where there's smoke, there's clementine

I tossed the peelings into the sink and turned the disposal on. I am not enamored of such devices. Is it because the one we had in The Projects broke? Didn't it break so often we gave up on having them repair it? Did its guttural grind scare me? As the disposal was gargling the skin of the clementine, I thought I saw a cloud of smoke puff up from the bottom of the sink hole to the right of the disposal. Smoke? Uh-oh. The next day, I kept an eye out for smoke. As I was uncurling my clementine at breakfast, I spotted -- and smelled -- a sudden burst of citrus spray escaping from the tender fruit.

Mystery solved. Mystery epiphanied.

Where there's smoke, there's not fire. Not necessarily.

And the day after that, steam uncurling heavenward from my hot tea with half and half no sugar. Swirling skyward. As if a genie were about to appear and offer to grant me wishes.

Wishes already granted.

Because in seventy years I had never seen my breakfast tea in quite that light.

Midyuletidemonday

What should we call this interregnum of a day, this diurnal hiatus between years, between nativity and epiphany, birth and discovery, between darkness and satori, this timely peninsula of gray waiting, quotidian quiddity? 

Midyuletidemonday?

biopsy epiphany

I expected the worst. I'm not even referring to the results. Worst, as in bend over to be probed, inserted, navigated, manhandled. A conjured image of discomfort, humiliation, breathe-through-it pain, tension, and fear. I was given a needle in each butt cheek: an antibiotic as a preventive measure. The left needle was barely felt; the right one hurt. I was escorted to the room for the euphemistically called procedure. Lie on your left side, facing the wall. So that was better than the on-your-elbows position I had pictured. Plus, they "numbed me up" down there. Another aspect better than I had envisioned. (In 2002, I was not given an anesthetic.) Before you know it, during my rambling dialogue with the doctor, they're in there. Ultrasound images on a screen. Colorful computer simulations, like you see in the movies. Numeric designations on the screens. To the left, or the right, up or down, closer or farther. Lunar landscape. Gentle landing. Inner clenchings like staplings but duller, internal pings -- except for one of twenty, not painful, more like an annoyance, a tangible split-second thump within-the-inner-of-the-inner inwardness. To harpoon and retrieve the tissue samples. The conversation and the screens distractions. The doctor said I'd probably want to watch. I said I rarely do, such as during a colonoscopy, which I wouldn't remember anyway because of the Versed anesthesia. He said, oh, you'll watch. And I did. An observer of my innermost self, physically. Not afraid or anxious. Almost amused. A detachment as if it were somebody else being represented up there on the screens. A curiosity, an observation, an objective assessment. Oh, that. Watching some kind of sci fi episode, without the popcorn. A metaphysical shrug of the shoulders.

Would that such detachment were granted to me for any day's probings, any day's pricks and prods, any day's pleasures or pains.

Vaticanated Mystery

You know how colors in the modern world are adorned with evocative, picturesque, poetic names? I wish I had that job, naming colors. Take yellow. Bumblebee lemon banana peach corn cream Tuscan sun butterscotch canary gold daffodil mustard dandelion pineapple blond(e) trombone eggnog flaxen. And so on. Hold that thought. I exited my building from the side door by the stairway between the first and second floors. I walked up a small set of stairs to ground level, to traverse a snow-covered sidewalk. The snow had both melted and been packed down. I turned left, the roadway to my right, and spied yellow somethings littering the snowscape. I had seen these a day or two earlier and did not pay them much mind. This time I stopped and picked up one of these adornments. Who put them there. What are they, these yellow dispatches from elsewhere. How did they get to their seemingly random positions in the snow. They looked like peelings, of paper or plastic. Picking one up, I concluded it was a paint chip. A morsel of yellow paint, separated from the object it had adhered to. I stopped. Turned around. From whence I just walked, near the building, I saw half a dozen yellow bollards that surrounded and protected a utilities box. The yellow bollards alert drivers and prevent an accidental crash into the electrical utilities, causing danger and mayhem. However, the bollards were not quite yellow, not uniformly. Bits of yellow paint had flaked off, exposing steel-gray. Hence, the paint chips in the snow. Or so it seems, lacking more or better evidence. A mystery lingers: how did the yellow paint chips become airborne and land on the snowy sidewalk and adjoining landscape. Wind. Hard to believe. Even a fierce wind. Wouldn't other damage be evident. Placed by human hands. Doubtful. Who would go through the trouble. Ever see the flag of the city-state called Vatican City. Yellow and white bands. This sheds absolutely no light on answers to the aforementioned questions about the paint chips. (I could be wrong. Maybe plastic shavings, not paint. Perhaps enamel or some sort of coating, clearly not weather-resistant, or the bollards would not exhibit exposed portions as if zoo lions or tigers were using the bollards as scratching posts.) New colors: bollard vaticanate sneeze pee popcorn kernel caramelite bunion callous fartish strawstrewn toothstained maltanned sweated toasted oolong dentured custard flame sunsplashed parchment nicotined diapered lamped earwax caution amberesque . . . 
 

questions for Iceland and me

Questions about my pending Iceland trip (answers pending; or not):

1. Am I trying to escape duty, pain, or quotidian routine? If so, is that right or wrong? (Are "right" and "wrong" notions of culture and custom more than morality?)
2. If Iceland is a personal metaphor, what is it a metaphor for? If not a metaphor, can Iceland be a simile, a song, an icon, a template, a slate, a temple, or a geothermal self-reflecting pool?
3. Upon landing at Keflavik, will I say to myself, "What have you done now?" though it will not be possible, or practical, to scoot back home?"
4. Can one conjure or force to happen a satori or epiphany? And can a new-found-land be the locus of such enlightenment?
5. Will I be able to resist the urge to sleep upon landing?
6. Which course of tourism will be most beneficial and rewarding: wringing everything out of Iceland and tapping all its wellsprings insofar as this human and his endurance and budget can withstand it, or a more passive, let-it-me-revealed onto to me approach?
7. What if I love Iceland so much I want to stay, I mean really stay? (And would Iceland even want me to stay if I could?)
8. Will I encounter a San Francisco Giants fan in Iceland? (I would not be shocked at such an eventuality.)
9.  Do Icelanders believe in the existence of elves (National Geographic says 54% of Icelanders do)? Better yet, quite simply, do elves inhabit Iceland, spiritually or physically?
10. If this journey proves transformative, how so?

curvilinear urban legend beauty

You venture out to retrieve the black plastic empty trash can and the blue bin for recyclables, peering at your car and, as you typically do, surveying for slashed tires or a window broken and beaded from last night's anonymous mayhem. On the road surface (a road paved merely months ago), you spy an imprint of white paint that nearly outlines your car, a 2007 VW Rabbit, 111,000 miles, the way the police delineate chalk lines where a dead body formerly sprawled, in its last restless resting place. You look left and see where the paint seemingly originated, several houses south, on Avery Avenue, where a resident likely deposited it, improperly, in last night's trash. This "waste management" accident paints a brushstroke of curvilinear whimsy and beauty. (Curvilinear strikes this observer as an especially feminine word, owing to female curvature merged with sweeping linearity as opposed to male angularity and polarity.) The alabaster alphabet consisting of one long L with hints of an S at the end is punctuated with accidental or purposeful blockprints from someone's steps, or else owing to the fruits of a performance or avant-garde visual artist who has staged this elaborate design, which trails off into the intersection with Chemung Street, toward the final feet of the old West End of Syracuse. And later in the day, and in the remains of subsequent days, you see vestiges of more curvilinearity: the palimpsest of the dawn street sweepers, meandering against curbs and around parked cars, reciting a visual poetry of fading hieroglyphics.

creating coincidence

You walk the path you trod, the air colder and the sky brighter. You go to this or that music, food, or lecture venue, this time alone. You tell yourself timing is critical. You picture the "coincidental" rendezvous, its texture, complexion, the reactions, the heartbeats. But you discover you cannot create coincidence, can you. It's not so shocking or surprising a revelation. The bigger and more cogent epiphany, however, is that you are content with the absence of so-called coincidence as you traverse your world, step by vigilant step.

questions for a new year

Is it a year of the rat?
Or of the hat?
Maybe the sloth, the lemur, or axolotl?
When is the lunar new year?
How about the solar?
Or the plexus?
Where will I be a year from now, days after Epiphany?
Will I *be*?
Won't I *be* a "someone else" in any event, no matter what?
What epiphanies await me this year?
This day, this second?
And am I ready for them?
And does it matter, ready or not?

Happy Ninth Day of Christmas

Back to work tomorrow.

Monday.

First of the new year.

Quotidian quandaries.

Laundry.

Dishes. And dishing.

Up and at 'em.

The month of two-faced Janus.

Sleeves rolled up.

Even though it is not yet Epiphany, we have broken tradition and tossed our tree out unceremoniously to the curb. It was always a bit too lopsided and crooked, even for our lopsided and crooked tastes.

Happy Ninth Day of Christmas, worldwide readers.

The Subjunctive of Epiphany Eve

Were the subjunctive to speak
I doubt that
Would they
If molecular biology
Were kings to fly
Or stars to speak
Contingent desire
Breathy
Breathless
Is more
Is just plain everything
As in this daily epiphany
The bread (crumbs) of life
Ordinary
As my my morning toast
Luscious in butter
And tea
For too
Too much

An Early Merry Christmas to You, Too

In my office, not the Holy Office (HAHAHAHAHA, inside joke for Roman Catholics or, um, especially Inquisitive folks), in back of my HP printer, and near the window, is a manger inhabited, so to speak, with little statues of Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus, the Three Magi, a shepherd boy with a lamb around his neck, and a donkey. Straw on top of the roof; an angel with "Gloria" on a cloth at the entrance above the manger. On top of the roof rests a metal garland holding Advent candles, unlit, three purple and one pink.

This arrangement has not made its way to the attic, yet, from last Christmas. That's my only explanation. [The photo is not accurate in two respects: 1) no cameras were available back in those days -- REALLY?? 2) for illustrative purposes only; not an image from my office.]

What can I say?

If we get scorching temperatures (so far, we have not had a very warm late spring, thank you; fine with me), maybe a glance at a Christmas manger scene will cool things down mentally and spiritually.

Or perhaps, with the Three Wise Men huddling nearby, if I need an epiphany, sudden or otherwise, it's there if I am open to it.

Evanescent Epiphany

Burnet Park. Three vehicles roll down the hill. They stop, lined up as in a parade. Amber lights flashing atop the vehicles. Hard-hatted people emerge. Three Kings? Three Queens? Two Jacks and an Ace? They walk up to lightpoles. A polar eclipse? An elliptical polarity? They are fussing with extension cords. They are here to de-light the park of holyday hollyday holiday illuminations. I head home. I stop. I turn back, facing lightward, waiting for proof of my ruminative illuminative de-lighting delightful theory without recrimination. An epiphany in reverse, as it were, as it was, as it ever shall be. The dog tugs. The lights are still on. Homeward. Eponymous day night eve ever everyes.

Merry Christmas, I Say

I wish you a Merry Christmas, and notice that I did not append the word "belated" to the greeting. Why not? It's not late. Despite the mercantile manifestations to the contrary, it is still the Christmas season, liturgically and actually. What do you think those Twelve Days of Christmas are all about? In my palace, the tree (always live) is not permitted to go out to the curb for recycling until Epiphany, traditional Epiphany, January 6. So there.

Chaos Theory: Hoard to Tears

Many of my favorite sweaters are buried. They groan under the weight of Mount Sweaterest, which is something like six feet wide and five feet high, and counting, and consists mostly of my spouse's 789 sweaters -- even after massive donations to charity over the years. (Hey! it's cold in these parts nine months of the year!) Mount Sweaterest occupies a significant portion of Syracuse's Tipperary Hill, as contained within our modest abode.

This weekend, I was tempted to exert a little energy and personal responsibility by going out and buying some plastic shelves or bins (certainly not a new bureau). You know, organize my life.

Then I found that my problem is me (per usual), not shelf space. Yup, as noted by the wellness (isn't that a fine word?) columnist of The New York Times,

"Excessive clutter and disorganization are often symptoms of a bigger health problem."

It goes on to say, "Attention deficit disorder, depression, chronic pain, and grief can prevent people from getting organized or lead to a buildup of clutter." (I inserted my own serial comma in that quotation. So sue me.) Bingo! I'll cop to three out of four of those qualifiers.

What to do?

I told wifey I was going to liberate drawer space from some of the bureaus her clothes occupy. That was met with, um, slight resistance.

Doesn't matter. My job is to de-clutter my own life, clean up my side of the street.

Didn't get too far on that this weekend.

But we did take down the Christmas tree. (I regally decree annually that we wait until Epiphany before de-foresting the living room.)

The falling pine needles refreshed the pine scent of the tree when it was freshly cut. An old memory instantly resurrected.

The space formerly occupied by the tree seems so vacant and secular and quotidian now.

Back to normal life. Whatever normal is.

Incidentally, I still find myself greeting people with "Happy New Year." How long is that permitted? I think I might stop soon; this might be the last week for that. Or maybe not. What else do we have to say until Valentine's Day (a depressing holiday for me ever since Barbara Wallace didn't give me a card in first grade) anyway? Yeah, I know. "If you see Kay. . . . off."

The 2007 Booklist

Continuing a time-honored tradition (begun way back a year ago), I hereby list my annual booklist, in order of completion (last year: 14 books), with little or no editorial comment:

1. The Pleasure of My Company. Steve Martin. Fiction.

2. Everyman. Philip Roth. Fiction (read on a flight to Berlin). (Weird. The link you see for Roth has a rare interview, with The Guardian, with a photographer from Berlin, oddly enough.)

3. Lisey's Story. Stephen King. Fiction.

4. The Mission Song. John LeCarre. Fiction. (a year ago I was privileged to pose a question to him on BBC Radio; can't find the link; maybe someday)

5. Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain. Michele Morano. Essays.

6. The Innocent. Ian McEwan. Fiction.

7. Stumbling on Happiness. Daniel Gilbert. Non-fiction (sociology/psychology).

8. The Woman Lit by Fireflies. Jim Harrison. Fiction.

9. fly away peter. David Malouf. Fiction.

10. Samaritan. Richard Price. Fiction.

11. This Clumsy Living. Bob Hicok. Poetry.

12. Some Can Whistle. Larry McMurtry. Fiction.

13. Um...Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean. Michael Erard. Non-fiction.

14. Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Jonah Lehrer. Non-fiction essays.

15. Silk. Alessandro Baricco. Fiction.

I am three-quarters finished with Richard Ford's truly superb and already-memorable The Lay of the Land, but that can't go on this year's list unless I speed-read through about 150 pages in the next 3.5 hours (won't happen).

I do like books. Today, at lunchtime I saw that Murphy's Books was open, downtown Syracuse. It was a surprise because its owner (who is brother to our receptionist and brother to a friend of mine) is battling leukemia. He is liquidating the store's inventory. He is. . . His collection is excellent and literary. I bought nine books for nine dollars and change. A dollar a book, hard or soft. Can't beat that. Perhaps I'll list them some other time.

Endnote: My story -- the one I took a week off of blogging from to write -- was not selected by Glimmer Train Stories. Everyone I showed it to (including successful published authors) loved it. The main thing is, I loved it. And still do. I may self-publish. Hard to decide, seeing as my son gave me the writer's guide for 2008. We'll see.

I am glad the holiday frenzy is over.

Our tree stays up at least to Epiphany, January 6.

I am wearing my slippers and may be asleep well before midnight.

Happy New Year.

Pacem in Terris.

Silent Day

I guess I have survived the orgy of getting and spending we call Christmas (though, not parenthetically, it is hoped, ignoring its Presence found at the intersection of Silence and Mystery, amid the most abject Pain and Need, in the Ground of Being), left with a residue of weariness and emptiness, a vacancy filled by the Unnameable Name.

High-sounding words.

Silence is better.

I stayed in my pajamas all day. And now night.

Literally. Really.

Is that depression? Or sanity?

Late last night, the church provided sanctuary and solace, reverie and focus. The Story never changes, except infinitely so, in each of us. The trumpet declared brightness and awakening, even at midnight. There were tears in eyes.

Would that we all were there.

Or here.

Alas, we were / are, yes?

Readers: To you, Blessed Christmas, a season that lasts at the very least until Epiphany.

Ergo, keep your candles glowing.

A Sentence of Holy Smokes

En route to my car on the fourth level of the garage at midday, I am arrested by a vision of reality across Montgomery Street: powdery pockets of snow sliding down the emerald patina of the copper roof of St. Paul's Cathedral, accumulating just enough weight at angled wedges to glide downward in a puff of alabaster swirling smoke, eddies of epiphany that pour down, then pop, then dissipate in a gust, only to do it again, and again, surrounded by a curtain of endless flakes.

A Sentence of Enlightenment

Walking the dog in the too-early night, not being accustomed to this artificial invitation to one hour less of evening light, I am buffeted by whirling winds while simultaneously amused by Maggie's chasing of a wind-driven leaf here and then there, as if it were an escaping prey, and then dazzled by the surprising array of whitish-yellow lights draping two maples at the crest of the hill in the park overlooking the city, awaiting the advent of a feast of light on the darkest night.

Anatomy of an Hour

8:17 a.m. -- Walk into building. Hang coat up. Walk upstairs to cubicle. Turn on computer. Unsuccessful. Change password. Successful reboot. Decide against clicking on Outlook to check mail, fearing an avalanche of tasks will descend before taking seat at desk. Blinking light on phone indicates the presence of stored voicemail message(s).

8:23 a.m. -- Grab coffee mug, find tea bag, get tiny creamer from refrigerator. After inspecting level of sediment in mug, wash vigorously with detergent, rinse, wipe dry. Exchange brief pleasantries with colleague at sink.

8:27 a.m. -- Upon walking to hot-water dispenser, thinking about urinating but postponing the action, get paged to answer phone call from client on line 31. Put mug down, near tea bag and creamer on colleague's unoccupied desk to take call.

8:28 a.m. -- Pick up line 31. Empty. Client has hung up.

8:29 a.m. -- Go to bathroom. Urinate. Wash hands. Attempt to dry with paper towel. No paper towels. Wipe hands on underarms.

8:34 a.m. -- Search unsuccessfully for mug, tea bag, and creamer. Get paged. Call on line 32. From wife. Go to receptionist's desk, pick up line 32. Learn that the lunch self-prepared earlier this morning is still sitting on the kitchen table. Instruct that it be placed in the refrigerator at home. Call on line 31. From client. Pick up line 31 at front desk. Client scolds for not taking earlier call. Ask receptionist for Post-it or scrap paper by waving hands, lifting eyebrows, and making spastic motions. Other calls coming in. Receptionist demands that call on line 31 be put on hold and responded to away from receptionist's desk, to free up incoming calls.

8:37 a.m. -- Take client's call on line 31, at own desk. Client asks if email has been received. Lie by saying, "Yes" but bluff through the rest of the client's monologue as client lists edits to five bulleted items, including reordering and adding new bullets and deleting others. Take notes on last week's pay stub found in pocket because Post-its left on desk last night have been used by others. While client is talking, cradle phone in curve of shoulder and attempt to retrieve email client is referring to. Email is down. Interrupt client and cheerily ask for edits in a fax, claiming email never came through, totally contradicting earlier lie. Client turns frosty. Reach for mug. It's not there. Feebly attempt humor with client. Starchy reply, emphasizing deadline. While client is making key critical comment, call is lost from client's cellphone.

8:45 a.m. -- Rush downstairs, find mug, place tea bag in mug, fill with hot water. Walk upstairs to desk, letting tea steep. No creamer. Sip very hot tea despite wanting creamer. Try email. Still down. Click on Internet Explorer. Home page headline reads: "5 Tips for a More Productive Day." Click on link; glance at five bulleted items; resist reading complete article; send printer-friendly version of article to printer. Take one quick look at NCAA brackets. Resist urge to read further. Send NCAA bracket results to printer. Walk three yards to printer. Only NCAA results print out.

8:52 a.m. -- Ask receptionist to check on UPS package sent last night to another client. Not there yet. No record of it in the system. Ask receptionist to follow up.

8:53 a.m. -- Supervisor enters office and asks for draft of proposal promised by noon. In response to protests it is not yet noon, says, "Well, it's noon somewhere." Receptionist phones, informing of nine-page fax to be picked up downstairs.

8:56 a.m. -- Run downstairs, retrieve fax, run to refrigerator, pick up creamer. Run upstairs back to office.

8:57 a.m. -- Take gulp of tea, now cold, but with creamer. Email is up: 36 messages, three with symbols indicating high urgency.

9:01 a.m. -- Scroll to message of client who called earlier on line 31. Faxed version of edits is completely different. Begin to call client. Get paged. Doctor's office. Line 33. Get paged again. Client from earlier line 31 now on line 32. Client berates for not calling back on cellphone sooner. Client walks through a now-third version of edits significatly different from emailed version or faxed version. Client then interrupts self. Can't finish revisions, must board plane. Doctor's office not on line 33 anymore.

9:11 a.m. -- Call doctor's office. Receptionist puts call on hold. Background music is "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles. Click on one of two urgent emails. Email message inquires as to reason for missing yesterday's regulatory deadline. Delete message.

9:13 a.m. -- Doctor's office answers; asks name again. Hang up.

9:14 a.m. -- Client calls with edit from plane; flight delayed. Hang up.

9:15 a.m. -- Take sip of cold tea. Grab coat and keys. Walk downstairs.

9:16 a.m. -- Sign out, writing: "Appointment in Samarra." Exit building.

9:17 a.m. -- Outside, on bottom step in front of stairs to office, call doctor's office on cellphone. Busy. Call X, in another time zone. X answers call, says: "Surrender to win," laughs, hangs up. A jet flies into a bank of clouds.



© copyright 2007 by The Laughorist. Any resemblance to reality or real persons, places, events, workplaces, things, or thoughts is merely coincidental. All rights reserved. Just for today, the day you are reading this fiction nonfiction.