Close To Nothing At All

It IS a Magical World

2010-08-05T15:08:00.003-04:00

Let's be honest, this happened a while ago. But it's time. Follow me over there. It's been great being here and thanks for coming along. But...

My (365) Days With Lucy

2010-07-16T21:08:00.003-04:00

It has been one year. And so I look back on those words I wrote one year ago to the day. It has been one year. One year. ONLY so many days and ONLY so many nights can be measured to have occurred since that day. And that feels un-right. Because what I have enjoyed in this past year has been moments covered in Cantor dust. The further down Lucy has ventured into my heart, burrowed as I hoped it would be 365 nights ago, the deeper yet she has been able to go. There has been no end to the joy she has uncovered in my heart, in my life. With her wide, sometimes goofy, sometimes heartbreakingly happy, sometimes startlingly sweet smile. With her apex of the sky blue sky eyes. Yes, these kinds of platitudes are expected. I figured them in last year at this time. It's part of what you come to expect the second time around. It's still awesome. It's still beyond words. It's Christmas morning. And you just gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get up... It's Christmas morning.

But for all of the Cantor dust, with Lucy there has been that little bit of fairy dust too. Those moments that make you stop. Straight on halt you. For all of Lucy's trying to be like her brother in climbing stairs or by wrestling with daddy, she's got her own magic too. How she dances and claps to certain music and not to other music. Or like when I'm having a bad day or hour and my eyes meet hers and she will deliberately blink at me and smile and blink deliberately again. Always makes me laugh. Or when I find her in her room with several books open in front of her and she is pointing to the pictures. Or when you give her a stuffed animal and she looks at it and smiles and then cradles it under her neck and hugs it tightly. Or when the Mrs and I go away for five days and return with two particular gifts that we placed around her room and that now every morning when she gets up she has to touch these particular gifts. That's the fairy dust. Those are the happy thoughts that make you fly.

Last year I supposed it but it has come true. My chest has been ripped open and filled with treasures. And to borrow a phrase again, Don't ask me how I knew, it just was the first time I saw her.

*new videos on YouTube*

On My Final, LOST Thoughts

2010-05-24T10:04:00.005-04:00

It was a superb end to a great, great show. Not the final ten minutes; the final episode. I have been on record as despising Sideways world but after the Finale, came to appreciate it for the moments of remembrance between the characters. Most notably Sun and Jin, Sawyer and Juliet. At the end of it all, it was those singular moments with the characters and their experiences of their characters that made the entire 6 seasons worth the investment. I've seen it numerous places, but concur with the thought that it was a fantastic 2 hours and 20 minutes followed by a head-scratching and hand-holding, light infused 10 minute miasma of fakeness. Though the final, literary motif ending with the dog and with Jack was apropos. And the Ben and Locke final scene together was powerful and moving as anything I've scene on the show. Just gut-wrenching good acting (seeing as how the last time they were together, one killed the other). And that Ben stayed behind... loved his character more than any other on the show. A very, very powerful character arc portrayal by Michael Emerson. He was astounding.

I'm at peace with the open-endedness of the finale. What happened to the final five on the plane that left the island? How did Penelope end up with Desmond (and where the HECK was their reunion iso) in the church? What became of the three on the island? Why was Jack still alive on the island for that final shot? Walt? Michael? It doesn't matter to me. Not one bit. Though there are a few floating theories that explain it and the more I've dwelled on the Sideways world being a temporary world for all the LOSTies to reunite, the more more is explained. So I'm on board with that.

The ending certainly reminded me of The Great Divorce with some choosing to stay behind in Sideways world. And, most notably, with characters coming to enlightment/awakenings by being touched by those whom they loved or experienced the events with, and that touch being shocking and painful and good. Very much The Great Divorce's idea there. It reeked of the best and worst of the relativistic branch of post-modernism ("Make your own rules" followed by Hurley giving everyone the chance to reunite).

But more profound was its attitude toward love. Toward forgiveness and loyalty and happiness and morality. And of sacrifice.

I would've preferred an ending like this:

Jack sacrifices himself in the pool of water and light. He dies at some point, much like he did. The other three get off the island or the island sinks and disappears. Sideways world happens because Jack wills it with his last breath even though in it Jack becomes the only one who can no longer remember the Island world. That was because he made the ultimate sacrifice: he died and remained lost so others could remember and move on. He then doomed to live out in the gray world, in sideways world, off the island. That would've been harder and more difficult and a more risky play from the show than they may have been willing to take. But would've been infinitely more profound. One character remains LOST. C'mon. How did they not think of that!

Anyway, I've thought about this all day and made updates to this post and I know that I'm not done thinking about it. And I miss that it's over. And for the Kumbaya moment at the end, I'm more okay with it now that I really do believe that Sideways world was a type of purgatory/gray world That it was timeless and existed when everyone had already died even though some escaped the island, and some didn't and that the island was very much a real place and the events were very much real events (the last shots of the wreckage not withstanding).

It was a great show and this was one of many ways for it to end and that it chose to end like this sits better with me the more I think about the characters and what I loved about the show -- and really, wasn't that the point?

On Lost

2010-05-20T12:37:00.004-04:00

If you've followed me on Twitter, it's been no secret that I love Lost. The Mrs. and I started watching it last summer and finished all five seasons in time for the start of season 6. Sometimes we watched three episodes a night. Once or twice maybe four episodes. Sometimes up till 1 in the morning watching this show. I've maybe not as much invested as those who've toiled for six actual years, but I've got a lot invested in this story. In it's characters and ideas. So to say season 6 has been a disappointment is being nice.

I'm okay with the Sideways world plot-line. My only complaint has been it has sucked momentum out of the Island plot-lines. The cutting back and forth has pulled us as viewers too thin. Too much guess work to see connections between the Sideways stories and Island action. Where cut-a-ways before helped with character arcs within the plot, here they dilute the plot itself. It would have been a better strategy to just concurrently run the Sideways world plot at the start of the season sans Island story. This way we actual invest time and interest in Sideways world. Then, finish the season strong by building straight on the Island plot to the end.

They didn't do that. So where are we?

If this season has done anything it's cleared up Jacob and the Smoke Monster. It has given us back story. It has made the archetypes actual characters. Brilliantly in the "Ab Aeterno" episode too. And for awhile we couldn't decide who was black and who was white. Who was evil and who was good. When the line was drawn for us (or when we were roped into believing who was good and who was bad -- I'll explain) we all seemed to find ourselves on Jacob's side. Jacob was the good guy with the noble heart. And after watching the penultimate episode I found myself very bored. Very bored. I fell asleep. I was annoyed. It was all so predictable. So pedantic in dialogue. So...so... exactly like I was being lulled to sleep by hearing what I expected to here. That Jacob had brought them there. That they were better off for being there. That the island saved them and now they must save it...Blah blah blah. I just considered it a terrible episode and both Jen and I wished the show would just end so we didn't have to care. It felt like the show had just lost something. It's sense of magic. It's sense of a one idea that was making this whole thing have purpose. Everything was heading right where it had no choice but to end. I considered that maybe there was never actually a completed ending when this story first began. That what's coming just happened organically through the writing. I can appreciate that, but this show has always suggested that's not the case. But after this last episode, it felt, well, lost in some plot and character contrived corner and was ready to keel over and just end.

But a lot has been revealed about Jacob and the Smoke Monster/FLocke/MIB in the past two weeks. Last week we saw Jacob a mere patsy for his crazy mother and MIB as a man who sought knowledge and enlightenment. Jacob became narrow minded and cultist in his grasp on the "source"/ "light". Borderline fundamentalistwack job. In this last episode he conceded he was just that. He brought all this people there for his reasons. For his ends. Making the ends justify the means (a philosophy well represented in the six seasons of Lost). He claimed everyone was flawed. But that he only made one mistake and needed to fix it. That mistake? Killing his brother in the first place. So he created this situation and then created the situation to get out of the situation. Selfish. Arrogant. Not what I look for in my hero. And what about the Man in Black? He seemed a good soul. Hard-working. Seeking knowledge and escape from his crazy wacky murderous step-mother. I can appreciate that more than Jacob's patsy attitude.

MIB wanted to reveal the light. To let everyone experience it. And here's my revelation. LOST has drawn from innumerable sources. From religion to history to literature to music. It has referred to a panoply of knowledge. So much so that to call it Christian or to call itKabbalah or to call it pagan pigeonholes it into something it is not. It is consistently universalism . So we have this light source that we are told if it leaves the island, if it is uncorked, will no longer be on the island but unleashed on the world.Hmmm. That seems universalist. And MIB who, we can wonder, is that actual light source (after he was thrown in the cave the light went out and out came the smoke monster), and if he gets out, will give everyone that light. Seems rather noble, again.

Say what you will about FLocke's cold, murderous hand. But he has always given people the choice to follow or not follow. Jacob has been gray at his best. FLocke is black and white. Blame him for Sayid and Sun and Jin but remember he didn't actually kill any of them. Despite what Jack claimed in this episode. Sawyer did it. They did it by making the wrong choice. The choice not to follow him. Call it cold. Call it justice. But he's never beenwishy-washy. He's always been clear. Jacob is controlling under the guise of free-will. But Flocke has always been for free-will and displayed it at all costs. Remember that names have always been referential on LOST. From Lewis to Sawyer to Jack to Locke toBentham to Faraday to Hume to Penelope to Eco. Jacob's name means liar. We don't know MIB's name.

So, I'm rooting for FLocke to win. It explains Sideways world (notice how when all of them see the alternate Island life, it's via a bright flash of light). It wraps up the show very neatly. It shows there was always a set ending in place. And it fits in with so many themes of Lost I can't even begin to get at here (this is long enough, Doc Jensen eat your heart out).

Finally, this Sunday is Pentecost. LOST's pre-season cast photos modeled after the Last Supper painting. There are numerous references in this season to the idea of Easter weekend and beyond. Numerous. And what is Pentecost? When the Holy Ghost was poured out on the world. When he was uncorked from heaven.

At Almost Thirty

2010-04-21T13:08:00.003-04:00

My 30th birthday is this Sunday. I've already received a card from Nana and Grandpy (not allowed to open it yet, but thanks in advance Nana and Grandpy) and three small gifts from the Gilchrests of Waco, TX (slightly disappointed that the included Starbucks Gift Card was not for the $1,000,000 that Eric had penned on the sleeve). The rest of you... let's go. Let's get those gifts here.

If you're looking for gift ideas here are the only three I ever and always ask for and really only ever want if I want of anything: books, coffee, t-shirts. Maybe it's sad, sure. I'm a grown man and I wear t-shirts everyday (it's in the job description, though!). Maybe it speaks of being content. Of having the things that really matter: health, salvation (as much as I can be sure of something like that -- oohh, there's some theology for you), family, friends, two really wonderful and special children and the stillness and passion of loving and being loved. But if you're looking for gift ideas, I only asked that the coffee be of good quality; used books and Goodwill t-shirts are preferred.

I suppose at this point in my life I should muse over the past. That I should entertain and relish those things I am thankful for, those things I have learned from, those things I have striven and attained and those things I've yet to attain. And I suppose I've done that as I approach this day. But not more or less than I've done it in approaching any other day -- or tried to do. Yet one thought in the past months that has circled the drain of my 20s has been my enjoyment of fairy tales. I know on Twitter I've mentioned that I like them more at almost 30 than I did as a child. I'm not sure why exactly. But get past your conception of the word. Though here's a perfect sermon on why you should and can(seriously listen to it. It's inspiring. And on Easter!).

And here's Chesterton on it:

"In the fairy tale an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition.
A box is opened and all evils fly out.
A word is forgotten and cities perish.
A lamp is lit and love flies away.
An apple is eaten and the hope of God is gone.”

And Tolkien on it:

[Fairy tale] does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat...giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy;
Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

I find great pleasure in seeing the imaginative side of things. Seeing things maybe as not what they are but maybe what they could be. Sure, it's not always the realistic viewpoint, but it's also not idyllic. My worldview takes into account much that isn't right and allots for it. But it sees past that -- or tries to. Maybe this is of fairy tales. Maybe I just walk around with the magical realist viewpoint. Maybe I'm crazy and maybe my 30s will fix all of this.

But for right now, at almost 30, give me that warm hand I love to hold, and lips I love to kiss, that merriment of laughter I love hearing every morning, some coffee, a crisp t-shirt, an old book, ripped jeans, some sunshine, a cool breeze, maybe a birthday party at a giant indoor playground for adults with lots of bouncy things to bounce on and into, a melody with a hook and a beat.

Tell me it's all a fairy tale. And I'll tell you it's my life. My incomprehensible joy and happiness that is based on the incomprehensible condition of me: a man who insists upon always wearing t-shirts and ripped jeans.

On Broken Things

2010-03-29T20:16:00.002-04:00

It's been the better part of the past two days but certain things around the house have been fixed. The blinds have been taken down and new ones installed: white, faux-wood ones. Then there's the leaky bathtub faucet which has been plaguing my quiet moments for four months. I finally got the whole thing disassembled thanks to my frustration and a hacksaw. After some running around, I found the replacement part and we're back in business; that means the water's back on in the house.

But as I finished cleaning up the final project tonight, I found myself circling a kind of drain. A steady maelstrom going around and round. I am waiting for what I fixed to be broken again. I'm listening now for the drip that I can feel coming. I'm anticipating Isaac swinging at the blinds and destroying them again. Call it a lack of faith, but it's inevitable. What's fixed will be broken again.

Quite possibly we lose our faith in products and machines and even people when they breakd0wn. For right or for wrong we expect them to maintain their equilibrium. Their status quo of reliability. I for one don't always mind a broken and fixed item. I buy refurbished Apple products (same warranty, 15% cheaper). I buy cars used. I read books from the library. Yet still this feeling lingers. Even my previously broken bones ache thanks to some mind over matter thoughts. These things repaired will break down again. They will have to be fixed again. What it must be like for God...

As I take survey of the thoughts present in my quiet moment tonight, as I come to the realization of things fixed and things broken, I am quieted even more by the importance of not making junk in the first place. There's a whole theology in that. Know things in this life aren't perfect. Love, passion, happiness, joy. It's all flawed somehow. It's all besought with mortal wounds. But it's got built into something that bespeaks the ideas of a Quality. Of Not-Junk. And so if those things must break, let it be so; it will be an easy repair. But may we not lose faith in them.

As for my faucet repair, stay away from the Delta 1700 Monitor series. And from me, the plumber.

The Pacific Northwest

2010-03-26T13:06:00.003-04:00

Perhaps it's because the last MFA application I'm waiting on (due any day now) is from a school in the Pacific Northwest. Seattle. Maybe it's because the book I'm currently reading, "Snow Falling on Cedars", is set on an composite island in Puget Sound. Maybe it's because I've been there. Been to Seattle. Visited Mt. Rainer. But I've been enamored all morning with Washington State.

Sitting over breakfast with Isaac I was suddenly warmed by the memory of a picture taken on our honeymoon at the national park at the base of Mt. Rainer. Jen is standing in a red t-shirt and light brown cords. Her then long black hair pulled tight. Sunglasses atop her head. Head tilted, eyes squinting in the sunlight. Small in the foreground set against the backdrop of the mountain. It's a picture of her I love. Loved taking it. Love looking at it. And holding it, I can feel the mountain trembling in my hand at her beauty.

The trees in Washington, especially around Mt. Rainer, are massive and prolific. They stretch high and tall into cloudless blue skies (incidentally, Seattle gets less rainy days per year than New York City). The landscape envisions most accurately what G.K. Chesterton surmised of man's attempt to place himself in relation to the universe, "Man has always been small when compared to the nearest tree". And I have never seen trees that tall anywhere else. Sequoias I think is what they were. Stolid giants stood still over time. Possibly speaking slowly, like Fangorn. Telling us, in the slight swaying of the branches, their names over the millenia. For a moment that that trip through the forest on our honeymoon, I had a moment to listen to them. To stand, small and contrite and in awe of the structures of nature.

What I hear today is that memory of a time some eight years ago. And that I am still small. Small compared to the Sequoia. Small compared to the pine tree teetering next door. Small next to the saplings. But I have a love that is giantesque. A love, I suspect, that has only just got around to speaking to me her name.

Knives and Spoons

2010-03-25T19:50:00.003-04:00

Maybe it's a sign of this generation but occasionally phrases arise that spark in me this idea, "Hey, that would make a great blog title!" It's the transference of doing it for band names I suppose (do they even have bands in music these days?). But as I'm doing dishes this afternoon (yes, we do not have a dishwasher. And once Lucy is off the bottle... please let it be soon. No more bottles to hand wash)... Anyway the phrase "Knives and Spoons" popped into my head. This probably had more to do with the inordinate number of knives and spoons I've noticed I wash on a daily basis. So if I were to write a blog about being a post-modern housewife I would call it "Knives and Spoons".

Then it occurred to me that I may be measuring my life in terms of knives and spoons. In terms of the banal work around the house I do daily as a result of me being home with the kids. T.S. Eliot's Prufrock certainly had a similar sense about him, proclaiming "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons". It's been easy to succumb to this entrapment of sorts. Recently I've been bombarded with 4 MFA rejection letters. Part of the staying home and not working idea the Mrs and I had was so that I could work on my writing. And I have (not on the blog though). I've gotten better. Yet here I sit with four rejection letters in front of me- on my inspiration board no less. There's still one school I'm waiting to hear from -- so maybe... Regardless of what transpires I've found myself slipping into the temptation of "Knives and Spoons". Of seeing myself unapart from the daily routines. Perhaps it's the failure of MFA applications -- the embarrassment of failing anyway is certainly palpable. So I've measured my life, I've discovered, my days by the daily tasks. The coffee spoons, the peanut butter knives, the diapers, the bottles, the hours.

But the preceding line in Eliot's poem is transcendent. It's the realization of the best part of why I am staying home. For I "Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons". I have had time with my children. With my son. With my daughter. With my wife. I have had days upon days of books and building blocks and Curious George and bike rides and soccer and crawling contests and standing contests and singing and OREOs while watching LOST. And not only have I had them. But morning, noon and night I have known them. Felt them in the deepest and best parts of the chambers of my soul. And I know that I am lucky and that I am blessed. And I know that I am loved because yesterday Isaac on one of our patented early evening bike rides turned back to look at me and the Mrs and said, "It's my mommy and my daddy. And I love them."

So is it worth it, after all -- Prufrock senses us asking, I sense myself asking as I count the knives and spoons and rejection letters. I will certainly have the knives and spoons tomorrow and the next day. But I will also have the human voices that will wake me. And they are singing, often. And to me.

On Six Months

2010-01-15T21:48:00.004-05:00

We are celebrating Lucy's half-birthday. I recommended half-cupcakes in honor of the occasion; alas, no. But here I am, 6 months into my daughters life. I am fully invested in diapers and bottles (again) and making our own baby food. Fully immersed in getting her to roll over, crawl forward, sit up and laugh. Laughing the best part. Lucy, like her brother, loves to laugh. Mostly at him. The way he dances about and sings songs to her. Her laugh is true and simple, full to the brim with happiness and joy. And like the best of all laughs, utterly contagious.

With Lucy it's been a different experience entirely. And not because she's a girl or because she's the almost opposite of Isaac in temperament. But because I'm around. I was around for Isaac, always. But I wasn't home for Isaac. And wow what I missed -- I realize now. I am home now. For four of the six months. Like I said, fully in the process of her growing up. Right before my eyes.

Being home has been a blessing. How Jen and I did it before, I don't know. Why we did, I don't know -- I do, but... This is better. Raising your kids is better. Watching Lucy outgrow clothes isn't as sad, because you realize she's worn that outfit everyday for two months because she goes through six outfits a day because she throws up all the time (ask Isaac, "she spits up", he'll say. He'll also jump out of the way if she even burps and he's across the room to begin with. "She can't spit up that far Isaac," we'll say. But it doesn't matter).

Lucy hasn't outgrown many clothes. She's little. Maybe a little too little even. Enough that we're monitoring it. Increasing food where we need to. Some of it may be because of the September scare she gave us -- in the hospital for almost three days. But she's little -- she'll be little. But man can she eat. Out eats her brother at this age. Complains to me because she's hungry after I've just fed her three helpings of sweet potatoes.

Have I mentioned the laughter? That our house is filled with it? We named her in part because her name meant light. And she's brought light to the house -- to other people (see previous entry). But she's brought the lightness of merriment. Of joy unmitigated by constraints of time. There has been time aplenty for her to laugh and smile and cackle, and time for me to enjoy it. So maybe that's it. Maybe that's where her light to me has been cast: showing me the absolute importance of time and of making time.

And in one more place: she lights up when I enter a room. Literally lights up. A switch goes on. A jolt of energy released. A 108-minute button never pushed. Smiles, eyes wide and blue. Recognizes and exudes a smile of recognition and happiness when she sees me. There is no feeling that encompasses that moment. No real way to describe it. You know it when you see it. When it blinds you.

And you never forget it.

On An Experienced Joy

2009-11-14T21:45:00.004-05:00

Bottom line: My kids bring me an unquantifiable amount of joy. Joy, my pastor described recently, understood as a sustained happiness. For me, I ask no questions after a day of battling with Isaac to take a nap or be potty-trained (Only three pairs of pants today!) that a simple gesture or comment or facial reaction can resonate so deeply as to make the whole day seem like it was filled with that singular moment. I don't contemplate why. I analyze everything and I don't analyze that when it happens. Because it fills me with such joy for my son.

It's another thing entirely to understand that your child can do that for others. Today, Lucy made a surprise visit to her aunt's work to see the elderly women she cares for. One of the particular women, well into her 90s, recently suffered several strokes and has been put on hospice. Today had been quite a bad day for her. And so to her came Lucy, all 10lbs of her, wrapped in blankets and jeans and a t-shirt. Both frail, both communicating in simple ways. She held Lucy for 20 minutes. Silently. More than one can count, Dolores pressed her faint lips to Lucy. Watched her. Smiled weakly at her. Lucy reciprocated it in the way babies do. Never took her eyes off of her. Lucy was the first to fall asleep. Dolores soon followed, holding Lucy has tightly and lovingly and joyfully as her old arms would let her.

I heard this story when I returned home tonight. I felt proud. Not of my daughter's ability to comfort and provide a joy for a particular person. She's four months old. She smiles and then toots. But a pride at what exists outside merely parental love. That things can be shared and experienced that truly can sustain us. Great things. Deeply felt things. Musical things like: Love. Joy. Laughter. These are the sustained and suspended chords we experience. Even if and though we know life will resolve itself again tomorrow.

Return From Absenteeism... For The Moment

2009-11-12T21:34:00.003-05:00

It's been a long while since I've written anything here. That's a small shame because so much has happened in the interim. Let's see: I've stopped working and am now staying home with the kids; I've been to Florida to visit my brother; I've watched Lucy grow into a magnificent, face-lighting smile and red hair and have been stymied by how Isaac has grown like a weed with opinions; I've watched my fantasy football team go from promising to mediocre to frustrating to Red Sox circa 1993 (seriously, I've been scouring waiver wires for Tim Naehring and Jody Reed and some guys named Billy Joe Robideaux and Carlos Quintana); and made it through the first four seasons of LOST in less than two months -- really, the best show I've seen in a long, long time (Dad, since you're the only one reading this, you should really watch it 'cause you'd watch it like me). So a lot's gone on. Fertile ground for blogging that I've just not done. And maybe won't do again but I've got a small case of writer's block tonight and was looking back over old posts and remembered that, on occasion, this outlet was fun.

One thing I've noticed since I've stopped working is all those things that I thought we're important or, rather, worth my time. Blogs I've stopped reading. Sites on the Internet I've just completely done without. It's funny now, but, clearly those were absolute ways to waste of time while I was at work. Or, maybe more to the point, ways to spend time when I couldn't spend it doing the things I really wanted to do. And the thing I've really wanted to do was be a Dad. And a writer. And a husband. I was those things before, but, now, I've got fewer obfuscations to those goals.

Lucy is a red-head. Beautiful. A smile that literally lights up her face. It's the best joy to be the first one she sees after waking from sleep. She can currently roll-over and has out-grown her clothes which shows me how fast it's all moving.

Isaac can count to 15. He is learning his letters. He can operate the CD, DVD, computer, ice-maker, and our iPhone's flawlessly but can't manage to go the bathroom in the toilet. His prayers are hysterical and challenging and humbling every night-- I know why God is God: it's because of the prayers of children. And he talks to his imaginary friends Dora, Bob the Builder, Boots and Swiper on a daily basis. Oh, and he's scared to death of train whistles.

So I'm here. I'm well. And I'm writing more than ever before, just not here (and I'm not counting Twitter). And that's because I'm inspired more than ever before. Oh, and Frank Gore just scored a touchdown so maybe I'll win my fantasy game this week.

Fresh From God

2009-07-22T22:12:00.005-04:00

We have enjoyed every moment with Lucy. And while she sleeps a lot, she's starting to become aware of her surroundings, quietly. Tonight, a snippet of this and, to borrow the phrase of a little girl in the store the other day, I invite you to watch it, because she's fresh from God.

On The Day She Came

2009-07-16T22:09:00.005-04:00

Lucy Hall. Lighter than her brother, smaller too. Looks a good deal like him at this point. Though, the Mrs. informs me she has a sprouting, Daddy-like cowlick. Her eyes are shyer than Isaac's, always half-hid, darker and still that bold beautiful blue. Yes. She has burrowed into my heart very nicely.

We named her Lucy for a couple of reasons. Both coming to each of separately. The Mrs. likes the named because of it's meaning: "Light". Which gives us, now laughter and light in our house. A grand metaphor for our two children. My passion for it came about from "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" which stands as my favorite children's book. Lucy was the main character in that story. The first into Narnia and it's wonders. I imagine my little girl taking me to those types of places. To snow-covered lands with anachronistic lampposts and strange white stallions. And a talking Lion.

On the Day She Came we completely expected her to arrive. We didn't wait long for it, only some three hours. We are happy happy happy. Isaac held her numerous times, put his giant hand on her little face in awe at the size difference between the two of them. On the day she came I held her the first time and cried. Unexpectedly. Softly. Proudly. The Mrs cried long, fast, wet tears.

The day she came is winding down. I'm at home. Mom and Lucy are sleeping or feeding or holding each other in that Pieta, that impenetrable shield of love between mother and child. The words fade with the minutes. The ideas and thoughts and phone calls have dwindled for the moment. I'm left trying to figure the wonderfulness of it all out. And I can't. I can't. But it's there, hidden, burrowed down into my heart, waiting to burst forth in those glorious moments of parenthood. Those times when you're caught unawares and left unhinged by the abounding love and joy your child brings.

And so on the the day Lucy's come, to borrow a phrase, I'm willing to rip open my chest and find all the new treasures that are there.

On The Day Before You Came

2009-07-15T10:48:00.002-04:00

I'll be honest, I thought this day had already come. Every morning I woke up, I tried to ruminate on the previous day: Was that the day before you came? But that day just hasn't happened until now. So I woke up this morning, three times: Once to meet your brother at the foot of our bed, once with my head cricked on the bean bag in your brother's room and third time back in my bed. I woke up this morning, the day before you came and so far nothing much has happened. I made myself a cold coffee drink and a bagel. Your brother gave me a kiss before I left and told me "Bye Daddy, see you in the morning." He says the funniest things. I just finished some pretzels and downed a liter of water. I wanted a snack from the vending machine but it was found lacking.

I know your mother (who your brother affectionately has taken to calling Moms) is nervous. Her mind, if I know her, is wandering today. Mine too, for that matter. I wonder incessantly about you. What you will look like, how you will laugh and sing and dance. How you will react to your mildly insane older brother who will smother you with his affection and opinions. I wonder about all the things a typical parent wonders about. How much will everything change tomorrow? Beyond that: how much will it change like we are expecting it to change? I know, slightly metaphysical for you. Perhaps I won't read this to you until you're a little older then.

I'm trying to think if I've got anything profound to offer you about the day before you were born. If some prescient bright shining star or angelic rapture or heaven stricken silence has occurred. Some moment that signifies the leaping off of some great height, across some great chasm, landing, tomorrow, with you in our arms. And on the day before you come, I've not been able to find anything. And I think it's because I don't know you yet. I don't know, that maybe the way the sky has cleared brilliantly will be indicative of your eyes. Or that I've heard a song on the radio that will one day be your favorite song. Or the man you will marry was born today. Or your best friend was born today on the day before you came. Or the person who will help you the most in this life stubbed their toe and set off a serious of events that will culminate in the moment you need them the most. I don't know.

I know this day will meld into tomorrow and the next and next. That your presence in my life will work backwards. That's how love tends to work. It stretches out infinitely in the present, reaches ahead of us into the future, and becomes inextricably and inexorably intermingled with our pasts.

The rest of my day will pass by. I'll finish work. Go to the gym. Go home. Have dinner with your grandparents and aunt and cousins -- spaghetti!- and spend my night trying not to think about what I can't help but think about. Maybe I'll look for a profundity or two for you. One I'll share with you and tell you about over and over again. One you'll get tired of hearing but will want to hear nonetheless. I'll keep my eyes and ears open.

But as this night wanes, as it heads off to that second star to the right and I close my eyes and put my hand across Moms belly and feel you kicking inside, on the day before you came, I will say to you "Good night, sweet daughter, see you in the morning."

The Descent

2009-06-12T19:36:00.001-04:00

I think it must have taken a lot for him to come down. To wander out so aimlessly into the darkness. To measure each step so accurately, trusting eyes that barely knew how to see but needed to see depth. And the darkness. Existing in a world he was not at all familiar with. Without the ambient light he ascended with. Or was forced to close his eyes too. The world was much different than he remembered, if he remembered at all. But down he came.

I think he must’ve felt trapped. From where he was he could see the moon and the stars and faint blowing breeze dancing on the tops of the trees. Down here he must’ve felt trapped in his father’s house. Destined to walk a path that a hair’s breath on either side would have succumbed him to the unfettered and unsoothable pain of something as simple as a stubbed toe. Maybe it was a pain he was prepared for. But I contend that a pain you know is coming is far worse than one you get blindsided with because you can do nothing to stop it. The world down here: in a succulent darkness. But down he came.

I think of the timber of his heart. The courage to risk the fall to risk it all to descend and traverse and withstand what he feared most: knowing the absolute worst could happen. And whatever measure of choice brought him to the penultimate moment, to the riskiest risk in the darkiest darkness, I cannot imagine the courage it took for him to speak.

We did not hear him as he called out from right over our heads, loudly, screaming at us asleep in our darkness. What made him think we would hear him even if he stood in our very presence, knowing we were very much asleep. What kind of courage it takes to endure a descent into such darkness and yield such a little but bright colored word that can so powerfully awake us, is something you’ll need to ask him.

But last night, down Isaac came, from his new room upstairs to the foot of our bed before calling out in a final breath: “Momma”. It’s a journey I don’t think he was the first to make.

Imaginary Conversations That Lead To Real Events

2009-03-24T12:04:00.005-04:00

Characters:
Isaac: a freshly turned two-year old with blue eyes. Able to compose short sentences such as "I wanna play DS" and "Bye-bye Daddy". Remarkable sense of balance. Short.

Tiffany: almost three; bright blue eyes. Doesn't speak using contractions. Tall for her age. Likes to play with dolls.

Aaron: concerned twentysomething parent who is busy upstairs. Finds humor in random things.

Setting:
Interior of two-story home; other children and adults milling about on second-story. Isaac and Tiffany are downstairs in living room. Isaac is holding a Nintendo DS; Tiffany a generic baby doll.

Isaac: Hey Fee! I'm playing DS.
Tiffany: I can see that Eye-Zack. You are having fun?
Isaac: Yuh! DS!
Tiffany: Well, I am playing with my doll. She is pretty. I am pretty.
Isaac: Yuh! Momma?
Tiffany: Mommy is upstairs, Eye-Zack. I need a tissue.
Isaac: Yuh! Tissue. Nose! (points to his own nose histrionically)
Tiffany: Yes, Eye-Zack.
Isaac: Bathroom. Yuh? Go.
Tiffany: Okay, Eye-Zack. We can go get tissues.
Isaac: Yuh! DS. Gross. Needs tissue.
Tiffany: So does my baby doll.

Isaac and Tiffany walk together to bathroom. Tiffany half-shuts the door behind her. The bathroom is dark, a soft yellow light filters slightly through the brown shower curtain.

Tiffany: Here you go Eye-Zack (hands Isaac a tissue)
Isaac: Nose. Tissues.
Tiffany: Tissues are cool. I use them on my nose. And so does my doll.
Isaac: I play DS. Nose!

Loud banging noise heard overhead. Aaron comes pounding down the stairs calling for Isaac and Tiffany. Sees the bathroom door half-open.

Aaron: Hey guys, what are you doing in here?

Isaac is polishing the DS with a handful of tissues. Tiffany is rubbing the dolls head with the tissues.

Scene.

A Memory: Earl and Marge

2009-03-17T10:44:00.004-04:00

It always fascinates me, the things that jog and stir memories. The catalysts that can launch us into the seemingly insignificant, yet vivid details of our pasts. I was just heating up some leftover orange chicken (with rice)...

The engineers were discussing a recent funeral for one of the workers' great and distant aunt. A woman who lived to 97. But in doing so had outlived the people who knew her. And as a result, the worker had to be a pallbearer at her funeral even though he barely knew her. For some reason that reminded me of Marjorie Blundell. Struck to life an occurent memory: I was a pallbearer at her funeral.

Marge was a tall, thin woman. She wore vintage horn-rimmed glasses and had jet black hair that flared out over her ears. Small eyes; a round, sharp face. I don't remember ever hearing her speak, and if she did, her voice was too soft, too frail and unsure to leave an impact. Marge just had an air of lightness and simpleness about her. She could've walk on top of a snow drift, if the wind didn't carry her over it.

Then there was her husband Earl. The church's janitor. A grumbling curmudgeon with a large face, weighed with jowls, had heavy, hunched shoulders, the type of walk that made you wonder how he got anywhere before the day expired. Earl mumbled, seemed always to be talking to himself about something. He was a simple man as well, a simple, short man with giant hands and a massive heart. He was could've been much younger than he seemed. But at the same time, the aspects of devotion and loyalty he showed to Marge and the church couldn't have been learned in a hundred lifetimes. I knew that then and I know it now.

I remember my dad telling me to always respect Earl. To help him carry bags of clothes to the back. To tear down tables and put them back up myself if I wanted to use the gym; or the gym needed to be set-up for church functions I needed to do it for Earl. And anytime I could help Earl, I needed to help Earl. Even though his temperament scared me as a teenager.

And from that memory came a haunting piece of Scripture. A verse my father told me Earl expressed to him when asked why he continued to work well past retirement. A verse that was his life's verse. One that made him happy and summed everything up about Earl. And I remembered that verse.

My heart, for the rest of the day, was reheated by those memories of Earl and Marjorie.

On A Year: March 12, 2008 - March 12, 2009

2009-03-12T22:55:00.003-04:00

Isaac woke up this morning a little early and very much cold. Seems he and his cousin messed with the thermostat the previous day, unbeknownst to all of us, resetting the entire schedule. Resetting it to 60 degrees. Not to mention his abject disapproval of socks on his feet while sleeping, he was very cold this morning, in the hour before dawn. So he laid in bed under the blankets with us. Warming to the day. Listening to us sleepily tell him Happy Birthday.

When he got up he noticed decorations, multi-colored streamers, dangling from his door. Then more cloaking the back of his highchair. He flicked at them. Giggled. Then he noticed a giant Happy Birthday banner above the table to the right. He pointed to it and smiled and called out for Momma. He smiled real big and pointed to it. Real big. Today was going to be something a little different.

I'm not sure it ever set in for him. Even though he peeled away wrapping paper on present after present. I'm not sure it dawned on him when we sang to him and convinced him to blow out his birthday cake. Not like it dawns on the Mrs and me. Our son is Two Years Old.

Last year I penned lines about the abundance of love Isaac had instilled in us. How something very big had happened and transpired and transposed it's greatness so firmly into our lives that it had stumbled back into the past and was pouring out into the future. My point was to describe the magnitude of it. The infiniteness of it. Another year has just exponentially increased infinity for us.

But the grandeur of that love is felt most deeply in the tiny, yet infinite space we have traversed between 1 and 2. It's in the little things, the infinitesimals, that I have loved Isaac most this past year. Tickling sessions. Simple words. Running. Jumping. Sentences. Dancing to songs (even if it is All The Single Ladies! (and Ray LaMontagne!)). Reading books. Animal sounds. Brushing his teeth. Riding bikes. The first year was about the largeness of it all. This year was about the glorious details emerging.

Tonight, weary and up way past bed time, I rocked him to sleep. He puts his head into the crook between arm and shoulder, and arches his neck just a little. His body relaxes and collapses. But his eyes are open in the darkness. And he is looking at me as his day fades under heavy eyelids. I sing to him. In one of those little moments. I sing to him Happy Birthday. And I ask if he wants me to sing it again. "Yeah." So I sing it again. Quietly into his ear as his eyes disappear.

I put him in bed.

His bare feet creeping out from under the blanket.

Happy Birthday Isaac.

How I love you.

On Reading The Bible

2009-03-11T12:28:00.002-04:00

For around a month now I've been reading the Bible. I've tried in the past. Never getting much past Exodus, at times hardly through Genesis. The Bible is a difficult book to read. An anthology of short stories, epics, poems, history, cultural hieroglyphs like Leviticus. It's hardly cohesive in style; wildly, powerfully cohesive in theme. I've tried, in the past, to read the Bible from a certain vantage point. From a theological perspective. A devotional perspective. An historical perspective. This time around, it occurred to me to read it as a book, from a literary perspective if you will. Even picking up a literary approach to the Bible version(which, for the most part, I've abandoned for the convinence of my iPhone's multiple versions and ease-of-read on-the-go. I only revert to the actual book form at home).

This all seems simple and rather obvious. After all, it's the Greatest Story Ever Told. But it's not an easy read. It's an anthology and who reads anthologies of Mr. Norton all the way through? The final four books of the Torah alone can trip you up. Lure one into negligence and absolute boredom. Make one rethink or all together abandon the desire to read the Bible. But get through it. Skip parts if you have to (especially since it repeats soooooooften). And once you are through it -- into the promised land of stories-- you will never want to put it down.

This gets me to why I've become more engaged by the iPhone version. Because I can read it anywhere at anytime. I can, effectively, never put the book down. And sure, with a cup of coffee and a dark, cool spring evening, I will flip through the actual book form. But, for the most part, the bulk of my Bible reading has occured on my phone.

Anyway. I love Genesis. Parts of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The final four you should read because Moses is a fascinating character. Truly fascinating. I was abjectly depressed when I found out Moses couldn't get into the Promised Land -- even though I already knew he didn't. And knew why he didn't. I mean. It's just sad. Just really, really sad. Joshua is enjoyable and rewarding -- hey, we're finally here!. Judges is awesome, horrible, terrifying, morally weird but filled with stories you will never forget. Like my Dad says, it's a Western. And I love Westerns.

Ruth is my favorite book. As this funny and enjoyable Slate reviewer summarized brilliantly:

No smiting. No prophecies. No laws. No kings. No God. Just the story of one family and its two good women.... it shows Bible laws in action... Ruth is the quietest of all Bible books, a short story that manages to combine extraordinary power and extraordinary serenity.

I agree. I love Ruth. It's details. It's romance (Rebecca and Isaac is still the best though. When they look up and see each other for the first time...) Love where it is juxtaposed where it is in the Christian Bible (as opposed to the Jewish versions) because 1 Samuel starts off where Judges seemed to end. But Ruth. Ruth is just a great story. In a much greater story.

So that's where I stand. Looking forward to 2 Samuel and beyond. David is in the picture now. I have felt the coming of this man. Felt him coming in the LCD pages before.

And that's the sign of a great book.

It's A Girl. It's A Girl. It's A Girl.

2009-03-03T13:56:00.002-05:00

I went not expecting to know. I went not expecting to have the opportunity. I went not thinking my life was going to change. I went to bring her dinner.

But sure enough we ended up with a few minutes and an empty trauma bay (the same one that welled me when I was sick with pneumonia two years back). The Mrs was ready to know and so was I. There, the ultrasound machines are LCD screens. Far from the gray-scale flickerings of the OB/GYN office. It was portable, so we wheeled it over to the trauma bed. All this with the happenings and ringings of the white-walled, tile-floor hospital buzzing just beyond the room’s amniotic sterility. Just beyond the double doors.

Within moments there she was. Clear as day. Bottom up. Bones highlighted in the sound waves. There was her femur. There was her spine. There was her skull. From the side she was kicking. It was eerie, almost in slow motion that the white on black highlighted bone reflected out into the screen and back. She was moving… And she was clearly a she. We made sure. Went over and over the image. Then over and over our daughter’s sound resounding image. In the silence. In breath-taking irony of the trauma room.

The Mrs didn’t trust her eyes, nor mine (which, believe it or not, have been subjected to numerous x-rays and ultrasound images over the course of my life and our marriage. I saw Isaac’s broken leg on the x-ray easily, for example). So there I was, sworn to secrecy, sworn to keep the secret that we were having a little girl. A little, beautiful girl whom I had just seen for the first time. I went not expecting… and left absolutely certain that there are these things in life that amount to all the beauty I can take.

Yesterday it was confirmed. All gray-scale and hazy and on a monitor the size of my phone. But there she was. Isaac’s little sister.

Our little girl. She who carries our love.

Tweeter-de-deedily Deet

2009-02-19T22:18:00.004-05:00

Why I'm doing this remains unclear. What I hope to achieve (I must needs always have goals) remains unclear. But I'm Twittering, even though it sounds more like a bird with Turrets than a social networking fad. This coming from the man who rails ceaselessly against the social-isms Facebook and MySpace.

Actually, I think Twittering is more of an onomatopoeia. But, of course, you only hear it when the Fairy Godmother's out back changing your year-old rotting pumpkin from Halloween into a sleek ride to the ball. So odds are you're not familiar with the Twittering sound itself (cf. "Bedknobs and Broomsticks").

I think, at the least, it will provide fodder for this blogger. For longer exposes on the things that are really close to being nothing at all. Now all my ideas could have the uniting quality of lasting value! Well... with a little help from my Fairy Godmother anyway (who, is, as it turns out, is not much older than me and had the unfortunate lack of foresight to sell some of her stocks high. Not all of them mind you. So she's not out on the street or anything. But, well, she can't quite retire by the time it strikes midnight any more).

Let's see how this goes...

The Curious Case Of The Trash Can In The Wind Storm

2009-02-12T10:35:00.004-05:00

I have a limited, sophomoric understanding of physics. But what happened last night seems impossible. The wind was strong all night. A great, unseen staccato of gusts shook the house, flickered the power, and moved my trash can. But not only moved it. Guided it through a Borgesian labyrinth to the front of the house, nestling it in a cement corner of the house and steps.

I have drawn this phenomenon to scale, with the Trash Can represented in light blue, and the two possible paths in black and yellow:

Now the black line is the course I believe the trash can took. The yellow line represents the more plausible course. However, this feels more implausible when one considers the dynamics of navigation required amidst the wind tunnel between the two houses, the degree of the right angle and lack of space between the two cars. However, the black line is also unlikely given the fact that the gate (two barn-type, shoulder-length doors), represented in brown, opens towards the cars and the space between the red car and the house, while enough exists, hardly merits the likelihood of successful of travel without setting off the car alarm.

Yet it did happen. And I, in my socks and t-shirt and jeans, pondered it at great length in the aria of wind singing around the house this morning. I traced the possible paths while holding the Trash Can. Measured the breadth of passage between all the necessary straits...

It is indeed a most curious case.

Singular Moments

2009-02-05T10:39:00.004-05:00

As any parent can attest, there are singular moments that epitomize the inexorable joy of being a parent. Moments when the child shows some keen insight into life or expels some uncontainable excitement towards a surprise you worked laboriously. Many times these moments count coo on us. They sneak up. Catch us unaware.

I've shared many in these spaces. But hardly a day goes by without some small instance. Last night, for example, I was holding him in the dark, rocking in the chair, his head buried in my shoulder and a blanket. I was saying "I. Love. Isaac." He responded, at my prodding to he loves: "Love Dadda Momma." I love being a Dad.

But a most notable occurrence came over the weekend. I was away. I wouldn't see him until Monday AM. I knew I would miss him. I even took him to McDonald's for a Friday AM breakfast (he loves pancakes). Something I try to do every time there'll be a significant time lapse. He talks on the phone these days, but still only when it's convenient to him (again, I apologize to all of you he's called at 6:15am on a Saturday). But it's not the same.

Anyway, the entire time I was gone, the Mrs. said he asked constantly for Daddy. Looking all over the house, looking out the window, checking the bed. The Mrs. and Mrs'-Sis. were looking at some of his baby videos on YouTube. Some of those videos include me. And it was those videos that Isaac insisted upon watching over and over again. Now Isaac isn't a computer kid yet (though in another singular moment, he points at the computer and says "Apple"), merely taken to banging on the the keys -- especially the CAPS lock which emits a green LED light when depressed. But his insistence was emphatic. To the point where he sat for the better part of an hour (several times over the weekend) with the computer on his lap, in my recliner, rocking slightly, giggling, pointing out Dadda while watching and re-watching only the videos that included me.

A child's love is persistent and profound and utterly simple. And when it shows itself, in a smile, an expression, a hug, reality comes apart. Whatever Huckabee blanket is torn, from the top down, by these happenings, to think that another one, another child is coming who carries my love...

Working On A Review

2009-02-04T13:39:00.003-05:00

My first Springsteen Album was The Rising. Then, for $10 bucks a few years later, I elected to go with a 4-disc Best of collection. Then I got Devils and Dust. Then The Ghost of Tom Joad, Nebraska, The Seeger Sessions and Magic. Finally: Working on a Dream. I'm a relatively late comer to Springsteen. So much so that for me to even claim The Rising is his best album might get me shot. 41 times too.

I liked Magic. Not at first. Not for a number of listens. And not for the reasons of it being overtly political. I know it is. But it doesn't sound political to me. Not when I listen to it. I'm a sucker for good lyrics I guess. But Magic grew on me. So much so that I get extremely sad when I hear Long Walk Home. Mainly because if you juxtapose that with the grandeur and excellence of Thunder Road, you hear the voice of a musician who's done with the speed, cars and pace of life. Who's set to talk that slow, deep greens of summer walk into the night. It was a great final song for what was to be a final album (not including the tributary Terry's song as a hidden track). It summed it up.

Then I hear word of a new album. And I get excited. Maybe we're stopping to smell the roses on that walk home. Maybe we want to get carried home by a little bit of a breeze. But then Working on a Dream comes out. And I don't like it. And I'm one of a very few who don't.

Gone, most notably, are the Walt Whitman working man dirges backed by the greatest band in the world. Replaced with effervescent lyricism that only works to Bruce's strength when it's just him and his guitar and only then hidden in a story. With the backing depth of the E-Street Band he needs nitty-gritty lyrics. And this album doesn't have that. Too much attention to lyric bridges and chorus' that repeat. Springsteen, in a band setting that echos deeply of rambling instruments, needs to ramble. When he doesn't, everything gets held back. And so I don't like the album.

Working on a Dream and My Lucky Day are cool songs. I like them. But I expect more than a pop music number from Bruce churned out to satisfy that radio hit. Much, much more. I expect unbalanced, rambling poetry. Stories set to music. Almost psalmic in nature. What Working on a Dream is is a manufactured, forced work that, while great because the artists are great, fails to reach the level we'd expect. Except for one thing...

I can't dance. At least not well. But I can hear rhythm. One time, at a dance lesson, the instructor, waiting a half-step for me to begin my role of leading, stopped me after the dance. She said I was one of only a few people she had met who danced to a singular, backing, un-obvious beat of the music. I've thought long about that. How to explain what maybe that means. Music is a lot like math. If a song has a beat. A number of beats per measure. The beats that people dance to. Then maybe what I listen for and hear so vividly is the factor that goes into making that number.

Explaining all that my point is this: on the album, maybe Queen of the Supermarket is the key. The legend. The factor. It embodies the old Whitman rambling poet style with a tinge of maturity and profundity. It has some weird, almost off-putting musical interludes. And the lyrical line delivered with the quiet intensity of beginning a rise to crescendo. This song maybe is the beat to which the rest of the album is to be understood. But even still, I won't like this more than Magic.

And certainly not more than the all-encompassing energy and transcendence of The Rising. And as I talk the long walk home staring into a sky of memory and shadow, I keep finding myself returning to Thunder Road, Rosalita, Sandy, Born to Run, Jungleland. And when I get there...home.... to a place of quiet... then give me any of Bruce's solo stuff.

Peculiar Colloquialisms

2009-02-02T08:11:00.004-05:00

After spending the better part of the weekend out in the snow, it occurs to me that there are some expressions I can no longer tolerate.

A preface: each area of the country is entitled to colloquialisms. Coke/Pop/Soda, Tennis Shoes/Sneakers/Kicks etc. But some are just simply foolishness and resound of malapropisms. Which, if you are not aware, malapropisms sound a little like Moxie tastes.

Here's my recent additions to the annoying colloquialisms list:

1. Toboggan. It's a sled. A type of sled. It is not a hat. Why is it not a hat? Well, simply, because a hat is a hat. Do not ask me why I'm not wearing a toboggan. You can't wear a toboggan. You just can't.

2. Sled Riding. As opposed to Sled Walking? Perhaps Sled Galloping? Just call it Sledding. Hey! We're all going sledding, wanna come? Yeah. That sounds great. Let's go. Who's Car Driving?

3. Major Snowstorm. 8 Inches of Snow over 18 Hours is barely a snow storm. And yet, the roads still are not cleared 36 hours later. "But hey," I am reminded casually and ineffectually, "This isn't Boston, Aaron." Quite astute of you. "But hey," sarcastic, caustic, annoyed "It's not Florida. IT'S THE FREAKING MIDWEST!"

Colloquialisms: The Sound of Moxie Being Made.

Coming Across That Line

2009-01-29T10:50:00.003-05:00

I read frequently throughout the workday. Blogs, websites, news articles. From there, in the evenings with cups of coffee apres-diner, a book. Those books are always, when I have time, listed on the right. I read a lot. At least, I try to read. Admittedly, some days reading the info guide on DISH is as close as I come. And on those particular days, when I "veg", I feel I have unheralded success of "getting home" by "never leaving".

Occasionally, I will stumble across a mantra for the day. A word, phrase or idea that extends past my fluttering eyes. Today's comes from a random blog I stumbled across fumbling through another blog I am an avid reader and proponent for (if not for the name alone). In a not atypical fashion, it involves G.K. Chesterton:

[Man] is also quite extraordinary, and the more sides we see of it the more extraordinary it seems. It is emphatically not a thing that follows or flows naturally from anything else....man would most certainly not have seemed something like one herd out of a hundred herds finding richer pasture, or one swallow out of a hundred swallows making a summer under a strange sky. It would not be in the same scale and scarcely in the same dimension. We might as truly say that it would not be in the same universe. It would be more like seeing one cow out of a hundred cows suddenly jump over the moon or one pig out of a hundred pigs grow wings in a flash and fly...Something happened; and it has all the appearance of a transaction outside of time.

Read the full excerpt...

If you have the patience for a well-thought, hard-at-times-to-follow argument, read The Everlasting Man. It's an effort, but a well worth and hard fought battle, whirling all-the-while-like-a-dervish, a paragon of profundity.

Inaugural Poem

2009-01-21T10:14:00.003-05:00

I was bothered greatly by one thing yesterday. The Inaugural Poem. While I understand that not every poet can be the next Maya Angelou, I ask: can we at least attempt it? Because that was the worst poem I've ever heard. Worst. Ever. While much of it had to do with the way it was read (it is my sincere belief that poets probably shouldn't be the ones to read their own work. Poetry is a cathartic endeavour. It's art expunged. Left to interpretation. A poet reading their poem is interpolation. And it's wrong). See and hear what I mean. I did read it aloud later and it came across much better.

It suffered from a poor panoply of unpoetic words. Chesterton (and Whitman too) will argue me to the death (they win) on this but words like "tire", "pencils", "boombox" and "bus" lack depth and exegetical nuance. And "darning" pushes the edge of poetry as well. Pushes it into the mundane, the muck and mire of everyday life. Poems and Poetry is supposed to put "our heads into the heavens" (take that Chesterton. Your own words). So I was eager to hear the artist's take on yesterday. The person looking down and past and behind and through and alongside.

I was confused by the lines "We walk into that which we cannot yet see" in the middle of the poem when the ending, anti-climatic, demands that we "praise song for walking forward in that light."

Furthermore, if you want me to understand "Praise Song", don't throw at me images. Use sounds and images that inspire sounds. None of the invoked images she chose even approached the power of a song (again, Chesterton, stop talking. I hear your argument loud and clear. I don't disagree with you. I don't. There is great joy in the mundane. In the normal. But is that the function of poetry? C'mon? Is it? That's right. I'm right. Admit it, G.K.).

Overall, I was vastly disappointed with the Inaugural poem -- even upon the re-reading which did make it seem much better.

So I leave you with THE POEM to charge you forward in this new day. I still remember hearing it and being moved during that 7th grade pizza party. Take the time and read it. It's greatness lies in the unassailable timelessness of it. How it was just as striking and brilliant 16 years ago and resonated even more loudly yesterday in me.

The Wrestler

2009-01-19T11:39:00.003-05:00

There is always lots of laughter. Giggling, chuckling, a chortle. And he usually sets himself up across the room from me. I, on my hands and knees, growl, lower my shoulders, engage the enemy. He laughs some more. Puts his hand to his mouth and thinks. But only for instant. I am sure the tactics of Patton cross his mind. Some advanced mathematics perhaps. But it only takes him an instant before he moves forward. Before he is resolved to the fight, to the war, to the wrestle. Sometimes there are weapons. He will use his prized green blanket. Either it will be a cape or a whip. In the latter, picture the stylings of Linus imitating the Power Rangers. And there is laughter. Much, much laughter.

He is a cheater. A little bit of a cheapskate. He will jump on my back, usually by way of my fulcrumed shoulder. From there, he may bite me, right below my scapula. Right on a good piece of skin. It is his arrow. He is Bard and I am the Middle Earth dragon. And I will fall and roll. Throwing him off. Begin again. Subsequent times he will use his fingers, eye gouging, mouth pulling little fingers. The ones not holding the green blanket.

Wrestling is something boys and Dads do. Since time immemorial. Isaac has learned some strategies recently. And it's gotten to the point where it's a little more of a struggle. A little more of a wrestle before it descends into tickling and calling out to Mommy because someones bumped his head or been unfairly (whatever, he ran at me, I just lowered my shoulder and lifted him up) tackled and pinned beneath Daddy.

But there is always lots of laughter. And it is the most fun.

Now unlike a particular wrestling episode with my father, I've yet to break a bone in him. Yet to be forced into naming a place in the living room Peniel. Though I've more than once found it profoundly moving that God wrestled with man. Like a father and son. I know I complain more than often about unfair pinnings, lowered shoulders and have bitten much in my own time. And it is here I am most like my Isaac. Grossly out-manned, out-strengthened, out-maneuvered. Constantly relying on weapons. But each time I am pinned. And there is this great foolishness. This great silliness prevailing over those times. Like I could out-wrestle The Wrestler. Still it is something that must be done. Must needs be part of our relationship. And He presses me, but does not crush. And while laughter does not permeate the engagements, there is, by the end, this deep abiding Joy. A closeness with God. A Peniel.

Tell me, friend, can you ask for anything more?
Tell me can you ask for anything more?

Bylines That Violate My Mantra

2009-01-13T13:13:00.002-05:00

I try hard not to believe in a liberal media bias. It exists. But I like to think better of my fellow journalists. Then I see things like this just today:

1. Byline, CNN.com: Commentary: Bush Still doesn't get it. Ironically the writer of the byline didn't get the article.

2. Byline, Huffingtonpost.com: Catholics Forced to Keep Quiet Over Virgin Visions. Leaves me conviced that the Huffpost et al has a Mad-libs field generator that automatically takes the words Pope and Catholics and Vatican and turns out: Oppression!

Now I know #2 is the Huff Post. It's liberal anyways. I read it as a whetstone. Same reason I will parlay a glance at Fox News. I expected what I read. Doesn't mean it doesn't bother me.

Also Random Question for all: Is buying a cordless drill at an outlet store an example of irony? I'm white. I like irony.

Text Messaging

2009-01-13T09:24:00.003-05:00

So I'm not one for the latest crazes. Count me in the minute minority of people who don't have a Facebook page or MySpace page. I don't Twitter either. The theory: I have better things to do with the time it would take to keep up with them. And it being not a worthwile exercise, merely a billboard creation in the InterWebs, I truly don't see the long-reaching point. But I'm in the minority.

And until lately I've not been a fan of text messaging. Mainly because of the labor it took to weild a worthy message; i.e. typing on a telephonic keypad. But, with my new virtual keyboard, typing is a breeze (unfortunately I can't send pics unless you have an iPhone -- nor can I receive them from you). I can even type big words: shout at me your imprecations!

Yesterday, after a brief conversation with my pastor, I was needling for the 411 on some things, I received a txt msg from him, complete with what I had asked for. At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about that. My pastor? txt msging?

See I've always believed that IMing and Txt msging don't foster good communication skills. That they acquiesce to the introvert/social pariah in all of us. I believe that, in part. They don't foster those skills when one uses them in place of talking to a person directly -- albeit by phone or in person, the former which doesn't actually do much for communication itself seeing as how it omits two important facets of communication skills. But to send a quick note off to someone about something that remind one of someone or some such reason as that, I think it's great. Whereas a phone call leaves one with the awkward responsibility of ending a call after what's been said has been said: Really, that was all you called for? (Have you ever tried to end a txt msg conversation though? Is it possible?). Of course txt msging has it's detractions: the frustrating part of limiting yourself to a sentence or two in response because of the time it takes to type out a response so that the other person knows you're responding and doesn't think you're ignoring them and then feels bad and wonders what they did to offend you and wonders if you'll ever talk to them again. Txt msging can bridge that chasm of social awkwardness in some respects. A quick note. Just keeping in touch. Sometimes that's all it takes, really. Because the uniqueness of some daily happenings a phone call undermines.

And I applaud my pastor. It'll cross a line when he txt msgs me his sermon points while he's speaking.

Or if he starts Twittering during the service.

A Triumphant Return

2009-01-09T08:37:00.003-05:00

It's time to return. To begin writing again. To share, vent, propose, challenge, extend, contract, blabber. This morning I came up with the Top Ten things I think about in the shower. I'm not sure why; I'm quite sure it's not funny and so I won't share. Only know that I'm pretty sure it's time to re-frost the bathroom window when I can see what the weather is like outside.

To say life has been simply tough or easy or hard or fun over the past month would do the experience of life no justice. It has deserved no category. It has been an odyssey of "finding and losing and laughing and crying". I have learned much, grown much. And life does that. Stretches and tugs and pulls. Laughter is immensely important, as are a decent pair of sneakers. And to say that airline difficult is easy underestimates the inconsolable experience of my latest aviary excursion. Books can be sloggingly brilliant while sucking every ounce of endurance. A surprise movie is a little delight. Technological arrogance now pervades from my pocket -- and it's awesome.

And if I could have learned everything, I would maintain only this: "winter by spring, I lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever".

Now I have always marveled at the size of humanity. Where we stand in relation to the universe, and the nearest tree. But marvel doesn't describe the weight of glory in seeing your child for the first time, tossing and tumbling:

Einstein the Magician

2008-12-05T16:23:00.002-05:00

Does anyone else think Einstein would have actually made a pretty cool magician?

Cold Fusion

2008-12-05T16:05:00.003-05:00

Does anyone wonder what happened to Cold Fusion? I do. A lot. It had the hype. The cool movie. The high-yield potential. Then... nothing. Fizzle, not fusion. Heck, even Elisabeth Shue's made a comeback.

Doing a search on Google, it's the third item on the search with nothing in the sidebar advertisements urging you to "Buy Cold Fusion at Amazon" or "Cheap Cold Fusion" or "Hot Deals on Cold Fusion". And what the search does reveal is the wikipedia entry.

It's sad, really. A once burgeoning field relegated to the pathological sciences. To the X-Files subdivision of the Department of Energy. It was all the rage and now, bringing it up, seems to enrage scientists.

Where did it go wrong? Is it still possible? From what I've read, the only reason it's not possible is because no one has been able to do it. Since when did science abandon the mentality likened to that parent who pushes and pushes their talented, but not great kid through sports and traveling all-star teams?

When did science get cold feet?

On Books

2008-12-02T13:03:00.002-05:00

Great Op-Ed in the NY Times on the future of books. To wit:

"As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete. Even when builders pound nails by the thousand with pneumatic nail guns, every household needs a hammer. Likewise, the bicycle is alive and well. It was invented in a world without automobiles, and for speed and range it was quickly surpassed by motorcycles and all kinds of powered scooters. But there is nothing quaint about bicycles. They outsell cars."

There's nothing quaint about books. Yeah. I agree.

French Class Moments

2008-11-28T11:50:00.002-05:00

Ever have one of those occurrences where you finally get something. Maybe it was something originally required of you to get. Maybe it wasn't. But I recently had one. It involved the comic strip Non-Sequitur. The one that replaced The Far Side in my local newspaper growing up. I just "got it" the other day.

*Not this particular entry, but the name of the comic as it were. I get this entry; it's mildly funny. I just pulled it from some random place on the Internets. Non-Sequitur never quite replaced The Far Side, but was an adequate comic.

Still, nothing compares to Calvin and Hobbes. Nothing replaced it. Here's the final, saddening and maddeningly glorious final entry:

Imaginations Of The Playground, Pt. 3

2008-11-28T10:49:00.003-05:00

Isaac is a giant fan of the Playground. Ours, two blocks from the house, offset behind a school, features a long, vastly unkempt field one must traverse to get to the Playground. Isaac, excited and expectant, tries to get across the field. He never can. The ocean of grass is too large, too difficult. So he is inevitably carried to the destination. His energy conserved, he will begin to play on the smaller of the two playgrounds. Systematically conquering its slide by swinging dangerously back and forth then shooting himself down the slide. Only once has he overshot the slide. And did so with a great smile.

From this point, Isaac conquers the larger playground's slide. He climbs the half-parabolic wooden steps to the platform, leaps up to the next platform, then across the metal grating and onto the top of the slide. From the tippity top he yells "Hello" to all who will hear. He is on his mountain and looking down on us all from the apex of his incredible journey. Then, circuitously, he unleashes a glee-filled yell rife with static electricity as he plummets towards the slide's mouth. At this point, I either catch him or he semi-lands on his feet in the scattered and damp wood chips. Then, repeat.

Maybe we throw in a stomach-first ride on the swings. Perhaps a daring crossing of the metal, chain-linked ladder that lies parallel to the ground. And sometimes we just stand and watch and look around. And we always say "Goodbye" when we leave.

I am left to ponder this imagination. One that dares to see jungle gyms and slides and monkey bars and swings as jungle gyms and slides and monkey bars and swings. Not that seeing things as they are presented, as tokens and elements of immense joys, is naive perception -- it is, I realize, a great opposite.

Imaginations Of The Playground, Pt. 2

2008-11-26T13:30:00.004-05:00

He has glasses. Those clear-framed ones with the semi-thick lenses. This little boy, no more than 10, wears un-boy like khaki shorts and a khaki button-down top. He also has a dark brown cowboy-like hat and a plastic, play-whip. And the playground, empty, except for his sister and Isaac and me, is his own installment of Indiana Jones.

There is the giant, looming snake pit that requires strength to swing across via the precipitous monkey bars. Evil-doers and monsters plague him, afflicting him with uncounted blows as he ascends and circuitously descends the red slide. Luckily he has this whip, store-bought, long coveted and undeniably needed, especially as they surround him at the slide's delta. He manages to escape and runs, swinging and whipping his arms about, across the cement desert to the more secluded and bastioned younger-kids playground. But his enemies follow. They chase and he fends them off, deftly managing to secure the prized artifact meticulously hidden by his now tether-ball playing sister. And back he runs.

He has his own sound FX. His own soundtrack that mixes plangently with the Star Wars theme. And I am left to ponder this modal imagination. Where the jungle gyms and slides and monkey bars and swings are grand artifices and obstacles and enemies that threaten to destroy humanity. Not that I think fending off imaginary bad guys is an un-heroic task -- in fact, I imagine, a great opposite.

Imaginations Of The Playground

2008-11-23T22:38:00.005-05:00

Four kids played loudly out at the neighborhood playground. The one that sits in the cement lot behind the school, dedicated to a 10-year-old boy who must have tragically passed in 1990. These kids played their version of "House". The game that glamorizes adult-hood to pre-teen eyes. Each part of the playground was an aspect of the house. The mom requisitioned the slide set-up as her "room" of the house. The eldest girl, who decided, after much consideration, that her name was Trinity, had partitioned off the exoskeleton, shell-shaped jungle gym as her room.

The scene they re-enacted set-up like typical picket-fenced, suburbia magic. The mom and other daughter tended to the mundane tidying of the AM in their room, while, for her birthday, the dad (and only male in the troupe lest you impart a reverse Victorian scenario) had gotten Trinity a bike. He brought her over to it, stashed in the "living room" that typically was the picnic-tabled habitat of the warm afternoon school lunches of spring, fall and summer. He covered her eyes and she acted surprised while the mom and daughter shouted accolades and then other suggestions for better playing out the scene. Eventually, it all sadly broke down when Trinity folded back to her real-life persona, took her actual bike and sped off over a disagreement with the "mother".

I am left to wonder and ponder, standing in the dull brown wood chips, this modal imagination. Where the jungle gyms and slides and monkey bars and swings are merely appendices to a house where kids can enact the boring events of adult-hood. Not that giving your child a bike is a banal gesture -- in fact, I imagine, a great opposite.

Christmas Music, Bad Metaphors, Bad Headlines

2008-11-20T07:37:00.003-05:00

A local Christian music station has given itself over to playing Christmas music already. It posits the reasoning rather brilliantly, in the little used metaphor. The music faithful listeners will hear, for the Christmas season, will be sung by artists that the station does not typically give airtime to. Their hope is that this will attract new listeners, which has worked in the past. To wit, they say: "Think of it as cleaning your house before guests come over." No. That's just wrong. It's more like renting a furnished apartment down the block and then cleaning it and then having guests come over. Maybe I'm just sensitive every time my surname is invoked.

Why do we have to play Christmas music? Why? At this point, hearing it, already, is like being invited to someone's house and it's not been cleaned.

The country is up in arms over this. So. They flew private jets. Would you rather have had them drive their Beamers and BMW's and Hyundai's?

This story was frontpage on CNN.com yesterday. Awesome. Inspiring. Only the headline was questionable because it read "Woman receives new lung from stem cells". Which, while not incorrect, reeks of agenda because, asking most people in the country about stem cells and they think the only type of stem cells are the controversial embryonic stem cells. When, in truth, there are more viable and potent stem cells in our own bodies. Yet, the average "logger-on" sees this and thinks, "See, if Bush wasn't an idiot, this would be SOP in America. America Rules! Bush is an idiot! We love America! Change is coming!" However, the stem cells were her own. You'll find that in the 11th graf.Why push forward with funding embryonic stem cell research, which, regardless of religious belief, is scientifically ethically dubious, when there's this method, that is more viable?

Finally, I just saw this when looking for one more thing to go off about. Obama's already ripped Nike's failed "I Can" sobriquet. I say go after VW with something like "American's Wanted." Or, there's the 2004 Red Sox motto, "Idiots" that I'd be okay with pirating. Maybe some take on the Mac-PC campaign and we can have, infused in the music bed, a catchy pop tune that will then become a sensation. Or, maybe, "Nothing Runs like a Deere in the Forest or in ANWR or Utah because there's no way we're drilling for oil on our own soil." There's the politically charged and insensitive, "We bring good things to life."

I need to go listen to some Christmas music; and clean my house.

America, Be Proud!

2008-11-05T14:33:00.002-05:00

America rejoices today. Justice has been served.

Elliot's Hot Dogs

2008-11-03T22:31:00.003-05:00

Describing the nuances of a what makes a hot dog good is like applying Shakespeare to Dumb and Dumber (I could; let's try. Hmm. It's a movie of Infinite Jest. There. I did it. Shakespeare to Dumb and Dumber. Yup. Well. Big Gulps).

Maybe it was the compressed, fried and manually flattened rolls, the thin, flimsy, dripping wet sponge hot dogs they recklessly pulled from the metal vat, the relish sacked in the soggy space between the two, or the tangy, tart and lick-your-lips goodness of Ipswich Ale Mustard (available online!) that leaked over the waxen paper. Eating an Elliot's Hot Dog was a noble cause. One of those food indulgences you suffered the slings and arrows for later on.

I always got three Hot Dogs with the Works. "Three dogs with the works," I'd say. Whether it was at the end of a senior-year day of high school, a snack before an evening church service, breaks in-between Driver's Ed class, or at the end of a long, long out-of-the-way stop from West Virginia, I always got three dogs with the Works (Ketchup doesn't belong on a hot dog. See, someone wrote a book about it. I'm not wrong. You just don't put ketchup on a hot dog).

Best Hot Dog I've ever had. Alas, I knew them well.

Oh, and Dad, I know you didn't like Elliot's Hot Dogs. Not a bit. But if you say "Methinks I smell a rat," well, that just wouldn't be nice because I'm feeling a little lost right now because they closed my favorite place in the whole freaking universe to eat, a place where I spent a lot of my childhood eating at and now that place is gone and I'll never eat there again and so it feels like a huge part of my childhood is gone and just cast aside like it means nothing especially when it's been like two years since I last had those three dogs with the Works and it was like 10pm when I had them in a hotel room and so I don't even think I enjoyed them that much and I didn't get them from the real hole-in-the-wall by the church where I really like to get the hot dogs from the place, where, you could probably quote Hamlet at any other time and I laugh and I'd be like "Yeah, that place! Wow it was a dump!" but I'm just not gonna be like that this time because they closed Elliot's and didn't even tell anyone they were gonna close it so a lot of other people didn't get to enjoy their last Elliot's Hot Dog cause they just didn't know and I think if they knew they would've enjoyed that last hot dog and they wouldn't feel lost and really vulnerable right now. Like me. So, Dad, don't say that.

On The Death Of My Dog

2008-10-31T22:10:00.003-04:00

I was a teenager when we got him, soft and so very small when Mom and my sisters brought him home from the pound. That night, my brother and I had the sole duty of watching him. For more than an hour, the Nebraska springer-spitz chased a bottle around the living room, his hindquarters nearly flipping him over he was so bad at running.

Roni wasn't a dog who did tricks. He wasn't a dog that played fetch. He wasn't a dog that scared people away. Roni was a good soul. He was playful when he wanted to be, loved to be petted and didn't mind spending a whole day sleeping in his own, private area. But get him mad, as my dad could tell you, and he would poop in your "area of the house" when you weren't around -- always funny. With the exception of one occasion involving my nephew, Roni suffered from his bark being infinitely worse than his bite. He was loyal and loving to all of us, fiercely loyal above all else to Mom. He was a great dog.

And I am saddened greatly today.

As my dad said, his death has been "a terrible thing to think about".

Fantasy Football vs. Presidential Elections

2008-10-31T09:36:00.003-04:00

Let me say this, Fantasy Football and Presidential Election years are mostly similar. You have a draft, you're excited about your team/candidate. Then, the real season starts. Players get injured/candidates do stupid things. By the end of it you're yelling at every inconsequential 3rd and 12 where they don't hand it off to the running back who you need to get rushing yards. FFL turns you into a wreck of a human being. Everything starts sounding good and you go against your better judgement: Hey, I need Cutler and Selvin Young to have a big week against the Patriots so I can pull off a 35 point comeback and win my game knowing very well that those odds mean the Patriots must lose. Still, you're oddly compelled. And your scouring the waiver wire for match-ups. It's the FFL-syndrome.

Presidential elections are just like this. You get fired up over little things. You start yelling at stupid things candidates do, stories the media does and doesn't cover, wardrobe costs, erudite put-downs, negative campaigning complaints (what is this T-Ball?), talking points you've heard and heard and heard. You turn into a wreck of a human being. What you originally drafted your vote around has been twisted, injured and is on the practice squad. And the third party candidates are the waiver wire.

I face a dilemma next week. See, there's this thing called the Redskin's Rule in Presidential Election years. And I have Washington's Defense starting in my Fantasy Football League. I need to have a good week from my defense er go I can't have them giving up a lot of points. Essentially, Washington needs to win for me to have a good week in Fantasy Football.

Am I petty and burnt out enough by both seasons to root whole-heartedly for Washington's DEF even if it means four years of McCain, but a FFL win? Well, I know Washington fans who would take a win and live with the next four years. I lived near Pittsburgh; I know Steeler fans who want a win even if it means Obama-Biden for four years (Hilary 2012!).

Maybe Cutler will have a good week...

Another Morning Worth It

2008-10-16T10:12:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was another one of those mornings when Isaac is up with the dawn -- in the hour before morning. And it was an amalgam of the pinching, biting, scratching, crying and hitting that convinced me to get up with him, to not try and convince him to go back to sleep.

By 6am I was in the shower, he was watching the Wiggles, sitting alert in the recliner, rocking it gently, tugging on his blanket and plugging away on his pacifier. Soon, above the din of the falling water I heard a scuffle and soft thud -- a light, fleeting drop. I listened for further noise and I didn't hear anything more. When I got out I walked into the living room. The chair was empty. I turned the corner into the kitchen. Sitting on the rug below the sink was Isaac. He had opened the Lazy Susan, removed a box of Shredded Frosted Mini-Wheats and placed it on his lap. His blanket covered his feet and his pacifier had been tossed aside. His hand was elbow deep into the box, his mouth chewing on a piece of wheat and frost.

He looked up at me, and with his eyes innocent, tired and fierce, seemed to say, "What? I'm hungry. Don't you judge me."

No Comment

2008-10-15T11:33:00.000-04:00

No Comment.

Debating The Debates

2008-10-08T10:07:00.003-04:00

I have grown weary of these debates. People can't sit through a three-hour baseball game that ends dramatically and magically with a play at the plate but they can listen to a debate for 1.5 hours? And you can't speed up it how long it takes to watch it by using the DVR. I understand the historical place of these debates. In my cursory approach to this opinion, I think the purpose of these things was to allow people to hear the candidates answer questions together in an official setting where many Americans could view them for the first time. I've seen John McCain more times this morning than the Mrs. in the past week.

I have several suggestions to liven up the "debate":

1. Have a Minority Report/CNN type of plasma board where the candidates can shuffle in and out evidence to back up their points and refute their opponents. Make it a full blown media presentation. You can't tell me watching McCain and Obama going Tom Cruise on a piece of technology wouldn't be exciting. Bottom line: It's the 21st Century. People just talking boringly doesn't work.

2. Allow for interruptions. Perhaps the most applicable and easily integrated of my "ideas". If McCain is going on about something Obama doesn't like, let Obama interrupt him. Step on his toes. Raise his hand like a kid in class. Enough with the "gentlemanly" approach. It needs to be a little more cutthroat during these things.

3. Lifelines. I know it's the running joke for the brilliance that is Tina Fey, but why not allow them to "Call the VP". How about Polling the audience: What do you think I should do? And make them give three possible answers and let the audience vote. It's immediate; it changes the flow of the stream of boredom these things have rapidly become. Even ask for a different question.

4. Allow the moderator to moderate. Let them call fouls on the debate if he/she is just wrong or doesn't answer the question. Maybe give them a whistle.

5. Ask a stupid question. Just to see how they respond. And don't make it the same on to both otherwise the other has a chance to gauge and think about the opinion. For instance: "Why did God make the platypus?" or "How many licks does it take you to get to the center of a tootsie pop?" or "What is your favorite book?" or "What's the capital of Montana?" or "Given the economic downturn, can we make stock market be more like the stock market in the game of Life?"

6. Get a comedian to moderate. Seriously. These things are comedy gold. Gold, Jerry. Gold.

The thing of it is I know debates are immensely important. That the job of president is immensely important. That I should watch these things. But the truth is debates are no longer what they were because the winners are determined by "amount of eye contact" and not arbitrary barometers like "substance", "coherence", "affluence". These debates are pomped up, dumbed down, recycled mumbo-jumbo we hear everyday on CNN, FOX News, The View.

So I read the transcript. It's the old, anti-deluvian DVR.

A Morning Worth It

2008-10-07T09:37:00.003-04:00

It was a rough morning. Isaac was awake at 4am. He wanted to sleep in our bed. At 4 in the morning, I'm inclined to let him. Of course, then he starts hitting my face because he doesn't want to sleep, he wants to play and talk. He crawls all over me staring at the LCD of the alarm clock. "Wow!","Ooooh!", "Dada!", "Uh-oh!" he says for two hours mixed with sleep, crying and talking. Finally, at 6:30, having almost lost it, I get him to be quiet and fall asleep. At 7am I get up and get ready.

Come 7:30 I'm in the kitchen making his lunch and mine and his breakfasts. I turn the corner into the hallway to get his bag. There's Isaac. I didn't hear him get up. I didn't hear him make a sound. But he's crawled out of our bed. He's turned on the radio on the alarm clock and there's music playing lightly. There's Isaac, in the dark hallway with his green blanket in one hand and pacifier in the other. He's wearing his green and white striped pajama bottoms with his Red Sox T-Shirt (!). And he's dancing.

Bark vs. Bite

2008-10-06T13:34:00.003-04:00

I'm more inclined to think the economy is in the tanks when stuff like this doesn't happen. When it does, then, I think, "Hey, it's not so bad, movies about little talking dogs are still funny!" The world is OK. Economic foundations will crumble, people will buy that $300,000 home on $27,000 a year, the minimum payment on credit card bills will be all you ever really need to pay. Where was the government intervention on this one? Sure, bail out Wall Street in policies that effectually force socialism on us, but allow America to see this movie that has has anorexisized Benji without so much as calling in the National Guard? $29 Million? Seriously? For a movie about talking dogs? Really? This movie is to Lumiere what the Atomic Bomb was to Oppenheimer.

Hopefully you paid for the popcorn, soda and candy with your credit card.

The Misadventures Of Isaac, Pt. 2

2008-10-01T10:21:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I spent a fun-filled day with Isaac. A day off from work. A day off from daycare. A day in the emergency room. Isaac had a run in with a table at daycare -- not, as is the rumor circulating, that he was defending particular comments made about a certain Yellow Wiggle who drives the Big Red Car. And there it was, red, bloody, oozing a little blood by the time I arrived. He was pacified, calm -- coloring at the table. I took him. After a quick diagnosis from Dr. Mom who met us at home, it was off to the hospital.

He was the star of the ER. Waving at everybody, summoning nurses and doctors to glance his way with his soft, cackling, "Hi!". Isaac sat still while the nurse checked his heart with the stethoscope. He looked at me and smiled, amused. Mom did the same thing at home. When they took his blood pressure and the Velcro patch squeezed at his arm, he looked at me, the patch, the nurse and me and smiled. It was cool to him. It was fun. It was an adventure.

When they took as back to the room, he waved at everyone as I carried him. He said "Hi!" to everyone. Waved at them by twirling his wrist and curling his fingers inward. They commented on his eyes, on the scrap of oozing blood above his left eyebrow that he himself didn't notice. When they put the numbing medicine on it, he screamed and peeled the bandage off several times. I restrained him, quieted him, his eyes fiery and furious and fuming, tears and frustration bellowing out of them. This was an adventure and I was holding him back where no cut could. He wanted earnestly to run into the hallway, to run down the halls to look in the rooms and talked to whomever he could.

When he calmed and numbed we held him down flat against the linen of the raised bed. The surgical tech assured him that he'd be fine, that it wouldn't hurt. I still expected him to rise out of his skin when the first poke went in. But he sat there, through four stitches, knots, pokes, restrained by foreign hands around his head, my body weighing down against his keeping him still. His arms and legs and stomach all relaxed and at ease.

I've told you about his sad, brave eyes when I've left him at daycare. Yesterday I just saw bravery. He didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't cry out, didn't make a sound the entire time. His eyes were encouraged, curious, fascinated by the procedure. They welcomed it, accepted it, allowed it. If he blinked, I missed it. Four stitches and not a sound. When they finished, he sat up and waved at them, with his soft, cackling voice said "Bye!", curling his fingers, twirling his wrist.

I can say I was proud of him, but it was more of amazement than pride. Not that I doubt his toughness -- he is extremely tough, though this morning he cried and latched on to me because his foot fell asleep -- but I think I doubt his courage, his sense of the adventure. Stitches, the adventure of having a little boy.

Isaac is fine this morning. Happy, bouncing around, none the worse for wear. Ready to defend more Wiggles, Play-Doh, toy trucks and bugs. Ready to take on more tumbles, more blood, more dirt, more bangs and bruises. And with those sad, brave eyes below the four stitches, I left him at daycare this morning. I do not have his courage.

...For The Belief Of Alchemists

2008-09-29T13:47:00.003-04:00

The following is a topic addressing "Why I Write". I submitted this, along with five others, for one of my classes. I chose to frame each idea around a story, or stories. This one concerns my 2000 trip to South Africa.

I got off the plane, in the uniform of the Salvation Army and proceed to lie to the alchemists at customs who, either ignorant or full of hope for us, granted us entry. Our lie, or story or narrative was that we were tourists only – dressed in black polyester with white shirts, shoes, back packs and jet lag under our eyes. The Bibles were packed away. The cameras were out. The first story or warning I heard was on the trip to the house we would dine at that night: “Don’t stop if you see anyone on the side of the road, especially when it looks like a dead or wounded person. You’ll be killed if you do.” So much for being able to look at this trip with that sense of ignorant bliss and sheltered existence I had secretly prayed for. My life may be at risk if I do something stupid. I did plenty of stupid things, only one that put my life at risk. We were told never to walk out of the church compound in Charlize Theron’s hometown after dark. We did one night. Myself, a ten-year-old girl and a fellow, black, “tourist” who I had come to know marvelously well over the summer of “touring”. When the militia came crawling out of the abandoned gas station, sawed-off uzi’s at eye level, dressed in black jackets, pants and boots, we simply froze against the wall. It was less a “Halt, who goes there?” and more a “Get the f*** against the wall.” I complied aloud. My accent lowered the guns itself. But only a little. “We were walking the girl home from a church function at the Salvation Army down the street.” “She lives just around the corner.” “I have a copy of my passport on me.” They needed to see it. I did all the talking. They were uniformed and armed, even when the guns lowered. They let us pass. I never once was worried, concerned, nervous or scared. I almost laughed out of sheer paradoxical peace. Like the alchemists at the airport, I knew what was going on, there was no hiding it. The alchemists relinquishes control at some point because the reality is something greater is at work, greater than magic but much like it. Either at airport terminals or at gun point, I share in that belief.

My Little Gremlin

2008-09-24T09:12:00.004-04:00

Cries in the night are never welcomed. Especially on the second night. Especially when they are not easily pacified by back rubs, naps in our bed, soothing words. No. Isaac wants to sit in the blackness of the living room, illuminated unnaturally by the LCD lights of the wireless router, the rise and fall white, glowing hum of the iBook charging and the moon, in its tireless shining through the blinds. He wants to remain quiet, possessed by the night, awake and alive in its aura. He never sits on the couch; he does at night. We sat there for awhile last night. He couldn't and wouldn't sleep, neither could I with him awake and alive with unrest and the evening coffee still in my blood and breath. So we sat there on the folds of the couch, quiet, silent, encouraging each other in our nocturnicity.

I blinked first, I had to get him to sleep. I offered him juice to no avail. I changed his diaper to the chagrin and mocking of the darkness. I tired more quickly, I was more languid, I was the one who needed a warm blanket to shield myself from the open window blowing cool air. Isaac stared at the natural and unnatural lights. We looked through the windows on the door, at the A.M. night of our street: the star lights on the fence and in the sky, the trash cans like black monsters coated with the effervescence of the moon, the stillness of it. He was curious, bending his head between the window slats, between the recesses of glass that opened the night to his eyes. He would not go easily into this good night.

Finally I offered him food, unfinished yogurt from breakfast. I would not yield and fill the room with lamplight, the LCD display, blinking, was enough. I returned from the kitchen in the black hallway, hearing a movement, not seeing a thing. I almost ran into him, his stealth and invisibility his greatest strength; he was able to escape. I saw him scatter away, scuttle across the carpet, short and quick, awake and fast in his steps. He ran past the light spilling in from the door, past the pulsating hum of the computer I saw him again, I heard his matching footfalls, bursts of speed falling like rain drops. He cut the light from the router and I saw his full form, scurrying full tilt to the couch and in one step leaping upon it. Like a little Gremlin, hiding in the open, in the shadow of a darkness battling with the light he sat upright quickly.

I carry the rhythm of those footfalls today, those harbingers of insomnia, treading quickly across in the Bible-black night. My little Gremlin, my little creature of the night, illusive, almost illusory save for my unnatural lights. I caught the Gremlin, put him to bed, but I still see him there, scurrying quickly, seeing me before I see him. Alive in the night, eyes open, a creature of the quiet and cool, camping in my lap with blankets and lights and darkness all around us. It was the stillest Isaac has ever been, the most fragile, the most contingent and independent and daring and wondrous he has ever been. The night does not frighten him. The darkness does not frighten him.

My little Gremlin.

Mrs. Byers

2008-09-19T11:44:00.002-04:00

Mrs. Byers had a full head of gray hair by the time I enrolled in her third grade class. It was frizzy too – almost transparent near the top it was so thin. She wore big green dresses that flared out and sloshed around wherever she walked. Her glasses were always chained to her neck, and I rarely saw her use them. Only, I think, whenever she checked the Bruins win-loss record on the board. It was in chalk and every day someone had the responsibility of erasing it and writing up the new record. You always knew when someone didn’t change the record because you could hear her moving to the blackboard, glasses jangling around her neck. You could see the new record through her hair, without fail.

My Cup

2008-09-17T11:04:00.002-04:00

Why shouldn’t I love this cup? It’s some 27 ounces deep. That’s a lot of coffee and I like a lot of strong coffee. It’s green and yellow, not my first choice of color, but I can get past that. After all, it’s just a cup. My son, for Father’s Day, led by his mother, went to the ceramic store and put his hand prints and fingerprints all over it. All in a deep green with "I love you" running vertically near the handle. The prints are fading now– they say a kid’s fingerprints fade over time. And I drink a lot of coffee so I have to wash it and I guess that doesn’t help. But I’m not about to stop drinking coffee. Besides, your son giving you a coffee cup with his prints on it is a memory and a love that just gets stronger.

It's My Fault

2008-09-08T11:37:00.004-04:00

Last Tuesday morning I awoke with a start, in a panic, stressed out. I got up and walked around the house. I told myself it was all a dream:

Tom Brady was injured. It was either the Super Bowl game against the Giants or the first game of the season against the Giants -- there was some confusion in the dream itself due mainly to the blinding catastrophic nature of the event. It was revealed his left knee and ankle had been severely injured and he would miss the entire season.

I awoke, convinced myself it was only a dream, that it hadn't happend, that all was not lost and all was still right.

Then there is the fact that for the first time ever I fantasy drafted a Patriot; I drafted two: Tom Brady and Maroney. Oh, and my team name is TomBradyManCrush. Well it was, now its TomBradysKneeCrushed; I am a masochist.

Blame it all on me. My actions in the fantasy/dream realm have caused this horrible catastrophe. I gave up watching football and fantasy yesterday as soon as I watched the play. I will now stop dreaming as well. I will look forward to Sundays for Meet The Press and it being the day before the work week starts. All is lost.

The thing of it is: Is this what Magical Realism is? Dark, Black, Bad Magic.

Network: TV

2008-09-03T10:01:00.005-04:00

So I was flipping through the channels last night and discovered that 90210 was in the middle of it's first airing. They say time is cyclical; history too. All things eventually repeat themselves. It's is no shock that T.V. repeats itself, we've been aware of this for awhile. But have we really come full circle now? Can we say we're back at the beginning. For my generation that time is now.

Sure, Password, Pyramid, and every other gameshow (except Press Your Luck? Why? Whammy. That's why) have been remade and recycled to the masses in recent years. But that was infant T.V. Starsky and Hutch has become a movie, along with every other mildly successful T.V. show from the 70s. Again, pre-me. Enter 90210. A continuation remake of the hit O.C. of my life. I watched it at times, missed it more often than not. I remember very, very little about it. But it's back on T.V. now.

I have long given up caring about T.V. Ever since reality T.V. made inroads into the culture. I still do not care. I do not watch dramas; I prefer comedies. My shows are: 30 Rock, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, The New Adventures of Old Christine and Pushing Daises. And Scrubs -- whatever channel that's on (DVR!).

I express this in the interest of full disclosure. I'm not on the outside looking in. I'm also aware of the large plank in my own eye. Recently I watched Definitely, Maybe. Somewhere I'm sure it was billed as a Romantic Comedy. How romantic comedies have changed. How they less and less represent the ideals of love and more and more represent the accepted reality that love is malleable. I'd say it's sad because it is.

As for television and movies then I am fascinated by the prescient and absolutely brilliant Network, a mid-70s Oscar winner:

Max Schumacher: It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain... and love.

Now, with the recycled 90210 television has touched my time and is well on it's way to destroying that. Unless, of course, they bring back MacGyver. That would be awesome.

Sad Brave Eyes

2008-09-02T10:25:00.003-04:00

Recently we've had to move Isaac to a new daycare/school (his sitter had a baby recently and is unable to watch him). It's more like a school than it is a daycare: Rules, curriculum, field trips. It's the end of whimsy, regardless of what it's called.

Anyway, dropping him off in the morning has become difficult. Not only for him, but for us as well. It's not the same. It lacks the emotional welcome we were used to -- he was used to. There are kids moving about, dragging bean bags, crying, eating snacks, parents moving in and out and teachers miraculously happy. Each day I drop him off I feel like this as he begins to cry the moment we enter the building. And the moment he sees me at the end of the day, it's more tears and not relieved, happy tears either.

Today, perhaps the saddest of all the days. He stopped crying as the teacher picked him up while I set out his essentials for the day. They looked out the window together near the door. As I left I turned to look at him. No crying, just quiet tears streaming down his cheeks and eyes that looked brave and sad.

I know it will take time to adjust, for all of us.

I don't know what that means.

Fast Words From The IOC

2008-08-21T08:35:00.004-04:00

The IOC is the biggest joke. Let's condemn Bolt for his "antics"; how they are not a measure of respect for his competitors. It typical behavior from people who don't understand the true nature of competition. Yes, it's my whole Larry Bird school of sports, even on the largest stage. But I tire of the "why didn't he shake hands?" or "why did he parade around the track screaming he was number 1?" criticism when it's a simple answer. It was his moment. He worked to achieve it. He worked and ran to stand alone. Let him. (And by the way, that 200M run was amazing. Into a headwind?)

Is he a better person if he shakes hands and goes on about with his antics? Maybe. Is he a worse person because he did not? No. He just shattered an virtually unbreakable world record. Give him his moment.

No. The IOC must condemn. Olympics! Higher, Faster, Stronger! Shake Hands! Do Not Focus On Enjoying Winning! Hug! Move On! London 2012! Get Rid Of Softball! Badminton Doubles But No Olympic Golf! The Chinese Are Democratic Afterall! No Human Rights Injustice! Fake Fireworks Are Cool! Lipsynching Is The New Steroid! Sports Are Not Really Sports Unless We Have Judges Who Have Never Competed In The Sports Judging The Sports!

Oh, and all this is coming out of one side of the IOC's mouth. Here's what they're not addressing.

On Phelps

2008-08-18T10:56:00.005-04:00

So the Mrs. was working Saturday night in the ER. A little boy, about 8 comes in. They put him in a room. He complains loudly. Not because of the ailment, but because there was no T.V. in that particular room. He was scared he couldn't watch Phelps win gold. Then the Mrs. started talking to him about the races. This kid, 8 years old, then came back with the awesomeness that was that 100M Butterfly finish. About how he took that last half-stroke. About how he touched the wall an infinite minuteness before the other guy. The Mrs. said his facing was beaming.

That's why I love the Olympics. I worked at them in '02; been there, done that. I didn't enjoy the Olympics that year. Though I saw every event and heard the finishes and stood directly next to the take-off point for the Gold Medal ski-jump (a hill I later slid down) -- I even rode the lift back up the mountain with the jumpers (I had all access passes for the ski jump and luge). I even saw a moose. But it wasn't the same. And until Phelps' run, my Olympic awe had been spoiled by everything wrong the the Games. Then the Mrs. told me the story and I remembered my own story and I remembered why I love the Games:

In '02 Jimmy Shea made an improbable run at Gold in the Men's Skeleton I was working down the hill from the track in the Media Compound (I could see the finish area from where we were located). The place was brimming with buzz. Everyone was walking up to see the final run. But the peon that I was, I had to stay put in the trailer in case something was needed. So me and a few other peons were forced to watch it on a small T.V. We couldn't even walk across the compound to the Japanese Trailer that had HD. But as he was coming down we began to hear the roar. Instead of watching it, I walked outside and listened to it. Coming down the mountain. A load, ominous, snow-echoing roar. I started screaming in my solitude for Shea. Screaming for him to win. I knew the second he did. I could hear it. I still can.

I heard the roars when Phelps won every medal. That something great and grand was going on. I felt connected, hearing the story hours later, with that little boy in the hospital sick at not being able to watch it. We don't know if did get to see the final race. Though I'm sure, I'm positive, he heard it.

The Problem Of The Dark Knight

2008-08-11T09:35:00.002-04:00

Much has been said about this movie. It's darkness, it's performances, it's awesomeness. I loved the movie. Loved every second of every minute. It, at times, brought out the child in me. The fist-pumping, adrenaline-rushing, beat-the-bad-guys child in me. If you have not seen it, you should, just as an exercise in why movies can be cool.

Ledger's performance was good, perhaps even great. He did not supersede any previous interpretation of the Joker, he merely brought his own to the role. Embodied it in his own way. Whatever you read about the excellence he called upon, his Joker is worthy of the approbation. And if the Joker never appears on screen again, it may very well be because it never needs to. And while I liked Ledger, I still stand by Nicholson who was vastly different in his approach. While Ledger nailed every mannerism, every dark nuance of the character that could manifest itself physically did (especially the tongue flickering), the villain lacked swagger. Nicholson gave the Joker that villainous swagger, an arrogance, a propensity for narcissism and evil. Ledger's Joker was vastly dark but I perceived him as a lightweight. Just because he kills coldly and without pretense does not necessarily make him a worthy adversary -- though I concede he was to Batman. Ledger's Joker lacked some weight, some material, physical swagger that precedes him in the moments before he appears on screen. With Nicholson, you felt the Joker coming before he appeared. I didn't get that with Ledger. Still good though, perhaps Oscar worthy too.

If you've seen it, you've seen the darkness of the film. It's strength. It's brilliance of it's characters. It's non-plot plot. The problem of evil. It was at the forefront of the movie and it cannot be ignored. It's also at the forefront of life around us. The movie did well to incorporate the goodness of mankind, even in small amounts as a necessary adversary, as the true rival of the evil. I compare the problem of evil in this movie to the problem of good in another movie I just watched: Lars and the Real Girl. For that entire film I wanted, expected, anticipated the proclivity man has for evil to show itself. But it never did. That movie was all about the problem of good. It believed in the goodness of people in large amounts. I highly recommend Lars and the Real Girl. It is utterly moving.

Now The Dark Knight believed in it too. And perhaps, in the small amounts we saw we came away with the notion that goodness, even as small of a grain of sand, can combat and overturn and right the largest amounts of evil.

One other thing, I tire of ketch phrases. Perhaps that's the staple of comic books, but the "he's more than a hero" sounds more like a Nickelback lyric than good writing.

A Quote In August

2008-08-07T07:55:00.003-04:00

"The evocation of far is a peaceful corridor paved with unflagging and tranquil faith and peopled with kind and nameless faces and voices."

William Faulkner, Light in August

Magical Reality T.V.

2008-08-06T10:04:00.003-04:00

In anticipation of my reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, I, in my research, have looked up the term magical realism, which plays a large role in this novel. I'm not sure I entirely grasp the concept-- though I liken it to the technique in Scrubs. Perhaps it's because such things, especially in literature, never seem to strike me as odd or difficult or anything apart from reality. So to categorize it muddies my understanding of its sequellas.

And I am serious: if I should run into a unicorn while on walk, I would not be the least bit surprised. If a lamppost should turn into an elephant, I would not be surprised. If both daylight and night grow longer but the day length remains the same, I would not be surprised.

Suppose for a second that a reality television producer, fresh of his latest success of putting 6 animals (lion, zebra, fly, monkey, dog, cat) and 3 Hot People in a house for 10 weeks and allowing America to vote each one off based on a serious of challenges that involves, but is not limited to, surviving, decides to further push the limits. He or she pitches the concept of magical realism in this fashion. Assembled would be Chewbacca, Frodo, a Gummi Bear, Captain Kirk, Hari Seldon, and three randomly selected Americans who are extremely good-looking and who also think they can dance. Let the mayhem ensue!

Magical Reality T.V. : One Ring, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away, Bouncing Here and There And Everywhere, Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before, uh Who's Hari Seldon? And The Hottest Contests Ever To Be See Dancing On T.V.! This Thursday @ 9pm.

Garcia Marquez would be proud.

Twenty-One, Some 50 Years Later

2008-08-05T07:24:00.004-04:00

In lieu of my dirge on How To Read A Book, I stumbled across a piece by one of its authors, Charles Van Doren. His personage, ever since I saw Redford's "Quiz Show", has fascinated me. I am persuaded that it wasn't the pursuit of fame or greed that brought on his fall. But it was something in him, and for that he sought to make it right. I am always glad I convinced my father to rent that movie years ago.

Anyway, he penned a piece for The New Yorker recently about the saga. Can't say life has changed much with the infusion of reality television. It's greatest loss, however, has been the person of character.

On Biting The Hand... And Legs... And Face

2008-08-04T08:45:00.003-04:00

It's perhaps our first violent instinct. Our first weapon. Our first acts of a malevolent nature: biting.

That Isaac has started biting has fueled my curiosity (Literally, at times, the hand that is feeding him). Why is this the case?

In thinking about it I have not come to take lightly now the Biblical story of Adam and Eve taking a bite of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. There is present the immediate act of disobedience. The Fall of Man most certainly occurred the moment the fruit was pierced. It was the first physical, violent act of the rebellion.

I find the association between Isaac's recent behavior and the most primal of stories our mankind's rebellion all curious and interesting.

A Sandwich For U

2008-07-31T09:18:00.006-04:00

Perhaps the best sandwich I've ever had. Up there with the Bacon Turkey Bravo (man I love that sandwich and yes I am still a man for eating at Panera). Also, Eric, my sandwich won't leave you hungry afterwards.

2 slices of Whole Wheat Bread

Dijon Mustard

1 slice Pepper Jack Cheese

2 slices of Deli Turkey

3 slices of Salami

2-3 pieces of Bacon (4 if you want a piece to nibble on)

1 Kosher dill pickle, thinly sliced.

Garlic powder

Olive Oil

Onion Powder

Now here's the important part. I'm a firm believer that sandwich ingredients must be placed in the correct order to maximize the flavor of each. So this is of the utmost for the supreme enjoyment of this sandwich.

Spread the Dijon over the slices of bread. On one slice of bread place the Pepper Jack cheese. On the other place the pickle, diagonally across the slice. Place a slice of turkey on both pieces of bread. On top of that, on one side, place 2 pieces of salami, on the other place the final piece of the salami. Break the bacon so that you can lay it horizontally across the bread. Combine both pieces of your sandwich.

Heat up a skillet and in it place a liberal amount of olive oil. Add some garlic and onion powder and mix the oil around the pan. When it is nice and hot, place the bread into the skillet and oil. Fry to golden brown and flip to other side, toasting also to a golden brown. Press down on both sides as it is cooking to effectively squish the sandwich.

Eat and enjoy. I had two last night.

I woke up this morning wanting it again. At 6am. It is very good. I may call it The Q. Without the u because there's no sharing this sandwich.

Maybe I should call it something else.

The Letter Q

2008-07-30T10:19:00.005-04:00

It's a fascinating letter. For starters, it always must be followed by another letter. It's contingent letter. Parasitic. A letter who's existence is permissible only by the inclusion of another letter. That's fascinating. Sure, there are words with q without u. But a cursory look shows that they are either obsolete spellings or foreign words taken a slight hold in the English language. Negligible at best.

It does have some proper function. There's the disputed Q document. Also, my favorite Star Trek character went by Q.

Q represents an interesting conundrum. Could it exist without U? Can humanity survive? Will we function without a U? We work well with silent letters. We work well with c sounding like k; g sounding like j. I think we could maintain our morality if we took away the U. But I am not a philologist. It's not up to me. Life will go on as it always has: with the U next to the Q.

Some of my favorite Q words in order:

1. Quixotic -- How often to you get and x and q in the same word. Not often. Plus it looks like it means. How often do you get that.

2. Quotidian -- Another word with an odd look about it. Ironic in it's meaning with relation to it's appearance.

3. Quantum -- The double U. It's a sleek looking work. Sounds great too.

4. Quasi -- Looks odd. Lots of vowels. And it sounds like there's a z in there. There's not. But it seems like there should be.

5. Quagmire -- Sounds thick. Heavy to say. Not too tough on the eyes though.

Honorable Mention:

Querulous -- Triple U!!! More vowels than we can count. How can we complain about this word?

Syntopical Syncretism

2008-07-24T11:34:00.004-04:00

Call it the post-modern approach to reading, but I've been diligent recently in my approach to reading. I came across the former of the above terms while reading Mortimer Adler's How To Read A Book. Vaguely, it's about moving one's reading across like themes. It's a unique idea and I recommend it and the original book.

Now I've extended this in several ways. First I have tried to read books similar in writing style. This is one reason for my recent love of Catholic writers of the 40s, 50s and 60s. Barth, Bellows and Updike are also more alike in style than the themes of their novels belie.

Another way I've enacted Adler's idea is by researching the influences of authors I'm reading. Just yesterday I began to look into Umberto Eco's greatest influence, Jorge Luis Borges. He's quite a fantastical and unique and challenging writer. For O'Connor I've delved into Faulkner and read up on Hawthorne.

By doing this I've stumbled across another term: syncretism. O'Connor and Faulkner posses widely different world views. Borges and one of his more profound influences, Chesterton, differ exponentially in their respective world views. Not that I am trying to reconcile these authors but it's certainly challenging to recognize the different approach that is at once alike and different. Like seeing an object from all sides simultaneously and managing to maintain a sense of wonder about it.

Pretty sure none of this makes sense, that it's just ramblings. I'm piecing the idea slowly together. Combining it and, at times, justifying it I suppose. The bottom line is that I notice I am drawn to the syntopical syncretism in Art. From Springsteen to O'Connor, Borges to Chesterton.

Not sure if Adler had this in mind, but I have him to thank for issuing that first challenge.

Raising Kids: A Divine Comedy

2008-07-23T09:09:00.003-04:00

You want to instill in your children certain things. You want them to possess good manners, morals, a sense of perspective. You want them to be well-rounded and read; athletic, mature, smart and be good. You want them to love God. You want them to love others. You want them to honor and respect everything and everyone in the creation around them. You also want them to be funny. At the very least, not un-funny.

But how do you foster humor in a child?

Kids have a sense of the funny already. I think it's because they see things simply. Not in satire, not in nuance or entendre. Not in sarcasm or in wit. Things are funny in and of themselves. Of course they do things that are funny unintentionally. Call it the comedy of omission. I've got nephew stories to prove it right now. A co-worker has kid stories that top those.

Their sense of what's funny, their appreciation of intentional comedy progresses. And it starts at the slapstick stage, which perhaps, if you're a fan of the Stooges, stays with us no matter what (I contend that walking into a wall is at all times, by everyone considered funny). This is where Isaac is at currently. Yesterday he stood on the ottoman, pretended to lose his balance and fall headlong onto the chair and back for 20 minutes. He laughed hysterically the entire time. So did I. Then there's this.

But I really do think it's because they see things simply. Everything is new and amazing. Being able to grab a toy or ask for the tooth brush is a grand achievement. A sense of the wow permeates it. So it is with humor. That Isaac walks into the table and laughs while we cringe delineates our current world views. Exactly what his is I have not an inkling. But I know he talked to himself on the way to the sitter this morning breaking in with uncontrollable laughter. He gets the punchline. It's simple and it's funny. And a child's laughter, unadulterated, is easily the simplest, purest and most breathtaking joy imaginable.

Missing: 33 Pages

2008-07-15T11:53:00.002-04:00

So I'm in the midst of a book the other night when I turn the page. The proceeding sentence makes no sense. Maybe I missed something. I did not. It still doesn't make any sense. Turns out (ha!) that the next page is not in fact the next page but some 33 pages into the book's future. A quite unfortunate turn of events that required me to start a completely new book. Seriously, who just removes 33 pages? Because they were removed; no obvious tearing, fraying, just meticulously extricated from the book.

So I'm looking for 33 pages. From 120 to 153. Love in the Ruins. If anyone's seen them.

But hey, at least I'm not missing this.

A Room With A View

2008-07-07T14:23:00.001-04:00

Do scientists get excited about a movie that gets science right? A movie or book on the Uncertainty Principle? Do they applaud it? Give a resounding "Yes" and a golf hi-five? What about people who work in cafeterias? Are they thrilled when an art form gets their job right? Were glove manufacturers excited about American Pastoral?

It behooves the artist to get these things right. It substantiates their work while reverberating to the job or task or hobby itself. It illumines all.

Now I get excited when God is mentioned and mentioned correctly. Not pigeon-holed or hyberbolied or stereotyped. But mentioned with a sort of awe and enthusiasm and appreciation and respect. I get quite excited about correct theology in literature, film, song, poem.

Here's the thing about artists: they build houses with their materials. Rooms, hallways, stairwells, kitchens of words, lyric, song, shot. They set it all up and have an open house. I'm in the field, maybe nearby, staring up at the clearest and most open of skies. The sun is shining and I could never be warmer or cooler or want of anything. So when I go into the house, it's refreshing and assuring and hopeful to have a room, with however small a window, looking out onto that same sky and warm sunshine.

Sometimes that's all you can ask for. And you'd be surprised how much light can shine.

So There's Some Uncertainty

2008-07-01T07:52:00.004-04:00

ATOMIC PARTICLE COLLIDER COULD DESTROY WORLD.

That was the byline on cnn.com yesterday. Uh, click. Come to find out there's this particle collider, and it could destroy the world. Seems it's rather large at 17 miles across and 330 feet below the surface. Seems it cost almost $10 billion dollars. And it seems it could destroy the world. Have you heard of the Large Hadron Collider?

Needless to say I've been reading up on strangelets, micro-black holes and every other wiki accessible theory applicable out of quantum mechanics. So what are the odds the world could get sucked into a black hole or turn into a lump of steaming space poo a la Vonnegut's Ice-Nine scenario? Well, there's a nonzero chance.

What exactly is a nonzero chance? 1 in 50 million. The odds of winning the lottery. But, uh, people win the lottery. Here's another breakdown of the odds.

Of course, in a brilliant piece in the NY Times on this, there's also a chance for Don Quixote to make a return. You have to love the Uncertainty Principle.

Aside: I'm reading the NY Times article last night and what does the first line encompass? A quote from the book I'm about to read that I quoted from yesterday. It's an obscure book, so referencing it is quite random. Coincidences like that... well... it's always a little fascinating.

On Putting Down A Book

2008-06-30T13:49:00.002-04:00

I've never been one who believed finishing a book proved something. I'm from the Costanza school. The most recent evidence to this belief was Dune, which I gave up on after 150+ pages. As a fact, there have actually been very few books I have given up, sent away to the literary bench.

Thursday I was prepared to give up on Atonement. I knew the plot (or lack there of, depending on the critic). I had seen the movie. Though that's a simple reason for abandonment, sometimes the writing pulls you in despite your objectivity. But such wasn't the case here either. I kept reading. Over the weekend I poured into 300+ pages. And I'm left with the same conclusion: I can put this book down and very much want too. It isn't particularly great. It's good. Introspective. A character study. But it's too extraneous. Too preachy and condemning. Too much prose devoid from substance. And most of all it's too long. At almost 500 pages and rather rambling around it's simple central thesis, you'd think it'd be shorter.

All of this is sufficient a reason, in my belief, to abandon the book. But why can't I? Why do I feel the need to finish this book? I want to move on. I've got another book lined up on the bookshelf, Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy, with a great opening line:

Now in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. and of the Christ-forgetting Christ-haunted death-dealing Western world I came to myself in a grove of young pines and the question came to me: has it happened at last?

That's a fantastic opening line. But still I hang on to complete this book that long ago became banal. Still I hang on, not expecting any of these reason to be atoned for in the book's final pages. After the opening line of Love in the Ruins I fought every urge to keep reading. Feeling as though I was cheating something by doing that. The book, it seems, will not let me go. It's stalking me.

Actually, it's more like a song that gets stuck in your head.

Didn't know books could do that.

What Would You Do

2008-06-22T12:56:00.004-04:00

So the Mrs. proposed a rather interesting question on a recent road trip: If you could do something else for your job, something very much different -- perhaps hinging on a regret of sorts from our youth (yes, we're that old these days!), what would it be? Now in the past, we've used this means of questioning to determine career direction. In fact, it was what first suggested to us a different career path for me (one I'm still working towards, mind you!). But in this context, current work happiness and future work happiness did not play a role. It was more simple and straightforward a proposition: What sounds cool and sounds like something you'd want to do?

My answer, to her somewhat surprise, was: work for the CIA. Of course, I'm too passive and possess the complete inability to fool anyone, so being an agent was not my intent. I supposed to her something at Langley in either the tech field or maybe even languages. Leading too my wishing I had spent more time learning languages as a youth.

And this is why the Mrs. and I work. For as much as we are different, we are alike in the cool, essential stuff. The same overarching abstract types of things govern the differences we espouse on a day-to-day basis.

The Mrs. too wished to be a translator. She figured to work in a hospital, being the person people of different cultures can turn to in a crisis. Having witnessed the compassion, comfort and strength the translators can show at her own hospital.

Of course, we went into our explanations for why we chose what we did (my reason, well, it'd be cool to say you work for the CIA. Wait! Can you say that?). I found in fascinating to think it through. To not think what you want to be doing now, but if circumstances were different, if you had taken a different step somewhere along the way, you wouldn't be entirely different than you are now, but you'd be different and doing something different. So what would that be?

Random Tidbits

2008-06-20T11:19:00.003-04:00

So if I can't get a tan after being in the sun for 6 hours yesterday, and 12 over the past three days, there's no hope for me. None. A friend joked that Isaac had been in the womb for 9 months and he had more of a tan than I did. Sad, but true.

Isaac is saying his own name. While I don't think he identifies himself yet, the "I" association that differentiates our consciousness from animals, it's still hilarious. The other day he just kept screaming Isaac in the grocery store. I even got him saying it on the phone yesterday. Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats that.

So glad the Celtics won. Banner 17. Fantastic. I am also so glad the playoffs are over. 2 month! 2 months I watched games every other night. It's been exhausting and seemingly worthless. I'm not belittling the greatness of the championship, but it felt more like winning a marathon than winning an all out sprint. The NBA. It's Fan-tastic.

Tiger's performance over the weekend: Best golf I've ever seen. Perhaps the single greatest sports performance (up there with MJ's Flu game) I've ever seen. That was worth it. As was the 9-holes I was inspired to play.

Set-up the hammock yesterday afternoon. I know I'm prone to hyperbole (especially in this post) but it's probably the most comfortable thing ever. I laid there for 20 minutes looking at the sky and rocked in the breeze.

The DVD/Surround Sound System broke. Much to my luck we are looking to get another one. Maybe we'll wait awhile. The iPod plays all our music. We don't watch many movies during the summer. I'm willing to wait. It's been sort-of nice. We'll see if I can get one on the cheap on the eBays.

And I'm reading Atonement. Apparently one of the best 100 books of the 20th Century (and slightly beyond). Not impressed so far -- nor was I with the film version. So I'm not expecting to finish it, we'll see.

Indiana Jones was terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Can't say that enough. Ugh.

One more thing: enjoy summer. Spend time outside, even just for walks. Drink cool drinks and indulge in a coffee on a cool evening. Don't be afraid to wear sweatshirts and shorts. Take the opportunities to be still -- those summer nights. Listen to the summer, it's got such nice things to say.

How Sweet, Sweet, Sweet It Really Is

2008-06-18T11:07:00.003-04:00

There's not a lot to add. I can tell you where I was when the Celtic's drafted Paul Pierce and how I hugged Hep. Where I was when Reggie collapsed. How 15 wins sounded on the radio during the M.L. Carr year. The sound of Pitino's whining that quickly drowned the excitement he gave us that opening night against the 72-win Bulls. My confusion after last year's draft when we traded for Ray Allen. My downright, soul-shaking joy when we traded for Garnett weeks later. I can tell you, I can tell you, I can tell you.

There was much joy in my household last night. Phone calls were exchanged. Screaming. Chills. Quiet. More screaming. More chills. Bouncing up and down. Disbelief. Shock. Joy. Screaming. Screaming. Yes. Victory.

Winning it all is all. Winning like last night added a flavor to it by not merely winning, but by dominating the game. That was special and historical and memorable. KG, Allen, you guys played your life for that. Pierce, you played your life and your heart for that win, for this team. You deserve all it entails. You are champions.

I am wearing my Celtics shirt today. I am bouncing off the walls and annoying everyone. What more can I say?

The Boston Celtics have won their 17th NBA Championship. The Boston Celtics are World Champs. The Boston Celtics, The Boston Celtics, The Boston Celtics.

The Boston Celtics.

A Reflection On Father's Day

2008-06-16T10:06:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was my second Father's Day. The 28th for my Dad. The 51st and 55+ for my grandfathers. I maintain the only thing that rivals being a Dad is being a Mom. The point being that having a child is the largest of little gifts. Wrapped in little smiles here and there, an occasional temper-tantrum and this feeling of more-than-responsibility.

Isaac's infused my life with an immeasurable joy and pride. I am at once teacher, disciplinarian, jester, comforter, entertainer, entertainee, duck and goose. That I love being a dad, that I well up with emotion when merely approaching the idea that I'm a father to this boy, this blue-eyed, yelling, screaming, pacifier throwing, doubled-over laughing, crying, pushing a toy lawnmower around for 2+ hours, child is my me.

The other night he had trouble sleeping. So I scooped him up before the tears could mount and sat with him in my arms. His grip on his green blanket was impenetrable as his breathing eventually slowed and the tears, watery and large, fell silently away. We sat there, like we do on occasion, for about 15 minutes and then I put him back in bed for the remainder of the night.

There's is a lot to fatherhood. But sometimes, that's all there is.

The Weight Of Glory

2008-06-10T05:50:00.006-04:00

It is another aside from the movie "review" I posted about yesterday. And it concerns the child's love as well. For the boy in the film, his goal, his achievement in love was to be to have this particular girl notice him. He believed she didn't even know his name and set about correcting that. After a fervent chase scene, he manages to stand before her only briefly. He calls out her name, she responds in kind. And the boy can say nothing else. He is rendered speechless. She has noticed him. That more happens later is moot as this is the culmination of his story. When he appears back before his father, he is smiling, content, awed. Being noticed by her was his ultimate.

The idea of being noticed recalls to mind C.S. Lewis' greatest piece of writing: The Weight of Glory:

We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory... becomes highly relevant to our deep desire.

The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain.

Actually, I Loved It

2008-06-09T10:23:00.005-04:00

Caught a rom-com (read: romantic comedy) on TV the other night: Love Actually. Quite an impressive movie (a caveat: I would not have seen had it not been edited). All-star ensemble casts are endeavors that do not guarantee success, but this one worked. And worked well. What I was most impressed by was the adeptness with which the idea of love was handled. Love is a many splendid thing, to be sure. It wears many hats and guises. There's the classical categorization of love into 4 categories. Those were present in the movie, but so were the sub-fields. The unrequited loves. The marriage love. The romantic love that exists when the physical is stripped away and in fact, transcends that aspect of Eros (done in a very interesting and counter-intuitive way).

It was the child-like love that I most appreciated and enjoyed. The storyline ran through the movie like a spine -- suggesting the writer/directors belief that this was the love we are to show others. Born out of tragedy it presented the truest, simplest and ideal form of love. Love that has no fear, has no comprehension, has no concern for convention, no selfishness, no motives, no strings attached, no regrets. It was just love. And if it hurts in the end, so what: "Let's go get our heads kicked in by love." We saw, in that perspective, the freedom that love can give a person.

Love is a battlefield? Love lift us up where we belong? All you need is love? In the name of love? I'll be loving you forever? Love, love, love?

Yes. Actually.

Is Man A Myth?

2008-06-03T10:22:00.004-04:00

I was reminded today of a funny aside in Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. When Mr. Tumnus appears, he is cradling a book bearing the title "Is Man A Myth?". Within the context of the story -- Lucy has walked through the wardrobe and into the white world of Narnia at winter-- the aside is humorous. A dose of irony in fact. But Lewis, whose series as a whole is laced with context and subtext, is suggesting a much more salient point than a smile or slight chuckle can capture.

At stake here, in the answer to the question, is not whether or not Lucy is real. Lewis is asking us a question of much more profundity. Long a studier of Greek, he delved heavily into the literary traditions of the culture. Most notably you will see this play out in Narnia superficially, like in fauns and centaurs. Myth, in such a culture does not imply falsity, a value we readily associate with anything involving that term. "Oh, that's just a myth!" we often cry. But for the Greeks, it simply involves the idea of a story. Prometheus getting his liver pecked out doesn't remotely intend to imply fact but rather to shed a truth upon or about something (and makes for a funny diary). But I am no connoisseur of Greek literary traditions, merely a lover of stories and tales.

Wonder for a moment on the new implication of this title: Is Man A Myth? Are we, simply and profoundly, a story? Played out in time, passed on through time? How important is it that we transfer and concern ourselves with the exactitude's of our livers being eaten out, metaphorically speaking? Is it rather more important that we use our lives, our stories, to shed a truth upon or about something? That we carry on our stories against a backdrop of the greatest of stories?

Getting back to the original irony of the scene, Mr. Tumnus had the question on one hand and the answer staring him in the face. Yet he does not nod in approval of having the question answered, instead he yells "Goodness, gracious me!". In one other famous myth I remember another who had the answer staring them down, the first words spoken that time were, "Mary".

Green With Excitement

2008-05-31T08:36:00.004-04:00

I realize commentary on the Celtics have little accompanied this blog. I've maybe mentioned the C's a handful of times in two years. One of those years gave me little to mention, though I did. Then was accused of jinxing which I think I may have. Regardless, this morning I am elated.

I grew up on the Red Sox and Celtics. More than I have ever played baseball, I have played basketball. Never organized, not always well -- but played at it's basic level. For the most part I have romanticized baseball in my pseudo-Updike-ian ways with an occasional longing to be A. Bartlett Giamatti. But basketball I have left alone and I am not sure why. Deny me not this truth in the presence of such a dearth: on my list of sports, basketball is #2 with a #1 ranking in sports to play (this list is made-up with little standards for ranking; in fact, I may have just made it up this morning to accommodate this post).

The only DVDs I own and have ever asked for involve the complete history of the Boston Celtics (complete with Classic Games) and Larry Bird's DVD (complete with Classic Games of which the 'Nique-Bird is included -- and trust me, having watched this game several times, the Pierce-LeBron thing wasn't even close). I have, in effect, re-imagined my childhood -- reconstructed it based on the Big Three, of whom whose greatness and passion and beauty I was too young to fully grasp and appreciate.

Consider the previous as evidence for my love of basketball and the Celtics despite my lack of "posting" on it. And allow we to wax for a moment another reason why I may not have mentioned it with such frequency.

Basketball is an individual sport. As much as I resemble and embody Bird and Magic's style of play, I recognize it is inherently individual. Baseball requires someone else to throw you the ball and you to hit it and another opposing player to not catch it. Football needs the help of several players to advance the ball and score. But all the goals in basketball are the sole responsibility of the person with the ball. Sure, cutting and picking and rebounding from teammates help in the long run. Yet it's simplest contribution to the glory of sport is the satisfaction only the individual can take when the ball goes through the hoop. At it's core, it is of the individual only. And when this is the case, not much can be said because it's post-modern, it's relative. It matters not what I can suppose or state, it matters only what you, the person with the ball, can effort.

I love basketball. Love scoring. Love passing. Love rebounding. Love getting bothered about a bad call. Love taking jumpers by myself in the gym. Practicing foul shots. Pretending there's three seconds on the clock. Thinking Bird or Jordan has given me the ball and suggested I might be the best in a moment, for a moment. I love basketball. I play it with Isaac's plastic balls and a makeshift hoop in the yard. With socks and the hamper. With trash and the trash can. And there's always a satisfaction when it goes in, a determination to make it go if I miss -- even if what I am throwing away is a dirty diaper.

So for the Celtics, my beloved and followed and pretended-upon Celtics, to make the Finals... To hit shots when they need to... To make passes and play defense when it's all of everything a player can give...Well, it is a joy reserved for those who have ever made a shot. A pleasure this morning that only a person who has ever rolled the leather through his hands and felt, if only for a second or two or three, that all time was about to expire and it was all up to you.

So here we go. Beat L.A.. Rebound. Play defense. Don't be too awed by Kobe -- leave that to the fans. And when the ball goes in the hoop or trash can or bucket or child's bed, love the game you are playing.

Go Celtics.

Alternate Version: How Isaac Got That Nasty Cut On His Neck

2008-05-29T11:04:00.002-04:00

We walked along as steadily as a toddler allows. The road giving way to speed in places, treachery in others where the rocks jutted and mud, well, did whatever it is that mud does. Clump? Either way, the going, for the most part, was not easy. The woods of Maine piled high pines and maples on either side of our hike towards the "Monkey Bridge". As slow going as it was, Isaac was relentless in his pursuit of other family members ahead, and the greenery growing just off the beaten path. More often than not, as if he sensed danger or intrigue in the woods, he would be caught several steps into the underbrush. His sense of bravery showed itself early in those moments. A harbinger of the hero he would become.

Suddenly, out of the bark and wood to the right 100 yards down the path came charging a bear. At this point, Isaac and I were leading the way. I had run ahead with him on my shoulders and was just returning his little legs to the uneven terrain when the bear approached at an alarming rate. My initial reaction was to run, to grab Isaac and run. Isaac's initial reaction was also to run. But like his approach to squirrels, birds and dogs, it was to run towards the oncoming animal. Run he did, matching in proportion only the throbbing speed of the bear.

His courage and legs were aligned as they propelled him magnificently to the beast. He added the hand gesture he had recently learned: pointing. All this together threw the creature into a tailspin and it ceased his steady approach. In fact, it was the bear that froze as Isaac neared. In an unexplainable way, I was unable to catch up to Isaac. Either fear leadened my legs, or his courage emboldened his and he remained out of my grasp, out of my reach, and his actions beyond my worst of nightmares.

He came within yards of the creature, who remained locked in its spot of mud and rock. He, as he had been taught, made the sound of a bear. It was not loud but it was sure. Like a child he knew he was looking at a bear and knew the sound of that bear, but knew not, like us adults, the menacing and imposing will of it. The bear cocked his head and growled low and broken. It backed up a step, as if to run or leap or attack or cower. Isaac growled confidently again, the sound carrying out past his pointed finger to the hairy ears. The bear cowered for sure, but not before he extended his paw and claw like his foe. Then, with a mere flick of its frame, it reached and scratched Isaac beneath his chin before bounding off back into the forest. Isaac pointed and growled some more bearing the scar of his courage with a child-like obliviousness. It was a bear to him. To us it was fear, danger, death, and sheer terror. To him, it was a bear.

It is a three inch long laceration. A flesh wound only. But in the incision courage seeps out.

***This did not actually happen. True, we went on a hike in Maine over the weekend to the "Monkey Bridge" (a mere two steel cables over a creek) and we did walk through forests with the "threat" of bears (?). But we did not see any. Did not see any tracks or hear any noises resembling that of any creature (although Nate thinks he was tracking a deer). Isaac actually did cut his neck though. But it happened when he fell in a field of flowers -- wild flowers -- but flowers nonetheless.***

The Similes Of Children

2008-05-19T09:37:00.005-04:00

Heard this at Church yesterday:

Child: I really like food. My favorite kind-a food is Chipotle Rice. (eyes widen) I love Chipotle Rice.

Adult: Do you love Chipotle Rice like you love your mother?

Child: (thinks for a moment; confused) No. I love it like I love Chipotle Rice.

And here's the reason I love children. We see them as misunderstanding the question. Silly children, we think. But we are misunderstanding the answer. Things are that simple. Each experience and delight, each pleasure and pain is contingent on and comparable to nothing else. It is it's very own experience. Everything, it seems to us they are foolishly saying in their naivete, is "the greatest ever". But to kids, getting a hit in a baseball game is as awesome and cool and memorable as just that. Getting a "A" is as successful as getting an "A".

As adults, in our vast "experience", we compare everything that happens to us to other things that have happened to us or to others like us. We categorize enjoyment so as not to be too overjoyed. We categorize pain so that we may illustrate our "perspective". We long to be mature in the end. To live out Aristotle's Golden Mean. And we are limiting the moments of our lives in the end. Nothing can ever be the greatest, we reason, for that has passed us by. "This was great, but not as good as that one time 5 years ago."

But one day, I think I'd like to sit down with some Chipotle Rice. I'd like to just get a hit. I'd like to just, with utter simplicity and detachment, be awed and overwhelmed and overjoyed without comparison.

To possess the spirit and similes of children.

The Grocery Store: What I Would Say To LeBron James If I Ran Into Him There

2008-05-19T09:23:00.003-04:00

Wow. LeBron. You're pretty incredible. Pretty. Incredible. However, here's a couple of things to keep in mind (a la Kurt Vonnegut, but not really):

Commit to playing defense. You're an average defender. You can easily be above average. Like you worked on that mid-range jumper last off-season, work on defense this off-season.

Keep working on that shooting. It's getting better. And when you're on, you're on. But keep at it. You can only get better.

I've never seen a player like you. I've followed basketball since before you were born, and there's not been another player like you. And your passion is unmatched. You love this game. Remember that.

Stop whining. No disrespect intended. You get away with a lot offensively and defensively. Travels. Double-dribbles. Reach-ins. Fouls. Take the foul. You do it occasionally. Do it all the time.

Love the way you walked off the court yesterday. No congratulating the Celtics in the post-game. You stormed off. I've only ever seen Larry Bird do that. You'll get ripped for sportsmanship. But the bottom line is you play to win. Don't EVER take losing lightly. Take it personally. Keep doing exactly what you did.

I've never seen a player like you. I've followed basketball since before you were born, and there's not been another player like you. And your passion is unmatched. You love this game. Remember that.

Whatever happens in the next couple of years, don't play the game for the money. You will be the best player ever. Easily. But the game is such you'll need just a little bit of help at times. Keep that in mind. Let them pay you, but let them be able to pay other players to help you too. You'll make your money and legend in the end.

You are an incredible basketball player. I love watching you play. I will never question you're enthusiasm for the game. Never question your passion. But don't ever give me the opportunity too. Don't ever let up. Don't ever forget you are playing a game you've loved your entire life. Don't let that reality slip from your eyes or your heart. Play to win and play to play the game.

You will be the best. Make no mistake. You will be the best. Don't stop though, even when you are.

My Dentist: A Character Sketch

2008-05-15T09:32:00.003-04:00

Short. Hovering around 5 feet tall. Salt and pepper hair. Thin. Early 50s. Small hands and eyes. Impeccably ironed scrubs with turtlenecks on underneath. Dark, thick black glasses with a device that gives her singular, zoomed-in vision attached. When she looks at you, she tilts her head down, not up and therefore cannot avoid looking through the device. Anecdotes and thoughts are only complete in her head, yet they make sense if you listen carefully and casually. She is a woman of many details but wastes no time with them. Her humor is simple, straightforward, but has to be thought about to be found funny. It must be placed directly back against the gait and posture and tone of this woman. She is passionate about her job, loves dentistry. Leads well, her employees speak openly of their frustration with her antics and her personality and incomplete complete thoughts illustrating a lack of fear towards her meaning she's a good boss. And she's very good at what she does. Honest with her patients, genuine as well. She's also a little crazy and it comes through in the pitch of her voice, in its pace and delivery which feels a hair too fast and high for most conversation.

I hate the dentist office. Despise anything that involves cleaning the mouth: brushing teeth, flossing. I cannot be in the same room with another person who is brushing their teeth. Cringing doesn't surmise the physical reaction I have. I cannot brush Isaac's three teeth. I cannot watch a movie where someone is brushing their teeth. I simply cannot. But I like going to this dentist. She is a character I find infinitely interesting. A case study.

Watching people more efficiently is a task I've sought to do more of of late. And there are some strikingly different and overwhelmingly fascinating characters at work in this world around us. From the man with the golden voice who works at the gas station to the woman slowly and distractedly making my sandwich. Asking why another person is doing as they do and watching, trying to figure out why it is so, is a new thing for me. But I find we are all mostly alike in some ways and vastly different in others. We are all characters.

A Ballgame

2008-05-13T12:04:00.005-04:00

Tonight there's a little boy in Cincinnati who will see his first ever baseball game. He'll leave the hospital in plenty of time to get to his heightened view of the goings on. They'll take him by wheelchair through the hospital halls and sterilized wings and out into a world that has not done him any favors. The firefighters, working on their own, will transport him like they do so very often after it seems he's gotten better and been able to go home. They'll make sure he'll get there in time to see the game.

He's learned a lot about the game in the past few weeks. His doctor has taught him everything he now knows. Though, for the doctor, he's had to relearn it himself. There were RBIs, homeruns, ERA, hits, singles, doubles, pitch counts, stolen bases, bunts, sacrifices, curveballs, fastballs and outs. There was a lot to learn for both of them, but they managed together. I know the doctor never forgot these things, never forgot the smell of the stadium, the way the ball sounds on the bat, or how to root for the home team -- I've been to a game with him. We were among the few standing when Pena hit that homerun over the right field wall in a losing effort. There are few better teachers of the game than him. Not spoiled by BABIP, OBP, SLG and a host of other acronyms that do much to increase my enjoyment of the game. There's just a bat, a ball, a glove and a game so great it's actually a wish for his patient. A wish. I wish for good health, we wish for good health; this boy wishes to see a baseball game.

This little boy, young and sick, will see the game from the owner's box, ensuring his health will keep him there for nine innings even if the players he now loves let him down. He'll watch pitch after pitch and ask question after question and eat hot dog after hot dog. His new Reds jersey will never shine brighter, nor ever be worn with so much pride by another soul in this world.

He'll get there in time to see the game. He'll watch baseball tonight. So will the doctor. So will thousands of other people. They'll see the same pitch, the same strike, the same hit, the same win. But they won't have the perspective he'll have. They won't look at the homerun, the single, the out like he will. They won't count the RBI's and the K's like he will, like he's been taught how to. We don't have the perspective he has. Baseball. For the first time.

Common Sense: Common Sense

2008-05-04T07:04:00.004-04:00

I'm getting tired of this expression. Especially in the political realm. I'm not sure who's appealing to Common Sense in all things issue related: The Common Sense Medical Plan! But Common Sense tells me someone certainly is. It's the typical, oversimplified nonsense I expect from politicians.

I'm all for Common Sense. Indeed, we could all benefit more if people used Common Sense a little more generously than they/we do. But when it comes to politicians, to people who run governments, is Common Sense all we're missing and therefore all we need to right any sinking ship?

Common Sense tells me if my car won't start and the gas gauge is on empty: I need more gas! What Common Sense does not tell me, and here's the inherent issue with the expression and application, is that my car will then start. There could be a host of other problems that keep the car from starting. Bad gaskets (whatever those are), lose spark plugs (non-sparking spark plugs?), a bad hose (these are all things in cars right?) could all be reason. Heck, the car might not even have an engine. Common Sense allows you to diagnose, not treat.

So I see these adds that appeal to, in their nuanced, subtle ways, Common Sense tells us if we all could have cheap, affordable, government provided health care, everything would be better. for all of us. No. Common Sense tells us only that it would make sense, for everyone to have health care, not that it would be a panacea for the ironically ailing industry. Or, in the interest of unbias, that drilling in ANWAR will alleviate the gas crunch forever.

We need leaders who know cars. Who know that the car needing gas is just one approach to making sure it's up and running. Give me your platform of vague and nuance and Common Sense, of promises enough to fill a tank. But it's going to take more than a sense of the common to fix problems. It will need that, but you're going to have to know a lot more than how to fill up the tank if you want my vote.

Out To The Ballgame

2008-04-30T20:06:00.003-04:00

Just came across this asinine survey on SI.com of the best ballparks in the country. I immediately figured to see either Fenway or Yankee Stadium up there as #1. "At least in the top 5" I consented before I clicked on the article -- knowing I'd get worked up with the results. And sure enough I'm worked up. Fenway was 21st; Yankee Stadium 20th. Several of the categories used to tabulate this result are just plain stupid.

Food: What are we rating here? An evening out for dinner and a show? Did you order the blue cheese on the side of your hot wings and it was put on it? Was the hot dog too small for the bun? Seriously, when you go to McDonalds don't expect Spago. Or do and be disappointed. Just realize you're an idiot for doing so. And realize this is an idiotic way to rate a ballpark.

Team Quality: I can see the argument that this brings about. Who's going to go see a bad team play. But how does this affect the ballpark rating? See Hamlet performed by puppets at the Globe. Think it trite. But you're still at the Globe.

Hospitality: Huh? Like, "I really appreciated how other fans took time to flush the toilet before I entered the stall" hospitality? Seriously? I can use another metaphor here, but the bottom line is how does this affect the ballpark?

Promotions: Here's a metaphor: this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Well, second dumbest. The dumbest thing I've heard is "Here's a metaphor: this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard." Obviously, that's not a metaphor.

Traffic: So does the team with poor team quality have higher traffic scores and vice versa?

For the legitimate categories, Tradition and Fan I.Q., two things that make the simple and large event of attending a baseball game worth doing, Fenway, Yankee Stadium, Wrigley, all ranking high. And I'm not sure what atmosphere means and why the Sox were so low. Nothing beats Landsdowne street pre- and post-game. Also: completely inhospitable as well.

The Indians at the top I don't deny. That's a great, great place to watch a game. But I deny it based on these stupid categories. Seattle? Really? It's top 10. I've been there. Pittsburgh? On Bobble Head day it was fun, maybe Top 20. My Dad hates the White Sox Stadium so I'm deferring to him there. Great American in Cincinnati is the WORST place to watch baseball. The old Riverfront was much better.

Anyway, if you're going to rank ballparks, be intelligible and obvious. Use common sense. Don't try and unhinge the system. Fenway, Yankee Stadium (which they are despicably tearing down), Wrigley, Dodger Stadium, Pac Bell, Cleveland/Jacobs Field/Progressive.

Take your food and promotions and "please" and "thank you", I'm watching baseball.

On The Death Of Sports Journalism

2008-04-30T12:50:00.003-04:00

There's been some uproar on the Internets today about bloggers and sports journalism. Most of it unfounded. Most of it true. How bloggers distort and dumb-down sports journalism with their ridiculous accusations and opinions and at-the-same-time-lack-of-access. But that point is not for here; I am unequipped at the argument.

What remains the demarcation point for this is the "education" of those bloggers. Have they even read W.C. Heinz? Admittedly, I had not. But, being the erudite Internets searcher I am, I quickly "Googled" him and just as quickly read "Death of a Race Horse"-- apparently his seminal work. And... It. Is. Good. Very. Very. Good. No one writes like that these days -- not daily sports "journalists" anyway. Not journalists for the most part.

One can argue if this is an unfortunate occurrence. A product of our growing curiosity for facts and not the "story". When the story is the facts and the facts are the story, is there much room for notions on the weather? On the murmurs of onlookers? Probably not. But truthfully, how many of these pieces could you read? Sometimes I just want the box score, the injury report, the statement on the game. Sometimes I just want bloviated nonsense to put sports in perspective. And sometimes I want "Death of a Race Horse" to put sports in perspective.

But what I want (aside from "dog and a beer"; obligatory reference there)... what I want is good writing. And that's the issue. Good. Writing. Death of a Race Horse is that. Most of what is sports journalism and/or blogging, is not that.

The thing of it is: Sports, however bad her commentators may be or however good they may be, sports is good writing.

On The Goings On Before My 28th Birthday

2008-04-27T04:35:00.005-04:00

There have been a series of unfortunate events that procured themselves into my life before my 28th birthday. A series of events so horrible, I cannot see as how anything worse could have befallen another human soul.

-- There were 2200+ winners of the Roll Up The Rim promotion at the two Tim Horton's I frequent. I purchased 15 cups of coffee, did not win once. Meanwhile, the Mrs. has won 14 out of the last 15 times in the Mt. Dew promotion.

-- I broke my hand. True, it was my own stupid fault. But if a man cuts off his own foot is he not pityable?

-- I could not nor can I play sports for the next four weeks, and who knows beyond that. Ever try and play golf with a busted hand? And softball's out of the question 'cause it's my glove hand.

-- On my birthday I endured a fever pushing 102, severe exhaustion and a really sore sore throat. Over the course of 48 hrs, I slept for 30+.

-- Ripped three contact lenses. Ripped lenses in the previous 16 years: 2. And ripped my 4th this morning.

-- Rising costs of fuel.

-- The Red Sox dropped 4 straight.

To balance this out, there have been an equally meritorious series of events that may or may not have canceled the following out.

-- Isaac called me Dude.

-- The Mrs. took absolute care of me during my illness and broken arm.

-- This.

-- This was my birthday present (without the people). Yes, I'm old now.

-- The Celtics won 66 games and took the first two of the first round of the playoffs.

-- Got my cast off.

Not a day passed were I didn't realize the relentless grace bestowed upon me and shown to me in my wife and my child. Even when I wanted to be depressed about breaking my arm, there was Isaac not paying it any attention or consideration. When I wanted to be frustrated or angry about circumstances well beyond my control, there was the Mrs to offer, with her smile and touch, perspective on all that is good. And when I was down on never winning a single, solitary thing in that stupid promotion, there, again, was the Mrs flaunting her talents as a twist off winner (Seriously though, it's uncanny how many stupid bottle caps we have scattered throughout the cars and house).

I'm 28 now. Recovering from injuries sustained through stupidity, normal passage of germs, and wounded pride at being unable to win my family (read: me) anything. I have my sense of humor intact. I have my awe at the world around me fully intact. I have people who love me. I have people to love. I have a God that cares infinitely about me.

Being 28 is the next logical step, the next in a coordinated series of progressions that aim to make me smarter, more mature, more loving, more caring and more of a man.

It's up to me to make the most of all of everything.

Pedant Coffee Drinking

2008-04-14T07:50:00.006-04:00

I fully recognize it's the #1 thing White People Like. If it becomes a stereotype, then, as I say, stereotypes tend to be stereotypes for a reason. And I am your stereotypical young white person who likes coffee. I am now saddened by the recent Starbucks coffee release. For the most part, I could care less when Starbucks releases a new coffee. But when doing so replaces their Breakfast and House Blends, then I am distraught and must form an opinion if it is truly to be the #1 thing I like (#2 for me is assists. I love assists. When I don't make an assist I get mad and break bones.)

It's apropos that they're calling it Pike's Place. For those have not been to Seattle, Pike's Place is the fish market where they throw fish. There's other stuff there too, but for the most part that's the draw. It's the place where tourists go. Cultivated to the masses for their entertainment. Popularized and hyped. This new brew is much of the same. Tastes much like a popular tourist attraction. It should after all since patrons created it. It's a noon cup of coffee. Something warm to drink - but not very good. Very disappointing but not surprising and not worth the $1.85 for a grande. And this is replacing their very good Breakfast Blend and very decent House blend?

NOTE: I would opt for the Komodo Dragon brew if, at 6am, I didn't think of this movie and this character and the fact that referring to this cup of coffee makes me seem a little too ostentatious.

My name is Aaron. I am a coffee pedant.

But hey, it's one of the best parts of waking up (the not best part is actually having Folgers in your cup. That's just terrible coffee).

Gone Since November

2008-04-13T22:01:00.002-04:00

Every weekend since November, either the Mrs or me have been working or out of town or had friends or family visiting. Since November. So it has been well nicer than nice to have two consecutive days at home as a family.

It has been well nicer than nice.

Bob Dylan: How Does It Feel To Win A Pulitzer?

2008-04-09T10:02:00.004-04:00

So perhaps you've seen the news: Bob Dylan received a special nod from the Pulitzer Prize committee. It's the first time the award has been given to a rock musician. As I read online yesterday, this is interesting given the anti-establishment bend of the genre. It's supposed to be revolting against these high class honors and what they mean. But truthfully, there is no one in the industry more deserving of the literary merit. No one else who's body of work can be considered with the great writers. Dylan is a great writer. Despite what you may think of his voice (the Mrs can't stomach it). Despite what you may think of his music. Dylan is and was lyrically the best. On par with the prosody of the best.

Now there are other musicians who's body of work could be considered deserving of the award. Neil Young comes to mind. But most notably is Bruce Springsteen. The Nebraska album alone is a lyrical collection of short stories. Tom Joad is another astonishing musical panoply of short fiction. If Dylan, I say, then Springsteen.

Anyone else I'm missing?

So Very Close

2008-04-08T09:14:00.004-04:00

It would've been the first time I'd ever managed to pick the NCAA National Champion. If Memphis would've won. The stakes were higher for them but for me that was all that mattered. That and seeing the Dribble Drive Motion Offense in its glory. But alas, not even the latter was evidenced fully last night; I still stand by its overall effectiveness and superiority to the classical style of basketball because, at its simplest, it makes the game fun to play again. Organized streetball it's called. That's too simple a term though.

It was a good game, not a great one. Billy Packer continues to spout irreversible nonsense and continues to call every Finals of my lifetime. And I have still not picked the National Champion.

Like Father, Like Son: On A Broken Hand

2008-04-03T11:05:00.003-04:00

Just like my boy, I've broken a bone. No, he didn't drop me down the stairs. Instead, I succumbed to my own stupidity while playing basketball. I'll leave it at that. Needless to say a broken hand makes life difficult. Taping up my arm at 6am to shower is no easy task. Neither is changing a diaper.

Isaac hasn't noticed. He's paid about as much attention to my injury as he did to his own. He still expects to chase me around the house, wrestle with me and have me give him baths. And while I have been considerably and understandably slowed at tasks around the house and notably at work, his perspective has gone a long way to solidify my own. I am not as adaptable as he was when he broke his leg, that experience is fresh in my mind: the energy and adaptability of a child is truly amazing.

May I be like my son.

Boldly Going: A Confession And Apology

2008-03-29T09:03:00.005-04:00

It's no secret that I have always loved science-fiction. From the Chronicles to Lord of the Rings to The Space Trilogy to Star Trek to Star Wars, I have always been intrigued by forays into a realm or world or universe like and un-like our own. However, I'm discerning in my taste for sci-fi fantasy. I'm particular. Snobbish even. I don't do campy. I don't do unrealistic, if that's even possible as a prerequisite for science fiction. It's as difficult for me to explain my taste in science fiction as it is my enjoyment of science fiction.

There is an element to good science fiction, to the Asimov's out there. It consists of the same stuff of a good western movie. It entails part imagination, part familiarity, part possibility, part impossibility, part morality. It should inspire or stir or intrigue a part of us so that we can sense a bond with a story or character even though our worlds have nothing in common. A sensibility about it that allows for the individual in us to see ourselves in this world making the same decisions and mistakes even though we can't begin to imagine ourselves in a world like theirs. Good science fiction should insist upon and instill a hope in humanity.

One reason for the difficulty in ascertaining my enjoyment of it is because I don't think it's taken as a serious genre; not recognized in literature or in film. It's often stereotyped by the "nerds" and with good reason. I am not deluded in this sense -- I don't go dressing up to conventions for example. Of course, the stereotypes associated with the genre belie any credence to it and keep the enthusiasts in the closet for fear of being grouped in with the groupies. Star Trek: TNG is philosophical? Yeah, whatever. But it is. From Mills, to Kant to Plato to Sartre it's there and obvious. Also obvious: pointy ears and phasers and funny shaped beings. And for that reason you probably don't believe me.

Another confession/apology is due. To Eric: I'm sorry I made fun of you back in college when we first met and you were reading that fantasy novel series. Though it was probably campy, I shouldn't have mocked you for reading it! However, it's not like you've read another one since, so...

All this said, I've recently stumbled across a book I feel I should read (to be explained in a later post): Dune. So I'm reading it. And we'll see. Next will be the series my Dad's said I should read for forever: Foundations.

Anyway, I'd like to be able to hash out my sentiment a little better for this genre so feel free interject some thoughts into this post.

Standing Still While Moving Through Texas (Again!)

2008-03-25T09:54:00.006-04:00

It's no secret I heart Texas. No secret it is, outside of Massachusetts and Maine, my favorite state in the Union. While my devotion to this state I have now visited only twice is a je nais c'est qua of sentiment, one of those beliefs best felt rather than examined, indulge me for another moment to wax sentimental on my latest experience.

I hyberbolically (and jokingly!) surmised that when Americans fight in wars, they fight for places like Texas. That they do not fight for states like Iowa or Idaho or Ohio or even Delaware -- although it is the nation's first state -- not for the beaches of Malibu or the rain and clouds of Washington state. No. They fight for Texas.

She stretches out for miles like a grandfather reclined on a decaying porch in the sunset. She is old and dusty. Rough, scratchy and faded. Such scenes lead one to believe in experience, that Texas is then an experienced state free of mistakes. Yet she is not. Texas is not the veteran, not the wise sage whom we seek for solace and answers. Texas has the feel of never quite being able to get comfortable, remaining on edge. A place most human. Most imperfect. Most the compilation of all that goes into living every day for a lifetime. And the more she stretches to relax, the more she inclines to be reclined-- like the grandfather on the porch -- the more she creaks at the joints with a deep pain welded by a story or a decision or a mistake or joy from long ago.

It is here that I am most quiet. Most relaxed. Most uncluttered. Like a little boy listening at his grandfathers knees with one ear pressed to his story and the other pressed to the evidence in his knees. My mind stretches as far as the horizon. Through the plain and colorless oceans of fields. Over the hiccups of hills. The watering holes and windmills. Past the animals, who in their youth even seem older than time. There are fences but no one and no thing is fenced in. Natural beauty seems to be the one thing lacking, the one thing that keeps it from competing with the Maines, Wyomings and West Virginias, there is beauty here. Much, much beauty.

To each and everything thing in Texas there is ascribed some story. It is the song that reminds me of Texas: Not Dark Yet by Bob Dylan. I listened to it yesterday as the plane left Dallas. Dylan writes about how "...behind every beautiful thing/there's been some kind of pain." Not to vault Dylan higher than he ought, but we can posit from this that pain leads to beauty.

Texas, that old grandfather with the sore joints in the sunset, is a beautiful state. Texas is a state that has lived and endured a lifetime. And as you drive through, it may look like you're moving merely around difficult overpasses and off-ramps, but you are trekking across the aged plains of Texas, and you are only standing still.

And time is running away.

On The Trip To Miami

2008-03-19T09:33:00.004-04:00

It was our first vacation in 6 years - since the honeymoon to Seattle (minus the overnight baby-moon to northern Ohio). By this I mean the first instance where the Mrs. and I got away. No visiting friends, no visiting family (though did enjoy a rather delightful evening with my sister-in-law), no objectives other than to get away. Well, for me anyway. The Mrs. had to go to work conferences for three days. Oh, and the airline lost our luggage, refused to reimburse us and gave us no timeline for when the luggage would arrive (we spent the first 5+ hrs of the trip looking for places to shop and shopping for clothes and essentials). Call it a vacation then.

But here's the thing about Miami, about the city on the ocean that keeps everything that embodies the ocean away. There are beaches and small streets and massive amounts of sun and breezes. Yet there is no distinctive ocean smell. No quiet serenity of the then ironic crashing of waves. No, Miami is a place wrapped up in itself, not in the place and location it inhabits. Concerned about being the location everyone gets away to then a place to get away to. Thus, a place, by the end, you're not unhappy to leave. We were not unhappy to leave. The time was delightful, relaxing and a welcome respite. But Miami left us restive.

Perhaps it is the type of people we are. People who prefer Seattle to Miami. People who prefer the smell of the ocean to the faint whispers of an ocean odor amongst the collusion of a city on the beach that keeps such things at bay. Yes, Miami, with it's beachfront estates, sunshine and ocean breezes colludes against those of us who only hope to enjoy such things as simple and peaceful as the smell of the ocean and the glow of the sun.

On A Year: March 12, 2007 - March 12, 2008

2008-03-12T10:48:00.007-04:00

Remember this day. It was one year ago. Some 365 days ago. 52 weeks precisely. Countless hours. Untold-about minutes. Time has certainly elapsed. And there just is no way to simply put, to easily say, summarily describe how relentlessly blessed and wonderful life has become.

Scrolling through pictures and videos and memories has been a marvelous delight. Remember when he first smiled. Remember when he first laughed. Remember his first Opening Day. Remember when he rolled over onto his stomach. Remember when he rolled over onto his back. Remember when he started to croll. Remember when he started to crawl. Remember when he first said Momma and Dadda. Remember his first tantrum. Remember his first haircut, bath, outfit, giggle, chuckle. Remember when he broke his leg. Remember when he first danced. Remember his first steps. Remember how his eyes light up something magical and happy at just about every moment.

To measure this time, as we are doing today with baseball cupcakes and caterpillar cakes, with wagons and gloves, to measure it is an immense task; like nothing else. Comparable to no other thing. It's grandness, it's largeness, lies in not recalling when a first happened, or when he did a certain thing, like when he laughed insatiably because he was being tickled. It lies not in remembering the events of the past year. The true realization of the strength and power of today's celebration is remembering a time when this was not so. Isaac has so filled our lives with an indescribable essence that it has overflowed from moment to moment, seeped into the past and flows just as endlessly into the future.

This year has composed moments we can measure and capture and quantify. It has consisted of the one thing beyond measure: Our love that has grown larger than the days, larger than the weeks and months, larger than the mere year that has gone by.

Happy Birthday Isaac.

How I love you.

On Kmart Winters

2008-03-10T08:20:00.006-04:00

For the most part, snow and winter and cold here in Columbus resembles Kmart more than anything. Dingy, dark, messy and unclean. Inconsistent. Sure, there's an occasional good buy or deal, like there is an occasional snowfall of four or five inches. But it's rare, and it's still only four or five inches. Winter in Columbus can never make up its mind. Never sure what it wants to be. So we meander through a couple inches of snow here, ice here and then 60+ temperatures there.

For a Bostonian, it's depressing. Gone are the epic snowstorms that dump 12-18 inches in one night. Gone are the true and complete blizzards that trap you in your home. Gone are the purest whites and sharpest colds of a Boston winter morning.

This weekend, the city endured its worst storm ever, which ranks like 15th all-time on my list. On Friday night, in the modicum of over-reaction, weathermen were calling it the Blizzard of '08 (complete with the snazzy graphics). There were seven inches on the ground. Now it snowed another seven over night and then three or four throughout the course of Saturday. Not exactly a blizzard (though according to the National Weather people, it fits the definition of a blizzard -- one that mysteriously doesn't take into account snow-fall rate. It's made of the same intelligence as people who put a stake in a baseball player's average while overlooking entirely OBP, SLG, OPS). Growing up we called this a lot of snow.

Sarcasm aside. It was a formidable storm. It dropped a lot of snow. And it was cold and windy and shoveling was not fun. But being out in it was the greatest of joys. Building a snow fort only to realize I forgot how to build them and then remembering how to build one. Letting Isaac crawl and sit and climb over the walls and around the fort and into the fresh snow. Jumping off the front porch into the powder and cold. Much can be said about the havoc these storms bring. How the cities and businesses shut down out of fear. Perhaps, when these moments are recalled and enjoyed, we can posit that cities and businesses shut down out of joy and fun because it is snowing. Because it has snowed. Perhaps.

For whatever this storm was, in perspective historically for the city and in my own experience, it was a true snowstorm. It was beyond the Kmart I had grown accustomed too and took me back into the familiar street corner stores of my youth (you know, like the one at the beginning of School Ties that was actually shot at the store down the street from my church). One defined not by snowfall totals or wind speeds or levels of emergency, but by snowballs and snow angels and snow forts and snow. Fresh, white and powdery.

And you can't put a price on that.

A Larger World: Isaac's Foray Into The Backyard

2008-03-05T14:05:00.004-05:00

He was used to small places. Accustomed and familiar with the intimate settings of his world. For his part, he was only required to explore the outer reaches of the first floors of the homes he visited. Behind the couches and rocking chairs and cautious looks into the shadows of the underneaths of dressers and beds. It would be a grand occasion when he could climb a flight of stairs or kick and scream happily in shallow waters of white porcelain or blue cement, or gaze quietly into the passing trees through a moving window. But even those occasions were small in stature, never far from an outstretched hand of someone whom he infinitely trusts.

When his world did get larger, he did not get smaller. He did not shrink and cower into the familiar. Instead, he basked in its immenseness, swam in the seemingly infinite depths that were swirling around him in cool yellows of a setting sun and gray and white columns of clouds passing over his head. He would not move forward, out into the sea. But he would not retreat. Call that holding one's ground or a lack of bravery. Call it what you will. And call his name, see if he'll set forth on his feet and hands and chase out into the wide tenets of air and light and grass and mud and towards voices of those whom he infinitely trusts.

The world becoming larger is not an easy event to comprehend. To categorize and classify and assess for any of us. That's not even accounting for the equally daunting task of realizing one's place in this world. And for a child, for one who possess innocence and a sweet laughter, even he saw the need to examine, to not have it go unexamined. A truly admirable and envious and difficult task. One that takes no account for innocence or laughter, but requires them properly. There was no one greater to the task in that moment.

Sitting there in the yard, the grass and light around him, he made some judgements, comprehended some of the matters swirling about: That the world just got infinitely bigger. And that, even though he wasn't ready to leap out and crawl and walk and frolic, he could appreciate those of us who try, like me, his dad. With his open and bright blue eyes, heaven-ward, and a simple smile and hair gently tossed by the breeze, he admired those of us who try to make the world not seem so big and not seem so unfamiliar. He humored my attempts to encourage him and inspire him forward by showing him all the things I thought he could do in this larger place. But he had his own take, emitted surprisingly as he looked about and around: laughter at random, unprovoked intervals.

I think he thought this big world awesome.

Name Dropping: A Visit That Just Happened

2008-03-04T12:28:00.005-05:00

As Ohio is the center of the universe today, you can understand why all of the Networks are in town. Seeing as how I work for the CBS one, we've been inundated over the past few days with network people. Moments ago, I shook Katie Couric's hand. Exchanged names -- as if I didn't know who she was. And a simple little banter with the Evening News host. She's quite pleasant in person. Very nice. Did I mention before that, seeing her walk down the hall while looking over my computer, we made eye contact and exchanged smiles and a wave as she walked by -- inches from my computer. Did I mention that? Because it just happened.

Though I did play a subtle joke on her. Realizing she was coming today, it struck me that underneath my sweater, I was wearing a Boston Red Sox shirt. She used to date the owner of the Sox. So I proudly displayed it and a picture of Isaac in Red Sox garb on the computer behind me during our meet-cute.