Anyone else getting in the car and driving nowhere just to listen to the ‘Wicked’ soundtrack in the hopes of not driving your husband crazy?
25
November
2024
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November
2024
25
November
2024
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November
2024
A Recap of Pre-Thanks
Gratitude should be in the air this week… and I’m trying.
I’m really trying.
Well, let me just get through the work days and then I’ll employ the full thanks for Thursday.
For now, a pair of pics to whet your appetite for our somewhat-annual Friendsgiving weekend in Boston, which I promised a while ago and look to fulfill this week. In the meantime, our weekly recap begins here.
Where the skies are blue – the sane person’s fix for Twitter/X.
Still wicked after all these years.
After turning off the news, I returned to peaceful living.
Shirtless counter-programming from the past.
A sky that looks troubled or hopeful.
Maybe I’ll give up e-mail for Advent. Wait, that’s Lent…
24
November
2024
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November
2024
Holiday Progeny
Many years and many offices ago, a co-worker gave me a Christmas cactus. It was a small thing in a three-inch pot, wrapped in gaudy ribbon and sprinkled with glitter. Once I got it home, I promptly threw out the wrapping and washed off the glitter, then left it in our front window, which gets the most sun. There it sat for many years, and I’d always more or less forget about it (the best sort of treatment for a Christmas cactus actually) until it caught my eye with this grand electrifying color. Left in a relatively unused room, as our living room tends to be at night, it was able to follow the natural cycle of day sunlight, and every year around this time it would burst into bloom.
Some years it was more floriferous than others, but there were always a few blooms guaranteed, even if the thing was bizarrely changeable. The original plant grew as I repotted it, and it remains in my care to this day. Several months ago, a couple of larger pieces broke off, and I let them dry and callous off, then managed to root them in some light soil. (These are not technically true cacti, but epiphytes, so their soil should be as light as possible – they also seem to like more humidity than a typical cactus.)
Sooner than expected, it produced these blooms – a happy gift that came a little early for Christmas, so maybe this is a Thanksgiving non-cactus after all. I’m not into debating these days, so whatever you want to consider it is fine. Something this pretty defies labels anyway – even proper ones.
24
November
2024
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November
2024
#TinyThreads: An Insignificant Series
This may be the holiday season I simply give up on my e-mail inbox.
I no longer have the patience to delete 200 messages a day.
24
November
2024
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November
2024
Sky Looking Troubled or Hopeful
Morning sky on my way to work last week.
Oh the drama of it all.
A multi-layered extravaganza.
And Lord knows I love an extravaganza.
The laziness of a Sunday morning post, especially when the blogger doesn’t feel like writing.
Go out and enjoy the day, no matter the weather, no matter the mood.
Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
And then enjoy more.
23
November
2024
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November
2024
Counterprogramming for a Dreary Day
The day began by spitting some blasphemous combination of rain and almost-snow. Pieces of this pesky gelatinous goo fell from the sky, whipped about by a cutting wind. The sun was trying to come out, but clouds were obscuring it at every turn. Such is the typical dilemma of November.
In an effort to combat the dreariness and offer some shirtless, summery counterprogramming from the way-back and long-ago, here is a link to the Summer Pics that populated this site early in its inception. My… how times, hair, and stomach have changed! And oh, what fun we once had!
We have a different kind of fun now – starting with a dinner party tonight featuring friends that go back to grade school…
23
November
2024
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November
2024
Trip the Station, Change the Channel
One of the silver linings of this past fucked-up election was the obliteration of my news-watching habits. Andy was a constant viewer of MSNBC, and when I was done with work I’d occasionally join him. That was until they started doing the ridiculous sane-washing of the utterly insane past and future President, while simultaneously placing Kamala Harris on a comparative level with such a buffoon. By presenting a skewed and falsely-equivalent narrative of two candidates, as if they were anywhere near each other in terms of just about everything, the news media succeeded in doing what I saw them doing for the past year – and that moron was elected by people who only heard snippets of two candidates and viewed them as more or less similar – because that’s how the media had portrayed them. Sucks for America, and ever since then I haven’t watched any news programs whatsoever. It’s been a wonderful and refreshing return to the peace of a non-political life, and even Andy has weaned himself off many of his old favorites.
We find better viewing to be had on TCM or any channel that shows classic movies. Andy has been delving back into ‘The Sopranos’ and I’ve returned to Create TV and Lidia and Pati. It’s brought about such a welcome relief; I’d forgotten how pleasant it was to shut the political world entirely off and exist in the present moment, living for the grand comforts over which we have some control.
It also looks like we are not alone, as ratings for MSNBC and CNN have taken a dismal downturn. Add it to the long list of fuck-around-and-find-out moments the next four years will likely bring. Oh, and if you hear of more, don’t let me know. IDGAF.
22
November
2024
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November
2024
The Squirrel Story: Shades of Gray
~ from OCTOBER 2004 ~
I am rushing to get something while on a fifteen-minute break from work. The day is gray and my car is dirty. Turning right onto Route 9W, I can see there is a hold-up ahead. The cars are swerving around something in the road – a broken bottle, a pot-hole, some bit of wreckage I imagine – and then I see a squirrel there. Slowing, I can make out that the back half of the animal is flattened. Someone had run him over, only his head, front two feet, and upper body are still intact, still alive. It is grotesque and cartoonish. There is panic in his jittery movements. He hops forward and to the side, but the rest of his body won’t follow. He tries so hard to get out of the road as cars rush by.
I realize too late that I should run him over. There is no time to process this. I swerve at the last moment, hoping to crush his skull and brain. I don’t think I hit him. I am down the road in front of other cars. There is no way to put the car in reverse and back over the animal. I hope someone will see it and run it over, end the misery. The helplessness is terrifying and I begin to cry.
Why am I crying?
Dead squirrels are everywhere, their red and gray carcasses line the roads, mounds of dusty, flattened fur dot the streets. Their stomachs have been ripped open, innards splattered and organs trampled beneath blind tires. The blood has turned dark, drying on a hot day or trickling away in a storm. Sometimes their heads are intact, with eyes squinting as thought in pain or fitful sleep, or stunned and wide, the pressure of a car tire or truck bulging them open. We think nothing of it. The world is cruel that way.
This squirrel was struggling to get out of the road, to drag its useless body somewhere else, drive by survival or hope, and who can tell which.
On my way back the squirrel is gone.
22
November
2024
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November
2024
The Process: Shades of Gray
~ from OCTOBER 2004 ~
I’ve never understood those writers who could wake up and will themselves to write. Even when I’ve had the luxury of endless days without job or obligation, there were so many times when I simply couldn’t do it – and wouldn’t waste the time trying.
This is a difficult project. I don’t like dwelling in the past or being haunted by the ghosts of the dead. It is depressing work, heavy work. I sing show tunes in the car as loud as possible to shake out of the stupor. A silly lunch with co-workers is a welcome respite. It is easy at such times to let go and slide down that hill, and there is such a short distance from here to there. In a truly despondent state, I don’t write.
I’m not there yet.
22
November
2024
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November
2024
Uncle Roberto 4: Shades of Gray
~ from OCTOBER 2004 ~
Before one of my Uncle’s visits, my brother and I found an old coffee maker in the basement, and in our make-shift room we set it up in the hopes of luring him into our company and keeping him there. He was alway driving coffee – black and scalding hot. We just wanted to be around him then – watching him, listening to him, laughing with him. Everyone wanted that. He entranced certain people – his long trail of curling smoke and a growing length of ash dangling precariously over his knee, ready to break off at any moment.
He didn’t care, oblivious to so much, yet the ash didn’t fall – his arm moved to the ashtray just in time, every time. I often watched that ash burn, hoping to catch it fall, hoping to see that my Uncle’s apathy could be hurtful and messy to himself and not just to us. It never fell. Not on my watch anyway.
It seemed some days that the ash would get longer and longer, that his fingers would turn to ash too, and then his hand, and his arm and his body, and we would all watch – mesmerized, mortified, transfixed – and he couldn’t even be bothered to care.
21
November
2024
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November
2024
Brother 4: Shades of Gray
~ From OCTOBER 2004 ~
It was a great night out with my brother. Visiting him in Miami, we went out to a few bars, had a few drinks, and did some brotherly bonding, or at least the closest we would get to that sort of thing. Sharing Bloody Marys and family memories, we have come a long way from not speaking to each other. At three in the morning I assume he is staying over with me at the hotel. There’s no way he can drive all the way north to Aventura, not after the night we had.
As we reach the hotel, he makes motions to leave.
“You’re not driving home now, come on,” I say, casual at first.
“I can drive. I gotta get back.”
“No way. Just sleep over tonight and drive back tomorrow. Don’t be stupid.”
There are times when you cannot argue with my brother, just as oe cannot argue with ignorance. I am crying now begging him not to go. He drops his cigarette. He drops his keys. His drunkenness is palpable in his slurred speech, his bloodshot, sleepy eyes. Do I grab his keys like some cliched don’t-drive-drunk commercial? A streak of stubborn pride doesn’t allow me to do that. Having subjugated myself to my brother over the years, I cannot do it anymore. With one final refusal, he says he’s not staying, and before he can see me shed another tear, I run into the hotel and shut the door on the whole situation.
Later I realize why he went home, and why he has never been able to be alone in life. He has to get back to a woman he may not really love. It will do for now, and the next day does not matter. Stave off the loneliness in the dark. Be brave in the morning. The nights are so tough. Just make it to the dawn.
It’s a fucked up thing, but it’s the closest he can find – anything to not be left alone.
My brother is co-dependent and has never learned to be on his own. I don’t know how to impart that strength. Though he is taller than me, though he was the one who played all the sports and made my father so proud, I finally realize how weak he is, and has always been.
I call him at seven in the morning and his girlfriend says he got home late last night. When he calls back I do not answer the phone.
21
November
2024
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November
2024
Gray Ghost 6: Shades of Gray
~ From OCTOBER 2004 ~
There, on the fence post, can you see him? The thick tail swishing back and forth, the white underside sleek and sinuous, and all of him blending into the gray bark of a gnarled tree. He jumps.
Perched on a limb, he peers down at me. His tail is a fuzzy question mark. He speaks. In his squirrel gobbledygook he talk to me. I do not answer. I don’t understand squirrel-speak. But I listen.
If you sit still long enough, they will come. If you are quiet and respectful they will speak to you.
No one cares anymore.
21
November
2024
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November
2024
Crossroads of the World: Shades of Gray
~ From OCTOBER 2004 ~
Sitting in the Greenling Institute office in San Francisco, waiting for my friend Chris, I look at a letter to the New York Times hanging on the wall. It was written by Chris, one of his save-the-world/people-for-change/join-the-revolution letters – and suddenly I feel incredibly small. This one letter, written with such grand hopes of change – what did it do? It appeared for a day in the newspaper and then was gone. Did some in a powerful position read it and change their view? Did some politician implement a policy that had any effect after reading the letter? Or did it die a quick death, read by no one of importance, no one with the power to do anything, reduced to recyclable pulp by the end of the week?
I want to believe that words and paper may not last, but feelings and emotions do, yet all I can muster is a drowning feeling of hopelessness, of not being able to affect anything so why even bother. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m in New York City for longer than a few days. The masses of people, the careless way we bump into each other, looking through and beyond other human beings – it becomes oppressive and stifling, like all those bodies are bearing down on one another, flattening our finest edges, erasing individual identities, and obliterating our separate souls.
How do you even begin to affect so many people? Lost in crowds, swallowed by swarms, a mite among many – what can one person really do for the good of the world? It’s so much easier to be destructive. A few men can take down the country’s tallest buildings, but how many does it take to build them up again?
And still Chris reminds me that all change has to begin somewhere, that the greatest social movements started with a small group of dedicated individuals, uniting and crusading until change is set into slow but definite motion. I want to have that faith but I don’t. So I place my faith in Chris. For now, it will have to be enough.
21
November
2024
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November
2024
Uncle Roberto 3: Shades of Gray
~ From OCTOBER 2004 ~
My Uncle inhabited the sometimes-shade underside of American life – the behind-the-scenes lower-level of the mythologically caste-free system of the United States. I heard him saying, “This country is fucking shit” one moment, then extolling the possibilities and potential the next. He worked hard for what amounted to rather little. Much of it went to his kids back home. America would never be home for him.
Until he could save up enough money and return a raging success, he dwelled in the hidden recesses of high society. He and my Aunt worked for a Senator, entertained at dinners for Hillary Clinton and the Dalai Lama, but none of it seemed to impress my Uncle. He was happy blending into the background, smoking with the other workers in the garage or behind the house. It was a world I found fascinating, as a child, and far more fun than the formal dinner parties and stiff adult talk that sometimes surrounded me.
20
November
2024
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November
2024
Grand Child: Shades of Gray
~ From OCTOBER 2004 ~
A retired man at the office came into work to see his old friends. He was a grandfather now and we had all heard of how the baby had been born missing one of its arms. The parents did not know this until it was delivered. Somehow a cord had wrapped around its arm and stopped the blood flow when it was developing.
It was difficult to fathom the sadness, shock, and horror of it – the feeling of something so unfair. And yet the creature was alive, would grow up not knowing any other way. The grandfather was sad, anyone could tell, but he beamed with joy, and the strangest mixture of shame and pride.
Will the child ever know?
