Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long time to make it short.

Michelin Man, Christie Nielson

When I go for porno, it's of the vintage variety. That's not to say I don't indulge in the occasional pay-per-view when away from home, say touring a plummy Motel 6 or knocking around a Mid-Western Holiday Inn. There are some things that are simply more fun when done in the unfamiliar place. I imagine you all know what I am talking about here. Nonetheless, back at the ranch, I have my own stash of tried and true. The fewer the fake tits and the lesser the landing strips, the better off we all are, in my humble opinion. Sure we might have to put up with some blemishes, some bad–and I don't mean baaaddd–Shaft riffs. And yeah, the director might have fancied himself an auteur and thusly encumbered the porn with more plot than it could possibly accommodate. But I'll take my stray hairs and eggy breasts over any modern-day revision of My Big Fat Greek Penis.

To get to the point, when I went out of town last week to visit that film festival of note in the ski-sloped resort just south of the desert, my sort-of boyfriend opted to stay behind and vacation at my little resort on the island. The night before I left, let's just say, we indulged. Fast forward to me, bundled to the size of which would rival the Michelin Man and wattling through the snow to wait in line for the highly-acclaimed and very sold-out shows the festival of note had to offer. No doubt watching yet another independent film or queued up in front of the theatre in the six-degree weather, I missed the phone call from the sort-of boyfriend. But, oh, the message was well worth it's recording:

Hey dude, just wanted you to know, that when I returned King Kong, I had taken the first DVD out of the freakin, uh, player and it happened to be Deep Throat and that's what they saw when they opened it up to check it back. [change of voice] Excuse me sir, this isn't the DVD for King Kong....
...agh!

Apparently, he mumbled it's my girlfriend's...but we're not quite sure they heard that.

Of course, I played the message for my cohorts to hear, and, of course, we laughed until tears sprung and crystallized on our cheeks. In fact, I laughed all the way through the hour and a half line for a disappointing, soon-to-be released documentary. I laughed every time one of us said King Kong! And I laughed at the thought of this man, staying alone in my apartment for the first time, tentatively trying on the role of sweetheart, and trying to explain to a sixteen-year old, Blockbuster employee why the accidental substitution of Deep Throat in the place of King Kong was just an honest mistake.

Sugar

Reynold Reynolds & Patrick Jolley with Samara Golden, still from Sugar

The OSC calls me kid even though I am technically older than him and even though we dated, what, about two decades ago. It seems like I have known The OSC for just about ever. He is the only man who has ever asked me to marry him–though he was drunk at the time and we had already long stopped dating. He is the first person to pour me a beer after heartbreak, the first shoulder I cry on when it gets hard to drag my ass out of bed, and–plug your ears, mom–the first lay when there has been a particularly long draught. Though his once lithe skate boarder's body has now grown soft, his hair has considerably thinned, and we don't even have to go into what years of smoking, dry walling and lack of health care has done to his capacity to breathe, looking at him is much akin to looking into a mirror, a painfully accurate mirror. Our dreams a bit more battered, our cross-word puzzling skills a bit improved, we look at each other and we read our own histories. I may not be balding and, at least I can climb up a set of stairs without coughing up half a lung, but he does know exactly what to say to make me feel better, precisely how to piss me off, and absolutely how to, um, push my buttons.

We moved in together to save money, not a good enough reason at any age, let alone when you are twenty-two. We lived in a one-bedroom, third floor walk-up where I was the apartment manager. Together we paid about two-hundred dollars a month in rent and sometimes we couldn't even scrap that together. For most of the time we lived together, I remained indignant. He never picked up a finger to help with the maintenance of the building, though, he benefited with the cheap rent. He wasn't particularly neat. And his idea of apartment decorating included hanging up his baseball cards willy nilly on the mantel so that they fell anytime the door slammed shut.

Still, we had fun. It was new, this living together thing, and we made the best of it. In our hearts we knew this was just a practice run for later, when we had the capacity to take these things more serious. We played house. And in the process, we learned one or two things. One Thanksgiving someone had given us a twenty pound bird, no doubt a freebie with the one they had purchased for themselves. We invited over a few friends and stuck it in the oven. Four hours later, it was no where near being cooked. It seemed our tiny oven couldn't handle a turkey of that size, and so, minus any kind of meat thermometer, we started sawing off the drumsticks hoping we could at least eat those. And we did. And lived to tell about it.

The OSC once tried on one of my dresses. It was a slinky, low-cut number and it startled us both to see how good he looked in it. He pranced about the house, dancing back to the full-length mirror to wag his ass and giggling the entire time like a schoolgirl in her first bra. I can't remember if it turned us on, or if the absurdity of his hairy chest and his high, round buttocks kept us in hysterics the rest of the night. He could make me laugh, that man, he could also make me forget, and for those alone, I will always keep his company. He might have been the boyfriend that behaved the worst–we were kids, after all, it could be argued that we hadn't known any better–but he was the one whom I have actually known long enough to completely forgive.

We've been to hell and back, both as a couple and each on our own. We've seen each other act the worst and we haven't always been there to witness the best. One marriage, one divorce and one abortion between us. We share a million stories. And one hopes there will be a million more. Lovers, jobs, apartments, they may change. But he is the well-worn map I turn to when lost. Separating at the seams, edges thinned from touching, the map may not always tell me where I am headed, but if I traces it's contours, it can begin to tell me where I've been.

Morning Rituals

Kathryn Spence, Pigeons, 1997, street trash, wire, string, rubber bands, glue

Some people have their coffee, some their morning mass and others still wake up to the Today Show. And those of us with dogs, well, you know what we have. The morning walk. A ritual that I now look forward to more than than the smell of coffee percolating, more than the sight of espresso steaming, more than the screeching sound of milk foaming. I never thought it was possible to enjoy something more than these sacred things. But. Look at me now.

My morning walk, like all rituals, begins and ends with the same thing: the donning and the shedding of many layers, the leashing and the unleashing, the picking up and the letting go of a plastic bag. We button up, we grab our coffee and we hit the road. What is most enjoyable about this ritual is that we walk the same route every morning, we reach the same landmarks, we see many of the same people. And yet, what is most striking about traversing the exact same path day after day are all the subtle changes: the ones that weather, season and sunlight afford. It is the closest to religion I get. And I look forward to it more than anything.

The walk begins as we cut through the park. We pass the empty playground, we notice our breath in the air, and often the grass is full of dew, sometimes, even, brittle with frost. We head down the stairs, we come to the barren baseball field, we marvel at the energy of the tennis players so sprightly in the bitter cold and pale light. We come across the one or two ambitious joggers, the all-business dog walkers, and the middle-aged Asian couples comfortably bundled in sweats. We walk past the pond with its sleeping ducks, its one solemn egret and its still marsh reeds. And the moment I first lay eyes on the sea, like the exquisiteness of a first kiss, is the moment my day officially begins.

Once we are walking along side the beach, I notice everything. How calm or furious the tide is, the colors of the leaves on the ground, the wee little plovers alight on the sand. I mark the winterness of the trees, whose nests have become suddenly visible by their nakedness. I regard the cast of the sun on the water. I near the paved walkway, my second landmark, where the shifting tides swell over or under to reveal it's architecture. And like a prayer, a meditation, a really impossible yoga move, I am unabashedly thankful. On days like today, with the sea high and frothy, the moon sufficiently waxed, the air crisp and the coffee hot in my hand, I stand and ponder my good fortune. It's not a bad way to start the day.

The walk from there is brisk and to the point. We approach the school playground, the sounds of recess and PE echoing across the water, we pass, for the second time, the elderly man who carries a camera and whom I see, not once, but twice, each morning, we exchange another good day greeting, and we reach the house with the Butoh, or perhaps it's Kabuki puppets and bottle tree. This is the third and final landmark by which I measure my walk: a row of Butoh puppets mysteriously lining the entire windowed-wall of this last house on the water. Most of the puppets face inward, but a select few look down on us forlornly as we reach the sidewalk and leave the ocean's side. Depending on the light, the blue bottle trees leave either a tragic or regal impression.

By this point I am already thinking of all the things I have to do that day. I am dreading or looking forward to going into the office, I am ready for breakfast, I am making lists in my head. I stop noticing. I turn inward. I obsess, or stress, or act the way I normally act throughout the day, mostly as if my eyes were blinded and my ears plugged. I act the way we all act. The walk is officially over. The work day has officially begun. Life has officially taken over. But. For a brief moment in time, I bore witness to the morning. And I was humbled by it's wit.

Enough about me

OK this is a weird time of year, but also kinda fun if you're into baking and parties and what not. People do all kinds of crazy things this time of year. And I, in turn, feel some of that ambivalence, some of that excitement. Click on santa to watch the video. Aram did the music and recorded the self-motivational talking picture frame you hear in the background. Thank you Aram ep

Or try me on for size

Things We Don’t Understand and Are Definitely Not Going To Talk About

Things We Don’t Understand and Are Definitely Not Going To Talk About,
Miranda July

An intern at my work copied for me a CD full of covers of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart. Now, I can't think of a thing out there that will cheer you up more than listening to that song over and over, each artist with their own unique interpretation of pain, suffering and humiliation as individually experienced. The world is never short of grief. Nor, does it seem to me today, are our lives.

James Kim was found dead. I recently watched a documentary about the incurable neurological disorder, Dystonia, where those afflicted loose control of their muscles. The sun was bright this morning, but I, trying to soak up its rays, was not. It's proving to be one of those days. You know the kind I am talking about. The emotional kind. I would like to call it pesado, because the word feels right in my mouth, but it turns out pesado really means boring...which might not, after all, be that far from the truth.

James Kim was my age. His wife and children survived only because his wife was able to breast-feed both their children and burn the car tires to keep them warm when the gas ran out. Those with Dystonia can implant a device in their brain that uses a remote control to stimulate neuro-transmitters to keep their muscles from spazzing. When the battery in their remote control dies, they go back to being hunched over or wheel-chair bound. Last night, the sun set at 4:45 and there was nothing I could do, but watch it slip away.

When I'm 64

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Portrait of Ross)

Today I bought a package of Werther's Original at Ye Ole Bed Bath and Beyond. For reasons still inexplicable to me, I opened the package and poured it's conveniently wrapped contents into a small bowl. I then preceded to place that which you might call a candy bowl on that which I do call the coffee table. It was at that exact moment I realized that my fear of turning into my mother had instantly suddenly changed into my fear of becoming my grandmother. Mon dieu! What had I just done? What person of my age in their right mind would do such a thing? OK maybe candy in a bowl. Something neat like an obscure Japanese candy. But Werther's? That's like, so, Florida. It's the kind of candy that's so unloved, no one, not even the most sugar-starved two-year old would reach for. The kind of candy that stays in the bowl—which is precisely its purpose—well beyond the expiration date...
...of its original purchasers.

Sigh.

Sometimes I wonder. Just how dotty am I gonna be? I mean, how bad are things gonna get? I can handle cutting out newspaper articles on any possibly relevant subject and mailing them incessantly to my descendants and I could deal with becoming an old crank who cusses up a storm in line at the bank teller to anyone who is willing to listen. But what if I decide 2 dozen feral cats is an appropriate number of roommates? Or what if I start seeing the Virgin Mary in my pancakes? I mean, what if I start turning to Talk Radio for an answer?!

I already have no qualms about using expired milk for my cereal. And I do have a tendency to hoard. For chrissakes, it was only today when I caught myself gesticulating wildly while talking out loud in search of the perfect salad spinner (not found!) It can't be too much longer now!

Granted, there are things to look forward. Mostly they consist of finally not giving a shit: about what you say, the way you look, or what people think about you. So what if I wanna wear a Real People t-shirt over a hot-pink track suit with alligator cowboy boots? Who cares if I decide the local PTA meeting is an appropriate podium for my erudite theories about pasteurized cheese? And really, who would mind if I zydeco danced my way down the aisle at my only daughter's wedding?

Something for nothing

Marina Shterenberg, Improbable Architecture

My dad is of the opinion you can get something for nothing. Wait. Scratch that. My dad is of the opinion that you should get something for nothing. Or, at least, that he should. It goes something like this: the family goes out to dinner, we order our entrees and then, my father thinks all desserts should be complimentary. It's his daughter's birthday for chrissakes! There are nine of us! Do they know how long he has been dining at this establishment? Do they know who he knows? He has signed letters from two different presidents! He has photos of himself with Sting on more than one occasion! And do we need to bring up Tom Hanks?! Yes, Tom Hanks! He has his telephone number! His home number! He could call him right now if you like! Do you want him to call Tom Hanks?! Cuz he can! Right now! You could call them bosom buddies!

My father's tolerance for putting up with bullshit is low. But so is his tolerance for being treated like a regular customer. And that's just it. He doesn't want to be treated like a regular customer. He wants to be treated like a celeb. Or like a friend of the celebs. Or maybe just like a friend. If it's a ballgame, he'll waltz into the most desirable section like he's Jack Nicholson at a Lakers game. If it's airline seats, he'll demand an upgrade. If it's a hotel room, he firmly requests the suite on the corner, poolside. That's after he's already paid for the ground floor double with the view of the parking lot. And then he won't back down. Relentless is a word we might use to describe him. Pain in the ass others might say. Or still yet, you might see a manager mouthing the words do anything to get rid of him.

We are, all of us, used to it at this point. And we each take a unique approach in response to the situation. My one sister, at age thirty-six, will make sure to arrive at the movie theatre before he can buy her and her husband any 12 and under tickets. My mother will casually walk away from the man haggling with the maitre d' over the table with reserved seats. And I personally try not to encourage him to continue to use his dead mother's handicap placard.

It's a battle none of us will ever win. Nor one we can even begin to understand. I can't tell you the hand that my father's been dealt. But I sure as hell know the hand he will try and play. And I know precisely the moment everyone else will fold.

Anything you need to know about somebody you can learn about by the kind of soup they make

(Gratuitous Halloween photo of cute kid making "scary" face)

And if they don't make soup, consider them not worth knowing.

The general consensus around these parts is that Sunday evening is a perfect evening for soup making. Soup you can eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner—if need be—for the rest of the week. Soup made out of whatever is found in the cupboards, fridge and garden. The kind of soup that can easily be extended and modified as the days progress. A soup that molds (uh, no pun intended there) to your liking, much like those pair of Levi's you've had since college.

As it sometimes happens, this Sunday evening I find myself still consuming last week's soup while at the same time beginning next week's. Unfortunately, last week's soup, a butternut squash puree, was less successful than usual. Puree is always hard over here, since we are lacking a food processor. For reasons I find hard to explain even to myself, I have never owned a microwave, a food processor, a garbage disposal nor a dishwasher and though some would swear by these conveniences of the twenty-first century, we over here like to do things the old-fashioned way. Or that is to say, we have been to cheap to date to make any such culinary advances. To wit, the butternut squash puree was not entirely my fault. But it did make it hard for me not to steal a bowlful of the steaming, aromatic, anything-goes udon soup.

It goes something like this: open fridge and look for ingredients that must be used immediately or rendered hazardous to one's health. The bok choy looked pretty good, the onions in perfect shape, but the mystery cabbage rescued from the bottom drawer and initially gotten by way of weekly-organic-food-box-shared-with-neighbor needed to be dealt with pronto. The ingredients, once brought out and modeled on the kitchen counter, spoke and when they did they decidedly said asian. What next, you might ask? Peruse the refidgerator again. Discover the packaged udon and packaged tofu that have been languishing in isolation unecessarily long. Realize wilted carrot that feels embaressingly familiar, shrivelled ginger and limp scallions would perk up nicely when combined with Trader Joe's Ginger and Soy Broth™. Become ebullient at thought of such resourcefulness synthesized with such gastric shrewdness. Note that dog doesn't much care for dropped block of tofu. Begin.

With some regret I remember the two mushrooms I so carelessly tossed out earlier. While small in number, it would have given me great pleasure to find a role in tonight's soup for those two homeless fellas. Once the ingredients have been chopped (somewhat) and tossed into the dutch oven, the seasoning should begin. This one is a no brainer. Look for asian-inspired condiments and begin pouring. Soy sauce: natch. Hoisin: we'll go with that. Sesame oil: a dash. Sriracha Chili Sauce: why not? Add more soy sauce. And then add some more. Realize low-sodium soy sauce is not much help when it comes to soup. Make way to spice jars. Vague recollection that star anise is key ingredient in favorite Vietnamese soup. Taste. Add more soy sauce. Vigoursly shake soy sauce into pot. Curse at now empty bottle of soy sauce and add more hot sauce to make up for it. Taste again. Congratulate self. Not too shabby! Enjoy bowl of soup and retire to living room smug, sated and full.

The Wagon Box Fight

another opportunity to view

This is leftover video from my stay in Wyoming. From the Jim Gitchell Memorial Museum in Buffalo to be precise. Who can resist a diaorama? So wee, so precious, so antiquated. I especially love them when they are extra dusty and the people's limbs are missing and the animal's hair has fully disentagrated. This one was fairly intact and a pretty grim story. File under how we won The West. And then feel all crappy about it.

Election day coverage

Hank Willis Thomas

Who doesn't love an election day?! Giving your name and address at your local polling place, last minute attempts to figure out which Board of Education Supervisors to vote for, listening to the pundits duke it out as the poll returns come in. Well, if we are to look at statistics—and I'm not saying that we are—then that'd be about half of you out there. Even if I hadn't paid that much attention to the state-wide elections and municipal measures in a non-presidential election such as this one (and again I'm not saying or not saying that is the case here) I still get caught up in the fervor once the actual voting day arrives. I'll be the first to admit

Today was the first day for me voting in my new hometown, or the island as we islanders like to refer to it. A new polling place, new mayoral canditates—none of which rang a bell—and new voting machines, ones that, ironically, seemed quaintly pastoral as if from a time gone by. My friendly poll worker told me there were no hard drives, no hanging chads, no blurry touch screens and none of those pesky Diebold Voting Machines any Rubrics Cuber could hack in about five seconds. Just pencil and ink this time around. Standing alone at my voting booth, I almost felt a pang of nostalgia for those earlier Rube Goldbergian contraptions that took up so much space. There was nothing but myself, my cheat sheet and a couple of pieces of paper on which I was supposed to fill in the arrows and mark my picks for the best candidates.

I have to admit, my new polling place did not quite stir the emotions like my last one. Maybe it was the fact it was not in the basement of an old Baptist Church. Maybe it was the fact that I used to live in a much poorer neighborhood—OK friends, between you and I, we can call it ghetto—where people seemed to remember what it was like to be disenfranchised. Or maybe it was the fact that I voted amongst gas station attendants on their way to work, security guards on their way home from work, and that the polling volunteers were all elderly black women—the chuch-going kind—who worked at a snail's pace. But today, there were none of the tears in my eyes, the swelling up of civic pride, I used to experience on voting day. At a last ditch effort, I called a friend to see if he wanted to watch the poll returns in some working class bar. But alas, all I got was the machine.

I don't care who you vote for—OK, again this may not be factually accurate—but, yes, I think you should vote. It builds character. It generally makes you feel better about yourself much like how you feel after going to the gym. It makes you feel a part of somethig bigger. Is that so bad? Besides what have you got to lose? This is one test that you will never fail.
Hank Willis' Priceless

Clean Dry Shiny

It's back to posting some videos. They have been piling up and I gotta do something with them. Thank you for none of your comments. Nothing like a little encouragement!

Don't we all aim to be clean, dry and shiny? At least some of the time? OK and the rest of the time dirty, wet and dull will do. Aram composed the music to these last two videos. Huzzah!

Here too.

Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee

Please note: I will be registering for gifts shortly. Meanwhile, allow me to introduce Cecil.

Or try me.

Witch one is me?

You know I am running out of things to say, when I start blogging about my dreams. But I woke up this morning and it took me a good five minutes before it started to come to me. I dreamt it had rained. I dreamt I woke up to a leaking apartment. There were puddles on the carpet, mold coming through in large black rings on the wall, and a roof that looked as if it were about to cave in. Maybe it was the episode of Lost I watched last night or maybe it was the collection of short stories I am reading about food, or maybe it was just the momentous amount of laundry I have been washing, drying and folding.

In my dream I was distressed. My apartment had finally become my home. I enjoyed no more than to lounge in its bath, cook in its kitchen, lie down on its carpet and stare at its stucco ceiling. I had laid claim to the space: taking down the proletarian supplied Venetian blinds and putting up the three-weekends-to-complete-curtain-project sewn by none other. I had changed the direction in which the refrigerator door opened, I installed a hanging pot rack, I frosted the window panes in the front door for privacy.

A home. The hearth. My little nest. The place where I repose. Where I wake up Sunday mornings, make coffee and get back in to bed to read. Where I can pull back the curtains and sit on the couch and enjoy the light poring in, the blue sky above my head, the birds freaking out in the trees just outside. At this point I would hate to move. After all the letting go of stuff—years accumulated—so that I could finally fit into this postage-stamp space, after all the living in boxes, things spread out between two cities, after all the shuttling between places, the driving hither and forth, the nomadic it's only temporary until I find my own place existence, I have finally arrived. And I'm not about to let a little crack in the surface kick me out.

Forgive me father

Smart Girl from To-Do List

I prolly spend more time thinking (and writing and oh, imagining) about relationship stuff than I should. I should prolly be out doing more important things like volunteering at the old folks home, reading the political articles in The New Yorker instead of skipping them, and repairing familial relationships instead of starting and stopping new ones with strangers. I should prolly quit obsessing about why the last man I dated did not fall in love with me. I should prolly quit flirting with the any and all online suitors who approach me. I should prolly I should prolly I should prolly.

This is not really a post. This is a PostSecret. Only it's more complicated than would fit on a postcard and I really should, ahem, write something even if I am dog tired, my eyeballs aflame, my knees wobbly and my face raw from razor burn.

I once dated a man. He was a man and not at all a boy and for that I was eternally grateful. It was not at all that long ago, although, its memory yellows from age each passing day. I once dated a man and not unlike me, he was a man who kept lists. He had a little notebook or two or three and in no particular order wrote lists both banal and weighty.

And ladies and gentleman, I liked to look through these notebooks.

They were everyday lists and I wanted to know the everyday man. At least, that's what I told myself. Groceries to buy, bills to pay, measurements, addresses, shorthanded ideas that yet remain locked in his mind. And they were scattered about, on the kitchen table, impromptu lists scratched onto receipts, scraps of paper that fluttered to the floor when I picked up my bags or brought in the groceries.

They charmed me. All of them. I tried to ascertain which were written before me and which after me. There were lists of books and movies many of which I had recommended. If they were written into the notebooks, they never made any kind of chronological sense. As a book, from beginning to end, they read like a puzzle.

And then I stumbled upon a list. It was a list about me. Sort of a pro and con list if you will. It was, like most of his lists, a short list. A mere five or six items. I never understood its formula. There was a check next to makes me feel wanted and I can't quite remember the other something like fun! There was no check next to communication or creativity. There was an awkward phrase about the ability (mine or his?) to evolve sexually for which I received no check as well. I couldn't tell if he had written the list the day before or months prior. I didn't know if the checks were like extra bonus points or if he really thought I was completely devoid of creativity. Whatever it meant, it was painfully clear to me I had not passed this particular test. I had only gotten two out of six check marks. And in the dozen or so little words written in blue ink onto the lined notebook paper, this archipelago of words scattered across the blank page, I read the story of our relationship in its entirety. And this story did not, as it turns out, have a happy ending.

A date to end all dates

Desiree Holman, Breath Holes

My date arrived at my door early Saturday morning. He arrived dripping wet, having just swam across the Pacific to reach my door. I handed him a towel, and he, in return, handed me an orchid. No ordinary orchid, this orchid flowered only once, took twenty years to mature, and bloomed for exactly twenty seconds. Let's just say, his timing was impeccable!

We watched as the precious flower bloomed and then withered and then produced an intolerable smell. Without batting an eye, or in this case, his long lustrous lashes which, he assures me, he has never tinted nor curled, he tossed the once-precious orchid over his shoulder. Toweling himself off, he waltzed through my doors, and caught me unawares as he grabbed me by the waist to a 4/4 polka. I nearly slammed the door in the face of the German polka band that trooped in behind him. Stepping on his toes—and those of all seven members of the band—he graciously allowed me to sit out on the 5th polka. But, oh, they were a lively bunch! And dancing together in my small New York-style studio, they sure lifted my spirits—even as they knocked over my dead grandmother's Hummel figurines bequeathed to me on her deathbed.

The polka band took a rest on my fold-out sofa bed—politely taking their shoes off as per my request—and my date preceded to the kitchen where he had plans to wow me with the culinary secrets of his Armenian-Mexican ancestors. Again his elaborate preparations, the three crates of cooking utensils, and the bags and bags of groceries—along with the sudden appearance of his ninety-year old Armenian grandmother—impressed me greatly. After an hour or so, he took time out from the rolling of the grape leaves and the crushing of the pomegranate seeds, to court me in the bathroom—now the only room in my apartment in which there was enough room for us to sit. Delicately taking my foot into his hands—and dexterously maneuvering around the toilet bowl—he gave me the most exquisite foot massage of my life! Too bad when the accordion player swung open the door to use the bathroom, he gave my date a concussion which forced him to lay low for a bit.

While the rest of us ate and his grandmother told the most entertaining dirty limericks—albeit in another language—my date reposed in the bath tub. By midnight, we thought we ought to check in on him...

Dreams deferred

Show me the child at 7 and I will show you the man.

I've been watching the 7-Up series (that BBC documentary series that followed a variety of wee Brits from differing social classes every seven years) in preparation for the latest release, 49-Up. Who was I at seven? I don't remember much. It wasn't one of those break out years. I was in second grade. I had had the same teacher Mrs. Chase, for first and second. Second grade felt safe. Felt like I was getting into the swing of things. It was in second grade that I realized I would be in school for a long, long time. Six more years here and then four years after that. It felt unfathomable. It was the same time I began to grapple with the concept of forever. It would keep me up at night. At night, I always slept with the my door cracked open, the light from the hallway shining in. I lulled myself to sleep with the sounds of late-night television. It was comforting: a muffled laugh track, Johnny Carson fading into the distance. Just as I was about to drift away the thought would come to me: what happens when you die? The answers the nuns gave never satisfied. Heaven seemed nice enough. But nice enough for an eternity seemed like hell. Time would just go on and on. There was nothing before it and nothing behind it. I would hold out for as long as I could and then I would hear myself screaming, MOOOOOOMMMM!

It was our ritual.
What happens after you die?
You go to heaven.
And then what happens?
You are with your loved ones: your father, your grandmother, me.
And then what?
And then you are happy. You do what you want. You don't think about time. You look down at earth.
And then what?
That's it. You're in heaven forever.
What happens after forever?
Forever never ends. It just keeps going on.

I tried to imagine it. I tried to imagine being seven forever. Or doing something I really liked like swimming forever. I tried to imagine the longest amount of time I could and then doubling that and then doubling that. It made me uncomfortable. Like practicing my scales. It made me feel scared and nauseous at the same time. Whether it was heaven or a cold plot of dirt made no difference in my mind.

When I was seven I received my first communion. I remember wearing a frill-less eyelet dress when all the other girls got petticoats and frills. I remember taking it very seriously. I remember rehearsing how to walk down the aisle. I remember holding my hands together very carefully. I remember learning how to do the rosary. I remember my Miniature Stories of the Saints. I still have it.

When I was seven my grandmother got sick. My mother was her only daughter and it meant I never saw my mom anymore. She lived at the hospital and I lived at the babysitters. When I did go to the hospital I did not recognize my grandmother. When she came out she had to wear a wig and she still did not look like my grandmother. I overheard conversations about wounds and infections and surgeries. I remember my mother on the phone a lot. Frustrated, exhausted and, above all, sad.

At seven I was quiet. I lived inside my head. I did not need a lot of attention. I was not used to big families. I was not used to being around other kids. I wanted to be a martyr. I loved to read about the saints. I wanted God to accept me. I wanted to make my mother happy. I wanted to please my teachers. I wanted to be good.

I am not sure how different I am. I no longer want to be a saint. And I no longer believe in heaven. But the thought of eternity still humbles me. And sometimes, I am still afraid of the dark.

Getting to know you

Val Britton, Ways to navigate through what we've built and what we've destroyed

How do you put together all those disparate pieces to make a whole? We talk on the phone and I try to imagine what he looks like listening to me: is he sitting down at the kitchen table or lying down on the couch? Does he doodle abesentmindedly? Do his fingers drum in front of him? From what he shares, I try to make sense of it all: a father who has died, a brother who is six years older, college in Boston, time spent in Santa Cruz. I fit together a timeline in my head and then realize it's all wrong: it was two years ago he left Boston, the pet dog is actually a labroador. I wonder if he does the same. I picture a man explaining himself over the phone, over the miles of distance between us and the image I have is soft, shifting and elusive.

A woman once wrote that there is a difference between being honest and telling. Where honesty is pure, telling expects results. It's true. There is an agreement between the teller and the tellee. There is a bond. Listen to me and your rewards will be bountiful! The gift of friendship, the promise of concern, the hope of caring. They are, at worst, Hallmark sentiments. But at best, they are all we really need.

My National Lampoon Style Family Camping Trip

a covey of quail
a cast of hawks
a gang of turkey
a murder of crows

These my friends, were only a few of the cast of characters from last weekend's camping trip. We might add to that list: Swedish Death Metal couple, Frisbee golf throwing enthusiasts, poker-playing-while-Classic-Rock-listening-and-Jack-Daniels-drinking neighbors, angry fisherpeoples without any fish and exactly one meandering tarantula.

This was a camping trip 35 years in the making for never had the entire family camped together. I arrived two hours after my dad who was in the process of thoroughly staking down his tent. Even though he had gotten explicit directions from my sister not to stake down his tent until she had arrived and even though the ground was hard enough to tap dance on, none of this deterred him from battening down the hatches. He excitedly showed me all his new and unnecessary purchases: an Eddie Bauer blanket, a shiny red hatchet, a foldable cot, an inflatable mattress, a suitcase-sized bag of batteries, enough snacks to feed the local middle school, an assortment of lures, rods and bait and, most importantly, a tent purchased for my birthday. In the flurry of product and the disposal of packaging I asked him where his sleeping bag was. Oops! I could tell from the way he was ignoring me that he was starting to have one of his panic attacks. We better call my sister before she leaves. Dad, are you gonna call her? Dad? He continued to stand face flushed, sweat beading on his forehead. I stopped bothering him and sat down to wade it out.

No sooner had I collapsed into the collapsible Sports Mega Chair™ recently purchased from REI, than I recieved a sharp blow to the knee. What the? A fluorescent Frisbee lay on the ground beside me, it's owner conspicuously absent. As I sat rubbing my knee and writhing in pain and as my dad, now awoken to his senses, dialed my sister, the Frisbee-wielding maniac jogged over to apologize. Yeah, your site's right next to the course. Come tomorrow this place is gonna be a sea of Frisbee golf players. It's a pretty serious sport. He jogged off from whence he came, a backback full of colored Frisbees whats significance remained a mystery to me, in tow.

Within minutes our neighbors cranked up their radio. Man, I love this song! a voice barked. To one of Classic Rock's unarguably most shining moments, our neighbors sang along to some Lynrd Skynrd: Ooooh that smell. Can't you smell that smell. They were well into the Coors and, at four, were beginning elaborate 'cue preparations. Case, hey, there's a tarantula. My dad voice was calm. What? He pointed to the ground—the ground right next to our tents—as the biggest and hairiest arachnid I have ever seen ambled by. As the tarantula rounded the corner, I noticed a series of holes in the ground. Another Frisbee-wielding maniac, backpack hanging off his shoulder, jogged by. Oh, yeah, a tarantula. He's early. They usually don't come out until October. I inquired if the hillside holes had perhaps anything to do with their housing. Yeah, they burrow in holes just like those. But don't worry, they're harmless. Not only was our campsite in the middle of a treacherous Frisbee fly zone, but we had parked it on top of a row of tarantula condominiums. We better not tell my sister.

We were, as it turns out, camping not only with our family but with about a hundred other families, many of them in recreational vehicles, some of them with generators, all of them with way too much stuff and most hoping to have the kind of outdoor experience where neither they nor their offspring were ever bored, remained relatively clean, and were always safe from danger. Danger being any experience in nature without the right Coleman endorsed product.

The thing is that my family is fun. We crack jokes. We out-crass one another. We make do with what the good lord has pawned off on us. When my sister and brother-in-law arrive, dinner is well into the making. Although it takes over an hour for our kabobs cook, and although the spicy papadums I brought make everyone choke, we sit by the fire and season our coats with the smell that proves we have been "camping".

Our neighbors smoke a bong and begin a game of cards. Steve Miller. Joe Cocker. And of course Fleetwood Mac. They argue about the hands: two pair totally beats three-of-a-kind, they incorrectly call games: dude, let's play texas hold up. And then, they get really really mad at each other. Scary mad.

Quit calling my hand.
You got a flush and you don't even see it.
This is my hand. I'll play it how I want to play it.
You can't even count your cards. You have a flush!
Do YOU wanna play this hand?

This goes on forever. The smart or smart-er one keep calling the dumber one's hands. At least, we think, they are entertaining.

How long have you been playing this game?!
I play every Friday. For five years.

It's a shocking discovery. They seem to barely know the rules. Midnight fast approaches and they show no sign of retiring. My sister has brought earplugs enough for everyone and, at this point, we eagerly accept her handouts like free posters at a BoysIIMen concert. Earplugs in place, Thermarest underneath me, and flashlight beside me, I sleep though the night. The following night, however, will make this night look like a relaxing day at Burke Williams.

New York conversations

I have a friend in New York who is one of those telephone friends. We can talk for hours about the most random things, but it is a disembodied relationship. I haven't seen him for years, even though I sometimes find myself back east. Well, we have our own complicated history and one or the other always threatens to come out for a visit. There have been some near visits: a note scrawled on the porch, a voicemail retrieved a few hours too late, an apology after the fact. Sometimes the absurdity of it hits me. And I just have to laugh. If I were to write a screenplay (and totally fictionalize the conversation) here is what one would read like.

He: Not many people know this about me, but I used to have a collection of stuffed animals-

She: Laughing. Do you realize how funny that sounds? Laughing some more. I mean, didn't we all?

He: Well, I was really into them. I had, like, an army of them. And I was really into being equitable.

She: Equitable?

He: Like, I rotated each night who got to sleep next to me. I didn't want any of them to feel left out. And then when I was in 6th grade I started having friends come over. And they'd throw them around. Kinda make fun of me. But there was nothing I could do. Like, I had to just go along with it. Cuz I needed the friends. And then one time we moved and my stepmom just through them out. All of them.

She: Parents are always doing that. She prolly thought you were too old or didn't think boys should play with stuffed animals.

He: Yeah, but she never said anything like that. I mean, they were just gone. She never liked me. I think it was her way of getting back at me.

She: I had this Snoopy doll. It was all ratty. I used to chew on it's nose so all the stuffing was coming out. And then one day my mom said she was going to give it a bath. And then she came back and said he fell apart in the wash. I got a new Snoopy. After a while, it became my Snoopy. But then months later I found the old Snoopy in the closet. There he was. And he was fine! Years later, I am still trying to piece it together. Why would she do that? There must be so many stories out there like that. There must be so many stuffed-animal mysteries still waiting to be solved.

What is it about parents who think they can make executive decisions like that? Like finding an exact replica of the guppy that died, lying about an embarrassing stuffed animal, or insisting the twelve-year old boy stop playing with his Baby Mary Jane? We all have our shameful secrets. Kids just wear theirs on their sleeve.

May I borrow a light?

Fire. Heat, light and flame. Always a crowd pleaser. Entire festivals devoted to its name. It ignites. It burns. It undulates. It changes the air around us. It melts. It warms. It cooks. It kills. It casts its spell on us. We know how to start it but not always how to put it out. Soot, smoke, and ash. We sing about it. We use it in ritual, in death, on a birthday cake in celebration. Friction, flint, and spark. We use it to talk about love, about passion, about sex. We do not know all of its alchemic powers.

Our world began in fire. Our myths explain that we stole it from the Gods. It is said that because of our need to contain fire, we built our first homes around it. Indeed, we have spent a good portion of our history trying to control it. Firearms, fireworks, firefly. Some would say it protects, some would argue it destroys. We associate it with the devil himself. There is no end to the power, to the mystique we give it. We are drawn to it. As a family, as a community, as the couple lying on the bearskin rug. It the heart of our home. It is the center of our belly. It is the beast in our loins.