Pop Rock Kisses

I am an occasional ego-surfer, both thrilled and horrified that my name comes up first, over race car drivers, minor sports stars and former-backup singers, as well as reminded that I once decided to change my name before complications with the INS applied the half-Nelson to my enthusiasm for nominal escape.

I have no doubt I will one day change my name, no longer so interested in being your neighbor, but until that moment I must rely mostly on changing the facts, using allegory and substitution of fine detail to throw the would-be hurt off of erstwhile loved ones, far, far too sensitive for my own good. Perhaps rightfully so. I'm the only one who likes to be reminded of my mistakes, I tell myself. And those few who do want the whips and the snaps creep me the fuck out. My absolution frock remains too tight around the chest.

So when I change the names, it's still the same people. When I change the details, it's still the same thing. I just cannot give too much away, because when that family reunion comes around, I still need to fall back on my failed writing career as an excuse for all the hurtful questions.

Take the following real-life happening, for example, with the names changed just enough to maintain my innocence, and the details held only true enough to get the point across. The bad guy in the story could very well be me. It very well could, so don't be hurt, please. No, I don't forgive us. I don't need to. I've changed the history so much that what may have happened is now steeped in fiction, opaque, like the color of tea.

A postcard:

Who is that from?

I don't know, for sure. It's addressed to me. But my father wouldn't send me a postcard.

What's it say?

Dear Danny. And then a string of words that make no sense.

Remembrances:

No I don't have anything from him. Well, except this. I tug the lapels of my jacket.

You're wearing his coat?

Well, it's a nice coat.

I never saw that man wear a coat. He didn't wear a coat to my wedding.

I guess that's why he left it behind. My mom told me it was the only thing left he couldn't hawk. The alimony jacket, she joked. I never thought much about it, but I sure hope this isn't what he wore when they got married. That would be a little creepy. I always assumed he had rented a sky blue tux with taffeta ruffles.

She laughs, a few drops leaving the glass.

Yes, my friend, if he were to ever wear a suit, that would be the one. You knew him as well as anyone.

A line:

I fell in love with a boy. When I emerged from the fog, he turned out to be the wrong boy. That was that.

A kiss:

Too many drinks. The apartment swells, pulses. I have to lean against the counter to keep from falling, and she does, too, suffering from the very same vertigo. She rests her head against my shoulder and laughs, for no reason and all the reasons in the world.

What's that? I'm looking at a colorful corner of a packet underneath a stack of mail by the phone.

I don't know, she says in earnest surprise. Oh! Pop rocks! I forgot about those. A friend mailed them to me as a joke. Candy we used to eat as children.

She tears open the packet, and shakes a few onto her tongue, closes her eyes, her mouth, and giggles.

Wait! Remember these?

She lifts the packet near my face, teases them towards me. I open my mouth and she shakes a few onto my tongue. It does bring back images. Mud puddles, knee scrapes, leaded gas. And now her hand is on my waist. Do you remember pop rock kisses?

I don't say anything, so close she is, what's to say now? There is silence, a fatal understanding. The point of decision, we both know already passed. This is what we've already chosen. When was it? Was it yesterday at the cemetery? Maybe longer ago. She shakes the candy onto her tongue, lets it mix with the air. A moment passes, but not more. My hands on both sides of her gentle face, my mouth on hers, the candy lightly burning our tongues.

I remember. You were like an electrified fence.

Screaming and Yelling and Crying at the Top of Your Lungs

Dear Naya,

You came into our lives three years ago screaming and yelling and crying at the top of your lungs.

It is a talent that has somehow been nurtured to deafening proportions.

Once, in wrestling with your mother, you walked into the room and screamed, a piercing cry that some would say coincidentally led to the first reported sighting of wild timber wolves in this part of the county in 140 years. But we know better. Your voice carries the conviction of predator and prey, alike, a language translatable at the mitochondrial level, transcending order, family, genus and species. You speak to the sorority of living things.

I, of course, see the world through eyes given to me by my own history, one removed by orders of magnitude from you that I seldom acknowledge. In your cry I didn’t recognize ferocity of will and the stubbornness of a tiny girl whose appreciation of what suits her whim far outstrips the 20 years of formal education I’ve endured.

Instead, I saw the only little girl I’ve ever known, your aunt. When she was your age, and I not much older, I watched her witness the violent beginnings and ends of days that transpired as an affront to grace and kindness everywhere. For all my education, I grew up discriminating against screaming and yelling and crying at the top of one’s lungs, only believing it to be the communication of fear and resignation. We were polyglots, in a sense, us, children, speaking a language unrecognizable by adults, them. I thought I would always understand that vocabulary.

You taught me otherwise.

It was, as all the great fables attest time and time again, a hard and hardly learned lesson.

You bit me in the ass.

We’re in the kitchen, your mother and I. I am merciless, kissing her neck with a two-day old beard, and she is in absolute agony and laughter, the cruelty of your father, Naya, barely confinable when fueled by fortified liqueurs. But that cruelty is interrupted by my despondent confusion, because although I have your mother’s hands pinned to the countertop, she has somehow inflicted a pain upon me greater than any I have known, and I know suffering, because I lived to see the break up of Journey, while lesser bands from New Jersey rocked on. But your mother was inculpable.

I looked behind me and saw you clamped teeth first 1/8th inch deep into my right buttock.

I finally knew that you were speaking some other language.

You learned screaming and yelling and crying at the top of your lungs from much different teachers. And all your instructors, Hope, Love, Patience and Sponge Bob, have told me that they go to bed each night exasperated from the tinnitus brought about from your sheer volume. They will get my sympathy when they bear your dental records in their collective ass. It’s coming.

But I understand you, Naya. I recognize your frustration when you come face to face with a world not large enough to contain your dreams, your passions, your talents. Not nearly. Years from now you might wonder why I never got angry when you screamed and yelled and cried at the top of your lungs, and threw the crayon and crumpled the page and kicked the dog, because inside I was cheering you on. I was remembering. That you are made of solid fire is no reason for disappointment or discipline. I live in fear of the day when you’ll turn down the volume out of consideration of others, that trips to the principal’s office will be replaced with Honor Roll stickers, that you’ll start to forget this first language of yours that speaks to the order of all living things.

My job is not to contain you, Naya. What little Earth exists ahead of your footfalls should tremble in your wake. We are each of us born with two hands. We ought to know by now how to cover our ears. We’ll applaud in those few moments when you’re in between breaths.

And we’ll remember how it is to properly communicate with three-year-old girls.

So today, for your birthday, I will attempt to speak to you in your language, Naya, and though my accent will surely bear the years of living in the South, I hope you will understand what I’m saying as I come home bearing gifts, all the while screaming and yelling and crying at the top of my lungs.

Happy birthday, you sweet, darling, loud little girl.

Weekly Anamnesis

Warrant

Thirty years later she would continue to lose children.
Few would make it as far as Joe, who lived long enough to warrant a tomb;
A simple epitaph of words he never learned to speak.
Her daughters carried on the traditions of investing in faith over hope;
The natal procession continued as it always had, burying children. Oh, well.
Until the age of faith came to an end,
And self-determination and upper-handedness turned miscarriages and stillbirths into aborted attempts.
And aborted successes;
Peppered with gut-punches, binge drinking and precipitous stairwells.
Oh, well.
None of THESE would find the blessings of earth;
Cast sorrowfully upon tiny pine boxes;
Too fragile to be dug up centuries later by archaeologists having a field day.

I have never uttered the phrase, ‘Oh, my brother,’ because he never existed.
There was nothing to wrap in palm leaves and commit to the heavens;
Nothing more than procedures and apologies.
I don’t imagine the occasional voice is his, nor wayward thought not my own.
There would be no site for me to visit with lilies and ask him to stop;
Tell him it’s all right to go on.

I had a family friend in those days who understood the power of encouragement;
He wielded that sword to bold and powerful effect on me;
Until the day came that our mission was to be aborted, taken on the road and settled every year.
One step ahead of the authorities.
I still remember his assurances, however,
You’re gonna be just fine.
As though he saw in me a hidden talent, the gift of contentedness.
I am just fine, I would whisper each night.
I thank you, God, for this ability.

Once, we drove through Nebraska, an ideal state for me.
No one goes to Nebraska.
You go through Nebraska, maybe, on the way to Rushmore.
Perhaps you fly overhead, on the way to O’Hare.
You certainly don’t realize that the roadside café where we’re eating has meaning.
That I picked the table by the window for a reason.
That you now fill the chair filled by an aborted hope I once imagined;
And that she is very likely content some 1,000 miles away.
I recommend an item on the menu, having heard it’s the special.
You wonder how I would know, never having been here before, and I laugh, and say,
Just an old joke.
This item is always the special.
All across the country.

There were gifts at the beginning of time, when Gabriel guarded Eden, of course.
I’m not the only one so blessed with talent.
To the very strong God granted honor and endurance and fidelity;
So that they might serve mankind as exemplars and archetypes.
To the innocent were granted kindness and grace;
So that there might be those to whom we could turn in forgiveness.
And to the very weak, He cursed them with love.
So that they might struggle outside the gates and serve as a lesson and a warning.
Love is the domain of the weak.

You seem so sweet to me when you tell me you never wanted to hurt me.
Sweet, but immodest.
It’s just that you said the wrong thing, that’s all.
What a relief, I replied. I was starting to cave under the weight of always saying the right thing.

She laughed at this, the first time someone had reacted so to my sarcasm.
And I finally believed that my gift might be uncovered;
Perhaps turned over to the proper authorities.

Hidden

You're probably not reading Iris at In the Midst of Alarms, but I sort of wish people would help point me in the direction of other unknown writers who blow me away.

Don’t Kill People, people. Kill people.

When I’m in pain, my wince actually looks like a normal person’s smile, at least from what I know of normal people, for though I am not an axe murderer, I have had to come to the realization that I’m not like most normal people. In fact, I’m saying this out loud as I type. I never have to ask, ‘Why is everyone looking at me?’ because I KNOW WHY THEY ARE LOOKING AT ME.

Pain because mine eyes hath be’en smote by reading some political news or another. Namely, a report on the government’s Katrina response that points out a need for a NEW SAFETY SLOGAN which in 5 words or less will save billions of lives, much as people once sprinted to their fiery dooms before ‘Stop, Drop and Roll’ put a merciful end to the flaming carnage.

As a writer, I’m always thrilled to see recognition of the fact that WORDS save lives, not people, people. WORDS. Not levees or Automatic External Defibrillators or school buses or clean, renewable energy, but WORDS.

So the next time your life is threatened by a soon-to-detonate bomb, you can keep your MacGyvers and your Bill Nyes and your British Royal Engineers. Give me a nameless sloganeer, instead.

/cues the ducks

Steps to Take in an Avalanche
Your Tracking Device Will Break the Ice

Increasing Your Odds in a Tornado
Kansas is a Cellar’s Market
(Insert whatever state you want. THAT’S the beauty.)

Living After a Plane Crash in the Mountains followed by a Blizzard
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo,
50 calories in a toe.

Understanding Volcanoes
Sticks and stones will break your bones, and the molten lava will pretty much take care of the rest.

Averting a Herpes Pandemic
Ix-nay on the icks-day
(alternately, Ix-nay on the icks-chay)

How to Survive a Typhoon (at sea)
Hey! Aweigh and Away!

Reacting to a House Fire/Nuclear Holocaust
Stop, Drop and Repent

Avoiding Retro Fashion Disasters
In one year and out the other.

Preventing Choking on Large Chunks of Beef
Measure once, cut twice

Hush, Hush

School teaches you to separate; invisible hands like grocery baggers drop you into like-means-like, colds or non-perishables. Colors, sure, but clothing, too. An internal compass, SXSE leads poor to poor. Due North go the kids in Garanimals and Hush Puppies. Children don’t need guiding hands. They know where to stand apart from the others intuitively.

A very small group headed SXSE always walked a little more slowly, children whose poor, single mothers read library books to them each night before bed. They always looked back North, believing they were meant to wear those bright burnt oranges and leather as golden brown and comfortable as their fried Southern namesakes.

* * *

This morning I dressed quietly in the dark, trying not to wake the kids. I reached into the wardrobe and took the first thing I felt, a new shirt, one bought over the weekend in haste and carelessness, drawn to its horizontal lines, bored waiting for the clerk to find the earrings I had pointed out in an advertisement.

I’m wearing this shirt today, unused to its comfort, its long, soft sleeves, its bright, burnt orange that matches the golden brown of my shoes, this...er

I run to the bathroom in horror.

My wife, noticing my obvious despair, comes to me, puts her hands gently around my shoulders. ‘What is it? Why do you look in such pain?’

‘Look!’ I pointed to the mirror.

‘What?’

‘I look like a goddamn Garanimal!’

‘What?’

‘All I’m saying is that it should be illegal to sell children’s clothing to obviously drunk adults who clearly have unresolved issues. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ALL MY IZODS ARE IN THE WASH AT THE SAME TIME!’

‘They’re not in the wash. They’re in the drawer. Next to your HOBIEs.’

radical poly

Along the highway today, dolls and loaves of bread, busted at the poly seams, and the wandering gypsies will pick up the rest. Most are busted up beyond repair, props for horror flicks and flea market lamps, no doubt, but some are merely scratched and scraped and road-burned. Some traveling grocer/carny dropped a sack of goods hitting a pothole.

How did you survive?

I’m sorry?

I believe we all have some strength, some gift that helps us through. Survival is no accident.

A year before I joined the department, my parents went on a call. A teenager who went through God knows what. He survived through no choice of his own. We survive whether we like it or not. Through no strength or talent or choice of our own. When he finally had a say in the matter he shot himself in the head. Survival can be a weakness as well as a strength.

Radical polymerization

But I never said the above. A weakness. I never had a bit of fear running into a burning building or wandering the alleyways at night or racing high through the hills, but open contradiction would force me to my knees.

My fantasies involved typical scenes of explosion from violence, striking out and balancing on the precipice of punishment or mercy, but I could never finish those dreams, not having the proper point of reference, not understanding the high that kind of power might rush through my stream, not enough experience controlling life, like nestlings held hostage at the end of a sharp stick. The daydream always gave way to confusion, and then a call to dinner, or bedtime or shoveling snow, or finally the call of my name across a streamered dais that ended in a horizon not nearly long enough to walk from end to end in forgetfulness. Survival can be a weakness, too.

The Bear in the Bubble

BubbleShare.com is hosting a storytelling contest, and I've decided to enter. The link to my story is here: http://bubbleshare.com/album/14622.60c22a91e3c/photoframe.

This album is powered by
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I've had better results in Firefox, but let me know if it works in IE, Opera or Safari.

Born in a Barn

It’s the most bizarre thing, but I find I’m addicted to Pat Robertson’s ‘Bring it On: Love, Marriage and Sex’ forum.

Our answers to the readers’ questions are remarkably similar.

My wife is constantly flirting with men. I know she's harmless with her comments, but lately I'm beginning to have my doubts. How can I let her know she's hurting my feelings? I want her to stop, but I don't want to appear insecure in our marriage?

Pat: The reason that women flirt is that it builds their self-esteem. It is an ego thing. I am attractive to men and I can put some moves on and these guys really go for me. It starts out harmless, but there will be some men who will think it is more than a casual flirtation. They are going to start hitting hard. Next thing you know, Mrs. Flirty wife will find herself mixed up in an affair.

Brandon: Mrs. Flirty wife? Heh. Uh, yeah, what Pat says. You’re fucked. Hard.

I occasionally work late with my coworker. We both are happily married. As we left together late one night, he walked me to my car. As I opened my door, he leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. He walked away as if nothing happened. Should I tell my husband?

Pat: You don't want the husband storming into the office and physically assaulting the guy and getting arrested. It wasn't your fault. You didn't do anything. It was unexpected.

Brandon: Uh, yeah. Don’t tell your husband about some guy assaulting you in the parking lot. Good luck with that.

I have been looking for single women in nightclubs because there are so few in my church. Do you have advice on how I can meet Christian women?

Pat: Go to another church. What do you want to do? You go to a singles bar to pick up ladies who are looking for one-night stands. That isn't exactly where you are going to find the godly types. You might. You might stumble across one in some singles bar. It is possible they are lonely and are looking for somebody, but there are churches that are absolutely loaded with young people. You say you are in a church where there aren't any particularly young people. It sounds like you have got an older congregation. I wasn't being facetious. Go to another church, if that's what your need is, where you will find Christian women.

Brandon: Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a church that doubled as a singles bar? But yeah, sounds like Pat is right. Sounds like you’ve got an older congregation. Sounds like instead of praying, you’re eyeing the pews for singles, too. Dude.

I stayed loyal to my wife even though she fought alcoholism and emotional problems. She is now living with another man while our divorce is pending. Our children would like for us to try one more time. Do you think my thirty years of loyalty were enough, and should I move on?

Pat: You ought to get a medal: America's Husband of the Year. It is your call on a thing like this. You read in the book of Hosea about somebody who was told to go marry a woman given to harlotry. She went into prostitution and her husband bought her back again. It was a story of God's faithfulness to the people of Israel. That was the symbolism. There is something seriously wrong with this womanShe needs professional help very badly. She needs to get set free from these things. There might be some demonic involvement, but certainly she has a warped personality. What do you want to do? I think that you are free to leave if you wish. You have done everything you have to do. Gomer [in the book of Hosea] was out with all of these men, and her husband went and brought her home.

Brandon: Did you ever read Hosea? Well, to put it bluntly, you got hosed, Gomer. Your woman is warped. According to the Bible, you done married yourself a prostitute.

My husband is in an adulterous relationship. I have forgiven him, but he says although he loves me, that 20 percent of his affection is still with this other woman. He doesn't want to divorce me, but wants to include our 8-year-old child in his relationship with this other woman and her kids. My husband is not saved and not open to the Word. What can I do?

Pat: Adultery is flaunted openly. I have heard of people who have brought their girlfriends on a family vacation. I know in history, certainly in the continent, England, and other places, this seemed to be more common than we would like to think. I guess as well in South America and Spain. They have girlfriends. The wife and children are one part of their life; the girlfriends are another.

Brandon: Wait, England’s a continent? I haven’t been to South America/Spain, so I’ll just have to take Pat’s lead. Sounds like your husband is good with percentages, though. Math is nearly as hard as geography.

My Christian husband insists on traveling out of state, against my wishes, to attend a bachelor party with non-Christians in Las Vegas. He says there will be no pornography or sinful activity there. I still think he shouldn't go. Who is right?

Pat: The bachelor parties are normally orgies. They have strippers and lap dancers. A lot of people get drunk and there are dirty jokes. The answer is that there is just no way that someone is having a bachelor party in Las Vegas. If he is really all that holy and righteous, let him do it someplace else. But these bachelor parties are usually bacchanal revels.

Brandon: I need to start going to more bachelor parties.

I feel led by the Lord to help infertile couples and have recently finished a successful surrogacy. I would like to do more. This seems to be causing a great deal of controversy and other people are saying my actions are an act of adultery. Since I did not engage in sexual activity, is being a surrogate adultery?

Pat: Surrogate is the idea that you implant an embryo. There isn't anything wrong with that. Look back at Abraham and Sarah. Sarah says, 'I can't have a child. I am infertile. Take my maidservant and you have a child by her.' That apparently was OK.

Brandon: It’s fine as long as you’re a maidservant.

My Christian husband is infatuated with (addicted to?) computer pornography. He says it is harmless and educational, but I say it is ruining our sexual intimacy. Who is right and why?

Pat: The most powerful human instrument of sexual desire is the mind, not the genitals. To the man addicted to hard-core pornography, real physical sex with a real woman pales beside the mental eroticism found on the Internet.

Brandon: The most powerful human instrument of sexual desire is the mind, not the genitals. To the man addicted to hard-core pornography, real physical sex with a real woman pales beside the mental eroticism found on the Internet.

Oh, jinxy!

My husband says he doesn’t think I’m attractive anymore. He points out the women in his adult movies and tells me I should look young and thin like that. I feel ashamed and embarrassed. I’m trying to look better and exercise more, but he says he doesn’t notice a difference. I doubt if I’ll ever look like them. Can I ever win my husband’s affection again?

Pat: If he’s already looking at adult movies, he’s hooked on porn. Those nymphets in those porn movies were selected out of thousands to get just the most shapely ones, and the chances are almost all of them have had plastic surgery.

Brandon: I defer here to Pat’s porn expertise. I’m ashamed to admit I never knew that porn stars were culled from the shapeliest of thousands of nymphets.

devil's ivy

I think I was crying.

But it couldn’t have been, as growing up we weren’t allowed (to). Crying, worse than the crime we committed that brought the punishment, tears held in and reabsorbed by the lung, leading to episodes of pleurisy much later in perfectly calm moments of full sun and salt air, and much, much later stuck in traffic wondering what ever could have possessed you to kick the habit. God, to miss sand burning the soles of your feet, emergence from wading in cold Pacific waters. God, to miss pockets of unintended summer fallen upon the Oregon coast. Newport. Fucking christ.

Home. Yeah, I think it must be chest pain, heart troubles, 8-year old exhaustion.

She looks at me and frowns, not because of the crying but because the solution is so simple.

‘Just spray them with water.’

Nothing dilutes common sense like hair-wrung lacrimation.

She sprays my shoe laces with the atomizer that blows wet kisses upon every snake plant, every dracaena, every begonia, and the great big patch of devil’s ivy that still holds the scorpion carcass, a memory of a scream and a shoe thrown in the yard, cursed memory like Pavlov’s call.

‘They won’t come untied now.’

* * *

Where are the elders in my life? Or is it that I just don’t listen? I’m 33 and I’ve never grown up, not an inch of wisdom, and I’m reminded of endless grade-school lessons how early man never even made it past 30, and I doubt folklore and home remedies, and patience. How could tolerance and grace have ever been imparted if we used to die in the heart of our emotional youth?

I still sneak from room to room, ready to answer questions with deference, ready to be instructed and taught. A sponge for knowledge and legend, an endless capacity to hear old women share folk remedies, read futures in tea leaves, and sit quietly while I turn the torment around and fuck with the demons on my own terms. I may not have wisdom, but I’ve got an awfully goddamned big bottle of water that took 4 full paychecks, a house full of thirsty plants, and a pair of slip-on Italian loafers that I can wear in case of emergency or drought. Or forgetfulness.

* * *

A friend of mine is having a birthday today.

NO COMMENT

I have comments disabled more often than not these days, with the following results:

* I’m much less self-conscious about what I write
* My site visits are WAAAY down
* I feel much less guilty
* I spend about 185% less time on the internest

I never thought I’d say this, but I couldn’t be happier about the site visits being down. I kind of have to face the fact that I’m a small circle of friends kind of guy, and have a tough time knowing that so many people take the time to visit/comment, and well, don’t, er, get the 6 to my 9.

Some of you leave comments pretty much every time I have them enabled, and I maybe leave a comment on your site once a month. Maybe. I really, truly am sorry about that. I have asked my mother-in-law to help out by visiting everyone who leaves a comment and leaving a message in kind, but, well, she speaks almost no English. So you might get the following:

I have please to read you vlog and I like vut you say. Good day. –Brandon

I received an email wondering why I no longer visit a certain site, and honestly, 90 people could send that exact same message. Of the sites I visited regularly a year ago, I probably only still visit (on a regular basis anyway) 3 or 4. But I’m a military brat. It is physically and emotionally impossible for me to keep a friend for very long. In fact, I have absolutely zero real life friends from high school, college or grad school. Wouldn’t even know how to contact anyone I knew from before 2001.

Unlike Jack from Brokeback Mountain, I DEFINITELY know how to quit you.

* * *
Speaking of, I ACTUALLY SAW A MOVIE over the weekend. Brokeback Mountain. I left the longest comment in the history of the English language about it yesterday over at Sara’s site. I’d be interested in hearing what you think, but of course, I have comments disabled, so you’ll have to leave your comments over there.

Yes, I am now leeching off of other peoples’ comments boxes SO I WON’T FEEL GUILTY.

* * *
Oh, and for those of you who are deeply saddened that your best material actually IS your comments, you might want to sign up for CoComment, which tracks the jewels of wisdom you impart upon the blogosphere.

Assignment Number 2

I was asked to come up with an idea for a new holiday, and it got me thinking in a way I hadn’t thought since I was a young boy trying to decipher the lyrics to Mr. Mister’s ‘Kyrie.’ In other words, simpleton then, simpleton now, I have to break down the exercise into components, preferably involving a numbered list.

I figure, most good holidays gained success for a reason. So if I am to invent a quality holiday, I need to break it down into elements.

1. A Patron Saint. Good holidays are sponsored by some saint or another. Valentine, Nicholas, Patrick, Ides. My holiday will not be without a revered figure at its helm.

2. A Symbol. Children wouldn’t be so interested in Baby Jesus were it not for the X-mas tree. And without the Menorah, would Jews even bother with (C)hannukah? What would teenagers who can no longer trick-or-treat toss through the window of your pick-up truck were it not for the ubiquitous Jack-O-Lantern? And national pride would surely suffer on Independence Day without the ready availability of grenades and AK-47s. My holiday won’t make that mistake.

3. A Mascot. Without the Easter Bunny, I certainly wouldn’t find the crucifixion all that cute. And I honestly can no longer maintain an erection on Valentine’s unless I concentrate on the image of Cupid frolicking in his loincloth. My mascot definitely won’t be a Leprechaun, though. I mean, WTF? That makes no goddamned sense.

4. A Myth. True, we as adults know that the legends surrounding our major holidays didn’t REALLY happen. But the symbolism is powerfully symbolic. I mean, come on, who believes some overweight Scandinavian really climbed down every chimney in the world to deliver gifts and hope? Or that the Groundhog really predicts how much winter remains by whether or not he sees his shadow? Or that Martin Luther King, Jr., marched on Washington for civil rights? Riiiiiiight. Have you ever marched in Washington, DC in August? No WAY you have the energy to give a speech in that heat, my friend. Pure myth. But pure holiday MAGIC.

5. Meat. Even if you’re a vegan, you surely partake in Thanksgiving Day turkey and ham. Or Christmas Day turkey and ham. Or Ramadan turkey and ham. And Easter wouldn’t hold such special meaning come Monday morning without a big chunk of lamb flesh lodged in your gullet. Maybe that’s why vegans don’t get no holiday. How is it a holiday if you don’t make a sacrificial offering to the holiday pagans. Don’t be burning no motherfucking tofu on my pyre, you goddamned lightning rod. There are only 188 recognized holidays each year (including the entire month of February for African American History Month), so it’s not like you have to eat meat EVERY day.

6. A Massacre. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the Christmas Day Massacre, the Tet Offensive, et al. These fortuitously timed blood-lettings have always been a good reminder that ‘Hey, don’t we get a day off next week?’. I’ll make sure to have my holiday in the summer when the heat and humidity add to the likelihood that large groups of innocent people will get butchered.

7. Associated Alcoholic Beverage. Easter wine, St. Patrick’s Day Green Beer, April Fool’s Day Sharps, Father’s Day Everclear, etc. Who hasn’t enjoyed champagne on New Year’s? Or got hammered on Malt Liquor on Election Day? No, seriously, who didn’t get hammered last Election Day?

8. Bizarre Ritual. Okay, you don’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day and your boss pinches you on your ass? What’s up with that? And how come he keeps doing it? Seriously. Brokeback motherfucker won’t stop. And it’s February for Chrissakes. Fine, I get it, I’ll wear green. My holiday will definitely involve fondling of some sort.

9. A Sporting Event. Be honest. The only reason we look forward to a New Year is because we get to watch college football. Because if there’s anyone who was really nice to me in high school and deserves to be celebrated, it’s neanderthals.

10. Fireworks. People like to blow shit up. I can’t put it any more clearly than that.

So this is why Christmas sets the gold standard for holidays. It has a massacre, alcoholic beverage associations galore, a ridiculous legend, a lot of meat and other things I didn’t even mention, like costumes, songs and controversy. Plus it happens on a Sunday, which means you get the whole rest of the week off (Fuck. I might be wrong about this.). And it’s why whoever planned Earth Day deserves to be served as a Thanksgiving Day hors d’oeuvre. No meat, no massacre, no patron saint. Just some malarkey about Global Warming (myth) and a lot of drinking (rock on).

With these guidelines, therefore, I hereby declare April 22nd to be the newest holiday, National Esteem Day (NED). I will make sure that it includes all 10 of the above elements, because it’s just like cooking up a good recipe. Imagine your ten favorite foods. Pretty good on their own, huh? Now imagine putting all those ingredients into a food processor and making a sort of green paste. Pretty fucking wicked awesomeness, am I right?

National Esteem Day will celebrate our own unique selves by encouraging us to buy stuff for ourselves. Most holidays you have to get things for other people who in turn are morally obligated to get you something even better, which leads to resentment and sometimes murder. NED simply cuts out the middleman.

NED also has its own drink: vermouth. That’s ‘cause vermouth is really just wine, it’s fortified, and it’s cheap, and even more it’s italian, and also, it can be mixed with other liquors, like vodka (aka verdka), tequila (aka verquila), and everclear (aka evermouth).

And NED will have meat, believe you me. The traditional NED entrée will be a beef brisket wrapped with bacon and stuffed with haggis. The entire thing will be stuffed into a turkey carcass and that will be jammed inside a monkfish and baked at 450 for only 10 minutes. Instead of carving it, however, it will be placed on the dinner table and lit with M80s. The resulting explosion will both serve to commemorate the victims of the National Esteem Day Massacre and spread the portions of St. Monk’s Haggis Medallions over the surprised faces of the guests. After dining, you should sit down to watch bowling, the only sport where contestants smoke during competition.

I mean, come on.

You Are Formally Invited To Join Me In Some Relaxation

My last post was actually an assignment from Jill. And now she has invited me to an orgy.

This is remarkably similar to college.

Please go over to Jill's and join the bacchanalia. If Jen tries to offer you haggis, tell her 'no thanks, I hear it's just offal.'

...aaaaand release...

inappropriate, regrettable, fictitious

i meet him over drinks, a small bar in kansas, though all the bars run shoulder to shoulder on the high plains, the vast spaces reserved for winter wheat, leaving too little room inside public places to maneuver the walkways without collision, sometimes inappropriate, sometimes regrettable.

‘you remember erin?
…
‘ is it okay if she joins us?
…
‘i never understood why you never got along.’

when she arrives, she forgets whether she knows me or not.

the greetings exchanged uncertainly, we take our seats. i nudge her knee under the table, only for reassurance, while he orders a pitcher of beer.

his pager beeps almost as soon as he has poured our drinks.

fuck. fuck. fuck.

‘you have to go?’

‘yeah. i’m sorry. but you two stay.’

‘no, i’ll come with you.’

‘why? to wait around in the office? might as well finish the beer.’

and with his absence, somehow even less room.

‘sorry, charlie.’

* * *

‘don’t,’ she says, as i push her up against the door. ‘you’re not coming back, so just don’t.’

it doesn’t matter, the words, as if the screams and arm waving would stop the roller coaster. a feeling i remember at the fairgrounds, the first turn shocking my system so profoundly that i looked at my feet for a pedal that would bring the whole thing to a grinding halt. but as an adult you learn that once your ticket’s punched, the car runs through til the end.

we’re riding this out, despite our protestations. at some point, before the burns have settled into our elbows and knees, i think of him, and wonder if the kindness he’s shown me is a cry for exit or mere naivete. surely, he knows, i think, on the weekends. but monday he’s Candide, ignorant how all three of us love each other, his friend, his wife.

* * *

the next time, i bite her so hard that the shower drops taste like salt, and it wakes her enough that the scratches turn to punches, the lines of mascara on my chest foreboding purple and black, the colors of bruise and regret. i don’t know if the crying is from guilt or longing, and the doubt is what ends it all.

the room is so quiet for the rest of the night that the first hint of dawn rings loud enough to wake me. i marvel at my stealth, tiptoeing around the room, fully aware that though her back is turned, her eyes are wide open. i know that when i emerge from the hotel bathroom, she’ll be fully dressed and packed.

frenzy, less a word than inevitable. my co-respondent.

but i don’t expect she’ll be gone.

* * *

we pack our sleds back up the hill, my dad off in the field, the military’s version of respite for army brats. for two weeks, we don’t have to come in before 6, tiptoe around the house or otherwise dwell in silence. we breathe. easy. any humiliation we suffer will be at our own hands, the one opportunity for learning the self-destructive habits that will serve us well in adulthood.

tanya sits behind me and we fly, steering to hit the moguls, leaning to gain speed and finally reaching the ramp. only in memory does the suspension in midair last more than a moment, product of neurons misfiring, slowed from overuse; like the corrosion of sparkplugs.

we soar in that memory, the air colder than i remember, but not painful; we brace for impact, one that will draw blood. we're smiling, like children.

we soar.

we brace for impact.

we survive the landing.

this part is true.

second revolution

Back in 1994 when I lived in Romania, I kept a journal. I thought that I might collect some interesting stories, that I might write some of those down, that I might revisit those memories in my old age and remember I once went on a little adventure.

The writing itself is nauseating, but detailed. I still feel my heart drop through the pit of my stomach reading about those first 24 hours, flying from Kansas City to Bucharest, driving 6 hours through the Carpathians, being led through 12 foot wooden gates into a 16th century courtyard at 2 am in the morning. I still know the sound of my footsteps on those cobblestones. I smell the diesel fumes trapped by a street never designed for automobiles. I learned how to laugh at irony in those months, my host father, a pediatrician, telling me how once he visited Las Vegas during the communist years, though the local police only allowed him to go after attaching a recording device to his phone, taking a full inventory of his possessions and stamping his visa with these words, ‘If you don’t return on time, or if your wife tries to sell any of your belongings, your family will have trouble.’.

He looked at me as he said this, and laughed, ‘Funny, no?’

At the time, I had simply said, ‘No.’

But I think we finally understand each other now, these 12 years later, how he not only could laugh at his misery and injustice, but sincerely found it laughable.

He asked me, ‘Why do you write so much in your journal?’ clearly aware of my tendency to steal off at any moment to record what I felt I would need to remember.

‘I don’t know,’ had been my answer. The admission struck me. Soon after, I stopped writing in my journal. I never wrote another journal entry again until two years ago. An entire decade that I will not remember.

What is it about a new year? Perhaps the revolution brings new light from the sun; different light; a second chance at aspiration.

Today, then, brings new light from what I wanted to forget one revolution ago.

So in this new light, I type again, in the old way.

Habit as catharsis.

Merely the illusion of healing.

But new light, nonetheless.

Nobel's Safety Blasting Powder

For me to use my perfect crash record in an argument about who’s the better driver would be the equivalent of screaming to the universe, “DEAR THE SWEET LORD PLEASE SMITE ME WITH THE MOTHER OF ALL VEHICULAR ARMAGEDDA!” how superstitious I am.

Probably for the best, because everything I learned about EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION in an argument turned sour in the real world. Respectful? Calm? Collected? Composed? Each an ingredient in an explosive compound. There exists a certain level of tension necessary for a safe argument: each person has to become somewhat agitated. One person remaining absolutely rational during a fight is like screaming to the universe, “DEAR THE SWEET LORD PLEASE SMITE THIS VOMAN WITH TEH RABID FURY!”

Much like using ‘Legend’ in the title of your movie is like screaming to the universe, “DEAR THE SWEET LORD PLEASE MAKE THIS MOVIE ANYTHING BUT A LEGEND,” sort of like ‘The Legend of Billie Jean’ or, uh, well that’s all I can think of cause I only seldom see this thing you call TALKIES.

I bring this up because the universe has not cooperated with me of late, leaving me uncharacteristic of myself. Not a bad thing, cause CHARACTERISTICALLY I’m moody and downtrodden, so much so that I recently saw an advertisement about how America is the greatest nation on the world, and I suddenly felt like I should move, since I was likely bringing down an entire country.

* * *

Which for me is not saying very much.

You say, “For the love of Pete.”
I say, “Pete’s getting a lot of love these days.”

You say, “The Danish Flag Industry is surely turning a profit.”
I say, “See? I TOLD you cartoon violence wasn’t funny.”

You say, “Are we gonna be laughing til morning?”
I say, “Best way to get through the night.”

Tethered

Owie here
Owie there
I see owies everywhere!

Children’s games, like drop-shadow memories of coming home from school to the desperate realization your shoes are torn, and understanding what payday means. Some recollections are not my own, but planted in the later telling,

Once, when we were shopping, you told the woman standing next to us that we couldn’t buy cereal because we were poor. You were three. You had no idea what poor meant.

* * *
She lies on her stomach, a bit of her leg peeking above the cover, the rest of her curled and hidden. Cocoon. He steps to the bedpost, a glass in each hand, towel draped around his waist. Inquisitive to her contrary. Contrast.

A butterfly?

I don’t think so. A moth, maybe. No, a cicada.

She turns onto her side, her navel peeking between a bit of sheet and pillow; emerges from the blanket and takes a glass. Wings. He slides upon his knees until her face is at rest against his chest. Kisses the top of her head, at the part, pressing his arm around her neck, and then kisses the neck. Soar.

“When my sister and I were little the one nice thing I remember about my dad was cicadas. He would catch them for us.”

He motions with his arms, tying knots around the glass, the hands now butterfly wings, impelled towards the window of the hotel room.

“He tied them to string and handed them to us.” Tethered.

He wonders if it sounds cruel.

“It was the closest we ever came to normal.”

She wraps herself around his waist. “This is why.”

“Why what?”

“So many things.”

* * *

On the way to work today, a fire engine raced by, lights flashing. I could make out the guys in back, donning their SCBAs, recalling their times from firefighting school. Silently calling out ‘PASS’ to show their personal alert safety systems were working, the sharp alarms piercing the silence when you would sit still for too long watching a family’s hopes and history burn to the ground during that time when everyone realized no fight remained.

“Surround and drown,” the saying goes, when the attack comes to its end, the victory of fire assured, and these days fire seems to defeat all, even will and morality. I watch the fire engine drive by and remember I used to help those in need, never imagining I might stand helpless beside them. Nothing parallels the beauty of a house in flames in the middle of the night, overshadowed in the contrast of those who have lost everything. An unappreciated beauty, like tethered cicadas, friends who know everything and children unaware of poverty.

tankee

Alcohol serves as both my armor and my crutch, and the imagery produced by this metaphor absolutely kills me. Good thing I'm so effed up, lest I develop tennis elbow from all the casting of stones. Fortunately, the object of most of my criticism is ME, making ME the human equivalent of the mockingbird who keeps attacking his own reflection. No! He doesn't think it's another bird! He knows perfectly well he's looking at himself. He's doing what I do all the time. Or perhaps suffering from Capgras syndrome.

That said, I’ve felt a tad bit guilty of late for all the self-hatred. My self-hatred is not something to be concerned over, however, because it's actually quite funny now. Sort of like the grandparent who's always complaining about how much her hip aches with the change in barometric pressure and inflation and how it never did feel the same since Jimmy Carter lost the election, I’ve become a caricature of myself.

THAT that said, I would like to take this moment to say ‘thank you’ to the following 10 bloggers, whom I would never attack, not even in a polyamorous way (well, not Scott, anyway). I won’t say why I’m thanking them, only that they made me feel shiny and new recently.

Hmm. Thanking 10 bloggers for no ostensible reason. Sounds like a meme…

1. jill
2. scott
3. romy
4. mainja
5. julia
6. elle
7. rae
8. shari
9. monty
10. susie

Amnesial

Once upon a couple days ago, I got caught staring off into space. Again. Alex asked me what I was thinking, and I was somewhat embarrassed to say that I was imagining myself as a wildland firefighter, trying to save a couple of greenhorns from burning up in a ravine, durned fools running headfirst into a foehn wind, still carrying their goddamned Pulaskis and McCleods.

Durned?

Oh. That part was apparently out loud.

Don't you do that?

What?

Fantasize?

Sure, about James Blunt.

No, I mean like role playing.

Sure, about James Blunt.

What I mean is, and please don’t say James Blunt again, do you create elaborate internal scenarios whereby you pretend you are a different person acting out some sort of real life drama that has at its core some sort of trial or tribulation or fundamentally difficult decision?

I imagine I once had to choose between James Blunt and Matthew McConaughey.

Must be nice. I’m constantly role-playing. Me as a private investigator. Me as a WW II medic. Me as an ordinary bystander forced to hotwire a truck full of explosives and drive it away from the daycare center and into the Willamette River where it explodes just as I jump to safety but knocked unconscious and amnesial and found floating 2 miles down the river by fruitarian separatists who wean me back from the brink with avocado porridge and avocado shakes and avocado supplements…

This can’t be normal.

entanglements

In my memory, these hands remain entangled; legs enlaced, knotted strands of hair. In my mind, Gordian limbs, to pull harder at my arms means to lock them ever more tightly. Bite at the weak threads, no hope of pulling apart, but leave my mark; bruised and bloodied and hopelessly pyretic.

* * *

I remove my computer, its speakers, its peripherals, from my bag, and have to lay the entire mess on the table. The wires entangled. A green, a red, a black. It only takes a moment to find myself laughing at how much I tend to assign these images; No object allowed in my view without assuming some painful metaphor. Of course I sicken myself.

* * *

I have no photos of my father, don’t know if he’s alive or dead. Spend as little time possible in his shoes, but I do ask what it’s like, projecting myself and imagining that 30 years ago I walked away from a boy and never looked back. We abandon so many loved ones to time, we who live inside our heads. Three decades to dilute reminiscence sounds reasonable. If not for sentiment, or perhaps sheer vanity, I might feel comfortable in the role. But look at how pretty I turned out. Pretty like a picture. And fast. Fast enough to outrun so many memories and an endless string of mistakes. I always wind up curious. I’d be proud of me.

* * *

Once, he and his brother fought, entangled on the carpet, my grandparents’ house. Two wiry Texas boys, quick to drink, quick to anger, and listening to the ripping of clothes caused me to step back, but goddamn if I wasn’t proud he wound up on top, beating hell into my uncle before my grandmother threw a bucket of water at them, missing completely, but surprising them enough to dip their toes into sanity. My grandfather never lifted his eyes from his paper.

* * *

I bite at those strings every time guilt sets in, remembering the safety of walking the streets with him, capable of such overwhelming anger. Still, if you’re going to be terrorized, might as well rest easy in knowing your villain can outmonster the competition.

My grandfather did not like his own sons. He had bailed them out of so many jams that they had now become lost memories. His shoes intrigue me. He ran away without leaving, Perfectly linear, and in full oblivion, and I realize now that, yes, the years can dilute reminiscence. That’s how I know he never thinks of me, willfully forgotten, in full and plain view, as he certainly found himself in the waning months of 1986.

fu clown

fu clown

As they say, All in the telling, and here I’ve always skewed skeptically optimistic, daily reminded by glancing at the speed gauge, reading fully 130 mph. Never been that fast, and don’t think that lies within any realm of possibility, but nice to have the reassurance, nonetheless. Indebted to some anonymous assembly line worker with a kind heart or profound sense of (potentially) (violent) humor.

* * *

A Joke.

Once upon a time when I was a boy, my aunt and uncle took me to the Circus. Oh, my fascination with clowns. How when they look really happy, really they’re sad. When they really look sad, they’re really not. How they’re invariably evil and otherwise unemployable.

Imagine my elation when the spotlight shone upon me, and a happy clown approached me with a mic.

“Are you the horse’s head?” the clown asked.

“Well, no, I’m not.”

“THEN YOU MUST BE THE HORSE’S ASS!!!”

And the crowd, my aunt and uncle included, hurled their laughter at me. Humiliated, I knew that I would someday have to redeem myself in the eyes of this sad clown, already, at barely 8 years of age, presciently weary of lifelong vendettas.

For two and half decades, I wandered bitterly from one town to another, always seeking out that clown, seeing myself as the horse’s ass. Until the day of my revenge, having practiced and perfected my retort. As a child, I merely swallowed the invective, unable to re-gift the pill. But on our next meeting, I would be bringing Mickey Finn.

I’m lying down and the person lying with me shines the spotlight.

“Are you the horse’s head?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then you must be the horse’s ass.”

I watch her fill with laughter like I’ve never seen in her before, laughter like 1,000 radiant children at 1,000 big top shows. And it’s time for my response. The one I’ve been saving up these 25 years.

“I’ve never been this happy in all my life.”

Daydream Apnea

1978

I sit up, breathless from daydream apnea, having realized Pegasus beneath me nothing more than a wooden rocking horse; the battle cries of entire armies now two unhappy parents.

* * *
Sleep amid absolute silence and absence of light requires imagination uninterrupted. A rhythmic glow, the heartbeat of an inhaled cigarette; a minor sound, the occasional whimper to stir the quietude.

* * *
I ask her one night, “How do we fall asleep?”. She turns the covers, and the lamp; I imagine a switch inside my head and flip it. “I’m still awake.” I ask again, “How will I breathe when I sleep?” It just happens, sweetie.

* * *
I complain incessantly about the view; Surrounded here by towering firs, never changing color; sheer green walls. The roads, a cel backdrop of an animated film.

* * *
Daydreaming, Under New Management. Whenever I forget, my autonomic system takes control, casting images of riding horses along Old West adventures upon the backdrop of the forest monotony, no longer a landscape, but a canvas.

* * *
The end trees now caryatids, bearing the weight of a coliseum upon their heads. The soft curve of the road, a woman’s back. The tiny boulders at Rispin’s Hill, concentrating children, turning off the switch, eager for a little sleep.