Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#18)

They were young. Wait awhile, I thought, and then you'll see what love is really like: going to bed each night glad you didn't kill your spouse and calling that happily married. I thought about them the entire ride home, how they laughed so unselfconsciously. Maybe we were like that before the world became fast and digital. When I parked the car, I realized I'd forgotten the pasta shells. I sighed and headed back to the store. The afternoon sun was warm on my face, and I thought I'd buy a good bottle of wine for dinner, something she likes.

-----

I watched him leave the driveway. He had the top down even though snow was forecast. Some days he forgets where he is going, but he always finds his way home. Young people seem to bother him--their noise and energy. Maybe he's frightened of them; I don't know. Some nights I rub my palm against his shoulders, feeling familiar warmth there. When he is restless I leave for the sofa but always return to bed before he awakes. He's sometimes surprised to see me then. "I dreamed you were gone," he says. "I know," I tell him. "I know."

Photo of the day: Yosemite in Winter

Photo of the Day: Oranges

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#17)

The student left a bag on his desk at the end of class. "Happy Valentine's Day," she said. She was 19, three decades his junior. He looked inside: a small coffee cup and some expensive chocolates. He remembered how he had been in love with his third-grade teacher, and he wondered if this were the same thing. "Wait!" he called, and she came back into the room. "You're not supposed to give me gifts," he said, "even small things." She didn't seem fazed, and she left again. He stared at the bag and wondered if he should tell the dean.

_____

She saw it the next morning before he'd gotten out of bed: the cup and the chocolate. She was happy; the cup had "Happy Valentine's Day!" painted on it, and she was glad that he'd remembered. They'd been married long enough that their gifts to each other were small, but meaningful. When he came into the room, she hugged him. "Happy Valentine's Day, Dear!" she said happily. She raised the cup so sunlight reflected off the paint. He wasn't thinking clearly and didn't know what to say. "It's not much," he said. She smiled. "No, it's beautiful! You're so thoughtful!"

Call and Response: Viewpoints in 100 Words (#16)

Marvin sits to my left. Recently divorced from his wife of 28 years, he is often distracted and sometimes weeps silently early in the morning when he thinks nobody is there. Beth, to my right, has a son in preschool; she occasionally leaves work early because he bites. She, too, is distracted. Charles is our manager; his distraction is his own boss, Michael, who sells himself as a corporate visionary but who cannot articulate those visions to subordinates. My distractions? sunrise through tinted windows, the soft feathers of a bird that fell from its nest near the building's entrance today.

_____

I clean the breakroom and the cubicles. I am careful not to disturb anyone's personal belongings. Some people keep their cubicles clean, and others surround themselves with family photos and their children's artwork. I know when people's lives change: photos appear or vanish, for example. I've seen births, graduations, weddings, divorces, and vacations. I complete my tasks by 5 in the morning. When there are layoffs, people and their belongings simply vanish, but when they quit, belongings disappear slowly. Sometimes as I drive to the office, I imagine these people are my children, and I want to love them all.

I Was Once Very Fat (chapter 2)

This is all you'll get.

I Was Once Very Fat (chapter 1)

Author's note: This is the first very rough draft of the new novel. It is unedited, un-proofread, un-anything. It's also the only chapter that will be posted. Who do you think I am, Charles Dickens?

 Chapter 1

I was once very fat. This is what I tell myself, mantra-like, every morning when the alarm clock sounds and, usually in the dark, I find my running clothes, lace up my shoes, and head outside. 

My running route covers eight miles on a normal day, ten miles a couple of times a week. Not that many years ago I could not walk a hundred yards, which probably embarrassed my then-teenaged son as he sprinted back and forth on the football field in front of his high school. He never said anything about my size and physical limitations, but fathers are more perceptive in these matters than some people believe. Nigel, my wonderful son, has been in the army now for nearly fifteen years. The morning he left, his mother Sandy and I watched from our front porch as the recruiter drove him away in a Toyota Prius. She and I both cried, though we cried differently and in different places that day.

The wife I had then, though, is not the same wife I have today. Twenty-five years into our marriage, not long after Nigel left, Sandy said that she, too, had to move on. Of course, our life together during a couple of years before that decision were not pleasant. I had grown fat, and we had both grown quite stubborn. Nigel told me one afternoon that he understood, that he had seen enough of the world in his military career to see how even the best-planned missions sometimes fail. Now, Nigel keeps in regular touch with his mother, who is good enough to keep me informed of Nigel’s well-being. Sandy told me in an email last week, in fact, that Nigel has met someone he calls “special,” and that things are getting serious. 

I am now married to Melodie, a beautiful woman I met when I joined the local gym. We both enrolled in the “Get Fit Now!” series of workouts designed for people who need an extra push to keep them motivated. Melodie was much more fit than I at the time, but she says now that after many years of trying, she can fit into “normal” clothes. I am Melodie’s first husband, and she told me that she cannot foresee a day when we are not married. Sandy is still single and, from what I can see, quite happy.

I allow myself a few cookies or other sweets every few days, but I must exercise if I want to stay relatively slim, which, to Melodie, is pure common sense. “To think we had to join a gym and pay money for someone to tell us that,” she said. I am not a fast runner, but I am steady.

On the last day of August, a Saturday, I started earlier than usual; Melodie did not even move when I slid out of bed, got dressed, and headed outside. The morning was cold for August, but the sun was rising and I knew I would be warm soon enough. I don’t stretch my legs much before I run, which I have been told is a mistake, that I should prepare my muscles for exertion. She is probably correct, but I prefer to simply start.

As I started running, I remembered how Saturday mornings used to be: I’d sleep in late, get up and eat a large breakfast, and then watch college football or maybe spend a few hours on the computer. Sandy was a good cook, and she always liked preparing special lunches on weekends. So, most of my weekends were filled with sitting and eating. It was not a bad life by any means.

I felt good as I started moving. I can usually tell after a quarter mile or so how the run will go. My route starts through begin and safe suburbia and continues up and down gentle hills and, toward the end, through a fine stand of conifers that someone planted as a windbreak decades ago. At the end of the final mile is the tallest hill, which is bare of everything but a cellular phone tower. When I reach the top of that hill I stop and gaze over the rooftops and backyards of my neighborhood. On clear mornings I can see as far as the airport, and I sometimes pause to watch passenger jets glide in or lift off. I feel like Rocky when I am up there. Melodie does not run. Instead, she spends many hours a week at the gym, and this is evidenced in the shape and firmness of her upper arms. She is a strong woman.

I’ve wondered about the cellular phone tower, whether the signals it sends and receives are harmful. The phone company organized several public meetings before building the tower, and a tall, good-looking man in a nicely cut suit told us that hundreds of studies and pages of scientific evidence support the idea that everything is safe. I liked how he spoke; his voice was confident and well modulated. “These are not like X-rays,” he said. The phone company has plans to disguise the tower with fake boughs and branches designed to mimic the surrounding conifers. 

As a neighborhood, our singular demand turned out to be that our access to the hill would not be restricted. The summit is not just popular among runners and other pedestrians, but also among families to enjoy picnics. Though I am not always the first one atop the hill in the morning, on this Saturday I was the only person. Frank McConnell, who lives on the street behind mine, had erected a small bench in memory of his wife Elaine, who had died a couple of years earlier after what he said was a “courageous battle with a pernicious form of pancreatic cancer.” Frank had built the bench himself in his own garage using slabs of an oak tree that had once dominated his backyard before a meteorological micro-cell of some sort tore through the area and felled the tree.

As I said, I feel like Rocky when I am at the top of that hill. When I first started exercising, I could not even walk from top to bottom, but I have come to enjoy how my thighs ache as I near the tower. When I sit on Elaine’s bench, I feel that I am rewarding myself for a fine effort. On this Saturday, the air seemed especially clear as I sat down and let sweat drop from my forehead to my running shoes. Melodie has mentioned that I have a great capacity for sweating. 

I enjoy watching the airplanes. I imagine them filled with people excited to be going to or coming home from someplace, and the airplanes seem so graceful, if machines can indeed have grace, as they come and go. There seemed to be more airplanes on Saturday mornings, and this day was no different. I sat and sweated and watched. The planes were landing from my right to my left, and approaching from the distance I saw a plane that seemed to be rocking a bit from one wing toward the other. This plane also appeared a bit lower than the ones in front of it. I wiped sweat from my eyes, and when I focused again I saw the plane drop lower, then climb, then plummet.

On occasion in my life I have seen things that made me adjust my perception to something that does not seem quite right. As a teenager, I was walking home from high school one afternoon and watched a car, a blue Ford Pinto, skid through a red light just as a black Chevy pick-up started through the intersection. “Black and blue,” is what I thought at the time, “like a bruise.” As I watched, I kept hoping that the two vehicles would not collide. Physics and bad driving, however, won out over hope, and the Chevy broadsided the Pinto. Glass and noise were everywhere.

I felt the same hope as I watched the plane. “It’s going to lift up,” I said aloud, but it did not. The plane seemed to fly directly into the ground, collapsing in on itself like a Slinky. I kept waiting to hear the sound of the impact just as I’d heard the Chevy and Ford, but things seemed even more unreal because there was no sound. There was a small fireball, and then much smoke. 

I have read somewhere that what witnesses are, more often than not, incorrect when they describe what they have seen. People who study memory have written that we in fact create memories over time, often as a way to force events to fit into our unique perceptions and beliefs. As I watched the smoke rise and drift, I had to force myself that I had actually seen something, and I replayed my version of things over and over in my own thoughts. 

The air suddenly felt colder. I was still sitting on the bench, the polished oak smooth against the backs of my thighs. “I should tell someone,” I said aloud, but immediately knew that “someone” already knew. Standing, I looked around the summit to see if anyone had joined me. There was nobody. I heard the sound of the impact then—not loud, really, just a dampened noise that at some point might have been impressive and frightening. “Oh, Christ,” I said, and I sprinted down the hill toward home.

Thinking Through Winter

I have a strong affection for winter, for its short days and low sun. I do not like the Central California summer, which is relentless.

During the week this time of year, I am at the office well before sunrise. The building is quiet, and if the lights are still on from the day before, I switch off all that I can before sitting in my cubicle.

A couple of weeks ago I spent two nights in a tent in Yosemite Valley's Camp 4. I set my tent on the snow, rigged up a warm mattress constructed of an old sleeping bag and a leaky Thermarest. For a couple of days I hiked around the Valley and enjoyed fresh air, tired legs, and the post-Christmas respite from all things ordinary. I got to see a wild bobcat for the first time, as well as a healthy coyote and several deer. The last time I was in Yosemite was in September, when I sometimes enjoyed a strenuous backpacking trip that, a few days in, found me unable to either eat or sleep enough to maintain a normal level of energy.

The day before yesterday I drove up to the mountains and spent several hours of skiing in the backcountry. I encountered nobody, and I had the trees to myself. At several points I stopped to enjoy the falling snow. 

For about the last month I have had my evenings and weekends to do pretty much as I please: no classes to teach or take, no students to call, no papers to grade. In a couple of weeks I once again start teaching: two nights a week, two hours a night. I am trying to gird my mental self for the increased activity, but the thought of 30 students staring up from their seats causes me no small amount of anxiety.

I will also be taking a guitar class, basically the same course I took last semester but am allowed to repeat at least a few times. I am not a good guitar player, nor will I ever be. But I am better than I once was, and being a student again will help me (I hope) be a better teacher. Many of my students are afraid of writing, really, just as I am afraid of playing my guitar in class. I am hopeful that I am developing a bit of empathy for those who truly do fear having to write. For one Christmas when I was a kid, I asked for a guitar, and what showed up on Christmas morning was a cheap plastic thing that I treasured. Mike, an older neighbor who would end up having quite the dark side, once offered to sell me his electric guitar for $100. I balked, one of many decisions that I have regretted. If I'd started playing then, even with this fat, meaty hands I'd be a much better player than I am.

For Christmas this year I asked for and received a box of Blackwing 602 pencils and a new Rhodia notebook, requests that befuddled more than one person. With these pencils and in this notebook I have begun writing the newest tome (mentioned in in a not-so-old blog post), an exercise in futility and creativity that I'm hopeful to make habitual.

I have told my students for many years that they, too, must practice their writing, that it will get easier and they will get better if they just stick with it, no matter how fat and meaty their hands are.

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.

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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