Today I jogged outside for the first time in ten years or more. Although the goal I set was modest I didn’t make it. Early on I thought I was going to have a heart attack. You know when you're driving in your car and you see somebody trying to convince themselves they're running but really they're walking in a stupid way. Today that was me. For about an hour after I kept thinking I was going to pass out. All day since I've felt more grounded than I have in 5 months.
This afternoon N. and I went grocery shopping together. We just needed parsley, strawberries, and milk. You know when you're shopping and some idiot keeps getting in your way trying to have fun with his kid? Today that was me.
Right around mall closing time I went to get my hair cut. The woman who cut my hair had a lot on her mind. She said Jesus conquered death and defeated Satan and no other God had done that. She said his name was on every tongue. She said recent events told her that the end times were close. She said earthquakes and storms and even the President in power now read like signs and wonders straight from Revelations. She got in my face and peered into my eyes to see whether I saw her point. She said these were signs but more were yet to come, that they were birth signs of a new world.
You know sometimes it does feel like the end of the world and you could almost agree with a person who spoke to you in such a manner? Today that person wasn't me. This world doesn't get to end on my kid. I gently made my case against her vision and we left it as friends who disagreed but in respect. The haircut's pretty good.
3.21.2010
3.20.2010
floor plan
The storm that blew winter away was so fierce, it seemed like the trees had grown tired of being surrounded by suburban blight and one by one would take their shouting splintering revenge. Five feet of rain in a weekend. We added a couple hundred pounds of salt and made our basement into a giant aquarium. Now we have an octopus and a Portuguese man-of-war and some Atlantic blues. We have jellyfish and a skate and a depressive tuna. We have diving suits in his and hers and toddler sizes. We have a coral reef and even sunken treasure, a piggy bank split open along the floor bed, nickles pennies and quarters awaiting the intrepid diver. I hope we've properly sealed the drainage. In the morning the baby whale surfaces near the top of the basement stairs and gives us a good morning spout.
We've knocked out the walls of the ground level of our house and turned it into an indoor soccer field. Our young son is Ronaldinho or Diego Maradona or better yet Zidane, running up and down the field with the ball in his hands. He's impossible to catch. He runs laughing from one goal to another. He does not yet know how to throw with any accuracy so to score he runs and touches the ball to the back of the net. At halftime he sits for supper. He scores constantly, recording shut-outs by margins of 150 or more. He is much coveted by Boca and River Plate. There is the potential he could play for both. The ball is an expanding world that he runs with, laughing, held tight, almost off balance. Goal! Goal! Goal! (goal, goal, goal, goal).
Upstairs we brush our teeth and go to sleep in single file. And dream, he of a bowl of butter three feet wide and five feet deep, eaten fastidiously with a large plastic spoon. We of multiple disasters that we dream, so as to avoid living them.
We've knocked out the walls of the ground level of our house and turned it into an indoor soccer field. Our young son is Ronaldinho or Diego Maradona or better yet Zidane, running up and down the field with the ball in his hands. He's impossible to catch. He runs laughing from one goal to another. He does not yet know how to throw with any accuracy so to score he runs and touches the ball to the back of the net. At halftime he sits for supper. He scores constantly, recording shut-outs by margins of 150 or more. He is much coveted by Boca and River Plate. There is the potential he could play for both. The ball is an expanding world that he runs with, laughing, held tight, almost off balance. Goal! Goal! Goal! (goal, goal, goal, goal).
Upstairs we brush our teeth and go to sleep in single file. And dream, he of a bowl of butter three feet wide and five feet deep, eaten fastidiously with a large plastic spoon. We of multiple disasters that we dream, so as to avoid living them.
3.16.2010
crystal crucifix
A crystal crucifix with diamonds for rosary beads that play in the light finger by meditative finger. She tried to go to church this morning but it was like God didn't want people around today the trees had been ripped out of the ground taking the sidewalk with them to form a natural barrier blocking both doors the priest didn't know what to do at all. Like God had decided her house wasn't fit for company today, the sidewalk ripped of its moorings and transmogrified into a crooked staircase of roots and straggler worms and unknowable divine intention.
A crystal crucifix with diamonds for beads that play in the light prayer by prayer and could you hold this world together on the strength of your wish that it be so with your wish that nothing fade or fall away.
She tries to get to church best she can but doesn't make it and seeks no alternative (thus a sin) by alternative she thinks they could have gone in I guess through the windows but the priest was sitting on the ground paunchy in his inconsolable cassock, soiled and sorry with his nose kind of red in a tacit and spontaneous confession of how he'd held his own life together draught by draught up to this point. Those veteran trees still standing shudder together and in the smell of rain she senses or feels predetermined a collective flash or vision of the end of the world on those renewed drops the rippling back echo of the explosion thus ending all and no on and no forth.
Which is why help me Jesus/Mary she holds in her hands a crystal crucifix to bind the world together prayer by prayer. People killed in stupid fashion each day on their way to church by earthquakes or in head-on collisions or by random bullets hearts give out etc, when that happens do you note that they died fulfilling their chosen purpose or in the cheap and non-helpful irony that that supposed protector never had their backs in any fashion.
A crystal crucifix, prayer by the glinting of the light as a form maybe even of time travel to protect the ones she's lost. Maybe it's just the prayers of people that help other people she thought, maybe it's the prayers of people that bind our intentions and hearts to wish each other well and in collective wishing could there be some binding glue to hold the world together such that nothing fade or fall away.
She doesn't recall how it came into her possession only that when she prays in a rhythm when she is in the rhythm of her prayer she can feel those around her safe in a kind of holy halo. It is the days where distracted or otherwise preoccupied she neglects to pray or God forbid to give these prayers her true intentions that unforeseen misfortune befalls her friends or family or at least those sad people in today's paper now missing one or more of their number through unforeseeable calamity.
Out at the edge of town she's driving crystal crucifix in her fingers gone to wrinkle the beadstrings strung partial curved like a wilted infinity across the driving wheel. The light no longer feels to show her or save her the light is a dim threat of extinction dim fear of last moments and wasted lives a revealing of last days kind of brought too soon. Lately she doesn't believe in God or care much for her if she does exist she thinks and goes on These prayers of mine are prayers to link only with those of other people, prayers to make a net for each other's prayers and for those who don't pray too to be caught in on the way down. And the cross is where our bodies touched in love or compassion and the beads are justice lost and held together point by point and though we pray to no one or no one who cares we pray together.
She isn't sure even who she prays for today or who for her out at the edge of town driving with the crystal crucifix dangling down almost to her knee beneath the wheel. Is it going to rain or is the light to break through out at the edge of the dark clouds. Let this darkness take my sight, she thinks, let this full stop come and find me where I huddle under whatever debris praying bead by bead with everyone I've loved held together in my memory. If you mean for this to end then honey you do your worst.
She wonders what will be on TV this afternoon, light just starting to break through clouds being pulled apart tuft by tuft by the brutal wind, what she'll put on for dinner.
A crystal crucifix with diamonds for beads that play in the light prayer by prayer and could you hold this world together on the strength of your wish that it be so with your wish that nothing fade or fall away.
She tries to get to church best she can but doesn't make it and seeks no alternative (thus a sin) by alternative she thinks they could have gone in I guess through the windows but the priest was sitting on the ground paunchy in his inconsolable cassock, soiled and sorry with his nose kind of red in a tacit and spontaneous confession of how he'd held his own life together draught by draught up to this point. Those veteran trees still standing shudder together and in the smell of rain she senses or feels predetermined a collective flash or vision of the end of the world on those renewed drops the rippling back echo of the explosion thus ending all and no on and no forth.
Which is why help me Jesus/Mary she holds in her hands a crystal crucifix to bind the world together prayer by prayer. People killed in stupid fashion each day on their way to church by earthquakes or in head-on collisions or by random bullets hearts give out etc, when that happens do you note that they died fulfilling their chosen purpose or in the cheap and non-helpful irony that that supposed protector never had their backs in any fashion.
A crystal crucifix, prayer by the glinting of the light as a form maybe even of time travel to protect the ones she's lost. Maybe it's just the prayers of people that help other people she thought, maybe it's the prayers of people that bind our intentions and hearts to wish each other well and in collective wishing could there be some binding glue to hold the world together such that nothing fade or fall away.
She doesn't recall how it came into her possession only that when she prays in a rhythm when she is in the rhythm of her prayer she can feel those around her safe in a kind of holy halo. It is the days where distracted or otherwise preoccupied she neglects to pray or God forbid to give these prayers her true intentions that unforeseen misfortune befalls her friends or family or at least those sad people in today's paper now missing one or more of their number through unforeseeable calamity.
Out at the edge of town she's driving crystal crucifix in her fingers gone to wrinkle the beadstrings strung partial curved like a wilted infinity across the driving wheel. The light no longer feels to show her or save her the light is a dim threat of extinction dim fear of last moments and wasted lives a revealing of last days kind of brought too soon. Lately she doesn't believe in God or care much for her if she does exist she thinks and goes on These prayers of mine are prayers to link only with those of other people, prayers to make a net for each other's prayers and for those who don't pray too to be caught in on the way down. And the cross is where our bodies touched in love or compassion and the beads are justice lost and held together point by point and though we pray to no one or no one who cares we pray together.
She isn't sure even who she prays for today or who for her out at the edge of town driving with the crystal crucifix dangling down almost to her knee beneath the wheel. Is it going to rain or is the light to break through out at the edge of the dark clouds. Let this darkness take my sight, she thinks, let this full stop come and find me where I huddle under whatever debris praying bead by bead with everyone I've loved held together in my memory. If you mean for this to end then honey you do your worst.
She wonders what will be on TV this afternoon, light just starting to break through clouds being pulled apart tuft by tuft by the brutal wind, what she'll put on for dinner.
3.15.2010
spirit vs. mechanics
I've been trying to teach myself to read Spanish. I'm doing about 5 pages a week. The best help has been from my friend Meddie, who speaks Spanish from birth and who taught herself English when she moved here by reading the paper. I think she feels sorry for me because I'm trying to learn her native language by reading its obscure literature.
The last couple days when I've gotten stuck on the odd sentence, phrase, or full page she's helped me to unpack it. In that, she's showing me how to read for figurative meaning, how to find the the author's spirit and humor behind the narrator's voice.
These human elements and the psychological analysis underlying them are why I'm reading this particular book. But I get so caught up in the mechanics of grammar that if I am to glean deeper meaning it can only be by getting familiar enough with the mechanics to have them become a subconscious process, to free up brain space for interpretation. Or by getting a friend to help.
Sketch of world view: difference is static, commonality the signal. That what we can't understand about each other shouldn't matter in the least.
The last couple days when I've gotten stuck on the odd sentence, phrase, or full page she's helped me to unpack it. In that, she's showing me how to read for figurative meaning, how to find the the author's spirit and humor behind the narrator's voice.
These human elements and the psychological analysis underlying them are why I'm reading this particular book. But I get so caught up in the mechanics of grammar that if I am to glean deeper meaning it can only be by getting familiar enough with the mechanics to have them become a subconscious process, to free up brain space for interpretation. Or by getting a friend to help.
Sketch of world view: difference is static, commonality the signal. That what we can't understand about each other shouldn't matter in the least.
3.14.2010
year and a day
Drunk, blogging while driving. Also reading a book (The Elements of Style) and trying to program my car stereo to spring forward. What I drank was a cocktail sequence I like to call Noah's Ark. What I've discovered is that I can drive with my dick using only scotch tape and a jelly bracelet. Follow my updates on Twitter.
Pee break. Question posed to Burger King rest stop cashier do you love me answer unclear/possible no. Question posed to Starbucks rest stop cashier answer also unclear/possible no. To Exit 7A toll collector answer unclear/possible no, shocked look at steering column.
Question posed to self answer definite no. Twitter grows tiresome. Burning sensation from steering. Revert to by hand. Persistence of burning sensation. Question of three or nine southbound lanes. Re-engagement with Twitter. The important thing about blogging is that you have to keep doing it, you just have to write whether you want to or not. Press on. Re-imagine childhood as lovable kangaroo raised by human family. As baby bear raised by human family. As cuddly alien etc. Re-imagine childhood orphaned at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, etc. Re-imagine childhood as slightly overlong setup to the greatest porno ever made as selected by a panel of 4 feminists and 4 male lizards. Re-imagine childhood as king cobra raised by human family, as swarm of bees etc.
Perfection of steering design (improved knot, sustainable misuse of ED meds). Travel thermos full of 100 Pipers whiskey. Driving for Deepwater, for Carney's Point. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory etc. A twip is a tweet one word in length. A twero is a tweet with no words. Partial loss of vision. Review of past Connect Four losses. No one strategy to win them all. Chirping. Vomiting. Pull car to side of road for purposes of mixing.
Pee break. Question posed to Burger King rest stop cashier do you love me answer unclear/possible no. Question posed to Starbucks rest stop cashier answer also unclear/possible no. To Exit 7A toll collector answer unclear/possible no, shocked look at steering column.
Question posed to self answer definite no. Twitter grows tiresome. Burning sensation from steering. Revert to by hand. Persistence of burning sensation. Question of three or nine southbound lanes. Re-engagement with Twitter. The important thing about blogging is that you have to keep doing it, you just have to write whether you want to or not. Press on. Re-imagine childhood as lovable kangaroo raised by human family. As baby bear raised by human family. As cuddly alien etc. Re-imagine childhood orphaned at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, etc. Re-imagine childhood as slightly overlong setup to the greatest porno ever made as selected by a panel of 4 feminists and 4 male lizards. Re-imagine childhood as king cobra raised by human family, as swarm of bees etc.
Perfection of steering design (improved knot, sustainable misuse of ED meds). Travel thermos full of 100 Pipers whiskey. Driving for Deepwater, for Carney's Point. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory etc. A twip is a tweet one word in length. A twero is a tweet with no words. Partial loss of vision. Review of past Connect Four losses. No one strategy to win them all. Chirping. Vomiting. Pull car to side of road for purposes of mixing.
3.13.2010
year
It's been one year since I had a drink. My plan was to reach this goal and see how I felt. In that time I've realized that I was over-reliant on alcohol, that it was keeping me in a narrow place, and that to go back now would be a mistake.
A lot of people I know can pull off drinking fine, I would just say that if you have a nagging voice in the back of your head on the subject, it might help to listen to it.
The physical act of not drinking has gotten almost easy. What's remained challenging most days is that I was using drink to medicate pain that I didn't understand or know the name or extent of. This next year I want to make progress in making that pain stop.
Lest I seem to have grown overly sincere sans sauce, the fucked thing about Captain Morgan is that he's an android whose whole program is to robofuck your significant other into submission. Next thing you know he's living on your couch and having his mechanized share of your sweetheart the second you leave for work and every day you have to all make small talk and shit, try to be his friend, let him borrow your clothes, etc. Stay in school, champ.
A lot of people I know can pull off drinking fine, I would just say that if you have a nagging voice in the back of your head on the subject, it might help to listen to it.
The physical act of not drinking has gotten almost easy. What's remained challenging most days is that I was using drink to medicate pain that I didn't understand or know the name or extent of. This next year I want to make progress in making that pain stop.
Lest I seem to have grown overly sincere sans sauce, the fucked thing about Captain Morgan is that he's an android whose whole program is to robofuck your significant other into submission. Next thing you know he's living on your couch and having his mechanized share of your sweetheart the second you leave for work and every day you have to all make small talk and shit, try to be his friend, let him borrow your clothes, etc. Stay in school, champ.
3.09.2010
Gain as Much as You Fucking Can
Foil to"The Biggest Loser." Sponsorship opportunities for Cinnabon, Playstation, whiskey, the music of Cheer Accident. Each time somebody busts out of a pair of pants they get 20 bucks, a subway token and a week's supply of Cinnabon. Each week the one who gained least gets kicked off and is made to chug a ceremonial Slim-Fast while the other Gainers sing "The End" and gently pelt her or him with mushed-up Cinnabon.
Viewer interest segments where Gainers name the emotions/back stories/failures that are actively being buried deep inside and how good it feels not to have to deal with that terrifying shit directly. Working at one's normal job is allowed as long as it's mindless and at a desk. Masturbation is allowed without limit. Cinnabon: allowed.
What's your secret?
"I got so much ice cream on my shirt I couldn't tell what color it really was"
"Wish I could stop shitting, that the design of the human body might be improved"
"Chocolate bars dipped in tubs of mayonnaise then chugged the mayonnaise"
"Cinnabon in sandwich of deep-fried cookie batter"
"Yoga to teach my body to stop shitting"
"Feel Mars want feel Jupiter"
"Tiny arms, tiny arms"
"Liquified Nutella IV drip"
"Munch, munch"
Days before setting both gain-per-week and total-gain record Gainer #25 dies. Per custom the other gainers descend to eat the remains.
Culinary Eulogies
"Redolent of Cinnabon"
"Redolent of partially-digested Nutella drip"
"Redolent of non-shitting"
"Redolent of... Diet Dr. Pepper?"
Each their rituals, each their mysteries. Love story of Gainer #3 and Gainer #57, their shared love of self-love in a Cinnabon haze. How Jesus and in particular the Last Supper inspires Gainer #18 (who sees each meal as her last supper), how the presidency of Taft inspires Gainer #50 (who sees each year as his lame duck year). Whimsical accordion fanfare. Sprinting 18-member jug band enters and exits. Now amid a circus of color and light and cheese doodles a whisper-thin man with a washtub bass strides on to belt out:
The Gain as Much as You Fucking Can Theme Song
This land is your land, this land is my land
To gain as much as, you fucking ca-an
Oh Cinnabon is, your only friend
Gain as much as you fucking can
When I went walking, through the food court
I almost died on the cold mall floor
Thanks be to Cinnabon, my heart kept beating
Gain as much as you fucking can
This land is your land, this land is my land
From Ponderosa, to that amazing crab place on Shelter Island
Oh Cinnabon is, your only friend
Gain as much as you fucking can
(etc)
Season II Finale
Enterprising Gainers #15 and #17 create a compound of Nutella and Cinnabon in liquid form that they vow to guzzle and receive via IV drip. If they survive one will win it all. Work shots: getting it done. Rapid meal preparation and unwrapping of ready-to-eats, munching. Vigorous self love of Gainers #11, #17, #22, #24, #28. Back story of Gainer #11: Parental abuse, inanity of spouse, children, job, one remaining friend. Tug of war between Gainers #15 and #17 over last carton of Cinnabon. Inspiring dark horse victory by Gainer #11 who clubs both Gainer #15 and #17 and spends the last quarter of the episode feasting on their remains. "Redolent of victory."
Viewer interest segments where Gainers name the emotions/back stories/failures that are actively being buried deep inside and how good it feels not to have to deal with that terrifying shit directly. Working at one's normal job is allowed as long as it's mindless and at a desk. Masturbation is allowed without limit. Cinnabon: allowed.
What's your secret?
"I got so much ice cream on my shirt I couldn't tell what color it really was"
"Wish I could stop shitting, that the design of the human body might be improved"
"Chocolate bars dipped in tubs of mayonnaise then chugged the mayonnaise"
"Cinnabon in sandwich of deep-fried cookie batter"
"Yoga to teach my body to stop shitting"
"Feel Mars want feel Jupiter"
"Tiny arms, tiny arms"
"Liquified Nutella IV drip"
"Munch, munch"
Days before setting both gain-per-week and total-gain record Gainer #25 dies. Per custom the other gainers descend to eat the remains.
Culinary Eulogies
"Redolent of Cinnabon"
"Redolent of partially-digested Nutella drip"
"Redolent of non-shitting"
"Redolent of... Diet Dr. Pepper?"
Each their rituals, each their mysteries. Love story of Gainer #3 and Gainer #57, their shared love of self-love in a Cinnabon haze. How Jesus and in particular the Last Supper inspires Gainer #18 (who sees each meal as her last supper), how the presidency of Taft inspires Gainer #50 (who sees each year as his lame duck year). Whimsical accordion fanfare. Sprinting 18-member jug band enters and exits. Now amid a circus of color and light and cheese doodles a whisper-thin man with a washtub bass strides on to belt out:
The Gain as Much as You Fucking Can Theme Song
This land is your land, this land is my land
To gain as much as, you fucking ca-an
Oh Cinnabon is, your only friend
Gain as much as you fucking can
When I went walking, through the food court
I almost died on the cold mall floor
Thanks be to Cinnabon, my heart kept beating
Gain as much as you fucking can
This land is your land, this land is my land
From Ponderosa, to that amazing crab place on Shelter Island
Oh Cinnabon is, your only friend
Gain as much as you fucking can
(etc)
Season II Finale
Enterprising Gainers #15 and #17 create a compound of Nutella and Cinnabon in liquid form that they vow to guzzle and receive via IV drip. If they survive one will win it all. Work shots: getting it done. Rapid meal preparation and unwrapping of ready-to-eats, munching. Vigorous self love of Gainers #11, #17, #22, #24, #28. Back story of Gainer #11: Parental abuse, inanity of spouse, children, job, one remaining friend. Tug of war between Gainers #15 and #17 over last carton of Cinnabon. Inspiring dark horse victory by Gainer #11 who clubs both Gainer #15 and #17 and spends the last quarter of the episode feasting on their remains. "Redolent of victory."
3.08.2010
The Snowy Day (rated R)
Adapted from the Caldecott Medal-winning classic, "The Snowy Day" recounts the adventures of Peter (Jamie Foxx), an African-American child living in the city on a very snowy day. Through his eyes, we see just how grand a day it is, and also, the dangers that can lurk beneath the snow.
There are mountains of snow, and lots of things to do in it (once he is properly bundled, of course.) Peter makes a snowman, snow angels, and myriad footprints; he finds the perfect stick. And he climbs a mysterious mountain of snow. Appropriate for small children through second grade, the first 15 minutes of the film present an environment transformed and cloaked in joyous and innocent mystery. Up until this point, "The Snowy Day" remains a relatively straightforward adaption of its source.
Atop Snow Mountain, Peter encounters The Snow Magician (Danny Devito, acting for his life). A slinking chord sequence brings our idyll into fraughter territory, drawing the viewer into an intricate and ceaseless dance of tension and suspense.
To prevent him from disclosing a shocking incident witnessed in the fog of Snow Mountain-- an incident best left undescribed here -- the Snow Magician grants Peter a magic talking snowball (Javier Bardem) that will kill any child that it strikes, and which confidently forecasts doom to its victims in elegant Spanish. When later that day Peter is caught in the crossfire of a fierce snowball fight, he senses that his own life may be in danger, and he is forced to use the magic snowball.
When Peter takes the snowball home to his apartment, a tense standoff ensues with his mother (a moribund Sarah Jessica Parker), and Peter is forced to use the ball again.
Peter puts the snowball in his pocket and goes to sleep. While he sleeps, the snowball sneaks out of the apartment and bludgeons his downstairs neighbor to death. After dreaming of a YMCA pool filled with skulls, Peter awakens, guilt-stricken, and is relieved to find the snowball no longer in his pocket.
Unfortunately, he finds the magic snowball sitting at the breakfast table, eating a bowl of Shredded Wheat with almond milk. Thinking to shatter the ball with the stick he'd found the previous day, he reaches for it and shudders to discover that it has transformed into a snake. The stick-snake barks at him, hissing that "the ssssnow never endssss" and to "join ussss Peter." Shaking with anger, the ball shouts insults and promises swift dispatch in less-refined Spanish.
Peter runs out of the apartment without getting dressed, realizing to his further horror that it's snowing again. The voices of his victims whisper accusations in the drifting snow. Staggering down the alley, dragging his bare feet through an un-plowed and un-shoveled urban tundra, he has become overnight a desperate fugitive. He looks constantly behind him, awaiting the last snowball he'll ever see, and seems a boy aged overnight into a frail, dying man.
There are mountains of snow, and lots of things to do in it (once he is properly bundled, of course.) Peter makes a snowman, snow angels, and myriad footprints; he finds the perfect stick. And he climbs a mysterious mountain of snow. Appropriate for small children through second grade, the first 15 minutes of the film present an environment transformed and cloaked in joyous and innocent mystery. Up until this point, "The Snowy Day" remains a relatively straightforward adaption of its source.
Atop Snow Mountain, Peter encounters The Snow Magician (Danny Devito, acting for his life). A slinking chord sequence brings our idyll into fraughter territory, drawing the viewer into an intricate and ceaseless dance of tension and suspense.
To prevent him from disclosing a shocking incident witnessed in the fog of Snow Mountain-- an incident best left undescribed here -- the Snow Magician grants Peter a magic talking snowball (Javier Bardem) that will kill any child that it strikes, and which confidently forecasts doom to its victims in elegant Spanish. When later that day Peter is caught in the crossfire of a fierce snowball fight, he senses that his own life may be in danger, and he is forced to use the magic snowball.
When Peter takes the snowball home to his apartment, a tense standoff ensues with his mother (a moribund Sarah Jessica Parker), and Peter is forced to use the ball again.
Peter puts the snowball in his pocket and goes to sleep. While he sleeps, the snowball sneaks out of the apartment and bludgeons his downstairs neighbor to death. After dreaming of a YMCA pool filled with skulls, Peter awakens, guilt-stricken, and is relieved to find the snowball no longer in his pocket.
Unfortunately, he finds the magic snowball sitting at the breakfast table, eating a bowl of Shredded Wheat with almond milk. Thinking to shatter the ball with the stick he'd found the previous day, he reaches for it and shudders to discover that it has transformed into a snake. The stick-snake barks at him, hissing that "the ssssnow never endssss" and to "join ussss Peter." Shaking with anger, the ball shouts insults and promises swift dispatch in less-refined Spanish.
Peter runs out of the apartment without getting dressed, realizing to his further horror that it's snowing again. The voices of his victims whisper accusations in the drifting snow. Staggering down the alley, dragging his bare feet through an un-plowed and un-shoveled urban tundra, he has become overnight a desperate fugitive. He looks constantly behind him, awaiting the last snowball he'll ever see, and seems a boy aged overnight into a frail, dying man.
lighthouse acknowledges the astronaut
In my dream you were packing up to leave this world, so we threw you a block party. It got out of hand from the start. People kept showing up from all over the world to see you off. It was like some rich folks' wedding where the father of the bride gives a count of the number of countries represented during his toast. There were Inuits and Japanese, Germans and Newfies, Swedes and Chinese, even a guy from South Jersey below exit 2. A couple none of us had ever met was going at it on the coffee table, egged on by a guy in a rhinestone jumpsuit come to think of it none of us had ever met either. About a hundred people were breakdancing in teams of a dozen or more.
A group of kids were doing keg stands behind the Robinson's shed. You joined them briefly in your own, then chugged another beer for good measure. I know you passed on weed, which seemed like the right idea for your last night on earth, one never knows how that's going to go.
People were shooting bottle rockets at each other, like Dutch new year. The music grew in volume until the cops came. We explained the situation and they did keg stands as well. Then they left and soon came again. They issued us a warning that time, but it was clear they were just making sure they were back before the keg got kicked. People kept kissing you on the cheek.
The air was part bitter, part sweet. It wasn't totally clear which side of that you came down on, but I suspect sweet. You were tapping your feet to the music, which was something big band and which everybody seemed to understand the vibe of that night.
When you and I talk an issue straight on one of us always presses too hard, leaving the other to sit on regret for months after. Recognizing that we didn't have that kind of time we talked instead about spring training, about the Eagles off-season moves. You asked me how my wife and son were and I said they were fine, everything was fine. That was really you asking me if everything would be okay and me replying that I thought it would be, that I hoped to God it would be.
When you left we were kind of worried about your driving, but there wasn't much point. Everybody kept coming back to give you another hug. Ruby had packed a care package of road beer, potato chips, and a toasted pastrami sandwich. As you left we flicked the light on the front porch per Freeman custom, the lighthouse acknowledging the astronaut. Cops followed you home, playing Earl Hines loud out of bullhorns mounted on top of their cars.
A group of kids were doing keg stands behind the Robinson's shed. You joined them briefly in your own, then chugged another beer for good measure. I know you passed on weed, which seemed like the right idea for your last night on earth, one never knows how that's going to go.
People were shooting bottle rockets at each other, like Dutch new year. The music grew in volume until the cops came. We explained the situation and they did keg stands as well. Then they left and soon came again. They issued us a warning that time, but it was clear they were just making sure they were back before the keg got kicked. People kept kissing you on the cheek.
The air was part bitter, part sweet. It wasn't totally clear which side of that you came down on, but I suspect sweet. You were tapping your feet to the music, which was something big band and which everybody seemed to understand the vibe of that night.
When you and I talk an issue straight on one of us always presses too hard, leaving the other to sit on regret for months after. Recognizing that we didn't have that kind of time we talked instead about spring training, about the Eagles off-season moves. You asked me how my wife and son were and I said they were fine, everything was fine. That was really you asking me if everything would be okay and me replying that I thought it would be, that I hoped to God it would be.
When you left we were kind of worried about your driving, but there wasn't much point. Everybody kept coming back to give you another hug. Ruby had packed a care package of road beer, potato chips, and a toasted pastrami sandwich. As you left we flicked the light on the front porch per Freeman custom, the lighthouse acknowledging the astronaut. Cops followed you home, playing Earl Hines loud out of bullhorns mounted on top of their cars.
3.07.2010
binary absolution
the job that kills us/the job that makes us stronger. your actual thinking/your best deadpan of a confused and deeply bitter monologue just prior to giving up. jokes/ inarticulate cries for help. an aging person's fear of progress/a developing intellect's appreciation of historical context. cultivating an interior life/fearing that grown-up social situations will bore you to death and becoming a shut-in.
death as feared/ death as release into eternal.the people you know as a mutually supporting network of being and becoming/the people you know as dead weight. pets as emblems and encouragers of love/pets as organic and ultimately disappointing toys.
art as vanity/art as essential nourishment. sex as desire/sex as fruition. books as enrichment/books as enablers of lonely imagining. computer love/computer anomie. loud music as spiritual cleanser/loud music as that shit you wasted your time on that's made you half deaf at a young age. life as human progress/ life as circular refeeding of broader kinetic or environmental process.
america as sinking ship/america as complex flawed progress. the religions of the world as vampires/the religions of the world as rescue ropes out of clinical isolation and feeble, inappropriate ritual.
let's go mets/let's go off ourselves. kids as enablers of love/kids as transforming incredible enablers of love/kids as destroyers of whatever attention span you might have had left. this case of more than a binary crashes the loop, feeble construct disappears in cloud of smoke.
death as feared/ death as release into eternal.the people you know as a mutually supporting network of being and becoming/the people you know as dead weight. pets as emblems and encouragers of love/pets as organic and ultimately disappointing toys.
art as vanity/art as essential nourishment. sex as desire/sex as fruition. books as enrichment/books as enablers of lonely imagining. computer love/computer anomie. loud music as spiritual cleanser/loud music as that shit you wasted your time on that's made you half deaf at a young age. life as human progress/ life as circular refeeding of broader kinetic or environmental process.
america as sinking ship/america as complex flawed progress. the religions of the world as vampires/the religions of the world as rescue ropes out of clinical isolation and feeble, inappropriate ritual.
let's go mets/let's go off ourselves. kids as enablers of love/kids as transforming incredible enablers of love/kids as destroyers of whatever attention span you might have had left. this case of more than a binary crashes the loop, feeble construct disappears in cloud of smoke.
3.05.2010
ask a creepy curmudgeon
In today's column, CC offers marriage advice.
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
My husband and I are both "Church people", and don't use drugs or alcohol. I'm a stay at home mom and my kids love my husband very much. How would the judge determine who is the better parent for the children to live with?
--Betty Sheets
Dear Betty--
What gender are your children? A boy should be raised by the father, a girl by her mother. If the children are boys or a mix you therefore have three choices: a) allow custody to be granted to the father; b) change genders, win custody, and require the children to call you daddy and treat you as they did their father; or c) end the biological father's life and enlist a taxidermist to preserve the body. This will both maintain your maternal role and give your children the consistency that only a paternal presence can bring.
If the dinner table is rectangular, mount the father atop the head of it. For all other shapes of table, you shall mount the father in the center. The length shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth fifty cubits, the height thirty cubits. The father shall be presented daily with burnt offerings. During meals, dinner in particular, the conversation shall be kept light and airy -- he has had a difficult day and this is his time to unwind. Keep the father in a warm, dry place; dust regularly.
Sometimes when it’s late and my mind feels occupied by a kind of a shadow mind, a cat mind that I know I should avoid but instead always to (the kind of mind that tells me I should get to bed with haste but instead I pour a drink) I think of my second wife, of the way I always thought we would excel at parenting together when we had the opportunity. But time is cruel and we were crueler still and one night the moon set flaming below the treetops and when I awoke she was gone. She left a note that I couldn’t bring myself to read, which I instead folded carefully on itself and shredded in the garbage disposal. At night when I think of her now, I torture myself with the thought that I might not have understood the meaning of that note. That perhaps it might have left hope for us and the children we never had, that perhaps it begged me to follow her, that perhaps it even told me where to go.
Hold on to your love! And look me up sometime if you're ever in Monmouth County, kiddo.
--CC
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
My ex and I share custody of our 9 year old son. My son has told me that his Dad has drinking 2 bottles of Crown Royal a day. My ex was ordered not to drink when we first divorced, and I'm going to try and get full custody of my son because of the alcoholism that's going on now. I'm worried that if my son testifies about his Dad's drinking, that his Dad will blame him and get mad. What can I do?
--Daisy Curfews
Dear Daisy--
How much do you drink yourself? I ask because a key aspect of joint custody is balance. It's important to respect ground rules established by the other parent, and that they respect yours as well. If you drink 3 bottles of Jim Beam each day, it's important to ask your partner to model the same behavior, no more, no less.
My first wife and I were always at each other's throats. Things got out of hand before we realized the importance of the balance I described. For us, balance ultimately involved the witness protection program, a fake catering business, and the Thirty Years' War. It also (and perhaps most importantly) involved keeping tanks of nitrous oxide on each side of our bed. But in the end those were all just accessories. In love we were like reactive elements, like molecules of heat and cold that had to be nearer, had to bring the other toward some fleeting stasis. To say that we hurt each other those nights was to ignore the clean stinging feeling of air on an open wound, the redemptive nervous joking of the early-morning emergency room, the extra little ziplock bag of nitrous we shared to take the edge off before heading in for our respective days in the classroom.
By the way, do you know anyone looking for five or more lightly-used pine coffins at a reasonable rate? PayPal and MasterCard accepted. Stop in if you're ever in my neck of the woods, hon.
--CC
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
Can I sue the woman who my husband had an affair with that led to our divorce?
-Susan Maiman
Dear Sue--
Typically, you can't, at least not as it relates to your divorce. Speaking as a common law lawyer and five-time husband, however, you could sue her if she broke into your house and left a boa constrictor in your john, or poisoned your medication, or blew up your car with you in it, or defrauded your grandmother of her public assistance, or ran over your parents with a cement mixer, or left you for dead with a bullet in your spine in the Gobi Desert. I should stress that these are just examples from my own personal history, this list isn’t meant to be prescriptive. The only limits are those we place upon ourselves, on our imaginations.
In some states (Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, Utah) you can sue the third party for alienation of affection. You need to realize though that this is an expensive endeavor that requires a lot of time. A better option is to kill your husband and have his body stuffed by a taxidermist, then set his body at the head of the table, etc.
Sometimes at night I walk the fringes of this town alone. On a moonless night I can pretend that I am a walker in another age or species, in a forest pathway only vaguely known. I realize in the darkness that we are never alone, that each age of humankind is lived parallel with the others, that generations are a stacked sequence of parallel segments, packed densely line by line to wrap around a cylinder or sphere. I feel the decaying dreams and won hopes of other ages channeling in real time through me, a man aging and lost on the periphery of his own consciousness. An owl shifts in a tree, a man stands alone at a far off fence in the dark. I shiver and realize that she and I were born to love each other, even if only for 25 minutes in the bathroom of a Greyhound coach in a pornographic tangle of cheap lipstick and septic metal and screams muted fast against shoulder blades, to have and to hold, promises that she and I could only ever be relied upon to keep on E in an honest-to-god uncomfortable Greyhound coach bathroom in the Nebraska night. That our lives were only for that, that it's well possible our lives were just for that.
Look me up sometime if you're ever in Monmouth County, sweetie, I know this great dim sum place.
--CC
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
My husband and I are both "Church people", and don't use drugs or alcohol. I'm a stay at home mom and my kids love my husband very much. How would the judge determine who is the better parent for the children to live with?
--Betty Sheets
Dear Betty--
What gender are your children? A boy should be raised by the father, a girl by her mother. If the children are boys or a mix you therefore have three choices: a) allow custody to be granted to the father; b) change genders, win custody, and require the children to call you daddy and treat you as they did their father; or c) end the biological father's life and enlist a taxidermist to preserve the body. This will both maintain your maternal role and give your children the consistency that only a paternal presence can bring.
If the dinner table is rectangular, mount the father atop the head of it. For all other shapes of table, you shall mount the father in the center. The length shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth fifty cubits, the height thirty cubits. The father shall be presented daily with burnt offerings. During meals, dinner in particular, the conversation shall be kept light and airy -- he has had a difficult day and this is his time to unwind. Keep the father in a warm, dry place; dust regularly.
Sometimes when it’s late and my mind feels occupied by a kind of a shadow mind, a cat mind that I know I should avoid but instead always to (the kind of mind that tells me I should get to bed with haste but instead I pour a drink) I think of my second wife, of the way I always thought we would excel at parenting together when we had the opportunity. But time is cruel and we were crueler still and one night the moon set flaming below the treetops and when I awoke she was gone. She left a note that I couldn’t bring myself to read, which I instead folded carefully on itself and shredded in the garbage disposal. At night when I think of her now, I torture myself with the thought that I might not have understood the meaning of that note. That perhaps it might have left hope for us and the children we never had, that perhaps it begged me to follow her, that perhaps it even told me where to go.
Hold on to your love! And look me up sometime if you're ever in Monmouth County, kiddo.
--CC
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
My ex and I share custody of our 9 year old son. My son has told me that his Dad has drinking 2 bottles of Crown Royal a day. My ex was ordered not to drink when we first divorced, and I'm going to try and get full custody of my son because of the alcoholism that's going on now. I'm worried that if my son testifies about his Dad's drinking, that his Dad will blame him and get mad. What can I do?
--Daisy Curfews
Dear Daisy--
How much do you drink yourself? I ask because a key aspect of joint custody is balance. It's important to respect ground rules established by the other parent, and that they respect yours as well. If you drink 3 bottles of Jim Beam each day, it's important to ask your partner to model the same behavior, no more, no less.
My first wife and I were always at each other's throats. Things got out of hand before we realized the importance of the balance I described. For us, balance ultimately involved the witness protection program, a fake catering business, and the Thirty Years' War. It also (and perhaps most importantly) involved keeping tanks of nitrous oxide on each side of our bed. But in the end those were all just accessories. In love we were like reactive elements, like molecules of heat and cold that had to be nearer, had to bring the other toward some fleeting stasis. To say that we hurt each other those nights was to ignore the clean stinging feeling of air on an open wound, the redemptive nervous joking of the early-morning emergency room, the extra little ziplock bag of nitrous we shared to take the edge off before heading in for our respective days in the classroom.
By the way, do you know anyone looking for five or more lightly-used pine coffins at a reasonable rate? PayPal and MasterCard accepted. Stop in if you're ever in my neck of the woods, hon.
--CC
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
Can I sue the woman who my husband had an affair with that led to our divorce?
-Susan Maiman
Dear Sue--
Typically, you can't, at least not as it relates to your divorce. Speaking as a common law lawyer and five-time husband, however, you could sue her if she broke into your house and left a boa constrictor in your john, or poisoned your medication, or blew up your car with you in it, or defrauded your grandmother of her public assistance, or ran over your parents with a cement mixer, or left you for dead with a bullet in your spine in the Gobi Desert. I should stress that these are just examples from my own personal history, this list isn’t meant to be prescriptive. The only limits are those we place upon ourselves, on our imaginations.
In some states (Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, Utah) you can sue the third party for alienation of affection. You need to realize though that this is an expensive endeavor that requires a lot of time. A better option is to kill your husband and have his body stuffed by a taxidermist, then set his body at the head of the table, etc.
Sometimes at night I walk the fringes of this town alone. On a moonless night I can pretend that I am a walker in another age or species, in a forest pathway only vaguely known. I realize in the darkness that we are never alone, that each age of humankind is lived parallel with the others, that generations are a stacked sequence of parallel segments, packed densely line by line to wrap around a cylinder or sphere. I feel the decaying dreams and won hopes of other ages channeling in real time through me, a man aging and lost on the periphery of his own consciousness. An owl shifts in a tree, a man stands alone at a far off fence in the dark. I shiver and realize that she and I were born to love each other, even if only for 25 minutes in the bathroom of a Greyhound coach in a pornographic tangle of cheap lipstick and septic metal and screams muted fast against shoulder blades, to have and to hold, promises that she and I could only ever be relied upon to keep on E in an honest-to-god uncomfortable Greyhound coach bathroom in the Nebraska night. That our lives were only for that, that it's well possible our lives were just for that.
Look me up sometime if you're ever in Monmouth County, sweetie, I know this great dim sum place.
--CC
3.04.2010
dub as foreign substance/the whitest advice column in the world
headphones dub music and as i try to nod along a thicket of knots in my shoulders prevents the slightest rhythmic movement. it's like as if a layer of muting cotton balls has stuffed itself between muscle and joint.
i'm awfully white. i say this more as simple fact than as an emblem of self hate or ridiculous and racist pride. there are things that come naturally to me it's true (e.g. abstraction, retreating into a cloud, the subjugation of women or those less fortunate) but i don't completely hate myself, or at least not because i'm white. damn it though, i want this music to get through.
turn the lava lamp back on. groovy, sad fuck of a man. when i get this caustic and useless i should write the advice column that hastens me to hell, the kind where i ruin people's lives. pure poison.
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon --
My mother and I are really close. I am 13. There is only one problem. She doesn’t know I go out with boys. She is always telling her friends that I am different and not interested in that sort of thing. I want to know if I should tell her. The one other time I lied to her she cried because I kept a secret from her. I need help.
--Confused
Dear Confused Waste--
It is likely that you will soon die of an obscure VD, you lying waste. Tell that crow mother of yours that I stole her shit. Take care.
--Creepy
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
I am planning to marry the man of my dreams this coming September. Although his parents are wonderful, I'm a bit concerned about the role that they still play in his life...particularly his mother. She still does my fiancé's laundry, cooks his lunches daily, and cleans his house. What do you think?
--Hesitant
Dear Horny Freak--
We all get cold feet, but to insinuate that your fiance's mother is interested in moving in on your marital bed is to project your own perverse unconscious desires onto the motivations of a thoughtful family. Incest is a near-universal taboo and you should be ashamed of yourself for even picturing your mother-in-law to be in such a compromised position, care gone to the wind, love in her eyes and the sound of her breathing, her pulse erratic, her hair adrift on the pillow. It's time to cut this man loose, admit you have a problem and either hurl yourself off a gorge or take up a relaxing hobby, such as building model cars. Take care of yourself, kiddo.
--Creepy
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
I am a 41-year-old recovering addict with eight years of sobriety. I have not been in a loving relationship for over 10 years. Truthfully, I am scared to death of actually finding a mate.
Everyday I rush home after work, hide away until the next morning, and repeat. Initially in my sobriety, the solitude was fine. Now I am so lonely I could puke myself to death. I know I could meet women, but I don't know where to start. I am intelligent, attractive, and so confused. I just want to feel again. I want a new life, this one went off track somewhere in the 1980s.
--Down and Alone
Dear Downer --
Let's face it, love is elusive. When you're down and out, running from north to south, what more can you do? When I'm horny and lonely (which is often) I like to go to a bar and get a little loose. One thing leads to another until at some point in the night something "clicks" and I usually wake up the next morning in a different room than where I began the day. Sometimes another person is next to me and typically they are alive. Jesus loves you, kiddo. Get screwed up out of your head and the sex will follow.
--Creepy
i'm awfully white. i say this more as simple fact than as an emblem of self hate or ridiculous and racist pride. there are things that come naturally to me it's true (e.g. abstraction, retreating into a cloud, the subjugation of women or those less fortunate) but i don't completely hate myself, or at least not because i'm white. damn it though, i want this music to get through.
turn the lava lamp back on. groovy, sad fuck of a man. when i get this caustic and useless i should write the advice column that hastens me to hell, the kind where i ruin people's lives. pure poison.
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon --
My mother and I are really close. I am 13. There is only one problem. She doesn’t know I go out with boys. She is always telling her friends that I am different and not interested in that sort of thing. I want to know if I should tell her. The one other time I lied to her she cried because I kept a secret from her. I need help.
--Confused
Dear Confused Waste--
It is likely that you will soon die of an obscure VD, you lying waste. Tell that crow mother of yours that I stole her shit. Take care.
--Creepy
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
I am planning to marry the man of my dreams this coming September. Although his parents are wonderful, I'm a bit concerned about the role that they still play in his life...particularly his mother. She still does my fiancé's laundry, cooks his lunches daily, and cleans his house. What do you think?
--Hesitant
Dear Horny Freak--
We all get cold feet, but to insinuate that your fiance's mother is interested in moving in on your marital bed is to project your own perverse unconscious desires onto the motivations of a thoughtful family. Incest is a near-universal taboo and you should be ashamed of yourself for even picturing your mother-in-law to be in such a compromised position, care gone to the wind, love in her eyes and the sound of her breathing, her pulse erratic, her hair adrift on the pillow. It's time to cut this man loose, admit you have a problem and either hurl yourself off a gorge or take up a relaxing hobby, such as building model cars. Take care of yourself, kiddo.
--Creepy
Dear Creepy Curmudgeon--
I am a 41-year-old recovering addict with eight years of sobriety. I have not been in a loving relationship for over 10 years. Truthfully, I am scared to death of actually finding a mate.
Everyday I rush home after work, hide away until the next morning, and repeat. Initially in my sobriety, the solitude was fine. Now I am so lonely I could puke myself to death. I know I could meet women, but I don't know where to start. I am intelligent, attractive, and so confused. I just want to feel again. I want a new life, this one went off track somewhere in the 1980s.
--Down and Alone
Dear Downer --
Let's face it, love is elusive. When you're down and out, running from north to south, what more can you do? When I'm horny and lonely (which is often) I like to go to a bar and get a little loose. One thing leads to another until at some point in the night something "clicks" and I usually wake up the next morning in a different room than where I began the day. Sometimes another person is next to me and typically they are alive. Jesus loves you, kiddo. Get screwed up out of your head and the sex will follow.
--Creepy
3.03.2010
close reading
He's getting closer to two now and getting nearly as attached to books as he is to television. In both cases he's looking for ritual, for safety and a world in which he knows just what to expect. This is why for a while his reading included just one or two books, just like his watching included just one or two DVDs vieweed ad nauseam.
{By ad nauseam I mean fuck you late-stage Children's Television Workshop, fuck you Paul Rudd in an Earth costume, your comedy does not reward a 200th viewing}.
In books now N. is reading in his own personal way. It may sound all Parenting 101 (which it is) but it was helpful to see how Kelvin and Justine are raising their kid -- bringing her at a young age through multiple reads of the same book in a row, letting her focus on different details besides the linear narrative. N. will typically tolerate two reads of a book in a row now, the first generally linear, the second time him steering toward scenes that confuse or interest him, or scenes with many small objects in them that we can name one by one.
The beauty of the naming ritual is that its power dynamic is fluidly reversible. During these reads I'll ask him to point at something that I name. That game has largely changed its rules to where he now points at whatever he feels like and I name it. Him not understanding the power dynamic positions him well to subvert it. Perhaps him choosing to ignore the power dynamic would be a better way to describe it.
It's been encouraging to see him reach for books for self-contained entertainment. At night as an early part of his bedtime ritual he'll sit in his crib with all of his books, several open at a time. We're either cultivating a child with multiple reading interests or one with a serious attention deficit or both. The argument for heredity v. environment wouldn't be clear in either case. Just a few weeks ago I couldn't imagine him reading on his own and there it was growing beneath the surface. More happens than we can see, in everyone.
A good part of early parenting is a crashing bore and a forceful drag. It's like becoming a completely different person, losing the balance of your marriage and your life and how the hell are you going to protect this kid from a world in obviously accelerating decline. There were things in the beginning that kept us from instinctively believing it could work out at all, and on some level I think that volatile mental poison is still with us. You can lose your center and get to a point so twisted you find work your sole relief. What I know is that the times when he and I read together bring a deeper kind of joy, I think to both of us.
{By ad nauseam I mean fuck you late-stage Children's Television Workshop, fuck you Paul Rudd in an Earth costume, your comedy does not reward a 200th viewing}.
In books now N. is reading in his own personal way. It may sound all Parenting 101 (which it is) but it was helpful to see how Kelvin and Justine are raising their kid -- bringing her at a young age through multiple reads of the same book in a row, letting her focus on different details besides the linear narrative. N. will typically tolerate two reads of a book in a row now, the first generally linear, the second time him steering toward scenes that confuse or interest him, or scenes with many small objects in them that we can name one by one.
The beauty of the naming ritual is that its power dynamic is fluidly reversible. During these reads I'll ask him to point at something that I name. That game has largely changed its rules to where he now points at whatever he feels like and I name it. Him not understanding the power dynamic positions him well to subvert it. Perhaps him choosing to ignore the power dynamic would be a better way to describe it.
It's been encouraging to see him reach for books for self-contained entertainment. At night as an early part of his bedtime ritual he'll sit in his crib with all of his books, several open at a time. We're either cultivating a child with multiple reading interests or one with a serious attention deficit or both. The argument for heredity v. environment wouldn't be clear in either case. Just a few weeks ago I couldn't imagine him reading on his own and there it was growing beneath the surface. More happens than we can see, in everyone.
A good part of early parenting is a crashing bore and a forceful drag. It's like becoming a completely different person, losing the balance of your marriage and your life and how the hell are you going to protect this kid from a world in obviously accelerating decline. There were things in the beginning that kept us from instinctively believing it could work out at all, and on some level I think that volatile mental poison is still with us. You can lose your center and get to a point so twisted you find work your sole relief. What I know is that the times when he and I read together bring a deeper kind of joy, I think to both of us.
3.02.2010
the ghost of Michael Jackson
That first night when you get home you say "I'm losing it." So? I say. I'm losing it more. You say I definitely have it backwards, that in fact I'm the rookie prince of losing it, you its crown queen.
I say give an example. You cheerfully describe obsessing before you're even down the subway steps that morning that you've left the burners on. At the office you spend 7.5 hours in a fetal ball under your desk, missing three conference calls and an austerity meeting. What's more some visiting clients complain for not the first time about your screamed admonitions.
I reply that I called out sick and I've been sitting right here in front of the burners for the past 11 hours. I know they're off, I've been here all day trying to work up the courage to stick my head in the oven. It's when I lower the door to reveal the charred remains of my work computer and the still-smoldering severed head of Anderson Cooper that the game definitively goes to me.
A couple mornings later when you wake up you're shaking and I say what's wrong (skeptically) and you say you're worried about a comet hitting the earth, that it was in your dream right before waking up and now that you've woken up you're paralyzed in fear because all you can picture is gravity turning on itself and the earth breaking apart into free-floating fragments with people floating instantly into space looking at each other like what do we do dodging taxicabs and floating park benches at odd angles. I say what a coincidence for you to mention that (planting a light and only half-patronizing kiss on your forehead).
I show you my list from the night before (when I couldn't sleep I was so excited about the prospect) of the next 100 known objects asteroid-or-larger that could significantly impact the earth. In accordance with the scale of potential impact for each I've drawn a large and brightly-colored adjacent smiley face in magic marker. I think I have you beat until you flatly assert (rubbing my shoulders like "Go get em, champ") that sometimes a dream is just a dream, there's really no way the earth could be destroyed by a comet or asteroid and the only way it really could be destroyed would be was if you left the burners on, thus triggering a chain reaction ending in the halt of life as we know it here on earth/possibly throughout the universe. Then you clutch my wrists (believing it nonetheless necessary to fight your dreamed inverted gravity) and the game goes to you.
It's close but Game 3 goes to me when I vow to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Michael Jackson's death by submerging myself completely in a tin drum full of scorpions (and all you have by way of rebuttal is three bound diaries filled line by line with the question "Can the burners become self aware and On themselves?")
I know you'll bring your A-game for the rematch and am not surprised late Wednesday night when you sneak onto Neverland Ranch, start four nice kettles of tea to boiling, and leave with the burners on. While it's possible that they'll remain that way in perpetuity, adding slow and murderous incremental heat to the universe -- that it's all your fault and that it's indeed now only a matter of time before the eschaton -- what's absolutely certain is that Game 4 has gone to you, because all I've got in response is a YouTube video in which I don whiteface and a velvet bathrobe and, purporting to be the ghost of Michael Jackson, beg anyone who will listen for forgiveness over an illegitimate Casio beat. For a moment there is hope as the video's comment thread grows contentious and views skyrocket. Said hope is dashed when a CNN Breaking News Alert reports a suspicious and all-consuming fire over a 200-mile radius with Neverland as its epicenter.
The argument on the biggest proof that God doesn't exist goes to me (found footage of alligators eating a kitten) over your "Because burners were invented without an automatic shutoff mechanism."
For Game 6, which has been announced as paper-scissors-rock, I play scissors; you kick me in the groin, shove me to the ground, stick a shiv in my gut, and mace me where I lay. In your eyes I see victory; in my peripheral vision I see the movers carrying the oven out of our apartment; from your whispering lips I hear "rock."
As I write, my love, you're in the kitchen, ruminating over the fine print to the microwave instructions. You always look so beautiful on the verge of articulating a new worry. Game 7 is tonight (if necessary).
I say give an example. You cheerfully describe obsessing before you're even down the subway steps that morning that you've left the burners on. At the office you spend 7.5 hours in a fetal ball under your desk, missing three conference calls and an austerity meeting. What's more some visiting clients complain for not the first time about your screamed admonitions.
I reply that I called out sick and I've been sitting right here in front of the burners for the past 11 hours. I know they're off, I've been here all day trying to work up the courage to stick my head in the oven. It's when I lower the door to reveal the charred remains of my work computer and the still-smoldering severed head of Anderson Cooper that the game definitively goes to me.
A couple mornings later when you wake up you're shaking and I say what's wrong (skeptically) and you say you're worried about a comet hitting the earth, that it was in your dream right before waking up and now that you've woken up you're paralyzed in fear because all you can picture is gravity turning on itself and the earth breaking apart into free-floating fragments with people floating instantly into space looking at each other like what do we do dodging taxicabs and floating park benches at odd angles. I say what a coincidence for you to mention that (planting a light and only half-patronizing kiss on your forehead).
I show you my list from the night before (when I couldn't sleep I was so excited about the prospect) of the next 100 known objects asteroid-or-larger that could significantly impact the earth. In accordance with the scale of potential impact for each I've drawn a large and brightly-colored adjacent smiley face in magic marker. I think I have you beat until you flatly assert (rubbing my shoulders like "Go get em, champ") that sometimes a dream is just a dream, there's really no way the earth could be destroyed by a comet or asteroid and the only way it really could be destroyed would be was if you left the burners on, thus triggering a chain reaction ending in the halt of life as we know it here on earth/possibly throughout the universe. Then you clutch my wrists (believing it nonetheless necessary to fight your dreamed inverted gravity) and the game goes to you.
It's close but Game 3 goes to me when I vow to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Michael Jackson's death by submerging myself completely in a tin drum full of scorpions (and all you have by way of rebuttal is three bound diaries filled line by line with the question "Can the burners become self aware and On themselves?")
I know you'll bring your A-game for the rematch and am not surprised late Wednesday night when you sneak onto Neverland Ranch, start four nice kettles of tea to boiling, and leave with the burners on. While it's possible that they'll remain that way in perpetuity, adding slow and murderous incremental heat to the universe -- that it's all your fault and that it's indeed now only a matter of time before the eschaton -- what's absolutely certain is that Game 4 has gone to you, because all I've got in response is a YouTube video in which I don whiteface and a velvet bathrobe and, purporting to be the ghost of Michael Jackson, beg anyone who will listen for forgiveness over an illegitimate Casio beat. For a moment there is hope as the video's comment thread grows contentious and views skyrocket. Said hope is dashed when a CNN Breaking News Alert reports a suspicious and all-consuming fire over a 200-mile radius with Neverland as its epicenter.
The argument on the biggest proof that God doesn't exist goes to me (found footage of alligators eating a kitten) over your "Because burners were invented without an automatic shutoff mechanism."
For Game 6, which has been announced as paper-scissors-rock, I play scissors; you kick me in the groin, shove me to the ground, stick a shiv in my gut, and mace me where I lay. In your eyes I see victory; in my peripheral vision I see the movers carrying the oven out of our apartment; from your whispering lips I hear "rock."
As I write, my love, you're in the kitchen, ruminating over the fine print to the microwave instructions. You always look so beautiful on the verge of articulating a new worry. Game 7 is tonight (if necessary).
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