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.