I feel bad for being out of touch. There's a ton going on--some of it good and, of course, some bad. Nothing horrible or life-threatening, but enough to make me want a couple of aspirin (or a couple Bailey's on the rocks).
It hasn't been my best month--I've swamped myself in work trying to get some projects finished, and have gotten out of touch with writing--It builds up to where I put pressuure on myself to unleash some literary masterpiece, which causes me to just put off writing, and the vicious cycle goes on...
Not that there hasn't been anything exciting/interesting to write about: Mike D's wedding was very nice and fancy. I was there without Fran, and I went out with a bunch of couples to hang out--a little awkward. It was also kind of interesting that, as we were walking back to the hotel, we found out that someone had just hanged himself on the bridge right next to the hotel. Pretty creepy.
Had a long talk with the cabdriver about "The Da Vinci Code" on the way to the airport. He ended up confessing many sins to me, like stealing to support a drug habit, and told me how he had cleaned up his act. Again, awkward. And scary. Not sure why he picked me to "come clean" to. I've decided that my life is just destined to be small gaps of filler space between dramatically awkward moments.
Making new friends, learning new skills (I've gotten pretty good with a bowstaff, as it turns out), going new places--sounds like an ad for the Army or something.
Well, I'm headed out to do battle today--meeting from the US Sales Manager, who is in town from New York. Chance of awkwardness: 100%.
31 May 2006
30 May 2006
22 May 2006
Still Alive!
Don't worry, I haven't died. I just went to Pittsburgh.
It was a nice break to be able to take: Going to Mike D's (lovely) wedding. It didn't occur to me that there was a place in the world that wasn't experiencing 100 degree heat, so I was shocked to find myself wearing short sleeves and bermuda shorts and sandals, freezing my tail off in the 50 degree chill of the northeast. Surprisingly green: I previously thought of Pittsburgh only in greyscale images of soot and steelworking equipment.
I somehow slunk into stealth mode during my travels. Sometimes I find myself chatting with strangers, but I guess all of the personalities within me spun the wheel and the James Bond wannabe won out for this trip. I had an interesting experience at the airport standing in line to get on the plane. The exiting passengers had to walk right by me one by one, and I my creative backlog broke through the dam: I made up a flash short story in my mind about each person as they filed by me. Each one was surprisingly complete and took only about 1-2 seconds: If Fran was there, I would have whispered them to her and it would have kept her laughing for days (she gets me).
It would be anticlimatic to list them all or even to write them out in complete detail, but here are snippets:
-(Older man with white, puffy hair and deep creases in his face, very clean clothes) He has a deep, dark secret that, when he was a kid in junior high, he and some friends killed a hobo who was just passing through by smashing him with rocks. He still has nightmares about it. He's on this trip to visit his elderly aunt who is his last remaining relative.
-(Young, short guy in workout clothes carrying a gym bag: he's about 32) This guy works out like a fiend every day to compensate for only being 5'3" tall. He tries to pass himself off as athletic but really only works out in the gym. He's really proud of his muscled physique, so he went to the airport in his workout clothes to call attention to it. Gay.
-(twenty-something woman, glazed look on her face) She was having sex exactly one hour before getting on this plane.
...and so on.
then, I overheard this man who made call after call in a booming, baritone voice. He was in his mid 50's and was wearing a fedora, speaking in the blandest midwestern accent yet using the strangest dialogue and laughing at his own cleverness. He would start his conversation with:
"Commodore! How goes it with thee?"
and continue with the quirky language and plays on words all the way through to the end, which he completed with: "Over and Out!"
It took quite a lot of self-control not to fall on the ground laughing at his self-important silliness.
During this time, I sat against the wall and started writing a story about Ryan. It is really personal and I was thinking of having it bound and giving it to him as a gift. I was really focused on it and typing pretty fast, when I realized that a woman next to me was reading the story over my right shoulder--I didn't know if I should be flattered or outraged, if I wanted her to read it or not...at any rate, I got distracted and lost my train of thought. I tried to pick it up again but started writing a ridiculous analogy and got embarrassed that she was reading that particulary idiocy, so I packed it up.
--more to come.
It was a nice break to be able to take: Going to Mike D's (lovely) wedding. It didn't occur to me that there was a place in the world that wasn't experiencing 100 degree heat, so I was shocked to find myself wearing short sleeves and bermuda shorts and sandals, freezing my tail off in the 50 degree chill of the northeast. Surprisingly green: I previously thought of Pittsburgh only in greyscale images of soot and steelworking equipment.
I somehow slunk into stealth mode during my travels. Sometimes I find myself chatting with strangers, but I guess all of the personalities within me spun the wheel and the James Bond wannabe won out for this trip. I had an interesting experience at the airport standing in line to get on the plane. The exiting passengers had to walk right by me one by one, and I my creative backlog broke through the dam: I made up a flash short story in my mind about each person as they filed by me. Each one was surprisingly complete and took only about 1-2 seconds: If Fran was there, I would have whispered them to her and it would have kept her laughing for days (she gets me).
It would be anticlimatic to list them all or even to write them out in complete detail, but here are snippets:
-(Older man with white, puffy hair and deep creases in his face, very clean clothes) He has a deep, dark secret that, when he was a kid in junior high, he and some friends killed a hobo who was just passing through by smashing him with rocks. He still has nightmares about it. He's on this trip to visit his elderly aunt who is his last remaining relative.
-(Young, short guy in workout clothes carrying a gym bag: he's about 32) This guy works out like a fiend every day to compensate for only being 5'3" tall. He tries to pass himself off as athletic but really only works out in the gym. He's really proud of his muscled physique, so he went to the airport in his workout clothes to call attention to it. Gay.
-(twenty-something woman, glazed look on her face) She was having sex exactly one hour before getting on this plane.
...and so on.
then, I overheard this man who made call after call in a booming, baritone voice. He was in his mid 50's and was wearing a fedora, speaking in the blandest midwestern accent yet using the strangest dialogue and laughing at his own cleverness. He would start his conversation with:
"Commodore! How goes it with thee?"
and continue with the quirky language and plays on words all the way through to the end, which he completed with: "Over and Out!"
It took quite a lot of self-control not to fall on the ground laughing at his self-important silliness.
During this time, I sat against the wall and started writing a story about Ryan. It is really personal and I was thinking of having it bound and giving it to him as a gift. I was really focused on it and typing pretty fast, when I realized that a woman next to me was reading the story over my right shoulder--I didn't know if I should be flattered or outraged, if I wanted her to read it or not...at any rate, I got distracted and lost my train of thought. I tried to pick it up again but started writing a ridiculous analogy and got embarrassed that she was reading that particulary idiocy, so I packed it up.
--more to come.
13 May 2006
The Mirage of the Yellow Bird
It was an awful day last November when I checked my Email and learned some horrible news--a friend's child had fallen down the stairs in their house and was being rushed to the emergency room. I decided to continue from my home office to a business meeting before going to the hospital to be with the family, but I was in shock. I shuffled like a zombie out to the car and felt "zoned out" as I started it and backed into the alley behind our house. I had a sense of dread; my body was inexplicably exhausted.
I pulled forward slowly and a bright yellow bird landed on the mirror of my car. I couldn't tell what it was: a canary, parakeet--I don't know anything about birds, but it struck me as terribly out of place and unique. The bird surprised me out of my stupor, but was so out of place that it felt that it could possibly be just my imagination. This accident felt like a dream to me: I wished it to be a dream. I couldn't cling to that thought and accept the reality that the yellow bird was there.
I'll never be able to explain exactly how, but seeing the yellow bird on my window made me certain that the little girl had died. There was no question in my mind: I swallowed hard against the lump that rose in my throat. Later, I felt guilty about the thoughts that went through my mind at the time: Detachment, sadness, a renewed thankfulness for my kids' health and safety, grief for the parents. My mind flashed to the last time I saw her. The guilt came from the egocentricity of these thoughts--I certainly had empathy for them and would do anything to help them, but fifty people rallied around them: fifty people who seemed better equipped to help them and who seemed closer to the family than we were. There was nothing for us to do but assimilate this tragedy as a part of our lives, which, although necessary, felt selfish.
The yellow bird sat on my mirror for perhaps a second as the car sat in the alley, then abruptly flew to the telephone line along the street that runs perpendicular from our pretty, tree-lined drive. The Texas sun in November appears to be the same washed-out color of boiled corn, but it seemed particularly bright that day. The yellow bird sat and watched me drive away to my appointment.
I was on edge for the next two hours as I was on the road and in meetings, until I could get word of the condition of the child. Time went slowly and everything felt odd and out of place. I ran into an old friend whom I hadn't seen in two years--She seemd to detect that I was out of it, and I cut our conversation short. I had a tough task to perform, and I asked the customer if I could come back another day.
By the time Fran called to tell me that the little girl had died, the bird seemed unreal to me. Fran was reading the Email as she called, and even after she read it to me, she re-read it very slowly--and said "I just can't believe she's gone. I can clearly see that little girl in my mind."
But I wasn't shocked. I had already known it with certainty.
I nearly always reject stories about some kind of death sign--"When Aunt Enda died we had a raccoon knock over the trash can...come to think of it, she always was the one who took out the trash--maybe that was her reminding us to keep the faith." I'm a tough sell on that idea--it feels so much like a coping mechanism--part deliciously tempting urban legend, part trite storytelling, generously laced with over-sentimental wishful thinking.
Whatever my head believed, I started a haunting, secret dialog with myself in which the bird became a symbol of the death of this girl. Two weeks later, long after the funeral, I glimpsed the bird again briefly in the alley behind our house--my mind went to that terrible day. The brightness, the symbol of flight as freedom from the bounds of the earth, a metaphor for being out of place, just like a child has no business being killed at 10 months old.
It took me a month before I mentioned the bird to anyone else.
Even then, I had seen it half a dozen times, always by myself. Eventually, however, I managed to carry my daughter, Kaitlyn, out to the driveway and we watched the bird together on the telephone wire for several minutes before it flew off. I was pretty sure that Kaitlyn saw it, too, because I asked her to point at the yellow bird and she lifted her little finger and said "There it is!" Whew. Hallucination ruled out.
It didn't occur to me that the symbol took an ironic meaning due to the fact that I had found myself in the hospital for several days with Kaitlyn at a young age. Maybe it should have been a reminder to be thankful that she was now very healthy, but it didn't occur to me until much later. After all, this was just a stray bird escaped from someone's cage, right?
Finally, I mentioned my visions and thougths to Fran. She gave me one of those patented Fran looks that makes me feel like documentation is somehow, somewhere, being entered into a file. I felt the ostracized loneliness that must be experienced by people who have glimpsed Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster.
It took another month before she saw the yellow bird--she identified it as a parakeet. When we got hit with freezing temperatures for a week, Fran told me that the bird could probably not have survived such harsh temperatures, since parakeets usually live in more temperate climates. But the bird did make it.
We kept seeing the parakeet, sometimes sitting on our window, sometimes chasing other birds around our yard, and recently coming to the bird feeder that hangs outside our kitchen window. I can't explain how something as simple as a wild, yellow parakeet always makes me stop remember death, yet somehow makes me happy. Living metaphor, mere reminder, or a transplanted spirit, it is forever linked to that day.
American Dream
If I were to be desperate for a colorful character in a story, I would have to reluctantly have to consider adding the character of Yoshi. I remember one of his first days in the US when he could speak almost no English and a bouncing swarm of kids surrounded him, trying to get him to translate curse words into Japanese. He must have been about ten years old.
Always up to oddball stunts, Yoshi grew up to be a chunky teenager--his appearance was almost cartoonish. He had long, bushy black hair, wore mirrored sunglasses, blared rock & roll music on his headphones, and wore a bandana for a headband--usually with the Japanese flag in front. Straight out of a cheesy '80's movie.
We were in Boy Scouts together, and Yoshi was famous for not being able to wake up in the morning. All of us would have gotten up, made a fire, cooked breakfast, cleaned the dishes, packed, and broken camp, and Yoshi would still be fast asleep in his tent. Our scoutmaster would drag him out into the middle of camp, which Yoshi laughed off with a shrug. Being a caricature didn't seem to bother him.
When he was eighteen, Yoshi signed on with the US Navy for some incredibly long period of time. We all thought it was pretty funny that he would select the Navy, because poor Yoshi was the only kid in our scout troop who could never swim. Predictably, Yoshi was miserable in the structure and discipline of the navy, as well as suffered from incurable seasickness--it didn't take long for him to realize that he had made a huge mistake.
Six months after he left for the navy, I was surprised to see Yoshi in town again. He was hanging around my high school, leaning against his car witha fresh mop of long hair, mirrored sunglasses, etc. smoking a cigarette--somehow he had picked up chain smoking since I had last seen him.
He told me that he hated the navy so much that, as soon as he got out of basic training he had started to plot how to get out. He was assigned to a ship, and he said that the open sea freaked him out so badly that he couldn't sleep. His idea, hardly original, was to convince the navy psychiatrist that he was mentally unsound. He invented an elaborately detailed story about a strange man on the ship who kept following him around on a bicycle, chasing him and ringing the bell on the handlebars. According to Yoshi, the doctor bought his story and kept asking him very serious questions like "What does this guy look like?", "When was the last time you saw him?", and "Why is he following you?" Yoshi, who had likely faced dozens of counselors in his tainted youth, shamelessly played the part perfectly.
Whatever the reason, Yoshi was discharged pretty quickly and, the last time I saw him, he was working at a nearby convenience store. He was quite proud of his accomplishments in the navy: Getting through basic training without learning to swim, befuddling a top-notch psychiatry team, scoring free room and board for a few months, and getting out of a bad mistake relatively unscathed.
Always up to oddball stunts, Yoshi grew up to be a chunky teenager--his appearance was almost cartoonish. He had long, bushy black hair, wore mirrored sunglasses, blared rock & roll music on his headphones, and wore a bandana for a headband--usually with the Japanese flag in front. Straight out of a cheesy '80's movie.
We were in Boy Scouts together, and Yoshi was famous for not being able to wake up in the morning. All of us would have gotten up, made a fire, cooked breakfast, cleaned the dishes, packed, and broken camp, and Yoshi would still be fast asleep in his tent. Our scoutmaster would drag him out into the middle of camp, which Yoshi laughed off with a shrug. Being a caricature didn't seem to bother him.
When he was eighteen, Yoshi signed on with the US Navy for some incredibly long period of time. We all thought it was pretty funny that he would select the Navy, because poor Yoshi was the only kid in our scout troop who could never swim. Predictably, Yoshi was miserable in the structure and discipline of the navy, as well as suffered from incurable seasickness--it didn't take long for him to realize that he had made a huge mistake.
Six months after he left for the navy, I was surprised to see Yoshi in town again. He was hanging around my high school, leaning against his car witha fresh mop of long hair, mirrored sunglasses, etc. smoking a cigarette--somehow he had picked up chain smoking since I had last seen him.
He told me that he hated the navy so much that, as soon as he got out of basic training he had started to plot how to get out. He was assigned to a ship, and he said that the open sea freaked him out so badly that he couldn't sleep. His idea, hardly original, was to convince the navy psychiatrist that he was mentally unsound. He invented an elaborately detailed story about a strange man on the ship who kept following him around on a bicycle, chasing him and ringing the bell on the handlebars. According to Yoshi, the doctor bought his story and kept asking him very serious questions like "What does this guy look like?", "When was the last time you saw him?", and "Why is he following you?" Yoshi, who had likely faced dozens of counselors in his tainted youth, shamelessly played the part perfectly.
Whatever the reason, Yoshi was discharged pretty quickly and, the last time I saw him, he was working at a nearby convenience store. He was quite proud of his accomplishments in the navy: Getting through basic training without learning to swim, befuddling a top-notch psychiatry team, scoring free room and board for a few months, and getting out of a bad mistake relatively unscathed.
09 May 2006
Just an update
Wow--I haven't posted in the month of May. It's really weird how one thing leads to another, and before you know it a couple of weeks go by. I''ve even caught myself going to sleep at night, working out and laughing at the absurdities which I've encountered and reminding myself to post about them, only to wake up the next morning in a hurry to get going/get Ryan to school/get to work/work on a project/(one day:get to the lake to take Ryan fishing).
So there are a lot of topics which just went by. No work on my book, either. It's just a long dry spell.
Occasionally and erratically, I've posted some photos on my photoblog--we took the kids to the zoo and Ryan got his face painted like a tiger. It was funny because the lady had a book with all different face patterns she could paint, but tiger wasn't in there. Ryan, who has never before let his face get painted, decided that the day had come, but insisted that it be a tiger. At first the woman kindly suggested that Ryan select another pattern, but Ryan just blankly stared back at her for a couple of seconds until she agreed to try--then Ryan ended up getting stopped all over the zoo and asked where he got his face painted.
We've decided that Kaitlyn is a super genius. She's 27 months old, and she can talk to an amazing degree--she uses full, 10-word sentences with prepositional phrases and adverbs and the whole works. Anyone that takes care of her gives a wide-eyed report about how she is "quite advanced". She even tells stories about things that happen during the day, and then asks us to make up stories, too: "Can you tell me a story about Mommy?". It is a very interesting time when a child goes from just being a liability, which was as little as 6 months ago, to having a distinct personality and entertaining us all, which she is doing now.
Teeth falling out, my car getting hit by a lead brick on the highway, Kaitlyn falling down the stairs, dead snakes, remodeling gone awry (actually, it went pretty well, but has taken forever), a strange, yellow bird which keeps haunting me, the triumph of Flat Stanley, me working every day like a crazy person trying to row through the doldrums of slow business, the crazy man from my previous work-related post getting fired, my upcoming trips to Pittsburgh and Miami--these were all topics for my blog that went unposted. Will try to do better.
So there are a lot of topics which just went by. No work on my book, either. It's just a long dry spell.
Occasionally and erratically, I've posted some photos on my photoblog--we took the kids to the zoo and Ryan got his face painted like a tiger. It was funny because the lady had a book with all different face patterns she could paint, but tiger wasn't in there. Ryan, who has never before let his face get painted, decided that the day had come, but insisted that it be a tiger. At first the woman kindly suggested that Ryan select another pattern, but Ryan just blankly stared back at her for a couple of seconds until she agreed to try--then Ryan ended up getting stopped all over the zoo and asked where he got his face painted.
We've decided that Kaitlyn is a super genius. She's 27 months old, and she can talk to an amazing degree--she uses full, 10-word sentences with prepositional phrases and adverbs and the whole works. Anyone that takes care of her gives a wide-eyed report about how she is "quite advanced". She even tells stories about things that happen during the day, and then asks us to make up stories, too: "Can you tell me a story about Mommy?". It is a very interesting time when a child goes from just being a liability, which was as little as 6 months ago, to having a distinct personality and entertaining us all, which she is doing now.
Teeth falling out, my car getting hit by a lead brick on the highway, Kaitlyn falling down the stairs, dead snakes, remodeling gone awry (actually, it went pretty well, but has taken forever), a strange, yellow bird which keeps haunting me, the triumph of Flat Stanley, me working every day like a crazy person trying to row through the doldrums of slow business, the crazy man from my previous work-related post getting fired, my upcoming trips to Pittsburgh and Miami--these were all topics for my blog that went unposted. Will try to do better.
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