cont form way earlier)


The dog has stopped barking or someone has put it down. I have the whole day ahead of me stretching out like some ancient valley in the eyes of an explorer. I watch dust motes settle on the television from the light in the window. I don’t know how Einstein invented things but perhaps it was on days like this. The carpet appears to be beige. The sink is best cleaned with Windex. I can’t remember the last time I had an original thought.

In bed, I read a magazine that has twenty five ways to look good at forty. It promises the secrets of twenty five good-looking women in their forties. Honestly, I don’t even bristle at stuff like that anymore, about the industrialization of beauty or anything, I just read the articles and say to myself, “I am only thirty-two. I have eight more years until I need to start getting back in shape.” Number twenty three: smile more often.

The upstairs neighbors, a couple straight from Bangalore, are having what sounds like the Olympic medal round of intercourse, so I turn on the ceiling fan and try to forget what they look like with middling success. Sometimes, people complain that the women in the magazines make them feel inadequate. But I realize, when I look down at my small chest, that it is not the magazine that has been a disappointment, it is my small breasts that make me feel inadequate and there is no sense on blaming it on anyone else. You’d think I would be used to them by now, partners in crime, but I’m still constantly surprised by their insubstantiality. When I was in my teens I used to give them pep talks, promise them more attention if they’d just chip in a little. Maybe that’s why I was so happy for those four weeks last June? We were finally in concert together, my breasts and I.

I catch a pigeon staring at me through the open window, and I wonder if anyone else has been watching me give a pep talk to my breasts thinking that I had lost my marbles, which is just the sort of way a crazy person might describe going crazy. I’ll probably end up like my Aunt Marie, a real battleaxe. I don’t have any aunts, but that is the sort of thing that people say. And sometimes not having them is harder than you might imagine. “Peep show is over,” I say to the pigeon, who is shitting in the gutters, before I close the blinds.

When I call Jason and he asks why I’m taking the day off, I tell him that it’s for reasons undisclosed, but I can’t resist so I tell him about the dog and the siren. And he insists that my neighbor’s don’t even have a dog, until I hang up on him. My cereal box says that the product contains fourteen whole grains, but the cereal seems much too small for all that. I think that they’re topping out at nine at best.

I sit in the sweltering living room and turn on the television. I want to watch something where all the women hate each other, and also have very long fingernails. My secretary, Janice, has long green fingernails that she taps on the desk in the early afternoon. And for the longest time I thought that I liked, Janice, but I’ve recently been forced to admit that I might hate her. The tapping of her nails reminds me of my father’s hammer, pounding away on a crib in the garage of my childhood and all the fireflies rising from the grass like tiny lanterns lit to guide the unborn into the sky.

As it turns out, nothing is on, so I watch someone, who is not Bob Barker ask people the price of shampoo. A lady, college aged and pretty, guesses $5.95, and I nearly the punch the face of not Bob Barker on the screen from the sheer idiocy of her guess.

Before the soaps start I have a staring contest with the pigeons on the roof. If we ever had a child, I told Jason, I’d make sure that it learned how to fly. Babies are capable of all sorts of things that adults aren’t. They can swim right of the womb and out to the ocean. They can learn to speak Cantonese even if they are from some rural valley in Nebraska. And I bet that if we gave them enough encouragement and maybe some role models that they could learn to fly too. “Why does the sky have to be the limit?”

“That’s insane,” he said at the time. But I wasn’t listening because that’s just the sort of discouragement you want to avoid.

Saturday July 18

In the morning I pull a book into bed with me. I cradle it between my arms as if it were a lover. I turn the pages softly, fingertips brushing along a cheek. I stare at the words and remember mornings and afternoons spent locked in the eyes of another and thinking that it was enough. In the mornings I make lists as if I have a type A personality. I set unattainable goals for myself involving books and movies and writing and exercise and the appropriate amount of time spent in the sun but no longer, and I wonder about whether to put sunscreen on and just stay out longer.

I read another chapter in bed, the six pillows are piled high on the opposite side of the bed, as if I am reading next to a quiet lover in an endless white robe. After a while I put the book down on the shelf. I move through the day as if it is honey, but my mind whirs. In the early afternoon I set up a mat to do yoga. I wonder whether to put on some music to entertain myself or some podcast to edify myself. I agonize over these decisions that are typically regarded as simply enjoying free time. I do not enjoy free time. I find myself wondering whether I am wasting it.

Later in the day I finish the book. I cast it aside like some soon to be forgotten lover, but it, like any lover, sticks to me for a while. So I leave to walk the streets in search of meaning. Outside, I wonder whether I should walk or go to the park. I try and calculate how close I am to the park, whether it will be worth it. I agonize over walking the streets or going to the park.

On the drive over, I look at the peculiar shapes of trees and old men playing golf. I try and remind myself that this is life. The green blades of grass mowed impeccably, the man standing twenty feet in a tree with no harness testing the limbs that overhang the street. I try and remind myself that this is what I will be returning to soon.

As I drive through the park, musing about mortality, the truck ahead of me goes underneath a bridge and has part of its top sheared off. The sound isn't like I'd expect, like metal rubbing against metal, it is more like a cannon being fired, or a tire popping. The large sheets of metal do cartwheels in the air, and I tap the brakes and watch them fall to the cement. In a moment, I pull around the two men who are standing in the street now, bewildered. I think that people from other generations might get out to say something to the men, but I drive on, pleased to have been musing rather than tailgating.

At the park I walk by a large group of people enjoying a cook out. The older men toss a football to a swarm of children. Two youngsters attempt to play ping pong without a table. I walk through them without saying a word. In the distance, I can hear the sound of the creek running over rocks, smoothing them down, making them perfect. So this is life, I think.

I sit on a bench and stare up through cracks in the trees at the light filtering down softly, lying in small spaces on the dusty banks of the river. And for some reason I am brought back to my early twenties, in a park, not so dissimilar. When I took a girl to an opening where we skipped rocks and listened to the water making its dark way onward, while the green leaves of trees brushed leaves across its back, stroking it softly, as if it were a dog returning home. I told her that I loved places like this because they reminded me of the beauty of God. She told me that that was why she always liked being with me, for moments like that.

But now, sitting on a bench nine years later, I cannot concentrate as well on the water or the rocks, or the sound of small birds in the trees. I hear the river going past and it keeps reminding me of time passing, rather than its stasis. Besides, that girl no longer believes in God. We lost touch with other years ago.

On the drive home I see a dead quail lying on the curb at the park. And as I pass the dead bird, I realize that it is only a piece of shorn rubber, left from some worn out tire. And for the rest of the ride home I try and find some stillness, but I keep thinking of all the things I've yet to do, and all the time already undone and yet to be undone.

The Laurentians or meetings

I've written extensively about meetings before. However, I have a memory like a cheese cloth (no earthly clue what a cheese cloth is or its relative permeability) so here we go again.

Meeting Begins:

Time it takes for me to realize that I'm staring at the moderator without hearing a single word he's saying. The whole thing might as well be in Japanese.

1

After my initial failing I tune back in to the meeting. I look at the handouts and nod.

I raise my hand:

M: These handouts are beige.

Moderator: Thank you, that's very perceptive.

M: I'm just saying.

After everyone has agreed that the handouts are indeed beige we moved back into the meeting. At this point I remembered this old Chris Tucker interview when he talked about working on Rush Hour 2 with Jackie Chan and doing countless interviews in China. Anyhow the gist is that he claimed that he actually mastered the art of falling asleep with his eyes open while all of these people spoke a language he didn't know. Ever since then I've used meetings to try and master this useful art.

At some point during every meeting, likely around the time when its scheduled to have ended someone starts asking questions. Usually, if I'm not sleeping with my eyes open, I start to come up with violent ways of ending their existence. Meanwhile, in reality world, that person usually laughs at the answers the moderator gives and may even ask some follow up questions and just generally show in both voice and posture that they are really satisfied with the presentation as a whole and could go on chatting about the minutia well into the evening while I imagine breaking their fingers with some sort of large to moderately sized piece of granite. I joke though. I joke of course. Meetings are great.

The other big news of the day, (news enough for both NPR and the New Yorker) was the I write like application that appeared on facebook today. Well, maybe it wasn't all the rage for everyone, but I have an MFA in creative writing, so, yeah I know people who raged about it. Naturally when I dutifully put in my short story and came up with the answer of you write like: David Foster Wallace I was pretty excited. What are the chances that this machine would recognize the genius in my own writing as well? About one in five, I think. As the only other options were Joyce, Dan Brown and Kurt Vonnegut. Thus, my excitement was already dimmed when I entered a second short story and the Iwrite like application came up with Dan Brown. Note: My two short stories weren't that widely variant at all. So how could the machine mix up these two writers. Easy, look below.

Dan Brown

Death, in this forsaken place, could come in countless forms. Geologist Charles Brophy had endured the savage splendor of this terrain for years, and yet nothing could prepare him for a fate as barbarous and unnatural as the one about to befall him.

DFW

It's obvious someone else had a hand in the screenplay, but Mario did the choreography and most of the puppet-work personally — his little S-shaped arms and falcate digits are perfect for the forward curve from body to snout of a standard big-headed political puppet — and it was, without question, Mario's little square Hush Puppies on the H^4's operant foot-treadle, the Bolex itself mounted on one of the tunnel's locked lab's Husky-VI TL tripods across the over lit closet, mops and dull-gray janitorial buckets carefully moved out past the frame's borders on either side of the little velvet stage.

It's pretty much the same sentence. Here is a link that is well worth reading if you enjoy or don't enjoy DFW. Just read the damn hyperlink. If you read the hyperlink, feel free to grow your own sentence and include it at the bottom of the page. Read the hyperlink if you've ever read this blog!

Okay, I hear what you're saying. You're saying, Andrew, those two sentences could actually be mistaken for one another. We want more proof that these two authors write different sentences.


Dan Brown from The Da Vinci Code

He could taste the familiar tang of museum air - an arid, deionized essence that carried a faint hint of carbon - the product of industrial, coal-filter dehumidifiers that ran around the clock to counteract the corrosive carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors.

(Ah, that familiar tang of deionised essence)

DFW from Good Old Neon
"This is another paradox, that many of the most important impressions and thoughts in a person's life are ones that flash through your head so fast that fast isn't even the right word, they seem totally different from or outside of the regular sequential clock time we all live by, and they have so little relation to the sort of linear, one-word-after-another word English we all communicate with each other with that it could easily take a whole lifetime just to spell out the contents of one split-second's flash of thoughts and connections, etc. -- and yet we all seem to go around trying to use English (or whatever language our native country happens to use, it goes without saying) to try to convey to other people what we're thinking and to find out what they're thinking, when in fact deep down everybody knows it's a charade and they're just going through the motions. What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny part of it at any given instant."

So, yeah. One of these is not like the other you stupid app. You know who I write like. Me. Andrew Bertaina. Only I am me, which brings with it a whole load of preconceptions and words and memories and language usage memories that are mine and mine alone. Good or bad. So, I write like me.

The meeting concluded, and I think it was agreed upon by everyone that we all had a really productive time. Here are my notes:

The word RSS is being used frequently. What does RSS mean? Can I ask? Does everyone else here know and is it going to make me look stupid?

Am I the only one who didn't know that intranet meant only for local users?

I wonder if these people enjoy flying kites? Maybe putting together a picnic lunch in a basket bought from a garage sale, but not one of those crappy baskets, I mean, a real nice basket, with some substance and one of those white and red checkered blankets that are standard on every picnic that takes place in the television of my youth. And then maybe after the sandwiches letting some kites loose to hang in the blue sky all afternoon, and maybe even their children could have a turn, if we invited them, though they'd probably screw it up, or cry or something. Maybe the kids are uninvited now. Anyhow, I really hope they like flying kites because I think flying kites is the stupidest thing in the world, and I can just sleep in this comfy chair in the middle of the meeting we're supposed to be having if they weren't all off flying stupid kites.

Some things I remembered on the way to going somewhere else

First off. During my blog about turning thirty I often put on the song that seemed to define that year for me. I have no earthly clue how this song wasn't on that list. So, now, a few months late, here is the incomparable, (at least in the late nineties) Dave Matthews:



Oh to be a sophomore in high school again. Oh wait, it wasn't that fun. Other than singing along to Whitney Houston's I will Always Love You on the way back from a basketball tournament it wasn't all that great.

On our third day in Montreal the weather decided to simulate the fourth circle of hell. Note: S asked me at some point during the trip to stop comparing various things, (annoyingly Disney-like alpine villages, weather, neighborhoods) to circles of hell. Thus, we tore out into the Montreal heat ready to set the world on fire. This took place after we shared our breakfast with our fake French British compatriot about how great off-shore drilling is and how excited we were when they ruled that the moratorium be lifted. Along with a few questions about whether Great Britain was going to be coated in oil or not. (At this B and B you all sat around a table at 8:30 together and tried to figure out what the common language was, and then, whether you actually wanted to talk or not. Luckily, we had a charming man who was French, but living in Great Britain to handle the conversation. British people are all funny and whimsical, and I wish seriously that I knew more of them because I would invite them to almost every event that I ever went to. Our friend, whatever his name was, included. He could speak French with our host then drop just as easily into discussions of Spanish politics with the couple from Barcelona. Conversation is art. Though, while watching the World Cup it was lovely to come across this little gem after the national team got destroyed by Germany.

Michael Davies-Blogger
"Americans will never completely understand how crap it is, most of the time, to be English. We might have cute accents and be good at cocktail parties. But we are mostly losers."

Anyhow, after we left the scintillating, no really, it was that good, conversation of our British friend we traveled via bus towards the old Olympic Stadium. The stadium isn't exactly popular with the locals who, even now, decades later, still mention how damn much the thing cost. Luckily, when we arrived, we noted that the large stadium and parking lot, (here deliver an ode to 1970's architecture, apply tons of cement liberally) were being used by roughly five people. But hey, it looks pretty neat from the hot ass cement.

However, we were not interested in being touristy and going to the Olympic Stadium. No my friends, we wanted to be touristy at the biodome. (When we told one couple from the Northeast that we were going to the Biodome he said, "Oh yes, we've been to the bee-oh dome." I mean, is that really the world you're going to accent in French? Biodome? Anyhow, I had many fantasies about the Biodome before our arrival in Montreal, tromping around with penguins one minute then moving on to the large forests and riding a moose while my wife took pictures/swooned in the background. I can honestly say that none of my expectations were exceeded. Why? Because the bee-oh dome, pretentious prick, was closed for a strike. How people are on strike at what appears to me to be a sort of innovative science museum is beyond me. I expect this sort of behavior from American athletes making fifteen million a year, but I am highly disappointed to find it in places where they love gravy fries and elk. These guys can take harsh winter after harsh winter, but they can't take 10.50 an hour?

At this point I told S that our trip was ruined and that the Biodome was what I'd been looking forward to the most. I don't actually know if that's true, but as I didn't get to experience it I'm fairly certain that it would have been life changing. Every experience that I've almost had could have always been life changing. Imagine the poutine at La Banquise? It probably would have been like eating a little piece of heaven with gravy on it. Mmmmmm. Heaven.

S tried to coax me into walking to a local market because she values local markets like other women value shopping. Forget a new handbag, this woman wants to check out the texture of your in season strawberries and find out how many Kilometers they had to travel to get to the market. Which, Kilometers are awesome because I constantly think of them as miles and when it says 80 to something, and we get there in under an hour, I'm really excited about the time I made. Rationality be damned. Anyhow, S and I did some death hike to the market through broken down neighborhoods with me helpfully asking her if she preferred the trash on the street here or the nice restaurants around Mont-Royal. I was never asked to shut up but the sentiment certainly went in that direction.

At the market we walked by everything once before buying anything. S always has to look everything over, even if the market spans two blocks before she picks something out. Why? Is it some need to make sure to get the best? To really explore all the opportunities? No. It is to drive me insane. I am briefly pacified with maple fudge but the damn thing is gone too quickly to curb my impatience. We wander around for a while looking for strawberries and finally, when we come across the best basket of strawberries in the entire world we purchase them.

After this, we took an exceedingly long walk down those same crappy trash strewn streets back to the Olympic Stadium area. Why? To go to the Botanic Gardens. Botanic Gardens are the sort of thing you go to when you've been married for seven years or when you have kids? In between you wonder why someone would ever spend their time looking at Maples instead of having fun.

The garden is fun, especially the shady part. I am able to identify one tree on the hour walk.
M: That's an evergreen.

S: It's a blue spruce.

Luckily a blue spruce has blue needles, so I might actually be able to identify it again. After winding up our tour of the gardens we did what any couple on fire for life and ready to experience it, seize the day if you will, we took a three hour hot nap at our hotel. So really, it was like an hour nap because hot naps always involve lots of rolling around and waking up and general feelings of ill will towards any sort of skin touching in the slightest.

Then we ate at our second vegan/vegetarian restaurant of the trip because S wants our little girl to be weakened in utero, so that we don't have to be overwhelmed at first with crying.

M: Baby will be strong like bull?

S: No. No.

After dinner we wandered back to our hotel to think about napping. However, I talked S into going to a place called Juliette et Chocolat, which turned out to not be a figurative piece of heaven on earth as I described above, but the literal redeemed earth incarnate in a chocolate shop. They had dark chocolate milkshakes and desserts of every kind imaginable, overflowing with chocolate goodness. S described the restaurant as being a place that she could not have imagined better in her own mind. That in some way her conscious mind could not have created anything more splendid than the restaurant in which we were now eating our desserts. Also, it was cool. We'd been hot all day, and it was so gloriously cool. I had a dark chocolate milkshake, rich and as delightful as you would imagine it would be. S had a brownie with ice cream and hot chocolate so thick you could pour it out like syrup. And then we shared a nice when Harry Met Sally moment over how amazing our dessert was. Bravo chocolatier!

That night we rolled around in bed for hours trying to think of ways to get cool. In the end I slept upside down with a small fan resting against my cheek and blowing cool air across my forehead, while at my back the little balcony door was half-open, bringing in bits of cool air and the honks and shouts of the night. We slept terribly.

Lydia Davis Shorts

BORING FRIENDS
We know only four boring people. The rest of our friends we find very interesting. However, most of the friends we find interesting find us boring: the most interesting find us the most boring. The few who are somewhere in the middle, with whom there is reciprocal interest, we distrust: at any moment, we feel, they may become too interesting for us, or we too interesting for them.



INTERESTING
My friend is interesting but he is not in his apartment.

Their conversation appears interesting but they are speaking a language I do not understand.

They are both reputed to be interesting people and so I'm sure their conversation is interesting, but they are speaking a language I understand only a little, so I catch only fragments such as "I see" and "on Sunday" and "unfortunately."

This man has a good understanding of his subject and says many things about it that are probably interesting in themselves, but I am not interested because the subject does not interest me.

Here is a woman I know coming up to me. She is very excited, but she is not an interesting woman. What excites her will not be interesting, it will simply not be interesting. .

At a party, a highly nervous man talking fast says many smart things about subjects that do not particularly interest me, such as the restoration of historic houses and in particular the age of wallpaper. Yet, because he is so smart and because he gives me so much information per minute, I do not get tired of listening to him.

Here is a very handsome English traffic engineer. The fact that he is so handsome, and so animated, and has such a fine English accent makes it appear, each time he begins to speak, that he is about to say something interesting, but he is never interesting, and he is saying something, yet again, about traffic patterns.

Post 300! A meaty proposition

So, yeah. With S out of town for the week I decided to make one trip to Whole Foods that would last me until she returned. I tried to think of all those glorious recipes that I'd made in the past boeuf bourguignon, Fillet of Sole, Artichokes with Hollandaise Sauce. Then I remembered that it was not me who had cooked those recipes but the lady from Julie and Julia. This had me depressed for at least five minutes. Then, I realized that I could grill. And what better activity for me than to grill up a week's worth of meat in one great night!

Uhmm. I was a vegetarian for nine months, and I'm still not a regular eater of meat due to S's persistent vegetarianism. So, as it turns out, meat-fest 2010 was a little bit of overkill. I'm discovering that I may not want chicken every night for dinner from now until Saturday. In fact, after two days, I'm already tired of meat-fest 2010, but I've still got about nine chicken legs in the fridge that I'm going to have to eat to not waste food. I'm really just posting this as a warning for anyone else who was thinking of trying meat-fest 2010. Don't. Really, it's best to do meat-fest in one sitting, nothing wrong with leaving a BBQ having eaten a burger, three hot dogs and a snippet of steak, just don't think that you'd want that again for the next five days. Onward and upward.

Alternative titles:

Meat-fest 2010-The little mistake that lasted a week.

A Meeting of the Meats.

A gross miscalculation involving vast quantities of chicken.


I also feel like I got short shrift on Facebook with captioning my artsy photo.



Alternatives to the original:

This is just how I sit when viewing art.

When I go to the museum, I want the art to look at me.

If I look angry it's just because of the low quality of the conceptual art.

And so on.


On the third day of our trip we went to the Old Port of Montreal. The Old Port of Montreal looks like a nice little European haven. Cobblestone streets wind like rivers through through the barges of nineteenth century stone houses while horses clatter by, pulling carriages as if in echo of the streets. At nine A.M. we have the Port to ourselves, and we scale the Sailor's Memorial Clock tower only to discover a barbed wire fence at the top obscuring our view. We lean down and take a picture, hoping to capture some of the splendor of Old Port. Instead, it just looks like we're in jail.

That same day we eat poutine in the courtyard of an old restaurant. The walls are lined with ivy, and a small spiral staircase rises from the courtyard up several stories to a loft. As it turns out, neither of us care for the poutine. I'm not sure what Miss Muffet was thinking. They aren't very good. How you can make fries soaked in gravy taste only average is beyond me. Before we leave an old couple, British I believe, asks the waitress what poutine is. When she's done describing it the woman asks the waitress if she can take her picture.

Waitress: Why.

Woman: I just like the looks of you.

While the wife lines up the photo the husband, a garrulous and strange old man with a large yellow hat and a camera wrapped round his neck, somehow embodying the stereotypical tourist makes bunny ears over his wife's head as she takes the picture. Then, the couple leaves without even sitting down to eat. We define ourselves in opposition for comfort. It is nice when the opportunity is so easy.

That afternoon we walked onto the Point Jacques Cartier and into the blue tent of Cirque du Solei, which turned out to be literally breathtaking. The things that these people could do had me constantly gripping my chair and tightening my legs in fear that they would fail. It was my favorite part of Montreal.

In the evening we briefly argue about where to eat, settling on a Basque restaurant a bit off the beaten path. When we decide to skip the wine, and order only fifty dollars worth of food our waiter turns surly. They serve us a soup in a glass that is about 1/3 the size of a shot glass for seven dollars. At the table behind us, an American man, wearing a t-shirt that says Penn St. Football on it, and sporting a hat, takes a picture of his incredibly small tapa to send to his friends. "At least we're not the worst one's in here," I say.

Our waiter begins to cheer up significantly as the time for tipping approaches. A fact, which we both comment on. Though, it's noted that our entire meal does take two hours and the paltry ten bucks he'll be getting isn't exactly amazing. At the table to my right an older couple orders food all night and drinks a bottle of wine. At the end of the night they are given free small shots by the waiter. During dinner, I could swear they were speaking about us in French, defining themselves against us.

That night we walk back down Saint Denis in the oppressive heat of early summer complaining about waiters and portion sizes until we feel good enough for gelato.

Day Two

On the second day we left the small resort town of Lake George for the bright lights of Montreal. Except that S decided that she wanted to take a scenic drive along some byway before hitting the open road. What to do? The simplest answer is that old adage about enjoying the journey. However, if one's enjoyment of said journey is unduly hampered by going thirty five miles an hour past houses that yes, are probably in some unquantifiable sense, cute, that despite their admittedly appealing exteriors, themselves begin to take on a sort of sameness as does the lake after fifteen miles or so, such that, cries of, "isn't it beautiful" either lesson in number or become increasingly annoying. Ie, it gets more complicated. And really, to me, admittedly a point A to point B type of person, the question actually runs a bit deeper because I find myself weighing the merits of Montreal with that of the little scenic highway, and I, typically, find myself drawn to the unknown quantity of Montreal rather than the known quantity of little lakeside houses. And I think you have to make that sort of decision when you go about "enjoying the journey" because it necessarily diminishes the journey that you'll be going on in your destination spot. All of this to say, that despite the obvious charm of Bolton Landing, pitched roofs and flower pots decorating the porch as if posing for a Kinkaid, I was ready for Montreal sooner than S, and, as I was driving, we departed from the lake shore sooner rather than later.

I find myself encountering small little decisions like this every day. I sometimes spend minutes literally debating whether to open a book on my lunch break or whether I should just continue eating my sandwich in relative quiet thought. And I find myself in near panic mode trying to decipher the virtues of either, admittedly simple, activities, such that I typically wind up doing a rather half-assed job of both, spilling bits of jelly on the pages of my book and not really reading more than a couple of pages before I look up and wonder whether I should have been reading at all.

Much to my chagrin, what a nice word chagrin, our lady of the house was feeling ill, and we were not greeted by piano playing or a parrot. However, we were required to remove our shoes while going up the stairs, which had been painted like the keys on a piano. It's the sort of strangeness that is mildly charming in a foreign country at first, and you sort of nudge each other at the eccentricity, though by the third day it seems less a funny little habit and more the sort of annoying characteristic that you'd have resented much sooner back home.

S and I have a tendency to plan our trips a bit exhaustively. So, when we arrived and told the landlady that it was our first visit to Montreal she set about circling things on a map that we'd already discussed doing, which is to say, once again, I was not enjoying the journey of talking to this little French speaking woman but was wondering instead how soon we could actually get to our day. All the while I smile over her shoulder and nod politely because that is the type of person I am, secretly resentful.

We visited the Musee De Beaux arts in a flurry. I've learned that first days of vacations tend to be a bit of a let down because you are so tired from the travel. Thus, you might look at a Van Gough or Renoir for about three seconds before scanning the sidewalks out the window hoping to catch sight of someone dispensing snow cones, which proves yet again that our baser needs always must be met first. Snow cone then great art. My favorite painting turns out to be something a bit obscure that depicts a strong man being devoured by a lion as he tries to tear a tree in half for his last great feat of strength. The painting itself was very evocative, and I love the story, which seemed a good mirror of what it means to be human as well as the necessary fall from grace, even for the strongest.

Then we ate some smoothies and looked at contemporary art. We found the museum pretty tame and were disappointed. We decided that we go to see contemporary art to be sort of wowed by the strangeness/creepiness of it, and though the museum made some attempts, a lot of it just turned out to be colors on canvasses. Come on contemporary art, I want to see weird videos played on a loop with people doing calisthenics for an hour. Oh wait, that was there. But still, only a few treasures like that. Then we took a nap at the Jazz festival, Jazz, which turns out to be a great kind of music to nap to and then we take in dinner on the hip Saint-Denis at some interesting Vegan place. All in all, not bad for a first day in Montreal.

"I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse's good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment."
Wittgenstein

The Trip

A lits of things that were probably said/learned.

If you're traveling in upstate New York it's best to stay in Bolton Landing. It has the small downtown with the sort of small houses that one feels comfortable describing as cute. The lake is also only a stone's throw away, and you don't have to share it with all those grubby folk who are busy mucking up Lake George. Bolton Landing probably has a cobbler. Neither I nor you know exactly what a cobbler does, but we're both pretty certain that it's an important job in Bolton Landing.

In the morning I watch a man, short brown-hair, forearm tattoos, smoke a cigarette near the parking lot. Mind you, these hotels virtually overlook the impressively dazzling Lake George. You almost have to go out of your way to not look at the Lake. However, here is this guy, just smoking a cigarette on the porch, watching the parking lot get warm, and listening to the cars whirring by on the old highway. It pretty revealed to me yet another example of why I should take up smoking. No person in their right mind would sit in a parking lot staring at the check-in trailer with a picturesque lake at their backs. Why? Because other people would walk by and judge you a bit, maybe go back and tell a story to their wives or teenage children that intimated that perhaps they should stay away from the guy staring down the yellow lines of the parking lot. Unless that guy is a smoker. Then, he can stare at whatever he wants. He doesn't have to explain himself to anyone. If only I didn't detest the smell of smoke. Anyhow, if you see me sitting somewhere, arms over the back of a bench, or my back pressed up against a tree, looking like a soul with not a damn thing to do in the world just pretend that I'm smoking and it will solve the mental conundrum.

I do strange things on trips, such as insisting on hearing a particular song in a playlist that I feel defines that portion of the trip before I will change it to NPR or podcasts of turtle songs or whatever. Do turtles sing? Two months ago S mentioned that she liked that I occasionally prepare a sound track for our lives. It's the sort of compliment that you grab onto and run with in a marriage like you've got a little baby tucked under your arm when you're trying to score from the two-yard line. I now feel I have carte-blanche to create elaborate playlists that represent our lives. Of course, this is all some vague defense against the indomitable force of impending children's music, which is almost uniformly obnoxious and catchy. Such that, I still hum along to the ridiculous days of the week song from my pre-school teaching days set to the tune of the Addams Family despite having developed a visceral hatred for the song while mumbling it daily with a gaggle of little ones.

Sometime during the drive she asks me if I'm happy to be going on vacation. And I say,

M: "Happy? Happy? You'd have to define the term more concretely for me. Why philosophers have worried that very question since time en memoriam. What does happiness mean, you know, deep down? Are we talking about something that lasts, or a thing, more ephemeral, like a really good milkshake kind of happy."

S: Do you have the address for the hotel?

M: I don't remember if I brought the papers or not.

S: Are you serious? Or are you just saying that to annoy me?

M: See. Isn't unhappiness so much easier to define?

S: I'll get them out of your bag.

Monday July 5

Okay, by now we are settling into the trip. S occasionally mentions her belly. Sometimes, in the evening, she stands in front of the mirror and asks me if she's fat. Usually I just say, "No hon, you're pregnant." Sometimes, just to keep her on her toes I say, "Yes, you are."

On the fifth we're probably going to hit up the Jazz festival.

M: I'm not even sure I like Jazz.
S: It's going to be fun.
M: Is it? What if it turns out that I don't actually like Jazz?
S: You'll live.

It is over breakfast that I'll start trying to talk her into going to the Joseph Arthur concert at 11 P.M. I'll tell her that babies need good music in the womb in order to come out just right. I'll tell her that we can sleep in our next life when we're dead and gone, that the sleep depends on whichever religion that people subscribe to, but I promise her some sleep there.



Writing this far into the future things begin to get a little bit hazy. I don't know what museums we still have to visit, what little corner bagel shop hasn't been graced by our presence. We'll discuss over coffee whether Montreal in fact, as some book claimed, has the most beautiful women in the world. I'll tell her that I can't be sure because I'm married, but that the most beautiful men in the world reside in Italy. "It's all that beautiful hair."

In the Musee de Beaux Arts we'll talk about our favorite pieces. We'll try and use the word chiaroscuro as frequently as possible because it's the one thing I remember from my survey of Western Art. I'll tell her that that's why I love El Greco and Tintoretto so much, all that quality f-ing use of chiaroscuro. I'll say it even though I love sculpture the most. It's the one type of art that reminds me that humanity, and me has the potential for beauty. I could stare at David all day.

The sentences get lazy now because I don't have the texture of the streets or the rhythm of the speech. I don't know yet if the street snake, or if the people all speak English beneath a veneer of French. I don't know anything. I just know that I'll be somewhere far away from here and that this sort of estrangement from land, from place, from self, can be a good thing.

Sunday July 4

Today we'll wake up early, ready to go see Montreal. In the bedroom we'll lament the fact that we're sharing a bathroom with an odd German couple. We'll talk about the Fourth of July's of the past.
S: I miss being in Ocean City.
M: It rains there every year. I can't remember the last time we saw good fireworks.
S: Last year. We saw fireworks and foxes last year.
M: We should stay in DC some year for the 4th.
S: You planned this trip.
M: Some year. Not this one.

After a late breakfast we'll head down to Old Montreal. Along the way we'll talk about what to expect from Cirque du Soleil.
M: I think the circus kind of scares me. Is this like the circus? I had a co-worker tell me that a man came into the audience and asked her if she wanted an apple.

I'll tell her about that year when all the elephants at the circus seemed to be going crazy.

At Old Port, we'll comment on how nice it is that they've maintained the 19th century feel and how it reminds us of a mini-Paris.

I'll say, "Why can't I always be on vacation. It's what I was made for.


In the afternoon we'll eat chicken shawarma on the street from Boustan, and I'll tell her all the other places we're supposed to go, as if I am a child on his first trip to the zoo. We'll watch the Totem performance by Cirque du Soleil


In the evening we'll take in Notre Dame, and I'll lament the fact that no one famous ever went to Montreal. I mean, when Benjamin Franklin on a layover is the best you can do, you've got some problems.



We'll take the metro back to our neighborhood when there is light still in the sky. We'll hike up to the top of Parc du Mont Royal and look back at Montreal from a low green bench. I'll mention that it's pretty, and she'll rest her head against my shoulder. And tonight, I won't even complain about my bum shoulder or the heat, or anything, I'll just rest and relax, our three breaths becoming as one.

Saturday July 3

On the third we'll wake up and admire one another in our new glasses. "You look good," I'll say. And she'll mumble something akin to that right back at me. I'll want to get up and get a good start on the day, leave the provincial United States behind. She'll ask me if it's worth blowing through Lake George without even taking a look.


We'll drive up to a slight hill and look down over the city. For a while, we'll be quite and just reflect on the lake, lying like a lover's slip on the floor of the valley. "How lovely," I'll say. "This reminds me of living in CA." And she'll sigh, and say, "Not that again."

In the morning we'll drive across the border into Canada. I'll reflect on the fact that I don't remember my hair being that short before we went to Italy. She'll say, "I like your hair short." And I'll mumble something about Samson. We'll listen to this song.


S will say, "I like that one," because she likes everything that is upbeat. At the border I'll make jokes about driving right past security and how long it will take them to catch up to us on horse back. "They have cars," she'll say. At the border I'll be unfailingly polite and have the vague feeling that I've done something wrong for no good reason.

As we drive into Montreal I'll comment about how I love the architecture and how in certain spots you can see the remains of the exterior wall that was built in the 17th century. I love the remains of old exterior walls. It's a failing. After a while, we'll have a light argument about where to park and just where our hotel is, but I won't really care. I'm like a fish spawning, on a mission from God.

We'll walk upstairs past the slightly crazy lady who runs our auberge. Who, sent me a video of her answering the door with a parrot on her shoulder and then further video of her regaling guests with guitar and song. Which, sounds awesome, but you're working within a certain demographic who really enjoys pirates. We'll say things like Auberge and merci a thousand times because they are the only words we know. We'll both think that they landlady is a little strange but at first we'll say, "She's so friendly. Isn't she friendly?" to reassure ourselves. S will start putting stuff down, and I'll become impatient to get out the door. "We just got here," she'll say.

By mid-afternoon we'll stumble out the door in the Mont-Royal neighborhood and hotfoot it to the metro. "I'm pregnant," she'll say. "Slow down."
"That just means you've got four legs to walk with," I'll answer.

The first day we'll head out to the Olympic Stadium. We'll comment on how high the diving board really is, and secretly be a little less impressed by the corkscrew dives they pulled off years ago. I'll say, remember that story, "Forever Overhead," that was a good one.


From there we'll go on to the Biodome, all the while trying to avoid the mobs of children. "I'm hungry." She'll say. "The baby's hungry." We'll putter off to a side street and eat something cheap and quick. "Let's get back to the biodome," I'll say. In the biodome we'll be happy, traveling through various climates and commenting on how cute the penguins are. On the first day of the trip your feet don't hurt at all.

From there we'll go to the botanic gardens. "I don't know the names of anything," I'll lament.
S: "You know some things. Remember that time you were able to name ten trees?"
M: I know. But I had to work really hard. Is that a dogwood?
S: No.

After wandering around we'll take a train ride through the gardens. I'll start talking about how the United States has horrible trains, and how it's the best way to travel.
M: We should have come by train.
S: Shhh. We're here now.

I'll ask her to tell me more about the insectarium.

S: I don't feel like paying to see giant roaches.
M: We're here.

In the evening we'll go to some restaurant in our neighborhood in an old Victorian. We'll enjoy the food, and pass on the wine. We'll wonder how late we have to stay out to avoid the singing. At 8:39 we'll walk back home, down streets lined by trees and old houses. In the house, Celine will be jamming away on the piano with a parrot singing back up on her shoulder.

M: It's good to be somewhere else.

Okay, so I don't actually have internet access on our upcoming trip, so I'm going to make an attempt to accurately recreate what our days will be like before they happen. If an imaginary conversation happens on this blog on Tuesday July, 6, you can bet your ass that I'll be having that exact same conversation on July 6 to keep up with the integrity of this blog. Question? Does this whole blog idea strain the space time continuum? Probably. This whole blog project is essentially time travel.

Anyhow, it's July 2nd, so we should probably hit the road.

I'm guessing we'll be listening to music like this:



And yes, by the time we're done they will name a city after us.

After a while we'll probably stop listening to the music and we'll talk about how nice it is to be out of the city. We'll say things like, "It's just nice to get away for a while." Then the other person will smile, and comment on the high quality of the local foliage.

After a while I'll probably complain about not living in CA. I'll say that something about the proximity of all that natural beauty speaks to my soul. I'll use the word soul without feeling strange because we'll be out in the country. S will listen to me for a while and then she'll say, "If you want to go there. Get a job. I'll go with you." We'll sit in silence for a while after this, and maybe I'll sing "It's contagious" because I've always hated applying for jobs and jobs have hated me.

In the early afternoon, when the sun is at its hottest S will fall asleep in the front seat, and I'll turn the music on even louder and sing poorly along with it. Later, when she wakes up, I'll turn on a podcast of a short story and sit in expectant silence, hoping that she'll enjoy it as much as I do. And if she doesn't, I'll try to argue with her for a little while, to convince her just how life-changing that moment should have been.

As we head further north I'll say that I wish we lived in NYC. "If I want to be a writer," I'll say, "I should be living in NYC." S will sit quiet for a while, and then tell me that she can't deal with all the hustle bustle. She probably won't say hustle bustle. We'll go silent again for a time, looking at the skyline of the city, and dream of other lives we could have lived.

In the evening we'll have a good conversation about the things we used to love. She'll say, "Remember that time when we" and I'll stop her mid-sentence to tell her that I do. And that we were happy. Or maybe I'll say something like, "Looking back, we were happy. Back then, I guess I just couldn't really see it. I'm not a glass if half-empty kind of person. I'm more a, the glass has somehow been shattered on the ground spilling water all over the wall and just who the hell is going to clean up this mess because it certainly won't be me kind of person."

Around nine we'll pull into the drive of some cheap hotel both regretting the money we didn't spend on something nicer. "So this is Lake George," I'll say. "I pictured it being, you know, pretty."
"It's dark," she'll say. "How can you tell?"

"I've just got a feeling about this place," I'll answer, "It's crappy."

Then we'll read books in a dusty motel room until she drifts off to sleep. Later, I'll want to wake her to tell her about the spot where Champlain first set foot in Montreal, and since she is asleep, I'll dog ear the page and wait for the morning.

A blog about how Montreal kicks your ass

Well, we're off to Canada.

Being organized is not the same thing as being bossy.

It kind of is.

That's it. I'm outta here. You're bossy and crazy.

Hey. I'm not bossy or crazy.

The fact that you're bossing me around about whether you're bossy isn't helping.

Wait, I need to brush my teeth.

If you loved me you wouldn't do that.

Sometime earlier.

I already told her.

And that's how my underwear ended up in the trash can at work.

Oh, I didn't tell her that part.

I'm trying to capitalize on the excitement that other people have for this trip to stoke my own fires. First things first, we're going to head up north and join the Quebec Separtist movement, particularly Les Assassins en Fauteuils Roulants after a bout of train jumping.

Things I'm excited to see. Montreal. Apparently Montreal has good bagels. Paris, you've got the Louvre, New York, the Statue of Liberty and Time Square, but guess what Paris and NYC, Montreal's got bagels, real skinny onces that taste good. So eat that Statue of Liberty, but too much or the Atlantic will make an unflattering cover of you.

Montreal also has some really great chicken shwarma. Do I know how to spell shawarma? No. But I know how to eat it and that is all that matters. Guess what NYC? Montreal had the Olympics like a million years ago and the stadium is still there. Who wants to see Madison Avenue when I can go look at old diving boards. You suck NYC. That's right, I'm going to practice my Greg Louganis (sp) double pike twisting half header off the diving board and into the pool like a rock. Then maybe I'll walk around the dilapidated track and throw a souvenier (sp) shot put or something. Try that on for size Notre Dame. I'll throw a shot put through your window.

Then maybe I'll just stop by the Biodome for good measure. Does Rome have the Biodome? No. That's right. Take that old dead emperors. I'll be cavorting around with a bunch of elementary aged kids enjoying the various climatesf the earth in one building. What's that you say? That's impossible. Maybe for you Caesar, but not for Montreal. Biodome. Wooooo!

Then maybe I'll cruise by the Jardin Botanique. That's right, I'm not going to some lame botanic garden, I'm going to Jardin Botanique. I'm pretty sure that's French for kick ass garden with venus human trap plants, originally pictured in Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Is Montreal awesome? That's like asking of Rick Moranus was one of the greatest actors of our time. Damn right he was. He doesn't even care that I spelled his name wrong because he could just shrink me down and squash me.

Oh wait, now I'm done cavorting through my French garden, I guess I'll go by the insectarium. Screw you San Diego wild animal park. I can't even see the lions from that stupid tram that's so far away from the park. Put them in smaller cages, so I can get a good look at them already. Now I'm in an awesome insectarium with all of those crazy bugs from the remake of Kind Kong. Remember that one, with the natives, kind of offensive, with bones through their nostrils and stuff? That was some crazy shi-. Anyhow, dog-sized roach. Are you pumped up Romulus and Remus? I'm pretty sure you would be if you didn't suck in comparison.

From there maybe we'll head down to Vieux Port and Vieux Montreal. That's French for kick ass old place that feels like Europe without all those snobby Euros, particularly Parisians stinking the place up with their negativity. We'll walk over some cobblestones and have some crepes or something, maybe with some nutella if thats's what we want. And yeah, I know you can get in store nutella now, but it's not the same as getting it in fake Europe.

What's that Las Vegas? You have shows, whores and gambling? Guess what? We've cut out all the bad non-Christian stuff and now we just get to enjoy Cirque du Soleil in its birthplace. Do I know what Cirque du Soleil means? No, but I can roughly translate it as "Freaky human beings doing stuff that pretty much kicks ass in a way that's maybe a little bit weird, but not too weird, so just sit back and enjoy yourself cuz you dropped sixty bucks for these cheap ass seats." I think they should shorten the name personally.

Then maybe we'll take a walk in Parc Du Mont-Royal. That's right, Central Park, this park is so amazing they just got rid of the k. Anyhow, this park is what Central Park would be like if it was actually amazing and life-changing, like a Nicholas Sparks book. Just ask him. Anyhow, maybe we'll hike up to the top of a tower because Europe has shi- like that and get a good look at the skyline. And we won't have that chintzy Empire State building ruining our great view, we'll just have scenes of beautiful Montreal.

So yeah, I bet you wish you could come with us Athens, Greece. Too bad. We don't have time to philosophize. We're going to walk in the footsteps of Champlain. Who? We'll find out.