stick tea

i feel i must apologize to anyone i meet on the way to and from the teapot in the morning. it isn't that i'm sullen--my eyes just won't open.

don't make me go to work, clyde. i'm tired. the kids are sleeping; if i get up they'll wake up, too. it's saturday.

only a few more minutes before i have to go.

brooklyn was never good enough for my parents. i guess that's how we ended up in milwaukee. a little farther west than they set their sights. be careful what you wish for.

i was a track star in high school. did you know that? our uniforms were blue and gold. i ran the five and the ten k. as a whole our team was lousy, but i was a star. me and eddie caruso, on the men's side, always stole the show. he was a sprinter. i wish i could run now. if i didn't have to get up so early.

those two kids who come into the coffee shop in the morning--they seem so much in love. i wonder if either of them works, or has to work. that makes a difference, you know.

that's a funny thought--parents paying for their kids to get by, so they can just be in love. that's a funny thought.

why do they put sticks in this tea? it just gets in the way of waking you up, doesn't it? but it tastes all right. now my eyes are almost open.

maybe today i'll...

according to hubert selby, jr....

Sometimes we have the absolute certainty that there's something inside us that's so hideous and monstrous that if we ever search it out we won't be able to stand looking at it. But it's when we're willing to come face to face with that demon that we face the angel.

today's weather report

"I have always been enamoured with the music of the speech in New York." --Hubert Selby, Jr.

my strange ambition to be glamorous

isn't it funny that i have never read anything yet by john updike, and now he is dead?

no. it isn't funny.

there is a great deal that i have not read. and he lived to the age of seventy-six and won almost every literary prize available, including two pulitzers.

when frank sinatra died, i did not feel sad, even though i was much better acquainted with him than i was with john updike. he lived to the age of eighty-two, was married four times, danced and acted and sang. he had a huge network of friends and spent at least two decades being paid to goof around with them on a stage.

to be honest, i feel sad for myself, that i have reached 30% of the age of john updike and achieved nothing like a percentage of his published work.

the man reportedly suffered from asthma, psoriasis, and a stammering problem during his youth, nonetheless nurturing "my strange ambition to be glamorous" among a normal family content to be normal. there must have been a point of self-assessment in his life, where he either redefined the glamor he sought, or else gave up trying to wear that particular shade of ambition.

why do we seek glamor, anyway? glamor only gains us envy and mockery. there is a certain shine that classic beauties wearing classic designers uniquely unearth, to be sure, but does that shine make you want to spend time with them? or just to be them? if we all want to be that way, we'll all wind up enjoying our own selves so much that we won't feel any need to have friends.

frank sinatra, unquestionably, was glamorous, and far from psoriasis, he had melting blue eyes; he didn't stammer, either. but his glamor was the company he kept. the man was friends with everybody, because that was what he spent his time on--giving gifts, caretaking, connecting, going to people's shows, going to people's restaurants, marrying people. whether or not he put them together, the pieces of his business plan work--if you want to have a devoted following who will keep coming back to hear you sing, you have to devote yourself to your following. people worship nothing so much as something that seems, at key moments, to worship them.

the eidos of the punk movement is to take liabilities and turn them into assets. if you can't sing on key, scream and growl a little. if you can't play very well, use a lot of aggressive distortion. it says a lot about the universal craving for god-likeness that even within that world there is a certain type of glamor that its sycophants pursue...the hilton sisters of the punk world, if you will permit me. but it gained a following--even the status of a musical genre--because the outcasts felt they were being given some attention, some validation, by the screaming voices.

what are you trying to say? who are you trying to reach? whether you enjoy or despise your self-consciousness, indulge in it rarely and only momentarily. there is too much to do. if you can't think of anything to do, i suggest you start by either calling a friend, or else writing some books.

a terrible thing

A terrible thing happened today. I looked into a copy of my alma mater’s quarterly magazine, and I found it charming.

Life is so much easier when disgust accompanies hindsight.

I didn’t wish to go back. But I had no distaste to spur me forward.

Love is so much more permanent than hate.

Hate is appetitive. Hate, when it is our prime mover in a given motion, comes with an instinctive knowledge that once it is sated, we are free to discontinue the action.

In contrast, love is a force of the intellect. It has to be, by its very nature. That is why we desire it to come to us. That is why we fear it when it comes upon us. No matter how our appetites change, or the strength of our will, the intellectual is almost eternal. “It increases in years and beauty.”

I read the magazine and I thought fondly of what had passed.
The memory of an ended period of happiness causes me pain, like being hungry and remembering Christmas dinner. But I know that hunger is better than the solid stasis of constant disgust. It just is.

Why are we so afraid of what is permanent?
I wish that I could say.

(first published on 7.2.07, 8.55am)

magic words, vol. 4

"'Judging' doesn't mean you are judgmental. 'Perceiving' doesn't mean you are perceptive."

did you ask?

i used to read this blog during the long hours i was paid to do nothing at a certain firm in new york. i think i had heard of it--blog, not firm--through an acquaintance's passing reference. it shows you how little i had to occupy my thoughts, that i could search for the source of this vague reference on the internet until i found it.

it's a niche site, wildly popular among the sorts of people who share the writer's own various conditions of health and personality. it features misty assurances that the writer's life and your own are indeed okay, that the irritations we suffer are epic tests of our mettle, along with descriptions of the writer's favorite friends and favorite foods.

why are people drawn to this kind of reading?

my own story is that i read it as a way of calming my nerves, that were frantic with idleness, as a way of passing the long hours without being engrossed in anything that was not work-related, which would have been unethical. but this is not the kind of acclaim i would post as a reader comment on a blog; this is not the kind of acclaim that is, indeed, posted as reader comments on this particular blog. the readers of this blog, to judge by their comments, are engrossed, enchanted, and occasionally outraged--by what, i cannot imagine. the writer claims to receive hate mail from time to time. (i suspect she might be exaggerating, in order to seem like one of the more important bloggers of our time.)

because i keep a blog of my own, i envy the volume of comments that follow her posts, inasmuch as it indicates an engaged and loyal readership. however, i don't tell anyone that i have a blog, unless they happen to ask to "see some of my writing," having learned from somebody else that i am a writer. i don't tell anyone that i am a writer. it seems, to me, even more self-aggrandizing than the act of keeping a blog. if you are a soldier at war, if you are a missionary, if you are a circus performer, even if you are a schoolteacher--in other words, if you have an experience that few other people have--you have a valid claim to spend time on a blog, letting the world in on your day-to-day. however, if you are a housewife, or a college professor, or an average college graduate like me, spending regular time on a description of your mundane activities seems to me excusable only because cyberspace is an unlimited resource. (...so far as we know.) starlets post on their myspace pages, while actors make motion pictures.

my story is that i keep this blog as a means of practice. i want to be a paid writer--that is, paid to write the kind of material found on this blog--but i don't have the guts to try and fail in the necessary manner. also, it is a useful means of ascertaining whether people truly want to "see some of my writing."

the idea of putting pages in someone's hand seems to me so self-aggrandizing. it will take up space in their hand, on their desk, in their bag. it will lie there reproaching them, good souls that they are, as one more thing that they have to do, that will take only five minutes probably, but five minutes they could spend on something else.

if i was a good writer, i would know it. if i was a good writer, some teacher in my youth would have pulled me aside for a serious talk, like they do in the movies. if i was a good writer, i wouldn't have time to keep a blog. if i was a good writer, people wouldn't have to ask me when they wanted to see some of my writing--they could go and buy it.

people shake their heads at the book industry, and say that it is going under, that movies and television are replacing written literature. they know little. everyone is a writer, because everyone has an idea for a story floating around in their heads. far too many books are published today, and far too few of those are published on the basis of personal merit; rather, they are published on the basis of personal connections that the writers have with powerful people in the publishing industry. books are become little more than a currency of favors owed, because everyone likes to see their own names in print, because everyone would like to see the world of their creation distributed abroad, because everyone has an idea for a story floating around in their heads, because art lessons are hard and pianos are expensive, but everyone knows how to bang a keyboard.

ooo, canada!

They opened a treasure chest that they’ve had, I don’t know how long…as long as I’ve been here…sat together on the sofa as they cracked open the lid, their legs kicking at the knees in an improbable Christopher-Robin manner, and as the lid fell back, simultaneously they said,

“Ooo-ooo!”

What is it that makes something old and familiar consistently wonderful and awe-inspiring?

I spend my energy trying to devise new activities, innovative but simple projects, and they just want to crack open their old treasure box full of toys they already know, and know what to do with.

Then they abandon that toy and just play airplane, sitting on the same sofa, holding their school backpacks that they’ve stuffed with random junk from the playroom; they tell each other where they are and where they are going—canada, for no reason I know—then they move into another room and suddenly they are in a hotel. And that’s it. They are just there and it’s blowing their mind, clearly. Suddenly conversation ceases; alarmed, I look over and find that they have returned to the airplane, a more compelling setting than the hotel room, apparently. They are not looking at me—what are they looking at? They both say, low and breathless, leaning over the arm of the sofa,

“Ooooo, Canada!”

They remember things I did or said from days and weeks ago, and when I come down in the morning they say, “Remember when you cried like a baby? Remember when you made that face? Do it again! I want to see you do it again!”

And so I did it.

I say we can walk to the playground, down where the ducks live, and they look at me for a moment and then they say,

“Or…we can go to that playground out there,” and they point to their backyard.

They’ll get worked up in theory over the foreign, but they prefer to stick with the familiar for actual use.

Maybe it’s because they know what to do with it. Maybe it’s because they can make it whatever they want it to be.

(first published on 7.9.07, 8.58am)

mortals at sunset

today i went to the health food store and a very old couple pulled up alongside me. the husband looked like one of those dolls you see at crafts fairs, with the faces made out of an old nylon stocking stuffed with cotton balls. the wife's head hung from her shoulders at the angle of the crook on a shepherd's staff; her chin rested in the hollow of her collarbone. i asked if my shopping basket was in the way of her walker, as her husband knocked around in the bins of dried fruit. he said to me, "it keeps you healthy, this stuff." to his wife, he said, "where are the cranberries that you like?" she gestured--a small, impotent gesture, but he caught it and looked down. she smiled at me and said, "no, that's fine." the husband said, "these cranberries? these don't look like the ones at trader joe's." she said, "these cranberries are better. these are the ones i like." he said, as an aside, "she likes these ones." after a second, i said, "then you'd better get those ones for her." he stopped, looked at me out of the corner of his eye, then a smile cracked his heavy, folded-up mouth and, half turning to his wife, he said, "she knows. this one. she knows about being married." i don't know anything about being married, but it's nice to have knowledge attributed from an authority, so i grinned at him and at the wife.

she said to me, "we've been eating this way since 1952." i expressed my surprise, demonstrating my scant knowledge; i said, "it must have been hard to do back then." she said to me, "we were recycling back then, too." i said, "are you from here?"--being southern california. she said, "new york." i said, "oh really? i've just come back from there. where did you live?" i can't remember which county she said...it might have been putnam or rockland...i do remember she said it was near westchester, but none of the names on the regional map ring a bell. she asked where i lived and i told her, brooklyn. she looked up at me, her wall-eyed gaze seemed to snap somewhere deep down; she said, "i grew up in brooklyn, in king's county. we used to ride horses in the park." i said, "they still do that. i lived right next to the park, in crown heights." she said, "we used to ride horses in the park, and we would ride them all the way down ocean avenue." i lived one block off ocean avenue. i said, "really? all the way to the beach?" she smiled brightly and said, "all the way down ocean avenue to the beach." the husband interjected, like a pugilist spoiling for a friendly match, "i'm from brighton!"

i started to say something, i don't remember what. the husband, looking at his wife, suddenly growled at me truculently, "don't ever take the staph medicines." not knowing whence came this charge, i stopped mid-sentence; i watched as his hand reached out and brushed the downy, cobwebby hair from out of his wife's eyes, stroking his fingers tenderly across her haplessly dangling forehead. he growled again, more softly, "the staph medicines did this to her." he turned his back to me, and drew a protective arm around his wife, shepherding her with their shopping cart around the corner. they both looked back at me, as if in afterthought, as i whispered impotently, "it was nice talking with you."

magic words, vol. 3

"We appreciate your business, and value the opportunity to serve you."

Y is a crooked letter

he wakes up long enough to smoke a cigarette, and then he's falling asleep again. sometimes i have to check the bed for the burning stub that's fallen out of his mouth. he's already put holes in both sets of bedsheets.

while he is still sleeping, i get out of bed to watch the sand warm up with the rising sun. the western sky is pale, and on the water lie patches of light in the same broken patterns that fall across our floor through the venetian blinds. it isn't early. it's maybe eight in the morning, by the time the sunrise hits this side.

he has been shaving lately, for his job interviews. i like the smoothness of his jaw and his neck, when we kiss, but i like better to find the scurf of new beard over his face in the morning. i half wish he would take the offer of that guy we met at moondoggies, who pressed a business card on him and dropped a few names to prove there was money and credibility there. he says that was gay; i kind of agree, secretly. but still...

he won't be up until noon. there could be an earthquake--the san andreas fault could open right up under us--and he would sleep through it. i make some instant coffee, and i turn on the stereo, and i dance around in the square of sunlight bleached upon the kitchen linoleum. i hope that he gets the job he's after this week, of course. but today i'm unreasonably and selfishly happy that he will sleep until noon, and then he'll get up and drink coffee with me. i'm glad that today is still all around us, with only the sound of billie holiday and louis armstrong singing "my sweet hunk o' trash" while i wait for him to wake up.

we have practically nothing to do--i work as a waitress and now he's stand-by bartending, while he interviews for real jobs. nothing to do with our degrees. back when he was in construction full time, while the economy was still good, we read a book a week, separately, and then discussed it as if the fate of nations depended on it, on sunday night. a few months after the work shut down, he stopped reading. that was the first time i had been afraid since we had been together.

i remember the last time, before that, when i was afraid. we had been going out, here and there, for maybe two weeks; i was in my friend's dorm room, with some others, trying to pay attention to a movie they were watching, and waiting for him to call. i thought, what if he gets drunk at work, or changes his mind, or forgets, or gets busy with something else. all these ideas played together in the pit of my stomach, hysterically, like puppies tangling over a bone in their midst. i gripped my lips together and lifted my chin, to prepare. i thought, if he doesn't call, then i'm going to forget everything. then there was a knock on the door; i didn't look up, because i was still thinking and preparing, until someone kicked my foot. he was standing in the doorway, having taken only one step inside. i stood up and as i walked toward him in the darkness i could see he was holding a flower in his hand, a tiny pink rose, almost fully opened. he was twirling it in his fingers and he held it out to me when i got near enough. someone else said to him, "how're you?" and he said, "i'm drunk," but i was too afraid to care. he put his arms around me in the darkness, and i tasted the beer on his mouth even before he kissed me; then he whispered, "your heart is beating like a bird's." i stiffened--i was as rigid as a corpse. he pulled his face back and looked at me; i watched his eyes narrow in focus. he looked at me very closely and he said, again, "your heart is beating..." i could feel only that my face seemed to be falling inward, leaving behind a dented, incomprehensible shell. he put his finger on the tip of my eyebrow, and he brushed it lightly to the end, and then he pressed the grave furrow that darted up my brow until it disappeared.

i sip my coffee and think of him in the bed, wanting to rush back in and burrow into his side, under the sheets. if i did, though, i could not see his face. instead, i sit down on the couch and put my feet up on the table, twitching them back and forth to the careless music. i think about his face and his arms and shoulders, dark brown from the long days he spent working in the sun. i wish that the economy would hurry up.

the tough thing about it all is how--i guess--it's just a man's way to think a woman cares what happens. maybe he has to think so, in order to be the man he wants to be, because he can't do it for himself alone; he has to think he's doing it for me. maybe that's how it is, or will turn out to be, for us.

"us!"

i get up and begin to twirl around on my toes. my coffee goes sloshing out the side of the cup. the entire room is a stifling close glow of light and heat. instead of opening a window to let in the breeze, all i can think of is being incredibly thirsty. i rhythmically gulp down two pint glasses of water, thinking, the whole world is turning to ash and sand, we may never survive. i set down the glass and i heave a deep sigh of satisfaction.

endorsement

there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. the act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid—what will compare with it?
--(herman melville, moby dick, chapter 1)

oh the scrounging, sponging, parsimonious bliss of inscribing one's name on the back of a check. THREE checks! three scraps of paper with three-digit numbers neatly inscribed in the miniscule boxes designated for the purpose. we write out checks of payment with a studied air of indifference--rent? oh, yes, that...there you are. scribble our name in the lower right corner, nearly illegible, as if we didn't care but really with the secret hope that the bank will misread it and take it from someone else's account. car insurance? utilities? voilá, pas grave. we saved for it, we know we can take the blow. we disperse the envelopes with cavalier tosses of our well-coiffed heads...for which we paid, as well, so that we could toss them thus stylishly. split ends and mullets spoil the effect we are going for in paying. sniff!...money came, money went...c'est la vie, n’est-ce pas?

but oh, the shameless joy, the curling fingers and ingathering posture that command when we receive our pay. small pretense at indifference now!--about as indifferent as kids under a busted piñata. we tuck the missive away, with a glance over our shoulder, looking at it no more for fear of attracting attention, until we can squirrel away with it in private, and look at the sum with a nod that both affirms its properness and our deserving. the number that gives meaning to our work, the compensation for time spent in flagrant disobedience to our own desires.

how to reconcile this ghoulish pleasure at being paid, with the axiom that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil? i don’t know that it can be done. but the root is quickly pulled up, when the pay is paid out again.

(first published 7.16.07, 7.45pm)

grace

I said, a little time ago, that freedom is the choice among breeds of suffering. That may be true—I got some agreement from an opinion I respect.

But sometimes freedom is overridden by grace. Have you noticed that?

I want something right now, something I think I could manage very well. I know it will be work but I’m willing to do that work. But I don’t get it, regardless of how hard I try to obtain it. I’m pretty good at getting what I want, so this evasion bothers me. I kick and make faces. I still don’t get it.

Time passes, and I still want it. But somehow—through events or sometimes through epiphany—I realize that I didn’t really know what I was bargaining for. If I had got what I wanted, when I wanted it, it would have crushed me. I thought then that I was strong enough to manage it, to take good care of it, and now I see that I wasn’t. And apparently, I still am not.

I still want it. But it’s no good having something that won’t fit in your house.

I like the Jaguar F-type series, but I really only need something to get me around town.
I like Chanel dresses, but nobody’s asking me to balls or premiers these days.

Having nice things is great, but you have to take care of them, and they take up space.

Sometimes we’re not smart enough to choose our own suffering. So it gets chosen for us. Thank God, if you can.

(first published on 7.7.07, 3.18pm)

today's weather report

"He was now living outside his defences for the first time, and with a fearful sense of exposure. It is the usual experience of strong natures when they love." (Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, ch. 18)

coing

My daughter, Ava, stumbled into the parlor this morning while I was drinking my Earl Grey. Her hair was tangled around her head so that she looked like a deer caught in a net. She wore a torn white t-shirt--I suspected it was a relic of a boyfriend. Ava squinted at me for a moment, where I sat, and she said,

"I had sex last night, Mom."

I gripped my cup tightly in my hand, expecting that I would start forward in shock. But I didn't; I was still. I expect I disappointed her.

"Well?" I said. "Is he still here?"

I saw her posture change, showing that suddenly she was awake. I suppose that she had determined to tell me either last thing before she went to sleep, or perhaps it was an imperative revelation she had upon waking; in either case, I suppose that she rolled herself out of bed and came to tell me while her resolve was still strong in the initial stupor of the morning. Now, however, she was awake.

Ava is fifteen. She is my only daughter and we live together in a beautiful home. I never wanted children until I had her, and I have never wanted any others since. She is an accomplished violinist and a diver with her school's team. She does not want a debutante ball, or anything that hints of being a debutante.

In answer to my question, she said, "No, he left last night. After."

We both looked away from each other, for several moments. I was collecting my thoughts.

"Have I met him?" I asked. Ava has not introduced me to any boyfriends, as such, in recent months.

Then something terribly urgent occurred to me. "Were you protected?" I asked. "Was he protected?" Having asked, I felt better immediately.

Ava released a sigh, like a balloon. She fell defeatedly into the divan adjacent to my chair.

"Yes, mama," she said. "He was, and I am, too. That was all fine."


At that point, I am sure she told me who he was, and about the experience--what it meant to her and whether she felt good now, or bad. I know it was a long conversation, because it was afternoon by the time I wrapped up my hair and put on my sweater, and went for a walk in the neighborhood. I hate to confess it, but that is the first clear, meaningful memory I have of yesterday.

The air was warm, with a fragrant gravity, like a room recently left by a woman who was dressing for a formal occasion. The trees were still velvety and full, but beginning to show hints of turning. I turned the corner past our home and walked up Bank Street, thinking that perhaps in the end I would go to the shops; there was likely something we needed, that I was not thinking of, just then. As I turned the corner, my mind straightened and sharpened, like a diver about to take a great plunge, and suddenly I began to walk faster.

When I was nineteen, I was in Paris, studying art history--or, anyway, meant to be studying. Most of the time I spent with books, I had them propped on a cafe table and was sipping coffee behind them, or dangling a cigarette from my fingers and letting ash drop onto their pages. I did not actually smoke--I had more regard for the future of my skin than that--but I liked the way it made me feel, to have a cigarette smoldering in my hand while I sat at a cafe table in St. Germain or the Quartier Latin. Now and then I would press the end of it to my lips, just to save face.

At this same time and place, I met some friends at school who had friends who were Parisian, born and bred, who were musicians. They fit absolutely into the necessary space of bohemian associates, offering controversial opinions and contraband substances, rough surfaces to soften our snobbery, channels through which to vicariously attempt to live without consequences. I had a certain number of affairs, but never fell hopelessly in love with any of them, as did two of my friends at the time. I returned home quite safe, with some new clothes and shoes and a year abroad, to boast about.

And that was all. All.

As I walked, I could not stop thinking about Ava. Her golden hair like something out of a myth, veiling her face; her eyes, when she awoke, piercing like stars in twilight; her young careless body unassertive, unmindful, under the worn white t-shirt, which, like this first affair, she would wear for a time and then cast off when she wanted to change. Change is a plaything in youth; it seems altogether natural and easy. Indeed, it is natural and easy, at any age. Things come to weigh more, and their increasing mystery is fascinating, until suddenly it is too late, you have stared in the mirror too long. You find that suddenly everything is unbearably heavy, but you find it is useless to treat things as if they were light and frivolous again. Gravity is like a drug, that way.

I did stop into the shops; first I went into the market, but I paced too quickly through the aisles, realizing that there was nothing I wanted. The second stop was much better, at the boutique where they carry the products I use on my skin. I spoke for a little while with Angelique, the proprietress, who very kindly keeps me in practice with my French. A new hydrating creme had just come in; she gave me a small bottle to test its effects. I bought another vial of the renewal serum I depend upon. Then it seemed I should leave, but I stood there, fingering a pair of beaded earrings on a stand of cheap jewelry being sold for far more than it was worth, until Angelique felt called upon to say, "Sont mignons, non?" Then I started, and said, "oui," and I bought them and put them on, and she said again, "Oui, ils vous vont bien."

I confess that my thoughts, as I left, were bitter. She makes money by saying such things to me, by speaking French with me--she must think that is a terrible farce. Her generosity with words, with sample bottles of new products, is all part of her job. She is a fixture in this lovely neighborhood, but who knows if she actually lives here? She might live over a mechanic's garage or a pizza shop. We like to think of her as having an abode as gracious as ours, that she descends the stairs to work each day, or walks a certain number of blocks to her shop, like the rest of us do, with the same poise and calm as we all feel within her atelier. I tried to imagine Angelique going home to a squalid flat, or a boorish companion, drinking a bottle of wine by herself...I confess it was very difficult to imagine. In my vision of her, even bitter and boozy, the Hermes foulard she always wore remained crisply knotted under her grey linen jacket.

The products I took away from the shop fit into the pocket of my sweater. I continued to walk down to the end of the shop district, then turned again into the thick verdure of the residential. The homes on these blocks are truly palatial. One or two women were at work in their gardens, pruning rose bushes. They were not women I knew, but I lifted my hand and smiled. Other women, I thought, are in their kitchens, preparing food for parties, or just for the pure pleasure of it. Other women are on their treadmills, also preparing for parties--or, equally, just for the pure pleasure of it. It made me feel almost sick, strangely, the contrast of these women I imagined. Who would be happier, in the end? Whose husbands and families would love them the most? Who would look in the mirror and sigh with satisfaction, rather than discontent?

The cars shone the dappled sunlight off their polished black contours. An elderly man ran past me, with a sweatband around his head and a deep tan that spoke of Mexico or the Riviera. He lifted his hand and smiled as he chugged by. I nodded and smiled, as well.

I thought of Ava's glorious body, sharpening like the point of a Swiss-made pencil as she lifted her arms and prepared to fall from eight or ten feet above the placid, ice-blue water. The vision of her was like a dream, though I had seen it many times, in reality. I wondered if this boy, this affair, had ever watched her in that position of preparation, or if he had only seen her in the halls at school. I wondered if he cared about music, or beauty.

Even as I walked briskly down the street, I pulled the sample vial of creme out of my pocket, and looked at it. "Creme Hydrante au Coing," it said. Coing, I thought, wondering what it meant. It seemed a strange word to me, not lissome and elegant as most French sounds. In truth, it sounded very much like a profanity that I remembered from my associates in Paris, a vulgar name they would call women who slept with them, or who would not sleep with them. A terrible thing to confront, as you attempted to nourish your skin.

I lifted up the vial and hurled it into the air, high and far away from me. It disappeared into a flowering hydrangea tree.

I walked faster. Ahead of me, approaching again, was the same elderly man with the sweatband on his brow. He must have circled the block. He smiled again and nodded familiarly; apparently, in his mind we were old friends by then.

When I came home, I took out the renewal serum and dabbed it into the orbital spaces of my eyes, and around the rim of my mouth. I peered closely into the mirror, my nose issuing a light fog that eventually obscured my view.

back in black

hello. i am back in the US, heavily changed, it may be. i'm way into wearing black, got a kind of new haircut, and i'm looking for a bike and selling my car, may be. i just want you to know that you got your money's worth on my european immersion.

back again in new york, whence we started, I wonder if it only looks as beautiful as this because I’ve been away from it, from the US, for so long. Feelings about places change the longer you are there, and the longer you are not there.

but walking the six or so blocks back from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in the everlasting twilight, the same thing happens to me that happened the first night i started this carnival ride. blowing like a piece of newspaper through the hot subway tunnel, meeting eyes at a respectful wary distance, sitting in the sun so alone and in multitudinous company—those are the things i’m speaking of, the answers for homesickness.

i've long been aware that my sickness is not for a place but for its people, but I find it’s not even just individual voices or faces that i miss, but their commonality, their communal history. america doesn’t have that deep grounding of history that the people of england or france share, but they have one of their own, and for better or worse, it’s mine, too.

it is nice to go traveling. but I look forward to going back to work, to labor in a way that needs no translation. Maybe that is the good of visiting an artist’s milieu. we need our own houses, our own cities, to make us feel both safe and rebellious.

when i travel, i look at a place with a mind to whether i could live there or not, and whether i would want to. i’m discovering that it isn’t just the fixtures i’m looking at, when making that evaluation. i’m looking at the people. i’m sniffing out the atmosphere they create. the hardscape is both of them and by them. i think that’s why i like paris and new york as much as i do…they are constantly in flux, trying out new buildings or parks that don’t perfectly blend with the existing hardscape. london, by contrast, or amsterdam, seem to have a stricter ethic of construction consistency. (coinage of a new term…you like?)

then, also, there are the clothes they wear, the way they get around, how long they meet your eyes for when you pass them on the street. there is to consider what the street buskers are doing, the pitch of conversation among merchants, policemen, bartenders, businesspeople coming and leaving their offices and cafes. I’m getting better at picking up those clues. if you want to know about a specific place, i’ll tell you. the full comparison is more than you want to read right now.

now I’m on the amtrak from penn station to baltimore. we’re passing through new jersey—suburban trenton, at the moment. green lawns, municipal ballparks, chain link fences and the widest front porches zoning will allow. i like america so much better these days than i used to. i still love france to distraction, i’m charmed by amsterdam, i’m putting london in my pocket for a rainy day…but i haven’t seen such ballparks anywhere else. who takes such care of their suburban ballparks but americans? (maybe cubans do; i don’t know, i haven't been there yet.) what does it say about us that we put that kind of
value in that kind of commodity?

you tell me.

i’m serious. i’ve talked long enough.

even if it’s only across town to pick up your car, or across the country to visit your mother.
in retrospect or in real time, let me hear your travel stories. please.
i miss you.

(from the end of my divine scholarship trip to europe, in the summer of 2007)

magic words, vol. 2

being chosen by God is an honor, but when your friends and family don't treat it like an honor, it stops feeling like an honor.

peer

my name is pierre. i'm ten years old, and i'm going to be greater than muhammad ali. watch.

i beat up a twelve-year-old when i was nine, because i'd already been training for four months then. now i bet i could probably beat up a sixteen-year-old. i haven't even hit my growth spurt yet.

my stepdad works at the italian restaurant. i hate it when he gets home early.

my mom drinks a lot.

i'm going to be greater than muhammad ali. i'm going to fight in vegas and europe and win all the cups and money. i'm going to have a house in california.

i'm in fifth grade. i'm not a stupid fighter, like lenny toledo is. he's punch drunk. that happens when you get hit too many times. i'll never have that problem because i won't let them hit me more than a couple times, so i never will be punch drunk, not even when i'm old and close to retirement.

and when i retire i'll live in california and have some dogs and a big car.

my teacher is mrs. reilly. she's pretty. she's really pretty, i guess. she has yellow hair and earrings, kind of long ones with pearls, and she has green eyes. if i was older, like sixteen or eighteen, i'd fight her husband.

but i guess that wouldn't probably be any good, because she's not the type. probably i'd have to save her husband in a fight outside a bar or something. and then she'd be like that lady in the movie with the priest. then we'd have to wait for her husband to get sick or have an accident or something and die.

mrs. reilly gave me this old book that i wouldn't have read except that she gave it to me. i didn't read it anyway until the school year was close to over; it was the easter holidays so i read it because the gym was closed for a couple of days, because leo goes to church and thinks everybody should, like him, even jews.

i kind of liked the book. i don't read books almost ever so i don't know if it was really any good, and i didn't really like it, but i guess i kind of thought about it for a while, since i didn't have much to do and i couldn't go to the gym.

mrs. reilly asked me what i thought about the book, when i gave it back to her. i didn't know what to say, so i made something up to tell her. her eyes got real big and she said i should come with her to the teachers' lounge after school. aw shit, is what i thought.

when we went to the teachers' lounge, she sat down with me next to this old fellow who had glasses and a bald head and probably couldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight, and she said i should tell this fellow what i thought about the book she gave me to read. so i told him, just the same as what i told her, and while i told him i thought, go ahead and expel me or whatever you want, old man, i'll just go to the gym some more, and i thought some things about mrs. reilly that i guess i shouldn't have. because, you see, the old man's eyes got really big, like hers had, and he looked at her and he looked at me and i was thinking, aw shit, and then he asked if i read any other books. i didn't say for a minute, then i said, no, because if they were going to expel me anyway, why should i lie? and then he and mrs. reilly excused theirselves for a minute and talked, and then they came back and that was when the real shit started. because they talked to me for about an hour, and i was thinking how i was going to be late for work, and the end of it all was that they made me a proposition that i should read some more books they would pick out, and i should talk with them about the books after i read them, and they would get me places in the end that i never could go otherwise; they would see to it, the old fellow and mrs. reilly.

i just looked at them and then i saw the clock and i thought, aw shit, so i said yes and ran out of there. i wasn't too late for work but they made me stay later than anybody else tying up the papers, so i couldn't go to the gym after, and by the time i got home my stepdad and mom had eaten all the spaghetti he brought home from the restaurant and there wasn't any left for me.

i like

Actually, many of you might want to skip much of the middle, namely pages 239-351, which concern the lives of people in their early twenties, and those lives are very difficult to make interesting, even when they seemed interesting to those living them at the time. (Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Introduction)

even distribution

Jesus told told the crowds nothing without it being accompanied by a parable. he said, "He who has ears, let him hear." apparently, we haven't all got ears.

last night i noticed that my boss, whom i generally dislike, is surprisingly knowledgeable about american sports, for a recent serbian refugee. i also noticed that if i have ears, and not too much pride to massage her ego, she can emit some instructive and amusing character traits.

my sister will never be famous in her own right, which is a shame, because she deserves it more than anybody else i know. she is a good person, a perpetual martyr with no sense of injustice, a cautious yet nonjudgmental Christian, a consistent and unrelenting worker with delicate stature, elegant taste, and a riotous sense of humor. she is the type who forwards other people to greatness, and later gets a mention from the podium.

my sister and i talked for an hour or two yesterday about what we are learning from the Bible. what i did not tell her then, is that most of what i am learning from the Bible is being traduced through her example. i will tell her, sometime.

all the good things i am grateful for, i wish that i could gather together in one place: my sister, my brother, my dad, the grey house on glen avenue, the walks i used to take with my mom on sunday afternoons, chorus class in my freshman and sophomore years, the leaves of trees on the east coast, the herbal fog of twilight on the west coast, saturday mornings when i was a child, the great hall packed with dancers, and the view from sacre coeur.

the kingdom of heaven is hidden like leaven. do you wish it was different?