Snow Day!

I grew up in the Sacramento Valley in Northern California where it snows about once every thirty years or so. Ergo; snow days were just some mythical day that kids in other parts of the world go to enjoy. A day without school. Amazing! This was my first snow day, but I'm twenty nine years old. It was everything I imagined it could be and more.

6:52 A.M. Wake up in the guest room where I sleep nightly, apparently having conceded possession of the master bedroom to the squirrel.
7:24 A.M. Wake up a second time. Conclude that the guest bedroom gets too much light. Curse the sun for waking me up. Walk into the squirrel's room.
8:15 A.M. Wake up again. Make big plans to write. Conclude that nothing else can actually happen.
9:12 A.M. So this is what it's like to be unemployed? I wish I was playing a video game right now. I could probably do that for eight hours solid and never notice the difference.
9:37 A.M. Wake up again. What a crazy dream. I bet I don't forget that one for a while.
9:52 A.M. Wake up. What a crazy dream. Does everyone have the craziest dreams when they are only sleeping because it's a snow day, and they are barely sleeping because they don't have other shi to do?
10:07 A.M. Wake up. Another all-time classic. I can't wait to tell people about these crazy dreams.
10:24 A.M. Wake up. I guess I better go collect my unemployment check.

5:35 P.M. Sit down to write about the four crazy dreams I had. Concluded that I don't remember next to nothing about said dreams. Anne Lacy was in one of them. We talked about fiction.

10:30 A.M. Begin reading Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri who's main claim to fame besides being an excellent short story writer, is being attractive. Not exactly something writers pride themselves on.

11:15 A.M. Open the windows and stare outside at the snow. Shake my fist vigorously at said snow.

12:23 P.M. Have a sandwich. Congratulate myself on managing to make a half-decent sandwich. Mentally curse all the people who make fun of married men when they are alone. "Bachelor life, eh? Frozen meals."
"No sir. I had delightful sandwich with avocado on it thank you very much. Then I drank a glass of wine and listened to some Beethoven. Only some of that is true, but screw you anyway."

1:00 P.M. Decide to clean up the house in preparation for S's return.
1:15 P.M. What's the point in cleaning anyway? Remember a phone call from S last night in which she asked if people were taking their shoes off at our door when they came over. Try and imagine myself three thousand miles away at a busy work conference asking S if people were taking proper precautions with our floor. Can't. Is this really the sort of thing that certain people think about? I mean. I appreciate it and all, but it's just not something I would ever think of.

Imaginary Call Home:
S: How is your trip honey?
M: Fine. Fine. Are people using those new coasters when they put drinks down on the coffee table?
S: (Silence)
M: Are they!! It's driving me nuts. I can hardly focus in any of the meetings because I'm just imagining that little circle of condensation on my brand new coffee table. Answer me!!!!!!!

2:12 P.M. Decide to watch a movie. Pick out the movie based on its brevity. End up watching Somer's town. Decide that I like it because when British people say naughty things it doesn't seem as naughty. This is pretty much a well-known thing, but it's nice to have it reinforced every now and again.

3:24 P.M. If I know you, I may have had a dream about you last night, but I can't remember the specifics. No funny business in any of the dreams though. Just good old-fashioned strangeness.

4:22 P.M. Decide that it's time to take the trash out in prep for S's return. Put on my snow boots and conclude that my earlier foray into sweeping the floor was a waste. It was just going to get dirty again. This is my whole understanding of cleaning. Why should I clean my shower if it's just going to get dirty again? What's the point? Please insert some existential dread in the preceding sentences.

4:35 P.M. Arrive back at the house having tromped through roughly 26 inches of snow in our backyard. Try and imagine starting a nice garden in the frozen tundra of our backyard. Conclude that the better plan would be to start raising reindeer instead so as to sell the venison to people who can't get out of their house for food.

5:12 P.M. Whoops....Realize that I haven't started writing yet. But I've read 187 pages of a book, watched a movie. Swept the floor. Vacuumed the rugs. Loaded and unloaded the dishwasher. Emptied the trash and recycling.

5:14 P.M. Look back at my list of things that I've done. Suffer from mild depression. Why isn't, flew down the fresh snow on a saucer on there, or dug out an elderly neighbor? Or, hiked to the grocery store and made myself a quality dinner. Or. I guess that point is that with an unstructured day, at twenty-nine, I get sort of sad that this is what a day amounts to. Hell. It wasn't even ill-spent. Perhaps that's why we crave so much distraction in our contemporary society. Perhaps that's why it's harder to retire than to start working the 9-5. What are you going to do to fill up all these hours?

5:38 P.M. Begin writing. Script pictured above.

Snow!

Not just a great book by Orhan Pamuk, it's also covering the ground in helpless D.C. That's right, if you live in the Northeast or the Midwest or Canada or Antarctica you've never seen snow like this. Snow piled as high as twenty polar bears standing upright. Imagine the most snow you've ever seen in your life and then multiply it by a really big number. Then imagine how much snow you have. If that's not enough, imagine the ocean, then double it. Then make it snow.

So, yeah. I woke up this morning with a bright look in my eyes. The sun was shining. Little birds were calling each other from the bare limbs of trees. It was great. I put on my big boy boots and trudged outside to take on the world. Unfortunately as I took my second step down our stairs my legs came out from underneath me and I did a full back flop down the last four stairs. It was at this point, at the bottom of the stairs, my back throbbing, that I realized the universe was conspiring against me. So, I went back inside, took off my shoes and started warming up some water.

Later in the day as I shoveled and shoveled and shoveled snow to try and clear a path from our car I had a premonition. Like, Joseph and the technicolor dream coat style. I dreamed that I was going to die at fifty two years old on one of these cold mornings while shoveling snow, my shoulder and elbow throbbing from the injuries of my youth. It was at this point that I decided that I am officially moving back to CA. I'm planning on being on Redfin Santa Barbara in the morning. I'm going to contact our realtor and the squirrel and give them both notice. I'm headed back to the ocean and the sun. Goodbye DC.

Sleepy

Planet Hoth

So, yeah. Washington D.C. is officially Planet Hoth. For those of you who don't know, shame on you! That's right, I'm not going to tell you what it is because you should know! And now to plagiarize myself: As I was walking home in eight inches of snow, the blizzard still going strong, I discovered a brief patch of sidewalk virtually denuded of snow. And as I was blithely striding down this road more traveled I thought to myself: "Shi-, maybe I should buy a snowblower." And that my friends is home ownership.

I'm not big on shoveling snow. In fact, I hate it. I've only done it once, but I'm blaming it for all the ills in my life. Why the heck were people out shoveling at ten P.M.? Do they enjoy an honest evenings work? Or, and I suspect this is the truth of the matter, do they just want to make the rest of us feel inferior. I hate that little squirrel. Stop running around in my attic!! Aside complete. Sorry about that. Women in their sixties are out moving snow off their steps with a patient look on their face, and I'm thinking, "Listen grandma, put down the damn shovel and go make a quilt or something cuz it's going to keep snowing for like another twenty four hours. We have no hope. The snowpocalypse is upon us!"

Listen, I'm not lazy. I just don't have a good work ethic. I believe that the sun should start carrying more of the burden. It's not enough for it to just sit there blithely, while I get buried in snow. Believe you me, when I catch sight of the sun, I'm going to give it a stern talking to. And why do we have to shovel sidewalks anyway? Can't the kids have fun sledding on the sidewalks? If we clear all the snow away, we're stealing children's fun. Do you like to shovel snow? Well then, you hate children having fun. Sorry. That's just a fact. I don't make the rules. Oh wait, I do.

I can't wait until tomorrow when everyone checks my facebook to see all of the neat snow pictures that I'm going to take of our house. And you'll all be amazed at the drifts beneath the eaves, and the sagging branches of all the trees. Oh wait. You won't. Because I don't take pictures of shi- like that. I go out and shovel snow because the D.C. government says I have to. Children hating bastards. Shut up you stupid squirrel. I hope it's not a possum. Aside complete.

So don't expect me to post any pictures of the snow, or even talk about things snow related. (This whole post totally undercuts the above statement. What a jack ass). I'm going to post pictures of me when we lived in CA, when I was young and handsome and waiting for the world to start throwing me surprise parties because of how rich and successful and happy I was going to be.

I hope it snows thirty inches. I hope it buries this whole damn city. Oh wait. Why the hell do people buy water in the grocery store before a storm? Do people not have Brita filters? Are they afraid the pipes are going to freeze and we're going to lose essential services for months? Guess what. We live in Washington, D.C., and you're shopping at Whole Foods. It's going to be all right. F-ing squirrel.

Okay. I've spewed enough vitriol for one evening. Now I'm going to go to sleep and dream pleasant things, like me chasing squirrels with a giant snowblower down a street covered in two feet of snow.
Good night and good luck.

Squirrel word problems!!

The debate about whether to terminate the lives of little furry creatures continues. In today's saga, I e-mailed a company who promises to only trap the squirrels rather than kill them, and release them into the wild where they can run free and live happy squirrel lives. Instead of waking me up at 7 A.M. like they did this morning. The bastards. I think it's fair to say that they are waging an aggressive war against my sanity. It's entirely probable that they don't really need to run around and roll acorns about in the attic but they choose to do it in order to point out how impotent I am when it comes to dealing with them.

Right now we've got a bid for 285 to remove the squirrels. However, I'm still waiting to hear back from the new company to find out how much they charge. And now we get down to brass tacks. How much is the life of a squirrel worth? Somebody contact PETA, so that they can condemn my blog or (and this is what I'm really hoping for) they can raise enough money to save the squirrels lives. Then we could have like a squirrel parade when they left and perhaps give them the key to the city but not my damn attic. Anyhow, now I have to figure out what the cost of a squirrel life is?

We did some initial research on the company website, which said that they charge fifty dollars for a raccoon removal. Now you have to ask yourself. How many squirrels add up to one raccoon? I think I had this as a math word problem in third grade.

Jimmy has two raccoons. Jimmy's friend is Lizzy. Lizzy has two more than twice as many squirrels than Jimmy. How many lower level animals do the two children have together?

a) 8

b) Those raccoons are rabid, that little twit Jimmy better be careful.

c) 6

D) If Jimmy waits seven years he can marry Lizzy. However, if he marries Lizzy he'll be forced to stay in his hometown with pet raccoons. Lizzy is a very loving and supportive person, but she's not what we'd call bright. What should he do? (Wait, isn't that a question not an answer?)

e) They should go half-sies on an exterminator and then use the little pelts to sew authentic squirrel pelt gloves on QVC.

f) This question is worded in a confusing manner. Usually my boss says something like, "Hey. You. Guy. Do this!" Rarely does my boss come by and say, "I've got twice as many jobs for you to do than I did yesterday. Now get to work!"

g) What does Lizzy see in Jimmy anyway? He's got pet raccoons for crying out loud! Those things are likely rabid. Why doesn't she ever pay attention to me?

H) 7

I) Lizzy isn't even particularly fond of the squirrels now that she thinks of it.

J) 2 because I consider the raccoons to be true animals and the squirrels to be rodents.

k) How am I supposed to pick the one in the middle when the middle is so damn long?

How much is a squirrel life worth? If they quote me 295, do I pay the extra then bucks and allow the little buggers to roam free in fields of acorns? What about 305? Is a squirrel worth twenty bucks? Thirty? This all reminds me a great deal of "The 400 Pound CEO" by George Saunders from Civil War Land in Bad Decline. But I can't excerpt the damn thing because Harper's has it behind a pay wall.

Anyhow, I'm going to set up a donation strictly for the squirrels in my bank account. Anyone who feels compelled to save the little critters is welcome to drop money off directly into my hand. I can assure you that 100 percent of the proceeds will go towards something. You have that in writing.

L) Can't two reasonable minds disagree?

Blogging-This post is long and semi-aggressive. Oh well.

I've been asked by my co-workers to spare the life of the squirrels in my attic. Apparently squirrels are cute and fuzzy. And they are convinced that if I just wait for the weather to change they will leave in peace.

H: They'll probably stay there anyway. I bet your attic would make a good storage place for nuts.
M: Yup.

Question? Am I somehow held to a higher standard by virtue of being a higher order of being? If your answer is, no, you're just another animal amongst animals, then I see no reason to allow the squirrels to live. In fact, (mental experiment) imagine that the situation is reversed, and I'm a small human being living in the attic of a giant squirrel. What does the squirrel do? Does he wait for me to leave in peace and stop scrambling around in the attic or does he come upstairs and crack my brain open like it's an acorn and eat it. If you guessed the latter I'm agreeing with you. If you think that squirrels possess the higher sort of mental faculties that would allow them to distinguish between killing for need and killing for want, then you need to talk with someone.

Point. The squirrels would definitely exterminate me. So, why shouldn't I exterminate them? Besides which, (and I hope that image of giant squirrels cracking skulls is still with you) if animals don't possess the capacity for immorality, then what of their death. It's just putting them in one state as opposed to another. It is only if you believe that life itself is more worthy (And here I mean better, the best state, et al) than death, that you'd have any interest in squirrels.

The offshoot argument is that killing squirrels might create some sort of moral turpitude for me, and perhaps that would be of greater interest. The sidebar to the previous argument is the charismatic mini-fauna argument. I eat vegetarian about 96 percent of the time. Ergo; I'm entitled to my fair share of squirrel deaths. Unless, you can entirely disconnect the chicken breast on a sub from the exceedingly violent death of a chicken on a factory farm. (Never fear. I still have dreams about this bacon burger I had for brunch a couple of weeks ago).

The other path to take would be to present an argument that squirrels are more worthy than chickens. We'd probably take this tact by assigning them some sort of virtue due to their unwillingness to be tamed. Maybe not. That's just the sort of thing that I'd do. The chicken, in a way, has chosen to be domesticated because it is adventitious for the propagation of the species, while the squirrel has just chosen to live in my damn attic! The chicken vs. squirrel argument is a rather slippery slope because when you start assigning value to different forms of life anything can be up for grabs.

If this all seems like a long and drawn out way to justify the death of cute little furry creatures you might be right. I'm just trying to point out that our morality is surprisingly fluid when it comes to the death of animals. And hell, if the above seems poorly reasoned don't worry about it. The blog format is designed to just sort of spew, which in my mind, makes it inferior to something that I craft like a piece of fiction. And if that sounds like an excuse, it is.

In fact, in order to honor the squirrels as the indigenous Americans did, (and other ancient cultures. The kinship with animals upon taking their life didn't actually start with Avatar, its roots can be traced back roughly 19,000 years, which is why, when someone says, "Oh the movie was simple. Connect with nature, yadayadayada," that I might ask them to consider the movie more carefully. Perhaps you walk out of that movie and go have a delicious bacon, and egg burger. My god it was tasty! And have a discussion about how simple the message of the movie was without realizing how radically disconnected we are now from our food chain and that it's not simple. It's a rather complicated system we've worked out to avoid being remotely near the slaughterhouse. This cognitive dissonance is really quite stunning, mostly because we don't even identify that any dissonance exists.

Likely because we've decided that we abhor things like pain and boredom, and that the pursuit of a person's life should be to achieve a maximum amount of pleasure even if this means tacitly accepting all sorts of social structures that might make it harder to make choices on a day to day basis. I'm sort of ranting now, I know. Wasn't this about squirrels? I think what I'm getting at is that sometimes the simple truths, presented simply, are worthy of being mulled over, perhaps because we might find the consequences of such thought worthy as well. Is a movie about (I know, wasn't this about squirrels?) the exploitation of resources all that simple? Well shit, we continue to exploit resources. Why? (Insert incredibly nuanced reason that results in a sort of paralyzing idea, "What can I do." Answer to paralyzing conundrum: nothing.) Answer to the simple question. Maybe I can eat less meat or drive a smaller car or pay attention the next time an election comes and really consider all the issues, I mean, reading about them, dealing with the boring shit, so that I can be an informed citizen rather than a citizen who is informed.

Ah screw it. I'm calling the wildlife specialist to kill these damn squirrels. They are driving me nuts.

Some attempts at fiction

Scene 1
In the morning, my father awoke, and he drove me to the sea. I stood at the edge of the tanker and waved goodbye. I got a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, like maybe I’d never see him again. Like one of those strange times when something comes over you and it strikes you that we are all going to end up dead some day. And if I told you that I was crying for him, I’d be lying. I was crying for me. I was crying for the bones that I would one day become, for all the things I have gathered that I will one day leave behind, for the earth that will become my skin. I was crying because this story ends.

Scene 2

They were sitting in the dark and holding hands. She was explaining to him that he wasn’t much of a husband. The word inattentive was used on four separate occasions. The conversation had started when the sun was setting. On the ride home, he had read his book occasionally, then watched the sun drift below the long black telephone wires and start to bury itself behind the low grey buildings.
He was sitting cross-legged, and reading a magazine. He was pretending to be engrossed in a story about the third world. He was fairly certain that it wasn’t called the third world anymore, but he hadn’t yet learned the correction. The driver of the metro was inexpert. Each time they stopped, the train jerked, giving him a case of mild motion sickness.


Scene 3:
“That’s a pretty damn fine dinner you’ve made Lucy,” he said.
Lucy blushed. She pushed a stray lock of hair from her slightly decaying cheek. The gesture was almost natural. It was a warm summer evening, and they were eating on the back patio. The cicadas were making a hell of a lot of noise. Gary had this habit, that his wife used to hate, of tapping the tines of his fork on the front of his porcelain teeth between bites.

“What the hell are you making all that racket for?” she’d ask. She was a no good goddamn shrew. He was whatever the male equivalent was. A muskrat perhaps?

Gary supposed that that was how you got after sixteen years or so of marriage. But here was Lucy, married some fourteen years herself before she showed up on his doorstep, blushing like a teenage girl. Lucy finished her salad, and poured herself a glass of wine. She twirled the glass in her hand with a flick of her wrist, bent to it, and breathed in.

“Blackberries.” She paused, while Gary nodded. “A hint of sorgum.” Gary had no clue what sorgum was. He was mesmorized by the small dimple in the middle of her forehead that she got when she was thinking. Gary had no clue where all the food was going, what happened to your digestive tract when you were dead, if it was all just piling up and she was going to explode or what.

She sipped from the glass. Her lips were purple when she pulled it away. “Gary,” she said, this reminds me of that cruise we took down to Cape Caneverale years ago.” Gary smiled and assured her that it reminded him of that exact same trip. He didn’t think that Lucy and John had ever been to Cape Caneverale either. This Lucy was a liar. He loved her. “Remember how blond we got that week Gary?” Her hair was beginning to fall out. Gary had poured a solid fifth of liquid plumber down the drain this morning.