what do you miss?

I miss school to a certain extent. I miss playing second base. I miss watching a girl walk into a room after taking a shower, with a towel around her torso and a towel around her head; the smell is a big part of the experience. I miss black people. I miss bus rides and pad thai and the click-clack sound of high heels on hard floors. I miss running ladders and hearing 15 sneakers simultaneously sneak. I miss pulling on pigtails. I miss all nighters with two packs of camels, red bull, and stimulating, nervous conversation. I miss browsing through the stacks. I miss Nantucket Nectars. I miss the indelible patterns. I miss working the register with De La Soul in the background. I miss accents, American and otherwise. I miss having a nemesis. I miss the infrequent but long-lasting sensation of getting something right and having someone who knows the difference attest to its fundamental rightness. I miss good jukeboxes.

he's the DJ, I'm the rapper

Dear Jefferson Airplane,

Wow. I thought you were just one of those bands that sucked who happened to have a name that overlapped with another band that sucked. I stand corrected. I don’t know anything about anyone of you, other than your datedness. You might be dead. You might own property in Northern California, or perhaps Alberta, Canada.

I think you in particular, girl singer, grabbed my attention. I never want to see a picture of you, because I have a distinct image of seeing lots of tonsils during your set, your mouth all agape enunciating lyrics and shit, with hair shaking and eyes ablaze. Drummer, that whole Revolutionary War percussive feel you lay down brought me back to my days as section leader of the Brandon Valley High School drumline, and I bet you could get all Bonham on the kit for hours if you did as many drugs as the girl singer’s lyrics suggest you all did. By the way singer your lyrics sometimes suck, but for some reason that doesn’t even put a dent into my newfound appreciation.

It seems like you, Jefferson Airplane, might have had potential for militancy, aside from the regular do drugs and disappoint your parents 60s deal. Knowing nothing about the rock history of your era and basing my entire sense of you on “White Rabbit” (I abhor your other song about wanting somebody to love), I will keep to my own imaginative devices as far as establishing a sense of who you were and what kind of difference you made on my parents’ generation. Normally I am adamant about avoiding any music listed by either of my parents as something they listened to prior to getting jobs, getting married, and becoming boring, but since my encounter with you was organic I shall dispense of the rule with alacrity.

Still grateful they’re dead,

ME

Dear nameless ancillary character in my dream last night who looked kind of like an older version of my childhood neighbor Martin, whose mom (Martin’s) used to lock him out of the house all day during the summer because she was a crazy bitch:

Why did you insist on repeatedly pantomiming Eliot Smith’s purported suicide? You are obviously my own creation, which makes you all the more vexing, but all the indie kids I know who live in cities and go to coffeeshops to have elaborate conversations about esoteric aesthetic conundrums dispute the suicide theory. Are you telling me that I do not dispute the suicide theory of Mr. Smith?

Dear my friend in SoDak who’s getting married:

So, you finally asked her huh? I was wondering when that would happen. She is a good woman, and has a name destined for the Name Hall of Fame. Because I am uncertain as to the feasibility of myself and marriage having anything to do with one another, I will live vicariously through you and periodically put your kids on my knee and/or teach them how to ride a bike. I assume you are ok with this. I would appreciate being called Uncle as well. Also, because I carry the Y chromosome and have a hard time saying things in person that are invested with large amounts of personal feeling and emotion, I will not go into great detail about how weird (but wonderful) it is to see someone I’ve known for sixteen or so years have this piece of a life’s puzzle fall perfectly into place.

Forever and ever,

ME

Dear Opening Day:

I took off work on Monday just for you and the fearful symmetry you birth.

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone."

To masochistic reveling in the chance to have a broken heart again soon,

ME

What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence

With choker, tractor, and chainsaw in tow, I just assisted an illegal, because permit-less, excavation of snags that sat across the creek that flows through the property on which my place of work sits. Here is how it workds:

Chain the truck to a tree. Start the truck so you don't wear down the battery and have to walk back. Let out as much line as you need to get to whichever tree you've chosen. Chain the wench to the choker. Set the choker around the base of the tree. Walk back to the truck. Bum a smoke of the guy who's having you do the work. Push the switch, which pulls the line to which the choker is attached. Watch the tree inch its away toward you. Periodically push the line of cable over so it wraps evenly. Stop if the dead tree’s going to catch on one that still stands. If it will, start the chainsaw and groom as needed. Be careful not to let the sawdust land in open water. Take mud and smear at the on white wound you’ve made with the saw. Tow the logs with the tractor. Buck em. Stack em. Go eat your chicken noodle soup.

Creating a hermetic, self-negating leviathan of adolescent intertextuality may be more fun than reading one

I work at a place that has gradual obsolescence built into its very fabric: every two years, out with the old, in with the new. Unexpected departures are not part of the game plan, which generally gives unsubstantiated rumors an aura of plausibility simply because our game plans are poor models on which to base expectations.

Though they are rare, departures have some continuity. They usually happen on Fridays, and are usually leaked to someone in the office, which original leak births tiny seepages to certain individuals. Luckily, cantankerous career planning and maneuvering does not take place amongst the people in the know. False smiles, yes; backstabbing, yes, historically but not since I’ve been here.

I never was in a fraternity but my workplace sometimes reminds me of how I imagine they work in terms of relating stories about departed graduates to incoming pledges. Lots of nicknames listed, descriptions of crazy hard-to-believe things given, and a thin skin of residual influence over those who remained.

Anyway. The tension is building. Hushed whispers and conspiratorial glances are being exchanged. I don’t want to have to witness the reconstructive surgery that will be required if what I hear is going to happen actually happens, but I don’t want to up and leave either.

The deed has been done; the meeting has been had; and now I have a long drive to think about what the hell I’m doing. Bon voyage.

Non Sequiturs

Louis Armstrong has a penchant for being good. The same goes for Simmons on the Madness. A very drunk Irishman I encountered last night on the street declaimed that Pacific is going all the way. A girl I worked with asked: where is Pacific at? in response. I always pick teams I can’t stand, and then they lose. Being bossless isn’t as good as being your own boss, but almost. What rodent does Rep. Waxman, D-CA remind you of? I followed coyote tracks for my whole lunch break yesterday. That song about the tunnels is quite good. Does Adam Morrison look like the singer or the bass player to you? My last haircut came courtesy of my father, and now that my hair’s longer I can see how shitty a job he did, which sounds like a complaint but is more of an observation. The person nearest to me was just asked: “Want some dental floss?” Pizza Face just asked me to review her memo. Chiwetel Ejiofor what? Ineffable essence of what's inside you/me what? Unbroken chain of boredom what? They say a watched pot will never boil. That dog won’t hunt. People in the office are getting excited about the arrival of the Warped Tour in July. The Warped Tour, for shit’s sake. 75% of the discussion in my on-line class revolves around teaching Latin to middle schoolers. One asshole wrote his post in Latin. I now know more about the respective state legislative agendas of New Jersey and Virginia than any citizen who does not lobby might need to know. I’ve come across three quotes today that think of reading and writing as activities with which we fend off existential loneliness. Do you feel less lonely? I do.

Norwegian Pride

NOT BECAUSE A GOOD DOSE OF SINCERE, SOMEWHAT DORKISH SENTIMENT BATTLES AGAINST THE DELUSION OF SELF-IMPORTANCE CONFERRED BY THIS MEDIUM, BUT SIMPLY BECAUSE

statements about my grandfather, Sigvald Helland, aged 84, an Norwegian American, or American Norwegian, depending on what about part of the 20^th century you’re talking

1) In his youth, my grandfather was a Norwegian sailor in the merchant marine who twice took to the broiling waters of the sea with his compatriots following a German torpedo attack. As an adult, he was a carpenter and small business owner who took obsessive pride in keeping the lumber yard he owned immaculate and his shop all the more so.
2) I remember watching him work in his shop after retiring. He would cut two or three boards with a circular saw, stop to sweep up the sawdust, and then cut two or three more. It was not like he was obsessive-compulsive; he just liked the rhythm of sawing and sweeping, sawing and sweeping.

3) Upon retirement, my grandfather built my parents’ house, my uncle’s house, and a house on Jackson Lake in Minnesota. He hired myself out as a carpenter who served rich people in southeastern South Dakota and southwestern Minnesota. In between projects, he taught me how to fish.
4) My grandfather likes to be taken on drives these days, and he has the unconscious habit of naming the places we pass because I think it helps orient him and avoid succumbing to that that terrible feeling of being lost in places in which you used to be familiar. He can’t remember seeing stores that came into being two years ago, so he always ask if they are new.

5) To this day, whenever we go out to eat, which unusually involves going to Perkins, always gets “freedom fries” on the side and admonishes the waitress for calling them French fries. He is being ironic, which is rare if not unheard of for my grandfather.

6) My grandfather’s basic unadorned goodness is the source of the little Norwegian pride I have. Norwegian pride is understated, soft spoken, slightly socialistic in its disdain for being too "me! me!" That sentiment is largely overwhelmed by a crasser, less at peace pride denuded of ethnic specificity and dependent on equating triumph of the self with the undoing of the other. But sometimes this is not so. Cheers to old people everywhere.

Food for thought, or food for unstinting aversion to thought

H. CON. RES. 94

Recognizing the public need for reconciliation and healing, urging the United States to unite in seeking God, and recommending that the Nation's leaders call for days of prayer.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 4, 1999

Mrs. CHENOWETH (for herself, Mr. ARMEY, Mr. DELAY, Mr. ADERHOLT, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. COBURN, Mr. CUNNINGHAM, Mr. DICKEY, Mr. DOOLITTLE, Mr. FOSSELLA, Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. HAYES, Mr. HAYWORTH, Mr. HILL of Montana, Mr. HILLEARY, Mr. HOSTETTLER, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. ISTOOK, Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky, Mr. MCINTOSH, Mr. METCALF, Mrs. MYRICK, Mr. NETHERCUTT, Mr. PICKERING, Mr. PITTS, Mr. RYUN of Kansas, Mr. SCHAFFER, Mr. STEARNS, Mr. TANCREDO, Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina, and Mr. WALDEN of Oregon) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Government Reform

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CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Recognizing the public need for reconciliation and healing, urging the United States to unite in seeking God, and recommending that the Nation's leaders call for days of prayer.

Whereas it is the necessary duty of the people of this Nation not only to humbly offer up our prayers and needs to Almighty God, but also in a solemn and public manner to confess our shortcomings;

Whereas it is incumbent on all public bodies, as well as private persons, to revere and rely on God Almighty for our day-to-day existence, as well as to follow the charge to love and serve one another;

Whereas we have witnessed the rejection of God's love through gratuitous violence and mayhem, hate, abuse, exploitation, abandonment, and other harms, much of which has been directed at the most vulnerable of our society, our children;

Whereas oppression, violence, cultural and ethnic division, strife, and murder have stained our communities and the world;

Whereas we are compelled to remind the people of the United States of the events that currently burden the hearts of the people, including--

(1) the senseless murder of our young people in Jonesboro, Arkansas, West Paduca, Kentucky, Springfield, Oregon, Pearl, Mississippi, and Littleton, Colorado;

(2) the brutal deaths of individuals by dragging, beating, burning, and exposure in Texas, Alabama, and Wyoming; and

(3) the civil unrest, systematic genocide, and religious and political persecution in Yugoslavia, Tibet, Turkey, China, Rwanda, and Sudan;

Whereas despite all, we as a Nation have been blessed with great prosperity and an unprecedented period of economic stability, for which we owe a debt of gratitude; and

Whereas in previous times of public need and moral crisis, the Congress and the President have recommended the observance of a day of solemn prayer, fasting, and humiliation: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That the Congress--

(1) recognizes the unique opportunity that the dawn of a millennium presents to a people in a Nation under God to humble and reconcile themselves with God and with one another;

(2) urges all Americans to unite in seeking the face of God through humble prayer and fasting, persistently asking God to send spiritual strength and a renewed sense of humility to the Nation so that hate and indifference may be replaced with love and compassion, and so that the suffering in the Nation and the world may be healed by the hand of God; and

(3) recommends that the leaders in national, State, and local governments, in business, and in the clergy appoint, and call the people they serve to observe, a day of solemn prayer, fasting, and humiliation before God.

Can't Stand It, Much Less Stomach It

We all dig our own graves, and as the Nietszchemeister had it, we mine as well have fun doing it. Whether in three flats in big shouldered cities with effluvial emanations rising from the storm drains, in bed sharing projects with strangers we’ve come to know well within the temperate climes of the left handed Coast, or in temporally configured spaces of worn out houses whose accessories are for sale signs in the front yard and vehicles which no longer run in back – it’s a zero sum game, no matter where it is played or how its rules are formulated.

Nights I am hospitable to; mornings leave me ragged. I have discovered, that at least in the early hours, garbage strewn city streets are no better and no worse than carrion laden county roads, provided that acknowledgement of what goes on demands no more and no less than cognizance of what gets in.

Things that have gotten me out of bed in the morning in the past week or so:

- Track number 6 of the Beatnuts’ “Musical Massacre”

- Debt

- Alarm clock of roommate who had departed

- Smell of coffee

- Smell of wet dog – other roommate’s girlfriend’s dog

- Innate joy at being alive and unmutilated

- Nascent hangover

- Inexorable need to go out and make a difference

Oh my. Solipsism for its own sake is the nadir of this medium: no comments, no trace of having been present to late night musings, no slippage on icy surfaces witnessed by casual passers by who might pause to consider the accident that might have been.

Perhaps we’ve been tricked, symbolist poetry having meant something after all. Sullen acquiescence makes me wonder if it would be possible to borrow some money to pay for three more hours to pursue tonight until it runs its course and have no consequence to pay tomorrow. Which, incidentally, is today. Cheers. Overhung and outlasted, notwithstanding.