Saturday, May 31, 2008

not down to me


My own again lowst again won't marry me to me down.

She is a Memphis girl but grew up part-time/seasonable in Mississippi, where her family they say would scare the begeez out of me but I'm not afraid tho and would give up the pleasure of her company to live down south with her dad, who is my kind of guy though I am far from his kind of guy I'm sure. See, he was a professional wrestler in the late 60's, on local TV you know, giving interviews to a trembling reporter. (My own again lost again spent some time thinking it just natch to turn on Saturday morning TV and seeing dad in a cape. He was always the good guy, at least. What if he'd played the villain? I mean , my word. How would that go?)

I'd like to hang with him because he would probably send me to the fridge for a beer and say "have one yourself i guess".

And if I had a headache he'd probably say, "There's some morphine in the medicine cabinet, if it's really bad but don't take too much". Her dad has broken every bone in his body. His back three times. He was known as "The Blue Gas Heat". Or something more lyrical but the same idea.

My love she remembers her sainted grandmother fondly. This woman realized she'd better take the girl of the boys to church and buy her a dress and let her have special time, talking and eating at a restuarant afterwards. My love is sweet and cheerful beyond belief.

If she is in a bad mood she will laugh, "I feel so grumpy today."

But I try to marry her, up from my low grade of depression in life and it's summertimes enough just to not be said no to. I stick around. She's got a life , and brains; she's got perfect vision and can hear far away : WHAT'S THAT.

It would be a good match for me as generally I am shrew-bait.

I guess it's funny I'd accept a counter-proposal just to go live with her retired dad, but I've explained that now.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Best Days

An afternoon of blue skies with the wide, white eraser marks. I'd been expecting Spring and here it was, on a weekend too.

She'd washed her car and was contemplating the distinct, gravitational pleasure of the result. Then as we waited for young Kominski to come out with his baseball mitt, ball, bat and cap, we played with the new pup--a golden retriever, four months long, tall and happy.

Not the same dog week to week, by golden appearances.

I'd lifted my hood for the first time in months and checked the oil. I checked the oil because my hood was up. I wanted the hood up to impress someone that I might give a damn what was under there.

I never can believe this stupid dipstick. Can't be I'm still in operational range. Just can't. Put in some more oil then.
______
I told her, "This car fixes itself, you just have to wait it out. My left blinker was out for two months, suddenly it works again. And do you remember the floor mats got so dirty last winter I threw 'em in the trunk? Well, behold. Come look. Now they're like brand new."

"John," she said, "those are my floor mats. We were on a shopping binge, do you remember? They're brand new and I put them in your trunk. I forgot all about them."

"Hm! ---Oh, do you want them back?"

"No," she said, and then leaned back against her sparking gem-blue car and crossed her arms and laughed at me.

"That's like... magical thinking!"

"Pleasant anyway, " I said.

"Come ohyn, Kominski" she said to me and the dog and the sky, as the boy tarried inside still.

Then to me, "My roony is going to church youth group tonight. He volunteered!"

"What what what?!"

"He came to me last night and said he'd asked Alicia if she'd be there and she said yes."

We seemed to have plenty of time because when the boy came out and the dog greeted him it was time to play, not to drive anywhere.

I don't always know what's going on, I don't ask the schedule, I don't care what errands. Kominski left his bat in the grass and I picked it up.

When I was 8 I was washed out of the pee-wees. I was on the worst team ever---the jinxed Wildcats--- and they kept me in right or left field, whichever one that is, the ball doesn't reach in little league.

I remember being up to bat and the pitcher seemed to be nodding assurances to me. While his team-mates yelled repeatedly, "he can't hit it, he can't hit it".

I liked this pitcher. He looked right in my eyes and nodded yes I could, or so I thought. But I couldn't, I didn't. I always struck out.

Now I had Kominski pitch me my first ball in 41 years.

Not being in the least self-conscious today, I hit a line drive right into his mitt and lo ! I believe the boy was not only surprised but impressed. We all looked at one another in wide eyed, silent surprise and then moved to a better spot. To rule out the fluke.

Another pitch. Another line drive, but to his left and he missed it so the dog got it. Then a pop fly. Then I put some muscle into it and hit the ball to the tree line, about 40 yards away.

"Get my mom on the phone! I'm a natural after all!!"

"Jumping June Bugs, " his mother said, and crossed herself.

"You're not even holding the bat right," said the boy. "Nice hits, though." He is good natured and funny, despite the major teenage crisis of finding himself in a new town with divorced parents and without any established friendships, as yet.

Kominski is good looking, like a Kennedy. I want to call him Hyannis-Sport, but it's too early for me to give him nicknames. His homecoming was only two months ago and I haven't been here all that time of course.

"It's a great sound hitting the ball. Ok, you'll have to teach me how to hold the bat then, sometime. Maybe. "

"Coaching is good. Kominski doesn't just play ball he studies ball," his mother said.

He is training to be accepted on the high-school team next year when he enters 9th grade. One day his mother told me over the phone that he was getting bored, so she bought him a parachute he'd wanted. She said it was to run with, and I supposed this meant he was going to try and fly. I said, that's a good age , when you still have hopes of flying. I warned, though, no to let him up on top of the garage.

They still think that is very funny. Jackson, how could he fly?

Well, I said, maybe by running into the wind until the parachute is wide open, and then letting himself go and be dragged in the opposite direction. Maybe on a small hill he'd lift off for a second. Right?

"It's a training tool, honey. Kominski isn't as fast as he'd like. It's a way to run stronger, I guess. By the drag."

He also bought a special ball, which resembles that Willy Wonka ever-lasting gob-smacker, or some sort of model of an atomic particle, with four nubs. You throw it against the wall and never know which way it will go, see. But it usually goes into the dog's mouth and then the dog runs so it's predictable.

We ran the errands in her car.

They chat and laugh a lot, mother and kid. He has a nascent, worldly sense of humor already. He's good with the reparte and with wise cracks about public figures and general society. What we observe driving around this college town.

Like my brother, many years ago, street signs can be a source of mockery or querulousness. At 14, lots of things look stupid.

At the grocery, there's quite a crowd. I tag along and since I'm not shopping I actually look over all the glorious food choices I have. This is different than coming in with a shopping list in mind. I take cell phone pictures of beautiful boxes of branded TV cereal. The color just jumps at you.

Their updated mascots no longer trouble me like they used to. They've been drawing Captain Crunch differently for a decade I suppose. What happened to Jean La Feet? I was telling Kominski the other day about the pirate who helped Andrew Jackson--- my great great ever so great uncle--- save New Orleans. Was that Jean La Foot? Eh? Which was the joke? La Feat or La Foot?

We turn the corner and there is a gathering of five ladies talking. She makes as if to mow them down and then , unexpectedly, one notices her and in just that split second we've almost got an incident. An older lady jumped, the others turned away and made to press their bodies against the merchandise. Kominsky and I independently pirouette, ready to abandon her to an outraged public.

It's a close call. She rolls the cart between them all without apology, then turns around and brightly smiles at us.

Grocery, home for a fine dinner at the new kitchen table with the new swivel chairs. I like this, and the two of them. Listen with interest even as they do the carb-math for his diabetes, and figure out 'bolus' and 'basil' or whatever you call that information his pump needs, or that his pump reports. All his life, Kominski is used to this. Though the pump is a fairly new miracle.

A few weeks ago he had to be in the hospital because he was having a teen growth spurt and his hormones were at war with the insulin. He came out five days later two inches taller, I swear, and now his shoulders were broader than mine.

I'd been staying there taking care of the puppy and I wasn't sure who grew more. Well they both grew. That was a great homecoming. It's not routine to me so I got misty alone.

Now to make Saturday night deeply impressive, after youth group we go to see Iron Man.

I need to be shoved into this new century. Like from the 19th. I haven't seen an action flick on the big screen since Ghost Busters in 1985. So those were two hours of pure astonishment for me.

Kominski had to draw deep from the 'genius of generosity' to allow himself to be seen on a Saturday night with two grown ups, while the other 14 year olds all sat in their merging cliques. I could well understand. He is new to town but that's not generally known. He could be mistaken as a loser despite everything in his favor. The school he attends is very large compared to what he was used to.

He reasoned that if he was seen with his mother, the other kids might suppose that he was the child of divorce and this was a favor he was doing her. But to have me there, people might conclude he was spending the evening with both parents. And that just couldn't be explained away. Still, he let me come along. I think he regretted it, but as a favor to his mother he assented.

Happiness is for dogs, I do believe. What we want is calm contentment and laughs and things to do together after work and school. But even that is asking a lot. You get to be my age, you're lucky to have some imagination for what's over the horizon, the Kingdom that is also within us.

Everything eternal here on earth is also ephemeral and being forever renewed. I'm seeing two generations grow up already, and I'm only 47. You're also lucky to finally realize that it's the young people who are the real deal, so to speak. You learn, and it's too late, and you care but not in any interested, invested way, about the world. The world isn't as full of phonies as I used to think it was.

Magical thinking. That's good when approaching a time of spiritual hurdles.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Misapplication



I've mentioned that I am the quiet one (in my post "Defining Quiet Down") at the university's Islecom library consortium.

So it's fair to my readers to pick up the narrative where I become mildly chagrined at someone there, and then perhaps later on I'll start to brood too much, and start to see their face everywhere, like with a milk mustache on advertisement billboards (both those moving on the sides of the buses and those stationary, on the sides of the super-sonic fast freeways).

Then we'll all say bless our enemies and the Dairy Council with hot coals on their heads, conclude amen.
___
I'm self contained.

But sometimes you want to tell a humorless peer to fast-forward when they're answering your understandable shop-question with remedial and maybe patronizing bloody obvious apriori (n.)

Men are inferior; they bore me except when I'm suddenly carried into the sphere of murderous thoughts. I've wished for them all to drop dead. Even my old man, though of course my feelings for him were mysterious, me wanting him back right away.

I mean men, I mean unless they're ancient. Not just the ones with neck tattoos. Not just the ones who leave whiskers in the sink and stink.

Am I alone? Don't you catch yourself sometimes daydreaming of that day one goes whoops-WOW , surprise down the chute, leaving the table to be reset, with a new table cloth and the novelty of an extra chair.

So I don't write about men very much.

Because I love
. And I want this scroll to reflect that about me.
______
I'll just say this about this worm tutor of mine. When I instant messaged for help one day, I typed "Watson, come quickly i need you".

Ever since, he's made me pay by teaching me my ABC's again.

I think the farker wants me to be late with my assignments. That's how it's going, lately.

I've had work tutors turn on me before when I was rude to them! It happens. Oh yes.
____
I could never be mad at a woman of course. This is well known. They get mad at me instead. I love women , up from their toes. So I will write about them.

Now Janice---I'd prefer to call her Miss Applington of course because that's proper---she is congenial. There's no other word, except nice. Janice, Janice! You're nice.

Don't ever absorb these hard times we have with the bastard men here. React instead! Strike out! Stamp your feet.

Look, there goes the Albino Rastafarian, I've singled out to annoy. Praise Bush in front of him someday soon.

Miss Applington, I wish I could stay to help you this afternoon.

"Oh, but I don't know if Christopher would approve, um..., John, I'll tell you what though. I'll shoot him an email asking if you can have more hours. And I'll copy to Ann, our executive director."

Shoot him and copy Ann. Yes.

Janice is 35 or 40 and has that youthful, hearty appearance of all women who decide they like how they look at 26 and then make a bargain with the devil.

Janice. Glasses on , glasses off.

She makes me think of the identical twins, Ann and Laura , my classmates in the 4th grade. One wore glasses, the other would not.

She brings to heart forgotten losses... like how those twins ash-trayed my soul.

Or like when my brother finished the Fruit Loops one Saturday morning before I got up. May 3rd, 1970.

And I quietly wept, Miss Applington (if I can call you Miss Applington? May I? And you can call me Mr. Henky-Menkey).

You don't mind if I share with you. Someday perhaps. The tribulations.

I swallowed my grief. It's been my motto since toddler-hood to suffer in silence. Oh, I knew what my parents had to do to put Captain Crunch on the table. I grew up fast. So fast, sometimes I'd have to pretend I wasn't so mature. I had to put on a false face of lip quivering selfishness.

I'm sorely conscientious. (bzzzzzzzz! That is true. I'm terrified of offending. Return gradually to falsehood.)

I don't like to worry people. For instance this morning as I followed you up the stairs I kept my distance behind you so you would not feel hurried. And I kept my eyes on my own ankles.

By the way, I was taught to follow women up the stairs, to catch them if they fall. And to lead them down the stairs, to break their fall.
_____
My friends who know me would tell you I'm great to know. Now, who else can say that about their friends? I ask you. My friends would gladly tell you that.
___
And God and Abraham are my witnesses... let me tell you, dear scroller. She dresses like it's 1972.

She is suite petite, little straps from her brown/orange plaid dress going over her white cotton top, and she wears flat black shoes. Her lips are soft looking and not painted.
____
I type in the message box, "My application, Janice, is Sock Seven."

She steps over to my desk. We sit only 20 feet apart, separated by low cubicle walls, but we like to instant message at Islecom.

"Oh, did you get another soc 7 again? Don't worry. Some of us would like to have Soc 7 on our license plates. It's nothing to worry about, just let me see..."

"It's here." I put my finger on the computer screen and there are electronic lines rippling outward from the smudge.

"Oooh. Say, that's an interesting one I've never seen before. Gosh you make the most interesting mistakes. I like the challenge. I might have to get Adrienne to help with this but let me see..."

She'll find that the more obvious traps will get me later this summer when I actually have an idea what it is we do here, and I forge ahead from 'Go', after eight weeks bafflement at the starting bell.

"Do most people here have library backgrounds, Miss ---Janice."
"Most of us, yes. We're not programmers. You're the only programmer."
"Ha ha." Jesus, they still think that. "I was a bookseller for ten years, you know," I tell her.
"Hm, really? That would be fun. What was it, part-time?"
"Yes. Just for the book discounts of course."
"Oh god I can imagine. I'd have never collected a paycheck there. Just books. But that would be a great job."
"Yeah. And the co-workers in a bookstore, you know..."
"Hm?"
"Eccentrics. All sad in their own preposterous way."
"Spoiled brats, you mean. Right??"
"Ha, ha. I didn't want to say that." This is going splendidly.
"And you were one of them, right??"

Ha, ha! No, no not really. Maybe a little self-serious. Maybe. I was ambitious of course."
___
This isn't going to last. Thanks for visiting.

Monday, May 05, 2008

I work inside

(letter to Dr. Patricia)

The women make the place creamy. I love it when they're in a gossip in the morning and they say "hello john!" in unison when I arrive. haha. My name is already so musical to me, you know. At 8:01 it was already a good day. My big boss, the one who is seven feet tall and has a deep radio-ready voice, is gone to a conference as usual, all week. He's impressive, I like him.

He corrected me when I called him Chris, though. He would like to be called Christopher, please and thank you.

He's never been a boss until a few months ago, and I don't mind that he likes it.

On Friday we approached him with some simple question and got an answer, but then he said "Wait!" as we stood up to leave his cubicle.

I sat back down and he delivered a maxim: "When you come to me with a question I want you to have answers as well."

At first my head shook, yoddily -oddily- oddily, but I think I know what he meant now.

No, wait, it's escaped me again. But anyway as I was driving home that day, I counted syllables.

Christopher=3
Mister Jackson= 4.
John= 1.

But then I thought, this guy is my age, and he's earned this, so all right. And I like Christopher better than Chris anyway. More class.

People think I have a problem with authority but that's not true always. I look for authority, I look for expertise, I look for my superiors. It's true I'll tease them and push but that's not rebellion is it?

Now, cops, yeah. *Click*. I can have a problem with that kind of 'authority'.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Defining Quiet Down

There are six librarians and myself all separated by cubicle walls, busy at our computers, sometimes instant messaging one another with questions. It is so peaceful, my work-place is damn near inviting, like a study.

Yet today when a new Other-Island arrived and there were introductions, one of the women said "Oh let's not forget John. He's the quiet one".

Then we all came out to the center of the room and there was one dude I'd never seen before. It was such a surprise I almost challenged him.

Who are you.
Hey, who's this caught out of night here, I don't like sudden living surprises.
Hey, he doesn't even cough, isn't he a smoker, I thought we all were smokers here, dammit.

Maybe they've decided I'm quiet because they sense I'm full of speech and I'm a man who is apt to get drunk someday. Maybe the truth is obvious. Because you know, at my age... The facial lines... Biography!

But how can I be described as 'quiet' here, of all places? I'd hate to think what else the lines say. Some of it isn't true, which is why I spend a bundle on philosophers and poets, in hopes of restoring my original project in life and having it appear in my eyes.