The Iceman Cometh

Justin Quinnell's In-Mouth Pinhole Photography

I've been in the process of moving over my old blog to this one-one painstaking entry at a time. The writing used to be so much better! Jeesh. Lo siento. It used to be up a little higher on ye ol' priority list. But for whatever reason I persist over here. Only now with a much lower readership (thanks for the comments Mom!)

But today just consider yourself lucky. I am sick and under deadline and yet I still manage to squeak in a post. For you? It's the least I can do. The weather back home is horrendous. The leak in our roof is still not fixed and the dog snores loud as ever. It's great to be back! Too bad I have to leave again on Sunday!

In other major news we are adopting a son! Technically, he's 18, but that doesn't mean he as any other place to call home. Actually, it's not really as adoption, since technically speaking the adoptee is my boyfriend's son. But it's pretty new to all of us involved. I shouldn't be joking. I should really stop kidding now, because it would really piss my boyfriend off if I made light of this situation.

It turns out, he had enlisted in the Marines (the son, not the boyfriend) and so my boyfriend begged him to come stay with us instead. I mean, what would you do right? Let the poor kid get his leg shot off, just because he didn't get it together to go to college? You would do the same, no matter how small the apartment, no matter how tight the funds, no matter how tenuous the relationship, no matter, no matter, I mean right?

Well, we'll see. For now the son is staying at Grandma's until I leave this weekend to go back south to finish up the ice film. And for the record, the son–while a bit overwhelmed and a lot undermotivated–is a sweet, charming young man–not unlike his father. I handed him Junot Diaz' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which he devoured in two days and which made me feel pretty right on considering that I had just met him. We pulled out some 20 more books for him to graze and I am eager to hear the reports back.

So here's to our wondrous new lives, with all the surprises they may bring: to the son, that he may not join the military; to the father, that he may get to know his son; to me, that I may survive with all wits intact; and to all us, that our dreams not be deferred too much longer.

To leave you with a quote which I was hoping would tidily wrap all things up from headline to finish line, but which only further exemplifies the enigma that is life (and this post):

What's it matter if the truth is that their favoring breeze has the stink of nickel whiskey on its breath, and their sea is a growler of lager and ale, and their ships are long since looted and scuttled and sunk on the bottom? To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It's irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.

-Eugene Ionesco, The Iceman Cometh