A phone call just alerted me that Hi-5 is on television.  You know, just in case I want to watch overly animated twenty year olds sing to a room full of dancing pre-schoolers.  I guess it’s today’s version of the Micky Mouse Club or something (which I watched religiously as a child, thank you very much).

My son enjoys sing-along shows, but also wants Red Hot Chili Peppers playing full blast.  I hide the CD as often as I can.  Yesterday he burned a CD with only the song Mombo Number 5 on it.  The same song, five times in a row.  “Because I like it,” he says, smiling, making the ride to school, well, five times more irritating then just one Mombo would be.

The oddest, but maybe the sweetest one, has to be the Lawrence Welk cassette tape that he pops in (with headphones) once in awhile.  He holds real still when he listens to Lawrence Welk, and I wonder what an eight year old boy can be thinking, hearing those sounds.  Does he actually enjoy the music?  Or does he only enjoy the memory of his great-grandpa listening to that very same tape?  What is it like to be eight years old and in love with a great-grandpa dead now for one year? 

I could reach out and touch him.  I could ask him.  But to see him there, sitting so quiet and lost in his own thoughts, it would seem like a crime.  He is miles away.  A lifetime.  His great-grandpa’s lifetime.  My arms would have a hard time wrapping themselves around all that.

The days that lift us seem too few, leaving all the rest to crush us into the ground.  Why so much weight?  Why all the troubles and decisions?  Why all the weeks and months and years lost in transition?  Why all the days spent thinking of things that should fall away as nothing more then passing thoughts?

What if being pushed into a grave is nothing more then the universe doing its best to hold us down?  Trying to be helpful. 

What if cosmic forces thought long and hard about us, trying to figure out what to do, and the best they could come up with was the grave idea?  Six feet of soil to hold us and all our problems down once and for all.

I imagine those mysterious forces thought it was a very clever idea at the time.

The beautiful thing with imaginary friends is that when they disappear for awhile, no one asks questions.  No one wonders where they’ve gone or when they’ll be back.  When an imaginary friend goes missing, it never becomes a federal case.

That’s the difference between imaginary friends and family.  With family, everything is a federal case.  There are no little problems.  No little disagreements, no little differences, no little solutions.  In a family, headaches hang on coat hooks just like hats, and everyone walking by is expected to reach out and grab one.  No one walks out the door without one.

Hey!  Hold on!  You forgot this!

What was I thinking?  Thanks.  Oh wait, I already have one.

That’s okay.  Have another.

Aspirin, it’s sometimes forgotten, was invented because of family. 

My own imaginary friend, Imaginary Keith, has been presiding over a Supreme Family case involving three goose eggs in an incubator.  Two African geese eggs, to be exact.  The proceedings seem to have gone on forever over the custody of the soon-to-hatch goslings, and until a decision is made, emotions in the courtroom run high.  It is almost positive that repurcussions from the decision will be felt for years, and Imaginary Keith’s head throbs from the hours and hours of arguments presented to him.  Every headache hat in the place has been taken off of its hook and pulled down tight onto his head. 

All eyes are on him as everyone anxiously awaits the exact moment his resolve will break.  Bets have been hedged.  Caution thrown to the wind.  Anything that will snap the old man.

Facts of the case (as Imaginary Keith understands them):

1. A certain person (Grammy) receives three unwanted African goose eggs from a friend.
2. Grammy then places the eggs in incubator, even though it is known she doesn’t want any geese.
3. Grammy begins the enticement of animal-lover grandson with stories of cute baby goslings.
4. Overly excited son pushes case quickly through wishy-washy Mother courts
5. Same son passionately argues goose egg case with Imaginary Keith
6. Imaginary Keith retreats to chambers in search of aspirin.
7. Imaginary Keith returns to court to deliver eloquent speech on family problems
8. Court is adjourned.  Further arguments are promised every 20 to 30 minutes until eggs hatch.  Fifteen minute spacing once hatched.

A reading from this morning’s goose egg hearing transcript reads:

Son: Dad, no one wants the geese except me.  African geese are very mean and lonely.  That’s why you have to have more then one.

Imaginary Keith: Why would you want three mean geese wandering around the farm?

Son: They wouldn’t be mean to me because I’d raise them.

Imaginary Keith: Here’s the deal.  Why do three goose eggs have to become my problem?
Imaginary Keith: Why would Grammy hatch three eggs that she doesn’t want?
Imaginary Keith: Why do I have to have the same discussion day after day about the same three eggs?

Son: Dad!  She saved them.  They’re eggs from a mom AND dad goose with babies already inside!  You can’t just throw eggs like that away.  You can’t just kill baby geese.

Imaginary Keith (losing ground): well, no, I suppose . . .

Son: Throwing those eggs away would be like standing around with a spear killing puppies.

Imaginary Keith: What?!

Son: You wouldn’t do that, would you?

Imaginary Keith: What?!

Son:  I didn’t think so.

Imaginary Keith: I really don’t think . . .

Son:  Approach the bench?

Imaginary Keith: You’re already leaning on it.  Let’s hear it.

Son:  Three geese dad.  Three little geese.  What’s the big deal?  And you don’t even live there, so I don’t see why . . .

Imaginary Keith: Careful.  I’m still the dad.  Remember that?

Son: Dad?

Imaginary Keith: Yes

Son:  Why are you wearing so many hats?

Imaginary Keith:  Recess!  Five minute recess!

The sphinx cat didn’t appear on the scene until 1966, popping up, I think, in Canada.  I’m also thinking nuclear radiation and the chapter that was nixed from James Harriot’s All Creatures Great and Small, where the young doctor encounters the ugly, hairless cat and has his belief in God questioned beyond all reason.

I popped up, I think, in 1961 somewhere in Minnesota.  Only a stones throw away from the birthplace of the hairless sphinx cat.  This makes me not only geographically related to the sphinx, but also mathematically older.  Older, of course, meaning wiser, making me, by default, a sphinx cat expert.

So it is with confidence that I reveal the startling similarities that I have found to exist between this odd creature and the equally odd creature - the human male.

My comparison is based on judging standards pulled straight from the pages of The Cat Fanciers’ Association webpage.  I make nothing up.  The only notable difference, it would seem, between the hairless sphinx and men would be the tail.  But then of course, suitable substitutions can easily be made.

So you be the judge.  Man or Sphinx?  Can you tell the difference?

HEAD:
The head is slightly longer than it is wide, with prominent cheekbones and a distinctive whisker break. The skull is slightly rounded with a flat plane in front of the ears. The nose is straight and there is a slight to moderate palpable stop at the bridge of the nose.

CHEEKS AND CHEEKBONES:
Prominent, rounded cheekbones which define the eye and form a curve above the whisker break.

MUZZLE AND CHIN:
Whisker break with prominent whisker pads. Strong, well developed chin forming perpendicular line with upper lip.

EARS:
Large to very large. Broad at the base, open and upright. When viewed from the front, the outer base of the ear should begin at the level of the eye, neither low set nor on top of the head.

EYES:
Large, lemon-shaped, with wide-open center while coming to a definite point on each side. Placement should be at a slight upward angle, aligning with the outer base of the ear. Eyes to be wide set apart with the distance between the eyes being a minimum of one eye width. Eye color immaterial.

BODY:
The body is medium length, hard and muscular with broad rounded chest and full round abdomen. The rump is well rounded and muscular.

NECK:
The neck is medium in length, rounded, well muscled, with a slight arch. Allowance to be made for heavy musculature in adult males.

LEGS AND FEET:
Legs are medium in proportion to the body. They are sturdy and well muscled.

TAIL:
Slender, flexible, and long while maintaining proportion to body length. Whip-like, tapering to a fine point.

COAT/SKIN:
The appearance is one of hairlessness. However, short, fine hair may be present on the feet, outer edges of the ears, the tail, and the scrotum. The bridge of the nose should be normally coated. The remainder of the body can range from completely hairless to a covering of soft peach-like fuzz, no longer than 1/8th of an inch (two millimeters) in length.

COLOR:
Color and pattern are difficult to distinguish and should not affect the judging. White lockets, buttons, or belly spots are allowed.

PENALIZE:
Hair other than described. Delicate or frail appearance. Thin abdomen, thin rump, or narrow chest. Bowed legs.

DISQUALIFY:
Kinked or abnormal tail. Structural abnormalities. Aggressive behavior endangering the judge.

All questions, comments, and opposing arguments will, of course, be entertained.  Curiously, I am not quite sure whether I myself would make a good hairless cat.

Today’s spare time, if there is any, will be spent writing my first State of the Disunion Address, where I hope to resolve, once and for all, Oregon’s struggle with same sex marriages.  If all goes as planned, the nation itself will adopt my plan, and harmony and financial stability will reign throughout the land.  Eventually.  You’ll see.

But such a plan will require some careful thinking.  I’m thinking at least an hours worth.

Dedicated readers deserve a few insider hints:

1. Outlawing the use of private attorneys.
2. Adoption of a state-wide attorney base, resulting in soaring revenues.
3. Outlawing of ALL marriages within the state, resulting in multiple lawsuits and, because of the state-wide attorney system, even better revenues
4. Eight years of extremely profitable court battles
5. Reinstatement of marriage, same-sex as well as opposite-sex, now easily embraced after the grueling and tiring court battle simply for the “right” to be married.

I may even reveal the unbelievable influence of the hot shower on modern day America, expanding on a theory that all important policy decisions and beliefs are being mistakenly made by naked men in hot showers.  We’ve overlooked for too long now the power of the hot shower to disillusion men into false self-importance.

But first, a bit of work.  Work first, then fix the world.

That’s my motto.

The organization of my life is tight.  Time is stingy with me, and I, in return, feel completely comfortable in returning the favor.  There are many things that I simply don’t do because of time.  Things like television and shopping and fluttering about socially.  Things that consume time like a starving man might gulp down a hamburger - large disproportionate blocks of time simply disappearing, without a trace, like your own life, swallowed whole without the memory of the taste of even a single day.

So I have chosen to slow down.  I am selfish with my time.  Stingy.  Careful.  Aware.

But I do watch movies.  I watch movies because I enjoy stories.  And I enjoy stories because I have always enjoyed books.  I was the boy under the blankets with a flashlight, reading late into the night and early into the morning.  I was the young man content to sit in one new school after another, always the new kid, aware but unaffected by the curious whispers all around me.  The power of the stories to draw me in was always greater then the life going on around me.  The curious whispers of thirty years ago were like the constant noise of a television that simply needed to be tuned out.

But I do watch movies.  And sometimes I watch a movie that I realize is drawing me in tight and somehow slipping into place with the tightness of my own life and time.  I make room for it because it feels right.  I become excited about buying it, so that I can watch it again and share it with friends and know that it is close at hand.  Last night, I realized that Stone Reader was that kind of movie.

If you like books, you should see this film.  If you like thinking about the authors behind the books, their struggles and lives and the forces that drive them, you should see this film.  If you have ever lost yourself in the passion of words, and would like to see how this passion has the power to change lives, you should see this film.  Because that is exactly what Mark Moskowitz, the director of Stone Reader, has done with this film.  He has turned a passion into something powerful.

The back cover of the DVD case reads as follows:

Stone Reader is a constantly absorbing and moving film about the power of books to change our lives and one man’s passionate search to solve a real-life literary mystery.

In 1972, Mark Moskowitz, then aged 18, read a rave review of a novel called The Stones of Summer.  He bought it, but couldn’t get past the first few pages.  Twenty-five years later he tried again, and this time fell in love with it.

Looking for other works by author Dow Mossman, he found no mention of either Mossman or his novel, which was long out of print.  Thus begins one of the most enthralling mystery stories of recent years.

Traveling the country, he befriends critics, agents, and editors in the quest to discover how such a well-received book and it’s author could have vanished completely from the scene.  And while the journey is unusually cinematic, often hilariously funny, and ultimately poignant, it is also a riveting reminder of how some stories are so potent that people change their lives forever seeking the source.

And if you make all your movie viewing choices based on reviews, here you go.

I don’t think that I have ever had a movie make me want to read a book as much as Stone Reader made me want to read Mossman’s book, The Stones of Summer , which is once again being published, a direct result of one man’s passion for this story.  And it is Moskowitz’s enthusiasm for this story which lifted me out of my chair and into my car and only minutes later placed me between the comforting aisles of a local bookstore.  The movie itself says very little about the book’s actual story, content to talk around the book, leaving the discovery solely up to the reader.

Only a lover of books would know how to tell the story of a book without actually talking about the book.  Moskowitz, as you will clearly see in the movie, if you decide to watch it, is in my mind such a person.  Born, it seems, not only with the gift of reading, but the gift of storytelling.

The curious part of the story for me was the surprise of the close physical connection between Mossman and my own past.  Not just the setting, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, were I had spent several years of my own childhood, but the timing as well.  The early 1970’s, when Mossman wandered the very same streets as I had, him struggling to complete a manuscript that would push him to his limits, while I simply struggled with the everyday challenge of completing childhood.  Mossman, his own past still fresh in his memory, was writing about the life that I was at that very moment experiencing first hand.  True or imagined, the possibility alone grabbed me and held me close.

* * * * *

I have just now, returned from the bookstore, victorious.

When August came, thick as a dream of falling timbers, Dawes Williams and his mother would pick Simpson up at his office, and then they would all drive west, all evening, the sun before them dying like the insides of a stone melon, split and watery, halving with blood.

- opening sentence of Dow Mossman’s The Stones of Summer

One day into a new age and I get sick.  Figures.  My nose doesn’t work, my ears throb, and a steady flow of magma snot runs runs down my throat.  The pressure builds and pulses.  My head could blow any minute now, just like St. Helens back in 1980.

The only difference here is that the crotchety old man sitting on the side of the mountain is me.  There is no Harry Truman and sixteen cats.  No pink cadillac.  No hidden moonshine and a stash of loot locked in a safe. 

Just me and my head.

My only regret will be that I won’t get to see the ash that filters down to earth after my explosion.  Will it be light and fluffy?  Thick and dark and a real mess?  Or maybe sticky, like good snow.  And kids all over the neighborhood will rush out to make snowmen with my ash.  And every snowman will look different and odd because they will have somehow shaped themselves into the things that I once imagined on better days.

Life has no imagination when it comes to birthday presents.  I asked for more time, and waking up, found another 24 hours waiting for me.  Hastily wrapped, I might add.

If I remember correctly, I got the same thing last year.

Time has been nice to me.  I am in my prime.

It’s my birthday.  I am 43.

Hey, that’s a prime number.  Quite laughing.

Give me a moment.  I’m playing modern day millwright, busily shredding 15 years of accumulated paperwork into a fine paper grist.

In the morning I’ll bake a loaf of bread.  It’ll taste like $3,500 Packard Bell memories and will warm up extremely slow.  The first bite will remind me of the days of no frills, nothing fancy.  The second bite will remind me of eating organic food - good for you at the moment, but nice when it’s over.  The third bite I will spit out.

Just like I did the $3,500 Packard Bell, at a garage sale, three years after buying it, for something like $100.  I haggled over the price with very little enthusiasm and the blinking DOS cursor just sat there, watching the whole thing.

Or maybe it was cussing me out.  It was always hard to tell with DOS.  Not like today’s computers, who really know how to show you when they’re pissed off.

Anyway, back to the shredder.  I’ve almost worked my way into an exciting pile of late 80’s toaster oven receipts, or lifetime warranty muffler receipts for cars I don’t own, or some such nonsense.

A neighbor is moving out this morning, and I see her trudging back and forth, going up and down the stairs just outside of my kitchen window.  No, it is not the church mouse who lives upstairs.  Her quietness lays over me still, like a goose down quilt, its presence comforting, yet hardly noticeable.  If the world was filled with four billion souls just like hers it would be a quiet, peaceful place indeed.  Of course, it would also be an incredibly scared place, where people scamper inside out of fear that some unruly gentleman might be so bold as to say hello while passing on a sidewalk.  I know her name, but will not tell.  I, too, will someday forget her real name, and she will then forever be remembered as the church mouse.  Just as it should be.

Was it the neighbor moving up and down the stairs that awoke me this morning?  I’m not sure.  But my eyes popped open while having some odd dream that seemed filled with imagery even a child could interpret.  It was a dream filled with the images of swimming long distances, lost identity, intimacy, and sexual ambivalence.

I, along with some others unknown to me in waking life, had missed a boat that would take us to our next destination.  We approached the docks from a high, treacherous mountain road that sat precariously near the edge of a cliff that twisted back and forth, following a coast line far below.  Someone else was driving the car, but driving erratically.  Our wheels constantly were leaving the edge of the pavement and skidding on the narrow, gravel edge.  I felt certain that the car would plummet down into the water, far below, yet recall not feeling too exceptionally frightened by the prospect.  I urged the driver to slow down a bit and get control, all the while feeling that I would like to reach the boat in one piece.

But the boat was missed.  The poor driving, it seems, had caused us to miss the launch time, and now we found ourselves stranded on the dock, far from wherever the boat was to take us.  But several people from the group decide that they will head out after the boat in much smaller rowboats, risking the high waves and uncertain conditions further out.  Not all make this decision, because it seems like one filled with potential disaster.  No one knows how far it is across the water, and the water is rough and cold.  Most, it seem, are content to stay behind.  So we climb into our flimsy craft, and begin rowing across what seems like river, lake, and ocean all at once.  The waves lap high on the sides of the boat, and it is clear that it will indeed be a dangerous journey.

We have not gone very far when I realize that I have forgotten my wallet.  Without my identity, the trip will be meaningless, because once reaching the other side, I know that I will be required to prove who I am.  I have no choice but to turn back, which means either forcing others to turn back with me in the boat or swimming off by myself against the heavy waves.  My decision, at this point, seems simple to make.  I bid farewell to the others, telling them that I will catch up (which everyone knows is impossible), then dive into the water.

I am a much better swimmer in the dream then I am in real life.  My strokes are steady and strong, and I make quick work of the distance back to shore.  Those who had decided to stay behind are there, waiting for me at the dock.  Not much time has passed, so they have not even begun to organize or settle into what is to become their new life - a life, I realize, that is centered around the idea of being left behind.

I begin searching for my clothes, or pants, or suitcase, or something.  Personal belongings are scattered everywhere - along the dock, near the edge of the water, and all along the road that lead back up along the cliff’s edge.  Some of those who have stayed behind have already started to scavenge through suitcases and bags, searching for valuables.  It is a desperate act of self-preservation.  Most of the people, however, are simply lost and lethargic.  They are, for the most part, doing nothing more then milling around the dock, talking with one another in low voices, wondering how long they will be able to watch the small boats off in the distance.  The main boat, the one we have all missed, has disappeared from sight long ago.  And when I stop and look out across the water myself, I see nothing.  Even the small boats have disappeared.  The people, it seem, either have better sight then me or are staring at nothing.

I find my suitcase, halfway up the cliffs, dumped and scattered alongside the edge of the road.  My wallet, with my identification, is nowhere to be found.  I creep to the edge of the cliff, wondering if it has somehow fallen over and is lost forever.  But this doesn’t seem likely.  My grip is tight on the edge.  My balance seems more precarious then it did earlier, speeding along in the car.  My eyes seem locked on the water, far below, but a sound makes me turn, and I see a young boy, stealing off, my wallet in his hand.  I give chase, catching up with him just as he slips inside some sort of house or shelter.

My wallet and identification are easy to get back.  The boy is young and easily persuaded, both by my size and by the intensity of my demand.  I have no intention of leaving without my identification.

But here the dream becomes less clear.  Somehow, after my wallet is recovered, the boy disappears and I find myself talking with several people.  They are some of the adults who have made the decision to stay behind, and now I am with them, listening to their stories with a mixture of concern and pity.  I genuinely feel for their situation, and want to help somehow, yet know that I will only be drawn in.  If I stay too long, I will miss any opportunity I have to catch up with the others.  I must begin swimming soon.  The feeling of running out of time, mixed with the feeling that these people are in need of help, pulls on me in two very different directions.

My conversation with these people seems to become more and more of a conversation with one woman in particular.  So much, in fact, that I eventually find myself drawn into a room with only her.  We are alone, we realize, and without a word, find ourselves hugging.  The closeness of this contact is not lost on us.  We are both more then a little frightened by the uncertainty of what the future holds.  The feel of the woman against my chest seems like strength for decisions that must be made alone.

But I find myself, even at this moment, at odds with myself and my own emotions.  I can feel the comfort of the hug.  I find myself lost in the intimacy of its embrace.  But at the same time, I feel myself detached.  A part of me watches the embrace from some far off position, as if I am really standing on top of the cliff itself, seeing everything all at once - the large boat pulling away from the dock, the hope of the people as they climb into the smaller crafts to give chase, the uncertainty of the crossing, the cold, dark blue of the crashing waves, the look in the boy’s eyes as he tries to escape my chase, my own look of fear in the moment that I realize my identity is missing.

From this vantage point I watch everything.  I am on the cliff, but without the sound or feel of the wind.  I see everything, but hear nothing.  The distance is too great.  I can see the woman’s lips move, she is saying something, but I cannot hear her.  I realize that I am seeing myself undress the woman, but at the same time, notice that I am fully clothed.  She is exposed; I am not.  This woman, who I cannot even hear, mouths words to me that only my eyes can hear.  The silence roars all around me, and I watch myself go through motions that seem impossible to witness.

I watch her, both from my vantage point and through a reflection in my own eyes.  They seem different images, and I wonder how this can be.  In the reflection she is lost in a moment that seems eternal.  But from my vantage point, high on this cliff, I see that I am already walking away from the bed, and the woman, and the moment.  I see with clarity the real reason that we have been brought together, and I see with as much clarity the briefness of our moment.

But what I see more then anything else, from this vantage point, is that inside, she is no more lost in the moment then I was the moment we first embraced.  Somewhere inside she is not lost, and it is only her eyes and her words that give the illusion.  Her body, it seems, is looking in the wrong direction for answers.  I am no answer, only a comfort.  Her eyes need to close if she is to see inside.  Her lips need to stop moving, if she is to hear herself speaking.  I realize that we are all lost and detached, all of us, all at once, and I quickly stand up and look around, thinking that I will see her, sitting up here somewhere near me on this cliff, watching everything herself.  She, too, will be watching her own life unfold.  This is what I think.  Like me, she will be watching reflections, only they will be reflections of me and of my desires.  I will see myself through her eyes.  But there is no one there.  I see nothing.

So I leave the woman and the cliff’s edge.  The dock is now empty, except for me.  I step into the water and begin to swim.

I was thinking the other night about all of the things that slip through my life that are real but seem so unreal.  Things that I’ve seen with my own eyes, yet even at the moment of seeing them, begin immediately to surround themselves with doubts and questions.  Things that slip by so quickly, that even knowing they were real, I am left wondering because of the briefness I was exposed.

One time long ago, when Imaginary Keith was just a boy, he found himself sledding with his brother and a friend on a snowy hillside in Iowa.  A sunny, bright day.  A day after a storm, where the only thing showing against the blue sky is the intermittent cloud of your own breath and a handful of large, fluffy white clouds tumbling slowly along in the storm’s wake.

And on that day, now so long ago, Imaginary Keith had felt the need to look up into that sky.  Something pulled at his attention, and he remembers, even to this day, the pressure and bulk of his coat and many layers of clothing as he leaned back his head so that his eyes could reach whatever it was that called for his attention.  He remembers breathing slowly, so that the mist from his breathing wouldn’t be in the way.  He remembers a thick, gray, wool mitten coming up to shield his eyes from the sun as his eyes made the adjustment, going from the blinding snow white of the hillside to the deep, warm blue of the sky.

And on that long ago day, standing there on the top of that small hill, Imaginary Keith’s eyes found themselves resting on what appeared to be the front end of a large airliner, poking out from the clouds.  A large rounded shape, silvery white, sticking out slightly from behind a group of the large, puffy white clouds that hung low in the sky just over their heads.  Imaginary Keith sat and stared at the object, thinking that it looked like the nose of an airliner, but realizing at the same time that it didn’t move.

First in a low voice, and then louder and louder, Imaginary Keith called out to his brother and the friend, telling them to look up.  Something is up there, he said, knowing that they would look up and they would all see it.  Imaginary Keith took his eyes off of the object once, to see why his brother and the friend did not respond or say anything.  Only five or six feet away, surely they had heard him.  Surely they would want to look up and see whatever it was he was yelling about.  But when Imaginary Keith looked over at his brother and the friend, they were just standing there, silently staring straight ahead.  Imaginary Keith, looking straight at the two, told them to look up.  He pointed and motioned with his head.  He repeated himself, but the two boys just stood there, staring blankly at him.  They didn’t talk, they didn’t move, and they didn’t look up.

Imaginary Keith looked back up and the object was still there, poking out from behind the cloud even a bit more then before.  He watched it sitting there, wondering what it could be, knowing all along what it was.  He stared at it for maybe thirty, forty seconds, and then the object, silently and smoothly, slid behind the cloud in one quick motion and was gone.

And just as quickly as the object was gone, Imaginary Keith’s brother and the friend came back to life.  Suddenly they were talking and laughing and moving around, getting ready to head back down the hill.

Why didn’t you look up, Imaginary Keith asked them.  Why didn’t you say anything, he asked.

And the two boys just looked at Imaginary Keith like he was crazy.  What are you talking about, they said, then jumped on their sleds and disappeared down the hill, leaving Imaginary Keith to stand there all alone, thinking about what had just happened. 

But while a boy standing all alone on a hill might know what he has seen, he really has no idea just how hard it will become to separate real from unreal later in life.  He has no way of knowing that this is just the first of many things that will appear before his eyes and then disappear, leaving him to stand there wondering.  He has no way of knowing if he is better off for having seen the object, and now believing it, or whether it would have been better to be one of the other boys, staring blankly into nothing.

The most important thing about holding hostages is to not turn your back on them.  I wish I’d remembered this.

Imaginary Keith not only gave me the slip, but somehow snuck the car keys, then drove to Best Buy and bought a TiVo.  He is smiling and excited and seems to be holding no grudge about his previous predicament.

I am finding it hard to keep a stern face.

Mongolian horde seekers have arrived here in large numbers today.  Great forces are obviously at work somewhere in the world.

But I fear your journey has been in vain.  A lemming crusade.  Here we wait patiently for Thor.  Here we fear no Khans.

They say that Thor will soon appear on the horizon and that the sun reflecting off of his helmet will be blinding.  They also say that the Khan brothers, having put down their weapons, will arrive only minutes ahead of Thor, and that they will have tiny, digital camcorders in their large, grimy, bloodstained hands so that they can capture the whole moment on film.

But then they say a lot of things.

Imaginary Keith is tied in a chair being force fed numbers.  One hand is loose, barely, so that he can sketch a concept for an arbor and gate.  Every five minutes I walk over and flick him on the back of the ear, then remind him that he’s had more then two months to get this done.  It’s his own fault.  His own doing.

I took out the gag once, but immediately put it back in when he began to compare me to a visit to the dentist.

Do you see the abuse I have to put up with?

Finish the damn sketch, I tell him.  I’m waiting, a customer is waiting, and even worse, Thor is waiting.

Thor!  Did you hear me?  Thor!  Finish your work before you really piss him off.

Imaginary Keith’s hand wiggled around when I said that, but I’m not sure if he was reaching for the pen or just twitching as I tightened the ropes.  His eyes look a little jumpy, but then he’s such a coffee freak.

If Imaginary Keith ever becomes historically significant, there are going to be certain questions that will pop up.  People will demand answers, because people, let’s admit it, are funny that way.  They want to know things that matter very little.

Like Spalding Gray.  Imaginary Keith sees people talking all about Spalding Gray, but realizes that he knows nothing about this man.  But he knows that he wrote and was in some movies and went floating in a river.

Maybe people will ask: Hey!  Imaginary Keith!  What about Spalding Gray?  And Imaginary Keith will turn and look faraway and dreamy, like he’s thinking of something that happened long ago, maybe something that he hadn’t thought about in a long time, and just now has resurfaced in his memory because of the curiosity of the people.  Imaginary Keith’s head may move slightly, up and down, just like curious people’s heads move when they too remember something from long ago.  And Imaginary Keith will stand there silently looking back at the curious people, giving them enough time for their own thoughts to drift a bit.  It will be a long enough silence that the curious people will begin to grow just a little bit uncomfortable.

Curious people, you might know, are uncomfortable with silence.

And then, finally, Imaginary Keith will say something.  Something like, “I just don’t know what happened to Spalding Gray.”

And because of the faraway look, and the dreamy eyes, and the slightly nodding head and the almost too long uncomfortable silence, the curious people will decide that Imaginary Keith has thought long and hard about the life and death of Spalding Gray.  They will think that there is great mystery here.  They will think that Imaginary Keith has clung to the hope that Spalding Gray will somehow survive floating in a river for two months.  That somehow he will turn up alive and well and kicking.  They will think so many things.  Their imaginations will run wild in that moment of silence as they try to fill something that is so unbearably uncomfortable.

So Imaginary Keith will answer the curious people’s questions by saying nothing.  Inside he will smile, thinking it is odd that silence can be mistaken so easily for reflection and knowledge.

And people, because they’re funny this way, will answer all of their own questions.  They will talk and talk and talk until they are sure they’ve said enough, making everything up as they go along.

No mortal should be this busy today.  I wish I lived in a city that had Free Pie stands every six blocks.  I’d still be busy, but life would seem sweeter.

from The BFG

“Words,” he said, “is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life.  So you must simply try to be patient and stop squibbling.  As I am telling you before, I know exactly what words I am wanting to say, but somehow or other they is always getting squiff-squiddled around.”

No, not Superman.  Capitalism.  Money.  The neverending demand to earn more.

I think we’ve invented a system that is like a fast moving train with no brakes and no hope of stopping.  Faster and faster we rumble down the tracks, picking up speed and power. 

But something is bound to give.  Us or the train?  Can we safely jump before there are no more tracks?  Isn’t anyone else feeling the tiny bit queasy from the ride?

“Dad, teachers puff up when they’re mad or serious.  Didn’t you know that?  Their voice gets deeper and booms and they straighten up really tall.”

[This lesson comes along with a nice illustration of a teacher “booming” the folly of pouting.  I will add the picture later.]

A note attached to my van states that they will tow away my vehicle if it is not moved before Monday at 2:00 p.m.  Apparently my lease also requires that I drive around on occasion.  Monday’s to-do list continues to grow.

I have emails to return, but haven’t had time.  Silence must not be confused with ignoring.

In fifteen minutes I head to the roller rink for three hours of balancing practice.  If it wasn’t for the falling, I’d say that human feet would be better with wheels.  I can still skate backwards but can no longer leap like a disco-version Baryshnikov.  Okay, I never could.  But once I could fall down, laugh, and pop back up all without missing a beat.  Now, the consequences of a fall must be monitored as closely as the core temperature of a nuclear reactor.

Goodwill is a good place for kids books, although the clerks name tags are not always printed the clearest.  For a second grader, a capital “I” should have crosses along the top and bottom.  Without them, an “I” will always look like an “L”, and with that mysterious silent “E” on the end of things, an eight year old, attempting his best to read and sound out the world and be polite will calmly thank the clerk by saying:

“Thank you Jackal”

when he really means: Thank you Jackie.

The first hour of Imaginary Keith’s day is spent listening to The Other crying.  Her life has no direction.  She is lost.  What’s she to do.  One day she is fine, the next a mess.  Her words, not his.  Crying and crying and crying.

One voice thinks: how sad.
One voice thinks: tomorrow she won’t even remember.
One voice thinks: no kidding.
One voice thinks: take a number, get in line.
One voice thinks: how will this effect my upcoming trip.
One voice thinks: she will never get a job.
One voice thinks: why does she do this.
One voice thinks: Fridays are always the worst.
One voice thinks: I need to get out of here.
One voice thinks: Run.
One voice thinks: Be concerned.
One voice thinks: No, look concerned.
One voice thinks: nothing.
And then another voice agrees.

And even though Imaginary Keith and I both watch from a safe distance, we know it will ruin our day.  We will get into the car and drive away.  Imaginary Keith will fall into a stupor, and I will return no phone calls.  He will write not one word and I will make not one dollar.

And one voice will quietly think: two years . . . this has been your day for two years.

Can I say whirlwind without also saying romance?  Of course I can, but does it make sense?  Can I have a whirlwind workweek?  Let’s try.

Crabass Tom has returned and is settling in nicely in his trailer behind the barn.  The cows are watching, but seem relatively unconcerned.  A whirlwind arrangement.

Fernando has returned to work.  Smiling, hard working, always on time, always dependable, 30 hours overtime and still happy, plays soccer with my son Fernando.  That Fernando.  Lifesaving Fernando.  Whirlwind Fernando.

More contracts signed.  A flurry of signatures and currency exchange.  Whirlwind business.

And finally, more past drawn into the present.  More real told of the imaginary.  More friends given directions to these words.  Whirlwind disclosure.

Yes, believe it or not, as your own lips silently mouth these words, you may be logged onto Word Shadows at the very same moment as the Norse Gods themselves - Thor, Balder the Beautiful, and even that famous trickster, Loki.  ( Firewalls up! )

How have I even gone this far without the reassuring shadows of my friends peeking over my shoulder?

If you like to dream about the lives of others, and would like a little help today, then go over to Burningbird and read her essay on Emily Dickinson, Me and Emily: Sweet Whispers of the Betrayer.  The only disappointment is that it ends.

Not so long ago, I was thinking of Emily myself.  I was thinking of a lot of things actually, as I sat in front of a warm fire and tried to chase away the particular mood that seemed to have settled in that day.  And I remember writing a letter to a friend . . .

I am having a hard time beginning this letter tonight.  It has nothing to do with imaginary worlds or the imaginary people waiting their turn to be born.  I’m not even sure what it’s about, which must be the reason for the slow beginning.  It is a melancholy night, which would seem to produce a melancholy letter.  We will see.  I have lit a strong, warm fire whose sole job is to warm my cold toes.  But if my spirits are also warmed in the process, so much the better.

I will tell you that I am enjoying my time spent here doing nothing more then thinking thoughts about things nonexistent.  If nothing else, that makes me happy.  And my oldest friend, the idea of writing, is with me still, keeping me company in spite of my mood.  A steadfast friend, to stick with me this many years.

This morning I found myself imagining the concept of writing (and I guess I refer to fiction) to be a little bit like the concept of law.  An incorporeal thing that you imagine and try to get your hands around.  Good writing like good law, in that when you see it, and feel it, and experience it, you know when it’s right.  Good writing, like good law, that you can embrace and hope that it works.  This is the kind of writing that I hope to accomplish, so I will suffer the consequences when my own words fall short, and change them when I can.  It is the beauty of having an idea as a friend.

But I like that I have stumbled onto the word incorporeal tonight.  It’s a good word.  There certainly seems nothing tangible about writing, just as there seems nothing tangible about law.  They are ideas embraced, nothing more, their difference seeming to rest in the fact that while one is clear and demanding, the other is vague and full of suggestion.  But don’t ask me which one is which, because I would be hard pressed to know the answer.  Instead, ask me what I do each day, and I will know that I climb out of bed and can think of nothing else but wrapping my fingers around an incorporeal ladder of imagination.  I climb and I climb.  I keep my eyes and my ears closed tightly, so that I don’t have to see the stack of bills on my desk or the sound of the phone ringing endlessly.  I climb because it is a feeling like no other, a dizzying feeling to reach such heights of thought and find yourself hanging onto nothing.  Because words are nothing, and yet we’re forced to hang everything on their meaning.

Maybe that’s why I am melancholy tonight.  Not because I’m having trouble starting a letter, but because I climb an impossible ladder.  Not because I search for words, but because I find too many.  Maybe I’ve caught a glimpse of my own self, standing there at the base of the ladder, dreaming.

But what am I dreaming about, standing there, looking around at nothing?  I know that last night I found myself thinking about Emily Dickinson, wondering about her and her life.  What could it have possibly been like, to be her?  What did she see when she looked around, so intense but so alone?  I couldn’t help but wonder how much of her anyone really knew.  I imagined her moving about a room, exchanging pleasantries and offering only the smallest bits of herself.  I imagined a woman who could write over 1700 poems, yet see only seven of them published.  I imagined the lifetime of thoughts that moved through her head turning into words but shared so little.  And I imagined her sitting down, as she often did, to write a letter.  Much the same way I sit here and write to you tonight.

Emily Dickinson, if you didn’t know, wrote hundreds of letters in her lifetime.  You could read them yourself and decide what she was writing about, but I like to imagine that she wrote her letters because she searched for something.  In my imagination, Emily looked for someone who could open their eyes and see life the way she saw it.  I’m most likely wrong, but enjoy the thought.  She once wrote to a man at the Atlantic Monthly named Thomas Wentworth Higginson.  The two kept in contact for years, exchanging letters and meeting upon occasion.  Once, when he asked her what she looked like, Emily Dickinsons wrote back

I . . . am small, like the wren; and my hair is bold, like the chestnut burr; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.

I wonder what Higginson thought, getting such a letter.  How could he not be intrigued?  When Dickinson and Higginson finally met for the first time one night at her father’s home, it would be only after having shared years of exchanging letters.  Following the meeting, Higginson would later write:

I never was with any one who drained my nerve power so much.  Without touching her, she drew from me.  I am glad not to live near her.

What was it about Emily Dickinson that proved so draining to Higginson?  I can only imagine that the years of letter writing between the two had led Emily to believe that she could show a bit of her true self to the visiting Higginson.  I imagine she felt safe and more open then usual.  I imagine that the meeting, to her, was like a letter coming to life, words falling into place, a poem unfolding.  I imagine she thought she would meet Higginson and share with him a glimpse of her world. 

The only shame here is that Higginson, given such an opportunity, was not up to the task.  Can you imagine the world all around Dickinson, drawn into her hungry eyes, distilled of its perceptions and dressings, then offered back to those who dared?  Her own friend, Higginson, even after years of letter exchanges with Emily, had no stomach for the life that Dickinson saw.  Maybe there was simply not enough life within him to withstand her?  Who knows.  What I do know is that he is not the first person to avoid facing such a vision of life.  Nor will he be the last.

And thinking that, I began to wonder if there were any Emily Dickinson’s alive today.  Would I ever meet one, and if I did, would I even know?  Would I be able to look into those eyes and know her for who she is?  Would I be able to meet such a gaze?  What would such a person draw from me?  I do know that, unlike Thomas Wentworth Higginson, I would have loved to live near such a person.

Call it karma.  Call it kismet.  Call it the will of God.  Call it whatever you wish, but let it be known that I think I’ve developed the uncanny ability to locate every hairstylist in town with short arms.  It’s an odd talent, and not something I was expecting.

One of my goals in life has always been to never comb my hair.  It’s not high on my list, but it’s on the list, all the same.  If it seems unreasonable, or even crazy to you, you should just stop for a minute and think about it.  Wouldn’t you, too, like to never have to comb your hair again?  The time savings alone would make it worthwhile.  I have a feeling that once you think about it, you’ll be adding it to your own life goal list.  If you keep such a list, that is.

Anyway, one of the ways to avoid combing your hair is to receive regular haircuts.  Here’s the rule: If it looks unruly, walk into the nearest Super Duper Cuts and say “A number 2 on the sides.  Sort of sticking up on top.” That should do the trick.  There are other methods, such as hats and balding, but I won’t discuss them at the moment, except to say that I’m trying them all with varied success.  Each method has it’s pros and cons.

Carefree hair is really that simple.  After that, all that’s required is water and a quick brush of the fingers to set it right.  Maybe a little dab of gel, when you’re feeling fancy.  Five seconds tops, I promise you. 

So what’s this have to do with fate and short-armed hairstylists, you ask?  I’m not quite sure, except that I’ve begun noticing that Super Duper Cuts’ stylists have a tendency to have short arms, and that as I sit there getting my cheap, life-goal reaching haircut, their bellies always seem to be bumping into me and pushing me around.  I can’t say I like it.  My own belly isn’t the flattest in the world, but at least I try to keep it off of people when I’m working. 

But then, maybe it’s just me.  Maybe my arms are longer then most people’s, and it’s easier for me.  Or maybe it’s just my last couple years of self-imposed isolation that has me noticing these bellies bumping up against my personal space.  Maybe I realize the sadness in the fact that the only womanly touch I receive these days doesn’t spin my head, but my chair.  Maybe bellies have always knocked me around and I just didn’t notice.  Maybe hair stylists have always had short arms, and I just didn’t care.  Maybe I’m the same old Keith I’ve always been.  Maybe there’s nothing uncanny going on around here at all.

But I do have short hair this morning.  I know that much.

It seems the son of Imaginary Keith lacks possessiveness.  Good for the world, but in this case, bad for his mother.  I give to you a recent sample, pulled directly from the page of his second grade report on a large, stuffed bear that he brought to school for sharing (show and tell for the old people).

This is my mom’s bear she had it hand made at a stor.  My grandma has a black won.  But my mom’s is gray.

And then the clincher.

My mom is about four feet tall and about four feet side-to-side also.