extemporaneous

easter(n)

2007-04-29T04:01:44+00:00

How to say? How to acknowledge? Privacy means privacy, and thankfully I'm notable for being able to state the obvious in words that make things not so, so perhaps this is the best way to break through a multiple-month logjam of silence and say what needs saying.(Inscrutable? Sorry; this is a private message posted semi-publicly.)

There is no 'me and you,' and never has been; this funny friendship has meant many things over the years, most unspoken and unacknowledged, but there for both of us. Easter brought you back to me, reminded me of why I have Life A here in Huntsville and Life B in Atlanta, reminded me of why I think the drive is worth it and why I'm unlikely ever to have a life, singular, in one place or the other.

I've missed having you around. We were both morons, and had we the bravery or the bluntness to speak up earlier, we might have prevented the months of silence. Did the audience clap and cheer? I think they may have, but I was blissfully unaware.

We owe him a favor for making us talk to each other once again. I hated the months of seeing your number scroll by in my list of friends, wanting to call but never doing so, never certain if my voice would be welcomed on the other end of the line, too shy to email and say, "Why?" because I feared an answer that, it turns out, was not the one that was coming.

Morons, as I said.

Easter is rebirth and spring, and joy for my religious friends, of which we neither are, really. I will not begrudge them their celebrations if they do not begrudge me mine; mine is as different as it is heartfelt.

I missed you.
I missed her.

It came through on Easter morning, a non-religious resurrection of spirit without ceremony or artifice.

Some celebrations must be taken on their own terms.

Welcome back. There was always a place with your name on it. It's good to see you in it again.

At 30: my happily ever after

2006-10-20T17:13:22+00:00

He came back toward me, with an intentness of purpose that told me what I needed to know, even before he said it:"It's just after midnight. Happy birthday."

At the end of the night, past the music and the conversation, Chris and I pulled out the sofa bed for him. As we did, the random shuffle served up Diana Krall's take on Joni Mitchell and I realized with a sudden hitch of breath that this little throwaway moment would be one that I remembered. She whispered her way through 'A Case Of You' while we untangled a purring, bright-eyed Tenzing from the sheets we wanted to place on the sofa bed.

With this, I am thirty; there is no great difference between now and an hour ago, but a world of difference between now and ten years ago. Ten years ago, most of my friends had their lives planned out, had their eyes set on grad school and the simple telescoping lifeline that would lead to success and families and happily ever after. In the years since, most of my friends have shot along those lines and I've been over here in my corner with my crayons, coloring.

My happily ever after isn't yours. Some days I barely even recognize it. On some superficial level I've comprehended that standard definitions of 'success' will likely never apply to me. In a conversation early this morning with a close friend, I said what I think defines my 'happily ever after':

"I know this much. I'm not a world-changer. I want to take care of the people I love, do something honest that I'm proud of at the end of the day, and be able to look my friends in the eye and see that I've lived a life that has earned their regard and respect."

This is me at thirty.

I was never really sure I'd make it this far, and only rarely did I dream that I'd show up on Friday, October 20 and know—just know—that it was a milestone to celebrate, not to mourn. I can tell you without reserve or hesitation that my life has not turned out to be what my family or my community dreamed it would be for me as a child. I was supposed to be the super-genius child, to go Off Somewhere and Do Great Things.

Instead, I am quietly married; I have cats, a couple of outlines for novels burbling around in my head, and a lot of people showing up for this weekend's birthday gathering. Depending on how you look at it, I'm either a webmaster or a librarian. Even people with caller ID answer the phone when I call them.

Happily ever after, for most of us, isn't about having our names in the newspapers or being revered by millions. I'm never going to change the world, but my little corner of it will have a pile of very good books, a comfortable couch, and a good light to read by.

I can live with that.

See you guys at the birthday gathering.

the current will move you

2006-07-23T21:33:18+00:00

When we drove by, it was tantalizing. "Right over there, over that wall, there's the beach," Gareth said. It was dark, and all I could see was a vast expanse of nothing that might, or might not, have held shifting shimmers of reflected light from the streetlights around us.

Gareth gunned it, and we were gone. The water would have to wait for the next morning.

I'd felt silly for toting my straw hat through the Atlanta airport, but was glad of it as the sun shone down on me as we set up our beach gear. Chairs, towels, water, and sunscreen. Lots of sunscreen. The sand combined with the SPF 60 as I slicked down my arms and shoulders, staring the entire time, hypnotized, at the water. Once (theoretically) protected from the sun, I shed everything but the swimsuit and let my feet guide me to the water.

The wet sand sucked at my feet as I sand-scrobbled closer to the incoming tide, and then it foamed over me, brief and unceremonious. I kept walking, and the depth barely changed. A few feet from the water's edge, the sand became easier to walk on, and I stared down from the top of the water, not trusting what my feet were telling me until my eyes confirmed the suspicion. Under the swirl of salt water, the floor held endless, undulating ripples.

We picture events in our heads, and reality never quite matches our imagination. I didn't expect to be so fascinated by the play of light on water, to be able to see bits and pieces of shell half-buried in the sand. Was it a shell? I wasn't sure. I stopped, digging experimentally with a toe, hoping to clear off enough sand that I could grasp the piece I half-saw and bring it to my hands.

"You can't do that, you know."

"Do what?"

"Plant your toe in one place like that."

"Why?"

"Because the current will move you."

I thought of explaining, thought of using my hands to try to bridge the gap between my eyes and the ocean floor, and kept walking toward deeper water. I opened my mouth to say the words but when I did, I tasted the ocean on my tongue and thought no, it could wait.

an audience of one.

2006-06-23T04:33:18+00:00

Somewhere, in the Official Book Of Personal Websites, there is an admonition about never creating posts for an audience of one. "The readership," it bemoans, "think of the readership!" The OBPW (a righteous tome inwardly certain of its correctness and self-worth, very British in that regard) goes on to decry those who would veil the true nature of a public piece of writing behind anonymizing pronouns, because if writing is made available online, it should be as comprehensible as it is physically accessible.

Hogwash. I've been creaking around this domain for six years now, and while the OBPW makes a fantastic stepstool in my kitchen, it's of little other practical use to me. I keep trying to run off all but the most patient of you lot; what's one more post in that vein?

If this post is impenetrable to you, then worry not and read on; it's not for you, but you're welcome to tag along for the ride.

* * * * *

I am writing this for you, Patrick, precisely because I doubt you will acknowledge it, nor expect you to. We are both those kind of people, and we have that kind of friendship. It is for that reason that I am providing neither links nor explanation; if I thought I had permission to do so, I would explain more fully, but I don't think I do.

I think Friday (tomorrow or today, depending on when you read this) is going to be a pretty difficult day for you. We all have tough days, but given what's coming up in your life, I think you're about to have a couple of weeks' worth of them. Strung out. Possibly even in a row. You've had a hell of a brave face on for a while now; when I was in your place I hadn't half your grace.

I've admired you for it. You made a difficult decision that you felt was right for you, and those you cared about, and you stuck with it. I will admit that I haven't always agreed with it (to claim otherwise would be foolish and easily disproved) but I would be wrong not to publicly admit that the course you've chosen has done an immense amount of good for more people than just yourself.

One of the hallmarks of maturity is the willingness to put the greater good of others before the short-term good of yourself.

I wish I knew what you were going to need over the next few weeks. The problem is that I've been there myself, under somewhat different but stressful circumstances, and the only insight I have to offer is that nobody will be able to anticipate what you'll need in the next few weeks, yourself included.

Over the past few months I've watched this saga unfold with mingled sadness and longing.

Sadness, because I know firsthand that these are, indeed, life-changing events, and that no matter what, you will come out of these experiences with life knowledge that will be alternately instructive and burdensome. You will remember what happens in these next few weeks, and for quite some time—possibly for the rest of your life—these events will serve as a point of demarcation. Other events in your life will be seen as having taken place very specifically before or after these events.

Longing, because I cannot see your situation without the lens of my own experiences. I envy you the favorable odds you're facing, because I did not have those. As your friend, I would give anything to influence that outcome favorably. I don't know her, but I don't have to; I know you, and that is enough to care.

If I had only one piece of advice for you, it would be this: faith, family, friends. You're going to need those resources, and you lucky sonofabitch, you've got all three. Use them, dammit. That's what they're for.

I've half-joked with many a friend in the past month that when I next see you, I plan to offer you what's known as the "bottle of Scotch" treatment. It's a simple curative, really. We'll stop by a reasonably-priced liquor store, and we'll wander to the Scotch section. I'll pick out something that strikes a reasonable balance between price and taste. We'll argue over who's going to pay for it. (I'd like to pay for it, but whether or not you will let me is a matter of debate.) We'll drive to the nearest place with comfortable couches, open said bottle of Scotch, pour into the two tumblers that we hopefully remembered to grab from a cupboard and even more hopefully remembered to fill with ice, and then …

… I don't know. That's the beauty of it. The next part's up to you. Maybe we'll toast life, or life's foibles. Maybe we'll have one drink and that's it, or maybe we'll drink until life makes sense to one of us, and then drink until the one who figures it out can explain it to the other one.

The point? There isn't one; the process is the point. I'll be making good on my promise I made you. I'll be there, in whatever generally reasonable capacity you ask. (Cooking? Sure. Mowing your lawn? Right out.) The possibility of these actions solving a damn thing is pretty remote, but that's not why I'll do it.

It's because this is what friends do.

How to survive a Chinese market

2006-06-19T21:18:09+00:00

After nearly eight years of living here, it's rare now that I feel like a fish out of water, but there's one store left in this town that makes me self-conscious every time I enter it.

I heard that. You, you, and especially you, you dirty-minded little thing—I'll see you after class. Not everything in my life is about that.

Despite everything that's said on television and in those alluring ethnic cookbooks with their come-hither-and-eat-me covers, I've been wondering if I'm the only gaijin hitting up the pan-Oriental markets this side of the Mason-Dixon line. If the stunned and frankly nosy looks of the shopkeepers are any indication, my hair and eye color are either setting off warning bells or I've suddenly started looking like a shoplifter.

There aren't too many Chinese markets in Huntsville, despite UAH's propensity to attract non-Americans to its graduate engineering programs, and my guess is that the shopkeepers are always surprised and taken aback to see anyone they don't know, much less someone that looks like, well, me.

My most humiliating experience at a Chinese market came a couple of years ago at the now-apparently-defunct Shinsegae. I'd worked up the courage to wander through the store, going from item to item scanning hopefully for clear packaging or occasional English inscriptions in the hope of understanding what was inside. I'd only found one item that I needed, but wrote down a few things to look up when I got home. After leaving the shop, I sat in my car and pulled out my omnipresent Small Spiral Notebook to write down some notes, only to be startled by the shopkeeper knocking on the window of my car and demanding to know what I wanted, and was I a health inspector?

I never went back.

Shortly thereafter, I found Choi's, which was slightly closer to me, and slightly less daunting in that the shopkeeper might stare at me and follow me around the store, but seemed to draw the line at following me out the front door.

Small blessings, I suppose.

Of course, then there was the time that I tried to buy curry at Choi's, only to learn that Choi's was apparently one of the last grocery stores on the planet not to take credit or debit cards. While I've since encountered a few other ethnic grocery stores like this, they are a mystery to me. How does a business in the age of Visa and MasterCard survive without taking plastic?

I remember putting my curry back on the shelf, embarrassed, and slinking home.

Today, I picked up cat food at the pet store, got cash back at the counter, and headed to Choi's on a quest for dried mushrooms. Huntsville's slowly gotten more accepting of foods that aren't quite White Bread American Pass The Beef Y'all, but dried mushrooms of any kind are still impossible to find anywhere aside from a Chinese market, so it was time to swallow my pride and pop in.

After discovering that Shinsegae appeared to have closed (it was always a pretty dark and forbidding place, so it could've just been a scowly Monday for them) I headed to Choi's and tiptoed in, hoping I could slip in unnoticed.

Whatever.

I was too proud to go to the desk and say, "Hi, I suck and can't read any of this stuff, so where are the dried mushrooms?" Instead, I wandered the aisles and played a fun little game of "I wonder what that is, and if you can eat it?" with myself.

I did, eventually, find the dried mushrooms.

I've apparently learned more about Chinese, Thai, and Korean food in the past few years than I'd given myself credit for. There were far fewer mystery foods, and more things that, while exotic and unusual, were at least familiar to me.

I paid in cash.
I wasn't followed to my car.

Success.

Free Juror Parking

2006-06-18T05:42:05+00:00

It was one of Those Mornings™, the kind that you know are going to find you on one of those days when you aren't looking; the kind that, once fate decrees is yours, is inescapable.I left fifteen minutes earlier than I believed I needed to, but as I crossed the city to reach our compact little downtown, I realized it wasn't going to be enough. Worry caused me to push the accelerator a fraction of an inch closer to the floor before I realized something so odd and so silly that it made me laugh out loud:

What were they going to do to punish me for being late, put me on a jury?

As I made my way through downtown, carefully following the directions to reach the fabled Free Juror Parking, I called the courthouse and apologized. "I'm stuck in traffic," I said, "but I didn't want you to think that I was skipping out on jury duty."

The voice on the other end of the phone chuckled and told me to drive safely.

I thought I had escaped the grip of That Morning™ through the power of modern cellular technology, until I reached the fabled Free Juror Parking—or, at least, reached the cheerful orange sign and uniformed police officer informing me that juror parking was full and would I please go down the street and park there?

Great, I thought, now I'm even later. Just what I need—my county clerk thinking I'm a dork.

After one near-collision with a moving vehicle that I swear wasn't there when I checked the rearview mirror, I maneuvered the Jetta into a parking space. Yes, it's true, I can fish out my key fob and fire the Lock Door mechanism while simultaneously slamming my car's door shut with my butt and taking off in a dead run. In heels. And a skirt.

That, my friends, is one of the tests of true womanhood that they don't tell you about in your high school health class.

On my way into the courthouse I mentally checked the contents of my bag: knitting, needles, scissors, snacks, drink, and—

"Ma'am?"

I was halfway through the checkpoint before they stopped me.

"I can see that you knit, but if you're here on jury duty, tomorrow…" He pointed to my bag. "Bring smaller scissors. We're really not supposed to let scissors this large through."

I nodded, and headed upstairs. Stupid courthouse architecture. Yes, I could see where the second floor was, but where did the 2xx numbers begin? Where was this mythical room 217? As the laws of probability were still in effect, room 217 was on the last portion of the second floor that I checked. I all but skidded into the room, juror summons in hand, and presented myself penitently to the face of the county clerk, who was surely ready to devour me whole for being fifteen minutes late.

"I'm sorry. I called…" I apologized, trailing off when I realized she was counting … something. Interesting. That was a massive stack of juror information in her hand, I thought. She finished her half-audible count and looked up at me.

"Do you have any reason that you need to be excused from jury duty?"

I thought about it. I'll admit this weakness, because you are my friends; yes, I stood there and asked myself if I was going to be like a lot of people I knew and try to get out of jury duty, or if I would put my money where my mouth was, and be honest.

Honesty won. "No, I'm pretty much the perfect juror." I shrugged, feeling at peace with my fate, having said the words.

She put down her slips and stared at me. One moment became two, became three, became an interminable four. "Think really hard."

In that tiny blip of a moment: huh? Did I say the wrong thing? Is she toying with me? Waaaaaaait. Is she—no, she couldn't, not really… I stood there, clutching my bag of knitting and snacks, and said the only thing that came to my mind: "Well, I am hypoglycemic, so I'll have to eat every couple of hours."

She took my juror summons and began scribbling on it.

"The judge hates it when people eat in the courtroom. You're—" and the scribbles coalesced into words—"excused." She winked at me. "We have too many people this week and will have to dismiss about 30 people. Go home."

As I walked out of the courthouse, I plugged up my earpiece.

"Jeff, you are not going to believe this…"

… and to you, my friends, I solemnly swear that is how I got out of jury duty.