French Class Moments

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

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

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

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

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!

America rejoices today. Justice has been served.

Elliot's Hot Dogs

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

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

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

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

No Comment.

Debating The Debates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.