Sometime back in the early 80’s, a smiling, young and foolish version of myself would gather with his friends on New Year’s Day, where we would proceed to all make smiling, young and foolish New Year’s resolutions.  Whether or not anyone kept any of them, I don’t know.  It’s doubtful.  I don’t even remember any of them - with the exception of one.

Each year I would make the same bold statement that 19** (whatever the year) would be my year of Economic Recovery.  It seemed like such a hopeful resolution.  I could imagine the feeling of no longer chasing after the money, working two, sometimes three part-time jobs, going to school, and attempting to manage love.  Economic Recovery, it seemed to me back then, was the one key that would unlock any door.

The resolution was always made in jest.  Better to laugh and lose then grow serious and fail, I thought to myself.  But behind the years of stating that each and every year would be my year of Economic Recovery lived the tiny hope that the jest would become real.  Imagine what life would be like if resolutions came true.  Imagine how happy things could be.

I have always found ways to keep hope alive in my mind, and Economic Recovery was no exception.  The jestful resolution and multiple jobs were one way back then.  I wrote stories, where Economic Recovery personified into some mystical person, who somehow avoided all my searches.  I think I even imagined that time and age alone would take care of things.  Economic Recovery would ride into my life on the most mythical beasts of all - the American Dream, which I naturally assumed back in those smiling, young and foolish days was the logical end result of time and age. 

Of course, time and age, I have come to realize, have nothing to do with Economic Recovery.  Life is more like a storm then a straight line, with us in the center and life spinning all around us.  For me, the idea of Economic Recovery is just one of those things, twirling around, just out of reach.  I still keep an eye out from time to time, but I don’t think much about chasing after him.

Besides, only the fool dreams of writing and economics at the same time.  The writer, however much they deny it, likes to imagine their head as the center of the universe.  I have come to view my debt as just one of my many galaxies.

In the particular valley I live in, snow is a rarity.  Once, maybe twice every few years it’ll come down, bringing life to a halt.  No one is prepared for snow here.  It’s like the end of the world when it happens, but in a nice way.

Born and raised in the midwest, this is of course, funny to me.  Let’s say someone from Florida moved somewhere far, far north, and one day the temperature soared to a record high 80 degrees.  Everyone would step outside their doors, jaws slack in wonder, as they sweated and watched the historic event.  Everyone, I guess, except our imagined Florida transplant, who might step outside and think . . . finally.

Oregonians are sometimes like that.  They get all funny when it snows too much or even, get this, it rains too much.  The news stations will even name the storms sometimes, giving a whopping 5 or 6 inches of snow the prestige of a hurricane.

Me, I stepped outside and shoveled the walk, remembering the time my 78 year old grandpa made me join him in shoveling a foot of snow off of our one mile long driveway.  I kid you not.

If I’d stuck with the original plan, this blog would have been born back around February or March of 2002.  That was just about the time I was being introduced to my wife’s new boyfriend and life was beginning to feel a little too tight.  But then, for me the words wife’s new boyfriend seem proof enough that original plans don’t always work out.

In hindsight, the original plan had its flaws.  For one, I would have had to actually do some thinking during a time that I seemed capable of only one thought.  Writing, at least good writing, usually requires the mind to breathe, and I don’t think my brain took a good deep breath of air until just a couple of months ago.  The only thing I can think of, is that my lungs must have taken pity on the poor, beaten up brain, slipping it a drop or two of oxygen when it wasn’t looking. 

Someone asked me once why I didn’t write it all down, all of that original plan gone awry stuff.  It was jodi I think, who seems to have that incredible talent of writing everything down.  I don’t know.  It just seemed too hard.  Or maybe I thought if I didn’t write it down I would be able to someday forget everything that happened.

But some of it made it down.  A tiny taste of that suffocating emotion and pain, and even some funny stuff, like the time I discovered I made a lousy detective.  For everyone’s information, in matters very little how many millions of minivans are on the roads, they’re just no good for sneaking around in.

I can see already that things just aren’t right.  “Come on, do it! do it!” I can still hear your words in my head.  “Just do it,” everyone said, “You’re a born blogger.” Well where are you now, my friends.  Years ago it was your foolish crowd mentality, chanting “chug, chug, chug,” which slowly mellowed into a softer, friendlier sounding, “blog, blog, blog.” So, like then, I have given in.  Heeded the call.  I did it.

Yes, I did it, a couple of years later, in my procrastinating full speed ahead kind of way.  But even waiting that long suddenly doesn’t seem quite long enough, as I’m thinking now that Word Shadows shouldn’t have been the name at all, but maybe Procrastination’s Shadow.  I would like to imagine, at least, that it’s procrastination that follows me, and not the other way around.  But we all know that’s wishful thinking.  I am procrastination’s slave.  Which isn’t always such a bad thing, being the lazy taskmaster that he is. 

But this is no time for procrastination!  The beginning of a new year is no time for that!  We must be bold and resolute and proclaim unreachable goals.  Which, of course, I am getting to.

But my point (I think) was supposed to be that nobody told me to do any planning before I started this thing.  I wrestled around with that damn mysterious html code until I ran out of energy, and now I see that I should have put in some categories and maybe multiple favorite blog lists, because while I like a lot of blogs, I certainly don’t read every single one of them every single day.  So what do I do, make a favorites list and an almost favorites list?  Almost reminds me of the time some girl called up my little brother when he was in about the fourth grade and asked him if he liked her. 

“Just a minute,” he said, put down the phone, walked off, but returned a few seconds later with a scrap of paper, which I later found out was a list.  “Yes,” he told the little girl.  “You’re number 6 on the list.  Okay.  Goodbye.”

I guess I just need to get busy with a little more creating.  I need to be as straight forward and blunt as a nine year old boy.

You know, if the world was in fact created by God, then we’re all lucky it was done in miracles and not html, or we’d all still be sitting here, waiting to get tweaked.  On the other hand, that would explain . . . .

I have obviously been reincarnated as the super domestic, early 20th century housewife.  You never hear about that possibility when you come across reincarnation.  It must be the hidden secret.  I need some help!  My son must be some sort of mitosis king, dividing and growing, redividing and growing all over again at an unprecedented rate.  He’s on a feeding frenzy.  How many meals am I supposed to prepare in one day?

I’ve sought a little help from the Be June Cleaver website.  I don’t have a husband, a pretty dress, or a string of pearls.  But coffee I can do, and a hearty breakfast (WHAT?!  ANOTHER MEAL?!), and if forced, I’ll drag the vacuum around.

I’ll let you know if any of it works.

My son turns the television on, and what should pop up on the screen, but the remake movie of Leave It To Beaver.  Who needs the internet for advice, when they can learn everything they ever needed to know the old-fashioned way, from tv.

I am considering the recommendation to hang feeders all around the house.  It’s one of those suggestions that sounds so promising - a real time saver.

But in the growing boy’s defense, I don’t have to poke pasta down his gaping mouth every time it opens.  Like just now.

“Dad, do we have outlines?”
“Outlines?  What do you mean, outlines?”
“You know - outlines.  Black outlines, like they have on Rugrats or Chalk Zone or The Wild Thornberrys.”
“What do you think we are?  Cartoons?”

Actually, I think he might have been trying to distract me.  For someone who didn’t own many of the properties on the Junior Monopoly board, he sure seemed to be accumulating huge sums of money.

I am a firm believer that when things look their bleakest and all hope seems lost, you will hear the sound of the cavalry off in the distance, rushing to your aid.  Maybe I watched too many old westerns as a kid, where the good guy was always the white guy, where anyone standing in the way better step aside, because truth and justice and all that was right was about to come blairing across the prairie behind the sound of a bugle.

Okay, I agree.  Nothing much has changed.

But I did hear the sound of hope this morning, as Keith (yes, we’re everywhere) of random thinks took the time to answer a distress email I had sent out only yesterday afternoon.  Or maybe he never received my email at all, but simply saw the smoke pouring from my test site, as I struggled to master the art of drop down lists.  Anything is possible.  My son, roaring around the house for two straight days in his underwear, refusing to get dressed, terrorizing and destroying the order of the house, was looking very much like a wild renegade to me.  We were very much under siege.

But whatever the reason, Keith’s email came charging across the hill and into my laptop, led only by the soft, soothing twinkle of the email arriving bells.  No bugle sound at all, just a little ding, ding, ding, DING.  I guess something has changed afterall.

I’ve crammed as much computer knowledge into my head as I can for one night.  I’m reminded of the torturous French class I was coerced into taking one summer, as my deceptively cruel alma mater dangled a degree just beyond my greedy little hands.  It’s only three semesters of French crammed into four-hour classes, five days a week, for six short weeks, they said.  You can do it.  My advisor, bless his now dead heart, only smiled when I told him the plan.  His gray, bushy eyebrows lifted in obvious lack of faith.  The man had no time for foolish students who insisted on walking straight into the mouth of disaster.  He said nothing, but his eyebrows kept on climbing right up his forehead, distancing themselves from me and my impending doom.

The difference between computer code and French is that there is no logical way to attack French.  So I would just fill my head up with as much as I possibly could, then hurry to class and hope that a respectable amount of it would come pouring back out.  I felt like I was literally trying to regurgitate my way into a degree.  I’d stumble out of the room after the four hours, holding my throbbing head, vowing that I when I’d clumsily muttered ”répété, s’il vous plaît for the one millionth last time, I would go cold turkey.  No more French.  Abstinence.  Not one more syllable.  I was the original anti-French patriot, and I didn’t even know it.

My vow was easy to keep.  As a matter of fact, I am French-free ever since.  The language poured in so fast, that I’m afraid not a bit of it stuck.  If it did, it’s lost in there, and I’m not about to go looking.

Well, just like my French class, I sucked up everything I could tonight about rearranging blogs, figuring it would come spewing back onto the page with just enough orner et la beauté to earn me a passing grade.  And now that my night is winding to a close, I can see that arranging nearly incomprehensible code is not a whole lot different then learning French.  You breathe it it.  You breathe it out.  And then you push the “Publish” button and hopefully forget everything, because if you fall asleep and start dreaming the stuff, that’s when you start to get a little cranky.

So if anyone would like to put in their two cents worth regarding the design - feel free.  But don’t do it in French.  Just because I wrote a couple of phrases only means that I know my way over to Babblefish.

I just came across a site that posted a list of clear and precise bylaws for all to read.  The particular writer, who I will not reference out of sheer fear that I will have violated one of his bylaws, was of course, a lawyer.  Who else would have us reading fine print on a page already bloated with fine print?

But I think I’m forced to agree with the idea of his bylaws, no matter how desperately I want to smart off.  Maybe I’ll adopt them myself.  You know, to keep my own direction as clear and precise as a practicing attorney.

Maybe I should decide to offer no legal advice, just like him.  This sounds easy like an easy bylaw to keep.  Kind of similar to my Speak No French Rule.  I can do that.  Matter of fact, I can do even better then that.  I can crank it up a notch, I think, and will boldly proclaim my first bylaw:

I will offer no advice.

Now that’s a bylaw!  I decided the only appropriate thing to do was send our nameless attorney an email.

Dear Sir:

As for your other bylaws, we can discuss those in detail when . . .

And that’s when I stopped writing, realizing that I had already broken my own bylaw.  Broken it before I had even had a chance to officially post the thing.  Can an attorney I don’t even know sue me for breaking my own bylaw?

Blogging, I’m finding out, is tricky stuff.

It’s freezing in here!  I swear the only heat in the place is from the friction between my fingertips and keyboard.  I’ve typed furiously all day, but it’s a big place.  No one can type that fast.  I’ve decided that my only refuge is the comfortable chair, wrapped in a blanket, watching a movie.

I’ve rented just about every movie the local shops have to offer, so the pickings seem to be getting thinner and thinner.  Last year, at the height of my low time (that’s a good one), I would sometimes watch three or four movies a day.  It seems impossible, but I assure you, it can be done.  I became a movieaholic, pouring them into my brain as fast as my eyes could watch them.  A chain watcher - I’d pop open the next case before the movie I was watching even had a chance to finish.  DVD’s are great - no rewinding.  It speeds up the whole process and makes the movieaholic’s life so much easier.

I had a good reason for becoming a movieaholic, but I won’t get into that right now.  Let’s just say that tonight’s pick, Down With Love, couldn’t be a more excellent clue.  What an evening.  Wrapped in a blanket freezing to death while watching that squinched-faced Renee Zellweger fall in love with the dashing Ewan McGregor.  The box promises that the sparks will fly me to the moon and back.  Great.  Just what I need.  The even more intense cold of outer space.  I better get two blankets.

I’m still learning little lessons.  Ones like: if you’re typing something into the Post screen, don’t click over to the Design tab with your brilliant idea without first saving the letter.  The result of the brilliant idea ends up being a letter that disappears and a brilliant idea that evaporates due to the frustration.

I didn’t make it very far with my movie, which ended up being a three blanket movie in a cold house.  Two to wrap around your body, and one to wrap tightly around your head to block out all the sight and sound you possibly can.  Leave only one small, tiny hole for air.  Leave no hole whatsoever if you’ve watched your way too far into the movie and you can’t stand the thought of one more horribly written line.  Don’t even mess around with some small lap blanket.  Use a nice, big, king sized blanket, and just keep wrapping.

Or, of course, turn off the movie (which I did just as Zellweger looks out the window and sees a big, full moon - the closest I ever came to actually making it to the moon and back - so much for movie box hype).  Read a little, then spend about forty five minutes writing a nice little letter, adding a couple of pictures that won’t line up how you want them, and then click over to Design and watch the whole thing disappear forever.

I’m not sure whether to be thankful for the ease of iTunes or not.  When I first got home with my new PowerBook and oohed and aahed and loaded all my music and realized how simple and reliable it was going to be, I never counted on my eight year old son discovering the huge stash of Beatles songs and deciding to burn one CD after another.

Yes, thanks to iTunes ease, I now have the words I am the egg man . . . I am the egg man . . . I am the walrus . . . kook kook a choo stuck in my head.  Two straight days of I am the egg man . . . is more then enough, I think.  So I’ve decided that the only way to purge this thing is to bundle up, brave the freezing rain, and walk the few steps it takes to get to the nearest diner and have them whip me up one of their delicious omelettes.  I give up.  I will be the egg man, hoping that it stops there.  I have desire whatsoever to be a walrus.

Curiously, in the fresh little blog Lines (which I’m hoping will blossom into the nice little writing & art combo blog the owner is also hoping for), I found a reference for what’s ailing me.  It seems I have a case of ear worms.

Full of omelette, I am now prepared for battle.  For not ordering coffee, the waitress punished me by not bringing me my glass of milk, leaving me with only a tiny plastic cup of water to wash the whole thing down with.  Oblivious of my milk, oblivious of whether or not everything was okay with my meal, oblivious of my dissatifaction, and finally, oblivious of her own redemption when she turned the radio up just a bit and the ear worms that have haunted me for two days were finally refreshed.

I am the egg man slipped into someone else’s head (maybe yours - sorry) and was replaced by Willie Nelson’s two best song lines ever:

Love is like a dying ember
And only memories remain

I’m not partial to country music, but it’s hard to not like something that conjures up such visual imagery.

So it is with fresh ears that I turn towards the “work” desk and prepare for battle.  The pile of mail in the inbox finally reached maximum stack height last night and toppled over.  Toppling forward, unfortunately, and not backward.  A forward spill only brought it more into my life, while a backward spill would have conveniently dumped the entire pile into the To Be Shredded trashcan, which would have freed up my whole afternoon.  Rotten luck.

I’m almost to the point where I should finally go and make that About Me page, where the idea is to capture the essence of your life in a tidy little list.  I have a hard time thinking of anything fitting into a list.  The plots always seem too big and unknowable.

But I’ll begin working on it, so that everyone with better other things to do but no desire to do them can feel like they’ve laid their ear against my head and listened to the memories of my life click by like the sound from an old movie projector.

But I would encourage patience on your part.  The list is fragile and worn.  The film of my life, like all of yours, has been spliced and patched many times.  Memory is the tape that holds it all together, and like old scotch tape, my memories are also faded, brittle, yellowed things. 

But I’ll make the list, and it’ll seem like a new film of an old thing.  Everyone can pull out their screens and we’ll watch the movie together.  If we’re lucky, it’ll make sense.  If we’re really lucky, it won’t be a three blanket movie.  And if we’re really, really lucky, no one will fall asleep the moment the lights dim.

Living with machines is much easier then living with people.  I’ve done it both ways.  I know.  I suppose it isn’t really any big secret, just something that nobody really cares to think about or admit.  I mean, can you imagine the tension here last night if I’d actually invited a living, breathing human over to share a meal, which ends up being what a DVD is to a DVD player.  Something to snack on.  So, for imagination’s sake, let’s just say that I’ve invited over a machine I met, who we’ll call D - short, of course, for DVD Player.

First, the night’s cinematic torture session would have been like sitting down to a meal that looks good but tastes wrong from the very first bite.  D and I would have sat across the table from each other, smiling politely each time our eyes met, pretending to enjoy the meal when in fact we both knew it was the most vile thing ever to cross our lips.  We would both chew as slowly as humanly possible (or in my date’s case - machinely possible), hoping somehow that our tastebuds would be tricked into thinking that our mouth’s were empty and their work done.

Politeness is the real enemy, you see.  It’s the thing that keeps us smiling and chewing, and gives us all that look of being graciously entertained.  I would have no way of knowing (having not dated in many, many years), that politeness, a real compass when it comes to navigating the human world, is of little use when dining with a machine.  And D, the poor thing, having just arrived in this country and new to dating herself, would have no way of knowing that politeness can be a tool that humans switch on and off on a whim.

It’s politeness that keeps us in our seats for half the movie, squirming all the time.  And politeness again when I pretend to look away as D turns and spits the half-chewed disk into her napkin.  It’s an awkward moment.  I wonder if I should reach out for her hand, but think, What about the napkin?  What if I grab that instead? My politeness has me cornered. 

“How’s your meal?” It’s the only thing I can think to say.  “Everything okay?”
“Oh perfect.  Everything is just perfect,” she’d say, hiding the napkin in her lap.
“Oh good.  Then how about a little desert?”
“No, no, no, no.  I think you’ve done quite enough tonight already.”
“It’s O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” I say in my best teasing voice.
“Oh really?  Well okay.  How can I resist that?”

I get up to get the desert and catch a glimpse of her emptying her napkin into the case.  Suddenly, everything is just fine.  I’ll worry about what to tell Blockbuster later.

You see, with machines, unlike with people, the night can always be saved.

The time of being alone with my house of machines is about to end.  We’ve enjoyed each other’s silent company for two days, such as it is, and now it’s time to slip across town and retrieve the little man.  And I literally mean slip.  Our snow turned into two days of freezing rain.  It looks nice and glossy outside.

But writing about one machine made me think about another.  With my son on his way over, I couldn’t help but wonder if televisions enjoy playing one show over another, or if they’re just indifferent.  The television’s main job when I’m here alone is to balance a picture on it’s head and help maintain the barebones feng shui of the place.  In layman’s terms, this might sound like:  That big blank wall needs something big and blocky in front of it.  And it’d be nice if it held a picture.

But when the little man arrives, the television’s entire job changes.  One quick click and the house is filled with the sights and sounds of cartoons.

Maybe my television has two jobs.  Maybe with me it just moonlights.  Hanging out with me is like going to work as a night watchman, where it sits and stares at the back of my head like it’s a security monitor, playing a never changing view from a camera aimed at the lower levels of an empty parking garage.  It’s usually a two day shift, sometimes one, seldom three.  And then it’s over.  I imagine it sighs with relief. ahhhhhhh In less then an hour, little hands will seek out the television’s remote, where the favorites button is preprogrammed with nothing but cartoon stations.  As far as televisions go, that has to border on dream job.

The two boys are back together, despite the combined efforts of Mother Nature and a slow-leak rear tire that is beginning to get on my nerves.  Call me demanding, but I like a tire that can hold its breath for 50,000 miles without whining.  This consistent I need air attitude is a bit much, forcing me to decide every two days whether to waste two minutes stopping for air or forty-five minutes seeking more thorough treatment.  So far, two minutes always wins.

The roads were nothing more then a spiderweb of ice rinks, and the van, even after thirty minutes of warming up and shaking the ice from its windows, was proving to be no skater.  The trip had mishap written all over it, so I just kept my mouth shut as we began a wild slide that only ended when the two of us were sitting side by side in a restaurant, eating greasy hamburgers for lunch.  Who am I to argue with destiny?

“The fries need more salt,” my son says.  I almost tell him to just rub them around on his greasy fingers, which already have enough salt stuck on them to season every spud in Idaho.  But I see he’s smiling.  He’s only joking, attempting to hone his budding sarcasm skills.

I did have an opportunity, while we were ordering, to come up with a new theory.  Or maybe it’s no theory at all, but just a reflection.  I’ll let others decide.

While I waited for my son to make up his mind, I found my gaze drifting away from the gigantic hamburger pictures and the faux shakes, spinning on strings all around my head.  And then, through the slightly hazy fog of grease, I spotted a monitor near the end of the counter.  It seems I’m on television.

And suddenly it’s time for theory.  Or reflection.  It’s simple.  If you take any unshaven man in a bulky jacket and ski cap, lean him on the counter of any restuarant, convenience store, or gas station, and then play this image on a television mounted from a ceiling, you will reduce that man into looking exactly like a desperate, potentially armed felon.

It must be some sort of translation error that happens along the way.  Something must get distorted somewhere between here and there.  I don’t think I look like a felon in real life, but I sure did just then.  Was it the clothing?  No, they seemed normal.  My facial appearance?  Couldn’t be, you could hardly see my face at all (which did seem cleverly felon-like of me, I thought, and a possible flaw in my theory).  Maybe it was based purely on location.  Hmmmm.  I wanted to take off my coat and hat and stick them on the next guy in line, just to give it a test.  In the name of science and learning and higher understanding.  All that stuff.  But I held back, not wanting the challenge of having to explain myself to not only the man, but my son, who would surely wonder what the hell? Or whatever the eight year old equivalent is.

Yesterday is much clearer to me, now that I’ve had a night’s sleep.  The house is quiet except for the few machines who sort of sneak around the room like servants, making sure that I’m comfortable and all is well.  The coffee machine clears its throat one final time, either announcing that its work is done or its about to make a speech.  I can’t imagine it would ruin the perfect silence with words.

This morning I can see that yesterday consisted mainly of a series of life lessons.  Reaffirmations, really, because most of it’d already learned many times over.  You’ll see what I mean.

Reaffirming Life

You can write more in a silent house then a noisy house.
Eight year old boys prefer a constant playmate.
Frozen butter will form quite a lake if microwaved for 30 seconds on high.
The line inside the coffee maker does not represent the “high water” level.
Coffee makers can also form small lakes.
Important work papers, left on the kitchen counter, will sink to the bottom of a coffee lake.
Ice storms look beautiful but make life difficult.
People who are bored will call you on the phone the most often.
They will have nothing to say.
They will always call at the wrong moment.
You will always wonder why you picked up the phone.
Despite cordless phones, the spaghetti will still boil over.

I wonder what I’ll relearn today.

Forget nice suits and smiling faces.  Don’t promise me everlasting life or a glimpse of truth.  Don’t try to slip free pamphlets into my hands or wave a Bible under my nose like its a piece of freshly baked banana bread.  If you want to do a little door to door preaching around here, all you have to do is bring the Legos.  The Brick Testament is almost as funny as Monty Python’s Camelot in Lego.

I hear the sound of papers behind me, sliding and moving around.  It’s a threatening sound, and I’m not sure whether I should turn and look or continue on, here at the fun desk.  How can a pile of papers rubbing against each other sound so ominous?  It makes no sense.  But that is exactly what the pile of toppled mail has become - an ominous, rumbling pile of work that now threatens to break completely loose from my work desk and wash me out the door and over some embankment like a California mudslide.  It may sound ludicrous, but I can’t help but think that it also sounds crazy enough to work.  We have mudslides here in Oregon too, you know.  They’re just not very well publicized.

Time may in fact push all men into their graves.  I guess I can accept that.  But to think about being buried under a big pile of mail.  Now that’s just stupid.

What’s so scary about this?  The trick to a two month old pile of work and mail is to search through your closet for a magician’s hat and cape.  The whole thing is nothing more then a magic trick.  If it’s the clothes that make the man, then this calls for the proper hat!

A Simple Magic Trick

With two hands, pick up your deck of mail carefully.
The order may very well be important for the trick to work successfully.
Split the pile into two stacks - personal on the right, business on the left.
Any jokers remaining in the deck should be discarded at this time.
Jokers include all credit card applications, advertisements, magazines, and coupons.
Old, unopened Christmas cards should be placed in a separate pile.
These will be opened next year, when it feels “Christmasy” again.
Make your checkbook appear with a flourish of exotic hand movements.
Note:  a cape will only get in the way if you keep your checkbook in your back pocket.
Write checks for all credit card statements.
Pay only the oldest utility and telephone bills.
Don’t worry:  they need you more then you need them.
Say, “Are they crazy?” as you look over a threatening non-compliance letter from the Census Bureau.
Place it on the bottom of the stack, being careful to remember it’s location, so that you are fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more then five years, or both.
Pay any insurance bills if you or anyone in your family recently totaled a vehicle.
Now, you should have three piles: one personal, one unopened business, and one outgoing with checks written.
Return the first two piles to the inbox.
Mail the third pile, saying (and here’s the important part) “abracadabra”.  This must be said the exact moment the mail disappears from sight.  Don’t worry if you don’t have enough money in the bank.  That’s why you say the magic words.
Return to writing.

Remember, money management is just simple magic.  Keep in mind that the entertainment lies solely in the illusion.  Even the poorest fool can trick himself if he shows enough confidence.

Tonight I came across a box of old papers and letters.  Much of the box consists of old stories that would make excellent examples in the O.E.D. for the word feeble.  But I hang onto them.  I’m sure I have my reasons, but for the life of me can’t think of a single one.

But buried amongst the old stories were also some old letters, and it’s these that I found myself looking through.  Old letters nearly always tell the better story.  An old letter is a connection, because you know as you slide it from its smudged and worn envelope that it has been held and touched and cared for by both writer and reader.  Holding it in your hand is like looking into a mirror that reflects back both past and present, all at once.  In my letter, I am comforted by the image of a much younger me, sitting at a desk, writing about his struggle with an ending relationship.  But the comfort is short-lived when I wonder if the younger me may in fact be writing the letter not only to a friend, but to himself - to the older, present-day me.  Can the words of nearly twenty years ago still hold meaning for my life?  Have I grown so little it takes only one short letter per lifetime to sum me up?

The letter, dated September 4, 1986, was written for a friend.  Friends, it seems, are often put into impossible places when our own relationships fail.  The letter has some references to past letters that I will not even attempt to explain.

While many believe in the existence of ghosts, many more believe in the penning of an epistle to a distant friend.  A few, on the other hand, believe in both the ghost and the epistle.  And with a very few, it is the epistle itself that becomes the ghost.

This letter, when it is complete, will join all of my letters from the past, haunting the chambers of my mind with the thoughts and words that seem to live forever within me.  The thoughts and words which appear so harmless and meaningless when they first touch the paper.  Even now, the words of six months past begin their restless wandering, ”and we are reminded that reality strikes at the heart of even the most foolish upon occasion.”

Oh, the reality of being yourself the most foolish.  It is this reality that is now the bludgeon that flails my heart.  I spoke of wonderful times tugging at my heart, as well as a man, Don Quixote, capable of living these wonderful times.  Now I find myself caught between worlds, and I yearn for the days of yore.  But I no longer find the courage to become a Don Quixote, and the swift and mighty sword lies silent before me.  Do I place my hands upon it, using it to severe all that is around me, or in another manner - to fix this weak and wandering heart?  Or has time moved on and tricked me?  Is the sword just another word, a ghost, that lies before me to tempt and taunt?

I remember the day that this same ”Don Quixote cursed the day that he could not help a friend.”

I anxiously await your reply,

Keith

Whatever my friend’s reply was, I don’t know.  That letter doesn’t seem to have made it into the box.  I do know that in October of 1992, I found myself writing him yet again.  Life was not through bumping me around, it appeared.  In that letter, it is the last paragraph that is the best.

I’m basically the same man.  Keith - the man of promises unkept, words unwritten, lives unlived.  Pisces through and through.  Breath and dreams.  The moon seems to guide my heart.  I listen and try to follow, but the path is slippery, the stars moving beneath my feet at every step.

Why share this?  I’m not sure.  Maybe because the path has always been slippery.  Maybe because it is very nearly time to write my friend another letter.

Who am I to fool around with the future of the scouting program?  It just doesn’t seem right.  An organization so rich in history shouldn’t have to suffer an embarrassing coup d’etat attempt from a troop of hastily organized magicians.  If I do nothing, everyone prospers.  The scouts keep their uniforms and their pledges, and JK Rowling keeps her hoards of cape wearing followers.  What would I do with so many kids hounding me anyway?  Sounds like a horrible imposition.  Can you imagine the mail?!  And between you and me, I’m not sure my magic would hold up well under such a load.  I might be labeled charlatan, driven from town by a mob of angry, plastic wand waving children.  The scouts, no doubt, would assist by directing traffic.

It’s not that the idea isn’t a good one.  I’m just not the man for the job.  As much as I hate to admit it, a few of my leadership skills leave something to be desired.  More specifically: I was never a very good scout.  I joined the ranks, but never thrived.  I fell for every snipe hunt.  My matches would never light.  My jackknife blade snapped in two.  But I liked scouting, despite the setbacks.  When my hat would drop through the hole in the outhouse, I tried to smile.  And when every hike led straight into the heart of a poison ivy patch, I remembered that it would all be over soon enough.  I assured myself with the fact that I was only a Tenderfoot, that honorary rank given to each and every scout upon slipping into the uniform.  How could I possibly be expected to know all these things?  I would remain a Tenderfoot my entire tour of duty.

One of the funny things about being a man is that all of this stuff that crams into our heads doesn’t really begin to work its way back out for at least twenty-five years.  There’s this unexplainable gap between “remembering” and “knowing”, like converting memories into knowledge is some sort of arduous challenge.  For example:  I have always remembered the struggles of scouting, but was never able to use these memories in any timely manner.  The ground was literally thick with subtle clues - Structured life is not for you, young Tenderfoot. And other clues, not so subtle - Military life disagrees with your temperament.  Be not a fool.  Walk another path. I saw the clues.  I even read the clues.  But it wouldn’t be until much later that I knew the clues.  Upon turning eighteen I would hike directly into the military like it was the biggest patch of poison ivy in the woods.  But that’s a different story, for a different time.

Maybe if I’d only had the stern, knowledgeable, guiding hand of Lord Baden-Powell, Scouting’s founding father, pointing me in the right direction.  Maybe then life wouldn’t have been so oblivious.  Surely he would have instructed me in the proper technics of understanding life’s direction.  I mean, just look at him, shaping those boys right up.

Sunday morning sometimes means bowling.  At $1.50 per game (9:00 to 12:00 only) it’s the morning’s best deal.  The place is nearly empty, we eat nachos for breakfast without blinking an eye, and the biggest disagreement is whether or not to put the bumpers down or up.  This morning we go with “down”, but I somehow still end up scoring only 132.  I’m not sure which is more distracting/entertaining - the mother and daughter team bowling two lanes down, or my son, insisting on giving a 3-2-1 countdown each time I take a shot.  No excuse.  I often bowl well into the high 140’s.

Curiously, I see the name Richard Petty posted on the High Scorers board.  Richard Petty?  The racecar driver?  Seems Richard has bowled two perfect games here, but despite his fame, still doesn’t top the list of perfect bowlers.  I look around as we leave, but don’t see him.  He probably bowls Friday nights, with the regulars.

Some men can resist buying a frozen pizza for six weeks.  They won’t even realize they were avoiding frozen pizzas until their son asks to buy one while they are shopping together.  The man will, of course, purchase the pizza.  He might even buy three of them - just in case.  The man will then eat the pizza when his son his out of the house for a night.  The time from purchase to oven is approximately 28 hours.  Buying extra pizzas is always a good idea.

An oven, forgotten about for more then four hours, will apparently just keep on cooking, even when empty.

Forgetfulness, like everything else, is simply a matter of perspective.

In 1666, London burned to the ground because of a neglected oven.
The London fire of 1666 saved thousands of lives by killing most of the plague-carrying rats.
My house seems warmer tonight.
If I were forty years older, my children would lock me in a nursing home for my own protection.
I have better things to do then worry about an oven.
After four hours, I might very well be hungry again.  Preheating is avoided, saving valuable time.

This morning I am like a little boy at the dinner table, staring down at a plate of untouched food.  Nothing looks good.  I poke it with my fork, hoping time will somehow come to my rescue.  Everything has grown cold, except for my parents, who only eat faster and grow more angry by the minute.  The air over the table is tense and electric.  Something is about to give if I don’t get down to business.  Thunder rumbles in the distance, and I know that the lightning is not far behind.  I have never won this fight.  I know this.  But I sit there still, not looking up.

This morning I sit at my desk, once again afraid to move.  No, not afraid.  Just not wanting to.  Wanting anything except the meal that’s been placed in front of me.

My plate is my life.  Work is my meal.  Writing my desert.

Without even having to take a poll, it seems that at least half of Word Shadows readers feel a dog is just the thing I need to scarf up left-over pizza crusts.  Sounds good!  I’m almost persuaded except for that one teeny tiny problem with this unofficial non-taken poll - 50% readership means Katy and Daisy.  I would have a hard time breaking my newly signed lease agreement (I moved only last month) because two women I don’t know thought it was a good idea.  For crying out loud, one loves pink and the other tortures her husband, although in a loving and caring fashion.  And always with the best of intentions.

But I’ve made bigger decisions in life based on shakier grounds.  Once I bought a new truck even though I didn’t have a job.  It seemed like such a good way to get rid of three junker cars.  Such a deal!  I thought I was coming out on top, which, of course, I wasn’t.  One is seldom on top in a car dealership.  Young and naive, my will power weakened by the highly waxed shine and new-car smell, I hadn’t yet figured out that salesmen bend boys like me over their desks several times a day.  I signed my name and walked away smiling.  Sure I was sore, but I just thought the problem was with the seats.  They just need to be broken in I thought.

I first met Economic Recovery while walking along the edge of the dump near Bay Lake, Minnesota.  My grandma and I were there together, looking for arrowheads.  She was still young then, as grandma’s go, and seemed to scamper up and down the mounds of earth as easily as I did.  But I didn’t really see that then.  Back then, all I knew was that for some mysterious Indian reason, she would find arrowheads and I would not.  It’s hard for a boy to be bested by his grandma.

I tried to sneak off and find my own secret spot.  Some place that was fresh and full of arrowheads.  Some place that grandma hadn’t been, and that was when I spotted the other woman, walking right at me with huge, long steps.  She seemed to take no notice of the dump at all, and I thought she might actually not see me.  Maybe she’s lost, or blind, or both, I thought.  Maybe she wants to scare me off or thinks I’m just another piece of trash, thrown out for the crows to peck at.

The woman stopped directly in front of me, hands on her hips, and stared at me through icy blue eyes.  I liked her immediately.

“We’re looking for arrowheads,” I told the woman with childlike boldness.

“No you’re not.  You’re looking for me,” she replied.  She handed me an arrowhead, then slipped past me, walking away as quickly as she had come.  At the time, I had no idea who it was I had just met.  Her statement had been a curious one, no doubt, but I had my arrowhead and my curiosity soon disappeared.  Suddenly I felt worthy of my grandma, whose pockets, I knew, would be bulging with arrowheads by now.  I rushed off in search of her.

Summer at grandma’s meant being surrounded by old people, so naturally my arrowhead became my new best friend.  I would carry it around in my pocket, reaching down constantly to reassure myself it was still there.  I would take it out, making up games like The Last of the Mohicans.  I convinced a little girl to play spin the arrowhead, but all we did was take turns spinning it, not really knowing what else to do.  I would take it out and put it back and take it out so many times that the pocket wore out on my jeans.  I would show it to everyone, even if they’d already seen it a hundred times.  Sometimes I would pretend to cry and tell grandma that I’d lost it, and then watch them search all over the house.  I’d sometimes sneak out late at night, after everyone was asleep, and dance around in the moonlight with my arrowhead.  Once, a stray dog wandered up while I was dancing and sniffed my leg.  I held out the arrowhead and he licked it, which I knew was sure to be good luck.

My imagination rolled along so well that summer that I completely forgot about how I’d come to own such a fine arrowhead.  The strange and confusing woman was completely gone from my mind.  Instead of her, I would make myself the hero, the lover, the explorer and warrior and brave archeologist who unearthed the past and made all things possible.  The world revolved around me, and for one summer, I revolved around the arrowhead.

The summer passed quickly.  Grandma packed me up and put me on a bus and sent me flying into the next fifteen years.  I’m sure she hugged me many more times before she died, but for some reason, I only remember that one particular hug.  Maybe it was the arrowhead, sitting in my pocket, ready for its bus ride, that helped make everything so vivid.

But my fascination for arrowheads, like the memory of my grandma’s hugs, would fade over the years, and slowly be replaced by something else.  Arrowheads had been fun to search for because you didn’t see them everywhere.  They had been elusive and mysterious, something you kicked up in the dirt.  Fun for kids.

Money, on the other hand, was incredible.  I suddenly realized that money was all over the place, and just like arrowheads, you couldn’t seem to get your hands on enough of it.  I began to realize that wallets everywhere were filled with the stuff.  I eyed women’s purses and imagined the crisp, fresh bills.  I watched four ton, steel trucks pull up next to the bank, filled with money, and then sat amazed as armed men, whose only job it was to protect the money delivered the money into buildings filled with people whose only job was to count the money.  Banks seemed like churches, where someone who loved money might go to worship.  I started a savings account and pretended I was depositing my soul.  I became a regular at the local coin shop - Coins! Coins! Coins!  I could tell you how many dimes were minted in 1970 and the number of serrations on the edge of a quarter.  I would count dollar bills in my head to fall asleep at night, and then dream that God would come to me:

“How high can you count, my son?” he’s ask.  He’d take out his wallet and run his thumb through a stack of bills that, as far as I could tell, stretched to eternity.

“All the way, God!” I’d shout.  “All the way!” I’d wake up happy and refreshed, knowing that God obviously had big plans for me.

There once was a real, live hermit in the family.  I never met him.  He was my grandpa’s brother, and lived in a small, one-room cabin somewhere in the middle of a Minnesota woods.  He died, I think, before I was born.  I was led to the cabin once, but could only see it from across a partially frozen pond.  It called to me like an empty place in need of company.

If I ever get a graphics tablet and pen, I will return to that cabin for the remainder of my days - provided hermits are allowed electricity.  And internet access.  And hot water.  And their children.

Everything is easier these days - even being a hermit.  I even believe long, dirty beards are no longer a requirement.

Work has grabbed me by the scruff this morning and will soon drag me off.  I’m growling and shaking, but its a tight grip.  I will continue my tale as soon as I break free.

: : Part 2 : :

When God walks into your dreams, everything changes.  You can ask anyone about that and they’ll say the same thing.  About the only thing that changes is what he says to you when you see him.  Some will run off and become ministers and change the world.  Others will team up, hop on bikes, and ride around neighborhoods, telling everyone about their own particular dream.  Sometimes God might tell someone to shape up, or watch their diet.  He might tell them to live in a trailer and take in stray cats.  There’s a whole lot of different things God might decide to tell people in their dreams.  Sometimes everyone in the whole church is dressed almost identical, so he must talk about fashion once in awhile.  He even goes so far as to tell some people to stop having sex, if you can imagine that.

But God never went that far with me.  He mostly just stood there and thumbed through that thick stack of bills, smiling really big.  A big, handsome, toothy smile, like anyone would have thumbing through such a thick wallet.  He never once told me how to dress, or where to live or what to eat or anything at all about cats.  And if he ever said anything about sex, I never heard him.  I might have been just waking up, and getting to that part of the dream where you still see the picture but lose the sound.  Or maybe I was just too busy staring at all that money.  He might have said more, but I don’t think so.  No, I think it was mostly just about the money.

All through grade school, into high school, and then into college, I would look for money.  I would look everywhere I could possibly think of.  Obvious places, like under couch cushions and the cracks of chairs.  I’d empty out my parent’s dresser drawers, looking for hidden stashes.  If I went swimming, I’d dive to the bottom of the lake and feel around in the mud.  There was no end to the number of places money might be hiding.  The branches of a tree, buried in the yard, under the dog’s collar, between the pages of every book in the library.  I looked through them all.

I would walk around with my head down, staring at the ground, thinking that maybe, just maybe, a person might pick up a few extra bucks the way my grandma had once picked up arrowheads.  She’d had a whole shoebox full.  I only dream of being so lucky, and continue to walk around with my head down for many years, until one day I look up and realize I have somehow ended up in college.  Broke and alone, I have no choice but to seek employment.

Getting a job has always been easy for me.  I like to think that it’s all been part of the plan.  Just more of the dream, only the awake part.  It’s been so easy that once, a long time ago, I walked into a Burger King and asked for the manager.

“I need a job,” I told her, after filling out an application.

“What makes you want to work for Burger King?” she asked.

“I’ve never worked fast food before,” I told her.  “I think it’d be funny.”

She thought for a second, then said, “See you in the morning.  Wear black shoes.”

But that wasn’t the employment I was seeking that day.  And I wasn’t quite so cocky back then either.  I wasn’t quite sure how to get a job in the highly competitive, fast-paced life of a college town.  I didn’t even know where to look, so I just looked in the one place I always looked - my wallet.

For years I’d carried around a newspaper clipping, that was by now wrinkled and yellow.  It was an obituary, of someone I’d never met.

Carl Fletcher, 90, Inventor of the Corn Dog, Dies

DALLAS - Carl Fletcher, aged 90, who was credited with inventing the corn dog, died Wednesday at his home.  Fletcher was asphyxiated after becoming entangled in a bed restraint, authorities said.  Fletcher had the idea of sticking a wiener on a stick, dipping it in batter and frying it.

It is the only direction I need, and soon find myself employed by the local mall’s corn dog stand.  Someone slides me into a fine green, orange, and purple polyester uniform, both pants and shirt, and I am ready for action.  Training is hardly necessary.  Everyone knows corn dogs.

Standing there, I find myself taking a certain pride in serving up the dream of a dead man.  It’s a useful job, serving up something that people can eat with one hand so they can continue to shop with the other.  I enjoy the coolness of the mall and the endless stream of beautiful, hungry people.  But after a week, I find myself wearing thin.  While the free, all you can eat (if you sneak) corn dogs are good, the money is not.  My shoebox is not filling up.  My wallet is not even filling up.  I begin to take out my frustration on unsuspecting shoppers.

“I’ll have a corn dog, please,” someone might say.  They are polite and undeserving of anything I might have to say.

“Alright.  Lemonade with that?” I know I am only drawing them in.  Gaining their confidence.

“That sounds good.  Yes.  Thank you.” So polite.  So nice.  It’s time.

“Are you familiar with Carl Fletcher?” I ask, looking them in the eye.  Their corn dog is ready, but I hold it behind the counter, just out of reach.  People, I’ve found, will endure just about any amount of harassment when their food is dangled just out of reach.

“No, I don’t,” they say, and then add something like “Does he work here?” or “You must be mistaking me for someone.”

“No, Carl doesn’t work anywhere anymore.  I’m afraid he’s dead,” I say, and then lean in real close, across the counter, and say, “Strangled to death.  In his own restraints.”

No shopper ever knew what to say.  They’d only come for a corn dog.  If they said anything at all, it was always, “Oh, I’m sorry,” hoping that politeness was the key to a safe retreat.  I hand them their corn dog without another word and watch them hurry away.  I always felt like yelling something more, something like, “We all strangle in our own restraints!” But that always felt too dramatic, so I never did.

But not every day serving corn dogs was a bad one.  The mall, we all know, has always been a hotbed for hormones, and it was no different for me that summer.  Forces other then money are at work on my mind and body.  At eighteen, my hormones are as hot as the fryer to my left.  I am naive, eighteen, and horny, and approach each young woman at the counter with a stupid, shiny look that men think is seductive.  For me, it is entirely believable that a woman will fall in love with an eighteen year old boy wearing green, orange, and purple polyester, with matching hat. 

Lost in thought, I don’t even see the woman until she is right there, standing at the counter.  I have no time to think, no time for what I imagine to be cleverness.  When I turn, I am face to face with the most perfectly beautiful woman I have ever seen.  Looking at her, I am suddenly painfully aware of everything.  Suddenly I know exactly what I look like in polyester.  I know exactly how blank my face looks.  I know that I can say almost nothing.

“May I help you?” It is the only thing I know how to say.  Face to face with beauty and the only words I manage to say are the same ones on the training poster in the back room of the corn dog store.  Polite words.  Safe words.  Words signaling retreat.

But I have no intention of retreating.  I’ve come to far to let this moment slip by.  Retreat is not an option.  I reach around and grip my wallet through the polyester, building up confidence.  It’s now or never.

“Do I know you?” I say.  It’s the best I’ve got, but at the moment, seems better then nothing.

She just smiles and shakes her head, real slow, back and forth, then says “What about Carl Fletcher?  Aren’t you going to ask me about him?”

Carl Fletcher?  Who is this beautiful woman, asking me about Carl Fletcher? I can’t think fast enough, standing there in front of her, so I turn and take her corn dog out of the fryer.  Here’s a woman who knows about Carl Fletcher.  Here’s a woman who sees through my shiny, irresistible horny look.  Here’s a woman who thinks of corn dogs as more then just a convenience food

Here’s a woman a man can fall in love with.  I just can’t let her walk away, walk off into the mall and disappear.  I’ve waited all summer for this chance.  I turn and hand her the corn dog.

“Of course you know me,” she says, still smiling.  “We met quite a few years ago.”

Met before?!  What?  Where?  I don’t remember! I try to remember.  I try to think of anyplace I could have seen such a woman.  I try to remember every dream I’d ever had, thinking maybe I’d seen her there.  I even try to think about everything God told me, but all I can see is his big grin and that stupid wallet.  I have to say something to her.

“I’ve been looking for someone like you all my life!” It blurts out, just like that.  There is no stopping it.  My lips seem bent on destroying me.  My head feels loose and wobbly.  I’m not sure if I’m about to faint or if my neck has become loose.  When she talks, I feel saved.

“You told me once long ago that you were looking for arrowheads.  And now you tell me that you’re looking for me?” I don’t know what to say.  I can say nothing.  Numbly, I reach out as she hands me the money for the corn dog, and is then that I remember.

No you’re not, you’re looking for me

she’d said to me all those years ago as she’d handed me my first arrowhead.  Suddenly her words back then made perfect sense.  I was looking for her.  Not money.  It was Economic Recovery that I’d been searching for all along.

But what really confused me was how this woman could have become so young and beautiful.  How could she be so desirable, so knowing, after all these years?  When I’d seen her as a child, hadn’t she already been old?  Was I confused, or had she changed?

The feeling of her skin touching mine as she handed me the money is still too fresh, too intoxicating.  My mind is reeling.  Is Economic Recovery really this close, our hands actually touching after all these years of searching in vain for the wrong thing?  Has her eye been on me all along, watching me circle round and round, lost and unsuccessful, like I had been in my search for arrowheads?  I have too many questions.  It is overwhelming.

I realize suddenly, standing there in my corn dog uniform, that my fascination for arrowheads has become a fascination for money which has become a love for Economic Recovery.  I have come of age.  I close my eyes, and over the sizzle of the grease, I can hear her song and feel myself drawn into the dream of her.  She is a siren humming a financial love song.  No man can resist her.

I look over the counter and into the mall, expecting to see her, but she has disappeared, taking with her one corn dog and the answers to all of my questions.  Once again, like so long ago at the dump, she has walked in and out of my life, hardly breaking stride.  It is, to say the least, heartbreaking.

“Do you know what it’s like to be in love with Economic Recovery?” I say.  “You feel her alluring, seductive dance.  The fragrance of her financial success plays upon your lips.  She is beautiful and unforgiving.  But most of all, she is illusive and haunts you like no other.  God, how she haunts you.”

But there is no one at the counter.  No one is listening.

I should have went back to work a long time ago.  I’d forgotten how much is going on out there.  For instance, stopping in to rent a movie after work, I found myself face to face with a pair of door to door Crayola salesmen.  Each carried what had to be the biggest box of crayons on the face of the Earth.  Unfortunately, they were both chased out of the store before I had a chance to intervene.

Now that is one job not on my resume.

And then there are the many things our customers say, during the course of a day, that completely give away what soft, vulnerable creatures we Americans really are.  Today’s jem (said with much drama and exasperation):

I can’t believe I live in a state so behind the times!  Whoever heard of above ground utilities?  This is really, really just crazy!

Just because they pay me, they think I’ll listen to anything.  Which is probably right.

Dear Department of Motor Vehicles:

It was nice of you to write to me today.  Your letter arrived in a timely manner, and has filled a void in my life that often appears on the heels of the holiday season.  Knowing that my driver’s license was current, my vehicle’s tags all up-to-date, and that I had no outstanding speeding tickets or other infractions, I could only imagine that you had written simply to wish me a happy and prosperous new year.  For that I was most appreciative.  I believe I was even smiling as I carefully opened the letter.

So imagine my surprise when I see that your letter’s intent is not to wish me well, but rather to scare, frighten, and intimidate me into action.  The paragraphs, filled with threats and promises of punishment, seemed to go on and on forever.  I could hardly take it.  As a compliant citizen of the state of Oregon, a peaceful and rule-abiding man, I was devastated.  What had I done, I thought, to deserve such a verbal pounding?  Have I somehow given offense?  (As a struggling writer, however, I found myself more then a little impressed with the letter’s ominously effective syntax.  But I digress.)

I could assure you that I never received the “previous attempt” your letter assures me was mailed some months ago.  But what would be the point?  Your letter has opened my eyes to the fact that our relationship isn’t built upon assurances and trust at all.  We are nothing more then a balance between money and desire.  You are transportation’s whore, and I am weak. 

So I have enclosed the paperwork you required.  Yet another bean to add to your staggeringly high pile of unnecessary work, which leads me to my last and final question: if you complain when I don’t send in the paperwork, do you also complain when I do?

Sincerely,

Keith

I’ve accomplished more in the first fifteen minutes of this day then I did in the whole of yesterday.  If you take out the two hours I spent going to see Big Fish, then yesterday was a complete bust.  No work, no thinking, no writing, no cleaning . . . no nothing.

My shadow of the day:  lethargy.  And I think it even had a boring day.

But that was yesterday, and like I said, I’m already off to a good start.  Coffee is brewing, the kitchen is clean.  Even the small pile of cashews that had taken up residence in a back, unused corner of the kitchen counter - gone!  Clothes - hung!  Toys - away!  Living room - straightened!  Office - well, okay, ignored.  There are limits to my super hero cleaning powers. 

But today I am a working boy.  Boot up, soldier, and hit the door running.  Circumstances beyond my control have me reporting for work today sharply at 9:00.  If ranting and raving would have any effect on the boss, I’d give it a try.  But I usually reserve talking to myself for when I write.

The Typepad free trial countdown clock seems to have paused dramatically on “1 day remaining”.  Time is standing still, it seems.  There is the outside possibility that I count time differently then the folks at typepad, who most likely began my ticking countdown the very day, hour, minute, second I clicked the “Sure I’ll Try Anything Once” button. 

Did I really call the Department of Motor Vehicles a whore?  Hmmm.  This will require a little fancy dancing.  I could pretend I didn’t find the letter, but that’s just not me. 

God dammit!  That’s just not right.  I have become a dull knife.  My writing has no edge.  Where’s my edge?  I used to handle words like a sword, slicing clear to the bone with meaning so clear and precise.  Look at that crap up there!  Looks more like pretentious, prepubescent journal fodder.  Looks like a butter-knife fight.  Looks like a good example of how to waste five minutes and a handful of perfectly good words.

It’s a telltale sign that a 42 year old man needs to find his edge.  Fast.  He needs to grab the blade that separates clarity from safety.  He needs to hang there until the words are all written.

I guess I’m in, typepad.  Even if it kills me.

So this is what it feels like to pay to write.  Hmmm.  Doesn’t feel much different then before.  Fingers still twiddle across the keys just the same.  Mind still feels like a big blank hole.  I’m sure everything will be just fine.

I wonder if that means fine like in: I’ll write lots of words and find that edge I was whining about yesterday.  Or maybe it means fine like: I’ll have lots of quiet and solitude and my thoughts will fill it.  Or maybe the kind of fine where my dreams aren’t invaded by her and him.  That would be nice.  I wouldn’t mind that kind of fine at all.  A person shouldn’t have to be tormented both day and night.  You’d think the daylight hours would be enough.

Maybe that’s why I always get up so early, as I try to find a place to exist that isn’t quite day and isn’t quite night.  Maybe that’s it.  But most of the time I’m usually under the impression that getting up early is the only sure way to avoid nonstop questions.

Obvious questions, which are the most tiring kind.

“Dad, what are you doing?” I’m typing.
“Dad, what are you doing?” I’m cooking.
“Dad, what are you doing?” I’m getting dressed.
“Dad, what are you doing?” I’m brushing my teeth.
“Dad, what are you doing?” I’m sitting on the toilet.

Love has a funny way of shining in small boys.  Love for dad means following.  But what about love between two adults?  Yesterday, I heard that story of love as only a pair of eight year old eyes can see it.  We happened to be driving by my son’s school, which spurred me to joke that I might just drop him off so he could help Curtis, the head custodian, mop floors for the remainder of the day.  I have quite an arsenal of idle threats.

“Dad, Curtis isn’t working today.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s doing dates with the new principal.”
“What?”
“Dad! (with exasperation), everyone knows all about it.”
“I don’t.  They’re dating?  Are you sure?”
“Dad, Curtis and the principal rode to school together on Curtis’ motorcycle.  The drove up right at recess and EVERYONE saw it.”
“Maybe she just needed a ride.”
“No Dad.  You didn’t see her eyes.  They were all . . .” (eyes batting, hand resting on chin.  There’s nothing funnier then a boy giving his impression of a googly-eyed, flirting woman)
“Maybe they’re just friends.”
“Dad!  Don’t you know anything?”

It was a good point, and worth consideration.  But the conversation continues, with a slight twist.  Grown adults have a hard time staying focused when they discuss the idea of love.  It is only worse for boys.

“But the principals feet are really bad, Dad.  They’re even worse then yours.”
“What?!”
“Yea, I’m not kidding.  Her feet are really bad.”
“What do you mean they’re bad?”
“They stink, Dad!”
“How would you know the principal’s feet stink?”
“Because she walked right by me one day.  And she was wearing sandals.”
“Ohhhh, I see.”

He’s really excited by now.  His eyes are big and dancing.  Stinky feet is way more exciting then love.

“And what about Curtis?  You’re telling me that Curtis is dating the principal even though she has stinky feet?” I may be rotten at love, but I know how to keep an eight year old excited.
“Dad!  Now I know you don’t know anything!  She always wears boots when Curtis is around!  He doesn’t even know!”

And then we both have a good hard laugh.  I’m not sure if it’s about the principals feet, the preposterousness of the story, or the fate of Curtis.  It doesn’t matter.  The cab of the truck is filled with fun.

I think the conversation deteriorated at that point.  Just too much imaginative excitement to keep talking.  If I’m not mistaken, I think what followed was a loud series of armpit farts, performed by my son, not me.  I was driving.  Or maybe that was later in the day, over at Taco Bell.  I can’t really remember.

Why I didn’t wade out into the waters of blogging long ago is beyond me.  Was I too busy, too afraid, or just too unaware.  I dipped my toe into the waters more then once over the years, but each time, all I saw in the ripples were reflections of blogs that looked oddly similar to what I was already avoiding on television.  A cut and paste race of current events and the odd story of the day.  Even my toe didn’t care for that.  And each time I’d get up and walk away.

Maybe next season, I’d think.  Maybe the swimming will be better then.

But the swimming was good all along.  I just didn’t see it.  I should have kept looking.  Been persistent.  Like Anna who would forever set sail in the unseaworthy Sinky.

Not all blogs, I am learning, look the same in the rippling water.  Some stories are so small they can only grow in my heart.  How can the image of a fingernail find a place in my mind?  I don’t know, but it seems to once I read about it through Anna’s eyes:

My fingernails grow when I’m happy.

Apparently, they also grow after death. As does the beard.

I don’t have a beard; but my fingernails grow when I’m happy.

When I’m not, they’re the first things to go. Usually not even I know I’m anxious until I look down at my hands and realise that my fingernails are torn (never bitten - worms, you know) as far as lady nails can go.

The little fingernail on my left hand is - the white bit at the top, not the pink bit at the bottom - my little fingernail is almost 7mm long.

Be impressed. Admittedly it’s a bit rubbish, but be impressed, all the same.

If you look at the other side of my finger you can even see it, peering shyly over the top, like the sunrise over Mount Fuji, if the sun were made of nail and Mount Fuji were pink and finger-shaped with no snow and not pointy and a lot smaller.

That’s the kind of gem that I wish I’d found long ago.  Something that seems so small but makes me think of so many things.  Death and beards and women’s fingernails rising up like a sunrise.

A 7mm fingernail, small and insignificant (sorry Anna), but still able to somehow rise high enough to cast a warmth on my imagination.  Haven’t I only recently become Google’s king of the long dirty beard, although I myself shaved just this morning.  And didn’t I just read a book last year about the Civil War, about the West Point class of 1842, about a lot of men running around dying and all sporting big, fine beards?  And this makes think about what a poor memory I have, because the book also mentioned one General in particular, who was famous on both sides of the war for his fabulous, large and impressive beard.  A beard that stirred envy in men’s hearts and lust in the women’s.  A beard that, if what Anna says is true, must have become unbearably fine to gaze upon in the afterlife.

The book, incidentally, made no mention whatsoever of fingernails.  But I can imagine that a dead Confederate’s nails might continue to grow just about the same rate as a dead Union soldier’s nails.  I mean, in the end, don’t we all climb aboard Sinky and just hope for the best.

According to the commercial I just watched while trying to have a calming, leisurely snack, I’ve somehow quietly slipped into the old age bracket without even knowing it was happening.  And it wasn’t last night.  Not this year, not last year, and not even two years ago.  Seems I’ve been old for three full years and didn’t even know it.  No wonder I’ve been so damn cranky lately.

But everything is going to be okay.  The good folks at Comfort Life or whatever the hell they were called have promised that my worries are over.  They’re going to take care of everything.  The peace and well-being of my family and loved ones will be in good hands.  Everyone can rest easy.

Fuckers.  If they want to sell me a hole, it better be to bury all these papers in, not me.  I’ve never been much of a fighter, but I think I might swing a mean cane forty years from now.  I can feel the fight in me brewing, if you know what I mean.

I’m about to have an aneurism, having just discovered that switching my Quickbooks Pro accounting software from Windows to Mac really means learning a whole new payroll program.  Am I to understand that none of my FIFTEEN years of data has transferred into the new payroll feature?  Do I have a pulse?  What was that Comfort Life number anyway?

If the IRS thought I was clueless before, they’re going to have a real fun time batting me around the room now.  Two or three years ago, a woman from the IRS had me cornered in a small, cinderblock room without ventilation.  She placed a folder on the table between us, looked me in the eye, and sized me up.  The steam of her breath was suffocating. 

I tried to appear casual.  But I’ve never performed well in such tight quarters.  Her first sentence caught me completely off guard:

“I could close you down this afternoon if I wanted to.”

I - like in: I want you to squirm and grovel now.
I - like in: I see through you and around you and in you.  But I don’t see you.
I - like in: I really like my job.

Right now, it feels like that woman is breathing down my neck again.  I know it’s just accounting.  Numbers.  Mathematical manipulation.  Pretending profits are up when profits are down, and profits are down when profits are up.  All that sort of stuff.

But mostly it just feels like steamy IRS breath.

As a young, impressionable boy, I was weaned on a variety of early 20th century, action/romance type novels.  It always seemed there were no end to the Zane Gray novels on the shelf, which I would scoot off with and read into the night, under the covers, flashlight dancing across the pages.  So I guess there’s always been a soft spot in my heart for that wild west story.  The ones where good meets evil head on and love blossoms in spite of open range hygiene.

So tonight, following my questionable success with the battles of the modern world, I plunked myself down in front of the television and watched Open Range, where Kevin Costner gets to win the fight and the girl, then race off into the dusty horizon with the closing line: Let’s go get our cows.

If you haven’t seen the movie, I hope I haven’t spoiled it for you.  But yes, in the end the cows are saved.

Who knew that planning a trip outside of time would be so time consuming?  Stupid me.  I thought an oil change and a quick tune-up and I’d be on my way . . . but no, the phone keeps ringing and problems keep popping up and it’s one thing after another.

And then there was the matter of the About Me page, which I’d been putting off.  Not as badly as my mail, mind you, but putting off all the same.  I mean, what if something should go wrong while I’m gone?  What if I never return?  Who would take care of things then?  Who would write the list that is supposed to sum up my life? 

And doesn’t the About Me page really seem like nothing more then a mini-obituary that we all get to write for ourselves.  About the only thing we leave out is the he is survived by line.  But I’ve whipped one up for everyone’s viewing pleasure.  It may help to ease my reader’s shocked surprise when they find out I am nothing more then an imaginary friend of a small boy.  Oh well, it’s a life.

Besides, nothing really ever changes in life except the stuff in our heads.

Tonight’s last phone call:

Dad, I just called to say good night.

I’m glad you did.  Did you do anything fun tonight?

We just watched a show.  I watched Ed, Edd, & Eddy and mom watched a dating show where two people lie to their mom and dad and brothers and sisters and anyone else who asks them anything and then they make out and then they win a half a million dollars.

I see.

Okay, good night dad.

Good night.

I know they do a lot of lying on Ed, Edd, & Eddy, but I don’t think they’ve ever won any money.  But I could be wrong.

Overwhelming!  I can think of no other way to describe it.  If you are thinking about traveling through time, I would highly recommend the recruitment of friends.  But if the journey is to be a secret one, at least hire someone who can handle the bulk of the go-fer work.  This employee need only be temporary, and should NOT, under any circumstances, be given access to working sketches of the time machine and/or its components.  If they happen to catch a glimpse of your itinerary, just make sure they are sufficiently confused about the dates.  This should be no problem.

I, of course, have gone against the grain of my own advice, and now find myself with neither friend or employee to help me with my preparations.  I can usually count on Imaginary Keith, but we’ve had a bit of a falling out this morning.  There is some debate here over just who should travel and who should stay behind.  I adamantly believe that I should travel and Imaginary Keith remain behind to answer the phone, talk to customers, and keep accurate and up to date postings on the travel blog.  Imaginary Keith, however, has his mind set on accompanying me.  He has stomped off into the back room.

Secretly, I can assure you that Imaginary Keith is no match for me.  I’ve seen him shaking in frustration way worse then this before.  Like when I imagined him joining the Army, or that time I imagined him getting married but he wanted to tell everyone to go home, the wedding was off. 

“I don’t want to do this.”
“Oh, come on Imaginary Keith, you’re just nervous.  Everyone’s nervous when they get married.”
“How would you know?  You’re just a boy.”
“I sure look good in a tux though.  Don’t I, Mr. Nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.  I just don’t want to do this!  Get me out of here!”
“Okay, but first, watch this.  This is really cool.  Watch what happens when I shine the flashlight on the back of the Reverend’s head.”
“You can’t shine that thing in here.”
“Look, look!”
“But . . .”
“Look!  Look! You see that shadow?  Looks just like God, doesn’t it?”
“It does not.  It just looks like a giant Reverend’s head.  Besides, I know what God looks like and he doesn’t look like that.”
“You’ve seen God, Imaginary Keith?”
“I have, thank you very much.”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
“I do.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Say it out loud and I’ll believe you.”
“You’re so childish some times.”
“Say it!  Say it!”

”I do.”

And that was that.  Imaginary Keith was calmed down, said the words out loud, and was on his first trip into the land of holy matrimony.  I probably should have imagined him running away, but that’s all ancient history now.  What I need right now is to calm my imaginary friend down a bit.

“Imaginary Keith!  Do you want to walk over to the diner and have ourselves a couple of big omelettes?”
“I do.”

See, it still works.  After breakfast, we prepare for launch.