A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

I arrived in Washington on the first day of the first month of the first year of the first decade of the first century of this millenium. I moved here because I had spent my whole life living in places because of other people. I was born in New York because that's where my parents lived. I lived in Maine because my father got a job there. I lived in North Carolina because my parents wanted a home with mild winters. I lived in West Virginia because my father bought a farm there. I lived in Tennessee because my mother moved there to be closer to my eventual stepfather who was incarcerated in Nashville. I moved to Illinois because my big brother invited me to come up there and share his apartment. But I moved to Washington because I looked at a map of the United States and said, "that's where I'm going next."

When you move by yourself to a new region of the country where you don't know anyone at all there are basically three things you can do to combat the inevitable onslaught of homesickness:

1. You can go shopping and buy new stuff for your empty apartment.
2. You can establish traditions that make you feel closer to home like making spaghetti every Friday.
3. And you can find ways to meet new people.

In my attempt to accomplish this last, I sought out what's called a chess scene (a place where people gather to play chess). And so I found Bertolino's. Bertonlino's is a coffee bar open 24 hours. Its ambience is enhanced with old wooden tables and chairs that have seen their better day. And in one of the bookcases there are stored several chess boards with pieces probably conglomerated together from nearly ten different sets. Over the years this has become my favorite place to hang out. It's especially perfect for reading inasmuch as reading at home is too easily compromised with the accessibility of the internet and cable television. Also I'm in the habit of taking my journal for writing and my sketchpad for drawing.

Dave is the graveyard barista at Bertolino's and we've gotten to know each other. He hates me for being a Yankee fan. We both have horror stories about ex~girlfriends. It makes him batty that I can read the first six Harry Potter books and then postpone the seventh one for several weeks until I've finished various other reading projects.

Last year when I was setting my record for abstinence from gambling he was very supportive. And then when I relapsed he offered me an incentive to do better. He began asking me if I was up to 100 days and hinted that when I reached that milestone he would have something for me. It took a few crash~landings, but last week I reached the elusive 100 days and last night I went to my coffee bar to claim my prize. I still don't know what it is because Dave was unable to locate it in the stores about town and ended up ordering it online. But when he came to work... his wonderful (and basically genius) girlfriend, Carol, sauntered in with him carrying an apple pie that she had baked so recently that it was still hot. The aluminum foil covering the pie was inscribed with the words:

For Shannon

Congratulations!

From Dave and Carol

We convivially discussed book collecting and monster illustrations. Carol explained to me what an abracadrium is and we argued about which of all the Bonds we like the best.

I don't know how else to say this. It was a hell of a nice thing for them to do to make an event out of my own personal dragon~slaying quest.

And I don't want to turn a nice thing like that into a lecture on the irrelevancy of church (but I'm going to anyway). I think it was kind of a Christian thing for them to do. And Dave is an atheist.

Birds Are Migratory?

I'm going to Las Vegas in December to see twin sisters, Paulina and Mercedes, competing in dance competitions. For some reason it's never quite slipped off the edge of my memory that Mercedes was once my girlfriend... living proof of my conviction that there is such a thing as love at first sight. Thanks to the balmy medicinal magic of time we find ourselves friends. Mildly sweet to each other after nearly a decade's estrangement. So while there is none of the feverish passion and drama remaining from our college years, there is an unmistakable determination on my part to look good when I arrive in Las Vegas. I mean I am motivated to manufacture lean sculpted muscle anatomically wide... biceps... triceps... pectorals... quads... pentaceps... hectoceps.... whatever.

Imagine my disappointment this past week, then, when I developed a little cold. No one wants to challenge themselves physically when they are sick, do they? So from Tuesday until Friday I did nothing but stay in bed , take medicine, and watch as all my physical fitness drained away. Today I woke up feeling a little more capable, consumed a dark chocolate Acess nutrition drink (distributed by Melaleuca), and headed out to the track across the street. On my way I saw this little bird... so little... and I stopped to watch him only a few feet away as he was hunting and pecking at every little speck of potential food within a ten foot expanse of embankment. I watched him for nearly a minute imagining that I was James Audobon or Charles Darwin and intensely fascinated by every little characteristic of this bird. I noticed how slender were the legs upon which his entire weight was balanced and at what angles they were supporting him. I noticed how these legs were not used at all to hop from one spot to another... nor were the wings perceptibly employed... but that apparently the body of the bird simply willed itself to flit about sporadically. This is all foreshadowing... done most artfully except that in really stellar literature this particular asseveration mentioning the foreshadowing itself in a none too subtle fashion would be omitted.

So I arrived at the track and surprised myself with running two miles in just under 17.5 minutes... my best time since February... perhaps I've not suffered so bad from being sick as I feared.

And while I'm bragging I might mention that at midnight I will have abstained from gambling for 100 days (42 short of the record).

So when I get home I hear this fantastic tumult up in the ceiling somewhere. My apartment has a vaulted ceiling with windows in it all the way across its apex. At first I imagined some large and menacing wasp or hornet, but really it generated too much noise for that. And upon further investigation I confirmed it was a small bird. See how that foreshadowing thing works? Really useless literary device if you ask me. What's wonderful in literature is when you don't know what to expect. So why, unless you wanted to be intellectually irrelevant, would you go around all the time giving hints about what's goig to happen at the end of your story?

So pretty quickly I gave up on diplomatically persuading this frantic creature to depart from my home. I realized my best chance was to invite the feline half of my apartment's residents to take a rare excursion into the outdoors inasmuch as her incessant inarticulate announcements that she would like nothing better than to use her jaws as a makeshift guillotine with which to decapitate the little bird were not helping. That being done... the bird commenced to make a little less noise, but still seems ridiculously certain that the only way to vacate my humble abode is through one of the window panes in the ceiling.

And that's how I came to ask myself, "birds are migratory, aren't they?" I mean seriously... how is it they fly back and forth each year from Alberta to Peru and yet the one chirping away in my ceiling right now can't remember that he flew in through the goddamned sliding glass door which is even more open now than when he entered it approximately 45 minutes ago?

The Smiles Are Real

I just ran two miles in less than 19 minutes. Didn't set any records, but I can feel myself getting stronger out there. And it was raining. Something kind of exhilarating about that and apparently Gatorade knows what it is because when I got home and opened the refrigerator to replenish liquids the first bottle I picked up was called Gatorade Rain.

I thought about Wendy as I came home and felt like sending her a text message saying "are you okay?" The way our friendship ended is that in April we were having dinner and she was showing me text messages her most recent ex had sent her. She was obsessed with trying to figure out what his messages meant. I was obsessed with noticing that the few messages I had sent her were deleted. I didn't say anything then, but a couple days later she asked me if I was ignoring her messages and I replied that I wished she weren't deleting mine. She didn't respond to that for about a week and then came the message when she said. . .

She only wanted a friend.

She went on to say the message thing was just too much for her and that she was going to take some time to take care of herself. And that she wanted me to take the Mariners tickets I'd given to her for her birthday and go with someone else.
That's how our friendship ended with her thinking I wasn't a very good friend and with me thinking I was the best friend she'll ever have and that it's unfortunate she couldn't appreciate that.

But today I asked myself was it the right thing to confront the issue of my messages being deleted? Or was I demanding something from her for selfish reasons. She was careless with my feelings and it would only have gotten worse for me. I believe she was hurting because of losing her ex and that in a subconscious way she was releasing that pain by inflicting it on me... so I kind of decided to remove myself from that role.

Today I want to be her friend again. And yesterday I wanted that too. I'm the person in her life that she could talk to about anything at any time. I would never judge her and I was always in love with her. Very constant that way and I usually think she was a fool to dispense with me so recklessly. All I wanted was for her to say she was sorry for deleting my messages and that she wouldn't do it anymore. But lately I've been thinking I was the fool. Apparently I was more addicted to her leaning on me than she was.

It's been two years since we broke up. Two nightmarish years wherein I often grope about desperately and blindly for some fragments of my soul, but it's getting better. On the 4th of July I was at Fred Meyer shopping for all kinds of things like DVD's and basketball shorts and Gatorade Rain. And I smiled at some person. A bigger smile than usual. A fearless smile. The kind of smile that is completely independent from the assurance that it may or may not be reciprocated. The kind of smile in point of fact that knows it has just completely brightened your day to the extent that if you fail to smile back it's not because you are immune to my charm... no.. .rather you are so much overwhelmed with the warmth that it pretty much renders you responseless for just a brief moment or so. And I kept right on flashing that smile at people... almost every person I saw and I wasn't really doing it on purpose either. It just kept happening and I myself wasn't sure why.

The cashier asked me how my day was going and I told her honestly that I seemed to be in a really good mood which is rare for me. I told her I'm usually quite grumpy. And she said at least I have a good sense of humor about it and I said... yes... I'm a grumpy person with a good sense of humor.... which must be ostensibly plausible because it made her laugh.

And at midnight I'll be at 86 consecutive days without gambling. There's still a long way to go before I reach my goal of 142, but it happens that 86 was the previous record... a record I set when I was with Wendy and believed I had found at last the girl I'd been hoping for throughout the first 34 years of my life.

I don't blame myself for falling for her the way I did. It made perfect sense. There was no reason to doubt the magic of our infatuation together. And I don't blame myself for succumbing to the nightmare of learning that it wasn't real. That whatever she felt for me... it was not love... not any kind of love you would ever want to rely on. It was the most immense disappointment and it's understandable how it submerged me into a listless depression.

And yet I never completely capitulated to the darkness. I held on. I knew that I was basically a happy person and that no disappointment could deprive me of that forever. I knew about my smile. I didn't know where it had gone or how to get it back. But on the 4th of July it just kind of revived on its own without ceremony or explication. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's back for good.

The Days You Forget

It's Friday the 13th.

I have been keeping a journal since 1989. I probably average about one entry in my journal every five days. I was thinking it would be interesting to write a blog in which I compared an entry from five years ago with an entry from ten years ago.
Oh what a pitiful endeavor!

Apparently my main concern in 2003 was to quit gambling. I wrote the words, "As far as I'm concerned, I'm completely free now. Free of the casino vice. Completely free!" Then I go on to delineate how I'm going to purify my mind by censoring what kind of things I watch on TV. Finally I record that I'm going to "Read Doctor Faustus until I fall asleep."

I have it in good confidence that I was not so particularly free from gambling at that time as I wishfully asserted. Last year I remember setting a record for abstinence by going 142 days without gambling. Currently I'm on a quest to break that record, but I still have 80 days to go... oh... now it's only 79!

But in 1998 I had not even begun to struggle with that vice. I was in my last year at MTSU and it so happens that there are no casinos in Tennessee... heck... I didn't even know what an Indian Casino was in 1998. Instead I was celebrating my 10,000th day. You see, I had an assignment in my history class requiring me to visit a cemetery and to study the inscriptions on the stones. I spent a couple hours there and recorded my thoughts onto a hand held tape recorder. I guess I had some kind of second class epiphany because I was contemplating how strange it is that our lives once they're over are summed up in how many years a person lives. Decades is too vague a statistic. To say I was born between three and four decades ago would be annoying. More helpful to know it was 37 years ago. But no one really wishes to know that it was specifically 13,650 days ago, do they?

And that puzzled me a little. It seemed to suggest that not necessarily every one of those individual days was very important, but would you be willing to take any day from next week and negate it before it happens? Hopefully you balk at such a notion. Who would want to say... I'll skip Monday (easily my first choice if I were forced to pick one)? Even though, historically, Mondays are the day in which I will look like hell and get a traffic ticket and sustain a sore throat and say something stupid to the girl I most want to make a good impression on! Still... what little optimist there is in me cries out that next Monday could be the greatest day of my life. It could be the day that I finally start writing my novel in earnest. Could be the day I meet the girl I get married to. Could be the day I save someone's life. Could be the day I quit my job. Which doesn't sound like a good day at first, but you never know what could come from it.

But in 1998 while doing that report in the cemetery I realized I would be celebrating my 10,000th day that June. And I mentioned it in my journal. But, as luck would have it, the day was a bad one. The girl I was interested in, Carla, was unhappy... an achievement for which she demonstrated a prevalence. I worked in the kitchen of Tennessee Christian Medical Center and burned the cornbread. I left the lights of my car on all day and thus killed the battery. The journal mentions the only bright part of my day were my dear friends Kenny and Patrice but it doesn't say how or why. Still... it's easy enough to imagine that they were just there for me inasmuch as that was always the case since first I befriended them... Ahh... Patrice... always more an angel than a person to me. And when she reads this... it's not just because her steps barely touch the earth when she walks... I'm thinking more of an afternoon on the phone when I broke down and she was at the other end listening with all her heart even when I could no longer articulate coherently. But I'm waxing cryptic now.

The 1998 entry goes on to say: "You know, I don't hate anyone. My life has been charming. I haven't met the perfect one for me yet, but I've loved many imperfect people and after all ~ I'm somewhat imperfect myself. We all want desperately to be happy. I myself persevere, but with what chance of success? Are the chemicals not against me?"
By which I suppose I meant to address the possibility that I might have a chemical imbalance in my brain causing me to be unhappy.

It's a strange thing indeed to share only two days from a collection of so many... I write differently for an online audience than I do for an audience of myself. Though I suppose in either case I am likely to manifest loquacious ostentation rather frequently.

Friday with Fur Puddle

Fur Puddle is my most recent nickname for my kitten (21 months old). Tonight I had two things to do. First I wanted to finish reading Of Human Bondage. It's one of the best books I've ever read. One of my favorites. Deeply philosophical and yet easily read. Delving deep into the psychology of humans. Reading this book reminds me of Roberta Flack's song Killing Me Softly. What does she say?

I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd,
I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud.
I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on ...
Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song ...
He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair.

Of Human Bondage talks to me relentlessly about my journey. About the futility of loving the heartless. About the struggle to survive in a society too busy to give a flying fuck. About regret. About insecurity. Off and on today I have plopped myself down unceremoniously in my recliner with a lamp nearby and have pored through the pages... about ninety of them. I was aiming to read 30 per day, but that's when I found out my dear mother had passed me. Previously I had been nearly a hundred pages ahead of her, but then today I read an e~mail indicating she had only 100 left to go... while I still had 130. Later in the day another e~mail revealed she was down to fifty! So it's a mad dash to the finish.

But the other thing I had to do was to watch The Great Debaters directed by and starring Denzel Washington and based on the true story of a Black college debating Harvard in the mid 1930's.

Now for whatever reason, I cannot read a book for a great duration without becoming unbearably restless. Likewise I have a difficult time sitting through an entire movie without interruption. Therefore I alternated between reading the book and watching the film. And here's what kind of makes the whole thing rather amusing. It seems I don't really notice it at first, but while I'm reading I'll suddenly realize that there is a kitten curled up on my lap. Occasionally I will read an extra chapter more than I would otherwise just because she seems so comfy and cozy... Disrupting her repose is not a thing to do lightly. But then when I'm watching the movie guess what happens. I'll get to a good stopping point and reach for the remote control wherewith to push pause when I realize that once more I have a kitten in my lap or, more accurately, on my belly.

Anyway, she's the sweetest though her meowing is far too incessant and irrational. And even though her purring is almost undiscernable. This blog is my tribute to her. The best kitten in the world.

My Completely Original Ten Commandments

I.
Thou shalt not be lazy, for while there is no devil, idle hands are yet the devil's workshop.

II.
Thou shalt not abuse, either physically or sexually, any innocent living thing.

III.
There shall be no war.

IV.
There shall be no death penalty. The severest crimes shall be punished with perpetual imprisonment upon an island inhabited and governed by others who demonstrate a psychotic disregard for their fellow man.

V.
Thou shalt not touch another person's car.

VI.
Thou shalt not drive in excess of 16,000 cubits per hour (40mph).

• Thereby compelling people to live closer to work.
• And closer to their families.
• Thus reducing gas consumption.
• Also reducing vehicular accidents.

VII.
Thou shalt not make, distribute, purchase, possess, or consume alcohol, for though I am a liberal maker of commandments, I cannot reconcile the harmful effects of alcohol with the idealistic value we rightfully place upon freedom.

VIII.
Thou shalt not sleep with anyone unless you are in love with that person.

IX.
Thou shalt read at least three books per year (comic books don't count) beginning with How To Win Friends and Influence People and The Little Prince.

X.
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Literary Blasphemy

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I've known for a while that I enjoyed reading Harry Potter more than The Lord of the Rings. Having finally finished the more modern series, I think it's time to explain my preference:

I cannot identify with Hobbits so well as I can with humans. Tolkien's main characters were supposed to be cute... perhaps adorable... though grotesque enough not to be cuddly whereas J.K. Rowling's lead character endures and struggles with all the insecurities that come with being a teenage boy... something I can still remember doing myself once.

Also there is the sinister relationship between Harry and Voldemort. Harry does not remember his parents because Voldemort killed them. You don't have any history like that between Frodo and Sauron. And if you think about it... after reading the LOTR trilogy, you probably have no idea what Sauron looks like. Not a lot of character development going on there for the bad guy.

Also there is the romantic tensions for Harry as you wonder initially if he and Hermione will develop feelings for each other. Later he's utterly infatuated with Cho Chang before finally settling on Ginny Weasley as the love of his life. There is no romance for the Hobbits really. And then the affair with Aragorn is so otherworldly and melodramatic... all life and death and the end of the world and so forth that it lacks anything you can relate to very easily... It lacks the charm of Ginny insisting that someone besides Cho escort Harry to the Hall he needs to go to at the end of The Deathly Hallows.

Finally there is the sophisticated conundrum of Snape. The pervasive question... is he a good guy? Is Dumbledore correct in trusting him? I always believed he would turn out a good guy and I was right, but I did not realize until the end how potent were his feelings for Harry's mother. This was an outstanding component of the series and as well as anything else supports the notion that J.K. Rowlings is a genius.