Dress up for work. Spend fifteen minutes attempting to roll sleeves of your dress shirt in a way that doesn't cause bunching in the sweater. Wind up being fifteen minutes late for work due to persistent bunching. Have a dialogue with yourself about whether glasses are stylish or nerdy. Take off glasses.
Drive to work. Park at old apartment building and be angry that no spots are available even though you don't have a parking pass. Cultivate peace by breathing deeply. Mentally compare the movies of Paul Thomas Anderson in your head on the way to work. Why is it so damn cold? Mentally curse yourself for dressing nice, which prevents you from being able to cover up your ears.
Arrive at work. Forestall the conversation about you dressing up with your co-worker by talking about work. Work is not usually your first topic of conversation. Finally get the compliment about wardrobe. Feel good.
Interact with fellow co-workers, neither of whom compliment you on nicely rolled sleeves. Mentally curse yourself for not wearing glasses that would have set the whole ensemble off. Blog about it. Secretly wonder if your boss checks your facebook account from random access points to see if you blog at work. Wonder why he knew that you blogged at all. Suspect boss of possible stalking. Push down fears as irrational. Push down fears and begin listening to Pandora minus headphones in an attempt to spice up the office. Wonder if you should put on the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing instead. Sweet Disposition comes on, do that thing you do where you throw your hand up and briefly chair dance. Check to make sure no staff or janitors will surprise you dancing in your cube.
Feel guilty when janitorial staff arrives and takes your recycling, which you know they don't actually recycle. Panic. Wonder how offensive it is for you to sneak out side door with your trash. Wonder if she'll be suspicious. Trash goes unrecycled. What the hell was all that work of separating for? Nothing. Consider failed recycling plan as possible metaphor for all of life. Desist. Wonder if you should thank staff by saying gracias or thank you. Wonder if she'll pick up on your extreme adeptness in multiple languages or consider you condescending. Settle on thanks. Consider that she may not really care.
9:23 Consider that people keep telling you that their plans for Halloween are going to a party. Feel old. Consider getting more friends in their sixties/people who's idea of a good Halloween is putting out a bowl with six candy bars split in half, turning off all the lights in the house and reading a book underneath a blanket with a flashlight to prevent anyone from knowing you're home.
9:37 Visit with a co-worker. Admire the pictures of the haunted house she's help construct to get kids excited about coming to college. Try and avoid confusion over concept, I thought kids enjoyed freedom and booze? Do they like haunted houses? Point out that it's probably not best to have photos of staff in home made ghost outfits primarily because we already scored low on diversity initiatives and white people in sheets isn't the best way to help fix that.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The thing about tomorrow is that it's not today
We were standing in a muddy side yard complaining about our team's lack of defense. "You've got to blitz more!" Jerry said, but Jerry said that same shit every week. No matter how many times we told Jerry that blitzing was a risk reward type thing, like going up and chatting with a pretty girl in a bar, maybe you get a number, or maybe you get your pride beat to hell. The point is, you've got to know when to do it. None of us ever played football, which means we're eminently qualified to talk about it. Nobody likes taking advice from others though. Life is always easier to live when it's someone else's.
None of us had amounted to much, except as great defensive coordinators come Monday, and I'm not sure that's a thing worth bragging about. A couple of us, Steve and Jim, had actually had brains, but, as they'd explained to us, sometimes it's hard to get a brain to work hard. "They're like poor people," Jim said, always wanting a hand out.
The sun is up and burning without purpose, like some cigarette butt languishing in a tray, a few vague clouds are ash in its wake. I'm trying to focus on not sweating. I'm supposed to see a girl tonight, and I've already showered twice today, and that seems like once too many as it is. We all know deep down that we should stop seeing women, that it would be better to take up something nobler like bowling. None of us can bowl for shit though, so I suppose we're stuck looking for women we used to know.
Jerry is done talking about the ills of the front four, but not without having gotten his heart rate up significantly. The bastard is sweating like we're in a mid-August wedding. I let them all know that I'm heading out, and they nod knowingly, and make a few lewd jokes about the woman I'm seeing.
I'm back by nine, the whole night a strange kind of failure. I'd wanted her to be like this girl I knew back in junior high, sweet as hell and innocent and funny. Maybe that isn't true, about the girl from way back. Maybe I just wanted the girl tonight to be better than she was. She was a goddamn chit chat, and after I'd listened to her prattle on about her day at work for upwards of an hour I'd lost most of my will to live. I think, minutes later, she might have asked me something about my day, but I suppose that's what I get for meeting someone face to face. We are all so much better in that other world, where we can collect our thoughts, create images of ourselves that remind us that we were once like gods, a step above mortals. I'd tell her she doesn't look much like her photo, but what intelligent person ever does?
Steve has gone off to fight with his girlfriend, but Jim and Jerry are sitting in the side yard trading beers and stories. The night air is thin, our limbs slip through it like silk. The stories are as familiar as our own old shirts, time worn. The football season has only four more weeks left, and we are already dreading the long interim that will follow. We wonder what we will do on the weekends, or talk about on Mondays? We wonder what things we've let go of these past few months to spend our time indoors? We dread almost everything though.
None of us had amounted to much, except as great defensive coordinators come Monday, and I'm not sure that's a thing worth bragging about. A couple of us, Steve and Jim, had actually had brains, but, as they'd explained to us, sometimes it's hard to get a brain to work hard. "They're like poor people," Jim said, always wanting a hand out.
The sun is up and burning without purpose, like some cigarette butt languishing in a tray, a few vague clouds are ash in its wake. I'm trying to focus on not sweating. I'm supposed to see a girl tonight, and I've already showered twice today, and that seems like once too many as it is. We all know deep down that we should stop seeing women, that it would be better to take up something nobler like bowling. None of us can bowl for shit though, so I suppose we're stuck looking for women we used to know.
Jerry is done talking about the ills of the front four, but not without having gotten his heart rate up significantly. The bastard is sweating like we're in a mid-August wedding. I let them all know that I'm heading out, and they nod knowingly, and make a few lewd jokes about the woman I'm seeing.
I'm back by nine, the whole night a strange kind of failure. I'd wanted her to be like this girl I knew back in junior high, sweet as hell and innocent and funny. Maybe that isn't true, about the girl from way back. Maybe I just wanted the girl tonight to be better than she was. She was a goddamn chit chat, and after I'd listened to her prattle on about her day at work for upwards of an hour I'd lost most of my will to live. I think, minutes later, she might have asked me something about my day, but I suppose that's what I get for meeting someone face to face. We are all so much better in that other world, where we can collect our thoughts, create images of ourselves that remind us that we were once like gods, a step above mortals. I'd tell her she doesn't look much like her photo, but what intelligent person ever does?
Steve has gone off to fight with his girlfriend, but Jim and Jerry are sitting in the side yard trading beers and stories. The night air is thin, our limbs slip through it like silk. The stories are as familiar as our own old shirts, time worn. The football season has only four more weeks left, and we are already dreading the long interim that will follow. We wonder what we will do on the weekends, or talk about on Mondays? We wonder what things we've let go of these past few months to spend our time indoors? We dread almost everything though.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Remembering Things about the years I spent trying to write
I once had a professor, female, tell me that after examining all of the work I'd done for my thesis she found it curious, perhaps problematic, that all of the female objects seemed to be treated as objects rather than people. Naturally, as any good person would be, I was shocked. Since when did chairs start speaking?
I may have already used that particular joke, but that's the sort of thing that you run into when you blog 400 times over.
I once had a professor tell me that I had created one of the worst metaphors that he'd ever read. I blushed.
I had several occasions where something I'd written was critiqued in a manner that indicated it was not up to par. Strangely, given the disparate opinions in the room, I do not think that any of those classes turned out to be wrong.
When traveling in Europe it is best to do so by train. Then again, perhaps it is just best to ravel in Europe. However, that's a classical entitled bourgeoise type attitude. Perhaps the best way to travel is in your own city, in your own town, in the graveyard that overlooks the ocean or fields of dry grass. Perhaps the best way to travel is by canoe. I don't know. But that is my answer for nearly everything.
I had a professor once tell me in grad school that my essays needed a bit more emotional heft. He said that I was dodging the emotive affect by constantly providing items like comedic asides. Perhaps he was right. Or perhaps the world is just funny.
I have this idea that quotes should not be available at the quick behest of Google. That a reader should have to earn these things, dog ear pages, mumble to themselves in audible affirmation in a way that makes those around them wonder why they are such a weirdo.
"In the beginning was Alpha and the end is Omega, but somewhere between occurred Delta, which was nothing less than the arrival of man himself and his breakthrough into the daylight of language and consciousness and knowing, of happiness and sadness, of being with and being alone, of being right and wrong, of being himself and being not himself, and of being at home and being a stranger" Walker Percy.
"In Scotland, researchers were attempting to decipher the language of bees. "Whether this is just bee noise," admitted the neuroscientist leading the study, "we don't know."
When traveling to Utah it is best to stay in Castle Valley when the cottonwoods are shedding their summer bulk. Be sure to watch them fall from the sky, and to look at the stars behind them because you are not nowhere, you are there, but it is close. Be sure to romanticize the rural. There is nothing new under the sun.
In the essay that lacked footnotes I wrote a long and emotionally resonant piece. I do not think it was the lack of footnotes but rather the subject matter that gave the essays emotional heft. I have been wrong about a number of things. For a time I believed the earth to be flat and the center of the universe. For a time I believed it was good for man to be alone, and I believed that the ocean was smaller than the land, and that I was the axis on which the world spun. It's all a matter of perspective.
It is best to ride alone on the train, or in the company of a person you only know vaguely. Authenticity, performance art though it may be, is best obtained through solitude. However, since we migrated out of equatorial Africa it has been our lot to mumble at one another. That is why it is best to find a train car all to yourself, to imagine yourself to have been the first to set foot on the moon. Illusions are like the lakes and streams that pass by the cold window where your face is pressed, gone before you really have a chance to see them.
I may have already used that particular joke, but that's the sort of thing that you run into when you blog 400 times over.
I once had a professor tell me that I had created one of the worst metaphors that he'd ever read. I blushed.
I had several occasions where something I'd written was critiqued in a manner that indicated it was not up to par. Strangely, given the disparate opinions in the room, I do not think that any of those classes turned out to be wrong.
When traveling in Europe it is best to do so by train. Then again, perhaps it is just best to ravel in Europe. However, that's a classical entitled bourgeoise type attitude. Perhaps the best way to travel is in your own city, in your own town, in the graveyard that overlooks the ocean or fields of dry grass. Perhaps the best way to travel is by canoe. I don't know. But that is my answer for nearly everything.
I had a professor once tell me in grad school that my essays needed a bit more emotional heft. He said that I was dodging the emotive affect by constantly providing items like comedic asides. Perhaps he was right. Or perhaps the world is just funny.
I have this idea that quotes should not be available at the quick behest of Google. That a reader should have to earn these things, dog ear pages, mumble to themselves in audible affirmation in a way that makes those around them wonder why they are such a weirdo.
"In the beginning was Alpha and the end is Omega, but somewhere between occurred Delta, which was nothing less than the arrival of man himself and his breakthrough into the daylight of language and consciousness and knowing, of happiness and sadness, of being with and being alone, of being right and wrong, of being himself and being not himself, and of being at home and being a stranger" Walker Percy.
"In Scotland, researchers were attempting to decipher the language of bees. "Whether this is just bee noise," admitted the neuroscientist leading the study, "we don't know."
When traveling to Utah it is best to stay in Castle Valley when the cottonwoods are shedding their summer bulk. Be sure to watch them fall from the sky, and to look at the stars behind them because you are not nowhere, you are there, but it is close. Be sure to romanticize the rural. There is nothing new under the sun.
In the essay that lacked footnotes I wrote a long and emotionally resonant piece. I do not think it was the lack of footnotes but rather the subject matter that gave the essays emotional heft. I have been wrong about a number of things. For a time I believed the earth to be flat and the center of the universe. For a time I believed it was good for man to be alone, and I believed that the ocean was smaller than the land, and that I was the axis on which the world spun. It's all a matter of perspective.
It is best to ride alone on the train, or in the company of a person you only know vaguely. Authenticity, performance art though it may be, is best obtained through solitude. However, since we migrated out of equatorial Africa it has been our lot to mumble at one another. That is why it is best to find a train car all to yourself, to imagine yourself to have been the first to set foot on the moon. Illusions are like the lakes and streams that pass by the cold window where your face is pressed, gone before you really have a chance to see them.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Everyone is special except you
I write things like that in my journal. I write all sorts of things in my journal that I would never show anyone. This is sort of hard to say, but I've even taken to hiding it from my cat. It is unlikely that my cat can read. However, according to an article I skimmed it is also unlikely that human beings exist at all. It's just a safety precaution.
Most afternoons my neighbor stops by to talk about her husband. She blows smoke in my face and then faces the window. "I miss him," she says. I nod. "I mean sexually." My neighbor's husband is living on in her house as a ghost. My neighbor might be crazy, but I'm probably not the right person to judge. I stayed up three nights in a row reading the DSM IV trying to figure out what's wrong with me. It's foggy outside if you're the type of person who cares. I had a low watt bulb in, so maybe I missed some parts, but I couldn't find anything to describe the way I've been feeling, like my whole life is over, and I haven't even started living it yet.
Maybe everyone feels the exactly same way at twenty-five, or at least enough of us that we could form a group and meet, and affirm to one another that our lives are not over. Although, it seems likely that a group of people anything like me would probably just drink too much wine and affirm the very thing we were there to deny.
If you listen real closely you can hear a train whistle every fifteen minutes or so. My cat never seems to care. Tonight, when Venita, that's my neighbor, comes over, I ask her if she's ever been to the train tracks. And she gives me this look, like, are you effing crazy? And this is not the sort of look you want to get from a woman like Venita. "Have you heard the whistle?". Venita shakes her head and goes back to looking out the window and talking about her dead husband's voracious desire to steal her undergarments.
I ask her how long he's been gone, and she says she can't be sure. I wonder if you go crazy all at once, like a wave washing up on dry land, or whether, same metaphor, different meaning, it's like the crashing of the waves on a cliff slowly eroding you away. It's not the sort of question I'm comfortable asking Venita, who is currently rubbing my cat's ears even though my cat usually hates people.
I pop open a bottle of wine just because it's a Wednesday, and we start drinking. Venita is from somewhere in Eastern Europe that we never talk about. I assume the place is war torn, because it seemed to be that way for a lot of time during my childhood. I imagine that she carries around stones in her pockets to remind her of the dead. She is lying on the floor and lamenting the condition of her silk garters.
I am not good at telling people that I don't like them. Instead, I ask Venita if she'd like to go with me to find the train tracks. Venita says, "What the hell," and gets up off the ground, spilling a good portion of cheap red wine on my carpet. Luckily the cat goes over to start cleaning it up. She'll be drunk by morning.
The streetlights are sparse, and the night air is definitively crisp. Our shadows melt into one another. Venita is sort of lurching along. She's either got a bad hip that I hadn't noticed or is as drunk as I am. Cars are rare this time of night. We swim through the evening like fish. Mid-way down the block Venita turns around, and says she has to go back to check on her husband. She stars lurching away, and I want to tell her to stop. That she never even had a husband, or doesn't anymore. Who the hell knows? And that's just what I did, which is sort of rare for me. Trash was blowing at our heels as we made our way back into the dark.
I started telling her all about my first love just to shut her up about her husband. And she asked me questions about his sexual prowess, and I lied to keep her interested. My first love was in the third grade. He won the spelling bee, but that's not the sort of thing that you say. I beckoned her to the ground after four blocks, and motioned for her to be quiet. In the distance a train whistle blew, and she caught my arm and smiled.
We ran for half a block, past darkened shells of apartment buildings and cars parked head to toe before she started wheezing. "The smoke," she wheezed out, bent over, hand resting on my hip for support. We walked around for another five minutes or so, trying to find the sound in the dark.
As if by magic we came to a field of dried corn, or at least I think it was corn. I didn't even know we still had farms in town and don't know a damn thing about them. Venita and I walked through the corn, dried husks raising bumps on our arms. We held hands. And in the middle of the field, if it was a field, we hear a dog barking, and a man's voice calling out, asking if anyone was there. Venita dropped my hand, turned and ran, the troubled gait of before now gone. But I stood in the field for minutes or hours, watching the flashlight cut through the night. Someone was finally looking for me, and I was ready to be found.
Most afternoons my neighbor stops by to talk about her husband. She blows smoke in my face and then faces the window. "I miss him," she says. I nod. "I mean sexually." My neighbor's husband is living on in her house as a ghost. My neighbor might be crazy, but I'm probably not the right person to judge. I stayed up three nights in a row reading the DSM IV trying to figure out what's wrong with me. It's foggy outside if you're the type of person who cares. I had a low watt bulb in, so maybe I missed some parts, but I couldn't find anything to describe the way I've been feeling, like my whole life is over, and I haven't even started living it yet.
Maybe everyone feels the exactly same way at twenty-five, or at least enough of us that we could form a group and meet, and affirm to one another that our lives are not over. Although, it seems likely that a group of people anything like me would probably just drink too much wine and affirm the very thing we were there to deny.
If you listen real closely you can hear a train whistle every fifteen minutes or so. My cat never seems to care. Tonight, when Venita, that's my neighbor, comes over, I ask her if she's ever been to the train tracks. And she gives me this look, like, are you effing crazy? And this is not the sort of look you want to get from a woman like Venita. "Have you heard the whistle?". Venita shakes her head and goes back to looking out the window and talking about her dead husband's voracious desire to steal her undergarments.
I ask her how long he's been gone, and she says she can't be sure. I wonder if you go crazy all at once, like a wave washing up on dry land, or whether, same metaphor, different meaning, it's like the crashing of the waves on a cliff slowly eroding you away. It's not the sort of question I'm comfortable asking Venita, who is currently rubbing my cat's ears even though my cat usually hates people.
I pop open a bottle of wine just because it's a Wednesday, and we start drinking. Venita is from somewhere in Eastern Europe that we never talk about. I assume the place is war torn, because it seemed to be that way for a lot of time during my childhood. I imagine that she carries around stones in her pockets to remind her of the dead. She is lying on the floor and lamenting the condition of her silk garters.
I am not good at telling people that I don't like them. Instead, I ask Venita if she'd like to go with me to find the train tracks. Venita says, "What the hell," and gets up off the ground, spilling a good portion of cheap red wine on my carpet. Luckily the cat goes over to start cleaning it up. She'll be drunk by morning.
The streetlights are sparse, and the night air is definitively crisp. Our shadows melt into one another. Venita is sort of lurching along. She's either got a bad hip that I hadn't noticed or is as drunk as I am. Cars are rare this time of night. We swim through the evening like fish. Mid-way down the block Venita turns around, and says she has to go back to check on her husband. She stars lurching away, and I want to tell her to stop. That she never even had a husband, or doesn't anymore. Who the hell knows? And that's just what I did, which is sort of rare for me. Trash was blowing at our heels as we made our way back into the dark.
I started telling her all about my first love just to shut her up about her husband. And she asked me questions about his sexual prowess, and I lied to keep her interested. My first love was in the third grade. He won the spelling bee, but that's not the sort of thing that you say. I beckoned her to the ground after four blocks, and motioned for her to be quiet. In the distance a train whistle blew, and she caught my arm and smiled.
We ran for half a block, past darkened shells of apartment buildings and cars parked head to toe before she started wheezing. "The smoke," she wheezed out, bent over, hand resting on my hip for support. We walked around for another five minutes or so, trying to find the sound in the dark.
As if by magic we came to a field of dried corn, or at least I think it was corn. I didn't even know we still had farms in town and don't know a damn thing about them. Venita and I walked through the corn, dried husks raising bumps on our arms. We held hands. And in the middle of the field, if it was a field, we hear a dog barking, and a man's voice calling out, asking if anyone was there. Venita dropped my hand, turned and ran, the troubled gait of before now gone. But I stood in the field for minutes or hours, watching the flashlight cut through the night. Someone was finally looking for me, and I was ready to be found.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Fallen Angels
Given the circumstances I'm not sure we could have done anything else. It was raining, for one. Large drops, the kind that normally arc down from trees and fall on your cheek and make you feel like hell because it's been so long since a woman kissed you. Anyhow, it was raining, and we were all gathered there staring down at a hole in the earth where we were told an old friend was supposed to be. Judy was there, and Frank. No sign of their spouses per usual. I don't like either one of them, but I get together with them from time to time to remind myself why I never get together with them. Judy gets a bit drunk and Frank spends the whole evening recounting stories from the war like he's goda-- Hemingway. They're insufferable, and I spend most of the evening laughing along with their jokes and secretly wishing that I could be in any other room with any other two bores.
I don't know why we couldn't have chosen one of them when it came down to it. The group of us, you see, we're principled. Not a two bit cheap whore amongst us to put it roughly. And when we set our minds to doing something we sure as hell get together and do it. So look, we didn't have a lottery or anything. I don't know where Kent had gotten off to, his being the hold that was supposed to have been filled. We had all gathered to say goodbye to one of our formerly feathered friends. It's rare that one of us passes. Most of us can't remember how old we are.
But we get together so infrequently, that it seemed a shame to let the moment pass. None of us could quite remember who had started the rumor. Perhaps it had been Kent himself, that sly old bastard, which should have tipped us off. The rain started to lift, and a bit of brief light fell on the ground near us, the color of a near spent bulb.
None of us liked waiting or being somewhere for no reason. It reminded us of the nights we'd go to visit our women, and they'd remind us that they had other duties, headaches and husbands, laundry and television shows, while we stood naked in their bedrooms, and they clipped their toes. Towards the end of these modest affairs they'd often turn to us with their existential questions. We seem to bring that out in them. They'd be worrying a cigarette between two fingers, looking half-drowned in the soft lamplight asking us why they were there at all. None of us ever gave a damn about that question. We already knew why we were there. Heaven, as it turns out, is moderately boring. So we sided with the old snake in hopes of getting a shot elsewhere.
As it turns out though, things aren't much different down here. The only things we look forward to are, sex, death and football games. The rest of it is just nonsense. That's why we gather round when we hear one of ours has gone kaput. It's a nice reminder that we have something to look forward to as well, something unknown, like the curve of a leg hidden beneath silk.
It is time now. Carrie, it has been tacitly agreed, will be the one to go. None of us ever cared for Carrie. She was too nice. We never knew what the hell she was doing down here anyway. We all had her pegged as baking cookies and setting them in some cloudy window, not down in the dirt.
Her wings are filthy. The godam- things are near impossible to wash. And as she spreads them, Carrie smiles at the lot of us. The sky is low, the wind brisk. When she takes off the lot of us cease breathing. We revel in the sight of her skinny ankles, her dirty wings. All of us hate flying. As she arcs back around the wind catches her in an updraft, and I consider throwing a shovel to bring her down. But she knows better, dipping back down towards us. We are not standing on this filthy plot of land to watch anyone fly. We are gathered here to watch her fall. She spins like a top on her way back down, as it go gain speed, as if Gabriel were chasing her with his fiery sword, she falls back among us, and we scatter in the rush of wind.
I don't know why we couldn't have chosen one of them when it came down to it. The group of us, you see, we're principled. Not a two bit cheap whore amongst us to put it roughly. And when we set our minds to doing something we sure as hell get together and do it. So look, we didn't have a lottery or anything. I don't know where Kent had gotten off to, his being the hold that was supposed to have been filled. We had all gathered to say goodbye to one of our formerly feathered friends. It's rare that one of us passes. Most of us can't remember how old we are.
But we get together so infrequently, that it seemed a shame to let the moment pass. None of us could quite remember who had started the rumor. Perhaps it had been Kent himself, that sly old bastard, which should have tipped us off. The rain started to lift, and a bit of brief light fell on the ground near us, the color of a near spent bulb.
None of us liked waiting or being somewhere for no reason. It reminded us of the nights we'd go to visit our women, and they'd remind us that they had other duties, headaches and husbands, laundry and television shows, while we stood naked in their bedrooms, and they clipped their toes. Towards the end of these modest affairs they'd often turn to us with their existential questions. We seem to bring that out in them. They'd be worrying a cigarette between two fingers, looking half-drowned in the soft lamplight asking us why they were there at all. None of us ever gave a damn about that question. We already knew why we were there. Heaven, as it turns out, is moderately boring. So we sided with the old snake in hopes of getting a shot elsewhere.
As it turns out though, things aren't much different down here. The only things we look forward to are, sex, death and football games. The rest of it is just nonsense. That's why we gather round when we hear one of ours has gone kaput. It's a nice reminder that we have something to look forward to as well, something unknown, like the curve of a leg hidden beneath silk.
It is time now. Carrie, it has been tacitly agreed, will be the one to go. None of us ever cared for Carrie. She was too nice. We never knew what the hell she was doing down here anyway. We all had her pegged as baking cookies and setting them in some cloudy window, not down in the dirt.
Her wings are filthy. The godam- things are near impossible to wash. And as she spreads them, Carrie smiles at the lot of us. The sky is low, the wind brisk. When she takes off the lot of us cease breathing. We revel in the sight of her skinny ankles, her dirty wings. All of us hate flying. As she arcs back around the wind catches her in an updraft, and I consider throwing a shovel to bring her down. But she knows better, dipping back down towards us. We are not standing on this filthy plot of land to watch anyone fly. We are gathered here to watch her fall. She spins like a top on her way back down, as it go gain speed, as if Gabriel were chasing her with his fiery sword, she falls back among us, and we scatter in the rush of wind.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Taking care of Sadie
S left for a business trip today and, unwisely I might add, left the care of s to me. I jest. Of course I hadn't ever given the child a bath, but I've taken three hundred or more in my lifetime. I figured it couldn't be that hard. You heat it way up in there, grab a nice book, and sink down into the bubbles. I'm sure lil s can figure that out w/o too much trouble. I also don't usually put her to bed, which generally involves breast feeding. However, I was raised during the Depression, and we learned how to do without, so I'm fairly certain that the child won't...wait, is that her making noise? is she hungry already? God help me....as I was saying, no problem. Sleep well child.
As soon as we said goodbye to S at the airport and the door shut, lil s went into a full-throated crying fit. Not that I minded. I'm a dad. I just turned up the CD I was listening to.
Consider yourself soothed.
She continued to cry a wee bit just to keep me on my toes. Upon reaching home I let her play with my car keys, an activity strictly forbidden by S, but what's the point of having your spous gone if you don't do all sorts of stuff she would never allow. Relatedly, the house is currently in a minor state of chaos, but I'm just celebrating it. It's hard to remember the last time I could look at a bag or slipper on the floor without feeling compelled to put it in its proper place. It's proper place is the middle of the floor.
Well lil s took a championship nap while I attended to the important stuff in life. By that I mean a random video game I've started playing. After she woke up it was more quality key time before dinner. She also briefly did some kind of crazy head banging dance to Dave Matthews Crash into Me,
Which, yeah okay, it wouldn't be my first choice to dance crazily too, but I can't blame the little girl sometimes you just gotta shake it. Note that I said nothing about the wiggles. No wiggles in this house.
Probably the best part of our evening meal was when lil s decided/learned that she can take her bib off if she wants. I kept putting it on her only to find it handed back to me a moment later, "like, here dad, I can see you've misplaced this here item over my white shirt. I'm fine just stuffing this applesauce in my mouth and then wiping it on my shirt without this item."
I'm going to tell you what I fed her for dinner on the grounds that S loves to hear what she ate, and I figure she'll read this at some point. First we started out with some bush meat, baboon I think. You can't always be sure. Then I fed her some grass. I'm eager for her to redevelop the ability to eat grass, because I think it could solve the whole global food shortage thing. I followed this up with some delicious home made applesauce, that I noticed S tried to hid by freezing in cubes to give to the little one. Too bad, one scoop for daddy one sad look for baby.
Anyhow, after dinner we headed upstairs for our first ever bath time. I prepped the bubbles, turned down the page on a book of essays by Montaigne, and helped her get ready. Unfortunately, she decided that it was more fun to crawl around in the tub splashing and consequently, ruined my leather bound volume of essays. I thought about spanking her, but then I realized that I'm a liberal who doesn't believe in violence except in cases of road rage. So she splashed around for a while until I realized I'd forgotten to get a towel, so I took a large wad of tissues and bundled her up in those. This didn't actually happen, sorry to say. However, in the middle of bundling her up it occurred to me that the rain had increased and that our basement might be taking on water. Ergo; I bundled up the naked baby and took her downstairs to check. At that point a loud crack of thunder hit and our power went out.
So I'm standing downstairs with this naked child hoping our basement isn't going to flood, and I start telling her that it's going to be all right, because I know she's the type to panic. Luckily, our power returned after a few tense moments, and I carried her back upstairs to read books. I started with Moby Dick, because I don't want her to fall behind all those Baby Einstein kids. We don't allow toys or television in our house because we fear it stunts her mental growth. We feed her keys instead. The little munchkin finally agreed to hear a story or two including goodnight gorilla. She kept pointing to the lion in every picture in which it appeared because deep down she is a bad ass. I let her know that it growled, and she seemed real impressed.
Finally I put her down for the night, and she is currently yelling at her ceiling, and I'm wondering how much it costs to get a wet nurse on call. However, I don't want to stem the tide of operatic singing going on upstairs in case it turns out to be her true love. All in all, not a bad first night.
As soon as we said goodbye to S at the airport and the door shut, lil s went into a full-throated crying fit. Not that I minded. I'm a dad. I just turned up the CD I was listening to.
Consider yourself soothed.
She continued to cry a wee bit just to keep me on my toes. Upon reaching home I let her play with my car keys, an activity strictly forbidden by S, but what's the point of having your spous gone if you don't do all sorts of stuff she would never allow. Relatedly, the house is currently in a minor state of chaos, but I'm just celebrating it. It's hard to remember the last time I could look at a bag or slipper on the floor without feeling compelled to put it in its proper place. It's proper place is the middle of the floor.
Well lil s took a championship nap while I attended to the important stuff in life. By that I mean a random video game I've started playing. After she woke up it was more quality key time before dinner. She also briefly did some kind of crazy head banging dance to Dave Matthews Crash into Me,
Which, yeah okay, it wouldn't be my first choice to dance crazily too, but I can't blame the little girl sometimes you just gotta shake it. Note that I said nothing about the wiggles. No wiggles in this house.
Probably the best part of our evening meal was when lil s decided/learned that she can take her bib off if she wants. I kept putting it on her only to find it handed back to me a moment later, "like, here dad, I can see you've misplaced this here item over my white shirt. I'm fine just stuffing this applesauce in my mouth and then wiping it on my shirt without this item."
I'm going to tell you what I fed her for dinner on the grounds that S loves to hear what she ate, and I figure she'll read this at some point. First we started out with some bush meat, baboon I think. You can't always be sure. Then I fed her some grass. I'm eager for her to redevelop the ability to eat grass, because I think it could solve the whole global food shortage thing. I followed this up with some delicious home made applesauce, that I noticed S tried to hid by freezing in cubes to give to the little one. Too bad, one scoop for daddy one sad look for baby.
Anyhow, after dinner we headed upstairs for our first ever bath time. I prepped the bubbles, turned down the page on a book of essays by Montaigne, and helped her get ready. Unfortunately, she decided that it was more fun to crawl around in the tub splashing and consequently, ruined my leather bound volume of essays. I thought about spanking her, but then I realized that I'm a liberal who doesn't believe in violence except in cases of road rage. So she splashed around for a while until I realized I'd forgotten to get a towel, so I took a large wad of tissues and bundled her up in those. This didn't actually happen, sorry to say. However, in the middle of bundling her up it occurred to me that the rain had increased and that our basement might be taking on water. Ergo; I bundled up the naked baby and took her downstairs to check. At that point a loud crack of thunder hit and our power went out.
So I'm standing downstairs with this naked child hoping our basement isn't going to flood, and I start telling her that it's going to be all right, because I know she's the type to panic. Luckily, our power returned after a few tense moments, and I carried her back upstairs to read books. I started with Moby Dick, because I don't want her to fall behind all those Baby Einstein kids. We don't allow toys or television in our house because we fear it stunts her mental growth. We feed her keys instead. The little munchkin finally agreed to hear a story or two including goodnight gorilla. She kept pointing to the lion in every picture in which it appeared because deep down she is a bad ass. I let her know that it growled, and she seemed real impressed.
Finally I put her down for the night, and she is currently yelling at her ceiling, and I'm wondering how much it costs to get a wet nurse on call. However, I don't want to stem the tide of operatic singing going on upstairs in case it turns out to be her true love. All in all, not a bad first night.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Stats for fun
Percentage of profits American corporations paid in taxes in 1961.....40.6
40.6? How do we expect companies to even bother to say in the U.S. If we want to stay competitive we need to drop those corporate tax rates, so they can make more money by farming out all the jobs overseas like banks did with that TARP money that was supposed to help people who were being foreclosed on. If we don't act fast we're all going to fall behind, and China is going to take over the world, and we'll all become Communist like Obama wants.
Today.....10.5
Oh. That stat was from 1961. Apparently they're getting a little more profit than I thought. However, if we'd just cut everyone some slack all those business owners would get the economy back on track by hiring lots of people. I mean, it's in the name, small business. Guess what? Small businesses hire a shi- ton of people. I jest. I respect small business owners as they have to work their asses off. However, I still question any sort of assumption that depends on a 70 percent consumer driven spending and a growth economy. Perhaps the problem is with our expected standard of living and not with the inability of our economy to grow like a landfill with all our trash.
Percentage of world's population that could fit in Texas by living with the population density of New York City.......100
Yeah but then we'd all be pushy and have obnoxious accents. Am I right? Come on NYC have sense of humor. So yeah, I guess we still have space in the world. However, I assume the poor won't be taking up my penthouse loft.
Estimated value of government subsidies that will go to oil and gas industries between now and 2015........78155000000.
They need the money. Poor little buddies. It's like your little bro after he's emptied out his piggy bank to buy some candy. The only difference is that these little buddies dump their product in our rivers and streams and oceans, so we can test grow new algae and stuff. I think we should dump oil more frequently, so we can figure out dispersants and grow new organisms that live on oil. I think oil spills are the future of science.
Average amount the tooth fairly left in 2010....3
I only got a buck. Mom, dad. You owe me like eighteen bucks.
Average in 2011................................2.60
The tooth fairy is cutting back too? Bless her heart.
Syrians killed in pro-democracy movements that started in March.......1,7000
So, yeah, not so good.
Amount an unemployed man in Utah is charging for the chance to hunt and kill him....10,000
Is life that cheap, good sir? I'd charge people at least twenty thousand to hunt me. But yeah, I think we've all considered either hunting someone or being hunted. It's pretty much a great idea all the way around.
Portion of non-interest federal spending that is dedicated to programs for the elderly 1/3
Icebergs. I jest.
Chance that an American fast-food customer uses posted calorie information to make food-buying decisions.....1 in 6
I only order my McChicken w/ no mayo.
Number of states in which less than 20 percent of the adults are obese.......0
What do you mean by obese? Is that merely a synonym for loquacious. Because if it is, I think the study made some mistakes.
Percentage of Americans in a July poll who said they approve of God's job performance......52
That's not a bad rating. We all know that people in power see a steady decline in approval ratings as their tenure gets on. Therefore, God's tenure, a few billion years now, is actually going pretty well. Imagine his approval ratings after the creation of the sun? They had to be through the roof! I think 52 percent isn't bad.
40.6? How do we expect companies to even bother to say in the U.S. If we want to stay competitive we need to drop those corporate tax rates, so they can make more money by farming out all the jobs overseas like banks did with that TARP money that was supposed to help people who were being foreclosed on. If we don't act fast we're all going to fall behind, and China is going to take over the world, and we'll all become Communist like Obama wants.
Today.....10.5
Oh. That stat was from 1961. Apparently they're getting a little more profit than I thought. However, if we'd just cut everyone some slack all those business owners would get the economy back on track by hiring lots of people. I mean, it's in the name, small business. Guess what? Small businesses hire a shi- ton of people. I jest. I respect small business owners as they have to work their asses off. However, I still question any sort of assumption that depends on a 70 percent consumer driven spending and a growth economy. Perhaps the problem is with our expected standard of living and not with the inability of our economy to grow like a landfill with all our trash.
Percentage of world's population that could fit in Texas by living with the population density of New York City.......100
Yeah but then we'd all be pushy and have obnoxious accents. Am I right? Come on NYC have sense of humor. So yeah, I guess we still have space in the world. However, I assume the poor won't be taking up my penthouse loft.
Estimated value of government subsidies that will go to oil and gas industries between now and 2015........78155000000.
They need the money. Poor little buddies. It's like your little bro after he's emptied out his piggy bank to buy some candy. The only difference is that these little buddies dump their product in our rivers and streams and oceans, so we can test grow new algae and stuff. I think we should dump oil more frequently, so we can figure out dispersants and grow new organisms that live on oil. I think oil spills are the future of science.
Average amount the tooth fairly left in 2010....3
I only got a buck. Mom, dad. You owe me like eighteen bucks.
Average in 2011................................2.60
The tooth fairy is cutting back too? Bless her heart.
Syrians killed in pro-democracy movements that started in March.......1,7000
So, yeah, not so good.
Amount an unemployed man in Utah is charging for the chance to hunt and kill him....10,000
Is life that cheap, good sir? I'd charge people at least twenty thousand to hunt me. But yeah, I think we've all considered either hunting someone or being hunted. It's pretty much a great idea all the way around.
Portion of non-interest federal spending that is dedicated to programs for the elderly 1/3
Icebergs. I jest.
Chance that an American fast-food customer uses posted calorie information to make food-buying decisions.....1 in 6
I only order my McChicken w/ no mayo.
Number of states in which less than 20 percent of the adults are obese.......0
What do you mean by obese? Is that merely a synonym for loquacious. Because if it is, I think the study made some mistakes.
Percentage of Americans in a July poll who said they approve of God's job performance......52
That's not a bad rating. We all know that people in power see a steady decline in approval ratings as their tenure gets on. Therefore, God's tenure, a few billion years now, is actually going pretty well. Imagine his approval ratings after the creation of the sun? They had to be through the roof! I think 52 percent isn't bad.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Thank Proust for the memories
Everybody knows the story of the Madeleine. If you don't, your punishment is to read In Search of Lost Time. Tell me how good it is when you get to page 800. I've heard that's when he really starts to hit his stride. It's best to learn French first anyhow to do the work justice. I'll see you in a few years. Now, for the rest of us knowledgeable folk it's time to talk about memory. Scent is supposedly the strongest of the five senses associated with memory. But I think we all know that the strongest of the sense memories is auditory, and it's either amazing or crappy music that you listened to growing up. Whether it's the cow saying moo or the Muppets banging out classic Christmas hits with John Denver music reminds all of us of childhood, angsty teen years and how lame our parents/woops I guess that's me, are.
A year and a half ago I did a dramatic count down to turning thirty. And when I use the word dramatic know that I use it lightly, very lightly. Anyhow, in that countdown, wait, why is it only one word now when before it was two?, I used a video by Lionel Richie. I've now realized that I used the wrong video by Lionel Richie. I used Hello, which is not in fact the song that my sister and I danced to on living room chairs. No. We danced to Lionel Richie's song, "All Night Long," which is about dancing all night long. And, it's still a great song. You should probably go put it on your iPod right now and thank me. And then maybe push together some chairs and do some dancing.
When you are a child your body is always in motion. Stillness is a punishment, or observed only while staring at reefs of clouds or backs of insects. Perhaps it is all this motion that we pay for in our old age, in the long sleep that follows this life. Or perhaps we are called into motion again, brought back like a summer wind in October into the minds of those we have loved and lost.
Some quotes from Bodies in motion and at rest from the poet and essayist and funeral director Thomas Lynch.
"Grief is the tax we pay on our attachments"
"For poetry readings the general rule is that if the poet is outnumbered, it is a success."
"The same rule holds for funerals. Wherever two or three are gathered is enough to outnumber the dead guy. If one of them will stand up and hold forth, you've got all the ingredients you will ever need: someone who agrees to quit breathing, someone who cares, and someone who's trying to make sense of all this."
"For time bears its burden effortlessly--our loves and losses, hopes and remembrances, our parents and babies, good laughs and good cries. Time heals and holds us in its embrace. The future is a place we can travel lightly into, hopeful and afloat--all of our unfinished business finished by default--time runs out, runs on, with our without us."
A year and a half ago I did a dramatic count down to turning thirty. And when I use the word dramatic know that I use it lightly, very lightly. Anyhow, in that countdown, wait, why is it only one word now when before it was two?, I used a video by Lionel Richie. I've now realized that I used the wrong video by Lionel Richie. I used Hello, which is not in fact the song that my sister and I danced to on living room chairs. No. We danced to Lionel Richie's song, "All Night Long," which is about dancing all night long. And, it's still a great song. You should probably go put it on your iPod right now and thank me. And then maybe push together some chairs and do some dancing.
When you are a child your body is always in motion. Stillness is a punishment, or observed only while staring at reefs of clouds or backs of insects. Perhaps it is all this motion that we pay for in our old age, in the long sleep that follows this life. Or perhaps we are called into motion again, brought back like a summer wind in October into the minds of those we have loved and lost.
Some quotes from Bodies in motion and at rest from the poet and essayist and funeral director Thomas Lynch.
"Grief is the tax we pay on our attachments"
"For poetry readings the general rule is that if the poet is outnumbered, it is a success."
"The same rule holds for funerals. Wherever two or three are gathered is enough to outnumber the dead guy. If one of them will stand up and hold forth, you've got all the ingredients you will ever need: someone who agrees to quit breathing, someone who cares, and someone who's trying to make sense of all this."
"For time bears its burden effortlessly--our loves and losses, hopes and remembrances, our parents and babies, good laughs and good cries. Time heals and holds us in its embrace. The future is a place we can travel lightly into, hopeful and afloat--all of our unfinished business finished by default--time runs out, runs on, with our without us."
Monday, October 10, 2011
Thoughts on an autumn evening-Third Eye Blind as panacea
If ever a long period of time in your life passes and you start wondering about things like meaning, God, whether love can ever be truly selfless, if the oven is still on, whether the plants have been watered, if the Egyptians really built those pyramids or whether it was a crew of industrious aliens, if animals have souls and will be a part of any sort of afterlife, if the afterlife is anything that a human could conceive of, if you find yourself worrying about dark matter and a big hole being torn in the universe like a cheap sheet from Target, whether the people you love/like will live as long as you'd like, if it's been too long since you've stared into water or at an undiluted sky, if you look as good or as bad as you suspect you might in those jeans, if anyone notices or cares that you always iron your shirts, if you are in fact in sound mental health, if this is the year that winter never arrives, if you find yourself worrying about lead, leaks, monthly budgets, the future of humanity writ large in light of things like nuclear weapons and man's inherent evil, if humankind, because you're gender inclusive like that, will turn a corner and become something else, the Yellowstone volcano, asteroids, missing a movie just because Rotten Tomatoes gave it a low score, whether people of the opposite sex still notice you, the shape of your dog's kidneys after some strange stool samples, water quality, flight patterns of birds affected by the construction of cell phone towers, strip mining, stripping as it pertains to getting appointed in Poland, nearly extinct beetles, new varieties of beetles, overly long or slightly misshaped fingernails, explaining death to a child, whether you can continue to work at your job, at your relationships, if you worry about plaster and e-waste and parking attendants, it's probably time to sit down, shut up, and listen to some Motorcycle Drive By, and think, I think it might turn out all right, maybe not forever, but probably at least for the night.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Public Radio is all right
Listen, I'm tired of all the politics being bandied about. When Hank Williams goes off and compares Obama to Hitler perhaps we've gone off the rails. I mean, he's clearly Stalin, a dictator posing as a communist and secretly killing off all the intellectuals. I think it's fair to say that Obama is Stalin, but Hitler? No, you've gone too far Hank Williams. Nobody can pull of that mustache since Adolf killed it. I don't think Obama has that kind of pull. No, he'll be forgotten in the annals of history along with that pogrom loving commy Stalin.
Anyhow, the reason that public radio should exist is complex, and they've been making it all over the airwaves with their new CEO. However, the reason that public radio should exist is because of the amazing story that I heard tonight about a rutabaga farmer from Cardiff who is going to the Snoop Dogg concert this weekend. It's awesome.
However, it's hard to access. You have to click on the link and then scroll ahead in the podcast to the 18 minute mark. Or, you could just turn it on and go about doing the dishes, feeding the dog, watering the plants, or yelling at your children until you hear an Irish voice and then start rewinding. I want you to listen to this because I think the confluence of Snoop, old Irish farmer, and public radio is why the world is flat. That's right, the world was made flat, after Magellan proved it was by falling off it, for this moment to happen.
Side note, as I know no one will ever actually click on the provided link, if you do so, be sure to mention in the comments section or elsewhere, and I will send you a personal message thanking you for your attention and asking after your well-being. That is all.
Anyhow, the reason that public radio should exist is complex, and they've been making it all over the airwaves with their new CEO. However, the reason that public radio should exist is because of the amazing story that I heard tonight about a rutabaga farmer from Cardiff who is going to the Snoop Dogg concert this weekend. It's awesome.
However, it's hard to access. You have to click on the link and then scroll ahead in the podcast to the 18 minute mark. Or, you could just turn it on and go about doing the dishes, feeding the dog, watering the plants, or yelling at your children until you hear an Irish voice and then start rewinding. I want you to listen to this because I think the confluence of Snoop, old Irish farmer, and public radio is why the world is flat. That's right, the world was made flat, after Magellan proved it was by falling off it, for this moment to happen.
Side note, as I know no one will ever actually click on the provided link, if you do so, be sure to mention in the comments section or elsewhere, and I will send you a personal message thanking you for your attention and asking after your well-being. That is all.
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