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Three
Posted 1:21 PM, Aug 29, 2005 |
 A lot of people get depressed while watching the news. These same people, when they find out I type the closed captioning for local newscasts, almost always ask, ‘Isn’t that depressing? How can you stand it?’
I always tell them it’s a lot easier to distance yourself from something the closer you get to it. They look at me blankly until I feel compelled to explain myself further.
‘Imagine a heart. What do you think of when you think about a heart?’
They talk about love, about Valentine’s Day, about the time their heart broke when their puppy ran away.
I tell them about the four chambers of the heart, how it’s a muscle, a machine, really, that runs on electricity. Sometimes I even make up a story where I witnessed an autopsy in my second year of medical school (there was never even a first year) and saw a real human heart, and passed out after looking at the mottled red flesh of it, and that’s why I transcribe closed captioning now.
On good days, I tell them about a hike I went on in Glacier National Park when I was 12 and how I looked over a small, rocky cliff and looked down and saw a vulture picking at the heart of a deer. I put in lots of good detail – not too much, but enough to make it believable. I tell them about the flesh strewn across the broad leaves of the forest, what little patches of early-fall snow there were stained pink and melting. I tell them how the vulture was literally picking at the deer heart, its mouth connected to the inside of the deer by a long, taut string of muscle.
‘That’s what I know about the human heart,’ I tell them, and, after seeing it up close, they aren’t as interested.
It works the same way for beautiful things, too. Look at a rose up close, the imperfect veins in the petals, the small insect buried deep inside the curled caverns of the flower, the ancient spider web with the remnant of a flea hanging limply inside.
My point is that things are more beautiful the further you are away.
Watching the news, my hands clattering on my captioning keyboard, the phone rings. I barely hear it; I hear almost exclusively the drone of the news anchors, the clumsy segue ways between the two of them. I have to wait almost twenty-five minutes to check my voice mail, and I already know it’s nobody who knows me well. Anyone who knows me knows not to call during local newscasts.
An unrecognizable man’s voice, low and raspy: ‘Barry, Puerto Vallarta is gorgeous. The sun shines every day.’ I’m confused for a moment, since I don’t know anyone with a voice like this guy’s who is in Puerto Vallarta. ‘Ben and I have lunch on the beach and then swim, even though you’re not supposed to swim right after eating. I think we’ll be ok.’ It occurs to me that my friend Paula and her husband Ben are on vacation in Mexico. The phone gets colder in my hand, even though my palms begin to sweat. I can feel a trickle of cool perspiration under my left arm. ‘Too bad we have to leave in a week. Wish you were here. Love, Paula.’
The man is reading my mail to me over the phone.
His voice takes on a much more conversational tone, and I can immediately tell he’s not reading anymore. ‘On the front is a long stretch of beach, and off to the left are two deck chairs with a yellow umbrella standing between them. A couple, a man and a woman, are seated in the deck chairs, him on the left, her on the right. Near the center of the picture, a small child is wading into the water, his back to the camera. His dark blue swimming trunks contrast the breaking waves just a little.’ Then a long beep and the automated voice mail menu.
I listen to the message again, paper and pencil in hand, and write down everything the man said, prefacing it with the date and time of the message. I also store the message in my voice mail, saving all those mysterious zeroes and ones. And, while I figured it wouldn’t help (and I was right), *69 told me that the my last call was from an unavailable number, so no help there.
I lean back on the couch and read the closed captioning on the national news for fifteen minutes, each sentence just a few seconds behind Peter Jennings. Cars wait at the streetlight I can see from my apartment window, some of them with headlights on. The headlights from cars further away look like stars just beginning to show in the darkness.
I’m not sure why anyone would call me and read my mail to me, but I hope if they have the birthday card from my mother and there’s money inside, they’ll leave it there for me.
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Sudoku Redux
Posted 11:12 AM, Aug 29, 2005 |
My favorite, Will Shortz, has his take on Sudoku over at The New York Times today.
A couple things:
1) He points out that nearly all sudoku puzzles are computer-generated and the computer uses an algorithm to determine its difficulty (as well as the uniqueness of its solution). Difficulty is determined by, according to Shortz, “using programs that understand all the logical solving strategies,” which just illustrates my previous point of how boring sudoku must get. I can’t imagine the craze lasting long. Seen one, seen ‘em all.
2) “Some crossword enthusiasts turn up their noses at sudoku because they feel it lacks depth.” Indeed. Call it snobbery if you want. I’m a snob about many things, and crosswords and sudoku shouldn’t be exempt.
3) Of course, Shortz is biased, being the crossword editor, but he points out that, “each [sudoku puzzle is] similar to the last.” Sigh.
4) To correct a previous post, I think, I may have stated that sudoku comes from Japanese, meaning, roughly, “single number.” That was an error. Sudoku comes from the Japanese word for “boring.” I apologize for the mistake.
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Two
Posted 9:37 AM, Aug 27, 2005 |
‘Bitch.’
‘What a bitch.’
My friends and I got in the real bad habit of calling Maria, my ex-girlfriend, a bitch. On occasion we got creative: ‘Whore,’ and so on.
I can’t count the number of Fridays and Saturdays we spent eating Pizza Hut delivery, drinking Summit beer, and calling her names while absently watching baseball. That first summer after she disappeared, I joined in with vigor. I think most of my friends didn’t care one way or the other that Maria had vanished, but they at least cared enough to drink with me, talk me into paying for pizza and then forgetting to pay me back, and toss vulgarities at Maria. Basically, they helped me wallow; they were enablers.
After that first summer, my feelings toward Maria changed like the leaves outside – I started to look back at the time that we had together and appreciate that. I was able to put aside the fact that our relationship was dying (at least from my end – I assumed it was already dead from her end and she was deep in the throes of winter). Shortly after, I stopped caring about Maria at all, and the time between my remembrances was longer and longer. When winter came, I stopped caring altogether.
Even though I stopped caring, I never stopped wondering what happened to her. We had been in a month-long disagreement about oversleeping, overdrinking, overdrafting, and overlooking important dates like her birthday. All these overs should have made it obvious that things between us were just about over, despite my distaste for puns. Maria always liked puns, and I’m surprised she didn’t point it out.
The last two weeks we lived together, she worked overtime – this should have been another clue. She was overworked and overstressed, and I ended up spending a lot of time over at Curtis’s house.
I realized she was gone after waking up on Curtis’s orange-and-yellow-striped couch on a bright Sunday. I drove home, my head buzzing with a hangover, and Maria was gone. Her stuff was gone; you know the story. There was nothing unusual about it, at least if you believe what you see in movies, except that there was no note, no message, no anything. It was like she had never lived there. She hadn’t even cut my clothes with scissors or set fire to anything.
That was during spring training five years ago. The baseball season started, summer came, the air hung humid and hot outside, and I spent most of June and July inside. I stopped going to Curtis’s house, blaming him and his couch for all my troubles. Curtis, Greg, Paul, and Matt would come over to order pizza, but I seldom left the apartment.
It takes a long time to completely lose all traces of someone with whom you’ve lived for three years. For months afterward, I would put on a shirt that I hadn’t worn for a while, and it would smell like Maria. She used to wear my shirts all the time without telling me, and I would always act annoyed, but she and I both knew I liked putting on a shirt she had worn and smelling, faintly, the way she smelled.
We spent a lot of time flirting with each other long after we got serious. A couple times, she would go out with her girlfriends and I would go out with the guys, and we would intentionally go to the same bar. We’d flirt with one another from across the bar the entire night; she’d coyly bat her eyelashes at me, looking demure, straight from a 1940s film noir. Sometimes it seemed like the smoke hanging in the dark air was coming from her smolder. The night would end with one of us picking the other one up, our friends looking away, embarrassed.
Well, anyway, most of my feelings toward Maria had vanished by the time the leaves started to return. The last time I remember really thinking about her for a long time was after the first thunderstorm the spring after she left. I walked outside and noticed a slew of earthworms on the sidewalk, some already drying up, some wriggling like miniature snakes, trying to vanish into a hole that wasn’t filled with rainwater. I tiptoed around them on my way to the car; I didn’t step on a single one.
Maria used to love earthworms. On days like that day, she would go outside, kneel low to the ground, and pick them up, one after another. She’d let each one wiggle and slide through her fingers. She’d let them fall the short distance to the ground and then just quietly watch them groove across the concrete. Her hair was always just long enough to almost reach the sidewalk when she knelt down, but just short enough not to get wet. It was always that perfect kneel-down height, cut as if she spent hours every day crouched down, picking up earthworms.
So when I didn’t step on a single earthworm, I realized I didn’t because she loved earthworms so much. And that was the last time I thought about her for six or seven months.
I didn’t think about her again until I got an email from her one Saturday.
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Sudoku Sigh
Posted 9:44 AM, Aug 26, 2005 |
I don’t really understand the whole sudoku craze, myself. The whole thing is out of control, and if even one person could explain why, rather than just telling me that it’s out of control, I’d appreciate it.
I’m not against sudoku, as much as anyone can or can’t be against a benign number puzzle (although I find it interesting that it’s often pointed out, quickly, in articles about sudoku that it involves no math, thereby apparently making it entertaining[?]). But I don’t get it. There isn’t anything to it. Every puzzle is exactly the same in terms of the logic you have to use. There’s a limited amount of logical thinking that goes into each puzzle, and it’s the same type of thinking every time - ‘If this number can’t go there, then this number has to go here, which means…’ ad infinitum.
I do the puzzle when I have some time to spare, now that it’s appearing in the Star Tribune, and, since the Star also includes the difficulty rating, I’d like to tackle a 5-star problem, and maybe I have without knowing it. I can’t imagine the thinking being appreciably different.
It’s good that people are using their brains, though, for a change.
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One
Posted 11:26 AM, Aug 23, 2005 |
“Yes, that’s my address.” My impatience was evident. I hadn’t moved in six years, which I told them in response to the previous question. Even though I hadn’t moved, and I’d been getting credit card statements for six years at home, they still have to ask.
I think the man on the other end is Indian. “We can take care of the finance charges just this one time.” I think I hear New Delhi in the background, through the thin window and the long telephone cord and the satellite transmission, or however international calls work.
“Just this one time?” I wonder how many English curse words the Indian might understand. “This wasn’t even my fault.” I decide not to find out.
“Yes, sir, just this one time.”
Exasperated: “Okay, thanks, then, I guess.”
Completely oblivious: “You are welcome, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”
As a general rule, even in India, I bet, the sound of a click followed by a dial tone is a definite no.
And come to think of it, I didn’t get a birthday card from my mother last week, either. She called and woke me up on Saturday just to wish me a happy birthday, and she always sends a card - she always sends it early, no less. But this year, no card.
I pick up the white cordless and dial my mother, who answers on the first ring. I can definitely hear Jeopardy! in the background. “Hello,” she says at the same time my father says, “Who is Grover Cleveland?” My mother answers the phone like she’s already in the middle of a conversation with the caller. It’s never an expectant hello, it’s never a questioning, who-is-it hello. It’s like she’s run into the caller at the deli or the doctor’s office.
“Mom, it’s me.”
“I know it’s you,” she says, annoyed. I hear what sounds like her slapping my father’s arm, and my father muttering something about not turning the volume down. I should’ve known not to call during Jeopardy!.
“Mom, this is weird of me to ask, but did you send me a birthday card this year?”
Faintly: “Who is Pat Buchanan?”
My mother’s voice is directed at my father as she says, “James Buchanan. Pat Buchanan is a fascist. James Buchanan was the President. And it’s your son - turn the television down.” Her voice appears back in my ear. “A birthday card? Of course I did.”
I love my mother because of the long pause it takes her to even consider why I might be asking. For just a moment, she thinks I’m just asking like it’s a sort of trivia question. “Why?”
“When did you send it?”
“I sent it… almost 2 weeks ago. Yes, because it was Saturday morning - the Saturday after your birthday. And today is�”
“Today’s Thursday, so almost 2 weeks ago.”
“Okay, yes, then. The Saturday after your birthday, because it stopped raining around eleven, so I went to the post office and the sun was just coming out.” There are small rings of dirt lining my fingernails. I need to shower. “Didn’t you get it?”
“If I got it, I wouldn’t - no, I didn’t get it.”
“Well, I sent it.” She sounds a little indignant. My father must have left the room, or else it’s a commercial; the television is either muted or off entirely. It’s 4:42. I love my mother but she makes me tired.
“Mom, I’m not accusing you of not sending it.”
“Good, because I did.” It’s 4:43. I need to take some chicken out of the freezer. “Send it, I mean.”
“Yes, mom, I believe you.” My mother has always been this paranoid. I don’t think the marijuana she smokes for her glaucoma is helping.
“But you didn’t get it, so what are you saying?”
The chicken clatters on the countertop, a thin layer of condensation already forming. It’s raining outside again, but harder than earlier in the day. The dull rumble of thunder rolls through the apartment. The dirty dishes stacked in the sink shake; a knife bounces against the rim of a pint glass. I wait for the thunder to fade away.
“I’m saying that I think someone is stealing my mail.”
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Post-Birthday
Posted 8:02 PM, Aug 20, 2005 |
Mad public props to all those that attended the weekend birthday bash and bowling extravaganza. A big shout out to, in no particular order, Heather, Russ, Meaghan, Rom, Amy, Missy, DJ, Aaron, Abi, Mark, Kathy, Colin, Adam, Chris, Mary, Angela, Tessa, and Joyce, wherever you are. From what I remember, it was a pretty kick-ass good time. I remember most of it, no thanks to the red-headed slut (insert joke about Heather here), cherry cheesecake, liquid Viagra, something I don’t know the name of, and the fabled Triple T + T, which gets capital letters for being the worst thing I’ve ever drank on purpose.
Once, when I was in high school, I was drinking Mountain Dew (God, I was dumb in high school) and I fell asleep in the basement watching television, the almost-empty can on the floor next to the couch. I woke up, picked up the can, and went upstairs. On my way upstairs, I took a drink from the can and felt a bunch of weird, sort of granular objects in my mouth. I held the soda in my mouth, got to the kitchen sink, and spit it out.
Ants!
Yay!
The soda had become unknowingly infested with ants. If you’ve never put ants in your mouth while they’re alive, I highly recommend it.
Anyway, I digress. Thanks again to everyone for coming out.
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My Email Accounts
Posted 10:56 AM, Aug 16, 2005 |
I
i’ve been sending myself
emails from one account
to the other, like opposite sides
of a split personality arguing
with each other, like opposite sides
of a marriage purposefully doing
things to upset each other, just to make
sure the other side still cares,
still exists.
II
a week ago tuesday, an email was in my inbox
from me, but i didn’t remember sending it.
it was a letter from the past, a new past,
an electronic past, all a-sizzle with lowercase
letters and italicized emphases. it was a snapshot
someone took of me when i wasn’t looking, but
fortunately i sounded witty, charming, and intelligent.
i replied immediately, asking, ‘where are you?’
but haven’t heard back.
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Return
Posted 10:26 AM, Aug 13, 2005 |
What’s up? I’m back. The long wait is over.
Anyway, Chicago was excellent. Big party, music, volleyball, beer, pigs, tons of food, old friends, and… Elvis.
So there’s that.
Then there was Pennsylvania, which, since most of it was work, most of it is prohibited for me to talk about. I did meet a couple fascinating people who are assuredly reading this, looking for their names in neon lights.
Lest they think I forgot how to spell their names, Melodye and Don are friends of Roxy, this woman I work with. We went out, had food and drinks, went to Hershey Park, from which my shoulder still hurts just a little bit. We rode on every roller coaster in the park, after which I didn’t feel so great. I think I actually felt better the morning after drinking than I did the morning after riding roller coasters.
And today is my birthday, so don’t think I’m going to spend a whole lot more time entertaining you, dear reader. You should be entertaining me.
Later.
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Vacation
Posted 12:21 PM, Aug 5, 2005 |
I will be taking a vacation from the site this week, as I’m out of town for work, which is most definitely not a vacation.
The near-endless cavalcade of emails this site generates on a daily basis will have to wait a week.
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I Am a Pretentious Reader
Posted 9:14 AM, Aug 4, 2005 |
Man, if I ever needed more evidence that people are reading some boring-ass crap out there, here it is. Sure, some of them are okay, like Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy (kidding), Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (Volume V) (kidding again), Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times (and finally, still kidding).
But actually, some are okay, like Three Nights in August, Heidi, Purgatorio, and I’ve heard J. M. Coetzee is excellent, but can’t vouch for it.
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A Joke For You
Posted 9:27 AM, Aug 1, 2005 |
This is a joke I’ve been working on for a week or so.
—-
So Heisenberg is driving home from work, the same way he’s driven home from work for the last twenty years. Much to his dismay, he sees the flashing lights of a police car in his rear view mirror, so he pulls onto the shoulder of the road, right in front of his favorite local grocery store.
The officer approaches Heisenberg’s window and asks Heisenberg, “Do you know how fast you were going?”
Heisenberg looks at the officer and says, “Of course not.”
—-
I think it still needs a little work, but once I fine tune it, this joke is going to kill when my comedy tour takes me through Los Alamos and the Fermi Labs.
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