I am a shelf person.  I like shelves.  I sometimes think I like bookshelves as much as I like the books.

“Shelve” does not look like a word.

This morning we are thinking about new shelves for the boy’s room.  An entire wall, painted to match the trim.  He will fill them with trinkets.

Arrange and rearrange.  We have done nothing but shuffle things around the place since moving back in December.  But slowly we wean, and space miraculously appears here and there.

I am not afraid of open space, especially in the house.  An empty corner bothers me very little.  I am patient, when it comes to filling spaces.  I see no reason to hurry.

In an unexpected move, a chair and ottoman are pulled down the hall and squeezed through my bedroom door, leaving a very large void in the living room, although like I’ve said, a void of little concern. 

Maybe I’ve read so few books the last ten or fifteen years because I simply lacked the proper seating environment.  I’m certainly picky about the kind of pen I use, I know that, so maybe I have reading hangups as well.  Maybe my idiosyncrasies go a little deeper then I’d like to think. 

Let’s just say that when my tired butt plops down into it’s repositioned chair, the thud seems more satisfying then I remember it sounding when the day began.  Do you know that sound an old hardback can make, when you close it soundly with both hands, and it slaps that pleasant, musty smell up into your face?  You know that sound?  Well, that’s me and my new chair. 

“Dad!  Dad!  DAD!!!” Screams from the bedroom.  He comes running down the hall.

“Turn off the vacuum!  Hurry!” Something terrible must be happening.  He is frantic.

“What?  What is it?  What’s wrong?”

He jumps across the living room and breaks into a mean air guitar.  From the bedroom comes blasting a familiar sound.  Rock ‘n’ Roll High School!  My son has discovered The Ramones!

I am writing in my sleep now, which I’m not sure is the same as taking it to the next level.  By morning, memory edits my work down to almost nothing.

But in fairness to my memory, I should mention that it is an equally aggressive editor during the waking hours.  Red pen in hand, it goes to work on my brain, day and night.

Without my skin and skull, I’m afraid I would look quite embarrassed.  But it’s just the marker, I swear.  I can rework that.

I hope that’s not permanent ink.  Excuse me, but is that permanent ink?

My memory’s website says I can expect to hear back from them in 8 to 12 weeks, and that I shouldn’t submit simultaneous ideas.

Or was that simultaneously submit?

Crap.

Continuous interaction with your weblog’s readers is a great way to stay on your toes and keep those memories fresh in your mind.  I might be working, for instance, and something someone will say in a comment will bring up a part of my life that I had completely forgotten about.

Like just this morning, I’d forgotten all about my afterlife experience until someone made a moth joke.

I can’t tell you how it happened, or even why, but one time I found myself having an afterlife experience.  I couldn’t believe it, but I had somehow died and ended up in moth Heaven.  You wouldn’t believe how many moths there were, fluttering around the place.  I had to keep my hand over my mouth and nose just to breath, so I wouldn’t suck them in.  It was that crowded.

The part that no one has ever believed is the part about the moth God, but I’ll go ahead and tell you anyway.  The moth God was a 100 watt bulb that never burned out.  I’m not kidding.  Just an ordinary, frosted white light bulb, only one that shined for eternity.

I thought about sneaking the moth God back home with me and putting him on my back porch, because the idea of my porch light never burning out again was most appealing.  It’s really just the sort of thing that I’d always hoped for.

But of course, I couldn’t.  One look around the place, with all those moths fluttering around so happy like that, just turned my heart.  I couldn’t take the moth God.  That’d be cruel.

Besides, after I’d thought about it, I decided that all the dead moths would probably end up on my back porch.  I certainly didn’t want that.  It’s already hard enough to fight my way through the believers at night, and that’s just with my ordinary bulb.  No, I left the moth God right where I found him.  That’s what I did alright.  Just left him right there, shining away for all eternity.

Not that anyone believes anything I say.  Not about the moth God, anyway.

How about a collection of stories called The Heaven Jumper, about a man who visits all of the different kinds of Heaven envisioned by people?

You have to love a government agency that informs you you’ve been lying to them for six years, owe them money, and then gives you a chance to explain yourself by filling out their form.

Your one opportunity comes when the form says: Additional claimant statement:

You have two and a half lines.  I’ve added an attachment, being the gabby sort.

For historical purposes only.

I filed for benefits because as an employee of a corporation, thought I was entitled to them, considering money was regularly withheld from my paychecks.

At any time the Employment Department would have informed me I was ineligible to claim benefits, I would have stopped.

I have never intentionally given a false statement to the Employment Department, either on the benefits application, or in answering the questions when claiming benefits.

I continually looked for work, both in 2000 and in 2002, as well as currently, in 2005.

I did not consider myself self-employed, but rather an employee of a corporation, which I had honestly been led to believe by an attorney, was a separate entity from myself.

If at any time the Employment Department literature had made it clearer to me that the owner of a corporation was considered ineligible, if in fact they are, which still appears somewhat in question and is judged, or seems to be judged, on a situation by situation basis, I would not have applied for benefits.  But in fact, this glitch in the system seems to have come to light only now.

I am more then willing to exclude myself from any further benefits, but strongly believe that I should not be held liable for the amounts paid to me in the past.

If I in fact made an error, it was in good, honest faith, believing I was entitled to the benefits.  I did not lie or intentionally misrepresent myself at any time.

I would also ask that you consider the amount of time that has passed, as ask yourself why this has come up only now.

Also consider, if you will, that I am out of work each and every winter, between the months of December and mid February, and yet have done my best to survive financially without the help of the Employment Department benefits.  I have paid into the system diligently, yet withdrawn very little over the years.  If anything, I am an asset to the system, rather then a liability.  I am sure there are those who are trying to abuse the system, but I assure you, I am not one of them.

I would be more then happy to answer any and all questions, either in person or on the telephone.

I would also like to point out that there is a discrepancy in your own paperwork that you sent to me, with two forms stating a return time of ten days, yet another one saying five days near the bottom.

I’m sorry, but for the average person like myself who is simply trying to survive, the Employment Department can be an overwhelming and confusing place, which I’m sure results in errors by both the unemployed and those in your office.

I’m also sorry if the nature of your job is such that every discrepancy that raises an eyebrow is an immediate cause for suspicion.

Regardless of your decision, you should try to remember, there are still honest people in the world.

Thank you.

* * * * *

Now I’ll wait for them to send me a bill.

I’ve gotten myself stretched too thin again, and if I’m not careful you’ll be looking straight through me without seeing a thing.  Like looking through glass or watching a handful of air held up against a clear blue sky.

I’m certainly not air, and I know I’m no window.  I may be many things, but never have I been a window.  No one can claim to have looked through me and plainly seen through to the other side.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying I’m complicated or special or full of thick black secrets.  I’m just not a window.

The problem is, years from now, some poor fool may decide to write a biography about me, and eventually he’ll get to the question of whether or not I was a window, which is just about the time the real problem arises.  You see, no matter how many times a person tells everyone they are not a window, there will always be another someone who will turn right around and write down:  He was a window.

Oops.

Never allow letters from the IRS to slip to the bottom of the pile.

In some versions of my life I am frantic.  In others I hide in the barn for long stretches of time, building a nearly impenetrable fort out of hay bales.

Someone recently mentioned that in the movie, Imaginary Keith should be played by John Cusack.  I used to agree because I like John Cusack.  But lately I’m thinking Paul Giamatti.  Did you see him running down the hill throwing back that bottle of wine in Sideways?  Did you see that?

That’s got Imaginary Keith written all over it.  Today, at least.  After finding the lost IRS letter.

Important New Reader Info:

Yes, there is an Imaginary Keith movie currently being filmed in Oregon.  Very exciting stuff!  Stay tuned!!

Old Reader Info:

New readers will believe almost anything.

There was a different vice-president, and he was the second fastest man in the world, losing a 100m sprint to a South African.

I was standing in an unemployment line, next to a woman who leaned in so close her nose rested against my cheek.  I stared straight ahead at the other men in line as she made small bird sounds in my ear.  The line didn’t seem to move.

I was shaking hands with guests at a party.  Suddenly my dad was there in the line.  I shook his hand as if we were strangers, noticing that his fingernails were dirty and needing trimming.

I rode a bike that was much too small for me down a street.  I pretended the bike was a horse and slapped at it’s haunches, making some people standing on the sidewalk laugh.  Wherever I was going was four blocks away.  A long ride on such a small bike.

I’ve been spending so much time thinking about how to survive financially that writing has become almost impossible.  I’m moving forward, but I’m afraid not quite fast enough.  Monsters chomp at my heels.

It’s hard keeping pace with the same thought stuck in my head.  Years now, it’s been playing, sometimes fading but never actually going completely away. 

What should I do?  What should I do?  What should I do?

You’d think I’d adjust somehow, that the trivial events that constitute my day to day existence could somehow fall into step with this irritating beat and learn to keep up.  You’d think that I could find better ways to get through the day other then staring at the television or wondering for three or four hours at a time whether I should get up and shave, only to be followed by another three or four hours thinking about my decision.

Does it strike anyone else as odd how little everything really matters?  I think that’s the problem, really.  Not that I can’t get off the couch or even function for that matter, but that I find myself debating the importance of my every single action, right down to the smallest detail.  I’m not sure I’m up for such a debate, yet here I am, taking myself apart one piece at a time, holding it, examining it, looking at myself in the light. 

Is it even possible to examine the details of our existence without going insane?  Can we survive being broken down so small?  Can we look at ourselves, spread out on a table piece by piece like that, yet somehow hang onto whatever it is that makes us whole?

This morning I watched a gentle breeze push and pull at the young vine maple outside the living room window.  I don’t understand wind.  I can’t follow it backwards and watch it as it first hits the beach sixty miles to the west.  I can’t see where it’s been, just like I can’t see where it’s going, yet there it is, moving through those bright green leaves without a care in the world.  I am reminded that the priorities of the tree are very simple.  A bit of earth, some water, and that air I will never see, caressing its leaves.

That may be the only major difference between me and the tree, this simplicity of priorities.  The tree knows what it needs, and as far as I understand, seeks nothing else.  It seems content simply to grow, reproduce, and die.  It doesn’t appear to look around at it’s surroundings and contemplate the importance of one rock over that of another.  By keeping its priorities simple, the tree seems to have mastered something that I only dream of.  Peace.  Contentedness.  Balance.  Understanding.  Acceptance.

I sometimes imagine Priority as the king of the human psyche, ruling us with nothing more then this cruel trick of self-examination.  Convincing us that the only way to understand who we are is to prioritize all of life into some sort of meaningful list.  It’s an impossible task, yet without realizing we are even doing it, we tackle it day in and day out.

“Measure life with this,” Priority says, and hands us something called value, failing to tell us that it is a meaningless, subjective tool.  Yet we hold it up to everything, including the people and relationships in our lives, seeing how they measure up and where they fit in.  We measure everything, including our televisions, homes, furniture, automobiles, books, the freshness of produce at the grocery store, haircuts, clothing, sunglasses, our kid’s teeth, our smiles, the list goes on forever.  Even things whose value would seem immeasurable, like pride or imagination or self-image are held against value to see how they hold up.  In fact, our every move seems somehow dependent on understanding the value of everything around us.  Priority, it seems, has somehow crippled and blinded us all, and even more remarkably, seems to be the one thing we fail to measure.

In our struggle to somehow fit in with the world around us, we almost always fail to realize how completely unnecessary the struggle actually is.  Life blows through us and the world swallows us all whole, with or without our understanding, and the question that repeats inside my head will forever be unanswerable.

found this morning at Whiskey River

“The fact that many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing . . . He must obey his own law, as if it were a dæmon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths . . . There are not a few who are called awake by the summons of the voice, whereupon they are at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves confronted with a problem about which the others know nothing. In most cases it is impossible to explain to the others what has happened, for any understanding is walled off by impenetrable prejudices. “You are no different from anybody else,” they will chorus, or “there’s no such thing,” and even if there is such a thing, it is immediately branded as “morbid” . . . He is at once set apart and isolated, as he has resolved to obey the law that commands him from within. “His own law!” everybody will cry. But he knows better: it is the law . . . The only meaningful life is a life that strives for the individual realization - absolute and unconditional - of its own particular law . . . To the extent that a man is untrue to the law of his being . . . he has failed to realize his life’s meaning.

The undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche; classical Chinese philosophy names this interior way “Tao”, and likens it to a flow of water that moves irresistibly towards its goal. To rest in Tao means fulfillment, wholeness, one’s destination reached, one’s mission done; the beginning, end, and perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things.”

- C.G. Jung, Collected Works

I need to turn a tractor-trailer rig around for an employee who has made a wrong turn.  We’re near the farm.  62nd St., normally a two-lane paved, becomes a narrow, unused gravel road, overgrown with weeds and grass.

I stop along the road at a house, talk with a woman, and agree to paint the house.  I’m not sure how we’ll do this.

When I get back to the farm the barn is in the process of being completely reconstructed.  A large pond is being dug in the southeast corner of the field.  There is a paved road, cutting straight through the farm, and crews are moving power and sewer lines because of the barn work.  I remember thinking that only a small bit of work was going to get done - one man for one day.  There must be over a hundred workers, around the barn, in the field, and reconstructing the road.  I realize it will cost me a fortune.

I confront a man rebuilding part of the barn.  “I’ve made a change,” he says.  “The floor will last ten years and the changes cost $5,000.”

“I need to see the numbers,” I tell him, and he threatens to hit me in the head with his hammer.

I lead him to the edge of the property and see him to his truck.

We worry endlessly about depression, yet don’t give sleep a passing thought.  Coconspirators, I say, working together to steal us away from ourselves.

Am I not myself more when depressed then when I’m asleep?  I don’t think so.  Where’s the difference, I ask.  I don’t see it.  I emerge as refreshed from one as I do the other. 

And no, don’t tell me to measure my days with that burning ball of gas, either.  Don’t tell me to count my blessings.  Don’t tell me to look up and count anything.  The sun may outlast me, but even it is fading, no doubt depressed itself.  So don’t ask me to measure my days.  I can’t do it, and I won’t.  Measure the length of my existence by counting the passing of another stupor?  No.  I don’t think so.

How old are you, Keith?  Today.  Right now.  This instant.  Hurry, before the sun sets.  Before you grow depressed.  Before another blink passes by your eyes or another hair grows from your ear.  Before you have a chance to think.  How many stupors have come and gone for you, my friend?  How many have you counted?

Too many, I’m afraid, too many.  Too many to count, that’s for sure.  And you?

It’s nothing more then a nauseating roller coaster of a dream that we’re never ready for, that’s all it really is.  Something we’re forced to see through eyes that focus better on that half of life that only the sun can touch, and we all know how far the sun stretches into the soul of the depressed.  It’s dark in there.  The sun barely reaches the depressed, we all know that.  The heat gives way and our insides grow cold, the same way the light stops short as we slip into our dreams.  The same way that each night opens on a new world that didn’t exist an hour before, and we tumble in, tripping over our conscious self, unable to stop our fall, unsure we even would if we knew how.

Have you seen the children in the morning, my friend, as they rub the disbelief from their eyes with the backs of their pudgy little hands?

Yes, I have, but thought they were but tired, being so small.

Living has never been easy, Keith, and disbelief so very tiring.  No, I’m afraid it is the old who grow tired, not the young.

Perhaps you’re right.

Perhaps.

Will we talk more of this when I wake?  I would like that.

No, you have other worries, my friend, and like a child, you will wake and rub me from your eyes, thinking of other things.

Last Friday felt like the last straw, and I haven’t felt like writing a word since.  I’m sick of the words leading me around, dragging me down to places I never intended to go.

I’ve grown tired of depression, walking around like I’m on the end of a leash, like someone has a garden hose stuck down my throat, sucking on the other end for all they’re worth, trying to drain off every last bit of me into some plain white five-gallon bucket before security turns the corner and sweeps my life with that spotlight of theirs.  Is that salvation, the light at the end of the tunnel, God, someone who will stop and pull the hose from my throat before it’s too late?  Don’t worry, I might be choking to death here, but I’m not stupid enough to be waiting around for any help.  I know who picked up the garden hose in the first place, I know who did the poking, I know who does the siphoning.  But I also know I need to do something, quick, before everything is gone, and believe me, it’s going fast these days.  I only thought everything was standing still, but sure enough, it was only me, blanking out.  I was the one holding still, draining.

I’ve run out of money.  Worse.  I’ve run out of options.  I think somewhere in middle America you run out of money long before you run out of options, and I have no idea when I crossed that first line, but here I am, standing at the second.  Fuck.  Where does it all go?  Not that I care all that much, I’m more curious then anything.

I’ve always wondered why no one really talks about money.  You’d think these millions of weblogs would be filled with the confessions and truths of people wanting to free themselves of their money secrets, but it just doesn’t happen, and really, I don’t think it ever will.  For some reason I’ll never understand, we’re secret about our money.  Jealous of it, embarrassed, proud.  I don’t know.  Whatever it is, we aren’t comfortable discussing how much we have or how much we don’t have, not with strangers or even our closest friends.  And me, I’m no better.  I keep such good secrets that I don’t even know how much money I’ve made over the years, which I know sounds like another one of those things I’d make up but it’s not.  I’m self-employed, so every year is different for me, and I just gave up thinking about it a long time ago, which is maybe the problem.  Maybe if I focused on the money everything would be alright.  I’d wake up and go to work and hear the dollars clicking in my head and everything would be just fine.  I’d pay the bills and sit on a growing nest egg.  I’d have health insurance and money set aside for my children’s education.  I’d afford a vacation and swim in warm, clear water with the sun on my face and everything would feel like a comfortable dream.

Except for me, living that dream means holding a pillow over the face of another dream until it stops kicking.  It’s hard to explain.  I wish I was big enough for two dreams, and that they could live peacefully side by side inside of me, helping each other, even.  Wouldn’t that be nice. 

You know, I think the problem is that I do live in a comfortable dream, except that this dream is also at war with myself, constantly trying to provoke me, poking and goading, doing what it can to move me to places that I couldn’t possible go to on my own.  I’ve touched on some of these places here in this space, in my writing, and there are many more then I haven’t yet shared.  The ghost in a jar, the village, Peter with his briefcase, these are a few of those places.  They all have something that I need to see or hear.  They may feel like whims, and I may make fun of them with they way I talk about them, but there is something there, waiting for me if I can build up the strength.  They are lines to cross, truths to be told, and they, I’m afraid, are growing as tired of my depression as I am.  Something has to give.

I can hear the ghost, even now, calling to me from a place that I can only imagine.  And I wait for Peter almost every day, anxious for his visit, even hopeful, I think, sometimes hearing his voice when I know he is not here, the same way that I can close my eyes and imagine the smell of wood smoke filling my nostrils, blown across the field from a dozen village chimneys that in reality I know don’t exist.

I have arrived at that indiscernible place that is neither here nor there, a place where it is easy to imagine never having to move or speak ever again.  I am alive, yet not living.

“Excuse me, but I do believe you’re mistaken,” Imaginary Keith offers.  He’s been staring at me for some time now, and it’s kind of irritating.  It’s hard being indiscernible when someone stares at you - like a dog staring over the edge of the bed, watching you have sex, it’s kind of creepy.

“Quit staring at me,” I tell him, although I know he won’t go away.  You know, before I came to the indiscernible place, I used to say useless things all the time, like “Have a good day” to complete strangers, when of course I didn’t really care what kind of day they had, and “How’s it going?” when, once again, I didn’t give a rat’s ass how it was going.

“I’ve been watching you.”

“Yes, I know.  How’s it going?” Old habits die hard.

“I’m pretty sure you’re dead.”

“What?!” My friend is such an idiot.  “I am not dead.”

“No, I’m pretty sure you are.  You don’t move.”

“Maybe I’m resting.  Did you ever think of that?” Dead?  What an idiot.  I think about getting out of my chair and slapping him around, but that isn’t something indiscernible people do.

“Last year, when you didn’t move I thought maybe you were resting, but now I’m pretty sure you’re just plain dead.”

“I swear.  Go away and clean the house or something.  It stinks in here.”

“Oh.  I thought that was just you, you know, being dead and all.”

“I’m not dead.  I’m… I’m… “ I wasn’t sure I should tell him. 

“You’re what?”

“I’m… I’m indiscernible, if you really must know.  Now, are you happy?  Go away.”

“Indiscernible?  So, how’s that working out for you?”

Nope.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Diddly squat.

On the fringes of thought, I felt an old idea stir and move, shake the blankets off and sit up.  I looked into weblogs in the first place because of this sleeping monster - a book idea that would be co-authored by me and three friends.

I bought a plane ticket yesterday, and in a month I will fly away.  I will test the idea that ten days can feel like forever.

Until then, I continue to think of ways to say goodbye to one lifestyle and hello to another.  I, of course, have less money today then I did yesterday.  Rome burns, my friends.  Can you feel the heat? 

Meanwhile, over on Scrine, a man named Bob finds himself in line, waiting his turn to enter Hell.

I fiddle.  Things change.  Plus I needed a site that allowed for me to post a full body shot of myself, back in my glory days when my lines were crisp and sharp and I was a sight to behold.

And hold, of course.  I am presented here in full life-size splendor.  Small yet hardly fragile, I was a coveted action figure back in my day, part of the Lost Swede collection.

Like me, this site remains incomplete, yet mostly functional.

Did I tell you that someone stopped by the other day, looking for the Coopers.  No kidding.  Not Mr. Cooper’s bones, but the real, bona fide thing.  Things, I mean, because it turns out there are more Coopers then I ever knew about.  Not just a Mr. Cooper, but a Mrs. as well.  And kids.  Three missing Cooper kids.  It’s better then I’d hoped for, but of course, I’m getting ahead of myself.  First let’s deal with this man on my fence.

I looked out the front window and there he was, this man leaning on the front fence, looking the place over like believing in anything is a fool’s game.  Fifty-ish, a scruffy beard, I think.  Or maybe no beard at all but dark, sunken, lost eyes.  Or maybe I’m confusing everything with disbelief, I don’t know.  I suppose I should have memorized the man better, but what’s the point?  People come and go all the time.  Why clutter up the inside of my head.  Besides, by the look of the guy leaning over my fence, memorizing anything is a wrong turn that leads nowhere.  Stare at something long and hard enough to remember it, your eyes doing all the work, and you’ll only learn later down the road that your brain has lost the paperwork.

“Do the Coopers live here?” the man wants to know.  He’s a childhood friend of the Cooper kids, he tells me.  Almost forty years.  Two girls, one boy.  No, sorry, he says, I don’t know Mr. Cooper’s first name.  He was very sick.

I stare across the yard at this man leaning on my fence, feeling sorry for him.  I can’t believe he will find what he’s looking for, and I wonder if he knows it.  I’d invite him in, but like I already said, what’s the point?  I’m not what he’s searching for, and besides, there’s already enough of that man living inside of me.  I don’t need another lost and wandering soul stepping through my front door, trying to explain to me why he’s looking for his past.  Like I said - come and go.  It’s really what us people do best, I think, and may in fact, be our one surviving instinct.

After he leaves, I go in, and for whatever reason, write down the names of the three Cooper kids on a scrap of paper.  But now that I’ve finally gotten around to telling the story, I can’t seem to find the names. 

The kids’ names, you ask?  Oh my.  I’m sorry, but I can’t remember.  Two girls and a boy, I think.  Or maybe two boys and a girl.  Three of them.  Yes, there were three Cooper kids, I’m sure of that.  And their mother, Mrs. Cooper, and the father, Mr. Cooper, who I hear was very sick.

His bones?  No, I’m sorry, I’m afraid his bones are still missing.  But a man stopped by the other day, looking for them.

His name?  I can’t say I ever knew that man’s name.  I don’t think it even crossed my mind to ask.

For some families, the mysteries begin on day one.  My own birth, for instance.  Pushed or plucked?  If I’m not mistaken, it is my first true secret.

from I Look Divine, Christopher Coe

For years, Nicholas would frequently remark that being born Caesarian was the next best thing to being adopted.  I cannot say how many times I heard my brother say this.

One year, when we no longer had grandmothers, one of the years that our mother and father took us to Mexico every Christmas, I heard my brother tell a little boy his age, in the pool of the Cuernavaca Racquet Club, that Caesarian babies were more beautiful.

Nicholas explained to the little boy that being born in the usual way, through the mother, can deform a baby, make it ugly.

He made a face with his mouth and said, “Squish.”

I watched my brother raise his arms from the water to trace his wet mouth with his pool-wrinkled fingers.  He traced his eyes and caressed, in both hands, the molding of his skull.  Then, the proof exhibited, Nicholas explained to the little boy that Caesarian babies were more beautiful because they were more perfect.

In the future, you will be able to buy not only a human, but have their brain surgically removed and replaced with the brain of your favorite pet.  Cat brain transplants will be most popular, due to the long hours this human pet spends sleeping, resulting in an easy to care for companion.  Dog brain transplants, also high on the list, will more times then not result in a loyal companion that the whole family can enjoy for many years. 

A vigorous black market will flourish around all human pets who turn out to be “Humpers”.

Within three years of their introduction, sales of human pets will exceed robotic sales worldwide, and within five years, 92.4% of homes will own at least one. 

Ironically, the world will never fully embrace the concept of animals with transplanted human brains.  A dog will never become president, although in 2544, 3-C World President Vlidma Johnson, will have his brain divided in half and transplanted into the heads of his cherished canine companions, Spark and Exxy, a breeding pair of English Pointers.

Years later, when asked if he ever regretted the decision which resulted in his immediate dismissal as 3-C World President, Vlidma Johnson replied,” I wouldn’t take back a minute of it, not for the world,” but later added that he hadn’t fully thought through the implications of becoming a breeding pair.

“The sex was a little weird at first,” he said, “but at least I knew what I liked.”

Looking straight into the face of certain doom, I took three, nine year old boys to see Star Wars III yesterday afternoon, followed immediately by a sleepover at our house.  The boys ignored the terribly told love story (as I wish I could have), focusing instead on the nonstop action.  They were itching for a fight.

But being the responsible parent that I am, I insisted that all light sabers be safely locked away in a cabinet for the evening.  Being younglings, they reluctantly agreed.

It should be noted that no Jedi master, no matter how powerful, can stop a roomful of boys from using the force to throw around pillows and an occasional piece of furniture.  Nine year old boys are like Sith lords.  Electricity shoots from their fingertips and it’s a safe bet that their teeth need brushing.  I expected some damage, but this morning, I’m not sure I recognize my own house.

Oh, I also lost an arm sometime during the night.  Typing is difficult.

Without warning my cellphones have all been shut down!  How can I possibly enter the launch codes without a properly working cellphone?

To the mailroom, pronto!  The paper warnings have piled up!  Overdue bills should come with one of those musical microchips installed, so they’d be easy to find in the stack.

No wait, bad idea.  From the looks of my mail stack, my office would sound like it’d been overrun by a mouse orchestra, all playing tiny kazoos made from wax paper and greasy little combs.

Today I am thinking about:

• How many pickles exist in the world at a given moment.
• Money, or lack of.
• Returning 28 phone calls.
• Life without pets.
• What it’d be like to live in an RV.
• How long it will take to open and deal with my mail.
• Another pot of coffee?
• The difficulty of being only one person.
• Whether the TV show, Ed, is on DVD.
• Change in general.

And I was just kidding about the launch codes.  I mean, I still have a landline around here somewhere that works.  It’s the phone that’s started to look more and more like a television with no remote control.

What?  Talk on the end of a spiral cord attached to that clunky thing?  What kind of barbarian are you?  What?  A practical one, you say?  Never heard of it.  Now scram before I shove you under that pile of mail.

My friend Joppy is always stopping the car and picking things up off of the highway.  I swear, no matter where we go, Joppy finds things.  For instance, his couch at home has three different cushions on the back, all of which he found in the middle of the road somewhere, no doubt blown out of the back of some poor schmuck’s pickup as he moved.  Chairs, tables, a small television, a decent cassette collection, and I think most of the books and magazines in the house were found at one time or another.  Hell, even the mattresses in the bedrooms were picked up off the side of the road. 

“What can I say, the wind just blows my way,” Joppy likes to say, which of course, his wife hates.  And I can’t say I blame her.  I mean, when I’m over there, I know I don’t like crawling into that sway-backed thing they have in the guest room, wondering about what kind of stains are hiding under the sheets.  We stay up late, over at Joppy’s house, talking and drinking until we can hardly move, and now I’m thinking it might have something to do with those mattresses.  Who wants to go to bed with something like that waiting for you?

Maybe that’s why Joppy is always complaining about his wife not putting out.  I bet she’s just trying to get to sleep, quick.  I never thought of that.

Anyway, I think Joppy’s wife looks just like that freaky little girl on that one Eels CD.  You know the one I’m talking about?  The one with the little girl crawling up all creepy-like with her big, dark, sunken eyes, set a little too close on a wide forehead, then that narrow, pointed chin with a pinch of a mouth that doesn’t look like it can open.  Anyway, she looks just like that, which is okay, I guess, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Joppy likes her, which I suppose is what counts.  The way he tells it, he spotted her a half a mile away, standing on the side of the road, just waiting for the wind to blow her into the car.

“I’d just got done picking up this decent-sized dresser drawer, along with a half a dozen blouses and a couple of things I won’t mention, being here in mixed company and all, when there she was, just waiting for me.  Damnedest thing you ever saw.  I didn’t even have to get out of the car.  Just kicked open the door and she blew right in.”

Joppy’s wife never has much to say about the whole thing, which I suppose is fine.  What do you say to a man who runs his life like he’s some sort of cyclone fence, trapping whatever happens to blow up against him?  I have no idea.

Writing time is at a minimum.

The great bankruptcy debate still wages in the house, the different sides of myself fighting for supremacy.  There is no clear answer.

A date has been set to file divorce papers.  Less then a week away.  Life should provide adequate time to contemplate these sorts of moves, yet we know that is not the way.  Think fast.  Think on your feet.  I’ve never been to Italy, but I hear there is a strong tradition of never walking when you are eating or drinking, forcing people to slow down to appreciate what is happening to them.  The bottled water industry is of course fighting this tooth and nail.  What does this say about us as people?  That change is one part emotion, nine parts economics?  Tradition, which I dare say includes marriage, but don’t dare say includes divorce, should never be changed without great contemplation.  There should be time to sit quietly and search for answers.  Thinking of divorce should be like a good meal, with plenty of time to digest.

Work is an odd nut.  The problem may solely lie in the fact that I have lost my desire to converse with people.  Give me a landscape and a person with a checkbook and I can talk them out of several thousand dollars almost every time.  But you need to talk to do this.  You need to want to talk.  I believe I could spend the rest of my years on earth, however many that may be, peacefully not trying to sell anyone anything.  I wish there was an android who looked just like me.  I’d send him.  Ironically, my android look-alike would no doubt grow resentful and take action against me, which reminds me of something my son said, after seeing Star Wars III the other day, and I, Robot not too long ago.

“How come everyone I know is a robot?”

I laughed immediately.  He was, of course, referring to both the actual robots in the movies and the robotic limbs of some of the main characters.  So it is with children, one thing happens, then another, and suddenly they see it as everything.  It is the stuff of paranoia, yet comically harmless in children.  Such a funny thing, I thought, to suddenly see everyone around you as a robot, yet at the same time, his broad, sweeping statement might be more true then he or I suspect.

On a positive note, my desk is cleaner and more organized then it has been in years.  Get a handle on the money situation and there may actually be room here to sit down and compile a readable story.  I’m not so much a believer in the great American story these days.  The country has changed too much, I think, and along with it, the possibility of it’s stories.  There is something about the shine of things that isn’t right.  Dreaming is no longer enough, and getting there takes more then determination and hard work.  There are too few people holding the keys of too many people.  Greatness has a way of becoming lost in times like these.

In the face of overwhelming emotional turmoil, it is important not to forget to occasionally rock the boat of sanity.  Three boys accompany the boy home, and they proceed immediately to the blowup pool in the back yard, where the party kicks off with a dead bird, floating belly-up in the water.  Perfect for nine year old boys; I couldn’t have planned it any better.

They will torment one another for the next three or four hours, stopping every thirty minutes or so to pound on my office window and beg for food or drink.  I’m telling you, four boys—make that every ten or fifteen minutes—anyway, four boys alone with five thousand gallons of water only sounds dangerous.  My continuous popping up from my chair to count heads and watch for signs of aggression (elevated states only) assures that all is well.  I even venture out once to film the boys, and then set the camera down to apply sunscreen.  Boys’ attitudes are grating, but their skin is delicate.  We discuss birth marks and Jonny’s bony chest.  I swear, if it weren’t for his ears, the kid could hide under a broom handle.  I feel sorry for all of them, trapped like they are in such young bodies.  Poor fools.  I dig through the cupboard and come up with some nearly stale Cheetos, which I convince them is a reward for their good behavior. 

It all began at 3:30, and now, two hours later, the begging has begun.  Spend the night, spend the night, spend the night - they chant away like I have no backbone or hope for world peace (one house at a time).

“Eat your Cheetos,” I tell them, trying to take their minds off of the future.  It’s too bad I flung the dead bird into the field.  Tossed into the pool, it would make an excellent distraction right about now.

The pack of boys naturally wear me down, circling, watching me for weakness and signs of exhaustion.  The four boys - my son and three friends - will spend the night, leaving me to sleep with one eye open.  I’m thinking maybe the lazy eye should pull the first shift, since it gets the most rest during the day.

Five hours in and around the pool escalate into the creation of a mud pit in my back yard, so the wild pack slides around and whoops it up like drunk frat boys with something to prove.  I shoot some video which captures the nearly unbelievable innocence of the moment when they think they will just file into the house covered head to toe with mud. 

I’ve found that one word commands work best when ordering around nearly anything.  Simple and effective.  “HOSE!” I bark, backing them down the steps.

They draw lots for showering order, and as I secretly hope the shower drain can withstand so much mud in one night, I watch as the boys pounce onto the pizzas dropped onto the patio table.  Occasionally they turn and snap at me, teeth flashing, grinning like happy murderers, and between their mud covered heads and their pizza sauce mouths, I get the feeling that they’ve just taken down a tasty pepperoni and pineapple wildebeest at the watering hole.  I turn and run.

The eyes of the pack open in unison at 7 a.m. sharp.  They’re quieter first thing in the morning, still stretching, comfortable in their den - a collection of blankets, sleeping bags and pillows, couches and chairs, and whatever else could be drug into the living room when I wasn’t looking.  From the other room I hear them laughing, crawling around to each other, pounding on one other’s bellies.  Pink bellies, they call them.  I think it’s part of the digestive process, I’m not sure.  Pizza bones clutter the living room table, and I’d spotted a fresh stain on one of the couches as I’d tiptoed through the den earlier, on my way to the coffee pot.  Pop?  Tomato paste?  Dried blood?  I have no idea.  I look around for the cat, wondering if she’s fallen victim to the boy’s insatiable appetite sometime during the night.  Anything is possible.

I sneak back to my office, wondering when I will tell them I have nothing in the house for breakfast.  Maybe after the farting contest I hear going on.  Or when they’re done measuring each other’s heads.  There is no safe time to tell boys you’ve run out of food.

In the shower I write lines in my head.  My shower writing always sounds good, even if no one ever sees it.  I’ve tried making the transition, from shower to screen, but the fact is, my shower lines never actually have beginnings or ends, but string together with some loose connection that works well with imagined words, but not so well with their typed out cousins.

Maybe I’m a Zen Buddhist, I think.  What kind of soap do Zen Buddhist’s use?  Do they make it themselves, or is that just another one of my loose connections?  My son insisted we buy Dove, a soap I’ve discovered that seems to take nearly forever to wash off of my skin.  I hate this.  I hate the idea of leaving soap on my skin, yet grow impatient every single time I’m rinsing.  I have better things to do then try to rinse off soap.  I may even curse at the soap some mornings, clinging to me like it does, wasting my time.

I’m not so sure I would make a good Zen Buddhist.

Meanwhile, out in the yard, the dog has discovered that one of the boys has left my bicycle helmet lying in the grass.  I bought myself the best helmet I could find, thinking that if I ever had an accident, I would regret not doing whatever I could to protect my head.  I like my head and most of what’s inside of it.  I’ve been punched in the head and it hurts, so I can only imagine what it would feel like to be hit by a car or have the highway slap me upside the head at forty miles an hour or so.  I don’t like the idea, so even though I couldn’t afford it, I forked over the big bucks for the big protection.  My head would be safe, damn it, no matter what the cost.

I think dogs would make excellent Zen Buddhists.  They are so grounded in the moment, which of course, I’m only assuming is a good Zen Buddhist trait, not actually being one myself.  But it sounds like something they’d be good at, don’t you think?  Anyway, after finally getting all that soap off of me, I have a chance to walk by the back door to see what kind of day it’s turning out to be, and that’s when I spot the dog, chewing on something I can’t quite make out, and start thinking about dogs making good Zen Buddhists.

Have you ever noticed that a dog has the exact same look on it’s face, no matter what it’s just finished chewing up?  Dogs truly do know how to enjoy life.  And helmets, of course. 

Now that I am helmetless, I guess I might as well begin practicing becoming one with the crash.  It is a three day weekend, even if there are only two days left, but I’m thinking I should be able to pick this thing up before work on Tuesday.  Zen Buddhism, I mean.  Gathering up the helmet pieces will take much longer.

Is there such a thing as an action-packed day that moves in slow motion?

I’m trying to wade through the stack of divorce papers, deciphering one overly stated line after another.  Why have we made life so complicated, that’s what I want to know.  Too many rules for what should actually be a simple sort of game.  And why are the lines on forms never long enough for the information asked for?  Not only are we overly complicated as a species, but apparently short-sighted as well.

I have a 2 p.m. appointment to meet with someone and discuss the papers.  I need to get cracking!

I do wish I had time today to tell the exciting story of watching my brother’s guilt bubble to his surface, coaxed out by beer, barbecue, and old stories.  I don’t know how many deep dark secrets my brother actually has, but after Sunday night, he now has one less.

“Remember the time you and Chuck visited my apartment?” my brother asks me Sunday night, referring to a single evening more then twenty years ago.  I try to pinpoint the night, but time has a way of putting everything into soft focus.  I remember the snowfall that night, and sitting there in his apartment, vaguely, talking with him and his wife, but I don’t remember anything that we talked about. 

But my brother remembers the night.  Remembers it much clearer, thanks in part, I guess, to the guilt that has been eating at him over the years.  After a little stammering, my brother confesses to dropping acid into both my drink and my friend’s, going on to explain that he thought it would be fun to watch the two of us trip out that night while he watched.  Can you believe it?  My own brother, conducting secret drug experiments on me!

But as is the way with these sorts of things, nothing went quite as planned.  Before anything could happen, my friend and I polished off our drinks, said our good-byes, and disappeared into the night.

“I went outside to see if you two were okay,” he says, “but your footprints just headed up the road in the snow.  You weren’t anywhere around.”

Funny I don’t remember much about the time in the apartment, but that I do remember the walk Chuck and I took.  We were in a strange town, walking around in the middle of the night while a thick, heavy snow fell all around us, blanketing everything.  The world was fresh and quiet, and we walked mostly in silence.  I remember standing on top of a hill, looking down over the houses, knowing that I could come back to this same spot again and again, but that I would never see what it was I was seeing that night.

I suppose some would say it was the acid talking, but I’d have to disagree.  I see things like that all the time, without any help at all.  I’ve never needed drugs.  Being overwhelmed by the world is easy if you just let it happen.  It’s not hard to let one perception be replaced by another if you let go of a few preconceived notions and ideas.  Sometimes I wonder if my whole life has been like some sort of acid trip, with one or two things in sharp focus, surrounded by a thousand other things I can’t see or recall at all.