Steam rolls off the wet clothes as the sun finally rises, pushing away any trace of the cool morning.  I watched the news last night, the first time in some months, and saw footage of events along this country’s southern coast.  Flooded and damaged cities, homeless people on the move, the President and his practiced smile, telling the nation that we would overcome this natural disaster.

I find myself making silent comparisons between the damage left behind by Hurricane Katrina and the damage Bush’s administration will leave behind.  Two different beasts altogether, I know, but both devastating forces in their own right.

I am no good at realistic observation.  I have trouble seeing one thing for what it is, and not placing it inside of some larger problem circle.  It’s hard to stay focused on problems when your eye constantly wanders, searching for even bigger problems that always seem to be lying in wait just beyond the scope of our peripheral vision.  You’re in two places at once, then three, then ten, and before you know it, you’re spread so thin that nothing makes sense.  I think of it as a child who is about to learn to walk, suddenly confronted with the image of every place their steps will take them throughout their entire life.  Would the child get up and walk, seeing everything that was ahead of them, or would they sit back down to think it through?

I have to work out all of my possible financial scenarios soon.  Hard decisions need to be made.  The house, which I thought might be safe from any bankruptcy filing, is in fact, not safe at all, the entire thing hinging upon value.  I told you, dollar signs, dollar signs.  It’s no coincidence that the dollar sign itself resembles a sort of spit, where we are that capital “S”, slowly turning on a pair of skewers above the flames.

I need to visualize a solution that I haven’t yet seen, and if there is one, you can count on it being just beyond sight, hiding somewhere along the fringe.

I call up the realtors. 

My next step involves trying to anticipate the market value of my house, but more specifically, the market value that a bankruptcy court might place on it.  For the first time, a high value is bad.  If the market value has gone up too much in the last year and a half, I’m at risk of being forced to sell if I file bankruptcy, which defeats everything I’m trying to do here, which is stay put.

Talking with the realtors feels like swimming with sharks with a fresh cut.  The feign calmness and politeness, but with the scent of your blood in their nostrils, they have trouble controlling their excitement.  Twelve acres right on the edge of town.  A couple more phone calls and I could have the water frothing.

Tomorrow the first one arrives to give his assessment.  We will see.

And school begins again for the boy on Tuesday.  Fourth grade and a new school across town.  Fun and adventure, anxiety and apprehension.  We will see.

James hurried between the long rows of cubicles, carefully avoiding eye contact with the people at their desks.  The first trick every carrier learned was how to avoid eye contact.  Looking leads to talking, talking to stopping, and the first and foremost thing a carrier never did was stop.  No talking, no stopping.  James could still hear the monotone drone of his Installer’s words like it had been yesterday—Plug in.  Move.—repeated before and after each installation session.  Repeated so often that it didn’t take a carrier trainee long to begin repeating them each time they took a step.  And with a carrier installation taking more than a year to complete, James had said the words more times than he cared to imagine.

“The code is the only thing I need to teach you,” the Installer would say, which James and the rest of the trainees had quickly come to realize was a sign that they were about to receive a four hour lecture on some entirely different subject.  The installations ranged from things like proper disk handling procedures, the history of information reception and transmission, and courses on subliminal mapping, understanding, and navigation of urban architecture, all the way to extensive physical fitness training, including training in weaponry and disk defense.  Not to mention the months spent preparing for newsjacker attacks, which every carrier could expect to encounter sometime during their career.  Their Installer prepared them for everything, including what to expect from life once their installation was complete, and they had all had their insertion points surgically installed.

“Your lives will change,” he’d said, offering no other explanation.  “Your eyes will open.” James and the others had talked after training, before dropping off to sleep in the dormitories, but no one was ever quite sure what the Installer meant, although a few made a guess.  How wrong they had all been. 

We know now,” he thought, rounding a corner, hesitating only long enough to avoid running into another carrier moving in the opposite direction.  Slide right and forward.  Avoid eye contact.  Plug in.  Move.  Plug in.  Move. Not that another carrier would ever give him trouble.  Ever stop.

Sessa. Without looking up he recognized the sound of her quick steps.  The unmistakable bounce, rather than slide to the right.  Talk had gone around that Sessa’s bounce had almost gotten her expelled from training.  Dormitory talk.  A long time ago.  James put his head down and picked up speed, rounding the last corner and bursting through the doors of Legal.  He’d made good time, he knew that, but already the disk in his chest had started to grow hot.  In one fluid movement he’d stopped at Legal Input, reached into his jacket, withdrawn the disk from his chest, and inserted it into a slot on the computer in front of him.  Habit almost forced him to look into the retinal scan, but he looked away at the last second, hoping no one was looking.  He was getting too old.  Disks were DNA encoded now, he knew that, but old habits were hard to break.  Like Sessa and her bounce, he imagined.

He sat down on the couch, resting his legs for a minute as the Legal tech began to scan the images from the disk on the wall screen, deleting some sections, adding notes to others.  It looked like a flood, James could see that.  Looters and shooters.  American even.  Christ, was that New Orleans?  No wonder the disk had gotten hot so fast.  James watched as the legal tech replaced dead bodies in one scene with a close-up of a woman, hugging on tightly to a confused child.  The screen split vertically and the tech dropped several acceptable alternate endings for the report, then popped the disk out and handed it back to James.

“Editing,” the Legal tech said.  The disk already felt hot inside of him, James thought, although he knew it couldn’t be true.  It couldn’t be that hot out there.  New Orleans.  He’d heard of it and seen a thousand images over the years, but he’d never imagined it’d get that hot down there, just like no one else would if he did his job right.

He wondered if Sessa was on her way back, then hit the door running, the sound of his feet pounding down the long hall washing away all his thoughts.

I’ve been trying all morning to put down some thoughts about New Orleans, but as is often the curse of the single parent, I find myself face to face with my child’s incessant talking.  I put on a sweatshirt and tried thinking outside, but he followed me there.  I moved back inside when I thought he wasn’t looking.  No good.  I pretended we were going to do house chores.  No way.  I couldn’t shake him.

So, if you’ve been waiting around for me to explain the nature of people, I’m afraid you’re in for a bit of a wait.  Distracting a nine year old is harder work than you can imagine.  If you have one, you already know this.  Think of it this way - there’s a nine year old right now at this very minute, dragging along behind his parents down in New Orleans, wading through the water, dogging looters and dead bodies and who knows what else, whining about the fact that no one is playing with him.  You can bet on it.  Trust me.

“School’s stupid,” the boy occasionally blurts out, then hurries off to check on his new backpack, excited and anxious.  He likes school, but is too stubborn to admit it.  Yesterday he randomly counted off the hours to when it would all begin.  “43 hours until school begins.” “38 hours until school begins.” “34 hours until school begins,” and then finally fell asleep.

A new year and a new school.  The path through his summer that ends tomorrow seems much clearer than my own.  With each announcement of his approaching new year, my mouth formed words, saying something about the adventure of a new school, new friends, and on and on, while my brain did things like calculate the additional monthly fuel cost of getting the boy across town each morning, simultaneously replaying old, faded clips of my own youth, so much of it spent on the move.  By the time I’d graduated from high school, I’d accepted the idea that a new school year meant a new school.  The faces surrounding my childhood were always new and unknown.  People became things to be unraveled, discovered, and understood.  I think of it now as my twelve year lesson in adaptation.

Perhaps all the moving I did as a child is what made this summer so painfully long for me.  The constant worry about money and the idea of another forced move, pushing towards me, seemingly as inevitable as the turning of the leaves, which I know can’t be too far away.  I can’t ever remember struggling so hard to remain in one place, and I’m realizing more and more that it is a battle that my childhood never prepared me for.  I’ve become convinced over the years that a sense of permanence isn’t something we’re born with, but rather something that we pick up along the way through family or religion or maybe tradition.  And to have a sense of permanence, a real sense that sustains and strengthens, and helps guide you through the years, there must be more to cling to than one’s own thoughts.  It is easy to forget that the mind and body are at polar opposites, coming together so few times in our lifetime.  Three that I can think of.  Birth, climax, death.  One is long past for me, and another mostly nonexistent.  The other waits for me in some distant place, anxious for me to catch up, and I think it is this sense of it’s waiting that has me now grasping for permanence, however temporary it may be.  I think my body and my mind may be working together on a fourth thing, although I have no idea what it might be called.  An agreement of sorts where the two of them decide it’s alright for me to spend out the remainder of my days tricked and comforted.  The mind confesses to having spent nearly it’s entire time in that state, and now seems to be inviting the body to join it, like two chairs that are both missing legs, agreeing to strap themselves together and call themselves a couch, hoping to retain a bit of function in their lives.

For the first time in weeks, maybe months, I pull something out of the closet other than a t-shirt.  I pick the green short sleeve.  I like to think I look best in green.  Like a tree in summer, full of self-splendor.  I will even wear socks and shoes, forsaking the sandals that expose my ugly toe to the world.  I’ve even combed my hair, if you can imagine that.

Yes, it is the first day of school for the boy, and this morning I am taking the first impression lecture he gave me over the weekend to heart. 

“It’s all about the first impression,” the boy said.  “Everyone looks at you really hard the first time they see you and decides whether or not they like you.”

Nine, almost ten, and already understanding the world so much better than his father ever did or will.  We rush down to the store yesterday to buy a new pair of socks.  In case anyone is staring at his feet, I guess.

Listen to me, attempting subtle sarcasm about the social importance of attractively presented feet when, in fact, I’ll be the one who is hiding the ugly toe this morning.  The lengths we go to for our children!  I swear.

I will hurry home after school begins and attempt once again to come up with a miracle financial solution to my money problems.  I have a million ideas, but unfortunately, they are about everything else in the world.  A million ideas that I am having a hard time moving forward with because of the money problem hanging over my head.  Amazing, how much worry gets in the way of everything.

7:30!  One hour to go.  Using the boy around the house as a measuring stick, I must say that the summer is nearly over.  Let us mourn.  Let us rejoice.

I end up being as unproductive today as I ever have been, my thoughts returning again and again to the image of the boy, sitting up straight and tall at his desk, as he waited for his new teacher of his new school to begin.  I could have stood at the doorway to the classroom and stared in at him all day, but am dismissed when he turns and offers a small, discreet wave.  He will be fine, but I will of course worry about it until three, when I pick him up.

I am excited to hear his stories of the first day.  Nothing will make sense and it will be new to both of us.

Last Monday Imaginary Keith and I called an emergency meeting, agreeing to meet in the closet.  The ghost, still safely trapped in the pickle jar was in attendance, and as luck would have it agreed to keep the minutes.  Did you know that keeping minutes is an important function of maintaining your company’s corporate status?  The keeping of minutes shows to the world that not only are you serious about being a corporation, but that you can prove it.  I guess this basically means that when you write something down, and more specifically, write down what people say and in what order, you are conducting serious business.

“Just a second here,” I said, directing my interruption towards the jar sitting between Imaginary Keith and myself.  The meeting hadn’t even begun and already we were having trouble, which of course, is normal.  The minutes would prove that.

“Don’t you need a pen and some paper if you’re going to keep minutes?” I wasn’t sure having the ghost as secretary was going to be a good idea.

“Do you see any hands swirling around in here?  No, ghosts don’t need paper to keep minutes.  Now, call the meeting to order before I do and you get the privilege of keeping the minutes.”

“Hey, you volunteered.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I volunteered for something out of boredom, I’ll tell you that.  What else am I supposed to do?  Do I get to vote?”

“You’re not a shareholder.”

“What kind of company is this, anyway, holding corporate meetings in a closet?”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, ghost,” Imaginary Keith said.  “You make fine company.” I could hear the jar shake around a little in the darkness.  I’m still trying to figure out if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.  But given the circumstances…

“Good Lord!  Call the meeting before I bust out of here!”

“This meeting is called to order,” I said.  “Our first order of business will be in regards to income.”

“I second that,” Imaginary Keith said.

“More like lack of income, I’d say,” the ghost said.

“There’s nothing on the table to second, Imaginary Keith.  And you, be quiet in there.  I’ll remind you a second time, you’re not a shareholder.  Just write down what we’re saying.”

“And I’ll remind you a second time, ghosts don’t write.”

“Hey!  What are you two seconding?” Imaginary Keith asked.  “I thought you said there was nothing to second?”

The ghost swirled around a bit.  “You want me to record this?  Are you sure you want the world to know what goes on at these meetings?”

“Okay, okay, everyone just stop talking for a second.”

“Ummm...”

“Don’t say it.  Now, we’re going to start this meeting over like a real corporate meeting and get it right the first time.  Got it?”

“I second that!” Imaginary Keith said.

“Any problems with that, ghost?” Silence from the jar.  “Now, are we ready?”

The ghost cleared his throat, or anyway, made a sound like he had a throat and something to say.

“Yes?”

“Don’t you need to adjourn the first meeting before moving onto the second?  I mean, don’t get me wrong, except for this here jar deal, I don’t mind being stuck in eternity too bad, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want it to be that eternity, if you know what I mean.”

For not being a shareholder, the ghost had a good point.

“You’re right.  Meeting adjourned.”

“Alright!” Imaginary Keith burst out of the closet.  “I hate corporate meetings.”

“What do you mean?  We’re meeting again, after we regain our composure.”

“When?  Tomorrow?”

“I was thinking more like right now.”

“That soon?  I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel composed whatsoever.”

“You’re imaginary.  You’re the definition of composed.”

“In that case, I’m just not ready.”

“Ten minutes, then?  Ghost, ten minutes sound good?”

“What’s time to a ghost?  In my world the meeting has already taken place.  Want me to read back the minutes for you?”

“Would you?” Imaginary Keith said.  “Save me a whole lot of trouble.”

“Hold it.  We’re having that meeting, even if we’ve already had it.  I’m the major shareholder here, if you two will recall, so if I say time is linear, then time is linear.  Majority rules.”

“So that’s how time works,” Imaginary Keith said.

“Well, not if you ask--”

“No one is asking you, ghost.  We’ll call to order in ten minutes.  Don’t be late.”

The ghost, of course, looked as if he had something to say, but bit his tongue.  Or whatever it is ghosts do to shut themselves up.  Didn’t matter.  The jar remained silent.

There’s a story I sometimes recall of an honest man who had taken to walking the countryside near his home, his treks taking him further and further away each day as he searched for someone who did not recognize him for who he was.  As is often the case with so many men, the honest man had grown tired over the years, and his honesty, as much a part of him as his own skin and bones, the very thing which had once put the bounce in his step, now hung on him as loosely as his own aging flesh. 

Honesty, it seems, has a way of growing heavier with the passing of time, much the same way a lie might fester and grow inside a person the longer it is kept secret.  And while I suppose it says something about the world we live in, that more people are familiar with the feeling of the festering lie rather than the burden of honesty, this is not the time to explore that question.  This story is not about the world, but about one man, alone with his burden, walking the hills with heavy steps, desperate to shake a lifetime of transparency before it is too late.

Time is up before I even begin.

Today - DSL!  The return of high-speed internet, if all goes according to promise and plan.

And a meeting with a woman who shares my vision of flagstone paths leading to front doors.  Why do so many people want to banish stone to all the hidden areas of their properties?  In thirty minutes I will be selling the demolish of concrete!  The words will come easy.

When I have time I must talk at length about the philosophy and importance of rearranging furniture. 

And my nightmares have returned!  After such a long time, who would have guessed.  Nothing quite like waking up angry, again and again.  That is the difference this time around.  The sadness has been replaced by anger.  My eyes pop open and for a brief time, lying there in bed, I am a warrior, ready to spring.

To the money, men!  There’s not a minute to lose!

Seriously.  Time is running out.  You might not feel it where you’re at, but around here, even the clocks are beginning to scream as their hands sweep around their faces.  I’ve started pulling batteries and plugs, but even the silence seems deafening.  I’m running out of options.

The boy and I plop down in front of the television to eat dinner and watch a show.  Futurama.

Boy: Is this the one where Nixon gets the giant robot body?

The good life, except without anything good to eat.  For lunch I come up with a recipe for my new book I’ve been meaning to write for a good twenty years or so - Bachelor Meals - Cooking the Good Life with Five Ingredients or Less.  Today - chicken-flavored top ramen, tuna, peas, and ummm… let’s see, what’s up here… bingo!… water chestnuts!  Throw in a splash of teriyaki sauce and there you have it - today’s five magic ingredients.

What should we call it?  I usually name the meals after I’ve eaten them and they have a chance to talk back to me.  Listen to your food.  It’s important.

I’ve finally gotten around to paying my Blogher pledge to the American Heart Association.  The poor move slow.  Everyone knows that.  I better not end up on some mailing or call list.  The goal here is isolation.  I wonder if you scratch off all of the revealing information from a check if they’ll still cash it?

I’m checking off my daily list left and right today.  And the brother called.  Golf at 4:00!  Four/fore.  My golf game is as good as my lunch, believe me.  Both cause me pain.

It slips away, so easily that I have no problem understanding ten years of writing silence.  I am one place, then I am another, knowing not whether to look back or look forward, while the silence, that vast space of time that lies between the two, becomes the first thing to be forgotten.  Life in two steps, the first and the last, the unconscious swing of the leg, guided perhaps by subconscious intent, resulting in a movement seemingly void of any obvious destination.

Where was I going, when I started out?  Did I know?

Answers don’t wait for you at the end of a journey, but instead hide in that place between the steps, nestled away in the time that is so easily forgotten.  I have to believe this, because not once have I ever reached a place that held an answer, but instead always find myself arriving with that gnawing, aching feeling that what I need is something I may have spotted from the corner of my eye as I stormed on past.  It is that thing I stepped over, or around, or kicked on through getting to where it is I am always going.  Where I am now.

I say all this because I feel myself slipping again into silence.  I feel that familiar space building up around me, the comfort of being lost inside myself.  Rising and falling, riding between my own steps with eyes half-closed, arms spread wide like a dreamer in flight.  The answers pass by me, one by one, on the ground far below, but as anyone who has flown in their dreams can tell you, there is no looking down, no stopping, no desire for anything to come between you and the air.

And silence, like dreams, will eventually end, and words will rise as readily as the dream of myself sinks back down to the ground.

A barstool.  The naked flesh a nameless woman.  Television.  Cowering under a baleful stare.  Food.  Professional reassurance and drugs.

The thinking man sunk deeper into the cushions of his comfortable chair, riding out his depression.  A thousand ways to endure time, he thought, tested and true.  A thousand ways to forget.  To not exist.

He closed his eyes and felt the velvety material of the chair beneath his legs and forearms.  It wrapped around him, holding him.  Three years, and still memory poured in.

I like sitting here, he thought.  It is all I know.

It occurs to me that I can’t type fast enough to keep my fingers warm.  It’s 63 degrees in here, too cold for being this close to the back edge of summer, so maybe I’ll light a fire in the wood stove.  Part of my winter survival plan, the boy and I hunkered down around the stove, bundled in sweaters against the cold.  I owe the oil company a thousand bucks, and until I pay, I suspect my oil has been cut off.  There are worse things.

Have you heard about the Swedes, taking a vow for the entire country to lose their dependence on fossil fuels by the year 2020?  I’m part Swede.  Maybe I should write Sweden a letter and let them know I’m doing my part.  Forced independence, sure, but soon enough, everyone will be climbing on that oil-less bandwagon.

For lunch, a giant baked potato, grown locally, although I have my doubts.  So big it has Idaho written all over it.

The boy climbs into the car and nonchalantly pulls something out of his backpack.

“What’s that?”

“A recorder, dad.  I play an instrument now.” He is his most matter of fact when he is proud.

On the way home he tells me everything - how to properly hold your fingers, cleaning techniques, and which holes make which notes.  My questions lead to the discovery that the entire fourth and fifth grades all play recorders at the same time.  I sense a concert in the air!

“There’s something like 80 recorders in the band, dad.  Nothing else.  Just recorders.”

“I hope there’s going to be a program,” I say.  I’d like to hear that.

“A lot of people get up and leave during a recorder program,” he tells me.  “That many recorders can actually hurt people’s ears.  The teachers never go.”

“Who told you that?”

“The music teacher.  Now, listen to this.” The last three or four miles in the car give me a taste of this fall’s upcoming musical program.  My ears don’t bleed.  I think I’ll be okay.

1. How many natural disasters would it take in the U.S. to effectively cripple our current form of government to the point of collapse or overthrow?

2. Why is there a small woodpecker tapping on my living room window this morning?

3. Do they make a drug for what ails me?

4. How does watching or reading the news help?

5. Does the growing silence in my head mean something is building, or drying up?

The smell made its way into the house through the open kitchen window, but raised no immediate alarms.  The guys were just outside, digging up the old underground fuel oil tank which had taken to leaking some long time ago.  Fumes were to be expected as it was unearthed.

“I smell oil,” Imaginary Keith had said.

“The guys are digging out the old tank,” I told him.  “You should see the hole.  Big enough to bury a small elephant, if we had one.”

“I don’t think we do.”

“No, we don’t.  Anyway, that’s why you smell oil.”

The oil tank, unused for as long as I can remember, which on a good day means about fifteen years, had been replaced by an above ground tank after it had started to take on water, which meant only one thing - a leak.  Never a good thing for an oil tank.  I’d always assumed the tank, once discovered to be leaking, had been drained.  The tank had two pipes sticking out of the ground, which I’d stepped around literally thousands of times over the years, lying as they did in the center of the path that leads to the front of the house, yet in all those thousands of times, including the three or four times I’d cracked open my shins on them in the dark, not once had I actually stopped to poke a stick down one of those pipes to check on the fuel level, which brings me to the point of this whole fuel oil story - shortsightedness.

You know, I sometimes think that the overall success of our species is going to hinge upon our ability to look into the future and see things clearly, so that the actions we take today are not detrimental to those people who will come after us.  And it’s easy to start laying blame when things go wrong, like they seem to be going with my oil tank.  For instance, it might be easy to blame the long-dead Mr. Cooper, the man who I must assume buried the metal oil tank in the ground in the first place, not twenty feet from the home’s fresh water supply.  Surely the man was familiar with the concept of rust, as well as the idea that fuel oil seeping into the ground so close to his drinking water supply couldn’t be a good thing.  Or maybe I could blame my own parents, who owned the farm before me, for not pulling up the tank themselves.  Perhaps there’s a county extension agent who knew of the leak and didn’t make it his business to see things through.  Maybe even the Cooper children.  Couldn’t they have made it their business?  It’s easy, you see, to go back in time and hunt for people to blame, but much harder to look forward and follow the path back to yourself.  We’re funny that way.  Everything about me.  Me, me, me, right up to the point of standing up to take the blame, then we try our best to become invisible.  Truth is, if you look into either the past or the future, we are invisible.  It’s a hard thing to face.

Imaginary Keith wakes up shaking sometimes, worried that our own shortsightedness will be the sole cause of our species undoing, and honestly, I don’t know what to say to him.  What do you say to someone who has recognized his fellow creatures’ inability to see much beyond the length of their own noses?  Do I lie, and tell him it’ll all work out?  Comfort him with religion?  Turn on the television to distract him from his thoughts?  If you have something, let me know, because lately I’ve been coming up empty.  I usually just get him a cup of water and tell him to go back to sleep, although now, with this whole oil spill adventure nipping at our heels, I’m not sure how long the water is even going to last.

Oh geez, look at me, getting ahead of myself, talking about oil spills.  This story is supposed to still be on last Wednesday, and here I go and jump right in with Friday’s version.  Lazy, laissez-faire writing if I’ve ever seen it.  Forgive me.  Let’s try and go back to Wednesday for a moment, when all still seemed to be going according to plan.  Think: giant hole, large tank, and nothing more.

Imaginary Keith came back into the house with news from the dig site.  The tank had oil in it!  The guess was roughly 200 gallons.  It would have to be pumped before it could be lifted from the hole.  I got on the phone and made arrangements.  For a hundred bucks a truck would arrive to remove the fuel.  No, no government agencies would be contacted.  There was no paperwork.  The driver would call to schedule a pickup time.

The hole was covered with planks and plywood to keep children and dogs from being lost.  It looked mysterious, like an abandoned mine shaft or an old well, waiting to lure someone to their death.

“Or an elephant grave,” Imaginary Keith said.  “Tell them it looked like an elephant grave.”

“I will not.  That’s stupid.  Besides, how many people have actually seen an elephant grave?  You can’t count on the imagination of others.  I won’t do it.”

“How about a tiger trap, then?  Everyone knows what a tiger trap looks like.”

“They do?”

“Sure, a big hole with bamboo leaves covering the top.”

“But I just wrote: covered with planks and plywood, not covered with bamboo leaves.”

“No one reads that close.  Especially blogs.”

“Really?”

“Trust me.  Just say it and see.”

“Okay.”

The hole was covered with bamboo leaves to keep children and dogs from being lost.

“Hold on,” I said.  “That makes no sense.”

“Blog readers.....” Imaginary Keith folded his arms across his chest, looking self-satisfied, like he knew more than the rest of the world.

“You’re getting me off subject.  I’m trying to say what happened next, not what didn’t happen then.” I wondered what an imaginary friend trap looked like, but didn’t ask.

“Have you written about the oil truck arriving today?” Imaginary Keith asked.  “Have you told them about the tank being empty today, and that all the oil leaked out into the ground before it could be pumped?”

Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to shortsightedness, I’m not saying I’m any better then the next person.  I should have maybe tried harder to envision that it was the ground itself holding in the oil, and that parts of the tank had maybe become so rusted that exposing those rusty parts would cause them to leak worse than ever before.  If I had been less shortsighted myself, I might have seen that 200 gallons of fuel oil that had somehow stayed inside the tank for more than fifteen years would all leak out overnight once I became involved.  I might have also been able to see that Imaginary Keith would spoil the climax of my little story.

“Thanks a lot.”

“For what?”

“For spoiling the climax.  I hadn’t mentioned the oil spill yet.  I was building up to that.”

“You think that’s the climax?”

“Yes.”

“Just wait until the oil hits the water.  That’s a much better story.”

“I don’t want to think about it.  Besides, maybe the tank was filled with mostly water.”

“Yes, of course.  Wishful thinking.  Why didn’t I think of that?”

Sore throat and a messy house.  The cat is missing and by tomorrow, negative cash flow, which is the pretend business man’s way of saying there’ll be checks bouncing.

But it’s sunny out and today the boy and I will fill in the giant hole. 

It’s cool this morning, but there are still coals in the stove.  I heap on some wood and coax the fire back to life by blowing on it.  My sore throat doesn’t care much for the action.

And I need a shave.

And where is the cat?  I go outside and check the giant hole, just in case.  Nope.

The best thing today will throwing the boys in the giant hole and watching them try to get out.  No, seriously, I’m looking forward to it almost as much as the boys.  Maybe I’ll figure out the movie camera and post a video of their struggle.

Very tired today from waking up so much last night.  Throbbing throat, itchy ears.

According to Forbes, I live in the 9th safest place in the U.S. - Salem, Oregon.

Figures.  I am too weak and tired to supervise the filling of the giant hole, trying my best to sit still in the comfy chair and rest.  The boy of course has questions and hunger.  I make tacos, then discover that my laptop’s bluetooth is trying to give up the ghost.

“Go outside and look on the roof,” I tell the boy.  “See if there’s some sort of vortex up there, sucking the life from everything in here.”

“I’m bored,” he says.  He lets in the small dog, who immediately climbs onto my chest, turns around, and plants his butt in my face.  My arms are almost too weak to fight him off.  The boy laughs.

“I’m bored,” he says.

“We should have tacos more often,” I say.  “Those were good.”

“We’ll need to get a taco wheel.  It holds the lettuce and tomatoes and sour cream.”

We briefly discuss tupperware.  Seven and a half more hours of boredom to fight until bedtime.

The cat is still missing but the boy has an idea.  But not about the cat.

“Let’s make cookies!”

Honestly, I think I could sleep for 24 straight hours, stopping only for bathroom breaks.

The dreams and days move fast, and I realize how lucky I am to catch even a glimpse.  Impossible it seems, staying alive, breathing the thought of air more than the air itself.  That blur of the present, a small, misinterpreted bit of understanding that for us, will forever take place in the past.  Our synapses firing away, wearing us down in their attempt to keep up.

Funny, all those syn- words.  Synonymous, synonym, synonymy, sync, synchronize, synchronous. Make-believe words to trick us into thinking that it can all happen at once.  Personally, I think my favorite might be syncope, because isn’t there always something missing, no matter how hard we try?  Something slipped from the center, a contraction of life to help us gain a bit of ground?

On some days it feels like I have but six hours to save my world from collapsing in around me, and when I look out the window, frantic, all I can see are dogs, dancing to music I can’t hear.

I was thinking about the constitution today, and found this little tidbit from the Kingdom of Hawai’i Constitution of 1887:

ARTICLE 25.

No person shall ever sit upon the Throne, who has been convicted of any infamous crime, or who is insane, or an idiot.

We could have used that one.

Here’s a letter not many of us have a chance to write.  The poet Sharon Olds writes to the First Lady, turning down the invitation to read at the National Book Festival last Saturday.  Letter brought to my attention by The Catharine Chronicles, letter reprinted thanks to The Nation.

Laura Bush
First Lady
The White House

Dear Mrs. Bush,

I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House.

In one way, it’s a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents--all of us who need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.

And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a women’s prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology ward for children. Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA candidates and their students--long-term residents at the hospital who, in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.

When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit--and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person’s unique story and song.

So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to invade another culture and another country--with the resultant loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead a decision made “at the top” and forced on the people by distorted language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.

I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.

But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.

What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting “extraordinary rendition”: flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.

So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.

Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS

I don’t see Imaginary Keith around much when I’m sick.  He doesn’t have much of a stomach when it comes to people choking half to death on their own phlegm.  Plus, I think the coughing keeps him awake at night.

But other than an illness report, I don’t have much.  The cat came home and the giant hole was filled in.  I have a sneaking suspicion that someone was murdered in the White House back in 1883, but won’t be able to look into it until I start feeling better.  Exposing murder at that level is hard work, and right now I’m just not up to it.

I have to make the boy’s lunch for school.  PB and J.  Some things never change.

Thirty minutes is about all the time I have this morning to gather my White House murder story facts together.  Obviously I will need more time.

So far:

1. Elisha Hunt Allen serves as minister from the Kingdom of Hawaii to the United States from 1869 until January 1, 1883, when while attending a diplomatic reception given by President Chester A. Arthur in the White House at Washington, D.C., he suddenly dies.

2. John L. Stevens, devout imperialist and minister from the Kingdom of Hawaii, conspires with non-native Hawaiians to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy, led by Queen Lili’uokalani, in favor of American annexation.

3. Stevens works in association with the Committee of Safety, led by Lorrin A. Thurston and Sanford B. Dole, both white non-natives and children of Christian missionaries to the islands.  Both played vital roles in the implementation of the Bayonet Constitution of 1887.  Forced at gunpoint, the Constitution was signed by King David Kalakaua.  The Bayonet Constitution effectively stripped the existing monarchy of all executive powers, stripped the majority of native Hawaiians of their right to vote, yet gave white American and European immigrants the right to vote.

4. Government turns to the Privy Council, a royal cabinet made up largely of American businessmen.

5. A plot to forcibly remove Queen Lili’uokalani from power was begun in late 1892 and executed in January of 1893 with the help of the United States Marine Corp, who stormed ‘Iolani Palace while across the street at Ali’lolani Hale, the Committee of Safety proclaimed the Provisional Government of Hawai’i.

The White House murder-mystery all seems to be a precursor for all that would come later.

“The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it.”

-- John L. Stevens, from a letter penned to the State Department, February 1, 1893

Where does it get us, all this thinking and thinking?  Are you like me, thinking all of that untapped brain power will just burst out of hiding someday?  That the answers to so many things will suddenly be clear?  We use what, 5% of our brain’s ability?  I think that’s what I’ve heard, but honestly can’t even remember that.  Chances are I’ve already started to lose what little power I had, sinking lower over the years.

So this is what 4% brain feels like.

Rain heading my way tomorrow, so the guy’s work schedule is doubled up.  Always a race in the landscaping business.  Chasing the money, trying to ride out the weather.  Same as most jobs, I suppose, if you swap out “the weather” with something appropriate to that particular industry.

How about a health report?  Since I’m talking about the inside of my head, why not.  4% brain, 98% snot, which means yes, it continues to clog, leak, and sneeze out at a disturbing rate.  But my throat is no longer sore and my ears have stopped itching.  I should market some sort of do-it-yourself hot water jets eardrum massager.

But a head full of trouble didn’t stop my from remembering that I disliked the ancient row of arborvitae that ran along the side of the house.  “Let’s yank these things out,” I told the guys yesterday.  Planted no doubt before I was even born, the hedge row was fifty feet long and at least seven or eight feet wide - just too much arborvitae.  Stumps a foot across.  Fernando backed the truck and trailer alongside and attacked with his smile, the tractor and a chainsaw, and today the stretch along the driveway looks more free than I’ve ever seen it.  Breathing space.  Walking around the house you can see the sugar maples, their leaves already bright red.

Today, the sale barn!  The cows were recaptured and locked up, and at ten this morning neighbor Harry will arrive with truck and trailer to load.  I’m too busy to go but I still might.  The sale barn is something from my past that I rarely ever experience anymore.  All those cattle being shuffled down long alleyways and into pens.  The smell of sawdust and shit.  Men who make their living pushing animals one step closer to slaughter.  The voice of the auctioneer.  The camaraderie of old men, in their element.  I am an outsider in that place, an observer.  A familiar role for me.

After a twenty minute discussion, the cows decide that two will go to today’s sale and two to next Thursday’s.  I don’t actually speak cow, so it takes me by surprise when I find out they’ve also decided to crush me against the side of the trailer twice, as well as crap on me.  Have you ever had 2400 lbs. of beef pressing into you?  My jeans, already a bit worn, split out at the crotch.

There’s a joke in there somewhere, for those willing to look.

I hose off my boots and legs, strip down on the back porch, then head to the shower.

Going through some old boxes this afternoon, I happened upon my baby book.  Such a sweet child!  I really should share a picture.

My mother was thoughtful enough to tape my instruction manual inside the back cover, and right this very instant, I am pouring over vintage 1961 instructions covering the proper installation of the Secrecy Module, version 2.1 (standard male feature) and the Absolution & Acceptance Module (optional feature).

The key to successful operation of the Secrecy Module (versions 1.4 thru 2.1) lies in the reboot.  Never do it.

—Instruction Manual, Male Child, Years 1958-1963, Sears & Roebuck, Co.

Look!  The original receipt for the Male Pattern Baldness upgrade!  Thank you Mom and Dad!

Statement: I fear for the world.

Translation: Today is no different then yesterday.

Example: My referrer logs continue to show that a site called AnswerBus is sending a steady stream of people to my site, people who no doubt, are seeking serious answers to their serious questions.

Solution: Not available on this site at this time. 

Alternate Solution: Ask AnswerBus.

Theory: The Internet is an attempt to reinvent the wheel.

Conjecture: Thanks to the Internet, the fictionist will rise to their rightful place in society, transitioning from their current worldly position as entertainers and political lapdogs into full-fledged, powerful leaders.  See Michael Crighton as Senate Witness

Disclaimer: Not all writers are created equal, nor do they share the same interests, goals, or desires for this world.  Regardless of apparent knowledge and/or level of sincerity, writers should be consulted with extreme caution and only during times of great distress, followed immediately by a lengthy discussion of anything the writer may or may not have advised.  A professional writer’s words are potentially more dangerous then a handgun, so it is highly recommended that before acting upon the words of a writer, a long waiting period be observed.

Proof: This alien, floating in a bowl on my kitchen counter.  Real or imagined?  Exactly.  NEVER TRUST A WRITER.