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.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
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
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