the day after

there's an edge to every day after (drinking more than a few beers) that puts all my best and worst in stark relief. not a hangover, per se, but a sharpness to every thought and feeling that cuts and rends whatever it touches. on these days, i can focus as on none others, and i'm always at my least charitable, and most caustic.

the boys earned their first win of the season yesterday, (not the revs, the boys), by scoring their first goal and playing "the full ninety" with heart and discipline. it took a bold move by the coach, made at precisely the right time, but mostly patience and faith that doing the right things might/should/could be rewarded. it could just have likely gone the other way, but that's how faith works, right?

there'll be a chance for me to test my resolve today, where the oldsters are similarly waiting patiently for a favorable result. what do you bet that i have a colorful run-in with the official? (we'll wait to predict whether the color is yellow or red). in fact, given what i know of myself, there's nothing that could be more inevitable, unless you were to count the barren "welcome" awaiting those brought home upon their feet or their shield. and that sucks, and you can bet that i won't be shy to say it when the time comes.

people expect their feelings to be spared in all things by those about whom they care. they truly don't want to hear of their worst, as if being such is penalty enough or something like that. i guess i really don't know. but day-after me is just like every-other-day me, only more so, and if you didn't like what you heard yesterday, just wait, like they say about the new england weather, for a few minutes for that to change.

i'd rather be told, ya know?

and another thing

one of the disaffected shared with me a story of some of the least attractive in male behavior, and my sympathy for her was only challenged by my own righteous indignation that this is what to which i'm never anymore to be given opportunity to be compared.

i walked a gauntlet of eager airport-meeters to get to my car yesterday, and the irony walked right along with me.

hollywood and grapevine

lets see if you can follow this morning's jet-lagged hallucinations:

someone (many people, i'm sure) mentioned that listening to an ipod in public creates an odd juxtaposition of fantasy and reality, given how acculturated we all are to the ubiquity of pop music among movie soundtracks. i'm not sure if seeing yourself as if in a movie turns up in the dsm-iv, (i figure there's a good chance it might), but on top of some fresh jetlag recalling yourself thinking of yourself as if in one does create a certain amount of personality vertigo. (cue memory of populuxe's "it's over now" while doing 220k/135mph down the autobahn).

from there we jump to what started this whole thing, which would be free-associating carole lombard flicks (long story) and musing on the reality which often informs fantasy. carole was by all accounts a pistol, even getting away with publically goofing on husband clark gable's endowment, and i've always known from her movie stills (compare 'em to any b actress', go on, i dare you) that there was more to 30's and 40's hollywood casting than the couch. (or, maybe, they prove that there wasn't). either way, here's exhibit a for there likely being a "real" story.

i learned hollywood from a bedsheet strung over a doorway in a cramped little apartment stacked to the ceiling with 32mm film cannisters. the central element of my dorm room (and several subsequent apartments) was a 21" b&w tv, tuned nightly to the wee hours panoply of old movies on uhf, and i always thought it poetic that those same film cannisters had been salvaged by an underground network of film geeks from the 7-year tv leases offered by the studios for their product. (they were supposed to have been returned for salvage of the silver and other valuables, but some things are worth far more than their constituent parts, and some people aren't blind to see that). i'd never seen a picture of howard hawks before i went looking for one just now on google images, but i knew the man intimately from his work. he saw something in lombard that could stand up to barrymore, and so we could all then be welcomed to the "twentieth century", though not a candle could be held to "bringing up baby" in my 20-20 hindsighted opinion, despite the disparity of original box office, and for that i'm sure there's as much to do with hepburn's star over lombard's as anything.

and so here flood the stories: i know hepburn wore pants, which pissed off the entire world and garnered her the sobriquet of "box office poison", which led her to buy out her own contract and eventually produce her own movies when it was unheard-of to do so, and, because i can't resist a good digression, she reportedly lost her shot at being scarlett o'hara as much for being in laurence olivier's bed as campaigning strenuously for scarlett to be not so often in rhett's. (acrimony? mais non, as she was maid of honor at laurence's widding to vivien, and lifelong friends with both). she lost oscar for one of the finest performances in the history of film (african queen) to leigh (streetcar named desire) while braving dysentery and the ultra-macho alcoholism of bogart and huston. (the only two members of that set not to come down with the ugly malady, nor drink any water the entire trip). one of the finest pictures i hold in my mind is of hepburn going big game hunting with the two macho souses on their days off and coming away with all the material necessary for a best-selling book, ("the making of the african queen: or, how i went to africa with bogart, bacall and huston and almost lost my mind", and i'm not making that up), as well as high compliments from huston for being a veritable diana in the flesh. i can so picture the elephant gun on her shoulder, her feet spread defiantly apart, and the men all transfixed by the ensuing kill, and by that i don't just mean of the native wildlife. (spencer's best line ever to her: "you slay me").

so much of all this context is washed away without current societal memory, and i feel every day of my 47 years to realize how rare mine is among those still living. (even my parents so often can't remember...) how does anyone watch a well-written film without being its contemporary??? we all know to look for hitchcock in his characteristic cameos, but we so don't understand anymore the significance of each actor and actress he placed with callous care into his pictures, like a boy playing with so many tin soldiers. (yes, that story about the bet, the handcuffs and the laxative is true).

i can't even begin to include the rest of it for how long it would take, but, suffice it to say, there's more to every story than meets the unfamiliar eye. mine not least.

triple play

it's 3 for 1 today on posts. and i know i've complained about this before, but wtf:

"town hall meetings" are NOT talk-at-you sessions designed to allow spin-meisters to create the illusion of listening. real town hall meetings are the original american democratic version of constructive anarchy, and the ultimate low-man-on-the-totem-pole-is-in-charge-when-he-has-the-floor meetings. real town hall meetings ensure power to the people--one man, one voice, one vote--and, by the way, everyone else is required to shut up, ESPECIALLY the guy at the dais, while they are being educated by the process. Oh, and, yeah, best of all: MAJORITY RULES.

but here i am again attending a corporate "town hall meeting" with my phone automatically muted, courtesy of at&t, so that the people who want to tell me things can tell me things and really not listen to a damn thing anyone else might be foolish enough to say. how did we get here???

at least i can think of it as a subsidized opportunity to set my fantasy baseball lineup for tonight.

"leave my monkey alone"

speaking of brazzaville, and reading elsewhere from the mouths of babes to "leave my xxx alone", i'm reminded of an old warren zevon song for which i've yet to find fit translation. no, i don't mean the part about "mzungu arudi ulaya mwafrika apate uhuru", (which i understand is mau-mau for something like "gringo go home"), but for his repeated refrain to "leave my monkey alone".

know what i think? i think, warren being the poster boy for the monkey on everyman's back, that there has to be more to it than drinking bitters while the empire fell. (fiddling while burning has officially been topped, tyvm). "leave my monkey alone". "leave my monkey alone". "leave my monkey alone". a close friend never sets up shop anywhere in his life without his life's motto close nearby: "a wise monkey never monkeys with another monkey's monkey". i don't believe he ever knew warren, but i'm suspicious he knows from whence he came.

from where i've gone in that split-second flight of thought, from casablanca to brazzaville to somewhere in the tortured history of colonial kenya, it's a short trip up and down the track list of sentimental hygiene to know that i'm not the first man to have lived my life. from the first stanza of the first song, "every day i get up in the morning and go to work", to the last song's final repeated refrain begging for ones monkey to simply be left alone, warren touches every base. "i read things i didn't know i'd done / it sounded like a lot of fun". "now i'm doing my own laundry / and i'm getting those clothes clean". and my personal favorite these days dodging the falling bodies while clinging to the corporate ladder, "everybody's trying to be a friend of mine / even a dog can shake hands".

yup, ipod's talking to me again... must be the jet lag.

foreign correspondent

it's 3:30 or 9:30, depending on which clock (body or wrist) you're looking at, and despite the classically grey, drizzly german weather, i'm feeling my oats. it's not just that their yogurt's better, (it is), or their bread, (mmmmmmmm), or their cars, (my rental audi rocks), or their music, (ok, i lied about that one--it's my ipod playing through the audi's kick-ass sound system, and their music does, indeed, suck), but that it's good to be in rome and not a roman.

the schlossgarten alternately amazes and offends, that something so beautiful would have been constructed upon the backs of the ethnically-cleansed. maybe part of the pleasure is how it feels faintly of an act of defiance to walk again among the paths, long since vacant of their progenitors. and i'm going to drink your beer, too, so there. HAH.

the locals do occasionally turn up there, and in the lanes of the hartvald, but not in any numbers to suggest they can easily see their own forest for their trees. (i wonder how many of them have watched the mists rising from the fields of lincoln in the same way?) i guess there's a benefit from seeing a place and a situation and a life from a fresh perspective, so no wonder it's often the foreign correspondent who gets it closest to the truth, both about their own exile, as well as their latent patriotism.

i get now why bogart's cynical, expatriate idealist played so well in everything from "casablanca" to "to have and have not". at least, at the end, i'm glad michael curtiz didn't shy away from the way the world most often is, with the girl on the plane and her would-be beau left on the ground talking about brazzaville with a short french guy. "here's looking at you, kid".

out of the country

the hotel has 10 rooms, overlooks the schlossgarten in schwetzingen, and is within walking distance of more biergartens that i would be able to count. yeah, i'll be working my butt off as usual when i'm on CET, but it's nice to know that every moment off the clock will hold potential to be a relaxing one.

and, yeah i know it's geeky and sad that something like this matters, but my fantasy footballers kicked butt yesterday, even while my baseballers are ending up with just a shot for second place. (so, does that make them the red sox thinking about the patriots, or what?)

ready for the nhl season this week? go broons!

"have a fact-based discussion"

i love the unbounded nature of human optimism.

the latest buzz-phrase among salespeople where i work is the euphemist "fact-based discussion". seems they're all fully graduated from the spin-as-salesmanship school of hucksterism, and now attend the hopefully-effective, and therefore hopefully-successful, and therefore hopefully-lucrative, new program of facts over fabrication. it all sounds so good, but i can't help but flash in my mind to the title of rick page's old book on selling called "hope is not a strategy"...

careful reading of the internet should caution anyone from an irrational faith in facts. (whose facts? really???)

politicians are already editing their own wikipedia pages, whether by hand or by proxy, and a simple review of the "facts" around something as factual as gravity becomes routed through references to the competing "brans-dicke", "new and highly controversial process physics" and "self-creation cosmology" theories. in fact, reading wikipedia, except for the fact that i fall down when i get drunk and not up, i'd hardly be able to believe in gravity at all.

but, yes, by all means, let's have a fact-based discussion.

yikes

nothing like a meltdown to take stock of one's nuclear family energy policy. it's impossible not to review and relive every moment of this and every other relationship and ask the inevitable questions: why am i the way i am? have i ever been or had it good? what, in light of changing awareness, did i miss that put me here?

some relationships, in retrospect, can finally receive the full brickbat treatment they deserve. (no, that "first love" wasn't love at all, and i know i've said that before, but WOW, it's worse than i had even imagined). others, perhaps dismissed unfairly at the time, grow in fondness and in appreciation.

and then, there it is.

in the inbox.

right in the midst of the worst of times, the ray of light through the moldering shadows of the past. oh what an acute temptation. she was the first woman who ever made me feel love. and loved me. there's no amount of water under any bridge or over any dam that can wash that away, and it becomes all the more poignant amidst the stained world in which i now live. there is an almost irresistible temptation to say it all out loud...

of course, all this would deny the shame of how unworthy i was and would have continued to be. all this would only serve to prove is that i'm incapable of making a right and proper choice in my life. but to have her words... her words... blinking at me from the ether... it's as if i could go back in time and touch her again, even if only to say "i'm sorry". oh, how i feel today the need to say "i'm sorry".

life is complicated. to say something like that would be like captain kirk violating the prime directive. oh, how tempting, but it would also be catastrophic to all the principles by which i am sworn anew to live. she's married. has a family. built a life upon the ruins that i would have made of it. who knows if she is happy, but to think the possibility of not is to cross a line... step towards that time portal... flirt with rending the very fabric of the universe... she's traveling here next summer to be at the wedding of her nephew, the boy i used to know...

what if she needs something, and i could finally be there for her? what if i could make something right again?

i realize these are the same questions with which i berate myself daily. i need my love to melt to my embrace, and the desperate need for it is a weakness that i think my wife can feel, even if she can't put words to describe it. oh, how much i need her to do that...

but i do also need to say i'm sorry. to mk. to the ow. to everyone i've ever wronged, disappointed or let down.

most of all, to my wife, but to them all, too.

i'm sorry, mk. you knew it, didn't you... you were my first love.

opposites attract

forget those solitary socks coming out of our dryers, somebody once recommended, for the ease of the general population, that we pair up all the crazy folks going around talking to themselves so it would at least look like they were enjoying a sane and decent conversation. (come to think of it, they'd probably also be happy to take all those straggling socks off our hands at the same time, too... hmm...)

the more i learn about the estate of marriage, the more i think we're going to need to go further than socks and street people. becoming, as i've mentioned before, the lightening rod among my friends and acquaintances on the subject of marital disaffection, it's amazing the stories i'm being told. most remarkable and consistent among all of them is the inexplicable incongruity of nuptual desire. if it were always consistent in its direction, say, the classic caricature of the wifely "i have a headache", that would be all well and good and chalked up to the perversity of human nature. but, egads, the truth seems actually to be more common in the other direction. (perhaps not yet a valid statistical sample size, so your results may vary, but its getting there). #1 complaint among women married for an extended length of time is "he just doesn't want it/me". of course, not to be outdone, the #1 complaint among men married for an extended length of time is "she just doesn't want it/me". who's with me to propose a national registry of marital redistribution, where all the randy richards and rowenas can be paired up with each other, instead of with all those passionless peters and paulinas that would immediately be paired and put out to pasture in front of the tv like they prefer already. (they'd have to argue amongst themselves if it'll be oprah or sports channel, since that'd be outside the scope of the experiment--those of us once again having sex wouldn't be able to care less what they'd be watching).

ha ha, right?

but wtf is it among the saltpeters and menopaulinas that they're shocked, shocked i tell you, that there's infidelity going on here???

fuck or get out of the bed.

want us or give us to someone who will.

stop feeling sorry for yourself about whether or not your mate is healthy and alive, and figure out how to wake up and join the human race yourself.

no, i'm not complaining that everything should be about sex. i work. i play my soccer and watch my sports and hang out with friends plenty. but *something* should be about sex. at least between two people who have suggested to each other that they were interested, originally.

otherwise, i'd say, the spirit of the agreement has been broken, and just because someone broke it second doesn't mean that someone else breaking it first is no longer a fair topic for conversation.

doing the lock

we've got a chore around our place called "doing the lock". as chores go it's not particularly arduous, but i can appreciate the sentiments around it owing to its incessance. every day, chickens need food and water and letting out in the morning, and every evening, they need food and water and locking up in the barn. fair enough. and as part of the deal to the kids' "can we have a..." plea, the lock is on them. every night. or so the deal would have it.

all this is neither here nor there, except that i noticed something last night that says a lot about me. see, day before, we had our own little version of armageddon over who was going to do it. the lock, that is. i was on single-parent duty, and the evening sun was taking its sweet time about setting, and the inevitable evening request for media privileges was lodged, and i had responded as is the routine around here, that jams and teeth and the infamous lock be completed before the little led's turned from red to green. easy enough on the jams and teeth, every kid for themself, but then the fly hit the ointment. chickens are diurnal. they roost like clockwork when the sun goes down, (that old saw about the chickens coming home to roost is extremely accessible to anyone who has ever had chickens), but they're out scratching and pecking like the little idiot eating machines they are, for just as long as the sunlight programs them to do it, no more, and absolutely no less. friction.

#2 was primed for a little age of empires, but #3 was sated from the afternoon's foray onto webkinz.com, and though it was her turn to do it, you know, the lock, a hurry wasn't what she was in. as always in disputes among the indians, the closest approximation to a chief is implored to pass judgment so that life can continue, only said chiefs are all-too-painfully aware that life certainly will not continue, as the imagined-to-be-aggrieved loser of whichever solomon's choice is made will immediately launch into scorched-earth mode, to the everlasting chagrin of said chief who will be expected to render yet another judgment in futile chase of a peaceful end, and so on and so forth. if only you could make money on predictions like this...

so last night, as i was trudging in from work about 14 hours after i had left to do it, and the sun's rays were winking out through the trees above the infamous lock barn, my wife walked back into the house with a handful of eggs and a cheerful expression. peace reigned across the roost, both inside and outside.

"you did the lock, didn't you".

she'd been clued into the potential tempest from the night before (long story, but part of the meltdown included aspersions as to who would be responsible for the locking the next night) so it's not like she was clairvoyant, but she was, hit me square in the face to admit, taking the expeditious route between the demi-pubescent rocks and hard places.

in my black and white world, this doesn't even appear on the chief's list as an option. "if you give an inch they'll take a mile" is one of the operative phrases that comes to mind, which i heard along with countless others my entire formative life. to me, drawing a line in the sand is a necessary step in any adversarial situation, of which, who's going to do the lock absolutely applies. at least to impaired, would-be-chief me.

so it never occurred to me to just shut the damn barn myself after dark and let the would-be peaceful minions remain so--it would set a bad precedent! make them shun chores and responsibilities and grow up to be lazy, non-productive second-raters! or so my limited and duo-chromatic thought processes would insist.

so how does a man stop thinking like this?

i'm a fight just waiting to happen. even when i'm trying to do the best for my kids, which i'm always trying to do harder than i try to do anything else in my life, i'm always prone to end up in conflict. funniest part, is that i really like shutting the barn door, if you have to know the truth, because i don't get to hang out with the chickens very much working as a wage-slave all day, and they're really quite personable. even much more so than usual in the evening when their body clocks wind down and they get soporific about hanging it up for the night. incredibly soft. (have you ever petted a chicken? they're amazingly soft). wonderfully docile and responsive and soothing the way they cluck and coo. just the thing a guy needs after spending all day with hedgehoggish humans getting prickly all over the place.

so why can't i do the expeditious thing, which is the right thing, which is the peaceful thing, which is the self-soothing thing??? world isn't gonna end. kids aren't gonna be ruined. life isn't gonna fall apart.

i'm gonna have to make a mental note about this one, and file it for future use. should come in handy, oh, by about sundown tonight.

the armageddon factor

years ago, and guys being guys, my male coworkers and i found occasion to discuss our female counterparts. (yeah, ladies, you do it too). as i expect everyone has found when participating in such a discussion, consensus was hard to come by.

the challenge of assessing people, as we quickly find, is that one-dimensional scales like 1 to 10 can hardly do justice to the world's full beauty and variety, let alone account for breast men vs leg men, or harley girls vs all the rest, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. but the hardest challenge to nominating any potential system or approach to relative attractiveness is that everyone, regardless of physical appearance, seems to carry their own special je ne sais quoi that defies categorization. yes, airbrushed supermodel magazine photography notwithstanding, there's an incredible variety of physical appearances which are hard enough to rate and rank. but animate, add sound, and then place the beauty right in front of the eye of the beholder, and all bets are off.

"friends" had some fun with janice's laugh. i think "the office" goes the other way with pam's understated potential. i'd have done jorja fox as maggie doyle on "er", (especially after the lesbian revelation), but i wouldn't touch her with a 10 foot barge pole as sarah sidle on "csi". the tabloids are full of jenn's brad vs angelina's brad. context and character are everything.

so the reason i bring this up now is because today's game didn't go so well (for example, we hit the post no fewer than 3 times) and it seemed fitting to spend some quality time reviewing things over our ample beer supply. (my turn this week, and i always bring extra, just in case). so, i think it was approximately 3 rounds into our afternoon, when the subject came around to one of our teammates who had left a little earlier. all positive and complimentary, even extending very politely to the subject of his lovely wife.

you see, i had had the pleasure of knowing (not biblically, this is a family blog and get your minds out of the gutter) said lovely wife 20 years earlier at the aforementioned un-pc workplace. and she had been the exception and the exceptional woman that had unintentionally provided us guys with the perfect system, and her invaluable contribution was the armageddon factor.

we had started, innocuously enough, with a simple 1 to 5 scale. for example, mw was a 5, tp's face certainly was, but her body not so much, so most folks were split between 3 and 4, as opposed to tc whose body was a 5+, though whose other charms were decidedly lacking, winding her up in the creditable 3 to 4 range as well. and so it went. until it came down, as it inevitably must in classless discussions such as these, as to how much of a 5 mw really was, compared with, say, mg. there was absolutely something to mw that mg could never hope to capture, yet, if you saw a photo of mg you'd be awestruck by how beautiful she is. (or was, 20 years is a long time). what put mw over the top was her friendliness. you could absolutely imagine her reaching behind to unclasp her bikini top with a smile just because you knew she knew you appreciated it. there had to be some word for it...

so, back to the incomparable mr. you see, mr wasn't your classic 5, and some of her more adamant supporters were really kinda flummoxed about that. you couldn't quantify it or really explain why you'd walk through fire for a woman like that, but you knew you just would. and then the lightning struck. it actually struck my buddy personally, and out of his mouth came the immortal phrase: the armageddon factor. you know, that je ne sais quoi that meant that if the world were ending in exactly one hour, and you knew you only had that one hour to spend with just one woman, you'd pick her in a heartbeat, and KNOW you were going to have the best hour of your life, and you could die happy. supermodels, when push comes to armageddon crunch, just don't measure up.

so then the floodgates opened. everybody, if you thought long enough about it, had their own factor that explained things far better than 1 to 5 ever could. my personal favorite was "the nhl factor", describing one particularly tiresome beauty whose breasts may have been incomparable, but who was such a pain in the neck you'd want to pull her sweater over her head and punch her out while doing it.

so don't ask me why it had to come out this afternoon, (and i'm sure even some of the guys were appalled at the crassness), but in memory of the armageddon factor, and the beauty of sitting in the middle of a beautiful park on a beautiful day sipping beer with your buddies, even after a loss, here's to you, mr, and to mr. mr, who's a very lucky guy.

"you shouldn't be"

my daughter gave me that one a few minutes ago while she was being particularly hard on herself for bounces that went the other way during this morning's game, and i had had the temerity to tell her how proud of her i was, and how much i loved her.

i'm sure there's a "right" way to respond to such a thing, but i'm going to do it my way anyway.

first of all: anyone who tells me i shouldn't be proud of my kids, even if they're one of my kids, is going to have a problem with me. a big one. i know we were talking about non-violence earlier this morning, but here's something over which i'd gladly renounce a few principles.

second of all: there are errors of intent, and there are errors of execution, and there were none of the former, and that's a beautiful thing. something to be well proud of under all circumstances, even my own.

most importantly: it's not where you start, it's where you end up. and pride is not just for the destination, either, but also for the journey. there's no one with whom i'd rather travel than each and every one of my kids.

so, after giving her the best i had to offer in getting her back on her feet, i had one of those cynical moments when i groused to myself that everybody deserves at least one person in their corner who can heartfeltedly give them the very same pep talk. i think what's been wrong in my life since well before i ran it off its rails is that i've been flying too long without a wingman, let alone a ground crew. it's not supposed to be that way.

no wonder things ended up in flames.

don't know what i am, but i'm not going to take it anymore

a year under the thumb of the $140 man and i'm conditioned never to be mad as hell. don't believe me? most everyone i know has been incredulous about the truth of this, making me thankful that they haven't given up on me as a friend in spite of their assessment of my being such a punching bag (their actual terms are more graphic and less polite) in the inter-marital olympics. i actually get why those of us in such good touch with our angry sides can do well by dialing it back, and for those with patience i can even try to explain how i know that. but, even so, i'd like to think even ghandi would have his limit.

maybe he did. maybe we miss the point about non-violent resistance that it's actually the resistance part we should be focused upon, and not the absence of punches or cutting words thrown in anger. (and you can't argue with the little man's accomplishments).

ever been taken to task for not doing something, when you know having done it would have resulted in even harsher response? that's in the heart of what i regret most these past few months--letting bullshit passive/aggressive sanctimony cow me from giving the honest response, and being prepared to walk away.

you can't have it both ways. you can't have me two ways. you can work with me to polish off the rough edges to have things more like you like/want/need them, or you can throw me out for having them in the first place. but you can't keep secret score about stuff and then throw it back at me months later for having tried. that's the bridge too far.

george s. patton once said "if a man does his best, what else is there?"

i'm with that guy.

forest for the trees? what about the forests?

new england thrills me. just looking at it enchants me. biking and walking and driving through it exhilarates and inspires me. and every once in awhile, when i reach a piece of high ground and look around at the wonder of it all, i realize just how much i can't see.

ever see one of those lithographs that was scratched out by one of our artistically challenged farmer forebears? you know, the kind with all those little men and horses and ships all childishly strewn about the faux landscape without perspective or proportion? even the trees are the wrong size...

and then you notice that there are hardly any. trees. to you and to me it's an alien tableau of rolling, rising and falling farmland, where the reason the artist could draw 1000's of soldiers and wagons and ships spread across the landscape is that he could actually see 1000's of soldiers and wagons and ships spread across the landscape. we simply have no perspective today from which to imagine what these crude pieces are showing us as plainly and starkly as they know how to do. forget the trees that we can't see for the forests... there's an entire world beneath our feet and over the next hill of which we have no concept because of the forests themselves.

there's a story about the closing hours of the battle of lexington and concord, when the north shore militias finally arrived, late from their day's march upon the statewide call to arms, that has always amazed me to try to envision. by way of background--and i think most remarkable about the day--there was essentially no effective command and control in the field for the victors. none whatsoever. each unit may have elected themselves a captain, and each captain may have consulted with his peers about what to do next at several junctures during the day, but, in the end, each man had fought for himself for an entire day, and the sum of those efforts had kicked the ass of what was, at the time, the most fearsome standing army on the face of the earth. amazing.

anyway, to read the stories, as the british column once again drew within view of the safety of the city of boston, they were actually no small distance from that safety. miles, in fact. what must that have felt like??? you'd marched going on 30 miles on no sleep and no real food, carrying a 50-pound pack under a sweltering sun, and you'd been under a deadly fire for at least half of it, and even though you could see your salvation ahead in streets of charlestown admidst the dimming light of the afternoon, you could also see your nemesis taking position on yon winter hill, preparing to cut you off at the last minute, and deliver the coup de grace.

when coaching a boys soccer team and trying to get them all to pay attention and work as a group you can see the tendencies and consequence of disorder. when drilling and molding a thousand men into a body that can receive and follow an order of march under the hardest of circumstances, i can only imagine the complexity and challenge. the british had lost discipline at so many points during the day, rashly striking out in impotence and rage against what was being done to them by men who didn't have the civility to stand in line to be shot at. but when it was all on the table, and only a perfectly-executed march under fire would save them, the british soldiers were letter perfect. they didn't break rank. they out-marched the fresh and eager colonial militias of salem and marblehead. for no higher prize than their own survival, they had made it.

and there's nowhere to stand where you can imagine any of it. winter hill is a forest of three-deckers and the landscape around charlestown has been filled and flattened so many times that hardly any of its original countenance remains. and everywhere there are trees that beautify our streets and cleanse our air and stand guard over our dreams, yet blot out any hope we will ever have of seeing through the eyes of the men involved in one of the most dramatic and fateful days in history.

i marvel at how far we've been removed from what is real--the world beneath the things that we "see" in our lives. i can battle to look past the trees to see the forests, and i can even try to look past the forests to try to conceive what is true beneath, yet i fear i'm on a hopeless errand in the shifting landscapes of personality and love.

she says i hurt her now with everything i say and do. she describes a landscape of anguish and loneliness that i drew for her with what i've done, and i still see the forest of my own hurt and pain that compelled me there. i can stand on the highest piece of ground i can find to stand upon, and i'm still looking out over a sea of trees, with everything hidden beneath.

distance is relative. in those days, though you could see for miles, you knew it would be hours to reach it. i can jump in my car and cover the same distance in minutes... if i only knew which way to go...

why doesn't she climb up to try to see me, too???

hard to do 67,000 singing, dancing soccer fans justice, especially with a cell phone camera, but here ya go.

they were standing room only, and the yellow-clad faithful didn't leave their seats for an hour after the match, savoring every possible moment with their team. (well, they could have been waiting for the chaos of the parking lot exit to subside a bit too...)

there was no local tv news coverage, of course, and the whole thing struck me last night as nothing so much as brigadoon set to samba music. for a moment in time, for 90 glorious minutes and more just to soak in the excitement of the crowd before and after, i was somewhere wonderful. afterwards its impossible to convince the rest of the world that it happens and you're not crazy, and there aren't any invitations or options to choose to leave a life, anyway. not really. (tommy was indeed the lucky one).

where i come from, you wind up with jane ashford and she knows all about what you did while you were away. (more like groundhog day with bill murray and without andie macdowell, than anything featuring gene kelly dancing with cyd charisse into the scottish mists). don't know how to fix it, but i always thought that jane wasn't such a bad egg. (elaine stewart can have that effect on a guy). anybody have any suggestions?

the eureka moment

my wife objects strongly to my ever seeing a female therapist.

she says it's because she's sure the woman will take my side (that's not the eureka, that's the given) because i'll manipulate her with my evil, lying charms. (still not the eureka, just another given).

but here it comes: her real terror is in knowing that it really won't take any manipulation at all. she knows, deep down inside, she's treated me unfairly, (not saying she hasn't been treated unfairly and isn't justified to some get-back, but i'm just saying), yet if she were to be caught into admitting that, she'd be giving back justification for my betraying her again. and that would destroy her. so she's terrified.

so, rather than allow the outside possibility of her own shortcomings coming to light, she's compelled to fight tooth and claw for my never being allowed to leave the dog house ever again. because, once i'm out, she expects to be abandoned again.

eureka.

not that it gives me much to do about it, besides continuing to promise i'll never betray her again, but it's nice to have a reason, a la the condemned in kafka's "in the penal colony".

the good fight

one cynical way of marking the gap of time between saturday's self-aggrandizing "i am a warrior" speech, and today's entry, is to assume what cometh after pride, and to infer the reticence of the embarrassed. thing is, yeah, i'm a little sore, but it's been a long time since i've been embarrassed. (some opportunities for shame more recently, but we'll skip that part for today). nope, you can read all about it if you want on the othsl site, we came up a goal short. and i'm feeling good about myself anyway. or, more accurately, just period.

i fought the good fight.

did you catch any rugby news the other day? seems that england captain phil vickery was cited for a trip against usa center paul emerick, and may miss the next match against south africa. (story here). it hadn't been called on the field, but a review caught the infraction, and everybody was dutifully interviewed about it. vickery said "it was unfortunate", and "there was certainly no malice on my part". emerick said "the referee was behind the play and maybe he will look back on it and say 'maybe i missed a call there', but hands go one way and legs go another, that is just the way the game goes". no complaints, no recriminations, and no gnashing of teeth. wow. i like it.

today's boston sports section, on the other hand, was full of the patriots vs jets spying kerfuffle, and all sorts of further commentary from players on both sides, and even some from the guys from san diego, who are still miffed about the way they lost last year's quarter-final game, and eager to talk about suspicions of cheating and poor sportsmanship on the part of their nemesis. who knows what's true, except that it's pretty clear there isn't a whole lot of sportsmanship involved.

can't tell you how to define that word, but, like pornography, you know it when you see it.

early on in sunday's game, we were down but threatening, and earned a corner. (for those unfamiliar, it's a free kick towards the goal from the corner of the field, and everybody gets to stand in front of the net and jockey for position). between less sportsmanlike teams, and because you know how boys can be, the jockeying can get petty, and the whole thing pretty ridiculous. however, as i took my place directly in front of their keeper, and was joined cheerfully by a couple of defenders, i experienced no jostle, nor push nor shove. and the ball came to where i could reach it, and i got my head on it, and still there was no acrimonious physical abuse, just good, clean competition. "great job getting to that ball". "close one". "good defense". and cheerfully back up the field we all went. when it all ended 4-3 in their favor, we all had our accomplishments to feel good about, and none of the rancor of poor sport, since there was none. i got to some balls. they got to some balls. we all got soaked and muddy from the pouring rain, and we all had beers afterward. the good fight. (and you should have seen a couple of the ones i got to... outran guys to loose balls from 30 yards away, and everyone was congratulating me and appreciating the congratulatory remarks i had for them in return). the good fight.

so today i won't go into it (he said, she said, ya know?) but i will say this: i'm the man she always said she wanted, and i've been doing it right for a long time now. the right way. the honest way. the faithful way. and if that doesn't count for anything anymore, that's ok, it just helps me to realize that there may not have been anything i could have done in the first place. gives me that satisfaction of good sportsmanship again, that i had lost by being the worst of one.

what are you saving it for?

game tomorrow has me thinking: more than a few people (my wife included) ask why i do to my body what i do. (i guess 47 year olds aren't supposed to do the soccer thing anymore). i think they're afraid i'm heading for an early wheelchair.

two thoughts:

1) we're all going to end up in one sooner or later if we live long enough. why not do more with what we have before it's gone?

2) if your average 47 year old has less cartilage than i do, even though i've had 15% of mine excised surgically to repair a tear, is it more likely that it's use, or genetic predisposition, that enables better health? and, either way, why shouldn't i enjoy my good fortune?

yeah, the road bike is likely to be less damaging to joints and connective tissue--i got one, didn't i??? but pardon me if i'm in better shape than 99% of the almost-50 crowd, and i'm likely to be in better shape at 90 even with all the sprained ankles, torn up knees, and twisted hips that i might endure while getting there. this whole "you shouldn't" attitude strikes me as jealousy as much as altruism, and i'm not buying it.

if you're too lazy to get up anymore, at least stop trying to drag everybody else down to your level of lethargy. and, if you look at yourself and see a more-cylindrical self than you're used to or prefer, well, you know what i'll suggest.

it's fun, honest it is. even the orthopedic visits.

dawn (or sunset?) in the garden of good and evil

forget midnight--the half-circle shape hovering on the horizon, that could be either east or west, up or down, dawn or dusk, makes the garden what it really is.

standing by the "rude bridge" on mornings like this, with the early mists rising from the waters and traveling across the grass like so many ghosts of unnamed soldiers past, a lot of things occur to wandering thought. i'd say to you i think this country represents to me a thousand (a million, a hundred million) nobodies standing up to the pompous, bullying, fascist assholes of the world, who have murdered and exiled and cheated humanity for eons, and saying NO MAS. the right of the crowd to govern (or mis-govern) itself is asserted. (we won't get started about the pompous, bullying, fascist asshole president just now, but it's needful of a discussion too, sooner or later).

so, for one trivial example, when the pompous, bullying, fascist record labels become subverted by musician-powered-crowd-guided music sites like Amie Street, i feel the sun starting to rise again in the garden, and i find it a cause for celebration. of course, then, enter the sponsors...

some gum manufacturer, against whom i bear no ill will prior to this, decided to sponsor a contest to award (they say) the most deserving performer (they say) from this new and exiting community. so they invite the wisdom of the crowd to nominate 20, which was generously done, out of which "the judges" were to select the five most worthy, for final voting to coronate a winner.

half full or half empty?

sunrise or sunset?

cubworld, garning the most votes, possessing the most recommendations, and selling the most music on the site, is eliminated. northern room, another top-seller, also is unceremoniously exited. in fact, ALL the top artists are gone, as if become of orwell's non-people, and whisked off to some electronic re-education camp/gulag to contemplate the errors of their popular ways. a few of the remaining, say, three of the five, are moderately representative of the popular metier, but that's the line past which it gets truly murky, and the shadows lengthen, and the red ball on the horizon starts to lower into the swamp. i won't even stain thought by mentioning by name, but one of the finalists had released but four songs, none of which, at the time, had attracted even a whisper of attention.

the fix, as they say, was and remains in.

why do we let it happen? not blue riders of the purple sage, but line jumpers of the public meme. were adams and jefferson and madison and monroe the fathers, or the co-opters???? was our constitution written, or was it copied from the simple truths, held to be self-evident because they ARE self-evident? do our media represent us, or copy us in a desperate attempt to be able to continue to control the power and the wealth that come only from us? why are we collectively mute to the injustice???

or, as green day once asked it, "am i just paranoid"

and answered it, "uh, yeah yeah yeah"

i say, vote with your wallets, people, and don't buy any more of that damn gum.

the gift that keeps on giving

imagine a neutron bomb that doesn't just go off once. imagine one that goes off repeatedly, and always as soon as crews come to inspect and inter the bodies from the last one. now imagine the relationship equivalent. you are now picturing my life.

last night i not only played soccer with the boys, i also lingered for beers afterward. yes, i should have called. no, i didn't.

today it's renewed accusations of continuing infidelity, (with whom i have no idea, since she's got the cell phone records, credit card records, atm records, you-name-it-records, and there's nothing there but a nice bike and gifts and concert tickets for her), and there's nothing i can do anymore to stop it.

-silent boom-

she always said "if only..." and then listed all the things she wanted: more support keeping the house, from dishes to laundry to every little job that needs doing. time spent with the kids and increased effort to make and maintain connection with the family. less emotional withdrawal. more communication. etc. all reasonable, and all things that i should have always known and done better from the start.

so i've spent a year and almost-a-half working on it all: more support keeping the house, including dishes, laundry, trash-taking-out, bed-making, preparing her a cup for tea in the morning. more time spent with the kids, from coaching to homework assistance to ball games to concerts and everything else i could think of. steady efforts to communicate my emotions and my feelings, from the "family of origin" stuff right up to the present. more communication, including emails and handwritten notes and offers to talk and listen without letting anything else from work or anywhere else get in the way. and i can't give myself perfect marks, or even good ones necessarily, but fair ones and a vast improvement. down payment on somebody, somewhere, helping me out to continue to be a better husband and father.

but the result is always the same.

-silent boom-

kindness is perceived as a feint. any sort of politeness or charm as a deceit. all my best efforts as a lie. there is, as they say, no apparent right answer.

the shrink says i don't get it. he's right. i don't get it.

in a moment of frustration some months ago i told my wife that i had no other measure for my progress than my own perception of what any other person might think of how i was doing. yes, i didn't shy away from gender, and if i could take it back i would. but the truth remains that anyone else i've ever known would have been extremely satisfied with me and the hard work i was doing to be earl's better person. so how do i reconcile that with the child screaming in my head that SHE DOESN'T LOVE ME???

the shrink says she does. a year's worth of work and he still is the only one (her included) who thinks so.

methinks the profit motive is strong with this one...

or something, because the bomb that just went off again today is the same intensity as the first, only this time augmented by the cold expanse of loneliness that's increasingly crept between us since we decided together to try to work this out. she wants separate futures, she says, and there is nothing i can do to make her cell phone produce her live voice. all i get is leave a message.

the message is:

please

advice redux

infidelity is an intriguing topic for conversation, if only to wonder how infrequently it's discussed honestly among close friends. think about it: "oh, i tell my closest friend everything" must not always be the god's honest truth, and i'd wonder that any person married of sufficient duration who has contemplated infidelity (what are the chances of THAT?) must know it. oh, sure, a lot of folks talk a lot about the subject in abstraction, and many even toss off test balloons and (partially) comedic references to movie stars and hot folks down at the such-and-where, but how often do you think ANYONE gets down, dirty and personal about their compulsions to be a lying, cheating, whoring traitor to their marriage? (for you single people or those gay in states restricting such union, please substitute the p.c. term "relationship"). Or do i just project from my own flawed viewpoint?

all this being neither here nor there, one of the entertaining side advantages of being an acknowledged lying, cheating, whoring traitor to my marriage is that other would-be liars, cheats and whoring traitors are emboldened to test the waters with surprising bids of candor on the subject. (who knew?) in those cases, i'm generally at a loss to know what to advise, and I think it's because I'm still at a loss to resolve the extent to which i believe my own infidelity was wrong. which is not to say i don't believe it to have been all wrong, as in, completely wrong, (and let me tell you all the extenuating reasons why bad decisions can happen to good people), but there's a further option, as my wife and the $140 man would prefer i contemplate it, that is cataclysmically wrong without any chance at rehabilitation, parole or stay of capital sentence, and i'm still on the fence about that. yup, the trauma to my marriage is catastrophic and that cannot be anything but tragically and profoundly wrong, yet, still, i'm unable to resist seeing the similar choices available to others in more than just that aforementioned black and black. (just look at my temples, and call me mr. grey). and if i see it that way about someone else, there's a good chance that it's my inner reptile seeing it that way about me, too.

anyway, one of those surprise confidants hinted post-facto the other day about one particular "appointment", and it was easy to feel they were treading on the verge of a life's mistake, though perhaps not for the reason they felt guilty, or you might guess. my complex moral compass (ironically with its black and white settings) hears the contradiction in thought (wanting to vs. loathing to) and wants to point toward a clear-eyed embrace of sexual self for sexual self's sake, (i.e. enjoying enjoying and being enjoyed), as if such a thing is easy like rolling out of bed in the morning. we're not intended to be ascetic, after all, and dr. gallup's research into the anti-depressant qualities of semen trans-vaginally upon women aren't so out of the blue as to be completely crackpot, and i do believe the other stuff related to ejaculation and prostrate health sounds reasonable too. but then my even-more-complex experience recognizes the choice like you'd recognize the kid who used to steal your lunch money in elementary school, and it wants to grab those folks by the arm and stop them before they step off the curb in front of the oncoming karma bus.

how's that for no help at all?

the obvious suggestion is to collect among the list of "socially acceptable" revolts, from biking to canasta, and leave the dangers and dependence for health & sanity upon your primary relationship at home if you can. it's not sexually satisfying, nor does it carry a complete set of the possible anti-depressant hormonal effects, but at least it provides a firmer foundation upon which to consider the other choices.

i often wonder, if i'd done those/these things for myself first, the biking and all, if i'd have chosen the same path. it's more than tempting to surmise i wouldn't have. in any case, the increased self-awareness would have enabled me to savor all my experiences more intently, and have a clearer idea today about what i wanted, and what i want.

very easy to know what we don't.

advice

can't recall how much i went into the new bike subject here (i don't believe very far) but i'm too lazy this morning to go back and look how much, so a short synopsis so we're all up to date:

though i'm still dreaming of a new motorized midlife ride, (one acquaintance cheerfully described it as my "penis car", and i'm still chuckling), my birthday indulgence to myself was an irresponsibly expensive road bike on which to get away from and/or buff my declining years. one of the questions in the showroom, once the guy figured he'd caught a live one, was about toe clips. (i'll take two). wanna know how lance (lance-the-douche, nodding to another of my favorite comediennes) did it all those years? toe clips. you see, toe clips, as i've found from first hand experience, allow you to both pull UP on the pedal as well as push down, and that yields significant additional power, as well as uses a whole new set of otherwise-uninvolved muscles to increase stamina and performance (which i know because they complained to me after their first ride), and the whole combination does wonders for your forward motility.

so here's the pearl dropped before i put my little piggies into the special clip-ready shoes:

"remember to always twist your feet out of the clips IMMEDIATELY if there's any chance of you slowing down near, or to, the point of stopping".

so can you guess what happened yesterday?

:-)

i was even playful enough to ask the guy dispensing the wisdom if he was implying that everyone who gets the toe clips ends up knee-and-elbow-down on the pavement. no sense of humor, i guess, because he tried instead to be nice by saying "oh, no, not everyone". (c'mon, fella, who you kiddin???)

i was trying to install the little computer thingy that'll tell me how far and how fast, (you know it had to come with a rationalization, right?), and i was hopping on and off the bike sans helmet or gloves for each iteration of the (unsuccessful, but that's another story) tests. as i took the turn up the street to come back to the tools in the driveway, i kept thinking to myself, "gee, maybe i ought to unclip before i do the slow-speed, high-angle turn..."

naahhhhh....

there's a wonderful moment of clarity while catastrophe is in the process of striking, and it's remarkable how long a moment can be, while your balance slowly tips, and you become aware that your instinct to move your leg to arrest your impending topple is being thwarted by a strange sensation of physical inhibition... and the words come back to you, as you go down...

"remember to always twist your feet out of the clips if there's any chance of you slowing down near, or to, the point of stopping"

i think i got it now. :-))

but i won't take any wagers that it won't happen again, cuz you know it will.

wanna see the scrapes? they're doozies. 47 and pavement don't mix as well as they might.

i'll write

genuflections to rob shapiro:

i suppose it's a little bit of both
the shelves inform me i pretend to have read stuff
the books and titles are familiar enough
just read 'em stoned when i had too many hours alone

she wears the coat to match the cold
cold
i'll write

it's now an hour past whenever it was
i can't converse or make an interesting sentence
it's where you from how long and what do you do
as if they're thrilled to say now oh about seven years

she wears the coat to match the cold
cold
i'll write

the cars are honking for the light to change
she says the subject to the ground, rolls her eye
so do you mind and she says yes that she does
i wish i'd thought of something cool but nothing came to mind

wearing the coat to match the cold
cold
i'll write
i'll write

"can't sell your work? then cut off your ear"

graham parker is one of my all-time faves. i've heard some take him at face value, imagining him giving vincent a hard ride about artistic mercenary-dom, but i know who he's talking about when he slurs it. "inside of everyone someone lurks / they don't even know".

i guess one of the side benefits of blowing your whole life off its track is getting to know the lurker(s). (wouldn't want to presume we're not all outnumbered). my measurement for myself, conditioned, i'm sure, from generations of calvinist familial oppression, is how the ends are still made to meet, even while profoundly at loose ones in every other aspect of life. there's a bizarre cruelty inside me, denying anything faux preceding it, that's disgusted i could have been so enamored of someone or something that couldn't (and still can't, which i know because my obsessive, vindictive and newly-perpetually-cruel partner/adversary always keeps both tabs and me up to date) manage the basics, even down to in-the-first-place keeping a job. oh, yeah, i've been fired myself, more than a few times a long time ago, but it's slowly grown inside me like a cancer that capable is as capable does, and if i were to boil down all the reasons i'm with the one i'm with, it's because she is.

so here's where we ponder the imponderable, whether lust and satisfaction can count more than an entire genome's single objective, but, if my instinctive choices are the indicator, rather than the dull ache of limbo, then we know where my inner reptile throws his political campaign contributions. i'm the ultimate hard-marker. blooms off roses fade, and i myself would cut them down if they couldn't manage the winter, rather than waste my own industry constructing the hothouse in which they could otherwise thrive.

which it then occurs to me, it's all about the hothouse, isn't it... i'm easiest accepting of harboring something (someone) that doesn't ultimately need it, but i'm learning that even that sort of unneedful hospitality burns at me when i perceive a ride is being taken free, and an advantage exploited. the worst sort of man, i suppose... one compulsively incapable of being one to anyone who would need it...

but, you know, i don't believe that about myself either. i'm just picky and prickly and flawed like all the rest. i'm locked in a battle for survival with someone to whom i'd give it all, if only she'd learn to act like she needed it, simply because i know, in the end, she doesn't. and she's past forgiveness on a debt that can never be paid, and to be reviled now as i am is bitter medicine.

ok, hieronymus, tell us what delights there are, right outside this window or inside this room...

i want to be a writer

LIFO, or, last-in-first-out, is the currency of the blog world. you get to read this one first (probably) though i got to write it after the last one, whining about people who can't write like shit calling themselves something they're not. and you know why that pisses me off, of course. but read the one below if you want the background.

i want to be a writer.

sis said something about it in morocco, that to be one, you have to go to work every day. to the desk. to the task. and it all made sense to me.

so i want to tell you what i mean by the word. writer.

you know folks who tack two-by-fours to other two-by-fours, no matter how roughly or unevenly, and though most commonly known as being "in construction", are, in point of fact, "carpenters". and though there's a world of difference between the guy who got $20 an hour framing the place i now call home, and the guy who built the exquisitely simple and perfect chair upon which i eat my breakfast cereal (that is worth about a week of the other guy's time in dollars, though likely years in terms of quality of output), they're both earned of the title. the first, only because the place stays up. the second, because, well, just look at that chair...

what i'd like to suggest is that people who can't raise walls that don't fall down, and people who can't write things that don't induce nausea, don't deserve to call themselves, respectively, carpenters and writers. so we shouldn't mistake them for real ones, even though they may.

though i know i won't be constructing any written equivalents of the shaker chair, i do aspire that the walls i pen will be able to stay up of their own accord. i'd like to be a writer.

you can vomit now. ;-)

"i'm a writer"

whoever invented "LOL" was a pretty funny guy or gal.

one of the odd aspects of my current situation is that, often, my closest conversations are electronic ones with people who really aren't very close to me. it's a long story how i came by this particular one, but the "i'm a writer" topic came up, (not about me, of course, you know i'm just a software geek, but, worse, it's writing POETRY, and you can cue the spitting sound effect if you'd like to hear what it sounds like here while i'm mouthing the words i'm writing), and all hope and expectation that came along with hearing the possibility went sailing right out the window upon sight of the first stanza.

oh, it's bad. numbingly bad.

but the author, all flushed and proud like a parent, doesn't talk about it that way. (and it's not just the self-involved author, you should read the book jacket--i think it's from the example given in the dictionary for "emetic"). the phrasing is generally things like "oh, i know you're impressed with how easy this all looks, but i've been at it for 30 years and i'm really very good"...

???

um... can i have irony for 200, alex?

i know some amazing (to me, at least, even if not the bestseller lists) writers. i know one, so good (good as in write the phonebook and it'd become a bestseller good), that i can't even write business correspondence for hours after reading her shortest note because it humbles me too much to realize the difference. (she once complimented a sentence i wrote--something like, "dude, that's a great sentence", and i'll never forget how it made me feel). anyway, among this small circle of first-hand experiences, i've at least grown in confidence to be able to call bullshit on bullshit, and, oh my, here we have some world-class bullshit. published to prove it, i might add.

so how does one respond to this? i'm embarrassed to say i had projected a small bit of interest onto our prior correspondence, and invested a good deal of myself in the exchange. (yeah, i know). and then... ooomph. like the medicine ball hitting your stomach before you were ready, i'm at a loss for air, let alone words, and i want to find some gracious way of extricating myself from the implied obligation. trust me, if i can't, the eventual results are hardly going to be prettier than "oh, i think i hear my mother calling".

when has anyone who has ever known me in person not cringed when they realized it was inevitable i was going to say SOMETHING?

i don't think i do poetry. yeah, they tried to impugn ogden nash and carl sandberg and even edgar allen poe with the epithet, but i think, having seen the rest of the ouvre, they're clearly having trouble with cognitive consistency if they think any of this other drivel is of the same essence. better yet, read some of rob shapiro's lyrics and then tell me that some falderal about "sweet breasts" ought to be allowed to even stain paper. it's a crime against humanity what i just read, it is, and you don't get to say things like "i'm a writer" when you're not, even if you've been paid under such auspices.

sam johnson once cracked that "sir, your wife, under pretense of keeping a bawdy house, is a receiver of stolen goods", and there's got to be a way to paraphrase it to describe what goes on in the publishing world to resemble its opposite. "sir, your reader, under pretense of buying some literature, is a receiver of stolen goods", or something like that. if i could write, it would make sense.

maybe i'll call my friend who writes best-selling phone books and have her fix it for you.

WWWD

i have to laugh tonight. announced the impending firing of the shaman, (accent on the first syllable, rhymes with "sham"), and besides the expected fulmination of grief, (and accusations that she knows i just want to go to a woman so i can charm her into avoiding the tough stuff), the next thing i know there's a note on my chair in the morning saying thank you for stuff that's gone unthanked for over a year now. like only when i state the obvious, that this guru guy's shit ain't working with her, she's compelled to actually take the first baby step of doing some of the work that SHE has to do. up til now, it was all me and my shit that she imagined cursed her world. and be damned to lift one little finger to help. but now, paycheck and parenting partner waving in the doorway, and all of a sudden it's "don't go just yet". oh, she still abhors me and everything about me (what i've done hardly even has a chance to come up these days with how much i'm fundamentally flawed as a human being in the first place) but there's something about not being needed that seems to terrify everyone, including her.

nope, it's still over now, (nods to rob shapiro about the best "over now" lyric ever written: jesus loves you / at least you assume that's true / but he died 2000 years before / he got a chance to live with you), but it's going into a strange new phase where my acceptance of my own unforgivability compels her to argue against it. nope, she hasn't changed her opinion one iota, (she's never personally aware of her opinion, but i can see it clear as day), but she's going to make every point about my being wrong about everything, even to the point of arguing about my being unforgivable, so there you have it. (i am, i get it now, and, in fact, i've gotten that pretty much from the start). unforgivable.

but resign yourself to it, buy a ridiculously expensive new bike and ride it every day, and make matter-of-fact suggestions of the types of car that you plan to buy for yourself, and all of a sudden it's conversational around the den again. she even thinks i bought the dylan/costello concert tickets as a peace offering slash date. is it so opaque that i'm bringing her just because i don't care to endure the shit i'd have to take if i didn't? i'm just going to see elvis, ya know? the fact she might be sitting next to me is immaterial to that. (though i will admit it would be more enjoyable without someone who will complain about the volume and whine to go home before the encore). but, hey, if it helps ease things around the house, sure, it's a peace offering slash date. just mark your notebooks now that there won't be anyone leaving before the encore unless we're going in separate cars.

wally wouldn't ride a bike, yes i know, but wally wouldn't give a rat's ass about the anxiety-attacked, prescription-addled decompensation factory in his face giving him incessant grief when it comes to the simple necessities of life. the morning paper. a bathroom stall in which to read it. (ok, that's wally's dream, but if it's good enough for him who am i to say it's not). i know i have to start thinking more about what wally would do. i love wally. and, bizarre as it is, what he does works.

i've got the thank-you note this morning to prove it.