January 2008 Archives
Ten minutes on January 31, 2008
Spent a bunch of tonight talking about money. Our money; investments; Roth IRAs; 403b plans; Calvert; responsible investment portfolios and what to call the other ones – irresponsible ones? Volatility in the energy sector; TIPS and betting on inflation. Last year Andrea, our Kiwi financial person, made us money on our money and kept its value. We like her!
So much more to talk about with money. On some level, the whole notion of financial “products” and armies of people moving counters of value around (gold, pork futures, currencies, all the mind numbing detritus of postmodern economics) and meanwhile more and more people underemployed, jobs making stuff leaving and jobs in the service sector taking over in the classic two class mode…like when I read Generation X and it is set in SoCal in Palm Springs where there are only two classes, the people with tons of money and the people that cut their lawns park their cars clean their houses. And we are generating a peasant class - something American has never really had – with Mexican and Latin American illegals working permanently for nothing in the Midwest, in the South, in the West…
Norah Jones. Holding margann in the kitchen and feeling her skin, her back and hips, I said listening to Nora Jones is like having someone sing so sweetly to you when you wre a little little kid and trying to go to sleep and margann closed her eyes like a little kid and I held her swaying in the kitchen.
I went to the eye doc at Eye Q and he dilated my eyes looked deep into them with a microscope I played a video game find the little quotation mark thingys and press the button we played with lenses when I got home my eyes were wide wide dilated all the light felt like it was flooding in later I went off picked up Crystal and played disc golf right before the rain hit few people out there I threw a disc and overpowered it watched it go off course and yet marveling – damn it is fun to huck the shit out of one of these babies and watch it go 300 feet! It landed 20 feet from the other pin placement. I threw it a sweet forehand up just under the vegetation up and then left toward the hole. And it caught a slight edge and rolled downdown into the Valley of Despair and it took a while to find. And down there I walked a creek ducked under tunnels of vegetation looked at things from the botton the trees looming up there down here the mud the greengreen of new growth
Drove to TJ’s bought a bunch of superbowl stuff drove C home and he gave me a Whitman Chronic Sampler nice!
Now it is walking the dog in the cold cold night c’mon little dude take a shit!
Spent a bunch of tonight talking about money. Our money; investments; Roth IRAs; 403b plans; Calvert; responsible investment portfolios and what to call the other ones – irresponsible ones? Volatility in the energy sector; TIPS and betting on inflation. Last year Andrea, our Kiwi financial person, made us money on our money and kept its value. We like her!
So much more to talk about with money. On some level, the whole notion of financial “products” and armies of people moving counters of value around (gold, pork futures, currencies, all the mind numbing detritus of postmodern economics) and meanwhile more and more people underemployed, jobs making stuff leaving and jobs in the service sector taking over in the classic two class mode…like when I read Generation X and it is set in SoCal in Palm Springs where there are only two classes, the people with tons of money and the people that cut their lawns park their cars clean their houses. And we are generating a peasant class - something American has never really had – with Mexican and Latin American illegals working permanently for nothing in the Midwest, in the South, in the West…
Norah Jones. Holding margann in the kitchen and feeling her skin, her back and hips, I said listening to Nora Jones is like having someone sing so sweetly to you when you wre a little little kid and trying to go to sleep and margann closed her eyes like a little kid and I held her swaying in the kitchen.
I went to the eye doc at Eye Q and he dilated my eyes looked deep into them with a microscope I played a video game find the little quotation mark thingys and press the button we played with lenses when I got home my eyes were wide wide dilated all the light felt like it was flooding in later I went off picked up Crystal and played disc golf right before the rain hit few people out there I threw a disc and overpowered it watched it go off course and yet marveling – damn it is fun to huck the shit out of one of these babies and watch it go 300 feet! It landed 20 feet from the other pin placement. I threw it a sweet forehand up just under the vegetation up and then left toward the hole. And it caught a slight edge and rolled downdown into the Valley of Despair and it took a while to find. And down there I walked a creek ducked under tunnels of vegetation looked at things from the botton the trees looming up there down here the mud the greengreen of new growth
Drove to TJ’s bought a bunch of superbowl stuff drove C home and he gave me a Whitman Chronic Sampler nice!
Now it is walking the dog in the cold cold night c’mon little dude take a shit!
Ten minutes on January 29, 2008
I am just whipped. Beat. Hammered. Toast. I had a shot at 7 full hours last night but Margann ate like a piece of brownie at 7:30 and was speeding along on its caffeiny goodness and chatting me up. Which I liked, but then I had to get up. Six am – get the bambino up, eat, make lunch, roll out, drop him off, drive to work, meet a student, teach four classes, read email, get in a car and drive to Carmel, watch bailey’s JV basketball game (his team is remarkable similar to the Miami Heat without Shaq…or perhaps the almost perfect Dolphins of 2007). Bailey had a couple great steals a missed layup and a sweet assist. When his team was in the other team scored maybe 10 points in the game. When the other squad was in…Heat. Dolphins. I think the Chartwell point guard personally made $100 bucks for handing the ball to the opposing players rather than make them, like, play D or run.
So. Get to game in Carmel, watch JV then wait then watch Varsity because I’m giving Santa Cruz kids a ride home. Game is outside, not quite Foxboro but definitely no heat, and at 5PM the temperature was Shit it is cold out here.
5:45 I’m on the road from Carmel to Santa Cruz having done the Giant Triangle in under three hours of driving (maybe 170 minutes total). Drop kids off. Drive home, kiss Margann, make dinner, eat, work with Bailey on homework. Go upstairs Bailey is lying comatose in bed coves a wreck I do the Dad thing straighten covers get him warm read two chapters of Peter Beagle The Innkeeper’s Song to him. Kiss cheek, lights out, close door.
Time for the obligatory Patriots News check: page Two of ESPN ripping Pats for cheating maybe they cheated their way into the Super bowl why did the NFL destroy the evidence and files? Four pages of pretty good breakdown of the game, comparing it to previous games (for example Colts last year like Pats starting pass pass pass then last four weeks begin to run run run into Superbowl and running a lot. Pictures of Tom Brady stretching, running, talking to Bill, running some more.
Like a warm bath. Like a big homecooked plate of Patrioty goodness. Mmmmm!
We are about to put Cliff in his Night Place and call it a 24 hours.
Peace out, napoleon
I am just whipped. Beat. Hammered. Toast. I had a shot at 7 full hours last night but Margann ate like a piece of brownie at 7:30 and was speeding along on its caffeiny goodness and chatting me up. Which I liked, but then I had to get up. Six am – get the bambino up, eat, make lunch, roll out, drop him off, drive to work, meet a student, teach four classes, read email, get in a car and drive to Carmel, watch bailey’s JV basketball game (his team is remarkable similar to the Miami Heat without Shaq…or perhaps the almost perfect Dolphins of 2007). Bailey had a couple great steals a missed layup and a sweet assist. When his team was in the other team scored maybe 10 points in the game. When the other squad was in…Heat. Dolphins. I think the Chartwell point guard personally made $100 bucks for handing the ball to the opposing players rather than make them, like, play D or run.
So. Get to game in Carmel, watch JV then wait then watch Varsity because I’m giving Santa Cruz kids a ride home. Game is outside, not quite Foxboro but definitely no heat, and at 5PM the temperature was Shit it is cold out here.
5:45 I’m on the road from Carmel to Santa Cruz having done the Giant Triangle in under three hours of driving (maybe 170 minutes total). Drop kids off. Drive home, kiss Margann, make dinner, eat, work with Bailey on homework. Go upstairs Bailey is lying comatose in bed coves a wreck I do the Dad thing straighten covers get him warm read two chapters of Peter Beagle The Innkeeper’s Song to him. Kiss cheek, lights out, close door.
Time for the obligatory Patriots News check: page Two of ESPN ripping Pats for cheating maybe they cheated their way into the Super bowl why did the NFL destroy the evidence and files? Four pages of pretty good breakdown of the game, comparing it to previous games (for example Colts last year like Pats starting pass pass pass then last four weeks begin to run run run into Superbowl and running a lot. Pictures of Tom Brady stretching, running, talking to Bill, running some more.
Like a warm bath. Like a big homecooked plate of Patrioty goodness. Mmmmm!
We are about to put Cliff in his Night Place and call it a 24 hours.
Peace out, napoleon
Ten minutes on January 28, 2008
Today I was able to meditate on my role as Supreme Leader of the Church of Goaltimate. Sunday was our first session, and though it had been raining for what seemed like forty days and forty nights, when I awoke on Sunday the sun was rising and the rain had paused and I went to the field and lo! There were people there, throwing discs and setting up fields…and we played in between showers and at one point in a downpour so torrential I saw animals walking two by two down Mission Street and entering a large wooden boatish thingy…
It is an awesome responsibility. I thought about the first time I linked Frisbees and religion. We were in a Santa Cruz alternative Church, like “church of the name obscure saint here” Church on I think Chestnut, or maybe Center…there were wiccans and new age people and ritual crashers. I remember casting a circle, and some singing or chanting, and some guided visualization. We went way in, or out, or both,, and were standing holding hands, and then we went around and named the power object or holy thing we saw in our deepest trance. I got nervous as it got closer to me: “eagle,” “kali,” “athame,” “dolphin riding a wave in the sunset.” Maybe “wolf” and “hawk” in there too. I said, “I saw a golden Frisbee.” Well, I did see a golden frisbee, but I wasn’t surprised when the circle started laughing. It seemed pretty eclectic and random to me, too.
You know, when you look at those old painting of Jesus, and apostles, and saints, and Mary…yup. Right, golden Frisbees. In every one.
I don’t believe, with frisbetarians, that when you die your soul gets stuck on the roof, thought that is a nice thing to believe. I am not sure what I believe. But I like the idea of the soul leaving the body like a big fucking huck to the left corner of the end zone, and as consciousness fades, the soul heisers left to right and comes in from out of bounds at the vey end of the arc.
Who catches the soul? Well, that’s easy. The longs catch the soul. The handlers throw, the mids are there for the back cuts, but it’s the longs that catch the soul.
It just makes sense.
Today I was able to meditate on my role as Supreme Leader of the Church of Goaltimate. Sunday was our first session, and though it had been raining for what seemed like forty days and forty nights, when I awoke on Sunday the sun was rising and the rain had paused and I went to the field and lo! There were people there, throwing discs and setting up fields…and we played in between showers and at one point in a downpour so torrential I saw animals walking two by two down Mission Street and entering a large wooden boatish thingy…
It is an awesome responsibility. I thought about the first time I linked Frisbees and religion. We were in a Santa Cruz alternative Church, like “church of the name obscure saint here” Church on I think Chestnut, or maybe Center…there were wiccans and new age people and ritual crashers. I remember casting a circle, and some singing or chanting, and some guided visualization. We went way in, or out, or both,, and were standing holding hands, and then we went around and named the power object or holy thing we saw in our deepest trance. I got nervous as it got closer to me: “eagle,” “kali,” “athame,” “dolphin riding a wave in the sunset.” Maybe “wolf” and “hawk” in there too. I said, “I saw a golden Frisbee.” Well, I did see a golden frisbee, but I wasn’t surprised when the circle started laughing. It seemed pretty eclectic and random to me, too.
You know, when you look at those old painting of Jesus, and apostles, and saints, and Mary…yup. Right, golden Frisbees. In every one.
I don’t believe, with frisbetarians, that when you die your soul gets stuck on the roof, thought that is a nice thing to believe. I am not sure what I believe. But I like the idea of the soul leaving the body like a big fucking huck to the left corner of the end zone, and as consciousness fades, the soul heisers left to right and comes in from out of bounds at the vey end of the arc.
Who catches the soul? Well, that’s easy. The longs catch the soul. The handlers throw, the mids are there for the back cuts, but it’s the longs that catch the soul.
It just makes sense.
Ten minutes on January 25, 2008
Bertha. This Train don’t stop here anymore. Mas y mas. Good morning aztlan. I walked the dog and the tree stood huge and towering in the streetlight like something from another world and the air smelled like rain and late night 1:30 am everyone isn’t asleep but mostly they are we got home from The Catalyst after Los Lobos (the third band! Came on at 11!) rocked the crowd and lulled it and rocked it some more
One of those watch the crowd half the time dance the other half nights so fun to see other people having fun so easy to get close to the band up top (dance floor is packed hip to hip cheek to jowl old young girls boys moving like one protozoan thing in time to the band’s time) Cat Will Elisa Matt the usual suspects
Feed the girls cherries talktalk with the boys listen dance drink buy rounds watch the pot smoke waft up up and away over the close cropped heads of Catalyst security and the bald heads of old deadheads hear the clink of bottles glasses the glass sounds of alcohol on board and at all times music pounding or waving you closer or Kiko’s eerie uncanny rhythms dance Kiko dance dance by the lavender moon
Big dude “Rojas let his wife die” a story about kidnapping Cesar refused the ransom mother of his child so the Mexican abductor killed her “so why are you here?” I asked he said he wanted to be at the Neville Brothers at Moes but his friends forced him to come crazy rapping white dude in the big black duster that kind of night I can handle a lot and still keep balance “what do you think Cesar would say if we asked him right now about it?” “he’d lie man he’d lie”
He also bitched about the lack of clean sound the bass unfriendly mix a girl walked by bopping her head shoulders it was working for her she lacked the backstory about death and loss of respect
Well, who knows? All I know is after Dirk’s massive birthday bash cooked by Kevin and Cathy Mentor and Erica the wonderful Spanish wines the tri tip rubbed in who knows what after that and then driving with Cat and listening to Excene turned up medium high after all that Los Lobos once again delivered, like Karl Malone, “The mailman he delivers.” Sserivng up that tasty mix, to a mix of Watsonville and Santa Cruz, a crowd that often pulsed in time…
2:06 time for sleep though I could playa right now and ride my bike to the other side if Nina was dancing with her French boys!
Bertha. This Train don’t stop here anymore. Mas y mas. Good morning aztlan. I walked the dog and the tree stood huge and towering in the streetlight like something from another world and the air smelled like rain and late night 1:30 am everyone isn’t asleep but mostly they are we got home from The Catalyst after Los Lobos (the third band! Came on at 11!) rocked the crowd and lulled it and rocked it some more
One of those watch the crowd half the time dance the other half nights so fun to see other people having fun so easy to get close to the band up top (dance floor is packed hip to hip cheek to jowl old young girls boys moving like one protozoan thing in time to the band’s time) Cat Will Elisa Matt the usual suspects
Feed the girls cherries talktalk with the boys listen dance drink buy rounds watch the pot smoke waft up up and away over the close cropped heads of Catalyst security and the bald heads of old deadheads hear the clink of bottles glasses the glass sounds of alcohol on board and at all times music pounding or waving you closer or Kiko’s eerie uncanny rhythms dance Kiko dance dance by the lavender moon
Big dude “Rojas let his wife die” a story about kidnapping Cesar refused the ransom mother of his child so the Mexican abductor killed her “so why are you here?” I asked he said he wanted to be at the Neville Brothers at Moes but his friends forced him to come crazy rapping white dude in the big black duster that kind of night I can handle a lot and still keep balance “what do you think Cesar would say if we asked him right now about it?” “he’d lie man he’d lie”
He also bitched about the lack of clean sound the bass unfriendly mix a girl walked by bopping her head shoulders it was working for her she lacked the backstory about death and loss of respect
Well, who knows? All I know is after Dirk’s massive birthday bash cooked by Kevin and Cathy Mentor and Erica the wonderful Spanish wines the tri tip rubbed in who knows what after that and then driving with Cat and listening to Excene turned up medium high after all that Los Lobos once again delivered, like Karl Malone, “The mailman he delivers.” Sserivng up that tasty mix, to a mix of Watsonville and Santa Cruz, a crowd that often pulsed in time…
2:06 time for sleep though I could playa right now and ride my bike to the other side if Nina was dancing with her French boys!
Ten minutes on January 24, 2008
A shorty
Rain, rain rain. Sometimes rain is the perfect context for reading and today was that day. I read read read: a bunch of Critical Practice by Catherine Belsey, much of it in a café with greenhouse windows that leaked, so I sat away from the counter as water occasionally dripped down onto my plate, hitting the organic chocolate brownie I half consumed along with the macchiato. Critique of expressive realism; critique of the various attempts to reply to expressive realism: New Criticism in the 30s, Northrop Frye’s mythic work in the 50s, Iser’s reader-response theory, theories of “interpretive communities” by Stanley Fish. Post-Saussurean linguistics and their relationship to radical critiques of ideology. How identity is socially constructed, is constituted in and from language, and the implications of this. The rain kept up, a torrent, and the language poured out, a torrent of analysis, and yet strangely comforting. The relentless activity of a human mind attempting to think its way out of a variety of complicated epistemological, political and subjective boxes. At the end of the reading, the putting away of the dishes, the chat with the barista, the satisfying ring around the white ceramic demitasse.
From these lofty heights of analysis I could look down upon the material practices of my day: ordering parts for my vacuum cleaner (which the voice recognition bot at Sears can’t recognize so it gave me computers; the word it knows is “carpet cleaner.” Like I always say, if there is artificial intelligence, then there must be artificial stupidity.”). Sending the wrong parts back at the Post Office and watching the rain test the entire concept of “neither rain, nor…” Looking for a digital recorder to send to my brother so he can talk into it and make an art project for the two of us. Getting money. Getting new tires from Lloyd’s. Getting my teeth cleaned and getting praised for my flossing and brushing (it always makes me feel about 8, but in a good way: I get a gold star!!).
Then more reading as Bailey does his homework (he wrote the longest paragraph tonight, on myth; maybe this writing stuff is catching! And right after Ginny and I talked about Bruno’s resistance to the writing in his classes…) Tannen’s great book On Conversational Style. So much overlap between her analysis of conversation and Belsey’s analysis of ideology and language, though I imagine no one would ever suspect it on the surface.
I love this book. She explains all sorts of key terms in Discourse Analysis, cites the important studies. Like the one where they showed that both Chicano and White teachers praised white children more in class. But then they did a follow up and found that Chicano teachers praised the Chicano children too, but in private where it would not hurt the solidarity and community of the classroom. They also thanked the children for performing well for the teacher. White teachers emphasized performing not for the teacher but for the individual; praise in the classroom fostered competition. And the key notion of distance in language came up; the Chicano language use is connected to their physical relation with the children (holding them, calling them pet names) while much of the white school language is about distancing the subjective from the formal.
I love language; I love it like a warm bath and like a Hawaiian swimming hole, like the little nook at Natural Bridges Mark showed us one night, tucked in behind the beach and up among the trees, and like the wide wide open breakers at Rio del Mar, the vast vast stretch of language as it rolls in on countless interactions every day…
A shorty
Rain, rain rain. Sometimes rain is the perfect context for reading and today was that day. I read read read: a bunch of Critical Practice by Catherine Belsey, much of it in a café with greenhouse windows that leaked, so I sat away from the counter as water occasionally dripped down onto my plate, hitting the organic chocolate brownie I half consumed along with the macchiato. Critique of expressive realism; critique of the various attempts to reply to expressive realism: New Criticism in the 30s, Northrop Frye’s mythic work in the 50s, Iser’s reader-response theory, theories of “interpretive communities” by Stanley Fish. Post-Saussurean linguistics and their relationship to radical critiques of ideology. How identity is socially constructed, is constituted in and from language, and the implications of this. The rain kept up, a torrent, and the language poured out, a torrent of analysis, and yet strangely comforting. The relentless activity of a human mind attempting to think its way out of a variety of complicated epistemological, political and subjective boxes. At the end of the reading, the putting away of the dishes, the chat with the barista, the satisfying ring around the white ceramic demitasse.
From these lofty heights of analysis I could look down upon the material practices of my day: ordering parts for my vacuum cleaner (which the voice recognition bot at Sears can’t recognize so it gave me computers; the word it knows is “carpet cleaner.” Like I always say, if there is artificial intelligence, then there must be artificial stupidity.”). Sending the wrong parts back at the Post Office and watching the rain test the entire concept of “neither rain, nor…” Looking for a digital recorder to send to my brother so he can talk into it and make an art project for the two of us. Getting money. Getting new tires from Lloyd’s. Getting my teeth cleaned and getting praised for my flossing and brushing (it always makes me feel about 8, but in a good way: I get a gold star!!).
Then more reading as Bailey does his homework (he wrote the longest paragraph tonight, on myth; maybe this writing stuff is catching! And right after Ginny and I talked about Bruno’s resistance to the writing in his classes…) Tannen’s great book On Conversational Style. So much overlap between her analysis of conversation and Belsey’s analysis of ideology and language, though I imagine no one would ever suspect it on the surface.
I love this book. She explains all sorts of key terms in Discourse Analysis, cites the important studies. Like the one where they showed that both Chicano and White teachers praised white children more in class. But then they did a follow up and found that Chicano teachers praised the Chicano children too, but in private where it would not hurt the solidarity and community of the classroom. They also thanked the children for performing well for the teacher. White teachers emphasized performing not for the teacher but for the individual; praise in the classroom fostered competition. And the key notion of distance in language came up; the Chicano language use is connected to their physical relation with the children (holding them, calling them pet names) while much of the white school language is about distancing the subjective from the formal.
I love language; I love it like a warm bath and like a Hawaiian swimming hole, like the little nook at Natural Bridges Mark showed us one night, tucked in behind the beach and up among the trees, and like the wide wide open breakers at Rio del Mar, the vast vast stretch of language as it rolls in on countless interactions every day…
Ten minutes on January 23, 2008
My house is a wreck but I read a novel instead of cleaning it. I got up early when my wife woke me she had been up since four am solving problems and worrying and thinking of things from different angles so we had a conversation in all that blanketwarmth and were close and felt so. We talked about Darcy and Bailey, about our friends who mean so much to us, about each other, about foibles and still figuring out how to have conflict and not have it be toxic, how not to avoid conflict like a weenie. The radio alarm went on and we woke up Bailey and drove him to school drop off and walked Cliffy and met a woman who was a character named Jodie with two South African dogs very fancy and rare I guess and the three of us had one of those conversations you might have from an indie film where the woman looks at the Cliff dog and says apropos of cliff’s streak of gray across his black head “You should have named him Sontag.”
Talking with margann, then Jodie and margann, then ginny…three conversatiosn full of wealth and insight and musical in their backs and forths…I later said to Kathy Kelly (I do have my share of conversations, don’t I?) that we are all like rich people every day all these stories interactions insights feelings crammed in and we appreciate so little of it spending our lives like they are endless when in fact they are not.
And then I walked Cliff again and talked to Greg who is off to Peru and Argentina in ten days to do stories about eco friendly travel and occupied factories and we talked about the world out beyond America so many terrible things happening and we said
“We live in a bubble here.”
“Yeah, if here is America. And here in San Francisco we live in a bubble in a bubble.”
“ A bubble in a bubble in a bubble.”
“ A bubble in a bubble in a bubble in a bubble.”
I thought about those things you shake and the snow flies around inside and then you set it down and the snow settles on the nostalgic town or couple or snowman. How terrifying it would be if something broke the glass. How powerful it is when something breaks the glass. The fake snow slides out with the liquid, and is replaced by an unimaginable ball of air. Other people. The sense of something able to happen.
My house is a wreck but I read a novel instead of cleaning it. I got up early when my wife woke me she had been up since four am solving problems and worrying and thinking of things from different angles so we had a conversation in all that blanketwarmth and were close and felt so. We talked about Darcy and Bailey, about our friends who mean so much to us, about each other, about foibles and still figuring out how to have conflict and not have it be toxic, how not to avoid conflict like a weenie. The radio alarm went on and we woke up Bailey and drove him to school drop off and walked Cliffy and met a woman who was a character named Jodie with two South African dogs very fancy and rare I guess and the three of us had one of those conversations you might have from an indie film where the woman looks at the Cliff dog and says apropos of cliff’s streak of gray across his black head “You should have named him Sontag.”
Talking with margann, then Jodie and margann, then ginny…three conversatiosn full of wealth and insight and musical in their backs and forths…I later said to Kathy Kelly (I do have my share of conversations, don’t I?) that we are all like rich people every day all these stories interactions insights feelings crammed in and we appreciate so little of it spending our lives like they are endless when in fact they are not.
And then I walked Cliff again and talked to Greg who is off to Peru and Argentina in ten days to do stories about eco friendly travel and occupied factories and we talked about the world out beyond America so many terrible things happening and we said
“We live in a bubble here.”
“Yeah, if here is America. And here in San Francisco we live in a bubble in a bubble.”
“ A bubble in a bubble in a bubble.”
“ A bubble in a bubble in a bubble in a bubble.”
I thought about those things you shake and the snow flies around inside and then you set it down and the snow settles on the nostalgic town or couple or snowman. How terrifying it would be if something broke the glass. How powerful it is when something breaks the glass. The fake snow slides out with the liquid, and is replaced by an unimaginable ball of air. Other people. The sense of something able to happen.
Ten minutes on January 22, 2008
I woke up today to the news. Margann was at the hospital had three births and was working again today and I felt her not be there at night. But the news was on the radio: news of the stock market falling 300 plus points, world markets falling, talking heads well actually headless talking heads talking about the upsides the it isn’t necessarily all bad or too bad or the end of things I listened for 10 minutes tried to picture the world these abstractions pointed to for actual humans
Then got Bailey up and dressed and fed and out the door and to the drop off for school and hung out with homeless folks Cliff went right up to them all friendly and they were friendly back and for a moment we were all friends in the rain and cold they didn’t care if the markets were strong or weak particularly and certainly Cliff didn’t
Came home put off coffee until later in the morning my new discipline sat down and went after Darcy’s bills the things we do when we are alive AT&T PG&E DISH network Harley Davidson Blue Shield Citizens Bank Geico I spoke to someone at the phone company and it went like this:
“This call may be recorded for quality assurance.”
“Hello I’m calling to close an account…she died the day after Christmas.
”She died? How?”
“She killed herself.”
“Why?”
“Um..well her son had died a year and a half before.”
“How old was he, the son?”
“He was 18.”
“How did he die?”
“He shot himself.”
“Oh..”
I think this call may be recorded and then played to the people who work the phones at AT&T as a kind of textbook example of what can happen when you don’t say “I’m sorry for your loss” and then move on to business. I wasn’t offended; her questions were real, and genuine, if a tad lacking in what might be going on for the person on the other end.
Then Kevin called and we made lunch plans the way people do when they are alive and I opened a last envelope not a bill though it was from County of Santa Cruz Human Resources Agency it said
Dear Ms. Sweeney,
Congratulations! You have been selected to continue in the selection process for Social Worker 1. You must call 831 454 4063 by noon on Friday, January 11, 2008…”
So she had already made tentative plans to come down here, work near her sister, be in our lives. Be an aunt to Bailey and watch him grow up. Get help for her alcohol problems maybe. Ride her Harley with the locals.
I showed this to Kevin and watched his face; it was what I imagine mine looked like when I read it. Irony, ironic…a distance between things, between what could have been and what actually happened.
Now the letter is open next to the Geico pink envelope and the DISH past due statement and the images of checks she wrote on Citizens Bank checks to Banaya, to Spiral, to Kmart and Bob and Safeway and Savemart. Savemart, $25.96.
All this paper, the careful ordering of things, the mild warnings of lateness, the Byzantine lists of billing categories. “Any Finance Charge is determined by applying the “periodic rate” to the balance described above.” I could make several analogies here to how we add up our lives, calculate worth, go into the red, feel bankrupt, in debt up to our metaphoric ears…
Instead I look at her signature, the sassy G in Genevieve, the flourish of the Y in Sweeny. I imagaine her still around, still sassy and flourishing if only in these lines.
I imagine her going to her oral examination, or rather in the AllCaps of HR, her ORAL EXAMINATION. She is there, a ghost, hovering, imagining answering questions and what she would have worn and what she might have imagined would unfold, flow out of that room, ripen on that decision tree. Would she have imagined these things as she sat there, no longer there, and watched the examiner?
Here is what the letter said: PLEASE ATTEND THE TEST SMOKE AND SCENT FREE.
I can see her laughing saying, hey, no problem with that!
I woke up today to the news. Margann was at the hospital had three births and was working again today and I felt her not be there at night. But the news was on the radio: news of the stock market falling 300 plus points, world markets falling, talking heads well actually headless talking heads talking about the upsides the it isn’t necessarily all bad or too bad or the end of things I listened for 10 minutes tried to picture the world these abstractions pointed to for actual humans
Then got Bailey up and dressed and fed and out the door and to the drop off for school and hung out with homeless folks Cliff went right up to them all friendly and they were friendly back and for a moment we were all friends in the rain and cold they didn’t care if the markets were strong or weak particularly and certainly Cliff didn’t
Came home put off coffee until later in the morning my new discipline sat down and went after Darcy’s bills the things we do when we are alive AT&T PG&E DISH network Harley Davidson Blue Shield Citizens Bank Geico I spoke to someone at the phone company and it went like this:
“This call may be recorded for quality assurance.”
“Hello I’m calling to close an account…she died the day after Christmas.
”She died? How?”
“She killed herself.”
“Why?”
“Um..well her son had died a year and a half before.”
“How old was he, the son?”
“He was 18.”
“How did he die?”
“He shot himself.”
“Oh..”
I think this call may be recorded and then played to the people who work the phones at AT&T as a kind of textbook example of what can happen when you don’t say “I’m sorry for your loss” and then move on to business. I wasn’t offended; her questions were real, and genuine, if a tad lacking in what might be going on for the person on the other end.
Then Kevin called and we made lunch plans the way people do when they are alive and I opened a last envelope not a bill though it was from County of Santa Cruz Human Resources Agency it said
Dear Ms. Sweeney,
Congratulations! You have been selected to continue in the selection process for Social Worker 1. You must call 831 454 4063 by noon on Friday, January 11, 2008…”
So she had already made tentative plans to come down here, work near her sister, be in our lives. Be an aunt to Bailey and watch him grow up. Get help for her alcohol problems maybe. Ride her Harley with the locals.
I showed this to Kevin and watched his face; it was what I imagine mine looked like when I read it. Irony, ironic…a distance between things, between what could have been and what actually happened.
Now the letter is open next to the Geico pink envelope and the DISH past due statement and the images of checks she wrote on Citizens Bank checks to Banaya, to Spiral, to Kmart and Bob and Safeway and Savemart. Savemart, $25.96.
All this paper, the careful ordering of things, the mild warnings of lateness, the Byzantine lists of billing categories. “Any Finance Charge is determined by applying the “periodic rate” to the balance described above.” I could make several analogies here to how we add up our lives, calculate worth, go into the red, feel bankrupt, in debt up to our metaphoric ears…
Instead I look at her signature, the sassy G in Genevieve, the flourish of the Y in Sweeny. I imagaine her still around, still sassy and flourishing if only in these lines.
I imagine her going to her oral examination, or rather in the AllCaps of HR, her ORAL EXAMINATION. She is there, a ghost, hovering, imagining answering questions and what she would have worn and what she might have imagined would unfold, flow out of that room, ripen on that decision tree. Would she have imagined these things as she sat there, no longer there, and watched the examiner?
Here is what the letter said: PLEASE ATTEND THE TEST SMOKE AND SCENT FREE.
I can see her laughing saying, hey, no problem with that!
Ten minutes on January 20, 2008
Peter is wearing my red Patagonia raincoat. It is big and he has the collar up and looks like he is about to go out on the briny briny sea. For some reason I think of clams, lobsters, Peter a fisher of men fishing in Nantucket. Peter walking somehow onto the front of a Gorton’s Fishsticks box replacing the old nautical guy in the slicker…
We walked the dog and the moon was up there again like a balloon with Orion chasing it but he’s made of stars and so he can’t move anywhere near fast enough to catch the moon
We watched the games Patriots Bolts Packers Giants in between I played goaltimate next week is Church League in honor of the fact that we play religiously and on Sundays the Patriots owned the ball for the last 9 minutes was it? An impressive win on the shoulders of Lawrence Maroney more than Brady this time and isn’t it sweet when the team can win with different heroes each week? 18-0. Shaahhh! Anyway at 3 the game was over and suddenly the edge of a storm came over cohousing drizzle dark gray sky rain damn!
So I whipped my stuff into my Ultimate bag and got my goaltie kit and went up to the fields and damn if about a quarter mile from home the skies cleared I mean really really cleared sun damn it full on sunglass sun it was like heaven must feel to someone who believes in a place later and who spent time loving places like this the climb up into light into blue and hawks hovering gophers and prairie dogs and mice running their gauntlet and ducking into holes dry and safe only three others believed we’d play so we played two on two and Lippy was darned good and Eric was too and Sam and I as well we were all shredding at times
I said this is good but I want more I want 6 people to come over the hill and play with us they laughed o of little faith after all it was fully raining down below where the non-players could not believe in the possibility of such an island of sun
And 6 people came up over the rise no shit and it was bob and Michael his son and Elizabeth and Marcus Mauro and Alexii and Charles. Lippy looked at me bemused “Well you got your six.” Yes, yes I did didn’t I? I love it when accident and likelihood come together in a way that seems like the entire universe is giving you stuff when in reality it is the fortuitous combination of other people’s desires and realities coming into alignment with your own. We personify the world, perhaps we can’t help it. It makes the story seem like even the environment has intention and decisions like humans do
Well today it was a nice way to feel!
Peter and I talked about friendship with our wives it really is the gold standard for me right now also who are you close to it isn’t always your wife because your wife and you are small business owners making budgets and co parents with decisions to make and individual workers with separate adult agenda and so on and so forth not necessarily a situation designed to maximize intimacy rather one that wears some of the sweetness down.
It sure is nice to have him home for the holy days of football, and to do our thing. Man I like my brothers! I wouldn’t trade them for a first draft choice…
Well this has been more than 10 so peace out napoleon.
Peter is wearing my red Patagonia raincoat. It is big and he has the collar up and looks like he is about to go out on the briny briny sea. For some reason I think of clams, lobsters, Peter a fisher of men fishing in Nantucket. Peter walking somehow onto the front of a Gorton’s Fishsticks box replacing the old nautical guy in the slicker…
We walked the dog and the moon was up there again like a balloon with Orion chasing it but he’s made of stars and so he can’t move anywhere near fast enough to catch the moon
We watched the games Patriots Bolts Packers Giants in between I played goaltimate next week is Church League in honor of the fact that we play religiously and on Sundays the Patriots owned the ball for the last 9 minutes was it? An impressive win on the shoulders of Lawrence Maroney more than Brady this time and isn’t it sweet when the team can win with different heroes each week? 18-0. Shaahhh! Anyway at 3 the game was over and suddenly the edge of a storm came over cohousing drizzle dark gray sky rain damn!
So I whipped my stuff into my Ultimate bag and got my goaltie kit and went up to the fields and damn if about a quarter mile from home the skies cleared I mean really really cleared sun damn it full on sunglass sun it was like heaven must feel to someone who believes in a place later and who spent time loving places like this the climb up into light into blue and hawks hovering gophers and prairie dogs and mice running their gauntlet and ducking into holes dry and safe only three others believed we’d play so we played two on two and Lippy was darned good and Eric was too and Sam and I as well we were all shredding at times
I said this is good but I want more I want 6 people to come over the hill and play with us they laughed o of little faith after all it was fully raining down below where the non-players could not believe in the possibility of such an island of sun
And 6 people came up over the rise no shit and it was bob and Michael his son and Elizabeth and Marcus Mauro and Alexii and Charles. Lippy looked at me bemused “Well you got your six.” Yes, yes I did didn’t I? I love it when accident and likelihood come together in a way that seems like the entire universe is giving you stuff when in reality it is the fortuitous combination of other people’s desires and realities coming into alignment with your own. We personify the world, perhaps we can’t help it. It makes the story seem like even the environment has intention and decisions like humans do
Well today it was a nice way to feel!
Peter and I talked about friendship with our wives it really is the gold standard for me right now also who are you close to it isn’t always your wife because your wife and you are small business owners making budgets and co parents with decisions to make and individual workers with separate adult agenda and so on and so forth not necessarily a situation designed to maximize intimacy rather one that wears some of the sweetness down.
It sure is nice to have him home for the holy days of football, and to do our thing. Man I like my brothers! I wouldn’t trade them for a first draft choice…
Well this has been more than 10 so peace out napoleon.
