When he decides he'll sleep N. stops settling and exhales sharply and sleeps through to a field of stars in oscillating patterns, in sharpshift constellations of familiar and beloved objects, nightglowoutlines of dump trucks, oversized plastic footballs, omnipotent vacuum cleaners and beach buckets flipped to form brigadier's helmets, ornate, not streamlined but regal, horses and woof woofs and a fuzzy cat and sippy cups of deliciously non-watered down apple juice.
When the firmament shifts or blinks to form each new pattern a collage of melodies in modulating sister keys pans stereowide through the room, where the boat rows and the bongo bongs, where the spider bitsies and Ms. Mary Mack dresses like a Beat Poet in a turtleneck, where old Dan Tucker gets narrowly out the way of the wheels on the bus. Said bus is driven by Raffi and it isn't that he's driving recklessly or drunk or high on cocaine or apple juice or distracted by the tender entreaties of his four best groupie moms; the fault is that of Mr. Tucker and I'd appreciate you refraining from questions about Raffi's character; he is at the very least a genius of arrangement and those are his assistants.
Before N. decides to sleep there are random games to be folded into the eachnight ritual (hide under pillows), rote references to Geneva conventions, surprisingly proactive calls for the changing of diapers, appeals to sleep in other rooms, to go downstairs for water, to just be left alone to sleep, please.
And when you honor that particular request and close the door you only have to count to ten before he's out of bed, over to the light, and when you open the door again his eyes are bright with humor, and of course the parenting manual says you aren't supposed to look him in the eye or laugh yourself at that point but christ, it's funny.
Showing posts with label believing that i can fly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label believing that i can fly. Show all posts
9.21.2010
3.27.2009
the luck of roaring Metuchen
New Jersey is a hell for people exactly as overweight as me. But on the train yesterday the person sitting next to me was for once actually less overweight. It was good, there was room enough for both of us to work on laptops without elbow spear.
People being people the conversation turned to Microsoft Excel and she missed her stop, Newark Airport. The train was an express and stopped next at New Brunswick, the central Jersey equivalent of a million light years away if you're late for a flight at rush hour, separating you from your goal are an obstacle course of little fiefdom moron towns, each with its own dimwitted love for stoplights, poorly designed over-saturated roadways, crazy people intentionally crashing their cars to add spice to their days. The community rallied, each of us too familiar with the eerie impossibility of swift passage through short distances quickly in this area, each eager to help his fellow traveler transcend the shit moorings.
We took on tactical responsibilities, tracked the flight status (sadly: on time), coached her on a return route to Newark (train or taxi?), and reasoned that central Jersey in the pissy cold rain was (depending on your point of view) just as good as spring break Florida, not worse, just different. The flight being delayed was the only reasonable hope.
The way she missed her stop was: she was trying to figure out how to move a worksheet from one workbook to another on a Mac. Anyone worth their salt could do that on a PC, but Mac mice lack a right click, which somehow makes them more complicated, which takes artsy people and makes it impossible for them to do math, which encourages a whole mediocre patch of right-brained art and music uninformed by specificity or science. So first it had to be googled how the fuck you right-click on a Mac (option-click-let go of the click, which I never remember). Then it had to be tried, then eureka, worksheets came unmoored from their shells as the door chimed closed and the train jumped forward with grim determination and the conductor leapt out for after-the-fact non-helpfulness.
When I got to Hamilton the weather was shit, scary to drive in perfect storm style. Fog plus rain plus Newark, there's no way that thing went out on time.
People being people the conversation turned to Microsoft Excel and she missed her stop, Newark Airport. The train was an express and stopped next at New Brunswick, the central Jersey equivalent of a million light years away if you're late for a flight at rush hour, separating you from your goal are an obstacle course of little fiefdom moron towns, each with its own dimwitted love for stoplights, poorly designed over-saturated roadways, crazy people intentionally crashing their cars to add spice to their days. The community rallied, each of us too familiar with the eerie impossibility of swift passage through short distances quickly in this area, each eager to help his fellow traveler transcend the shit moorings.
We took on tactical responsibilities, tracked the flight status (sadly: on time), coached her on a return route to Newark (train or taxi?), and reasoned that central Jersey in the pissy cold rain was (depending on your point of view) just as good as spring break Florida, not worse, just different. The flight being delayed was the only reasonable hope.
The way she missed her stop was: she was trying to figure out how to move a worksheet from one workbook to another on a Mac. Anyone worth their salt could do that on a PC, but Mac mice lack a right click, which somehow makes them more complicated, which takes artsy people and makes it impossible for them to do math, which encourages a whole mediocre patch of right-brained art and music uninformed by specificity or science. So first it had to be googled how the fuck you right-click on a Mac (option-click-let go of the click, which I never remember). Then it had to be tried, then eureka, worksheets came unmoored from their shells as the door chimed closed and the train jumped forward with grim determination and the conductor leapt out for after-the-fact non-helpfulness.
When I got to Hamilton the weather was shit, scary to drive in perfect storm style. Fog plus rain plus Newark, there's no way that thing went out on time.
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