Fallen

Rain falls cold and wet

On sad days we'd rather forget

Most melancholy of all

The days when teardrops fall

And just down the calendar's hall

Dying Leaves fall
From stoic trees tall

In a blustery Fall

Or a child makes a snowball
When sufficient flakes fall
We cannot forestall
Once temperatures fall
If angels resent their maker's call
They wage war in heaven and fall
And I can fall too
Though we're strictly friends, it's true

Sometimes there's nothing else to do

But reminisce... and miss you.

This is not a Blog

So whenever you give to the poor, don't blow a trumpet before you like the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they will be praised by people. I tell you with certainty, they have their full reward!

But when you give to the poor, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

so that your giving may be done in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Matthew 6:2-4

Recently as I left a Fred Meyer grocery store I noticed this fellow ringing his bell for the Salvation Army and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas even though no one was contributing to his collection receptacle. I thought his greetings sounded sincere and I felt some sympathy for him. When it comes right down to it, I felt more compassion for him than I did for the faceless and needful folks he was endeavoring to assist. I got it in my head that I would do something for him to brighten his day as it were and finally put a plan into action this evening.

On my way I was driving along Mildred Avenue when about four pedestrians decided to cross the street where there was no crosswalk or intersection or anything and they did so in the leisurely fashion of those upon whom mere mortals are expected to wait vigilantly lest they should ever have any want or need unmet. I was sufficiently provoked enough to continue driving as though I didn't see them until the last possible second when I finally took advantage of my brakes. Hopefully, I said to myself, they were scared that I might hit them which would serve them right after all.

I'm afraid it took me a moment or two after this interruption to resume the proper attitude of goodness and generosity vital to the mission upon I was undertaking, but soon I arrived in the McDonalds drive~thru where I explained to the cashier I wasn't getting the Big Mac Meal for myself, but for the guy across the street working for the Salvation Army. The cashier acknowledged that was a great thing for me to do and generously wished me a Merry Christmas. Somewhere between there and the actual delivery I realized the Coke was probably too cold for the occasion and made a mental note to substitute coffee next time.

As I placed the meal on the base of a nearby pillar, the Salvation Army soldier looked up and I said "For the person doing the good work." And he thanked me both verbally and with a smile.

Once inside the store I told Julie, my favorite self~checkout attendant, what I'd just done and she agreed with the McDonalds cashier that it was a great thing to do. It's not uncommon for me to find myself in the awkward attempt of being humble when I've just finished bragging about something. So I told her it was probably the first nice thing I'd done for anyone in about two years. We had a discussion about how much the Salvation Army soldiers were making and she supposed it was less than minimum wage. As I left the store I hoped the guy would be devouring his meal, but it seemed as yet untouched. He wished me another heartfelt Merry Christmas, but it was certainly not clear to me whether he recognized me as the recent distributor of his hot fastfood and freezing cold soft drink.

It's not as though I regret my good deed. But I must admit I wish I could have seen myself what good it did. I mean the idea behind a random act of kindness is that it will operate according to a snowball effect so that the salvation army guy will give the fries to some lady who's had her purse stolen and then she'll give the fries to some homeless guy and he'll be the one who stole her purse and he'll give it back to her and then she'll be able to afford her busfare to the hospital where she works as a translator who helps a surgeon avoid using a medication that a pregnant Hungarian is allergic to so the woman's child is delivered alive and healthy and grows up to cure cancer all because of my Big Mac Meal.

So I find myself thinking of the text at the top of this not~blog and my skepticism wages brutal philosophical warfare against the notion that if I had kept my good deed a secret and not mentioned it to the McDonalds cashier maybe I would feel more satisified with my act of kindness. And then I think... perhaps I ought not to have been so tempted to commit four counts of vehicular homicide a few minutes earlier with the brain~drips crossing the street. Maybe if my mind had been in the right place to begin with, it would still be in the right place now.

Along the same lines, I've noticed this about myself too: at work it's customary to do quite a bit of tipping of your various co~workers. We tip the cage cashiers and the baristas and we tip the kitchen staff in the employee dining room. And there are different ways of doing this. Some people will drop the money into a toke box and they'll do it when the beneficiary of their donation has his or her back turned. So in a sense it's like they're doing a good deed and they don't care if anyone knows it or not. I'm different. Instead of putting the tips in the box, I place them on the counter so the cashier or barista or line~cook or whomever will have to pick them up and deposit them personally... that way they know I've tipped them. They know, in other words, who to appreciate for appreciating them.

But the gospel of Matthew tells me I'm handling these things wrong. I should be able to do what's good and right without anyone knowing. So the reward is not in having people pat me on the back. The reward is, presumably, to have so much confidential goodness bottled up inside of you... anonymous goodness... that eventually you'll feel it there inside. Goodness instead of emptiness.

And that's why this not a blog. Because if it were then I would be telling everyone about these things instead of keeping them to myself.

A Vicious and Stupid Cycle

I was enjoying a winning streak in both poker and blackjack. In two weeks I’d won well over $1000 and then one morning at Chips Casino in Lakewood I hit a royal flush jackpot worth more than $800! I was stunned! The first words out of my mouth were “I’ll be damned.” Another $400 was to be paid to me if my hand held up until noon as the highest hand and since there is no hand higher than a royal flush, the waiting was pretty much ceremonial, but to kill the time I wandered over to the blackjack tables where I quickly got myself into trouble… losing a little and then a little more and then a lot. At one point I started winning several hands and came back up almost to where I started. If I could win $90 more I would break even on the blackjack tables. I probably should have walked away then and enjoyed my $1200 prize money from the royal flush, but something took control of me. Something sinister inside of me that determined I would win back my $90. A few minutes later I was reeling with huge loss after huge loss. When I finally left Chips I only had $300 left of the prize money. On my way home I resolved to give up gambling. I told myself I was still a winner for the day. At least I hadn’t lost any of the cash I’d walked in with. But before midnight I was at Freddie’s Casino in Fife losing at poker. I wasn’t playing my best game either. I mean at first I was playing smart, but when that didn’t work I was playing with a desperate need to win a hand and consequently losing much more than I should have been. I left the table down $500 and tried to win it back on blackjack where I quickly lost another $200. Despite my unprecedented royal flush I ended the day $400 poorer than when I woke up. On the way home I once again made up my mind to quit gambling. And this time I stuck to it. For one day. But then two days later I was at the Emerald Queen where I went on tilt and lost $1200. That’s when I made up my mind for real that I would never gamble again, but as usual it only took so many hours before I devised a new plan for gambling that would be far more successful. It involved the idea of playing smart and not playing crazy just because of a little bad luck. And it worked. In one week I won about $1200 including about $470 in a single day. Then yesterday I went on tilt again and lost $1100 and now I’m determined that I will never gamble again.

Have you ever seen a more vicious or a more stupid cycle? Even while typing the above paragraph a part of my mind was busy sorting out my strategy mistakes and attempting to perfect my approach so that I could be sure to win perpetually from now on. The sinister part of my mind is regrouping for another assault on the good part of me that just wants to be happy with what I have. I know it won’t be easy so I always try to find a new method for quitting, but sometimes I feel I’ve tried everything already. Once I posted on MySpace daily updates of how long it had been since my last regression. Another time I attempted to quit simultaneously to a friend giving up alcohol so we could compete for the bragging rights (he’s still not drinking). I even went to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting once and thought I would continue going forever, but then the next week I inadvertently went to a casino instead and lost some amount of money the total of which has dropped off the edge of my memory. If I had to guess how much money I’ve lost in casinos since moving to Washington nine years ago, I would estimate about $60,000. And you know what? A lot of people will read that total and not believe their eyes, but a lot of other people will say they’ve lost that much gambling in the past nine months. And some have lost much more than that. Regular people.

One fellow at that GA meeting made a huge impression on me. He had been trying to quit for more than 40 years and he said he wasn’t sure if he was going to talk that night because it was so hard. And he left early. Had you been there you would have supposed he left because he was so upset and distraught. But there was a more powerful motive. I know without anyone having to confirm it for me that he left early to go play poker. I said to myself I didn’t want to be that fellow in 40 years and still wishing I could quit.

I’m better off than lots of folks. I’ve demonstrated some abstinence. In 2006 I went 86 consecutive days without gambling. In 2007 it was 142 days and earlier this year I made it to 152 days. I’m interested in breaking that record beginning now, but first I have to withstand the relentless desire to win it all back.

The new twist I’m implementing this time is to contact a different person each day to report on my progress. These are the folks who can expect to hear from me:

Day 1: Mother
Day 2: Tricey
Day 3: Travis
Day 4: Jason Wilson
Day 5: Jenny Alyssa
Day 6: Father
Day 7: Ivy
Day 8: Rasmey
Day 9: Lindsay
Day 10: Joel
Day 11: Ricky
Day 12: Julie Nastri
Day 13: Joey Rositani
Day 14: Ken Lonseth
Day 15: Paulina Soria
Day 16: Jack York
Day 17: Noelle
Day 18: Verity
Day 19: Brian
Day 20: Papa Ken
Day 21: Jeris
Day 22: Kellisima
Day 23: Marianne
Day 24: Tamara
Day 25: Sarigo San

That’s the new part of the plan which will help me to keep in touch with people that care about me, but at the same time I won’t overburden any one person with too much information about my quest for freedom from this insatiable vice. Once I’ve gone through the list I will begin again with the first person with the result that each one can expect to hear from me every 25 days.

The second part of my plan has to do with routine. Routines tend to break down when we lack sufficient energy. I know regular exercise will enhance my self-discipline, but all it takes is one night of restless sleep for me to abandon my plans for a strenuous workout, but in order to get better sleep I think I have to dismiss caffeine and excessive sweets from my diet.

No sweets + No Caffeine = Adequate Sleep = Regular Exercise & Sufficient Energy

When I’m successful at gambling I can win hundreds and thousands of dollars and there is an undeniable high that comes from this! So even though it’s a habit that renders me utterly miserable at times, it’s also something that I enjoy and it does leave a void which must be filled. Therefore I’m going to watch more movies and dine at restaurants more often and visit new places and do new things.

Furthermore I’m going to become religious about my expenses. I will certainly be spending money, but I want to be more meticulous in keeping track of exactly how much I’m spending on what. What happens when I’m gambling is that so much cash piles up in my wallet it becomes disorganized. I try to get rid of smaller bills by converting them into larger. This tendency desensitizes me to the value of a dollar. My goal is to relearn the appreciation for smaller amounts of money thereby sabotaging the appeal of a recreation that will potentially (absolutely) be financially wasteful. I need to be at the bank all the time depositing money as quickly as it’s earned so it hasn’t time to accumulate into a decent gambling investment. During spans of abstinence in the past I’ve really enjoyed how much more money I’ve been able to save than I really know what to do with. I have the potential to lead a life very nearly free of financial stress.

I want to be more meditative and more in touch with my own attitude toward gambling. I am familiar with the phases. Right now I’m in the baptism phase where I want a new and sinless beginning. Eventually I will merge into the liberation phase whereby I can honestly say that I’m not gambling and will go home after work each day and not even think about stopping at a casino. But one day I will have so much money sitting around that I’ll descend into the speculation phase and begin thinking about how much I could probably win if I tried my luck and (more dubiously) skill. When the temptation returns I want to confront it valiantly whereas in the past my guard has slipped too much to put up much of a fight. It’s a hell of a thing to resist something you desperately want. In order to emerge from this dungeon I have to communicate with myself frankly about what’s going to happen if I start gambling again. Not that I might forfeit my happiness… but that I will forfeit my happiness.

There is an anguish that comes from losing hundreds of dollars and having no one to blame but yourself; an anguish that comes from inflicting that upon yourself and feeling helpless about it, as though you were literally incapable of making a better choice when there were dozens of better choices all around you. My objective is to leave that kind of unhappiness forever behind.

My Light Will Still Burn

My weekend draws to a close. Tammy Coon found me. I went to school with her for one year in 1984-85 and fell for her completely. I was 13 when I met her and 14 the last time I ever saw her. This is the second time we've communicated with each other since the 7th gade; this latest courtesy of Facebook. She posted a comment today asking what I've been up to for the past two days. I answered I've been busy with picking up Mason at the airport. Mason is a magnificent longhaired black cat. He has belonged to my brother Travis in Alaska, but the situation became complicated as his voluminous demands for attention detracted from the tranquility required for sleeping in that household, especially critical because my brother and his wife are the proud parents of a beautiful son only four months old. Mason arrived in a little portable kennel and I brought him into my apartment where he patiently ignores the hissing of my other cat, Senorita Magdalena Marseilles.

My friend, Jenny Alyssa, having learned of this upcoming expansion to my feline family helpfully advised me to keep them in adjacent rooms where they could gradually get used to each other without risking any violent animosity. I followed this method for a couple hours, but learned eventually that Mason is a hider. He hides inside the recliner in the living room or under the bed in my room. I don't think he's the least bit afraid of Senorita. Rather it seems he simply prefers to avoid confrontation with her. Ideally within the next ten days or so they will be cuddling up with each other and forging an intimate and longlasting companionship.

Meanwhile Jenny has been battling a tenacious flu and it's given me the opportunity to remind her often that she's important to me. When I'm sick I always appreciate immensely the attention others invest in me. Any little concern for my misery benefits my soul in just the same way antibiotics do the body. Keeping this in mind, I tried to show Jenny that I care about her by bringing her flowers and checking up on her each day to see how she feels and she's indicated this manifestation of compassion has accentuated her recovery as well. I wouldn't do this for just anyone, but sometimes I think of Jenny as being a little like me in her solitude. We both live alone and neither of us have family anywhere nearby so I find myself sometimes endeavoring to supplement elements of her life that might otherwise be deficient... in other words I don't want her to be alone during holidays or neglected when she's sick. We could be well on our way to establishing one of the greatest friendships ever conceived on the internet.

My weekend was also accentuated with a book discussion at Borders featuring The Winter of Our Discontent by Steinbeck. It's a story about a good man who feels pressure from his family and community to reclaim the prestige that his heritage dictates should be his. Unfortunately the only way to do this effectively compels him to use unethical methods resulting in one person drinking himself to death and another being deported out of the country. In the end he finds he can no longer demand his children live by higher standards and principles. In other words he's betrayed his own soul. Steinbeck drives home the tragedy with these words in the final chapter:

"My light is out. There's nothing blacker than a wick. Inward I said, I want to go home--no not home, to the other side of home where the lights are given. It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone."

My Christmas Manifesto

I've said it before. When I was a child my favorite food was my mother's lasagna. My favorite place was Disney World. And my favorite day was Christmas. Not much has changed.

What makes these things so sacred is not just their quality, but their infrequency. I haven't been to Disney World since 1985. Christmas comes "but once a year." And my mother traditionally makes lasagna on Christmas, but I've not been home for that holiday since my big brother spotted me the airfare to do so eight years ago.

The sanctity of Disney World and my mother's lasagna are currently unassailable. They require no manifesto. But Christmas is being flayed alive.

Not many winters ago I was a passenger in the back seat of someone's car and I was looking out the window at a neighborhood in Tacoma. Someone's front yard featured an evergreen tree that had been carefully sculpted and groomed and decorated with white christmas lights. Somehow it made almost no impression on me. What's wrong with me I wondered. When I was a child a scene like that would have inspired my most mesmerized awe. I supposed perhaps it was just a result of growing up. Perhaps when I have children of my own, the enchantment of Christmas will be restored.

We had an unofficial holiday tradition in my family. Several days before Christmas my mother would always gather us kids together for a solemn announcement, "We can't afford a lot of presents this year" she would say. "We wish that we could get everything on your lists, but we simply don't have the money. So each of you will get one big present and one small present." She would tell us in advance so we wouldn't be crushed with disappointment. But somehow my mother could never follow through on that plan. I'd go to bed on Christmas Eve and toss and turn fitfully the entire night. Sure that it must be light outside at last I would get out of bed at approximately 1 A.M. and wander downstairs through the deserted areas of the house and come into the livingroom to discover dozens and dozens of presents spilling out from under that beautiful tree and my heart would leap with the thrill of it.

We used to leave a stereo playing soft Christmas music around the clock. There are so many good Christmas tunes and for as far back as I can remember I've designated a different one each holiday season to be my favorite. While typing the above paragraph the lyrics of Why Can't Every Day Be Like Christmas drifted through my consciousness and without objection I will accept it as my song of choice this year.

When you're a kid your mother knows what you want for Christmas. You put it at the top of your wish list and it's in big huge capital letters and you underline it and scrawl out countless bold exclamation marks after it along with a repetitious refrain of please please please. And then when you're at the department store you find that precious toy and you hold it in much the same way you would hold your mother's hand if you thought you may never see her again. And your eyes water ever so conspicuously as you set it back down on the shelf when it's time to go and you basically look down at the floor as you leave the store to confirm that without that toy life will certainly not be worthwhile henceforth. And in my case the toy was always the Lone Ranger.

Every Christmas my dream would come true and my stepfather would spend the afternoon assembling the intricate saddle gear for the Lone Ranger's horse, Silver. Typically my younger brother, Cheyenne, would be equally thrilled with his brand new Tonto and we would engage our heroes in the most action demanding adventures our young imaginations could conceive of with the inevitable result that we were in need of replacements long before the following Christmas had even approached the calendar's horizon.

But when you grow up, presumably, you have a job. You earn an income and if you want a new Lone Ranger you don't have to wait until Christmas. You can order one off EBay like now. Instantaneously. And if your mother still requires a wish list (as mine does) you have to remember not to aquire on your own any of the items you've listed.

So the first part of my manifesto dictates that for the last two months of each year I will abstain from purchasing any unnecessary and/or cool things for myself.

But this reminds me of another holiday concern that demands desperate measures. One of the two months at the end of each year is November and it has a holiday all its own. Thanksgiving is basically the redheaded stepchild of holidays. You don't get presents on Thanksgiving. You get a fine meal, but no better than the one on Christmas, and any child born and raised in a capitalist nation will be happy to explain how useless food is compared to toys. The food is gone in a matter of minutes whereas the toys may stay with you for years if you're a girl and until you've utterly destroyed them if you're a boy which, on average, takes longer than a few minutes.

But as if Thanksgiving were not already sufficiently debased, you have department stores and malls marketing for Christmas before Thanksgiving has even been celebrated. And the pathetic truth is that Halloween is being infringed upon too. We all agree that the salivating greed of retailers is offensive the way they begin earlier each year to tempt you with Christmas shopping so now the second part of my manifesto stipulates that I will not commence Christmas shopping until December.

Finally because I want to guard the infrequency of Christmas I will not even talk about it until December. If someone asks me today or tomorrow if I'm ready for Christmas I will look at them as though they've grown horns out of their head and then disregard them until such time as they ask me a more pertinent question. I won't talk about Christmas, I won't listen to Christmas music, and I won't put up my Christmas Tree until December!

Why can't every day be like Christmas? Because if it were, then Christmas would cease to be special. I want to wake up on the 26th of December and feel overwhelmed with the impossibility of waiting 364 days for the magic to return. Hopefully the implementation of the precepts of this manifesto will systematically undesensitize me.

Dyscombobulated Blues

The elevator opened and I stepped out onto the seventh floor of the parking garage. This top floor is actually on the roof and it's difficult to say what time it was. Usually it would have been 3 A.M. but we just set the clocks back so I guess it was 2 A.M. Either way the sky was dark and the air was extremely fresh. So fresh it made me stop. I stood there on the roof and allowed myself to bask in the freshness and the silence, but then I noticed there was a certain smoky fragrance as though a chimney were at work somewhere not so distant and there was the sound of traffic on wet pavement issuing forth from Auburn Way only seven floors down and a thousand feet to my right. Nostalgia enveloped me... something about this fragrance in the air... not that of Spring. And not that of wet muddy summers in New England. But the crisp fresh nostalgia of November... a romantic nostalgia. For some reason romance begins in November. But not this year. This year it's only the nostalgia of Novembers past. I look down at the pavement under my feet and it glistens with last night's rain. Glistens so brightly it makes my squinting eyes water. Will I text her today? Will I send her a message? It could say, "After the election maybe we'll begin talking again." But I won't. For six months she's not had my number. So that, instead of dying a little more with each moment she neglects me, there is a part of me that can fantasize she's trying desperately to reach me and she's wishing I would finally relent and call her. And I tell myself I won't send a message. Still I'm standing there my feet planted on the wet pavement staring into the bright reflection of the street lamps towering above me. And I know I will write this blog. I hear a far off train whistle and hope I won't forget to include that detail in my writing. I would begin writing as soon as I got to my car if only I'd brought my book bag. Usually it's sitting in my trunk with tons of books and comics and my memoirs. I could have begun recording these musings instantly, but the book bag was left at home. So when I start my car I turn off the stereo and all the way home I focus on this nostalgia so I'll remember what to write. I'll remember that denying myself the permission to contact her during this romantic season leaves me empty. There are superficial concerns that help me forget how alone I am. The election just two days away. Or the football games later this morning. Or my palpable disgust with my job. Or the varying degrees of success or failure associated with a seemingly endless parade of opportunities to flatter the pretty girls I encounter every day. Such things seem important until you're forced to stop and endure the waves of fresh air and silence and tear duct agitating brilliance of wet pavement at two and/or three o'clock in the morning. Then I'm reminded that I am lonely and hollow. And there is not the love of Christ to save me. No, that is not my lifeline. And I have no children to dedicate my life unto and to live through vicariously. No, there is still just me. Me to make happy or me to be sad. It occurs to me that I drank the night before. And I subscribe to the notion that alcohol is a depressant and so maybe these blues can be blamed on drink. And tomorrow I'll be fine. It helps to remember: such sentiments can and do pass. I'm not anywhere near the zenith of my contentment with life, but then too I'm safely several thousand leagues above the darkest chasms of my past. And yet this is not meant at all to be a feel good happy ending look on the bright side blog. It's a cautionary blog. If you have your Christ in your heart. Or if you have your family which means everything to you... then do not let go. Otherwise I fear daylight savings time shall never find quite enough daylight to save.

This Can't Be Good

As an alert conversationalist I brace myself when people address me with any of the following dialogical openings:

Do these jeans make me look fat?

This is a question usually posed by a woman and nothing good can come from it. No matter what you think might be the right answer, you're in trouble. The question wouldn't have been voiced in the first place if someone wasn't already feeling self~conscious and there's something decidedly sinister about a person framing questions under this influence. Obviously you can't say: maybe a little chunky around the waist. But the truth is you probably won't have much success with: No, baby, those jeans make you look incredible! for the simple reason... she will without exception conclude you're lying. The next two to three weeks will be inevitably unbearable. The most honest answer to such questions is: May day! May day! Translated from the french m'aidez meaning help me!

Would you like to see an easier way to do that?

I usually hear this question when I'm learning something new. Could be snowboarding (The first time I went snowboarding I discovered that I'm a natural skydiver. As I recall that was also the last time I went snowboarding. When it occurred to me months later, I mentioned to my sadistic mentor that I'd been surprised at how vast the bunny slopes had been. At which time he condescended to mention that we had actually skipped the bunny slopes completely. Especially thoughtful of him considering that he had taken me to a bar earlier that morning and treated me to a certifiably insane quantity of Alabama Slammers, but, predictably, I digress). So yes I could be learning a new recreation like snowboarding or a new kind of software or a cullinary technique for a cuisine I've never previously prepared. Eventually some dogooder will happen along and ask: Would you like to see an easier way to do that? The problem is, more than helping you, they are capitalizing on an opportunity to show off how much more proficient they are than you at the task in question. The reason their skills are superior has nothing to do with a revolutionary approach, and everything to do with essential hours and years of practice which you would yourself would be embarking upon at this very moment were it not for their insatiable propensity for exasperating interference. I find there are usually three or four different ways to do the same thing and what they define as "an easier way" is really just the specific style they are most comfortable with. Almost any other method will be just as good if only you could be left alone long enough to work it out.

I'm not racist, but. . .

The problem with a conversation beginning this way (and for some reason it must be articulated in a whisper as though perhaps it would provoke a scandal were it overheard) is that what follows registers as undeniably racist approximately 98.9% of the time. It amounts to a disclaimer designed to justify the unjustifiable attitude about to be espoused. You should always contradict the speaker before another syllable is pronounced by saying "Yes you are." This is not necessarily endorsed in the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, but say it anyway. People should be reminded as often as possible that ignorance is not universally tolerated.

I don't mean to offend you, but. . .

Just like the racism disclaimer, what follows will be offensive. This happened to me a couple days ago. I was telling a story (however fictitious) about accidentally dismembering a fellow's arm for touching my girlfriend. And this lady that I've worked with for two years is visibly startled with my story. "I don't mean to offend you," she says, "but I thought you swung the other way." I have to be careful with this because I don't think there's anything at all wrong with being gay so it's inconsistent to say I was offended, but I'd prefer to be perceived as masculine and manly and studly and so forth. It didn't help that her remark prompted sniggering and tittering from several folks standing around. My delicate pride was absolutely injured though I struggled to conceal it. She went on to say her assumption was based on how nice I am and how I walk as though I have weightless feet. Maybe twenty or thirty other people have confessed similar suspicions to me over the past decade or so. Sometimes they base it on the way I talk or how smart I am or my artistic interests or my taste in music or effeminate gestures or even just my vegetarian diet. Thus far I have no clever retort for this humiliation. I've thought about just saying I would be gay except I'm too busy fornicating with your mother. Perhaps the solution is to focus on how it makes me feel and to modify my psychological reaction. To accept myself unconditionally and to remind myself that most people are dumber than petrified mud puddles.

Twenty Years Ago Today

I'm not much for growing older. I shave my head bald for the precise reason that I can't stand to pay any attention whatsoever to the recession and inevitable extinction of its hair follicles. And you won't ever hear the words "now I feel old" pronounced by me. I have rules against saying or even suggesting such things. To me the confession of such pitiful sentiment can only exacerbate the aging process. When young punks think it's the ultimate manifestation of hilarity to denounce me as being old when they learn my age, I always say the same thing:

You know how I got to be older than you? I was born first. Other than that... there's really nothing I could have done different.

Then I discreetly imagine what it would be like to step on their faces.

Nevertheless I'm going to transgress just this once and exclaim with righteous incredulity: I can't believe it was twenty years ago today that my high school class embarked on Madison Academy's inaugural History Trip!

It was early in the morning. Not even light out when my mother dropped me off at the campus as the bus was being loaded up with luggage. One suitcase for each boy and five for each girl. And then we were on our way with three of the faculty as our guides; the enigmatic principal Dean Hunt, the eccentric History Instructor Robert Dubose, and the perpetually blushing teacher of English, Debbie McBroom.

There are little things I remember like the sister SDA academy gymnasium in Virginia that we converted into one night's hostel. Seems like we slept in a church one night too. And someone made a joke about gayness and everyone cracked up, but just to be witty I said, "Hey, Charlie didn't laugh!" and everyone cracked up even more which made me feel good because, I reveal at last, I was hellbent on securing for myself as much attention as possible. But while Charlie was a good sport he did give me this look that seemed to say, "Umm... why did you have to pick on me?"

I remember on that trip Travis Claybrooks had this dramatic and animated way of saying "Yes!" any time he agreed seriously with anything being said and it fascinated me to the extent that I began to mimic him which he correctly accepted as flattery. Subsequently I continued to emulate him by developing enormous biceps and triceps and quadriceps and octaceps... okay... perhaps not literally.

I recall that Mr. Dubose impersonated a fiend from the depths of Dante's Inferno each morning with his relentless insistance that we could not accomplish anything if we did not first wake up and get moving.

I vaguely remember famous churches and a ship and a rock and a plantation and Salem where John Proctor refused to sign his name. There was Mark Twain's house and Harriet Beecher Stowe's house and the House of the Seven Gables and I remember jogging around Walden's Pond while listening to the Thompson Twins on my walkman.

There was a trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains clearly marked with blue flags so that no one could get lost or go in the wrong direction. And yet 14 hours later we arrived sporadically back at the bus in groups of two or three... some of us on foot... some of us on horseback... some of us by plane and train and lawn mower.

I remember the friendships. Pam and Deena were best friends and impressed all of us with their fashionable sunglasses designed it seems to convey how young and free and fun and spirited were their hearts. Dawn Farler and Latonia (the only Sophomore impetuous enough to accompany our class) were inseparable.

More than anything I remember how truly terrified I was of life. Pulverized with anxiety that someone might not like me. That I might say something stupid or look like a dork (which, upon photographically assisted reflection, it turns out I did).

I tell people I have a photogenic memory. I can't remember squat but if you were to frame my memory and mount it on the wall above your sofa it would be easy on the eye.

The truth is I am blessed with a pretty decent memory and this is my gift to my beloved classmates on this twentieth anniversary. While I assume I'm not the only one tempted to ponder how we're mostly closer to 40 now than we are to 20, I would have you consider how wonderfully blessed we are to have survived the brutal insecurities of youth. Hopefully we no longer face daily the life and death torture of finding our respective place in this world... The world is probably bigger than we realized then. We're probably smaller, but gradually we've learned that we needn't be in the spotlight quite so incessantly. That everything turns out pretty well usually should we let someone else shine for a moment here and there. Maybe popularity is a little overrated... indeed more of a burden or a curse than anything to be jealous of. Somehow, as we toured the historical landmarks of the eastern seaboard of America, we probably discovered paths and journeys far more ethereal and introspective in nature so that the conclusion of that educational trip may have represented a commencement of something profounder... the future. That and the necessity of remembering what we did on which days so we could fill up those damned journal assignments and turn them in.

Analyzing This Coincidence

Thursday evening I stopped in at Fred Meyer and bought a new DVD of the movie Alien. I have never seen this movie but as I cued it up later that night and began watching the first few moments I thought of a girl named Lisa Silva that I went to school with more than twenty years ago. You see, Lisa was my biology partner and she insisted on an almost daily basis that I needed to watch this movie and I always said I would.

I have to say a couple things about her. She was gorgeous. One of her parents is Peruvian wherefore she has this incredibly flawless skin. I'm not much for physical descriptions... I'll just say everything about her was attractive and what really impressed me the most was how sweet she was to me especially when most of the popular kids were either picking on me or what's worse... ignoring me.

At one time it seemed my mother was going to be working with hers at the hospital sharing the same campus as our Madison Academy and Lisa asseverated to me how much fun we would have getting to know each other while we waited for our parents to get off work. Which was kind of a convenient concept for me because in my imagination she was destined to fall in love with me. For some reason I couldn't imagine the slightest impediment to my dream of the hottest girl in our school getting married to and having children with the biggest goofiest geek.

She had an irresistibly zany side to her as well. While I was trying to keep my breakfast down during our dissection of a frog, she literally proclaimed with eyes wide open, "I want to see its brains!"

Every time I've thought about finally watching Alien over these past two decades, I remember Lisa almost apologetically because of the ridiculous dimensions to which my proclivity for procrastinating has exponentially perpetuated. Heh heh... that was fun to say.

Anyway... I started the movie Thursday night and the next morning I'm chatting online with Ivy Dawn, my very best friend from high school, and I explain how I'm complying at last with Lisa's instructions, and Ivy says that it's Lisa's birthday. At first I think she's just joking and I say, "Ivy, how could you possibly know that?" But she's not joking. Apparently both of them have just recently subscribed to Facebook along with nearly a dozen of our other classmates and Ivy received an automatic notification that it was Lisa's birthday. So I think it's a significant coincidence that I was having this conversation about her on her birthday fully 21 years after she made me promise I would watch this film which, by the way, has turned out to be every bit as fantastic as she assured me it would be.

A Device Called Friendship

When offering my opinions on relationships it may interest my readers to consider my credibility in this field which consists of approximately no success whatsoever. Having said that I obstreperously maintain that the best way to achieve a valuable romantic relationship is to begin with friendship. There are at least two arguments against this philosophy.

1). If you're pretending to be a friend when you really want to be a lover then you're being dishonest about your true objectives.

As for the first argument, I don't see it as pretending. You should truly apply yourself to being a friend with the understanding that it may never develop into anything more. The importance of valuable friendships in life cannot be overemphasized. So you dedicate yourself to being someone's friend which means you listen to them carefully and convey how interested you are in pretty much everything they say or think and you offer them honest insightful supportive feedback. And they will most likely come gradually to appreciate you immensely. And if that's as far as it goes what have you lost? But I imagine as they grow tired of the more typical antics of the other people vying for their attention they will one day experience an epiphany whereby you stand alone as someone they would like to spend most of their life with. You've been there. You've cared about them. You make them feel important like no one else ever has.

2.) Certain things can happen under these circumstances that may cause you discomfort and unhappiness.

As for the second argument... Part of being a friend to someone is that you listen to them talk about the people they are romantically and/or passionately interested in. Over and over again you have to suppress your ego and listen patiently and attentively as they say things you wish they would only say about you. During these times I try to project myself as more of a family member than a friend. For example if a girl shows me messages on her phone that were sent to her by a guy that she likes and while examining her phone I notice that all the messages I've sent to her have been deleted, it's better if I just think of myself as her brother. This helps me detach myself from being too sensitive and demanding consideration that isn't quite reasonable just yet. While I wouldn't want the girl of my dreams to dismiss my messages so easily, it wouldn't bother me at all if my sister deleted them.

To some extent all of the above constitutes a game and there is a natural prejudice against playing games in relationships. Also it's fair to say that I'm recommending manipulation as well. But I justify these things by insisting that the friendship is genuine... that there is always the acceptance of the possibility that nothing more than friendship may ever develop and there's never anything wrong with that. Furthermore if you know yourself to care about someone and to have someone's welfare and happiness as extremely high priorities then I think it's permissable to be discreet with your deeper feelings. The first time I see a pretty girl I don't walk up to her and say "I'm thinking about what kind of girlfriend you might be and I think you would look great in a bikini." Does that mean I'm playing games when instead I ask her about her day? Does that mean I'm manipulating her when I refrain from announcing how sexually appealing I find her to be? I'm not against expressing your feelings. I'm just promoting the idea of timing. Confess your feelings eventually, but first give the other person a chance to cultivate some feelings of their own.

My Insulted Intelligence

The voice of the narrator sounds sad. . . emotionally pulverized by the depravity he's been subjected to. The nefarious images are slammed down upon your conciousness in black and white. . . mostly black. . . lurking in dusty shadows. There's the tired emaciated face of a villainous politician. He looks confused and morally bankrupt as thunder echoes in the background. I think I've heard this music before in a movie. . . maybe when Darth Vador appears on the screen or is it when Hannibal Lechtor is about to get his munch on? Suddenly the picture changes to a colorful field vivid with blue and gold flowers waving gracefully in a warm summer breeze as the other candidate strolls along smiling at the beautiful laughing child holding his hand. The sunlight rests upon him illuminating the edge of his profile and creating an almost celestial effect. The music changes to something played on a piano sweet and melodious and the narrator's voice softens too. . . evoking optimism and security and courageous pride. The bold words on the screen ameliorate from stark condemnations to red, white, and blue happy words like trust and prosperity and success. It makes me wish I could vote right now. Not for the good guy in the commercial. Not for the bad guy. I just want to vote for someone who doesn't think I'm stupid. Any suggestions?

Mr. Shabo and Captain Gilmer

It was my first day at a new school when I met him in the parking lot of Captain Gilmer Elementary in North Carolina. Mr. Shabo was going to be my 7th grade teacher. He was very business like and serious as he introduced himself to my mother. My first impression was that my life for the next nine months would be the exact opposite of fun. But in some ways that school year was perhaps the most formative. Mr. Shabo was a great story teller. Sometimes he would stop in the middle of a lesson and have us write down a reminder in our notes for him to tell us about such and such a story. He was from Seattle and represented the only Seahawks fan in our school. One project he assigned to us was to make miniature cabins out of balsa wood. I also recall the day he taught us how to argue. He showed us how senseless arguing gets us nowhere, but if you organize the advantages and disadvantages of any proposition then you can utilize and address the facts more effectively. He cared about us. It wasn't just math and history. He wanted us to grow up to be good husbands and wives and fathers and mothers. He wanted us to be good citizens and responsible members of our communities. He took us on a field trip in which we brought along trash bags to fill up with trash we found along the side of the road. And he had local politicians come in and talk to us about the pending elections. He split our class in two and had one side bring in signs for the Republican party and the other side for Democrats.

He had us keep our own grade books too. We were on the honor system. It was definitely the trend for the more competitive students to doctor up their grades and I was caught up in this as well... except it weighed on my conscience and one day when I couldn't take it anymore I confessed to Mr. Shabo that I had cheated on my grades. Without making a big deal about it he answered, "I already knew. Don't do it anymore." Which humbled me and inspired me at the same time.

I became friends with four other students that school year. They were all girls. Heidi Possinger was the graceful, delicate, angelic one. She wore these plastic slippers that looked like something Cinderella might have worn. It seems like she didn't belong in our class which was dominated by crude adolescent boys, but I don't remember her ever expressing any contempt for them. She was quiet, but not noticeably judgemental or stuck up. I was in puppy love with her, but she probably never knew. I guess I was already developing some kind of class consciousness inasmuch as her father was a doctor while my mother worked for him as a receptionist. Somehow I felt she could see right through me.

Her best friend was Melissa Johnson, another good girl who seemed out of place. She would grow up to learn sign language and to marry a gentleman who was deaf.

Tammy Coon and Karen Duncan were my other two friends. Twice a week they would leave for a couple hours and attend a class at Fletcher Academy just over the hill where they practiced playing their clarinets. Karen is the one I was probably closest to, but I developed a serious crush on Tammy. My nickname for her was KCE (Kitty Cat Eyes). Tammy had straight black hair and wore very attractive skirts that I would tease her about mercilessly. I remember writing a rather melancholy poem for her. Something about the warfare of love. I figured I must be the next literary genius when I made "sorrow" rhyme with "tomorrow." Unfortunately she was infatuated with some guy at the academy named Kenny.

At recess the five of us would often find ourselves bored with soccer or football or softball and we'd wander off into the nearby mountain trails that bordered our little Seventh Day Adventist school. I was egotistical enough to enjoy the sensation of being the only guy to hang out with four girls at the same time. But I was going through some kind of crisis. Not an easy one to explain either. Walking along those trails I would extend my hands out into the briers and collect scratches with the intention of causing scars. Also at times I wouldn't want to talk to anyone. And classmates were worried about me... which was nice because I've always... always... loved attention. Mr. Shabo was a little concerned too and he persuaded my mother to let me stay with his family for a couple weeks.

I guess I pretty much loathed my own family at the time and it was a real treat to see how a "normal" family did things for a while. I was given a bedroom in the newly renovated downstairs and Mr. Shabo hooked me up with a radio. As though it were yesterday I remember falling asleep to the dulcet tones of Barry Manilow singing "Can't Smile Without You" or Albert Morris singing "Feelings."

Controversy rocked the school before the year was out. Mr. Shabo was accused of harrassing some of the girls in our class and he was informed that he would not be invited back the following year. I was furious. I always believed the charges were fabricated. My mother saw how upset I was and when she came to talk to me about it I read to her from Ellen G. White's religious classic, The Desire of Ages, a graphic description of how Jesus was persecuted. My mother didn't much care for my implication that Mr. Shabo was Jesus, but of course I only meant to compare their innocence and tranquil attitudes in the face of unfair accusations.

Heidi, Karen, and Russell

Summer 1985

No less than 24 years have elapsed since then. Karen lived for one or two of them before she was killed in a drunk driving accident. Heidi died about ten years later of leukemia. It breaks my heart to wonder how their parents survived these tragic events. In my mind they live on forever as 7th graders. Beautiful girls that would go hiking with me at recess and express concern when I was too quiet and morose. Tammy and I exchanged a few letters and phone calls in the early 90's. She became the proud mother of an adorable little girl, but we eventually lost touch. Melissa and I enjoyed a short~lived correspondence as well and she was generous to invite me to her wedding, but I wasn't able to attend.

Recently I was pondering all these characters and discovered with a little research that Mr. Shabo moved back to Seattle. It's possible that he is the principal of a little school about 40 miles north of where I live now also I think maybe his wife teaches in Puyallup maybe ten minutes from here though the information I've found could be outdated. Sometimes I think I should try to get in touch with Mr. Shabo. I'm trying to imagine the surprise it would cause if I just walked into his school unannounced. He hasn't seen me since 1985 when I was 14 years old.

The Artichoke Heart is a Lonely Hunter

I paid off the entire balances of two credit cards last month and felt like celebrating… so I went to Borders. On the sidewalk they had displayed dozens of books at bargain prices and one that caught my eye was 501 Must~See Movies. I picked it up and entered the store. My traditional procedure for spending the day at Borders is to collect several books and periodicals until my arms are full and then to sit down at one of the convenient tables and to pore through the contents which ordinarily will prompt additional forays into the aisles and shelves hunting for whatsoever materials have been thus cited or promoted. Such was the case on this day and in the movie book I found a description of a French/German film called Amélie starring Audrey Tautou who later played the leading lady in The Da Vinci Code. The review intrigued me and off I went in search of the DVD which I found and bought and watched. One quote that amused me is delivered by the main character when she sees a produce merchant belittling an employee by calling him a vegetable. Amélie chimes in by saying: "At least you'll never be a vegetable - even artichokes have hearts."

Now… don’t get the wrong idea… the impression this made on me was not that I should be kinder to cretins or anything so philanthropic as that. Sooner or later I will be inspired with an enlightenment of that sort and will faithfully share my findings with my adoring subscribers, but on this more pedestrian occasion I was impressed instead with a contemplation of artichokes. It happens that one of the tastiest items you can ever order from a menu is the Spinach and Artichoke Dip listed as an appetizer at the Olive Garden.

So there I am at home watching this foreign film and it occurs to me I’ve not enjoyed that culinary favorite of mine in a long time. And I’ll tell you why. It’s the same reason why I haven’t gone to see The Dark Knight yet. It just feels like the sort of thing you would do with a date and I’m not currently dating anyone. Interesting… now that I think about it because that was Amélie’s dilemma too. She was extraordinarily creative and interesting… but basically too cowardly to pursue a relationship. Meanwhile… until my cowardice dissipates a little I decided I could pay a visit to the Olive Garden with only my own company to enjoy.

That was the plan, but as the time drew near I had all kinds of inclinations to contact my beautiful and most recent ex~girlfriend and invite her to join me. It was always one of her favorite places to dine and she was amazed at how many breadsticks we were able to consume in a single meal. The temptation was formidable and even leaving my phone at home did not completely diffuse the potential for breaking a silence imposed last April when she discharged me from our friendship, for as I drew closer to my destination I considered taking a detour to her house and inviting her in person.

Sometimes I will catalog the several occurrences that have nearly provoked my capitulation in this abstinence.

• I wanted to wish her a happy Mother’s Day in May.
• I wanted to invite her to a retirement party for an older gentleman that she and I both admire very much.
• One morning after work I watched the film Enchanted on cable and the fairytale princess reminds me relentlessly of my ex. I thought about ordering the DVD on Amazon and having it delivered to her address.
• One time her son came into the poker room where I work and afterward it seemed like a plausible excuse for me to call her and say “Hey, guess who I ran into today!”
• Another time I believe I saw her in traffic turning into her place of employment and I was tempted to give her a call.
• I wish I could discuss the election campaigns with her. We used to have the most passionate conversations about the differences between liberals and conservatives. The galactic emergence of Governor Palin only magnifies this inasmuch as they have so much in common and I can almost guarantee that my ex would be extolling this candidate's virtues.
  

With each temptation I think if I can just stay strong… the next challenge will be easier to endure and I guess that has proven to be the case. I successfully arrived at the Olive Garden without bothering anyone to join me.

It happens that the manager of the restaurant is an acquaintance of mine and she welcomed me in the most delightful fashion. I glutinously devoured the appetizer that had inspired my visit and did some damage to an order of cheese raviolis as well. I wrote a little in my memoirs and read a chapter from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter which is about a mute that seems to have a Jesus Christ effect on everyone around him. He’s much beloved simply because he seems to be listening to what people are saying. It probably doesn’t matter much if he really is listening… simply his inability to interrupt rather automatically secures for him an unrivaled popularity. Any self~help book worth its weight in confetti will tell you the secret to cultivating better friendships is to become a good listener. And it is my supreme goal to work on this just as soon as I discover someone on the other side of the table for me to listen to.

The Birds and the B~Words

There I was once more testing the limits of my physical abilities on the track around the Tacoma Community College soccer field. I had just timed myself walking a mile in 13 minutes and 25 seconds. I was about to time myself running the same distance, but was sitting on the bleachers for a minute allowing myself to rest and regain a little energy before doing so. That's when I noticed all the Canadian Geese. So many, in fact, that I found myself counting them and learned there were 36. And it so happens that by counting them my perspicacity for observation was slightly enhanced and I further noticed that the geese were gathered in several groups... usually comprised of two or three creatures each. So I watched them for several more moments than I initially expected to and pondered these smaller groups... wondering if they consisted of couples. If two geese were together maybe a few yards away from any other birds, was it reasonable to suppose they were in a relationship together? And if so what kinds of issues did they engage? What dominates the mentality of a fowl when choosing a mate?

The Romantics wrote poetry about how they longed to be as the birds flying about between heaven and earth with nothing stressing them out. But this has never seemed so terribly inviting to me. Whatever criteria they use in pairing up... (I'm speaking of the geese here... not the Romantics)... I'm sure it's not nearly so sophisticated as my own. Quite probably that helps to explain why they're about 75,000 times more successful when it comes to finding someone compatible. But what do they really think about? What do they really do? Besides hunting and pecking for something palatable to nibble on and gulp down... Besides migrating... Besides crapping huge gobs all over creation... what really fascinates them?

I mean the one thing that kind of tires me out the most is also the one thing I would probably miss the most were I to trade places with a member of any other species. I daresay I would miss the drama which lately seems to feature a neat trick perfected by the gentler sex of being in relationships that they don't tell anyone about. You see if you have a boyfriend and you don't tell me about it, there's a good chance that I'll make a hopeless fool of myself lavishing you with all kinds of flattery and attention. Not that you really wish to date me or even talk to me about anything interesting... but hey... all that attention makes you feel so gorgeous and special... why should you risk losing that merely for the sake of some goddamned integrity?

Several times in your life you will be inspired by the music you're listening to at any given moment and such was the case for me in 1989 when I was futiley attempting to wash the dough out of the pots in a bakery in Madison, Tennessee. Suddenly a song named "Dream On" by Aerosmith blared over the radio including this verse:

I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin;
You got to lose to know how to win.

It's these last words that help make drama indispensable. Because no matter what kind of emotional hell you go through and no matter how empty it leaves you feeling... when you finally meet someone who loves you and makes love seem rather simple and natural... you'll have that wacky drama you survived to thank... because without it... you wouldn't know how lucky you are to finally discover relationship nirvana.

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.