So... How's the Writing Going?

Well. . . I'm in bed at ten.  I set the alarm for five am.  If I'm lucky, I'll have two hours to myself before Dylan gets up.  I wake up around midnight on my side, my hip in a pool of cold wetness, wondering if I've pissed myself.  My bladder is bursting so it's entirely possible.  But I wasn't drinking (and even at my most drunk I've never pissed the bed, I've just heard that's what happens, and that's the first bleary thought I have, I'm not even drunk), I wasn't dreaming that I couldn't find a toilet (which is what I dream about when I need to get up and pee in the middle of the night), and if I pissed the bed then why would I still be able to get up and pee?  But my bladder is sizable, so maybe I have enough storage capacity to piss the bed and still need to use the toilet.  Maybe this is just a surprise my body has unleashed as I approach forty.  Maybe all forty-year-old men start pissing the bed, but they're ashamed of it so no one talks about it; it's just something you discover alone, in the cold watches of the night.

How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore?

I’m always amazed when people abandon their book orders.  I don’t mean the folks who buy books and then never pick them up, which happens more often that you’d think; we’ve got shelves of prepaid titles that have been taking up space for years.  We hang on to them because people not only show up years after the purchase, but get livid if their book isn’t waiting for them years after the purchase.  Moral of the story?  Book lovers are special.   

That’s a different kind of person, one who spends so much they have no idea what they’re buying.  I can make that judgment because I’m on a budget.  I don’t care how disorganized or forgetful you are, if you abandon a $25-$35 hardcover - or a stack of them - it’s because you can afford to.Not them, though.  I’m talking about my internet customers.  As I write this, I realize the phenomenon I’m about to explore probably happens because people who are interested in books are primarily (ha-ha) bookish types who'd rather just let things die by ignoring them than confront anything, but I’m going to go right ahead and write about it anyway because it took me a long time to figure out how to get that screen shot.  Check the dates if you don't believe me.

 



Handling internet orders for Books & Books coming up on eight years, it’s always a little hurtful when I find myself begging for communication with people who seem to have ordered something they don’t even want.  I can empathize when people complain about a great date who never called back.  

The Five Year Anniversary

Over the days that followed, his pain became increasingly familiar to him.  It would come over him while he was reaching for the push-buttons on his bed or crossing the floor to the bathroom, when he was watching the sun bounce off the TV, watching the rain leave its cat’s paws on the window, a response he realized he’d been waiting for all along, as if he and his wounds were having a conversation at bedtime, interrupted by long moments of insensibility.  Oh, yes.  Where were we?  You were asking me a question, weren’t you?  He did not court the sensation, but he did not shrink away from it, either.  Whenever he felt it diminishing, a brief feeling of regret settled over him.  The fact that he was healing meant that he would be returning to his real life soon.
-Kevin Brockmeier, Illumination.  

I copied that wonderful quote on pain from the mighty Kevin Brockmeier’s Illumination because it spoke to me.  Every anniversary of the accident, the rainy season has passed and the worst of my pain with it.  Rather than struggling to cast my mind back, I decided to record those complaints so I’d have some fresher memories.  It also helps me keep my complaints to myself.

Friday, July 15th, 2011 - It’s a restless day for that creature.  You know what it looks like, the thing which lives inside your thigh, mouth wrapped around the end of your femur where it meets your hip: at the end of The Incredibles, Jack-Jack morphs into a little demon of flames and big teeth.  The end of your femur rests in it’s mouth like a dog sleeping with a chew toy.  The heat tingling from this creature’s mouth is like your nose in the corner of your vision, always there but forgotten unless you think about it.

Then a movement you’ve made a thousand times startles it for some reason.  It’s not quite awake, but it still bites.  Once, twice, three times, before settling back into that low heat.


Monday, July 18th - The aching bones in your leg bring to mind a rotten tooth.  Not a fresh nerve jangling pain, but something brittle you’d see in a skull in a museum.  No longer a tool for biting, but an object to gingerly ease from place to place.

This is not the case, obviously, but it feels so true you actually test holding your entire body with your leg.  You push up and down a few times for good measure, proving your leg is strong, solid, that the weakness is all in your mind.  Even this doesn’t convince you.  Your hollow bones ache like buzzing filament in a lightbulb, warning you to tread softly on what’s left.


Thursday, July 21st - It’s a day to lean forward in your chair because of your rib, the high one toward your back.  You’re a child, and a cruel adult is digging a thumb and forefinger into your back and side like a pincer.  The angle makes your hip worse, of course, so you lean back after a time.  Since most your day is spent in a chair the day passes this way, moving the pain back and forth between your hip and your rib.  


Friday, July 22nd - Your rib, the low one this time, toward the front.  It’s like sleeping on a fold-out cot, the metal hinge digging into your side.  You forget it’s there, and you slouch.  The weight of your upper body pushing down increases the annoying pressure into a deep throb.

You straighten up, which is fine.  You shouldn’t be slouching anyway.


Wednesday, August 23rd - Nothing which cut through the rush of work and wedding prep severely enough to report for a month, which is good.  A day with no relief, which is bad.

No standing position is comfortable, no sitting position is comfortable, laying down relieves the worst of the aches but it’s not an option.  Grit your teeth, get through it, hope tomorrow is better.


Thursday, August 24th - The day begins with some kind of object left inside your left buttcheek, something shaped like one of those trivets you leave on a stove for resting spoons while you cook.

As the day progresses, the object moves south.  It rests against your hip socket, then in your knee joint, and finally your ankle.  The ankle and knee pain always mystifies you.  Nothing happened to your ankle or your knee.  Supposedly getting in an accident is like jumping off a building, six stories for sixty miles-an-hour, seven stories for seventy miles-an-hour, etc.  Your legs absorb the shock of the car’s sudden stop.  But that only applies to head-on collisions, and if it had happened with you, the pain should be in both ankles.  Besides, what bruised bone still pains four years after the injury?

That’s another reason to keep the pain to yourself; the idea that it might be all in your head.


Friday, August 26th - Ribs poking the muscles in your back all day long at work.  Hip at a level you haven’t felt in years.  Blame it on the sudden temperature shift brought by the passing of hurricane Irene.


Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 (the Five-Year Anniversary) - You get the idea.  I stopped at that point but I realize this year that cold snaps in the winter aren’t any picnic, either.  Maybe last year’s rainy season was just extra-bad.  Here are two images I didn’t use but which I also see on certain days: my hip as a sea shell, or a two-by-four blackened and brittled by fire.

Yesterday I helped set up Books & Books’ booth for this weekend's South Beach Wine and Food Festival.  Lugging heavy cookbooks about led to a painful evening, but you know what?  No one likes a whiner.  I popped some Aleve and walked to Cub Scouts with Dylan.

I made a promise to myself after this accident that I'd never take my body for granted again.  The aches last night were worth getting out of the chair and doing something physical.  I should remember that.

Soon and Inevitably to be Rejected

See what I did there?  I took the form rejection letter's favorite phrase, "Your work is soon and inevitably to be accepted" and turned it on its head.  I'm so clever, it really is just a matter of time before my work is accepted.

Jai-Alai Magazine is a recent literary adventure for Miami, the brainchild of The University of Wynwood.  Jai-Alai's first issue sold out and Books & Books customers continually ask for more.  I tried to get into the second issue and got archived instead.  I found their 750-word limit for fiction a challenge;  I guess it proved too great.

It's not like I had my heart set on getting into it or anything, but it's tough to feel awesome when you work at one of only two drop locations in the city and you can't get any play.

Well, back to pushing the cursor.

Miami Book Fair International Day 6: The Party Starts Today

This year opened with Christopher Paolini's Inheritance on Sunday afternoon.  The Miami Writers Institute, Student Literary Encounters, and the heavy hitters - Dorothy Alison, Harry Belafonte, John Sayles, Ron Suskind, Calvin Trillin - have been hitting all week long, but these next three days are key.  The Street Fair is its own monster, and Books & Books is 90% ready.

It's ten minutes to six am.  Becky and I are dropping Dylan off at school in the dark so we can finish the job of getting the tents set up.

Some retailers have the holiday season; at Books & Books, we have Miami Book Fair International.

Tensions are high.  Illness runs rampant.  Three of us have almost quit this week, including me.  When the gates open in about four hours, we'll find out if it's all been worth it.

There have been more cancellations.  I read an apologetic email from an author just recovering from the flu.  This author knew that flying down to Miami for the weekend would cause the flu to return, so... he can't make it, sorry.

Not everyone at Books & Books is or has gotten sick but there's a fairly sturdy illness making the rounds on some key players.  I worked a sixty-hour week, spent a miserable Friday night and all day Saturday in bed, and then worked another sixty hour week starting Sunday.  14 and 16 hour days are just as beneficial for your health as you'd imagine.

I'm putting more effort into stocking Authorton McFluwhiner's books than he is into promoting them.

As Becky says, "His loss, don't it so personally."  I don't.  Much.  I just get annoyed when people have the kind of jobs where they can make those choices.  I wonder what it is about me that I have never had the kind of job where I can take a sick day.  It is me, refusing to take one?  People call out all the time at every job I've ever had, so maybe it is just me.

Anyway, I've gone off topic and now the alarm is going off.  My point is, there's stuff I wanted to do.  I haven't written in forever, and not just blogs.  I've been sleeping in until seven, because waking at five would be pushing myself too hard, and this cold keeps nipping at my heels.  I wanted to morph that post about the wedding books into something Book Fairish for The Heat Lightning, because a ton of those authors are appearing.  I wanted to interview someone awesome like Vera Brosgol or Hillary Jordan for THL, too.  I wanted to drink juice and eat soup.

Well, I did that last one.  Just not enough.

By the end of every day, I'm in that mode where I have to keep moving, because if I stop, I'll crash.  It was over a hundred degrees in the tent yesterday.  I think I lost ten pounds of water.  I know I didn't pee once.  It's supposed to rain all weekend.

Wish us luck.

A Letter to Miami Book Fair International Authors Who Cancel

Dear Authorton McWriterface,

God forbid you have a successful tour.  Poor you, having to meet folks who adore your work.  You don't want attention, then guess what?  Don't tour.  Before that, don't publish what you write.

Clearly your work has struck a nerve, but screw the fans whose purchases have assured you'll never need a real job again, right?  Screw the folks trying to schedule hundreds of authors around your event, huh?  Fuck that guy in the buying office beating his brains against his desk trying to find copies of your book somewhere, anywhere, because your publisher is caught by surprise and your book is in reprint, yes?

Fuck those people because it's all about you, and flying in an airplane, checking into a hotel, sitting in a chair, and signing your fucking name is just too much.  You know why David Sedaris signs for four hours at every gig, even after all these years on tour?  Because he knows that real work is much, much worse.

Get a fucking job.

Google Images doesn't have much in the manner of book beatings. 

And if your tour is not successful, so what?  You published an honest-to-God book.  In this climate, where publishers are leary of anything not rambled (or co-rambled) into existence by some "celebrity," you did it - you didn't self-publish, you didn't CreateSpace, you didn't offer your book on the Kindle for 99 cents.  A publisher looked at your work and thought, "This.  This will keep the doors open a while a longer."  That's not enough affirmation for you?

I get it, it's frustrating to think you have something to say and that no one will listen, like this is your one big chance to shout your message to a mass audience but the crowd went, "meh."  I have no idea what that feels like.  But you know what it feels like being the guy ordering books for the guy for whom that's not good enough?  It sucks.  It's soul-crushing.  It sets my teeth a-grinding.

So think of me, pull your head out of your ass, and woo the half-dozen people who care what you have to say so hard that they'll have no choice but to tell half a dozen others.

Of the two book beating images on offer, this is the clear winner.

And if this is your second year canceling... oh, Authorton.  Nothing could make me agree to this again, order everything for Miami Book Fair while doing my regular job.  But to see you come in, give your presentation, and melt down because your books aren't here, thinking of that almost makes it seem worth the effort.

Better yet, maybe we'll just have you sign copies of our return paperwork.  Fuckwad.


May All Your First Printings Be Remaindered,

Frustrated in the Buying Office

I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

If I had to guess the origin of "ass" as a modifier, it's got to be badass.  Most likely Sweet Sweetback's Baadaaaaaassssssssssss Song.  It started badass, which makes sense.  One's ass had been a stand in for the entirety of oneself for some time, and not-bad-meaning-bad-but-bad-meaning-good goes without saying.  Therefore, if one is the ultimate in cool, or toughness, or knowledge, or attitude, then he or she might be labelled badass.

People dug this, and the trend continued with hardass; mostly in military circles.  Then wiseass and smartass came along, followed closely by dumbass.  These terms all make sense, somewhat, especially given that they take ass into the pejorative.

Then things got weird.  Ass started peppering sentences where it had no place, not modifying a word to make a new one (being dumb is bad enough, but being a dumbass is dumb beyond redemption) but on its own, strengthening sentiment.

"That was one lame ass movie."    

"That's a sweet ass ride."

"Tell your stupid ass friends that stuffing condoms filled with yogurt between the cushions of my couch is not funny."

I'd been living in Miami a couple of years before a Chilean woman named Janet took me under her wing and started teaching me a few phrases in Spanish.  I was fascinated how Latin folks use the word cojone.

"Que quieres?" means "What do you want?"  But say you get a call at three in the morning, or your cell phone shows you the name of someone who you really could do without at the moment.  A more appropriate response might be, "Que cojone quieres?"

You might think that this translates into "What ball do you want?"  You're right, that's what it translates to.  What is means, though, is "What the fuck do you want?"  I threw cojone in, and now you know I'm pissed.  I thought that 1) that was cool as shit, and 2) there was no equivalent in the English language.



The other day I was walking down the street wearing a t-shirt with this image:

Order it at Gorey Details

Some dude at the bus stop called out, "Hey, that's an awesome ass shirt, man."

Yes, it is.  I thanked him, and kept walking.  A few moments later, I was like, "Wait, what?"  The "not-bad-meaning-bad-but-bad-meaning-good" in badass got mixed up with ass, and now ass is a good thing?  Or maybe the fact that it sounded like some new bit of fashion I was unfamiliar with threw me off.

Ass shirt?

After the way this guy used the word ass threw me, I started hearing it everywhere (I'm also hearing counterintuitive all over the place now, which makes me think it will be the next literally, but that's another post).  Nice ass shoes, sweet ass website, funny ass movie, cool ass girl . . . nearly every conversation I heard used ass to strengthen a compliment.


When I remembered cojone for a minute I thought, "Hey, we do it, too!"  But it's not the same.  Latin folks know what they're doing. "¡Qué cojones!" can be used to express extreme excitement, or as the Latin equivalent of the Yiddish "oy vey," but no one's using cojone as a compliment.

Gringos need to take a lesson from our Latin brethren and stop using ass willy nilly.  Ass is not appropriate for everything.

Or is it?

Um, no.  It's not.

You Should Read David Benioff

Talent must be a fanatical mistress.  She’s beautiful; when you’re with her, people watch you, they notice.  But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence: your wife, your children, your friends.  She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good.  One night, after she’s been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you.

Ushakovo – The Courtyard Hound, the fictional book David Benioff’s Kolya (Nikolai Alexandrovich Vlasov) is writing in City of Thieves

I rarely experience professional jealousy.  I might read a Joe Hill story that's so genius I wish I'd thought of it first, or a lush David Mitchell novel that makes me realize I'll rise to the top level of my ability and still be looking up at him, but the reading experience doesn't plunge me into despair.  It energizes me, feeds me, shows me ways I can explore my own work.


Then, there's David Benioff.  

City of Thieves is so, so good.  I pulled the above quote because it's a delicious metaphor, a tribute to the language and a joy to read.  It gives you an idea of his talent, but it can't tell you how good the book is.  It's so good that you have to wolf it down in huge gulps.  It's so good that any fiction about World War II puts me off and it's still one of my favorites.  It's so good that a passage like the one above doesn't even make it into the "real" book (okay, you could argue that it's Benioff's way of getting around one of writing's basic tenets: Slay Your Darlings.  It's great but it has no place in the actual narrative, so he  throws in this book-within-a-book to give it a home.  Did you make that argument?  Well, congratulations; you hate fun).  


But City of Thieves didn't make me jealous.  This did:

That's the author photo on the dustjacket of Benioff's first novel, The 25th Hour.  Like many, I read City of Thieves first.  The 25th Hour isn't quite as good, but it's got style and story to spare (and shouldn't a writer improve as s/he goes along?).  It's from the Elmore Leonard School, where character drives everything, and dialog reveals all.  It's literate fiction pumped up for the thriller genre, which makes it a unique experience.  He delves into these men's heads-


You know what?  Just read it.  

Halfway through, I was enjoying the book so much I had that moment of wondering what the dude who wrote it looks like.  Once more, it was this guy:

Hey, ladies.  I call this one "smoldering."

Suddenly, The 25th Hour's descriptions of the uber-gorgeous Monty didn't seem so far-fetched.  


Ed Norton plays him in the movie, which makes no sense.  I was picturing Ian Somerhalder while I read, which brings us to my gripe; David Benioff is too good-looking to be so talented.  He's rich, too.  Bottom line?  Fuck that guy.


You might argue that no author looks as good in person as they do on a dustjacket.  Sometimes you're right.  Many times, in fact.  Authors are human, like the rest of us.  Some of us are photogenic, some of us aren't.  Those of us who aren't photogenic don't have the luck to always be caught at a good angle in the right light. 


Take Benioff.  That author photo is way old.  In fact, he grew up and eventually became the hideousness that is this:

It's sad that I'm so beautiful. Wah.

Poor Benioff, trapped in the ivory tower of his gorgeousness, dismissed as a cinematic author turned screenwriter by literary snobs.  He's probably forlorn because with that puss, he'll never be taken seriously enough to win a Booker Prize or a Pulitzer.  I'll bet he cries himself to sleep every night while he's banging Amanda Peet on top of a pile of cash.


Seriously, fuck that guy.  


And when's his next book out?

Blog it Out Four - Anger

Anger has always been the most difficult emotion for me to express. 

Don’t blame me; it’s filial.  Grandpa used to beat grandma.  My father grew up watching that and swore to himself that he would never.  He kept his promise and became passive-aggressive.  He spent my childhood brooding silently, a lump in a lounge chair, the angry God who slept beneath the volcano.  He didn’t use fists, but he did use his voice.  He has a tone that can wither flowers, destroy sunshine, and make you feel like you’ve never been worthy of love and never will be.  

I have that tone.  It’s taken me decades to understand where it comes from, and get rid of it.  I also have the same problem my dad has expressing anger.  I feel like the world will come apart if I do.

As we all know, depression is anger turned inward.  I might have some residual depression to work out from my divorce, but what I really am is angry.  

I have every right to be angry.  She pulled away, she did the cheating, she looked around at our life and decided to destroy it.  I had a peaceful heart once, but now I don’t.  She destroyed that, too.

I hate her for that.  I hate her for it, and I’m allowed to, dammit.  I am allowed to hate my ex-wife for breaking my heart.  

When I told my uncle Dom about the upcoming nuptials, he asked if I was going to tell Andi.  He might as well have asked if I was planning on running a marathon.  I can’t say running one is an awful idea, but it’s just never occurred to me that it’s something I might do. 

“Do you think I should?” I asked.

“Oh, I can’t answer that,” he said.

I thought about it.  I saw the logic (and we’ve all seen that movie); I’d rather you hear it from me than someone else.  But the truth is, I don’t care where or if she hears about my marriage.  Like my life, it has nothing to do with her.  That’s the beauty of divorce.  If I don’t want to consider her feelings, I don’t have to.  At all.  

If I ruin my relationship with Becky because of my ex, because of my broken heart, because of my anger and hatred... well, I can try hating my ex for destroying two marriages, but I doubt the lie would last.  

If I don’t work these feelings out, they will poison what Becky and I have.   

But I’ll have no one to blame except myself.

Blog it Out Three - Festival of Festering

Uncle Fester squatted in my head like bloated, ornery toad, culminating in a bad evening of snapping at Dylan and Becky for no reason.  Alone in the kitchen while I was lighting a gas burner, those physical symptoms which accompany Uncle Fester at his worst - the choke collar, the weight on my chest, the pounding in my skull - all clamped down like a vise.  I’ve suffered panic attacks before but this was different.  Instead of thinking I was dying, I was afraid I wouldn’t die, but my life would be miserable.  

I felt that way as long as I could stand it.  

Then I took the wooden match I’d used to light the stove and held the head to the flesh inside my arm.

The closest I’ve come to something like that was dragging the scooped edge on top of a safety pin over my forearm in middle school.  I wanted it to scar, so I picked at the scab every time it formed.  If I was going to practice self-mutilation as a coping mechanism, you’d think I would have discovered it earlier in life. 

The burning match head brought Fester up short.  A second match, allowed to burn longer to get good and hot and used more quickly once the the flame was blown out - not the desperate use of anything at hand to stop the flood of emotions but an intentional match - well, that second match sent Fester away.

The following morning was even worse.  I’ve blocked it out, but I know it wasn’t pretty.  Becky left to drop Dylan off at school.  I fully expected her to come back and tell me she hadn’t signed on for this, to get my shit together or get lost.  

Alone in a house which Fester had robbed of all cheer and warmth, the physical symptoms threatened to overwhelm me again.  I heard a voice, my old friend Maria Clara Ferri.  During that first week of my separation, Maria told there’d be times I’d be miserable, and I had to allow myself to be miserable.

So I did.  I stopped wondering why I was feeling so desolate and let the tears come.  At the height of this sobbing jag, I surprised myself by barking, “She left me” at the empty house.  

I didn’t mean Becky to drop off Dylan, either. 

Uncle Fester has visited twice since then.  Both times, his stay has been shorter.  I think the third time he might have even been easier to ignore, but I could be fooling myself.  Maybe he’s just saving up for one big push to make me ruin my new life, but there’s no way of knowing.  

See?

When Becky returned that awful, awful morning, I apologized.  I told her I was scared.  Scared of us not working out, of losing her, of being heartbroken again.

She offered assurances, but in the end it’s me.  When Fester has me, I can’t feel her love.  That’s his worst power.  I can’t feel Becky’s love, at all.    

Blog it Out Two - Uncle Fester

My last post I mentioned my world spiraling into a blue-black swirl of pain, my thoughts co-opted by someone who only sees the negative everywhere he looks.  I’m going to call this mindframe Uncle Fester (mindset + frame of mind = mindframe).  

Not this lovable.

The first visit I got from Uncle Fester was over something so embarrassingly trivial I can’t even name it here, so I’ll make up something equally trivial to give you an idea of how ridiculous the cause was.  I asked Becky to do the dishes after I cooked dinner, and she didn’t.

Maybe she was going to do dishes in the morning.  Maybe she was going to wash them after work, before she made dinner.  Maybe she expected me to do them.  Whatever the reason, each dirty dish was a weight on a scale, measuring our relationship.

Look at those dishes, Aaron, Uncle Fester said.  If it’s like this after two years, what do you think it will be like after twenty?  If she cares this little for you now, it’s just going to get worse down the line.  Problem is, you’re in love.  You can’t leave.  You’ll just have to wait it out until she gets sick of your old, tired, saggy ass, you’ll just have to let her drag you through shit until she’s bored to tears just looking at you, until she wises up and leaves.

Uncle Fester stayed a sold week, maybe longer.  Knowing the cause was trivial didn’t help in the slightest.  In fact, it made it worse.  The more I told Uncle Fester to let it go, to get over it, to stop being so silly, the harder he clawed his way through my thoughts, tearing everything to bleary ruin.  

I tried keeping it to myself.  Or maybe it was too overwhelming to talk about, this feeling that the dream I’d been living for months had become a nightmare.  Trying to keep it inside proved less than effective.

“Do you want a ride now, or should I pick Dylan up first and come back for you so you have more time to work?”  Becky’s questions were all innocence.  She thought she was talking to the man she loved, not Uncle Fester.

If I catch a ride now, will the dishes be done? Fester hissed.

“Whatever,” I’d snap, “Who cares?  Do want you want, what difference does it make.”

Yeah, more like that.

Fester pissed on everything.  

That’s a great story, does it wash dishes?  Because I’m going to Book Club tonight, it means the dishes don’t get cleaned?  I’m trying to listen but I can’t hear you over the SOUND OF THE DIRTY DISHES.

Again I find myself saying that wanting to be over something doesn’t mean I am.  

Blog it Out

In a post from October 2009, right before Becky and I started dating, I said that I’d never again make the mistake of censoring my blog based on who reads it.  This is tough when what you want to write about is doubting your relationship, and the person you live with is who you’re marrying in five months.

My Gaba moved to Seattle (damn his evil heart for leaving) after ending a seven-year relationship.  He got together with TheOneTheyCallB after seven months.  He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him, and they’re getting married next month.  In fact, seeing pictures of the beautiful engagement ring is one of the things which kept me from proposing (damn his decent-wage-paying job for delaying my happiness).  

Getting together fairly quickly has led to its share of problems for Gaba and TOTCB.  What those problems are, I have no idea.  Early in my relationship with Becky, TOTCB and I shared some correspondence.  I wondered how things would work for me.  I worried I was suppressing pain under the glow of new love, I worried because of warnings against rebound relationships.  

TOTCB made a comment like, “Gaba and I went through a lot of that at first, believe me.  It wasn’t easy but we got through it.”  I wondered, what’s that about?

Well, now I know.  

The saying goes, Sing like no one’s listening, dance like no one’s watching, and love like you’ve never been hurt.  Now that I can think straight (and by that I mean it feels like I’ve stopped drifting through a storm and picked up my oars once again), that last part is proving more difficult than I ever thought it would be.

Every misunderstanding feels like the end of the world.  Complicating matters, I also can’t talk about them for some reason.  Something as simple as, “When you joked about_____ it made me feel _____” is like trying to lift a building.  I don’t even know how to begin a task so impossible, let alone have the tools or strength to accomplish it.  So the tiny (usually imagined) slight festers like a splinter.  It festers and it poisons my thoughts.  

My head belongs to someone else, someone I dislike intensely, someone who only sees faults everywhere he looks, be it the mirror, his life, or the woman he loves.  I develop a lump in my throat, pounding around the base of my skull, and pressure in my chest.  I doubt everything.  I doubt her love.  I doubt mine.  The world feels like a bluish-black swirl of pain, sucking me down into it’s pit.  I want nothing more than to curl into a ball under my desk, or inside a closet, anywhere dark, enclosed, and hidden.  

I can’t get over my divorce, for some reason.  On my divorce post, I said there must be a finite number of tears you can shed over someone.  Either I was wrong, or I had more tears to shed.

Well, I can’t afford a shrink.  All I have is Sweet.

Bear with me. 

I Dreamed of Big House

In the dream we always live together, every family member I’ve ever had, Becky and her friends and family.  Tota is there, but she can hear, and she can still dance, drive, and throw a punch to anyone who disrespects the family.  The uncle I lost at nine to alcoholism is there.  I don’t remember him but there’s an uncle-shaped man of smiles and living room rug-wrestling who I call Fran.  Friends live here too, friends who’ve wandered from me over the years, or who I’ve let slip away.  There are endless rooms for all in this house, solitude when it’s needed, and adventure in undiscovered rooms.  Everyone is happy.  

I’ve yet to decide if this is my vision of heaven.  If hell is other people it can’t be heaven, right?  But that’s a question for another post.

In last night’s dream, Becky and I buy a home and everyone we’ve ever known moves in (I use “buy” loosely; these dream homes just kind of happen).  Everyone loves it immediately.  The vibe is perfect and the foundation is solid, even if there are spots which need work.  

Everyone runs out front onto the rolling hills of lawn for a huge night barbecue lit by paper lawn lanterns (thanks, Blood, Bones, and Butter).  I look back at the house, the windows blazing light, the balconies on each floor which run the entire length of the front of the house.

While I’m looking, feeling great because we’ve found such amazing accommodations, the front balcony falls off and lands on me.  Laying there stunned, pinned beneath the rubble (thanks, re-watching the first season of Lost), I open my mouth to call out to the friends and family who are already down the hill at the feast.  Losing the first balcony has caused others to loosen.  I close my eyes as two more fall toward me, thinking, this is going to be bad. 

When I wake up (I use “wake” loosely, since I’m still dreaming), we’re all inside the house again.  The mood is subdued.  My head is wrapped in so many bandages I can barely see.  Becky is nowhere.  My hand hurts.  Lifting it from my lap, I see the fingers are splayed in all directions.  The skin of my forearm is misshapen with broken bone trying to poke through.  My biceps and triceps are severed slabs of meat, the gleaming white humerus the only thing keeping my arm from falling off.  Didn’t anyone look past my head for injuries?  What kind of hospital did they take me to?   

  Turns out no one wants to take me back.  They’ve been through the interminable waiting room once for my head, they’re not going back for my arm.  They’d rather busy themselves prepping food, or lay around playing video games, they’d rather not make eye contact so I won’t see their guilt.

Not much interpretation needed.  

My first marriage crumbled and my friends and family put me back together again.  Now that I’m starting a new family, part of me worries it won’t work out.  If it doesn’t, another part of me worries no one will be interested in helping me back on my feet a second time.  

Well, I’ve dreamed that house a dozen times and it always holds.  

Also, it’s clear that I’ve not fully healed from the destruction of my marriage.  The most obvious hurt is gone, but there are still glaring wounds when you know where to look.  

Bones, poking at the skin.

Three Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

As I child, I never quite woke until the vomit left my throat.  Like getting up to pee in the middle of the night, a trick a child needs to learn if he wants to sleep in a dry bed, nausea pulled me from fitful dreams and sweaty tossing to stand bleary-eyed in front of the toilet, but it didn’t cleared away the gluey spiderweb threads of sleep.

Throat burning, eyes watering, coughing, I wondered what I could have done to deserve such a fate.  When I opened the bathroom door, both my parents stood there.  Both of them, every time.  Even if this first bout was the beginning of a long night of sickness, seeing them both blinking against the bathroom light, faces contorted in lines of concern, it blew my loneliness away.  

Somehow it’s become a fond memory.  I don’t remember the worst part of those nights; I remember mom and dad, standing in the hallway.

Now I know what it’s like to wear the expression I saw on their faces. 

Watching a child vomit is the worst feeling in the world.  I’ve watched my ex-wife in the throes of peritonitus, pain so intense she cursed God, vomiting until nothing came out but foam.  As far gone as she was, she knew the terrible truth - there was nothing to be done but ride it out and wait for the meds to kick in.

“I don’t feel good,” Dylan repeated, over and over, breaking my heart a little bit each time.  He still sort of believes a kiss will make it better.  He’s saying he doesn’t feel good because he thinks you can fix him.  

What do you say?  Poor thing, sweetie, it’s okay, we’ve all been there, it will pass, just try to get it all out and get some sleep, we’ll get you a cold washcloth and some Sprite, blah blah blah.  Rub his back, don’t admit your helpless feeling is complicated by guilt because you kept telling him to quit talking go to sleep.    

Dylan is not always a whiner, but it’s something he needs to be called on often.  He tries pulling the “tummy hurts” card to get his way.  If he’s finished the part of dinner he feels like eating, he’ll say his tummy hurts to try and get out of eating the rest (and it’s not a veggie thing- he’ll devour Brussels sprouts one night and decide he doesn’t like them two days later, or he’ll eat the top of a mini-muffin and forgo the rest).   It’s also one of his favorite reasons for not going to sleep once he’s put to bed. 

Saying his tummy hurts is suspect behavior on a good night.  When his Tia Nicky and her boyfriend Jose are staying over, both of whom Dylan loves to pieces, then he meets especially skeptical parents. 

In the morning, I tried to explain that that was exactly why I told him the story of the boy who cries wolf.  The boy lies so much that no one believes him when there’s really a problem.  I must be telling it wrong, because all he remembers are hungry wolves eating sheep.

We fed Dylan a breakfast which didn’t stay down, so he stayed home.  Then the next day, Becky was laid low.  Then the next day, it was my turn.  My first full weekend off since January and I spent it ill, not exactly the weekend in bed with the woman I love which I’ve been missing.  We had Dylan, six-year-old sweetheart who recovered first, bringing us Aleve and Gatorade.

That’s something I never did for my folks.

This Writing Gig Can Be Frustrating

Opening files this morning and I came across this snippet I really love.  Pardon me while I subject you to the horror of a first draft:

Hannah Delaney sat in the garden of sound, thinking of how wonderful and cruel life could be.

      The pleasure was wonderful.  Hannah was odd but not so odd to think the garden had been made just for her.  Even though it was one of the few pleasures she had in her days, the cruelty it took to create the garden could only come from God.

The Delaneys were big on God.  On Sundays her parents took her to the big gym outside of town, almost twenty minutes away.  She listened to the tall, thin, white haired preacher talk about God and life and television and family, his timbre smooth, his tones bright.  He sounded like a commercial himself, a Voice You Could Trust stumping for a Life You Should Lead.  Every talk ended with the flock bowing their heads.  The preacher talked to God hard.  He invited people to raise their hands if they wanted to be saved.  Yes, I see that hand, the preacher would murmur in a tone like thick honey.  Yes, I see that hand.  Praise God.  Yes, I see that hand...    

Hannah never opened her eyes to see if people were really raising their hands, but she was always curious.  The idea of raising her own hand built over several months of Sundays until she realized she'd never have the nerve.  She gave up, and kept her head bowed and her eyes closed.  A few weeks later, when the preacher asked anyone who wanted God to enter his heart to raise his hand, Hannah's arm shot up at if pulled by invisible strings.  

"Yes, I see that hand," he murmured, sending a flush of pleasure from the pit of her stomach through her entire body.  She would have liked to sit with that feeling for a time, but he'd already moved on to the next person longing for salvation.  Yes, I see that hand...    

  The moment came suddenly, and ended just as fast.  Bookending her as usual, her parents must have felt her movement.  They'd never remarked on it.   

God ate breakfast and dinner with the Delaneys.  God was invoked when her aunt caught the cancer, or her cousin was born deaf.   God was invoked when the radiation treatments worked, or an uncle's business thrived.  God could send a station wagon to kill a beloved pet, God could eased psoriasis, God could inspire good people to do great works.  

When she turned thirteen, Hannah attended youth group on Tuesday nights.  Youth group took place in the chapel instead of the gym.  The chapel was so beautiful Hannah wished the church had never outgrown the building.  It was round, built entirely of wood so dark it was nearly black.  The spire on top was all glass, saving the space from gloom.  The podium was raised, the stage small, the cross simple gold.  She knew growth was a good thing, that sooner or later there'd be enough Christians to save the world, but she never felt as close to God in the gym as she felt in the old chapel. 

There were so many great churches downtown, miniature versions of the old churches of Europe, hulking in stone, swallowing city blocks, stained glass windows, copper roofs turning green, doors painted gleaming red.  She didn't know what kept the Delaneys from 

They didn't finish construction on the new chapel before she was exiled, so she never knew if the new, huge chapel was as warm and beautiful as the old one.   

It's written in a different voice.  I've never used "stump" or "timbre" in my life.  It's a promising beginning, more polished than some first drafts usually are, with a character I knew and a situation I wanted to explore.  Sure, I'd lose the first two paragraphs, but still; good stuff.

I must have been affected by all those churches I saw in central New York on vacation.  Growing up there, I never noticed how many of them there are.  And Garden of Sound is the phrase I think of when I hear one of Becky's favorite songs, Regina Spektor's Consequence of Sound.  I also remember that preacher from when I was born again.  That's where my knowledge of this piece runs out.

She didn't know what kept the Delaneys from- what?  What's the Garden of Sound?  And why was she exiled?  The water was flowing and I didn't get to the pump before it dried up, so I have no better answers than you.  I let the holidays or reviews or blogs came before Hannah Delaney, and she died.

I only knew her for a moment, on Monday December 20th, 2010, but I mourn her passing.