Tales of Knave Errantry

Machiavelli and Facebook: A Factotem Pole of thoughts

2009-01-23T14:03:00.001-08:00

Unemployment is a malignant consumer of time. Blame and excuse is pointless and I won't offer up the causality of unemployment and speechlessness. I stopped writing in any kind of earnestness really around the time I was waiting to find out if I had cancer, over a year ago. The jobless state is really just the most recent opportunity to gaze at my navel, and while I've had no problem transposing that knave errantry in the past, it has been impossible to do lately. Until now. I am writing and not exactly sure why, or about what, but I am writing.

A friend of mine and charming thoughtster posted a link to an article about the changes in communication style brought on by modern electronic media- specifically Facebook. Suddenly I have thoughts. Apparently there is something rattling around in this head of mine after all. I don't work first shift, second shift, or third. I am... shiftless.

Bukowski made it look easy. I've read Factotum a few times and find it to be one of the greatest pieces of SlackerLit ever penned. The first time I read it I was gainfully employed and still struck by the simple power of his words. Base, visceral expression with thorny stems carefully guarding well hidden flowers of budding optimism. As a shiftless reader, I now see his work differently. I am awed about his sense of calm.

Point of fact: I am not the only unemployed person in America. Many people are actively feeling the teeth of this bear market economy. Most probably worse than me. Still, I can't help but notice it was exactly four months ago today I was notified of my layoff and I am still unable to produce a job capable of supporting my family. Four months. Four months.

Someone pointed out to me at one point that Kubler-Ross'Stages of Death And Dying (SoDAD) really fit the model of any kind of loss. I suppose I've been wandering through those while interviewing. It is convenient, since the interview process is akin to watching inexperienced cheetah cubs miss kill after kill, realizing in retrospect each sequential error. Another meal forfeit. Another shift lost. Frankly you must interview a lot to afford enough mistakes to eventually get one right. Understanding SoDAD helps a bit along the way, but its eats away more of my mind's runtime than I'd like to forfeit.

The process of becoming unemployed is about reassessing your options and action toward shiftfulness, but a funny thing happens along the way. You're labeled. I'm unemployed. I get a check for $342 a week from the state to pay for my things. Of all the things that I am, this particular status fits me best and suits me least. I am much more than this, yet it is the first thing discussed. A constant, well-meant reminder of what I am not. It is often easier to just limit these discussions rather than have them ad infinitum.

Time Magazine's bemused exploration of the Facebook phenomenon struck some kind of chord. Do these social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook curtail actual interaction? The author thinks perhaps, yes. I am not so sure. I think instead it is about time management or avoidance.

These sites gives you the opportunity to connect to your 'network' and still tend to the drudgery of daily life. So I've connected to a lot of people, but I don't talk to them much more than I did before. I'll be honest: I probably didn't talk to most of them for months or years. I still like them. That's why I'm connecting in the first place. This is a peoplebase: individuals are sorted and filtered to produce real-time reporting and contact. You're special, just like everyone else on the list and sometimes it is easier to hide in plain sight.

This is actually a great tool, but social networking is really more than just about friends. I think Machiavelli would have created MySpace as 'A Place For Fiends'. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. It is better to be feared than loved. It would have to be called something other than a 'Friend' request. This word is badly overused anyway. A fiend request can only help provide clarity.

A quarter year into unemployment, I am surprised by how full my day is trying to get off the dole. Searching takes time. Interviewing takes time. Shaking off rejection after rejection takes time. The introspection that follows takes time. From the navel gazing position it is unmistakable when shit happens. Everyone has been kind and positive about the future. Logic dictates that, short of death, the odds of me finding a job is inevitable. I know that. I'd like to still have a home when that moment comes, if at all possible. I would like to remain optimistic about the chances for such a thing.

In fact dung is apparently the universal substrate for rebirth. Ok the phoenix used ashes instead... Its impossible to fail noticing how weight of this navel gazing has bent a seed-like posture upon me. All this decay, the SoDAD hints at acceptance and maybe even renewal. Rebirth. I know all that, its just out there somewhere in the future, not in this moment. Instead I can only marvel at Bukowski's cool in bleak moments. He has more fun than I do and is as unconcerned with the future as the present.

Most of this screed defies coherence. It is probably why I don't write as much now. Too many thoughts create the a net output of zero, just like actual mindless behavior... no mind. Nirvana. And its not terribly uplifting. If you seek depressing literature, James Joyce is much better at being horrid. Angela's Ashes is a nicely written account of really hard living. That's not me. I'm going to the gym and finding time to play a game where the rules permit me to knock other men to the ground. Its good therapy, if nothing else. I am just apparently waiting for this situation to be adequately fertilized for growth and unsure what to do in the meantime.

Jack Kevorkian & The Suicide Squirrels

2008-07-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

: Michigan is rarely more beautiful than these last few days. A kinder, gentler kind of summer is here. Not the oppressive heat and humidity that is usually August, just warm, middling days and nature in full beauty. I hadn't actually noticed until this week...
... when I ran over a squirrel.

My office is a Ford Fusion, and like the Johnny Cash song, I've been everywhere. This week I was in a more rural part of the state where the towns were not accessible via expressway. Vast swaths of green, sprouting corn ran uninterrupted up to careworn farmhouses and oak-lined yards. The country roads meander like the streams they periodically cross and bright light suddenly meets shade as hardwood groves reach over both sides of the road, obscuring the sky.

There is a lot to take in. Honestly I am usually lost in thought while all this rolls by. I must have noticed at some point there wasn't snow on the ground, that it turned green. Some voice on the radio said Jack Kevorkian was released from prison. I turned off the radio. Too many words. Just when I was trying to think about suicide and what it meant, then they were adding words like 'physician assisted', and then someone asserted that Kevorkian actually euthanized people- a thing more austere in that voice's opinion. My mind was full. I hit the button turn off the radio, and ran over a squirrel.

The black squirrel ran into the road to a place that would have been between the tires, then seeing this misalignment, moved two feet to the left. A moment later it met a tire and knew no more. I couldn't avoid it. There a slew of physics involved in getting that car to cruising speed and I was not going to spin into a ravine, losing my life to save his. But it happened right in the middle of this thought on suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.

Weird.

The similar looking farm houses rolled by with more green swaths of corn- no doubt close kin of the others I'd seen. Trees. Nature. None of them stopped to notice the squirrel. Just me for the 2 seconds it took to flatten it. I drove on and thought more about these deathly words.

I've not really given these ideas much thought. I like living and think I'll probably do until I can do it no longer, so while these are thoughts on suicide, the are not suicidal thoughts. In fact they are thoughts, and the topic is suicide. There is no particular object for it. I'm irritated by thoughts I'm told I should not have. I that's your opinion, great. Then that's your opinion. Keep it that way. I want to sort this out.

When I first heard of this Kevorkian guy the topic was new to me. An advocate for death? Did death need an advocate? It seemed like death was doing pretty well for itself, seemingly having cornered a market for itself. It was unfortunate he looked like Skeletor from the He-Man comic books. I saw him and immediately expected to see all kinds of minion at his command. But Kevorkian's minion seemed nothing like the cartoony demons I knew from TV. They were people who were talking about picking the right to die with dignity. People who knew suffering. Adults who watched their parents die from cancer, or octogenarians ravaged by disease, these were people who just wanted to go gentile into that good night.

That didn't sound like suicide to me. That sounded like dying. People die. This sounded more like mercy killing, you know, the way a vet will put down an animal suffering without end. Was a person choosing the terms upon which they died considered suicide? Suicide sounds like a person with much life to still live deciding they do not want to go on any more. This doesn't seem like suicide. My first thought is a teenager depressed they got dumped by their first great crush and despairs of all life. A tantrum, basically. Depressed and not wanting to live. Those are very different associations to me than those people who are already dying and trying to endure convulsions and bitter throes of death. I can't think of a single person who has a pet and would let it die in such a way.

This topic is confusing to me. Some of it is the ideas themselves, some of it is the wording used to describe those ideas. Suicide: is that actually illegal? It couldn't be, right? I mean what would happen to a person convicted of such a thing? They're dead. I know there are varying theologies regarding this as well, but I am focusing on this life, not the next. If it's not illegal to determine your own death, then how is it illegal to assist someone in doing what they want to do? Aiding and abetting an activity that isn't legal? That's confusing.

I remember hearing someone saying that Kevorkian was a killer, another that he was euthanizing people who still had good living to do. Frankly I can respect those arguments too, except they sound like value judgments made by someone other than the person suffering. These opinions are everywhere, and I'm still trying to comprehend the words they're throwing around. Parties supporting life… parties supporting choice. Apparently calling it death is not appealing. Death is the last active of life. Life's last living moment is death. They are the same damn thing. I want to remember those I love for how they live, but don't want them to suffer if they don't want to.

When you're ready to go, do you want to be able to tell someone one your own terms, or do you want a loved one to have to sort that out for you? My grandmother, whom I've loved and lost to cancer suffered terribly. She was great because she was the intersection of comedy, dignity, and love. A lot going on there. Always a place you wanted to be. I remember her dying, but I wasn't there at the precise moment. I was never told the details. Her suffering was so great and there was nothing they could do. It would have been illegal to medically end her life, so they sedated her and the family decided to stop feeding her. She died shortly after. That's not suicide? No. She didn't do it. Someone assisted not feeding her, just as they had assisted feeding her the day before. That was legal. It's not illegal to not eat.

So if it wasn't suicide, and it couldn't be, since she wasn't conscious, what was it? Murder? Please… This woman was suffering and dying. Not feeding her was legal and she was sedated to not suffer. A physician could not do here what a vet could do for your dog.

If it's legal to not feed those about to die already what exactly is this debate about? Time? Quality of life? Choices? Dignity? I don't see much of any of these things at the end of life. Just a spirit that has grown too big for its own body and it trying break loose from this cocoon to start over. I don't see the debate in any of that.

In the end a life ends and new one begins. The rows of corn are still growing, the treetops are swaying in a light breeze. Cars still roll along. Squirrels peep around trees to see if I'm coming. I don't know this Kevorkian guy. Did he find himself involved in this as I did with a premeditating squirrel? I don't know. In my case, I can't say if the squirrel was depressed, or not taking his meds. It's possible it had been dumped by a lover, or he'd inadvertently busted his nuts. Was it a choice? An accident? I don't know. I just know I assisted in it and felt like the only one on Earth who knew what had happened, or so I thought. Three miles later, on the same road, another squirrel jumped out in front of me and was crushed by the same tire. This time a reddish brown one. Did they communicate? Am I now Skeletor For Squirrels? I don't want that job. I'd rather they picked someone else. Maybe you just don't get to pick some things. Like who's there when its time to decide if you're going to turn off life support. No one calls that murder, or suicide, or assisted suicide. Mostly people don't talk about it. They don't think about it. Bursts of grief interrupted by life's essential distractions.
But it happens. And when it does maybe all I want to know for my own sake, is that someone I care about can mercifully end this life and blossom out into the next. It's not the conversation I hear on the news. I have not interest in new laws. I've got plenty I've not used already, and for that matter I'm surrounded by lives that are not in this quandary. So why have I spent all this time thinking about this? I don't know. Because I can. Because I'm suspicious of every squirrel I now see is a kamikaze. Because I'm not sure if I want to drink the Kool-Aid being served by the media without first checking the label. Because if I'm ever in a position to have to make this decision, maybe I don't want to feel like I dishonored an honorable life. Or maybe I'm just hallucinating these squirrels. That might be better.

Running In Circles

2008-07-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

: I never really got track. As a kid, in fact I played them all. Had a great time. Running was a requirement for all of them, but track was the weird outlier: It was the only thing you did… the mindless thumping of feet. In high school I remember the basketball coach telling me how it was a good idea to run track to improve my conditioning. It didn't seem like a lot of fun. Running in circles. I did not really want to do it, but I agreed. For the next three months I regretted the decision. I remember dreams about quitting the team and awakening to realize I would not. I gave my word to participate and compete. Its just I had no idea what I'd signed up for.

Basketball involved bursts of running at varying rates for less than an hour. Time outs helped if you were winded. They would substitute someone for you at times. Football was a game played in 30 second intervals with another 30 second huddle. Track was just running. And running. The flapping cadence of feet punctuated by sharp exhalation. And that was it. I hated it.

The workouts seemed impossible at first... 28 miles a week (days of 4,8,4,8,4). The first day I though I would die, until I got to the second day and realized the first day was the short day. At first it was the physical discomfort that I disliked. But that went away after a couple weeks. It was the time alone with my mind that was hard. Country roads with dotted passing lanes crawling by were measurements of progress... I'd count them sometimes, or telephone poles until I got bored and finally looked at what was on my mind. I generally tried to avoid that, but it was impossible after a while. The 28 mile week soon switched with and became a 36 mile week (8,4,8,4,8). It meant an increase in the amount of time my mind wandered… and tried to avoid the things I didn't want to face.

Fears lived there, in the recesses of my mind. Fears of failure, inadequacy, of my best being insufficient, of letting people down. I could avoid these things in days full of homework. Not on the road. The roadwork was the hardest part of track. The conditioning was fine, the thinking was brutal and the track meets were fun. I enjoyed watching my friends compete. They were actually good, in fact there were state champions among them. I wasn't... In fact I was marginal at best but it wasn't why I was there.

My friend Chad was a year younger and was made for track. It was amazing to watch him. He was basically a pair of lungs on legs. Thin, sinewy, short. He ran leaned forward slightly like he was trying not to get blown over backwards. He was a star. There were a lot of people like him there. They all did well. He got leukemia and died, after battling it for a few years. It took his hair and left a pallor of death. It did not take his sense of humor or his determination. He never stopped running. Despite the chemo, the nausea, the weakness, he ran. The day before he died he went out and ran a half mile. It was all he had left. He still reminds me strength has nothing to do with physique. That lovable toothpick had all the might of Atlas.

He was on my mind today as I was on a track again. I forgot the feel of the cushiony asphalt under my feet. I hadn't been on a track since high school... when I mostly saw Chad and the other gazelles pulling away from me as if they had caught a tailwind that I had not.

The track was the lynchpin of the Relay For Life, a cancer fundraiser. The entire town turned out in tents, booths, and displays around the track and for 24 hours people would do nothing but laps around the track. Some ran. Most walked. Families walked together, pushing strollers, holding hands with their kids. Then they stood at some booth where they collected donations. My wife and daughter were at one such booth. My job today was to manage the boys. We walked laps around the track.

It was hard, honestly. I felt like crying about half the time and still have a hard time explaining why. Sometimes there's too much to absorb at once. A million thoughts I could not contain or repress. I'd not thought about Chad in a while. He would be old enough to have had a family of his own now. Kids about my age. Little lungs on legs... Just like their dad, with a sense of humor and a determination that only death itself could take away from him. It's just that those kids do not exist. I miss him. I wish I could meet those kids.

I thought about my grandmother, who died 15 years ago with colon cancer that metastasized and filled her lymph nodes, eventually closing off her air supply and ending her life. The most gracious and loving person I'd ever known, and who maintained humility by exposing herself to a series of hilariously weird accidents: The time she drove the car through the garage... The time she got stuck with one foot on the dock and the other on a boat floating off in the opposite direction. So many stories. So much love… so much fun. Hugs… cookies… love… she had it all. She gave so much that I even overlooked the bad plaid lunchbox in the first grade that got me so much ridicule when everyone else had Batman or The Six Million Dollar Man.

She got the cancer scare and changed her life around. She lost weight, ate right, exercised. She did the chemo. She beat it. She had made it to remission and the second to last scope showed no new tumors. She had a few terrific years before she got the news that it was back, inoperable, and terminal.

I look back and see moments I want back. Do over! I'm taking a mulligan on that one. Bring everyone back and lets try take two, people. Being on the track reminded me of a moment I would rather to forget. Grandma was walking 2 miles every day now that she'd been through the first round of chemo. She was determined to take every advantage of the new lease on life. I'd just finished my first year of track and wanted to not lose the conditioning I'd paid so dearly for over the last several months. I was stupid and arrogant and totally incapable of appreciating what it meant to be her at that moment. I scoffed at her two miles and said I'd run 4 in the time it took her to run two. She took that bet, saying we'd set up a course around the neighborhood that was a two mile lap. I'd go twice, she'd go once. We'd both keep our own time.

She slaughtered me… my ego was in better shape than my cardiovascular system at the moment, it seemed. I talked a big game, but frankly I was not great at the running thing. When I rolled into the driveway, ribs cramping, legs shaking, she was sitting there, looking at her perfectly painted nails, feigning boredom. She whipped me and she knew it. I knew it. I was a heel for trying to flaunt my health and youth. She was fighting cancer and I was talking smack with her?? I am still shamed to this day. Not for losing, but for not taking that same walk with her and holding her hand instead of racing her. You just don't get these moments back. They just stay on, forever as a reminder of why you should never take yourself too seriously when you think you've got it all together.

So it is with humility that I rounded this track holding the hands of my two boys who never knew this great woman who was like a mother to me when my own could not. I saw in the faces of the people that had been there all night that they all had their stories of love and loss because of cancer. Who doesn't know someone who's had cancer? And in the faces of these people I've accused of being Desperate Housewives, of being vapid and materialistic, I saw the same choked expression, like if you talked to them, they might cry. We're just not as different as we'd like to believe. Only the veneer is different. Our tears are the same.

Last month I was told by a doctor I "probably didn't have cancer." I pointed out with great concern that 'probably' is not 'definitely'. He agreed, and arranged tests to provide definitive resolution. I tried to be ok. I was not ok. I was very worried. Scared. My luck in being a statistical outlier is renown. I didn't want to break through the odds of 'probably not'. A week after the tests, I found out for sure that I didn't.

I don't mention this for support sympathy. If I wanted it, I would have posted the news a month ago and begged for comfort. I mention this now because I was on the same track as cancer survivors who got that same conversation with their doctor except a week later their news was much worse. And both the survivors and I were on the track while even more people got the same conversation: "It could be cancer", and it was, and they are now gone. I have nothing to complain about. I am blessed beyond my own understanding, despite my every effort to assume I am the reason for my great luck.

It's at times like this I am knocked down a notch. I was today. The Relay For Life was nearly finished. The event closed 24 hours after starting with cancer survivors making one last lap. It was funny looking through that group of strangers, wondering if I'd see someone I knew. I didn't. Just people whose trip I've been on. The grandmother walking with her grandkids… the teenage girl in the purple wig surrounded by friends and family wearing t-shirts with her picture on it. I've been in those groups. I wished them luck. They started out on their lap and my wife asked me to track down my daughter and her friends to help with some tear-down functions.

Mindlessly I start walking along the track, like I had done the entire day. No one was on it because it seemed the event was over, or at least focused on the cancer survivors at the other end of the track. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I walked faster than I thought… or people just saw this guy, alone, walking on the track behind this group of other people who were cancer survivors. For whatever reason, people were clapping and cheering me on as I walked by. There are no words for the shame I felt, after realizing what was happening. They thought I was one of them. When I started walking, no one was on the track at all… not even along the sides. Into the third turn, there were people lining each side suddenly and they we clapping and saying "way to go!". I saw my daughter between the third and fourth turn and we cut through the infield to get back to my wife.

The guy afraid he had cancer and didn't, got praise for strength he didn't have to find. It's really hard to explain to the people who are clapping why they shouldn't. Waving them off makes you seem demure and magnanimous. Humble. They're not looking for mistaken identities. Sometimes, when life comes like this I wonder if I will ever learn from it. Looking back, I hope I did. I know this much: I didn't race my daughter back to the tent. We took our time, held hands and walked.

Editor's Note: I wrote this at the beginning of a long series of medical tests to find out what was wrong. It took a while and while cancer was not the first item they considered, all the others fell off the list until it was cancer or GERD. How could it be something so simple? It was. In the end, there was surgery to repair a stomach valve and the rest has been history. No cancer. Unlike all those people who walked that circle, it was not a burden I had to carry. The weight of its shadow was enough.

I Am Not Rosa Parks... But Don't Tell Me Where To Sit

2008-07-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

I got a form to volunteer at my son's school and was so excited to participate. Guest reader. It's so fun. Snacks… juice… Green Eggs And Ham… what could be more fun than circle time? With gusto I snatched up the form and filled it out. The basics. It seems that every form asks the same thing, but no sooner than I considered this thought, I came to a line I've not seen before: race. Race? Are you kidding me? I need to tell you my race to read? Ridiculous. So considering it insignificant, I put 'N/A' in the box, and continued on with name, driver's license number, address, etc. The form left for school the following morning and I didn't give it a second thought.

Until it returned. With a note.

"Please COMPLETE, tx"

Circled in red and twice underlined, I could see N/A was not going to be sufficient. Man… I really don't want to deal with this. I want to read to my son and be a hero for handing out goldfish crackers and reading in funny voices. So I fumed. I talked to my wife. I talked to my mother. Mom suggested sending the form back with 'Human' instead. I liked that, but feared it would just prolong this inevitable trouble that was coming.

Ok… quick intermission. Bathroom breaks. Sodas. Smoke'em if you got'em. While you are taking a moment to relax, consider this funny quote I saw somewhere:

"There are two kinds of people: the kind that think there are two kinds of people and everyone else."

That cracks me up. I am not sure what it is exactly… maybe it's the idea of we're infinitely similar. Capable of the same thoughts, both good and bad, words, and deeds. Only our actions distinguish us. Our choices.

So… I know these people at the school. They're good people. They care about the job they do. Individuals and as a group, they care. So, I may not always agree with their choices, but I am always sure they are acting in what they consider the best interest of the kids. I didn't want to offend anyone, yet I AM offended. My race? None of your business. So I sent a letter, and copied the principal, cringing all the while as I feared the firestorm I would bring on a good person.

The letter goes as follows:

[DATE]
[Name of Recipient], Security [Censored Name] School [Address] [State, ZIP]
Dear [Recipient]

One month ago I submitted a Volunteer Consent Form to Crestwood Elementary in order to have the opportunity to read to my son in his first grade class. The very fact that you have a screening process in place is of comfort to me as a parent. I of course commenced to filling out the form in every detail… except one.

Your form asks me to disclose my race. I declined, rather opting to fill the appropriate space as N/A. As a result, I at this very moment looking at the form I filled out one month ago. Your note states to "complete + return […] Thanks" and a red circle and two red lines draw attention to the form in the area of race.

I wish to be clear: I am interested in participating in volunteer activities at the school. I have provided my State of [omitted] Driver's License number for the purpose of verifying my sterling background. I do not see this as the appropriate venue to discuss the profiling of parent-volunteers in your school. If I am not guilty of any offense described in:

· Section 1539(a)(1) and (b)(2) of the [state] School Code

· Section 7410 of Public Health Code

· Act 368 of the Public Acts of 1978 (being Sections 333.7410 and 333.7416 of the [State} Compiled Laws)

then according to the rules of your process, I fit the criteria necessary to read Green Eggs And Ham. Race is not listed as disqualifying criteria from participation. Should that be the case, I do not find offense, and intend none, in refusing to disclose this information. You will see, with the exception of a speeding ticket a few years ago, there are no offenses of any kind.

It may be of some reasonable discussion for another time to examine the very purpose of including a line indicating 'race'. I do not see this as an appropriate forum, and my qualifications do not recommend my service to this cause, however I trust you will do all diligence in assessing the matter. My wish is merely to read to my son in his class, not debate the definitions of regarding inhabitants of the Caucus Mountains.

With all due respect,

[My Name}

cc: [Principal]

In conversations with the school, both in the superintendent's office and the principal at my son's school, they were surprised such a requirement was on the form. They apologized for the inconvenience and said it was not the intent. They wanted only to make sure they were not permitting pedophiles and predators to be with the kids. I respected that, and feeling like I changed the world a tiny bit, I basked in my little accomplishment.

Until the voicemail message came.

The school's security office was insistent that I had to fill out the form. Not optional. It is my choice to volunteer. Its fine if I don't. Fill it out, or don't fill it out. Its up to me. They are following the rules as set forth by the state. They have not choice. Take it up with them. So I did. This weekend, I sent this to the office of the State Police, division of criminal background verification:

[Department],

Can you help me understand the requirement for fields on the criminal background check? I am a parent of a first grader and in order to volunteer at the school to read to my child at school I've been asked to fill out a criminal background check form. I was more than happy to comply. I filled out the form in every detail, until it asked me for my race. I frankly am not interested in offering the information. It's not a requirement for my ability to read, or volunteer in any capacity. Considering the composition of our school, I'd rather not share. Yet, they tell me that I must. In fact, if I do not comply with this disclosure, I am not allowed to be a volunteer, even if I do not have a criminal history. I do not have a criminal history.

So... here's my question for you: why must you have my race if I can provide you my [State] driver's license or SSN? Granted, I understand that some people have common names, but how many people have my SSN or DL? No one. They are unique. Key data. Not race. Race? I get that it might matter if you've got an APB out for someone and are trying to visually differentiate between potential suspects, but this is nothing at all like that. I cannot see the logic in this. Can you explain why this is permitted?

The implications of this field being a *required* field are:

Schools must ask volunteers their race before agreeing to let them participate.
Churches must discriminate based on race in order to have volunteers in their nurseries.
Employers must ask for the race of their applicants before hiring them if a criminal background check is required.

If we are supposed to be moving to a place in our society where race is not an issue, this certainly doesn't help take the issue out of the conversation. These groups are required to get this or they must tell people, as I have been told, that I am not allowed to participate. Does the organization look as if race matters to them? Yes. Does it look like the State cares what your race is? Yes.

I understand that our government is a reflection of the involved people in our society; a reflection of their votes of confidence. And since I don't care what my race is, and most I know don't care, why is this being brought up? Again, I know when visual search is required, skin tone might matter, however, not when unique data sources are available. I am asking you for clarification because this seems so logical to me, I must be missing something. You, being involved on a day to day basis in this operation, perhaps can explain this to me.

I eagerly await your response,

With all respect,

[me]

UGH!!! Am I crazy? I am the only person who seems to notice this? Thinks its odd? Sure I could go off and... well I would if I had the energy... on this race baloney. Ok. Maybe just a shortlist:

'White' is a color... not a race. Ditto for 'black'.
If white and black are 'races' then why not 'brown'? Most are...
Seriously... who lives on the Caucus Mountains?
Are the inhabitants of the island of Lesbos ALL Lesbians? (ok... so that's digressing a bit... not really so much about race as label)
If you're 'hispanic' AND 'black', then what do you do?
If you're 'black' and don't look 'black', are you 'black'? How do you determine? Is there an empirical test? Luminocity? SPF? Melanin count?

I am so tired of this labeling. I feel like I am always caught up in it. My eyes... they're not really brown. Sort of green. But brown. I had to pick an eye color while filling out the driver's license at the secretary of state. I wrote in 'Khaki'. Seemed a reasonable compromise. Apparently, they're more interested in compliance than accuracy. I had to pick green or brown. I went with brown. You at least know the real truth.

So I wait to find out what my state tells me about their requirement to know my race in before I can read Green Eggs and Ham to my son in his school. I am not trying to make an issue of this. I just want to participate... without the profiling. So when the reply comes, asking me again if I'll just make it easier for everyone and just fill out the form like everyone else, my reply will be:

Not in a plane,

Not on a trane,

Not in a box

Not with a fox...

Anniversal Thought

2008-07-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

(repost from Oct0ber 2006)

Anniversal Thought: My Anniversary was Monday. I wrote this in my journal... not really intending to send it to anyone. But finishing as much as I could before work called for me, I decided to send it along to my wife, with a note telling her that "this was in my journal today, I thought you might want to know". She thought I meant "BLOG". I meant journal. Diary. She posted it.

Oops. Ok... for a second that I kinda had that awkward-forgot-to-put-on-my-pants-before-leaving-the-house look, but then I realized it was just not a big deal. It was for her... and if other people care to know, then so what? I don't. So in the spirit of glasnost, I am sharing it with you here: regard it as you wish, if at all:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At a glance little has changed from any other day. A seemingly familiar moment. The van hums along, the rotary of the tires on the road, the inane babble of radio sports guys, boxes shifting in the back of a cluttered minivan. These fall trees bend over the road in their final burst of color before withering away. An expressway looms out there somewhere to lead me to my next appointed task.

I've been here before. So many days that seemed like this with swirls of coffee poking through my travel mug, but not so. The calendar reminds me I have been married 13 years today. Thirteen years. How can that be? Considering my numerous identity changes via serial maternal remarriage, I cannot imagine this fidelity exists. Yet here it is.

Hindsight has shown me a pattern of fearful protection and estrangement that at a glance looks a lot like me: aloof, thoughtful, quiet, alone. I know many, and befriend few. Its not about trust... I trust we all fit a role when the circumstances fit. No... Its more about something else. I am not sure what exactly to call it. Acceptance? I don't want anyone's. But, in my reclusive innerspace I've felt alone. For so, so long. Its easy to find a rut, to avoid the awareness of change and growth... These routines help. The radio and the swirling wisps of coffee steam are a great sedative tonic, and with them, I could lose myself for years without paying not to the precious moment that is here. The calendar reminds me.

The leaves looked just like this 17 years ago as I walked to a dorm with my friend Garry. He knew some people. I went along with a few guys. I am not sure if I said anything, but I was supposed to interview sorority girls as part of pledging my fraternity. I remember seeing her for the first time and she was so beautiful. Luminous eyes that looked right through me, past the thin veneer I tried to put up and into a place I let know one see. It was hard to breathe. The moment passed. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was weird. I'm not sure she even noticed me, but I felt so exposed. I didn't try to talk to her afterward. She was beautiful. Stunning. She had certainly a long line of better men awaiting a chance to see her. Honestly, I am not sure I liked the idea of feeling so vulnerable.

Yet I did. After the shock wore off, I thought about it. I'd felt so alone. That no one would want to be in that place with me. Someone would see me, my need: see me and go. That was a pain I didn't want to think about. There were other things to think about... An education. A career. So I found a routine... A distraction... Time went by.

The following March, I stood in the foyer of the fraternity house watching drunk people. Somehow I got stuck being the Safe-Ride on St. Patrick's Day. Not that I was into green. I hated the idea of anyone telling me what to do. Wear green? Whatever. I probably looked more like Johnny Cash than St. Patrick. It was hard to hear... Hard to mingle with drunks who, despite their oblivion smell like cigarettes and beer to those with any remaining sense. Honestly... I was miserable. My heart was as dark as my clothing.

And then I saw her again. She was dressed like a Leprachaun! And she had a friend with her... She mingled, danced, hugged people and then walked up to me. She said something. I'm sure I couldn't understand... The noise from the music, or my chest pounding... She and her friend made smalltalk. I tried not to look at Lisa. When my eyes met hers I felt a tightness in my chest. Tingling. Is that what they mean by electricity? The night was a blur. She was also a safe-ride. Weird. What are the odds. We talked. She was interested in talking to me. I wanted to take her up into my arms and kiss her... But couldn't. She needed a ride to her dorm at night's end. I was happy to oblige. She stood there waiting for me as I got out of the car. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to kiss her. She looked at me. I wanted to kiss her. I gave her a hug.

I am so lame.

Lame.
Lame.
Lame

She dated me! I fell in love with her. Did I? Fall? I was afraid of how much I felt for her. Worried about being seen for the person that I am and unwanted. And how could she possibly want me? Why me? It could be anyone. It was so hard to imagine. But she was there. She was with me as the season passed in school, and I felt a growing comfort in being loved despite my fears... And growing routine.

I worried about my career. What I'd be... If I'd be any good. I wanted to help people. Touch lives. Felt like I had no choice but what I should do with my career. My heart was not in it. I was afraid marriage would ruin my postgrad work... Lack of attention to devote. Fear of two kinds of failure. Simultaneously. But I felt love. And a sense that it was unsure what would come next.

I asked her to marry me. She said yes. I have never been more grateful.

I graduated. We married shortly thereafter. It was a cold overcast day, like this one. It rained slightly. The sky brooded and loosed short tantrums of rain. I waited for someone to pick me up. We were late. The cumberbuns did not match. Someone ran to get it fixed. I stood in the middle of a two lane street, no cars to be seen anywhere. Just a soft misting rain. Leaves in full color stretching over the street, collecting in harvest toned piles along the curb.

I was nervous.

The ceremony began. I was so nervous. She walked down the aisle... Those eyes. She was so beautiful. So happy. And she looked into my eyes. I felt tears coming. I tried to look away. Think about something else. But I couldn't. I wanted to feel it all. The everything. It was so hard to taken in. I felt overwhelmed. My lungs seemed too small. I tried to breathe.

The minister asked me to repeat after him. I could barely speak. I felt an infinity of tears welling up inside of me, the release of a lifetime of fear, of not being wanted, loved, accepted. I tried to speak clearly. My words work hoarse. A scant whisper.

She held my hand and looked into me and smiled. I will never forget that gaze. Then she looked right at me and said her vow, to love me, in sickness and health, for richer and poorer, and forsaking all others said she'd love me til death parted us... Thirteen years ago.

And so much has changed. And not changed. I'm more honest now about my fears, but probably don't show it any better. I still reach for defensive rountines full of nothingness... Television, work, excercise, food. But I've been able to see through it all that she loves me. She loves so freely. She is more beautiful than ever. And I've learned so much about life because of her. I've seen love. God can be no more gracious.

But marriage hasn't made me a perfect man. No... I still wonder how she could love me... what it is that I do for her. I still feel unworthy of the gift I've been given. I am grateful. Humbled. Over time I've seen conflicts and traumas, and she loves me. I see it. Feel it. We've made kids together that share in her gifts. Beautiful people.

I feel so much for her; a love that is comfortable and uncomfortable. The routines feel good until they become routine... And then she changes. Another facet turn of a priceless gem. She hates routine... And I see than I can choose to curmudgeon, or drink deeply from her cup of life. A drink that is different every minute.

So at a glance, the rain, the coffee... The radio guy. Its all like every other moment. A reminder on the calendar asks me to make this real. To see it for what it is. And I do... And its so beautiful, I feel so happy... I feel tears welling in my eyes. And a doctor's office waits for me. I have to think about them now... Or I'll be a mess.

Hi! I Am Self Absorbed!

2008-07-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

How are you?

Really... I mean that.

How ARE you? Sometimes people say that and don't really want to know. This is makes for terrific awkwardness, as no one wants to suddenly realize that the painful rectal itch they've just mentioned was not well received in conversation. The inability to read the intent of the inquiring conversant makes for blithe, meaningless words. In order to play it safe, you might just posture and make say all sorts of foolishness, like:

Good: Are you that ready to break into that level of qualitative assessment so early? Seems a bit premature that such an ejaculation, but I wouldn't presume to know. I mean really... Goodness? Proclaiming it outright, just like that? Summarily? Thats a little ballsy in my book. This answer from an unsuspecting miscreant is the worst... I suddenly am torn between conversing and investigating this alleged 'Goodness'.
Fine: Another in similar context. You're 'fine'. Ok... What would you say to me assessing you as honestly a bit coarse? I mean if you drink beer out of a can, its it ever possible to be fine? Or a think of delicacy for that matter... Seriously? Don't make me talk about finery. Don't do it. The only saving grace of this word is the potential to mean 'unique'... 'rare'. That I would buy... If only the other person did too. That could make me digress on my initial digression and move into the area of equality and the misuse of that word. A load of populist savagery that one has become... But perhaps we'll tackle that another day.
"Ok": I'm sorry... THIS IS NOT A WORD! Its origins are suspect to begin with. Its a statement of mediocrity. Ambivalence, or worst; carelessness. Burping in response to the question ("How are you") has more real emotional intent. Don't give a damn? Tell'em you're ok, ok?
Well: This is my favorite, not simply because it is grammatically correct, but because of its tremendous flexibility. A sea of ambiguity wherein you are free to work:
- Well...: The basic statement of health.
- wHell! ...: There is a story coming.
- -Whale? ...: You're just not sure.
- weLL? ..: I guess this is it... Resigned.

In general, 'well' has the utility of 'set' right away in the beginning of conversation. Versatile... noncommital... ambiguous. Love that. And getting back to the point before I actually made a point, to the first digression, you don't really care... Do you?

Please don't take this the wrong way. But of the percentage of encounters wherein you actually inquire as to the wellbeing of the other, how often do you mean it? You know... That feeling of excitement: "Hey! How ARE you?" Most of the time its the same tone reserved for hotel conventions and the social time allotted to 'mixing'. "How are you?" is a lifeless, tired thing for me in that place. I'm not sure I want to know... Less sure I want to ask... And I sound like a petulent toddler being told to say he's sorry.

And so, perhaps this is nearing the heart of the matter: care. It should seem impolite to not inquire into the wellbeing of someone you happen upon. Yet is it less impolite to not care and still ask?

Why should you? There is an infinity of things upon which to engage in this moment. Places to go, things to do, stuff to remember. Maybe that's max capacity, or you think it is... Because its the realm of the known? Because it cannot be fully attended? Because your own navel seems so much more appealing?

No. That just feels wrong. So why not care? What is the risk? That you may see your humanity in that person loathed in a glance? Because the stunning exterior of that person is shiny like their hairspray and it makes you wonder about what you are not? Because you don't want to be summarily rejected? Because you don't want to see the paltry differences separating you from me. You and I... I realize I am talking about me here. Not you... Sort of a quaint irony.

I am left to revisit a conversation with my own child about food. My daughter didn't want to try something new because she didn't know what it would be like. Would she like it? Would she hate it? Rather than risk the best, she accepted the worst: nothing. I pointed out how she seemed eager enough to get off of soy formula as a baby in exchange for real food. And if she didn't care to know, she never would.

And looking back at these words, I can only laugh. There's something funny about this to me. Maybe that I orginally started to a letter to a friend and these words turned into a rediculous monologue. Consider this in a letter... now you know what its like to get one from me. I laughed, because I see frankly I do this a lot in a certain grade of company. Not intimate acquaintance... but people I like. In fact I do it all the time... I think I made a career of it... this nervous tick. Monologuing. Distracting. Amusing. Irritating. To be honest, I always thought it was about someone other than me. Its not. Its all about me. I guess I am just self absorbed. We probably have a lot in common...

So...

How are you?

I'm well.

An Eye For An Eye Making The World Blind

2008-07-13T09:02:00.000-07:00

: Morning came well before I was ready for it. A combination of meds seemed to keep me awake well beyond the limits of my usual sleep pattern, but not for my kids! No, they were bounding about when I awoke. I could hear them doing lord-knows-what in the floors below. So, glancing at my wife's gracefully somnilent form, I got up staggered to the shower.

The shower's such a handy thing... a malodorous cure and a relaxing place to think. So I did. First I thought "hey! who used all the shampoo" but then as the monotony of the routine took over, I started to think about other things. There's a cease-fire underway tomorrow. Israel will stop bombing what's left of Lebanon. And in an effort to get ready for the hiatus, there's a push to destroy as much as possible. There is a sadness about this suffering that will not rinse away. In that moment hunting about for some other shampoo, I'm thinking about the fact that some evil genius has developed a formulation that will blow up airplanes and moisturize dry and damaged hair. Impossible to imagine.

Mindlessly I get out of the shower and fumble about the routine of getting dried off and dressed. From the vent at my feet I can hear the gleeful shriek of my middle child and someone else making an animal sound. There is no intermediate volume in my home, just on and off. And thinking they'll need food or find it themselves, I hurry. Brushing my hair and teeth at the same time. Grabbing the aerosol deodorant as I look about for my pda. Suddenly my eyes are on fire. I'd sprayed the deodorant, but in my haste, did not look to see in which direction. A blast of butane propelled Cool Fusion is melting my eyeballs! Reaching for the sink I rinse. It burns. I repeat. Still burns. For some reason this stuff seems to repel water, oh... right. Its a deodorant.

Its a DEODORANT! I use soap to wash that off in the shower!! So blindly I search for the soap, lather, and I wash only to realize I AM PUTTING SOAP IN MY EYES! Before my eyes burned, but they at least smelled good. Now they were soapy and no matter how much I rinsed, I could not seem to get all of it off. Ouch! And however rediculous it sounds, when you NEED to rinse your eyes, you can't. They don't want to open. I tried and tried and the kept closing. So I'd fill my hands with water, hold it to my eyes, and open and close and the water poured from the spaces between my fingers. It wasn't working, but I was not going to try conditioner, no matter how dry my eyes were.

My ankles were aware of the nubby cotton towel and with a blind swoop, grabbed and dabbed. And dabbed. And blinked, waiting for the pain fade, then chuckled. My mind, vastly contemplating fighting and death and airport security and happy semi-ferrel kids, had not considered the many small and essential tokens in that present moment. I wasn't paying attention, and the chuckle was from imagining what my mother would say if I'd done that as a kid. Frankly, it would be more of a look than a word from her; something mixed between pity and wonder for this son of hers who is alternately bright and retarded.

So I dressed in about 200 blinks, found my groggy wife and kissed her a few times (I wonder if she could smell the deodorant on my face... she's like a hound dog that way... *gasp*... did I call my wife a dog? This is obviously untrue, but I begin to digress...) and went downstairs where my happy kids ate fruit and cereal and watched Scooby Doo cartoons.

Notes From A Summer Day, Long Past

2008-07-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Summertime!: Its warm. I got up late... something like 10:30 and the kids were willing around patiently eating bananas as their babysitter, Spongebob, taught them how to use sentence enhancers. It was 3am by the time the last guest left last night.

Kids wanted to get out of the house... I wanted a shower. We compromised. I cleaned up and they waited. Mom had a migrane. I could feel it then... the cool air blowing in off the late was already pretty warm. It was going to be hot.

The idea of being outnumbered at breakfast 3:1 seemed insanity to my lovely wife. I suppose it is. But we went anyway and caught a break. They were angels.

We had a blast... Bought some stuff to fix the sprinkler system and more propane for the tank. Boring to kids. The highlight of the trip was looking at toilets at Lowes... cracks me up. Three kids sitting on the toilets while a clerk watches nervously to see if they're actually using it.

I stopped and treated them to ice cream. They've been great. Then it was a mess... and the youngest fouled his pullup (cannot wait til that is over) and is now freeballing at the park where I jot this note. We found a creek as we walked here and climbed around under the bridge and sat along the banks... splashing our feet. Its hot, maybe 90 and the water felt great.

There is a moment there in the creek, when all you can see are the rocky banks and water creeping over, trees leaning in toward this hidden, babbling secret. Blue jays hopped from branch to branch and butterflies fluttered on the bank. One flew up to Noah, my four year old. He screamed and ran in a frenzy toward the car with the tiny yellow lepidoptera behind him, following lazily. I tried so hard not to laugh.

So now I sit under this elm tree and the kids have come back... "We're boiling hot dad, can we play in the river?" Sure. How can I resist? This is the best of times. Welcome to summer.

Can You Control Immigration?

2008-07-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

Can you control migration? At first glance I didn't see anyone checking IDs on geese coming and going from Canada. How come they can come over with the Avian flu and my wife's great-great grandmother was not allowed to come to America because she had dementia. That's not right. No one was in danger of catching Mad Italian Disease, she was just old and forgetful. Bird flu? Could be contagious. So you're saying perhaps that the geese aren't human? Hmmm. That's a good point. But the people in charge of 'controlling' the migration of people refer to the unwelcome guest as 'aliens'. Not particularly human either. I make a weak and silly argument here, but only because I find this premise weak and silly.

I do not believe you can control the migration of people, or anything, for that matter when they feel the need to be there. Who assumed this was possible? Based on what experience? As I recall, a long time ago, before we called it America, there were people who lived here. Poor guys. First we called them Indians because like fools our forbearers thought they found India when they got here. Then we felt guilty and called them 'natives'. Either way, they were here first. They witnessed the rampant migration of this pale-skinned pestilence that defiled so much of what they found sacred. Ask them how controlling illegal immigration went. Trail of Tears, anyone?

The question that I ask is this: Can you deny something's will to promote its best interest? Sure you can try, but can you do it? The United States has had a policy on immigration for years. Law. They didn't want blacks unless they were slaves. They didn't want 'undesirable' ethnicities. The Chinese that built the railway system in our nation predated this flap over Mexico by at least 100 years. Immigration opened to certain 'kinds' of people over time, but there were rules to prevent too many of one type from infiltrating the culture. That is the foolishness to which I refer.

In this country, we all came from somewhere else. Legal or not, someone was willing to bet their livelihood, and perhaps their very life on the odds of a better future here. Can you stop that any more than you can stop osmosis? And how much energy do you want to put into preventing people from being your neighbor? When I think about the compelling need to find a better life, about the hardship of leaving everything you've ever known, I would not listen to a bureaucrat deciding they couldn't allow any more of my kind. I'd be here anyway. I would about as well as the colony at Roanoke did. Damn the torpedoes. Try to prevent me from living what I think is a better life for me and I will make it my life's work to be here. And that of my children. Arrest me. Deport me. I will return. Beat me. Kill me. I will be laid to rest in the land of my desire. You cannot legislate my will to live.

Jesus Had A Hot Ass!

2008-07-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

: Mark 11:1-7

And when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Beth'phage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, 2: and said to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat; untie it and bring it. 3: If any one says to you, `Why are you doing this?' say, `The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.'" 4: And they went away, and found a colt tied at the door out in the open street; and they untied it. 5: And those who stood there said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?" 6: And they told them what Jesus had said; and they let them go. 7: And they brought the colt to Jesus, and threw their garments on it; and he sat upon it.

Sitting in church yesterday was a strange experience. For years I've attended. As long as I can remember and I know the stories well. I've read most of them, been in group discussions about them, and read opinions about what other people thought they meant. That was good enough for me for a long time. Perhaps I was busy frying other fish. But recently something has begun to change in the way I hear things. I seem to be actually listening. I guess I always have listened, but listening and thinking perhaps is a better way to put it. And now the church is a different place. Not a bad one by any means; it is a better representation of what people can do when they are not focused so selfishly on themselves... but...
I just don't like being told what to do. That's it. Call me stubborn. I'd be the guy going to war over the price of tea. My grandfather called these molehills 'the mountain I was prepared to die on' with his best middle eastern flourish. And I like church, like the Bible (as entertaining literature), and think some of the philosophy is good. But I am not buying what I am told without some critical reflection. Call me Thomas.

It started with the idea some months ago that I wasn't actually a sinner. That I am not, in fact imperfect. We are all, in fact perfect. I blogged on it somewhere in greater detail but the idea in summary is that if we are truly like snowflakes, one of a kind, then we are a statistical sample of one, which by definition is the standard of observation... or perfect. Or perhaps, religiously, if you believe in a divine god why would it create imperfect creations in its own image? That seems wholly illogical. And literalists often mention Eden, which is a great story. One of my favorites about human nature. It really is the story of all of us... amazing considering how very old it is. Our nature is essentially unchanged after all that time. But were it real, that an all powerful god, a creator who could create a universe in a week, could not adequately protect a fruit tree? That is simply not possible. Since this time, the liturgy has taken on a new meaning. The stories are seemingly new again, which is actually nice. Refreshing, even.
But yesterday Jesus stole a donkey. I have never seen until know, but I totally get it. He was running a scam. And its a funny one. No one was hurt. The hot 'wheels' were apparently returned later, but Jesus told two of the disciples (whose names Mark omits to hide the crime ;) to basically steal a ride. Its not uncommon to park on the edge of town as it kept the smell down and I could imagine them being conveniently located on the outskirts. Two strange men coming up and telling them their lord had need of the animal and would bring it right back would not be odd sounding to men charged with livery. All sorts of lords rode through and rarely got their own steed. Why would this be any different? He stole the mule. That ass he was riding on was hot!

I think that is hilarious! It certainly takes nothing away from other good things he did. In fact, I'd like to look more carefully through the Gospels again. Perhaps some find it sacrilege. We all are entitled to an opinion on the subject. This is mine. It makes me smile. Religion needs a better sense of humor. I think I like this guy more and more.

Hate Mail To The Wall Street Journal Regarding Pharmaceutical Coverage

2008-07-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

(reposted from 3/2006)

This story ran in the Wall Street Journal yesterday and was forwarded to me by a relative. I read it and was really angry. Angry because they spoke to me like I was an idiot, unable to decide what I needed for myself, angry because they made casual assumptions about an industry that saves lives, and because there was no actual reporting. No investigation. No verification. And it ran on page one.

So before I go off the deep end, I will admit that I am a drug rep. Sure, its an easy job to poke fun at. People do all the time. I don't mind. My work is helpful and I see the impact on the community in which I live. But don't take my word for it. Read the story. Read my response to the editor. What do you think?

PAGE ONE

Negative Advertising
As Drug Bill Soars,
Some Doctors Get
An 'Unsales' Pitch

By SCOTT HENSLEY
March 13, 2006; Page A1

PHILADELPHIA -- Like salespeople for pharmaceutical companies, Kristen Nocco shows up in doctors' offices with slick brochures, well-rehearsed talking points and the budget to buy lunch.

But Ms. Nocco's goal is the opposite of the company people: She wants doctors to consider alternatives to expensive brand-name drugs.

Ms. Nocco, who used to be an Eli Lilly & Co. saleswoman, is part of an "unsales" team funded by the state of Pennsylvania. Its message is honed by Harvard University professors who say they're trying to help doctors make decisions grounded in scientific evidence instead of company marketing. Many of the approaches Ms. Nocco advocates -- such as cheap generic drugs and lifestyle changes -- would cost less, too. Some of her talking points take on top-selling drugs such as AstraZeneca PLC's Nexium for heartburn and Pfizer Inc.'s Celebrex for arthritis pain.

The effort comes as states and employers are reeling from ever-higher bills for prescription drugs. Pennsylvania alone spends about $3 billion a year on drugs for state employees, poor people on Medicaid and elderly people eligible for a generous drug-assistance program.

Pharmaceutical companies go to great effort to ensure that doctors think of brand-name products when they pull out their prescription pads. While the most visible part of that effort is a barrage of television ads, companies spend more money addressing doctors directly. Makers of brand-name drugs employ more than 90,000 salespeople in the U.S. at a cost of more than $12 billion a year, according to Amundsen Group, an industry consulting firm.

These "detailers," so called because they can recite drug facts from memory, crowd into doctors' offices, handing out pens and notepads emblazoned with brand logos and hoping to corner the doctors for a minute or two to deliver a sales pitch. Companies track doctors' habits by purchasing data collected when pharmacies fill prescriptions. A company knows which doctors are friendliest toward its drugs -- and which salespeople are the most effective.

Now a wave of generic alternatives to some of the nation's best-selling drugs is sweeping into pharmacies as old patents expire. Generic copies of Merck & Co.'s blockbuster cholesterol drug Zocor will go on sale in June and could be prescribed in place of Pfizer's branded drug, Lipitor, the industry's No. 1 seller with 2005 U.S. sales of $7.4 billion. But generic companies don't have huge sales forces behind their products.

That's one reason some organizations are fielding their own representatives to make sure the new generics and other alternatives to brand-name drugs are getting used. At Kaiser Permanente, the big California health-maintenance organization, one part of a broad doctor-education program looks for doctors who seem to be overprescribing or underprescribing certain pills. Kaiser then sends pharmacists or senior doctors to advise these outliers.

Medco Health Solutions Inc., which manages drug benefits for large employers, sends pharmacists to encourage doctors to use generics. Governments in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom also seek to educate doctors in their own offices.

Ken Johnson, a spokesman for the drug trade group PhRMA, said in a statement that the industry encourages doctors to study a variety of information. But he said "it would be a big mistake to discount or ignore information provided by sales representatives who work for the companies that spend 10 to 15 years developing each new drug." Companies "have the most information about new treatments," he said.

'Academic Detailing'

At Harvard, Jerry Avorn, a professor of medicine, has been a pioneer in what is called "academic detailing." He says the goal is to use industry sales techniques -- such as boiling down material to a few bullet points -- to deliver a message based on evidence about what works best.

Thomas Snedden, who runs the Pennsylvania Department of Aging's drug-assistance program, called on Dr. Avorn when he wanted to counterbalance brand-name marketing. The department, via a contractor, agreed to pay a foundation led by Dr. Avorn $3 million over three years to put an "unsales" force in the field.

Pennsylvania has long tried to influence prescribing by doctors in the state. In the early 1990s, Mr. Snedden's department took advantage of computerized ordering systems at pharmacies to block state payments for Halcion, a sleeping pill then linked to violent agitation especially in the elderly. Worried that doctors were ignoring heightened warnings, the state started rejecting prescription claims for Halcion. Prescriptions dropped 95% in a month, Mr. Snedden says.

Mr. Snedden acknowledges that overriding prescriptions at the pharmacy isn't popular with doctors or patients. "We're trying to go directly to the physicians, instead of the pharmacists, and have a dialogue with them about prescribing practices that we think should be corrected," he says.

That's where Ms. Nocco, a 37-year-old pharmacist, and her seven colleagues come in. Their goal is to get busy doctors to set aside time to hear a presentation. Since September, the Pennsylvania unsales representatives have made contact with doctors about 1,500 times and conducted more than 400 educational meetings.

One morning, Ms. Nocco walked into a doctor's office in the Olney neighborhood of North Philadelphia. Like drug companies, Dr. Avorn's organization had done its research and knew the doctor was a heavy prescriber of drugs to the elderly. Ms. Nocco found a waiting room packed with patients. Two drug-company representatives stood between her and the receptionist's desk. She turned on her heels and hustled back to the parking lot, figuring she might have better luck at the next office on her list.

"Having failed so many times, it doesn't bother me anymore," she said. She was in a hurry to squeeze in one more appointment before a lunch meeting nearby that took weeks to set up.

In the beige Mazda minivan that doubles as family taxi and mobile office, Ms. Nocco pulled out a sheaf of maps and driving directions she had printed from the Internet. She lives in Philadelphia's Center City with her husband and two children and is still learning her way to the 75 doctors in her territory.

Twenty minutes later, she arrived at the next stop and lucked out. The doctor overheard her explaining the program to his receptionist, put aside a patient's file and invited Ms. Nocco inside for a two-minute chat. He asked her to call later to schedule a longer appointment.

Though Ms. Nocco believes she carries a more enlightened message than her corporate counterparts, she faces the same barriers to getting in the door. "Until you prove yourself, they're going to treat you like a drug rep because you are," she says. "You're asking for the same thing: their time."

Unlike company representatives, she doesn't have any coffee mugs, clipboards or other logo-festooned items to give to doctors or their staff. To break the ice, she uses her one advantage: her link to Harvard and Dr. Avorn. She carries a letter of introduction from the professor and tells doctors they can have a free copy of his book on the drug industry if they listen to her spiel. Or they can choose from two general-interest medical books by Harvard doctors.

Also, Harvard has certified the content of her talks and brochures as educational. Doctors who listen to the material and pass a short quiz receive continuing-medical-education credits, which many of them need to maintain their professional certification.

Dr. Avorn is confident his team can get traction despite being outnumbered. "Doctors know when they're being sold a bill of goods, and they know when they're getting the straight scoop with no hidden agenda," he says. "They crave the latter, and they know they hardly ever get it."

Mr. Johnson of the drug-industry trade group said company representatives are well-trained to answer doctors' questions about proper use of drugs and noted that they must comply with strict federal regulations on what they can say.

Modest Goals

Ms. Nocco aims to sit down four times a year for 15 minutes or longer with the doctors she has been assigned. All told, the unsales representatives are targeting about 1,000 doctors of the 26,000 across the state. For now, they are being judged by how many meetings they get with doctors. Mr. Snedden says it's too soon to detect any impact of the unsales program in Pennsylvania, but "ultimately, we need to see a change in the prescribing patterns."

Just before noon, Ms. Nocco arrived at the office of a group of geriatricians on the campus of Jeanes Hospital in the leafy Fox Chase district. In the lunchroom under a purple wall clock bearing the logo of AstraZeneca's Nexium, the heartburn pill, she unwrapped a tray of Italian hoagies delivered by a shop she discovered in South Philadelphia when she worked for Eli Lilly.

She left the drug maker in 1998 to go into advertising, specializing in prescription drugs at a small agency in Philadelphia. After leaving the agency because of family responsibilities, she worked on another academic detailing project that led to her current job in the Pennsylvania program.

Over lunch, she told three doctors about the program and joked, "I'm redeeming myself now" after years working for the drug industry.

Her subject was managing pain without Merck's Vioxx and Pfizer's Bextra, two drugs that were withdrawn from the market over safety worries. Pfizer still sells a similar drug, Celebrex, which costs about $80 for a month's supply. Ms. Nocco suggested over-the-counter alternatives such as naproxen or acetaminophen, which is best known by the brand name Tylenol. The drugs cost less than $9 a month, she said. If they don't work, she suggested prescription alternatives, including some generics. She went on to discuss a variety of options for severe pain.

After almost an hour, Martin Leicht got up to leave. "This was much more fun than a drug-rep lunch," Dr. Leicht said. "They won't come in and say, 'Use Tylenol first.' "

Recently Ms. Nocco and her colleagues have been targeting overuse of costly heartburn pills called proton-pump inhibitors. These drugs, which include Nexium, can cost more than $100 a month. Patients need to take them every day.

The unsales representatives say many people can find relief by watching what they eat or taking inexpensive over-the-counter medicines such as antacids and Zantac. If neither of those remedies works, patients can try a proton-pump inhibitor -- perhaps starting with Prilosec, a chemical cousin of Nexium that is available more cheaply over the counter. Prilosec or Nexium may only be needed for a few weeks before patients are weaned off, according to the unsales pitch.

Cynthia Callaghan, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca, says in an email that the older drugs may be appropriate for some people but she says clinical-trial data show Nexium offers superior relief. Sales of Nexium, AstraZeneca's biggest product, increased 18% to $4.63 billion last year.

Nexium alone accounted for more than $15.2 million, or 2.8%, of total drug spending by Pennsylvania's elderly assistance program last year, or 15 times the annual budget for the unsales representatives. William Trombetta, professor of pharmaceutical marketing at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, says: "Given the price of Nexium, it would not take much in terms of switches to more than cover the state's detailing cost and then some."

Write to Scott Hensley at scott.hensley@wsj.com

I will freely admit that I was ticked off. Not so much professionally, after all, people are entitled to their opinions and if you don't like what I do, well you don't. That's ok. I do. That's why I do it. But as a consumer, I am really irritated. As a consumer of news, I expect a place like this to actually look into some facts before they throw something on page one. Or if it is opinion... well put it on the OPINION page. The news is pretty easy that way. But as a medical consumer? This bugs me even more. I ask my doctor to heal me. I am sick. They give advice. PRESCRIBE therapy (not REQUIRE). Maybe write a script for an agent to help. If its more than I want to pay I ask for a generic. He'll warn me if there are any problems with that. We decide. This arrangement makes sense to me. I am responsible for me. He knows what works best in his opinion (and if I don't like his opinion, there's always someone else). This article makes me feel like I am helpless to say no. I am too dumb to be responsible for taking care of myself. Grr... So here's the response. What is your opinion?

Date:	Tue, 14 Mar 2006 05:12:02 -0800 (PST)

Subject:	Poor attempt at journalism
To:	scott.hensley@wsj.com

Mr Hensley,

I am disappointed that a publication of the quality of WSJ allowed your visciously one-sided piece to run. The piece is stunningly uninformed. Just a few examples:

"trying to help doctors make decisions grounded in scientific evidence instead of company marketing." Did you interview anyone in a drug company, either in Market or R&D or Sales? Is it possible that drug companies use 'scientific evidence' to promote their drugs? The assertion that they do not is simply gratuitius and can be rebuffed with a snort, which is all it merits.
The FDA has to approve all the pieces used in promotion. You made no mention of this fact. I might change the perspective of readers. It might be considered fair.
"These "detailers," so called because they can recite drug facts from memory, crowd into doctors' offices, handing out pens and notepads emblazoned with brand logos and hoping to corner the doctors for a minute or two to deliver a sales pitch." Again... stunning. You choose not to ask a physician, or a drug company about what 'detailers' are or do. You fill in an uninformed guess. Had you interviewed someone and used something other than your own opinion, you could have met a provider who realized there are merits to the use of prescription medicine. This is not a stunning revelation. And show me a company that doesn't have pens with their product on it. A car dealership. A doctor's office. They are inexpensive and are in need because patients take them from the staff. If an office didn't want pads, cups, or pens, what happens? Does someone force them to accept? Did you ask about that? Or just make assumptions. I found a lot of that.
You provided no critical examination of the purpose of 'undetailing'. Honestly my reaction was: "Who's paying for that? Oh, a government. Figures. No one can waste money better." An informed approach to examining the value of this kind of 'unsales' force would be to identify influences that determine physician decisions in healing their patients. Someone is sick enough to seek treatment and wants a course of therapy they cannot themselves naturally provide. One assumption might be that they've tried Tylenol, or other over the counter solutions. But would it hurt to find out? Isn't that journalism? I mean no disrespect, since this is your profession, but circling an unknown and coming up with ideas to understand it, doesn't that seem like a reasonable approach?
Some of these influences you might have learned about would be efficacy: it has to work. Though I am no fan personally of Lipitor, its studies show it is significantly better than Zocor in reducing cholesterol. There are studies that equate this to actual reductions in CV events. What does that mean? A government will be pressuring a doctor to write a drug that is less helpful in fighting my battle with heart disease? Why? Its cheaper. That's a story, if you ask me.
Or perhaps the influence of insurance company HMO withholdings. If you are unfamiliar with this practice, I'd encourage you to look into it. That would be consistent with my understanding of journalism. The contract typically takes a percentage of monies the insurance company owes a provider and does not give it back: they withhold it. They hold it until certain conditions are met, usually related to cost savings and generic utilization. While it looks a lot like a hostage situation, it does in fact provide a reason for doctors to already be thinking about ways to use less expensive, effective medicines. An interesting quandry. Also could have been a good element or its own story.

Instead you supplied your own opinion. Your idea of 'fair balance' in representing the story included almost 2 full sentences from a drug company association. Two sentences! That is an embarassment for an instution of the quality of your to allow, and I feel I have some basis for saying this. I was raised in a home of a newspaper man. His father worked his entire career for one. I went to journalism school at every meal. "Your mother says she loves you? Go check it out", he'd say. This is not journalism. That it could exist on Page One speaks to the reality that it is not simply your opinion you are propagating, but that of others as well. I cannot believe, for all the pens at Pfizer, that an editor or two did not review this and choose it based on its 'merits'. It is just sad.

With all due respect...

Mastery

2008-07-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

So my wife is playing with this new ipod shuffle thing that arrived at the house. She cracks me up! Says it looks just like a home pregnancy test! Damn that slays me... it does. Even has a plus and minus! How did I get it? Long, unimportant story and its free. I don't want it. She was happy to take it and play. So as she loads the software onto our computer to operate it, its asking her survey questions about her occupation. She stays home with the kids. A busy job. Lots of duties and titles. No pay... well no money... unless we sell one of the kids (note to self.... I have 3). Anyway, she was checking off job titles. Finance, Administration, Computers, Web Master. That one caught my attention. Master?

Is that a little presumptuous? Web Master? I mean it was born in a time when the pocket protector ruled the world... no one could understand what those guys were saying, but they not only weren't burned by the strange new magic, they could *gasp* USE IT! I remember this time well because I worked in finding techies for companies. The Internet was totally off the radar, except for a few guys playing D&D with their Commodore 64s. No one was around to name them, except themselves. And their decision? Master. A hearty 'screw you' to all the guys that gave them swirlies and wedgies. They are masters of their domain... compared to everyone else.

So what other jobs assert this level of bravado in their title? Zen Master, Jedi Master (kinda similar), Reiki Master (again, similar). Then some, a little less profound:

Bass Master, Master Angler (is that fish or chix? Or Fish n' Chix... Long John Silver was a Playa. You have to know it)
Drunken Master ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080179/ ) fighting AND drinking... a pair? Who'da thunk?
Jam Master... well there was only one. And his name was Jay. ( http://www.j-m-j.com/ ) And he liked his Addidas.

But seriously, rolling through GOOGLE, aside from master chefs, and gardeners... there's very little over mastery out there. This is what makes me wonder... what if we had to proclaim some kind of mastery in our work? Titles that might describe me?

Sloth Master: while I've not met any, I know how to set my motor to idle, but really I am not comfortable with master. I am more of a wondering fool. More willing to be monkish, than master.

I don't know. When I was a kid I told my 3rd grade teacher I wanted to explain big ideas with little words for people so they'd be easier to deal with. I didn't know what job that was. She didn't either. But interestingly there's a word for this, and I'm really good at it. Its really the closest thing to what I do. I take big idea and reduce them to bites. I am a master of this:

bate¹ ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bt)
tr.v. bat·ed, bat·ing, bates

To lessen the force or intensity of; moderate:

Draw your own conclusions...

Zen & The Art Of MultiTasking

2008-07-13T08:40:00.000-07:00

Its really quiet all of a sudden in my home. I look up and see that I am actually alone, the spring sunshine has faded to grey and the only thing I hear is the laptop fan out of phase with the hum of the refrigerator somewhere at the other end of the house. These are really rare moments in the life of a family guy. I love the family. But they come with 80 decibels of action and they're in bed, teeth scrubbed, blankets tucked, and I had no part of it. Where did this weekend go?

I see this two day period coming and start thinking about all the really 'important' things I need to do. Then a good part of the weekend I run around checking things off my list and trying not to make my wife break out in hives. She's lovely. A fabulous spirit... and to her, 'agenda' is the most heinus word in the English language. Cracks me up. I know she's right, but I am too stupid to not steam clean something or clean something or... they probably make a medicine for this. I am trying to do 3 things at the same time. Sometimes I do. I've been known to brush my teeth and hair at the same time, but when you get the brushes mixed up all hell breaks loose.

So getting to my point... I tend to digress a lot... and have a compulsive need to use these... points of ellipsis... That is not my point. This is: I've been trained in a culture of workers to do more. Productivity productivity productivity. More output with less input. I bought this notion for a long time, I am sorry to admit. It never occurred to me that the computer was a reason to slow down, not speed up. I can't compete with 128 bit processing. I am so easily distracted with 3 ideas at the same time. It wins. It can do the complicated grunt work and I'll do the... what is it that I'll do? Something a computer can't do.

I'll listen. Funny thing about that whole listening bit. It takes time and attention. You get a lot of information out of it and a computer can't really sort out what's important. Just people... or the ones who are listening at least. And it occurs to me that its a momentous thing... to take a moment and listen. Pay attention. Not type and listen. Not flip channels and listen. Not read and listen. Just listen. To do two things is to not fully appreciate either. Waste one moment in two half-quality attempts. But I've been doing that. I've done that. I do this. I did that.

I've been raised to try to do 2 things at the same time because its better. More stuff got done. If you could do twice that, it would be 4 times better. Like a machine. But I am more than the sum total of my honey do lists. My value is not in doing? So maybe I do dishes and listen to the radio, but I think I've wandered way off the trail somewhere. The zen moment... understanding the infinite detail of this one moment, and then this one... it is a delicate thing. Easily crushed by carpet cleaning, conversation holding, furniture dusting, blog thinking people. Sometimes I wonder if I keep moronically busy like this to avoid silence. But this feels so soothing... except for the refrigerator fan, which makes me wonder why its running all the time and if the seal needs to be replaced on the door and.... sometimes silences bring up awkward introspection. Hard to see that I could be more by doing less and that by doing more I am lessened. And am now more; seeing I am less.

Obesity Is The New Tobacco

2008-07-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

I should just stop reading. Having an opinion is not related to the quality of education. In my randomized, placebo controlled study of literati and illiterati, there was no statistical significance between groups. And being unintelligent is very zen... knowing you don't know is the first step to knowing you do know what you don't know... or something like that. Mr. Miagi started Danielsan on chopsticks right after that and I got hungry. Sorry. I get easily distracted.

So this blog is supposed to be about obesity. RIGHT! A study released by the Mayo clinic studied rates of weight loss in gastric bypass patients over the age of 60...

Doctors at the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, in Scottsdale, Ariz., compared the outcomes of 110 people younger than 60 years of age who underwent the popular weight-loss surgery, to those of 20 patients older than 60.

Both groups experienced a significant decrease in obesity-related diseases, including high blood pressure and diabetes, the researchers report in the February issue of Archives of Surgery. Both sets of patients also cut their overall use of medications by approximately half following their surgeries.

However, younger patients tended to experience slightly greater weight loss. According to the researchers, 10 months after the surgery younger patients lost an average of about 97 pounds, while patients in the over-60 group dropped an average of about 86 pounds.

Based on the findings, the Mayo investigators conclude that "patients of advanced age can safely undergo gastric bypass with operative results nearly identical to those of younger patients."

So now you all know that I don't know what I do know or unknow knowing or know unknow, or Anton Apollo Ohno, so I feel comfortable sharing my deep insights:

Isn't the easiest way to bypass the gastric system to not eat the food in the first place? I mean are people really complaining about the cost of healthcare when they afford a $25,000 procedure to keep themselves from eating the entire bag of pork rinds? Uneaten, even pork rinds are low in fat and calories!
Is it me or have my elders decided to stop saving their money for heirs? I was kinda looking forward to gold-plating my toilet with that...Maybe its just a shift in the culture... all we can really is spend time or money. So whereas before we got their money 'cuz grammy died early, or now we get grammy for another 20 years, but no money. Hmm... so much for having our cake and eating it too. Our aging elders are averaging a cholesterol med, an antihypertensive with or with a water pill, and then specializing to any number of malady maintainers... allergies, depression managers, cox-2's, all of which are good things. They improve the quality of life. That is an ostensible purpose of living, or so I thought. But this obesity procedure cuts on the razor's edge for me. Twenty-five g's is the downpayment on a house for anew generation of family... a college endowment. A cruise with the fam and memories for a lifetime? Now that technology allows so many marvels, someone has to decide whether or not they want to pay for it. Sixty year olds were having a $25k surgery to live another 12-15 years on average? I guess quality matters.

What it looks like to the cynical bystander is the harvest of the old and profit laden. These folks spent a lifetime working and saving, and experiencing life and now see that they have more money than time. Fortunately the economy's cockles are warmed when a right fat geezer is tossed on the bonfire of our vanity. Nip/tuck, take meds to seem a little less crazy, pills for erections you might break a hip using, the list is impressive. And you can't take it with you... the money that is. You can take the fat. After they embalm you, it'll have a longer shelflife than Twinkies!

I know people who have had gastric bypass and its helped them change their lives. That's cool. Radically improved lives. The people who have found these procedures are effective and relatively safe (safer than heart attacks, gout, strokes, all-you-can-eat rib tips). But what is obese? Ok, I'm thinking if you're 100lbs, you might really have a problem. Shockingly, much less. I am obese! I am obese? Huh? How is that possible?

According to the American Obesity Association, if you fat ass is a BMI of 30, congratulation we're brothers in fat. Here's the chart:

BMI: 25 30 35 40

Height (inches) Body Weight (pounds)

4’10” 119 143 167 191

5’0” 128 153 179 204

5’2” 136 164 191 218

5’4” 145 174 204 232

5’6” 155 186 216 247

5’8” 164 197 230 262

5’10” 174 207 243 278

6’0” 184 221 258 294

6’2” 202 233 272 311

6’4” 205 246 287 328

I am 6'2" and 245. I bench 300lbs, and work out 6-10 hours a week. Ok... I know I should drop a couple, but OBESE? Jabba was obese. I might have been 205 out of college some years ago, but I recall only being able to afford rice and potatoes. I could be a healthy guy at 20 pounds less, but not 40. I'd look hungry. Or like an amputee.

I sense a nationalized moment coming to save me from myself, or the costs other people have to spend on my fat ass when we socialize healthcare.

Lastly, my big-brother-black-helicopter-area-51 inner conspiracy theorist fears Fat being the new Tobacco. I first laughed at the thought, but there's too much logic in the similarity to tobacco... a person's personal choice, peripheral impact on those around them, evil purveyors of vice preying mindlessly on the mindless... After a Brave New Diet (The Huxley Diet), what could be next? Mindless purveyors of health and wellness products because we don't really need them if we live of bark and roots? Hedonists? While I generally fear isms, hedonism is nice. Its added a layer of comfortable experience between me and the harsh 6 packs of my youth.

So I've rambled but the million dollar question is this: Is it better to burn out (on doughnuts, beer, and ribs) or fade away (after 200 years of near 3rd world privation)? I honestly don't know or I don't think I know if I know... but the thought makes me hungry.

Note: This was written in 2006. Since that blog I'd ballooned another 20 lbs, then due to an extended illness and subsequent surgery, dropped 60 lbs. The point? Today I weight 198lbs... Do I seem different? Yes. Healthier. Back feels better. Blood pressure is good... cholesterol is now normal.. Amazing what happens. This blog cracks me up now in retrospect.

A Hope For Curing MS?

2008-07-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

New hope appeared today in the search for a cure to MS. Researchers noticed the plaques that develop on the myelin sheath protecting the nerve have consistent properties. Some may be potentially regenerative. I don't feel like repeating it all for you so, if you want that level of scientific detail, its here: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=38705&nfid=crss otherwise, you're probably already wondering if there's a point. There is. And its all over the place. I am having a hard time coming to the point, honestly, but its all about hope.

I think I was about 6 when my mother was finally diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. There was no way I could pronounce it. Seemed cruel. My mom was sick, and they said she'd never get better, might die, and when someone wants to know why my world is caving in, I'd blurt out 'sklwreosis'. They probably thought my problems were the result of a cleft palate. This was a very slow period of my life. Single mother hauling us around to all sorts of doctors. Martocci was the neurologist. We'd be in that office all the time, my sister and I. We had to sit in the waiting room and be quiet. Forever. Magazines like TIME and BusinessWeek. We were used to fighting, it was the form of entertainment we knew best with each other, but had it on good authority we'd both get skewered if we made a scene. We were there a lot. I never knew why. And other doctors too. No one knew what was wrong for a long time. She just got more and more weak. Pop theories. Meds that made things worse. Then her vision blurred. Then started to spin.

The doctor did talk to me once. I remember his breath; a weird grown-up coffee smell. He said that mom's disease is very serious, but there is a cure right around the corner. Right around the corner. MS is a very important disease because they think its a virus. If you can stop this virus, you may be able to stop others. It'll be the first major disease cured. I decided I would be a neurologist so I could be the guy who found her cure. I told her. She cried. I was filled with hope.

I couldn't keep MS and MD straight in my head. I watched Jerry Lewis, thinking my mom would end up like those guys. It was horrifying. The reality of MS is actually no less sobering, I just didn't know it. But I'd watch the money roll in thinking it was going to a cure for my mom. When Eventually it dawned on me the D was for Dystrophy, so I did MS readathons and read books like each page might be the next cure for my mom. Other kids had remote control cars and comic books. I had a microscope and studied onion peels thinking the cure to her disease lie within its cells.. I was filled with hope.

She was up and down. Remissions, attacks, remissions, attacks. Blind, crippled, bedridden, then normal. Then all over again. No one knew for how long. Or if it would last forever. Or something vital would get stifled. There was hope, but that cure wasn't right around the corner anymore. It had been 10 years. I was a teenager. They had no real treatment. Just steriods. Lots and lots of steroids. Moonface, thin skin, rediculous appetite. Water retention. And still disabled. They had all sorts of trials they wanted to put her into. "Experimental" treatments. I remember one involving a hyperbaric chamber that looked like a coffin they'd lock her in and pump it with pressurized air. What was that about? She was claustrophobic. No dice. I was glad. Primitive though it was, there was at least some treatment. There was some hope.

I went to college, graduated, settled. She was in good general health. Suprisingly. Just frail. Harder to move. My sister had 3 kids several years earlier and she could pick them all up, play with them, and even watched them. She couldn't hold my kids. Was unable to watch them. It was too much. I couldn't blame her, but it was sad. I was too late. There probably wasn't any hope. This disease's cure isn't around any corner. I am better off thinking it is what it is. Medical school? I changed my mind. Hope is for suckers.

But this discovery... it means that unlike most current conventional therapy which is suppressive, this understanding of the role of oligodenrocyte precursor cells may actually repair the damage which already exists. REPAIR. Make the blind see. The lame walk. I want to believe this. I want to think its around the corner. Now I wonder if I did go to med school if it would be around the corner... no. That's stupid and arrogant. I want so much to believe in this. I want to believe...

But pragmatism is a bitch. There is a long list of urban myths debunked in my lifetime, paradises lost. The Easter Bunny (I was actually relieved about that one... a little creepy about the thought of a giant rabbit loose in my home), Santa, various and sundry religious dogma, its a list that makes you agree with John Lennon... and Ferris Bueller. But just before I go put on my Morrissey cds and start shopping for goth gear, I stop the tantrum. Hope is not this moment, it is the next, don't I want to hope?

I want to. Really do. I just keep thinking about the definition of insanity. Regardless of the state of my mental vacillation, someone will or won't figure this out. It will or won't be in time to help in my mom's case. She'd be the person who'd tell me that it would be more important for someone younger to have it first. So I just don't know. This therapy is a new hope. I just don't know if I have the energy anymore to believe in it.

Want

2008-07-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes observation happens in the most unusual circumstances. I am not a litterati... more like illiterati. Though raised by a wordsmith, I do not consider myself one any more than Romulus and Remus are wolves. But every once in a while I'll bump into a word that I thought I knew and stupify on how I missed the rest of the meaning. Lately this is happening more and more. It probably looks like a petit mal seizure, or maybe an old computer getting jammed with a huge file to process. And I would expect this sort of thing if I was one of the many English as a Second Language people. There, that second language might just help color in the understanding of your own. That's not me. If anything, I might be illiterate in a couple languages, but not enough to dare conversation in unless pressed by dire circumstance... anyway I digress.

So in this place I call home there are all these houses that are tucked away from the madness of the urban center. The houses all look alike, are well appointed, and are generally full of people who want more stuff to put in them. I'm not saying they're bad people. They are people, and people are people; products of their choices. It is apparent from the upgraded flooring, landscaping, electronics, and cars that they want more. Somehow in the story of the American this came to be the story everyone wanted... the immigrant who comes off the boat with nothing and achieves success and comfort.

That story is so much more interesting when you look at the struggle, the rise, the learning that comes for the road. Its the destination that's a let down once you've finished the trip. Somehow I think about my ancestors and their immigrant roots and can't imagine their success defined by underground sprinkling and a three car garage. They had so little and came to find their decendents with so much.

But I am still restless. I don't want any more. I am sorry I ever did. Feel stupid for ever buying a new car when a used one would have been fine, or for buying DVD movies I still haven't watched, or for making people who know and love me feel like they need to buy me something to prove it. I have more than enough. Too much. This stuff is collecting like cholesterol in my veins. I don't want it. But I did.

And that's when I started thinking about want. All these years its been 'I want a '. I remember when all I ever wanted was a 10 speed bike. Then I got it and all I ever wanted was a stereo-cassette player- the kind with TWO tape decks... and those funny lights that blinked when music played. It seems so funny now, because they are so utterly useless to me now, like in the movie The Jerk:

Navin R. Johnson: And that's it and that's the only thing I need, is this. I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that's all I need. And that's all I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one - I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that's all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair.
[walking outside]

And then it becomes apparent to me that want is not just a desire to possess, its a personal deficiency. A self imposed void. That I lack because I choose to want. That I deny my own perfect nature in order to seek something that 'complete's me, like a paddle game. Or an ashtray. Or bamboo hardwood floors. Or a 3rd garage stall to hold all that crap I bought that I can't throw away. The story of Eden lives anew when I think about the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Funny, just one blog ago I was ripping it. Shows you what I know... only that I don't. Well, Snow White's a nice story too. Also has fruit in it if that's important to you in a tale. Sorry... I digress. It just that our want has made us wanton.

Now my sainted ancestors, forebearers of a distant age, those people for whom I am the pinnacle of their existential lineage, those whose manifest decendent has it all, is no less content than they were before they left their respective motherlands. The journey of a thousand years. A battle against privation, war, racism, only to end up with the same want, neatly appointed in the suburbs, where I want a riding lawn mower. It would complete me... until I get a satellite dish. Or a paddle game...

Mice Like Ecstacy Too!

2008-07-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

Ripped from the headlines... ok, buried in the obscure health pages:

Researchers in Italy found that an ecstasy-linked dampening of the rats' brain activity lasted long after the rodents were given the drug if they also exposed to music of 95 decibels, the maximum noise intensity permitted by law in Italian nightclubs.

If the rats weren't exposed to loud music, the drug's effects wore off within a day.

During the experiment, the team at the Institute of Neurological Science in Catanzaro monitored the rats' electrocortical activity (EcoG spectrum) using electrodes placed on the rodents' skulls. The EcoG spectrum was recorded from 60 minutes before the rats were given ecstasy and the music began, then again for up to five days after the music had been turned off.

Without music, a low dose (3mg/kg) of ecstasy did not modify the rats' brain activity any more than a dose of saline solution. However, loud music prompted significant changes in the brain activity of rats who received a low dose of the drug.

A high dose (6mg/kg) of ecstasy alone caused a reduction in the rats' brain activity and that effect was enhanced when loud music was played and lasted for up to five days. The brain activity of rats that received a high dose of the drug but were not exposed to loud music returned to normal within a day.

Rats that received saline solution and were exposed to loud music showed no changes in brain activity.

Conclusions? Well as a guy who reads science journals for a living, I have many thoughts:

What music do rodents prefer in the club? Me? Does it vary geographically? These are Italian mice... so are we talking Bochelli or Moby? Somebody help me out with a list here...
How much does it suck to be the saline mouse?
Did the E mice tease the saline mice, or did they try to love them?
Was the hangover different after it wore off after 5 days, or after 1 with low music?
Where did they find all those tiny little Seuss hats?

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D-Day

2008-07-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

Some weird accident of cosmic symmetry has my wife's family near perfectly aligned with my own. Her brother and I have birthdays a day apart. My wife and sister a week a part. My mother and mother-in-law, at the beginning and end of the same month, and our fathers on the very same day. It is known as D-Day. Two gifts send different directions on the same day. Different styles of paternal care, different expressions of love. That day is coming up. Its time to start considering how to gift and thank people who have done so much, even when they may not fully understand what it is they've done.

Understanding is based on experience and context, and I started my life with lots of experience in fatherhood. Everyone had a chance to do it, and after taking a brief turn, they seemed to disappear. Maybe that sounds like hyperbole, but when men pop up and disappear in your life just when you're trying to figure how to be like them, you have to observe quickly. So D-Day is kind of an unofficial father's day to me... to all the guys who took a turn in line, for better or worse, they've framed my experience of what it is and isn't to be a man.

My genetic donor, whom my mother originally married and divorced was a sore spot for years. He just disappeared. Gave up his rights to me, and I never saw or heard from him again. He's recently reappeared now, but at the time, I felt disposable, useless. It was a burden to care for kids as a single parent, and while I didn't understand that, I did understand that I was a burden. Its not what my mother meant, its just how it came off. She was dealing with a lot: two kids, a new business, and an emerging neurologial disease no one would diagnose for years. I blamed the guy who was missing for the problems that arose in his absence. Angrily, I referred to him as my mistake, my Faux Pa.

The next guy was a rebound marriage who frankly couldn't manage his temper, especially around me. I remember the beatings more than anything else in that part of my life, and for the arbitrary things that caused them. Taking the last piece of bacon, using too much toilet paper, dropping rocks from an overpass... ok so I had that one coming to me. They were a blur of anger, from the lashes many whippings. They seemed to never end. Until finally they did. And I came home from school one day with my mother to see that our home was completely devoid of possessions. Everything was gone. The furniture, the silverware, the TV and stereo... the checkbook. It was all gone. I thought we were robbed. He was just moving on.

And then the sickess set in. My mother got more and more weak, light headed, dizzy. She started seeing doctors who started telling her she had diabetes, hyperglycemia, and a million other things. It turns out she had multiple sclerosis. I remember moving in with my grandparents for a while after she had vertigo for a few weeks. My sister and I were in elementary school and were trying to do things for ourselves. Must have been laughable. We all lived under the stable roof of my grandfather while things sorted out. As horrible as it probably seemed to onlookers, it was a great time in my life. I was surrounded by the people I loved. And my mother was sick, unable to really look around at anything for fear of worsening the spins, but we'd sit and talk, or read stories to her. It was great. Like a really, really long sleep-over. I'd play with legos under the pull-out bed in a fort, with blankets draped over the side while mom was above, listening to my aunt read her The Hobbit. Things were good, for me. Not for her. She continued to worsen. They told me they didn't know what was wrong. People quietly whispered things to each other there like "what will we do with them if she dies?". I was more than a little nervous.

Eventually she stabilized enough to go back to her own home and we lived in a state of care between two worlds. I was angry at all these other dads for not being there and making someone else stand in. How silly... rescue is rescue. Oh well. Eventually mom's physical therapist put her up to a blind date. It was almost quite literally a blind date, as she was in a wheelchair and had only partial vision. Some guy she knew was returned from Vietnam, and having finally finished college on the GI bill, was trying to catch up on a life others got to have while he was stuck in a jungle somewhere. What a catch... crippled blind mother of two... I can only imagine her trepidation. It was a date that changed my life.

They met and fell in love. A thing I cannot possibly imagine. I see my mother, and I love her too, but it was a big, big thing to take on. This group of floundering people. I remember trying so hard to impress him, and still being afraid of him, thinking he might have a bad temper like some of them, or just leave when he felt like it. I did a magic show for him. I was maybe 5. My sister wrote letters to him almost daily, asking him to check a box yes or no if he would like to 'spand the nite'. We wanted so much to be wanted, and knew it was a lot to ask. And oddly, unbelievably, this guy actually wanted all of that. It is a gift for which I can never offer enough thanks. He changed my life. He was there. And has been.

But oddly it got harder to be there for him as I got older. Maybe he just didn't know what the job duties were anymore. Things are oddly strained sometimes. We want an ease for which we cannot find. But my appreciation cannot be lessened. I've already sainted him.

The other D I picked up with my marriage, and what a trip that was. He was a banker and all I knew was how very serious and proper he was. Or that's my impression. When I finally came to the home to meet him and Lisa's family for the first time, I was greeted at the door by her ancient grandmother who, in her excitement, bit me in the chest. Still reeling from an energetic toothing, I was introduced to her parents seconds later as: "This is Scott... he has a tattoo!" I wanted to die. But they've been wonderful family. As a father, he's another layer of support I never imagined. Always there, and whereas my father always knew how to frame a thought (he was an editor for many years), my father in law was born with the innate knowledge of the innerworkings of things. Nothing goes unfixed in my home now when he visits. A fabulous symbiosis, since most things in my home are breaking!

I have much to be thankful for on this day, as much for the people who left the void, as for those that helped fill it. Its a world that my children will never know, except through far-away tales of loss and abandonment, where the good guy gets his girls and lives happily ever after.

Post Birthday Notes: 2006

2008-07-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's birthday was fun! Wow. That's a thing I didn't expect. I don't mean to say the people I spent time with aren't a good time... They're great. I don't know what I mean I guess.

There wasn't much expectation to this, and that helps. After childhood, there isn't a lot of hoopla. I cleaned the house, so one of the the allergic guests wouldn't asphyxiate from pet dander. That's a good host sort of thing to do... But steam cleaning carpets sucks. I spent time doing all this stuff to get ready that when someone called or emailed, IM'd to say happy birthday, I was genuinely suprised.

I don't know what to expect from any day into which I awaken, but a birthday casts a sense of expectation. Like there's stuff. I am supposed to do, or others should do. A cake, candles, singing. Whatever. Honestly I can't figure out for the life of me why we do that. Does everyone like cake? Its all right, I guess. I wouldn't pick it. Singing? *Ack!* One of my few allergies includes musicals... I get hives from people spontaneously breaking into song to show affection or make a point. Honestly I thought everyone felt embarrassed when that happened. Been to Applebees or some flair chain restaurant when they sing to you? They don't like it, you don't like it... Everyone does it because its the formula. No thanks.

So this was the best way to spend a day! Lisa spent some time in the kitchen making all Lebanese food. It was the best. Spinach pies in phyllo, grape leaves, hummus and my favorite wine of all time: Chateau Musar! Five people came over and brought at least a bottle of wine with them. About a case total. We drank 7 of the 10 over the course of the night.

The ruse was to discuss a book, which we do every month between digression and digestion, and rub and rub at the most diatomaciously earthy topics. We talked about Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins. A damn funny book, but with really big ideas poking out in all directions. And the questions started coming out: "Is the rule more important than the thing it was made to protect? Without it, can you risk the change that will ensue?" It sounds easier in that format, but when its an article of religious faith, foreign policy, sexual preference, suddenly it became a lot more fun to talk about and harder to make consistent. We all got drunk on wonder, wine, and good company.

I love a world full of questions without answers. I used to feel like an idiot as a kid when I didn't know everything. When I finally digested some huge bolus of information, I learned my questions became more general and less specific and living for the insight between my eyes, I tried to fill in gaps in the things observed around me. A curious living.

So to spend time with people drunk on wonder was sublime. I didn't want songs and cake, trinkets and cardstock words written by unknown people. This was a real moment. The conversations, the IM, the wishes and thoughts. The food. And the all those spirited genies we uncorked from Lebanon, Argentena, and Spain. I couldn't have wished for anything more.

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Thoughts on Corporate Business Functions on Valentine's Day

2008-07-13T08:20:00.000-07:00

Current mood: content Honey, I got plans for Valentine's day and you won't believe it! I have reservations at the Grand Hotel! Sounds romantic... I know, but you're not invited. I'll be rooming with a 52 year old man named Terry."

A corporate valentine to my wife. I proposed to her on a cold Valentine's Day 13 years ago. Its a date I don't like missing. One of the few I get, frankly, but these guys pay the bills. That's not romantic, but its love.

So I went to the conference at the fancy hotel, oddly in my own little midwest town. Overnight stays a requirement due to the fullness of the schedule. I had four hours of materials to present on materials I could not yet read, on a laptop not yet returned from the helpdesk control group out of India. And my beautiful wife, at home outnumbered 3:1 by half ferrel children while I get mints on my pillow, valet parking, and room service for 3 days. Yeah, I felt some guilt.

Work meetings finished at 5, I went to the gym til 7, when attendance at a dinner program was required. I walked the downtown streets alone in a sea of coupled lovers, strolling arm in arm or in hansom cab. So alone. The people at the dinner were so nice. Like me, we had forsaken our loves in order to demonstrate our dedication to supporting them. But the emptiness in my heart grew as my time droned on. Introduction after introduction. Anecdotes. Old humor for new people. They like it. Its a shell. They stare stupidly at the outside and never know the person beneath it. You can know what someone does, yet nothing about them and that is who I am there. Frankly to so many, many people. And the one person who knows me, intimately, who sees through the zen bullshit and the scientific trivia, the one I love so dearly, was only 20 minutes away.

So I decided to hell with the rubber chicken dinner with it open bar of pallid, low-end alcohols. I wanted the comfort of mutual appreciation, that companionship and communion. I went home and loved her until the moment I had to leave again.

Standing in Line

2008-07-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

(I found this on my phone and apparently I forgot about it and never posted it)

A line of disparate parents snakes through the post office and out the door into the frozen December air. Last call for packages. Send them tomorrow and maybe they do or don't arrive on time. No one talks. Most just look around at the quaint turn-of-the century building: tiles, hardwood, lead paned glass. Outside these walls a quaint downtown unfolds with some dammed river rolling by: indolent.

These lines are the kind where you stand holding your package, not trying to notice the other person holding their package. I try not to make eye contact because I can't imagine anything of interest coming out of my mouth. I am not unhappy, but not really happy either. Just checking stuff off a list.

This one one of the last rites of Christmas: shipping off the gifts. Its when you care enough about your relatives to send something, just not enough to actually visit. I don't know. There's all this pressure to visit. I am a bad person for not going to see friends and family. It doesn't make me want to go more often, that's for sure. The thought of any potentially additive guilt is enough to keep me away. I am full-up on guilty here. No need for more. The crushing expense, the memories I try to avoid, the expectation of expectation. The visits. Sometimes I wish I could hide. Back up. Retreat.

And so I stand there, eyes fixed on my pile of boxes, trying not to watch the other people trying to watch their boxes. We are the same. Guilty of not visiting. Of letting a plastic toy from China speak for our hearts. Its probably why we don't look. All stares in other directions. Not the line to the sole postal agent.

We share a community of idyllic homes, manicured nails and lawns, of sanctuary from the world around us. Livestyles dearly bought. Choices made. Things picked, and cool though they may be, these picks were things. Not people. The things piling up and up into walls of suburban crap to deflect away the realities found in humanity. In the needs of the people around us. In myself. Dammed things.

So finally its my turn and the agent looks up at me, his grey hair and blue eyes curiously matching his grey-blue uniform. He takes the items. I pay, and turn quickly to leave as his toneless voice mumbles happy something or other. I want to leave. Go. Hide. Retreat. Return to my walls of dammed things and the damnation I have been practicing there. There are people in that retreat whom I love dearly. For whom I would carve an oasis from the reality of life. I love them. I want to retreat to the retreat and hold them.

Grass Roots Suburban Protest

2008-07-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

The lawn is waiting for its last manicure appointment of the year. There was frost on the lawn this morning, an elegant silver sheen punctuated by birch leaves lazily cast from a neighbor's tree. Still morning air, frigid and brisk, catches my breath like comic dialog balloons
around my head. There are so many thoughts. My head is encircled in a fog.

The deck stain is scratched and scuffed, and is only a year old. There are things to maintain. Entropy to resist. But not now. I just don't want to. I could break open a laptop and work on something for the Man, but that's not satisfying either. The air feels good, freezing slightly as I inhale. My bare feet burn from the cold of the sugar frosted deck.

Maybe I'll mow later when it warms up. Maybe not. Maybe I'll sleep instead. I'd rather sleep. Its been one of those nights as a parent when you have to earn your title. Sick kids vomiting their way to new sheets and a surprise load of midnight laundry. Awake more than asleep, I
can't feel anything. Not exhaustion, not pain, not love. Not even my feet, which should be bright red with cold by now.

I have these two choices. One I'd do for the neighbors, not me, the other for me and not the neighbors. I'm thinking I'll nap. Let the association fine me for not having the grass cut, or for having cars parked in the driveway and not in the garage. There is something stupid and
rebellious about my refusal to cooperate.

My mind skips back to a day last summer when my friend Hunter pulled into the driveway to find me cleaning my minivan to Rage Against The Machine. I'm armor-alling the dash, vacuuming the floor, cleaning fingerprints from the side windows, all to a background chorus of "fuck you I won't do what you tell me". Hunter saw me and broke into a fit of laughter, saying this was not exactly the revolution they had in mind. Sure I saw the irony. But it wasn't like Bullet In Your Head was muzak or anything... Yet. Now, however I realize the truth of that moment, not the irony.

I imagine a day 85 years ago when my great grandfather sat in a trench in France during WWI, a third of his company dead from mustard gas. The bodies still unable to be properly attended lying around. Guys he knew. He spoke good , but not perfect English. As an immigrant, it was not his first thought. Arabic was. He was a long way from either home... Lebanon or America, but by choice. The still morning air there would have been unsettling, like the eye of a
hurricane, or that moment before a storm breaks, but he wanted it this way. The injustice. The murder. The rape. It had to stop. People had to pay. He came to America and enlisted for the opportunity to fight against his oppressors. When the Turks sided with the Germans, it was clear he had to leave. He could make a bayonet just as gruesome a weapon as they did. But he wasn't catching babies on them like those bastards. Whose God could condone such an act? He was supposed to stay and take it. Agree to be cowed. Allow the rapes. Look away from the abuses.

"Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me."

He left it all behind and standing in a damp trench in the middle of the European Theater, he'd seen more death than he could have ever imagined. It would haunt him for the rest of his days. Except there were just Germans. No Turks. Same side. Same score to settle. And it was hard living. Hot and cold, hungry, unclean. Scarred by shrapnel, cold and silence. He felt worse for it all , now better. Damp trenches freezing your feet in the morning dew.

Maybe I'll stain the deck. It'll rot eventually if I don't. I really don't care if it does. Not today. I'm all thought right now and no action. My mind is wandering through all these honey do items and a parallel thought occurs to me: I don't care. Its not the mountain I am prepared to die on.

Would the 'association' fine me for my sloth? Would I pay up? Listen? Repent?

"Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me."

These associations are not tossing anyone on a bayonet. They aren't evil. They are formed with people who are seemingly normal. Formed with best-practice ideas on structure and function. Forms with a large predatory bird as its logo, oddly reminiscent of the Third Reich. Form with. With Form. Conform.

That's asking me to be like everyone else, for the sake of everyone else. A terrific bit of circular logic, since each person, their snowflake soul a divine original work, must homogenize to a lowest common denominator. Everyone. Casting away that which is divine for that which is less urbane. Suburban.

Its not that these people don't have souls, its just easier to keep them hidden, like everyone else who keeps theirs hidden. Its easier to dislike and hate people like this. To snicker about their lawn edging or catch someone's kid on a bayonet. You just aren't real if you hide
your humanity. Your fears, loves, hopes. Hide them, the society says. Seem normal. Average. Blend in.

"Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me."

Allergy

2008-07-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

She's lying down after a night of reverie, a fabulous evening of unexpected delights. In the hours before, all she knew about was a 6:30 dinner and reservations at a comedy club. She bloomed with the night's shade, funnier and more beautiful with every passing hour. Words flowed mingled with red wine and mixed company. At reverie's end, at 5 am, she laid down and sneezed. And sneezed. And sneezed.

In a couple hours kids six small feet were pounding up and down the halls like gazelles on the Serengeti. I arose, hung over and undercaffeinated, looking across the bed to my wife. Her porcelain skin glows against burgundy sheets, her curved form the desire of every sculptor since the discovery of clay. But the pillow crammed under her eye means migraine, and she's going to feel it when she's awake.

I wonder what it is that caused the sneezing, and pad slowly down the stairs, careful not to upset my fragile thought. The first visible child is running through the living room on all fours with a long string tailing behind him. He stops and looks at his butt, shaking it to see the tail wag. I smile, kiss him, and shuffle to the aspirin and coffee pot. The drawer is broken. Someone's hung on it and bent the track rollers. I wiggle, shimmy, then grip and rip it from the slot, admiring the bent metal and cursing my lack of coffee.

In the last fifteen years, I've known her and not known her. She was mysterious and beautiful then, and still is, but in a way I find difficult to grasp. She makes love seem easy to feel and hard to accept, like I couldn't possibly deserve the gift so freely given and fear having nothing to offer in return. A terminal fear. Lonliness waiting to detonate. And it was a question like this I asked her that night, between sipped wine and rare food, her merlot hair waving gently to her shoulders. Her eyes sparkled, and with a smirk told she's not changed.

But she has. She was a beat poet and a flapper girl, a nymph and free spirit in those long ago college days. The love we felt produced binding and formative changes: work, home, kids, stay-at-home motherhood. So maybe she still is a beat poet, and nymph, but reality is harsh. Did Kerouac have to yell at his kids for not flushing the toilet? Did Peter Pan ever change a diaper? If she has been the same, somber suburban life has settled in around her. My reaction has been high blood pressure medication and antidepressants. She, dressed in black beaded flapper shirt, is a Brownie mom; surreal and unchanged. Maybe she hasn't changed, life did.

So as I make coffee and wait for the sound of her groggy feet, I think about her and our anniversary today. Twelve years. How could I go to some store and buy some other guys words about a generic wife and give this to her? Does he know her? The way her subarctic toes creep across the bed to my warm legs at night? The way she's still afraid of me kissing her collarbone, suspecting after all this time I still may be a vampire. Its the widow's peak, I think. So instead I'm writing her this note, an extended thought on a trip we're still walking together. Happy anniversary.

And the sneezing from upstairs means its almost time. She'll be down soon. Kids are watching cartoon superheroes from underneath the sleeper sofa, a cotton and steel fortress. She's allergic to something around here. The meds don't help much. We've tested her. Nothing unusual, and nothing insightful. Maybe she's allergic to domesticity. That I could see. Somehow I can't see Kate Chopin scrubbing the kitchen floor and doing laundry. And this is the moment of epiphany for me, that after all this time, she's not changed, our circumstances have. I've made a life of throwing myself into those circumstances, she's been herself. Those moments I was mad at her for not becoming Betty Rubble when we had a home, I was wrong. I fell in love with Betty Boop. Its who she is. And its beautiful.

(originally written October 2005)

Faux Pa

2008-07-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

: I received a phone call tonight from 23 of my chromosomes. It is a rare event, and one call I've not known how to handle. There are long pauses, moments of hurried chat, then odd syncopated monologues, where I vamp for time, trying to figure out what I want to do with this call. Entertaining dissertation on Nothing? Real thoughts? Excuse to end the call? The last one was 8 months earlier. He was not well then either.

Please, before there is any misunderstanding- this is NOT one of those blogs from guy-that-hates-someone-for-not-doing-something. Yawn. That thought is tiring and unproductive. This is about forgiveness, redemption, and unexpected sorrow. Sometimes I miss the younger, more self-absorbed me. It was easier to miss the sorrow of everything around me.

This guy, the deep voice on the phone, was my father. It was his biological right, earned in the throws of passion and in vows of marriage. He chose to renounce them, and me. Other fathers appeared. One bad. One good. Names changed a lot, to the dismay of geneologists trying to find me in 200 years. The story ended well, with the good guy, but I not without some anger and scars. I could not see past my rage for being thrown to the wolves. It defined and blinded me. That whole happy ending part was missed somehow because there was conflict and rising action in the beginning of the story.

By the time I'd made it to my mid 20's, it finally occured to me that it might be hard to wonder what ever became of your own flesh and blood. Parenting made me realize that. I turned out ok. This BioDad should know not to worry or blame himself. I looked him up to tell him. We met.

It is impossible to describe how totally underwhelmed I was by the experience. Maybe secretly I'd hoped that he'd be big, larger than life, proud of being an ass to me to justify the anger I harbored all those years. Nothing was farther from the truth. This guy, my BioDad, was living the sentence he'd pronounced upon himself for his crimes. For his many mistakes. He was Faux Pa: the dad that never really was, the mistakes that could not be unmade. He was small (impossible to imagine considering I'm 8 inches taller), in poor health manifested in so many ways, and looked nothing like me. Except the hands. We shook; they were the same. So odd, these complete strangers with identical hands.

He wanted to tell me about what happened, why. I really didn't want to hear it. (me me me) It was over. The upshot was he is forgiven (me me me). Don't talk about it. Time to move on. I'm fine (me me me). I told him that I didn't rightly know what to do with him. He's related to me, but not my father. What do you do with that? He was gracious, saying he'd be there when I wanted to talk. But I didn't want to. I was done.

I wanted to know some health information that related to me and possible risks. He's a wreck. I needed to know what was self induced and what wasn't (me me me). Then I felt all proud of myself, benevolent, and sanctimonius. Like a Christian. Little else happened after that. Rare calls.

We talked earlier in the year before he went into surgery. They were not sure he'd be ok for it. I called to wish him luck and skipped the post op call, wondering what would happen if he was dead. I just didn't know what to do with him. My nuclear family was full. My father (dad #3) was really sensitive about being cast aside for some guy who never did anything but leave. I get that. Part of me ignored him because of the obligation I felt to the guy who raised me. In retrospect, it seems like a cruel way of showing loyalty. I'm sorry that I've done that. Its too late.

Tonight my Faux Pa called to ask about my sister. She's in a state that is evacuating because of hurricanes. He knows she's there, but not how she is. His news is old and poor in general. He has memories and dates, fears and questions. Wonders what her kids look like? How she is. If she's like she was as a tiny kid... I let him know she's fine. Safely waiting out the storm, far, far away from a distant state. All is well. He was glad, but there was other news. He is sick.

This has never been anything new. In fact, I believe he has collected bad habits to punish himself for his mistakes. Sadly, they did nothing to relieve his pain. Now the bills are coming due for years of neglect. Coronary artery disease, inflamed liver, COPD, disk degeneration, damaged heart tissue, and now an aortic aneurism. It was picked up on a scan this week and is 2.5cm. They can't operate, or shouldn't. He's not a good candidate for survival. At 5cm they'll operated, if they get a chance. It may likely burst by then, and he will die in a matter of minutes. This is what he called to tell me.

Its a strange feeling to sort out. This person I never knew, but wanted to know, then wanted to hate, then wanted to forgive is still a stranger with similar hands. I've spent so much of my life wondering if it would really be so hard to love someone like me, wondering why I could be so easily cast aside, like a defect. I raged on blindly for years. And yet waited the Faux Pa; for a chance to be forgiven and start again. But I needed the anger more than the love, I guess, or maybe the anger seemed easier to get.

And I had a happy ending. Good parents, a beautiful wife, job with lots of money and beautiful kids. It all looks so happy. In the moment it is. But I cannot keep my mind out of my past. All these people who were good to me, I've overlooked and focused on this one rejection (me me me). Now that I see that this life of mine is really about so much more than me, I see only what I've missed all this time. The one thing I wanted most my whole life, the thing that would have made me whole- it was there and I was to angry to see it. Logically I know that can be grateful for what I am, and who am with now- for however long. Its just easier to forgive others, not yourself when things go wrong. I'm not supposed to dwell on my mistakes, but I am. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Post Script:

This was written a few years ago. The FauxPa is still getting along. I am moving blogs to this site and its funny to read them. Much energy expended on what could be rather than what is. Perhaps one of these days I'll figure that out.

Observing Nature

2008-07-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

A cartoony blue and white poofball sky hang in the background of crisp fall day. Sugar maples drop their harvest leaves like crayola lemmings leaping from a cliff. Obsessive-compulsive salmon throw themselves mindlessly at a fish ladder, flailing upstream to some predestiny, the specifics long forgotten. Old couples wander the sidewalk, dottering arthritic geese. And I sit alone, watching life pass, watching everything die.

The concrete hardly shows its age, but there are laugh lines in the sidewalk. Anglers standly idly waiting for the next unsuspecting fish, watching the mild wind create small swirls of color from the ground near their feet. Those guys have a purpose, they know why they're here. Not me. I'm just here, wondering. Most of the time I have more questions than answers about the world around me, and it doesn't bother me. But today I just sit and think and wait for ephiphany that never comes. I am alone and I don't like it.

Why? I should be fine. I've read much, and thought also, that being alone is good, time to reconnect with something or other... I get vague on the details there. Must not have been a picture book or audio CD. And talking to my friends is entertaining, sometimes enlightening, and always a rewarding diversion, but in the end, it seems to be a diversion from lonliness. So I come back to this question, honestly not sure of the answer: What's so wrong with being alone? Why don't I like it? What is the goal of being with people if I am apparently so reluctant to be by myself right now? I don't know. Maybe that's a cop out. Maybe I do know and would rather not talk about it.

Avoidance is perhaps my least favorite uncoping skill. Its like the credit card bill that swells out of control on interest. I've seen enough of that in my life and would rather not endenture my mind, so I'll ramble at a couple ideas. That quasi- academic layer of examination has always been a better safe-haven. Like a computer in safe-mode, the system processes, but just not everything at once. So perhaps (an excellent, highbrow beginning), we may begin by examining what's gained by being alone. Meditative, contemplative opportunities. Anyone who knows me will laugh to hear that I don't want to think about that. But its true.

Because sitting here and thinking, right now, I see everything ending. The leaves, the fish, the old people, the season itself. Its all dying. The mold spores, the leaf rot, the decaying pumpkins on porches throughout suburbia. Its all ending. And I know there are a million cliches about endings and beginnings and I don't even want to write one.

As a matter of fact, why don't you insert your favorite one right here: _________________________________________________________.

Oh, how true, how true. But I don't want this moment to end. I love it. Its beautiful, every last leaf. Down to the last dottard. I want to absorb every detail and make it last, thinking if I could capture infinite detail in a finite moment, it would still live on forever. I know these moments pass. I know. But I like that concrete with the laugh lines, its there for me. I can count on it being there, although it has little to offer.

Interesting that the cracks come from water. Water and rock are opposites to each other in this polar system. Water runs, rock stands. Rock blocks water, water wears away rock. The water always wins. I want to be like water, not caring where the next moment takes me. Happy to be anywhere, unconcerned with the future because it is what it is. But I'm rock. I bear up under things that sag. I hold until I crack, then I crumble. Rock tries to keep things the same. As they ever have been. But I see where I've been. I've already done that. Some of it was good, but much of it wasn't. I don't want to be this anymore. I am trying to decide to move forward, without regard to future outcome, like water. Rock impersonating water.... like an interpretive dance of accounting and auditing. Still I try. I try to choose this path, like the one guy on the roller-coaster, gritting his teeth while everyone else hoots with joy. Maybe it will be easier with time. So while my friends are a good distraction, I guess its inevitable that I should come to this thought. A choice of who to be. And what to choose... I am alone in that decision.

Meditations on Rap's New Boon(e)

2008-07-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

: Rap has always been great. It appeared as I was growing up and the first strained sounds from New York City were guys like Kurtis Blow who rapped about basketball and things they liked. RunDMC liked their Addidas. Eventually angrier tones rolled in. Public Enemy was the first Rage Against The Machine. Their anger was palpable. Can't Trust It, 911, they spoke about their anger and I felt their emotion without ever knowing their circumstance. Its time for rap to come back to that.

Dont misunderstand, I'm no hater. Snoop is great and is adding more new words to the language than any guy since Shakespeare. Wait until you see the Dog's sonnets! They will shizzle your nizzle! But there's nothing to relate to with snoop or Dre. Not anymore. They're rich and don't like shooting at people, getting shot. Ice T, the Cop Killer is now a cop on TV!! We've jumped the shark. Its time to get back to our roots. Talk about where we are now.

Yes. My roots. So I was in the middle of Deliverance, USA for the birth of rap, but I was a refugee from 7 Mile. A mile farther into the abyss than that Marshall Mathers guy. My pedigree is credigree, except Livonia was a little farther west than him. Almost 45 minutes. And there was a Crowleys Department store across the street, which made getting socks for church convenient. And I was mistaken for black by my classmates because they'd never seen a black person and I was dark brown. An honest mistake. I believed them for a while. Geography stinks in school and it takes forever to talk about the Caucus Mountains. Hard to imagine so many people think they come from there... Sorry. I digress. I've got cred. That's all you need to know. You'll feel it.

Rap doesn't talk to me anymore. I have chosen a lifestyle that is sub urban. I want to have someone to tell me about my pain. I'm no Cop Killer. How am I supposed to get into that? The new rap will be about what we feel in the burbs. Mole killing. Weed killing. Now my passion is aroused.
Drop a beat yo! Freestyle:
I am the mole killa 'cause
Its how I like my villa and
Don't fuck with Feng Shui or
My tea that is Chamilla

Now you know. You feel that. I could go on, rhyme bustin' outta my mind like... like I've got rhymes. Yeah. I got mad rhymes, read the Sunday Times... I am the sub urban rap seuss. But there should be more. There could be a healthy side business in merchandising to the do it yourself sub urban rapper. I'm thinking a thesaurus. The Rap Thesaurus would help conjugate the 'izzle' form, for instance, include a bitch and ho' compendium, and possibly annotated fashion guide. This has merit.

Love-Hating On Quality... And Persig

2008-07-13T07:36:00.001-07:00

I can blame it on Persig, that jerk who wrote Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Like the garden of Eden, I used to cavort mindlessly, carefree. I had issues with wonder, but I tried to repress it. Idle thoughts, really, like fixating on the meaning of words. Once I spent 2 weeks in a stupor when I finally figured out when it REALLY mean to 'want'. So this was a pre-existing condition- I'll admit that freely. But this book of Persig's really stuck in my mental craw.

Stupid quality. Quality? Quality. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid quality. There. I feel better. I am sure Plato did that after getting his perfect circle out of his head, or Newton, after he recovered from the mental collapse brought on by the universal laws of gravitation (yes, Isaac learned firsthand that gravity is a harsh mistress). Maybe it gives me a chance to laugh about the fact that I went from being totally unobservant to its painful inverse after this book. Without any increase in wisdom. Just watching the wonder of a wider screen.

So it started with the whole idea of 'what is quality?' Its easy enough. I've seen quality before. Good food, great art, music. Something. But they are all different. In fact quality is simplicity, complexity, synchronicity, or all or none of those things depending on what's being discussed. It just seems to depend totally from case to case what makes something an item of true quality. Maybe its really just giving a damn. Doing more than just the minimum work required, even if it doesn't show in the end product. Maybe that's quality.

So that's why quality control seemed like such an oxymoron. I know a little about quality control in a manufacturing environment. It makes sense there: parts need to come out a certain way or they do not fit during assembly. These ISO/QS9000 standards in manufacturing define consistent manufacturing process to the level of a living, tediously boring document. But how do you control quality? Perhaps I am just the oxygenated moron, but I always thought about quality being akin to excellence. The highest example. The highest is a relative problem, I understand that. It changes depending on your view. Call it parallax. I get that part of the lacuna, but can you control quality?

So going back to manufacturing, I thought about this anew. A product could not possibly be the best example of excellence if nothing fit together. Who would want a car like that? I've had one. Trust me. GO ISO! All right, so ISO has a place. Consistent manufacturing helps keep bolts out of the Cherrios box. My teeth can appreciate that. And then it would make sense then that if a company could deep fry a million chickenesque nuggets of some kind and distribute them evenly around the world, it would be a great example of quality control. Except I think I just used chicken nuggets and quality in the same sentence. That is really disturbing.

I know its just fo0d. But I thought I understood quality. Actually, first I had no idea at all what it was, then it was a convulsive loop of knowing and unknowing. Concentric circles of foolishness brought on by sensible examples of everything. Maybe food isn't the best example, but it is disturbing because of the homogenity that is made sublime through quality control. Suddenly I am having suburban flashbacks. Burbs sub-divided into micelles of homogenous housing. Similar lawns, siding, kids playing. People who live there know the houses by the names architects gave them... The Manchester, The Barrister, The Pennitant. Dogs of similar pedigree are led past these homes by people with the same logos on their shoes, heading back to one of 4 possible floor plans to enjoy a meal of chicken meat, stamped into a die, then fried.

Housing makes me think it could be a good example. These floor plans offer consistency and improved quality, presumably because the kinks of making these houses get worked out as hundreds are put up. Quality is better. But hundreds is really a small number. Manufactured, stick-built houses... now there's volume. There could be a couple thousand of those. They are made inside. There's a guy with a slide rule and a pocket protector making sure the screws went in the right depth. Now that's quality. But... what if you put wheels on it? And called it a double wide? There are far more mobile homes made than custom or manufactured homes. The best opportunity for quality control happens there, probably with the single wide trailer. And curiously, they are grouped in clusters of similar homes- trailer parks. Perhaps its moomoo's walking pit bulls instead of soccer moms walking retrievers, but its close.

So quality control is eating nuggets in a trailer. Quality? That is quality? No, of course not. I guess I've coming to the conclusion that quality perhaps, like lightening, cannot be controlled. It just happens. You give a damn for something, but can you for everything? And quality control can keep a mouse out of my Pepsi bottle, but it can't make a better Pepsi. I always thought the true nature of quality was to chase the infinitely perfect up and up and up concentrically inane or insane circles.

The problem is one of mass delusion: people believe they are all entitled to quality. If it exists for everyone, then is it really quality after all?

Asthma in the Moonlight

2008-07-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

I can't really tell if its late or early. Perhaps its both. There is a timeless quality to the sound of the house when everything in it sleeps. Faint detail becomes apparent, even prominent. Its been a long day, a long week. I'm tired and not sleepy. My attention is fully preoccupied with a mix of ideas, memories, and a midnight soundscape I'd never been awake to notice. Somewhere in the dark, past the glow of the fluorescent glow of this laptop screen there is the hum of a happy cat. My wife sleeps next to me, her breathing as the sound of waves. The fan in this laptop has a purr softer than the cat, and seems to deliver more heat than the furnace vent next to the bed. Down the hall my son begins a coughing fit that is the onset of an asthma attack.

Back in a second...

Three minutes later he is laying down sleeping, unaware of the bronchodialator at work in his lungs. We'll see if it works. I'll be up a while, listening for him. He's still coughing, but asleep somehow. He's in kindergarten and this drill is not new. Its been a while, but in his first 3 years we went to the ER regularly to get him breathing treatments because he just wasn't getting enough air. Always this time of year... winter.

I remember the first time holding him in our bed with my wife. We were calling the pediatrician because all the things the things the old wives recommended hadn't worked. Every three or four seconds another spasm of coughing seemed to make him shudder. Such a little body. His lips had a bluish tint. Bring him into the ER, the phone decreed. When you have three kids, you have to send one parent with the child and let the other stay home and wonder how it is going, hoping you won't have to explain to the other kids in the morning that their brother is hospitalized.

Firsts are easy to remember. He was dressed in that uniform toddler sweatsuit and whisked off to the car where I drove with all haste to the hospital. In the car his breathing was thick and uneasy. Alone in the back seat he was scared and he began to a low cry because he didn't have the strength to cry louder. I drove with my left hand and reached behind to his seat with my right, my shoulder twisted to a mild burn. I tried to comfort him by talking about anything, about trying to relax, that we were almost there and we weren't. He was scared because he couldn't breathe well and didn't know what would happen next. I was scared because I could not stop his suffering.

It was just a moment. Life is full of them and we only remember some. I wondering if we choose what to recall. This trip was repeated easily a dozen times and it became no less serious, but somehow less frightening. Later, when he fell out of the second story window... well jumped, really... It the asthma seemed in retrospect a lot less serious. At the time I was mowing the lawn and watched him fall, actually thinking he might be dead when I saw him hit the ground. Clearly he wasn't as the following winter he hit a pine tree face first, necessitating a visit to the plastic surgeon ("just to be sure everything will heal right").

All of these moments seem grave when taken as a whole, but I think we all have some story like this. Its the mythos we build as we age that is passed on after we are gone. My son is at no loss for legend, but I'm more interested at the moment in the feeling of panic and fear that came with these moments. It seems that now, sitting in bed listening to my son cough repetitively in his sleep, that I am not worried. I'm also not sleeping, just listening for a break in the coughing and a chance for the wheezing to subside.

I've heard people say life's a bitch. This has never really made sense to me for a number of reasons. If the world is a feminine, and it does have a historical precedence for such a consideration (gaia, etc), it doesn't strike me as particularly canine. And there is frankly too much good in life to cast it as wholly bad. Its something else. There is a river here called the Rogue. While its possible seedy people once lived along its banks, its more likely the French first called it Rouge because of the reddish silt at its bottom and the locals couldn't pronounce it. Close, but not at all the same meaning. The same is true of these Life's a Bitchers. While some may rather barbituate or infatuate, I think the word here is habituate. Our life's experiences dull emotional reaction.

There is a sizable body of scientific work on this subject I find very interesting for a number of reasons and won't bore you with the details, but in essence our nerves detect stimuli within a limited scale of reference. You needn't look further than a Michigan playground in March. The first 45 degree day and every kid has their coat off. Compare that to a Texas playground at the same temperature. I don't see why emotional reactions are different as they're fed through the same system of conductors.

When I look back at these events in my son's life I recall the sensation of being scared, but it was less each subsequent time. In fact my wife was stunning calm as she attended the disfiguring face wound dealt by the pine tree. Some of it is shock and a temporary neurological tonic, but I think the same thing happens over time in a broader sense. I'm less worried. Things still happen. I'm sitting in a room full of sounds I've never noticed before. These sounds, textures, and I cannot imagine what else have been here before as I've seen life happen and I didn't notice. I'm left with the sneaking suspicion there is actually a lot thus far in life I've missed. Just beneath the blur of activity that is our instantaneous moment, there is something else. Something sometimes senses more than seen. A base of comfort, and understanding or calm. Its there when the sounds die away and all that remains is the hush of air through a furnace vent. Just a dim glimpse at something I expect to know better through retrospect that tells me this life is good.

Lumberjacked Up

2008-07-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

Labels are neither interesting nor useful unless you're looking to define something that's felt, but otherwise unexpressed. An infinity of fuzzy logic waits in the shadows of my quick list of working cognitive definitions. In a neutral state, not seeking an end, this asteroid belt of errant thoughts is not a problem. When blissfully unmotivated I can look at something I use all the time and see it as something altogether different. Take, for instance, pyromania. The mania interests me because its not pyrophilia, and yet pedophiles are not pedomaniacs. I digress, but you get the idea. That is the space between my ears. It feels crowded, and yet still frequently vacuous.

"How are you?" can be a query of paralytic proportion. I think I even wrote a blog on that once... Something as simple as that question seems to have so many potential responses, that it frankly bothers me that people ask. What do you mean? How Am I?? Eh... cognito ergo sum? That space between the question, the mental awareness, and the answer feels sometimes very tense because I have to pick a lane. Just one. I cannot proceed infinitely down two or three lines of thought simultaneously, but often I try and get lost in the land of non-sequitor. The challenge is apparently getting from a motionless mental state where everything can be turned and rotated to where the quantum spin of my legion individual thoughts can only be managed with principled uncertainty. Sometimes I marvel that I can get dressed in the morning.

It is for this reason that work is a valuable tonic. The construct is already formed, the terms and definitions set. I do well at work because of this. Sometimes I do too much of it because it is so clear. Even physical exercise fits in this definition of work. I find deep satisfaction in training for this reason. Whether its at the gym or in an office, there is a satisfaction in coming to that mental space where everything has again slowed down to a constellation of fixed point thoughts. It is a moving meditation. The motion creates the stillness. The stillness is the place where we become manifest. Where thoughts become words, then deeds. Its where I don't have to worry about losing that thought if I move, blink, or listen.

I cut down a tree this weekend and it was profoundly satisfying. The cherry tree had died perhaps two seasons ago. Last year its stark leafless branches were in vivid contrast to the norms of suburban landscaping, yet it passed through the seasons nonetheless. At the time it was just a tiny point of light in my mind. It existed in the constellation, but I was distracted by the disturbing pallor of much nearer health issues. So it transformed from ornamental to sun-dried cherry until finally a torrent of rain and gusting brought it down.

No longer did I have to ponder the new shape of the yard and the design of plants in that now treeless space, or how the grounds should be reshaped, when it should all be done. The tree was bent at 45 degrees to the ground. It had to go. I knew the steps to that dance. Rain fell so many days in a row and so softened the ground that the roots came up with the tree. When I saw its awkward tilt Friday morning, I knew it was time to finally act. No more delay, no excuses, no errant thoughts. Just cut down the goddamn tree.

So I did.

Saturday morning I awoke to the soft rattle of rain finding its way from the gutter to downspout. I dressed quickly and went downstairs to assess the available resources. Once upon a time I had rain gear. I've lost it. I found tolerable substitutes and went to the garage to find tools. No chainsaw. No neighbors up to lend one. I took small handsaw, a hatchet, and a 12lb maul and walked out into the cold morning air.

The leather work gloves felt awkward against my skin as I pulled and twisted the tree until its six in trunk finally broke free from the ground. There is always too much material in the last finger of the glove. You could have six fingers and still wear them. I hold no animus toward Inigo Montoyo, but it would be nice to have a glove that allows you to get your fingers around the handle of a saw. A neighbor pulls up in a moment when I am trying to catch my breath after lugging the 20 foot carcass to a suitable spot to cut it up.

"How are you?"
"What are you doing?"
"How is it going?"

I am speechless, for sheer lack of air or thought. Clearly no relation to Sherlock Holmes, I looked at the neighbor, dry in her car except the edge of her left hand sitting on the half-mast window. A small halo of exhaust lingered around my thoughts and I continued to catch my breath and think of any answer at all. The first thought was not a civil one, nor was the second, third, or 12th.

"Fine, thank you. Playing lumberjack... work in progress." It took 30 seconds to respond. Noting the lack of witty repartee, she nodded, waved and drove on.

The next 30 minutes were a furious blur of sawing, smashing and crushing followed by another 30 minutes of neatly sorting, stacking, and raking the debris from the yard. It felt good. For an hour there was a tranquility grounded only in the sensory ties to cold air, wet earth, and hard wood; mind at rest, body at work, spirit fully absorbed. When finally the tips of my fingers began to numb a little from the wet air, I collected the tools and walked toward the warmth of the portal to my family within.

Tomorrow, when I return to work and am asked what I did this weekend, I will be able to honestly say: "I cannot tell a lie. I cut down a cherry tree."

Progressive

2008-07-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

It is finally happening. In the back of my mind I've wondered if we would, when it should, when we could. There is no rehearsal for this surreal play. You just show up on stage with whatever props are laying around. If you'd like others, maybe the Director will write in something useful like a burning shrubbery... nothing too big mind you. That's happened once.. maybe. I am not crazy about the odds of waiting that long for random luck. Priorities ebb.

Today was momentous because it ebbed low enough to buy flooring. It lurked somewhere in the lower pantheon of life's necessities for a few years. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is peculiar in this regard. Its not like Bingo. You can have some moderate degree of food and shelter before going on to seek employment and eventually the Nirvana of self actualization... whatever that is. I think its done in layers. You double back to upgrade... Mrs. Maslow could have pointed this out to Abe at some point during a home renovation. In my case, life has not recently presented a near-death experience, job loss, or natural disaster. Blame it on Spring.

The removal of the dead tree was proof I was capable of getting around to the things at the bottom of the To Do list, but the turn toward summer has me seeing all of nature fixing up their nest. Why not mine? I know it will not last, but it is a good feeling having temporarily given the finger to entropy. And that rude neighbor kid that came by last year and commented on how bad the flooring looked? She can complain about the deck instead.

So its done. Trigger pulled. Poof. In three weeks it will be done (and most importantly, by someone else). I have to admit this particular item has been bugging me for a while. I've noticed it and disliked it for some time... but wasn't sure how to get around to the actual change. Marriage is of course a factor, but not really hindering this. In fact, it can only help, since I have no real confidence in any color matching at all. My wardrobe is really not evolved successfully past the Garanimals era of my youth. My wife knows what ocher is. How sandstone is different that willow. I am a deer, wholly dazed in the glare of these light tones. I don't know why it took so long, but its done. Now I'll fixate on some other insignificant thing to prove I'm getting somewhere.

Progress is a funny thing. It defines a relative movement between two places. Does it mean you are getting anywhere? Yes, I think, just not anywhere that's necessarily important, so that also sounds like no. It reminds me of the conversation every kid has with their parent: "why do I have to clean my room if it just gets messed up again?". A fair question. I usually answer "because I said so" since their statement is a gratuitous assertion. But at the root is a question that never really seems to go away. It sits, like my tree and carpet, at the bottom of this long list of unanswered questions. How do you know if you've made progress? Do you have to do anything to progress?

The American myth is told with its saccharine aftertaste, lauds hard work as the root of success. Perhaps that is true and there are 200 million different definitions of work out there. The "land of the free, home of the brave" seems more aptly a roost for the doughy and indeterminate. Clearly then you can have progress without hard work... can you have progress with out work at all?

Well initially I would have thought no, but then I ran into the Infinite Monkey Theory. It turns out if you wondered what would happen if you never cleaned the kitchen again, if your kids didn't clean their rooms anymore, they might actually have the means to clean themselves. So the theory has been posited that an infinite number of monkeys pounding away at keyboards will eventually bang out Hamlet. They produce nothing nothing nothing to nearly infinity, then... poof: Something's rotten in the state of Denmark. It sounds like entropy itself could wear things to so untenable a state it actually organizes, given enough time.

Is this possible? I don't know. First of all, if chimps wrote Hamlet, I would think there would be a banana or a tire swing mixed in somewhere for dramatic effect. Yet then I remember we have a mega-lotto jackpot in every state so any shlub with a buck can get a few hundred million. If I didn't replace the carpeting, it would eventually wear through to the floor, which would perhaps wear until it broke and we all fell to the basement and walked on the concrete. I am not sure the theory works that way. Perhaps an unclean kitchen gives rise to a super strain of antibiotics. Penicillin was first found on bread. But does this new antibiotic do my dishes? That's what I want. I want to know if a life of sloth nets out the same result as one of furious labor. In the end, I suppose each consumed 1 unit of life, its just when I look at it, one seems to have been dead for a lot longer. I just can't tell which one that is.

Infinite Monkey Theory

2008-07-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

Infinite Monkey Theory
Current mood: amused
Category: Blogging

It was late last night before I finally settled to bed and I was giggling off to bed with snippets regarding The Infinite Monkey Theory. My poor wife must have thought I'd been up reading Fear and Loathing, huffing ether. It was almost 1am when I finally entered my room to settle into bed. She was sitting there clicking away at her computer. My first thought was the stupidity of typing about monkeys a floor below while she sat there. She is beautiful.

My smirk begged a question from her: "What have you been up to?"

"I wrote a blog. I don't even know what it is about. It does however, involve the a reference to the inifinite.... HAHAHA!" I couldn't even bring myself to say it. If you put an infinite number of monkeys at typewriters, eventually one will bash out the script for Hamlet. Something about the idea of monkeys typing out some of the best literature I've read is unspeakably funny. Koko is a clever ape. She signs well. Even paints. I liked Magilla gorilla. He was a snappy dresser. Chicks dig an ape with a hat and tie. Still, my first contact with the species was the ape house at the Detroit Zoo in the 1970s. These were your typical tire-swinging, feces-throwing apes. Like human prisoners, I wouldn't imagine a sonnet coming out of them. Just excrement.

So I tried to compose myself and explain the infinite monkey theory. I'd heard the theory before but couldn't remember where. It was maybe something Carl Sagan mentioned in the foreword to A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. At the time I just considered another interesting thought experiment. Statistical mechanics are not the sort of thing I visualize well and this helped make a scalar relationship to something I knew and respected. I didn't give it a second thought until last night. It wasn't funny until I looked it up.

It turns out, for instance Emile Borel was the person who came up with the idea as the explaination of how a kind of statistical tool worked. I don't think he could have imagined the cult this theory has spawned since. One story proudly pointed out that Borel's theory was wrong: it had been tested. They put a typewriter in a room and wanted to see what would happen. Not suprisingly, they hit it with rocks, urinated on it, and eventually got around to hitting a few keys, mostly A and S. This is why The Life of Brian is funny. Sometimes a metaphor is just a metaphor. Sometimes you have to admit you can only imagine the perfect circle and not draw it.

So at 1am, in bed with my beautiful wife, we did it. We talked about infinite monkey theory. Eventually I could describe it finally without laughing. Then it was quiet for a minute. "What are you thinking about?", she said.

"Something about infinity doesn't make sense to me."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. You know infinity... well as I see it you could have within each individual number, like 1, you could have an infinity of numbers that approach 2, but never reach it. You know, by just adding another digit 1.9, 1.99, 1.999, etc. One is suppose to be a finite number. The only one that seems to be not like this is zero. Its just zero."

We talked for a minute whether or not this meant anything. Who knows. It was late. I was laughing still at the thought of the cast of Planet of the Apes acting out bits of Romeo and Juliet. Eventually it all faded to black. No infinity, no monkey, no theory. Just nothingness.

BMI:	25	30	35	40
Height (inches)	Body Weight (pounds)
4’10”	119	143	167	191
5’0”	128	153	179	204
5’2”	136	164	191	218
5’4”	145	174	204	232
5’6”	155	186	216	247
5’8”	164	197	230	262
5’10”	174	207	243	278
6’0”	184	221	258	294
6’2”	202	233	272	311
6’4”	205	246	287	328