Two weeks ago, on sage advice from one of my favorite Bill Murray movies, I tried taking a vacation from my problems, or more specifically from my stomach problem of which last week the doctors had informed me that without a great risk of damaging nerves in my esophagus there is nothing that they can do. Thankfully, because of a much needed coincidence, I was able to share this vacation with my brother and his wife, both teachers, who flew to Boston all the way from Victoria, BC (a sleepy city on the west coast of Canada for the geographically impaired) on their own spring break. Though the pace of their seven-day visit was furious it was more than welcomed. We spent some time with relatives, enjoyed a St. Paddy’s Day in the Irish capital of the US (complete with beer and green plastic hats), and had a quality pub meal complemented by glasses of 18 year old Jameson’s. Despite the discomfort the drinking caused it was as passionately nostalgic as sex with an ex. And to have a partner in crime as insightful as my brother to share of a joint with was sublime.
But the week that followed lingered like the howl of the Big Bad Wolf with a belly full of kicking screaming grandmas. I found myself facing the reality of a sojourn not just from whiskey but weed as well knowing that smoking, over time, also intensifies my stomach problems.
Contrary to what might be popular belief were anyone to actually read this blog, I am not what many consider a typical chronic having found that a smoke once or twice a week is more rewarding than being stoned daily. Nonetheless, I will be looking for something to satiate my ever-present impulse for new perspective while my lungs take their overdue break. This is why tomorrow I plan to head up to Salem.
Though Salem is a town often spurned by seasoned travelers outside of October its history intrigues me. Were I to get into my musings on this 383 year old Puritan settlement that created its culture of witchcraft by trying to destroy it before it even existed this already long-winded blog would turn into an even longer-winded essay (one I would expect few to read). Instead, I will reluctantly ignore the infinity of events that have occurred in this grimly enlightened New England town beneath a myriad of celestial events both seen and unseen skipping right up to the most recent solstice during which three people, both friends and family, enthusiastically had their palms read by a Wicca high priestess with an enchanting tattoo in the middle of her forehead.
However vague her insights were they were not inaccurate and varied accordingly for both my brother and I even though, at a glance, our hands are quite similar. She pegged my brother as a musician, myself as a writer; my brother as flexible, myself as stubborn and she detected twins in our family line. Turns out Jack and I are (not identical) twins. She also mentioned that I was not only a leader of armies in a past life but also possibly a king. Now I’m not one to believe in past lives but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t always feel that I had at least a little bit of king in me. Regardless of a lack of specific truths my imagination was pleasantly roused, which is why this week, despite my doubts that cards picked at random can in any way reflect anything about a person, I will visit the high priestess to put more than just a little quizzical faith in her thirty plus years of experience reading tarot.
To write this blog, which you might have just thought was finished, I had to flip through my notebook to dig up some of the ideas that I sketched down about the palm readings. As I did I found the following note that I had wrote some months ago while stoned on the train from Salem back to North Station.
Curiosity did not kill the cat. No my friends, the ever curious cat is alive and well. That old cliché is just an oversimplified exemplum. A farce. It is a story of unwarranted precaution told by protective parents to their ever-vulnerable children on the night their little Bootsie did not return. The children’s mutable nature, made immutable never allows them to question. Had they forgot to ask where poor Bootsie’s body was? Perhaps (just perhaps?), instead of death Bootsie had simply rediscovered the primal pleasure of a squirming fluttering sparrow under its paw or the predator's allure of a night lit by moon. And though it may be true that some of Bootsie’s indirect descendents (fattened by oily tuna and pillows thicker than your grandmother’s pie crust) lost their ancient instincts and met their fate let’s say, during ill-conceived leaps onto stove-tops, in more than a few his spirit (and his ancestors') lives on.
So children, if you really let yourself think about it you might find yourself asking; if curiosity kills the cat, where do curious cats come from?
Yesterday, related or not, I got a call from a particularly inquisitive doctor who had, out of an unwillingness to say he did not know what was wrong, scheduled me for an expensive C.A.T. scan despite the chances that nothing new would show up. Turns out this C.A.T. scan showed a para-esophageal hernia that none of the other tests had revealed. I will be seeing another surgeon next week to find out if it can be operated on. The doctor (I wonder if he would mind me calling him Dr. Bootsie?) seems to have high hopes for its success.
March 28, 2009
March 10, 2009
On (or rather off) the Ways of the Bandaloop
I finished my second read through Tom Robbin’s Jitterbug Perfume while sitting in Faneuil Hall chop-sticking my way through a vegetable-deficient chicken-tumored stir-fry. I had a good seat at a table for four around the atrium’s opening on the second floor (a prime spot during the lunch rush with its sparrow-eyed view of the first floor) and directly in the upward path of the many warm aromas drifting from the various vendors -- their collective cuisine as varied as a UN potluck. So despite the inappropriate grub I felt that I was in a fitting place to indulge in the final arcane suggestions of one of my favorite books.
That is until a murder of adolescents ascended the stairs. If only they were crows. In the wake of their cackling came a few haggard teachers or chaperones whose only duty seemed to be to tell the rabble to keep their feet on the floor lest they lean to far over the railing and learn the lessons of gravity for themselves. It was plenty clear that not one of them was interested in telling the pimply individual that usurped a seat and the other half of my table that I was nose deep in an ethereal experience.
The last time (and first time) I finished reading Jitterbug Perfume I was sitting in the loft of a tranquil Alaskan log cabin. The most determined sunlight I have ever encountered came through the windows to rest on the pages. In front of me was half a bottle of Merlot; one of thirty from the first case of wine I ever purchased (nostalgia anyone?). The rest were waiting in the cabin’s basement like a gospel choir waiting in the wings. Outside was Alaska’s alpine jungle with its Devil’s Club blossoming oxymoronical. I had just descended from the mountains that morning surrounded by plant life whispering “prehistoric” (amongst which I imagined there were more than two barn swallows frantically copulating) and was comfortably giddy (led about the dance floor by the wine perhaps) with self-reflection finding myself open to a new concept of possibility.
Sigh.
One of the writhing fashion conscious brood tried to wrestle something out of the seated one's hands. The seated one was not only the pimpliest but also the biggest and retained his trinket easily. The exchange (or lack there of) yanked me out of my romantic memory. Resolved then to deal with the situation myself I decided to say “hello” to this kid who plopped into my company without so much as a nod. He glanced up for about as long as it takes a byte to bite off whatever it is that it chews then went back to staring into the blue screen of the trinket like a chronic into the void thumb typing all the while. I considered smacking (gently like the big wolf’s teeth against the little wolf’s heels) his Red Sox hat (holographic sticker still in place the way the big boys wear them) off his head but resisted in fear that his vacant automatonistic overseers would spark to life at the opportunity to stand for something. Is it not a greater crime to let children grow up retarded (for the inanely politically correct this term is not to be confused with an actual mental handicap)?
While I wondered about this and the time that I saw the director of the school I worked for in Korea karate kick two misbehaving students in the backpacks (he had instructed them to hold the backpacks over their child bellies) I found myself reading the words, “Indigo. Indigoing. Indigone.” Finished, I folded the wings of the book disappointed the words did not take flight with the same spirit that I remembered when I was surrounded by that now distant wilderness. Figures, I guess. These days, in the old concrete jungle with its rigid unidirectional view of progress, I have been getting the feeling that my wild duck flying backwards is locked in the crosshairs on the verge of a sidelong plummet back to the stagnant swamp.
That is until a murder of adolescents ascended the stairs. If only they were crows. In the wake of their cackling came a few haggard teachers or chaperones whose only duty seemed to be to tell the rabble to keep their feet on the floor lest they lean to far over the railing and learn the lessons of gravity for themselves. It was plenty clear that not one of them was interested in telling the pimply individual that usurped a seat and the other half of my table that I was nose deep in an ethereal experience.
The last time (and first time) I finished reading Jitterbug Perfume I was sitting in the loft of a tranquil Alaskan log cabin. The most determined sunlight I have ever encountered came through the windows to rest on the pages. In front of me was half a bottle of Merlot; one of thirty from the first case of wine I ever purchased (nostalgia anyone?). The rest were waiting in the cabin’s basement like a gospel choir waiting in the wings. Outside was Alaska’s alpine jungle with its Devil’s Club blossoming oxymoronical. I had just descended from the mountains that morning surrounded by plant life whispering “prehistoric” (amongst which I imagined there were more than two barn swallows frantically copulating) and was comfortably giddy (led about the dance floor by the wine perhaps) with self-reflection finding myself open to a new concept of possibility.
Sigh.
One of the writhing fashion conscious brood tried to wrestle something out of the seated one's hands. The seated one was not only the pimpliest but also the biggest and retained his trinket easily. The exchange (or lack there of) yanked me out of my romantic memory. Resolved then to deal with the situation myself I decided to say “hello” to this kid who plopped into my company without so much as a nod. He glanced up for about as long as it takes a byte to bite off whatever it is that it chews then went back to staring into the blue screen of the trinket like a chronic into the void thumb typing all the while. I considered smacking (gently like the big wolf’s teeth against the little wolf’s heels) his Red Sox hat (holographic sticker still in place the way the big boys wear them) off his head but resisted in fear that his vacant automatonistic overseers would spark to life at the opportunity to stand for something. Is it not a greater crime to let children grow up retarded (for the inanely politically correct this term is not to be confused with an actual mental handicap)?
While I wondered about this and the time that I saw the director of the school I worked for in Korea karate kick two misbehaving students in the backpacks (he had instructed them to hold the backpacks over their child bellies) I found myself reading the words, “Indigo. Indigoing. Indigone.” Finished, I folded the wings of the book disappointed the words did not take flight with the same spirit that I remembered when I was surrounded by that now distant wilderness. Figures, I guess. These days, in the old concrete jungle with its rigid unidirectional view of progress, I have been getting the feeling that my wild duck flying backwards is locked in the crosshairs on the verge of a sidelong plummet back to the stagnant swamp.
March 2, 2009
Twenty-five Things
I have been trying to write critically about the “25 Random Things” craze on facebook for several days now. My intent was to tie the critique in with one of the issues I have with the site itself. That is its function as a real-time gauge of what is and is not socially acceptable (facebook not only presents cool it also directs it (lame is the new cool if this idea confuses anyone)). But as I read more of these "notes" I found myself engaged in a guilty obsession not unlike my guilty obsession with video games. The latter is a guilt I have almost reconciled with the realization that a video game, created with care and intent, has the potential to be something good, even artful. Laughing unacronymizingly out loud at some of my “friend's” lists I began to wonder if something similar could be said of this self-indulgent phenomenon.
Tom Robbins once said of Leonard Cohen that no one could speak the word "naked" as nakedly as the master poet. However reluctantly, I’ve come to feel that nothing whispers "naked" as coyly as our collected confessions do bundled so snugly in packs of 25 (two baker’s dozens minus one or a shiny shiny quarter). Presented in the right context (a Chuck Palahniuk or Kurt Vonnegut novel?) some of the introspective things people pounded out on the web could pass as creative character descriptions. How far of a stretch would it be for one to isolate a portion of their note to create a loveable protagonist or even a contemptible antagonist? The desire would have to be there and a talent for the written word, which, like a carpenter’s electronic stud finder, provides a writer with confidence and enables proliferation. The proper imagination functions like mechanical intuition. But these tools and skills are mostly utilized to give art its form. The essence of it remains a propensity to suggest the profound. Self-reflection must be a part of discovering the profound and, at the very least, can play the old hammer in the carpenter/art metaphor (head dented like a steel drum, paint splattered on the wooden handle). In an attempt to better articulate this idea I fashioned together a few of my favorite notes. I transferred them into the third person, stylized them only a little and for shits and giggles (at Kundera’s expense) have named the character they created Tamina.
She has virgin hair but does not own knives. She does not cut tomatoes rather smushes them (an annoying tendency to keep doing things inadequately when the solution is incredibly obvious). Tamina likes winter and feels the need to admit this to people. Crisp cool days out in the snow; the burning feeling in your face and hands when you come in from being outside reminds her of being a child. As a child she believed all dogs were males, all cats were females, and that they had babies together. The girl babies would be kittens, the boy babies dogs.
When I reread that bit (contemplating on how we create (and recreate) ourselves on facebook and in our analog lives) I found myself embracing a sentiment not that we are all writers but that we all have a potential writer inside of us.
As expected, even with this thought, a theoretically complete concept of what a writer might be still escapes me. It's something I often struggle with even though outwardly I find myself surrendered to the reality that I will never be paid for my thoughts or my articulation of them. In spite of this, I inwardly embrace the struggle and continue to write, to dream of publication and the power of words.
I strongly dislike the word nice and usually anything regarded as nice. Niceness is often a veil. It obscures truth. Disney, fruity martinis, Sunday school, and sushi are examples of things I passionately avoid because of this.
As nice as they appear fake breasts make me sad. Once, a number of years ago, I spent a short time in the presence of a very large pair. They are still the only breasts in my life that I do not look back upon fondly . Nonetheless I am guilty of (many) erections inspired by these silicon jubblies and am probably, in some people’s minds, guilty of objectifying women; a concept that I also struggle with on a daily basis.
My guilt is probably the most destructive force in my life. It chokes my inspiration the way Seoul’s smog choked my breath and I often find it as oppressing as I do American law. It is directly connected to my catholic upbringing though not necessarily the fault of my parents rather a school system that was probably one of the last denominational school systems on the continent. The change to a non-denominational system happened when I was in junior high but not soon enough to curb my eighth grade teacher’s religious vehemence. She harangued the class constantly about the sin of masturbation. Because of this I stopped these joyful releases for almost six months until I neared a state of self-combustion and xenoglossy not unlike that of a particular burning bush.
I lived in Korea for almost a year. During that time I developed a strong dislike for modern Korean culture. This is not because they sometimes teach their children to dislike foreigners or because many of them believe that if one sleeps in a room with a fan on and the doors and windows shut that it will create some sort of oxygen void vortex that will kill you. It is also not because of the pervasive nationalism that during international sporting events borders on insanity. I dislike Korea because of its never ending cities and its peoples unrivaled love (Japan excepting) of technology. Like no other place I’ve seen I felt a deep tragic remorse for the remaining Korean country side with its rolling hills and temples tucked so neat and beautiful in their wooded crags. On one of my many hikes I was invited into one of these temples. Out of respect I knelt and bowed, dropped some Korean deniro with its excessive zeros into a box then walked back out to watch the sun disappear behind a hill. The sky was an electric orange brightened by Seoul’s drifting pollution. I wept, not for any religious reasons, but for the monks and the infinitesimal blot that their delicately cultivated countryside occupied in a country almost equal in size to my delicately populated Newfoundland.
My travel experiences are not as vast and numerous as I wish they were but I have seen a few different parts of the world. These experiences helped me to realize that if I had to choose a place to grow old I would choose Newfoundland. Not for the people or culture, though I am sometimes fond of both, but for the tuckamore tress and an ocean that fills me with fear and wonder.
I do not intend to "grow old".
At a younger age than most my hair started to fall out. Until recently I always looked older than I was. Sarah insists that the long-term effect of this is that I will appear “timeless”. I do not know if this is true but it makes me happy that she thinks so. In any case, I have never been that attached to my head hair though I like to think that if I had any it would be longish and bedraggled.
I sometimes think of myself as a hippy.
I went to Alaska when I was twenty-one to explore my hippy side. During my first day there, wandering about Anchorage, I saw my first magpie. There is a very acute image in my mind of this black and white bird taking flight (plucky maverick of the corvid family with blue secondaries as flashy as racing stripes). I was aware that it was the first magpie I had ever seen though I did not know it was a magpie. I’ve been intrigued by birds ever since.
On that same day I asked a girl named Cat whom I had just met to go on a date. It was the first time I had ever spontaneously asked a girl out. Subsequently the date ended poorly.
I am not a ladies man.
To convince Sarah to go out with me I had to drive her across Canada. I think I had her attention by Ottawa (on Canada Day), her interest by Banff but wasn’t certain of any of it until we got to Victoria. The trip took seventeen days. Every moment was intoxicating (not intoxicated). It is my favorite love story.
I love to be intoxicated.
One of the most memorable drug experiences of my life happened on the beach near where I grew up. I was in the company of some of my closest friends and a hefty bag of Newfie shrooms. The skies were clear and filled with countless sparkling mysteries. My brother, an astrophysicist, tousled our brains throughout the night with anecdotes of distant planets and galaxy formations.
Sometimes I think that I would have made a good scientist. The problem is that my work ethic peaked when I was in Grade 8. At the end of that school year I received an award for Academic Excellence and another for Consistent and Dedicated Effort. I was utterly disappointed. The only award I wanted to win was Athlete of the Year. It was the last time I received an academic award.
As my academic success declined my true calling in life began to reveal itself. Unfortunately shepherds have become obsolete.
I do not have a profession and have no interest in any (excepting the aforementioned shepherding). In the past ten years I have been employed as a day camp councilor, a breakfast cook, an electrician’s helper, a baker’s assistant, a kayak guide, a river guide, a housekeeper, a security guard, a teacher (ESL), an environmental worker, and most recently (ever so briefly) a fisheries observer.
There was a time when Jack London was my favorite author. I have read “White Fang” several times.
I named my second car Buck. It was my first standard shift. I drove it very poorly. It was a very fitting name.
My first car was a ‘86 Buick LeSabre. I purchased it in Boston for a hundred dollars. My friend Sully and I drove it back to Newfoundland. We made it to the island but just after Deer Lake I turned on the cruise control and fell asleep at the wheel. The Buick went off the road at about 120 km/hr and rolled over twice. I spent three days in intensive care, a catheter firmly in place. Sully still has the scar tissue on his forearm. I thought that this was a remarkable story until I went out into the world and heard more of other people’s tragedies.
I enjoy hearing other people’s stories almost as much as I enjoy telling my own.
The older I get the less concerned I am about whether or not other people enjoy my storytelling. Because of this development I tend to indulge more and more in my long-windedness.
The last time I tried to read the Bible I got as far as the Book of Numbers got bored and had to skip ahead to the book of Joshua. Between the Book of Joshua and the Second Book of the Kings I thought there were some pretty good stories though most of it was just prattle. Somewhere in the First Book of the Chronicles I had to put the fucking thing down.
I don’t believe in god, especially Abraham’s, but I do have a strong impulse to believe that everything is connected.
Tom Robbins once said of Leonard Cohen that no one could speak the word "naked" as nakedly as the master poet. However reluctantly, I’ve come to feel that nothing whispers "naked" as coyly as our collected confessions do bundled so snugly in packs of 25 (two baker’s dozens minus one or a shiny shiny quarter). Presented in the right context (a Chuck Palahniuk or Kurt Vonnegut novel?) some of the introspective things people pounded out on the web could pass as creative character descriptions. How far of a stretch would it be for one to isolate a portion of their note to create a loveable protagonist or even a contemptible antagonist? The desire would have to be there and a talent for the written word, which, like a carpenter’s electronic stud finder, provides a writer with confidence and enables proliferation. The proper imagination functions like mechanical intuition. But these tools and skills are mostly utilized to give art its form. The essence of it remains a propensity to suggest the profound. Self-reflection must be a part of discovering the profound and, at the very least, can play the old hammer in the carpenter/art metaphor (head dented like a steel drum, paint splattered on the wooden handle). In an attempt to better articulate this idea I fashioned together a few of my favorite notes. I transferred them into the third person, stylized them only a little and for shits and giggles (at Kundera’s expense) have named the character they created Tamina.
She has virgin hair but does not own knives. She does not cut tomatoes rather smushes them (an annoying tendency to keep doing things inadequately when the solution is incredibly obvious). Tamina likes winter and feels the need to admit this to people. Crisp cool days out in the snow; the burning feeling in your face and hands when you come in from being outside reminds her of being a child. As a child she believed all dogs were males, all cats were females, and that they had babies together. The girl babies would be kittens, the boy babies dogs.
When I reread that bit (contemplating on how we create (and recreate) ourselves on facebook and in our analog lives) I found myself embracing a sentiment not that we are all writers but that we all have a potential writer inside of us.
As expected, even with this thought, a theoretically complete concept of what a writer might be still escapes me. It's something I often struggle with even though outwardly I find myself surrendered to the reality that I will never be paid for my thoughts or my articulation of them. In spite of this, I inwardly embrace the struggle and continue to write, to dream of publication and the power of words.
I strongly dislike the word nice and usually anything regarded as nice. Niceness is often a veil. It obscures truth. Disney, fruity martinis, Sunday school, and sushi are examples of things I passionately avoid because of this.
As nice as they appear fake breasts make me sad. Once, a number of years ago, I spent a short time in the presence of a very large pair. They are still the only breasts in my life that I do not look back upon fondly . Nonetheless I am guilty of (many) erections inspired by these silicon jubblies and am probably, in some people’s minds, guilty of objectifying women; a concept that I also struggle with on a daily basis.
My guilt is probably the most destructive force in my life. It chokes my inspiration the way Seoul’s smog choked my breath and I often find it as oppressing as I do American law. It is directly connected to my catholic upbringing though not necessarily the fault of my parents rather a school system that was probably one of the last denominational school systems on the continent. The change to a non-denominational system happened when I was in junior high but not soon enough to curb my eighth grade teacher’s religious vehemence. She harangued the class constantly about the sin of masturbation. Because of this I stopped these joyful releases for almost six months until I neared a state of self-combustion and xenoglossy not unlike that of a particular burning bush.
I lived in Korea for almost a year. During that time I developed a strong dislike for modern Korean culture. This is not because they sometimes teach their children to dislike foreigners or because many of them believe that if one sleeps in a room with a fan on and the doors and windows shut that it will create some sort of oxygen void vortex that will kill you. It is also not because of the pervasive nationalism that during international sporting events borders on insanity. I dislike Korea because of its never ending cities and its peoples unrivaled love (Japan excepting) of technology. Like no other place I’ve seen I felt a deep tragic remorse for the remaining Korean country side with its rolling hills and temples tucked so neat and beautiful in their wooded crags. On one of my many hikes I was invited into one of these temples. Out of respect I knelt and bowed, dropped some Korean deniro with its excessive zeros into a box then walked back out to watch the sun disappear behind a hill. The sky was an electric orange brightened by Seoul’s drifting pollution. I wept, not for any religious reasons, but for the monks and the infinitesimal blot that their delicately cultivated countryside occupied in a country almost equal in size to my delicately populated Newfoundland.
My travel experiences are not as vast and numerous as I wish they were but I have seen a few different parts of the world. These experiences helped me to realize that if I had to choose a place to grow old I would choose Newfoundland. Not for the people or culture, though I am sometimes fond of both, but for the tuckamore tress and an ocean that fills me with fear and wonder.
I do not intend to "grow old".
At a younger age than most my hair started to fall out. Until recently I always looked older than I was. Sarah insists that the long-term effect of this is that I will appear “timeless”. I do not know if this is true but it makes me happy that she thinks so. In any case, I have never been that attached to my head hair though I like to think that if I had any it would be longish and bedraggled.
I sometimes think of myself as a hippy.
I went to Alaska when I was twenty-one to explore my hippy side. During my first day there, wandering about Anchorage, I saw my first magpie. There is a very acute image in my mind of this black and white bird taking flight (plucky maverick of the corvid family with blue secondaries as flashy as racing stripes). I was aware that it was the first magpie I had ever seen though I did not know it was a magpie. I’ve been intrigued by birds ever since.
On that same day I asked a girl named Cat whom I had just met to go on a date. It was the first time I had ever spontaneously asked a girl out. Subsequently the date ended poorly.
I am not a ladies man.
To convince Sarah to go out with me I had to drive her across Canada. I think I had her attention by Ottawa (on Canada Day), her interest by Banff but wasn’t certain of any of it until we got to Victoria. The trip took seventeen days. Every moment was intoxicating (not intoxicated). It is my favorite love story.
I love to be intoxicated.
One of the most memorable drug experiences of my life happened on the beach near where I grew up. I was in the company of some of my closest friends and a hefty bag of Newfie shrooms. The skies were clear and filled with countless sparkling mysteries. My brother, an astrophysicist, tousled our brains throughout the night with anecdotes of distant planets and galaxy formations.
Sometimes I think that I would have made a good scientist. The problem is that my work ethic peaked when I was in Grade 8. At the end of that school year I received an award for Academic Excellence and another for Consistent and Dedicated Effort. I was utterly disappointed. The only award I wanted to win was Athlete of the Year. It was the last time I received an academic award.
As my academic success declined my true calling in life began to reveal itself. Unfortunately shepherds have become obsolete.
I do not have a profession and have no interest in any (excepting the aforementioned shepherding). In the past ten years I have been employed as a day camp councilor, a breakfast cook, an electrician’s helper, a baker’s assistant, a kayak guide, a river guide, a housekeeper, a security guard, a teacher (ESL), an environmental worker, and most recently (ever so briefly) a fisheries observer.
There was a time when Jack London was my favorite author. I have read “White Fang” several times.
I named my second car Buck. It was my first standard shift. I drove it very poorly. It was a very fitting name.
My first car was a ‘86 Buick LeSabre. I purchased it in Boston for a hundred dollars. My friend Sully and I drove it back to Newfoundland. We made it to the island but just after Deer Lake I turned on the cruise control and fell asleep at the wheel. The Buick went off the road at about 120 km/hr and rolled over twice. I spent three days in intensive care, a catheter firmly in place. Sully still has the scar tissue on his forearm. I thought that this was a remarkable story until I went out into the world and heard more of other people’s tragedies.
I enjoy hearing other people’s stories almost as much as I enjoy telling my own.
The older I get the less concerned I am about whether or not other people enjoy my storytelling. Because of this development I tend to indulge more and more in my long-windedness.
The last time I tried to read the Bible I got as far as the Book of Numbers got bored and had to skip ahead to the book of Joshua. Between the Book of Joshua and the Second Book of the Kings I thought there were some pretty good stories though most of it was just prattle. Somewhere in the First Book of the Chronicles I had to put the fucking thing down.
I don’t believe in god, especially Abraham’s, but I do have a strong impulse to believe that everything is connected.
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