On The Little Way: 31W x 30L

"It is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way, not the big search for the happiness but the sad little happiness of the drinks and kisses, a good little car and a warm deep thigh." -- Walker Percy, "The Moviegoer"

I very much enjoyed this quote on the "sad little happiness[es]" of life. I, too, have such things. Things I am particular about. Things that are of the drinks and kisses of the little way. Namely, jeans. It has been a very trying few days for me. Over the weekend the Mrs. discovered this gash in my favorite pair of jeans.

Long before I worked at the Gap I was very particular about jeans. For example, people say "jeans go with everything" -- every outfit, every color. False. There are some light-colored jeans that should not be worn with a grey shirt. And there are some shades of blue jeans that shouldn't be worn at all. When it comes to buying a pair of jeans, I shop around. It takes about 4 to 5 trips to several stores to find the perfect pair (It drives the Mrs. so crazy she won't come with me anymore).

In a typical year I wear one pair (by pair I mean one jean only, but that sounds funny) of jeans. Said pair is broken in and of such a color to go with most anything (but not everything -- so I usually have a pair of jeans of a different color to match the shirt that the favorite pair doesn't go with and also, for other reasons, as I'll explain). Over the year the pair becomes, as one can imagine, worn down and threadbare -- usually in the knee. And usually I am aware of the wearing down in those places and can manage to make the pair last about a month longer than it should. And by last I mean: in such a condition as to wear out in public without embarrassing the Mrs.

(I realize my eccentricity. For example, my best friend has had the same pair of jeans for about 4 years now (Don't think I haven't noticed. I notice jeans like a normal man notices women or cars. Like Carrie noticed shoes.). How do I know? His particular pair is differentiated by a Abercrombie fashioned hole in the thigh. I once had a pair with a hole in the thigh much like his. Except it was created by me running into an exposed end of a pool table one week after said pair became the pair. Tragic. But I wore them anyway for the next year.)

Now this gash occurred in the bottom (and that is my bottom in the picture). I'm not sure why or how that happened. I am at a loss. The Mrs. says she can make them wearable and repair the gash. However, she is 9 months pregnant, working 10 hours a day and altogether miserable (in a happy way of course!) that I don't see the repair coming anytime soon. And I have been forbidden to wear them out until they can be fixed. (Already, I've worn them out twice. And both times were without her knowing -- though she found out last night and yelled at me!)

No worries. I have had another pair that I've been warily and reluctantly working into the rotation -- trying to break them in and settle them down for the long haul. So far, it's working. I'm adjusting to them; liking the color of them (they're lighter than my current pair in the repair shop); they're starting to feel comfortable -- relinquishing the stiffness I hate in new jeans. Now, I knew the day would come that I'd have to give up my favorite pair of jeans. I just wasn't ready for it. Not yet.

So, my favorite pair of jeans is one of my sad, little happinesses. And, today, I am saddened because my happiness in them is coming to an end. A happiness that looked forward after a long day of work to putting them on. A happiness that stopped dressing up at work and wearing them daily (I sit behind a desk at a television station, I chose my profession, in part, because I don't have to dress up). A happiness that looked good in mirrors. A happiness that felt like a part of me.

And, I know, a sad, little, yet new happiness is about to begin, but, parting, is of such sorrow.

A Conceivable Word

Perhaps it's the poetry kick I'm on. Perhaps it's remnants of a GRE test I did quite well on. Perhaps, as an old friend would venture to say, it's my obsession with big words that I want to mean what they actually don't. With either of those options withstanding, I've got a new word.

Several times in the past week I've come across the noun cathedral. Most of you will know that word and what it represents. In these instances I've heard the word used, I've got to understand what it means(I readily admit that much of my enthusiasm for the word might come from my sentimentality towards Catholicism).

The first use of the word that struck my fancy was on this blog by another old friend who frequents this site as well. I was awed by the phrase: I am a little church(no great cathedral). At my urging, she posted on the origins of the phrase, from this e e cummings poem (I'm still not sure why cummings' name is always lowercase). It's a great poem, it really is. I see something new in it each time I go over it.

The second reference this week came this morning in church. Our pastor was speaking on the Sabbath. His sermon was titled "The Sabbath: A Cathedral in Time." He didn't qualify that phrase directly, but he did evidence the notion of the Sabbath in such a way as to make it poetically clear what was meant by the sermon title.

So my word for this week is cathedral. It's a word that carries much imagery and carries much weight. It's a word, much like the building it describes, that has a lot more going on inside it. I think that's the thing about words in general, if we take the time, we can see there's much more going on, much more at stake. Words are poetical.

To quote Walter Pater: The goal of poetry is to renew the finer edges of words.

The thing of it is: I keep using the word "poetical" to describe some of my thoughts. For example, if something strikes me, I say it's poetical.

To quote Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

An Impending Joy

There is a line from a familiar Isaac Watts hymn that goes "Repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy." We're not at that yet.

For a few hours early yesterday, we thought the birth might happen. It didn't (You'll know when it does). Our original due date is March 11th. As you know, it's merely February 22nd. So, the baby would be incredibly early. However, baby measurements and our calculations put the due date at March 4th. That's only a week or so away. So, all of a sudden, for a woman on her feet 10 hours a day, a first child, a February 22nd birth doesn't look all that early.

Yesterday, the Mrs. had an interesting look about her. For weeks now she has insisted that the baby will come in March. I have insisted he will arrive in February. February 23rd, to be exact. And, well, that's tomorrow. But last night she seemed, while not so much resigned to the fact, but had a peace -- that he's coming very soon. And while, for work purposes, she wants to make it to March, she doesn't think she will.

So there is this impending joy about our household. My writings in the past 24 hours have circled around it. Wondering when he will come. Will it be during the commercials? While I'm brushing my teeth? During an evening snack? Require me to take a midday reprieve from work? And, my personal, poetic favorite: Like a thief in the night?

He's coming. We're ready. And, I repeat, there is this impending joy standing somewhere just around a corner, just behind a street light, just behind the clouds. When will he come?

Syntopical Thoughts

"The things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any man." - GK Chesterton

"Look for smaller signs instead, the fine
disturbances of ordered things when suddenly
the rhythms of your expectation break
and in a moment's pause another world
reveals itself behind the ordinary." -- Dana Gioia

"The holiness of the ordinary." -- Walker Percy

60 86ed?

Turns out my favorite show on TV is probably getting the axe. It's unfortunate. Studio 60 is a well-written, intelligent show. I've blogged about this before. What's frustrating are the criticisms surrounding the show and its impending demise.

Many harp on the fact that it's a behind-the-scenes look at a sketch comedy show, like SNL. That America isn't really interested in the inner-workings of a late night comedy show and shouldn't really be. Other prevarications focus on the way the characters speak, that people don't really talk like they appear to in the show. That writers really don't know that much philosophy and literature and history. Still more find fault with the "romances" on the show -- that there are too many of them. Or that the show's too much like the West Wing and it's too close to when WW went off the air.

All these criticisms are silly. America doesn't care about a hollywood sketch comedy show? But America should care about Supernanny or Wife Swap? Really? Or that characters speak intelligently? God forbid we all speak stupid. Or that romances are a crutch and weak plot device? Yeah and sex as a plot device hasn't gotten old or become the easy joke. It's nice to see characters woo each other. Oh, and that people are intelligent. Sometimes there are more things to decide upon in life than whether to take the deal or not. There are actually books to read. And my favorite: it's a show too much like West Wing and because that show ended people need some time between shows that are similar. First, Sorkin left the West Wing in 2004. After that it sucked. Everyone knows this but forgets it changed completely in style. So it's been 2 years, not 2 months since the West Wing ended. Second, no one complains that Fox and ABC have the same nanny show -- that it's too close.

The problem is, and if people would realize it I'd be okay with it's cancellation, that the show's to smart for a vacuous America and that the consumer-driven, plot-thinned shows they keep turning out are just easier to watch. What's funny is that the show dealt with this possibility in earlier episodes. And no critique of the show I've read has mentioned that. That the show new from the beginning it would be a little bit on the erudite side of words.

Studio 60 isn't an easy show to watch. I'll admit, sometimes the writing isn't as good as I'd like. Sometimes it settles. But it's still better than every single show on TV.

A Baby Tour

So we're close. Real close. Less than 3 weeks out. My guess is still by next weekend. But the Mrs. insists she'll make it through to March. Me, I'm not so sure. Everything's just about set too. The final piece of furniture should arrive tomorrow pending another snow storm.

This week we also took a tour of the birthing suite at the hospital where we'll have the baby. Rest assured this suite is nothing like the suite we stayed in during our BabyMoon back in October. Although, there is one suite we saw that had, what I've dubbed, a "tower view".

During the tour, which consists of us learning about procedure for when the Mrs. goes into labor, we made a stop by the nursery. For me, this pregnancy has been mostly theoretical. My body doesn't change. There's no moving inside me; no wedging of limbs under my rib cages. And, sure I can see the pregnancy, but I'm not feeling it like she is. Well, during said stop, we saw little newborns. One about 9 pounds, another just a hair over 5 lbs. That was when it hit me. Soon, I will feel it. Soon it won't be theoretical. Soon it will be as "practical as potatoes". Soon and very soon.

And I'm past excited. Soaring past excited. It's eagerness. Earnestness really. My son is about to be born. Somewhere between a hair's breath of 5 lbs and more robust 9 lbs; somewhere in-between the theoretical and the practical; somewhere between a tower suite and a quiet room; somewhere between unfeeling and feeling; somewhere between mere thoughts and actual sight; somewhere between the present and the future. My son is about to be born.

Valentines

Had a lovely valentines day. Chinese food (I had the orange chicken). A movie (Marie Antionette). And the Mrs.

It's been our V-day tradition for years now. Chinese and a bad movie. Well, not necessarily a bad movie, but not really a good one and one you remember because it wasn't great, it was just different. Case in point, movies for past days: Meet Joe Black, The Postman, The Good Girl, Marie Antionette. I happened to really like all of the films...but they were only memorable because they fit the V-day tradition. Had I watched them on any other day, I would've ceased to remember them.

On top of this tradition, the Mrs. and I have another unspoken one where we each by a card or gift for the other even though we say no gifts. I got her a rose and a simple card with a hand-written message. She got me a card with the perfect message written on it.

It's not dressing up and going out. It's not showing up at work with a bouqet dressed like a knight (in shining armor of course, not like a Paul McCartney or Anthony Hopkins knight). It's not any sort of grand sweeping gesture the movies tell you you need to make.

Our valentine's day traditions are indicative of us. Our love for each other is in the small things. In a simple rose. In a simple card. In holding each other's hands. In sitting in the same room with each other. In a slight glance away when the other catches you looking.

On The Things We Remember

Why is it that we seem to remember the most inane things? Perhaps this may not be the case for you, but I can remember who the starting first baseman was in spring training for the Red Sox in '93. But I can't remember one line from the greatest play ever written (King Lear). I know all the stats of pretty much anyone who's ever played for the Sox and Celtics in my lifetime, plus volumes of other useless information. A friend of mine can name the mascot for any Division 1 college. Neither of us can recite "Little Gidding", however.

I am much troubled by this because "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" (Keats), and as such poems and sayings of those who have gone before should be remembered. Granted, reciting a poem during the Super Bowl wouldn't have done me any good (not that my knowledge of how inept Manning is served any good in a room of Colts fans). But it still bothers me that I can't remember invaluable lines of poetry or Scripture, but can remember every line from Dumb and Dumber and know just about every line from every song playing on the radio at the moment.

With this as it is, I present to you, my readers, a new task. Here is your opportunity to pass on some sentiments. It can be a line from a song, a "quotable quote", line from a play or some words of wisdom. Limit it to a sentence. The purpose is to pass the sentiment on to our son -- maybe.

A Rather Poetic Analogy

The art of versification, or, prosody. It's becoming a hobby of mine. So much so that I've already read one book on poetry, am reading another, and even ordered "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman. I am slightly embarrassed by my enthusiasm, but not ashamed of it. I find myself writing poetry often and find when I write it that I am more confident of my ability to write poetry than my ability to right fiction, or post blogs (mind you, my poetry is horrible).

For me, prosody is like shooting around in basketball. Basketball is my favorite sport to play, even though I'm not great at it. I love running the court, playing defense, making that extra pass and nailing a jumpshot (there's not much better in life than hitting a jumper with a hand in your face. It's the lost art. Much like poetry). Writing fiction for me is like playing soccer, or football. Sure it's fun and I'm actually decent at it, I can hold my own (despite what OSU says), but it's not where my heart is. I step on to a basketball court and I'm at home.

Writing poetry is much like that then. Sure, it's something I'm not good at. Not at all. But it's where I feel at home. Much like a shootaround where I'm not playing an actual game, writing a poem for me, right now, is like that. I'm just working it out. Maybe I won't ever get good at it to run full-court. But I know that I could forever be happy with a basketball (read: pen), hoop (read: notebook) and visions of Larry Bird in my head (read: Eliot and Keats).

To prove my point, here's a poetry writing sample (which would've been rejected by OSU):

Ah, you are my unborn baby boy!
And now is your mother with child filled
Before me and at my side she's stilled

But there's a glow in your mother's opened eyes.
Feeling you churn in your yet unseen skin
Under these, these strong hands of mine.

I love thee and only know thee now but by
A mother's eyes, is your existence known,
Such is your life my son, on the outside.

See...my attempt at iambic pentameter. Utterly horrible, I know. It doesn't even rhyme.

A Post Of Discontent

And so it begins. Well, it's already started. My least favorite month of the year: February. No sports to aimlessly waste time watching; no teams to pull for. Nothing. And these past couple of days haven't been any better, so allow me to lament my travails for the moment.

First, the Colts won. Have I mentioned I hate the Colts, despise Peyton Manning and utterly detest the fact that they beat the Pats on some suspect calls (as you can see I'm still not over this 2 1/2 weeks later).

Next, it snowed in Columbus over the past couple of days. The city just shuts down. Roads are not plowed. And the general attitude is that the city is doing what it can. But it's not. Cleveland never has problems like this. It's unacceptable. It's mornings like this that I pine for Boston.

Then, I got rejected by OSU for grad school. It was my top choice -- if only for convenience, but still my top choice -- and I got denied. Thanks for playing. But they told me it "doesn't reflect on my ability to undertake graduate studies." So I got that going for me, which is good. I've still got two other options and I know whatever happens, things will work out. Doesn't mean it can't sting a little.

Oh, and I came into work early today for my normal shift on Wednesday only to find out I'm working a different shift (means I must stay an hour and a half later). Not sure if I missed that on the schedule or my bosses' changed the schedule. But I need someone to blame, so I'm blaming them.

And my knee is hurting so bad I've had to postpone racquetball matches and can't play basketball either. I also can't walk without some measure of pain. For some, that's no big deal. But me not being able to play sports...well...it's not good.

I realize these problems are trite compared to the woes of others. I really do. And on the bright side, my son's about to be born and there's much there to be thankful for. And I don't offer this lightly either. Thinking about fact makes my problems fade away.

On The Pilgrims

So I finished "The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage" by Paul Elie. In truth, it was a well-written and extremely challenging book. As I said before, the book examined the lives of four Catholic writers in the 40s and 50s. It looked at their lives, their writing, their beliefs and how they incorporated it all. It looked at their "predicament shared in common" to quote Percy.

Dorothy Day
Founder of the Catholic Worker. A poverty movement that provided homes and food for the poor. Amazingly, she herself took the same vow of poverty. Donating all of her profits from her books to the organization. Very much a peacenik she protested the wars believing it didn't jive with the commandment to "love thine enemy". She was someone who's writing I didn't care for but her actions spoke much louder.

Thomas Merton
Became a monk at age 27 and spent almost 30 years in a Kentucky Trappist monastery. Wrote "Seven Storey Mountain" which became an international best seller. It was his spiritual autobiography. I enjoyed his writing, but he was too much of a contemplative for me, a little too much of a recluse. But he was firm in what he believed and his writing reflected that.

Flannery O'Connor
Easily my favorite of them all, perhaps because she was the author I was most familiar with, perhaps because she may have actually been the best author of them all. I've already mentioned her works several times in this blog. I offer another assessment: In talking with a friend we both feel that her writing doesn't strike you right away, but "Everything in it stands for something and you only find out what it stands for after you've left the book and the events sort of explode in your mind." She's a remarkable writer.

Walker Percy
Led a very mundane sort of life, honestly. Trained as a doctor he abandoned it all to write. At first his writing reflected to much of the philosophy he had taught himself and was quite cumbersome. Then he became a writer with the Moviegoer, next on my list of books to read I think. I am intrigued by his writing, for his approach and the challenges he faced with writing mirror my own in many ways. I'm always trying to be philosophical or have my characters be philosophical. I've yet to cross the bridge he eventually did. He was an interesting writer. And I like his "holiness of the ordinary" idea. Expect a post on that soon.

In conclusion, all these people, these writers, were Catholic. They weren't perfect people by their Church's standard either: Day had an abortion, Merton had an affair, O'Connor may have been racist. They knew quite well about grace. And so did their characters. And as Christians, they didn't make Christian art, they made good art. And I liked that about them.

Sometimes, It's the Little Things

These types of things never seem to happen to me. While my life, in many regards, is a story, it is devoid of little anecdotes. But, today I present a little pastiche of a friend's blog: an anecdote of my own.

I wanted a soda. Wandering through the airport I found a Coke machine. But, after putting my money in, nothing happened. Naively, I put another $1.50 into the machine. Low and behold, still, nothing happens. So I set out through the airport in search of another machine. Coming across a sign for a brand new A&W stand in said airport, I get excited. It's been years since I had A&W Root Beer!

So I get in line at the brand new facility which consists of more than a few empty tables and chairs. As I get up to the counter, money in hand, a taste for the cool creaminess and smoothness of an A&W Root Beer, the following conversation happens:

Me: "I'd like a medium Root Beer, please."
Lady: "We don't have Root Beer."
Me: "You don't have Root Beer?"
Lady: "Only Coke products."

She turns to reveal the soda fountain: Fanta, Diet Coke, Coke and some grape stuff.

Me: "But you're A&W!"
Lady: "Yeah, so."