Old Farts, Like Thoreau And Thompson

Every now and again I am tempted to thumb my nose at this world of modern convenience. Knowing that I come from a long line of social nose thumbers might help you understand this statement but I suspect that a lot of people would do the same if they weren't so addicted to their at home comforts.

If you knew what I spent on a cell phone every month you'd probably laugh and I would too if it didn't hurt so much. I know that as little as five years ago (maybe six) I didn't have a cell phone and life was pretty good. I also lived in an apartment in which the cable hadn't been turned off from the last guy and the heating was covered by the rent. This represents a significant dollar amount when you add it all up. So what's a boy to do? Well, the heat I need, and if my car breaks down on the highway I'll want the cell phone and without the Internet connection we wouldn't be having this conversation. That leaves the cable, but quite frankly, if I don't keep up what's happening in the world of forensics I'll never be able to represent myself at trial, and that could come in handy.

In the July of 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a one room cabin on the shore of Walden Pond. His patron aspect to modern ecology is renowned, but his intention was nothing more than a wish to return to a simpler mode of living. For two years he lived there, documenting his daily rambles through the woods and despite his reputation as a hermit was quite often in the village, only a mile and a half away. He simply lived simply. At the time he was seen as a bit of a nut. The most distant journey he ever made was to Philadelphia and a large part of his reputation as a great American author stem from papers on birds, trees and shrubs. So be it.

The question I pose is that can one live simply while remaining a part of society? Without a cell phone, a computer and a television I couldn't tell you anything about the world that I didn't see with my own eyes or read in a book. I wouldn't be aware that Hamas now runs Palestine or that China has finished their railroad to Tibet or how many people were gunned down on the streets of Rochester last night. Maybe these things aren't important in the grand scheme of things.

After my father made his own break with society he developed, as a by product, an uneasiness towards the wide world. He was uncomfortable driving on city streets and covered his shell-shocked psyche with an aversion to modern technologies unless they could somehow help him heat his house for free and otherwise help him get off the grid. My wonder at this behavior, at the time, came from a sense that he had given up on humanity. He had given up the social fabric, only able to deal with people one or two at a time. I didn't see it as a move to free himself from the contraints by which he felt the modern world impinged his freedom to act as he liked but rather as removing himself from a situation he could no longer control and use to his own advantage. In short, I believed he simply ran away.

From the vantage point of today I see things a little differently. I, myself, have had occasion to want to retreat from a world that is winding itself, one way, 'round the tether-ball pole. From a social studies point of view it may be that this is nature's way to tell me to get the hell out of the way if I don't want to play. There are very interesting studies out there about the burn out effect of too much interaction with.........people. In New York City, on an average day, you can expect to come into contact with many thousands of people in one afternoon and the psychological effects from this results in something clearly paranoid and anti-social. This is a relatively small town, however, and I'm not done playing yet. So for now the cell phone stays and so does the computer. I might get rid of the cable but simply because I can't remember the last time it actually taught me anything or even entertained me. And I suppose I'll have to shave off this scratchy beard and maybe go outside. By the way, does anyone know where you can buy those old fashioned bic razors with only one blade? Yeah, I know they make those fancy ones now with seven blades and tilting heads and whatever, but you just can't beat those bics. I tells ya, in my day........

Mount Caucasus, Thursday Morning

"Excuse me."
"Go Away."
"Uh, Prometheus, excuse me. I have a question."
"Go away, for Christ's sake, I'm in pain here."
"Christ? Christ who?"
"Ugh. What do you want kid?"
"My name is Heracles. I'm on a quest and I was told you might be able to help me."
"Heracles. Fuck me, your Zeus' kid aren't' you?"
"Yeah, is that a problem?"
"Kid, who do you think put me here?"
"Yeah, I know the story. My dad got pissed 'cos you stole the divine fire from him and gave it to man and then you dodged that Pandora girl and thwarted his almighty revenge. Yada, yada, yada."
"And you want me to help you?"
"Hey, I didn't do it. Your the one who's prescient. You didn't know my dad would be pissed?"
"Yeah, I knew. Look at it this way kid; you wouldn't be here if it weren't for me. The way I see it, you owe me. Heracles, eh? I knew your great, great grandmother, Io. Pretty little thing."
"You knew her when she was a cow. You think she was a pretty little cow?"
"You're as bright as your old man. I have the gift of foresight kid. I know all about Egypt."
"If you have the gift of foresight, can you tell me how I'm gonna do with these Twelve Labours?"
"You'll do swimmingly. Now, get me down from here."
"What? Are you nuts? My dad will shit if I let you down."
"C'mon kid, you're gonna do it anyways. Remember? I have the gift of foresight so let's just skip the crap and get to the rescuing."
"O.K. smartass, tell me why I'm going to let you down."
"Because I'm gonna to tell you how to get to the Garden of Hesperides and I'm gonna tell you how to steal the apples, but first you're gonna shoot that damned bird before he comes back for another go at my liver."
"I see an opportunity here. There's an awful lot you could tell me. Let me think about this."
"You are so lucky I'm chained to this rock, kid. Don't think you can hide behind your old man, either."
"O.K. Tell me, was Pandora as beautiful as they say?"
"You've got me bent over a barrel and you want to know about something that happened thousands of years ago? You really are a dumbass, eh? Alright. Yeah, she was a fox. Oozed sex and had a body that wouldn't quit. Problem was she also carried around that damned vile your dad gave her and one look at that and I knew she was trouble. Unfortunately my brother, with his gift of hindsight, wasn't thinking with the right brain. What the hell good is hindsight, anyway? 'Oh look, now that it's happened I can see why it was a bad thing.' What a maroon."
"Yeah, right. O.K. back to the girl. How about her..."
"Oh shit."
"What?"
"It's that fucking eagle. Here he comes again. Get out that bow and arrow and do your thing, kid."
"You'll really tell me how to get to the Garden?"
"Yeah, kid, yeah. Just shoot that fucking bird."
"Y'know, you really have got a foul mouth. I'm not sure I need your help. Maybe I'll just go over there and watch the action for a little while."
"I'll tell you whatever you want, kid, just shoot the bird. Shoot the bird, for Christ's sake, shoot the bird. Wow, nice shot."
"O.K. back to Pandora. And then you'll have to tell me who this Christ guy is."
"Will be, kid, will be."

Ernie's Giant Steps

Ernie was a very generous guy with the things that he'd stolen from other people. An accomplished liar with violent tendencies, he also had a knack for walking out on a tab, explaining later that he'd received a phone call and had to leave immediately. We all gathered around in slack jawed wonder to read the article in the paper about him getting arrested for kidnapping a woman (who loved him, he said) after she scrawled out a help message on a bathroom window during a pee stop. It's incredible the people who come into your lives, no?

John Coltrane kicked heroin in the late fifties just before he rejoined Miles Davis and shortly afterwards he recorded his first full album of original songs called Giant Steps. He went on to develop a deep spirituality and record some of the most uplifting and emotional albums culminating in A Love Supreme, his love song to a higher power. He devoted his life to his music and to delivering healing through his instrument. He was quoted as saying "...as I look upon the world, I feel all men know the truth. The truth itself does not have any name on it. And each man has to find it for himself, I think."

That night, seven or eight years ago now, I was walking home through the market and had agreed to let Ernie sleep on my couch. He was just weird to me then, not a criminal. I can not even begin to explain why he jumped into that trash dumpster, except that maybe his own demons were driving him home, but I heard him yelling something at me and I went to check on him. He stood up and displayed his catch. He said, "Who is it?" and I said, "He's a sax player. Jazz." He looked at it as if he was trying to figure out how much he could sell it for and, when he decided that he probably couldn't get anything for it, he tossed it to me. "You can have it."

When I think about how John Coltrane's message of love and transcendental worship came to me, I remember a Buddhist saying about how, out of a pile of shit, a flower will grow. Or, if you prefer a Christian take on things, I could say, "The Lord works in mysterious ways.", but there are very few of us who believe that Coltrane is God.

A Snowball's Chance

It was a winter night, like many others, and this one started with a call to arms and a meeting place. This meeting place served cold beer and hot wings with loud music and scantily clad servers. We sat around a hodge-podge of tables, zigging here and zagging there, up to our elbows in hot sauce and telling outrageous lies until someone looked outside and saw the swirling snow coming down. I sent a scout into the night and he came back with the words I wanted to hear.
"It's perfect. Heavy and sticky."
We hastily rearranged the tables so that I was sitting across from Thurber. "Flip the coin." I said and he did. I called it and it came up the way I knew it would, the way I had dreamt it would. I looked around at the faces and made my first pick: Grant. He was fast and imaginative and a good hockey player. He wouldn't be worried if it came to the physical stuff. From there on in Thurber did exactly what I knew he would. He picked the biggest, strongest and slowest of the crowd, thinking that a snowball fight was all about a good arm. I knew better.
With the teams set, we paid the tab and prepared for battle. The boundaries were from Dalhousie to Parent and from York to Clarence. There were only a few rules.
1. No head shots, if you could help it.
2. Hiding behind pedestrians was cowardly and represented a forfeit.
3. Try not to hit any cars.
4. No hiding inside.
5. An appearance of the police meant the game was suspended.
And we were off.

I paired the guys with the girls, carefully separating the couples. If one half of a couple caught a snowball in the face the other would react too strongly and lose their cool. I kept Grant with me and picked two other guys, both small and fast and we formed the assault team. Since our ammunition was all around we didn't need to stockpile anything and we went mobile. I knew Thurber wanted this bad and I was counting on his aggression to work against him. I had beaten him three times in a row and he was out to get me. This was a modified version of capture the flag and Thurber and I were the flags.

Grant and I and our flankers went straight up Clarence, the death zone, into the thick of it, simply because there is no such thing as a snowball fight in which you don't get pelted. I sent out our flankers to stir up the ones hiding behind the cars and in the alleys and one by one Grant and I sent them running in a barrage, all the while nimbly dancing out of the way of the rockets Thurber's goons were sending our way. He was right in one sense, Thurber was. If one of his guys hit you it would hurt. He was wrong in another. They couldn't run very fast and Grant was a great shot. The other two were so fast no one could hit them at all and we worked our way up the street to where Thurber had made camp across from the Heart and Crown.

From the beginning our small teams had been routing Thurber's gangs, using speed and agility to dodge the heat and push them ahead and by the time we had herded them all into a group on the corner, Thurber knew he had lost again. He did what he always did and prepared for a valiant last rush on the circle closing in on him. He came straight for me, the flag, with my team pushing from all sides.

Thurber's biggest mistake was to pick a corner to make his stand. With his entire team gathered around him, they quickly ran out of snow. My team, closing in from all sides, covered a lot more ground and had a huge supply of ammo. He called it, stuck in the middle of Clarence Street, out of ammo, looking like a snowman himself, and that made it four in a row.

The best part about a good snowball fight is the post-fight re-cap in which all of the heroics are recounted and lots of beer gets drunk. It might not snow for awhile and so, for now, my record is safe but there's always someone out there who thinks they can take the title. I'm already working on a new strategy.

Not Up To Snuff

Here's a mystery we may have to put to a vote. Have you ever been fired from your job? If you had you might have said, "I've just been sacked." I asked Hendrickson about it and came up with two references.

Once upon a time ... There have been, throughout history, a lot of different ways to punish bad guys. A practice developed and widespread throughout the Roman empire saw law breakers sewn into a canvas sack and tossed into the river. This is a pretty straightforward way to keep down civil unrest but it may not be the root of the saying, "I got sacked." The other comes from medieval Europe artisans who often carried their tools in a large sack, long before the days of toolboxes and beat up Astro vans. These workmen often left their sacks on site so they didn't have to drag them back and forth to work. If your work wasn't cutting it you were fired, usually at the end of the day (some things never change) and you had to drag off your tools, letting everyone know you had been 'sacked'

Both seem likely, as we know that both were real life practices, but let's put it to a vote. Punishment for a crime or the humiliation of dragging your tools home early from work? Interestingly the word 'sack', according to legend was the last word spoken at the Tower of Babel just before God put a wrench in the works to prevent us from conspiring to reach heaven. As a result, says Hendrickson, the word 'sack' has pretty much the same meaning in over a dozen languages.

Butterfield Talking the Blues

It was the image of a tunnel, long and descending that awakened me and I felt my way to the computer. Its a picture I remember seeing at my eighth birthday, in it a demographic slice of rural culture circa 1973. It is scented, rubbery and chalky at the same time, and it filters the words that come to my mind only to be altered before they reach my fingers.

You had on a cape and I don't know why. As the lights dimmed and the candles sparked I slipped into a trance of electrified and mostly incoherent image reflection. The symbolic nature eluded me then but since I've had time to consider that I knew things then, intuitively, that thirty years of conscious thought still hasn't illuminated.

But after all, it's only a picture and you never said any of those things to me. It was just a dream of a dream I thought I had once when I was a boy. Those memories are so hard to pin down, so hard to interpret, even after all these years of introspection. Its getting so I can't tell awake from asleep.

I still remember what I wished for.

Dear Cranky

Sometimes I feel like a double agent.

The secret world of men is a hard nut to crack (so to speak) for most women. While I pay my dues to the society and uphold the code for the most part every now and again I am confronted by a girl friend who needs to be let in on a little inside information. I do this out of compassion for those women who just can't grasp what goes on in the minds of the men they love and hate, sometimes silmultaneously.

Why does he act like an ass in front of my friends?
Why won't he tell me he loves me?
Why?
Why?

These are the easy ones. This one came to my attention a little while ago.

"Dear Cranky,

A little while ago I made a terrible mistake and slept with my b.f.s best friend. It was wrong, I know, but I couldn't tell him because I didn't want to lose him. He found out anyway and dumped my sorry ass. That I understand. What I don't get is that he's still friends with the guy I screwed around with. What am I missing? If he can forgive his friend, why not me?"

signed,
Still Love Unfair Twit"

Well, S.L.U.....uh

O.k. It goes like this. You have unwittingly uncovered one of the most confusing aspects of male behavior. It's true that if you sleep with your man's best friend you will get dumped and they will stay friends. Men understand another man's inability to make rational decisions under the threat of impending sex. I don't know all the facts in this case but I'm willing to bet that you thought it would remain a secret. What you didn't count on was the code between men that makes it clear that if you sleep with your friends girl you have to tell him and probably take a punch in the stomach for it. While the word cuckold doesn't really get a lot of use anymore, everyman knows the shame of it and will drop everything, even his pride, to help out a fallen brother. It ain't fair but that's how it goes. My advice is to stop sleeping with your boyfriend's friends.

A Sorry State of Affairs

After the senate's failed attempt to prevent Octavian from entering Rome with an army, they scrambled to get out of the young Ceasar's way. After one final meeting with him, Cicero asked to be pardoned and began the run for his life. Octavian had allied himself with Antony in order to become Consul and the first on Antony's list for proscription was Cicero because of Cicero's lifelong crusade to discredit him.

As his servants hurried him along a secret path to the sea, not far from Formiae and one of his villa's, Cicero could hear the pursuit and told his servants to put down the litter. To the military Tribune he said, "There is nothing proper about what you are doing, but at least make sure you cut off my head properly." After slitting his throat, chopping at the head three times and some sawing they finally had it and Cicero was dead.

It took fifteen years before Octavian had the resources to take the Republic for himself, Antony and Cleopatra finally committing suicide after months of war, and in the end Octavian regretted letting Antony's hatred of Cicero lead to the murder of his teacher and mentor. It was the price Octavian had to pay to rule.

All of this is contrast to the politics of today. We have one more week of bullying and bitch-slapping and it will be over. Unfortunately none of the hopefuls will establish an empire to rival Rome's, none of them will rule the world, and in four years we'll do it all again. The winner will lie, cheat and steal and there will be more corruption and lies. Any one who doesn't believe that is naive and idealistic. "My man won't do it!" you say, but he will. History repeats itself again and again simply because we haven't developed the capacity to distinguish this year's bullshit from the last. I was recently called 'jaded' and 'defeatist' by a friend who couldn't sway me to vote his way, and I was tempted to reach for my sword, but then I considered that I would rather be surprised by a politician than let down one more time.

The Fabric of Time

I like the feel of linen shirts. I like the look, too. Come summer I vow not to be caught dead in anything but linen.

Brown, beige, off white but never white, linen brushes against you like the hand of a beautiful woman passing by you in the crowd with the ferris wheel circling the sun and the barkers calling after you, wistfully and hopeful. You turn and she's gone but captured in your mind's eye, for a split second, is the image of beauty and perfection and lazy afternoons spent wandering the grounds with a dollar in your hand.

Or maybe it's the middle of the afternoon and you'll languidly turn and see yourself caught in the reflection of the mirror and wonder, out loud, 'when will this humidity break' without wanting it to and decide, then and there, to stop moving-not to keep the heat at bay but because if you don't move a muscle the world will stop spinning and tomorrow will never catch today. You'll look out onto the lawns and laugh at the spectacle of the servants trying to lose at croquet while surreptitiously taking time-outs under the banyans nodding to each other, silently communicating that, 'if it's not perfect, at least its not bad' and a smile will come to your lips until you remember you've forgotten to order the lamb.

Or maybe you'll break the silence of a long afternoon by talking too loudly and pick the table by the door, the one under the fan that does nothing to alleviate the heat and order a round of drinks, gin with lemon and a mint leaf and ask if the juke box works wondering if they have anything lively, like Brubek or is it time, already, to listen to some Chet Baker and that sad smile of a trumpet he played until he jumped from that hotel window in Paris. The melancholy turns to rain and suddenly a hammock is all that will ease you from the late afternoon into the soft and cool evenings that come early this close to the equator.

Maybe its not the feel or the look I like but the memories caught in every strand, woven in and weaving out of my mind looking for an identity and finding only contentment and solace in something as comfortable as the day is long. Yeah, that's it.

Now Fat Free!

I'm going to do a bit of shameless flogging here for A Thousand Words. Rob has supplied me with another beautiful example of his photography for your consideration. Let us know what you think about it by making a comment(see below). You'll have to get Rob to explain the technique he used for this effect as I'm the writer, not the photographer, and it's over my head. Come to think of it, it might be a secret so he may not tell you. If you see a photo you want to buy, his e-mail is on the site. Trust me, you'd better get 'em now because you won't be able to afford him in a year.

Here are a few more comments that you are free to use.

1. Simply the most beautifully expressive work I've ever seen.
2. Hurry up and publish that damned coffee table book. I'll need two copies.
3. The Lennon and McCartney of the picture and a story thingy world!
4. Patterson rules, Thompson sucks! (not you Mom!)
5. I'm not wearing any underpants.

Thank you for listening...uh reading...and looking.

The Oyster Remedy

Electricity is, to me, a very complicated thing. There are a few categories of the scientific in which I can hold my own, however, math, as we have seen, is not one, nor is electricity and I perceive a complicity here. Something about electrons doing this and positive and negative charges doing something else. The short version goes like this. The power in my apartment went out yesterday and my first reaction was to hunker down and wait for someone to rescue me. By the way don't phone 911 if your power goes out; they can't help.

I told myself to remain calm and began to calculate the hours it would take for me to freeze to death. I imagined that days later as the first team kicked open the door they would find me huddled on the floor in front of my ceramic space heater clutching one of those little instant heat packs you can buy at Home Depot but only supply enough heat to slightly warm the tips of your fingers when it's your heart that needs heat.

I tried to recall my survival skills, learned at the foot of a cub scout master who later went to jail for fondling the kids he fostered and couldn't remember even the first thing about surviving at close to zero temperatures in a downtown apartment. I decided that all I could do was bundle up and strike out to try to reach a safe haven, maybe a restaurant or a bar that might be open at noon. By the time I got to the Whalesbone I was kind of cold so I decided I needed a stiff drink to warm up my extremities, and some oysters to revive my failing constitution.

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to freeze to death? I had a friend who, while hitchhiking home on a cold and snowy night, decided to just lie down and rest for a bit in a snowbank by the side of the road. The way he told the story to me sounded almost magical.

As fatigue rusted his joints he knew instinctively that if he stopped he might never get up but he couldn't resist the lure of the soft snow, so close and comforting. He tells me that the curious thing was that he had the foresight to pull his coat down over his knees as he sat down to take a quick nap. The snow had been falling all afternoon and the smart place to be was at home riding out the sub-zero temperatures with a bottle and a dog. Not him. He fell over at one point and when they picked him up he was stiff and fetal but alive. He recalled that as the biting cold gave way to numbness his thoughts drifted and elements of his life played out before his eyes. He remembered the time he had stormed his neighbors garden for carrots, ripping them from the ground at a dead run as the owner shouted and chased him for close to a city block before he cut across the field, leaving the old man far behind. Then he thought about kissing Sue Morton and how much he was tormented by his classmates for having done it, but he thought she was pretty anyway. Then he recalled his first grade teacher, Mrs. Zogalo, who had nice legs but not quite as nice as Miss Le Bras'. He fought the return to consciousness with all he had because it hurt when they thawed out his limbs, like nothing had hurt before.

When I got home I wasn't worried about the electricity anymore. In fact I had forgotten about it and flipped the light switch at the top of the stairs. I was in bed, reaching to turn out the bedside lamp when I remembered it shouldn't have been on at all. I laughed and scolded myself for being such a ninny and passed out, full to the top with oysters, beer and memories of Miss Le Bras' legs. Winter isn't so bad as long as you have an emergency plan.

The London Fog

My grandfather had a wracking cough that he claimed was England's fault. He used to say that the London fog had settled in his chest and never left, although he had a strange habit of referring to this 'fog' as 'she'. After the much ridiculed pamphlet drops on Germany, a blackout was put into effect that resulted in months of darkened streets. It wasn't until December, when low density lighting was allowed on the streets, that the number of car accidents began to drop. As my grandfather remembered it, "They would drive around in the dark like nothing was out of the ordinary until they smacked into one another." He met his London fog just after she drove her car into a pharmacy on Arundel Street. So began his courtship and lifelong criticism of my grandmother's driving. It was hard for her to refute the story and even more strange because it never happened.

"A man becomes his memories", she said to me after his funeral "but that doesn't make it real." I had a hard time with this pronouncement, especially because I had grown up listening to my grandfather's stories and he would lean back and say, "Isn't that right, Mother?" and she would always reply, "Of course, Father." For her, transplanted into the middle of Nowhere, Canada, ridiculed and tormented by her neighbors, the grocer and the general rabble of the town because of an accent she couldn't get rid of, and the strange words she used to describe the things around her, the only choice she had was to put up or shut up.

"When I finally landed in Canada, I hadn't seen your grandfather in four months. We had been married in England and he was supposed to have been buying us a house. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I got here and found we would be living with his parents. I was practically a slave, helping his mother with the laundry and the cooking while your grandfather used to wander around town pretending he was looking for work. He spent most of his time in that awful tavern, drinking away my savings. When I got pregnant he had to get serious, though, and he did, eventually. We bought this house and he went to work for Sears."

That was the end of her story and the beginning of mine but I couldn't understand why she had given up her life to come to Canada to start one with a man I now knew was a fake, a liar and a rascal to boot. "He wasn't a rascal, dear, he was just a boy. He did well for us, in his own way." she said.
"But didn't you want more out of life, grandma?"
"More? More than a home and a family? More than you?"
I had a hard time with that one until she said, "You're making more of this than is really there, Michael. I had nothing to look forward to at home. This was a country that held potential for a girl like me. It wasn't quite what I expected but that doesn't mean it was all bad. Your grandfather told you his version of the truth and I've told you mine but whose to say which is true?"

Still, I imagine that this woman could have been so much more than a housekeeper for a mean old bastard who rarely gave her a compliment, as I remember it. For years she was nothing more to me than grandma, who baked mounds of cookies when we visited and made tea at the drop of a hat and waited on my grandfather while he told a made up story to ridicule the woman he'd tricked into coming home with him. "That's your version, isn't it? You would be wise to consider this, however. If I was meant for more than this, and I am who you think I am, then why would I have stayed? Why would I have put myself through so much?"

Why, indeed. It wasn't until she died that I realized what she was trying to tell me. I stayed long after the others had left the graveside, reflecting on her life and her sacrifices and I realized I was going to miss her and that I was happy I had a chance to know her and that I loved her. To be missed, to be known, to be loved. I suppose in the end that's all any of us can hope for.

In Memoriam

For Beth:

I am lost between feelings of loss and sadness and the feelings of happy remembrance. Lost, because every day that goes by without you leaves me struggling to understand why this happened and how to go on. Sad, because I know I will never again hear you laugh and see you smile, or feel you squeeze my hand and because we never got to finish what we started or to travel where we wanted or to see each other, old and tired and in love. But then I think about the wonder of you, and I know that you brought into my life the happiest moments I have ever had. I wonder at the warmth and tolerance in your heart, and the happiness you shared with us and your irrepressible sense of humour. You could laugh like no other and make others feel it and believe it. You are never far from my thoughts and there will always be a piece of you in everything I do. I love you and I miss you.

Follow You, Follow Me

She looked at me from underneath those perfectly manicured eyebrows and gave a slight smile.
"Go get the other bottle of wine.", she said.
I looked up the street, quiet now and through that great tree that branched out thousands of leaves just off the forth floor balcony. The heat of the afternoon had eased into its nighttime suit and lounged just above our heads, lulling us into a peaceful, easy state.
"Will we sleep out here?"
"Do you want to? It's warm enough, just grab the cover and we'll be fine."
When I returned with the bottle and the corkscrew she had made us a nest in the middle of the pull out couch and was lying back in a mountain of pillows.
"Want to go to Bali?"
"Bali? Sure. When?"
"Maybe this winter. That's where I want to get married."
"Are we getting married this winter?"
"Maybe that's too soon, but that's where I'm getting married."
"Does it matter to who?", I laughed.
"Nope, just as long as it's on the beach. You can come if you want to."
I poured her a glass and sat down beside her and looked at her. She was waiting and I let her hang there.
"Thanks, I guess.", and she laughed at that and then she threw her arms around me and pulled me down. I lay there staring up through the branches of that great tree, barely able to make out a few stars through the leaves as they rattled a sigh and she whispered into my ear.

My Cat, the Physicist. Who Knew?

When I was fourteen I didn't know anything about alternate universes or time travel. I didn't know anything about the frozen cities under the pole and I had never been to the acrid wastelands where the shifting sands move space and where the wind blows thoughts from a thousand years ago into your mind to confuse and bewilder you. I didn't realize that most of the people I talked to had been dead for years and that no one else could hear animals when they spoke. Ah, the innocence of youth. As the years went on I began to take all of these things, and more, for granted and lived a blissful existence somewhere on the edge of sanity, but still hoping I could reconcile this mess of a world and boil it down to one defining thought. So much for the broken dreams of children.

The one thing that adults never bother to tell children is that try as you might the world will never make sense. Call me a loony but I labored for years under the impression that I just wasn't working hard enough to reconcile religion with science, politics, human resourcefulness and human depravity. Don't get me wrong, it's been fun trying to weave together the strands into something useful, like a picnic basket or a sun hat, but sadly all I've got is about fifty yards of very pretty matting, sort of like a floor covering that stretches in all directions and dimensions at once. If you happen to live in a multi dimensional house with portals about two foot by three foot have I got the flooring you need to keep your toes warm.

Recent events have forced me to concede that my brain just isn't big enough or subtle enough to sort through all the crap. And while I've got a varied assortment of pretenders all whispering in my ear at the same time, each has his own version of what the world is all about, so it's no good listening to them, especially the damned cat. Right now he's trying to chew his own foot off so what kind of credence can I give to his theories about ribbons of consciousness that ripple across space/time assembling and disassembling reality as they go. He might be a good physicist but some of his theories are just too far gone to be useful to me.

My New Year's Resolution, then, is to cease and desist. I'll be here whether or not I come up with a good reason for it, so I might just as well get comfortable and enjoy the ride. Speaking of rides, did I ever tell you about the time I rode a toboggan down into an ice cave? It took me three days to pull the stupid thing back up the hill and when I got home my mother was under the strange impression that I'd been dead for years. Or about the time that I lost my shoes in dice game with myself? I had to go buy a new pair because I wouldn't give them back. Good times. So that's it then. I'm going to stop trying to figure out why the world is the way it is and just go with the flow. I think that's a pretty good New Year's Resolution.

Arcadian Regret

I once asked Pan why he had such an aversion to Hercules. We were relaxing after a night of debauchery and he was in a foul mood.
"Hercules was a fag." was all he would say. I had my doubts but he wasn't in the mood to talk about it so I had to go elsewhere for the story.

That Pan could even get a hangover had me confused for some time until I asked him about it and he claimed to have invented it.
"The hangover. You invented it? For God's sake why?"
"For Zeus' sake, you idiot. My foster brother was pretty taken with the wine the first time I got him drunk. You should have seen the mess he made. He sacked Olympus, ran amok in the temple and defecated in the Acropolis. He was an animal. The next night he wanted to do it all over again so I had to take steps to make sure he regretted everything and boy did he. Ha ha."
"So it's an all or nothing kind of venture?"
"Sure, what good is life without regret. Stop talking now or I'll make you dead."
"Kill me?"
"Whatever."

The Hercules thing was a bit of an embarrassment for Pan, so I can understand that he doesn't like to talk about it. I didn't want him to make me dead so I had to tread lightly. Apparently Pan had developed a bit of a thing for Omphale, the queen of Lydia. Now, as vibrant and as manly as Pan is, she wasn't in the mood so when it looked like she wasn't going to be able to stall his advances anymore she asked Hercules to help her out. Hercules, being the namby-pamby that he was, put on a dress and crawled into Omphale's bed where he waited until the horny horned god appeared and began to make sweet rut. Needless to say, Hercules kicked Pan's ass across the room and that was the end of it. Hercules was always hiding behind his father's skirts so Pan let it go but not before he skewed things so that for awhile rumors circulated detailing Hercules' attempt to sodomize poor Pan. When Hercules went to his father crying about the injustice of it all he found Zeus croaking over the Acropolis with a headache that would have killed anyone else and the matter ended there.

Still, I have a lot of respect for Pan. Everyone else has retired and disappeared from public life but Pan knows a good thing when he sees it and to his eye this modern world has a few luxuries he could have afforded in the old days. In his words there is no better cure for a hangover than to spend the day on the couch watching re-runs of Bonanza. Not quite a harem of Arcadian nymphs, mind you, but in a pinch you have to make do.

The Count's Thermal Underpants

Benjamin Thompson, also known as Count Rumford, was an American and a scientist, a spy for the British, a Count of the Holy Roman Empire and an inventor. He invented the cooking range, the drip coffee maker, the pressure cooker and thermal underwear. He was charged with conspiring against American interests during the war of independence and although no evidence was ever brought forward he fled to England anyway, leaving behind a wife and infant daughter. He worked for the Bavarian government, introduced a welfare system in Munich and re-invigorated the German army by reviewing payment schedules, giving raises and free education to the soldiers. He saw the creation of the Rumford Medal, received by Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur and Michael Faraday from both the Royal Society of Great Britain and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. When he died his money was spread around although Harvard University received the bulk of it. Known as a scientist and a father of heat studies, he was called a coward and a spy by others, remembered as a irritating and arrogant man who revolutionized the kitchen with his advanced designs for stovetop cooking methods. He is reputed to have had arrested 2600 beggars and sent them to a workhouse to be taught how to support themselves. While contradictory, all these stories portray a man driven and ambitious, whose keen observations and skill in mechanics led to numerous inventions and social reforms throughout the world.

One of his designs, however, literally changed society in an unfathomable way. The Rumford Stove brought about a flat top cooking surface with variable temperatures and an advanced system for routing smoke out through a chimney. The fires could be banked by shutting off air supplies, thereby using less fuel, and no longer was the cook susceptible to burns from the open fire. All of this is pretty wonderful but think about how this revolutionized the food eaten then. With one fire pit came one meal. The expression 'pot luck' came about when visitors, arriving at mealtime were invited to the luck of the pot, a mish-mash of meat and vegetables which invariably had been on the fire for days. Now you could cook a different meal everyday. Not only that but you could cook things separately. The vegetables didn't have to go into the same pot as the meat and the frying pan became the tool of choice for your meal of choice.
Going to restaurant before this meant getting whichever roast had been put on the fire. Now you could order beef and your neighbor could order pork. Imagine. So, not only could you order whatever you wanted, you could have a cup of coffee brewed right before your eyes and make the trip quite comfortably, even through the winds of winter, wearing your thermal underwear.

In short, nothing I did yesterday would have been nearly so comfortable if it hadn't been for an arrogant American with British loyalties, a penchant for heat and a flair for underpants. Kind of makes me wonder.

Make It So

I spent a part of last night in the company of some splendidly pregnant women, one of them already a week over-due. A seat opened up on the couch beside one of them and I sat down beside her to drink in the serenity of someone about to give birth. She placidly rested her hands atop her belly and smiled widely at the room, enjoying the company of friends and celebrating the arrival of a new year and all the while she exuded a aura of beautiful calm and tranquility that was tangible at such close range.

Expectation is a powerful force in shaping our perceptions, willing, as it were, the world to conform to our hopes and fears and seeing these changes reflected in our own psyche. Our willingness to interpret our sensations to find accord with our hopes and fears is a powerful determinate that can have a profound significance in our day to day lives. Today I expect to be happy and that alone might be enough to carry me over the rough road I will traverse to tomorrow. To be on the cusp between expectation and revelation, a woman a week over-due, is to have your hands on the controls, steering a course towards fulfilling prophecy, and that surety is contagious.

Now, more than ever, I can say the words with a reverence for the power of the wish, knowing that believing them is all that you need to make it come true. And so I would like to wish all of you a Happy New Year.