June 25, 2005

The Abyss

I stand looking into the abyss and it is looking back at me. It is contained within the confines of a corrugated cardboard box.

Monday and Tuesday, the movers come to pack us for our move. Before that, Saturday and Sunday, I must scurry around the house frantically packing up all the valuables I can find to bring them over to my parents' house. I also have to get clothes and things packed for a 2-3 week sleep over at my parents' house. My parents are being very nice about the fact that a hotel for that time would be 6-8 grand and it just ain't in the budget.

Wednesday, the movers remove us from the house.

Thursday afternoon, we sell the house.

Friday, we buy the new house.

If you've ever done this before, you know that there are more than a few places where these well laid plans could go awry.

Perforce, blogging will be somewhere between light and none. Consumption of rum in the evenings may be a bit higher. Just a guess, of course, but a good guess just the same.

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June 22, 2005

The well is a tad dry today

I lack inspiration today. Well, no, that isn't true. I lack the energy to write a decent post today.

I was up at around 3:00 this morning, stressed by all the shit that needs organizing and attention as we slide faster and faster to the move. This thing, this move, this sale/purchase of old house and new house, this is a very intricate dance with lots of small pieces, all crucial, requiring coordination.

By the way, seems to me I never showed anyone what the new house looks like. Since I can't really come up with a decent post:

fore.jpg

In the meantime, I spend my day chipping away at the to-do list email I sent myself this morning at around 4:00. I am not doing any legal work today. Just moving stuff. Consequently, I have a greater sense of accomplishment today than I have had in some time.

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June 21, 2005

Something nice

I was due, I figured. Due for something nice to happen to me. It feels like it has been a long, hot and dry spell since the last soothing balm was applied to my sense of self. The drought is over.

Today, to my surprise, I was elected to the Board of an institution with which I have been involved for some years. I have only been active for the last couple of years and didn't imagine this happening for many years to come, if ever. I was shocked. I am being appointed to serve out the term of someone who recently died. I am probably the youngest person on the Board by some 10-15 years. To use an old English expression, I was gobsmacked by the call. The President of the Board assured me that no one on the Board was drinking at the time this decision was made. I asked. He also said my appointment was unanimous. I am to serve out the term of the man I am replacing and then I will be re-nominated to another three year term, or so the normal course goes, assuming I don't screw up too badly. You never know, of course. I am capable of pretty spectacular screw ups.

Still. What a lovely surprise and quite an honor.

Sorry I can't name the institution, but that's what happens when you blog in secret. You have to be a bit coy sometimes.

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June 20, 2005

He slept

I went back yesterday, on Fathers' Day, to visit my grandfather again at the rehab facility to spend a little time with him on the holiday. See two entries below this one to understand the background.

Unfortunately, he was napping and I did not want to wake him. Instead, I sat with him. I settled into the vinyl (?) covered armchair which squeaked like vinyl does when I sat in it and I watched him sleep for about 20 minutes before I wrote him a note telling him I had been there and then I left.

It was sort of peaceful. He lay there on his back and frightened me a little bit with his breathing, which seemed rapid and shallow, not deep and restful like it ought to be for a nap. He was restless in his sleep, twitching. I wonder if he was in pain. It was a lot like watching a baby sleep. They move a lot and breath in ways that can be scary.

I just sat there and let the sounds of the place wash over me as I contemplated my grandfather's face and his body. He has aged so much, so quickly. He is less. He is not eating and the nurses are concerned. One has told my father that she thinks my grandfather has made a conscious decision to not eat. If true, I don't know what we can do about it. But he has lost weight. He was once very powerful, broad in the shoulders and deep in the chest, like he was when he played fullback on the Harvard Freshman team in 1934. He never had his nose fixed from when it was broken in those days. The thing that intrigued me, as I sat there watching him sleep, was that even though he has shrunk, his hands are still large. The hands don't change and maybe they give you clues about the body they used to be attached to. Parenthetically, hands are very hard for painters to paint correctly. They are complicated little things.

I think that the things you both value and take for granted as you grow older, you lose when you get very old. Privacy is the big one. Not just the privacy you get when you shut the door, but the privacy of silence. It's never quiet at the rehab facility and this is a pretty swank place, too. Still, you hear other televisions, you hear other conversations, you hear other people moaning. You can't lock it out. Noise is a physical assault as it manifests itself in sound waves that crash against your inner ear and cause the ears to vibrate. You don't have the means to protect yourself from that assault. You have no privacy. Unless your hearing is impaired, a mixed blessing under the circumstances.

I left him there, asleep, his hands clasped over his once broad chest. I left him a note telling him that I loved him and wishing him a happy fathers' day.

I spoke to the head nurse about the disassociation of yesterday (again, see two posts below) and she took notes and promised that the doctor would be made aware of it and would evaluate him.

I didn't cry. But it was very close. Close enough, I suppose, that the nurse tried to comfort me.

Underlying all of this, you know, is the thought, the hope, the belief that he's going to snap out of it and get better and be his old self again. That maybe he's just confused because of the painkillers. Any other result I cannot bear to contemplate. And so I don't. I choose not to.

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June 19, 2005

Who are you?

How much of your time do you spend trying to answer the question of who you are, how do you know you exist, what defines you? A least some of it, I bet, if you are at all self-reflective. You have also probably spent more time at various points in your life contemplating this question than at other times in your life. But it's always there -- how do you know?

Descartes had a simple answer -- Cogito ergo sum. Je pense donc Je suis. I think therefore I am. Rene wrote it in Latin, first, but I intially heard it in French. He defined his existence by his capacity for thought. Simple, no?

Too simple. I think that you are defined by what others think of you. Do you really exist if no one knows your name or recognizes you? Or are you a ghost, just sort of touching on this plane, temporally. I think you exist because others believe you exist. You are a hero if you are thought of by others as a hero. You are unkind if, etc. See, other people are, among other things, a mirror to reflect your own existence back at you. Without others, you don't exist, except maybe in your own mind and even then, who can really say. Think about it, too much self reflection, too much self contemplation, too much inside your own head and the rest of the world becomes less, or maybe more, but just the same your existence changes. I think.

Moreover, I think that your family is the most important source of you. What do I mean by that? They set the expectations that you try to measure up to, they are the ones from whom you hope to receive praise for your accomplishments, the ones you keep coming back to in order to affirm your growth, physical or other. They are the wellspring, the measuring stick. They confirm your existence and your place in a hiearchy.

What happens if your existence is suddenly called into question by the rest of the world? Or at least by someone very important?

You crumble. At least a little.

That's what happened to me yesterday.

I took the Girl Child to go see my grandfather in his rehabilitation facility where he was recovering from his broken hip.

He didn't know me. He asked me if we were in Texas and I told him no. He asked where we were and I told him -- in the rehab facility in Westchester, NY. He asked me if I was the Secretary of the facility. I told him no and we discussed how long it might take us to get to a mountain in Nevada. He didn't believe me when I told him how long it took.

I felt like crying.

I think that when my grandfather didn't know who I was, my place in the world became less firm. My existence wavered and I realized, if enough important people don't know who I am, I cease to exist.

I am posting this without re-reading. Sorry if it doesn't make any sense, but I wrote this one all for me. I needed to.

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June 17, 2005

Yay, Margi!

Margi's two year old grandchild is about to get a new aunt or uncle, sometime in 2006! That ought to make family reunions more interesting. I want to be there the first time the grandchild gets to babysit the new aunt or uncle.

YAY, Margi!

Go over and give them your best wishes, will you, I think Margi would appreciate it.

And Margi's the best. They don't come any finer.

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June 14, 2005

A strong finish

It can not matter how you start your day, how you conducted yourself or your affairs during the course of the day, how overwhelmed you may have felt as the day ran on, if, and this is a big if, if you finish strong. For some, that may mean pushing through the pain at the end of a run. That would not be me, that person.

No, yesterday was a day of quiet. Not solitude, not happy quiet, not peaceful reflection. It was a day of feeling the desperate quiet, the stillness that comes from paralysis, not meditation. The frozen feeling of not wanting to take another step because you don't know what's going to reach out, grab your ankle, and send you sprawling all over the mess you are trying to avoid. One of those days. We all have them. I had it almost all day. I left the office to go home a beaten and downtrodden man. I went to bed a happy and rejuvenated guy. How come? Strong finish.

First, I reconnected with someone on the train ride home who is coming in to my office tonight after work to make a presentation to me and another one or two lawyers about a new case. I love, just flat out love, new cases. They are all shiny and fresh and smell like opportunity. I can't yet see all the hard work involved or if I do, I discount it a little in my excitement. She's decided to come in and talk to us because I am the only lawyer who has understood what she was talking about and she has tried to describe this to six or seven others. She's a lawyer too, for that matter. So, that put a spring in my step on the way home.

Then, home to a quick happy summer dinner. The temperature was in the 90's yesterday (and will be even hotter today). It was a day for a cold dinner. I had made, the day before, a salad of white beans, Italian tuna packed in olive oil, fresh pepper, and chopped roasted red peppers. A very simple thing. And then I applied some wine therapy -- the Vino Verde. Instant mood elevation. Vino Verde is from Portugal. It is a young wine, described as a"crisp fruity white, with lemon and green peach flavors". It is also slightly effervescent. A slight but happy fizz. It is a bit dry but very fruity. Not sweet. It is, at around $6 a bottle, the greatest thing to happen to summer wine since beer was sold at baseball parks. It is that good. It is particularly good with things piscine. Or with nothing at all. It is a young wine and meant to be drunk young. Go buy some. You will come back and thank me for it, I guarantee (channeling a little Justin Wilson there, remember him?).

Then, I tumbled on the floor with my children. The kids were like a litter of puppies. It was of no moment that I took a knee to the chin or my son's thumb somehow ended up in my nose. Didn't hurt a bit. They growled and climbed all over me and it was lovely, sublime even. Then stories were read, cuddles and kisses were given, and they were deposited in their beds a good 40 minutes later than usual.

To cap it off, what do I find on the idiot box? Grosse Pointe Blank. I really like this movie. First, I like John Cusack and like just about every movie of his I've ever seen. Second, it's the 1986 high school reunion! That was my graduation year. Third, the music. Finally, what can I say? I like a nice satire now and again. Besides, it has some other great actors in it. I couldn't stay up to watch the whole thing, but what I saw of it made me happy.

Yes indeed, it isn't where you start, it's where you finish.

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June 13, 2005

Devotion

She was terribly piteous in her pain. She moaned and she cried out loud and loudly, without the apparent ability to contain her cries. She was very old as was her husband. She, in a wheel chair, he, mobile and in what looked to be good health. They sat together, bound by what -- duty? love? habit? vows? no other choice? -- and alone, separated by her illness and his health, an unbridgeable vastness. Divided by physical condition. It is an immutable law of nature, I think, that while joy can be shared, pain cannot and it cleaves those formerly joined by love and shared experience. They ate from trays provided by the nursing facility at a round table in a sort of sitting room next to the door to her room. After the meal, he will leave and she will return, alone, to her room. I don't know their names. He called her Bee. He was very patient, almost infinitely patient, caring and tender. He explained to me, helplessly, that it's her back, that she needed an operation but, for some reason he did not explain, the doctors could not perform it. I was there because I had to retrieve the cup my daughter let in my grandfather's room. I was there to help this man, how could I not offer? I gently pulled her back upright in her chair. She had slipped down and he couldn't lift her and I am strong, certainly strong enough to lift a frail old woman and to do so gently so as not to hurt her more than that which I could not avoid. He was grateful and offered to me the back problem as an explanation, as an attempt, I think, to share his burden. Her feet slipped off the leg of the table and he knelt and placed them back on, without complaint, with all the patience in the world. I left them there, eating their dinner, joined by love and divided by pain -- is that melodramatic, that phrase? I hope not. It's how I saw them. Two gray heads together at the table. In truth, while I was saddened terribly, I was humbled by his love for her. I was saddened by the terrible indignity of aging, the thought that the golden years are not golden at all, but. . .

But what, really. I'm not sure. I left them there to go be with my little family. My golden haired smiling children. This reality is not yet mine. I can't share their experience but I could help just a little bit by lending my physical strength and my sympathetic smile to his explanation. Indeed, no one can share their experience. Pain cannot be shared. I watched my children play and thought, I'm glad that's not me in there. Not yet, at least.

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June 10, 2005

Some random thoughts

This barely qualifies as a post, just a collection of random thoughts this morning. Welcome to the pit that is my brain:

*Are thongs over? I have made a careful study of young, attractive, young, fit, and young women in tight summer pants and I am gravely concerned that I see panty lines all over the backside area. Have these women stopped wearing thongs? This is deeply disturbing. Can't somebody do something about this? For the love of God? Please?

*Where does the phrase "so long" come from? So long from what? To what? What's so long? How did this come to mean goodbye.

*Pecans must be the most expensive nut known to packers of mixed nuts. Why else do you only find around six of them in a can of mixed nuts? And why can't you buy them all by themselves, salted? In a way, this concerns me more than the thong question because I like to have mixed nuts in the drawer of my desk and really there isn't that much time during the day that I can devote to looking for thongs. I bet Howard, if he stops by today, will disagree and that's ok. It's a free . . .uh. . . something.

*It's nice to be a regular at your local whatever. It means that you find yourself paying for your breakfast and leaving the tiny joint before the two people in front of you have even been asked for their order yet. Yes, I am the breakfast king this morning. All must bow down before me. Ok, I'm getting a little carried away here, but still, perhaps a small kernel of truth?

*Do you think it's true that it takes at least a year to fully mourn a parent? An editorial I read this morning said that. It said you need a year to go by to fully experience at least one round of holidays without that parent and that each holiday tears it all open anew.

*I attended a reception last night that had, afterwards, a Lilly Pulitzer themed party. I was there at the reception for work, sort of. But the party, let me ask you, would you actually wear a tie that looked like one of these? I declined. It was either that or surrender the last vestige of any self respect I still possess. I had a nice time anyway, catching up with some old acquaintances.

*Picking up the new nanny today at the airport. The current nanny leaves us next Friday. The kids are going to be devastated. Still, they're young, they'll bounce back. But the stress is going to get seriously ratcheted up a notch now. Now, it feels as if the slope is significantly more inclined as we gather speed and move faster and faster towards having to have the house packed for the move. Stress always tastes so good. Well, to be thankful for the little things, at least with this move my wife isn't pregnant. Right, honey? Right?

*I heart the comments most of of you leave. The ones who leave the occasional nasty note, I do not heart. Them I pity. I can't always answer every comment, as much as I would like to, but I read them and I just adore getting them. So, my gracious thanks for the remarks y'all are moved to leave.

*[big sigh] I just figured out that seasons are not capitalized. I have been capitalizing them all along. I wonder where I picked that up from. I don't think French. My wife confirms not in Norwegian either.

*Speaking of summer (note correct capitalization), may I say that I need more fried summer foods. Specifically, fried belly clams. Them's fine eating. Seriously, there are certain things I feel one has to eat in the summer time, when the living is easy, catfish jumping *whap*. Down boy, down. Back to my thought, things one has to eat during the summer include, but are not limited to: fried clams; lobster (I actually like mine broiled over boiled or steamed); steamers; raw clams; watermelon; ripe local tomatoes mixed with raw onion and blue cheese (my four year old loves this, go figure); an ear of corn picked no more than an hour before; berries and cream; grilled burgers (Jim's look good, I'll take two, Jim!); and, surely, a peach so gloriously ripe that the juice runs down your chin and stains your shirt. Leave anything out?

*There. That just about concludes this brain dump instead of a post. Please feel free to either move about the cabin or go back to your regularly scheduled day.

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June 08, 2005

Worms, etc.

The practice of law has been light the last few days. So has blogging. The two are related. The server at the office has a backdoor worm. I'm told that the whole server may have to be taken down and "cleaned".

I, techno-god that I am, immediately had a vision of the Worm Squad, intrepid souls in hazmat suits venturing into the server with explosive tipped probes to kill and/or chase the worm out. They would have voices burred from too much bad whiskey and cigarettes. They would have a devil may care and, at the same time, world weary attitude. They would save our infected machine. Some might die, but they would do so bravely and with an excellent last speech.

Now that sounds kind of cool. Probably much cooler than what they will actually have to do to the machine. What that may be, I still have no idea.

I'm going back to the Worm Squad idea. Go get 'em, guys!

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The Hollywood Cliche

There I was, sweating away on some instrument of torture or other this morning, distracting my mind by looking at the t.v., when some commercial for some silly looking movie came on. As part of the trailer, they showed a rope bridge used to connect two sides of a steep ravine. I'm guessing it was supposed to be in South America but I don't really know. Anyway, it caused me to think of film cliches and here is a partial list:

*Rope bridges between ravines will break when you and only you are at the midpoint.

*Don't be a best friend in a war movie. You will die.

*Never, ever, go into the cellar in a horror movie. Again, death.

*A boy and his dog are soon parted.

*Preachers' kids are wild and dance better than you do.

*Hookers are not crack addicts and have a deep wellspring of sympathy and empathy.

*Many animals can and will talk if you only listen.

*Bad guys often can't shoot straight and if they hit anyone at all, it's the best friend.

*The geeky shy girl? Don't be mean to her. You're going to want to take her to the prom and she's going to be the hottest girl there. And she's going to be smart, too.

This is just a partial list to get people started, if anyone is inclined to play this game with me. Well, are you, punk? (Gratuitous Clint Eastwood reference).

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June 03, 2005

What is friendship, anyway?

I was kicking this question around with my wife last night. The conversation started because she asked me what I get out of this blog, now that I've been doing it for awhile. I told her that, inter alia, I've made some friends and that took us to the question at the heart of this post: can you be friends with someone only through virtual reality? I told her yes but I want to expand upon my thoughts here.

I don't think that you need to be in the same room with someone to be friends with that person. Sure, having a few too many beers with someone, putting 'em in a headlock, giving him a noogie, all while saying "I luuv you, you little fu*ker" is truly a tangible indication of friendship. But is it necessary? No. How many of you have had penpals before? Would you consider them friends? I would.

No, I 've made friends here, even if I can't stay out let and drink/eat/talk too much with them and even if I've only met two of them in person -- Helen and Amanda -- that doesn't mean I don't value them just the same. That said, I sure would like to have drinks with some of you, and I think you know who you are (said in my very best Billy Crystal voice).

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:10 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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A milestone

Yesterday, I reached my 30,000th visitor since moving to MuNu, last year. Wow. I'm kind of stunned by that, to tell the truth. I know that some people come because they are looking for answers to particular questions and Google sends them this way. Some of those questions, by the way, are pretty icky. Others come because they have become friends and they want to check in. I have no idea what brings the rest of you! But, that's ok, too.

One thing that makes it particularly interesting for me to continue is the comments y'all leave. That makes it much more of a conversation and less of a monologue. I am very grateful for the comments. They make it all worthwhile.

So, 30,000 visitors later and maybe, just maybe I can start to think of myself as a writer. Maybe. You see, I find it hard to think of myself like that. Writer. It's such a big word, encompassing multitudes (with thanks to Whitman, there). No, I think I may be more comfortable describing myself with a less pretentious word. Scribbler, maybe. I don't know.

I don't know who my 30,000th visitor was, but he or she was searching for a picture of children holding hands. I think that's rather nice that a request such as that is what brought that person here. I hope you found what you were looking for!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:41 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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