Midnight in the afternoon

I booked flights today for a business trip to Fairbanks that will have me there a few days before the winter solstice. Which means in the middle of the day the sun – actually just a tease of it – will grudgingly ease itself above the horizon for less than four hours. That’s four total hours of SOME sunlight, not four hours of blazing orb. Otherwise, the landscape will be shrouded in darkness.

At approximately one o’clock, Ol’ Sol will make it all the way to two whole degrees above the horizon before rolling over and slipping back into somnolence. But you see, Fairbanks is about a hundred or so miles south of the Arctic Circle, so all this is to be expected.

Did I mention it will be butt cold? I’ll have my Alaska coat and my two pair of heavy socks within my hiking boots. This is not a trip calling for business casual. And I’ll have my note-taking materials because if you live in the lower forty-eight you don’t get a chance to see these sights and feel these feelings every day.

How cold, you wonder? Well, the rental car will have a plug hanging out under the hood. This is so you can power the block warmer so your engine doesn’t freeze while you’re asleep in the hotel. Or just in the store grabbing groceries. Parking lots have poles at each slot with outlets so you have a place to plug in said block warmers. 

Next to my favorite Fairbanks restaurant is a ramp down to the river. In the summer it’s a boat ramp. But in December it’s an on-ramp for a very convenient shortcut taken by drivers and snowmobilers alike. (I took that route one time years ago with my boss as passenger and found out later he was scared blankless during the whole adventure. Oops! My bad!)

Not to worry, we were safe. This is the river from which a couple months later they will begin harvesting massive cubes of ice for the International Ice Carving Championship. I’ve been there for that event, and if you haven’t it should really be on your bucket list. It’s an amazing event with sights you can see nowhere else and at no other time, ice carvings being, you know, perishable.

I know there are people including some beloved friends who will read this, shiver and make allowances for my sanity. And I understand your idea of a wonderful vacation is an umbrella drink in hand, shade bonnet overhead and sun-drenched ocean in front of you. If you ever considered Alaska, it would be during the summer and most likely from the deck of a cruise ship.

I don’t blame you; I was the guy with a camera on the South Rim while others hiked to the bottom. But please, at least consider going in winter to a place with midnight in the afternoon. Drive north of the city lights a few miles and see the aurora borealis the way it’s meant to be seen. I promise this is not one of those things that can be appreciated from photography.

And seriously, bring a good coat. Because when you’re in a place where folks can tell the temperature within a few degrees by the brittleness of their nostril hair, you’re gonna need it.

An end to bachelorhood

Tonight is my last evening of bachelorhood. For a while, anyway. Mary and One are bedded down in a hotel a mere 4-1/2 hours drive away, which means by the time I get home from work tomorrow, I won’t have to depend solely on the dogs for my welcome.

Sidebar: This is not to say the dogs don’t welcome me heartily or that I’m not happy to see them after a day of human stuff. But their welcome dances, focused as they are on being fed and petted and such, has something of a dog-centric cast to it.

Anyway, Mary has been gone for about a month, the longest we’ve been apart since we got together (mumble) years ago. Daughter One was here much of that month and I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed having her within reach, but she’s not Mary (no offense, kiddo).

So, tonight I got her coffee creamer (Blech! How can she drink that stuff?) and did an extra sweep and tried to make the dog bed look like Zoey hadn’t been gnawing on it. And tomorrow, after hugs, we’ll talk about how the family’s doing and her adventures in Florida and plans for the weekend and watch a favorite TV show together.

Nothing special.

Okay, that’s a lie. It’s all special.  

Confused canines

As I may have mentioned once or possibly twice, our household includes an alleged cat (I say alleged
because it is over twenty years of age, bedraggled, crotchety and frequently filthy – I’m not sure it’s not actually a zombie cat) and two canines, one Large and Lazy named Odin and t’other Small and Annoying named Zoey. They have long since given up on the polite fiction that ours is a stable household.

 It was bad enough when I was the only frequent traveler among the human members of the family. They would shift sleeping habits to guard Mary’s bedroom threshold and do their insane happy dances upon my return but otherwise, the rhythms were predictable and comfortable and their lives made sense to them.

 They adjusted, albeit grudgingly to Daughters, One and also Two going off to college and returning at unpredictable intervals. They even learned to accommodate our occasional vacations (they love our house sitter). Of late, however, they seem to have abandoned all hope of any return to what they consider an appropriate cycle in the waxing and waning of the makeup of our living group.

Mary has begun traveling for her work and my own travel schedule, for at least the foreseeable future will be ramping up significantly. One is back living with us which gives them another human to love but also banishes them from the rec room which has become her chamber de slumber.  Two has moved to Chicago but will be coming back for holidays and such, sometimes with her beau in tow (yes, intentional). And of course One’s boyfriend frequents the place, just enough to keep their little walnut-sized nuggets confused as to his position relative to their own.

 They can’t figure out what is going on. Zoey exhibits her confusion through excessive demands for loving by standing staring at us or forcing her head under a hand – whose, she doesn’t care. Odin occasionally interrupts his slumbers to bark while looking at us sideways or suddenly burying his head into a crotch. But mostly, he sleeps – his reaction to the confusion in our communal pattern is subtle.

It’s your new normal, doggies. Get used to it. And quit pulling paper out of the recycling can.

Flash prompt - A single difference

I went to another meetup on Thursday and the flash prompt was "A single difference." The whole thing with flash writing is that it's complete within the time frame  - in this case, 50 minutes. So I haven't edited and pre-apologize for the clumsiness of the writing.

Lots going on in the next week and I may not be back before next weekend; hence, two in two days. Enjoy.

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So many ways.

In so many ways, he was just like every other man (boys, really, if she was honest with herself and Gawd if ever there was a time to be honest with herself…) she had been with in the six years since Adam had died.

She never seemed to expect more from any of them and so her social life became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This was not to say she dated monsters or drones, not at all. In fact, she would have been hard pressed to identify a common thread among her failed relationships that she should have been able to spot earlier, that might have allowed an earlier exit and relieved her of the painful, juttering descent, ending always and in all ways in the too-familiar denouement of emptiness.

Ralph was a good guy. Even today, a full year after she had deleted and blocked him, she had to admit it. A good guy. He smiled at her humor, looked adoring at all the right moments. He remembered her birthday, the solitary one that had fallen within the window of their time together. Polite to her father, complimentary to her mother. In point of fact, there really was no good reason why it didn’t work out.

But it didn’t.

She remembered her half year with Phil - Philo, but he ha-a-a-ted it and she was careful never to call him that - with a crooked grin. He was her intellectual lover, the one with whom she could spend hours in rapt attention to the topic of the moment, pretending to understand Proust and Aquinas and making throw away references to Great Books that she understood now neither of them had ever read all the way through. Phil was off in Minnesota working on his doctorate in philosophy and she occasionally found herself missing the sheer mental exercise of each trying to gain the upper hand in arguments over the issues of the day. Late nights with Phil were the closest she would ever come to manning the barricades in a tragically lost cause.

She glanced at her  watch and performed a quick calculation – landed at four, half hour to collect his bag, allow  twenty for the taxi queue and maybe thirty-five for the drive…Any minute now…

‘Really, this is bordering on the ridiculous,’ she thought. ‘He’s not a superhero, after all. He’s a man, he’s just a man, and I’ve had so many…. Okay, enough with the show tunes!’

Chuckling at herself, she thought of Willie. Willie could make anyone laugh; at least, he could always make her laugh. And he did, sometimes in the most awkward situations. Like the time she was on the phone with a friend whose cat had died. Willie decided that was prime time to dance naked with the single prop of a spray can of fake whipped cream. (There were sights that simply should not be seen by a woman trying to comfort a bereaved friend on the phone.) Willie would do anything for a smile and that’s probably what killed their relationship, truth be told. But a good guy. Yup, a really good guy.

They were all really good guys, each in his own way and with his own ways about him. But. But she never expected more from them and so, she never got more. You get what you look for, maybe. And each and all of them failed to measure up to the one with whom none could compete. Adam had been more than soul mate – they had shared a soul if any two people could. And how could a mere mortal compete with that?

She had given up looking, settled into a solitary routine in which she could feel comfortable if never quite comforted. And then, he seemed to have just shown up one day although they had known each other at a distance for years, in the manner of neighbors who can be counted on to bring in the mail when the other is away without taking the slightest interest in return addresses.

But one day, they both returned sweaty from workouts at the same moment and before either of them understood why they had each showered and dressed and were out their adjoining doors together in search of sustenance.

And maybe a bit more, as it turned out.

They became new friends and old friends in the same brief span of moments, a matter of recognition that passed between them unspoken. No thing led to another. They simply were.

He didn’t replace Adam. Neither of them demanded or yielded pieces of their pasts. What they were and all they had been – each and the other – was part of the thing that built between them seemingly without effort. There was no competition with ghosts or memories as they began to construct their own legend together.

And for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why. Why him? Why this guy?

Once he found out her middle name was Daphne he took to calling her Daffy at odd moments and she hated it but loved him for it. He studied her face while she talked, really studied it like he couldn’t get enough of her and couldn’t bear the thought of missing the smallest fragment of meaning or intent.

He opened doors and walked nearer the curb and cleared the dishes and told her when it was advisable to roll down the window. Now. Quickly.

Small things. Neither bigger nor more remarkable than a hundred things one or more of her previous boyfriends had done. There was truly nothing she could think of that set him above or apart from the others, no one thing that she could put her finger on as the reason she’d spent the whole day glancing at the clock in anticipation of catching sight of him for the first time since he’d kissed her goodbye on Monday as he headed to the airport.

Well, maybe there was one thing.

She loved him.

And that, after all, was the single difference that made her smile in spite of herself as he stepped through the door and looked around for her.

Flash philosophy

I've been flash writing lately, flash fiction with a meetup group and flash everything else during lunch at work. It really helps clear my mind for working on the book, which is closing in on finished, I so swear. This one I'd like to share with you in hopes that some of you will come up with your own Flash Philosophy lists.

So, here’s the dealio: Make a list of the alphabet and then go back starting with Z and record a thought - any thought -  with the first (or more) word(s) starting with the letter in question. DO NOT begin with A because you’ll spend too much time worrying about Q and X and Z and this is not supposed to be about worrying. Go as fast as you can and don’t stress – this is not a test, so you are allowed to use a dictionary. And NO EDITING – once you’ve written an entry, go to the next letter and don't look back.

And pre-forgive yourself; they won’t all be nuggets, as you can readily discern from my list below. I did this while I ate a salad for lunch yesterday.

My alphabetical list for the day.

Ask; if you don’t, the answer is always ‘No!’

Buffoon: See Donald Trump.

Customary makes for comfort but crushes cultivation.

Dogs do it because they can; what’s your excuse?

Ebb and flow is one of my favorite ways to imagine life.

Furtive is not a way to live one’s life.

Grimy is a nicer adjective than pristine, don’t you think? (More fun, anyway…)

Heap your plate with good food; then stop as soon as you’re full.

Inflexibility makes one’s back hurt.

Jealousy will almost always drive that which you seek further from your grasp.

Kitten starts with ‘k’; cat does not.

Let it go.

Mammaries on men mortify me (I mean, er, them).

Nouns are useless without verbs.

Only uncaring idiots hit the ‘door close’ button.

Pay attention, but don’t lurk.

Question. Frequently.

Rip one in church. If they don’t laugh, find another congregation.

Stop and watch.

Take time. In the end, that’s really the only thing you can do with it that has worth.

Upgrade your knowledge; your computer can wait.

Vary your routine.

Wear comfortable clothing.

Xylophones are not only for pre-schoolers.

You is a word on which to focus; better yet, we. Leave them for those others.

Zig-zag – you’ll see more and the baddies can’t zero in on you.

Street art

Gazing out the window of the temporarily-vacant-due-to-maternity-leave office across from mine is one of my favorite workday pastimes. Which explains (for any of you who might care to wonder) why when we moved to this building a few years back I volunteered not to have a window office. Yes, part of the reason is that I like wall space for project planning – I’m a sticky note addict – and most non-corner window offices are fairly small for the simple reason that pert near everyone wants a window so the planners try to squeeze in as many as possible around the perimeter of the building. Small office means not much wall space on which to lay out my lesson plans. Not optimal but still not the major reason why I opted for a window-free work space.

The big reason why I don’t like having a portal from which to gaze is that I am a devotee of the art of wool-gathering and no better way to practice my art than to have a window handy. The Big Rub being that no employer thus far has expressed a willingness to pay me for staring out at the scene below.

Since I really like things like eating and wearing clothing and maybe being able to pay off bills and retire someday, pragmatism leads me away from the window office. But I can’t help my great affinity for staring and – one hopes – noticing, so since Michelle went out on leave I’ve bowed to temptation for at least a few minutes each day, usurping her office’s fenestral feature.

I watch the scene below which for the most part means wartching lots of strangers going about their daily meanders. I see the bus waiters and the lunch eaters, the walkers with luggage and without. And while there is no intended or definable pattern to the movement there is an orchestration of sorts occurring before my eyes. I like to imagine the music of the street.

Don’t scoff. There is music here that is discernable only to those who are willing to listen without being too focused on actually hearing. The shuffling of the elderly and the skipping of the young create very similar sounds but with quite different rhythms and timbres – one slow and deliberate and announcing arrival, the other quick and carefree and trumpeting departure.  The sounds of laughter, high pitched from the children playing on the big toys, deep and rumbling from the elderly bench sitter reacting to a comment from one of his crones, staccato and worried from the addict trying to ingratiate herself and thus – please gawd – make a deal which means getting through another day.

Street traffic provides the accompaniment, the phrases are metered by traffic signals and the movements flow with the time of day. Taken together, there is a symphony being written, performed and forgotten as quickly as my last heartbeat.

Of course, I can’t hear these sounds from my vantage point on the fifth floor. But aided by the visuals I can imagine the sonic ebb and flow, the art being created and recreated down there.

And isn’t that what art is about – imagining?

Chrysler's irresponsible advertising

I’m not a big fan of advertising but I do grudgingly recognize it as a necessary evil.

On the other hand, advertising should not actually BE evil.

There is an ad campaign running right now for Chrysler Ram trucks that brazenly encourages young people to do dangerous things under the banner of “live your life!”

It mocks mothers with a series of ‘you’ll put your eye out’ type warnings from off screen motherly voices as young folks engage in activities like driving recklessly, cliff diving, etc. The tag line, after relating driving a Dodge to engaging in thrill-seeking is, “Sorry, Mom!”

When do we get to be done with anti-social advertising?

When will we stop immersing girls in depictions of ‘perfect’ bodies? Or using ‘the most interesting man in the world’ to push drugs? (Yes, alcohol is a drug.) Or using rudeness as an inside joke (remember the ‘fresh’ ads for Mentos)?

Advertising people seem to think that ‘edgy’ is the epitome of persuasion. But when edgy is simply a synonym for irresponsible, I vote with my feet.

There are actors whose movies I won’t watch, companies whose products I won’t buy and stores I won’t patronize because I don’t want to contribute to their messages. Admittedly, neither the Walmart people nor Ben Stiller are likely shaking in their boots. And since I’m not likely to ever buy another pickup truck, the Dodge folks are probably not sorely vexed at my refusal to consider purchasing their products.

But I can’t help harboring the (probably insane) hope that enough people will believe and act as I do to make a difference.

UPDATE NOTE: I thought Ram was still a Dodge brand but Chrysler has pulled it out as its own brand line. Sorry for the error, but my opinion stands.

 

Government and marriage

There’s been a great deal of blather going around lately about the involvement of government at various levels in the certification of marriages. I’m fairly certain you have seen or heard or even been directly involved in the debate, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t go into identification and discussion of the issues present regarding the morality of same-sex marriage.

What brings me to the keyboard today is consideration of the role of government, regardless of the gay / not gay slant. There are two facts that lead me to conclude that the role of government in certification of marriages should be limited at best:

1)      The institution of marriage  in a form we would recognize today substantially pre-dates both our form of government and most extant religious traditions, so the supposition that our government (or your religion, for that matter) has any legitimate institutional claim on marriage is without foundation;

2)      In order for the government to claim a compelling interest in regulating the sanctioning of marriages, we would first have to agree on which form represents a true marriage. The vows which form the promissory basis of the practice are in no way consistent or even compatible from tradition to tradition in this diverse society.

I believe it is in the best interests of society to promote the well-being, rearing and education of children but that doesn’t come close to arguing in favor of a standardized marriage format. We’ve seen saints and monsters, geniuses and blithering idiots raised by couples, extended families, in-laws, single parents, adoptive parents – need I go on?

And by the way, for those who fear what might happen if we ‘allow’ gay folks to raise children, what makes you think that hasn’t always happened? And using celebrities as an example (solely so we’ll all understand what I mean here – I do not view celebrities as a special class deserving of special consideration; they’re simply well-known and thus convenient for the sake of this argument), who would you rather see raise a child – Bill Cosby or Jody Foster?

Some might say we need the institution if only so that we can encourage the family unit. What is the family unit? And how do we encourage it? By breaks on taxation you say? No sale to this customer – I am in favor of a flat tax with no exemptions whatsoever. Do the math and you’ll find that it won’t break gazillionaires and the poor will not be poorer. But that’s of course an argument for another day.

Seriously, folks, why should I care who chooses to live their life with whom, so long as there is no abuse or coercion and they don’t try to enlist me in their family life?

Plural marriage – okay by me. I don’t get it, but okay.

Gay marriage – what’s my compelling interest one way or the other? The only interest I see as legitimate – the establishment of a ‘nest’ for the protection and nurturing of children – has nothing at all to do with the sexual orientation of the parents, once the child is born.

Non-child producing marriages – Is it not always of benefit to society to have people engage in a long-term, mutually supportive, loving relationship? Please do tell me in what universe that could be a bad thing. And can you not think of a fun couple that would be incompetent or unwilling to raise their own children but are welcome participants in your own children’s lives? How about folks who can’t have children and can’t or choose not to elbow their way through the welter of officialdom to adopt – should we rescind their union?

Religious vows – You wanna marry someone you can’t prove exists, that’s okay with me. Wickedly silly to my mind, but what the hey.

I could go on. And on.  And on…  We (society) do have a compelling interest in the protection of children from their own ignorance and from the ministrations of predators. And that’s why ‘doe-eyed’ Mary Kay leTourneau should have spent her life behind bars. Any adult who abuses, neglects, or otherwise intentionally harms a child should earn the permanent censure of society, even if the child in question considered the abuse entertaining.

But other than criminal activity that would be simple to identify as such (bestiality, necrophilia, me wearing a Speedo come to mind), why should I care and under what derived authority should government at any level act in a regulatory manner? As I’ve said before, your right to swing your fist expires at the end of my nose. And my nose came through attendance at a gay friend’s wedding just fine, thank you very much.

AND NOW< FOR A SIDESTEP, SORT OF…

Incidentally, if you want to see a great example of an attempt at governmental overreach being exposed as simple religious bias-driven falderal, check out the video of Jason Chaffetz getting owned by Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood. I’m actually not a fan of PP and don’t believe it should receive federal funding (not just PP but the thousands of budget line items I find not to be within the legitimate province of a federal government) but his attack was rude, his argument specious and his ‘evidence’ made up. Run the video and then tell me – is THIS the guy you want helping to make the rules regarding marriage?

I'm with Lizzie

I was casting about for a topic tonight and came across a story about Lizzie Velazquez. I knew her story in general terms but this was the first time I learned about it in any depth.

This is a brave, wonderful, beautiful person. Please stop reading now and google her at "I'm With Lizzie."

I'll be back here in a day or two. Promise.

Understanding adulation

Is applause the same thing as validation?
Hm-m-m, sometimes, I think. But you need to understand what’s being applauded.

An example: Last night, Mary, Daughter One and I went to a performance of Jesus Christ, Superstar by a local musical theatre company. There was a lot to like, believe me. For example, the young actor who played Mary Magdalen stunned me. She has two of the signature solo songs in the show and a key role to play but in all the productions I’ve been involved with either on stage or in the audience, I’ve never been satisfied by the portrayals of this potentially rich character.

Last night, Megan Tyrell changed that. Her Magdalen was passionate and nuanced and intense and best of all an actual, believable person who had her own back story and motivations independent of her allegiance to Jesus.

The young woman who played Judas was an incredible singer and a great actor and she gave us her all. And it didn’t work because casting Judas Iscariot as a young woman works about as well as casting a drag queen as Marian Paroo.

The director made some other questionable choices, including rewriting the book to take place 1,000 years in the post-apocalyptic future. It didn’t work. And am I the only one getting tired of every new story having to be post-apocalypse? Has it not become hackneyed?

Nevertheless, the show overall was quite entertaining and I could write a whole entry about the stellar individual performances. And our collective applause would seem to indicate I was not alone in that assessment. But what is the director (and libretto hacker) to glean from our enthusiasm? That she did a fantastic job casting, blocking, working the interactions, bringing forth some truly fine performances? All true. But at least in my case, I fear she might take my hand slapping and grinning as validation of her rewrite. I hope not because it was quite awful and I would hate to be guilty of encouraging her to similarly butcher any other author’s work.

I see parallels to this in the current presidential campaigns. Fifteen months from now we will have a newly inaugurated President. And that new President will be emboldened to believe that what (s)he promised to do, if by the time of the inauguration anyone can even remember all the promises, is what got him or her elected. Here’s the rub – there are so many issues present and so many affinity groups playing into the process this time, I defy anyone – no matter how expert they might consider themselves to be – to suss out just which issues will have determined the outcome. What will be the mandate for the new administration? How will anyone know?

Butchering a beloved stage show is a travesty but one that hurts only a relatively few eyes and ears. Wish I could say the same about electing the wrong person to national office.

NOTE: If you happen to be in Seattle tomorrow (Sunday the 4^th), you could do worse than the last showing of Seattle Musical Theatre’s Jesus Christ Superstar. Just don’t count on seeing the Tim Rice book, and you’ll be fine. The individual performances are (mostly) fantastic. And to be fair, I should admit One liked the rewrite. So who am I to say?