I am trying to say that I love San Francisco. But it comes out all wrong. Waxing poetic about the smell of fog or a surprise view as you round a corner. Even if that view stops you in your tracks. Even if it is guide book worthy. It's hard to find the words to walk the line between well written and trite. Nailed it and over done. So how is this: it makes me happy.
I nannied there for two summers when I was in college. It was the first place I traveled outside the Midwest. It was the furthest I'd ever been from home. It was nothing like what I knew with its pan handlers, and water shortages and tourists. I had never lived anywhere people visited. But here were throngs of people in sun visors making me wait in line.
My memories from those summers are brightly colored. And the soundtrack is kid laughter. And there are moments I recall so clearly that if I shut my eyes I'm in them again. Heart pounding. Giggle stifling. Sun burnt. No summer since has ever come close.
When we started the decent into SFO, the runways built out into the water, I remembered that I never wanted to leave. And here I was coming back for the first time since. It had been over 10 years. I had forgotten here. How I cried the day I had to leave. How I plotted on ways to afford California out-of-state tuition. How I promised I'd come back. I would figure it out. I would.
I didn't.
I feel almost guilty.
These five days back. As a bona fide grown-up. In a fancy hotel. Fuck. I knew before I got off the plane that come Monday I wasn't going to want to leave. Some places just feel more like home than other places.
In the decade that's past the girls I nannied with are no longer there. They moved back home. Or moved somewhere new. Dispersed as some kind of child care super team across the country to bring time outs and finger painting to those who need it most. I e-mailed Jennie. The cornerstone for my California summers. One of my longest and best friends. I wished for a catch-up session. Over guacamole and flan. At that one place we use to go to. With the windows right out to the water. Where you could toss tortilla chips out to feed the ducks.
But she's in Alabama now. And I'm mostly in Seattle.
So instead I wandered the city. Walked for hours at a time. Pretending I had an apartment to go to. Or a barista who knew what I wanted to drink. I did have strangers who shared smiles with me. I did have spending money. I did have sore feet. But what I wanted was a key to a 1BR on Nob Hill. Instead a I had a Westin key card with gold fish on it. It's still in my bag.
With July comes a chance to do it again. 4 days this time. A different Westin. But the same perfectly imperfect city. The same sense of home and where the hell have you been and how can I never leave. Penciled out on cocktail napkins this time instead of college rule. Wondering if some Silicon Valley upstart could see the Business Developer in me. Because I can see me there. Wearing high heels on cobblestone. Always having a sweater. Feeling like I've arrived.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
april showers
There is a special kind of guilt when I see a month without a note. No April in the archives. No snippet of what it was like to be alive and me and in Seattle in April 2008. But thankfully, you have written. You have noted the nice days and the road trips and the long hours at work. You've mentioned the pretty in a good friend and snapped a camera phone picture of a poorly worded sign. This collective story we're weaving about these modern lives is wonderfully patchwork. And where my dull gray April quiet lives, your yellow swiss dot April makes it look almost on purpose. And for this I thank you.
I gave a speech on May first to about seventy people at a party. And I've read a bunch of books. I've worked lots. And walked much. And started making granola. But not just any granola. Granola that is worthy of a fan club. Once I found a simple recipe my variations are as plentiful as the oats. This last batch though. My OH my. The smell brought all the neighbors 'round and I've had three proposals of marriage.
Ginger Snap Granola
Makes a lot. Stores for about 2 weeks.
Best served with tart lemon yogurt in a very small, pretty bowl.
4 c. oats
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. cloves
1 t. ginger
1 t. cinnamon
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. molasses
2 t. vanilla
Combine oats, brown sugar, salt, cloves, ginger and cinnamon in a bowl. Warm the oil and molasses until slightly simmering. Remove from heat, add vanilla. Pour over oat mix and stir until evenly coated.
Spread out the oat mix on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes at 300 degrees. Stir half way though.
Mmmm.
I gave a speech on May first to about seventy people at a party. And I've read a bunch of books. I've worked lots. And walked much. And started making granola. But not just any granola. Granola that is worthy of a fan club. Once I found a simple recipe my variations are as plentiful as the oats. This last batch though. My OH my. The smell brought all the neighbors 'round and I've had three proposals of marriage.
Ginger Snap Granola
Makes a lot. Stores for about 2 weeks.
Best served with tart lemon yogurt in a very small, pretty bowl.
4 c. oats
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. cloves
1 t. ginger
1 t. cinnamon
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. molasses
2 t. vanilla
Combine oats, brown sugar, salt, cloves, ginger and cinnamon in a bowl. Warm the oil and molasses until slightly simmering. Remove from heat, add vanilla. Pour over oat mix and stir until evenly coated.
Spread out the oat mix on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes at 300 degrees. Stir half way though.
Mmmm.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
the can-can such a pretty show it will steal your heart away
With my new days of self employment and flexible hours to call my own I get to go on these two. Three. Hour walks though downtown. I try to time them with least chance of being rained on. But I don't always get it right. I walk through Queen Anne to Seattle Center. And then follow the Monorail to Westlake. From there to Pioneer Square and back home up 1st with a quick stop in the Market for some plums or leafy topped carrots. One time I bought dates. I do this almost every day. Unless. It's cold, windy AND rainy. That's the triple threat of heading to the gym instead. Which yields no conversations, no carrots and no inhales of sea air mixed with fruit stands mixed with slow walking tourists.
I've really come to love the Market. I love how you have to talk to someone for every single purchase. How many apples? How many tomatoes? How are you? I spread out my modest buying power to as many of the stands as I have items. Tomatoes from the first one, the stand kitty corner form the pig. Asparagus from the place inside, on the right. With the clever punk rock girls and the sassy signs about not squeezing the fruit. Clemintines from the stand a little ways down on the left. The place I bought the ripe plums for my birthday cake. The one where the girl hinted I should bring her back a piece.
I bump into tourists as they. Just. Stop. Walking to peer at a wall of tulips. Or listen to a shaggy kid strum away on his guitar. I stopped being annoyed by it as soon as I took it as an opportunity to see what they are seeing in this city I've come to take for granted. In this city that they spent a few hundred bucks each on a plane ticket and few hundred more a night on a hotel. They notice what I would other wise walk by. And for that, I don't mind the second of awkward as my hands hit their hips and I can smell their shampoo. The tulips are really that lovely.
And that kid was playing my song.
I've really come to love the Market. I love how you have to talk to someone for every single purchase. How many apples? How many tomatoes? How are you? I spread out my modest buying power to as many of the stands as I have items. Tomatoes from the first one, the stand kitty corner form the pig. Asparagus from the place inside, on the right. With the clever punk rock girls and the sassy signs about not squeezing the fruit. Clemintines from the stand a little ways down on the left. The place I bought the ripe plums for my birthday cake. The one where the girl hinted I should bring her back a piece.
I bump into tourists as they. Just. Stop. Walking to peer at a wall of tulips. Or listen to a shaggy kid strum away on his guitar. I stopped being annoyed by it as soon as I took it as an opportunity to see what they are seeing in this city I've come to take for granted. In this city that they spent a few hundred bucks each on a plane ticket and few hundred more a night on a hotel. They notice what I would other wise walk by. And for that, I don't mind the second of awkward as my hands hit their hips and I can smell their shampoo. The tulips are really that lovely.
And that kid was playing my song.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
may you live with ease
This is year four of naming my birthday year. The three before have all been named with a word or an idea to help me navigate the months and minutes of the 365 days before the next one offers me cupcakes and presents once again. It's surprisingly powerful. Training your mind to find that particular pattern in the chaos. Slowly cataloging all the proof of how the universe offers up what you ask for, even when you only ask in one word. Maybe two. But there you have it. A theme year that seems to magically come true. So, be careful what you wish for.
1) Debauchery 2) Consciousness 3) Actualization and now.
Gratitude.
It's more for me than it is for you. There. I said it. Out loud. But don't we all know that anyway? Giving is receiving. And as I spend a few minutes a day in metta meditation and writing down the happy. The goal is to free my heart and float a little above the sidewalk. Setting down the brewing skepticism I sometimes find myself acting upon. Sprinkling a little sugar on the parts of me that need it. Watering the parts that don't. I do hope that as I change I can help raise the collective compassion of my neighborhood, city, country, world by a couple percentage points. That there is power in a smile to a stranger. And even more in a wish for their happiness.
Long walks. Sunny days that happen to land on your birthday. Plum cake. Pretty stamps. Short stories written by friends. Clover. Health. My never ending supply of wacky ideas. The people who will go along with them. Idealism. These giant purple-pink flowers on the trees up the street. The smells and sights of the Market. Walking shoes. My parents. Baths. Mentors and friends. My awesome umbrella. Those moments where you get IT. The smell of honeysuckle. Strong legs. Seeing how saying no to something is saying yes to something else. Laughing so hard that I start to cry. Catching up. Reading. Right now.
1) Debauchery 2) Consciousness 3) Actualization and now.
Gratitude.
It's more for me than it is for you. There. I said it. Out loud. But don't we all know that anyway? Giving is receiving. And as I spend a few minutes a day in metta meditation and writing down the happy. The goal is to free my heart and float a little above the sidewalk. Setting down the brewing skepticism I sometimes find myself acting upon. Sprinkling a little sugar on the parts of me that need it. Watering the parts that don't. I do hope that as I change I can help raise the collective compassion of my neighborhood, city, country, world by a couple percentage points. That there is power in a smile to a stranger. And even more in a wish for their happiness.
Long walks. Sunny days that happen to land on your birthday. Plum cake. Pretty stamps. Short stories written by friends. Clover. Health. My never ending supply of wacky ideas. The people who will go along with them. Idealism. These giant purple-pink flowers on the trees up the street. The smells and sights of the Market. Walking shoes. My parents. Baths. Mentors and friends. My awesome umbrella. Those moments where you get IT. The smell of honeysuckle. Strong legs. Seeing how saying no to something is saying yes to something else. Laughing so hard that I start to cry. Catching up. Reading. Right now.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
if you wind up in Fargo, you went the wrong way
Their house is in the middle of nowhere. The directions to find it included things like silos and tar roads.
Take the second tar road on your right.
I’d turn down road after road to see the dots of gray gravel poking up above the snow or the streaky black of a plowed county highway. But changing direction from North to West didn’t do much for the scenery other than reposition the sun. Flat and endless and white.
I got lost. It took me four hours instead of two and about a dozen phone calls to Josh with my hopeful coordinates. Apparently there are two “county road 9”s. Since you go through two counties. Each having at least nine roads to call their own. Wound up in Rockville or Paynesville or something like that. When I finally stepped out of the car and said hello to their dog Josh asked me if I had to pull over to cry.
“No.” I laughed. “But I did stop to pee in Belgrade.“
Inside there was hundred year old wallpaper and original woodwork and a one year old baby I was meeting for the very first time. Christa made lunch of dates and dark chocolate, tea, cheese and whole wheat crackers. It was the best everything I’d ever tasted, having been hungry for 3 hours and out of water for two.
Christa is forever linked to my old coffee shop. She had front row seats for the dramatic eight month decline of the little shop on the busy corner in South Minneapolis. She was the only one who knew all the players. Knew the day to day. Held my hand and sat next to me while I tried to figure out how to stay afloat for another month. She taught me how to smoke and got me drunk on days when getting drunk was the only sane thing to do. She helped repaint my house and move all the furniture so it felt like mine again. She’s the brightest colored character in a grayish blue time.
She moved right after I moved. Moved to the country to put her Master’s Degree to work, saving the world one migrant family at a time, bringing her big city smarts back to the barely incorporated township she grew up in. They don’t have internet access and her cell phone reception is sketchy. We talked sporadically when she was in the city or staying late at work. But like all great friendships, the pause button works flawlessly. No time actually passes, but your hair grows and you can have babies. It’s some kind of perfect magic.
The catching up was easy and laughs over things we never collectively thought would reach the realm of funny were so healing and life affirming. If I can say that without sounding like a wannabe guru. If even saying that can capture all the wow.
The little baby who took to me gleefully fast won my heart as quickly. She has messy hair and soft cheeks and shares her Cheerio’s with near strangers. Seeing Christa as mom and hearing her talk about it so smartly. So thoughtfully. That little girl is one of the luckiest babies in the world.
Sparked from the picture perfect afternoon while driving home with crystal clear directions and a painstakingly crafted map it hit me for real this time. A gratitude for the eight months of bluish gray and how it’s come to show light on the best parts of who I am. I’ve flirted with this idea. Hoped for it. Tried it on. But it never stuck. Too early. Too insincere. I wanted to let go of the ick and fill up on the good but that takes time and patience. It happens under the radar maybe. While you are unaware. Pops it to the surface as a bona fide revelation while driving back to Minneapolis at 4pm on a chilly Saturday afternoon. I almost pulled over. I almost picked up the phone to call everyone I know with the news. But instead, I just drove.
And talked to myself.
And let it wash over me again and again like a really great hug.
Take the second tar road on your right.
I’d turn down road after road to see the dots of gray gravel poking up above the snow or the streaky black of a plowed county highway. But changing direction from North to West didn’t do much for the scenery other than reposition the sun. Flat and endless and white.
I got lost. It took me four hours instead of two and about a dozen phone calls to Josh with my hopeful coordinates. Apparently there are two “county road 9”s. Since you go through two counties. Each having at least nine roads to call their own. Wound up in Rockville or Paynesville or something like that. When I finally stepped out of the car and said hello to their dog Josh asked me if I had to pull over to cry.
“No.” I laughed. “But I did stop to pee in Belgrade.“
Inside there was hundred year old wallpaper and original woodwork and a one year old baby I was meeting for the very first time. Christa made lunch of dates and dark chocolate, tea, cheese and whole wheat crackers. It was the best everything I’d ever tasted, having been hungry for 3 hours and out of water for two.
Christa is forever linked to my old coffee shop. She had front row seats for the dramatic eight month decline of the little shop on the busy corner in South Minneapolis. She was the only one who knew all the players. Knew the day to day. Held my hand and sat next to me while I tried to figure out how to stay afloat for another month. She taught me how to smoke and got me drunk on days when getting drunk was the only sane thing to do. She helped repaint my house and move all the furniture so it felt like mine again. She’s the brightest colored character in a grayish blue time.
She moved right after I moved. Moved to the country to put her Master’s Degree to work, saving the world one migrant family at a time, bringing her big city smarts back to the barely incorporated township she grew up in. They don’t have internet access and her cell phone reception is sketchy. We talked sporadically when she was in the city or staying late at work. But like all great friendships, the pause button works flawlessly. No time actually passes, but your hair grows and you can have babies. It’s some kind of perfect magic.
The catching up was easy and laughs over things we never collectively thought would reach the realm of funny were so healing and life affirming. If I can say that without sounding like a wannabe guru. If even saying that can capture all the wow.
The little baby who took to me gleefully fast won my heart as quickly. She has messy hair and soft cheeks and shares her Cheerio’s with near strangers. Seeing Christa as mom and hearing her talk about it so smartly. So thoughtfully. That little girl is one of the luckiest babies in the world.
Sparked from the picture perfect afternoon while driving home with crystal clear directions and a painstakingly crafted map it hit me for real this time. A gratitude for the eight months of bluish gray and how it’s come to show light on the best parts of who I am. I’ve flirted with this idea. Hoped for it. Tried it on. But it never stuck. Too early. Too insincere. I wanted to let go of the ick and fill up on the good but that takes time and patience. It happens under the radar maybe. While you are unaware. Pops it to the surface as a bona fide revelation while driving back to Minneapolis at 4pm on a chilly Saturday afternoon. I almost pulled over. I almost picked up the phone to call everyone I know with the news. But instead, I just drove.
And talked to myself.
And let it wash over me again and again like a really great hug.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
pudding pop
So, it's 7:30pm and I literally just had a cookie in one hand and a mug of peppermint tea in the other while reading a blog. Not this blog mind you. One, I write the fluff that shows up here so reading it doesn't hold much surprise and two, this piece of internet real estate has been vacant so long a pair of pigeons have moved into the attic.
It's nearing a month of my self-employment. I am proud to report that I have showered and dressed myself each and every weekday. I still have cash monies at my disposal. I've only gained 5 pounds. And it's been the best 30 days of my cat's life ever. So far, so good.
Really the only disturbing trend is the weight gain. Which I'm taking charge of as of yesterday. And as of tomorrow I'm buying a size smaller pair of blue jeans and magnetting them to my fridge. Having to physically move the legs of pants I currently can't fit my ass in to get pudding will hopefully stop me from getting pudding. Not that I even have any pudding, but you know what I'm saying. I'll have pants magnetted to my fridge. It's gotta do something.
It's nearing a month of my self-employment. I am proud to report that I have showered and dressed myself each and every weekday. I still have cash monies at my disposal. I've only gained 5 pounds. And it's been the best 30 days of my cat's life ever. So far, so good.
Really the only disturbing trend is the weight gain. Which I'm taking charge of as of yesterday. And as of tomorrow I'm buying a size smaller pair of blue jeans and magnetting them to my fridge. Having to physically move the legs of pants I currently can't fit my ass in to get pudding will hopefully stop me from getting pudding. Not that I even have any pudding, but you know what I'm saying. I'll have pants magnetted to my fridge. It's gotta do something.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
(un)spoken
The differences.
If you were to describe us. Contrast. Compare. The first one hundred things you'd say would be about how we are unalike. Antithetic. Opposite. My offbeat meets his steady as he goes. My problems solving creates his problems. Our only sameness is that we work at the same place. Sit in the same area. Do the same things.
We're not close. And we never will be.
But because of a poorly timed death and an every Friday meeting I found myself sitting with him as he looked around the room and checked his watch and seemed unsure of what to do. His eyes were glassy. And I was off guard.
"Are you ok?" I asked.
"I think my dad just died." he said.
I told him to go home. I would help with whatever he needed. Leave. Go. "I'm so sorry." Asking if there was anything I could do knowing that, of course, there wouldn't be. He scooped up his things and a minute or two later he was walking down the hall. Toward the elevators. Black wool coat, black bag, black pants, black shoes. Blond hair.
I was the only one who knew.
That's another difference. He is an unknown. I'm an open book.
But I didn't tell a soul.
Monday morning and an awkward meeting in the hall. I was surprised to see him. He was not happy to see me. My look of concern being obvious. The question he knew was forming on my tongue.
"How are you?"
"I'm alright."
"Will you be here all week?" I said while thinking "Why are you hear at all?"
"They already had the funeral."
I must have looked like the dozen questions I was thinking.
"I never met my dad."
I would like to say that I took a breath here. That there was a second of eye contact or meaning. That the world stopped. But it didn't. It was like strained party conversation. But I told him anyway.
"Me neither. My dad died when I was twelve. I remember that day down to what I was wearing."
"Yeah?"
Standing and facing each other. Realizing that for the first time in my life this was the only person I'd ever met who had never met their real dad. The first person I'd ever meet who now never could. And knowing full well that we'd never talk about it again.
"What's hard isn't letting them go. Because they were never here. What's hard is letting go of the idea of meeting them. That's what took me the longest." Summing up my greatest loss in four sentences. Handing it to him so he could name his.
"That's it. That's it."
If you were to describe us. Contrast. Compare. The first one hundred things you'd say would be about how we are unalike. Antithetic. Opposite. My offbeat meets his steady as he goes. My problems solving creates his problems. Our only sameness is that we work at the same place. Sit in the same area. Do the same things.
We're not close. And we never will be.
But because of a poorly timed death and an every Friday meeting I found myself sitting with him as he looked around the room and checked his watch and seemed unsure of what to do. His eyes were glassy. And I was off guard.
"Are you ok?" I asked.
"I think my dad just died." he said.
I told him to go home. I would help with whatever he needed. Leave. Go. "I'm so sorry." Asking if there was anything I could do knowing that, of course, there wouldn't be. He scooped up his things and a minute or two later he was walking down the hall. Toward the elevators. Black wool coat, black bag, black pants, black shoes. Blond hair.
I was the only one who knew.
That's another difference. He is an unknown. I'm an open book.
But I didn't tell a soul.
Monday morning and an awkward meeting in the hall. I was surprised to see him. He was not happy to see me. My look of concern being obvious. The question he knew was forming on my tongue.
"How are you?"
"I'm alright."
"Will you be here all week?" I said while thinking "Why are you hear at all?"
"They already had the funeral."
I must have looked like the dozen questions I was thinking.
"I never met my dad."
I would like to say that I took a breath here. That there was a second of eye contact or meaning. That the world stopped. But it didn't. It was like strained party conversation. But I told him anyway.
"Me neither. My dad died when I was twelve. I remember that day down to what I was wearing."
"Yeah?"
Standing and facing each other. Realizing that for the first time in my life this was the only person I'd ever met who had never met their real dad. The first person I'd ever meet who now never could. And knowing full well that we'd never talk about it again.
"What's hard isn't letting them go. Because they were never here. What's hard is letting go of the idea of meeting them. That's what took me the longest." Summing up my greatest loss in four sentences. Handing it to him so he could name his.
"That's it. That's it."
Thursday, October 18, 2007
just like that
It was fall. 2004. In Minneapolis. I owned a coffee shop there. And that’s where I was. We were on a busy corner - 42nd and Cedar. Cedar is an exit from Hwy 62 and a main route to get to downtown or the University of Minnesota. Even in the middle of the night Cedar was still busy. But this was in the afternoon, about 4.
The shop would empty out about then. The neighborhood 9 to 5ers had come and gone with their afternoon pick-me-ups. The stay-at-home moms were making grocery lists or waking toddlers up from their afternoon naps. And in fall, in the Midwest, 4pm is sunset. The first hint of gray or orange light hits the pavement and by 6pm, it looks like 2am. Streetlights on and inky skies.
It was sometimes nice and sometimes uncomfortable to be alone in the store then. Leaning on the counter and watching the start of the evening commute I was just as likely to feel lucky as lonely. The important things in my life had been caught up in a windstorm that teased me with false endings and easy solutions. Sometimes it felt like 100 mile an hour winds and sometimes it felt eerily calm with the glowing green sky us Midwest kids know as signaling trouble.
I think I felt a little wistful. I remember I had my head on my hand and I was looking out the windows onto Cedar Avenue. If I had to venture a guess, I would go with lonely over lucky. I wasn’t looking forward to summer being over and the bare trees and leaf clogged sewers were impossible to ignore. It wasn’t that I loved that summer. It was just I didn’t want this tornado to stretch into another season. I didn’t want time to pass. My biggest wish was for a pause button just so I could take a breath. Or a thousand breaths. But there isn’t a pause button. No matter how hard you look.
Out the window there were flashing red lights. Police cars. No sirens, just lights. They had sped up to the intersection. Each driving on the wrong side of the road to beat the traffic to the stop light. One from the north, one from the south. They each hit the breaks and spun to block all traffic on Cedar from entering the intersection.
I lifted my head from my hand and watched. The intersection was quiet. No cars on 42nd. The police officers, the commuters, me. We just waited. For something. To happen.
A male deer, big, antlers, lost. Came running down 42nd. Fast and swift and graceful. And unharmed. It galloped through the quiet intersection and I knew that the busy intersection on Chicago and the ones on Portland and Park were all quiet too with silent police cars and flashing red lights. His path anticipated. He passage guaranteed. The fallen leaves being kicked up in his wake.
The shop would empty out about then. The neighborhood 9 to 5ers had come and gone with their afternoon pick-me-ups. The stay-at-home moms were making grocery lists or waking toddlers up from their afternoon naps. And in fall, in the Midwest, 4pm is sunset. The first hint of gray or orange light hits the pavement and by 6pm, it looks like 2am. Streetlights on and inky skies.
It was sometimes nice and sometimes uncomfortable to be alone in the store then. Leaning on the counter and watching the start of the evening commute I was just as likely to feel lucky as lonely. The important things in my life had been caught up in a windstorm that teased me with false endings and easy solutions. Sometimes it felt like 100 mile an hour winds and sometimes it felt eerily calm with the glowing green sky us Midwest kids know as signaling trouble.
I think I felt a little wistful. I remember I had my head on my hand and I was looking out the windows onto Cedar Avenue. If I had to venture a guess, I would go with lonely over lucky. I wasn’t looking forward to summer being over and the bare trees and leaf clogged sewers were impossible to ignore. It wasn’t that I loved that summer. It was just I didn’t want this tornado to stretch into another season. I didn’t want time to pass. My biggest wish was for a pause button just so I could take a breath. Or a thousand breaths. But there isn’t a pause button. No matter how hard you look.
Out the window there were flashing red lights. Police cars. No sirens, just lights. They had sped up to the intersection. Each driving on the wrong side of the road to beat the traffic to the stop light. One from the north, one from the south. They each hit the breaks and spun to block all traffic on Cedar from entering the intersection.
I lifted my head from my hand and watched. The intersection was quiet. No cars on 42nd. The police officers, the commuters, me. We just waited. For something. To happen.
A male deer, big, antlers, lost. Came running down 42nd. Fast and swift and graceful. And unharmed. It galloped through the quiet intersection and I knew that the busy intersection on Chicago and the ones on Portland and Park were all quiet too with silent police cars and flashing red lights. His path anticipated. He passage guaranteed. The fallen leaves being kicked up in his wake.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
nine is my lucky number
I have 94 days left.
I’ve used up six.
I’m writing a book.
Day One was deciding to write it. Completed by lunch.
Day Two was carving out specific times to write. I made a schedule.
On Day Three I was supposed to decide what to write about. And I did.
Day Four was more of the same which was good because I actually hadn’t really decided on Day Three.
Day Five was advice. “Do not bore the reader.”
Today is Day Six. Dissect a book you love. See what makes it tick. I picked The Catcher in the Rye and have fallen in love with Holden Caulfield for the twenty-third time. “I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I was wondering if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.”
I’m going to tell you something.
I’m a little scared. I don’t need a pep talk or a pat on the back. But holy fucking shit, when writing matters, it’s terrifying.
I bet you knew that already though.
Letters are my currency. It’s comfortable to live inside them. To let them drip from my fingertips. I’ve been doing this since I could. Writing on wide ruled paper with a pencil as round as a popsicle. Telling myself stories so I could fall asleep at night. But.
Dang.
This idea. This story. It’s personal. It’s humbling. My antagonist is my real life dark cloud. To give that face and voice and body. To say hello? To invite it in?
I don’t know.
Tomorrow is Day Seven. “If you create a story that has real meaning to you, chances are it will have real meaning for the rest of us.”
I’ve used up six.
I’m writing a book.
Day One was deciding to write it. Completed by lunch.
Day Two was carving out specific times to write. I made a schedule.
On Day Three I was supposed to decide what to write about. And I did.
Day Four was more of the same which was good because I actually hadn’t really decided on Day Three.
Day Five was advice. “Do not bore the reader.”
Today is Day Six. Dissect a book you love. See what makes it tick. I picked The Catcher in the Rye and have fallen in love with Holden Caulfield for the twenty-third time. “I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I was wondering if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.”
I’m going to tell you something.
I’m a little scared. I don’t need a pep talk or a pat on the back. But holy fucking shit, when writing matters, it’s terrifying.
I bet you knew that already though.
Letters are my currency. It’s comfortable to live inside them. To let them drip from my fingertips. I’ve been doing this since I could. Writing on wide ruled paper with a pencil as round as a popsicle. Telling myself stories so I could fall asleep at night. But.
Dang.
This idea. This story. It’s personal. It’s humbling. My antagonist is my real life dark cloud. To give that face and voice and body. To say hello? To invite it in?
I don’t know.
Tomorrow is Day Seven. “If you create a story that has real meaning to you, chances are it will have real meaning for the rest of us.”
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
pinball
T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y requires a jingle. And I have a guitar. It will be something simple. A couple of chordless strums and me singing over the top of them. Something about how they should
take it
take it
take the survey
just take it
take it
take the survey
I can’t play guitar and I can’t really sing. But I’ve never let details like that bog me down. After all, the survey requires a jingle and I have a guitar. I was going to record it two weekends ago with GarageBand and my bathroom’s acoustics. I figured: how hard can it be?
It can be so hard.
Many things have gone wrong.
Number one: I’ve dated a disproportionate number of boys who do, in fact, know how to play guitar. One could argue that this is the number one problem in many areas of my life but for my purposes today, I’ll confine its impact to how it thwarted my attempts at a jingle. It thwarted my attempts at a jingle because Bob left the pick stuck in the strings. I didn’t realize it, accidentally untuned it, realized it, tried to tune it but instead untuned it more and then gave up. I don’t usually give up, but I know when I’m beat. And in this instance, out of tune won.
Not wanting to have an out of tune jingle, I Goggled guitar teachers in Queen Anne. I found this ad:
TRADE: Guitar lessons for Philosophy tutoring.
posted 07/27/2007
I want to trade Guitar Lessons (for you or your kid(s))for Philosophy tutoring. I'm the guitarist you're the philosopher.
Steve@...
No shit.
Did I mention that I was a philosophy major in college? I was a philosophy major in college. It took me no time at all to pen a response and by Wednesday we had a tutoring coffee date set up and I had 60 pages of Kant’s moral theory to read. Oh, that. Right there. The 60 pages of moral theory. That’s Number Two.
Flash forward! It’s Saturday. I’m going to meet Steve to go over the 30 pages of moral theory that I read and have a latte and a muffin.
Meow.
So, I’m walking to the coffee shop.
Meow.
And I get followed by a cat.
No shit.
Number Three: Getting followed by a cat.
Simba. Orange. Friendly. On my heels. I check the collar. Call the number. Leave a message.
“Oh, um, hi. I have your cat. Well I don’t actually have your cat, but it’s following me. It’s been about 4 blocks now and I don’t know if she’s lost but if she is, we’re on 1st and Roy and, well, here’s my cell number so you can call me if she’s lost and I’ll try to find her again... ah... hmm... I’m not sure what to do.”
Meow.
I keep walking. I have 30 pages to read in 15 minutes (Exactly like college! EXACTLY LIKE COLLEGE!) and as we cross the street Simba trots in front of me and into the arms of a dum-dum sucking hipster. “I got your cat!” he says.
“She’s not my cat. She’s following me.” He looks at her collar. I say "I’ve already left a message." I start to over explain about why I can’t take her home. See. I have a cat. And. Um. I have 30 pages of moral theory to read. And my guitar is out of tune. Did I mentioned I called the number on her collar already? Number Four: I think at this point, I start sweating. “I can take her for a while.” he interrupts.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I don’t have a cat.”
Letting the caller ID find the pens and paper for us, we trade cell phone numbers by dialing each other's.
“What’s your name?”
“Heather. What’s yours?”
“Hunter.”
We both laugh. I briefly picture us on TLC's A Baby Story talking about how we met. “And then she said her name was Heather, and mine is Hunter and I just knew. I just knew.”
I watch him for a second with Simba draped over his left shoulder walking up the hill.
30 pages to read. Now 5 minutes to do it. I call Simba’s house and leave another well worded message. Hunter. Cat. Call. Me.
I get there. It’s hot. Number Five: still sweating. I get an iced coffee and a blueberry muffin and find a seat in the back for what will turn into an hour of moral theory (I wing it) topped off with an hour of Russell's problem of proper names and descriptions (I wing that, too.)
“What do you want out of this?” I say at the end. Trying to be a good tutor. Vowing to do the reading.
“I want to believe in an afterlife.”
“With or without god?”
“Without.” he says.
“I think I can help you do that.”
“I owe you a guitar lesson.”
“I actually just need it tuned.”
We part. Shake hands. Lots of head nods. I call Hunter. He still has the cat. He left a message for the owners. They now have two messages from me and one from him.
I run errands. See friends.
“I’m having this weird day.” I tell everyone.
“Getting followed by a cat makes everything seem weird.” Everyone says back.
4pm. Coming back from Target. I bought a mop. It was awesome. Phone rings. It’s Hunter. He’s going out and wants to know if I can take the cat.
Number Six: I can’t take the cat.
“I don’t know if I can take the cat. I have a cat already and she’s kinda mean and weird. Hmm. Ah. Well! How about this. Do you have fifteen minutes? Can I come get you? We can drive up to Simba’s house and walk around to the back - if there is a cat door, we’re off the hook and we can just leave her in the yard. If not, I’ll figure something out.”
“OK.”
“Where do you live?”
“330 5th Avenue.”
‘Oh! Weird. I live at 316.”
No shit.
I get there and Hunter comes down the steps, Simba is draped over his right shoulder now. He gets in and I laugh. I blurt out how weird of a day this is.
Meow.
Number Seven: I talk when I’m nervous.
We drive up the hill to the address on Simba’s tag. A man is watering the front lawn. Hunter worried aloud that Simba’s owners might have moved and I chime in that it would be crazy if they had moved to South Dakota or something and Simba walked all the way back here.
“Is this your cat?” he calls out.
“Simba!” the man with the hose answers back. “You two are the third couple to bring her back this week!”
We stare blankly at each other.
“Just set her down wherever.”
Hunter plops her down on the sidewalk. Completely anti-climatic. I hadn’t realized I was hoping for a relieved puffy eyed 5 year old to grab Simba gleefully from our arms. But. I was.
We say our good byes to Simba. She follows us back to the car.
Meow.
We drive back down the hill. Lots of small talk. He works at Boeing. An engineer. “I sell ads.” that’s what I say when I don’t want to talk about it. I say I work at a newspaper when I do.
We say good bye, exchange "Weird days!" and he starts to get out of the car.
“Hey, do you play guitar by chance?”
Number Seven. “Nope.”
“Well, see ya around.”
“Yeah, see ya.”
A week goes by. A few e-mails from Steve. A few dozen from Matt, a couple phone calls, too. I thought I was going to marry Matt. Back when I was trying to read 30 pages of moral theory in 15 minutes for the first time. Now he’s a philosophy professor in California and I sent him an e-mail proclaiming that my getting a “job” as a tutor is one of the lesser known signs of the apocalypse. “It’s right after rivers running with blood and right before the locusts.”
“I still don’t recall it being mentioned. Do they refer to you by name?”
He graciously offers to run through Russell's problem with direct names and proper descriptions which isn’t so much a problem as it is a series of statements. “I don’t really buy it.” Number Eight: That sentence has been responsible for countless philosophical arguments between us, most of which I lose.
“You don’t buy the theory of universal grammar?”
“That’s right.”
“Don’t say that too loud or you’ll have MIT field linguists parachuting in around your house. It’s like threatening to kill the president.”
Steve and I are supposed to meet on Friday. He e-mails and cancels. Some attorney meeting. Maybe a birthday party. My Saturday is full. He works on Sunday. Number Nine: “Next weekend?” “Next weekend.”
I want to end this with a link to an mp3 file. But. Number ten: I can’t. The guitar tuning slash universal-grammar-is-utter-crap-no-matter-what-MIT-says tutoring session is still days away. My guitar remains out of tune. My weekend is booked. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to squeeze in a recording session Sunday night. Sometime after America’s Funniest Home Videos but sometime before it’s too late to bust out a ridiculous jingle in my bathroom. Because T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y requires a jungle. And I have a guitar.
take it
take it
take the survey
just take it
take it
take the survey
take it
take it
take the survey
just take it
take it
take the survey
I can’t play guitar and I can’t really sing. But I’ve never let details like that bog me down. After all, the survey requires a jingle and I have a guitar. I was going to record it two weekends ago with GarageBand and my bathroom’s acoustics. I figured: how hard can it be?
It can be so hard.
Many things have gone wrong.
Number one: I’ve dated a disproportionate number of boys who do, in fact, know how to play guitar. One could argue that this is the number one problem in many areas of my life but for my purposes today, I’ll confine its impact to how it thwarted my attempts at a jingle. It thwarted my attempts at a jingle because Bob left the pick stuck in the strings. I didn’t realize it, accidentally untuned it, realized it, tried to tune it but instead untuned it more and then gave up. I don’t usually give up, but I know when I’m beat. And in this instance, out of tune won.
Not wanting to have an out of tune jingle, I Goggled guitar teachers in Queen Anne. I found this ad:
TRADE: Guitar lessons for Philosophy tutoring.
posted 07/27/2007
I want to trade Guitar Lessons (for you or your kid(s))for Philosophy tutoring. I'm the guitarist you're the philosopher.
Steve@...
No shit.
Did I mention that I was a philosophy major in college? I was a philosophy major in college. It took me no time at all to pen a response and by Wednesday we had a tutoring coffee date set up and I had 60 pages of Kant’s moral theory to read. Oh, that. Right there. The 60 pages of moral theory. That’s Number Two.
Flash forward! It’s Saturday. I’m going to meet Steve to go over the 30 pages of moral theory that I read and have a latte and a muffin.
Meow.
So, I’m walking to the coffee shop.
Meow.
And I get followed by a cat.
No shit.
Number Three: Getting followed by a cat.
Simba. Orange. Friendly. On my heels. I check the collar. Call the number. Leave a message.
“Oh, um, hi. I have your cat. Well I don’t actually have your cat, but it’s following me. It’s been about 4 blocks now and I don’t know if she’s lost but if she is, we’re on 1st and Roy and, well, here’s my cell number so you can call me if she’s lost and I’ll try to find her again... ah... hmm... I’m not sure what to do.”
Meow.
I keep walking. I have 30 pages to read in 15 minutes (Exactly like college! EXACTLY LIKE COLLEGE!) and as we cross the street Simba trots in front of me and into the arms of a dum-dum sucking hipster. “I got your cat!” he says.
“She’s not my cat. She’s following me.” He looks at her collar. I say "I’ve already left a message." I start to over explain about why I can’t take her home. See. I have a cat. And. Um. I have 30 pages of moral theory to read. And my guitar is out of tune. Did I mentioned I called the number on her collar already? Number Four: I think at this point, I start sweating. “I can take her for a while.” he interrupts.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I don’t have a cat.”
Letting the caller ID find the pens and paper for us, we trade cell phone numbers by dialing each other's.
“What’s your name?”
“Heather. What’s yours?”
“Hunter.”
We both laugh. I briefly picture us on TLC's A Baby Story talking about how we met. “And then she said her name was Heather, and mine is Hunter and I just knew. I just knew.”
I watch him for a second with Simba draped over his left shoulder walking up the hill.
30 pages to read. Now 5 minutes to do it. I call Simba’s house and leave another well worded message. Hunter. Cat. Call. Me.
I get there. It’s hot. Number Five: still sweating. I get an iced coffee and a blueberry muffin and find a seat in the back for what will turn into an hour of moral theory (I wing it) topped off with an hour of Russell's problem of proper names and descriptions (I wing that, too.)
“What do you want out of this?” I say at the end. Trying to be a good tutor. Vowing to do the reading.
“I want to believe in an afterlife.”
“With or without god?”
“Without.” he says.
“I think I can help you do that.”
“I owe you a guitar lesson.”
“I actually just need it tuned.”
We part. Shake hands. Lots of head nods. I call Hunter. He still has the cat. He left a message for the owners. They now have two messages from me and one from him.
I run errands. See friends.
“I’m having this weird day.” I tell everyone.
“Getting followed by a cat makes everything seem weird.” Everyone says back.
4pm. Coming back from Target. I bought a mop. It was awesome. Phone rings. It’s Hunter. He’s going out and wants to know if I can take the cat.
Number Six: I can’t take the cat.
“I don’t know if I can take the cat. I have a cat already and she’s kinda mean and weird. Hmm. Ah. Well! How about this. Do you have fifteen minutes? Can I come get you? We can drive up to Simba’s house and walk around to the back - if there is a cat door, we’re off the hook and we can just leave her in the yard. If not, I’ll figure something out.”
“OK.”
“Where do you live?”
“330 5th Avenue.”
‘Oh! Weird. I live at 316.”
No shit.
I get there and Hunter comes down the steps, Simba is draped over his right shoulder now. He gets in and I laugh. I blurt out how weird of a day this is.
Meow.
Number Seven: I talk when I’m nervous.
We drive up the hill to the address on Simba’s tag. A man is watering the front lawn. Hunter worried aloud that Simba’s owners might have moved and I chime in that it would be crazy if they had moved to South Dakota or something and Simba walked all the way back here.
“Is this your cat?” he calls out.
“Simba!” the man with the hose answers back. “You two are the third couple to bring her back this week!”
We stare blankly at each other.
“Just set her down wherever.”
Hunter plops her down on the sidewalk. Completely anti-climatic. I hadn’t realized I was hoping for a relieved puffy eyed 5 year old to grab Simba gleefully from our arms. But. I was.
We say our good byes to Simba. She follows us back to the car.
Meow.
We drive back down the hill. Lots of small talk. He works at Boeing. An engineer. “I sell ads.” that’s what I say when I don’t want to talk about it. I say I work at a newspaper when I do.
We say good bye, exchange "Weird days!" and he starts to get out of the car.
“Hey, do you play guitar by chance?”
Number Seven. “Nope.”
“Well, see ya around.”
“Yeah, see ya.”
A week goes by. A few e-mails from Steve. A few dozen from Matt, a couple phone calls, too. I thought I was going to marry Matt. Back when I was trying to read 30 pages of moral theory in 15 minutes for the first time. Now he’s a philosophy professor in California and I sent him an e-mail proclaiming that my getting a “job” as a tutor is one of the lesser known signs of the apocalypse. “It’s right after rivers running with blood and right before the locusts.”
“I still don’t recall it being mentioned. Do they refer to you by name?”
He graciously offers to run through Russell's problem with direct names and proper descriptions which isn’t so much a problem as it is a series of statements. “I don’t really buy it.” Number Eight: That sentence has been responsible for countless philosophical arguments between us, most of which I lose.
“You don’t buy the theory of universal grammar?”
“That’s right.”
“Don’t say that too loud or you’ll have MIT field linguists parachuting in around your house. It’s like threatening to kill the president.”
Steve and I are supposed to meet on Friday. He e-mails and cancels. Some attorney meeting. Maybe a birthday party. My Saturday is full. He works on Sunday. Number Nine: “Next weekend?” “Next weekend.”
I want to end this with a link to an mp3 file. But. Number ten: I can’t. The guitar tuning slash universal-grammar-is-utter-crap-no-matter-what-MIT-says tutoring session is still days away. My guitar remains out of tune. My weekend is booked. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to squeeze in a recording session Sunday night. Sometime after America’s Funniest Home Videos but sometime before it’s too late to bust out a ridiculous jingle in my bathroom. Because T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y requires a jungle. And I have a guitar.
take it
take it
take the survey
just take it
take it
take the survey
Sunday, August 19, 2007
babble
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t have a car. I walk to work. And home from work. To coffee and back. To the store for apples and cheese and then home from the store with apples, cheese, crackers, cookies and Cap’n Crunch. If I added up all my walking each week it adds up to about 25 miles. More on busy weeks. Like weeks where I want to wander down 5th Street because it reminds me of Chicago. Or weeks were I want to smell the market and buy a French magazine.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I spend at least 8 hours a week walking. And 99% of those 8 hours are spent alone. They are quiet. No music or iPod. Just me and which ever bag I grabbed that morning with whatever stuff happens to be in it. And my Chuck Taylors. And my sunglasses. I daydream the whole time. When I get home, there will be entire stretches of the walk that I don’t really remember. Sometimes I almost get hit by cars. And I bumped into a newspaper box once. My inner life is quite rich.
You know, what I’m trying to say is that there is some part of me that works on sorting out problems that I don’t really know much about. It’s like the flip side to my daydreaminess. It grabs my worries, puzzles, ennui and takes them out to lunch and figures out what’s really going on. It formulates and draws charts. Power Point may or may not be involved. But when it’s figured something out, when it’s gotten the a-ha, it sends it home. Sometimes fully formulated. Sometimes just a word or snapshot. Suddenly I have the key. Or suddenly I have the question.
But maybe what I’m trying to say is that this is how T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y happened. I was walking home. Day dreaming. Things being working out. And it popped to the surface. Whispered almost. T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y. “Hey, what’s that?” I said to no one. “What does it mean?” No one said back. I wondered what it was. What it could be. It took me a few days to figure it out. But I decided it’s a quest. It’s a search. An Important Task. It’s me finding the thing that motivates me the most. Love.
I know what I want to say. I want to say that this is how it all started.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I spend at least 8 hours a week walking. And 99% of those 8 hours are spent alone. They are quiet. No music or iPod. Just me and which ever bag I grabbed that morning with whatever stuff happens to be in it. And my Chuck Taylors. And my sunglasses. I daydream the whole time. When I get home, there will be entire stretches of the walk that I don’t really remember. Sometimes I almost get hit by cars. And I bumped into a newspaper box once. My inner life is quite rich.
You know, what I’m trying to say is that there is some part of me that works on sorting out problems that I don’t really know much about. It’s like the flip side to my daydreaminess. It grabs my worries, puzzles, ennui and takes them out to lunch and figures out what’s really going on. It formulates and draws charts. Power Point may or may not be involved. But when it’s figured something out, when it’s gotten the a-ha, it sends it home. Sometimes fully formulated. Sometimes just a word or snapshot. Suddenly I have the key. Or suddenly I have the question.
But maybe what I’m trying to say is that this is how T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y happened. I was walking home. Day dreaming. Things being working out. And it popped to the surface. Whispered almost. T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y. “Hey, what’s that?” I said to no one. “What does it mean?” No one said back. I wondered what it was. What it could be. It took me a few days to figure it out. But I decided it’s a quest. It’s a search. An Important Task. It’s me finding the thing that motivates me the most. Love.
I know what I want to say. I want to say that this is how it all started.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
alaphabet super
I got some writing advice today.
I was lamenting about how I want to write a book but can’t seem to get past the ideas. The free floating nameless characters. The makeshift plots that change and shift and only make sense to me. My total lack of respect for gra. Mmar. And sentence. Structure. I get mired down in it. Stuck. The idea of sustaining 300 pages on one idea. One story. It sticks me to my chair. My hands in my lap. Keyboard quiet.
I was wishing out loud for discipline.
And she, she being an editor who I love at a newspaper worth fighting for, she said I write like Faulkner or Joyce. That it flows. That I have a voice. I said this then and I will say this now. Those comparisons are clearly too kind. They are generous and wonderful and day making. But too too kind. After such a head pat. After such a glowing review. She said:
Beware of structure. It’s like a straight jacket that you might not be able to take off.
She’s watched it. She’s lived it. Writer after writer putting it on. Tightening the belts. Living inside an inverted triangle. Tidy. Clean. They get stuck in the proper of it all. And set aside their risk taking. Their shooting from the hip. Signing up for writing seminars 5 years later where they are encouraged to write like they use to. You know. When they didn’t know how they were supposed to. She said:
Tread lightly.
I think a lot about writing. About what I’m supposed to do with it. If there is a book inside me. Or if this blog lives by itself. When I talk about writing, I talk about how it just seems to happen. 15 minutes. No edits. Maybe spell check if I’m feeling nice. And while I don’t write every day or even every week, I pay a price. An antsyness. A slow trade of inner calm for outter busy. Until the scales are tipped too much. Until the balance is threatening. And I sit down with my iBook on my lap and.
Write.
I was lamenting about how I want to write a book but can’t seem to get past the ideas. The free floating nameless characters. The makeshift plots that change and shift and only make sense to me. My total lack of respect for gra. Mmar. And sentence. Structure. I get mired down in it. Stuck. The idea of sustaining 300 pages on one idea. One story. It sticks me to my chair. My hands in my lap. Keyboard quiet.
I was wishing out loud for discipline.
And she, she being an editor who I love at a newspaper worth fighting for, she said I write like Faulkner or Joyce. That it flows. That I have a voice. I said this then and I will say this now. Those comparisons are clearly too kind. They are generous and wonderful and day making. But too too kind. After such a head pat. After such a glowing review. She said:
Beware of structure. It’s like a straight jacket that you might not be able to take off.
She’s watched it. She’s lived it. Writer after writer putting it on. Tightening the belts. Living inside an inverted triangle. Tidy. Clean. They get stuck in the proper of it all. And set aside their risk taking. Their shooting from the hip. Signing up for writing seminars 5 years later where they are encouraged to write like they use to. You know. When they didn’t know how they were supposed to. She said:
Tread lightly.
I think a lot about writing. About what I’m supposed to do with it. If there is a book inside me. Or if this blog lives by itself. When I talk about writing, I talk about how it just seems to happen. 15 minutes. No edits. Maybe spell check if I’m feeling nice. And while I don’t write every day or even every week, I pay a price. An antsyness. A slow trade of inner calm for outter busy. Until the scales are tipped too much. Until the balance is threatening. And I sit down with my iBook on my lap and.
Write.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
opening lines
The first word they read will be "Welcome." It will be black on a white background and it will be written in Helvetica. All uppercase, I think. Maybe not though. A mix of the two might be best. What comes next will be a reassuring sentence about why they have come to that web address. How it wasn’t entirely chance that their name was selected and it wasn’t entirely not chance either. I think it will say: “If you are here, you are meant to be here.” Yes. That is exactly what it will say. First it will say:
Welcome.
And then it will say:
If you are here, you are meant to be here.
I think that will keep their attention while also being two true statements. I could keep their attention with sensationalism or exaggerations but instead, I will chose to do it through sweeping but truthful statements. I will chose to do it through telling them things they secretly long to hear and by asking them questions they secretly long to answer. They might so secretly long for these things that they don’t even know they long for them. Those are the people that might get choked up. The people who when they read:
Welcome.
and
If you are here, you are meant to be here.
Feel the pluck of their heart strings and an increased dampness in their eyes. For them, maybe this will be like getting the answer they’ve searched for. For me, it will be an IP address. An IP address is a unique address given to your computer so it can communicate with other computers. And that’s how I’ll know them all first.
67.128.90.32
Them being the men who get the postcard. The men who demographically fit a profile. The ones who have filled out a warranty card or subscribed to a magazine. The ones in a database available for sale for just $25. Them. I’ll know them as an IP address and they will know me as a mysterious post card.
T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y
Welcome.
If you are here, you are meant to be here.
Welcome.
And then it will say:
If you are here, you are meant to be here.
I think that will keep their attention while also being two true statements. I could keep their attention with sensationalism or exaggerations but instead, I will chose to do it through sweeping but truthful statements. I will chose to do it through telling them things they secretly long to hear and by asking them questions they secretly long to answer. They might so secretly long for these things that they don’t even know they long for them. Those are the people that might get choked up. The people who when they read:
Welcome.
and
If you are here, you are meant to be here.
Feel the pluck of their heart strings and an increased dampness in their eyes. For them, maybe this will be like getting the answer they’ve searched for. For me, it will be an IP address. An IP address is a unique address given to your computer so it can communicate with other computers. And that’s how I’ll know them all first.
67.128.90.32
Them being the men who get the postcard. The men who demographically fit a profile. The ones who have filled out a warranty card or subscribed to a magazine. The ones in a database available for sale for just $25. Them. I’ll know them as an IP address and they will know me as a mysterious post card.
T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y
Welcome.
If you are here, you are meant to be here.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
left and leaving
It’s kinda weird, this moving on thing. This letting go. It seems to happen in pieces. Or percents of me. My opinion on it differs from one second to the next. I’ve learned to keep quiet. Realizing that I usually feel differently before I even finish the thought. Sometimes I picture it like lightening bugs in a mason jar. Appearing and reappearing at uneven intervals. Blinking like broken Christmas lights.
Many days have gone by without thinking of him. Busy with a thousand other things, my life rings my door bell more than I deserve. For someone happy to spend a weekend alone or even a whole month the ding dong of consulting jobs and art projects and writing opportunities is steady. I find myself wondering on walks home what would happen if I actually tried. Maybe the whole world would burst open and I could pick and chose. Chose and pick. Like being the first kid to find the Halloween candy. It’s all Snickers and Kisses. The Smarties and DumDums are for the second wave.
But I stay busy. Even on days I would rather not.
Those days. Those are the days he crosses my mind a thousand times if he crosses it once. Imaginary conversations that have grown up from Grade A romantic comedy happy endings to me walking away and saying how I can’t do this anymore while wishing him well over my shoulder. It’s how I heal, these elaborate day dreams where I know the color of shoes I’m wearing and if my petal pink nail polish is chipping off or perfect in it’s plasticy shine. All my broken hearts have followed this well worn path. This trail from wanting to not. From better off with to better off without. It’s a journey I watch happen as much as I make happen. Waiting for the magic day where I say no thanks. I can’t predict it’s arrival but I’m never surprised when it comes. It signals the beginning of the end.
The end being when I don’t have imaginary conversation with him anymore. Where I don’t think of him at all and if I do, it passes through without much notice. Eluding the emotional radar, slipping out the back. Unlike the day I say no as opposed to all the other days where I said yes. This changing of the guard day, this haven’t thought about him in a while day, it goes largely uncelebrated but I think that may be the point. It’s the day he doesn’t matter in the same way. Where he takes root firmly in the past and I’m face forward, eyes open. By definition it can’t be celebrated because leaving him behind isn’t important anymore. It requires no ceremony. No words. It just is.
I’m not there yet. As this post attests. Right now, I’m saying no and thinking of something he could say that would make me say yes. I circle around and around but keep coming up empty. Wrestling with the uncomfortable that comes with realizing I don’t think he can be different. And knowing I can’t be happy like we were. We break up a hundred times. I walk up the concrete steps to the plaza while he stands at the bottom. By the porcelain statues of the little girls that are ten feet tall. With their polka dot dresses and rosy glazed cheeks. I don’t look back but I’m sure he walks away. Down the diagonal street to his brown building that peeks between the skyscrapers. Where they make tin cans connected by string.
Many days have gone by without thinking of him. Busy with a thousand other things, my life rings my door bell more than I deserve. For someone happy to spend a weekend alone or even a whole month the ding dong of consulting jobs and art projects and writing opportunities is steady. I find myself wondering on walks home what would happen if I actually tried. Maybe the whole world would burst open and I could pick and chose. Chose and pick. Like being the first kid to find the Halloween candy. It’s all Snickers and Kisses. The Smarties and DumDums are for the second wave.
But I stay busy. Even on days I would rather not.
Those days. Those are the days he crosses my mind a thousand times if he crosses it once. Imaginary conversations that have grown up from Grade A romantic comedy happy endings to me walking away and saying how I can’t do this anymore while wishing him well over my shoulder. It’s how I heal, these elaborate day dreams where I know the color of shoes I’m wearing and if my petal pink nail polish is chipping off or perfect in it’s plasticy shine. All my broken hearts have followed this well worn path. This trail from wanting to not. From better off with to better off without. It’s a journey I watch happen as much as I make happen. Waiting for the magic day where I say no thanks. I can’t predict it’s arrival but I’m never surprised when it comes. It signals the beginning of the end.
The end being when I don’t have imaginary conversation with him anymore. Where I don’t think of him at all and if I do, it passes through without much notice. Eluding the emotional radar, slipping out the back. Unlike the day I say no as opposed to all the other days where I said yes. This changing of the guard day, this haven’t thought about him in a while day, it goes largely uncelebrated but I think that may be the point. It’s the day he doesn’t matter in the same way. Where he takes root firmly in the past and I’m face forward, eyes open. By definition it can’t be celebrated because leaving him behind isn’t important anymore. It requires no ceremony. No words. It just is.
I’m not there yet. As this post attests. Right now, I’m saying no and thinking of something he could say that would make me say yes. I circle around and around but keep coming up empty. Wrestling with the uncomfortable that comes with realizing I don’t think he can be different. And knowing I can’t be happy like we were. We break up a hundred times. I walk up the concrete steps to the plaza while he stands at the bottom. By the porcelain statues of the little girls that are ten feet tall. With their polka dot dresses and rosy glazed cheeks. I don’t look back but I’m sure he walks away. Down the diagonal street to his brown building that peeks between the skyscrapers. Where they make tin cans connected by string.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
How To Use Up All Nine Lives In 15 Minutes
or
My First Bicycle Commute To Work
I just needed to get that off my chest. I'm going to go rock myself in a corner now while muttering "cars, cars, cars go fast."
Thursday, July 26, 2007
just friends
I turned my nose into the crook of his neck and breathed in. He smelled different. New detergent different. Or new shampoo different. No to both he said. “This shirt was in the back of my closet. I haven’t worn it in a while.” His hand touched the collar and stretched it to his nose. “It smells different?” “Yeah.” I said and leaned in again. Inhaled. “Still different.” He smiled. He shrugged.
“How about me? Do I smell the same?”
He stepped forward, his hands on my back. He moved in slow. His face turned to my neck. I could feel him breath me in. His lungs filling with cucumber and green tea scent. My hair sticking to his lips. I wanted to press rewind a thousand times. A thousand times. But he jumped back. Jumped. “Yes. Yes. You smell the same. You smell great.” He spun around to look at downtown. His stone building peeking through the blue glass skyline.
“How about me? Do I smell the same?”
He stepped forward, his hands on my back. He moved in slow. His face turned to my neck. I could feel him breath me in. His lungs filling with cucumber and green tea scent. My hair sticking to his lips. I wanted to press rewind a thousand times. A thousand times. But he jumped back. Jumped. “Yes. Yes. You smell the same. You smell great.” He spun around to look at downtown. His stone building peeking through the blue glass skyline.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
dsiplaced
A few of my friends have created a handful of great websites and made dream jobs for themselves in the process. Their flagship is 43Things. A social networking site that rallies around the question “What do you want to do with your life?” It’s a powerful question. Calling on daydreams and potential. Preparedness and opportunity. It speaks of crossroads and just being better. We all want to be better. We all want to do more. The how, the what, the when of being better – that’s the stuff of 43Things. That’s its soul. In just over two years time a million people have signed up to answer that question and they’ve answered it in a million different ways.
999,997 of them great.
But the bad apples. Spam. Porn. Bullies. The small company that dared to ask the question found themselves getting answers back that they weren’t expecting. Some were easy to solve. Spammer hunts conducted with nary a thought. Others were more challenging. The user created goals range from the mundane and popular to the down right upsetting. The potential moral and ethical dilemmas weren’t lost on the people who created this site. They talk about thought police and free speech. Open communities, self regulation. They take their work and their role seriously. The goals that kept them up at night came from unexpected sources.
Teenage girls.
Not just any teenage girls. Vulnerable girls struggling under societal pressures. Internalizing those pressures. Messed up body images. Misplaced ideals. These girls had the goal of becoming or staying anorexic. They filled the forums with tips and ideas. They supported each other in their quests for protruding clavicles and thighs no bigger than our wrists. What to do with them? What to do?
First was a message. Well worded, well thought out. Don’t hurt yourself. Please get help. Here is help. It was one of the few goals tagged for this sort of communication from above. Not parental in tone, purposefully not parental. Just kind and simple with links to places they could go for help. But seeing a message when you are in the throws of a disease doesn’t solve anything. We all know it doesn’t solve anything. They knew it wouldn’t solve anything but what to do? What to do?
These girls were in their care. Accidentally, sure. Unwillingly, sure. But they were there nonetheless. Using their site to communicate harmful information, encouraging each other to do harmful things. This group of six 30somethings on Capitol Hill who had started a little internet company were thrust into the role of makeshift guidance counselors without the ability to call the parents, without the ability to even know who these girls actually were.
Step two was suspension. You posted a tip - your account was suspended. You posted encouragement - suspended. One by one, the accounts of these girls were canceled. One by one these girls would open new accounts, new user names, same problems. It was a never ending game of cat and mouse. The deletions only slowed them down, it never made them go away. Which they knew. Which we know. But what to do? What to do?
Now. It’s deletion of the goal. It’s turning off the forums. It’s shutting the lights off and going to bed. Party’s over. If you can find a pro-anorexia goal on 43Things all you’ll find is the well worded bulletin. All of the social networking features have been turned off. It’s static and silent. Unlike the countless unmanned blogs and family web sites that stay in suspended animation for years and years the silence and quiet found on these pages of an otherwise very busy social networking site have the creepiness of an empty airport. It’s just not supposed to be like that but how else can it be?
To say the story ends here would be wrong. The girls have moved around on 43Things. Their clumsy adolescent innocence in emailing 43Things in protest and playing this game of hide and seek only adds to the irony that I can’t put my finger on. Therapists, psychologists, national organizations want these communities quieted. It is the responsible thing to do. Without a doubt it is the right thing to do. For both the site and the girls.
So, why the heavy hearts?
Is it that a bunch of young girls with all their innocence, body hatred and low self-esteem are lost on the internet? Is it that the next place they find might not care enough to talk about what’s best, to consult with experts, to lose sleep? Could it be as common as when a new parent lets their baby cry herself to sleep for the first time? How doing what’s needed to separate ourselves from our children, cutting that cord again and again throughout their lives, is painful and gut wrenching and absolutely necessary each and every time we do it.
999,997 of them great.
But the bad apples. Spam. Porn. Bullies. The small company that dared to ask the question found themselves getting answers back that they weren’t expecting. Some were easy to solve. Spammer hunts conducted with nary a thought. Others were more challenging. The user created goals range from the mundane and popular to the down right upsetting. The potential moral and ethical dilemmas weren’t lost on the people who created this site. They talk about thought police and free speech. Open communities, self regulation. They take their work and their role seriously. The goals that kept them up at night came from unexpected sources.
Teenage girls.
Not just any teenage girls. Vulnerable girls struggling under societal pressures. Internalizing those pressures. Messed up body images. Misplaced ideals. These girls had the goal of becoming or staying anorexic. They filled the forums with tips and ideas. They supported each other in their quests for protruding clavicles and thighs no bigger than our wrists. What to do with them? What to do?
First was a message. Well worded, well thought out. Don’t hurt yourself. Please get help. Here is help. It was one of the few goals tagged for this sort of communication from above. Not parental in tone, purposefully not parental. Just kind and simple with links to places they could go for help. But seeing a message when you are in the throws of a disease doesn’t solve anything. We all know it doesn’t solve anything. They knew it wouldn’t solve anything but what to do? What to do?
These girls were in their care. Accidentally, sure. Unwillingly, sure. But they were there nonetheless. Using their site to communicate harmful information, encouraging each other to do harmful things. This group of six 30somethings on Capitol Hill who had started a little internet company were thrust into the role of makeshift guidance counselors without the ability to call the parents, without the ability to even know who these girls actually were.
Step two was suspension. You posted a tip - your account was suspended. You posted encouragement - suspended. One by one, the accounts of these girls were canceled. One by one these girls would open new accounts, new user names, same problems. It was a never ending game of cat and mouse. The deletions only slowed them down, it never made them go away. Which they knew. Which we know. But what to do? What to do?
Now. It’s deletion of the goal. It’s turning off the forums. It’s shutting the lights off and going to bed. Party’s over. If you can find a pro-anorexia goal on 43Things all you’ll find is the well worded bulletin. All of the social networking features have been turned off. It’s static and silent. Unlike the countless unmanned blogs and family web sites that stay in suspended animation for years and years the silence and quiet found on these pages of an otherwise very busy social networking site have the creepiness of an empty airport. It’s just not supposed to be like that but how else can it be?
To say the story ends here would be wrong. The girls have moved around on 43Things. Their clumsy adolescent innocence in emailing 43Things in protest and playing this game of hide and seek only adds to the irony that I can’t put my finger on. Therapists, psychologists, national organizations want these communities quieted. It is the responsible thing to do. Without a doubt it is the right thing to do. For both the site and the girls.
So, why the heavy hearts?
Is it that a bunch of young girls with all their innocence, body hatred and low self-esteem are lost on the internet? Is it that the next place they find might not care enough to talk about what’s best, to consult with experts, to lose sleep? Could it be as common as when a new parent lets their baby cry herself to sleep for the first time? How doing what’s needed to separate ourselves from our children, cutting that cord again and again throughout their lives, is painful and gut wrenching and absolutely necessary each and every time we do it.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
seven things
She asked me what I know about him.
“What do you know about your dad?”
My dad. My. Dad. I never say those two words together.
“I know his name and that we look alike. I know his parents were alcoholics. I know they owned a chain of funeral homes. I know he moved to Madison for a while, but came back to Green Bay. I know he was addicted to heroin and I know how he died.”
I paused.
“That’s all.”
“What do you know about your dad?”
My dad. My. Dad. I never say those two words together.
“I know his name and that we look alike. I know his parents were alcoholics. I know they owned a chain of funeral homes. I know he moved to Madison for a while, but came back to Green Bay. I know he was addicted to heroin and I know how he died.”
I paused.
“That’s all.”
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