August 2008 Archives
Ten minutes on August 1, 2008
Ten things today:
1. I was supposed to run with Margann and so we drove to the Highway 1 cutout for Wilder Ranch but then we ended up walking the whole time talking. I felt kind of blue at the start, and the sky was blue too but a strong, vibrant planetary blue, and Margann asked me what I want to do when I am blue, and we compared feeling like you don’t want to do things you need to do, and feeling like nothing is very exciting or interesting for some reason, with feeling like there is a blanket over you that is wet. And then I saw a gopher poking his head out of a gopher hole, tentatively, then disappearing back in. Then out; then in again; then out; then in again; then out; then in again. Then out. Then in again.
2. We talked about all the couples we know, and how what keeps you together shifts changes morphs, and how happy each couple is or is not with the ways things have changed. It is one thing to stay together; it is another thing to stay together and continue to “push the noodle forward,” to create and recreate love and friendship. We talked about how as adults we get more freedom as our kids get older and we use that freedom to take care of ourselves, not necessarily out partners, and we thought about that back and forth as we walked the edge of the land and the edge of the ocean. Then we saw two big dragonflies, mating probably, flying along, one welded onto the other, buzzing and describing a slightly drunken arc.
3. I was walking between two worlds, the world of little ball golf with its green fairways and the click of iron shots, and the world of disc golf with its rough concrete tee pads and the sound of hard plastic discs cutting air and trying to make a landing on an island with a metal basket on it. I walked up the hill to the tee and heard a sound all around me, and shushed the others, and heard it again, uncanny, like a room of whisperers, or like corn popping, or like corn whispering about popping. It was the sound of hundreds of plants, seeds popping out of seedpods in the afternoon heat.
4. I thought about a conversation I had with Ramon about cell phone etiquette. When is it unutterably rude to take a cell call when you are not alone? When is it absolutely ok? How do you tell the difference? I thought about all the people right now taking calls in the middle of conversations, and how I did that to Crystal yesterday three times and he laughed at it. And I thought about how ring tones also mean “take this call” or “this one can wait just now” or “ooh…tough call.” Then I star 86ed and found a message from my mom that my own message to her had come across garbled and all she hears was “Peter…accident…lost…problem.”
5. I made lunch today out of a tortilla, rice and beans, a hamburger, salsa, and a grilled quail.
6. Kelsey told me that she felt done with school or rather that she wished she didn’t have to punch her ticket with college for so long just to get work. I commiserated and talked a little about the difference between getting good grades and coming across work, thinking, in college that excites you and makes you feel you are on a new level, a higher and more exciting level of thought. Then I told her that I told Margann the story Kelsey told me yesterday. I was shaking hands with Tony the plumber and his hand was absolutely huge, one of the largest hands my not tiny hand has ever disappeared into. She asked me if I felt emasculated and I shrieked “NO!” we laughed and then she told me about her friend at school, and how when her guy friends would tell her a similar story, she’d say, “Are you feeling emasculated? Do you need a boob hug?” Gesture of explanation here: head against the boobs, ensuing hug. I don’t know why but that cracked me up all day.
7. I grabbed a mountain bike and hauled down the hill to Cowells to pick up the car with frozen food and the dog in it while Margann Mahk and Jen swam around the Santa Cruz wharf and the bambini played on the sand and swam in the easy swells. Standing up on the bike pedals all the way down Bay Street hill, no headphones, just the exhilarating feeling of a bipedal human rolling along on prosthetic wheels, bike and rider a cyborg, brain now engaged in bikebody thinking. Jump the curb just before Mission, pass eight cars and make the light, pass ten cars waiting for the train to cross, hit the train just as the last of it is clanking across the street. Bikes rule.
8. I pulled a double espresso and poured it into a glass of Trader Joe’s chocolate ice cream and drank it off while reading Ellroy in the last of the afternoon sun. Kids were making a fort out of wagons and sun umbrellas; Blythe came by and I told her I’d stolen two eggs the other day and got home to cook them and found them hard boiled! The sun went lower in the sky, the light across the words grew less bright, and in retrospect I think of what a friend said about words and how nirvana for words might be the reader’s eyes, and that made me think that words are like seeds, dormant, and the eyes light upon them and the popping sound is the sound of meaning, of connection.
9. Mark and Amando and Rebecca and Bailey and Margann were eating pizzas and I was calling to activate my two new credit cards and each time the person was Indian and asking me what kind of day I had had or was having, and in each case the implication of the letter attached to the card was that the telephone activations would be automated. Instead I found myself in slightly arcane conversations about the virtues of Identity Theft protection ($12.90 a month) and the opportunity for me to sign up right now with of course the right to end this service whenever I pleased or lower APA numbers and…I found myself having pleasant conversations, no thanks I don’t need those things, and thinking of how in the modern world, sometimes we wish we had just gotten the machine, it asks little of us, there is less commitment involved, less investment of time and energy. Then I went downstairs and had a vegetarian pizza and we talked about the carbon footprint difference it makes to have one vegetarian meal a day instead of meat. And I thought about the hamburger and the quail, a little.
10. Amando and Rebecca live in Germany so we took them to the Saturn Café to have their first mud pie: ice cream pie with Oreo crust covered in chocolate. We wondered how many moons Saturn has, and Jupiter for that matter, and we had a table for ten and played cards and the other adults had adult conversation and Mark told us about being a DJ and having 1500 7 inch records and playing Abba’s “Super trouper” at parties, as that very song blared from the small but powerful speakers on the wall. And on cue, three members of the party began singing:
Tonight the
Super Trouper lights are gonna find me
Shining like the sun
(Sup-p-per Troup-p-per)
Smiling, having fun
(Sup-p-per Troup-p-per)
Feeling like a number one
Tonight the
Super Trouper beams are gonna blind me
But I won't feel blue
(Sup-p-per Troup-p-per)
Like I always do
(Sup-p-per Troup-p-per)
'Cause somewhere in the crowd there's you
Yup, powerful stuff. Blindness, depression, the stuff of Oedipus and Ibsen, and then suddenly, an insight into the human condition, epiphany, and we all troupe out to the pop rhythm, high on ice cream, feeling, each and every one of us, like a number, one.
Ten things today:
1. I was supposed to run with Margann and so we drove to the Highway 1 cutout for Wilder Ranch but then we ended up walking the whole time talking. I felt kind of blue at the start, and the sky was blue too but a strong, vibrant planetary blue, and Margann asked me what I want to do when I am blue, and we compared feeling like you don’t want to do things you need to do, and feeling like nothing is very exciting or interesting for some reason, with feeling like there is a blanket over you that is wet. And then I saw a gopher poking his head out of a gopher hole, tentatively, then disappearing back in. Then out; then in again; then out; then in again; then out; then in again. Then out. Then in again.
2. We talked about all the couples we know, and how what keeps you together shifts changes morphs, and how happy each couple is or is not with the ways things have changed. It is one thing to stay together; it is another thing to stay together and continue to “push the noodle forward,” to create and recreate love and friendship. We talked about how as adults we get more freedom as our kids get older and we use that freedom to take care of ourselves, not necessarily out partners, and we thought about that back and forth as we walked the edge of the land and the edge of the ocean. Then we saw two big dragonflies, mating probably, flying along, one welded onto the other, buzzing and describing a slightly drunken arc.
3. I was walking between two worlds, the world of little ball golf with its green fairways and the click of iron shots, and the world of disc golf with its rough concrete tee pads and the sound of hard plastic discs cutting air and trying to make a landing on an island with a metal basket on it. I walked up the hill to the tee and heard a sound all around me, and shushed the others, and heard it again, uncanny, like a room of whisperers, or like corn popping, or like corn whispering about popping. It was the sound of hundreds of plants, seeds popping out of seedpods in the afternoon heat.
4. I thought about a conversation I had with Ramon about cell phone etiquette. When is it unutterably rude to take a cell call when you are not alone? When is it absolutely ok? How do you tell the difference? I thought about all the people right now taking calls in the middle of conversations, and how I did that to Crystal yesterday three times and he laughed at it. And I thought about how ring tones also mean “take this call” or “this one can wait just now” or “ooh…tough call.” Then I star 86ed and found a message from my mom that my own message to her had come across garbled and all she hears was “Peter…accident…lost…problem.”
5. I made lunch today out of a tortilla, rice and beans, a hamburger, salsa, and a grilled quail.
6. Kelsey told me that she felt done with school or rather that she wished she didn’t have to punch her ticket with college for so long just to get work. I commiserated and talked a little about the difference between getting good grades and coming across work, thinking, in college that excites you and makes you feel you are on a new level, a higher and more exciting level of thought. Then I told her that I told Margann the story Kelsey told me yesterday. I was shaking hands with Tony the plumber and his hand was absolutely huge, one of the largest hands my not tiny hand has ever disappeared into. She asked me if I felt emasculated and I shrieked “NO!” we laughed and then she told me about her friend at school, and how when her guy friends would tell her a similar story, she’d say, “Are you feeling emasculated? Do you need a boob hug?” Gesture of explanation here: head against the boobs, ensuing hug. I don’t know why but that cracked me up all day.
7. I grabbed a mountain bike and hauled down the hill to Cowells to pick up the car with frozen food and the dog in it while Margann Mahk and Jen swam around the Santa Cruz wharf and the bambini played on the sand and swam in the easy swells. Standing up on the bike pedals all the way down Bay Street hill, no headphones, just the exhilarating feeling of a bipedal human rolling along on prosthetic wheels, bike and rider a cyborg, brain now engaged in bikebody thinking. Jump the curb just before Mission, pass eight cars and make the light, pass ten cars waiting for the train to cross, hit the train just as the last of it is clanking across the street. Bikes rule.
8. I pulled a double espresso and poured it into a glass of Trader Joe’s chocolate ice cream and drank it off while reading Ellroy in the last of the afternoon sun. Kids were making a fort out of wagons and sun umbrellas; Blythe came by and I told her I’d stolen two eggs the other day and got home to cook them and found them hard boiled! The sun went lower in the sky, the light across the words grew less bright, and in retrospect I think of what a friend said about words and how nirvana for words might be the reader’s eyes, and that made me think that words are like seeds, dormant, and the eyes light upon them and the popping sound is the sound of meaning, of connection.
9. Mark and Amando and Rebecca and Bailey and Margann were eating pizzas and I was calling to activate my two new credit cards and each time the person was Indian and asking me what kind of day I had had or was having, and in each case the implication of the letter attached to the card was that the telephone activations would be automated. Instead I found myself in slightly arcane conversations about the virtues of Identity Theft protection ($12.90 a month) and the opportunity for me to sign up right now with of course the right to end this service whenever I pleased or lower APA numbers and…I found myself having pleasant conversations, no thanks I don’t need those things, and thinking of how in the modern world, sometimes we wish we had just gotten the machine, it asks little of us, there is less commitment involved, less investment of time and energy. Then I went downstairs and had a vegetarian pizza and we talked about the carbon footprint difference it makes to have one vegetarian meal a day instead of meat. And I thought about the hamburger and the quail, a little.
10. Amando and Rebecca live in Germany so we took them to the Saturn Café to have their first mud pie: ice cream pie with Oreo crust covered in chocolate. We wondered how many moons Saturn has, and Jupiter for that matter, and we had a table for ten and played cards and the other adults had adult conversation and Mark told us about being a DJ and having 1500 7 inch records and playing Abba’s “Super trouper” at parties, as that very song blared from the small but powerful speakers on the wall. And on cue, three members of the party began singing:
Tonight the
Super Trouper lights are gonna find me
Shining like the sun
(Sup-p-per Troup-p-per)
Smiling, having fun
(Sup-p-per Troup-p-per)
Feeling like a number one
Tonight the
Super Trouper beams are gonna blind me
But I won't feel blue
(Sup-p-per Troup-p-per)
Like I always do
(Sup-p-per Troup-p-per)
'Cause somewhere in the crowd there's you
Yup, powerful stuff. Blindness, depression, the stuff of Oedipus and Ibsen, and then suddenly, an insight into the human condition, epiphany, and we all troupe out to the pop rhythm, high on ice cream, feeling, each and every one of us, like a number, one.
