Unfortunately, as you all know, I’ve slipped just a touch this past week in my standing as Most Successful Member of the Family. To wit: after many months of super-duper readings at great venues to vicious applause and unyielding lauding, traci’s book Recipes for Endangered Species has been panned. She was thrilled. “Look at this,” she said, “it says here, ‘I felt as if I had left a loving homestead filled with ancestral love and spiritual light to go get a job as a stripper in the city, had sold my child for drugs, and dumped my beloved cat in the trash, and walked away as it mewed. I wanted to go to sleep, but was afraid of my dreams.’”
Absolutely thrilled. She said, “This reviewer hated my book, but this review won’t make people not want to read it.”
I on the other hand felt my married-up status slipping along with traci’s grammar: “ . . . won’t make people not . . .” – so you wonder: what kind of rhetorical Wal-Marts does traci construct while you’re all away? – “won’t make people not”: that kind.
(Should that be while “y’all’re away?”)
With my PhD. a mere language requirement away, and people talking smack about traci’s writing, I thought for sure I would have to start picking my nose while teaching or throwing snowballs at Pat and Olga’s kids and blaming it on the sky. And, hell, it’s not even likely to snow here again until we leave for Utah in December. I was at an impass.
Suddenly, on Tuesday Nickole Brown from White Pine Press called traci. Turns out traci’s manuscript of prose poems Shell-Shaped Pieces of Bone was a finalist for the Marie Alexander Poetry Series. A really awesome series from a really awesome press.
While we found out this past weekend that she did not win, I was consoled by the fact that I’m back, baby. There’s no way I’m going to accomplish as much as traci any time soon, so who is the most excited in the world that I married traci? Clearly, it's this guy:
But, in all fairness, Blaisey's a close second.
Post Script: National Novel Writing Month – good attempts all around at our house. The Epic Asskicking Adventures of Princess Badass topped 8,000 words during the first week, then quickly fell from favor. Instead, I started working on my Western (The Wickedest City) again, and that went well. traci clacked steadily away at her novel – she got closer to maybe 10-12,000 words. While still shy of the 50,000 words the National Novel Writing Month experts look for, she has laid some ground work for a novel that I’m sure you all will be interested in. I’m burying Princess Badass for the time being, but traci’s going to stick with hers. I hear December is National Plutonium Enrichment Month – which means the ancient Connor family mantra (Hold My Beer I Wanna Try Something) has never been more fitting.
11.24.2010
A Second Honeymoon and Other Travel Advice
traci and I have that old on-going marital competition. For the longest time, we kept secret tabs on who was more successful in life. One day, we just decided to make a list. My argument was that I had attained more in life than she had. And hers was, "Nah nah, nahnah, poopoo." At any rate, here's a sample of the list.
* traci had a full scholarship to play Division One basketball – I was a Division Three cheerleader for gym credit
* traci has a PhD. – I have an MFA (from the same university)
* she’s 6’1” – I’m 5’11” (with my boots on)
* she has a book published – I have a few short stories and an essay
* she is a tenure track professor – I teach part time
As you can imagine, the list went on for the first half of a seventy-page college ruled spiral notebook before traci, incredulously, asked me, “Well, then, how exactly are you more successful than I?”
“It’s simple,” I said. “I married up.”
traci’s choice of spouse aside, she really is pretty amazing. Recently, writer and madhatter Carol Novak asked traci to read along with herself, David Smith, and Carter Monroe at the MadHat's Poetry, Prose & Anything Goes. traci, of course, was honored, and it gave more credence to my argument that my spouse is superior to my spouse’s spouse in all ways. Chalk one up for this guy. I don’t see traci becoming as successful as me any time soon, unless she stops doing really awesome things and I start robbing banks. That might equalize the playing field.
Anyway, it was an awesome reading, and if you’ve never met the above four awesome writers, then I’m better than you. Or luckier, at least, and if you like reading, look into each of their works – some of the best stuff I’ve been exposed to for quite a while, and someday when I complete my PhD., I’ll have the ethos to explain why they’re awesome. For now, it’s enough to say, they are kind and strong people who celebrate art and good conversations.
Meanwhile, traci and I took advantage of the journey to have a romantic day alone. We started off the day by taking a circuitous route up around the panhandle to have a look at some used cast iron bathtubs in the hopes of finding a four footer to fit our guest bathroom. The place we drove to is close to the Tennessee border, and the guy who runs it sits there on the porch, with a fence made of bathtubs and a yard made of bathtubs and a garden made of bathtubs, and this guy can tell you the personal history of every one of the bathtubs and others like them.
We asked him how he kept track of the prices of all the tubs. He said, “Five footers are two hundred. Four foot and a halfers are three hundred. And I don’t have any four footers, but, if I did, it would run you about seven hundred.” At this point, I could only be thankful we didn’t need a three footer – we’d have to sell the bathroom to buy the tub.
So we continued on our way – tubless – to Ashville, following the directions we’d been given by the internet. It has always amazed myself and my family that when I moved to Utah to perform my MFA program, I got on Route 8 which runs past my house, drove to Barkeyville, turned left on I-80 and drove straight until I found a hotel in Salt Lake City. In order to get from Greensboro NC to Ashville NC, we had to print out three pages of directions, leading us through Tennessee along seventeen different routes and interstates, and dubious county roads. At one point, traci looked up from the map and said, “Are we in somebody’s backyard?”
Now, there’s only one place in the world, I’ve heard, where you can start at Point A, walk a mile south, walk a mile east, walk a mile north, and end up back at Point A. It’s a sort of a riddle slash logic problem. Don’t finish this sentence if you don’t want to know the answer is the North Pole. At any rate, there’s only one place in the world, I’ve heard, where you can make such a triangular journey, following straight lines.
I’m here today to say that I think we’ve found a second such place. One of the directions, and this is verbatim, asked us to “Turn left to continue straight North on East 74 West.” I’m not going to address the fact that the directions asked us to turn left to go straight. Nor am I concerned with the idea of heading West on 74 East. What concerns me here is that we were already heading west, so the left turn should have effectively had us driving south while heading North on East 74 West.
So while I recognize the complicated magnetic issues the North Pole offers the world, I am certain there isn’t a pole on this planet that can contend with Tennessee for confusing travelers. At one point, in fact, we came to an intersection of East 74 West and North 81 West and couldn’t decipher the map. So we drove straight for a mile, came back to the intersection, tried the two other roads – each time coming back to the intersection – and simply decided to backtrack on East 74 East for a few miles. Now, it turns out that was exactly what the directions wanted us to do, but what’s more interesting is that all three of the other roads would have taken us 22 miles to Boone, NC. I know all roads once lead to Rome, and that’s a nice metaphor, but the only thing I can figure is that whoever designed the roads in Tennessee had a strong practical grasp of mobius strips.
Still, though we didn’t end up with a tub, it was a beautiful drive. The Black Mountain College Museum was a great space for a wonderful reading. After which we ate the best Punjabi food I’ve eaten since Jaswinder let me sleep on his floor for three months. We ended the romantic evening by driving halfway back to Greensboro along I-40 and sleeping for a couple hours at a rest stop. Best second honeymoon we’ve had since we moved to North Carolina.
Meanwhile, the whole lot of us are in Pennsylvania until Sunday, and for those of you travelling during the holiday season, I have two bits of advice. One drive safely: there’s lots of lousy drivers and even worse text messagers out there these days. And two, if you head through Tennessee, take a camera (it’s truly beautiful country), but leave the compass at home: it won’t do you any good anyway.
* traci had a full scholarship to play Division One basketball – I was a Division Three cheerleader for gym credit
* traci has a PhD. – I have an MFA (from the same university)
* she’s 6’1” – I’m 5’11” (with my boots on)
* she has a book published – I have a few short stories and an essay
* she is a tenure track professor – I teach part time
As you can imagine, the list went on for the first half of a seventy-page college ruled spiral notebook before traci, incredulously, asked me, “Well, then, how exactly are you more successful than I?”
“It’s simple,” I said. “I married up.”
traci’s choice of spouse aside, she really is pretty amazing. Recently, writer and madhatter Carol Novak asked traci to read along with herself, David Smith, and Carter Monroe at the MadHat's Poetry, Prose & Anything Goes. traci, of course, was honored, and it gave more credence to my argument that my spouse is superior to my spouse’s spouse in all ways. Chalk one up for this guy. I don’t see traci becoming as successful as me any time soon, unless she stops doing really awesome things and I start robbing banks. That might equalize the playing field.
Anyway, it was an awesome reading, and if you’ve never met the above four awesome writers, then I’m better than you. Or luckier, at least, and if you like reading, look into each of their works – some of the best stuff I’ve been exposed to for quite a while, and someday when I complete my PhD., I’ll have the ethos to explain why they’re awesome. For now, it’s enough to say, they are kind and strong people who celebrate art and good conversations.
Meanwhile, traci and I took advantage of the journey to have a romantic day alone. We started off the day by taking a circuitous route up around the panhandle to have a look at some used cast iron bathtubs in the hopes of finding a four footer to fit our guest bathroom. The place we drove to is close to the Tennessee border, and the guy who runs it sits there on the porch, with a fence made of bathtubs and a yard made of bathtubs and a garden made of bathtubs, and this guy can tell you the personal history of every one of the bathtubs and others like them.
We asked him how he kept track of the prices of all the tubs. He said, “Five footers are two hundred. Four foot and a halfers are three hundred. And I don’t have any four footers, but, if I did, it would run you about seven hundred.” At this point, I could only be thankful we didn’t need a three footer – we’d have to sell the bathroom to buy the tub.
So we continued on our way – tubless – to Ashville, following the directions we’d been given by the internet. It has always amazed myself and my family that when I moved to Utah to perform my MFA program, I got on Route 8 which runs past my house, drove to Barkeyville, turned left on I-80 and drove straight until I found a hotel in Salt Lake City. In order to get from Greensboro NC to Ashville NC, we had to print out three pages of directions, leading us through Tennessee along seventeen different routes and interstates, and dubious county roads. At one point, traci looked up from the map and said, “Are we in somebody’s backyard?”
Now, there’s only one place in the world, I’ve heard, where you can start at Point A, walk a mile south, walk a mile east, walk a mile north, and end up back at Point A. It’s a sort of a riddle slash logic problem. Don’t finish this sentence if you don’t want to know the answer is the North Pole. At any rate, there’s only one place in the world, I’ve heard, where you can make such a triangular journey, following straight lines.
I’m here today to say that I think we’ve found a second such place. One of the directions, and this is verbatim, asked us to “Turn left to continue straight North on East 74 West.” I’m not going to address the fact that the directions asked us to turn left to go straight. Nor am I concerned with the idea of heading West on 74 East. What concerns me here is that we were already heading west, so the left turn should have effectively had us driving south while heading North on East 74 West.
So while I recognize the complicated magnetic issues the North Pole offers the world, I am certain there isn’t a pole on this planet that can contend with Tennessee for confusing travelers. At one point, in fact, we came to an intersection of East 74 West and North 81 West and couldn’t decipher the map. So we drove straight for a mile, came back to the intersection, tried the two other roads – each time coming back to the intersection – and simply decided to backtrack on East 74 East for a few miles. Now, it turns out that was exactly what the directions wanted us to do, but what’s more interesting is that all three of the other roads would have taken us 22 miles to Boone, NC. I know all roads once lead to Rome, and that’s a nice metaphor, but the only thing I can figure is that whoever designed the roads in Tennessee had a strong practical grasp of mobius strips.
Still, though we didn’t end up with a tub, it was a beautiful drive. The Black Mountain College Museum was a great space for a wonderful reading. After which we ate the best Punjabi food I’ve eaten since Jaswinder let me sleep on his floor for three months. We ended the romantic evening by driving halfway back to Greensboro along I-40 and sleeping for a couple hours at a rest stop. Best second honeymoon we’ve had since we moved to North Carolina.
Meanwhile, the whole lot of us are in Pennsylvania until Sunday, and for those of you travelling during the holiday season, I have two bits of advice. One drive safely: there’s lots of lousy drivers and even worse text messagers out there these days. And two, if you head through Tennessee, take a camera (it’s truly beautiful country), but leave the compass at home: it won’t do you any good anyway.
11.04.2010
National Novel Writing Month and Me
What you’ve heard is true: November is national novel writing month. This is a tradition that is as old as time itself – eleven years. The official website (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) claims the first Nanowrimo was held in 1999. Yes, I thought time would be older as well. Who knew?
Still, this reminds me of the first time the kids ever came to Pennsylvania. Summer 2004. traci and I had been married for a few months, and we were driving down over the hill to visit Maga and Pappap. Zac was eleven, Sam was eight, and Naomi was four.
Sam said, “My friend had to have his index removed.”
I said, “His index?”
Sam said, “Yes.”
Naomi said, “Did it hurt?”
Sam said, “I didn’t feel a thing.”
Naomi said, “What’s an index?”
Zac said, “I think he means appendix.”
Sam said, “Yes, appendix.”
Naomi said, “What’s an appendix?”
Zac said, “Nobody knows.”
Naomi said, “Why do we have one if we don’t know what they are?”
Zac said, “Sometimes organs that were once useful lose their necessity as the body evolves in order to adapt to our environment.”
Sam said, “Basically, we grew out of it: like tonsils.”
Naomi said, “Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Like back in the nineties.”
This conversation is noteworthy to me, because it marks the first time I realized that my kids think of me not only as a different generation, but also as a primitive stage of the evolutionary cycle. All said, it’s not an awful feeling, and it does make me appreciate how difficult it was for my parents to adjust to losing their tails.
Meanwhile, back at National Novel Writing Month: traci and I have talked for years about taking part in this tradition. Each year, we’ve opted out. This year, we decided that since we’ve never been busier in our whole lives, we might as well try to crank out a 50,000 word work of fiction. (We are doing this unofficially.) That’s approximately 1,666 words a day.
In response to your first question: Is that a lot of words? Well, for instance, The Declaration of Independence has about 1,300 words. And that took fifty-six people like a month and a half to write. So, yes, I’d say 1,666 a day is a considerable amount.
In response to your second question: Will I be in your novel? No, you will not. Rather, I’m attempting a fantasy novel I’m tentatively calling The Epic Asskicking Saga of Princess Badass. It’s terrible. Perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever written. traci is writing an awesome novel, which she will tell you all about at a later date. You are not in that novel either.
But maybe you’ll be in the sequels. Meanwhile, we are both a little bit behind schedule, but optimistic. As neither of us teaches on Fridays, we have vowed to write our asses off on those days. I’ll leave you with that compelling image. Wish us luck.
Still, this reminds me of the first time the kids ever came to Pennsylvania. Summer 2004. traci and I had been married for a few months, and we were driving down over the hill to visit Maga and Pappap. Zac was eleven, Sam was eight, and Naomi was four.
Sam said, “My friend had to have his index removed.”
I said, “His index?”
Sam said, “Yes.”
Naomi said, “Did it hurt?”
Sam said, “I didn’t feel a thing.”
Naomi said, “What’s an index?”
Zac said, “I think he means appendix.”
Sam said, “Yes, appendix.”
Naomi said, “What’s an appendix?”
Zac said, “Nobody knows.”
Naomi said, “Why do we have one if we don’t know what they are?”
Zac said, “Sometimes organs that were once useful lose their necessity as the body evolves in order to adapt to our environment.”
Sam said, “Basically, we grew out of it: like tonsils.”
Naomi said, “Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Like back in the nineties.”
This conversation is noteworthy to me, because it marks the first time I realized that my kids think of me not only as a different generation, but also as a primitive stage of the evolutionary cycle. All said, it’s not an awful feeling, and it does make me appreciate how difficult it was for my parents to adjust to losing their tails.
Meanwhile, back at National Novel Writing Month: traci and I have talked for years about taking part in this tradition. Each year, we’ve opted out. This year, we decided that since we’ve never been busier in our whole lives, we might as well try to crank out a 50,000 word work of fiction. (We are doing this unofficially.) That’s approximately 1,666 words a day.
In response to your first question: Is that a lot of words? Well, for instance, The Declaration of Independence has about 1,300 words. And that took fifty-six people like a month and a half to write. So, yes, I’d say 1,666 a day is a considerable amount.
In response to your second question: Will I be in your novel? No, you will not. Rather, I’m attempting a fantasy novel I’m tentatively calling The Epic Asskicking Saga of Princess Badass. It’s terrible. Perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever written. traci is writing an awesome novel, which she will tell you all about at a later date. You are not in that novel either.
But maybe you’ll be in the sequels. Meanwhile, we are both a little bit behind schedule, but optimistic. As neither of us teaches on Fridays, we have vowed to write our asses off on those days. I’ll leave you with that compelling image. Wish us luck.
10.25.2010
Why We're Such Awesome Parents, Who Rock
Hi all,
In response to your first question, "Jackson, where have you been?", let me say this: when the baby gets the twenty-four hour flu, daddy gets to have the flu for the whole week.
In response to question 2a, "Jackson, does it hurt when you drill through the board into the finger holding the board?", I have to say, "Yes. Yes it does hurt."
In repsonse to question 2b, "Jackson, does it matter which finger?", I have to tell you people, there are some things you need to find out for yourself.
Meanwhile. Now, I know it's not son-appreciation week, but our boys are still okay I suppose. For instance, after we got groceries today, Zac and Sam ran up two flights of stairs to hug traci and thank her for buying a big round box of oats and a big flat brown bag of brown sugar.
"Your kids are great," we hear. "I wish my kids were more like your kids," folks say. Nobody ever really wants to know how we do it, though. Well, I'll tell you anyway. Here's our secret: bore them into submission. Every time they take off a sock and you think it might hit the floor instead of the hamper, explain the ways in which the Grand Canyon was formed by the gentle wheedling away of rock by sand and water and sun doing their things, and that a sock is never just a sock so much as an indication of a greater detritus of the soul, something heinous about society that hurts us in our hearts -- you see, sure, it's a sock today, but tomorrow you might not fold my shirt right or you might leave my towel where I threw it in the corner. Before you know it, the whole house is a shambles. The plains are a canyon. Pangea is all over the flipping place. So just please please pick up the sock.
Trust me, your kids will be great too. And you won't have to inflame that old tennis elbow with all the same-old, same-old spankings.
The girls are great, too. Naomi is memorizing "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. It's lovely to listen to, "Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore," you know, but when what you really want to do is watch Mad Men, well, the children will still be talented and gifted tomorrow, but Don Draper will only be popular for as long as people tell him to be. "While I nodded, nearly napping . . ." she said. "Why are you doing that?" asked traci. Naomi said, "suddenly their came a tapping." I said, "You know, some folks argue that the universe began with someone gently tapping," and she sprinted off to bed.
Blaisey is Itchy the Cat today. She had been Fluffy the Cat for the longest time. The other day she was Princess the Cat Who Would Like Daddy to Get Her Some Water Meow. Before that she was Bitey the Mean Cat and I was Steely the Scared Dog. Oh, the ever-changing self. In the midst of all these feline incarnations, Blaisey did find time to be sick last week. I lay beside her in bed reading while she drifted in and out of sleep. One moment, she woke to tell me, "Dinosaurs eat leaves." Another she said, "Some chipmunks like to climb trees." Some time later she woke and said, "Other chipmunks like to drink water." I read about twenty pages of a really good book and she said, "Apples that are green are pears."
When I caught the bug proper, I was most likely to simply say, "I think I'm gonna puke." Or "I think I puked." Or some variation on the theme.
On that note, I'll try to keep you all up to date more frequently on the events of our family. In the meantime, I'll ask the questions this time, "If apples that are green are pears, what's an orange if it's not orange?" And "If you're a chipmunk who doesn't like to climb trees or drink water, what kind of life is that anyway?"
In response to your first question, "Jackson, where have you been?", let me say this: when the baby gets the twenty-four hour flu, daddy gets to have the flu for the whole week.
In response to question 2a, "Jackson, does it hurt when you drill through the board into the finger holding the board?", I have to say, "Yes. Yes it does hurt."
In repsonse to question 2b, "Jackson, does it matter which finger?", I have to tell you people, there are some things you need to find out for yourself.
Meanwhile. Now, I know it's not son-appreciation week, but our boys are still okay I suppose. For instance, after we got groceries today, Zac and Sam ran up two flights of stairs to hug traci and thank her for buying a big round box of oats and a big flat brown bag of brown sugar.
"Your kids are great," we hear. "I wish my kids were more like your kids," folks say. Nobody ever really wants to know how we do it, though. Well, I'll tell you anyway. Here's our secret: bore them into submission. Every time they take off a sock and you think it might hit the floor instead of the hamper, explain the ways in which the Grand Canyon was formed by the gentle wheedling away of rock by sand and water and sun doing their things, and that a sock is never just a sock so much as an indication of a greater detritus of the soul, something heinous about society that hurts us in our hearts -- you see, sure, it's a sock today, but tomorrow you might not fold my shirt right or you might leave my towel where I threw it in the corner. Before you know it, the whole house is a shambles. The plains are a canyon. Pangea is all over the flipping place. So just please please pick up the sock.
Trust me, your kids will be great too. And you won't have to inflame that old tennis elbow with all the same-old, same-old spankings.
The girls are great, too. Naomi is memorizing "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. It's lovely to listen to, "Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore," you know, but when what you really want to do is watch Mad Men, well, the children will still be talented and gifted tomorrow, but Don Draper will only be popular for as long as people tell him to be. "While I nodded, nearly napping . . ." she said. "Why are you doing that?" asked traci. Naomi said, "suddenly their came a tapping." I said, "You know, some folks argue that the universe began with someone gently tapping," and she sprinted off to bed.
Blaisey is Itchy the Cat today. She had been Fluffy the Cat for the longest time. The other day she was Princess the Cat Who Would Like Daddy to Get Her Some Water Meow. Before that she was Bitey the Mean Cat and I was Steely the Scared Dog. Oh, the ever-changing self. In the midst of all these feline incarnations, Blaisey did find time to be sick last week. I lay beside her in bed reading while she drifted in and out of sleep. One moment, she woke to tell me, "Dinosaurs eat leaves." Another she said, "Some chipmunks like to climb trees." Some time later she woke and said, "Other chipmunks like to drink water." I read about twenty pages of a really good book and she said, "Apples that are green are pears."
When I caught the bug proper, I was most likely to simply say, "I think I'm gonna puke." Or "I think I puked." Or some variation on the theme.
On that note, I'll try to keep you all up to date more frequently on the events of our family. In the meantime, I'll ask the questions this time, "If apples that are green are pears, what's an orange if it's not orange?" And "If you're a chipmunk who doesn't like to climb trees or drink water, what kind of life is that anyway?"
10.07.2010
Hazards Upon the Long Run
Much like the Neanderthal civilization, Greensboro, North Carolina has no sidewalks. As a result, I often end up crossing regrettable intersections at bad angles and testing the pavement of dubious crosswalks.
Much like other Neanderthal beings, I approach the outside world cautiously. Neanderthal joggers often peeked from side to side along the game trails, hoping to detect saber tooth tigers and Casteroides ohioensis. As for me, while I have been hit or almost hit by just about every kind of motorized vehicles from motorcycles to dump trucks, nothing chases me off the road so often as the mid-sized to enormous four-door road vehicles. By their nature, these “SUVs” are harmless gentle, creatures who will not engage a human, even when provoked. They have little interest in human beings whatsoever. Even if you sneak behind them and poke them with sticks or attempt to entice them with a conversation about Moby Dick or The Wrath of Kahn, they will hardly even acknowledge your existence.
However, beneath the surface, something terrifying lurks. (That’s not necessarily true, I just thought it would add some dramatic tension.)
However, seriously, during particular times of the day – e.g. morning, noonish, evening, afternoon – these beautiful creatures begin a frantic scurry, a meticulously choreographed ballet. During which times, it doesn’t matter what bright colors you’re wearing or how many babies you’re pushing in the stroller, these clamoring beasts will not be deterred. It is in their nature to neither change course, nor slow down, so don’t sprain an ankle in a crosswalk, and if you do, don’t bother begging for mercy. My only guess is that we humans are just too tiny for the great “SUV” to even recognize. For them to see us as sentient creatures would be much like a human being thinking that a dog or a turtle should have some kind of rights. Ridiculous.
While these frequent, if unexplained, mass migrations might be equally beautiful and dangerous, even our top scientists have failed to explain the significance of such events. When I asked Zac about it, he said, “I don’t know, Dad. Can I please finish my homework now?” Sam, similarly, responded, “You are so weird.”
If you are like me and you live in a place where such beautiful animals roam the grand paths through our cities, but you would nonetheless like to take a long run once-or-so a week, consider Sunday mornings. I have found it is much easier to get in ten, twelve miles with little chance of being run over by an “SUV” from around 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. It is at this rare time of the week that the “SUV”s gather in a sort of ritual silence in front of enormous barnlike structures. While none of the creatures ever enter the structure, they sit outside quietly, one might say reverently, as I run by.
Why do these magnificent beast choose this moment to gather and remain silent? What draws them to these enormous domiciles? Will there ever be a day when humans and “SUV”s live in harmony? Are modern “SUV”s truly the descendent of some ancient coupling of a station wagon and a military vehicle? Or did they spring forth into their suburban resting grounds fully formed sometime in the mid-90s? I asked some of our family’s top anthropologists. Naomi said, “Seriously, Dad? Get a life.” Blaisey sat thoughtfully for a spell and said, “Can I have some ice cream?” Who’s right? I don’t know. It is unlikely that any of us will know for quite some time. For now, it is enough for me that at least once a week, the great beasts and I call a truce and coexist peacefully, in no hurry, paying homage to the world in our own ways.
Note to runners: Please be cautioned if you take this running tip. If you run past noon on these “days of 4WD rest” as I like to call them, all proverbial bets are off. When those bells ring twelve, all hell breaks loose.
Meanwhile, I leave you all with these two thoughts:
1. “Would any tree be safe with a beaver as big as a Buick?”
Much like other Neanderthal beings, I approach the outside world cautiously. Neanderthal joggers often peeked from side to side along the game trails, hoping to detect saber tooth tigers and Casteroides ohioensis. As for me, while I have been hit or almost hit by just about every kind of motorized vehicles from motorcycles to dump trucks, nothing chases me off the road so often as the mid-sized to enormous four-door road vehicles. By their nature, these “SUVs” are harmless gentle, creatures who will not engage a human, even when provoked. They have little interest in human beings whatsoever. Even if you sneak behind them and poke them with sticks or attempt to entice them with a conversation about Moby Dick or The Wrath of Kahn, they will hardly even acknowledge your existence.
However, beneath the surface, something terrifying lurks. (That’s not necessarily true, I just thought it would add some dramatic tension.)
However, seriously, during particular times of the day – e.g. morning, noonish, evening, afternoon – these beautiful creatures begin a frantic scurry, a meticulously choreographed ballet. During which times, it doesn’t matter what bright colors you’re wearing or how many babies you’re pushing in the stroller, these clamoring beasts will not be deterred. It is in their nature to neither change course, nor slow down, so don’t sprain an ankle in a crosswalk, and if you do, don’t bother begging for mercy. My only guess is that we humans are just too tiny for the great “SUV” to even recognize. For them to see us as sentient creatures would be much like a human being thinking that a dog or a turtle should have some kind of rights. Ridiculous.
While these frequent, if unexplained, mass migrations might be equally beautiful and dangerous, even our top scientists have failed to explain the significance of such events. When I asked Zac about it, he said, “I don’t know, Dad. Can I please finish my homework now?” Sam, similarly, responded, “You are so weird.”
If you are like me and you live in a place where such beautiful animals roam the grand paths through our cities, but you would nonetheless like to take a long run once-or-so a week, consider Sunday mornings. I have found it is much easier to get in ten, twelve miles with little chance of being run over by an “SUV” from around 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. It is at this rare time of the week that the “SUV”s gather in a sort of ritual silence in front of enormous barnlike structures. While none of the creatures ever enter the structure, they sit outside quietly, one might say reverently, as I run by.
Why do these magnificent beast choose this moment to gather and remain silent? What draws them to these enormous domiciles? Will there ever be a day when humans and “SUV”s live in harmony? Are modern “SUV”s truly the descendent of some ancient coupling of a station wagon and a military vehicle? Or did they spring forth into their suburban resting grounds fully formed sometime in the mid-90s? I asked some of our family’s top anthropologists. Naomi said, “Seriously, Dad? Get a life.” Blaisey sat thoughtfully for a spell and said, “Can I have some ice cream?” Who’s right? I don’t know. It is unlikely that any of us will know for quite some time. For now, it is enough for me that at least once a week, the great beasts and I call a truce and coexist peacefully, in no hurry, paying homage to the world in our own ways.
Note to runners: Please be cautioned if you take this running tip. If you run past noon on these “days of 4WD rest” as I like to call them, all proverbial bets are off. When those bells ring twelve, all hell breaks loose.
Meanwhile, I leave you all with these two thoughts:
1. “Would any tree be safe with a beaver as big as a Buick?”
And 2. "Smells like a steak and seats thirty-five."
10.03.2010
Fancy Drink
As national Jackson Appreciation Weekend winds down, traci asked me if she could get me anything from the kitchen. I asked her if she could get me a beer in one of our fancy glasses.
I don't know -- they just sometimes taste better this way.
I don't know -- they just sometimes taste better this way.
10.01.2010
On Nature v. Nurture
Given the relatively obvious design of shirts, maybe you’d think that I’d be able to put them on frontwards at least 50% of the time. I’m here to tell you today, you’re wrong. In fact, I can easily go two, three weeks without putting a t-shirt on right the first time. “Well, at least you get it right the second time,” you might be thinking. Nope, just like flipping a quarter, my odds don’t change from one application to the next. Why am I like this? What’s wrong with me? Is it nature or nurture?
I can only base my own guesses on what other people have told me. As an undergrad, a woman in my dorm said, for example, she would never date me because I did not have a hairy chest, and she would only date men with hairy chests. I hadn’t asked or intended to ask her out, but you can imagine at this point, I desperately wanted to. The only thing I could think to do was grow my bangs very long and hope that would be close enough. With my locks shimmering tucked into the neckband, I asked Gina if she'd like to get a pizza with me. She said, “No. That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.” Until then, I guess I just assumed that everybody likes pizza.
What’s wrong with me? Other possibilities? I blame Pappap. For instance: the first time I came home from college with a beard, Pappap raised his eyebrows and told me about the first time he came home from the Navy with a beard. He said, “I walked in the front door, and my old man was taking a nap on the couch. He opened one eye and said, ‘What the hell is that?’ So I said, ‘It’s a goattee.’ The old man said, ‘Yeah, I tried to grow a beard once. It looked like shit, too.’”
This, of course, was my first sophomore year of college. Meanwhile, I told Angelo that I really liked his beard and wished that I could grow a beard like his. He said, “Why don’t you grow one?”
I said, “I can’t grow a beard.”
He said, “Well, not with that attitude. You’ve gotta really want it.”
As you can imagine, time went by. I did some other things: dropped out of college, learned to snowboard, had a really nice cup of coffee at a Country Fair of all places. Clearly, it has been an eventful decade and a half. The good news is: I finally have a hairy chest. The really good news is: it’s because my beard is officially that long. (How about that pizza now, Gina?)
In fact, when traci and I went back-to-school shopping, she picked teaching shirts based on how well they showed off my beard. I'm in vogue, to be sure, but such clothing has resulted in my many awkward questions such as, “Does this V-back make my shoulders look narrow?”
Well? What do you think?
I can only base my own guesses on what other people have told me. As an undergrad, a woman in my dorm said, for example, she would never date me because I did not have a hairy chest, and she would only date men with hairy chests. I hadn’t asked or intended to ask her out, but you can imagine at this point, I desperately wanted to. The only thing I could think to do was grow my bangs very long and hope that would be close enough. With my locks shimmering tucked into the neckband, I asked Gina if she'd like to get a pizza with me. She said, “No. That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.” Until then, I guess I just assumed that everybody likes pizza.
What’s wrong with me? Other possibilities? I blame Pappap. For instance: the first time I came home from college with a beard, Pappap raised his eyebrows and told me about the first time he came home from the Navy with a beard. He said, “I walked in the front door, and my old man was taking a nap on the couch. He opened one eye and said, ‘What the hell is that?’ So I said, ‘It’s a goattee.’ The old man said, ‘Yeah, I tried to grow a beard once. It looked like shit, too.’”
This, of course, was my first sophomore year of college. Meanwhile, I told Angelo that I really liked his beard and wished that I could grow a beard like his. He said, “Why don’t you grow one?”
I said, “I can’t grow a beard.”
He said, “Well, not with that attitude. You’ve gotta really want it.”
As you can imagine, time went by. I did some other things: dropped out of college, learned to snowboard, had a really nice cup of coffee at a Country Fair of all places. Clearly, it has been an eventful decade and a half. The good news is: I finally have a hairy chest. The really good news is: it’s because my beard is officially that long. (How about that pizza now, Gina?)
In fact, when traci and I went back-to-school shopping, she picked teaching shirts based on how well they showed off my beard. I'm in vogue, to be sure, but such clothing has resulted in my many awkward questions such as, “Does this V-back make my shoulders look narrow?”
Well? What do you think?
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