I'm taking a brief, week-long hiatus from this blog and from (almost) everything digital. Because I feel the need to re-group a bit. And to re-assess and to commune with others and with nature. And to be the "live and in person me" full-time for a bit.

And so I will be unplugged at an undisclosed location and will be interacting with other real-live people. And I will spend most of my time outside. And instead of a computer, I will carry a notebook and a pen. And I will read words written on paper and bound together in these things called "books." And my one digital crutch will be my camera, so I can take lots of photographs. Email will be ignored.

I should have much to write about when I return and lots of photos to share. In the meantime, now's your chance to peruse the archives. Or make your own content!

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Ho_Hum 

On a recent trip back to DC via Baltimore, I asked Mat if he thought there was a difference between the "Blog Me" and the "Live and in Person Me." His response was immediate and it kind of surprised me: "I think the 'Live and in Person You' is much more quirky." I took it as a compliment, though I had the uneasy feeling that it could really go either way. I can always count on Mat for ambiguity.

The question of the "self" I'm portraying here is one I've been thinking a lot about lately. And it's one of those "crises" that people who blog tend to go through and it's a very boring sort of crisis to have, I know, and I'm a little embarrassed to be going down this road, frankly. But I've done it before. Several times, actually. And I'll probably do it again. So whatever. Deal. This one has a pay-off though, because it involves You!

More and more, You are meeting me for the first time through the words I write here, and not through the words I speak in everyday conversation. Which means that, for many of You (or Yous, as they say here in Jersey) Your entire perception of me is through my writing ... and the occasional strange photo I post of myself. You've never heard my voice. Or seen the manner in which I speak, my facial expressions, my tone, the way I laugh at a good joke. The slouched, cross-legged way I sit in a chair. The way I move my jaw back and forth or tap my teeth together when I'm thinking about something. Like what I'm doing right now, for instance. You don't know about these things. Or rather, You do now. But only because I told You about them. And there's a difference, isn't there, between the "book knowledge" sort of knowing that you get when I tell you I do these things versus the "familiar" sort of knowing you get when you experience those things for yourself. But at the same time, You know a side of me that people who have known me all my life (but who don't read this blog) don't know. You hear a different sort of voice here. Still me, but probably different from my "live" voice.

And so I imagine in knowing that blog voice, it kind of makes me like a character to a lot of You, a character in a very elaborate fiction, a fiction complete with plot lines and a cast of secondary characters all firmly and self-consciously rooted in my own life. And so the real difference between this sort of "fiction me" and the "non-fiction" me is in the words not written. The stuff I, as narrator, leave out. And that makes me deeply flawed and unreliable as hell. And who knows, maybe that's why You like me.

But here's the scary thing: even I'm beginning to see myself this way—as a character. It's partly out of necessity, because sometimes it helps to have that distance there so that I can put the stuff down that I want to put down and ignore the surrounding din of Audience, and that cowering internal voice telling me don't say that. But the problem is that if I'm the character AND the narrator, well, let's face it: I'm kinda fucked. Talk about an existential crisis. I mean, how can I have any kind of objectivity or, for that matter, any kind of subjectivity? How can I exist? Will I suddenly dematerialize? Will I one day only exist online? Will I only exist to You. I guess in one sense the answer to these last couple of questions is: "Eventually, yes." But what about now?

I recently read Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis in which the main character of the book is "Bret Easton Ellis." The character Ellis is also an author and has many similarities to the real Ellis, except that he's a character ... in a piece of fiction. I kind of love that idea. And I think it relates nicely to the act of blogging, though I'm sure that's not what Ellis was intending.

Anyway, I watched this BBC interview Ellis did in October 2005 following the release of Lunar Park. The whole thing is pretty good, so if You have some time, take a look. But here's the part I liked the most: In talking about the success of American Psycho, Ellis says:


That last sentence is the kicker. Once a book or blog or character is out there, we have no control over it. And if that blog is mine? And that character is ... me? Holy shit. I'm screwed. I always hoped I'd be saying this under different circumstances, but ... I am completely in Your hands. And since we're still in the lingering twilight hours of Web 2.0, and user-generated content is apparently all the rage, why don't You leave a comment and at the same time satisfy my narcissistic curiosities by answering the same question I posed to Mat: Is there a difference between the "Blog Me" and the "Live and In Person Me?" I'm afraid without the answer to this question, I might cease to exist altogether. So Your very participation is crucial to my survival. I'm hoping that maybe even a few lurkers will comment, though I won't hold my breath. If You don't know me in real life, make up something. Tell me what you imagine the differences to be. Go ahead ... define me. Today, it's all about You ... talking about me, of course. Let's not forget what's important.

link to this | comments (10) | File:  Ho_Hum  Fiction  Blog 

One thing you learn when you're self-employed and working from home is that it is entirely possible to wear the same brown, zip-in-the-front sweater every day for two weeks straight and not offend anybody. Not even yourself. Oh, you still change the t-shirt underneath, of course. On a daily basis. Because you're no animal, after all. But the sweater? The jeans? The footwear? Why change them? Who are you trying to impress? The mail carrier? Who is she to judge? She wears the same thing everyday, too. The bottom line is nobody knows. Because all of your "face-to-face" conversations take place via the phone, and while you have a very real appearance to yourself in the mirror, your appearance to the five people conferencing with you on a Friday morning at 8 am from different parts of the US is completely imaginary. To these people, your state is forever fixed in their consciousness, and you are always, at any given time, sitting in front of your computer, beneath an array of florescent lighting, wearing business casual, and sipping from a coffee mug that says, I hate Mondays or You want it when?! They don't know that only seconds ago you were putting the garbage out and that currently you're lying on your back doing some stretches on the berber carpet in your spare room while they go on about whether or not the icon looks better on the right or left, or if a certain word or phrase requires quotation marks around it. And you probably should care about these things. But you don't. And now you're throwing a squishy ball at the ceiling. Or watching the Obama speech in Philly (muted of course). Or applying some apricot jam to a gluten-free biscuit which you made earlier that morning. And suddenly you come to your senses and realize that—god-dammit—all this time you've been on this call, and your coffee cup has been empty. So you place it in your palm and weigh it there and regard its cold, vacant interior with sadness, and then you shuffle into the kitchen to make another cappuccino while the voices continue through your earpiece. And in the kitchen, you mute the phone, and you use this time you have to yourself to reflect upon your life and contemplate the finer details of this existence you've chosen. And, in that moment, it occurs to you that perhaps you've grown unhealthily attached to your blue, paint-speckled crocs. Because you actually noticed this morning that you felt uneasy and scared at the thought of putting on real shoes. And your reluctance to take off those crocs to do the normal things people do—like shower, or sleep—could be an indication that things are getting a little out of control. And, okay, you do take them off for those activities. But you have a suspicion it's only because your wife is there. And you don't want to alarm her.

And while the espresso machine pushes the silky brown stuff into your cup and your phone is on mute and the people on the other end are continuing to talk and talk, you gaze outside. And you realize that it's quickly becoming spring out there. And pretty soon you're going to need to get that lawn thing figured out. Because where you come from, men take their lawns seriously. And there's this whole business of laying down mulch and, well, when exactly should that happen? And then there's the lawnmower you need to purchase. And the trimmer. And probably a leaf-blower would be useful—even now, even in spring—to get rid of the leftovers from last year that are under your deck. And come to think of it, you should really get a rake. And some fertilizer and a fertilizer application device. And you'll store all of this in the empty shed out back. Or rather, the shed you hope is empty. Because you've yet to look inside of it. And that's probably something you should have done by now. But every time you've thought to do it, there's been a river of ice or water between your house and it. And so you've figured it's not going anywhere, and you'll take a look inside when the time comes. And maybe now that time has come. Because you do live in Soprano country. And sheds are great places to store a great many things, not just lawn equipment. And the more you think about it, the more daunting it seems. And maybe it's best to just keep it closed up. And to not deal with it. And maybe somehow spring won't actually come this year. And the lawn won't grow. And you can just keep the shed empty—in your mind.

And just then a question comes your way from over the phone line, interrupting your quiet lawn musings. It seems your opinion is requested. So you de-mute. And you tell the phone—and hopefully the people on the other end of it—what you think. And there's no response, and you realize that people aren't picking up what you're laying down. And it's not even that what you said was all that technical. It's just that you're the "technical guy," and people's eyes tend to glaze over and their ears go all deaf when you start uttering phrases. Because even though it's these people's jobs to deal with things like Web sites, and to sit on committees to help populate them with content, they refuse to learn the language necessary to talk about them in any meaningful way. And so you find yourself using words and speaking in tongues that you haven't used since 2001. And that whole plea of "I'm not that tech savvy, so you'll need to explain this to me in laymen's terms" is one you've heard uttered hundreds of times, but this particular time, you want to reach through the phone and shake them and say, "All I'm talking about here is an email form and when you click "submit" it emails the information you entered to another person! I'm not asking you to program the thing, just to imagine it on the site!" And you consider asking this person if not knowing how to bake bread from scratch or slaughter a pig means they don't know how to talk about a ham sandwich. But then you think better of it and you patiently repeat what you said in a different way. And there's a silent pause and then somebody suggests that we get Bob on the phone. Because Bob is technical. And he'll understand. He'll understand the concept of ... an email form. But you don't get upset, because you've had this conversation before, a million times actually, and chances are, at the rate you're going, you'll have it again. And so you take a sip of your coffee beverage and you eye the Dewars and wonder if 8:30 in the morning is too early for "Happy Hour."

If you look closely at the backyard of your soul, you'll find a shed. And it's something you've gazed at a million times before and it's always remained closed and mysterious. And surrounded by ice. Familiar, but strange. Holding so much promise, but surrounded by challenge and danger. You think you may have a key to it somewhere, but you're not really sure where it is, and even if you found it, you're not sure you want to know what's inside. Because it could be something you're not ready to find, and then you'll have to deal with whatever it is that's in there. And if there's nothing? If it's empty? An entirely different problem. The potential to do the wrong thing, or worse, to do the right thing poorly. And so even though the ice is melting and the opportunity is ripe to go out and see what you can do in this new place, the temptation is to stay in these other rooms you've occupied, and walk in your crocs in the well-worn paths that connect one room to the other. Until you wake up one morning and realize that safe is another word for dead. And pretty soon there'll be a lawn growing around you whether you want it to or not.

Rebirth. Renewal. It's happening, brother. And you're missing it. And another couple years of this and you'll be in the weeds. And you won't even be able to see the shed. And the other paths will be that much more worn. And it's only going to get harder to tread someplace new.

And it's time, brother—it's time to figure this thing out.

So you hang up from your call and you go upstairs and you put on a different sweater. Because you have to start somewhere. And tomorrow maybe you'll take on the shed.

link to this | comments (7) | File:  Weather  Chewing  Work 

I think I must have received a bad shipment. Which is enough to destroy any drug user's week. I have noticed the last couple of times I shot up, as that little mechanical plunger is pushing the stuff in my leg, it just hasn't felt the same going in. And I was beginning to wonder if maybe something was amiss. And then Tuesday I got this flare up of the AS. Which hasn't happened since ... September? And that sort of confirmed it. But that's a hell of a way to receive confirmation. Metal rod, creeping it's way up the spine. Concrete in the joints. And so I responded as any self-respecting chemically-dependent person would: by drinking too much and watching a great movie—twice—before passing out on the floor of our basement. Escapism through film and unconsciousness through alcohol are great American pastimes. And Tuesday I was a Patriot.

And I hope all it is is a a bad shipment. Because if it's not that. If it's something else—like maybe the Enbrel just isn't working any more—well, that would be bad. But I'm starting a new batch of blue pens on Saturday and hopefully there'll be more kick to them.

It's weird how the body forgets pain. I've gone along for the last 4-5 months feeling normal. And when you're feeling normal, you tend to forget not-normal. You take normal for granted. And you begin to thumb your nose at not-normal and call it really filthy names, like "ass muncher" and "goat boy." And I'm real good at that. Because I sometimes like to burn bridges. And my body was ready to burn that bridge with not-normal and say good riddance. And I thought not-normal had gotten the message. Because he wasn't coming 'round at all. And I thought finally that annoying little fucker has left me alone. And I even started wondering if not-normal had just been a figment of my imagination. Like the monster under the bed. And maybe I'd just grown up and had begun to see that not-normal was nothing more than a coating of dust and few stray socks. And since normal was around to back me up, I was feeling a little cocky about all of this, getting more rigorous at the JCC, up-ing the weights, speeding up the stairs. And so there may have even been some chest-puffing going on. And I probably even told not-normal to go fuck off a time or two.

But not-normal heard me, and he was a little pissed. And so he worked his way in—just a hint at first—but then by Tuesday afternoon a full-blown limp had set up shop in my legs and my spine refused to go straight. And my mind recalled what this was like, and it didn't like it. Because he knew what came next. And so he gave me the green light to binge drink and watch movies. And do a little of the forgetting one might usually reserve for a really bad break-up or a death or something like that.

And I hate whining, especially on a day like this. Because it's sunny and crisp and there are signs of life on the trees. And it's Easter weekend, to boot. So I'll end this on a positive note and talk about the movie I watched. Because it was the glaring bright spot of Tuesday: The Darjeeling Limited. See it. It's now in my top-five favorite movies list, and if somebody would like to buy this for me as an anniversary present, I would give that person lots of kisses. Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody are fantastic. And so is Jason Schwartzman, for that matter. I think I'm just kind of partial to Wilson and Brody, in general. But all three really play off each other well in this movie and there is just some really great dialogue. In fact, this is definitely a dialogue-driven movie and I'm usually a sucker for those when they're done right. And Wes Anderson, who also did The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore, has a good reputation for doing it right. Here's one of my favorite lines: "I love you too, but I'm gonna mace you in the face!" This is probably one of those movies, however, that you will either love or feel completely indifferent about. And so if you don't like it, you'll probably wonder what the hell I was thinking, and if you love it, well we'll be able to just kind of nod at each other one day and maybe quote a line from the movie and that'll really be all we'll need to do, because we'll just know we appreciate the thing and it'll be enough. I'll say one other thing about it ... when you watch it, make sure you watch the 15-minute short clip called Hotel Chevalier which co-stars a short-haired Natalie Portman along with Schwartzman, and serves as a prologue to the main feature. It's so filthy and entirely good.

Okay. So now I'm just going to count the hours until tomorrow arrives. When I can inject this fresh batch of junk and hopefully feel that rush of calm come over me and a bit of the fatigue that comes along with it ... because that will mean it's good and it's working and this concrete in my joints should start going liquid once again and normal will come back.

link to this | comments (9) | File:  Reviews  Movies  Health  Back  AS 

After a post I made last week in which I linked to HH's blog (careful: adult content), a couple of you wrote to point out that one of the men HH refers to on her site is named "Dave" or "David" and holy crap what's up with that ... Dave? What's C going to think? First of all, let me just say that if I were having an illicit email relationship with a woman, posting a link to that woman's blog from my very public blog, which is read by a good percentage of my friends, a few family members, and—most importantly—my wife, probably wouldn't be a very smart thing to do. That said, you're absolutely right not to put it past me. Because I weren't always known for my smartness.

But look, here's the real point: if I were having an affair with a woman—a heated, sexy-email type of a thing like the one described on HH's blog—I would see to it that under no circumstances would she call me "Dave." I mean, how plain. I'd have to insist on "Ramrod" or "Bronco" or "Meat" or something equally virile.

To clarify, HH was the first person to say "hi" to me after I joined a Ning group called Thirty Something Bloggers (a group which, by the way, I'm increasingly finding should be called "Thirty-Something Female Bloggers.") We had an exchange over ... grits. And even though, as you can imagine, it's extremely difficult to steer clear of sexual innuendo when you're talking grits, I think we kept it pretty tame. I didn't even share with her my fantasy of bathing in grits while watching live grit-wrestling on TV. See?

Curiously, C never once questioned me about HH. Which cuts to the truth of the matter: she knows exactly how improbable it is, this idea of me having an affair. Which is why I thought about letting this one sort of hang out there and leaving a little shadow of a doubt for people. Because for me, people thinking I'm having an affair is a little like people thinking John McCain is having an affair: It seems so unlikely, that it's almost kind of nice for people to think it could be true, if for no other reason than it means people think you're somebody that somebody else would have an affair with. And that kinda makes you want to give people high-fives or something, not publicly deny it.

But back to C ... don't worry about her. I actually have a feeling she might like me to have an affair. That way she'd have somebody with whom she could commiserate, perhaps while the two of them shop for shoes or something.

link to this | comments (15) | File:  Ho_Hum 

Saturday, we went into New York to see a show. Hoshi was wearing her brand-new Jersey plates, which we had finally gone and picked up earlier that morning at the DMV. It was strange seeing her in that sickly yellowish color grade instead of the strong DC blue and white and red. But ugly as the NJ plates are, they do manage to give us a sense of "belonging" here. Because now when people randomly honk at us for accelerating at a normal rate instead of immediately hitting 60 from a dead stop (we can't all be like some blondes), we understand that what they are saying to us is: "Hey, Brother. Fellow New-Jersian. Look, I'm sorry to seem rude, but it's out of the utmost respect that I must give you this little toot of my horn, and beg of you, kind sir, to let's please have a move on, shall we?" And not: "Get out of my way you ridiculous foreigner with your out-of-state plates or I will drive over your ass and you will hurt mightily." It's a subtle difference, but I hear it now, and I get it. And I feel the love.

Since we were heading up-town, we took the Lincoln tunnel. Our other trips into the city had been via the Holland, so this was new territory for us. We had a Google Maps printout along with C's Blackbery Navigator. But all our modern navigational accoutrements couldn't anticipate a road closure on the other side. We were supposed to take this particular ramp that would take us to the West Side Highway via 42nd, but when we were delivered out of the depths of the tunnel into the city, we discovered it was tragically blocked off for no apparent reason. Just these menacing orange cones standing in our way between here and there. And the really frustrating part was that we could see clearly that if we had gone through the right-most tube of the tunnel, we would have come up exactly where we wanted to be and would have had no problem entering the ramp. But having gone through the left-most tube, we couldn't cut over. Or rather, we could. It was possible. It's just that these cones were in our way. Funny the influence that cones have over our driving, isn't it?

Okay. No problem. We'd just resort to our instinctual "city sense," you know, the kind that naturally develops after four years of driving around Washington DC, with its strange two-ways that become one-ways or that dead end altogether, only to resume a couple of blocks later, and the circles and diagonal state streets intersecting the letters and numbers at random places. With C navigating and me driving, we'd be good. If by "good" you meant taking a series of "gut-instinct" turns only to wind up on a one-way stretch of pavement that took us straight back into the Lincoln heading west into New Jersey. There was no passing "Go." No collecting $200.

I guess if you wanted to put a positive spin on all of this, you could say that we enjoyed our trip through the Lincoln so much, we were willing to pay another $8 to do it all over again. Back on the Jersey side, even though there were more orange cones indicating to me that I should not, under any circumstances, cut back over to the east-bound lanes, I had no more patience for their senseless warnings. And so I cut across anyway. Because I had no doubt that if we continued on our current trajectory we might wind up in Pennsylvania. And I was in no mood for a cheesesteak. I felt I might have a harder time getting away with a cone-crossing move now that I had local tags. Because one advantage of being a foreigner is that people are a little more forgiving of you, even if it's with an attitude of "you poor sod, go on, then." But nobody said anything. Not even a honk. I really don't think it matters what you do on the road here, as long as you do it quickly and decisively.

So we paid our $8 and went through the tunnel again, this time going through the right-most tube, and we finally made it to the Upper West, and even found street parking, which was a bonus. And while I'd love to tell you that all of this effort was for some Broadway show like Avenue Q, or Wicked, or Grease, that shit just ain't the truth. The truth is that we were heading to Symphony Space to see 5 Centimeters Per Second, which was showing as part of a "Children's Film Festival" there. C is on a mission to make me an anime fan. And I have to admit that this series of three short films went a long way toward that goal. It was definitely my kind of story, laced with just the right blend of tragic longing and melancholy. Makoto Shinkai is a master at making the viewer ache along with the characters. The final film in the trilogy was a little disappointing, but the first two were great. Here's a trailer, though the narration is kind of bad. One reason I liked it so much was that Shinkai loaded the film with all of these visual details of Japanese culture. Weird little things like the hand rings in the subway, or the water bottles, or the coffee machines. And it all really brought back our trip from last year.

After the show, we met up with Kelly and her friend, walked around central park a bit, and then stopped for dinner at a grill where I ordered Shepherd's Pie and Guinness in honor of St. Patty's Day. And while we did manage to do the Lincoln in only one trip on the way back, we couldn't help but experiment with an alternate route back to our house, which wound up taking us way out of our way and through Newark. Unfortunately, the best way to learn your way around a city is to get lost in it a lot, and we still have a lot of learning to do.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Hoshi  Ho_Hum  Japan  Movies  NY  Weekend 

Once again, this is what I'm doing. And this week's exercise is The Execution:
I pretty much failed at this exercise. I went way too long. And though it was supposed to have consisted mostly of dialogue, I stayed in the narrator's head most of the time. But in failing at the exercise, I kind of stumbled on something that intrigued me and which I might continue down the road. So in that way, maybe it was a success. Earlier this week I listened to a This American Life episode which had this piece about NYC School's "Rubber Rooms," and suddenly I knew the larger context of the story and I had to go with it. And so the story wound up becoming more about that than the actual execution. Anyway, it's too late for a do-over ... (If you have time, download the TAL podcast. It's good.)


Fat Larry leaned over and said in his low, Brooklyn-tinged voice, "Meet us in the other corner, Jack." He wrapped his meaty knuckles on my desk as he said it.

I didn't look up from my book. But I nodded.

If breathing through your nostrils and using your eyes to see things around you were two things you didn't do on a regular basis, then Fat Larry wasn't too bad a guy to be around. He had a dry sense of humor I could appreciate. He had introduced himself to me as "Fat Larry," and I thought there was something profound in that. But the problem with Fat Larry was that it always seemed like he'd been mowing the lawn or something. Like, yesterday. And he still hadn't showered. He was just tremendously ... unkempt. He didn't actually talk that much, unless he had something to say. And that something was usually a joke. But the thing he had just uttered was no joke. It sounded ominous.

"Be there in a sec Fat Larry ... let me just finish this paragraph ..."

This was my thirty-second week in the Rubber Room. It was loud, as usual, but my desk in the back corner, which I had recently acquired, was one of the more quiet places to sit. It was against the far wall and there was nobody on my left or in back of me. To my right was a balding math teacher named Bill. He had coffee breath that I can only describe as "evil" and when you were confronted head-on with its sickening darkness, it left you feeling cold and scared. Luckily, he mostly kept to himself and didn't say much. The woman in front of me knitted all day. She kept a photo of her dog on her desk. Occasionally, she would begin crying loudly and uncontrollably. But these outbursts only occurred once or twice a week and were relatively short and easy to ignore. The florescent light above me was constant and didn't flicker at all. And my desk/chair combo was of the newer style that had the cushion in the seat, not the all-plastic variety I had sat in for so many months.

When you're in the Rubber Room, it's the little things that matter. Your seat. Your immediate neighbors. The light above you. These were small things outside of the Rubber Room. But inside, these things were of vast importance. This seat I was in, for instance, had been Tony's. Tony had sat in the seat for nearly two years, drawing his salary from the City of New York while doing crosswords from The Times. Most people didn't mess with Tony. And so he kept his seat. But one day Tony didn't show up to the Rubber Room. Maybe he had finally been fired. Maybe he had died. Whatever. It didn't matter to any of us still in the Room. What mattered was Tony's seat. And there were four of us in the room who wanted it and who had the seniority to take it: Me, Jerry, Greta, and Fat Larry. The first day Tony didn't show, nobody sat in the seat. But on the second day, I went ahead and claimed it. Because I knew if I didn't, one of the other three would. And in this world, you don't wait to be given anything. You take.

The Rubber Room is the place where New York City teachers go to be "re-assigned." Usually because they've done something wrong or they have a "personality conflict" with somebody they shouldn't. And instead of getting fired, they get sent to one of the Rubber Rooms in the Education building, so the school system can figure out what to do with them. And the proper way to do it.

Actually, only those of us who are sent here call it the "Rubber Room." The school administrators call it the "Re-assignment Center." The thing about the name "Re-Assignment Center" though, is that most people who get sent here never actually get re-assigned. Instead, the person's job becomes ... to simply come here. Every day. Indefinitely. You still get a salary, paid for by New York's tax-payers. But nobody comes to talk to you. Nobody re-assigns you. You're just forgotten. And so you begin to carry out your days by reading, or playing cards, or talking to the others. For six or seven hours a day. Every day.

I wound up in the Rubber Room because one of my students walked in on me and another teacher fucking in my classroom. The teacher was Miss Carter. We weren't particularly fond of one another, Miss Carter and I. She'd leave rotten apples on my desk and I'd "re-assign" them to her car. But, man Miss Carter looked delicious in a black dress, which is what she'd been wearing that day. And one afternoon she came to see me about something and before I knew what was happening, she was up against the black board and my pants were down around my ankles and her skirt up around her waist and the door was closed but—bloody hell—not locked, and my hand, searching for something to help keep me balanced and upright, found a tray full of chalk dust instead, and the white powder wound up all over Miss Carter's chest, and well ... this was certainly no way for a young girl, nine years old, to see sex happening for the first time. And she would probably go on the rest of her life with this being her first impression of that thing and all the sex education classes in the world wouldn't get it out of her head, and who knew the layers of psychological damage that Miss Carter and I had inflicted on her that day. The student left the room and ten minutes later I was visited by Principal Evans. Miss Carter and I got "re-assigned" to separate Rubber Rooms. And that was thirty-two weeks ago. My wife still thinks I drive my car to a classroom every day to teach third graders how to read and write. She doesn't know I park my car at the New York City Board of Education building. That the only reading I'm a part of is my own. And that teaching is no longer part of the equation at all.

I wasn't exactly sure why the school hadn't fired us. Maybe they didn't want a scandal to erupt. Headlines ... Teachers Caught Having Sex in Classroom. Schools are deathly terrified of bad press. They probably struck some kind of deal with the parent of the girl who walked in on us.

I got up from my chair and walked over to the other corner to meet Fat Larry and the others. It was louder here, which sort of made it easier to talk without really being overheard. But it also meant you had to get close to each other. And Fat Larry's lawnmower smell washed over me.

Greta, who had been in the Rubber Room for just over a year, who always tried to talk to me about food, was clicking nervously on a pen. She had been a gym teacher in Queens. She landed in the Rubber Room after she called an eight-year old boy a pussy. I think the exact phrase she used was "fucking pussy." Either way, seemed like a terrible choice of words, but who was I to judge? Jerry was sucking on his teeth, which he was apt to do, and which drove me crazy. Jerry was probably the most normal of any of us there. And he liked to portray that about himself. He wore suits. And he maintained that he really shouldn't be in the Rubber Room at all. That he was a victim. And he told us he had a lawyer working on things and that they would be coming to get him any day. All Jerry had done to get himself in the Rubber Room was flunk a student. But that student had very influential parents.

"I'm just going to tell you straight, Jack," said Fat Larry. "Susan needs to go."

"Susan?"

They all three nodded.

I turned my head to where Susan stood now, talking to several others, one hand occupied with a cup of coffee, and the other fluttering and gesticulating wildly like a bird. Susan Lee was by far the loudest member of the Rubber Room. She was from Arkansas and had a loud shrill voice. She smacked her gum a lot and butted into people's conversations and told them what they should do with their lives. She also had tough skin, so there was no convincing her to shut up. She just didn't care. It was like she had to talk or she would explode.

I looked back at this weird trio that had pulled me aside. "Go?" I asked.

"Go," said Greta.

"We're going to kill her," said Jerry. There was a lilt in his voice when he said it, like he was stifling a laugh and it kind of creeped me out.

I waited for the punch line. But it never came. Jerry sucked on his teeth. Greta clicked and clicked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Sometimes you're a little thick, Jack," said Fat Larry. He wrapped his knuckles on my head.

"It's no longer acceptable, Jack." This was Jerry again, speaking with this weird rational tone, like he was trying to explain the concept of gravity or something. "This behavior. We will go crazy. She needs to die."

"Are you kidding me?"

"We're not joking," said Greta. "Susan will die. And here's the deal, Jack: You're going to be the one to kill her. Because we know what brought you to the Rubber Room. And we know that if you don't kill Susan, we're going to tell your wife all about it."

"You want me ..." I lowered my voice. "You want me to kill Susan?"

"Jesus, Jack. I thought you were quicker than this." said Fat Larry.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Fiction  Exercises 

I've never been the type of person who joins things. I went to a college where about 80% of the student population was Greek and I still never felt the need to Rush. Of course, that may have had less to do with my reluctance to join things and more to do with a general distaste for Frat culture and a resistance to the idea that I needed to find all my friends within the first month of school.

The thing is, I have this sort of romantic notion that groups should just develop organically, at their own pace. Not through a process which starts by doing a two-week Rush through twenty different houses to prove yourself to people you don't know. Then you put in "bids" to the houses you like and you wait to see if you're accepted by one of them. And then you are, and in what is perhaps your proudest moment on this earth, you become a Sigma Chi, or a Tappa Keg, or whatever and so obviously this means you must subject yourself to some strange homo-erotic initiation ritual where your pledge brother comes in your hair while another dude sticks his dirty underwear in your mouth—oh, I'm sorry, have we been introduced yet?—and then you get drunk and head out into a field to get branded on your ass with a—holy shit, that's a real fucking branding iron isn't it guys? okay, okay. wait a minute fellas, I think there's been some misunderstanding, I mean this can't be safe ... oh, shiiiit!!!!

I don't know. I guess it's just not my cup of tea, is all I'm saying. But some people like that sort of thing. And hey, you've got to give them credit for knowing what they like.

When I was younger, I always thought my propensity not to join things meant I was kind of "anti-social." And the whole not joining a Frat thing served to reinforce that perception about myself. But as I got older I realized this wasn't the case at all. That I was, by nature, a pretty social person. If I had been at a more liberal school, I probably would have joined several groups because I would have probably felt more of a sense that I was already accepted. And maybe in this sense it was sort of good I was at W&L because, at that age, I really needed something to rebel against. And by rebelling against the social scene there, it actually helped me academically, because I spent a lot more time studying. If I had been at a school like Brown or Vassar, I probably would have been just another Birkenstock-and-flannel-wearing neo-hippie waiting around for the next promising three-way. And studying? Who cares about studying?

I guess what I'm saying is if I do join a group—and here's the tricky part—I want to actually feel like I'm part of the group before joining it. I want acceptance into the group to be a pre-condition of ... gracing it with my presence. Dig? That way I'm just loved. Automatically. Without doing anything but showing up. Is that so much to ask, people? I mean, really!

But last week, I stepped out of my comfort zone a bit and joined Thirty-Something Bloggers. See: here's my profile. Given my phobia of groups, this is not something I normally would have done, but having just moved from DC, where there had been a great "community" of bloggers (thanks in large part to dcblogs.com), I wanted to try to find something similar to that. It's nice to have that sense of community when you blog. For one thing, it provides a way for other people to find your blog. But more than that, it helps give you a sense of context and "place" where otherwise you're just this single voice shouting into the ether. What I like so much about DCblogs (who kindly still keeps me in their "blogroll" by the way) is that it really allows you to work into it naturally and with no strings attached. You live in DC? You blog? Fine! You're a DC blogger. It's really that simple. There's no test involved and you don't have to say anything about yourself. You're not obligated to meet anybody or say hello. You just send a link to your blog. Period. Nobody initiates you. At the end of the day, you still might wind up with somebody's underwear in your mouth. But if you do, it's because you totally wanted it to happen.

The Thirty-Something Bloggers group felt a little more risky to me. You have to set up a profile, which, of course, makes you sort of "define" yourself in a very superficial way. And then there is this whole business of having "friends" in the group, which of course is one of those MySpace-like concepts that doesn't really mean anything because it becomes a kind of numbers game. But the bloggers who were in the group did seem like people I related to. And the quality of the blogs on the site was good. And there was actually a DC blogger I recognized who had already joined. So that helped lend some credibility to it. But I was still sort of skeptical, because a group based on age seemed flawed somehow. I mean, being a "Thirty-Something Blogger" is, by necessity, a temporary condition. In the end, one of three things is bound to happen to all of us: 1) We will stop blogging. 2) We will continue blogging, but will eventually turn forty. 3) We will continue to blog and never turn forty. And while that last scenario may seem like a good one, it's actually the least-desirable outcome of the three.

But I decided not to over-think it. Or rather, I did over-think it (as you can see), and then I took a few steps back and joined the group anyway. Because why the hell not? It's all about making connections with people, after all. Isn't it? That, and trying not to take yourself too seriously.

So how do I feel now that I'm a Thirty-Something Blogger? What does it mean? Well, I'm not exactly sure. I haven't figured it out yet. Right now I'm just sort of existing there. My profile pic just floats around on the page and shit, looking dorky and weird. Pretty soon, maybe I'll throw myself into a discussion or two. Or maybe I'll just sort of fade away into the background and never say or do much of anything. I have yet to make friends with too many people. Actually, I've made precisely two, and one is the group creator, and so she has to be my friend ... by law, I think. My other friend—who I've already had a fight with over—of all things—grits, goes by the provocative name of Horny Housewife. And doesn't it seem like I should get extra "friend points" for that or something? I may get my Vassar moment, yet.

link to this | comments (8) | File:  Thirty_Something_Bloggers  Friends  College  Chewing  Blog 

Cinnamon is nice to have on top of a cappuccino. It mixes with the foam and espresso for the perfect blend of morning bliss. Ground coriander, on the other hand, is typically something you might find in a curry or soup. Although in its container ground coriander may resemble cinnamon (the same way poop, under the right set of circumstances, may resemble chocolate) it does not taste at all good when poured liberally over any sort of warm caffeinated beverage. For this reason, it may be wise to keep the cinnamon and ground coriander on separate sides of the spice rack.

Remember this: I do the hard work so ya'll don't have to. Thank me later.

link to this | comments (8) | File:  Coffee  Food  Ho_Hum 

So ... it's Friday. And this is what I'm doing. And this week's exercise is Unreliable Third:
It's been a while since I've written in third-person. The novel I've been working on is all first-person. And of course this blog is first-person most of the time, except when I like to refer to myself in the third. Third-person is fun, though, and I miss it. I'm sorry if, like the passage says, I "irritate" you. All I can say is, "I don't mean to bug you." Also, I went over the 500-word instruction, with about twice that many. But I guess I see the word-count thing as a floor, not as a ceiling.

Anyway, here you go ...



Unreliable Third

"I didn't order chamomile," said Jan. "I ordered English Breakfast. I come here several times a week and my order is always the same, you know? English Breakfast."

From behind her dark sunglasses, Jan looked at her hands as she said this. She turned her wedding ring around on her finger. The waiter retreated from the table and went inside to return her chamomile. She hadn't meant to snap. He was new, after all. She'd only seen him once before. She would apologize when he came back. Or not ... why should she care, anyway? Service was not what it used to be. Anywhere. She had been to New York recently and had been bitterly disappointed at just how average the restaurants had been there. The food and the service. Both were utterly ... average.

In Palo Alto, the day was white with sun. Warm and pleasant on the patio of The Blue Heron, where she often took a mid-afternoon tea and read a book. She took a paperback from her bag and set it on the table next to her silverware. Then she sat back in her chair and waited for her tea and felt the warmth of the sun against her face and chest and thought it was nice and good.

Next to Jan, a young couple—early 30s perhaps—touched hands across their table. They spoke to each other in soft, whispered voices, backs hunched, heads leaning low and close to one-another. They had on nice clothes, as if they had come from church. But the man's tie was undone. And the woman's blouse was wrinkled. They each wore bands on their fingers. And they softly touched finger to finger, palm to back of hand, like people in love do. Married ... probably recently, thought Jan. Enjoying a Sunday afternoon brunch together. They reminded Jan of a straighter, less hippy version of she and Roger. Back in the Haight, talking forever in cafes, high and in love. Roger had always enjoyed his photography, and so she had plenty of pictures from then, and she kept them in worn cardboard boxes in her bedroom closet. They had never had kids and so the pictures were all she had left of him now. Even so, she rarely looked at them. His memory was alive enough in her mind.

The waiter came back with a check for the young couple and an English Breakfast for Jan. He set the tea and a saucer in front of her, along with a white porcelain creamer and sugar bowl.

"Would you care for anything else, Miss?"

"No, thank you," said Jan, looking at the tea set in front of her. The waiter turned to leave, but Jan stopped him.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

She turned her head toward him but kept her gaze down, about level with his chest. "I ... um ... oh nothing. Thank you."

"Of course," said the waiter and turned away again.

Next to her, the couple left some bills on the table and got up to leave. The man walked over to the woman and took her hand as they left the patio and went inside.

Jan put some sugar in her tea and stirred it and listened to the clanking sound the spoon made against the cup. She thought about how, if Roger was here now, he'd be sitting across from her with a paper. His bald head shining in the sun. Those last few years it had been strange to watch that baldness happen where once, many years ago, there had been long, pony-tailed hair.

She glanced at her book, started to pick it up. Then she noticed a pair of women's sunglasses on the table where the young couple had just been. She looked around for the waiter, but he was inside somewhere. Normally, she would have left the sunglasses and carried on with her reading, but the couple had seemed so adorable and those looked like really nice sunglasses and it would be a real shame for the girl to lose them. Maybe Jan could still catch them if she hurried.

Jan grabbed the sunglasses and headed quickly inside. She surveyed the restaurant from over the rims of her own dark sunglasses, but the couple was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully they were still in the parking lot. Jan walked as fast as she could without making a spectacle of herself, through the restaurant, between tables where people were dining and talking, and out the front door back into the sunlight. She saw the man next to a car, his back to her. She recognized him by his clothes.

"Sir?" she called.

The man turned toward Jan as she hurried over to where he stood.

"Sir, I think your wife left these at the table." Jan glanced inside the car and saw nobody in the passenger side. She looked around the parking lot. She did not see the woman, but did see a blue BMW pulling onto the street. She turned back to the man and for the first time saw his face. His eyes were red and he seemed sad. Like he'd been crying. Jan turned her gaze to her hands and the sunglasses that she held.

"My wife?"

"Yes. I was sitting next to you. On the patio." Jan said to her hands. This was definitely the same man. Jan could tell by his shoes. The ring on his finger.

"Oh ... she's not ..." the man stopped.

"I'm sorry?" said Jan, looking up.

"Oh, nothing," said the man and smiled. "Thank you." He held out his hand to accept the sunglasses.

"They seemed like nice sunglasses," said Jan, handing them to the man. "And I hope this isn't inappropriate, but I couldn't help but notice you two in there and you seemed so ... well, in love ... and you reminded me of my husband and me. A long time ago."

"Yes, thank you. That's ... very kind of you." He took the sunglasses and put them in his shirt pocket. Then he opened his car door and got in without saying anything.

Jan stood there for a moment, while the man started his car. Then she turned and went back into the restaurant, walked through the interior dining room and out the rear door onto the patio.

Her book and her tea were on the table. She sat down but made no effort to drink her tea, or read her book. She just sat back and closed her eyes and felt the warmth of the sun on her face and chest and remembered.

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Exercises  Fiction 

Saturday morning, shoveling snow from our driveway before heading to Newark for a flight. Five hours later, it's all sunshine and t-shirts, sipping margaritas on the patio of the Blue Goose in Plano. A soccer dad with shin-guarded kids beside us. And, on the other side, Harleys rumbling in the parking lot. Tattoos on display. Double D moms with "Don't Be Jealous" t-shirts. Suburban grey-beard banker bikers, bandana'd and leather-vested and flaunting their mid-life crises a month or two early. This strange mix of cultures. This strange mix of seasons. Because it's 70 degrees and sunny in early March in North Dallas. And we're sitting on a patio—the same exact one—where ten years ago I would've been found serving drinks. And not much has changed, except the name on the building. Time travel happens, ya'll.

Then it's light-weight longsleeves on E&K's back porch for pool, and beer on draft, and a broken E string. And man, that sentence would read a lot differently if you just changed a single letter, wouldn't it? Here there's another Harley rumbling, asleep on a lawn chair. Magnolia splayed out like a morning prayer. And us laughing over a shed in Jersey that's never been opened because there's mostly been a river of ice between me and it. And an empty shed is a scary prospect in Soprano country. And wow, jackets and gloves and shovels and boots seem so far away. Three hours northeast.

Sunday, the wind and rain began while we puzzled at Mom's. 2000 pieces. And the pot roast made some smoke, so we opened the windows. And then left them open. Because puzzling can make you hot—all that brainpower spent matching shapes and colors together. And it's nice to do that kind of work with a cross-breeze.

And then the rain got heavier. And the winds got colder. And last night, on the third day of March, North Dallas saw what might be described locally as a "blizzard" of snow, short-lived, but furious and heavy. Leaving a blanket of white on the flat landscape. Jackets and scarves back on. Pushing wet snow off the windshield with our arms. Then, us in our all-seasoned rental, headlights screaming against this horizontal army of flakes. Feeling like Star Wars at warp speed. Passing through another weather wormhole.

Then this morning waking to sunshine and highs in the mid-50s. Dallas will be back to t-shirts and margaritas in no time. And there's a bit of the sadness, because they don't grow Tex-Mex in North Jersey. The patios, chips and salsa, and salted rims. But that's what time travel and weather wormholes are for.

link to this | comments (6) | File:  Weekend  Weather  Travel  Friends  Family  Dallas  Chewing