kingdad

2006-12-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

Wish I could camouflage it in sprays of silver tinsel. Stuff the raw, lonely feeling down into the toe of a stocking. But I can't. Even with my child chattering away about Santa, Santa brings me the same shit every year- this feeling.

-The Isle of Misfit Toys
-I'll Be Home For Christmas

The lights hanging in the cold, empty air.

So, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you.

2006-10-10T19:20:00.000-04:00

Something about Jeff Buckley singing "Hallelujah."

Maybe it was the wine. I don't roll in her arms much these days, so one ruby touch makes me raw to the aches and warm whispers of the world.

But I really do think it was Jeff Buckley. Lightly tapping on the door. His hands still wet, muddy from the Mississippi. Looking for someone to let him in. To let him sit and ready himself for leaving. To let him sit with his mortal voice once more before it falls still.

I think he drowned in the song. That there is nothing so perfect as his "Hallelujah" and he just had to breathe it in.

I think it broke Leonard Cohen. That he couldn't shoulder it. Every line is his face carries the mark of "Hallelujah." That he tried to speak of it's golden plumes, it's floating vapors with his heavy tongue. "Hallelujah" couldn't bear the blackness of the ink of it creator's pen. A beautiful child, but a bastard child still. Uncertain. It sullied itself in Leonard Cohen's throat, wallowed in the coldness of cheap organ treatments and a gospel choir-for-hire and it died there.

But Jeff Buckley simply tied it around his brow and floated off to heaven.

And so did I.

I hugged my daughter first. I breathed her in and drowned in the goodness of her little being.

Hallelujah

2005-06-02T23:27:00.000-04:00

I am a lonely swimmer, dashing my tired body against the dark coast.

There are no lights, only the wind and the sand, bone white backs bent under the long, white cane of the moon.

Cotes Du Rhone, U2'S Stay on infinite repeat, a debris field of loneliness spills across dense banks of shimmering cold shadows.

The girls swim in their own ocean, one much warmer than mine. The sound of their warm breath laps against the cold hull of HMS Kingdad as its bow kicks up a cloud and nuzzles into the soft mud of the bottom. Their mattress bobs along in the dreams of diligent angels.

Meanwhile, a regal stern towers against the open, blue canopy of the night, of Wagner, of perfectionism and of longing. A still shot hung in the moment just before the descent into the open mouths of sharks and sepia tone photographs.

I will always be a wreck. A sad postcard.

They will always have one another to cling to.

I am a shipwreck, a tongue of rainbow hued oil on the surface of the sea. I am a pillow of fire, a tap and a click in phantom ears, a searchlight, a curl of cork hung in the dark grasp of diesel fuel and scorched so'westers.

I am a straggler on the beach, crawling towards the embers of a dying campfire.

Towards warmth...

2005-04-22T01:01:00.000-04:00

Whirlwinds of green crawl across the road, drunken ghosts rising slowly, then racing into a chaotic arc before tearing off to vanish within the darkened crossed arms of the woods.

There is a constant sound outside of the open windows. The sound of the wind in the sea oats, of the ocean spray racing across the cool, damp sand under the clouded eye of a high, late summer moon.

Only it's April. And there is no ocean nearby. The constant throaty whisper outside is the sound of pollen, blown against the smooth, white face of our little house.

The world is trapped in a bright green noose. Green halos choke anemic streetlights. Spindly limbs and fresh buds labor under a phosphorescent glow in the spring darkness. The smell of new wisteria tangles with the acrid musk of nature's rampant fertility.

There is a blizzard of allergens marching down my street, painting cars, rocking chairs and early azalea blossoms.

Despite the heavy dose of Allegra, I am happy to submit. Happy to give in to the reckless affections of spring.

2005-03-26T21:28:00.000-05:00

I’m back.

Literally.

Pilots call them “aborted take offs.”

Things just don’t line up right; breaks are hastily applied bringing a huge mass to an abrupt halt, just before nosing skyward. Just in case.

This happened to me today. I just couldn’t line up myself up and make it all work.

I tried. I tried very hard. I analyzed all of the data and made every preparation that I could. I believed that I was going somewhere. I sat in the darkness, alone at my own helm, touching upon every resource that I had and they weren’t enough. I just couldn’t make it happen. I could not make myself move.

People depended on me and I just came to a stop.

I failed.

I have had quite a touch of flight phobia these past few years. I have missed a wedding because of it, driven from the asshole to the nose of the east coast just to escape the banking and bumping of winged uncertainty.

It wasn’t always this way. I used to have a drink; put on my headset and wonder how much longer it would be before I could do it all over again. At one time my airline of choice (Pakistani International Airways –best veggie meals ever-) was staffed by pilots that came on board smoking and wearing keffiyehs. I sat in the tail section and smoked and watched the planes shadow sweep across the decks of unknown ships and chalky sweeps of ice. I watched the rocky coastline of the British Isles smack against the most stunning green land I have ever seen, and then fall into the frothing mouth of The North Atlantic. The pilot would occasionally say, "We will be landing in Frankfurt in 20 minutes -if God wills it- thank you, and please enjoy whats left of your flight."

Not even two weeks ago I found myself clutching the armrests on the way to and from New Orleans, thinking that I had mastered it again. That I would fill up my orange suitcase and take my family everywhere.

And here I am today, lonelier than I have ever been in my life because my family had to leave without me. Ok, I left them. I left them standing there in a pile of shattered would-be vacation memories and shards of misplaced trust. I left them at the gate, vomit on my breath and my heart pounding against my eyeballs.

I stepped outside of my family, outside of the pressurized hull that keeps us all safe and together, gasping in the grip of a huge hand that just kept squeezing me and squeezing me. The two valiums, darvocet and mint tea I encased myself in this morning snapped worthlessly against my phobia’s first strike.

Siegfried had his linden leaf and I have my flight info.

My wife’s words and my daughter’s confused look swirled outside of the bloodied eye slit of my crushed helmet like flies as I lay on the ground waiting for the last breath to bubble out of my lungs.
I took part of them with me as I descinded into the tight coils of panic. I took moments that none of us will ever retrieve. Dreams that will rot in the peatbog of my self inflicted disability.

Like any coward, I tearfully hugged my family. I told them that I loved them and then I floated away into myself and walked quickly through the fishbone white throat of Terminal C towards the stairs that would lead me out of my self made hell, out into the light, into that certain smell of the world that all cowards cling to.

Like a rat claws at a piece of garbage floating in the wake of a ship that never sinks, I pounced on the smell of airport shuttles and the echoes of brave souls going places. I wanted to tear myself in half and vanish from the world like a curl of smoke.

I wanted to feed my worthless heart into my families luggage, into the the long, hungry 737 that would momentarily tear it's way into the sky with my wife and my daughter in it's bowels, so that some part of me wouldn't fail them.

Instead I stood and watched cars come and go, ingesting people, spewing them out. I listened to cell phones ring, to canned announcments, to engines sucking air and life from the runway. I stood there and wished that I was as good of a husband and a father as my girls wanted me to be.

The smell of being human sometimes smells like love, like warm oil from the heart of life’s engine, pushing us hard into a climb and and a certain tragectory to deliver us safely to our beds and into each other’s dreams.

And sometimes, it smells like emptiness, like desertion. And the smell of my family’s life lingering in this cold, quiet house tonight exaggerates the aroma my flight today, of my arrival to the totality of my weakness.

And it is weakness that I loathe in myself above all things.

2005-02-05T23:19:00.000-05:00

The death of the unfamiliar is death. The death of excitement, the death of me.

I remember thinking this.

Sometimes I still do as I drive the same paved line from work to my home everyday, when I look off into the woods while my car thinks for me. When it all moves so fast that it doesn't move anymore, when it all hums itself into the same easy color.

Either I arrive, or I don't. We still have to pay the babysitter.

Once it was a magnificent spring day in Berlin. The sky was blue and empty and the trees were already too green. It was a March day, and this day was the day of my birth. I rolled a cigarette and felt the 5 mark piece in my vest pocket, so heavy between my thumb and forefinger. Whenever my new life in this new city felt comfortable, all I had to do was touch the coins in my pocket and I was on edge again. My whole life’s experience before this day was six hours away from me now, across the Atlantic. Visible in my mind, beyond my grasp, sleeping while I talked too much, giddy from golden beer. I could see my Mother frying bacon for Dad while I tried to climb through the wisteria of another fitful attempt at sleep in this new, German world.

And the woman that broke me in half before I came here? No matter what time it was she climbed through the smoke and the new names and the lost tongues around me, like a radio wave. Banking above me, a lost pilot with a belly full of bombs, a hungry searchlight against my thin city walls. She was the sound of bullets and dogs barking, of the cold, white hand that extends a warm cup of coffee and a new place to stay while hell blossoms in the garden.

There are only a few relics of this time packed away in my basement. My favorite is a photo, one of the few I still like to see. There I am, between the thighs of that March morning. Thin, radiant, a burning building with bangs and a vest and a cigarette held up into the face of time. Behind me a bunker, a perfect, stubborn brushed concrete cube.

The sun beautifies thick, East German spray paint-

"Where bunkers are built bombs fall!"

And now I am here. I am married. I am a Father, and in this photo there are no more red doors to knock on in the middle of the afternoon. No one to wreck with a few lines written in green ink and a Leonard Cohen song. No more Sundays while the world yelps away under a finger of smoke tracing through the window’s open mouth.

I don't smoke anymore anyway...

Once everything was new to me. I was a new being every time I unlidded my eyes.
Now it's my daughter. She is the new horizon. The newest and brightest horizon.
And my family is the only world that holds weight to me. My Wife and my daughter, my family.

This is our daughter's favorite word- family.

It's my favorite word too.

2005-01-13T01:20:00.000-05:00

When I was 8 years old and my dad had a heart attack the world around me exploded. Everyone came to our little grubby house to visit, helped clean, brought endless anemic offerings in dingy Tupperware bowls and spent hour after hour driving my mom to and from the hospital.

I played in my perfectly square room. I played under the bed with my flashlights and my GI Joe just like I did when my dad was home,
in my stiff blue Toughskins and my red sneakers like every other child in the 70's. I played in my room like I was supposed to. I missed my dad, but I knew he would come home and we would all just go back to being the way we were before he clawed at his chest and throat, dropped the pruning shears and fell off the ladder into the camellia bush.

He came home, and just like I thought, he joined me and GI Joe and all was well.

When my Grandmother had a stroke, when I was 19 years old, I went to the hospital for a few hours and looked at her. She was a small woman with a harsh face. I knew she loved me, but I didn't always feel it. The day she got so cold and tried to call for help while her body trembled I was in the woods behind my house smoking hash in the pony shed. We were neighbors, and I was supposed to go play cards with her that afternoon, but somehow it just seemed like a much better idea to get stoned and think about how hard it was to be around her.

She squeezed my hand as they pushed the stretcher into the clean, white ambulance. That was the last conscious interaction we had. I wanted to read her my poems as I stood at her bedside later, but was afraid she wouldn't like them. She was in a coma, but I knew she could hear me. I just held her hand while she sighed into a thicket of tubes and drip bags.

A few days later my grandmother died while I unbuttoned my girlfriend’s jeans under a bridge in a park. We smoked cigarettes, naked in her olive green sleeping bag and listened to the thunder rumble through the empty belly of the late May sky.

While one of my friends was dying, I absent mindedly sucked oysters from the shell and swished lukewarm champagne across my teeth near by. Happy Birthday to me.

When another painted his prized record collection with bits of his beautiful, stormy brain I tinkered with the rusty lawn mower in my backyard.

Somehow I have never been there when I needed to be. I just missed it.

I was present to help deliver my daughter into the world. This I did correctly, I hope. She spent her first hours sleeping on my chest after poor, tired wife drifted off after a brief, painful labor.

Now my own mother struggles against her body, against age. Against the effects of her stroke. Now I have fatherhood, marriage and work to shield me from the rawness of letting go of someone. Of surrendering part of my love to the hungry, dark mouth of faith.

Faith is the thing that I have hidden my hands from, under bridges, against a warm breast, an unfamiliar heartbeat. Racing in secret, behind the sharp, sweet smell of a small stone pipe, adrift in the perfect sea-green of a half empty empty bottle or falling into a palm full of perfect pink pills. Escaping into the hollows and constant loneliness of strange cities, creased postcards and one cigarette after another, while the voices of pigeons whispered the names of everyone I had ever failed. Cooing away to me in the rusty arms of an underpass while a tide of cars washed overhead.

Buried in the emptiness of my own words, the sad radiance of old photographs, of dozens of lit candles in my garden on The Day of The Dead. The sound of my Mother's slurred speech. The image of my Father walking slowly to the mailbox, almost deaf now, the sun warming the top of his balding head.

I have spent so much of my life trying to escape the eyes of faith, the eclipse of believing that tomorrow is coming.

But the sound of my home, the sound of my wife and my child sleeping in the next room overpowers me now.

Thankfully.

2004-12-16T23:24:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday, Princess and Kingdad found themselves in the park. Poor, tired wife stayed behind to tidy up the palace.

We take turns doing this chore by the way- I take a few Tuesdays, she takes a few Saturdays.

We stopped at a friends yard sale, mopped up on Hello Kitty and moved on.

It was a perfect winter day. The air was cold. The sky vast and cloudless, the sun a far off window, open and glowing. We were the only people in the park, running after each other, tilting our heads back, closing our eyes and swinging higher and higher. We laughed from the top of the slide to the bottom. We chased our shadows, looked for "bunny houses" in the endless drifts of leaves that swelled across the faded green lake of winter grass.

We squinted and spoke in warm clouds, into the thin, chill breeze of a golden December morning.

While we walked beside each other, almost drunk from happiness, not so far away my Mother tried to speak. She tried to tell my Father that she was afraid. That something was happening.

She was stretched across his lap, her face twitching into the nap of his old, blue sweater vest. He sat idly, his hands cold and his heart beating just a little too fast. In his mind he tried to make it find a rhythm, one he could break off and share with my mother.
His arm draped across her back, just like always.

She tried to squeeze his hand but couldn't. Her fingers just curled into the deepness of her palm. She tried to sit up, but her body just couldn't seem to remember how.

My Father was scared now. He picked up the dingy beige telephone with the huge numbers. He struggled to think of the numbers, of which ones to press. He poured through the little book on the table next to the phone, the one that is so full of my Mother's handwriting, her personality, the keepings of her soul. So many numbers, most of which have no names to shepherd them.

He took another deep breath and dialed. He called everyone he knew to call when things just didn't seem right.

He called my aunt, my sister.

He didn't call 911 though. To do this would be to admit that something was indeed terribly wrong. Something that would change their fading lives forever. It would be like calling the truth.

He didn't call me at work either. He didn't want to bother me.

My family rushed to the worn shell, the home of my elderly parents. The little square house- a pale stone sunk into a scrubby lot, a small, unmarked gravestone cowering under the sky and the weeds, bent away from the sun and the noisy life of the road that lies just beyond the living room window.

While blood tried it's best to push it's way past the clot in my Mother's brain, while oxygen did it's best to circulate in the storm that is her, my family just sat there. Still and dumb like a cave drawing.

While the Princess and Kingdad picked up acorns and pinecones, my Mother's tongue stopped tossing words past her crooked dentures. Her face, already a ravage of valium, bulimia and the heaviness of her very being just slackened and let go.

My mother slid beneath the dark, oily waters of the sea. She drifted down into the shimmering, open mouth of her stroke. Numb and tired.

Since she cannot talk now, she writes what she wants to say in a book that my ever-thoughtful and perfectly present sister has provided. One page -staggering blue lines looped together at odd junctions, falling in a loose cursive roll, says-

I love You
I'm glad you are here
I'm afraid

This was written earlier today. I don't know who she was talking to. She grunts for the pen while I am holding her lifeless left hand. For me she writes-

I love you
I miss my girl (meaning my daughter)
Go home
I love you
I'm glad you came
I can't talk
Help me!
Take this home (she points at something only she can see, and then closes her eyes)

As I sit next to her, TV blaring, visiting hours long over, the hospital ebbing into cool, green lights and muted pages, I listen to the fluid moving in the deep of her lungs.
I try to imagine how many times I have been comforted by the sound of my Mother's breath. How many times it scared me, or angered me.

What gravity she imposes over me.

Every good thing I know came from her voice, from the warmth of her fleshy arms.

And every fear I have, every bad habit is rooted in my relationship with her. Every nuance of the shade and the radiance of love leaks from the hulking wreck of my Mother. It beeps and bubbles away, wrapped in bone white sheets, draped in drip tubes, bloody gauze and sweat. It writes-

I am afraid
I love you

How many times have I whispered this into the mass of my Mother?
How many times has a child whispered this into it's Mother's breast? Into the hushed uncertainty of the darkened room?

My child. My Mother's child.

Mama
I am afraid
I love you

2004-12-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

From where I sit with the laptop I see through about a third of our dining room into our circus-trailer sized kitchen.

Kitchens are the holy of holies for me. The only place you get more intimate is the bedroom.

I am 37. I am married and share the magic and frustration of parenting a 2 1/2 year old fire brand with my wife. With this in mind it should be no surprise that I spend more time cooking in the kitchen than I do in the boudoir.

Sometimes when it's late and I have had just a little too much wine, my kitchen is a portal into a strange paradise. It calls to me like a siren, like a wanton, half-drunk Julia Child or a lustful young Donna Reed.

Jadeite green walls and Nantucket white cabinets with weathered chrome handles, old biscuit tins, Atlas glass spice, salt and pepper shakers lining window sills, German knives in a worn oak block, yellow ware bowls, vintage fiesta stacked a little too high, the tea towels of a thousand unknown old ladies folded smartly in the tall white hutch, a black and white tiled floor worn by endless steps from the counter to the 1923 buttercream yellow Roper range, and from there to the bone white double welled sink.

A few turmeric stains tell the tales of many hot culinary indiscretions.

There is an old, low diner stool for my favorite little sous-chef to stand on and whip up her pretend "cupcake scrambled eggs" and not far from her perch is the old cherry high chair. Above us all the ceiling fan hovers like an angel, and will give you a flat top if you stretch too far in between batches of Christmas cookies.

At night while I wrestle with my two sleepmates for a few inches of warmth I can hear the gentle, aged refrigerator cough and sigh as it tries to coolly conceal my excessive purchases.

As I swim against the torrent of uncertainty of my middle years, wondering where my self has wondered off to, my kitchen stands by my side waiting to testify. Waiting to show me the way back.

Of all the rooms in any house that I have ever lived in, the kitchen has always been the guardian of my heart and soul. Mercifully dispensing coffee and pancakes when I just couldn't go on and helping me to unlock the secret pathways into countless others, both past and present who have made my existence so much more than tolerable. The kitchen exudes the warm and wonderful aroma of life.

Guten nacht and guten apetit my dear kitchen.

2004-11-28T01:06:00.000-05:00

Once I was a bit slender and maybe just a little bit handsome. I was a dreamer, a wanderer. A smoker. I wrote when and wherever I could roll up a cigarette and sit still long enough. I had the euro-bang and vest thing going on. I remember how my little body felt contained in the familiar and loving confines of my old blue suede coat, curl of camel smoke and my beloved ash gray vest.

I suppose I have held up ok for someone that has worn his soles/soul thin in all of the wrong places. Handsome has been replaced by wise. Thin has yielded to healthy.
Of course with the unending ease and steadiness of my current middle aged life come occasional bouts with complaisance. This has always proved quite a deadly fog for the would-be mariner within.

Regardless, most of the gaping holes that my catchy, unhappy light poured through -magnificently I might add, like a cheap Turkish lantern in a brothel- have been mended by the sure love and almost foolish patience of wife, child and a host of gullible friends.

Maybe an angel or two should also be thanked. Which is why I watched Wings of Desire tonight.

How many times can one person thank you Wim Wenders?

Thank you for giving the German George Baily a cynics version of It's a Wonderful Life to sniffle over.

"Ich weiss jetzt, was kein Engel weiss."

2004-11-23T01:24:00.000-05:00

There are too many tyrants in this little palace.

Since I had no bunker to crawl into this evening, I did what I always do when I have absolutely had it. I drove around with no destination in mind, with only my blackest of moods to guide me.

I turn where the shadows are thickest, where ruined warehouses loom beyond the long rusty tracks, where pale halos of distant street lights bleed themselves white onto the tall dry grass, burned out barrels and broken malt liquor bottles of vacant lots. I pass the dingy little mill houses, endless dirt roads and yawning dead ends of my town.

My town is a necropolis. Sun up or sun down, this is a city where life nods behind drawn yellowed curtains, rocking slowly in front of Warm Morning heaters and cheap radios. Square beige houses that smell of overcooked canned beans, stale cigarette smoke and gas. Hovels that straddle empty train yards, silent factories and wasted fields. Stagnant drainage ditches, carpet scraps and abandoned earth movers tear into the few lonely pines that hold the spent horizon back from collapsing.

A girl I went to school with in the 7th grade was found beaten to death in one of these fields. She was poor, quiet and had a crooked smile. I remember she smiled a lot.

A policeman raped and killed her. She was a prostitute. He had done this before, to some other poor, awkward forgotten girl that was also a prostitute.

I always think of her when I drive through my old neighborhood.
She was just a buck toothed girl that I saw in the library every day, and then somehow she became a whore, and one day was murdered with a flashlight.

My mother is always quick to remind me that no matter what mannerisms I have adopted, no matter what kind of wine I choose to accompany my meal, that no matter what kinds of choices poor, tired wife and I make, that I am from a dusty, hollow place in the world. That I will always be a child of this ugly, desperate and sinister town. That once, I was happy to play in the junkyard and by the drained pool of the abandoned Salvation Army Hospital deep in the woods behind our small house.

There were always dead animals in the empty pool. They fell in and couldn't get out. They just starved there. Patches of matted fur too close to the ground. Mossy bones poking through the dry leaves.

I remember there was a well near the pool that a dog had fallen into and drowned. It floated there in the dark oily water until there was nothing left to float.

Nothing terrified me more as a child than the sight and thought of the animals.

Today they invoke the same fear in me that the girl with the crooked smile does. There is no way to comfort them. No way to pull them out of the field or the swimming pool or the well.
No way to protect them or love them back to someone's side.

They are forever lonely, dying things trapped in darkened amber.

Things that somehow got lost.

No matter how I have tried to escape the trash heap, I always come back to it. I drive to it every time I get lost, and I will always carry it's stench away with me each time I leave it.

I suppose I am stuck in amber too.

2004-11-17T21:23:00.000-05:00

You can brand me with a huge "P" if you wish.

I am rather pretentious sometimes.

My shortlist of pretentions/affectations:

mineral water
freshly shaven head
several shoulder bags
clogs
baggy trousers
won't drive it unless it's german
einsturzende neubauten
leonard cohen
persian music/cuisine
rumi poems
berlin
little silver rimmed glasses
often use the word "dreadful"
also use the word "savage" from time to time
klaus kinski
wino -but it better be from france/germany/austria
ex-chainsmoker
wagner
pate
artisan made meats and cheeses
wim wenders
egypt
shortwave radio
truffle infused anything
nerve.com
bruno ganz
ruined/lost/forgotten cities
peter handke poems
german cinema
sepiatone nude photography
hugo race
70's porn
schubert
chopin
sonic youth
czech films
turkish coffee
u-boats
malt swagger
indian markets
julie delphy
peeing/bidets
the architecture of albert speer
egon schiele
the great depression
LBJ
hurricanes/tornados/volcanos
black/chai teas
roy stuart
ww2 films/newsreels
marlene dietrich
johnny cash
giant metal objects
bunkers
radiant console

Should I go on?

As you may have noticed, I have not posted in quite some time.

I have an excuse, really, I do.

It's not because I am LAZY, I promise. I loathe the lazy! Please read a little Ayn Rand if you don't believe me.

It is because I am trying to spend that certain hour which I usually post with my family that I have grown silent.

That's love goddamnit!

And anyway, by the time they are off to bed I am not far behind them. I am almost 40 mind you!

With the above in mind I offer the following:

For the next two months -both of which are the busiest for my lowly profession -a grocer!- I will post four times.

That's twice a month!

Not bad for someone that has no time to spare and refuses to give up!

Too bad Leni Riefenstahl isn't around to film my heroic efforts.

But, with the turn of the new year I will re-emerge, guns blazing, warm brioche in hand, pale and full of trivial complaints (about my place in the world, and the holiness of precious little princess pink, and of course, poor, tired-of-me mama- and Pompeii and Amarna and whatever else it takes to suck you into my web) to post with the predictable rigidity of Teutonic bowels.

I promise.

As I type these last few words I think it's important for you to understand that flowing into my headset is:

Tristan und Isolde prelude to act 3
Bruno Walther conducting

Don't bother listening to Wagner if Bruno Walther is absent from the helm.

Good luck! And, godspeed you black emperor.....

2004-10-20T22:53:00.000-04:00

I wish I could say that my lengthy silence was due to a vacation. That I was too busy fishing and picking up shells with the girls to bother writing.

Yes, I have been fishing, if a mop handle can be considered a fishing pole.

Truth is, I've just been too busy trying to keep myself from sinking in a sea of work and chores and family, and petty mishaps, and more family, and the chronic back pain of course.

I have managed to steal a moment here and there to have lunch with the princess, and to work in the yard as the leaves spiral down around me in the cool, damp breeze.

I have also managed to list a few things on eBay.

I would say that I'll be better, that I will rush to the laptop at the end of each long day, but we know that would be a lie.

I'm not ready to take a "leave of absence" though. Even if the regularity of my blogging is less predictable than poor, tired wife's cycle, I, burned out overachiever, suburban alchemist, will render a few golden minutes from lead and write.

I promise.

2004-09-29T21:53:00.000-04:00

Spent the day cleaning the house.

While poor, tired wife chipped away in the quarry called work and royal imp painted spider webs at school, I readied my arsenal of tooth brushes and household chemicals.

I am Donald Rumsfeld with a vacuum in my hands. Nothing is safe or sacred when I unleash my anal retentiveness on a weeks worth of crumbs, dog/cat hair and soap rings.

every time I finish cleaning the house I tell myself that I need to start reading the "advisory statements" on the chemicals I use to make my world so perfectly sterile and white. When I finished today I realized that the noxious mixture of fumes I had been inhaling for most of the morning had cooked the cold right out of my swollen lungs and aching sinuses.

So, that's how I ended up with the post-cleaning Marlene Dietrich voice-

But, no mildew on our shower curtain, no two-day old turmeric stain in the sink, no dust bunnies skipping through the palace.

Ah-

"Falling in love again..."

2004-09-27T20:59:00.000-04:00

Ah, Max Richter, Gruner Veltliner and thou, oh lovely blog.

That's as good as it gets because the sickly girls are about to doze off together. I love it when they do that. I go in and look at them, curled together like the archetypical mother and child.

I love it even when I think, "hey, what about me!?"

Well, then it's Total Gruner baby.

Tonight was the kind of night that I wish for all week. Cooked a yummy feast for the girls, watched them chase each other around our tiny palace, laughing hysterically -the littlest runner naked and beaming- while I washed dishes and scrubbed countertops. Then the sound of bedtime stories in the other room, sniffles, a little cough and the eventual "snap" of the bedside lamp switch.

Thanks to Jeanne, it's starting to rain again.

Someone will stagger out of her bedroom in a few minutes and ask me for a drink of water, even though she has a full glass next to her bed, fresh and cold just like she likes it. She'll settle for a hug and a kiss instead and then stagger back into the darkened room and Mama's warm arms.

Crave poor, tired wife's company, but know I'm last in line.
Poor, tired wife and kingdad always step to the back of the line for our royal treasure.

It's supposed to be this way, right?

2004-09-25T22:39:00.000-04:00

...And on the eleventh day, kingdad created blog.

Sometimes its hard enough just to get through a day, why should I sit down and rehash it?

Ok-

The girls are both sick. Poor, tired wife caught whatever royal vector has been sneezing and coughing onto the doorknobs and pillowcases these last few days. Little germ machine has an ear infection now. Found this out when she woke from her nap screaming and holding her ear.

After a hasty trip to the doctor -the same ill assed old doctor that treated me when I was little kingdad- and some obnoxious pink medicine, she seems to be recovering.

Poor, tired wife is a different story. She's just starting to come down with the crud. Sore throat, runny nose, a hint of a short fuse.

The makings for a long weekend here at the palace.

Otherwise, the weather is cooler, my moon flowers are blooming and it's cider time. Between the long hours and household chores I've managed to read a few books. The last of which was The Lovely Bones.

Still trying to read or put down Atlas Shrugged. Either approach makes me feel like a failure. Thanks Ayn.

2004-09-14T22:08:00.000-04:00

Kingdad and poor, tired wife often poke fun at Life's Winners.* You know, folks that have three houses, three cars, two kids and many huge accounts to mind.

Kingdad was born into the one house, two bedrooms, one used car clan. My poor, old parents think that kingdad, poor, tired wife and royal imp have really arrived since we have two cars and an array of credit cards on which to spread our souls over. It's all a matter of perspective I suppose.

Oh yeah, by the way, I have this great new perspective. I want to be one of Life's Winners. I want my herniated disc to be massaged by the loving fingers of Mercedes Benz each morning as I sit in traffic. I want to ride out life's little storms on the front porch of my beach house. I want to think about our bills about as much as I think about what Oprah is reading these days.

Yes, I have crossed over. To quote the tiny, royal tyrant-
"I want it. Let me have it- NOW!!!!"

Maybe it's time I put down Atlas Shrugged....

2004-09-11T21:45:00.000-04:00

It was one of the most stunning days of the year. The kind of day that you wished for as August came to it's scorching end.

The morning was cool. A cloudless, pale blue sky framed the sun perfectly. As people adjusted their seats, opened their books, stared out of their windows and settled into a days work, Poor, not-so-tired-then wife and kingdad were just getting ready to go have our first ultrasound.

It was time to see our handiwork.

Like so many others, we sipped our coffee, skimmed through the paper and gazed out into the flawless heavens as we made our way to our destination.

The parking lot was full. We were excited, and for once didn't mind circling around looking for a space. We were late too. This however was not unusual for us.

We checked in and were instantly ushered into the lobby. I looked for a magazine while poor, not-so-tired-then wife disappeared into the long hallway carrying a little cup to fill.

Is there a doctor's office out there free of golfing magazines? In a perfect world perhaps. CNN was blaring. I could always watch that. But why was everyone gasping and crowding around the TV?

A plane? The World Trade Tower?

Everything stopped. No schedule was kept, no one remembered why they were there. There was no distinction between patient and doctor. The phones stopped ringing and no one said another word.
We all stood a little too close to each other in the anemic light of the lobby. A second plane streaked across the screen.

I don't know when, or why really, but someone decided that it was time to pretend that everything was ok, and that appointments must be kept and the world must keep spinning and it was time for our ultrasound.

There she was, peering out of her murky abode. An alien astronaut gazing out of her safe capsule, wondering what was happening. She moved towards the soundwaves that cascaded across her.

We still have the print outs. They look like something generated in the sonar room of a submarine. The date on the top right corner of the printout reads 09/11/01. Beneath it the time is a minute and a few seconds shy of the collapse of the second tower.

The nurse that administered the ultrasound was crying the entire time that she worked. She said she would always remember the luckiest, safest soul on the planet that day. I don't know if poor, not-so-tired-then wife felt the nurses tears as they fell onto her. Strange that I have never thought to ask.

True to the nurse's word she did remember. Every visit we made to that office she would ask about "that very special little being."

I wish we could always keep her that safe. Just like the families of all of the people that were just going to work, just starting another day that spectacular September morning wished, when they said goodbye at the airport or handed someone a briefcase and said, "see you for dinner?"

As we walked along the beach today I could not help but to think of that morning. The sound of each shell her tiny hand tossed into the faded green bucket seemed more precious than it did yesterday.

And that's pretty hard to imagine.

2004-09-10T22:06:00.000-04:00

This morning I discovered the perfect spot for coffee- The Atlantic Ocean.

The cool water raced across my bare feet as I stared off into a copper hued sunrise. Both hands wrapped around a warm mug. The sun had just risen above the sea’s far off spine, and was just beginning to trace the gently arched backs of the low violet clouds with its fiery golden fingertips.

The girls were still asleep. So was most everyone else on this little strand of coarse sand and tall sea oats. The waves tore away at the beach and tossed it back again. The wind chased clots of foam from the water’s reach and sent them speeding away, tumbling down the long, wheat colored shoreline, towards the darkened houses over the dunes.
I heard a magnificent voice in the water and in the wind, whispering through the long fine tresses of the sunrise as it spilled across my face.

Without a thought my soul quietly answered.

That’s right. We are enjoying a few days seaside.

2004-09-01T20:58:00.000-04:00

Just cooked one oh-so-yummy dinner for the family. In attendance: one poor, tired wife, one royal sunbeam, one mother-in-law, one sister-in-law and one slightly combative 18 month old niece.

The niece used to be docile and somewhat aloof. Now she is a little Mike Tyson, biting earlobes, gouging eyes and making unitelligible war noises as she manhandles her former royal oppressor. She's quite a show.

The ladies, and there were lots of them -and yes they were quite a demanding bunch- enjoyed:

Pan fried flounder with a lemon caper vinaigrette

Fresh field peas cooked slowly with a dollop (one stick) of butter

Heirloom tomato salad tossed with cilantro, cracked green
peppercorns, extra virgin olive oil, pomegranate vinegar and
lime juice

Some of us enjoyed a table worthy French merlot/cab blend

After dinner the ladies retired to the mall. I stayed behind in the toddler free zone to wash the dishes. Neubauten's Perpetuum Mobile shook the windows while I scrubbed away.

I kept laughing at a question poor, tired wife posed to the dinner table. Just how far would battling toddlers go if allowed. Imagine baby Gladiator. What would they be capable of if there was no one there to stop them?

Any thoughts?

2004-08-31T23:14:00.000-04:00

Started my day at the local bigbox home improvement store.

Great place to pick up a nascar cooler and some chrome clips to keep your mullet from getting in the spackling compound. Everything is day-glo orange and the sale associates are just a little too friendly. At least five of them looked me in the eye and said, "how you, man!" while speed walking past me.

But when cornered, did a single one of them know where the items I needed were located? "Sorry buddy..."

Went from the day-glo orange toolbox full of rednecks to the sun baked roof of my house. I have a leak. I have lots of leaks. I thought I just patched them all but a tropical storm dropped by the other day to point out a few more holes that I had missed.

Wet Patch. Sounds firm, efficient. Like it will just spring out of the can, take charge and smooth itself down across every last crack and crevice. There is a picture of a very clean man in a bright blue windsuit on top of his crazy-steep pointy roof with a shiny trowel just working away. He looks like Tony Soprano.

I didn't look like that when I finally descended the ladder for the day. I was covered in tar. Tar is Wet Patch's dirty little secret. Of course I had gloves on but somehow the thick blackness of Wet Patch found it's way into them. That's how good this stuff is I guess. I don't know how it got on my back, maybe when I fell and rolled across the roof?

Odorless Mineral Spirits. Sounds like something Eskimos should leave as an offering to their deceased ancestors. It looks and pours like cheap vodka. It is the only thing you can get Wet Patch off with. Of course you aren't supposed to use it on your skin, but hey, everybody else does. There is a don't ask "don't tell" policy when it comes to using it on your skin. After a long shower I still smell like Odorless Mineral Spirits. I wonder how much longer I will be flammable.

There is a monster hurricane headed our way this week. Guess I'll see how well I did when it arrives.

I wrapped up my day by arguing with poor, tired wife. I went to the library afterwards, and must agree with my Borders lovin' friend swish. Reading may be fundamental but the smell of fresh urine a la homeless man is not. Perhaps this is why so many people give in to the beast and join Oprah's Bookclub. I still refuse to wear the scarlet O. I managed to quickly check out a few books while holding my nose. On my way out it felt sooo good to tell the guy sitting by the door to "ask a rat for it asshole!" in response to his second obnoxious request for spare change. He promptly asked me for a cigarette afterwards, and called out "God bless you motherfucker!" as I walked away.

Soon, I too found myself amongst the pristine shelving of Borders, perusing the newest books and splashy magazines while polite students in super expensive clothes whispered into tiny cell phones, pecked away at Mac's and primly sipped iced chai lattes. An experience sans urine and panhandlers. I gave in and had an iced Americano, then it was off to the grocery store for a bitter, lonely man shopping spree.

Mineral water, pepino melons, custard apples, dark beer and toilet paper. Several men followed me around. Was it the custard apples or my new super short haircut? I felt like I was making a video for a Morrisey song.

Now its you -my precious and so often neglected blog, and me, a dark beer and an even darker Nick Cave before bed-

"Now as the nights grow longer and the season shifts
I look to my sorrowful wife
Who is quietly tending her flowers..."

The morrow brings a new and better beginning for one of us at least. The beloved royal imp starts preschool. I thought about her as I pushed my squeaky cart down aisle 5.

I always think about her.

I wish I could go wake her up and take her outside to show her the low, red moon hanging so perfectly still above the pine trees.

2004-08-29T22:08:00.000-04:00

So much to catch you up on-

Tensions at home, work stress, developmental milestones for the royal inchworm, not to mention the latest on my self loathing.

Oh yeah, weddings. That's a good place to start.

I am going to be in a wedding this weekend. Not an easy feat when your assistant is on vacation, your mother-in-law can't come down to help with childcare, and your broke ass has to rent an expensive but dull-as-hell tuxedo.

I always knew these two would make it legal. This is how I found my way into their wedding. Some small meddling on my part helped to quicken fate and here we all are planning to spend the better part of our weekend celebrating a perfect and much anticipated union.

Most of us are. Except those of us that are less than three feet tall. This is a "child-free" affair. I found this out at the last minute from a hastily left voice mail. I never received an invitation, but if I had, I would have had plenty of time to reconcile my disdain for the tackiness of our American culture.

Or so I gathered from the apologetic message.

"Kid-free!" Quite a surprise coming from the hipster couple that hates rules and wants kids. The couple that adores their friends and their children. The couple that seems like the perfect building block for a family.

Kids are great! Just keep them away from our wedding OK?

There was a convenient story to support the request, but to the person that adores his child, and seeks to include her in almost every aspect of his big life, it's just a story.

A small one at that.

I feel half wanted now. I never felt whole anyway, until I had a child. And trust me, I still look for the missing chunk of myself everyday. My child is most of my life.

I'm sorry happy couple, but I'm jumping through hoops to be a part of your big day. My family -you remember them- is jumping with me. They are helping me to get there, to be with you.

And I assure you, it's a group effort once you say "I do."

You'll see.

But I'll pardon this breech of reason. It is your big day after all. I'm just a small part of it. A token. Never mind that I can take my kid into the liquor store with me, a voting booth, everywhere except the porn store.

-And I will never admit to going THERE!

But fear not. She will pace back and forth in the palace. Her charms will not mar your perfect wedding. She will not compete with you. She will not meet your friends and family. She will not thrill at the mythic pomp and circumstance that we wrap our grown selves in when we say our vows. Don't worry, you won't hear her cry, or laugh, or gasp at the sheer awe of a wedding, -of your wedding- of sharing a part of your huge story. A little part of the huge story of all of us- She won't be there to tell you congratulations either.

Love. It's conditional. You better leave it at home.

Love is conditional at our age. At your wedding, or any wedding we will all be very grown and very sanitized and very calm, until we get drunk. And then we will let it all hang out.

One day my precious royal nuisance will see a picture of kingdada in a tux and ask, "Where's that dada? Who's that?" And I will say, sadly, "Oh you weren't there. You were too little. This was a day for big people only."

I never cease to wonder at the boundaries we create and impose.

2004-08-20T22:15:00.000-04:00

I have not been very nice to be around these past few days. I will confess to being "brooding and moody."

When I read my friend swish's post today, I said to myself, "Hey, I feel that way too..." But I don't have PMS. So I guess I'd have to say that I'm actually a little depressed and I am jealous that I don't have something in my body conspiring against me to blame it on.

Fuck. Now what?

Do I have to wrestle with the truth again?- that sometimes I'm never quite good enough or grand enough for myself. That I have wasted my smarts and talents along the way. That it's harder to turn it all around once you hit a certain age and place in your life.

Ok. I'm face down on the mat with truth now.

I suppose I had a good trigger for all of this. I ran into a couple of people from my past yesterday, two people that were very special and important to me. They loved me, and believed in me and treated me very much like a son.

Trouble is, I'm not their son, and for some reason seeing them made me feel very tiny.

Not to mention older, thicker and grayer.

Splattered with food and pushing a cart full of dirty dishes I present a proud and worthy sight to the people that once encouraged me to go to law school. Alas, such potential. I toy with my name tag as I smile and smile and smile. It reads- KINGDAD-ASST.STORE MANAGER.

Wow! Go me!

By the way, one of the pair teaches law at the big-shit university I wrote about a few days ago. Wonder what he'd think of my hat-man story?

I can sense that my faux family is disappointed for me.

Its hard enough to swallow my own poor life decisions. Having someone else re-enforce the self-loathing really connected all of the dots for me.

At the end of all of this is my poor, tired of my-self-absorbed- ass family. So sorry family, I'll snap out of it.

You are the very best decision I have ever made.

Doesn't everyone detest lawyers anyway?

2004-08-18T21:21:00.002-04:00

Kingdad is a flaming extrovert.

Because I am a social being I am blessed with innumerable friends and associates. All of the mortals that I keep company with have a few essentials in common; huge hearts, brilliant, sleepless minds and the need to find an ideal in everything. Their souls are not quiet, passive souls.

With this stated it should come as no surprise that I greeted the stranger approaching me at the bar with a welcoming and sincere smile. He offered his smooth, open white palm, searching the uncertain space between us for a handshake.

There was trouble here though. Trouble cloaked in neutrality. There were no acute angles. No glaring colors or sounds. No warnings. Just perfect teeth, earthtone clothing and a soft voice, free of any accent.

Big mistake. Trouble offered his hand but not his name. He did not ask for mine either.

Trouble, warmly, "Nice hat."

kingdad, smiling at Trouble, "Thanks."

My newest most favorite of all hats is a straw cowboy hat. It's old and worn and beautiful. It's very much a farmer's hat.

Trouble, still clenching kingdad's trusting hand, "How much?"

kingdad- ".75 cents. Got it in a thrift store in Athens Georgia. Best .75 cents I ever spent."

Trouble- "No. How much?, how much do you want for it? How about $50?"

Huh? I didn't see this one coming.

kingdad- "Sorry, It's not for sale."

I smiled weakly, that oops-so-this-is-how-it-is smile and glanced down at my beer.

Trouble -his nasty hand on my shoulder now- says, "Come on. How much? Any amount. I'm sure you could use it."

The taste was in my mouth now. The schoolyard taste. The taste of ancient fist fights. I swallowed and took a slow sip of my beer. What next?

kingdad- "I'm sorry, what was that? Did you just say that you were sure that I could use it? Are you drunk or just tacky? What I can use is a respite from your presence. The hat is not for sale! Have a grand evening."

Trouble says, smiling and shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders, "Oh no, no, no offense. I'm so sorry. I just meant that here we are, sitting at the bar, and I'm sure a little money would be nice. How much? How much for the hat?"

Am I being "Punk'd?"

No! No I'm not being Punk'd. I'm not famous. This is real. This is classism. This is a state of mind that the blue collar boy in me loathes and seeks not to practice.

But this carpetbagger prick makes it difficult to be noble. He actually thinks that I'm some poor local yuk, willing to part with my hat for a little beer money.

Nevermind that I'm halfway through my third re-read of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

I have also neglected to mention that this exchange is occurring just a few blocks away from one of the most prestigious universities in America, and that Trouble is with a group of drunken first year law students, and that I am just stopping in after band practice to visit with my brother-in-law the bartender.

kingdad- "Perhaps you should be looking for a little dignity. You should look elsewhere though, mine doesn't have pricetag. How about this, I'll give you ten dollars to go away."

Trouble- "I'm sorry. No offense. I wasn't trying to be rude. Come on, how much for the hat. Surely you'd take $75 for it. It's really nice. I want you to have the money."

My knuckles are itchy now. I'm starting to sweat.

kingdad- "Ok, I'll give you $15 to go away. No wait, better yet, I'll keep my money and you just piss off. It'll take more than my hat to make you interesting. You and your wallet are worthless to me."

Trouble- "Sorry, I wasn't..."

kingdad- "You should start backing away now."

And he did.

How perverse.

2004-08-11T22:52:00.000-04:00

Out of boredom I have been looting my old journals.

While never one for the "Dear Diary..." style entry,
I was nonetheless dramatic and naive.

Here is an entry from January of 1996. I wrote it in some shithole bar in Berlin called Cafe' Anfall, I'm pretty sure that was the name. A shithole it was, and that much I am sure of.

Berlin obviously wasn't far away enough. My heart was broken, and that was the sole reason I was there.

I was a Teutonic Jonah.

I urge you to enjoy this unedited, ancient adolescent musing-

03/06

Like a gun
Hidden under the bed
In a box.

Here was his heart
Wrapped in oilskins,
Packed away in sawdust.

Wrapped in locks of your hair,
Old postcards
And open matchbooks.

Salt stained,
Tattooed
The smell of warm machine oil and green ink

Whisper your name into it bloodless folds.
Drag it through the streets,
Drag it kicking and screaming down to the cold, black skinned river.

Shame it under the noon sun.
Burn it in secret,
Deep in the woods.

Curse it, spit on it, kiss it, cry.
Pray with it.
Hold it against your cheek.

Here was his heart.
Here is what was yours.
It’s Christmas, and your birthday-