My friend Steph once told me she thought I was "well grounded." I thought she was crazy for saying that since I was the most ungrounded person I knew. But I never argued with her about it. I liked that she saw something else in me and I let her.

It rained nearly non-stop this past weekend. And C and I woke up early each morning to a fog that enveloped our house and the rest of our little mountain. When we looked out our back window, you could barely make out the trees in the yard, and our neighbors' houses were entirely lost in the gray. On these mornings, it's nice to wake up and listen to the rain trickling softly through the gutters, and to imagine that we are the only house for miles, and to go back to sleep.

Last Friday, Honey went to doggy day camp so I could meet a deadline, and for the first hour she was gone I was more distracted than I would have been with her there and I paced and made too many cups of coffee and listened to music and tried to remember what I did before she was around to help keep my mind off itself.

Can you see me from where you are Steph? Do you see how well-grounded I am?

There are 2,421 songs on my iPod. I don't say this to impress you with my large music collection because I'm certain that this is pocket change compared to many of you. Still, a couple thousand songs and several dozen podcasts—that's a lot of media to have latched to your waist. And yet some days I go to the gym and can't find anything to listen to. Because each song is a ghost, reminding me of where I've been. Ready to take me back minutes or hours or weeks or months or years to some point in my personal history. And sometimes I don't want to be reminded. Sometimes I don't want to go back. So I click forward through song after song in the shuffle and I stop on every tenth one or so. And when I have the right song and the right endorphins from my stair climb washing over my brain, then sometimes the words come, and I scribble them down on whatever scrap of paper I can find.

My body produces a really good drug. But I usually have to beat him up to get him to give it to me.

Honey and I were outside at 3 am the other morning. Rain pouring down. She needed to go. We walked out into the backyard through puddles of water a couple inches deep. And as I stood in the grass, the water creeping through the holes in my crocs and making my socks wet, it made me feel alive to be outside at 3 am in the dark and the cool and the wet, listening to the steady beat of rain and feeling it begin to soak my clothes.

Honey is always surprised by the rain, and her first instinct is to run back inside. But after she's been out in it a while, she'll bury her nose in the soaked ground and begin to slap her paws on the large puddle of water that settles near the patio. And I would swear, it almost seems like she's laughing.

And I wanted to do that the other morning—get on my knees and slap my hands in the water and stick my fingers in the wet earth. But I didn't. I let Honey do her thing and then we went back inside and when I put my head back on my pillow I realized my hair was wet and I fell back to sleep.

link to this | File:  TheLine  Chewing 

He told me the panties belonged to a stripper. I guess that's supposed to make me feel better. It doesn't. They weren't mine. And while I guess it's possible that they're ... his, I don't think that's it.

I mean, they weren't exactly... Tide clean, you know? And he doesn't wear that brand of perfume. Anyway, if they were his, he would have just told me that. Jesus, like that's the kinkiest thing I would have known about him?

So ... I mean, you find women's underwear in your husband's gym bag while looking for car keys. This freakin' black thong. God. How unoriginal. He doesn't even like thongs.

Anyway.

You find this thing, and it's definitely not yours, and so you're supposed to think ... what? That, I don't know, it's just ... some stripper's?

"Yeah I got it at that bachelor party."

"But I was with you at that bachelor party. I never saw any dancer giving you her thong."

"It happened while you were with Andy. She slipped it in my pocket. I barely noticed."

"Front or back?"

"What?"

"Pocket."

"Oh, uh ... I don't ... front."

"Front? ... Front? Really? You're gonna go with front? And claim that you barely noticed?"

Shrug.

See what I mean? Doesn't add up.

Anyway. Shit. Not a good week to quit smoking.

Then the other day he tells me about this conversation he had with one of his fictional characters. What the fuck? He says he was just shooting the shit with this guy. Chatting on the front porch. And so I'm like, ha, ha and I'm waiting for the punch line and I'm looking at him like you're kidding, right? But he's not. He's dead serious. And he's telling me he knows the guy was real because Honey saw him, too. She actually ran over to him at the fence. And so he says they talked about yard stuff and storms and dead things. And they drank beers. And he shows me how yesterday he had five beers in the fridge and now he's got three.

Like that proves anything. Jesus Christ.

Anyway.

I've been thinking that maybe he's been a little paranoid lately. Like maybe he's been over-thinking things. I mean, more than usual. And then this?

But this latest thing has me really concerned. He says he keeps seeing this guy in the back yard. Usually early in the morning. Big bushy beard ... doing something in the dirt near the trees. But when he goes out to talk to him, he's gone. And at this point I don't really believe him. But then again what if there is somebody out there? Forget sleeping. So then he says the guy reminds him of Moses. And so I ask him, "Moses? Like, from The Bible?" And he tells me no, that this is another character from a story he wrote in college. And my stomach kind of turns when he says it. Because there's no irony there. And I'm hoping it will be there. But it's not. And he says something about how he never got that guy right. And I'm not sure what he means by it.

Now he's getting up earlier and earlier and he's walking Honey sometimes even before the sun comes up.

Anyway.

I'm just worried. About him. About the thong. About Moses. About all of it.

This was definitely a bad week to quit smoking.

link to this | File:  TheLine 

"They say it's going to be Cutler's year this year."

"Really? Why is this year his year?"

...

...

...

"I think it's something about 2008 being an even year ... and, you know, if you take the eight and subtract the two you get six. Which, of course, is his number."

I always forget that C usually needs to know why. And that's something I don't usually bother to explore.

Still, if you ask me questions, I'll give you answers.

link to this | comments (5) | File:  Broncos  Football  Ho_Hum 

"A character from one of my stories visited me the other day."

"Really? You mean like ... a fictional character?"

"Yeah. Pretty much. Weird, right?"

"It visited you in your dreams?"

"No. Not really. It kinda felt like a dream. But this was entirely in real life. Like you and me talking right now. Except we were on the porch. And instead of breakfast, we were having a beer."

"Okay. Well, I'm not sure what to make of that, Baby."

"Me neither."

"Let's talk about it later. I need to go. I've got a meeting at eight."

"My sister will be here tonight. Why don't we have Shepherd's Pie?"

"That sounds good."

"I'll take some ground turkey out of the freezer."

"Don't talk to any more fictional characters. At least not until I get home."

link to this | File:  TheLine 

It was a barnstorm of a weekend in San Francisco, where we flew for the wedding of a close friend ... C's first wedding as a "groomsperson," and she was dang cute in her suit and tie. Friday was a 26-hour day that began in the dark hours of morning at Newark Airport and ended at a North Beach strip club. The devil built Columbus and Broadway out of discarded bottles of original sin, brother. And he called it good. Believe.

And I woke up Saturday morning at a time that was afternoon back home, and read some news about a little hurricane named Ike that had bore down relentlessly on a town called Galveston. And thought about how, at the same time, 2,000 miles northwest, the g-stringed pelvis of a little stripper named Mia had bore down relentlessly upon the struggling remnants of a soon-to-be-married bachelor's soon-to-be-arrested libido. Flooding streets. Flooding veins.

And the soundtrack was Telephone Call from Istanbul, man.

Sunday ceremony out at Stern Grove by the Golden Gate. A wedding officiated by a pirate. Drove home via the 280, recovering from an 11:30 am Bushmills buzz, with the fog sticking to the trees like cotton on broccoli spears, carrying my love for this city on its back.


A red-eyed flight back to the Garden State to pick up a hoarse Honey at the PetSmart. Thinking about our next transcontinental wedding trip in May (these things can be habit forming). This one in LA, where my college roommate will be hitched. And this time I'll be the groomsman, and the lap dances will be ordered somewhere on the Las Vegas strip, and sleep will be put on hold for a more convenient time.



link to this | comments (0) | File:  Weird  Weekend  Travel  Friends  San_Francisco 

I decided to pay David a visit last weekend and find out why his blog had been silent for the past month. The site had gone dark, and it had me worried. I went armed with a pen and a pocket-sized pad to take notes. I hoped I wasn't going to need heavier equipment, like my baby blue anti-contamination suit, or a gas mask. Truth is, I didn't know what I would find. But I knew there was a possibility it wouldn't smell very good.

But hold on. Let me back up. Because you're probably wondering, Who is this guy?

You don't know me. My name is Tim, but some people call me "Franklin Rutherford Snodgrass." Either is fine. I've been called a great many things in my life, and normally I don't care what name people use, as long as it isn't Otis. I hate that.

I'm a reporter. I can't tell you any more than that due to the sensitive nature of my reporting. I wish I could explain. I really do.

When I knocked on David's door, nobody answered. But no self-respecting reporter gives up that easily. So I went around to the side gate, and there I found him in the corner of his back yard digging up a tree stump. He was facing me, hunched over a shovel, preparing to stomp down on it and make another deep slice in the earth around some rotting wood. He had on brown cargo shorts, multi-pocketed and torn, and a dirt-stained white t-shirt with the sleeves removed, which I suppose made it less of a "T" and more of an "I." From under the blue visor of a Denver Broncos cap, dark sunglasses covered his eyes.

Next to him, his dog had her nose in some mulch. She soon noticed me, though, and gave up on whatever scent she'd been following to dart over to where I was standing. She was just wagging her tail and shaking her butt and pawing at the fence and letting out little whining noises like the excitement was more than she could stand. A frenetic package of fur and tongue and tail and ears. David looked up and saw me. He put down the shovel and came over to quiet the dog.

"She's dang cute," I said. "It's Honey, right?"

David looked up at me and asked the obvious questions: "Who are you? How do you know my dog's name?"

"Tim," I said. "But you can call me Franklin Rutherford Snodgrass."

I extended my hand. He did not extend his, nor did he stand. Something like comprehension settled in his expression. His mouth opened slightly, as if another question were forming. A question he thought better of asking. There was a moment of him just holding his dog and me just standing there. Each of us looking at the other. Then he said: "What are you doing here, Franklin Rutherford Snodgrass?"

"I've come to interview you."

"What for?"

"Your blog. People in town want to know ... why it's gone dark."

"In ... town?"

"Yeah. You know. In town."

"Right," he said. He stood up and looked toward the sky. It had been a clear day, but there were some thin clouds beginning to spread a gauzy veil across the blue. He took a deep breath and let it out. "What time is it?"

I looked at my watch. "'Bout 3:30."

"Do you enjoy IPAs, Franklin Rutherford Snodgrass?"

"Sorry?"

"Beer."

"Oh."

"Do you want one?"

"I ... uh, sure."

"Good. Stay here."

He went into his house with the dog, then came back with two beers and Honey latched to a mango-colored leash which was, in turn, tied to his belt. He had lost the sunglasses in favor of some clear lenses. He handed me a brown bottle with a label that read, Avery.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go to the front porch."

It was a warm day. A little humid, but there was a breeze and it felt nice in the shade of the porch. Once we got there, he unlatched Honey's collar from the leash and told her to go to her bed. The "bed" was a black blanket set at the precipice of the stairs. Honey went to it and fell to the porch with a thud. Then he latched her collar to another, longer leash which was red and tied to the white railing. He pulled a kong from one of his pockets and set it on the blanket. "Good girl. Stay down." He scratched her head between her ears.

"I had a stuffed kong in the freezer. She is very obedient when food is part of the equation."

He stood up and motioned for me to have a seat on a wicker couch. He took the chair next to it, sipped from his beer, proceeded not to say anything. Together, we watched some leaves fall in his front yard.

"I've been into Avery," he said after some time, looking at his beer bottle. "It's from Colorado, you know. Nice, right?"

"Yeah. I like it."

"I figured it would be good to drink beer from Colorado this season. Give the Broncos a little extra hoodoo."

"Superstition. You're big on that. How's that working for you?"

"Well, I guess we'll see on Monday, won't we? You judging me?" He seemed a bit defensive.

"No. Not at all. I think it's neat, in a funny, deluded sort of way."

"Delusion always has such a negative connotation. I don't get it. We all operate on delusions of one sort or another. As for superstition, if it isn't working, it just means I haven't found the right thing to be superstitious about. And it's time to move on to something else."

"Yes sir. Agreed."

We sat for a few moments. More silence. Wind. Leaves.

"So you're here cuz the town wants to know about the blog?"

"Yep."

"Interesting," he said. "How is the town."

"Just waiting on you, actually."

"Is that so."

"Yessir."

"Are you looking for some kind of angle, Franklin Rutherford Snodgrass?"

"No, not at all. Just the truth," I said.

David laughed in a series of S's.

"Right. Well, let's see ..." He held up his bottle to me, like a salute of some kind, then took a big swallow from it before he said, "I guess the main thing is that the blog always seems to require this constant looking back. A continual reflecting upon. And I'm really growing tired of that. I'm tired of reflecting upon things. I need to spend more time looking forward. Reflection has become detrimental. To me. And to everybody around me."

I nodded. I considered taking out my note pad, but then decided against it.

"And that sounds whiny, doesn't it? And overly dramatic, perhaps? I mean, it's not as if anybody's forcing me to do this thing, or do it in precisely this way. I mean, I could just post short little tidbits, videos, pics. Make cultural commentary. Make snarky comments about the election or Project Runway. Or, you know, I could just quit. I mean, lately, it's felt very forced, anyway. Like it's trying to be itself, instead of just ... being itself. And I hate that feeling."

"What do you think happened?"

He scratched a sideburn and thought about this for a while. Then he said: "An awareness of audience happened. That's pretty much it, really. And an inability to forget."

I sipped from my beer. It was damn good beer. "Yep. Sounds like whining to me."

"Well, I told you it was, Daddy-O."

"Right ... so I think my response would be ... you know, just deal."

"Mmm. Yes. I think your response would be ... justified."

"Thank you."

"But then I'd have to tell you to get the fuck off my porch."

"Hmm. That seems ... extreme."

"Okay, you're right. I probably wouldn't do that. But look, here's the thing: I've come to the realization that if I didn't know me—no, scratch that—even if I did know me, I wouldn't read the shit I've been posting lately. And that's the crux of it: in the end, I'm not holding my own interest. And I can't be very much fun to read if I can't even entertain myself."

"Since when did this become about entertaining people?"

"Exactly! Good question, Franklin Rutherford Snodgrass. Goddammit. Good fucking question. It isn't. It shouldn't be. It didn't start that way. But then again, maybe that's one of those delusions rearing it's head again. I mean if it wasn't ever about that, why put it online in the first place?"

He paused and glanced at me as if I might have an answer. I shrugged.

"I don't know either. But I figure at the very least it should be about entertaining me."

We sat on the porch for a while and listened to a lawn-mower somewhere in the distance, and the stirring of wind in the trees."

"Can you believe this?" he asked.

"What?"

"This," he said, waving his hand at the scene around him. "The suburbs, man ..."

He smiled. I smiled back.

"So, what's the plan?"

"The plan. Actually, you just saw it ... I plan to spend a lot of time doing work in my yard. I find it really calms me. Last week, I cleaned the mildew and gray lifelessness off my deck and then applied fresh stain. It was a big project. Took most of the week. This week, as you saw, I'm getting rid of stumps and cutting branches from trees."

I didn't say anything. I just nodded.

"Getting things ready for a cold winter."

"So ... yard work? That's it?"

"There's inside projects, too. Painting the living room. Re-insulating the attic."

"I see."

"I'm also going to look for some different work. You know: work, work. The kind you get paid for."

"Ahh. Good."

"And I'll be taking a class this fall. Get back to some fiction."

"What about online?"

"What? The blog, or work?"

"The blog."

"I think I'll probably do something with it. Just not sure what, yet. Something different, I hope. A new URL, perhaps. New perspective. Something that does a better job of holding my interest. Something that blurs the line between fiction and reality a little bit more. Something I can hide behind. Reinvention, Tim! That's the key."

The wind was picking up. "Looks like another storm is on the way," I said.

"Yep. Looks that way. Hanna was pretty mild for us, but she did blow some leaves all over the place. I want to get some of those picked up before the next one. Don't ask me why. Tomorrow there'll be a thousand more, right?"

"I reckon' so."

"I swear, Tim. You work at getting things cleaned up and they just get dirty again. It's a constant cycle. In a way, it's kind of comforting—the predictability of it. And you do the best you can at it, at clearing away the dead things, renewing what you can, trashing the rest. But sometimes the dirt leaves a mark and no matter what you do, it just stays with you. And once you get over the initial shock of it—of knowing you'll never get the thing out—you realize it ain't so bad, really. It's just part of things now. And it serves as a reminder, and makes you better prepared for the next round."

I still had a little beer left in my bottle, but I thought I should leave this man to his yard and his dirt and his dead stuff.

"Alright, well look, Dave. I'm going to go now."

He belched profoundly, then he said: "Alright, Tim. I'm glad you stopped by. It was good."

"Me too. Listen ... I think I'll hold off on the story."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I think it should wait."

"Well, okay."

"Do you think our paths will cross again?"

"I'm pretty sure they will, Tim."

"Good. Well next time I'll bring the beer."

"Just make sure it's the good kind. No belgian wheat crap."

"Got it."

From the street, I looked back over my shoulder. Dave was heading back to the yard, Honey tied to his belt. He looked ready to do battle with some more dead things.

link to this | File:  Chewing  TheLine