Nostalgic Nonsense

change of pace, pace of change

2008-08-11T19:10:00.003-04:00

From now on please check the following sites:

www.arsi-vi.com (Nostalgic nonsense - periodic blogging)

www.rcvictorino.com (Drops on a page - short stories, poems, etc.)

Thanks!

An Olympic discovery - Hungary's Heroes

2008-08-11T10:00:00.003-04:00

As an admitted non-spectator of the Olympics (though I swore to myself this year I'd care more) I missed the opening ceremonies, which, according to a handful of people in my life, were worth watching.

So, relishing in the power of the Internet, I turned to YouTube to steal me perhaps just a few glimpses of China's big "how-do-you-do" or "餵" to the rest of the world.

YouTube's always amazed me in how it gives me exactly what I want. If I want to hear a song someone recommended, I can almost always trust YouTube to provide me multiple versions (not to mention entertaining, (though sometimes odd, videos). Hell, even performances by near-and-dear friends Pilotgroove and Arsi-Vi can be viewed by you, me, and Hu Jintao, if he so chose to.

Of course, it is possible to stumble upon the "what-the-hell" videos along the way, which, arguably, is half the fun of YouTube to begin with.

In my search for the opening ceremonies, I assumed I'd find the video with little effort, and much to my expectation, videos tagged as "Beijing Opening Ceremonies" appeared on my screen the moment I typed in www.youtube.com.

Pleased with Mr. Tube, yet again, I proceeded to click on one of the videos, based on it's length (6.24). I figured the shorter the video, the most likely it's not what I'm looking for. Six minutes seemed to me like a good length, and as I clicked on the video, I smiled to myself, pleased with my keen sense of navigation skills in the Ocean of YouTube.

As I patted my own back my computer screen came upon the video I had chosen. The first scene I saw wasn't exactly what I had expected to come from the Olympics ... I heard about drums, and footsteps (I think), and fireworks ... lots of fireworks (though some were fake - read here).

Not two very large, very naked (enough) and very touchy-feely men. But I thought to myself, this must be one of the performances. It was artsy enough, and odd enough, to fit in with China and Olympics, so I started watching.

What ensued was a series of, What the hells?, Oh my Gods, and Ewws, from my mouth. I can't remember being so entranced, yet mildly embarrassed by my intent interest, in anything. I was amazed, felt awkward, and was absolutely in awe at what I was watching. Whether you like it, or are somewhat dumbfounded and eeked out about it, you have to watch it. Apparently it's a video of two Hungarians, on a Chinese television show - nothing to do with the Olympics, but one hell of an Olympic performance.

The music is worth it so make sure you have your volumes up. You have to watch the entire thing to appreciate it, as it builds up toward an inconceivable ending. Enjoy!

Video - Click Here

Silly civility - the perception of doors.

2008-02-27T09:19:00.003-05:00

Sometimes civility is one big annoyance. In certain instances, an act of kindness can result in a grievance of sorts.
Take for example holding doors open for people.
I'm a believer in holding doors open, not just for the fairer sex, but for any Joe or Jane who happens to find him or herself behind me as I walk through an entryway.
It's just common manners ... civility.
But every time I offer this nicety, or am a receiver of it, I always come to realize that this act of kindness can be a bit of a nuisance.

The other day, while going to the bank, a kind woman - a good 30 yards ahead of me - opted to hold the door open for me. It was a kind gesture, indeed. But what the gesture required of me was to essentially sprint those 30 yards in order to not inconvenience my door-holding savior.
Normally I'd revel in this impromptu exercise (okay, maybe not revel, but perhaps take it in stride); but in the wintry wonder of this past Wednesday, a jaunt through Ice-land (otherwise known as the bank parking lot) was not ideal. While jogging to reach the open door in a timely manner, I slipped, and, yes, fell, thus dampening my pants, my man bag (it's freakin' European, okay?) and my mood.

But what was I going to do? Was I going to take it out on door holder? Caught in the moment I clearly blamed her for her inexcusable act of random kindness - how could she? - but luckily I held my tongue long enough to cool down (being soaked, in 20 degree weather, hastened the process).

As I approached the door (which she continued to hold throughout my fall and rise again) I smiled at door holder, thanking her for the gesture. But in my head I began to wonder, do people ever curse me when - by holding a door open for them - I've essentially challenged them to speed up their pace, alter their gait, so that I can fulfill my narcistically-inspired good deed?

I think I now believe a closed door serves greater purpose than an opened one.

The Fate of a Life Aquatic

2007-12-07T15:28:00.000-05:00

Forgive me journal, for I have sinned. It has been four months since my last confession. Four months filled with story ideas, interesting characters, and an abundance of conflict … with little resolution. Four months filled with the spectrum of emotions. Still, I’ve ignored you.

The more activity in my life, the more there is to write, the less time there is to write it.

And so it is that I write a compacted summation, to contribute to the record:
Somewhere within the walls of these past four months I have cried; I have laughed; I have hurt someone and I have been hurt. Inside this span of time I’ve impacted a child’s life; perhaps I’ve impacted many. I’ve ignored some friends and loved ones; perhaps I've clung too closely to others. I have sinned, and have been sinned against. It has been a typical several months.

Now I ask your permission to expand one one aspect of these past four months. An aspect referred to as:

The Fate of a Life Aquatic:
In August a face from the past entered the present. With the wave of a hand from behind the glass of a car window, Ocean reappeared in my life. We were both traveling, in separate cars, on the interstate. We were headed toward whatever obligations consumed our day. Whether it was the intervention of celestial beings, or a simple twist of serendipity, something occurred so that our individual obligations led us to the same road, on the same day, at the same time. Since distance was always an issue for us in our past relationship (living states apart) this was quite the unexpected affair. As first, when I saw her, I doubted what I saw - it certainly wouldn't make sense that she be there, on that exact road, at that exact time.
Then familiarity settled in ... it had to be her, right? Who else could it be? As she drove by me, I noticed the license plates ... Rhode Island ... yes, this must be her. My body shook; my heart raced. Was this a sign? Was this fate? Fate is often man-made; our mind manipulates our worldly surroundings, our perceptions and reasoning. Perhaps my run-in with Ocean was fate, maybe it was man-made. Regardless, it brought us back together, at least, for one fleeting moment on the highway. Soon after I saw her, I tried to call her. I had rehearsed what I was going to say to her. I wanted to tell her how my body leaped, and seized, all at once when I saw her on the road ... I couldn't stop thinking of it, of her, of the absurdity of my seeing her. I wanted to know if she thought, like I did, that this could indeed be fate. I hesitated dialing the last digit of her number. I was scared ... no ... nervous. It was a welcomed nervousness; I hadn't felt that emotion toward another person in so long. I eventually unearthed enough courage to hit that last digit.

A pause.

Then a voice, a woman’s voice. No, not Ocean’s voice. The voice of that woman, the faceless one, the one who tells you that the number you just dialed is no longer in service. Please try your call again.

Disconnected.

At first I was relieved, then frustrated. I sought out her friend, a mutual friend, for advice. Soon after, I got her number and left her a message: I was so nervous, but so excited to see you on that road. I had been thinking of you before then, and then I see you on the road? How crazy is that? Isn't that crazy?

A few days later I received a photo text message, from Ocean, of a turtle – one of those little wooden turtles whose head bounces around like a buoy. Attached to the photo were the words: “Guess Who.” Again, my heart raced. This was the turtle I gave to her when I returned from Los Angeles in Feb. 2006, and still she had it. Again, my body leaped, and seized at once.

We reunited.

The honeymoon weeks of our reunion were, of course, wonderful. The newness of relationships is an aphrodisiac, even if it is the second time around. Letters sent in the mail, late-night conversations. But lately the course has changed. Aggravations are abounding. Frustrations float freely. The distance that distanced us in the past, lurks again inside our hearts. It’s been weeks since last I saw her; our conversations are limited to pleasantry-laced moments from a cell phone, when service is available. Her days consist of obligation after obligation – and these obligations are burying her. My passiveness is not matching well with her hectic schedule. She needs more attention than I can provide at this time … perhaps she needs more attention than I even want to provide. I don’t know. But I get sad thinking about the span of that one week in August, when my heart raced twice. When a picture of a toy turtle gave me a smile.

Was this fate?

The Sex Change

2007-08-10T16:13:00.000-04:00

Several weeks ago my mother, Mamita, fell in love on the way to taking in the fifth installment of Harry Potter.
She and Fleet detoured to the local pet store, where she came face to face with a tiny bundle of cumulus fluff, in the vague shape of a puppy. As a result of this encounter, my mother's iron fist - the one she waved to deny me, and my well-behaved, much deserved siblings of a canine companion throughout our childhood - melted.
She wanted this dog.
Being the careful planner that she is, Mamita allowed a night of rest to guide her toward the proper decision - should she get this dog, or was this just a way to substitute the absence of grandchildren?
As the sun rose that Sunday morning, so did Mamita's excitement. The cumulus fluff had visited Mamita's dreams the previous night; the decision was clear. She and Fleet went back to the pet store to take home their pseudo-grandchild. At the store they met with a young girl, who like Mamita, fell in love with the puppy fluff.
"What are you going to name her?" the girl asked Mamita and Fleet. They responded by asking the girl what name she liked.
"Isabella," she responded.
Both Mamita and Fleet liked the name, but decided to shorten it ... to Bella; beautiful.
And so, on that day, my new sister Bella came home.
Watching Mamita and Fleet take care of the new baby these past few weeks has been entertaining, to say the least. Mamita fell back into the role of nurturing mother with glowing anticipation. The three of them take walks, visit the park and routinely go to Starbucks to people watch. Mamita set up a Dogster site for Bella, where Mamita writes a journal, in Bella's voice, chronicling the dog's life. At home Mamita and Fleet have treated Bella like a princess, and of course Bella has filled the role with expertise - she even prances around like one. She was born to be a princess, it seems.

But today I came home to a laughing Mamita, who beckoned me downstairs.
"You have to come here," she laughed.
I complied, eager to hear what Mamita had to say. I had assumed Bella was doing something "so cute."
I walked into Mamita's office, and saw Bella, freshly cleaned and bathed - she had just returned from the groomers - laying on the floor.
"What is it?" I asked Mamita.
"Well," she said. "It seems your sister [Bella] ... is ... your brother."
Come again?
At first I wasn't sure what she said; Bella, the princess, has been living under our roof for weeks. She's been my sister since the moment she walked - actually pranced - into this house.
She's a ... boy?
"Oh my God," Mamita laughed. "She's a he!"
Apparently the groomers discovered Bella's little secret as they washed and cut her ... rather his, fluff. Luckily his fluff was all they cut. I looked down at Bella, my brother, and picked him up. There, staring at me, in all its manliness, was Bella's penis, suddenly exposed like a worm after a rainstorm.
"I have no idea how I'm going to explain this on her ... his site," she said. "He was just too fluffy to see it."
After explaining the situation to me, Mamita called up my sister (one that is still a female), Hermana.
"Bella is a boy," Mamita told her. "Fleet wants to change her name ... his name, to Bello, but he didn't respond to it."
"Why can't his name still be Bella?" I asked. "It's like my friend Kelly, from high school, who's a boy."
"That's what I think," she said.
In a weird twist to this sex change story, it seems that parenting a male dog is cheaper than parenting a female dog. Firstly, female dogs are pricier than male dogs, Mamita said. So on top of this nice surprise, Mamita and Fleet might be refunded some money for the pet store's little error. In addition, doctor visits are cheaper as well.
As for me, I love my new brother. Fleet's happy because he can refer to Bella as his little buddy. But I can't help but remembering Bella's prancing, his feminine face, his princess-behavior.
Then, of course, there's his name. Bella ... beautiful. My brother.

NOTE: Check out Bella's Dogster site to see how the proud mother, Mamita, explains her new son: http://www.dogster.com/dogs/585614

Notes on taking notice - napping at the lake

2007-07-25T16:13:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine once stated, in defense of the amount of time that had passed since his previous blog posting, that he simply had nothing to write about. At the time I found this remark to be quite witty, and representative of the truth. But in truth, as I analyze my own delinquent postings, I realize that the problem isn't a lack of content to write about; in fact there is always something to write about. What affects how often I write is how much I actually observe, rather than sleepwalk, through life. It's about how much I actually allow to soak into my skin, rather than wash off my body. It's about how much of experience I'm willing to revisit through written words rather than let get lost in the fog of time.

Yet months have passed since my last posting; hasn't there been something for me to write about?

Lake lounging

Twenty five minutes ago I pulled into the same parking lot I pull into nearly daily these days. I opened my trunk, found my sleeping bag (which I keep rolled up by using a bungee chord) and brought it to a spot underneath a tree. I unfurled the sleeping bag and converted it into a blanket to sit on. I took my schoolbag out and placed it at one end of the sleeping bag, so that I could rest my head upon it. I then removed my sandals, placed one on each end of the sleeping bag to keep it from blowing in the wind; while doing this I realized that - aside from the times I've been doing manual labor at a friend's house this past month - these sandals have been a uniform for my feet since the day my teaching job ended. Summer. I can't stand shoes and socks in summer; it's like wearing long sleeve shirts at noon in August. I'm blessed to be able to wear whatever I want in the months when the sun is in command.

It's about 3 p.m. I just arrived to Manchester from the aforementioned manual labor job. About this time each day I feel a slow sleepiness creep into my head; it pulls at my eyelids and fogs my thoughts as I take the drive from Bixby Farm to the Queen City. Usually I come here, to this lake to do schoolwork. I write an essay or read a few pages, and then, as a reward for this work, I lie down, eyes closed, and let sleep steal a few minutes of my day.

Today I decided, or perhaps sleep decided, that reward needed to proceed work; who am I to argue?

Twenty-minute naps are, to me, as wonderful a treasure as biting into a ripe strawberry, as hearing the perfect song being played at the perfect time, as seeing the most beautiful woman you've ever seen - perfect yet under appreciated. I thank God I've been taking these naps.

Today I woke up to see blades of grass before my eyes. These blades of grass have been here, in this very spot, long before I ever set foot here. Yet I'm sure I've never noticed any of these blades ever before. This lake has been a retreat for me for more than seven years. I came here with Croteau years ago, in the last century, as a weekly ritual. Instead of my sleeping bag, we'd use a quilt her Nonna made to sit on as we read the Sunday paper, every week. This lake is where I came the day I saw Croteau - years after our Sunday outings - wearing her brand-new engagement ring. It's here, at this lake, that I wrote a song for her, on that day I saw her ring.

It's here, at this lake, that I come to now when I have, for lack of a better phrase, nothing better to do. Despite having a life up here, I have no home here. When work is over I have hours to kill before my class, or before I decide to return back home, to my basement bedroom. Sometimes I take in a movie; sometimes I drive; sometimes I find a place to hike. But most times I come here, to this lake, to these blades of grass.

I know for certain that I've sat in this very spot dozens of times; yet again, I've never taken notice of the grass. I've seen the lake, the hills, the trees, the benches, and the people who sit nearby; but I overlook the grass, the very thing that supports me. But today I awoke to these blades in my vision, impossible to overlook. As a photographer one of the first lessons I was taught was to get down to your subject's level, even if it means lying on your stomach in order to get down to the same height as a chihuahua that you're photographing. But when do I ever just do that to the grass? Never.

It seems silly that I'm obsessed with simple blades of grass, but these blades remind me of how often I overlook life, how often I'm not willing to leave my point of view in search of another. Overlooking life equates to underwriting life; underwriting life equates to under thinking my days. That just leads to numbness; it leads to a constant sleepiness, of which no nap can awake me from.

Twenty minutes have gone by; am I awake yet?

Wander in Wonder

2007-05-14T18:19:00.000-04:00

There is no reason why this is so, but at this very moment I could sit in absolute silence, lost in my thoughts, for all of eternity. I dare not dissect the arrival of this mood but I shall embrace its existence while it remains in my presence.
This calm, observational mood is welcomed. Everything goes so fast these days; I feel orphaned from idle time. E-mails and cell phone calls weren't fast enough, so I latched onto text messaging. Text messaging was great, but damn was it slow; so I learned how to use T9 texting. I'm a consumer and addict of all that accelerates life, despite my proclaimed attempts at slowing it all down. So when I unintentionally walk into this world of wander in wonder, I wish it would last forever.

Sitting before me a television stares me down, mocking my attempts at ignoring him. He has reason to gloat; he's won the battle for my time far too many times before. Who am I to challenge him? But finally, after weeks of avoiding idle thought, I sit here lost and inspired by my own mental conversation. This sudden gust of inspiration doesn't come to me as frequently as I wish. Lately I've felt an aversion to quiet time; but I need that idle time. I need to make my brain think more and I need to touch keyboards, cell phones, and remote controls less. I need more recreational arts and crafts; I need to play capture the flag, or maybe even 80s-rock tag. I need to write more letters and send fewer e-mails. I need, from time to time, to sever the leash that my cell phone has attached to my pocket.

I need more idle time.

Straight to the point - dissecting my life

2007-04-29T23:17:00.000-04:00

I am not well.
That's about it. I am not well. It's been a while since I've last written; I had wondered if it was because I had nothing to say (not true) or that I didn't have time (not true). But in truth, it's because for so long I've been trying to construct a fancy, articulate, intelligently clever way of saying, simply, I am not well.
It's not easy to say that. I am not well. It's even harder to write it here. I have family who read this, friends who read this. Perhaps I wanted to mask this truth with fancy words: My world feels askew. But that's not true. My world isn't askew. The truth is, I am not well.
I have no idea what's going on. I'm sad. Why? I don't know.
Today I spent most of the day alone. It's something I rarely get to do; but I woke up this morning with no obligations. Usually I revel in the opportunity to spend a day alone. But today was different. I backed into my solitude reluctantly; most people I consider friends had their own obligations, thus it was just me ... just me. It was depressing. I felt out of place from the moment I woke up. To escape that feeling I opted to head north of the border, to where most of my "life" is spent; but no matter how many miles I drove, I was still a stranger in a strange land; I didn't belong.
This is a feeling I get every once in a while. It's a feeling that everyone else has something to do, someone to do it with, and I'm left out. It's a paranoid feeling, I admit, yet it's hard to shake when it visits me, when it haunts me.
And now it's here and I can't shake it.
I'm left out.
When I get in this mode I start dissecting aspects of my life, the way I treat people, mostly the people dear to me. Usually this practice leaves me more depressed - I am never thrilled with how I am with others.
Take my family, for instance. I've lived here, at home, now for nearly two years. Yet the amount of extensive conversations I've had with either of my parents can fit within the span of a sit-com show. It's not them; it's me. Nearly every night I kick myself for not talking more to my folks during that day. But the next day the cycle continues.
How's work going, my mom would ask me.
How's work going? The answer to that question could go as follows: "Work's great; I love the kids. It's funny watching them grow up so fast. They're becoming such smart thinkers. My student had a great day today. He handled himself really well in a situation he would normally have a breakdown about. Another student is going through a really tough time. We learned something heartbreaking about her home-life today that just broke my heart ..."
Here's what I actually say to her:
"Work's good." Then I go downstairs.
Why?
Why?
Then there's my friend who's known me longer than any other friend in my life. I never see her. Never. That's due, partly, to my work schedule; partly that's due to my inability to give any effort toward holding onto old friendships. I get caught up in the new and disregard the old.
There are college friends who live nearby who I rarely see, just because I can't give them a call. I'm incapable. I push people away. And then when they're gone, I drown in the solitude I've created for myself.

That night at the bar:
Then there's the college friend who, last time I saw him, was so filled with anger about seeing me that he left the bar and walked aimlessly around town, just because he couldn't stand the sight of me. That night at the bar was a banner night for me. I saw a an ex-girlfriend who can't stand me; I ran into a girl who had just recently stole my breath (read my"Who Am I? blog), but who (after a brief encounter at the bar) confirmed to me that she had no interest in relationships and has a fear of commitment (talk about karma); and I met up with a friend who's goal that night was to make me feel and look bad at every moment he could.
That night ended in an utter breakdown of tears; my body was shaking from sadness.
I remember saying - to a friend who saw me through the breakdown - that I am the most hated person I know.
And I believe it. Weeks later I believe it. I've never done so well at school as I am doing in grad school; I know I am good at my job; I play on a soccer team that I organized. I should be happy. But I can't help escaping that belief:
I believe I am the most hated person I know. This again, is hard for me to say, harder for me to write. It's embarrassing for me to have others read this. But I vowed to be honest here, and this is my honesty.
I am not well. I am not well.

Who am I?

2007-03-29T16:58:00.000-04:00

Who am I?
I thought I knew. But sometimes something happens that questions my answers, clouds my clarity, shakes my stability.
I met someone; or, I thought I did. Now I'm not so sure. She came to me as quickly as she's seemingly disappeared.
But her existence isn't what matters most, as odd as that may sound. What I felt when I thought she existed ... that feeling is haunting me.
It lingers somewhere inside me. It lingers like the pain you feel when you're slapped in the face; it lingers like musical notes hanging in the air. This feeling has lingered long after she's left.
With each passing day this feeling diminishes; I welcome this lessening with relief. I'm returning back to safety, normalcy, back to the me I've come to known.
But it does still linger, relentlessly, reminding me of a few moments when my answers were questioned, my clarity clouded, my stability shaken.

She warned me of her nature, a nature much like mine:
"I'm not one for intimacy; I push people away; I'm not interested in a relationship."
This shopping list of traits mirrored mine, making my life much easier, so I assumed. After all, there'd be nothing to worry about; there was "no agenda."
But while we shared our aversions to relationships, we shared something else, something perhaps we were less willing to express. What was it she said to me? Words I've heard before; words I've said before ... but these words are never binding:
"I feel this connection ... I feel like I've known you before."
The reluctancy in which we both delivered these feelings could not defeat the fact we were caught in a moment.
A moment, nothing binding, seemingly nothing more.
Despite pleas to myself that I'm a loner at heart, these words, those brief feelings, made me question myself. I try to believe I'm incapable of feelings for another; it's easier that way.
Isn't it?
Or is it?

I'm not sure if I'll see her again. It's possible I'm victim of my own device: Talk a big game and run away from those words.
If I am, that's OK. If I never see her again, I'll still live well. If I do see her again, it's likely those feelings won't be the same, right? That's what always happens, doesn't it? First-moment feelings are always the strongest, always misleading, always ... wrong, right?
But what happens tomorrow doesn't concern me. What does have me concerned is what I was able to feel, even for a few brief moments. What does concern me is wanting to see her again, wanting to see anyone again.
But if we did see each other again, I'd assume we'd be nothing more than good friends; that's how it always turns out. And for that I'm grateful. I've proven, or perhaps I've tried to prove, I'm incapable of anything more, uninterested in anything beyond friendships. But for a few brief moments I doubted myself. For a few brief moments I must have felt what others feel. I'm not sure if I should be grateful, frightened, or ... indifferent.

The voices of drama

2007-03-05T22:34:00.000-05:00

Note: In high school I wrote a couple of poems called Tomorrow vs. Yesterday, about the hypocrisy of my life. I used the faces of drama (see my tattoo picture in my profile) as the "logo." After getting that tattoo in 1999 I wrote a third edition of Tomorrow vs. Yesterday, which includes lines such as: "Now those two paths are before me, the choice is in my hands. I can give in to temptations, or choose to be a man. My past actions have left me holding a mask I want to break. Which mask I'll wear tomorrow depends on what future I want to make."

Below is a different "take" on the whole Tomorrow vs. Yesterday poems I wrote. It's more of a conversation between two people, when in reality it's just one person speaking. Also, while trying to find my old journal which holds some of my old poems, I came across a poem I wrote in October, 2002, the last entry of the journal. It's titled "Of Season" and I added it to the "Drops on a page" blog you can get to in my links. Think of this poem as my wishful thinking for spring to come.

The voices of drama
Rely on me to disappoint, you can depend on this.
To will yourself to know this fact will free you from this mist.

But would you not prefer a soul known to be of truth?

I care not for the tales once told by elders to their youth.
A soul of truth may seem the way toward bettering our lives.
But I live in re-al-ity where backs are met by knives.

What came to you, as a boy to leave you in this state?
Your heart would sink if in the sea, yet float towards clouds of hate.

Your sharpened tongue inflicts no harm on skin of leathered shield.
I chose my path, embraced my steps, and left behind a field.
That field consists of silly fools, naive to what is real.
These fools believe in good of man, believe that man can feel.

Naive may be the way you view those whom you call fools
Naive is what I hope to be, better than your rules.
I may be blind toward evil ways, the nature of your man.
But without sight I see much more than wise men ever can.

The legend of life

2007-03-01T21:53:00.000-05:00

They reveal the stories of our lives in vivid detail.
They come. They go. They're lost. They're found.
Sometimes I long for a particular one. Other times I'm grateful without them.

Keys are like words in our biographies; key chains are like our journals.

First keys are first steps into the depths of responsibility. Often times our first key meant that there stood a chance we'd be home alone after school one day - what power!
But what I've realized is once I added a second key to my key chain - the day I got my first car - getting back to just one key seems an unlikely event. Year by year, key by key, I've added a weighty load to my life. Jobs, dorm rooms, apartments - keys keep piling up.
But exactly which keys I have on my chain reveals my life.
Over the summer I had three keys that looked exactly alike: my parents' house key and the two keys to get into my then-girlfriend's apartment. I had memorized in what order those keys lined up on my chain so that I didn't have to struggle at the doorknob each day. I also had a car key and an office key, a total of five keys I used in the course of every single day.
I had a weighty load in my pocket.

Today I have three keys, one which I rarely use. That leaves two keys in my life on a regular basis, the same two keys (well, not exactly the same) that I had when I was 16 - my car key and house key. I don't use an office key, except to use the "adult" bathrooms. There's only one house key in my pocket. I don't need to memorize the order of keys; I rarely have to pause at any doorknob or car door.
If I lost my keys I wouldn't be too stressed; there are only two keys I typically use on my chain, and I have copies of both of them.
There are keys that I miss from time to time - those damn silver keys that looked like my parents', the oddly shaped key that opened up Croteau, the tiny mailbox key from a Seattle mailbox, the keys to every single one of my now-deceased cars.
But the weight is much lighter at this point in my life, in my pocket, in my day.

Is it good if you just think it?

2007-02-21T16:29:00.000-05:00

I had the chance to be a hero today; but I kept driving.
I thought about it, long and hard. My foot even tapped the brake hard enough to jerk my momentum. But soon after that indulgence, my foot felt for the skinny pedal, and I continued on my way.

Mind you, I don't mean the type of hero you read about in comic books; not even the type of hero you'd read about in newspapers.
Nah. Nothing like that. I wasn't about to jump onto a subway track and risk my life for some kid.

But a hero all the same, when she caught my eye.

She caught my eye as I drove down Solstice Street, toward my basement bedroom. I must have been going 45 miles per hour, seemingly oblivious to anything aside from the radio.
But her white hair, blue almost, caught my eye. Her tiny stature, frail, her movement, tortoise-like, caught my eye.
She was in an outfit that seemed to be comprised of a nightgown and winter jacket, as well as flat shoes, certainly an interesting choice of attire for a woman her age engaged in a task such as the one she was participating in:
She was shoveling her driveway.
It had been two days since snow fell in these parts, yet at least two, perhaps closer to three inches blanketed her driveway.
And in that outfit, at her age, she alone resigned to free the pavement from the snow.

Like I said, my foot hit the brake, hard enough to jerk my momentum, yet soft enough that I kept on rolling.
Is it good of me to have thought about helping her, if I didn't' actually do it?
Are good intentions as worthy as good actions?
I wish I had stopped. It's likely I'd still be smiling today, if I had stopped, regardless of if the woman accepted the offer of my labor.
Surely I wouldn't be writing this right now.
But I am, because I didn't.
Is it good if you just think it?

Coffeeshop characters: the young couple

2007-02-04T16:10:00.000-05:00

Today I saw what I seem to rarely see - a plain-as-can-be, obvious-to-me, happy marriage. They sat next to me as I stared at my journal. I hadn't a word to write before they arrived; but now I can't stop thinking.

The girl:
She's the cute and cuddly type; she's the kind of girl who'd check off the "more of me to love" box under the "Describe your body type" heading on a dating service questionairre. She's a girl you want to hug, and who you can tell gives great hugs in return. There's nothing more disheartening than a bad hugger; the "more of me to love" girls, the one's who aren't overweight, but aren't skinny either, they know how to hug. She has the face of youth - not of a young girl, but a face of hapiness, life, curiosity. She wore Capris and Crocs (those plastic sandals with holes in them). She dressed in the same colors as Jerry Garcia.

The guy:
He looks like he was once the high school Robotics team captain, but now is a recovering Robotics junkie who just discovered pot ... and Weezer. He looks like a guy who likes to catalog, and take inventory, of all the items from all the various sorts of collections he's amassed in his lifetime - classic action figures, comic books, bottle caps, and Pez dispensers.

They both looked my age, if my age were 24. As soon as they sat down, I - as I have a habit of doing to any person I catch glimpse of - immediately glanced at their left hands, and specifically at their ring fingers - both were banded. It's a reflex I have no control over, this looking at the ring fingers of everyone I see - it's my version of rubber-necking. My curiousity gets the best of me everytime - I need to know the marriage status for all, maybe because all too often I'm taken aback that someone my age, or younger - like these two coffeeshop characters - is ... married. The idea that my peers are marrying still rattles me. I'm not sure why this is - clearly I've moved into the next part of life, where attending weddings for people my own age is as common practice as attending super-hero themed birthday parties was when I was a child.

Despite my inevitable aging, I still react toward meeting young married people in the same way I once, as a child, might have reacted upon meeting someone from some far away place, a land I had never seen:
"Whoa, you're from ... Kansas?!" I might have asked as a naive boy. But now it's like:
"Whoa, you two are ... married?!!"

Giggling:
After the initial shock of this young married couple wore away, I began to take notice of their secret lives. They giggled - whispered, giggled - whispered, giggled. She liked a song playing over the coffeeshop speakers, so she giggled, looked at him, and moved her shoulders as if she were dancing. He laughed, recripocated, and they danced, while still sitting at their table.
Were they high?
No, that wasn't it. They just seemed ... happy ... ? ...
It isn't as if I never see happy people sharing a functioning, and fun, marriage, though not as often as I wish. But these ... kids ... were adorable. They seemed like high school teenagers, fresh at love, and not some married couple, because married couples grow tired of each other; the giggling dies down eventually, doesn't it? The uncontrollable giggles slowly turn into subdued chuckles, and then into a barely acknowledgeable grunt of a laugh, and then eventully, the giggling stops ... right?
No, not here. Not them. They giggled and refused not to giggle. To me they just seemed ... happy ... ? ...

Love chatter:
While sitting at the table, they continued to talk, using love chatter. Love chatter is the chatter a couple does when they want to create their own world while admist a crowd of people. It's the barely audible conversation that often times includes body language and half-formed sentences more than anything else. But it's love chatter, an intimate language two people first create upon the moment they meet. The more they know each other, and the more moments they share with each other, the more that language grows. Over time the couple can have a full conversation without anyone else in the room understanding a damn thing either said - that's love chatter, and they were doing it. They were good at it. Aside from giving me something to write about, this love chatter was frustrating me; it kept me from hearing what these two people were saying. What was so funny? How did they have so much to say?
She muttered a sentence or two, from which I picked out "cookie."
He nodded, and said "That would make things even," and they both laughed. I wondered what was so funny about a cookie?
Love chatter; secret, shared moments no one understands; an "inside joke" only they could appreciate, that's why the cookie was funny, to them and not to me.
I wondered if they were both on diets (neither necessarily needing less food, though it wouldn't kill either of them to cut down on their intake), and so having a cookie would be a clear violation of the diet. But it wouldn't be so bad, perhaps, if they both cheated on their diets, by sharing that cookie. Maybe that's what they were thinking. Maybe that's why they giggled. That way they'd both be bad; they'd make things even.

As they spoke their bodies leaned into each other; the round table was the only thing between them and even it didn't seem to stand a chance of keeping them apart. They rarely seemed separated; while in line to order the cookie they held hands, waists, and yes, giggled. While waiting they talked, always talked, always had something to say. Sometimes they'd exit from their love chatter long enough for me to hear their words - when they spoke they spoke with interest and curiousity for each other. They asked each other questions, wanting to know more about each other, always wanting to learn more. I always feared that it was inevitable that, in the lifespan of a relationship, the questions stop being asked. Is there a moment when someone learns everything there is to know about someone else? I've feared that, though it may seem a silly question to you. But what if the questions stop? What if all the answers are given and there's nothing left to learn? What then?

Unfortunately they took that cookie to go, so my glimpse into their lives ended shorter than I had hoped. I wanted to crack some of their codes; what was always so funny to them? I wanted to hear their love chatter - to understand their language, which has been expanding for God knows how long, and which will continue to expand until their last breaths. But hearing more chatter woudn't have mattered. I know I would not have understood anyways.
I can't understand that chatter; I haven't yet, understood that chatter. Their secrets will remain their secrets, hidden and shared within each of them. Because they are ... married ... and ... happy ... ? ...
Or maybe they're just having an affair.

Arsi-Vi

Day-long Halitosis

2007-01-29T14:31:00.000-05:00

*note: The writer requests you pronounce day-long in the same manner you'd pronounce "delay."

The thing in this world that I hate the most is
living my life with day-long halitosis.
The lingering tastes of the night before,
Are unwanted guests I cannot ignore.
Is it beer or liquor that I taste this fair day?
Is it a mixture of both? I just cannot say.
I do know the one thing I should never boast is
walking this world with day-long halitosis.

'Twasn't my fault that I suffered this fate,
I didn't expect to stay up so late.
I could not drive home in my particular state,
So I slept on a floor and woke up with distaste.
I hadn't a brush, not even some paste,
Not an Altoid nor breath mint to erase this distaste.
Instead what I had was a tongue-led grievance,
For last night's food and drink had formed an allegiance.
I was a victim of all I consumed at the bar,
And no angel from heaven would help me get far.
To better my breath I had an idea,
I'd eat brand-new food to cover the beer.
I ate subs, drank coffee and prayed to my lord,
That my "cover-up method" would prosper once more.
But all I was left with were myriad tastes,
Of stale beer and fresh food, I was dying for paste.
By mid-day I had realized the thing that's most gross is
Eating my lunch with day-long halitosis.

It wasn't always this way that I loathed bad breath,
I remember the days when I smelled of black death.
I'd have cereal for breakfast, followed by school-lunch mush,
And yet many a day my teeth were not brushed.
But my life has changed since the Wonder Bread Years,
Now bad breath ranks high on a list of my fears.
The Captain has grown, no longer Crunch, he is Morgan,
Apple left Jack, now Daniels makes me a poor man.
All these libations provoke that damned devil,
who leaves my breath rancid, who leaves me disheveled.
That's why the thing that I hate, what I detest the most is,
Going to bed with day-long halitosis.

Arsi-Vi

Too cold to move

2007-01-17T22:11:00.000-05:00

I’m too cold to stand; I’m too cold to sit. I’m almost too cold to complain; I’m too cold not to.
I can’t believe it’s actually this cold outside; really, am I that naïve?
I should verbally detail this refrigeration of my body. But I can’t. I fear that any breath I exhale will only hasten the inevitable fraying of my lips, a fray that is as synonymous with winter as blizzard, black ice, and winter itch (the latter being the most nostalgic quality of winter for me). Therefore, I’ll type (not write) my complaints, for if I continue moving my fingers, perhaps they won’t freeze. Perhaps they won't snap off of my body in the same manner that a pencil could be snapped by an angry student.
It seems the air surrounding me is intent on killing me, slowly, painfully. And if that wasn’t cruel enough, this year’s Winter came equipped with a weapon more powerful than Superman: patience.
Winter’s patience made me forget; his patience made me hopeful, starry eyed, bewildered. His patience made me a victim of my own stupidity, and of his cruel ways. Patience can be a virtue; patience can be venom.
Winter, your patience is the venom that freezes my soul.
Today I awoke to single digits on the thermometer. The other day I awoke to egg yolk all over my car – I’d rather meet the day with an egged car than I would to a frozen one.
“Don’t lock your car doors tonight,” Fleet told me tonight. “It could be hard to get in them tomorrow morning.”
Is that normal? Really, is that normal!
*Editor’s note: I refused to unlock my doors; it’s just a little “up-yours” to Winter. Up yours, Winter! If I can’t get in my car tomorrow, well, still, UP YOURS, WINTER!
This morning my Burt’s Bees lip balm ran out, of course. That’s what’s supposed to happen, just like sometime this week my window washer fluid will run out, allowing the salt to encase my windshield like The Nothing from The Neverending Story.
Signs outside of car wash companies scream out “Salt eats cars!” and I wonder, will salt eat me too?
After this frigid air, perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Winter is cruel in so many ways. The last thing I want to happen to my eyes in 10-degree weather is for them to water, because, well, water freezes.
But what happens when I step outside in 10-degree weather? My eyes water, of course.
The obvious solution to the problem of freezing is to immerse oneself into heated areas at every moment possible. But here again, Winter gets the best of me, for heaters make air dry. Dry air makes me dry. Being dry makes me itch.
Ahh, that nostalgic winter itch.
Can I do it? Can I make it through this winter? For two months I was led to believe that Winter would skip us this year, in the same way Santa Claus skips the houses of bad boys and girls. But I have no such luck. Winter is here, and it seems he’s bitter for being gone for so long.
Does Winter’s delay mean April will be freezing? God I hope not.
My feet are getting cold; Damn! I forgot about those damn feet! I focused too much attention on my hands and fingers, and I can’t type with my feet, so I can’t keep them warm. Wait, maybe I can type with my feet. We all have a skill; perhaps this is mine … slkjg042q-[=35232-[=1.
Umm, okay, nevermind. There must be another way to save my feet.
I have to get up. I have to move around … must get blood to feet, must get blood to feet.
But I’m too cold to move; I’m too cold not to.

A black man, a Puerto Rican with Asperger's, fingers and a penis: Just another day on the job

2007-01-04T17:43:00.000-05:00

Jordan, the student with special needs whom I work with, isn’t able to get through a class period without my help. A worksheet can be handed directly to him, but without me saying something he’d never recognize it was even on his desk. There are times he mentally travels to places beyond my reach; I can tap his shoulder and say his name, and he won’t even blink an eye. Those are the times I’ve lost him, and all I can do is wait for his travels to end.

Jordan doesn’t understand sarcasm, and more often than not he can’t control his emotions. He has a hard time understanding the unwritten social rules we all abide by (of course, I’m guilty of that many a time as well).
While it takes most students 10 minutes to finish a worksheet, it might take Jordan more than a class period. His mind works differently than ours; his mind doesn’t work “successfully” (for the most part) with our normal school setting, again, without the help of someone like me. Many people might hear all this, see Jordan, and think to themselves that he's a lost cause. Why then is he capable of thoughts that millions of people "better off" than he will never muster?
Case in point:
Today Deval Patrick was inaugurated as governor of Massachusetts. Our students watched the celebration. During Patrick’s speech, I asked Jordan, whose parents are from Puerto Rico, why he thought it might be such a big deal that Patrick became governor.
He didn’t know.
“I don’t know too much about politics,” he told me.
“It’s not so much about politics,” I replied. “Just look at Patrick. Look at the other people on the stage. Why might it be such a big deal he’s now governor?”

Jordan looked for a moment, then said, or rather asked, “Because he has darker skin than everyone else?”
I went on to tell Jordan how Patrick was the first black governor of Massachusetts, and that because of that people are emphasizing the importance of this day.
“What’s it matter?” he asked. “Everyone’s the same anyways.”
I agreed. What does it matter? But I wanted him to understand why it might matter.
“A hundred years ago this would never have happened,” I told him.
“Yeah, I know. People were crazy then,” he said.
“There are still many crazy people out there,” I told him. “But this is a small step toward helping people to think more like you.”
“Like me?” he asked.
“Yeah. You’re right. What does it matter that this guy’s black, right?
“Yeah. It should be a big deal that he became governor, not that he’s black, though,” he told me. Then he paused for a moment, and went on. “Has a handicapped person ever been governor?”
I didn’t know the answer, but I think I know why he asked. Lately he’s been telling me that he has a “condition” that makes him different from the other students. His condition makes him forget things, makes him drift away, and makes him have to have someone like me by his side. He knows it, and this year he's beginning to cope with it. So I mentioned that we’ve had a president who was handicapped, though he (FDR) didn’t want anyone to know about his being in a wheelchair.
“Well, he was a fool,” Jordan said. “It shouldn’t matter.”
To emphasize his point, that differences shouldn’t matter, he went on to tell me about two people he learned about from Ripley’s Believe it or Not. The first was a man with 12 fingers.
“I wish I had 12 digits,” Jordan said. “He had a bigger fist than everyone else. And imagine what you could do with two extra fingers! But I wonder if he was made fun of as a kid.”
“I imagine he might have been, Jordan,” I told him.
“Well, that’s stupid. Just because he was different.”
“Yup.”
“But differences can be so cool sometimes,” he said.
“Yes they can be,” I replied.
“And sometimes differences can be crazy!” he said. From there he went on to tell me about a man, again whom he saw on Ripley’s Believe it or Not, who had surgery to make one of his fingers become his penis. This man’s penis, according to Jordan, was gone because of an “illness.”
“So he did this surgery, even though he could have died!” Jordan exclaimed. “Differences can be really cool.”
Yes, they can be. And sometimes, people, like you, Jordan, can be smarter, than millions of people like us.

I, the cheese: classroom ramblings

2006-11-28T22:47:00.000-05:00

A sheet of sweat blankets my body – thank God for my undershirt. The wife-beater (is there a worse name for clothing?) which I wear as regularly as I do my grin – has been the profound discovery in my life over the past year. We all gather these discoveries like pebbles or seashells. Some we hold onto, others we cast away into the sea. I remember discovering that pretending to be asleep got me out of doing my bedtime prayers as a child; I remember discovering that vodka went well with OJ, and I remember discovering that gray t-shirts should not be worn in summer … if you tend to sweat a lot. That last discovery, of course, came prior to my new discovery of the wife-beater.
So now, as I sit here at 6 p.m. in a classroom, I may feel sweaty, but I’m not too worried, because in the same way that toddlers wear pull-ups (you know, just in case) I have my undershirt – my invisibility cloak. Never let them see you sweat.
I’m sipping on a Dunkin Donuts hot chocolate, which happens to be spiked (courtesy of Pop Tart) with a little bit of Bailey’s. Bringing an evening-cap to class might not seem appropriate, nor studious, of me; but I’ve come to realize I need a little bit of rebellion in this part of my life or else I’d go insane. All those rules, deadlines, directions and assignments would drive me back to the darker side of adolescence, if not for Bailey and Dunky. A little, harmless, “F-U” to the man keeps me obedient.
I drink my defiant drink from a fancy travel mug I picked up on a whim the other day – after dropping, and permanently scarring, my last cherished mug. Two hours after dropping my old mug (which resulted in a minimal crack inside the mug) I was spending $15 on a new one. The little imperfection gnawed at my mind like a rat does with cheese, and I could barely take it. Call it OCD if you will. But I had to get a new mug before my head hit the pillow that night.
But life is cruel sometimes, as I was reminded today when I dropped my brand new mug (my "stuff" and I have a horrible relationship with each other - keys, glasses, iPods, they all conspire to get lost or broken just to make me feel bad) thus scarring it. The scar began to gnaw at me – though all it is is a minor scratch on the lid. But it’s scratched, I thought. I see it. I know it, and when I bring that mug to my lips, my God, will I feel that scratch, that defect, that imperfection? God, I hoped not.
Why does the slightest imperfection bother us so much? For a few hours the visual memory of my mug’s new imperfection created a bigger scar on my mind than it did on the mug. It was a rat. I was the cheese.
But now I sit here, looking at this scratch, with nothing else to do with my time but wait for my professor. I'm calm. I'm still. And in this stillness, I glance at the imperfection and realize that I love what I see. I love the imperfection. I love that defect. Imperfections can be helpful reminders of moments passed. I have a scar on my knee from sometime in grade school; my shoulder still hurts from when I fell down hard, my first time snowboarding. The ass of my car has two significant scratches: a black mark on the bumper and an enormous scratch that spans the length of the trunk. Both marks came from a cross-country trip I took and more often than not, I remember that trip when I see those scratches.
I think the same about wrinkles. Every time I smile, I help to form another wrinkle down the road. Over time, like rings on a tree, someone might be able to tell, just by looking at my face, if I smiled or frowned a lot. My face will tell a story without my mouth doing any work. I would never think of smoothing out the wrinkles of my face and body, so why then, have I been so committed to ironing out the scratches of my “stuff?”
As I write this, my teacher has come to class – forehead full of wrinkles which suggests, to me, that this person has done a lot of deep thinking in her life. Hmm, maybe she’s just really old.

Small-talk scenarios

2006-11-20T13:01:00.000-05:00

If there is a more fitting matter that falls under the label"nostalgic nonsense" than a high school reunion, I shall be surprised. At this moment, I am in the depths of nostalgic nonsense, due to an e-vite I received a month ago, from two of my former high school classmates. Apparently, 10 years have passed since I was a proud Lynnfield Pioneer, prepping for proms, soccer games, and toilet-papering people's houses. And apparently people like to arrange gatherings to celebrate that 10 years have passed. I'm not really sure why. Is it to remind us we're getting older? - we're all nearing 30 in the same manner that a bullet nears its target. Is it to remind us we're still young? I know my ever-present thining hair don't make me feel younger than when I was in high school.

Do we go to reunions to try and show off? I can just hear the voices of former classmates: Look at the size of THAT ring ... My God, you're working for who ... you're making that much ... I can't believe SHE married HIM. Maybe it isn't so dramatic, but isn't the "look at me now" belief part of the purpose to have a reunion? I wonder, are the snobs still snobs? Are the dorks still dorks? The myth is that the big-time athletes always end up bald and fat while the nerds end up hot and in shape. Is that the case here? Who knows? I didn't leave high school in the greatest way, and as the years passed, my conversations with friends have diminished to nothing. The only person I do talk to from my high school class isn't even going to the reunion. That leaves me with the question: What could I possibly have to talk about with these people? Should I talk about my job? Why would I want to? My life? Why?

Situations like these are what I call the small-talk scenarios. If you find yourself in a small-talk scenario, you basically have a script that you repeat, over and over again, to nameless faces in a crowd. "Well, after college I worked a few years at this newspaper ... but while at THIS newspaper I started getting into teaching ... blah blah blah etc. Along the way I started doing video camera work, have seen 48 out of 50 states and am getting a master's degree. "
You see? I just summed up my whole post-high school life in a few lines. Obviously there are more details involved, but why would I want to share them with these strangers? And why would I want to repeat my detailed life 45 different times to ex-classmates? It's like being an actor for a long-running Broadway show - after you say your lines the first time, you just run on auto-pilot. I find myself in small-talk scenarios a lot. At work I avoid it during lunch by eating alone in the copy room (what now, I ask you, do I possibly have to say to a roomful of 60-year-old female teachers?) I even deal with it at bars, with friends. Sometimes we have nothing to say, so small-talk scenario walks in. "So, how's work - what do they have you doing now?" To be honest I DON"T CARE! Give me substance; give me more entertaning, deeper conversation. But, God, please don't give me small talk. I'm just not good at it.
And isn't that what high school reunions are all about?
I never really wanted to go to my 10-year reunion, for two reasons. First is I am just not that close with my high school friends anymore. Secondly, I just have no reason to look back and not much interest in hearing, all night long, about what strangers are doing with their lives.
I revisited that e-vite about 10 times before making a decision on whether I would go or not. I looked at the updated list of who's going and who's not.
"Damn, Kelly's not going. I at least have spoken to him through e-mail this past year. Damn."
I noticed a handful of girls have different last names, and many people responded with typical couple language: "Yeah, me and SO and SO will definitely come." I guess that's what piqued my interest, realizing that all these people I knew as teenagers, are old now - not old in the need-a-walker-to-walk old. But old as in "pay the bills, feed the kids (for some), and speak in WE form" old.
So my interest got the best of me and I clicked YES to the e-vite. As soon as I did it I said "Damn, now I'm committed." I started thinking about being stuck in a room, reading a four-minute-friendly version on my life that I had committed to memory via flashcards, to a group of people whose faces I kinda remember, but whose names escaped me long ago. I started thinking: Jesus, what more do I need from this night other than the first few minutes? Other than a quick scan of the room to see who's fat, who's bald, who's married, and who's gay, and a "hey how's it going" to some former close friends, how much longer must I stay there?
I have no idea the answer, but I'll find out this Friday.

The 10:45 a.m. lunch and resting the snowglobe

2006-09-14T16:25:00.000-04:00

The clock strikes 10:45a.m.
Time for lunch.
He grabs his water, his lunch bag (which is never big enough to hold his lunch), and book, and seeks an empty room in the building of overcrowded rooms. For the 25 minutes he has for lunch, all he hopes for is 20 minutes of silence.
Clearly 10:45 a.m. is earlier than most people eat lunch. It's a change he has had to make, but surprisingly the transition has been easy.
Lunch, while he worked at the newspaper, used to mean eating subs or sandwiches at his desk while he wrote a story for work or surfed the Internet. Lunch was never just 25 minutes short, nor an hour long. It was however long, or short, he wanted it to be. His whole job and life followed a "whatever, whenever" approach. Sick days didn't exist; clocking out meant nothing. His office was in a bag, in the shape of a laptop. The view from his office varied from downtown buildings to peaceful lakes.
Over the summer, his life lacked even more structure than it did when he was a reporter. For the most part he never had to be anywhere for anything. He had tasks to do, but they could be done anytime: whenever, wherever.
One would dream of this freedom, particularly someone who plays guitar, writes, loves to travel and enjoys being alone. His only true worry was his grad school courses.
But too much freedom can arrest the soul. It can lock up the mind in a solitary cell. Without structure, it's more difficult to construct.
At least, that's what he tells himself today while he's eating lunch at 10:45 a.m.
On the wall in front of him is a map of the world. Instictively he grabs his tupperware of salad and heads to the wall. He always looks at maps. It's a private obsession of his to be able to locate any country on a map, and to know its capitol. For the next 20 minutes, while he eats lunch, the geography of Eastern Europe will serve as his entertainment.

It seems that he's obsessed with turning his life upside down as many times as possible, in the shortest amount of time possible.
Sometimes he treats his life like a snowglobe.
In the last few months he's started grad school, quit the newspaper job, start and quit a video camera job for a baseball team, fly to Los Angeles, only to immediately drive to Mexico, only to drive back from Los Angeles to New Hampshire, alone, and in 3 days, only to start a job as a teacher aide, at the middle school he had attended 16 years ago.
The snowglobe has been shaking for months now. He's ready for the snow to settle.
Suddenly he has more order in his life. He's at work by 7:30, out by 2:15. No longer does he carry his job in the shape of a laptop, by his side, day and night. He's cut the leash he had put on himself, which chained his mind to work, and never to life.
School has boundaries. Once he leaves the boundaries, his job is done. What a concept.
Last week someone from his school job told him to enjoy his weekend ... instinctively he thought "weekend? The week ends?"
On Labor Day he didn't work ... not because he had worked throughout the weekend to make up for the time he'd lose on Labor Day (as happens when you're a reporter with deadlines), but because it was Labor Day ... you just have it off.
Columbus Day is a holiday again and Thanksgiving will last from Thursday to Sunday.
Sure, he's up before 6, and his days no longer allow him to sit at a lake from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. But by having order, by having structure, he has more freedom.
The week ends. The evening exists. Holidays are times to relax; they aren't times to go out and find a good story for the paper.

Structure means freedom. At least that's what he tells himself before the clock strikes 11:10 a.m. and he has to break the silence with the sounds of a school cafeteria filled with children.

Procrastination meets ADD.

2006-07-14T13:11:00.000-04:00

On a hot July day, there are few things more refreshing than to be outside at this hour. The sun is still lazy; the dew is abundant, and people are coming to life. He saw all this, on his way north.
He pulled into campus this morning, and was met by an army of Little Leaguers, marching single file, rifle-like bats rested on their shoulders, on their way to the battlefield for tactical practice.
It took him much longer to get to campus than he expected. That’s what happens when there are open car windows and a brilliantly strung-together musical playlist orchestrated by a handful of local radio stations. It seemed each song played was another message for him to keep driving, and so he did.
Without realizing much, other than the music, he embarked on one of his many “loops.” This happens often when he’s mentally off somewhere, with a guitar in his hand; suddenly he can play every song he loves to hear on the radio, and he jams away like a mad man. It’s during those thoughts that he embarks on these loops, and today, his floating mind led him to embark on one of the local long loops there are. This loop offers up a pond, a lake, backroads and yes, the possibility of running into Sherlock.
And so it was, he drove.
For several minutes he jammed away in virtual reality to every song the DJs played. It was almost a game for him: they’d pitch him the heater, and he’d shove it in their faces.
Is that all you’ve got, he’d almost be saying, as he jammed on his air guitar, while somehow successfully playing the role of drummer with his steering wheel and dashboard.
But then the music stopped, figuratively … naturally. First there were commercials, so he scanned the radio several times, as if to say Okay, have your commercials, but I ain’t listening to a damn one of them. Eventually one of the stations stopped paying bills and put on a song – a terrible song, a song he didn’t know but didn’t want to start to know either.
Sigh.
All he had for backup were two stale CDs that have been in his car longer than the seatbelts have, and an impotent iPod who hasn’t done its job properly since the second time he had to get it fixed.
So he turned everything off (except his car), allowing silence (and an unfortunate sound his wheels make when he runs over bumps) to be his radio. This silence awakened his mind; a floodgate of thoughts began running through his head. So he took this opportunity to try and be productive.
I should be doing work right now, but instead I’m just driving, he thought to himself. Might as well work on something now.
And so he did, mentally, go over one of his projects. But instead of thinking of ideas and tasks, he spoke his ideas aloud, to himself, in the car. He figured speaking aloud would give him a better chance of remembering what he was thinking.
But then a Jeep drove past him – a yellow jeep, with a black top (though it was down, thankfully) and big tires. It was clear to see his mental schoolwork didn’t stand a chance to that Jeep. Abruptly, he mentally left his project at home while he and his immaculately conceived Jeep were three-feet deep in virtual mud. By the time he theatrically maneuvered his way out of the swamps of sadness, he was already thinking about where to wash Old Yeller – that being the Jeep's name … of course. This led him to realize he wasn’t actually in a Jeep, but in a Grand Am - that didn’t face the demons of damp dirt, but has been as reliable as Old Yeller probably is (knock on wood).
Yes, a car wash, he thought.
But, expectedly, before he could even place that car-wash thought into some mental long-term investment plan, he started thinking about how he’d love to wash a car right now at some cabin, where all he had were a garden hose, a bucket, soap and a towel; none of these fancy gas stations nor hurricane-style blow dryers – just a man and his Old Yeller … err … Grand Am.
With the thought of actually going to a car wash out of his head, thoughts of little cabins began dancing in his head. Among those dancing cabins he focused on one, just the right one, like Goldilocks. So he starts to think how he had just driven his Jeep to the cabin, and that Jeep sure is as dirty as a pig. So he grabs his stereo, calls up Sherlock, finds his bucket, attaches the hose and turns the knob.
But instead of water gushing out, all he really had was a silent Grand Am, except for the occasional unfortunate wheel noise and the moments when he accidentally starts speaking aloud, to himself. He finally turned into this campus.
And now he sits at a bench which is slanted like the Tower of Piazza. He’s an hour late to doing his work and his car is demanding a shower. And rather than committing to the work he must do, he’s sitting here, writing in his journal.
And it’s all because of those damned little soldiers and their damned rifle-like bats.
And now it’s time to work.

Daydreams, playing with Pop Tart , and battling the "me time."

2006-07-12T11:02:00.000-04:00

He daydreams in class, all over again. But these daydreams are different than when he was younger.
In years past, in schools past, his daydreams took him away, to anywhere but a classroom. He went to bed in his head, to the beach, to the woods. He was out with some girl, or out with his friends, all of this inside his head. Meanwhile, his teachers foolishly thought he was actually in their classrooms. He nodded to the teachers from time to time, snickered at humorless teacher jokes when he heard classmates do the same. But in reality, he was anywhere but in class.
Nowadays, class doesn’t cause him to daydream as often. But there comes those times where his mind drifts, usually it’s because of something the teacher said, or because of a lesson being taught.
It’s not freedom, vacation, preppy girls or convertibles he’s been daydreaming about; it’s about teaching; nowadays his daydreams keep him in the classroom.
He listens to techniques which he scoffs at or is inspired by; he hears real-world examples his professors describe to him, and he says to himself, I can do that. I can be a teacher. He daydreams about the time, his time, when he’ll have his own class.
Will he run a tight ship? Will he be easy going? Will he teach high school or middle school? Will his students learn what it means to be good? Will he burn out in one year?
All this daydreaming, about a job, has helped him realize that this, what he’s doing now, is his passion. It’s taken him a few years to get here, but now he knows what passion means. He has a passion to write, so he always figured a writing job was perfect for him. But he failed to realize he doesn’t like reporting, he just likes to write – he can write anytime he feels it, why does it have to be his job?
But teaching, he sees, isn’t a job. It’s his passion. It’s his daydream. It’s his convertible.

He does daydream about something else, though, or someone else.
It all happened pretty quickly, but really what has happened?
Ocean and he no longer see each other. Each of them have gone their separate ways – both having sent friendly e-mails to each other once over the course of the last two weeks. Life moves on and things change, and his time with Ocean helped him see that. But his time with Ocean (aside from helping him to get back on track toward teaching) also helped him realize he does have something to offer people, no matter what he thought before.
And suddenly he’s found someone to offer it to.
Her name is Pop Tart, and they’re nothing more than friends, but there’s more, somewhere inside. They met two weeks ago at a game they were both working at. After talking away much of the night after work, he ended the evening with:
It’s been really interesting meeting you, saying it more to himself as a profound discovery, than as a replacement for “see you later.”
“You too,” she replied.
And it was interesting to meet her; as the days progressed, his profound discovery was solidified. But it was this instant connection and familiarity that drew him to her, when at first he had all intentions of staying far.
Without really knowing her, he asked her to drive to Boston with him to drop off a paycheck for his stepbrother.
Without really knowing him she said yes.
And without really knowing each other it seemed perfectly normal that they sat in a car, talking like old friends. Without knowing each other, an afternoon turned into evening, and into night, and they never ran out of something to say or laugh about.
Out of nowhere, he, Frog and Pop Tart were spending time like three sandbox playmates who had known each other for their entire short lives. And over time, he, and she have begun spending time together, just them, playing. And not playing like that eyebrows-raising, dirty-thought thinking, adult type of playing, but playing as in the playing of our childhood, when sitting in the woods, pretending to camp was fun; when imagination and silliness always stole the show.
But over the last couple of weeks neither he nor she uttered a word of their feelings and thoughts. He has only been her friend and nothing more. He has been going with this amazing flow; he’s been enjoying his time with her – randomly viewed sunsets by a pond, laying on pavement while watching fireworks, and creating a well-devised plot to steal a canoe. They had become instant friends, but it’s been obvious there is more, despite both of them subscribing to the “this is me time” mantra.
Finally, last night, she said something to him.
She told him she can’t wait to see him again …
“Is this crazy?” she wrote to him.
And then they talked, admitting feelings, but admitting apprehensions. She swore off dating so she could have her “me” time; he had no time to share with anyone, but somehow both of them let their guards down.
It’s amazing to have this awakened feeling in him, where he feels he’s found a true friend in her, someone he cares about and can share with, debate with, and be a fool around.
Just two weeks ago he talked about how he couldn’t imagine being able to lay in the grass with anyone. Two weeks later he found himself next to her, feeling more comfortable than he has in years.
They’re friends, but there’s more, somewhere inside.

The observer , a journal, and the lake

2006-07-02T15:29:00.000-04:00

The observer sits crossed-legged at the lake. The pages of his journal lift at their edges, as if on string, with each gust of Nature’s breath. The sun is hidden, yet the day is bright. The breeze reminds the observer that he’s outside, alive, and not dead in a basement.
Each breath Nature takes (and gives) seems to turn the nearby leaves into musical instruments. These leaves are a constant backdrop to the multitude of sounds drifting through the air today.
To the far left the laughter of children bounces off the sound of the wind like the wild steps a child takes against a hardwood floor. The shrills of boys and girls; children running through sand, sliding down slides, and pulling the bottoms of the shirts of their parents: “Push me on the swing,” they demand with innocence.
In front of the observer is a path that bicyclists, joggers and pedestrians use. Each time a bicycle or stroller pass by him, he’s reminded of the sound car tires make while driving over gravel. It reminds him of summer, when car windows can always (and should always) be rolled down, thus pouring the outside world, and all its sounds, into the car.
A line of sailboats form a horizon in the far end of the lake. What seems like 100 geese seem to form a similar horizon on the lake, yet only a stone’s throw away from where he sits, by the base of a tree.
The sounds of distant birds fight against the sounds of cars.
All the while, Nature breathes, and plays music with the trees.
Besides the observer, there are only a handful of people who have opted to stake claim on the green before the lake. The one similarity they all share (including those who walk the path) is companionship. All around the observer are visions of relationships: friendships for some, but intimacy on a deeper level for most.
The observer considers these couples for a while. When arriving here today, each one of them agreed on a spot to sit down, rather than he, who sat wherever he pleased.
Most of these couples seem content to lie in idleness. Some have dogs, but most just have each other. Often times, neither member of each couple said a word to each other, yet they all smiled with content.
The girl and her knight
One young couple is sitting nearby the observer, on the other side of the tree he leans upon. The young man is lying down, leaning on one elbow, as he looks down at the young girl, who is lying flat on her back. He’s laughing while he holds a blade of grass close to her face, slowly moving his hand across her nose, around her lips, and under her chin. She keeps from scratching and retaliating for as long as she can. It’s always the same: her nose scrunches up; her feet begin to wag like a dog’s tail, until she can finally take it no longer and she scratches her face and lovingly pushes the young man’s hand away. Then they both laugh, and he repeats his flirtatious torture. It seems nothing can stop this routine.
But then, a strong gust of wind blows the young girl’s hat away from the blanket. As she goes to grab it the young man holds her arm: “Stay here, I’ll get it for you,” he tells her.
He stands up and walks the few yards to the hat. As he reaches for it, Nature decides to tease him: another gust of wind lifts the hat and takes it away, closer to the lake.
The young girl squeals in amusement, and begins to giggle at the situation. The young man looks back at her, smiling. He then looks back toward the hat, at its new location, with a determined look on his face. Then, out of nowhere, the young man breaks into a run, toward the hat. As he approaches the hat he dives on top of the hat like it’s his prey. He stands, turns toward the girl, and raises his trophy above his head. She, in turn, stands up and claps, applauding her knight, her hero.
And the breath still plays the trees.
The observer can’t imagine this type of comfort and intimacy with another person. To be able to sit and do nothing with another is a hard concept for him to grasp. To act a fool in front of one he cares for seems like a distant concept.
But he wants it all back; he just can’t remember how it is.
As the solo observer, he is master of his own choices, and he’s become accustomed to this lifestyle. He knows exactly where he wants to sit at the lake, without having to compromise with another (same goes for when he goes to the movies alone). He can choose to write, read, walk or sleep, without wondering, or worrying, how his companion will be entertained.
He knows exactly when he wants to leave without worrying whether his companion wanted to leave 30 minutes ago, or doesn’t want to leave at all.
He has his own choices without compromise.
But what they have, which he does not, is companionship, intimacy, and understanding.
They have a history. They have stories they can share to others. They have photographs of each other that aren’t looked at as memories of a past, but a continuance of an ever-evolving present.
They have conversation. He has his journal.

Elem and the Inebriated Offender

2006-06-09T00:17:00.000-04:00

His inbox gets visits from some random people sometimes.
Take, for example, one of his old flings, Elem.
“Is this you?” she wrote.
He replied back.
Yup, long time no talk. How are you?
They hadn’t talked for years, not since she visited him in New Hampshire one time. Distance and normal life kept them away from each other, no harm no foul.
“I’m getting married in a month,” she wrote. “I guess when that happens you start reflecting about the past, start thinking about ‘what ifs.”
What ifs?
She’s marrying a Portuguese man, with the last name Ortiz. She's a white girl from Maine who will now be called Elem Ortiz.
“Needless to say, I’ll be the most ethnic white person I know.”
Elem is his age, yet she’s getting married and has owned a house for the last few months. She’s adopting her 15-year-old cousin, thus making her an instant mother.
Meanwhile, he works three part-time jobs, lives in a basement and is going back to school.
Is there something wrong with this picture?
Knowing she’s getting married makes it easier to talk with her – even if there’s flirting, it’s harmless.
“So how come you never called me after I came up there?” she wrote.
You never called me either, he writes back. Besides, it didn’t seem you wanted me to follow up, so I didn’t.
No harm, no foul.
“Okay, fair enough. But just so you know, I would’ve liked for you to call me. But some things I guess happen for a reason, though I’m not sure what the reason was here."
The reason was so that you wouldn’t get hurt by someone like me.
“Well, it’s really great to get in touch with you again,” she wrote. “My fiancé isn’t the jealous type. We should have dinner sometime.”
Sure, anytime is fine with me. That’d be cool.
They agree to have dinner next week, but what will dinner be like?
He knew her through one of his old jobs, but he talked to her perhaps five times in his entire life.
They’re in different times of their lives. They never were on the same page. Their lives never ran side by side. Rather, they ran into each other one time. They took a drive to Cape Cod and had lunch once. The drive from NH to the Cape was the longest amount of time they spent talking with each other … and that was five years ago.
And now they’ll have dinner? That should be interesting.

Neither a minority or a majority: The inebriated offender
The other night he ran into some racism in a way he never faced before.
He’s seen it before. He’s heard it. But not like this.
A drunk man at a bar had thought he purposely poked him with a pool cue. In the parking lot, the inebriated offender verbally attacked him.
“What the fuck’s your problem, man? Sticking me with the pool stick and shit.”
At first he thought this man was joking, so he nodded his head and laughed it off.
The verbal attack continued.
“You wanna go, huh? What, you’re too afraid to fight?
I don’t fight man, he replies, calmly … at least he thinks he says it calmly.
“Yeah, you fucking sand nigger.”
Sand nigger? He decides to correct the inebriated offender; hey, if you're going to be a racist, you might as well do it right.
I’m not even Middle-Eastern man. I’m Colombian.
“Ahh. So you’re a fucking spic, huh?”
Bravo, now you have the right ethnicity, idiot, he thinks to himself.
Yeah, that’s right. I'm a spic, and we’re taking over your country so watch out.
Coming from a white bread town, he’s used to being reminded of his ethnicity. Nicknames haunt him from years ago. These nicknames were all innocent in intentions, yet hurtful all the same.
But nothing like this.
Even his friend, Sparkle, once mentioned how she never realized that he’s a “minority” until she noticed that he put “Latino/Hispanic” as his ethnicity on a profile.
The problem is, he’s neither a minority, nor a majority.
He was born in the states, but he looks foreign, so people always ask:
“What are you?”
His last name references Italian. With a full beard he looks Middle Eastern.
But he’s Colombian, and damn proud of it. Except, he can’t speak Spanish. It’s a struggle to understand it. He’s never lived in Colombia, he only visits.
He meets racism here and there, but he’s American.
So in the end, he’s neither a foreigner nor an American. He’s in the middle. That makes things worse. He’s not black, so it’s not obvious racism. When he tells people he sees and feels racism, they scoff … they remind him he’s not black.
No, he’s not. But he sees racism, often.
For some reason, remarks like the one offered by the inebriated offender don’t bother him, because in the end he knows the offender’s life is worse off than his own. But what he doesn’t want to see is people like the offender rub off on younger people.
How is it that we really do live in a place like this … still? And why does being Colombian make him so damn different than someone whose family is from Ireland?

The next step syndrome and melting away the pile

2006-05-09T17:43:00.000-04:00

He's always two steps ahead.
That may sound like a good quality; He's always prepared for what's in the future. But in fact, what happens is he always feels overwhelmed.
This "next-step-syndrome" strikes him at the most stressful times (like deadline day at the paper - which story do I write first? -). This "next-step-syndrome" also happens during the most mundane tasks.
Take his laundry, for example. With all his clothes piled on his bed, all he has to do is start putting things away - ahh, this t-shirt goes here. These socks go there. Eventually that pile disappears.
But he can't just start putting random things away. The minute he picks up a pair of socks to put away, he concerns himself with another heap on his bed - What about those pants. I need to put those away. And what about that sweatshirt. That's got to be put away.
He'll waste 10 minutes just looking at the task at hand - all these clothes have to be put away, which should I put away first? - rather than just doing it.
A former editor of his once told him "Just do it." It was when he was moving to Seattle, and his room was one big pile, much like his laundry. He had a hard time deciding what to pack in his car first, what throw-away item he should discard first.
"Just pick something up and do something with it," his editor told him.
Easier said than done, but when he heeded the editor's advice (reluctantly), the pile melted away.
----
Twenty miles stared him down like a pile of laundry last Sunday. He decided to walk the 20 miles to help feed the hungry people. He's done the walk before, though not for years. But this time was different. This time, he was walking alone. It wasn't the distance that concerned him - a 20-mile walk isn't as far as some would imagine - it was the solitude. He didn't even have headphones to mask his solitude. All he had was himself, and his thoughts, for 20 miles.
As he's written before, he often feels alone, much to his own doing. When in his basement bedroom, it's hard for him to connect with the outside world. With most of his friends still into the bar scene, it keeps him from spending much time with them. So this walk was a test for him, could he do this alone? He knew he could do the walk with friends and family, he's done it before. But could he walk among the masses - groups of friends, familes and coworkers all sharing stories and laughs - while he walked silently? Would he feel as if people were staring at him, thinking to themselves "I can't believe he's all alone"?
But most importantly, would he be able to handle his own company for an entire day? Would he be content in his own private conversations, or would he feel the solitude weigh him down like an anchor?
In the end, 20 miles went by faster than an hour-long car ride does. The first five miles were nothing; but with each mile he pushed himself faster, hovering the line between fast-paced walking and a slow jog. By the seventh mile he felt a pain in his feet. About that time he read a quote on the back of someone's t-shirt in front of him: "Pain is weakness leaving the body."
That's helpful, he thought to himself. For a moment that quote inspired him. But then he thought how absurd that quote was. Pain is pain. Pain means something hurts, he knows that. But he pushed on faster, deciding that, though he knows the true definition of pain, for the remainder of this 20-mile walk he was subscribing to the quote on that t-shirt.
By the 12th mile weakness left his legs like an excorsised demon; pain was building up. But all the while he held mini-battles in his head:
Get to the 15th mile and take a rest, he told himself. Instead of looking at the miles ahead (the piles of laundry) he chose to look at the smaller picture - to Just Do It. He got to the 15th mile without ever thinking about the 16th mile. But at the 15th mile, instead of resting, he convinced himself he could easily do one more mile, so he did. Then he did the same to get to the 17th mile. By the time he reached the bridge (near the 18-mile mark) he knew he couldn't stop; he was too close.
So instead of resting, he walked faster, nearly running. His legs begged him not to; it must have been all that weakness that left them back on mile 12. But the entire last two miles, as his body said "take a break" and his mind said "just finish" all he could think was, just do it. Just another step. After that other step, he focused on the next one, never giving thought to more than just that next step.
And as quickly as he remembered starting that walk, the pile of miles melted away, and he was done.

Spinning the black circle into adulthood

2006-03-21T13:04:00.000-05:00

A record player he just bought helped him slow down his pace.
“Sometimes we just move too fast,” he told Fleet in the kitchen the night he brought home the record player. A commercial in the background made him say it. One boy was remininscing to another boy how "back in the day" they used to have to "GO ALL THE WAY TO A STORE" to rent movies ... but now they can just push a button on their remote controls.
“Yeah, you’re saying this, and I’m twice your age, so imagine how I must feel,” Fleet replied.
Fleet had a record player similar to his new (but really old) toy when he was younger, and looking at a record player sent him into nostalgia.
“God, if I had all my records still I’d be a millionaire,” he said.
Record players can’t be thrown on your arm like an iPod, they can’t be installed in a car like a CD player. They’re not made for convenience. They require full attention. They require pampering, patience. They require you to listen. You can't stray too far from a record when it's playing, because before you know it, it needs to be turned over. You can't get too physical near a record player, because the music will skip, and you might scratch the vinyl. Your best bet is to lie down, on a couch, with headphones on, and listen real loudly to the music, and to that record player hiss. Because of all this, his new (but old) record player helped him slow down.
-----
He had dinner last weekend with a man who might not be alive one year from now.
He knows that’s a foolish statement to make; anybody in his life right now, including himself, might not be here tomorrow.
But this one man, Fleet’s friend, who is a barber, is dying of cancer, though you’d never know it by looking at him.
You’d never know it be talking with him.
He met the barber at home, shortly before going to the Feast. By the end of the 20 minute drive to the Feast, he had already forgotten this man’s sad story. Not because he’s insensitive, but because the barber didn’t carry himself like a dying man, he carried himself like a man without a care in the world.
It made him realize that we’re all dying in some way. This man’s normal demeanor made him realize that it doesn’t matter if we “know” our expiration date, or if we’re living each day like blind men. We’re all dying, and because of that, we all should live.

Last week he met an old man who owns a local record store (where he bought the record player). This man seemed happy, complete and calm. Every few months the man closes down his one-man shop and goes on vacations to Mexico, England etc. On St. Patrick’s Day the old man wore a neon-green jacket
“I don’t want to get pinched by any leprechauns,” the old man joked.
He envied the record store man for living what seemed to be a great life. Because no matter how many ups and downs this old man must have faced when he was younger – broken hearts, tough times at work, loneliness – at this point in his life, he’s happy and free of regrets. And that’s all anyone can ask for.

-------------------------
The last two weeks he hasn’t been living as well as he’d like. Work caught up to him for a while, as did getting certain things in his life in order – mainly school and finances.
He hasn’t spent much time with family, and has spent no time with friends whatsoever, except last weekend when he went to the batting cages with Frog.

Two weeks went by way too fast. He had to cancel plans with Sparkle, to go to a show at the church because he allowed the normal grind of life get a hold of him. He didn’t allow himself a moment to step back and breathe.

The weather is warming and the days are longer and he hopes that will help slow each day down for him. Unfortunately he doesn’t feel as connected to some of his friends, or to his life of six months ago, as he used to feel.
He’s bored with bars. He’s bored with television. He’s bored with sitting around, and he’s afraid he can’t do too much else with some of his friends. He was thankful for the batting cages with Frog, and he’ll be thankful for the camping and hikes he and Ocean will go on (whew, just when LA Joe and LA Jane leave for the West, he’s able to find another camping buddy). But as far as nightlife: bars and drinking, he seems to be bored with it (which creates a bit of an issue as he is a “nitelife” reporter). He’d rather write, play music, or listen to his brand new (actually, really old) record player, with his brand new (actually, really old) Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers Band and Neil Young records then sit at a bar.

“You’re growing up,” Frog has told him. “This is good for you.”
Indeed it seems he is growing up.

The basement bedroom mood

2006-03-05T22:18:00.000-05:00

Beep, beep, beep.
He pulls away from his guitar for a moment. Deep grooves, left by the strings, mark his fingertips like a grill does to hamburger. Hours must have passed without him knowing. Sometimes, when he’s in this mood he ignores the beeping phone. Sometimes, when he’s in this mood, he ignores everything else around him; his mother asking him a question, the bills piling up, and the stories he needed to write two days before.
This mood is dangerous, but constructive. In this mood, his basement bedroom falls deeper beneath the ground than it already is. In this mood, part of his life moves forward, while the rest of it stands still.
In this mood he loses touch and gains insight.
Lately he’s been in this mood. Because of it he rarely goes out, can barely focus on much.
He has ideas swirling in his head. These ideas are eating up all the space he has set aside for everyday functions: conversation, communication, keeping in touch with friends, eating, sleeping.
There’s only so much he can do in a day, and sometimes this mood bullies its way to center stage.
Take Mardi Gras for example. On Mardi Gras day he called Sparkles, one of only two high school friends he has remained in touch with.
Sparkles suggested they go out for a drink, to celebrate Mardi Gras and to catch up. He was still in New Hampshire when she suggested it to him, and he seemed up for it. They would meet somewhere in Massachusetts, where they both live. But as always, his feelings changed after 45 minutes in his car driving home.
This 45-minute drive, twice a day, everyday, almost always changes his mood. Forty-five minutes alone in a car is a sure way for him to get into his head, especially after a day at work. When he gets into that mood, and steps into his basement, chances are he won’t leave the underground.
On Mardi Gras night, instead of going straight to meet Sparkles, he retreated to his basement to drop off his bags. It was still too early to go out, so he picked up his guitar. From playing the guitar, an idea ran through his head, so he picked up a pen. His string of thought became a ball of yarn, so he picked up his laptop.
Suddenly it was midnight. He never picked up his phone to call Sparkles; Mardi Gras was over.
This has been happening to him far too often.
Frog has been calling him about playing music together, and he hasn’t been receptive. He’s not sure why his has this aversion to playing music with others right now. Perhaps it’s because he’s been playing by himself for far too long in this basement bedroom. Perhaps it’s because he’s not sure he can commit a few hours of full concentration to others; his mind is too scattered. Selfish? Yes. But he doesn’t wish to be this way.
When he’s in his basement he might pick up his guitar for an hour, but then he might get an urge to write a story. So he puts aside the guitar. When he's alone, there's no harm nor foul in this. His sporadic thought process has no affect on anyone. No one else should have to be burdened by his selfishness and scattered mind.
------------------------
He decides to leave his couch for a moment and read the text message he just received. It will help him connect to a world outside of his basement. It might help him escape his scattered mind and basement bedroom mood.
He opens up his phone and checks the message: This is a complimentary text message from Verizon. Your bill is available for viewing on-line.
Damn. Maybe he’ll escape some other time.

The 2-19 trip: Strangers and family: discovering Mamita and missing Hermana

2006-03-01T20:58:00.000-05:00

It’s 2-19-06, and he’s driving south with Mamita.
It’s become a tradition this time of year. Though everyone he knows would rather that the day held no significance.
Regardless, in the early afternoon, he jumps into Mamita’s car; the two of them headed south.
They are a day early. The next day, Monday, will be the three-year anniversary of the fire. But neither really cares. Visiting the site is never a way to remember that horrid time; it’s never a way for them to remember pain.
They both feel compelled to journey down there, at least once a year, to remember someone they hope to never forget.
For the second consecutive year, he and Mamita are visiting the site without Hermana; it is Hermana’s husband who he and Mamita are paying their respects to.

Without being fully aware of it happening, he realizes that his family has a hole in it; it isn’t complete. Hermana is missing, and has been for quite some time. She seems to be oceans away, perhaps in a different time. She feels as far away as forever.
He feels helpless, feels like he must do something to bring her back.
Ever since leaving Father when he was 8, he remembers there always being the three of them: he, Mamita and Hermana. They all moved away from Father, Mamita earlier than her children, yet they all found each other again.
But right now everything is different.
“I miss talking to her,” Mamita says as he and she drive south.
Of course she does. Hermana is her flesh, her blood. Smiles, tears, car accidents and yes, the fire, are all wrapped inside Mamita and Hermana; their bond is unbreakable despite their current estrangement. Their bond formed before Hermana took her first breath.
After the fire three years ago, Hermana called Mamita, crying, looking for help, answers, or maybe just love. No matter how bad the situation, mothers heal, and Hermana needed to be healed.
She needs to be healed now, but she’s too far from Mamita. They are in different worlds, at least for now.
When Mamita talks of missing Hermana, it makes him aware of her as a true person. He often forgets that Mamita is a person, with needs, desires, disappointments, struggles. She’s full of love, with thoughts racing in her head, just like him. He often just sees mother, and mother is always there for you. He takes for granted that there is effort behind the reliability; there is unconditional love.
But he sees this love whenever she mentions Hermana. Hermana is angry, or maybe fed up with Mamita. Regardless, Mamita can’t stop loving her, will never stop being her mother.

He’s not sure what to do to help Mamita with Hermana. So, on this car ride, he has a goal; make sure to talk with Mamita, share life with her. Make sure her son isn’t missing from her life like her daughter is. Often, when he talks with her, he reverts to being a witness on the stand: answering questions with only the bare minimum: yes, no, good.
Recently, his time with Ocean has helped him see how amazing it is to engage in full conversations with people; he hopes to be this way with everyone he can, and he’ll start with Mamita right now.

At a gas station, the song “Beautiful” by James Blunt comes on the radio.
“Who sings this?” Mamita asks. He tells her.
“I love this song,” she says. He’s never given the song much attention. He doesn’t hate it, but doesn’t love it. His instinct is to not reply to her remark. But he asks why she loves it, because he wants to be her son, and not just a man in her life.
“I just think it’s so beautiful, the story,” she says.
What’s the story?

She tells him the story: A man, on a subway, takes notice of a woman who sits nearby. She glances at him, and he at her. They share a moment, a silent, brief connection. The man knows he’ll never know her; their connection will end when the subway stops. But just because there were no words shared, just because they remained strangers, doesn’t mean it wasn’t something beautiful, powerful. So he writes about it.

“Isn’t that just so true though,” she says. “Sometimes you just catch a moment with someone else, and that’s it.”
Yes, it is true, he thinks. But he’s never heard Mamita talk like this. He’s heard her talk about motherly things, nothing so similar to how he thinks.
But he realizes maybe he just never listened before.

Talking about the song gives him one of the best glimpses into Mamita’s mind, her soul. He knows facts, likes and dislikes of her: she likes to swim in warm water, she doesn’t like it that Fleet cooks so well because it makes her want to eat too much.
But he’s missing out on her random thoughts, the sporadic ideas which pop into her head each day, with no rhyme or reason. These random thoughts are what make him who he is, and he is assuming they make her who she is. And only now he is getting to know her.

They eat lunch before visiting the site. The food takes abnormally longer than usual, and he can tell she is slightly annoyed, but not as much as she would be at other times.
He’s rarely one to get annoyed at slow service, he thinks, and is glad to see she is doing well.
They continue their conversation. They talk about future plans, how she might want to teach someday, how she prefers a house in the mountains while Fleet would prefer something near the beach.
He talks about going back to school, he tells her about Ocean. But rather than read off a fact sheet about Ocean [she’s 26, lives in Rhode Island, is going to be a teacher], he actually talks about her. He tells her about their first kiss, how she’s special, how he went to an art show with her.

Visiting the site is easier this year than ever before. The first time he was here, at the site, questions still weren’t answered, hope still stood a slim chance of pulling through. There was too much pain; it seemed the smoke was still smoldering.
Last year was tough, still too many memories. TV cameras reminded him of the ugliness of media. This year the newsmen were less invasive, yet still present. This year it feels good to visit, not as a way to reopen wounds, but as a special way to spend an afternoon.

At the cross, they look at pictures, words and keepsakes. Mamita clears away leaves that cover the mementos. He picks up a broken piece of glass from a vase. They don’t want the site to look messy, not cared for.

On the way home Mamita says she wants to be cremated, her ashes spread somewhere over Colombia and the United States. She doesn’t want to have a site people can visit.
“I don’t want people to feel bad if they don’t come visit me,” she said. “And I don’t want them to feel bad if my site starts getting grown over.”
He’s always been amazed at how Mamita can talk of death so easily. He wishes he could. He tells her he doesn’t want a site or memorial either; that he’d like to be cremated. But still, it amazes him how matter-of-factly she is of death. It makes sense though, death being a matter of fact.

When she talks of her death, he thinks of Hermana again. After leaving the site Mamita asked if they should visit Hermana at work, at the bookstore down the road. Mamita would stay in the car because Hermana wouldn’t want to see her. He would go in alone.
He told her no, because she’d be busy and he wouldn’t want to have a rushed visit. Mamita was disappointed, but more so at the chasm that lie between she and her daughter.
Everyday she worries and thinks of her flesh and blood, her loves.

He thinks to himself that come March, it will be one year since he’s seen Hermana, the last time he heard her voice live. He left her a message on her 31st birthday over the summer, to no response.
In the fall he e-mailed her. His e-mail came off more angrily than he intended, but he was frustrated. She replied, but only once. He didn’t see or talk with her on Christmas, this year or last.
Without realizing it happening, another part of his family is falling away from him. Two of his family’s closest members are in deep forests. He should go in those forests, look for them before they’re too lost to ever be found. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t know if he’s afraid of what he’ll find, or if he doesn’t realize how important finding these two people are to his own life.
He doesn’t want, or need, Hermana to be a part of his life the way Father is. He’d prefer Father not to be in his life the way Father is. But with Father there have been decades that have passed. He’d merely connect with Father because of obligation, and to connect to a past life, more so than to fill a hole in his current life. With sister, less time has passed; less dirt has been thrown over memories.
He feels helpless. All he knows is:
There are enough strangers in the world and never enough family.
And he must do something about that.

Old Souls

2006-03-01T20:57:00.000-05:00

Night was slipping away.
Their conversation traveled the world, from Africa to Iceland to New Zealand.
Their eyes and minds journeyed for thousands of miles, despite their bodies remaining in her kitchen. A map lay on the counter in front of them, the two of them staring at it, tracing routes and destinations with their fingers.
He had taken her to a jazz concert the night before. They arrived late to the concert and waited for intermission before entering the hall. While waiting, they found a piano in an empty room and sat on the bench. He started playing a few notes, amateurishly, but stopped and looked at her.
They kissed; their first kiss; the piano sitting silently in front of them.
The concert seemed to fly by in a matter of minutes.
“I’m not sure if it was a short concert or if I just really enjoyed who I was with,” she told him later on.
Weeks earlier they had sat on the same couch together, with about 2 feet of space between them, watching Wedding Crashers. Now, at the jazz concert, not even the armrest could separate them.
There were no more walls.

But that was the night before.

Right now it’s 2 a.m. and they’ve been talking for hours. They could have talked for two days straight if distance and sleep didn’t interfere.
They had spent the first portion of this evening at an art gallery that was exhibiting her sister's work.
They had left the gallery around 11 p.m. and went back to her house. They had only known each other for one month, yet here he was, in her parents’ home, at 2 a.m., drinking homebrew beers and talking about the world. He had already met her mother earlier in the night. He spent the evening with her sister. And in the morning, he’d meet her father.
That should seem weird, he thought. But it didn’t. It all seemed normal. It wasn't like it was planned. There were no intentions to meet her family members, it was just part of their day.

She was introducing him to her world.

At the gallery he met her friends, people who would no longer just be a slew of names she spoke of, but faces he could picture.
They kissed in the gallery. They held hands. They felt … normal, excited.
They spoke all night, with and without words.
She would disappear for a moment, and return with a cherry tomato in her hand.
She held it to his mouth and he obliged by eating her offering.
Whenever she needed to free up her hands she would hand him her wine glass, without saying a word. He, in turn, understood her, and took the glass.
They communicated like old souls, despite the newness of it all.

When he first walked into the gallery, he felt intimidated. It became obvious he was walking into her world by walking through those doors, and he was afraid he wouldn’t be who she needed, what she wanted.
She must have realized this.
“You don’t talk with your eyes,” she mentioned to him at one point early in the night.
It was interesting that she said that, because at that point of their conversation he felt uneasy. He felt like he was trying, when he knew he didn’t have to.
Time changed everything. He realized he didn’t have to try.
This was her, and as odd as it sounded, he didn’t have to try around her.
Later in the evening she remarked how, finally, he was talking with his eyes.
Yes, finally.

She led him around to her sister's art pieces, giving him insight behind them.
“She’s upset because she thinks there’s too much space between these ones,” Ocean said, pointing to a 3-panel artwork.
She took him to another of her sister’s pieces, a casting of a pregnant woman’s body.
Something about that piece seized him.
“That’s love,” she remarked.
Yes, that’s love.
Later on, Ocean's sister would ask him if any of the art pieces "struck" him. With all sincerity, he told her that just one did: the one that represented true love; the one she made.
He and Ocean also walked around on their own throughout the night. She seemed comfortable leaving him in a room of strangers and that made him happy.
It was like she knew him, and knew he'd be fine on his own. She didn't have to stay by his side every minute of the night, and somehow she knew this.
While he walked around the room he took note of the musicians. He studied the people in the gallery as much as he studied the artwork on the walls.
One of the art pieces on the wall was a necklace. He didn’t know why, but that necklace drew his attention.
She would love this, he thought to himself. Later on he mentioned the necklace to her.
“I saw that necklace, it was beautiful. I would love it,” she said.
He knew she’d say that. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did.

They were going to make food together when they went back to her parents’ house; eggs with whatever extras she had in her refrigerator. But they opted to have beer instead.
They talked so much that, the following day, neither could remember everything that was spoken. It wasn’t so much the content of what they said, but the fact that they were able to sit there, in the middle of the night, and talk; not interview each other like one would on a first date, but talk, communicate.

He slept better that night than he had in weeks. When he woke up she was the first thing he saw.
He could barely open his eyes at first, but her face was there, inches away from him. Her breath pressed against his skin.
Before he was fully awake, his mind told him that he had been here before, with this woman. He recognized her, not just as someone he talked with for hours the night before, but as someone he had woken up to hundreds, if not thousands of times before. That feeling hasn’t left him since.
We’ve been here before.
That morning he walked back into the kitchen he had spent hours in the night before.
Except this time there was life in the room aside from Ocean and him. He walked into a room where her mother, father, uncle and cousins all stood.
This should feel weird, he thought again. But it didn’t. It felt normal.

The jazz concert and the art show seemed to remind him of a time he was never aware of before. But now it seems so clear.
Old souls.
The day after the gallery she asked him, in an e-mail, if he believed that people who fell in love with each other in a past life were destined to be together in every other life.
He was asking himself that same question.

Two days after the gallery they spoke on the phone. He called her around 9:30 p.m. An hour went by, and he told her he was getting off the phone to do some work and go to bed.
But somehow, at midnight they were still on the phone. He didn’t even realize it. Time flew by like it did at the jazz concert. With her there never seems to be the notion of time, just one single moment that, God willing, will never end.
He realizes it all seems to be happening so fast. He knows she realizes that too.
But they both seem to realize there was something before; a connection prior to the night they shook hands at the blues bar.
Old souls.

Without West

2006-03-01T20:56:00.001-05:00

He hears the ticking of a clock and not much else. The silence is suffocating him. Time seems to be standing still, but the ticking says otherwise.
The dog, who is being entertained by LA Jane, growls occasionally.
His eyes veer from empty space to LA Jane and the dog. He smirks, but erases the smile. He feels guilty to show any positive emotion. He let's the ticking continue.
The silence could go on for days, for months, for years, if no one speaks, if no one acts.
But no one knows what to do. He just dropped a verbal bomb into the living room the night before he was heading back home. Now things have changed. Smiles are frowns. Conversations are silenced anger. He feels ashamed, sad and embarrassed. But he feels he did what he had to do.

He came West expecting a home and new life. He was ready to pack up and leave in a week.
But instead, West will wait. He can't go there now, not while he's so damn dependent on others.
He told the news to LA Joe and LA Jane. It was hard to swallow for LA Joe.
For a month he had talked up the trip, excited about the "we" possibilities in LA: music, movies, and hopefully writing for himself.
His move involved others, not just himself.
When he arrived he felt at home. His last visit to the LA airport (this past summer) resulted in confusion, haste decision making and a feeling of loneliness. He didn't feel settled.
But this time, he felt great.
He was picked up by LA Joe and LA Jane and was brought to their home.
Their home is what got him thinking.
He walked in and saw the home he had known for more than two years. He could still smell the lovely treasures the cats left on the couches over the course of two years. He knew the history of some of the scratches and burns on the furniture.
He had lived with LA Joe and LA Jane two different times, and never had there been an issue. They had been great roommates. They had their life, he had his life, and they all had their life together. He had no reason to believe he�d not be able to come West and stay with them until he got his life together.
But walking into their home on a different coast was different from the home he remembered.
It was like he had opened up an old shoebox of memories. But this move was supposed to give him a new shoebox. He didn�t feel comfortable walking into this old shoebox, not when the world around was so different from anything he knew. Palm trees replaced forests, stucco replaced wood.
Here, inside the old shoebox, he felt needy, like a dog with his tail between his legs.
He didn't feel settled.

The problem was, this house he knew of had changed in just five short months. Along with similar posters from years ago, walls were now decorated with wedding pictures. Instead of two cats running around the house, there was one cat and a brand new puppy.
This is their house, he thought to himself. This is their life.
He smiles when he thinks of the life they created out West for themselves. He's happy to see their home. He's proud of them.
But he doesn't want their home to be anything but that, their home. He doesn't want to infiltrate it. He wants it to be just is. He wants to come visit LA Joe and LA Jane, but then be able to go home, to a place he's been able to create, either alone or with someone else.
Nothing has to change when people are married, that's true enough. But some things should change, in his opinion. This is one thing that should. He shouldn't have to need them in this way, not at this age.

Strangely enough he felt extremely comfortable in the West. He'd been to LA a few times before: it served as pit stops on cross country trips, and then of course there was the debacle this past summer (the job interview). But he never liked LA.
But this time, he loved what he was seeing, breathing (yup, believe it) and walking on. He walked onto piers, over oceans and across sand. He felt his steps form into a West coast pace, slow and comfortable.
He couldn't help but smile all day on the beach, alone. The sun has this magical effect on people. How can you frown when you have to squint?
He talked to strangers, was talked to by strangers and just watched life happen at Venice Beach.
I can be here, he said to himself.
But still, he can't be here this way, he continued to think. He's dependent on his family right now and hates that. He can't make a move and still be in the same position. He realizes the most important thing to him is to be able to take care of himself.
He doesn't want to/nor mean to shut anyone out. He just needs to know he's capable of making a living and be on his own. It doesn't have to turn out that way, but he has to know he can do that. Or else, he can never be proud of himself.

So he told LA Joe and LA Jane he can't come, not right now, not like this. He can't stay at their place and not know when he'll be able to be on his own.

He's on the plane home now. The woman beside him is sleeping, amidst her open Doritos bag. He's listening to Jack Johnson. He can hear the sun in Jack's music. He already misses the warmth. He knows he's foolish for many decisions he makes.
He knows he hurts people in the process of it all, and he hates himself for it.
Sometimes he wishes he could just fly, all day long. When he flies, he occasionally talks with strangers; sometimes he's consumed with himself.
But when he does talk with strangers, they know, and he knows, this is only temporary.
Everyone is headed elsewhere. No one is stable.
Sometimes knowing you'll never see someone ever again makes truth come out much easier.
Sometimes, knowing someone for years makes truth come out harder.
But in the end the truth makes things better. It might not be instant, but it will happen.
He felt true to himself when he turned away from West.
He hurt people and himself. He lost out on an amazing chance at an amazing world. But he felt true to himself.
He can do it. He can do this.
But the question is, can he do this on his own? Can he find a job and a home without living off others?
It's a question he's been asking for six years now.
He's still waiting for the answer.

The place he turned away from

Disco night. And Gone from here.

2006-03-01T20:56:00.000-05:00

He's sitting at an airport two hours too early for his flight. His laptop is gently burning his lap, but his eyes are violently burning with exhaustion.
He's still recovering from last night, disco night, but not in the way he thought he'd be recovering.
In his mind's eye he envisioned today as an afternoon of hangover hell. He envisioned having to get drunk before the flight, for fear that he'd never make it in the altitude in a sober, broken state.
But there is no hangover in sight. His head is foggy for another reason; he didnt sleep.
Disco night was a big night. He saw Ocean. He said good-bye to some friends. And he fell upon something he wasn't intending to.

Disco Night
He dressed for the occasion: bling-bling rings and necklace, red-leather jacket, collared shirt (with collar on the outside of jacket), plaid pants and an afro wig.
He had been looking forward to disco night since Date 1: Ocean. But it's foolish to look forward to one single night because of one girl, he told himself.
Especially since reality will kill the fun soon enough, and he will be gone from here. But he couldn't help himself. He enjoyed nights like this to begin with. Seeing Ocean was a bonus, as long as things continued to go well with her.
He had no idea how things would go.
As he dressed for disco night, he began thinking of reality, of him not being here. He got nervous, not so much for the move, but for the fear that he would, again, really enjoy being with Ocean. He'd hate to miss out on something special; someone special. Yet he's headed West, at least for now.
What of it then? What can come from this if Ocean is here and I'm there?
Besides, I only met her once. Who knows what tonight will be like?
Who knows?

The disco party was supposed to be the big event, but it took backstage to the rest of the evening.
Sure, there was dancing and music. He danced with friends, with Pickle and Mrs. Pickle, Ocean and others.
He found himself, again, in a situation with Ocean that was not ideal for conversation. Places with loud music and lots of dancing prohibit the ability to talk with someone.
But this scenario served as a good tool for him. He got a glimpse into Ocean, the girl, without words getting in the way.
She danced with a smile. She moved with confidence. She seemed happy. Not happy as in "I just got an A on my science paper" happy, but happy within.
He couldn't help but smile. He felt comfortable.
This just seems normal.
Ocean and the Pickles had intended to leave around 12:30, and Ocean invited him to come hang out at Pickle's house. It was the second time in two meetings that she invited him back there; he was grateful. If she hadn't, he may not have watched Wedding Crashers with her weeks ago, and he most likely would not have gone back to the house after disco party.
They all went back to Pickle's house and watched Entourage. Slowly but surely, the Pickles headed for bed; he and Ocean were alone.
They sat closer to each other on the couch than they had ever been weeks before. They were more comfortable with each other, but still feeling each other out, seeing what each other was made of.
They talked. About what? So much, so little.
"Pillow talk" as she called it.
Families, schools, sports. They learned about each other, but more importantly, began breaking walls down. Weeks ago they gave each other handshakes.
Suddenly he was touching her hand, her face, her back. He didn't want to let go.
She was doing the same. She layed down, he lay beside her. They allowed silence to take over from time to time, as they fell in and out of sleep. But they always resumed to talking.
She didn't want to sleep, she told him. She wanted to know more about him, since there wasn't much time left.
He felt the same. He didn't want this to happen. He didn't expect it.
They lay beside each other all night, all morning. She was making him happy, and not in that "I just found a quarter on the ground" happiness, but happy within.
Damn her.

She wanted to maintain reality, that he will soon be gone. That in the end, how would any of this matter?
He's never been good with reality; he likes dreams, possibilities, hope and fate.
But reality steps in, always.

I want to see you, one more time, before I go, he told her.
"Would one more time change anything? You'd still be leaving," she told him.

He thought about this for a moment, and said the only thing he truly knew and felt.
Yes, one more time could change a lot of things ... and yes, I am still leaving.

Mother, child and Broadcasting class

2006-03-01T20:55:00.001-05:00

A smile welcomes him into the start of today; it’s his own. He was told last night that Ocean had asked about him.
Ocean.
He only met/spoke with her one time, a few weeks ago on his “first date ever.” But being asked about by someone is stimulating, intriguing.
O-pear and he have exchanged text messages and voicemails over the past few weeks. But he looks forward to seeing Ocean again.
This weekend, the disco party; will be a big night.

But Ocean isn’t his only reason for smiling.
It’s just a good day.

He allows morning coma to slip away at its own pace while he lies in his bed. All noise-making electronics are off. He has nothing but his thoughts.
What do I have to do today?
He’s not used to having an entire day off; though he doesn’t mind his sporadic work. But today is one of those rare ones.
Nothing to do.

He needs to visit the village of shops to prepare for the upcoming disco party. So beforehand, he takes Sherlock for a ride.
Spending time with Sherlock places him in a pensive mood. His mind begins to race, yo-yoing between past, present and future.

He drives right past the path to the village. He doesn’t care.
The shops can wait. My thoughts can’t.
He continues to travel, in his car and in his thoughts.

At a stop sign a mother and child cross in front of him. His first instinct is to smile. Seeing a mother and child always does that to him. But as he waits for them to cross, his smile fades. It becomes clear to him that Mother and Child are in two separate worlds right now.
Mother is walking briskly, four steps ahead of child. Her purse hangs off her right arm as she clutches onto a grocery bag. Her left hand is blindly reaching behind her for Child. Child pays no mind to the hand. He’s focused on the Styrofoam cup he’s holding. Inside the cup is hot chocolate, which he paid for with his own money.
He doesn’t care so much for the hot chocolate inside, but for the cup. The cup has dinosaur drawings all over it, and Child loves dinosaurs. His favorite is the Pterodactyl.
Mother doesn’t approve of being ignored.
She pulls Child’s arm toward her like she would pull a lawnmower chord.
“Keep up,” she says.
He begins to cry. His Styrofoam is crying as well; crying steaming hot tears all over Child’s hand.

He’s watching this through his windshield as if it were a television. He wants to yell at Mother and comfort Child. But of course, he doesn’t.
Instead, he travels back in his mind, to sophomore year at college.

Broadcasting class
Sophomore year was spent studying in the city. He was a stranger during this year.
No one knew his name, aside from professors. He barely spoke, rarely smiled. And he never studied; rarely went to class.
But he remembers one class.
Broadcasting.
And he remembers one assignment.
He had to write about a place near and dear to his heart, without revealing what that place was until the end. He was to describe this place in great detail, without giving away too much.
He had to perform his assignment to a classroom full of strangers. He had to record it.

And, like he did all through college, he never gave that assignment one thought. Not until the morning it was due.
He rode the subway to school each morning. He rode with city commuters. Back then laptops and PDAs weren’t prevalent. Rather, commuters read the newspaper or slept. He typically did the latter.
He had all intentions of sleeping that morning. He didn’t care that he hadn’t done the assignment. He never cared.
He began to doze off, giving in to morning coma. But his coma vanished when he heard a noise.
He opened his eyes but didn’t have to. His nose had told him what happened. His eyes just let him know who did it.
A small child, two rows ahead of him, vomited in the aisle, and was crying because of his embarrassment; and perhaps because he was ill.
The child’s mother, sitting next to him, began yelling at the child.
“How could you do that? I’m so embarrassed. You have to clean that up!”

He wanted to yell at the mother, and comfort the child. But of course, he didn't. Instead he traveled in his thoughts, and on a piece of paper.
This is what he wrote. And this is what he told the classroom of strangers later that day.

A letter to the man who’s called my father.

Father, it’s been 10 years. Ten years since I’ve last seen or talked to you. But I write this to you because I’m lost. I don’t know where I am or where I am going. I hoped my father would help but you’re just a stranger to me. I’m chained to you by blood and by name, but by nothing beautiful; nothing concrete. Nothing I can hold onto.
But there is one thing I thank you for. I thank you for introducing me to my first love.
I was three, do you remember father? When I saw her you told me I’d be with her forever, and I believed you. And I was with her. And when I was with her, you were there, watching me, proud of me.
That’s the only time you were my dad, father; when I was with her. Everyone I knew loved her. But she and I, we shared something that no one else did. Those nights you hit me father … where do you think I ran to.
I was eight. I was six. I was five too, father. I ran to the only place I knew. I ran to her.
She might not have been able to console me, father. But she was always there for me, where I left her.
Her smell was so beautiful, father. You could never hit me hard enough to make me not appreciate her. She filled the hole you created. When the sun shone she filled my days with happiness. But those nights … the nights I ran to her are the times that bonded us forever.
When I left you, father, she was there. She never left me. I triumphed with her and I failed with her. But I was always loved and noticed when I was with her.
As I’ve been growing older, I thought I would need you less. But I need you so much more.
That’s why I left my love father. That’s why I’m lost. She reminds me of you. But I can’t do it anymore. I miss her.
She’s been everything you haven’t been. Sometimes I visit her without her knowing. I’ll sit and stare at her. To others she might be a plain sight. But they can’t see what I see.
When I look at her I see a place where I was happy, where I bled, where I cried; with friends and by myself.
Another Christmas went by without you father. I am becoming a man. And I realize I cannot leave her. I cannot leave my first love, no matter how hard you tried to make me feel hate.
I’m with her right now, father, sitting in her quietness; sitting in the security of 16 years of excitement and disappointment.
When you tried to knock me down, she was there to comfort my fall. I succeeded with her and I feel that I need to succeed again. For the past 10 years that I’ve spent with her and not with you, I think back to those times when you were there. I look out toward a sea of proud fathers, trying to find you. But you’re never there. And you never will be there. But I’ll always look.
Hundreds of miles and a decade of time separate us. But you should still be here, dad. But you’re not.
And it’s okay because I feel safe with her.

I’ve grown up learning that hands were meant to hurt, father. You showed me that. Perhaps that’s why I fell in love with her. You don’t scare me here, father. You can’t hurt me here, because she protects me. You see, father, on the soccer field, you can’t use your hands.

Is he alone? An the introduction of CITY GIRL

2006-03-01T20:55:00.000-05:00

Tonight he text messaged O-pear for the hell of it.
Maybe it was the wine.
Maybe it was the vodka and tonic.
Maybe it was the reality that EST will be a foreign term to him soon –
Either way, he text messaged her.
I hope CA is going okay for you, he wrote.
She didn’t reply.
But he wasn’t worried.
To be honest, he wished he could contact Ocean, but that’s not possible.
Not now.
Maybe at disco night, next weekend.

Tonight he’s upset.
He’s upset because he’s in a world he doesn’t belong in; sadly, a family he isn’t properly fit for.
He loves his family; they love him.
But almost everyone in his family has a certain belief in life; a belief he does not agree with.
Homes, mortgages, big-time vacations and commonality seem to take over his family members.
Even current friends share that conservative view.
So when he voices his interests he seems foolish.
He wants to be free.
He doesn’t want 9-5.
He doesn’t want Labor Day off.
He wants to be in control of his life.
He wants to say “yes, this is a project I want to spend time on for the next nine months” and not worry how that’ll affect profit margin for some Fortune 500 company.
He wants to say “yes, I want to take some time off for the next few months” and not worry about burning his “vacation time.”
He never wants to ask someone else for compliance.
Never.
He needs to prove he is ready.
Yet, his family, though supportive, seems to be wooing him to financial security.
He will not take that security.
He cannot.
He is different.
Maybe he doesn’t want to be different.
Maybe he wishes he could wake up at 6, get to work at 8, stay in an office ‘till 5, and come home as “daddy” at 6.
But that will not happen.
Because what he wants to achieve conflicts with that predisposed belief.
He wants to wake up at 4 a.m. when an idea strikes his fancy.
He wants to pull over on the highway and record a poem, some lyrics, or an idea because he knows it will become something one day.
He wants to observe life the way he has been doing in the last few weeks.
He wants to observe who he is and who his life partners are.
He wants.
Can he get it?
They want him to settle down.
But I’m afraid I’ll drown.
He’s ready to fly.
Even if there is no map.
Does everyone need a map?
He's got a globe. And he spins it everyday, like spin the bottle. Where it lands, no one knows. But where it stops, is another adventure, another question answered.

He wants to talk to Ocean.
He wants to talk to Angel in San Francisco. He misses Angel more than he thought he would.

He realizes he talks a good game. He says he doesn’t want someone. He doesn’t need someone.
But in the end, it always comes to one girl:

He wants to talk with CITY GIRL, who started it all.
The first love. The first one he hurt, the first one he loved and the only one he'll cherish for life.
CITY GIRL is always in his heart. She always has been.
He still compares women to her; most women he finds attractive share similiarities to her ...
though he and CITY GIRL have both changed in the past 10 years.
They all compete with CITY GIRL, and they never win.
CITY GIRL always wins.
He’s afraid she always will.

He still hasn't written Godfather. He hopes he will. But he hopes he won't.
He just hopes.
That's all he can do.

Godfather

2006-03-01T20:54:00.000-05:00

The words glare off his computer screen like headlights at midnight.
He reads them slowly, carefully.
“I am so glad to finally make your acquaintance, haven’t seen you in many years … I am your Godfather.”
I am your Godfather.
It was sent to his work e-mail.
Opening this e-mail feels like cold water thrown at him. Amidst his regular Internet-based chats with co-workers and clients, now exists this one alien e-mail, an e-mail that seemed to possess a unique glow about it; a glow which cried for him to read it over and over again.
It had the potential to change his life.
He turns his head away from the screen in a quick panic.
Did anyone notice, he asks himself.
He’s worried somebody else read what he just read; felt what he just felt; knows his entire life better than he does.
But no one notices him. They all keep their eyes glued to their screens, phones glued to their ears.
But he still thinks they know. They must know. It’s as if he read the e-mail out loud for all to hear.
Did he?
No, of course not. Only I know.
Only he knows that Godfather is a part of that family. That family, and not this family.
Godfather was never a part of this family.

He reads the rest of the e-mail, which includes Godfather’s phone number.
He can’t even remember Godfather.
Motorcycles? I think I remember he had a motorcycle.
He doesn’t remember Godfather’s family … But Godfather is a part his family, by blood.
I can't remember my own family.

Godfather writes that he found him through the Internet
That’s how I found father, he says to himself.
But he and father never really talked.
Once they did; maybe twice. He can’t remember.
He never remembers things when it comes to father, be it 25 years ago or five minutes ago.
He doesn’t know what to do.
He doesn’t write back, not yet.
What would he say?
Godfather lives back in his home state, a state filled with blotchy memories that seem to have happened a lifetime ago; another world ago.

He lets days go by without replying to the e-mail.
He receives a text message from O-Pear, who is in San Francisco right now.
He likes the gesture and sends her back a message.
Glad you made it out there, wish I was in California right now ... say hi to the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf for me.
Yet that unanswered e-mail still glows in his inbox, glowing with a potential for disaster.
He begins to feel like too much time has passed.
But Godfather wrote him after nearly 20 years. What’s one week?

He opens up the e-mail, in hopes that the glow will fade.
“I am so glad to finally make your acquaintance, haven’t seen you in many years.”
He reads it over and over again.
And still, it glows.
Who is this man? Why can’t I remember?
Do I want to know him.
Do I want to remember “then.”
He closes the e-mail and waits.
Not yet. Just … not yet.

Stranger in the wood

2006-03-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

Altoids?
Check.
Air freshener?
Check … Peach blossom.
Peach blossom?
Either that or pine.
Pine? Harsh. Good choice … car wash?
Check.
Cash?
Check … hope it’s enough.
Good to go?
Yup.
He folds up his checklist into a small square.
It’ll make a good bookmark later on.
5:15 p.m.
He wasn’t due at the front steps of the stranger’s home until 6 p.m.
But he came early, just to make sure.
He never likes to be late; not if he can help it.
So, earlier, when he found time on his hands, he followed the directions, line by line.
Each line took him farther away from the noises of downtown.
Buildings morphed into trees. Sidewalks turned to mud.
Silence replaced sirens.
He found himself in the wood; near the stranger’s home.
Now he sits alone, in his car, in the wood, with 45 minutes to kill before meeting the stranger.
The checklist is done. His phone calls are made. He scans the radio.
He decides that nothing is on the radio. But he realizes he merely scans out of reflex.
He's not interested in hearing other people talking their talk, singing their words or selling their crap.
Not now.
44 minutes in the wood. He finds a dirt road and pulls over.
Winter is winning the battle for sunlight.
Soon he’ll need his glasses.
43 minutes.
His first instinct is Sherlock.
No.
No?
No … I … I just can’t.
He reaches behind his chair, fumbling through an umbrella, ice scraper, and … yes! … His bag.
He finds his book and looks for the page he left off at.
He didn’t have a bookmark when he last read. And he didn’t want to make a dog ear out of one of the pages.
He never does.
But now he has a checklist.
Now he has a bookmark.
5:50 p.m. comes quickly.
It’s time to go to the stranger’s home, pick up the stranger, and spend an evening with her.
Good to go?
Yup.
Nervous?
Cool as ice … or do I smell like urine?
The absurdity of that statement makes him laugh … again.
He reaches the front door before realizing he even put the car in drive.
He’s on auto pilot.
It’s like nature. Like the horses.
Cujo and his sidekick, Matilda, greet him at the front door.
If Cujo stood up, the dog would have three inches on him.
Cujo already had at least 40 pounds on him.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Dan,” says the man in front of him.
He returns the greeting and is told she’d be down soon.
She.
He doesn’t even remember what she looks like.

He doesn’t even know the name of the woman that arranged for him to meet she.
Stranger in a strange land.

She comes downstairs, elegant, almost fragile.
Some girls got their clothes torn and dirty when they were children.
She probably played with Barbies. She probably had play clothes.
She has no visible disfigurations, which is all he was asking for.
He smiles
She smiles.
They leave.
Walking down the snow-covered front steps proves an obstacle for her and those shoes.
Nice shoes though.
She hates snow, she tells him.
Then why did you come to New Hampshire of all places.
It’s an honest question.
She’s from a warmer place; a southern place with old languages and ancient soil.
But she’s here now.
In my car.

He drives them back into city life. Conversation scurries the car along the highway.
What have you seen since coming here? He asks her.
“New York City, Florida, Boston … California next week.”
He realizes that her coming from another country has armed him with dozens of easy and logical questions to ask her.
Time will pass by, and I’ll learn about her, he thinks.
They find the restaurant, and the bar.
What would you like?
“White wine," she says.
White wine? He says to himself as he orders it for her.
Her drink of choice makes him re-think his first instinct of ordering a beer for himself.
Hmm … fancy place, somewhat fancy clothes. On a date … with a foreigner. And she wants white wine? Okay …
He turns to the barkeep:
Pinot Noir.
The evening passes by in similar fashion as the pinot noir incident. Similar to his avoiding Sherlock earlier.
He acts himself, but in a different way.
Reserved?
Well, this is a fancy place.
But …
They laugh. They share. But something is different.
He’s not in his jeans, drinking a beer.
He’s not sitting on a couch, eating Ben and Jerry’s with his shoes off.
He’s out of his element; much more than he was with Ocean.
He did drink a beer with her.
He was shoeless and eating ice cream with her.
He amuses himself for thinking of Ocean at this moment.
He has no attachment to Ocean, of course. He met her once; barely met her.
But maybe he does have an attachment. Now that he thinks of it, he’s not that sure. But he knows he shouldn’t.
And that’s that.
But meeting Ocean the night before didn’t seem such an … such an event as this does.
True, this is a fancy restaurant which he invited her to.
But days happen certain ways.
As do dates.
And they all happen for a reason.

Sitting across from her at the dinner table, he doesn’t think he reveals any discomfort.
He’s not uncomfortable, just not … settled.
Dessert comes after dinner.
The drive home follows.
Alcohol loosens their conversations.
Friendliness turns into light teasing.
City turns into wood.
Wood turns into a driveway, which once belonged to a stranger.
But now belongs to O-Pear.
Goodnight O-Pear.
Until we meet again.

Date 1: Ocean

2006-03-01T20:46:00.000-05:00

He checks his date book, which usually sits snuggly in his back pocket. It reads Tuesday. He double checks it, triple checks it. Tuesday.
The second day of the week.
Hump day hasn't happened and he's already reached a lifetime milestone:
He's just lived through his first two dates, ever.
That's foolish, he says to himself.
Of course I've dated, he thinks to himself, as he drives home through icy sleet.
His heart races with the possibility of skidding off the highway. But perhaps his heart is racing because of something else.
Or someone else.
In the infancy of this current week, as he works his way home, he realizes through all the women, through all the romances and through all the heartache, he never ever dated.
He's taken people out before, been the one to pay the tab, open the doors and say good night.
But it's never been based on meeting someone in a state of sobriety, never when he felt so naked.
His two dates, one on Monday, one on Tuesday, were events which evolved beyond his control.
The first date was an arranged affair. A friend of his, Pickle, thought he'd play matchmaker.
The second date was arranged by a complete stranger, thus making it a unique experience

He turns off the highway.
Too icy, he thinks. I'd rather drive on slower roads.
He turns right, feels his tires slide ever so lightly as he makes the turn, and becomes proud of his wise decision to get off the highway.
It reminds him how rare he feels this pride; usually his decisions are bad, and better left hidden beneath comforters and sheets, behind closed doors in the thick of the nightfall.
Dating? he thinks. Dating seems, so adult. He remembers the first kiss he ever had with a girl, the first real kiss. He felt closer to adulthood after that kiss. Like he had taken one step higher on the ladder. Before the kiss he was a boy, now he was something else. He didn't even feel like that when he lost his virginity. By the time he actually lost his virginity, he had teetered on the brink of that edge for months, if not years.
But that first kiss shattered walls; separated the men from the boys.

He liked feeling like that, an adult. But this part of adult life, he wasn't sure he was ready for.
It's sad, odd, he thinks. It seems more natural to have a girlfriend to cheat on, than to openly date several people ... is that wrong?

Until now dating was like cooking pasta. All those noodles dance with each other while boiling in water. People did the same dance, while soaking in alcohol. The liquid seems to bring us closer, he thinks to himself.
Alcohol has always been a precursor for hookups for him. It makes conversations flow easily; it makes mistakes seem frivilous.
It's the ultimate ice breaker.
He draws a breath from the Sherlock and winds through the country roads; Ben Harper is singing about black power and he just can't relate to it; so he retreats to his personal thoughts, and decides to speak them to his tiny friend, who is always there to remember every word.

Monday: The double date:
Weeks ago his friend, Pickle approached him at a bar.
"Are you seeing anyone special," Pickle asked.
What an odd question, he thought to himself.
Nope.
"I know someone who I always thought would be perfect for you"
Perfect for me? How so?
"I don't know, she just seems that way. I've thought that for a while, but she was seeing someone before. You interested?"

Am I interested? he asks himself. How could he know? But he told Pickle he was game, and looked forward to it.
A few weeks later Pickle calls him up.
"Ocean (the girl's name) is coming up," he says. "You wanna go out to eat or something?"
Out to eat? Doesn't that seem too ... date-y?
"Nah, we'll go to the blues bar, have some beers, it'll be normal," Pickle says.
It turns out to be four of them, Pickle and his wife, he and Ocean - a bonafide double date/blind date.
That's like being buried twice, he thinks to himself.
But we're in a bar, he thinks to himself. This is comfortable territory.

He gets there before the rest of the group and opts to order a beer and call Seamus to discuss the future vacation they're both taking to L.A.
They all walk in while he talks to Seamus.
Perfect, he thinks to himself, a moment for both of us to consciously take notice of each other, thus preparing ourselves for HOW we'll introduce ourselves.

He puts away the phone, and talks to Pickle while Mrs. Pickle and Ocean go to the bathroom.
They return shortly, and he extends a hand.
"Don't worry, I didn't pee on my hand," she jokes. With that joke she cracks the ice ever so lightly, without alcohol. It may have been tiny, but it made the ice fragile; easier to walk on.
But what if she relates me to urine, he thinks.
The absurdity of that thought makes him smile, which makes him comfortable.
I'm cool as ice, he thinks. I'll be fine.

He takes in the rest of the evening as part-outsider, part-insider. He's bewildered by the dynamic of the double date -
You can't really get to know your date too much, he decides, because you have to include everyone in the conversation.
He can't ask basic questions directly at Ocean, because that's selfish. He's the only one who doesn't know the basics about her. So he talks about normal life: The Sox (good riddens to selfish players like Damon) Pats (Brady shouldn't dress so nicely at a press conference moments after looking so ugly on the field)Music (She mentions she'd put "I touch Myself" on a mixed tape for a lover on valentines day).
She passes all the unwritten tests of the first 20 minutes of a date. A test he was conducting, even though he never knew it existed.
It was reflex, like a horse taking steps within moments of birth.
He realizes with each comment he makes, question he poses, he's sizing her up without meaning to; judging her on responses, gestures, tone of voice.
And he's glad at the score she's accumulating.
The group continues the "date" at Pickles house. They watch Wedding Crashers, and he and Ocean share a couch, and the knowledge of being the only two in the room to have already seen the movie -
They giggle together in anticipation of certain scenes and he giggles inside himself.
This is pretty cool, he thinks to himself.
He's not thinking of what to say, how to act, or if there's food on his face.
But as the movie ends, and exhaustion settles upon the room like a heavy fog, the conversation slows down.
As voices quiet down, his own voice shouts inside him.
Have I talked about myself too much? I feel I said "I" way too many times. Should I have asked her more stuff? I teased her a couple times, was that right? Was that bad? I tried on her glasses for fun ... and then she offered them to me when I needed them, was that a good sign? - his mind races and can't be stopped.
The thoughts continue to race:
She grabbed my hand once to mention she had a similar ring as mine, but... (he thinks to himself) she didn't mention my tattoo.
This obvious avoidance of a usually instant incidence becomes, to him, the most intriguing and attractive feature of her.
She didn't even ask about my tattoo - and she must have seen it, he thinks.
Now she has his attention.

The night wears on and conversation stabilizes and the two of them, strangers 5 hours ago, leave the house together.
They walk down the porch toward their cars.
They share the formalities:
Nice to meet you, hope to see you sometime again:
Yet they make no promises. They only acknowledge that they'll probably see each other again in the future.
She may come to the disco party, she tells him.
You should, he says.
They say good-bye and he drives away, feeling that his first date went okay.
For a date ...

Tuesday's date with O-pear to follow soon.