Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#15)

I looked at Lizette. Her head was on the small pillow raised against the window; irregular lines of hair rested on her neck. The bus was behind schedule, and I wondered if Lizette was sleeping or just watching headlights breaking through falling snow. "Lizette," I said. "Liz." She didn't move. I touched her hair, and it was as soft as any snow. I was reading Stranger in a Strange Land, trying to decide if it was good literature. I once told Liz that I'd always felt like a stranger, but she would have none of it. "We're all strangers, Rick."

-----

The bus was nearly empty. We had the two seats behind the driver. Rick had wanted to fly, but I'd said there'd be romance in a long bus ride. I knew we'd grown apart, and I thought the ride might rekindle something. It's an old story--young lovers fall heavily for each other, then one of them perceives a change. Maybe I was prolonging things, though, and maybe he knew it. When he touched my hair near Omaha, his finger brushed my neck. I couldn't tell him how it felt--we had to reach South Bend for that to happen.

Perchance to Dream

At about 4:45 this morning, I woke up with this running through my head: My sleep has been troubled as of late. No, really: That sentence was in my fat head.

It's true, of course, though the troubles are not due to insomnia as usual, but to fairly odd, if not thematically and logistically consistent dreams: I am usually out in the mountains somewhere, and I am hiking alone. I am always lost, yet I always see but do not encounter friends and co-workers, though many of those people I have not encountered in many years. In each of these dreams I seem to be searching for something, but there are always physical barriers to my progress--a mountain, a canyon, a river. My wife says that perhaps something is missing from my life, and though I could speculate as to what, I'm not perceptive enough to speculate with confidence.

When I was a kid, and maybe I mentioned at some other point in this blog, I would wake up in the morning not just talking in my sleep, but actually writing books verbally. Talking aloud and writing books--go figure!

Not long ago I actually did start a new book, and it felt good to be writing something again. I am fairly void of original ideas these days, at least where fiction is concerned, so I'll take anything. Here's the first sentence of the new book:

I was once very fat.

There's more after that--several hundred words, in fact, but they're not ready for display quite yet. I wonder what dreams may come tonight.

Ay, there's the rub....

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#4)

It started when I realized that I'm old. Once while watching TV, I glanced across the room to the framed photographs of our grown children. The more the show went on, the more I looked at those photographs. Finally I started crying. Not loud, just some tears that started somewhere deep. One day I walked through the park and saw mothers and kids. The kids were laughing. I should've been happy, but instead I had to sit down and cry. I wish this would stop. I've always been the strong one in the family, so this can't go on.

----

We've been through a lot in our marriage. Not once, though, did she complain. She said she knew that she could always rely on me to be strong. Even when Toby, our son, said he'd had enough of us both, she didn't complain. I told her he would be okay and would come back some day, and he'd realize that we'd all changed for the better.  We even separated for a time, but she called me and said she couldn't stay away. That was after Toby left. Through everything, I've been as strong as anyone could be. She seems happy.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#14)

His skin was thin, translucent, like ancient parchment under which blue ink was imprinted. When he sat next to me; sunlight through the window made the blue ink beneath his cheek even brighter. As two large women forced their heavy bags into the overhead bins, he seemed amused. Nobody was between us. Later, he declined snacks and beverages, but when the flight attendant brought my ginger ale, he smiled and passed the cup to me, and I felt how cold his hands were. He never spoke. When he slept, his eyebrows lifted slightly, as if he was savoring each breath.

_____

I was used to people staring. I know how I look--fragile, as though something isn't quite right. And things aren't quite right: that nagging pain in my side had quickly turned bad. I knew that the woman sitting in the window seat sensed something. I'd seen her in the airport, how her toenails were painted so beautifully. I'd come to notice such things more over the last ten months of the approximate year they'd given me. I wanted to tell her how wonderful they looked, and to thank her for not pulling away when she felt my cold hands.

Chicago: An Epilogue

After a short train ride, too much time in airports, and a couple of plane rides, I return from Chicago. On the final flight, I find myself seated to a woman who is from Ohio, and we spend a few minutes discussing the previous day's presidential election. She says that Mitt Romney seemed absolutely stunned that he'd lost, but that since she had been in charge of "counting the votes" for years ago, she could have told Romney that he'd lose Ohio. We talk a bit more, and I stop her because I have to clear something up: "So," I say, "does that mean you were Ohio's secretary of state?" We talk about politics a bit more, and then we discuss our children and jobs. She says her oldest daughter attended the Berklee College of Music and, having "the soul of an artist," supports herself as a jazz singer. It's a nice thing, the woman and I agree, to make a living doing what you love to do. And after we land, I show her where to pick up her luggage and where to find a taxi, and I apologize for making her talk shop on the airplane. "It was fun," she says, and I tell her I agree. Then she is off to the Best Western, and I am on my way home.

The day before, election day, started out cool but sunny in Chicago. After breakfast, I walked the city for a few hours, then boarded boat for an architectural tour on the Chicago River. The cool morning had lingered, but the sun had not. Not long after the boat pulled away from the dock, those of us who were seated on the open, top deck were treated to a chilly breeze. I pulled my coat from out of my backpack and put it over my other coat--now fully dressed in pretty much all the warm clothing I'd packed. The tour itself was enjoyable, and the tour guide seemed to know what she was talking about. The longer we cruised, the fewer people remained on the deck--the others had descended to the warm, wind-free interior and were probably drinking hot chocolate purchased from the onboard bar. A light rain--more of a mist--began to fall. "It's only you and me now," the tour guide said, and when I looked around and saw that she was right. My exposed hands and face were cold, but soon enough we were again moored.

After a pizza-and-beer lunch at Pizzeria Due, I stopped in a nearby movie theater to stay warm and dry and to watch the movie Flight, which was enjoyable but also as predictable as the next day's election results. Thematically the script was a bit heavy handed, as well, but I am here to neither praise nor bury a movie.... Outside again, the sun was gone but the drizzle of rain was not. I continued walking, the my water-repellent jacket just repellent enough to keep me dry. Finally, on the gray cusp between melancholy and low blood sugar, I picked up a sandwich in a small grocery store and headed back to my hotel room. Along the way, strolling through Millennium Park, I stopped and used my phone to take this photo:

Later, while watching the election results on TV and eating my sandwich, I thought about the young woman who, the day before, sat down at a table beside me as I ate breakfast. "Anyone sitting here?" she asked. The table she had chosen was large, and I assured her it was empty. She asked if I was from Chicago. She told me about the boat tours on the Chicago River (I didn't tell her I planned to ride such a boat the next day). "You look tired," she said. "I do?" I said. "Yeah, you look tired." I told that I was not, that I was simply old. She then asked if I knew where a certain intersection was, and I said I did not. Next, she asked if I knew where South Bend is. "Indiana," I said. She said she needed eight dollars to get there, that she was leaving an abusive relationship and was kicking a drug habit, so she needed to get to a half-way house in South Bend. "That's where I'll stay until I have the baby," she said, and I was amazed that she'd hit the trifecta. I actually did not have that much money on me, and I told her so. Moments later she was gone, and I kept eating.

I would meet another young woman later that day, someone involved with poetry. Several times since I'd begun walking Chicago, I came across signs and placards announcing the 100th anniversary of the Poetry Foundation, which publishes Poetry. On this day I happened upon the Foundation's offices, where I examined the stacks and stacks of books--all poetry. I photographed some of the stacks and sent the photo to one of my writer-friends, and we both had the same reaction: the place reminded us of the poetry library we had, at different times, discovered in Edinburgh, Scotland.. The woman I ended up speaking to gave me a bit of history about the Foundation (much of which I knew). When I asked how she'd come to work there, she said that a year or so earlier she had finished her MFA at Chicago's Columbia College, and the Foundation needed someone, and....well, that's the story. I would think of her again when the woman on the plane told me about her jazz-singing daughter.

All in all, I suppose the trip was uneventful, though being somewhere other than a cubicle is always good. There were other people I encountered but did not meet: the two men talking advertising strategy in a coffee shop; the three men talking about education and world travel at a cafe; the group of workers (whom I imagined to be doing something creative) seated around a large table, talking and reviewing something displayed on a large screen.

It is good to get out, to see and hear things, to challenge myopia and provincialism. Then again, it can be quite dangerous.

Chicago

Yesterday involved 2 airplanes, one train, and a many blocks of city hiking before I checked into my Chicago hotel room, a good stone's throw from the Chicago River, a short walk to the site of where Fort Dearborn once stood. I am, I believe, approximately 60 miles from what I call my hometown, though I am a couple thousand miles from my home.

It is good to be traveling again, to be someplace where the voices and the horizon and the energy are all different from the everyday.

After checking into the hotel, I rested for half an hour before north up Michigan Avenue, then west and north and south and east on streets I do not remember right now. I found a Trader Joe's and bought a bottle of wine, though I would not find a corkscrew until late this afternoon, and then had dinner at the Billy Goat Tavern, a place you don't write home about unless you know the history of the place. I walked until my legs ached, and then I walked some more to get back to the hotel, where I watched the local news and and then slept poorly until this morning.

What I thought was early this morning I climbed out of bed, laced my running shoes to my feet, and ran south on Michigan Avenue until I had to stop at barricades set up for the Hot Chocolate run. I thought about joining the runners, but had visions of Rosie Ruiz so I instead turned west then north and I think south again before turning east to get back to the hotel. After showering and resting, I headed eagerly for the nearby Corner Bakery Cafe, one of my traditional breakfast spots. Inside, though, were dozens of parents and kids apparently hoping for a healthy breakfast, so I walked some more and settled on an Einstein Brothers Bagels.

After breakfast, it was time to walk some more, and I found the finish line for the Hot Chocolate run, where I took this interesting photo of what the runners left behind:

I then made my way to a CVS pharmacy where I bought bandages for a bothersome blister that has formed on the third toe of my right foot. Funny: nearly a week of backpacking not long ago and my feet came away unscathed. Now, not even 2 days of walking in Chicago and I wince with every other step.

I took a photo of berries on a bare tree...

I took some photos of moving objects...

 ...and photographed different shapes and textures.

After several hours of wandering, I made my way to the Rock Bottom Brewery, which I believe also has an establishment in Portland, Oregon, and where I think I've been. When I got back to my room, I removed my shoe and sock toAfter returning to my hotel room and spending a couple hours there, I set out again after dark just to stretch my legs.

Now, I'm doing this and reviewing what truly was a fairly mundane, uneventful day. But, I am here, and in some places the mundane and the uneventful go a long way.

Where I'll Be

A week from today I'll be making flying Southwest airlines to Chicago. Southwest is letting me fly for free, though it is also making me use the flight by mid-November. An Illinois winter can be chilly and cold, but I've worked hard to not label weather as either "good" or "bad"--it just is. I'd prefer dry weather, but I've been there before and gotten drenched by late-night rains. I once had to duck into store on North Michigan Avenue to buy what turned out to be the last raincoat on the rack. When I stepped outside again I stood beneath an awning and enjoyed the rain and the thunder and the lightning.

During most trips to my home state, I also manage a stop in my hometown, which is a 2-hour train ride from Chicago proper. I once even dragged Kominski there, and we visited the now-defunct Dick Tracy museum. Chester Gould, the man who created Dick Tracy, lived in my hometown for awhile. On this upcoming trip, however, I'm not sure I'll want to spend over 4 hours on a train just to visit a small town in which there aren't many attractions.

As usual when I travel, I have no detailed itinerary. Instead, I tend to wander awhile and consider my options. I found this to work even in Europe, though on each visit there I did have general ideas of what I wanted to see and do. I probably end up missing some of what people believe are the important places, but as I'm sure I've mentioned elsewhere, sometimes the turn down a random street leads to the best discoveries.

Regardless of the weather and the lack of a plan, the trip will be good--god willing and the river don't rise, anyway.

Where I Am

A year ago today I started the morning with a hot pasty I bought at a small shop near the Earl's Court tube station in London. Later, I spent a few hours at the Tower of London, which was interesting but seems to have been transformed to a crowd more suited, even accustomed, to Disneyland.

Today, though, I am not there. Instead, I am sitting at home drinking hot tea and getting ready to floss my teeth. This, assuredly, is living life to its fullest. 

I have been spending a lot of time lately contemplating work--not the word's denotation, but in regard to how I make my living. I used to say I sat in a cubicle and did things, but through part design and part personal choice, I can barely say that: A recent corporate reorganization gave many of us the opportunity to telecommute most of the time, while others can do so all of the time. The company gave us the hardware we need for such a thing, but in return we had to give up our own, personal cubicles.

As with most corporate reorganizations, this most recent one was couched in terms of being better for the company, better for the employees (though over 1000 of them were laid off), better for the customers. Mostly, I think, this is hogwash: I'm old enough and cynical enough and jaded enough to see that it is usually only a handful of people--mostly executives--who benefit from such things. But, to the victor go the spoils, and I do not begrudge one executive or another who seeks his or her own fiefdom.

This reorganization shares a common vocabulary with so many others: synergy, leverage, maximize. My friend Kominski has documented much of this vocabulary, even the grander corporate language that he and I have heard in the nearly 3 decades we have known each other. And this language, in some ways, is meant to excite those of us who remain. But--and I again lay some blame on my age--getting excited about work is getting to be more...work. The company that employs me is perfectly fine as an entity, and the people I interact with are friendly, pleasant, and talented. But, at the end of the week, I essentially produce nothing of value to anyone. There is no synergy; I am not leveraging anything; nothing is being maximized.

Being within the Tower of London again might not be so bad.

Where I Was

A year ago today I landed at London's Heathrow airport, rode the train to Earl's Court Station, and checked into the Earl's Court Easy Hotel where I stayed for 3 days before venturing to Amsterdam. Every day, it seems, I enjoy thoughts of returning to return to England, a place that after a trio of visits I've grown quite fond of. Looking through my Moleskine, I read now that I enjoyed a couple of beers at a pub called the Prince of Teck, and I remember leaving a bit lightheaded as I made my way back to my hotel. As I leaf through the Moleskine, I see names of other pubs: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in London (where, apparently, Dickens liked to drink); The World's End (Camden Town); The Temple Bar Irish Pub (Amsterdam); The Four Candles Free House (London); The Essex Serpent (London, near Covent Garden).

The thing about wanderlust, I think, is that it's never truly assuaged. A recent 6-day backpacking adventure didn't help much, and an upcoming 4-day trip to Chicago will probably only whet my appetite for something grand. If it isn't an illness, it certainly is a selfish thing: heading out alone and leaving others behind.

A few photos.

The Tower Bridge and the Thames from inside the Tower of London.

Within Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

 Oxford.
 

Amsterdam.

The Daily Photo: Snow-swirl

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#13)

She was a harpist, and she wore a harpist's clothes. At least, she wore them for her "appointments," as she called them. Not "gigs" or "performances," but appointments. "I have an appointment this Friday," she might say. When it was time to go she'd put on her long black dress and the delicate pearl necklace and earrings. She was gifted, but one poor performance kept her out of Juilliard when she was still in high school. She never let me touch the harp itself. "It's all I've got, really," she once said in a way I knew she didn't mean.

-----

We doted on her and grew to enjoy her music. We even added a room so she could practice. She hardly came out of that room during high school. Frank, her father but no longer my husband, said she was the best he'd ever heard. I told him, If your kid's the only one in the neighborhood who plays, she's bound to be the best. We were happy when she got married, but we worried, too: She loves that instrument more than anything. I still go watch her when I can, but Billy, her husband, never seems to show up.

The Daily Photo: Driving at Night

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#12)

When our daughter was born, I moved my office paraphernalia from her room to the master bedroom. At night, the Moloch of a computer taunted me. When my husband and I made time for sex, if I wasn't distracted by the thought of our daughter waking up, I was distracted by the computer, by the fact that I should be sitting in front of it, writing every night. When I should've been thinking about sex, I thought about writing. Worse, when I did manage to write, I thought about sex. I finally reached a point where I did neither well.

----

She's been distracted for years, and I've always felt that only part of her was with me. "I'm a writer," she explained. "I pay attention to everything. And at some point I'll use it. I remember women's shoes and the color of their toenails, and I notice how people move during their conversations. I can't help it. Everything's fair game." Often, I know she isn't really with me--she's using whatever we're doing for a plot line or a segment of dialog. To her, everyone and everything are pretend. I'd complain, but who wants to read that in a novel?

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#11)

"What is it you want?" she asked in her best monotone. It wasn't a new question. I'd come home from work, dropped my computer bag to the floor, and gone straight to the patio. I hadn't meant to ignore her as I passed through the living room, but what I'd meant to do didn't matter. She stood in the doorway when she asked, and I didn't look back toward her when I answered. "I'm not sure," I said. "I've got nothing to do at work, and that usually means they'll be getting rid of me soon." "Then quit," she said.

----

Every few months it happens: He comes home, sits morosely on the patio, starts to complain but then stops. I can see his father in him when he's like that, how his parents danced the same way sometimes. The old man, when he came home sometimes, stopped himself whenever my mother-in-law sighed at his complaints. I think it must be a German thing, that tendency to dwell silently in those little pools of self-pity but then refuse help or advice from anyone. I was serious the other night when I told him to quit. Christ, one of us has to.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#10)

It was the first night of autumn. I was half-way home when I finally understood that my marriage had gone from failing to failed. I'd been told that things were over, but like learning about a fatal illness, I'd denied it. At a rest stop, I parked among the diesel rigs. There, I sat and sifted through the cabinets full of stored petty annoyances, frustrating habits, unintentional slights. When they were separated into piles, I tried to assign ownership, but the piles kept falling into each other, and I knew then that there would never be enough highway or darkness.

----

I'm not one for quantification. What's the point? Sometimes--and I said this often--things simply just are. I see everything as organic; everything lives and dies. Frankly, I don't blame either of us--first one stopped trying, then the other one followed suit. And, yes, there's too much blood and time between us to make this easy. When I found the car gone yesterday, I thought things were finished, especially after what I'd said. But after the phone call, I'm not sure of what will happen next. I just sit  watching TV, listening for the garage door to open.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#9)

It's all about synergy, about realigning our priorities to movements in the marketplace, about adapting as quickly as we can. Now that the teams have merged, we can reassess our respective strengths and find ways to bring them together. Leadership knows that this is a difficult time, but we have to re-focus ourselves and to align our core values--as a corporation, as a team, as individual contributors--and embrace the future. We can't afford to wait, to let the competition pass us. We want to set the trends, not follow them. The next fiscal quarter is crucial to everyone.

-----

We read the memo. Well, we don't get memos anymore; we read the communication. I'm 62. Except for Marie, the people on our team are young, in their 20s and 30s. Marie and I skipped a required meeting and went for drinks that afternoon. We compared our corporate lives, and Marie quoted Neil Diamond: "Except for the names and a few other changes, the story's the same one." We want to tell the kids that they shouldn't be afraid, that no fiscal quarter is more crucial than any other. But we know our fiscal future, so we drank a lot.

The Last Ride

You've observed the decline: diminished eyesight, worse hearing, occasional stumble. Then, in just a couple days' time, obvious decline turns to apparent demise as the back legs pretty much stop functioning so that even a stumble is out of the question. He can do little more than lie down, so you move his bed closer to the patio door where he can feel the night air. You help him to the water dish and support him so he can stand and take water in, then carry him outside and support him there so he can let that same water out. Sometimes you let him lie in the grass beneath a warm sun before bringing him back inside and holding food to his mouth.

Too soon, though, he doesn't eat, doesn't even lift his head, doesn't recognize anything but the loudest of voices. There are a few moans, you think, but no signs of pain, and you are thankful for that. Everyone decides on what to do, and you volunteer to call the animal hospital and then, surprisingly, find your voice barely confident as you ask for advice about how to handle things. The woman is helpful, even says that you can give her a credit card number over the phone so you can leave the hospital quickly. That makes you think back to when you, your sister, and your father were at the funeral home arranging for what to do with your mother, and the funeral director had your father sign a paper acknowledging that, before anything else, his fees must be settled.

Your wife carries his bed to your car, and you carry him. You and your wife compare notes, and you realize you both awoke the previous night and thought you heard him in your room, that he'd somehow gotten better and could walk again. Then, you lay him down as gently as you can and shut the door, hopeful that he will be okay in the August heatwave. The drive is short, and somewhere along the way you think of Old Yeller and The Call of the Wild and Travels with Charley; you even think of Marley and Me, though it's a bit too sappy for your taste. And you remember winter nights when you had a paper route, how after school or after football practice you would take your dog and and head into the dark and the cold to deliver papers or collect money from your customers. You'd stop in the field between your house and your route, and you'd lie in the snow and stare up at the stars or let the snow fall against your face, your dog's front paws on your chest as she, too, enjoyed the night. It has been a long time since you've thought of that.

At one point during the ride you hear him moan, so you turn the air conditioner higher to, you think, cool the car further, though there's a part of you that hopes the increased noise will cover the sound of any moaning. At the animal hospital, you park your car and open the rear hatch. He hasn't moved; he shows no recognition of anything, of you. He has, though, vomited, and you clean his face and snout.  Later you will laugh when your wife reminds you that he vomited in the car on the day he was brought home, too.

Two technicians come out to greet you, bringing with them a small stretcher not unlike the kind you were trained to use in the navy. You lift him onto the stretcher, and the technicians strap him in and take him inside. Everything afterward is quick, and you head to the lobby to write a check because you did not opt to provide a credit card number over the phone. Then, you are back in the sunshine and on your way to the gym where exercise helps you work your way back into the day.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#8)

He said, "I'm a writer." So, because I'd never met a writer, I married him. "You've done some dumb things," my mother said when I called her that night. "You said that when I got a tattoo, Mom. You and Dad made me feel like I'd committed a mortal sin. When I don't do what you and Dad did when you were young, you make me feel terrible." Steve, the man I'd married, was in the other room calling his own parents. I wondered what they were saying. "Has he published?" my mother sighed. "He's working on that," I said.

-----

My wife and I run a small wedding chapel in Las Vegas. We've seen drunks, old people, and high school kids. We don't judge them. People leave here married, but there are no guarantees. Some come back years later to renew their vows.  It's romantic. Steve and Marie were young and had to rent a witness. "Can I make a call?" Marie asked. I let her use my phone. She seemed so happy. She and Steve ran out, though, and Marie hadn't hung up the phone. On the other end I heard a man and woman yelling at each other.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#7)

She didn't know because she'd never asked. At least, not until she found me in the garage. "What are you doing, Steve?" she said. She was dressed for bed; the strap of her nightgown hung down over her left shoulder. She looked nice with her eyes sleepy like that. "Is that your dad's gun?" I looked at her. "Yes," I said. She frowned. "The same one?" We both knew the answer to that. "What are you doing with it, Steve?" I wanted to be silent, noncommittal. "Why would you, Steve?" I looked at her. "I'm not my father!" I yelled.

_____

I shut the door and ran into the bedroom and picked up the phone. I wasn't sure of who to call, though. Nothing had happened, and he doesn't have any family. I got my bathrobe and went outside so I could look through the garage window. He just sat there, his back against the car. I still had the phone. Then he got up, put the gun away, and started back into the house. I ran inside and climbed into bed. "You're wearing your robe," he said when he lay next to me. I clutched the phone and stayed silent.

Slice and Dice

Out riding my bike fairly recently, I let the gears and chain make noise, and I let my mind wander. It's funny how that wandering can go in so many directions from one gear change to another. Click-click and there's a change. This time I wandered into writing; specifically, I wandered into a novel I've been looking on for much too long (writing, not reading). 

There's a certain segment early on that has always troubled me because it takes too long getting to where it needs to go. I've tinkered with it a bit, and then the night of the ride I found the answer: cut it out like some benign tumor. So, I did: I sliced just over a one-thousand words, stitched some things back together, and sent the book into recovery. It was a good thing.

Then, over this last weekend while far from home and without external distractions, I started again, this time cutting more bits out, fixing many typos, making some things make sense. I've not had such an extended time for such stuff in a long time, and I felt fortunate. I've looked at this book many times, and I'm still amazed (and frustrated) at how many things need to get fixed. And this time, I even realized I need to add a new, minor character to take some burden off another, less-minor character. It's like an implant, and augmentation, which isn't a bad thing. 

I hope to finish this final revision sometime soon, but then I have to decide on what to do with it. The tome isn't necessarily literature, but it's as good as some of the pop fiction I've read. What the book and I need is someone to take a look at it--someone who's not a good friend or a family member; someone who'll notice the the flaws and tell me about them. But, that's not likely to happen. Rather, it'll go back under the floorboards again, its heart beating while I try to sleep.

Skipping Out and Skipping Town

With my grandmother returned to ashes and dust, and boxed up and sent home with my aunt, I escape the local geography of grief and head west, then north. There are things to do at work, things to do at home--but it can all wait. Earlier this year while in Yosemite, I wandered into the chapel there one day when nobody else was present and walked up to the pulpit, where the bible was opened to "Song of Solomon" and I read (and wrote in my notebook) this verse: "they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept." That's it, I thought as I drove--I've got a biblical reason to leave.


There's something about getting--and being--on the road that settles things down a bit. If you do it right, you stay in the right lane and let the commotion worry about getting ahead. You packed a bit of food, you put the beer in an ice chest, you loaded the thick biography of Charles Dickens into you bag, and you left home.


It has been awhile since I made this trip. Two years, actually. The drive takes longer than expected, but it ends just about the time my no-longer-medicated lower back and right shoulder start to complain loudly. "It hurts," I say to nobody, but then I think of my grandmother and know that things could be worse. When I stop at the borrowed house it's still an hour before sunset, so I move my things inside, open one of my six beers, and sit in a chair in the meadow. The air is clean here and, as my yoga instructor always reminds her students, I let myself breathe.


The next morning I awake early glad to not be driving to the office. I have worked in much worse places much farther from home, but I am happy I won't be in the staff meeting even though the topics are important for a new project. By 9:00 I have read part of my book, drunk my tea, and walked for a good 3 miles. I think of Kominski and what is basically his recent retirement, how he says that "Monday lasts a week"--the idea that, without commuting and deadlines and days full of obligations, time takes on a different tone. Have you ever felt that? I have, especially during long vacations when there are no commitments to anyone or anything. Two of my brothers-in-law, both of whom retired in the last few years, say that "every day is Saturday." I'm doubtful that I'll ever experience that, but it's a nice thought.


I choose not to drive anywhere this first day just to let my back and shoulder rest. So, I read some more, I walk some more, I watch a movie, I try once again to sketch something all the while thinking of the artists I've known to could draw and paint and design. Bereft of all artistic talent, those artists--and the singers and musicians and dancers--are the ones I've always admired. I eat when I want to, I drink a beer in the middle of the day, and I do very little else.


The second day I'm on the road again, heading farther north to Fort Bragg. I wander around a bit, I buy some beer at the local brewery, I stop in the art-supply store and, for no good reason, buy a new sketchbook and 2 new pencils. It is hopeless, I tell myself--nothing worthwhile will ever be drawn by these hands. But I've always been a sucker for good paper and good writing instruments, and I figure there are worse things I could spend money on. I also stop at the Mendocino Cookie Company and buy 2 "backpacker" cookies, both of which I enjoy. Headed south again, I stop for awhile in Mendocino, where I stop in the bookstore (but don't buy anything), and drop into the wine shop where I talk to a fairly surly man who seems less than interested in talking to me about the wine itself. I find three inexpensive bottles to take home,


Farther south, I detour toward the Point Arena Lighthouse for some coastal photography, and the wind is so strong I can barely hold the camera steady. As with other things artistic, I'm not a good photographer, either, but at least I have a chance of getting one good photograph out of hundreds. Here's the lighthouse:

Then, after driving awhile longer, I stop at the Evergreen Cemetery, which I just happen to see to the east side of the highway. Cemeteries can tell us a lot about places and people, I've always felt. This cemetery needs some work: overgrown with weeds, neglected. Still, I find probably the best grave marker I've ever seen, one that tells us about life rather than death--bicycle rim on a post. It looks like this:

If my grandmother were to be buried, I wonder what she would choose as a marker. Golf clubs and a bowling ball from her younger years, maybe, or fishing poles and tackle from her days in Michigan and Canada. 

Almost back to the house, I stop again at nearby beach for some general hiking. The wildflowers, like this one, are wonderful (not easy without a macro lens):

The wind is still strong over me and the water:

Finally back at the house, I relax again in the meadow. The wind is chilly, but being outside is nice nevertheless. I let the stars come out, and I let myself sit deep into the chair. I think of my grandmother, of course, and all that she has left me, how my cousins and I both complain and laugh about family traits we've all inherited: don't be a complainer; don't be a braggart; don't be a show-off; don't be fool. And, except for the last one, at least for tonight I can let the other ones go. In couple of days I'll be home again, and I can become the others once again.

Time to Send Her up

Many years ago my grandmother called me and asked the definition of "recidivism." She said she thought that I would know that definition, but I'm not sure she wasn't surprised that I actually did know. Around the same time she gave me her Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, which has 4,798 pages of words and pictures and was published in 1957. She said that, of all her grandchildren, she thought I would appreciate it. She was right, of course, and it's the type of book I would've spent hours with as a kid (I've always dealt better with books than I have with people). Fairly recently, though, I thought it was time for the book to go, and as I flipped through the pages on my way to the trash bin, a pressed flower corsage fell out. I can guess that the corsage is older than the book, and it must have been my mother's or one of my aunt's. I held it in my hands and wondered about it, about its occasion, about who wore it. The book, of course, remains with me, its corsage safely pressed. She also gave me a box full of memorabilia from her 2-week trip to Europe in the early 1980s, after my grandfather had died. In the box are postcards, a journal, even her plane tickets. The first sentence in the journal is this: "Betty and I barely slept all night because we were 'ready to go!'" As with the dictionary, she thought that I would appreciate what is in the box.

When my grandmother died very early this morning and after I'd called my sisters, I thought of how glad I am to have seen her just a few days ago. She was lucid enough for 99 years old, and she was witty (and perceptive) enough to call me fat. I thought of playing golf with her, of how she would visit us when we were kids and bring us Hostess cupcakes, of fishing with her and my grandfather in Ontario, Canada, when I was twelve.

There's a certain routine you go through with home hospice care: you die; the hospice people come over to make sure you're dead; someone calls your relatives; someone else calls the funeral home to take you to whatever you've arranged for. Then, whoever is left at home tries to watch the TV shows they always watch on that day, or they answer the phone a lot to talk to people who weren't called earlier. If you're lucky, you've got a large family that, for at least awhile, is collectively thinking of only you. 

The thing is, my grandmother's hospice care started only a couple of days ago, so nobody was quite prepared for the speed of things. Even the inevitable can surprise us. When I spoke with my cousin this afternoon, she gave me the specifics, and she told me how my aunt seemed to be putting off calling the funeral home. I can understand that. Hospice workers and funeral home people are nothing if not efficient and methodical, and watching them work can be difficult. In fact, my own father couldn't watch as a hospice nurse smoothed the sheets around my mother before the gurney was taken through the front door. A few months later--19 years ago this week--my father, too, would die, so I got to watch him carried away. 

As my cousin said she told my aunt, though, "It's time to send her up."And I can think of my mother's sisters, the dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the in-laws--all thinking of my grandmother tonight.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#6)

Marla was easy to look at but hard to work for. She was in charge, and she knew it. William (never "Bill"), her husband, was a doctor who operated on old people. Marla had won an Emmy producing local news years earlier. Once, after a few beers, Wayne, from the mail-room, told her that everyone in local news wins an Emmy at some point. Wayne was the only one who didn't know Marla slept with the company's CEO. He was fired two weeks later. And Marla? She was the only one who didn't know her husband slept with his nurses.

---

I delivered the mail. I pushed a cart and dropped things off in people's offices. I made two runs a day: in the morning, then again early in the evening. The morning run took longer because I'd talk to people. I got to know them as they told me about their lives. Marla, our communications director, never talked, and I knew she thought I wasn't worthy of conversation. I learned about her anyway because I'd see her stay late and slink into the CEO's office where the two of them would laugh. My job was menial, but I knew things.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#5)

"I can't get sick," he said. "Not now, at least." He stood at the desk, chatted with me and Mary, the roving nurse. He wrote in the notebook he always carried. Then he went back to the waiting room, and he and the other man watched fish swim around the tank. "Fish can have a calming effect," he said aloud, but I knew he didn't need a response. He always seemed calm enough; we liked him because he paid his bill on time and brought us cookies at Christmas. He'd been our patient for years, just as his wife had.

---

I'm not calm when I visit my doctor because, given my family history, we both know that eventually he'll find something wrong. The man beside me had yellowish skin. He commented on the fish. He went in first, then I was taken to an examination room. "Is Doc telling him today?" the woman at the desk said to someone as Mary closed the door and weighed me. Then Mary said the doctor might be later than usual because he had to give someone some bad news. When Mary left, I looked out the window. The rain was soft and gentle.

The Woman in Black

With the Muse apparently on vacation once again, I've been searching in corners and closets for things to write about. It seems, though, that the only things in those places are flecks of dust and old shoes. This usually means that a change in both place and pace is in order--different corners and closets, and such.

After class tonight, as I stood at a campus kiosk and searched a map for a building in which a guitar course is supposed to be taking place. I wanted to speak to the instructor about the course itself and whether I'd be a good fit for it next semester. Or, if the course would be a good fit to me. As I stood there, I watched as a young woman walked toward me: black hair, black clothes, smoking a cigarette. Tattoos. "You looking for a particular building?" she hollered. (Yep--hollered.)

I told her I was, but that I couldn't find it on the map. "The music building," I said. "Like, the chorus?" she asked. "My cousin sings in the chorus." I told her that, in fact, I was looking for whatever building I could find where guitar classes are taught.  She pointed this way and that. "How about if I just walk you over there?" she said when we both realized I had no idea of to where she was directing me.

So, we walked. "I've been on this campus a long time," she said. "Well, not a long time, but three years." She told me she had a test tonight, a final, but it was on report writing and the test shouldn't be too hard. I guessed correctly that her major is criminal justice. I asked if she was going on to get her B.A., and she said she'd already been accepted at the local university. That's good, I said. She said this is her last semester, that she didn't declare a major until after her first year in school. Then she said this: "I was kind of distracted that year because my brother was murdered."

Well, of course he was.

She went on: "There's so much stuff you have to deal with: lawyers and police and the trial. When someone in your family is murdered, everything gets harder."

I told her that, yes, all of that stuff is much more important than school, at least at some level.

"And then you have to look at the body," she said, "and that's not easy."

We reached the building I was looking for, and she gave me a high-five. We parted ways. I looked through the building and found the classroom I was looking for, but the doors were locked and nobody was there. Tough luck, I guess. 

In the end, I'm not sure if the Muse will be happy with this, but the encounter itself was interesting. Sometimes things simply have to start somewhere.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#3)

First, they exchanged glances, then, after a polite enough amount of time, smiles. She was sitting alone in the booth, a glass of white wine, a Kindle, and an iPhone on the table in front of her. He liked how her dark hair spread over her shoulders; it made her seem composed and confident. In the room to the side of them both was a bachelorette party--subdued giggling, some hand-clapping, chocolate penises occasionally raised over young heads. He sat alone, too, and she watched him scribble things in a notebook, his left ring finger as encumbered as her own.

---

The night of the party, I worked because Maggie was sick. The party turned out to be smaller than  expected, so I spent most of the evening watching the man at the table and the woman in the booth. They never said a word but kept looking at each other, smiling when the party girls got loud or said something racy. I gave them both a free glass of wine so they'd stay longer because I hoped they'd get closer, maybe start speaking. They seemed meant for each other. I was sadder than they were when they each left alone.

Swan

I saw many things while in Amsterdam last year, including this swan in a canal in the Red Light district one night. I like how the orange color in the swan's beak comes close (to my eye) to matching light reflected in the water.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#2)

Larry Hamlin walked like a duck, and was fat. At least, he was fat when he arrived in California from Texas and an apparent shopping trip to Sears. Larry was crude in a down-home sort of way, a characteristic he never lost even after learning to dress as sharply as the rest of the executive staff, who helped him lose weight. But he brought with him professional connections to an entire grid of electric utilities, a collection of clients the firm would provide consulting services to for many years. And, in the pejorative sense, Larry Hamlin was also a prick.

----

I met Hamlin in Austin. The consulting firm I'd started was growing, and he knew the electric utility business in the South and Southwest as well as anyone. And though he sweated a lot and dressed like an idiot, I hired him anyway. I learned later that he'd walk around the office every afternoon to see who'd left early, and he'd berate his underlings in ways even I hadn't thought of. The engineers who reported to him were unhappy because they worked sixty hours a week, but I didn't care. Hamlin brought in the business, and that's all that mattered.

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#1)

When she was asleep, he would stare at the soft spot just above her left clavicle and watch the pulse. Now and then he would touch the soft skin there and let his forefinger rise and fall with her skin. One night she sat up and turned toward him, but he lay there motionless. "You must have had a bad dream," he said the next morning when she told him she'd looked down at him and for a moment he was someone else. "Someone else?" he asked. "What does that mean?" He could not say anything for hours after that.

----

The apartment had been his before it became theirs, and even after six months she still was not used to the sounds. She was not sure why she woke up that night. There was something there--not quite a dream, not quite a memory. She'd looked at him, how the alarm clock's glow made him appear different. When she told him about it the next morning, she found something else she was not used to: silence. She had always told him everything she felt and thought, but this time she knew that, somehow, she would have to be more careful.

Diving into the Wreck

With nothing new or original to say, I am taking the coward's way out and stealing from someone else--in this case, someone famous and, as of a couple days ago, dead: the poet Adrienne Rich.

I first came across Rich's poems as a just-out-of-the-navy college student who felt more comfortable reading books than speaking to people. She isn't my favorite female poet (Lucille Clifton and Marge Piercy rank above her), but her poem "Diving into the Wreck" did become a favorite: It's a great example of a poem that not only describes, but also leads.

Here's a passage:

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.

Read the entire poem.

Thanks, Dave

In a part of town that allowed for such a thing, I dropped into first one music store and then another, letting my fingers and hands fondle and caress the smooth wood of new guitars. In the second store, which I have come to consider a playground of sorts, I once again strummed and picked at musical instruments far beyond my ability as a musician.

I am proud, however, that the weekly guitar lessons and the hours of practicing have left the fingertips on my left hand calloused. Now, if I could just get my stiff and perhaps arthritic left wrist flexible again, I would be even more proud.

The "good" acoustic guitars at his store are housed, like good wine, in a climate-controlled room. In that room I have become enamored of the figure and feel of a particular Martin guitar. On this day as I touched this instrument and that, a man obviously (but not much) younger than myself came into the room carrying his own guitar. Dressed nicely and with a bandanna wrapped around his head, and with a hat (not a cap) fitted over both head and bandanna, he sat on one of the chairs and strummed his guitar. Just as I started out the door, he spoke. Of course he did.

"Do you play?" he asked.

"I'm learning," I said.

"Here. Why don't you take my four-thousand-dollar guitar that I got in Ireland, and play for me so I can hear what it sounds like compared to some of these other guitars."

Because to refuse would have been rude, I sat across from him, held his guitar, and played some stuff--because "stuff" is all I know how to play. I still have yet to memorize an entire song, which is my goal for this year. Oh, that guitar was nice! We talked about its construction--how the neck was built just one-sixteenth of an inch wider than most guitars. In fact, to prove as much, he pulled a tape measure out of his pocket and measured the neck on one of the Martins.

"Play the low strings hard," he said, so I did. He picked up a few guitars and kind of plucked at them, but he didn't really seem interested in comparing the sound of his guitar to anything at all.

I told him that I am too old to learn how to play well, and he said that, in his experience, he rarely sees adults over the age of 35 actually stick with the guitar after picking it up. "I use guitars in the mental health field," he said. And he told me that he uses music to help his patients get up on the stage and play music, recite poetry, act.

"It's music therapy," I said, and he said that, yes, that's exactly what it is.

"I've been in the mental health field for a long time," he said. "First as a patient. For a long time. The first thing I do with my students is ask them two things: If they have their own guitar, and are they willing to practice. What's your name?"

I told him my name, and he told me his: Dave. We shook hands.

So, once again in my life, I wondered why someone was sharing something like this with me. If I were to, say, go into or come out of therapy (and don't think I don't need it), the last thing I would do is admit it to a complete stranger. Maybe he's the stronger man because of it.

"Do you come here a lot?" I asked.

"Often," he said. "I just broke up with my girlfriend, the fifth time in a year, and there's a lot of shit happening right now."

"This is your therapy, then," I said.

"It definitely is! I want to get back with her, but she's got a lot of baggage."

We talked a bit more about guitars: the different sounds each brand has, which wood is used, the quality of tone between old strings and new. Then, it was time for me to leave. We shook hands again; we said goodbye. I wandered around the rest of the store for awhile before heading out into the rain and the drive home. And later, holding my entry level guitar in my lap, I missed Dave's guitar. I even missed Dave, and I thought to how he'd mentioned his "students"--and whether I should've asked him if he gives lessons. I should've asked.

Those Hands

You compare your soft, untested hands to your father's as you
reach into the closet and retrieve the narrow box that holds
a warehouseman's simple economy: pay stubs and tax returns
as products of swollen knuckles, of callouses that pulled lint
from denim pockets.

Each year you would see him sitting at the maplewood table,
a puzzle of receipts and forms arranged and ordered,
the typed solemnity of their officiousness waiting for summations
carried over from bits of scrap paper.

Those hands: hungry for work as they pressed ink into the very
paper you now touch as you weigh the profit and loss
of letting the box fall into the same bin as this week's empty milk
cartons and newsprint.

Sharps and Flats

My first guitar was a plastic thing I got for Christmas when I was really young. I was joyful even though I had no idea of what I was doing with the thing. A couple of years later, Steve, a neighbor who was my older sister's age, offered to sell me his white electric guitar for $100, but for some reason I chickened out. I regret not buying that guitar, and thought it's a different story, there are things I regret about Steve, too.

I don't have good fingers or hands for a guitar: too fat and uncoordinated, and somewhat hindered now by arm surgery I had about 10 years ago. I had good fingers for the coronet when I played in the school band a long time ago, but I had to use only fingers. That made things easier, though I never could get my lips to hit that high C with any consistency. I probably should have gone with the tuba.

One morning I got out of bed and put my foot right through that plastic guitar, and that was the end of things until I bought a classical guitar in Pensacola, Florida. I had to walk from the navy base to the music store, then had to dash back to my room when the rain started, carrying that new guitar the entire way. I still have this guitar though I don't play it because a few years ago I ponied up some cash and got a regular acoustic guitar, a Seagull, which sounds really nice when other people play it. Last year I got an electric guitar, a nice Fender Stratocaster, something that my fingers don't work well on but that does make a lot of nice noise.

Recently, in an attempt to re-make certain parts of me, I signed up for a beginning guitar class through the local school district's adult education program. Though I spend time with the Seagull and the Stratocaster each day, I thought I might as well learn a little--maybe even learn an entire song. We met for the first time last Saturday, and when I walked into the room, most of the students were already there, guitars out and gabbing with the instructor. I sat in one of the few available chairs, next to a woman who seemed even less comfortable than I was. "Can you play?" she asked me, and I assured her that I could not.

Some of the students had nice guitars (the woman across from me had a Taylor, which I coveted for 2 full hours), while others had guitars that weren't so nice. Not long after the starting time, I started wondering just what we were in for. The teacher never introduced himself, never asked people their names or what guitar experience they had, and didn't seem organized at all. (Yes, I know--I need to leave my teacher side at home.) He showed his own guitar skills a few times, and at one point the woman next to me whispered, "Oh, look at me!" Ha ha ha.

After a few exercises, the teacher went through the strings, and I was happy when nobody laughed when he said "put your finger on the G-string." Because, well, there was so much temptation for us to laugh at what the perpetual adolescents among us were thinking. He quickly began showing us basic chords (G, C, D). "Make sure you don't put your fingers right on the frets," he said once, which was lost on the woman beside me because nobody had told her what a fret is. Later, the teacher assured us that we were "an advanced class" because we'd learned to play 3 chords in just 2 hours, which is pretty much a bunch of hooey. He'd walk around the room and listen to us, but he wouldn't spend any time with the people who were struggling with theory and/or mechanics. So, while he walked and talked, I concentrated on helping the woman next to me, showing her where to put her fingers, how to bend her wrist, and how to strum the chords. She was frustrated. I was frustrated. At one point the teacher stopped in front of her to see how she was doing, and I told him that she was still trying to figure out the fingering and the frets. He then just moved on (without checking on me), which didn't make the woman too happy. "Oh, just walk away," she muttered.

I wanted to tell the guy: "How can you teach a class if you don't know anything about the students? How can you tell us a note is sharp or flat if we don't know what those terms mean? How can you tell us how to use the guitar if we don't even know all of the guitar's parts?"

Whew. That was fun.

In the end, the woman was vocally thankful that I'd spent some time with her, but I wasn't necessarily happy that I'd helped her, which sounds terrible. Actually, I wasn't happy with the instructor, who before we left admonished us to tune our guitars before our next meeting, to do our homework exercises, and to come to class prepared. This week I'll have to make a decision: do I sit beside the same woman so I can help her, or do I sit somewhere else and concentrate on the lesson itself so I can learn something more than I already know?

I had plans on taking an advanced class, but, apparently, I won't have to.

Ryan and Tony

During 2-day trip to Yosemite that ended today, I happened across a memorial service for Ryan Hiller, who was killed not long ago when a tree fell on the tent cabin in which Hiller was sleeping. I caught just the last portion of the service, and I sat on a nearby bench for awhile to watch the proceedings. I was somewhat perplexed about why one of the rangers was videotaping the event, more perplexed when, when things were ending, there was great commotion as the man who seemed to be in charge positioned everyone for the group photos. Perhaps these would be good mementos for Hiller's family. I don't know. Getting "everyone in uniform" at the front of the crowd seemed a bit much, but then again, I wasn't part of the ceremony and certainly didn't know Hiller.

I have been backpacking many times, both alone and with others, and I long ago learned the term "widow-makers": those trees and heavy branches that sometimes fall onto who lies beneath them. More than once I have pitched my tent beneath a tree and looked up to see which falling object would damage me the least.

I was, though, touched to see that Hiller was remembered so formally and so well, and I was glad that I lingered for a bit. But, I might not have lingered at all if it weren't for Tony Magdaleno, who might have been the first Mexican I ever met. Tony was on my Little League team, and he had trouble throwing a baseball because of a bad elbow. I remember asking how he'd hurt it, and he said that he'd somehow caught his arm in a washing machine. We were good friends while we played together, and I seem to remember his home as being a run down apartment building of some sort, probably the kind of place farm workers lived in my hometown. I'm sketchy on the details of such things, though, for it has been a long time. Not long after we moved to California, I heard that Tony had been a car accident of some sort, and he'd come out the other end with a broken neck and paralyzed legs.

Tony died earlier just a couple of weeks ago, though I didn't read about it until 2 days before heading to Yosemite. In fact, I read his obituary in the online edition of my hometown newspaper, which not too long ago let me know that one of my best boyhood friends had died. I need to stop reading that newspaper, I think. In Tony's obituary, which is short, I read that "He was an accomplished athlete and a true champion. He was a cross-country runner in Illinois before his car accident and is in the Woodstock High School Hall of Fame. He was an inspiration to many." Think of that: a cross-country runner before his car accident. I remember him as tall and thin, someone who was probably physically perfect for long-distance running. He never could throw a baseball very far, but I can imagine he could run.

I suppose I was thinking about Tony 2 weeks ago when a woman with the last name of "Magdaleno" showed up on the roster for a course I started teaching. Last Thursday after class (and the day before I read Tony's obituary), the woman signed the role sheet in the wrong spot because she hadn't seen her name. "You're on the roster," I told her, and I showed her where.

There is, though, no good ending to all of this, at least not one that I've been able to write. I've looked at these paragraphs several times, and I think any attempt at connecting things would probably be futile. Maybe I just miss Tony, or maybe I wish I'd met Ryan Hiller.

Reading, Writing, and a Little Arithmetic

Many times in this so-called blog I have discussed or alluded to teaching, an avocation that is showing signs of having run its course. I am old, and old people need their rest. Neither wise as a man nor gifted as a teacher, I sometimes now stand in front of my students and think that they would be better off elsewhere. Regardless, I continue to sign up for the teaching gigs, so I've got nobody to blame but myself. If my students want to blame someone, they can talk to the academic adviser who stuck them with me.

Most of my teaching has taken place at a large, privately owned university that, at its inception, was geared toward professional adults who quite often needed a college degree to move up the corporate ladder. The students had to be at least 23 years old. They had to be employed. They were expected to behave professionally in the classroom. As an instructor, these 3 requirements made my life easier, for the students were dedicated to their educations and didn't complain when they had a lot of schoolwork to complete.

But, when the university ran out of this type of student, they lowered the age requirement to 21, and the students no longer had to be employed. Not long afterward, I suppose when all the 21-year-old customers were gone, the age got lowered to 18. Today, much of the student population is, it seems to me, rather unmotivated. Of course, we always remember the outliers, the worst examples and the best. Students at this university take only one course at a time, and the course itself lasts just 5 weeks. Still, I hear many complaints about how difficult it is to write, I don't know, a 1,200-word essay while at the same time doing the required reading. Years ago I would show my empathy and say, "Yes, I understand how busy your lives are, but I think you can do it." Now, I'm more apt to say, "Imagine that--college is difficult."

I am old, and I am cranky.

In a couple of days I begin teaching a literature course for this university, which is a nice change from the composition courses I have worked through lately. Most of the students' material at this school is provided online, but a physical textbook is required for this course. So, being diligent, a couple of weeks ago I sent an email to the students to remind them to buy the book, that they will not succeed in the course

Pins and Needles: Part 2

Well, well, well. With admirable expediency, my insurance company has informed me that, though my general physician referred me to an acupuncturist, my health plan does not cover acupuncture for me since I am not being treated for "pain and nausea as a result of chemotherapy, early pregnancy or post-operative procedures." Basically, Tina, the person who apparently replied to my query, simply quoted back what I'd written, though her use of punctuation is somewhat bothersome. I'm happy, though, because Tina closed her message with "Please be sure to take care!"

Fine.

Looking through my health benefits documents, though, I do find some possible alternatives. For example, as part of my mental health coverage (which might be of more value than acupuncture), I could get "electro-convulsive treatment" on either an in-patient or an outpatient basis. I could also enjoy fairly generous treatment for substance abuse. But, since I'm in denial of my abuse of any substance, I'll have to ignore that one. Then, should I lose an arm, leg, ear, or other body part, or if I ever need an artificial face, replacement parts would be covered; I can even rent a prosthesis, if I need to, and then get reimbursed!

When I go back to see my doctor in a couple of months, I'm not sure of how I'll break the news to him, how I'll tell him that his referral is much too expensive for me. Perhaps he and I will figure something out--maybe narcotics, which seem much easier to obtain than actual treatment.

Pins and Needles: Part 1

There's an old joke.

A man says to his doctor, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
The doctor looks at the man and says, "Don't do that anymore. Pay the receptionist on the way out."

Except for it being a joke, my doctor and I had a similar conversation a couple weeks ago. I like my doctor; I even trust him. He's the kind of guy who, if he had to tell me I was dying, would do a good job of it. He knows not just my medical history, but other things I've not told anyone else. In our most recent visit, he said he would refer me to an acupuncturist, the same one he has seen. I'm not convinced that acupuncture is a valid treatment for the body, but if it deceives the body by working on the mind, I'd be happy.

So, today, I tried to find out if acupuncture is covered by my insurance plan, and I finally found it mentioned in the "Special Services" document. The insurance company itself is quite large and apparently negotiates quite well with the blood lab I frequent and the doctor I visit. The lab and the doctor will charge, oh, $150 for one thing or another, but the insurance company works that down by at least half, pays a portion of it, and leaves the remainder to me so that I can meet my deductible. Anyway. Reading what I could find about what my insurance plan does and does not covered, I found mention of acupuncture in a document titled "Special Services," but that it's a covered treatment if 2 things are true: the provider is licensed (I like that one), and the second...well, that's where I'm flummoxed. If I am reading the document correctly, the second "truth" is that I have to be treated for "chronic pain and nausea as a result of one of the following: chemotherapy, early pregnancy, and post-operative procedures."

In an attempt to find more, I sent an email to the contact listed on the insurance company's website, and I received a prompt acknowledgement of that email, but I may not receive an actual answer for up to 3 business days. If I get the answer my doctor and I both want, I'll then contact the licensed acupuncturist to see about seeing him. If I do not get the correct answer, I suppose I'll have to do nothing.

It's kind of a funny thing, this health insurance stuff. This "Special Services" document doesn't make clear what is or is not covered with acupuncture, but it is quite clear about hospice care's being covered at "90% of eligible expenses after satisfying the deductible." That's the kind of plain talk I can appreciate.