Presents

It started with an unexpected call from Jen's doctor last Monday night. I had just made it back out to my car after giving up on Best Buy for a last minute gift for Jen when I saw Dr. Cummins' name come up on my Caller ID. It was almost 7:00 in the evening, and I was too surprised by her call to be concerned.

In the next ten minutes she explained to me that the last round of blood tests Jen had done came back indicating an increased chance that the baby would have Downs Syndrome. The first round of tests we had done put our odds at 1 in 1500 or so, but the more recent results brought us down to 1 in 200. She explained that it wasn't time to panic, but she wanted some additional tests done. Resigned to a Christmas in purgatory, Jen and I settled in, trying not to count the moments until the specialist's office would call to schedule the follow up testing.

Tuesday was tough. We knew enough to know we shouldn't be too upset, that results like this are common, but we were regardless.

Wednesday, Jen got the call and learned that they could squeeze us in Christmas Eve if we could be available. We could. We were certain that we'd have to wait a week to be able to speak with the doctor about the test result, but at least we'd get the process started. Plus, if the kid cooperated, we'd be able to find out if it's a boy or a girl.

Thursday morning, the Ultrasound Tech Jill explained some of the things that she'd be looking for, and to our relief explained that we'd get to meet with the doctor after they had a chance to discuss the results. As she worked, Jill pointed things out along the way. She told us immediately that the brain looked perfectly developed. She pointed out the kid's pinkie fingers had three bones, not just two which is a common sign of Downs. She told us enough good news that we were able to relax and just enjoy watching the kid wiggle around on the screen. So much wiggling, in fact, that she had a hard time keeping up with the twists and turns.

She agreed to not tell us what the gender of the kid was, but rather write it down in a card Jen brought along with us and had us look away when she headed south with the camera. A few minutes later and we were finished and in the doctor's office where he confirmed everything Jill had said while she worked. Relieved, we headed out to finish our separate days.

So, Christmas morning, after opening the few presents we bought for each other, we sat down on the love seat, A Christmas Story playing quietly in the background, and opened our card together. There was an arrow pointing to some indiscernible smudge with white text "IT'S A GIRL!" I saw it before Jen did. I said something, but now I don't remember what it was. Then we read the card.

"Merry Christmas! It's a Girl! Congratulations! Have a wonderful Holiday! Sincerely, Jill ____"

The Merryman Family Holiday Letter

Dear Friends, Family, Misguided Internet Trollers, and Virtual Stalkers,

Nearly 365 days have gone by so quickly that it's difficult to believe. It's true that years seem to get shorter the older you get, and I have to admit that I think it's crap. The tendency is to look back over a year when it seems to have passed too quickly and review what you've done, but that's not always the smart thing to do. Especially if you haven’t done anything. As a family, our accomplishments were meager:

Otis played a lot of fetch. Also, when he thought no one was looking, he ate a lot of poop. Rarely did we get to witness it, but we’d often be confused by the lack of waste in the yard when picking things up each evening. He views his buddy Lucy as a big furry Pez dispenser, and he's buying what she's shoveling. We know this is happening, yet somehow we’re able to be surprised when he has a gastrointestinal disaster and winds up at the vet hooked to IV's.

Lucy has found a consistency in her day-to-day life over the years, and rarely does she veer off track. So, while the act of barking isn't anything new to her (any more so than my mentioning her barking in a yearly Christmas letter is), she has refined her approach to the act, and has added lots of new items to her list of things she's barked at. Such items include a rabbit, fluttering leaves, a cartoon hamburger, imagined intruders, and CGI dinosaurs. She managed to work in this barking all the while serving as a mobile buffet line for Otis. We're proud.

For Jen and I, things were status quo for a big portion of the year, and we take a certain amount of pride in being uncommonly common. We lost and gained weight. We started and stopped exercise programs. We bitched about noisy neighbors and dreamt constantly of escaping our house. We yelled at dogs. A lot.

We watched a ton of movies. Some of them weren't all bad (Paper Heart, Away We Go, Up, Anvil: The Story of Anvil, Doubt, Milk, Friday the 13th, etc.). We both are lucky enough to have jobs that we don't completely despise, and as a result, made it to work more days than not. We made a lot of messes and cleaned up a good portion of them.

Then, because things in our lives were too quiet and pleasing, we decided to try getting pregnant. Within just a few months Stephen's super virile sperm knocked the dust off Jen's aging eggs, and immediately our little DNA omelet started to grow and take form. Seamlessly, we became those people. We displayed Ultrasound photos. We read books and articles about childcare and learned to avoid crack cocaine, cold cuts, beer bongs, and over-easy eggs. (Actually, Jen had to avoid those things; Stephen helped himself to most, if not all, of the above.) In short, we became the recipients of indulgent smiles and polite questioning from the people we annoyed with our happiness. Fortunately, we were so secure in our thinking that everyone was as fascinated with the process as we were that we took all their indulgence at face value.

And so that brings us to the last member of the family…the mass of baby shaped cells Jen calls "Bean" and I call "The Kid". Out of all of us, Bean’s had the most interesting year. In five months The Kid crawled from the primordial ooze of Jen's uterus and developed into a clump, then into a tadpole, into what now appears to be a black and white smudge with a giant head (if the pictures are to be believed). It's funny to think that the one person in our family who accomplished the most can't even work the remote control.

It’s annoying if you really think about it. It’s like having to listen to the rich kid from school read their “What I did on my summer vacation report” on the first day of class and go on and on about Paris while you look down at your two paragraphs detailing the joy of making your own Slip ‘n Slide with a water hose and a large sheet of plastic you found on a construction site.

I can imagine the kid being in the womb, saying things like “Today I separated my heart into four distinct chambers and swam a few laps around the pool. So, ah…whatcha been doing to stay busy these days?”

One day we envision this open letter being full of information about Jen and my many work promotions, lottery wins, and a list of everything that our kid can kick your kid’s ass at. We’ll regale you with tales of Stephen’s many arm-wrestling tournament wins, and Jen’s new rock band’s touring schedule, but for now this will have to suffice. We may not be interesting, but we’re happy. That’s good enough.

All sarcasm aside, know that we love you (well, most of you - there’s no way of telling who’s actually reading this thing), and we hope that you have a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, a rip-roaring Kwanzaa, or whatever it is you and yours get down with. Stay in touch. We like it when you do.

Love,Stephen & Jen

Wisconsin Bound

Jen and I are getting ready to hit the road for another trip to Wisconsin. When she makes the trip solo, we have her fly into Chicago, but when I'm tagging along we always drive it. It's just easier with the dogs and not needing to worry about renting or borrowing a car for the week.

I always complain about the trip, but the truth is I like being on the road. Even when the drive is as uninspiring as rural Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. There's just something about the hum of the car, music on the stereo, Jen asleep in the front seat, and the dogs curled around each other in the back.

But seriously, there is nothing to look at. The sky and the ground seem to be the same shade of gray, and the trees long ago gave up their leaves. It's all wavering lines painted down the sides of the highway, and cigarettes exploding on the pavement, tossed by the cars who lead us across state lines.

She'll bitch about my music, and I about hers. We'll snack from a bag Jelly Belly jellybeans and groan every time we get stuck with one of the buttered popcorn flavored ones. We'll make as few stops as possible, but the dogs usually require a quick jog around a truck stop parking lot while we dodge piles of shit left by travelers who didn't bother cleaning up after their dogs. I'll sing to stay awake, and Jen will ask "Are you OK?" if she thinks I'm drifting. It'll be good to be moving.

---

I love best of lists. While I have no plans of doing a full list of my favorite albums from 2009 I thought I would mention a record here or there. Instead of a half-assed review, I thought I'd just tack on a snippet of lyrics and leave it at that.

While I'm fickle and my opinion changes all the time, I think my favorite record of the year was "Hospice" by The Antlers.

"There's a bear inside your stomach / The cub's been kicking from within / He's loud, though without vocal chords / We'll put an end to him"

Old Habits

Greg's words limped from his mouth, smelling of Dewars and the Benson & Hedges menthols. Feeling fine, he let one butt fall to the ground, and immediately reached for the shiny gold and green pack in his shirt pocket. He fumbled with the pack intentionally for a moment, drawing Lisa's attention to it, letting her see he wasn't smoking generics like he used to when they first met. She did glance at his muddling fingers, and when she did, he snuck a glance at her chest thinking she wouldn't notice.

"Jesus, Greg. You're such a boy." Lisa muttered, turning her back to him and stepping further out onto the sidewalk, further out into the rain. Rain is a strong word for this, she thought as the mist swirled around her, making everything damp but not quite wet. It had been doing this since she crossed the state line and didn't seem to be showing any signs of stopping.

"Sorry, Love. Old habits."

"Growing old is getting old." Lisa muttered, turning back to him.

"What's that?"

"Nothing."

Greg felt he had missed something, but he missed lots of things when he was around Lisa. He ran the fingers of his left hand through the black milk of his hair, tucking its length behind his ear, and then ran his hand over his face, wiping across his closed eyes and down over his mouth. He opened his eyes to find her watching him and flashed a smile at her. It was his smile, the one that only she would recognize. Lisa smirked and shook her head.

"You're drunk."

"Working on it, yeah." He let his eyes close again and leaned the back of his head on the cold brick wall behind him.

He's just like this city, she thought, watching him waver in the thin streetlight glow. He looks so good from a distance, but when you get up close it's all burger wrappers in the streets, cigarette butts collected in the scrub grass alongside stop signs, and everything smelling of spent batteries. From the sky though, it's just an orderly series of golden glowing squares stretching to the lake. It's a special kind of punishment to get fooled by what you see, she thought.

"The Chinese were the best at it, you know."

"Hmmm?"

"Calling something by a real nice name, especially when it was for something more terrible than you could imagine. A good old fashioned verbal bait and switch."

Greg managed to tip his head forward towards where Lisa stood. It was the sound of her voice breaking with anger and sadness that brought him back to the stoop, his cigarette, and his ex-wife. Not saying anything, he waited.

"This is the 'Frame of the Furrowing Eyebrow', Greg. That's what the Chinese called it. They'd strap you to a bamboo stand, leaving you to kneel for hours while they tighten the slats that went across your fingers, toes, balls, and neck. Nice and slow, just a nice steady pressure until pieces of you start to give out under the weight of it."

Greg dropped his eyes to the pavement between his feet, and followed a crack that ran from the tip of his dusty boot to where she stood wiping the last of the dozen tears she let herself cry. They stood, listening to the highway rumble and the sounds of Wednesday giving up to the threat of Thursday.

"C'mon Leece, let me buy you a drink."

"Yeah, sure. Just one."

Last of the Porch

It's an amazing fall day in Columbus. Radios and televisions this morning were awash with reports of an Indian Summer, and like a lot of people I tossed on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and headed outside. Jen and I puttered around, working on small projects we had been putting off with her recent sleepiness, my constant laziness, and the cold snap that sent us indoors. We got some dead flowers trimmed, potted plants disposed of and their baskets put away for the season, and I took a broom to the collected cobwebs around our front and back doors.

Now, we're on the porch. Jen suddenly has plans for other projects ("Maybe we should trim these hedges today.") and I agree to all of them knowing that it won't be too long before she runs out of steam and ideas. These days she's still good out of the gates, but not much for stamina.

Out of necessity, cigars are an outdoor vice for me, so this may well be the last good day to sit on the porch, have a beverage and a smoke. The sun warms the lawns, and the winds are strong enough to kick leaves out from under the hedges, rattling them down the street sounding like children playing tag in tap shoes. Planes come and go from the airport, but I've barely noticed them after living here the first month...they're just more background noise, part of the constant hum that surrounds the condo.
---
We proctored an SAT Test this morning, a job that allows us to pick up a bit of cash, help out one of Jen's coworkers, and gives me four or five hours to sit and read. It's a fun gig for me, because I get to roam around from room to room and watch kids as they stress over bubbled answer sheets and scribble furiously in the margins of their test booklets. They're all so young, and trying to figure out who they're going to be, but as I watch them I imagine that I already know.

It's easy to pick out the ones that will have too much fun in college. It's also pretty simple to see those who will have too little. The girls are all straight-haired and pony tailed, and the boys are all casually and carefully rumpled. I make up little stories about some of them as I half-heartedly scan the room for cheaters. None of the stories I come up with for them are very nice though, so ashamed I stop and go back to reading.
---
Jen and I have had a couple of doctor appointments, and they've gone well. We got to watch the twitching fussing fetus for half an hour on the flat screen in the doctors office as they took dozens of measurements. Jen cried when we saw him reach for his nose. I found myself groping backwards for my chair, not wanting to take my eyes off the screen where she just kicked away from the prodding ultrasound wand. A few days later, in another office, we heard the electronic chugging train of her heartbeat, and we laughed as everything became even more real.
---
Fortunately, Jen has forgotten the hedges and suggested a walk. I'm down with a stroll around the woods, so it's time to throw on some jeans and go see the sun while we still can.

I Will Go To Congo

I went for a walk today at lunch at the park across the street. It's a nice little 1 mile loop through the woods, and it's a good way to get out of the cubicle and avoid fast food.

Today, I headed out onto a short boardwalk that leads to an overlook of a little meadow at the center of the park. There I found this carved into the wood:

Stop the war in Congo!

Here I was, thinking I just wanted to take a walk during my lunch break, but now...now I'm thinking I might head to the Congo and see what I can do about this situation.

It's amazing to think that a person, somewhere out there, had the belief that if only they were to get a pocketknife and spend a half hour carving someone might come along and end a lifetime of brutality in Congo. Well, that person was me!

They'll write songs about my lunch-time walk once I've fixed Congo! The city of Westerville will be thrust into the center of global politics, and we'll all mythologize the person who had the foresight and wherewithal to deface my favorite Metropark! Congo, here I come. Watch your ass, cuz I'm packing heavy.

Closed Circuit Future

I can't remember if it's been raining for days, but it feels like it. It's that slow, cold, purposeful rain that soaks through tree bark, and slows everything that ducks and hides from its drippings. I stepped out the door this morning, and immediately smelled the worm holocaust on the sidewalk. Having finally given up going deeper into the earth to hide from the rains, they stretch bloated and dying across parking lots and walkways.

Fall showed up big over the past two weeks. Normally, I'm on the watch, studying tree lines for blotches of yellow and red, but this year the season snuck up on me. Today I noticed the orange along the highway, rich and full as any Bob Ross landscape, and it seemed to be even more noticeable against the dishwater skies.

I've been distracted, to say the least. I've been sitting back watching the cliches shared over the years by parents become a welcome truth. I'm smiling more. I often can't remember what I was working on the moment before. I'm thinking 529 accounts, nurseries, and how old a person should be before they sit down to listen to Kid A.

I've become nothing else but these disjointed thoughts mixed with panicked calls to my insurance provider.

I posted the picture of Smudge, but if it weren't for the doctor's guidance, I literally wouldn't have known the baby's head from its ass. People asked me later if I cried when I saw the heart flickering in glorious black and white, but I didn't. I stood amazed thinking that it was beating just like I had always imagined a hummingbird's heart would.

Jen and I held hands and looked at the screen, and when the doctor stepped out to let her get dressed, we held each other and laughed. Call us victims of our generation, but in some ways the pregnancy wasn't real until we could see it on television.

With all of the recent change, I find myself shutting down in some ways. Until tonight, I've not had the focus to sit and write anything. Instead I've spent hours surfing the web reading about what's going on in my wife's body, or looking at Ramones onesies (hells yeah!), or watching The Big Lebowski for the 400th time. I plot and plan, but do nothing constructive. Yesterday, I got a nice box of new records, so I know I'll be in the den a good part of the weekend lost in all the No Age goodness sent my way.

I'm just waiting. I'm waiting for this suburban life to become amazing. I'm waiting for everything to change, and for the first time, change really is coming.

Cutest. Smudge. Ever.

Baptism

Fall is, without question, my favorite time of year. After months of muggy Central Ohio soup, Summer finally throws in the towel and heads south. Leaves are starting to fall already, but they're mostly from the small trees, weak of constitution and exasperated with the last two months of little rain. True Fall change is still to come.

We went for a walk tonight and caught up on the day while I studied the woods and fields for changes. The tall grasses and weeds that thrived in baking sun seem to be wilting and shrinking in the cooler air. The meadows, usually exploding with life, seem tired and shrinking, letting you see more of the tree line beyond. Sleepy blackberry bushes choke out all ground cover but the Poison Ivy which slithers invincible through hillsides and fence rows.

As we were heading back to the car, we watched a little kid chasing after the ducks that had made their way up onto a large flat grassy patch. Watching the ducks reminded me of when I was a kid in Indiana. We lived on small lake, and each winter the ducks would swim quickly in a circle keeping the water from freezing over. The colder it got, the smaller their circle would get, until eventually the ducks would give it up and head for shelter amongst the dead rattling cattails and allow the cold air to seal the surface of the water.

I would sometimes go out onto the ice with a pick and break off sections of the ice, trying to give them more room to maneuver and avoid the neighborhood dogs that would come over to grab them out of the water when they swam close to the edge.

One morning, while breaking up the ice along their swimming hole, I fell through the surface. The water wasn't deep, and barely reached my chest, but my feet immediately sunk into the mud. Locked into place by unseen silt, my entire body heaving with the sting and shock of water, I felt every sense firing all at once and my brain went a painful copy-paper white. It had to have been only seconds, but time stretched and mattered little in the midst of the experience. Finally, through some magic automation of nature my lungs filled themselves with air, I pulled my feet out of the mud, and moved toward the bank.

When I was seventeen, I went on a trip to Israel and was baptized in the Jordan River. This was the place where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and it was to be an honor to share in that collective experience some 1,995 years later. Looking back on it now though, I imagine the minister who oversaw my baptism hoping to instill the same feeling of wonder and newness that I had that winter Indiana day. In truth it came nowhere near that moment of pulling myself out of the mud, awkwardly holding the pick axe with numbing hands, and remembering to breathe. In that moment, my winter coat soaked and slick with ice, I was alive in a way I had never been before.

Tonight, Jen and I kept walking along the path, smiling at each other and watching the kid run after the ducks. After voicing their honking displeasure, they took to the air to avoid the child who laughed and continued to run toward the lake's edge after them.

Parent in the Hood

The hours spent in Cubicle Land buzz drunkenly like a fly, sleepy and slowed by winter air. Time has somehow stretched and I live a hundred lifetimes between 6:00 AM and 5:00 PM five days a week.

I was really bad at my job last week, and am struggling to make it right. I'm having a hard time staying focused these days.

One night, a few weeks ago, I was sound asleep as any rational (read boring and old) man would be on a Thursday morning at 3:00 AM, when I heard the sound that I've feared for months. Someone was coming up the steps. Not just walking, but running. Big bounding thumps that pulled me out of my sleep. Burglars. Burglars who will hold me at gun point and take my records and whiskey. Burglars who were giggling and laughing all the way up the stairs. Giggling? I was trying to put it together still when she jumped up and down on the end of the bed laughing.

Jen.

"It said yes!"

"Huh?"

"It said yes, the test said yes."

She laid it on my chest and I fumbled for my glasses so I could see the digitized word "YES" on the little display panel.

I hadn't really thought about how I would respond at this moment. When I had pictured it, I had always imagined that I would be conscious and not fighting the confusion that sticks with me for a good 45 minutes after waking. In my mind I had pictured me telling her that I love her and that she's amazing and all those things that would come so naturally with such good news. But my reality is usually less than ideal. Instead, the lone thought that came to mind was "I have so much I need do." Then: "Crap, I bought a two pack of those tests. What am I going to do with the other?"

We discussed it over the next couple days and decided to keep our news a secret for the most part. We would tell some immediate family, but otherwise wait to tell everyone else. Within 24 hours of telling our secret, it had literally made it to Baghdad and back.

Some people suck at playing guitar, or driving, or being polite. Other people suck at keeping house plants alive or not talking during a movie. My family just happens to suck at keeping a secret. What you gonna do? So, as a result, everyone knows that Jen is in "the family way" much earlier than we would have preferred. At least that's what we tell ourselves.

You see, we're the couple that can't wait for Christmas morning to open presents. We are the king and queen of immediate gratification. We've never waited for a thing in our lives, but still we tell ourselves this is something we would have kept under wraps. I don't buy it, even though I'm the one selling it. It would have happened sooner rather than later, regardless of how indignant we are now.

And so, immediately it seems, we've changed. We go for walks each night at our favorite metro park and talk about how we're going to handle what's coming. I get the impression that Jen is less freaked than I am about certain things. There's a strange contentment that's come over her, and while I'm normally the laid back one, she's saying things like "Millions of other people have done it. We can't screw it up that badly." Yeah, that's what she thinks.

Jen's at work tonight shuffling parents around the school's Open House, and I'm doing what I do when she's not around. I'm up in the smallest of our three bedrooms (the room we refer to as "The Den") listening to Wilco, drinking a whiskey, and churning out a couple of words here and there.

It's really the first evening I've had on my own since she broke the news to me, and I just realized as I was writing this out, that I'm perfectly content about what's to come.

Labor Day Blues

I love having a Monday that feels like a Sunday. I slept in until I knew Jen would be getting antsy for some company. Sure enough, just as I put on my glasses she rounds the corner and pounces. We hung out there for a few, talking about what we wanted to do for the day. I really wanted to see Halloween II this weekend, but could tell from Jen's noncommittal response that it might not be happening. So, I opt for Plan B. After breakfast and some quality time in front of the tube, I head out.

First order of business was a haircut. I'm painfully overdue. So, I head up the road a piece, get out of the car, walk to the door, only to find it locked. Shit. So, I head directly across the street to a Sports themed haircut joint. First, I don't care that much about sports. The one sport that holds my interest long term is hockey, and I sure as heck don't want a hockey-inspired do. Second, they do the whole shampoo thing before they cut your hair. For a guy who doesn't care much for physical contact with strangers, it's a painful proposition. But, such is the state of my hair that I consider it. Lesson learned from my first stop though, I stare into the darkened waiting area and see the silent plasma screens that confirm that I won't be getting a mullet today.

I give up on a haircut, stop by Blockbuster only to leave with some popcorn and no movie, and then head out record shopping. First stop is Singing Dog Records. I pull into the garage and park and walk to the two blocks to the store before realizing hippies must believe in Labor Day too. Fucking hippies. So, back to the car and over to another garage further up on campus so I can check out Used Kids Records. They have some great stuff, but I'm being really picky and only leave with a Mudhoney / Sonic Youth split 12". I figure I'll hit Magnolia Thunderpussy on the way home, but they too are closed. I give up.

I hate it when people say "In this economy" (because we're always in "this economy", you douche bag), but for real...In this economy you would think more people would be heading off to work if they could. This is the US of A and I couldn't get some freaking manscaping done or buy a copy of the No Age record I've been coveting for months just because it's the wrong Monday of the year to try to get shit done. What's gone wrong with this country?

Have You Seen Me?

I looked up in the rear view mirror and made eye contact with Jen. We watched each other through the three inch tall piece of glass, smiling, until the light turned green. She went home and I headed to the grocery store to load up on grilling supplies for my family that's coming in on Sunday.

It's been a different kind of week, I'll say that for it.

I haven't been on here much lately for blogging purposes. For the two people out there who have been dying for an update of what I made for dinner or what record I sat around and listened to, I'm sorry. (Veggie omelet tonight, and Paul's Boutique as of late.) I've actually been on a bit of a tear doing some "real" writing.

I start lots of stories. I have lots of quick ideas that don't grow. This time it's a bit different because for the first time ever I have a beginning, a middle and an end already. That's unheard of for me. Now all I have to do is show some intestinal fortitude and connect the freaking dots. That's the tough part for me. My brain is so lazy. I love to do the fun scenes but all the connective tissue is a chore and I struggle with it. I'm trying, so at least there's that.

Jen is already asleep on the couch, and Otis and Lucy are sprawled out on her and beside her respectively, and I'm sitting here watching part of the Isle of Wight Festival on television. I think it's time to head upstairs, put my wife to bed, and do a little work on my budding novel. See you around.

The Dancing Dog

Right out front, let me just offer a quick word of warning. This little story is not for everyone (anyone?). I'm sure you're a very nice person, and I'd like you to keep thinking that I am too, so if you ever have trouble dealing with distressing subject matter, just skip this one. I'll be boring you to death with notes about how listening to music on vinyl is way cooler than CD's before you know it.

If you're still with me at this point, well...As a wise man once said: "Let's do this thing."

There are a lot of things Angela doesn't remember about being young, and mostly she's grateful for it. Occasionally there would be a flash, strong and clear, but mostly she was just left with an uneasy feeling that there are things about her that are just outside the reach of her memory, so instead of pictures of what things were, she's left with an uneasy déjà vu. Then there are the things that she had spent the past thirty years trying to forget. Memories, years since scabbed over, can still be so easily torn open to bleed out, reminding us of the people we were and the things we had grown accustomed to.

In the end, when the memories got out of control and took over, the thoughts always came back to her father. The houses and setting changed every year or so, but it was the never ending string of rules and enforcement that remained constant.

Her remembrances were snapshots, overexposed to the point of washing out white, and beginning to yellow around the edges: There were hide-and-seek games that ended violently after running through the back yard laughing, forgetting that her father was sleeping after working third shift. There were afternoons spent playing with her cousin Jack in her bedroom using stage whispers so as not to draw attention to themselves.

She remembered playing with the Hot Wheels cars that had been her birthday present and getting the tires of a white tow truck caught in the forest green shag of the living room carpet. The truck wouldn't come free, so she quietly clipped away the tangled threads with fingernail clippers. For the next two months her breath caught in her throat when she noticed the shortened stubble of the trimmed carpet, praying silently that her father would never notice it. It wasn't until they had moved the following summer that she completely relaxed about it.

Every birthday memory was followed by guilt of the money spent on her.

Every game she won was dreaded because he might think she was showing off.

When she sat and thought back on her childhood though, none of the memories stood out for her more than the ones of Stanley and the house on Maple Street. When her father walked in with a 6 month old Blue Doberman, Angela jumped up on the couch forgetting momentarily the rule against putting her feet up on the floral cushions. As an aging puppy, Stanley already seemed to be a giant. His thin skin twitched nervously over rippling muscles, and he ran around the living room with his nose to the floor sniffing everything out in one continuous snort. When he got to where Angela sat on the couch he immediately buried his wet nose in her armpit. She couldn't help giggling even as she remembered herself and quickly adjusted in her seat to let her legs hang off the end of the couch. Instantly, Angela and Stanley were friends.

"Stan the Man" her father called him when on the rare occasions he paid any notice of the dog. Stanley responded immediately to the new moniker, running to his side to get petted or to go outside and work on the rusting Mustang that lived in the narrow driveway. In the evenings, when friends would come over, her father would talk about what a badass Stanley looked like, but that he was going to take some toughening up before his attitude matched his appearance. Her father's buddies would sit around the living room in a cloud of smoke listening to music while he would hold court, telling them all about the plans he had.

Angela liked it when he had friends over, because it meant she was safe for as long as they sat there on the couches in the living room. She would have to be careful and not be a pest, but if she sat quietly as they would talk and smoke she could see her father laugh. When he was feeling especially friendly, he would motion over to her and have her walk the smoldering joint they were all sharing over to his friends that were sitting too far away to reach from where he sat. She loved this responsibility and would walk slowly over to pass the joint on, careful not to let ash fall to the carpet. In his first few weeks in the house, Stanley picked up on the mood in the room while her father was entertaining and would curl himself into a tight ball on the floor and snooze, lifting his head occasionally when the laughter grew loud or he heard his name.

A few accidents happened while Stanley got used to his new home, but her father took them in stride. It was a couple of months after Stanley joined their family though, that he got into the trash. Angela found the soup cans that had been licked clean and the ignored tissues spread across the kitchen floor and quickly went to work cleaning quietly as her father slept. When the last of the coffee grounds had been swept up, she looked at the dog as he sat in the corner watching the commotion and thought that she had just saved his life.

"You're a lucky boy, Stan. You have no idea."

That evening though, something Stanley had ingested didn't sit well with him and he vomited a multicolored sampling of the family's trash onto the carpet. Her father was out of the chair immediately to land a kick to Stan's side. The dog yelped from the impact and then again as he smacked into the wall. Staggering for a moment, Stan made a run for the kitchen to get out of harm's way but was followed. Angela ran to the bathroom for a rag to clean the mess with, thinking that if she could show her dad that the carpet was ok he wouldn't kill Stanley.

Her father didn't kill Stanley, but afterwards Stanley no longer responded to him when he called and started avoiding him altogether. When he would go out to work on the car, or weed the front flower beds, Stan would find a spot as far away as possible along the fence and keep watch on his surroundings. Like Angela, Stan seemed to only relax when her father was out of the house.

"Fucking dog must be an idiot, Ang. Never comes when he's called. Never barks at strangers. All he wants to do is be with you. You guys deserve each other. Two retards in love."

Stanley and Angela spent their days on their own while her father slept in the room at the end of the hall. They would hide away in her bedroom and play as quietly as they could. Ang would whisper to him for hours, telling him secrets. She told him that she didn't like her cousin anymore because he had taken one of her dolls and put it up in a tree in the backyard, too high up for her to reach. She even told him about the carpet, and asked him to nap on the clipped spot as often as possible to block it from view. For the most part Stanley slept while she talked, but that never bothered her. It was nice to have someone to tell secrets to.

Over the next few months, Angela's friendship with Stanley started to grate on the nerves of her father, and he took to striking out randomly at the dog when it walked too close or didn't immediately jump up and move when he walked into the room.

"Keeps the fucker on his toes. Lets old Stan the Man know whose running shit around here." he would say, settling back into his armchair after flipping through the channels to find a Kung Fu movie on Nite Owl Theater. "I have to keep all of you in line in this house. If I didn't knock the shit out of you from time to time, you'd be twice the spoiled little bitch you are already."

That would be the end of the conversation for the night as he would sit back to watch Bruce Lee tear through droves of ninjas. He had been going to karate classes for years, and had become obsessed with the art. Sometimes, he would get Angie up out of bed after the Late Late Movie just to make her stand in the middle of the living room so he could throw spinning kicks over her head.

"If I hit you with one of these kicks, I'd fucking shatter that little nose of yours, sweetie. If I did it right, little splinters of bone from your face would shoot back into your brain and kill you right on the spot. Don't move now…you don't want to make me hit you." Angela would stand there, trying not to shake, afraid that if she wiggled too much his thick calloused heel might connect with her face and it would be all her fault.

Two nights a week, he would leave the house to go workout and train, and on the off nights he would lift weights in the garage and spend hours stretching. In the wide doorway between the kitchen and living room he had rigged a pulley and had a six foot length of soft cotton rope. He had tied a noose that he would loop around his ankle, and then threading the rope through the pulley, would pull the opposite end to his chest bringing his foot high into the air. He would stand in that doorway for what seemed like hours pulling his leg into the air to stretch his muscles. "I'll be kicking your ass like fucking Bruce Lee,"

he'd say. "I'll put my foot through the ceiling of this dump before I'm through."

When he was stretching in the doorway it meant you couldn't go past him to get to the kitchen, as not to throw him off balance or break his concentration. Angela once remembered her mother walking out the front door and going around the side of the house just to be able to get dinner started.

Out of all the scabbed over memories, one had been picked at and picked over more than any other and it never really stopped bleeding altogether. It had been almost a year since her father had brought Stan home. Angela woke up, confused at first by the late afternoon sun, and then slowly realized she must have dozed off. She scanned the room for Stanley, knowing he would need to go outside, but he wasn't in the room anymore though the bedroom door was closed. Quietly she opened the bedroom door and walked down the hallway to the living room to see what he was into. She was scared, because Stan was her responsibility during the day, and she would be in trouble if he had gotten into the trash again.

When she walked into the living room, Angela saw Stan with the rope around his neck, his back legs dangling limply three feet off the floor. Her father glanced at her over his shoulder smiling, and yanked the rope a few times, jerking the lifeless body into the air, his limbs flopping as if pawing at the air.

"Lookit your buddy dance, Ang. He's fucking dancin', aint he?" He jerked at the rope again, pulling Stanley even higher into the air as she turned to run.

For the rest of the day, Angela hid in her room. At first, she bunkered under her bed, but when the light began to fail she got scared in the shadows and climbed up on the bed to burrow under the covers. At dusk she heard her mom come home from work, followed by the muffled tones of conversation. Before long, her mother opened the door to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Sweetie, Stan was a bad dog today and he can't stay here anymore. Do you understand?"

Angela nodded, sniffling back new tears.

"Your dad's gone to take him back to Mr. Reed so he can live there from now on. If you're really good, and don't upset your father, maybe we can take you to see him sometime, but you have to be really good." Her mother's stare let her know this wasn't a discussion, but rather a speech.

Things that Angela thought could never change did change over the years. Her father passed away a young man, wasting away from a cancer the doctors had yet learned to fight, and her mother eventually lost the Holocaust Survivor look that she had developed over the fourteen years of her marriage, but there wasn't much of a connection between the two of them anymore. They didn't talk. Angela always equated it to war buddies that had seen the worst of things together, leaving them with nothing of any consequence to say anymore. Angela left the house the day she turned eighteen, and didn't talk to her mother for over four years.

There were happier times as Angela went on to college, but in the back of her mind the memories of what happened in that little house on Maple Street never really left. So many times they gathered a steam that always seemed to explode with the thought of Stanley. She would wake up, first in the small apartment she shared with three other girls she went to school with, and then in the house she rented with her future husband, Derek, searching the corner of the room for Stanley and hoping he was sitting there waiting for her to wake up and take him outside.

A few weeks after graduation, Angela called to tell her mother that she and Derek were moving out of state and asked if she could come over to say goodbye.

"Sure, honey. Come on by whenever. I'm always here."

Armed with a four pack of wine coolers Angela remembered her mom drinking when she was younger, she went to get reacquainted with the stranger she had once lived with. It was an hour drive, and she realized that she really knew nothing about her mother at all anymore. It had been four years, and to Angela it felt like she had lived four different lifetimes while she was away. She could pinpoint four different people that she had been during this time as she learned and got older, and knew that her mom must be going through changes of her own, changes that she hadn't been there to see. Not knowing what to expect made Angela nervous.

She could tell her mom had been drinking the moment she met her at the door and immediately decided that was for the best. Since it appeared her mom had graduated from wine coolers to vodka, Angela quickly opened one for herself and tried to keep pace with her mom's intake.

It was awkward, but the booze helped, and it wasn't too long before they had made it past the feeling of being old friends trying to get over a falling out, to Angela listening to her mom reminisce about the past. She tried to remember the things that her mother talked about, but for the most part came up empty. There were so many months and years that she had simply shut the door on. Good memories and bad were wiped clean and left with a comforting gray that she wasn't too disappointed to have.

Her mom talked about the house on Maple Street and about how her father had almost lost an arm when his Mustang came off its blocks and crashed to the driveway. She reminded Angela how the neighbors always had to come over to cut their grass because her father could never get the mower to work. As she poured another tumbler half full of room temperature vodka, her mom grew silent looking off to a spot above Angela's left shoulder.

"Mom, do you remember Stan?" Angela asked pouring vodka for herself, the wine coolers gone.

"Yeah, Stan the Man was your buddy alright. He was practically your shadow there for a year or so," she said. "You guys were practically twins."

Angela hesitated, but only for a moment. "You know, I saw Daddy kill him. I don't know if he ever told you that, but I did."

For a moment, the old look was back in her mother's eyes. Exhaustion and fear and boozy detachment came flooding back into her face, hardening it and seeming to pull it tight. She turned, looking Angela in the eyes for the first time that night and smiled brightly.

"Yeah honey. I know you saw him dance." And then she started to laugh.

The Low End

I was about 16 when I got a single ticket to see The Frogs, Swervedriver, and The Smashing Pumpkins at The Newport Music Hall in Columbus. I was off to the left of the stage, and when the Pumpkins finally came out, D'arcy took up residence in front of me. She drank straight from the bottle, and I was immediately in love.

Ever since then, I've been drawn to strong women bass players. There's just something about them that pulls me in. I'd take any of them up on the chance to hang out and down some beers over road stories. In no particular order, here are a few of my favorite female bass players from some of my favorite bands.


D'arcy - Smashing Pumpkins

I hear she's a farmer now of sorts in Michigan or something like that. Seeing them play Mayonnaise live was the highlight of my young teen life.

---




Kim Gordon - Sonic Youth

Simply one of the coolest people to walk out on stage. I dare you to try to take your eyes off her. Even though she's dropped the bass as of late, she has to be included.

Kim once said "People pay to watch people believe in themselves". You're goddamn right.
---










Debbie Googe - My Bloody Valentine

On the rare occasion they play out live, they hand out ear plugs at the door because the wall of sound coming from the stage is too much for most people. Concertgoers who pass on wearing the plugs have been known to stumble out of the club early, vomiting. Really. RAWK!
---













Nikki Monniger - Silversun Pickups

Somewhere between modest and painfully shy, Nikki brings a touch of small town class to the stage. When I saw them on the last tour she sang "Creation Lake" and seemed completely taken aback by the applause like she had forgotten we were all there to see her.

---

Kim Deal - Pixies

Very few bands actually change the face of music. As far as I'm concerned, the Pixies changed everything and Kim wasn't just a background player.
In a band that changed the face of music, she was a member who changed the face of the band.

Porch Stuff

The petunias are a bit past their prime. The remaining blooms still try to keep the intensity of early summer going into August, but the leaves have gone brown and even the soil they're planted in seems tired of the heat. There are five little pots of them that are arranged in a tiered planter sitting beside me.

The pots were originally for herbs that I bought. I thought it would be nice to be able to just trim off herbs when I wanted, so we went out looking for seeds, cheap terracotta pots, and organic soil. After upgrading from terracotta to different colored glazed pots, I commenced to plant. Nothing grew. Nothing. Five pots with herbs, and not a single green leaf survived. So, Jen took them over, put some flowers in them, and now here they sit between our two wrought iron chairs.

Out front we added a bird bath, a bug candle, and we drag out a little round table from inside to set our drinks on. As I sit here now, Jen is fussing over one of the hanging baskets and dripping water on my ankles as she empties the watering can.

Usually, it's Sunday mornings that find us out on the porch, but this morning the air was stagnate and muggy, so we kept to the indoors and watched "Coraline". Now, a breeze has blown the heaviness out of the day, and we've moved outside. For a tight packed little neighborhood, it really is pretty quiet here. There's no real sense of community that I've ever felt here, but we're also hermits, so that could be totally our fault. Sometimes, someone walking by will stop to talk to us about a break in or something else bad that's happened in the neighborhood, but no one just stops to chat.

When we first moved here, there was a large woman who lived on the corner that would provide some entertainment. She had a big raspy voice that was accustomed to the strain of shouting orders. If you happened to be outside when she would go into a rage, you could hear her even though she was indoors. When she brought the yelling outside is when the real entertainment started though.

"I TOLD THAT MOTHERFUCKER HE'S NOT ALLOWED BACK IN THIS HOUSE, AND I COME HOME AND THERE THAT MOTHERFUCKER IS! I DON'T GET NO RESPECT AROUND HERE. NONE!"

I miss her.

We bought this place around six years ago because real estate is always a good investment. We walked into it with nearly 10% equity with no money down, and I was feeling pretty smart about it. Now, $40,000 upside down in the home because of the market and the foreclosures, we're trapped. If it weren't for this property, we'd have a place out in the country out near my brother. If it weren't for this property, we'd be living in St Paul and I wouldn't have nearly so much trouble finding someone to see Wilco with me. If it weren't for this place we'd be living downtown so we could walk to dinner, drinks, and exhibitions. If it weren't for this place, we'd be in Wisconsin where we'd
be close to friends and would have someone we trust to watch our children.

We're making the best of it for now. In the meantime, at least there's the porch, the breeze that sneaks around the corner of the house, and a smooth Sunday Merlot buzz.

Discount Degas

I sat in on a web seminar (a "webinar" for those of you down with the system) the other day. It was about team building, and honestly it was just something I needed to be able to say I did when it came time to talk about such things with my new boss. It was an hour of pain. The woman leading the course was out of Jersey and talked in anecdotes and illustrations in a practiced way that let me know she was on autopilot.

Overly chipper, she was the kind of girl who constantly reminds the people around her that she's "crazy" in a way that only the truly boring have mastered. Margaret Thatcher once said something like "Being powerful is like being a lady: If you have to say you are, you aren't." It's the same for people who try to cultivate eccentricity. If you're working hard at it, you're just not that weird.

Anyway, the entire presentation derailed the moment she dropped William Golding's name. In the midst of a Q&A about "difficult" work situations, the presenter is suddenly talking about Lord of the Flies.

"This is a book wasted on children. It's not until you're an adult that you can really see how it is the best book ever written about leadership and the mechanics of a team. It's the perfect team building novel."

The snob in me refuses to accept the reference. Here's this amazing piece of high school required reading that is a blueprint for human nature and the creepy corners of our souls, and yet what she walks away with is how the story can be turned into an illustration of getting along with difficult coworkers.

It's like a Matisse print in the conference room. It's hearing "I've Been Loving You Too Long" at a Monster Truck Rally. It's opening a Faberge egg to uncover a peanut crusted turd. It's...Well, you get the idea.

Keep art away from Corporate America. Sneak it in, keep it hidden for yourself, but don't let them see it and don't let them appropriate for their own use. I'm just sayin' is all.

Singing Dog Records

Through some creative budgeting I found myself with a spare $100 to drop on some new music. Armed with my budgetary guidelines and a Post It Note with scrawled purchase ideas, I headed to Singing Dog Records Monday night. Jen and I had been in there looking for a shirt for her the week before, but I didn't really get to spend any time going through the racks. Now, I would.

I walk up to the guy behind the counter to ask about a record I had seen the week before but wasn't on the racks now. He digs under a pile and pulls out a Radiohead bootleg for me to look over. We chat about sound quality for a couple of minutes and then he starts laying things down on the counter.

"Here, man. You're probably going to want this too. We sold out so fast the last time..."

He was talking to me like I shopped here all the time. I don't. He acted like we'd chatted in depth about the music that's important to me. We hadn't. A bit amused and a bit insulted by his presumption I looked down at the fresh copy of the new Dead Weather double LP he had put in front of me. Knowing the record was on the Post It Note in my pocket, I picked it up and tucked it under my arm with my Radiohead record.

"Oh, and here." he said laying a 7" single on the counter. It only took me 3 seconds to realize it was the new Modest Mouse numbered release before I grabbed it and added it to my stack. I hadn't been in the store 5 minutes and already this guy had spent almost my entire wad for me before I even started going through the racks. Realizing I had met my match, I quickly walked away before he unearthed something else he knew I couldn't live without.

The new Wilco record and some old Dinosaur Jr later and I'm heading back up towards the counter where a little old lady has taken a chair by the door.

"Oh Jeff, I haven't heard The Animals in so long. I remember when this song came out. Could you check to see if you have that for me on vinyl."

"Sure, Mary. Just let me take care of this gentleman first." he said nodding in the direction of a young kid in baggy jeans. "What can I help you find?" he asked the kid.

"I'm looking for the new Kanye on vinyl."

Mary spoke up immediately. "I love his new record! That's my sad record right now."

Smiling to myself I looked over at Mary. She was pushing 70, with long straight gray hair and teeth so black I thought her mouth may be full of ink. She played with her cane, bouncing it on the dusty floor between her feet while nodding along to "Girl Named Sandoz" from The Animals.

We chatted for a moment about the records I had put on the counter to pay for. And she told me she needed to hurry home so she could catch Silversun Pickups on The World Cafe.

"They're so good live, I just can't miss it." she said. "You know, they're coming to town soon."

I wanted to hug her right there on the spot.

Jeff came back to the counter where I paid $102.36 for my fix and I headed out the door hoping that it's not too long before I got to see them both again.

Damaged Americans in Flight

There's a not so new idea that airlines are again considering. With the economy being what it is, and airlines being the one industry that it's seemingly impossible to make a buck in, they are again considering charging passengers by the amount they weigh. Just like carrying extra baggage or shipping heavy items will cost you more, now it will cost you more for the Ben & Jerry's you just couldn't step away from.

There's solid logic here. It costs more money to carry my butt across the country. I require more fuel to to haul across Arkansas than it does to transport my daintier counterparts, therefore I should pay more. If only fat people could stay away from Hometown Buffet, they would get to pay less just like everyone else. I get it.

I do also get that food can be an addiction, and that sometimes a person's weight can be outside their direct control. (It's cool, scoff away skinny people.) Some people need help managing the reasons behind why they eat. I believe that the same life events that send people to drugs, alcohol, sex addiction, religion, anorexia, or many other things that victimize them, can also send you to the Pizza Hutt with shaking hands.

Plus, there are people who are just outside the norm. They do things differently than "normal" people, and they shouldn't escape Corporate America's close eye. With that in mind, I'd like to propose some additional charges for fellow passengers who have proclivities that may not be socially acceptable.

Smokers

You stink a little. I know you think you don't. I know you don't smoke in the house. Still...I'm just sayin'.

Don't get me wrong, I used to smoke and I loved it. I loved everything about it. Now though, many years removed from my addiction, I have to admit that I stunk too. It comes with the habit.

Because your smell will be an annoyance to the people stuck sitting around you, you should have to pay each of them $10.00. This will not be an airline fee, but rather an agreement worked out amongst armrest sharers.

The "Flying is a Party" Person

We all like to drink, but you never want the party to stop. You're generally fun at the airport bar before it's time to board, but no one really wants to be stuck sitting beside you on the plane. You have the propensity to get loud on long flights, and you tend to get sick in the tiny closet toilets leaving them smelling worse than usual.

Because of your inability to cope without assistance from the major bottling companies of America, you should pay an additional 33% "Handling" fee.

Homosexuals

Us straight people don't get it. First, with Lesbians, what's the draw? Everyone knows sex isn't sex with just girls involved. It's simple physics. With Gay Men, it's just gross. Butts are not natural places to express love. It's just dirty and abnormal...not at all like good clean anal sex shared by straight married couples.

Add the fact that you are all damned to hell, and I do not want to share a flight with you. Who knows when God will strike His vengeance upon you? I don't want to be there when it happens.

You're allowed to purchase tickets (at twice the normal rate) but should not actually be allowed on the flight.

Parent of a Crying Child

I know you and your family have shit to do and places to go. I get this. I don't expect you to drive across the country when you want to see grandma. I'm not heartless. Still, I cannot pretend I wouldn't rather be chewing glass than listening to your kid bawl his/her heart out for three hours straight. I'm sure you're nice people, but seriously.

In order to fly you should have to pick up the bar tab for everyone within 1-10 rows of your location (in both directions), and buy the first round for everyone in rows 11-15. It's the right thing to do.

The Witness

Just because I'm stuck on a plane with you doesn't mean I should be subjected to your beliefs. I really don't care, and am pretty sure that no one else on a Monday morning flight to Minnesota cares either.

If you want to share, you must do so from a special section of the plane that is populated by other people who want to share their beliefs too. You will pay double, and you'll consider yourself fortunate.
---

I think it's only fair. Add these charges, and I won't complain at all about the humiliation of standing on a scale and watching the price of my ticket jump through the roof. I'm sorry to all the gay alcoholic smoking religious parents of crying children out there if I came across as harsh. I just don't want to get stuck picking up the tab for all of us.

Father's Day Idiocy

This morning I was going through the paper on the porch (as per our normal routine) and turned to the Metro section. Metro is where you can get some local issue writing, plus the Obituaries. I don't know why, but I always scan the Obits. I don't always read them, but I look at the pictures, and if a face grabs me, I'll see how their family managed to condense their life into a little paragraph.

This morning, I flipped to the back of the Metro section and found myself staring at two pages full of photos of men. I was astounded by the number of deaths, confused why they all seemed to be men, and shocked by how many of them were black. My immediate thought was, if you are a black man living in the city of Columbus, you need to get the hell out. Run man, run! What are you still doing here? For the love of everything holy, don't you see what's happening to your people in this town?

"Holy shit!" I said to Jen. "Are there any black men left in Columbus?"

Jen looks over from her puzzle to the pages I'm holding out for her to see. "Um, those are Father's Day tributes."

"Oh. Of course they are."

Rest easy, African American men of Columbus. You're safe. I'm an idiot.

Indiana

As soon as the guitar started playing I was thinking of Indiana.

I remembered the cold brown of the corn fields with their trimmed stubble poking up through the gray Indiana ice.

I was climbing a thin swaying evergreen tree. I was high in its limbs, and went to reach for the next branch above me when I saw the Blacksnake coiled around it waiting for a bird. I backed down the tree frantically worried that the snake would get scared, loosen itself from the limb and fall on me.

I lived on a lake and we would swim for hours, doggy paddling with cigarettes clenched between our lips, trying to keep them from getting wet.

In Farmersburg, all the big Oak tree's trunks that lined Main Street had been painted white. It was to fend off a particular bug, they said. It always made me think of Tom Sawyer and his fence.

Teenagers, snorting well-timed bumps of crank, chain smoke in their cars and call out to each other as they drive by one another. The local rock stations refuse to play anything but CCR and Billy Squire, so we all listen to cassette tapes of Alice in Chains over and over.

Jesse and I would hike out to the meadow near my house. There was a little pond in the center of the clearing, looking like a mirrored pupil in a large eye. We'd pour gasoline on the water and then light it with a flick of a cigarette butt so we could see the water burn.

I was thirteen when my brother gave me my first beer. I took minute sips when I thought someone was looking at me, but otherwise focused on trying to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. After an hour, it had gone warm, but still I walked around with it, choking down small swallows here and there.

I was in the seventh grade, and somehow found myself holding hands and walking with Mindy Jackson. I spent the next ten years trying to recapture that feeling.

Cat had heard voices, but I didn't know about it until the sod had already stitched itself together over his grave. We stood around the tombstone talking, drinking. We went home and stood around the garage talking, drinking.

I went back once as an adult. Boys I had once known were now playing pool in the bars I visited. Girls I had once wanted to know didn't recognize me, or if they did, they pretended not to. It was OK, because I saw people that I pretended were strangers too. We drank draft beers and told each other we should do this more often.

Weekend

My wineglass must be broken. Every time I reach for it, it's empty. I don't understand.

Jen just said "I've got to stop being such a bad Buddhist. I've got to have something to teach our kid. I mean, if they're not going to have the fear of hell to keep them in line, what do we really have?"

We tried a caramel au beurre salé (or in my language a "Salty Caramel Crepe") from "A Taste of Belgium" at the North Market this afternoon. Yes, please.

Every year we get a few ants on the floor of our pantry. I put down a couple of ant baits, and within 24 hours they're gone. They are timely ants, but have weak constitutions.

Jen sees me typing, but keeps talking. I really don't mind for the most part.

The hummingbirds are fighting over the feeder in the front yard.

Made a big dinner tonight: Italian Herb Crusted Grilled Chicken, Stuffed Shells, and Steamed Asparagus. I don't cook often, but enjoy it when I do.

I haven't had meat (that I don't know the exact source of) for several months. Friday, Jen and I go out to dinner, and she had me try her meatloaf. I was chewing for a few delicious seconds before I remembered and had to spit it out in a napkin.

This morning we sat out on the porch for a few hours drinking coffee, me with the paper, Jen with her book. After a week of pretty intense humidity, this weekend has been perfect. It was impossible to be outside and be in a bad mood.

Really looking forward to TrueBlood tonight. The first season was a lot of fun, and the books are good fast reads. Can't wait to see what they include from the books, and what they change for the new shows.

The woman across the street burps loudly and spits occasionally.

We went out for a walk Friday night and encountered a man peeing in the bushes alongside the trail. His young daughter was ahead on the trail waiting for him where he thought she couldn't see him. Classy.

When I was a kid, my mom and grandparents would sit around and talk about the different birds that came to their feeder, and I thought I'd die with boredom just listening to them talk. Today we saw an American Goldfinch, and we both got excited. I need to write a horror story, listen to some Sonic Youth, or read a Chuck Palahniuk novel to try to regain some cool credits.

Sonic Pants

Got to sit down and listen to the new Sonic Youth tonight. I've only had one full listen through, but I already know it's my favorite album of theirs since "Washing Machine". I wonder how objective I can be right now though since it seems like ages since I've picked up something new. Around 11:00, I ran out to pick it up during my lunch hour and couldn't wait to get back home and listen to it.

Along Cleveland Avenue there has been a pair of jeans on the shoulder of the road for the past few days. Today, on my way back from record shopping, I saw a guy walking along the road stop and pick them up. He clenched his cigarette between his lips and held the heavy wet denim out in front of him as if trying to decide if they'd fit. After just a moment, he stuffed his hands into the pockets, and after finding nothing, dropped them back on the paved shoulder. I don't understand how there always seems to be assorted clothing along roadways. All over the city it seems there's random button down shirts in gutters, single shoes collecting water in highway medians, and socks strung out in the grass beside stop signs. Who are you people and why are you leaving your clothes all over my town?

It makes you wonder how bad things are though if you're going to go digging in the pockets of soaking wet street jeans.

Our Redneck Past is Nipping at Our Heels

It's easy to forget the way that things were (and, for some, the way things are). I get the extreme pleasure of sifting through the occasional Property Deed during the day, and came across this little gem of a restriction. The snippet shown below is from 1939.

70 years may seem like a lot, but it's just a blink.

My grandparents were already working their family farms at the time this document was printed. Hewlett-Packard was founded this year. Grapes of Wrath is published. Billie Holiday records "Strange Fruit". "Gone With the Wind" premiers. Oh, and this community-minded homeowner does his best to make sure his family land isn't tainted.

70 years may seem like a lot, but it's just a blink.

Sorry for the blurry reproduction, but the original was old. The text reads: 1. Neither the said lots, nor any part therof, nor any buildings which may be erected thereon, shall be sold, rented, leased or otherwise conveyed to any other than white persons.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Sometimes I wish I had more refined tastes. I can easily feel outclassed by people who prefer driving a car that's a jumble of letters and numbers ("Have you seen the new BMW M6?") or can talk about the smoky notes in their single malt scotch. My cars have always been named after small ineffectual animals and my whiskey of choice tends to be standard black label fare. It's not that I harbor resentment for people who can appreciate fine wines or who refuse to smoke a cigar other than the Cubans their friend at the airport smuggles in for them, because I really don't. I'm no class warrior. I just think that no one likes to feel outclassed, and I'm no exception. Sometimes it makes me wish my tastes were more complicated.

The counter point to this is that sometimes my simple tastes are a blessing. I can find Cohibas or Arturo Fuentes at any tobacco shop (not to mention some finer gas stations - fancy!), and my Toyota Corolla is cheap to buy and maintain. And, unlike the newly departed David Carradine, I do not need to have my hands and genitals bound, be gagged, and locked in a Bangkok closet in order to enjoy a random Thursday night. Again, if that's what you enjoy, I couldn't be more supportive of your right to seek pleasure in the way you see fit. I'm just glad I don't have to be burdened with the accouterments that come with such habits.

Plus, I'm lazy. All of the implements and planning and staging seems like a lot of work. Add to that the risk of being found hanging naked in a hotel, and that pretty much takes me out of the running for such activities.

I'm thinking simple is good right now.

But you got to hand it to good ole Dave. He was out there at 72 years old, doing his thing. He was working on a movie during the day and indulging in what I've decided is a nightlife that requires way too much energy and planning for this 30 something. I hope wherever he's at now, he's winning Emmy Awards, acting in celestial movies, and that there are plenty of ball gags to go around.

Places To Be

Last night I got so hot I still don't think I've cooled off. The room was large, and stuffed with a hundred and fifty people. The corporate issued air conditioning struggled with the crowd. I was standing around waiting, sweating, breathing in the air the person standing beside me just exhaled, and making a list of all the places I'd rather be:

A windswept field.
The walk-in cooler at the Pizza Hutt in McKinney, TX.
Flipping through the racks at Magnolia Thunderpussy Records.

There was a girl in a mini skirt and a super tight top walking through the room. Really? I thought. You're going to go interview at a bank today, and that's what you pick?. The girl in question stepped up on the riser to speak with the HR representative, and in her elevated position revealed the black boy-short underwear she was wearing. I immediately looked away, not wanting to be the kind of guy who gets caught looking at the kind of girl who would wear that to an interview.

A bar. Any bar.
Standing in front of my fridge with the door open.
Getting a virtual enema from the big fountain in Easton.

You can tell the sales managers a mile away. It's the walk and the nearly visible haze of aftershave rising from their shoulders like gasoline fumes. The pronounced strut didn't entirely fade in 1979, and they use it to communicate that the room belongs to them every moment they're in it. A nervous kid with a look in his eyes that tells you this is his first interview asks where he should sit. "Anywhere you want, tough guy. Pick a chair you think you can hold down. As long as you can remember your name, we'll find you when we're ready for you."

On the porch with my wife, talking about nothing.
Breathing the overwhelming air inside a walk in humidor.
Half Price Books.

I got home and the air conditioning was off because of the nicer weather earlier in the week, but now the upstairs was a sweatbox. I flipped the switch on the thermostat and went out to sit on the porch with Jen while the house regained its sanity. She's worried because I'm worried and she's trying to get my head screwed back on straight. We chatted for a while, and I told her about the skirt and the heat, but forgot to mention the sales manager guy. I realized I was being a prick, and finally asked her about her day. We talked for a few more minutes while watching the birds at the feeders, and then she bribed me with an ice cream cone from DQ. I stopped making my list of places I'd rather be.

Mix Tape

I had been thinking about doing a music post for awhile, but it's really not that great unless you can hear what I'm hearing. So, I decided to put together a mix tape just for you (yes, you). Pretend we're both fifteen and there's all kinds of things I wish I could say to you, but I just don't have the guts. So instead, I sit down with my dual cassette deck, and let drug addled artists do it for me.

CLICK HERE to download the 24 track collection I put together. You'll be taken to Sendspace. If you've never used Sendspace before, here's what to do: At the bottom of the page (under a bunch of ads), you'll see a file link calld CD.zip. Click on that, then simply save the file, unzip, and listen.

If you like a song, you should really consider buying the album. Click on the song name, and you'll be taken to Amazon where you can add it to your cart. With a handful of exceptions, these are independent artists and they could use the gas money. I'm just sayin' is all.

1 - Letter From Home - DJ Shadow
"Everything went wrong."

I've put together a few mixes in the past couple of years, and like beginning and ending them with Letter From Home (I & II) the same way DJ Shadow opened and closed his album "The Private Press". The two tracks are a frozen moment in time for this family, and we don't get to hear nearly enough. They set a great tone.

2 - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service
"I'm staring at the asphalt wondering what's buried underneath."

Ben Gibbard, known for his work with Death Cab for Cutie, worked on this project and I really like this stuff much more than output from his "steady job". Musically, I could imagine them opening up for 1988 era Pet Shop Boys, but the writing is so smart it makes me shake my head at times. It's a real pleasure to just sit and listen to this entire record, but this opening track kicks it off in style.

3 - Like a Vibration - The Whigs
"My reputation is hanging around my neck. It's hanging around in bars."

Three piece rock and roll from simple Southerners that doesn't sound small town. The Whigs are just a great loud rock band. Go see them live.

4 - Squares - The Beta Band
"So, miles and miles of squares. Where's the feeling there?"

This is a band I love when they're in a mix. To sit and listen to a full album is difficult for me because they're a bit too hypnotic. By the end, I feel groggy and slow as if I slept way too long. We were given the ability to bob our heads to a beat because the Great Creator knew this song would come along.

5 - In My Room - The Beach Boys
"But I won't be afraid."

One of the most beautiful songs ever written. Ever.

6 - Get it Together - The Beastie Boys

"The phone is ringing. Oh my God."

I always associate classic Beastie Boys records with the time in my life when they were released. When "Ill Communication" hit the racks I was having lots of fun and I still get a taste of that, even in my cubicle.

7 - Strange Desire - The Black Keys
"I don't wanna go to hell, but if I do, it'll be cuz of you."

There are two bands in this mix that a particular friend turned me onto, and this was the first. The Black Keys are two guys from Ohio who have amassed critical acclaim, sold more than a few records, and still drive their own van to gigs. Beautiful stripped down blues and a fierce live show. If you like this, go buy everything these guys have done.

8 - V.F.W. - The Dead Milkmen
"We're all veterans…"

When I was in the fifth grade, a bunch of my friends sent off a mail-order form and weeks later received their black and white Dead Milkmen shirts. I was so jealous, but didn't have the money for one of my own. We would spend our winter recesses under one of the work tables in our classroom listening to "Big Lizard..." quietly so the profanity wouldn't be overheard and get us in trouble. The Dead Milkmen were my first exposure to punk and they still give me the feeling of naughty joy that I got the first time I heard them tell me that we're all veterans of a fucked up world.

9 - Send a Little Love Token - The Duke Spirit
"You should read these words I bet you never heard."

When I think of my favorite music, The Duke Spirit don't come up for some reason. Every time one of their songs is played as part of my shuffle I'm reminded how good they sound though, and will usually have to go listen to the "Neptune" record from start to finish.

10 - Handlebars - Flobots
"I can hand out a million vaccinations or let 'em all die in exasperation."

Our local independent radio station (WWCD 101.1) played this song, and I was on iTunes downloading it that night (at the time, the album hadn't been rereleased in its current format, and owning a copy of the CD would have set me back $45). I liked it so much that I sent it or played it to everyone I could. The world is a better place with Flobots tending the light at the end of their own particular tunnel.

11 - Exchange - Massive Attack
"_________________ ."

When I was a young, a bunch of us kids would be packed into the back of my Aunt Elta's station wagon and we'd go to Lake Hudson near Granville, OH to go swimming. They had old fashioned speakers (you know, the ones that looked like megaphones) that they would play music through when not making announcements. The music they played was restrained, picked because it wouldn't be annoying or offensive to anyone. This song reminds me of those 1960's instrumentals that Lake Hudson was so fond of. It's all about lake water, the smell of popcorn, and learning to swim.

12 - What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
"Right on, baby."

I didn't come to like Marvin until I was an adult, but it's music that I wish I was nostalgic about. I would love to be able to tell you a story about how my mom turned me on to Marvin when I was just a kid, and how it sparked discussion about where this kind of music came from, and how we came to hear it all the way out in rural Ohio. But yeah, that shit never happened.

13 - Paper Planes (Remix for the Children of Adrock) - M.I.A.
"No one on the corner has swagger like us."

Chris Wilbourn, Heiruspecs MC extraordinaire, told me about a song that he couldn't get out of his head. (This was a year or two back, long before Slumdog hit the screen). I had recently sent him some Flobots stuff, and he returned the favor with the album version of M.I.A.'s Paper Planes. A couple days later I picked up the album and a remix disc and immediately latched on to Adrock's version.

14 - You or Your Memory - The Mountain Goats
"St Joseph's Baby Aspirin, Bartles & James, and you."

I worked with a young law student who first played The Mountain Goats for me. It took some time for me to come around, but once I did I was hooked. This is by far my favorite album they've done, and one of my favorite songs off it.

15 - Oh, Me - Nirvana
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it."

A few weeks ago, Sound Opinions did a show where they shared their favorite live albums of all time. Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York made their list, and it makes mine. Originally a Meat Puppets tune, the version played here is the absolute highlight of the record. I remember being so broke when this was released that I had to go through my CD collection to find stuff to trade in just to get enough cash so I could buy it. I don't think I listened to anything but this record for three months after that day.

16 - Punk Rock - Mogwai
"Do you understand what I'm talking about?"

A 1977 recording of Iggy Pop lecturing on the beauty of Punk with master instrumentalists Mogwai setting the tone. God bless Iggy Pop. God bless Mogwai.

17 - Trunk Fulla Amps - Self
"Like Glen Danzig…MOTHER!"

"Self" is actually one dude recording music using nothing but toys. Seriously. Listen, and you'll hear it. The crunchy guitars are made of plastic and marketed to 8 year olds. The keyboards are kiddie Casios, and there's plenty of tinkling, blurping, and beeping provided by a literal army of toys. Add profanity laced finger pointing, and I'm hooked.

18 - Ode To LRC - Band of Horses
"The world is such a wonderful place."

Beautiful rock music created by vocal clinicians. I love this band, and really hope they tour again soon so I can go see them.

19 - JC - Sonic Youth
"All the men want a charming whore."

I love Sonic Youth. I know they're an acquired taste, and many of you have already decided if you love or hate them. Because I love so much of what they do, it was really hard to pick a track to put in here, so I thought I'd go with one of Kim's songs that I thought was a bit more accessible than some of their other stuff. No one creates a wall of sound like SY.

20 - Wolf Like Me - TV On the Radio
"My heart's aflame, my body's strained, but God I like it."

Critics seem to love these guys, which I find odd since they're hard to classify. If you ever take the time to try to figure them out, they wind up surprising you at every turn. My wife hates the vast majority of the music I love. Chances are, the more important an artist is to me personally, the more she hates them. It's instinctive, and never malicious, but it always hurts in a way she'll never really understand. TV On the Radio have the dubious distinction of being the band she hates more than anyone.

"Who are these guys?" she'll ask.
"TV On the Radio".
"That's the worst shit I've ever heard. They make me love Sonic Youth."

21 - There's No Secrets This Year - Silversun Pickups
"I'll tell you a secret."

I understand all the complaints people make that SSPU are too derivative of Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine, I just don't care. I love big warm fuzzy guitars. I love strong female bass players. I love noisy freakouts. SSPU gives me all of this without fail.

22 - Handshake Drugs (Live) - Wilco
"I was buried in sound."

I had "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", and had listened to it some, but it never grabbed me in a big way. A friend that I talk music with every time we get together kept rhapsodizing about how amazing Wilco is, and I'd have to admit that I just didn't get them. I saw that PBS was going to show an Austin City Limits episode taped shortly after the release of their "Sky Blue Sky" album, and I recorded it. That performance opened my eyes, and a big part of the discovery was "Handshake Drugs". Nothing is more fun than a chipper song about scoring.

23 - Videotape - Radiohead
"This is one for the good days."

Funeral ready.

24 - Letter From Home (2) - DJ Shadow
"It look like everywhere I go I draw heat. Period."

You're damn right.