A Long Patience

Griff, Gab & B

2010-05-11T05:31:00.000-07:00

Before The Judge

2010-04-30T11:17:00.000-07:00

We took Bailey to court Thursday, as part of a required hearing related to his case. It was not related to the adoption process but rather just another stop in the legal process for a neglected child. The state mandates that the Department of Health and Human Services meet on a regular basis with the court system to ensure he is getting adequate care at the hands of the state, who is legally his guardian.

Bailey can say he knows more about legal proceedings than the far majority of 6-year-olds he meets. Not that he would say anything, or that he even understood where he was. He was merely enamored with the district attorney's bow tie. Bailey has a neck tie and wears it all the time. The bow tie was, to Bailey, the best friggin thing he's ever seen, and insisted we buy him one.

Bailey wore a dress shirt beneath a sweater, a pair of blue jeans, and his favorite shoes, the ones he always puts on the wrong feet in the mad rush before leaving, even if he's the only one in a mad rush to leave. Corrine cut his hair a few weeks back, trimming away the hedge-like scramble of red hair from his ears and neck and eyes. Whereas before he looked hip, modern and cute, he traded up for handsome.

We drove to Augusta, to the district court office building that resembles somewhere you'd pay your phone bill. Nothing austere or courtly about it, actually. (As a reporter I used to cover criminal and civil courts and the buildings I entered were grand, gothic-looking structures that I was certain were built that way to make criminals pee themselves.)

We were met there by Bailey's ad litem, Bailey's case worker, the DA/bow tie man. We were led down the center aisle of the court room and directed to sit in the gallery in a pew. In fact, the entire room had a churchy feeling to it. The judge's dias was raised like a pulpit. The judge wore a flowing robe. I prayed that I didn't have to go pee. Corrine and I sat on either side of our red-head, to snatch him if he made like he was going to rush the judge. Or go for the bailiff's gun. Both of which are quite possible with Bailey. Fools may rush in. Bailey sprints like a bastard, at everything. Food, children, tractors, parades, beds, chickens.

The judge entered and we were commanded to rise, and Bailey obeyed. The judge then commanded us to be seated, and Bailey obeyed. And then Bailey announced his revelation that the judge had a "real tie" (not a bow tie like the DA.) Thank God Bailey doesn't speak English. Although it did sound like "He's a Guy!" not "He's got a tie!"

Either way, the judge did not hear him, or chose to not hear him, which judges are apt to do. I once covered a case in which a defendant called the entire proceeding a "shit storm" and the judge didn't even blink, showing the kind of restraint I am famously not known for. I would have convicted him on the spot.

Corrine was as nervous as I was, I think. Nervous that Bailey would act up, or that the case worker would suddenly say he was no longer available to adopt, or that the judge was going to know the registration on our van was six months expired and would arrest us. Hey, they hold sway for a reason. They're judges. Come on.

Bailey did not act up. In fact, the judge began by commending us for taking Bailey in. I got all choked up. I got all choked up even before that, when he looked up from his bench at us and said "Mr. and Mrs. Turner?" We've NEVER been called that before. It's always "Jesus Christ, it's you guys" or "Here comes trouble."

But he did, on the record, commend us. And he then spoke briefly with Bailey, asking if he was in school "Aye!" and in what grade "Aye?" and if he liked school "Aye!" Bailey, in case you missed it, is an Irish pirate. The judge didn't seem to care, either. Irish pirates apparently are not illegal in Maine. Maybe because they only plunder their noses. Well, OUR Irish pirate does anyway. And boy he finds gold EVERY TIME.

And so, Bailey got high marks for courtroom behavior. The judge didn't even have to use his gavel on him (which I was disappointed about actually. A judge HAS to use his gavel, doesn't he?)

But in reality, I could not help but feel very sad at the whole ordeal. Bailey will probably never know what he has gone through. Our mission in life is to do our best to blunt the boy's bitter past, hoping that the neglect he suffered through becomes so distant that any thought he has of it feels more like a bad dream. Yes, he is paying for the sins of his biologicals, as we call them. He can't speak, for starters. Well, not very well, anyway, but we're working on that too. But the fact that he has to go to court every so often means someone somewhere really fucked up big time. These meetings before a judge are just perfunctory really, to make sure Bailey is getting what he did not get. That he is no longer in the situation that he found himself when he was an infant: abandoned, abused, neglected.

The levity of this was brought home with the judge's parting words. He thanked us for making his day. We were his first case, and to be able to jot in the case file that Bailey was moving ahead with "good people" meant that in short time he could stamp "DISMISSED" on the file. An ironic word, if you think about it. The final legal stamp that this boy gets also sums up the very reason he was brought to court four years ago in the first place. He had been dismissed then, too, by his mother. Back then, the word meant abandonment, pain, and confusion.

Now, the word means inclusion, love, and hope.

PS: When the judge first read the docket number, he also read Bailey's full legal name, his biological name, the one he hates. He shouted "Bailey Turner!"

And he didn't even get arrested. Irish pirates rule.

Bailey

2010-04-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

If all goes as planned, we will go before a judge on or around May 23, and officially Bailey will become our son.

Not a small thing, to be sure. A heady responsibility, in fact. To take into our home someone else's child, and legally make him our own. And while he has been living with us since last November, and therefore already seems like "our" son, to make it official is scary. We snip the ties he has to the State on that day. There is no turning back. There's no "official" guardian in some 10x10 office in Augusta to whom we can turn and seek refuge if something goes wrong.

He will become dependent on us for all things. Including our resolve to raise him as we do our other children: with love and affection, but with a mind to discipline.

Which brings up an interesting conundrum. In the last six months, the prescribed time frame required of us, under state rules, to house Bailey, we have noticed a disturbing trend. Because of Bailey's history, of abuse and neglect, the tendency of some is to over-compensate. He is showered with affection and gifts from a biological aunt, for example. He is coddled by others when, in the same breath, our other children are disciplined. He is doted on and taken places, given things, while his two younger siblings (our two youngest children) are ignored.

I don't exaggerate. Bailey very quickly, upon entering our home, became a pet, not a boy who needed a family. He was celebrated, elevated, purred over. To his detriment. And to the detriment of our efforts at creating a parent-child relationship with him. Like any child, Bailey saw this treatment as being natural, and therefore expected it. And when he would return to us from, say, his biological aunt's or from one of our own family member's home, he expected the same treatment from us.

We don't praise Bailey more than the others, we don't expect less of him because of his past. We have deliberately treated Bailey as if he took his first breath with us. He is disciplined when he does wrong, and he is praised when he does well. (He does many things well. In fact, he does many things experts claimed he would never do...)

So Corrine and I, when we put Bailey in timeout for whacking Griffin, or for stealing keys from Corrine's purse, feel like bad parents. There is a part of us that flinches when we have to scold Bailey, because we-more than any others in our family-know his history. We know what he has gone through. And there is that moment's hesitation when we wonder if we are contributing to a long history of "abuse."

Bailey, we have found, is very much a typical 6-year-old boy. He can be mischievous, curious, delightful, moody, exuberant, tired, excitable, stubborn, and introspective. But he is extremely loving. He is not retarded (as his diagnosis reported), he is not incapable of learning at his age level (as his diagnosis reported) he is not unable to play well with "normal" kids (as was reported), he thrives in an assortment of educational settings (contrary to what was reported).

Bailey is a boy. With a past. But that is the past. And while it certainly has affected his present, it has not defined him. To a person, Bailey has made phenomenal progress since being placed with us. The most-often heard remark from state officials, case workers, former teachers, and those who have worked with him, is "Wow. He's doing so much better..."

Bailey has needed structure, not gifts. He has needed direction, not a parade of well-meaning adults treating him like a broken toy.

In a month he becomes Bailey Turner, legally. This is the day he ceases to be a statistic, or bound to his past, or treated like anything other than a 6 year old boy with a truly caring family. Within the fold, not above it.

2013

2010-04-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

At the end of college, in the spring of 2013 (if all goes as planned), I will have earned a BFA in Creative Writing and a BA in Philosophy. And no job prospects. But I'm not going to college to get a job, as odd as that may sound. I intended on sharpening my skills as a critical thinker and a creative writer. Writing is my job now and will be then.

But, I need to make money too. That's the reality. If I write the next Great American Whatever, then a "job" won't be necessary. But I don't write with that in mind. It would stifle me more than I'm already stifled creatively. It's all I would focus on. I would be trying to find the commercial angle to my ideas.

So I've decided to think seriously about teaching. Wow that sounded like "settling."

Okay. Teaching is something my father did for 40 years. Well, teaching that led to becoming a principal then a curriculum director. Anyway, my point is, I respect teachers and teaching. I don't mean to make it sound like I'm considering it professionally as a "fall back" like it's some sort of menial task. Like falling back on chocolate when you've run out of vanilla ice cream.

It would be a challenge. Especially at 45 when the great majority of teachers would be in their early 20s. I would be old enough to be their father, and old enough to be my students' grandfather. If I taught kindergarten I mean.

I would teach at the secondary level. Probably English. Or "Philosophical creative writing" given my major.

I don't know. I'm just babbling at this point. I've put the idea on the menu. As an option. We'll see.

Back To It

2010-04-19T06:54:00.000-07:00

Forgive me Father. It's been three months since my last blogfession.

I ventured out here again after several weeks and noticed my last post was about my daughter's birthday, on January 16th!

Ouch. Boy have I been lazy with the whole blog thing. My excuse? Life, I suppose. Full-time college, adopting Bailey, Fallon is graduating in June, Corrine rescued four horses and has turned our back yard into a paddock, I turned 42, I was in a play with Corrine...

Among others.

Hardly worth skipping my blog duties, I know.

Speaking of being in a play...

Corrine and I auditioned for Enchanted April and both got parts. The show ended yesterday afternoon and was a fantastic experience. From beginning to end, a wonderful excursion away from the busy-ness of our daily lives. The last time we spent time on stage was in 2005. It was time to get back on.

Actually, I did not want to audition. School was keeping me busy. I was traveling an hour to school each morning and an hour back in the afternoon. I had homework each night. The last thing I needed was to crowd it with nightly rehearsals.

I took Corrine to auditions and the second I walked in the door, the director implored me to audition as well, and I did. I'm a sucker for theater. I couldn't pass it up, despite feeling very uneasy about just how impossible it would be to do a show on top of everything else.

I'm glad I did. Working with Corrine was what I needed I think. Well, I know. To be transported away from our lives just for a few hours a week has had a healing effect I think. We both have lamented all winter the fact that we don't get time together.

What was amazing about the show, however, was just how wonderful a job Corrine did. This was her first lead role, one she shared with another actress equally (it's a show about how these two English women, in dying marriages, conspire to vacation in Italy).

Corrine was nervous from the beginning about such an enormous role. She was on stage for the majority of the show, and she nailed the part. I was and am proud of her. The recognition she has received for her portrayal of "Rose" was well-deserved.

Now, it's back to Earth. School ends in less than a month. I have the summer off, hopefully to get back to writing. I look forward to it. But I will miss my nights with Corrine. I guess we'll just have to conspire to escape more often. Just her and me.

She turns 18 today

2010-01-16T03:26:00.000-08:00

Fallon Paige Turner

18 Years Old Today

Little Brother, Welder Be

2010-01-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

For Alice, to her brother

Little brother, welder be
Fire your torch
Just for me

Heat the shop and strike the hammer
Cut a form
And raise a clamor

No one joined a seam like you
So one more time
There's work to do

Little brother, sailor be
Just a kid
When sent to sea

Around the world you went and back
Learned a trade
A cracker jack

Returned a man, firm and lean
Torch in hand
And acetylene

Little brother, welder be
Ply your trade
Again for me

Weld a shape from a sheet of metal
The form of a box
Then let it settle

Then you and I will climb inside
Lock it shut
So we can hide

Some will say your life was wasted
Better served
If other fruits tasted

A banker, a king, a richer man
They would insist
But they misunderstand

That my brother, you see
Was richest when
A little welder, he

Beware the Shit Spreaders

2010-01-04T05:27:00.000-08:00

How can I measure writing progress? I try not to, to be honest, because I then become inevitably obsessed with volume which is something I despise. It goes back to my days as a newspaper reporter.

I was often criticized by newspaper editors for not producing x-amount of news copy per week. Their argument: the news "hole" had to be filled and I had to contribute my share. I earned a paycheck, I was told, for the number of column inches I spat out each week. I was chronically below the mark, and was called into my editor's offices frequently. I had one such editor say I wasn't a "self-starter". Another said I was a "good writer" but a poor reporter.

I would agree with the latter. In fact, I once got into an argument with a fellow reporter who had just been hired and whose weekly output soon became the newspaper's benchmark for success and against which all reporters were measured. This guy wrote five to six stories a day. He was the immediate darling of the paper.

At a conference one weekend we all sat around the lunch table chatting about - what else - the news. He continually tried bringing the conversation around to the latest glowing remarks he received from our editors about the fine job he was doing. (He was a notorious self-aggrandizer) We ignored him. At least, we tried. But after awhile, you just can't ignore a pile of dog shit sitting in front of you.

"I'm surprised the guy before me complained of nothing to write about," the pile said. "It's really his own fault he got fired. He just wasn't a self-starter."

Now, the rest of us around the table liked the former reporter covering the northern beat. He was a good kid, smart, fun to hang around. His firing had shaken us all up.

The pile had crossed a line.

"I mean, come on. How hard is it to produce three stories a day up there? I do five in my sleep," he said.

"And it reads like it, too," I quipped.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," I said. "Your stories read like you wrote them in your sleep."

"This coming from the guy with the worst production in the entire newspaper," Mr. Pile said, smugly. Apparently the editors had been busy sharing their frustration with me to anyone who would listen, and Pile thought he had something on me.

Now, before I say anything else, let me be clear. I don't have an overinflated view of myself as a writer. I believe I was a solid reporter. I was not prolific, and I was not the best writer either. (Read Dan Snapp's column here. I worked with him at a newspaper and I feel he's the best writer I've worked with.)

I've moved to fiction and feel the same way: I've got talent, but I'm not the best. I stopped trying to be the best when I realized that it's about improving yourself, and not a competition.

So, back to the Pile.

The Pile was one of those types of reporters who bought into the notion that more was better, and therefore measured ability on the amount of words he wrote, not on the quality. He was the type who would go to selectmen's meetings and squeeze five stories from it when one average-sized story would suffice. His articles were about road salt purchasing or how to deal with mailbox vandalism or where to put the new public ice rink. Important to about a hundred readers, but not worthy of five anemic, cliche-dripping articles.

I call these types of reporters "shit spreaders" because they're obviously trying to fill a daily quota, not trying to write quality stories people can really benefit from. I covered a selectmen's meeting once in which an hour was spent arguing about a local farmer's manure-spreading activities. The selectmen used the term 'shit-spreader' no fewer than 20 times. It was the biggest waste of an hour of my life. My editors insisted I write the story separately, however, to my utter astonishment. I kept the term shit-spreader in the article, out of protest, forcing the editor to have to read every word so that the profanity didn't make it into print.

Since then, any article I read about the mundane, the inane, the insanely irrelevant, I call a shit-spreader. A story written to fill a quota. Read your local paper. I know you know what I'm talking about.

So back to Pile. He was a real shit-spreader. He wrote 20 to 30 articles a week, and maybe one or two were legitimately worthy of print.

So what does this have to do with my writing today?

Well, I've noticed I keep falling into the habit of checking my daily output as some sort of indication of how well I am doing. It gets me down, I become dejected, and inevitably depressed.

I need to stop shit-spreading. Writing to meet a 5-page quota, because when I re-read those five pages, they really stink. But when I go over the half-page that I struggled to produce, it's flawed, but it rings true.

I can fix flawed. I cannot do anything with a pile of shit except flush it.

A New Blog

2010-01-01T06:42:00.000-08:00

To change the pace, and do something entirely different...

http://allthatsheis.blogspot.com/

Come over, become a member, comment if you'd like.

Our Seven Wonders: Truly Thankful, Truly Blessed

2009-11-26T06:46:00.000-08:00

Fallon Paige

Harrison Scott

Alyssa Jean

Ty Gabriel

Bailey Orrin

Gabrielle Marrae

Griffin Alan Kent

Meet Mr. B

2009-11-22T11:23:00.000-08:00

Today, Bailey came to our house to live full-time, capping three months of transitioning that included several drives to Winthrop where he lived with his foster family.

The state requires a transition period, during which we were able to gradually introduce ourselves to him, and him to us. He latched on immediately, began calling us Mumma and Dadda from the start, and has always called our home his own. He came to our house a few times, for overnights. And a couple of weekends.

Because of the ease with which everything has gone, we were able to speed up the transition.

He will have to live with us for six months before we can legally adopt him. A state requirement. But as far as we're concerned, he's ours now.

Corrine served a brunch for everyone - Bailey's foster family and their adopted son, who is Bailey's biological brother. Corrine's parents came, as did her brother and his family. All of our kids - except Ty - were here as well.

The coming days, following Thanksgiving break, will be a process of getting him into a school. We have a meeting with the local school district about the details on Tuesday. His is a peculiar case that needs the assistance of special education in order to meet certain developmental needs. We are treading in unfamiliar waters here. As his new advocates, there are more questions than answers. What does he really need? What should he be getting? How do we ensure that he's not treated just as a source of income for the local school district?

It's an ongoing education for us. But what isn't in life? We're ready to tackle it, that's fir sure.

The Courage to Write

2009-11-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

Corrine had a great idea yesterday. Why not turn our experiences in adoption into a short memoir? From a man's perspective - a father's point of view? Start from about a year ago when we took four weekends of classes together, and finish when B is legally ours, which would be sometime next June (if the current schedule holds.)

I loved the idea. It makes perfect sense, in fact. I'm a writer, a father, a man, and I think I could easily fill a couple hundred pages on the subject. I think people would read it, too.

Now, before you spew coffee through your noses this morning, please understand the motivation is NOT to profit off the adoption of our son. If you're a writer reading this, you're smiling. Because you know only about a half a percent of writers actually make money from their writing.

This is not a get-rich-quick scheme, Alice.

Corrine's argument (I was skeptical at first) went something like this: "Do you know how rich we could get off this!?!?"

She's a hustler, that girl of mine. Always checking the angles.

Actually, what she said was that a story about the adoption of a child, from a man's point of view, would be a welcomed change. People associate adoption with women, I guess. Or with sentimentality. Or with things like feelings and emotions. You know, stuff guys don't really have?

And God knows men are not sentimental creatures. Well, unless we're watching Brian's Song or Field of Dreams or The Natural.

I, on the other hand, am a well of emotion. A veritable spring of gushing sentiment. I can cry on cue, almost.

So, I agreed with her. A little memoir about my feelings and experiences with adoption. I've started scribbling notes. Some ideas about theme. It can't be just a chronology of events. That would be boring. There has to be a thread through it. What would it be? Well, I can't determine that now. It will expose itself in due time.

And as I sat jotting initial thoughts down, pieces of my life started creeping into it. Things not specifically associated with the adoption itself. Things about being a father, about having a father. Some funny anecdotes of my childhood. And poignant scenes, too, like when Fallon was first born.

And after about an hour of this brainstorming, a fear crept in. If I'm to write about my feelings, and if the sphere of storytelling continues to expand so that it includes Fallon, and Harrison and my parents, etc. ... how much do I put in? Naturally if I write about parenting, then it stands to reason I would have to include Fallon and Harrison's mom, from whom I am divorced. Do I include the sordid details of the divorce, too? And will she balk at the idea of her being in a memoir?

Ahhh, the bogeyman has paid a visit. The age-old dilemma of memoirists: can you be true to your story without violating the trust of those who share a life with you?

Now, listen. I'm not saying I want to write bad things about these people. But, you know, there are things in my life (as there are in everyone's life) that are painful. If I am to be honest - and that's what a memoir is, honest - then I need to include some events that may or may not reflect too well on myself, and therefore, not too well on my loved-ones.

How far is too far? Do I need these people's permission to even include them? Do I change their names to protect them? But then again, let's be real, people will know who they are, I mean, come on.

This is not a tell-all. It's not an expose. It is, however, an exploration of my feelings about parenting, in a broader sense, and as it relates specifically to the adoption of a child. Naturally, I don't live in a vacuum. I interact with other humans, many of whom have helped shape my personal history. Including (significantly) my first wife, my parents, my siblings, my children.

Do I tip-toe, for example, around my divorce? Do I delve into the specifics (scandalous, many would say - sorry, but that's a part of my life, too) or do I just say "Voila! one morning I woke up I was divorced)? This passage of my life affected my children both positively and negatively. And it called into question (in my mind) my skills (or lack thereof) as a father.

The thing is, some parts of my life, when exposed, will not reflect very good on me, but it will reveal me as a human, with flaws, particularly as a father. It will also delve into my relationships with my own parents, some good, and some bad. That's the whole point of this. No one wants to read a story from a guy who comes across as having nothing wrong with him, who has made all the right choices and lives a trauma-free life.

Yuck.

So back to the memoir. What was a great idea yesterday is now scaring the hell out of me. Which means I have to do it. There's no turning back. I've been presented with a challenge: to be brutally honest about who I am as a human, a father, a man, with all the blemishes, but within the context of this adoption. People I know may or may not embrace it. I will have push back, I'm sure. Resistance by some who will insist that either my version of events is flawed (and therefore a big fat lie), or that I have no right whatsoever to mention them.

Oh boy.

Deep breath.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-03T05:46:00.000-08:00

Thoughts on B

2009-10-27T15:55:00.000-07:00

Corrine and I both blog. Many of you know this. And many of you know, therefore, that her blog has a lot to do with the process of adoption that we have ~~been put through~~ been patiently enduring.

I have not blogged much about the experience because she has been diligently recording our trials and triumphs. Why duplicate, right?

What I failed to recognize, however, is that I am withholding my own thoughts. My own perspective, which differs from Corrine's, merely by virtue of being a man. My take on things naturally would be different. Not opposite. Different.

So here's the deal. Here's my whole take on the adoption thing.

1. Yes, many believe us to be crazy, given that we have six between us already, ranging from 18 to 1. Know what? We agree. But we don't care, either. Crazy is the new sanity.

2. Yes, we fear some may suggest - to themselves and their friends - that we are doing this for money. We knew that foster care provides money. We had no desire to foster. End of that debate, right? Nope. We found out fairly recently that adoption, too, offers families a monthly stipend. The child we are adopting has multiple special-needs diagnoses. The stipend will not cover the accumulated expenses. Trust me. It's a shame. So - yes, we're getting a monthly stipend. (Insert ironic laugh here).

3. Yes, meeting our son, for the first time, was surreal. There's a quality to this whole process that has yet to define itself for me. As a writer, I am at a loss for words. Here is a child born to a woman incapable of being a mother, whose negligence nearly killed him. His neglect so severe, as an infant, that at 5 he has the vocabulary of a three-year-old. He is often frustrated at not being able to articulate his emotions. But when he smiles at me, and his arms wrap around my neck, I am the one who regresses and the words fail me and I am the one incapable of expression. When he says Dadda he becomes an oratory giant and I am reduced to silence.

4. I am a man, yet live in a world of men so wretched that they cannot do something so simple as love their own child. That they can live with themselves knowing that in another corner of this universe their own blood filters through the veins of a human, yet they remain incapable of action. I wish the pulse of this young boy's heart beat so furiously that it drowns any notion of such a human.

5. Curiously, during these past few weeks - meeting B for the first time, and our subsequent all-too-brief transition days together - I have thought a lot about my own father. Yesterday he asked if B had ever been fishing. I said no. Three volumes of meaning passed between us in a single, silent moment. I could see my father's imagination, a picture of him in a boat with B.

6. I consider myself to be a fairly progressive male: movies make me cry, I love to love my wife, I write extremely sentimental poetry every so often. Yet ... I still find myself keeping my emotions in check a lot. More than I want to. I don't know why. It's in the wiring, I suppose.

7. I would be lying if I told you I wasn't afraid of what this adoption will do to the relationship I have with the other children. I've done foolish things, but I'm no fool. I know two things: they will have feelings, and they will probably not express them truthfully. That's not the same thing as saying that I think they don't support this. It's just me saying that another addition will add weight. In more ways than just to the pressure on the car tires.

8. I am already imagining B when he is 10, 20, 30 and 40, and adding parentheses next to each that displays my age in relation. And yes, it makes me swallow hard.

9. I love my wife more for this, and I can't explain why; anymore than I can explain why dark, still waters make me giddy and scared at the same time.

10. We gave B the middle name "Orrin" after Corrine's grandfather. Corrine was named after him too, with the C and the E added at either ends to make it beautiful. We kept B's first name, of course, and he will have our last name. It's the name he calls himself already, and he refers to our home as his home. Isn't a child's seal of approval the most significant gift he can give you?

I bet you're wondering why I have a new picture of Corrine at the top of this post.

It's because I couldn't use the picture of B and I together in our kitchen, taken this weekend. It would violate confidentiality where he is not yet legally "ours."

So the picture is of Corrine. A new favorite of mine because it reveals her spirit well: this woman with so much beauty and so much vibrancy in her that she can't help but burst into your life and brighten it.

B is there, too, a fuzzy out-of-focus blotch in the background.

And it dawned on me just now the metaphor: after being for so long out of focus, the time has come for that to change. And who better to bring him into focus than a woman with so much vitality and fierce love that she can add another child into her life as if he were her own?

When You Love Someone

2009-10-17T05:53:00.000-07:00

When you love someone - you'll do anything
You'll do all the crazy things that you can't explain
You'll shoot the moon - put out the sun
When you love someone

You'll deny the truth - believe a lie
There'll be times that you'll believe you can really fly
But your lonely nights - have just begun
When you love someone

When you love someone - you'll feel it deep inside
And nothin else can ever change your mind
When you want someone - when you need someone
When you love someone...

When you love someone - you'll sacrifice
You'd give it everything you got and you won't think twice
You'd risk it all - no matter what may come
When you love someone
You'll shoot the moon - put out the sun

When you love someone

UMF, CW, CT, FHH and Me

2009-10-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

I learned Wednesday that I have been accepted into the college's creative writing department (CW for short) as a major. Those of you who know me are no doubt scratching your heads, thinking, "Um, well, duh...?"

The truth is, I was accepted as a freshman at the University of Maine - Farmington (UMF), but my declared major - CW - wasn't automatic. You have to apply, and be accepted, before you can be officially declared. This involves submitting up to two writing samples, an application, and an essay about yourself and why you want to major in creative writing.

I've been sweating it, too. I got the obligatory "thanks for submitting your application to our department..." email, that also included this little tidbit at the end: there were bunches of applicants to fill only a limited number of slots, so, you know, good luck.

Yes, I did the rationalizing. I said to myself, "Well, twelve years as a journalist, a published novel, 41 years old....They just GOTTA take me."

I don't know what the department's criteria is, either. Truthfully, I was worried I would get a Thanks but No Thanks letter.

Now, relief. I can continue with this semester's classes (A average, thank you very much....!) and then, next semester, jump into CW classes. THAT's gonna be cool.

On another note unrelated to college, but significantly more important. (And WAY more exciting) Corrine and I met our prospective new son, today, when we traveled an hour to visit him in his current foster home.

I cannot tell you his name, out of confidentiality, but I can tell you that he is red-headed, so Corrine has started calling him Carrot Top, or CT.

CT is 5, but has some developmental delays. He has been diagnosed with mild mental retardation, but you wouldn't know it. In fact, we both think it's a misdiagnosis. Frankly, he was born in a stunting environment by his biological mother, who left him with his older brother, locked in a room, many times.

He is delayed in his speech, and we think maybe that's where the MR diagnosis comes from.

Really, he more than likely has a form of ADHD (fucking hyper as hell, or FHH - that's the technical term, by the way) but what child isn't?

CT is incredibly bright, loving, inquisitive, and the aforementioned FHH.

When you ask him a question, his "yes" is "aye", which is so damn Scots-Irish cute.

He's not Scots-Irish. He's pure-blooded American. With red hair. And FHH and ADHD.

It was surreal meeting him for the first time, knowing that in a few short weeks, he will be living with us, and in about a year, will have the last name Turner.

FA!

(fuckin A)

Man.

A Better Mouse Trap

2009-10-07T03:20:00.000-07:00

I have to figure out a new system.

My blog posts are becoming few and far between, and that's a horrible batting average.

I'm leaving for school Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 6:30, leaving me no time in the morning to do serious blogging. Unless I want to wake up at 4. Which isn't ever going to happen.

My Tuesdays and Thursdays are filled with homework and kids' lives and soccer coaching.

Saturday, coaching soccer games, and time with the fam, to make up for the week.

But, I need to write. It's what I'm all about. It's even why I'm going to college. Funny how that works? I'm doing all these things to improve myself as a writer, and I'm doing less writing than ever before.

I'm in recap mode, so I'll hit the highlights, and that's probably what my blogs will be from now on: daily highlights, maybe hit upon a single issue I can hammer out in 10 minutes, like I'm doing right now.

[ + ] Corrine and I went to the Fryeburg Fair Sunday (the biggest fair in the state, for non-Maniacs) It was the first time we went alone, as a couple, since we met back in 1924. Well, it seems that long anyway.

Harrison went with his girlfriend, but they did their own thing. So, it was just me and the little lady, strolling. Holding hands. Talking. Looking at draft horses and 4H quilts and crafts and people eating. We ate a few things ourselves, which is one of the biggest reasons we go. But it was nice to just hang together, no strollers or diaper bags.

NOW...not to sound bitter or ungrateful for what I have, BUT.

We were supposed to head to Vermont on Saturday, alone, stay the night at our good friend's house and see the play she directed. We had been planning it for weeks, excited at adulthood. At being able to dress up (I bought Corrine a beautiful dress and shirt for her birthday just for this weekend. Earrings to match, even!)

Well, anyone with kids knows that two things are inevitable: someone getting sick or someone backing out of babysitting.

Both happened. Griffin was sick AND Corrine's mom backed out of taking him Saturday. It scrapped our entire weekend plans for Vermont. We were, um, pissed.

So, we got the chance to ditch the kids for a few hours Sunday, a small consolation. It was our one-year anniversary a couple weeks ago and for our "honeymoon" we traveled through northern New England to see the foliage. Well, that was a big reason for going to Vermont this past weekend.

FAIL!

Well, not all fail. I did get to hold Corrine's hand, in public, alone, without children.

As pathetic as it sounds, that's a small victory for us lately it seems.

Well...my 10 minutes are up. It's 6:30. Time for college.

See you tomorrow...

Wish Us Luck (and Happy Anniversary)

2009-09-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

This morning Corrine and I are heading to Augusta for a MONDO HUGE meeting about the child we're trying to adopt. Something like 48 people will be at this meeting, representing ALL the state agencies that have been involved in this child's life since, like, conception.

The meeting is for them to get to know us, us to get to know them, them to prod and poke and query and question and scowl and smirk. Us to grin and bear it.

The process is so ridiculously bureaucratic that it's easy to lose sight of the fact that there is a human being's entire life in the balance here.

I am driving from campus, while Corrine will head from home. We'll meet, have our thing-thing, and then head back to where we came from. I have three more classes after the meeting. Corrine has children to care for. So we will not be able to talk about how the meeting went until after I get home, at around 6:30. I know she'll be brimming with thoughts.

By the way.

Our first anniversary was yesterday and we spent it apart, for the middle part of the day anyway. Both vehicles getting worked on. I stayed home and did homework. Corrine took parts to her brother for the Volvo, and then drove the van to her father's to be tuned up.

No romance, no candles, no nothing.

Life.

Can.

Be.

A.

Bitch.

BUT

I woke up this morning and there she was, the woman with whom I fell in love, and whose presence every morning in my world, in my life, makes the bad bearable.

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You

2009-09-24T05:33:00.000-07:00

I left for school yesterday morning at the regular time. 6:30. In my brand-new, 20-year-old Volvo station wagon. I made it 4.3 miles before that Swedish marvel of engineering died.

I walked two miles back toward home before a very nice fellow, who also happens to run our town's transfer station (see: dump), picked me up.

I was wearing dress shoes, pants, and a short-sleeved shirt. It was going to be close to 80 yesterday, the weather report told us, so short-sleeves made sense. But not at 6:45 in the morning.

The road I take to school is a narrow, two-lane back road, lined on both sides with trees. It has a pretty yellow double line down the middle, sometimes it's even dotted long enough to allow a car three or so yards to pass, but otherwise the road seems to have been built by the owners of Six Flags, all up and down and sharp turns and deep plunges.

At 6:45, as I was driving, the radio went out suddenly, then snapped back on. And then it went out for good. I looked at the dash and all of my lights were out.

Me: Wow, those wacky Europeans and their sophisticated foreign cars.

I got to a stop sign, dropped the car into first, stopped. Looked both ways. Started to drive. The car sputtered, lurched, coughed, groaned, hitched, burped. In Swedish, of course.

I put it in second, thinking, hoping, it was just, you know, not awake yet. Needed to clean out the old Volvo lungs.

I got another hundred yards before the thing just died. I steered it off the road and sat there staring at the steering wheel. Maybe Volvos just do this? Because surely it wasn't broken down. Not a Volvo. Not a Foreign car. Domestic vehicles shit the bed on me all the time. But I had heard that cars made everywhere else were built to last 250 years, if you change the oil every 120,000 miles.

I turned it over and it sounded like I was dragging a dead body over a tin roof.

Me: Fucking cocksucker! I was duped!

I got out, slammed the door. Stood, hands on hips, looking at the car, pissed. As if the car, somehow, in its European sophistication, would actually feel guilty for letting me down.

Walked around to the passenger side, got in and hunted for the fuse box. Because I suspected in was electrical. I'm no mechanic, folks, but I'm not retarded either.

I couldn't find it. It's a Volvo, I thought to myself, the goddamn fuse box is probably somewhere clever, like inside the fucking steering wheel, or hub cap or sun visor. it's not. I looked there too. I popped the hood. I stood in front of the engine, scowling. Like I knew what I was looking for. There was an engine in there, I knew that much. Some hoses and wires. Looked an awful lot like domestic car engines to me.

Me: Goddamn fucking Swedes.

I looked up the road, in the direction of where I was heading, and then I looked down the road where I had come. Like I was deciding in which direction I should go. If I walk to college, I'll get there Thanksgiving. If I walk home, probably by 10:30. That would mean missing history, but I could salvage the rest of the day.

I start walking home, my breath making little puffs of swear words in the air. In Swedish.

We only have one cell phone, and Corrine keeps it with her. There's no need for me to take a cell phone to college, where it will be off most of the time. I make a mental note to get a second phone. Preferably not Swedish.

Cars zip past me in the foggy cold air and I wonder to myself "Do you people really believe that I am out for a morning stroll with dress shoes, dress pants and a striped short-sleeve shirt on?"

No one stopped. Not a soul.

Me: I hope you drive off the fucking road into a tree and your eyes get eaten by a fisher cat!

Of course, all I can think about is Stephen King going for a walk a few years back and getting clipped from behind by a man in a van. It nearly killed him. Stephen that is.

I jog to the other side of the road, to face oncoming traffic.

Me: Now, if I get hit, I can at least see it coming and maybe flip the driver off just before I die. I hope he's Swedish.

A mile in and my feet hurt, my legs are cramping and I'm light-headed from not having eaten anything. I usually get something to eat at school. And a coffee. Coffee! I haven't had coffee yet. Now I'm livid.

I look at my watch. It's 7:20 and I've only walked a mile. I do the math in my head (now that I'm taking math as a college course, I can do reliable math in my head. College rocks, man!): One mile in 30 minutes. Three miles left to go = piece of shit fucking Volvo Swedish losers.

At two miles, a truck stops next to me. It's The Guy From The Dump. I don't know his name. I just know he's the resident refuse engineer. The one who helps me understand the science behind corrugated cardboard versus brown paper bags, metal versus tin foil, and kitchen waste versus other forms of waste. That, and I like how he says "Put it in the Hopper!" It comes out "Puttitinthehoppa!" It sounds tribal swear word.

He takes me to High Street and we talk about the weather. He doesn't even ask me why the hell I'm dressed up for a stroll in the middle of Sumner. His wife kicked his ass when he got home from work that night, I just know it.

His wife: Whatdoyamean, you stopped for someone? Who was he? Why was he walking? He could have had a gun. He coulda been a molesta.

Him: Oh, just Puttitinthehoppa!

I get home and tell Corrine the story and she and I do our ritual native profanity dance, the one we always do when something shitty happens to us.

Then I take our van to school. On the way, something interesting happens. I get to about 15 miles from school and come across a man walking.

I stop. It's Yosemite Sam. I swear to God.

Me: Need a lift?

He says, toothless, wearing a cowboy hat, something utterly incoherent, but he's smiling.

He jumps in. He says thank you but it sounds like "Sank Ya"

He's wearing dirty overalls and a chamois shirt beneath them. He says he works "Aways back, at the Fahm."

I presume he means farm. Some sort of farm. But he does not smell like a farm, all cow shit and pig shit etc. So I naturally think he's lying and has a sharp metal object tucked into his chamois sleeve.

Me: Walk this way every day do you?

He tells me and I manage to decipher enough from him to learn that he gets a ride to work every morning at 4 a.m., but walks home because his shift ends before the others. And that it takes him two hours and 45 minutes.

Me: Holy shit!

He is probably in his mid-seventies and he explains that he must work part time because any more and he'll lose his social security.

So now I feel like a complete asshole for even complaining about anything, ever.

I drop him off at a corner and he points to his house a hundred yards away.

Him: Thassit! The blue one! Sanka ya! I can git m'laundry done 'cause you saved me a few hours and they're always too busy by the time I get home....

Man.

I don't think about the Volvo for the rest of the day. But on my way home, I think of Yosemite. I didn't get his name. But I can see his house when I make the turn to head home. And I wonder if he got his laundry done.

My life is a good one.

My life is a great one.

Fall

2009-09-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

It's 10:12 a.m. Monday and I'm not really sure what to write about.

I'm sitting at one of a few dozen computer stations in the college's computer center, waiting to hear from Corrine, who is home doing the child care thing.

In the meantime, I've noticed it has suddenly become fall. My favorite time of year. But where was I during the transition? Usually I can tell when things are getting colder, trees are getting brighter.

This time, it's like I woke up and fall was here.

Which reminds me that since I started school I have not made time for Purple Holly (which takes place primarily during the fall) and that I need to. It's a good story, in the sense that it has potential. Only if I keep with it though.

I really don't know how people do this.

Back to fall. My favorite time of year.

Corrine and I are going to Vermont the first weekend of October, right on the cusp of the fall foliage change.

This same time last year, Corrine and I got married and headed to New Hampshire, where we stayed in a hotel, traveled through the White Mountains, and had a great time. The kids were with us then (Griff was just a few months old) so this year, we're going alone. And this time, farther west, to visit a good friend and watch a play she is directing.

It will be the first time in a long while that Corrine and I have spent time alone.

I can't wait.

Fragonometry

2009-09-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Friday Fragments.

I write briefly about things that probably should be written about in length, which means I'm trying to be short-winded with a full pair of lungs.

Mrs. 4444 taught me to do this. You should check it out for yourself.

+==+ Saw a church sign that read "The Bible is God's Facebook." Now, that got me thinking. If this were true, then it would reason Jesus, his son, was a Friend. And it would therefore further reason that he might consult with his son on occasion. But in what manner would he do it? Would it be chat speak? When faced with, say, how to deal with televangelists ripping millions off from their viewers, would he write on Jesus's wall simply: "WWYD?"

+==+ Had my first tests in college this week. Philosophy and algebra, in fact. I got a 93 on the Philosophy test, a 92 on the one in algebra. That makes me an honor student for the first time in my life!

+==+ Can someone tell me why, when you're experiencing diarrhea, that the shortest distance from your ass to the seat of a toilet becomes a distance so profoundly long that it can no longer be calculated using basic math? Or that your bowels, which are supposed to measure the length of a football field when stretched out, suddenly become shorter than the distance between your wrist and your elbow? Or that it's poetic justice that the only warning your body gives you that you're about to excrete is the sound of a toilet being flushed in your abdomen? Or why this never happens when you're at home, but rather in public, and therefore must go to a public restroom, and why, when you get to the public restroom, the stall next to you is occupied by a guy on his cell phone with his girl saying "I love you too, Baby"?

Just wondering.

+==+ Corrine's birthday was Thursday and I bought her some gifts. I bought her a hand-made coffee mug (as opposed to something mass-produced in China) that has an illustrated image of a woman with a shock of blond hair. It reminded me of her. I also bought her a floor-length dress (blue I think) and a black see-through sleeved shawl-looking thing that buttons at the neck, to go over the dress. These are not the actual terms used for these items, folks. Calm down. Also, I bought her a matching earring and necklace set, but the necklace is more like a choker so we need a longer chain for it. I also got her a card but because everything is so hectic, I didn't have a chance to sign it. It's blank on the inside and I was wanting to write something long and romantic. She took a rain check, but loved all the gifts. Guess who's getting lucky this weekend? Cha-ching! Money, baby! Money in the bank!

+==+ We got the first episodes of season one of Thirtysomething, a show I used to watch at the end of the 80s, when I was entering my twentysomethings. I liked the clothes, mostly. Now, I think they look a lot like the pretentious, preppie assholes I wanted to bitch-slap in high school. You know, when I was tensomething?

+==+ In first-year writing seminar (see: College Writing 101) we're reading and dissecting Richard Wright's Black Boy. When he was a child, his mother beat him nearly to death; and he killed a kitten on his father's command; and his mother put him and his brother in an orphange because she could not afford to take care of them - but only temporarily; and him and his neighborhood friends used to watch the neighbor folks using the latrines that stood on the endge of a hill and had no back wall, so you could see everything.

Next, we're reading the memoir of a woman who was raped her freshman year in college.

And after that, we're reading the memoir of a woman who suffers from epilepsy, a condition that, for some people, turns them into chronic liars.

Next year they're changing the title of the class to Oprah 101: Depressing Literature and Its Devastating Effects on People's Love of Reading Just For the Fun of It.

+==+ I purchased music sequencing software that is used for orchestrating. I plan to compose a ballet, believe it or not. I will have someone else choreograph, of course...There's no joke here. I'm really going to do it.

You Say It's Her Birthday

2009-09-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

Corrine's birthday is Thursday (Love you baby!) and Griffin goes in for surgery the same day (Love you Fiff!)

It's not a serious surgery - he's being circumcised. Poor thing.

Griff, I mean.

As for Corrine's birthday. I have not had a chance to stop and even breathe, let alone think about gifts. So, I'm creating a contest!

I want ideas for THE most romantic birthday gift you can think of, the ingredients to which must include:

1. A purchased item of some sort (keep it under a couple bills, please, I'm a college student now)
2. Something I DO for her; e.g., take her out, rub her feet with olive oil, etc. You don't have to keep it clean, but ... well, whatever you suggest will probably be a reflection of YOUR dirty mind, not mine. (But I'd love to know how your dirty minds work!)

It can be as elaborate or as simple as you like. It can be wild and crazy, or so damn romantic it makes you cry to even write it.

I want results, folks! I only have two days.

Not sure what I will give the winner. I tried a contest once and I STILL have not followed through on the prize. (Sorry Mrs. 4s!)

So...put your romantic thinking caps on and give me a recipe for the BEST birthday for the BEST wife I am married to. Hands down. She's tops. She deserves it. (like I need to tell you!)

Apple Pickin Time

2009-09-07T04:57:00.000-07:00

We went apple picking Sunday and it was a gloriously beautiful day. High, blue skies, crisp fall air, and ripe apples.

Awww. Corrine and Andy sittin' in front of a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Farmer Griff

Farmer Gabi

They love each other; really, they do.

See? Told you.

Break time

Does this apple orchard make my hair look fat?

She loved the bag way more than the actual apple-picking

She's really that tall, folks.

Artsy fartsy B&W shot of Gabi Girl

Dude. How friggin handsome can you get?

He called them "balls" and thought he had entered ball heaven. He was actually swooning.

Pick one. Bite it. Put it in the bag.

Me with Barns coming out of my ears.

Fiff and Mumma

Damn we're a good looking couple.

The U of Frag

2009-09-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

This is Friday Fragments. The place in which I round up the disparate and desperate thoughts in my head and list them, in order of no particular importance, for you to muse at and enjoy. They are short, they are sometimes witty, almost never profound, and make for a good dish. The recipe for which is in the hands of Mrs. 4444 over at Half Past Kissin' Time.

This week is devoted to college. Surprise surprise.

Specifically, Scenes from an American College.

So, put in your Animal House soundtrack and read along....

FF I had the distinct pleasure of walking behind two kids arguing about posters. The young man had dreads and khaki shorts, the girl was tiny and dread-locked as well and no bra. (Folks, there was no way NOT to notice. ) The college was selling all sorts of posters, presumably for the kids to hang on their empty college walls.

BOY: I can't do this myself.
GIRL: I know, but I'm not helping you
Boy: You're not helping me?
Girl: I don't think it needs to be done
Boy: You don't think it needs to be done?
Girl: It's abominably insane
Boy: Abominably insane?
Girl: Those are way to heavy and ...
Boy: You're abominably insane.
Girl: The Led Zeppelin posters are at least a thousand tons each
Boy: That is an abominable exaggeration.
Girl: And there are thousands upon thousands of them and it's a beautiful day
Boy: I'm abominably fucked if I do this alone
Girl: Stop looking at my ass

Ladies and gentlemen, that's the whole conversation. I followed them from the student union to a van outside, where they parted ways.

I was disappointed. I really wanted to know if they got it on afterwards.

FB My first class of my college career was history, at 8 a.m. Wednesday, in a basement classroom with tiered amphitheater seating. Rows of tables, with chairs that swivel outward from metal posts connected to the tables. Mine, at the end of the row, swiveled outward toward me. Once I figured out that it actually swiveled toward me - by watching my far-more-intellectual 18-year-old peers, I did the same. And rammed the back of it right into my knee. Welcome to collegiate ergonomics.

FB I am constantly amazed at the wide variety of people here. Short, tall, round, beautiful, handsome, and not so much of either. Slobs and OCDs, intellectuals and um, like, you know, sorority blonds. Good-smelling and rank; wet-haired and bed-headed. I love it. It's a veritable cornucopia of something. Not sure what, but who among you can say you used "cornucopia" in your blog lately?

FB Professors in all of my classes expect participation and actually factor it into their final grading. This is contrary to what I imagined. There was this movie ... I think it's called Real Genius that had Val Kilmer (late 80s??) , who is a college student. Well, anyway, there is a sequence of scenes of the same classroom that begins full, then as the weeks progress, becomes emptier and emptier, students replaced by their tape recorders.

I guess I just expected attendance and participation to be low on the old college totem pole.

FB I've met only a few non-traditionals, including a man going back after retiring from the army. He was stationed in Germany. In 1979! And, what is even better, is that he decided to live on campus during the week and travel home for weekends to see his wife and daughter! That's just ... awesome. I told him he'll have everyone in his dorm sporting tattoos by the end of the month.

FB Corrine bought me a watch and a Volvo. How's that for love? Of course, the Volvo is 20 years old and the watch sold at Wal-Mart. In my statistics class next semester I'm going to try and determine which will die first.

FB Speaking of math. My first day of class and the teacher administered a test. It didn't count, so to speak, but today's class delved into the principles we were tested on. The test made more sense. I'm so screwed.

FB My son is taking Algebra II High this year, as a sophomore in high school. Read the last entry and you'll know why I cry into my pillow at night.

FB There are computer stations everywhere here, and they're all wired to the Internet. It's incredible. Every building, every nook and cranny of every building you can find a computer. And if that's not enough, the whole campus us wired. I can bring my own system and just jump on the Internet. In high school, this was called The Future and it included Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.

FB My homework includes hundreds of pages of reading every week. I love that.

FB I'm giddy. Can you tell?

Jesus, Take the Handle Bars

2009-09-02T17:05:00.000-07:00

I'm done. First day of college is in the books, so to speak. From 8 a.m. to 5:15, a more-than-full day for me, something that will take time for me to get used to. I'm used to taking a nap with the daycare kids. 12 to 1:20. Right after lunch.

My Friday Fragments will be devoted to the minor things I observe/feel/think about this, week so I won't get into it here.

I will, however, share one funny thing. I have to. I can't keep it until Friday.

So, it's midday and I've been to my first class. History. Great first class, even if it was 8 a.m. and I'd not even started drinking my medium hazelnut extra extra coffee.

So I walk back to my van - parked in a spot that I just know is off limits to me, and therefore is under video surveillance that the campus police will use to post a video of me on YouTube punching the hood because the battery connection keeps coming loose and I have to pop the hood and frig with the connection.

But I digress...

Anyway, I replace three history books and a notebook with my single philosophy book and notebook (If Andrew takes three textbooks and a notebook weighing 27 pounds and replaces them with one textbook and notebook weighing 17 ounces, what would the chiropractor charge for an adjustment if he were walking 3 miles per hour heading west toward HELL....), and then head to the student center.

I come to an intersection and out of the corner of my eye I notice a student with blond Jesus hair and beard on a ten-speed barreling down the street toward me.

And to my left, a car has stopped to let me cross the intersection. At this exact moment, Jesus veers his bike to manage the intersection and his tires hit gravel right at my feet and he wipes out.

We're talking about a tall fuck, too. All arms and legs. Short-sleeved polo shirt and jeans hugging the upper crack of his Jesus ass, penny loafers. You just know this guy listens to Marley and believes using deodorant depletes the ozone or some such pot-enhanced euphoric nonsense.

And his bike is slipping out from under him, he's rotating in mid air at my feet, and our eyes lock for a moment (mine wide as dinner plates, his narrowed into Cheech and Chong slits.)

And BAM! he hits the ground and slides a foot or two past me.

I didn't know what to do or say. I was flabbergasted. I was shocked. I was ... trying not to laugh. I was doing man keegles to stop from pissing myself.

"Uh...you okay?" I asked, and reached down. But, in one fluid motion, as if choreographed, he popped up onto his bike and began pedaling down the hill.

"Dude, that sucked."

That's all he said. And it was with comical irony that he said it. No inflection. No nervous giggle or snorting, which I would have done. Well, no, I would have thrown the fucking bike across the road and launched into something naughty. Something non-academic.

"Dude, that sucked."

That's got to be the understatement of the year. And off Jesus fled, in 5th gear and with road rash and by the time I got to the other side of the intersection I was bursting.

Made. My. Day.

Now All That's Left is The Learning

2009-09-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

I'm glad I went to the school today. I wasn't planning to, considering my last two trips were fruitless. On one occasion, we had both babies: FAIL. And the second time, I stood in line for an hour and a half to get my photo ID - and still was unable to get it: FAIL.

I was just going to skip today and, instead, go tomorrow, which is when classes actually start. Leap right over this orientation crap because it's been very disorienting.

Today was the day of convocation, when the freshmen gather together and watch their faculty, in full academic regalia, march into the hall to bagpipers; where a few speakers speak; and the official start of one's college career gets underway.

I was going to skip it and wallow in my self-pity over how much of a waste of time my last two visits turned out and how I just didn't feel like I belonged.

But I went. And I'm glad I did.

I won't bore you with the details of the day. They're not interesting. Like explaining a pro golf tournament, hole for hole, over the phone to someone.

What I will share is that today redeemed my faith in my decision to attend college at 41. I have been feeling out of place - not inadequate or stupid or incapable of doing the work. I don't fear anything. I've just felt ... strangely like I'm crashing someone's party. That it's ridiculous of me to think I can stitch myself into the academic fabric without standing out. Like mixing yarn with cross stitch.

At the end of the day (which is right now) I feel far fewer trepidations. Far fewer.

Tomorrow, classes for the first time. I can't wait.

Hen Pecked

2009-08-31T05:23:00.000-07:00

A predator of some sort got to our hens two nights ago, killing one of them and leaving her beheaded body on the bottom of the pen.

Corrine found the hen and the evidence of the break-in: the top of the screen door was shorn away, and there were claw marks on the ground where the infiltrator tried to gain access by burrowing under.

Our hens are not in a top-level security facility here. It's an 8-foot-by-8-foot square pen made of strapping and chicken wire. It's placed on the dirt ground up against the back of our barn.

I popped out a window in the barn and built a wooden box that acts as a sort of passageway between the barn - where they sleep at night - and the pen.

Two weeks ago a neighbor complained of hen shit on his apartment building porch, so we stopped letting them range. We're nothing if not polite and conscientious neighbors.

But the fact that an animal of some sort tore into their home and assaulted one of the hens is a bit unnerving. What's worse is that the dead hen's sisters thought nothing about surrounding her body and pecking the hell out of it. Gross.

I know of only raccoons capable of scaling an 8-foot door, tearing open the screen and ripping the head off a hen. Skunks won't do it. Foxes won't.

So of the 17 original hens, we're down to 15. One having been killed by a stray dog. And now this one.

I'm actually at a loss as to what to do. There is no way to protect them, really, unless I seal off there sleeping quarters and manually let them outside during the day. That's a hassle. Ever try to round up a bunch of scared-shitless hens?

On another note, we bred our border collie with a female a few months ago and the result was a litter of 12 puppies. The owner of the bitch sold all but four, and then called Corrine last week asking her if we could puppy-sit while she tries to find a new place to live.

So we've had four tireless pups bouncing around the house, pissing and shitting everywhere. Corrine penned them on our deck, which now looks like the bottom of a kennel.

The back hallway is where they sleep at night, and that too is rank with the effluvium of dog urine and excrement, not to mention the little fuckers are chewing the hell out of anything.

Right about now, I hate dogs and hens.

And neighbors.

But I love you. So relax.

Fragon Slayer

2009-08-28T04:19:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well, if it isn't me? I don't blog all week, except Fridays it seems. That will change this week, as I return to my regularly scheduled programming.

Friday Fragments are an illusion, wrapped in a mystery, doused with a splash of guile and buttered with condescension. They are a weekly delicatessen of odd ball observations by a miscreant 41-year-old who can't mate socks because he's colorblind. But don't hold that against him. You can blame it on Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin' Time. Well, the Fragment part, not his colorblindness.

FF We keep hens. 16 of them, in fact, and all spring and summer they have free-ranged around our property, hunting and pecking everything in sight. They have even ranged all over our neighbor's yard, and he doesn't care. They do eat ticks, don't ya know? Two weeks ago a wiry, scruffy man who looked like someone had pissed in his mouth, knocked on my door. Asked if we had chickens. I said yes, of course. "Well, they're shittin all over my porch." I asked where he lived. It happens that he owns an apartment building two houses down from us. "I think you should have to come down and clean it up." I told him I would come down and take a look. I changed my mind though. He didn't say hello, he didn't shake my hand or introduce himself. Just dragged his sorry ass up onto my porch fuming and swearing and sputtering and making demands. This apartment building is a slum. The police have been called numerous times for some of the tenants fighting in the street, squealing tires, etc. Chicken shit goes well with his gray flecked faux paint job, I'm thinking.

FF The kids started school this week. Am I going to hell by saying I'm grateful for the sound of silence?

FF I have college orientation tomorrow and Monday. I have made it my secret mission to attain nothing less than a 3.8 GPA. Why, you ask? Because someone once told me I couldn't. And when you tell me I can't do something, I instantly hate you and your family and put curses on you.

FF Gabrielle had a virus last week that created sores in and around her mouth. A virus. That's all the doctor could call it. A virus. With all the advancement in medicine you'd think they would be able to at least give my daughter's infliction a name. All she could take was ibuprofen. She didn't eat for four days. She cried in the middle of the night because it was so painful. And we paid a doctor $1,456 for her to tell us Gabi had a virus. I'm changing my college major to become a doctor.

FF The last couple of weeks have been glorious. Mid-80s, sunny, summery. Beautiful. Last two days, I've had to wear a sweatshirt and long johns to bed and woken up with frost on the insides of my eyelids. Fuck Maine. I'm moving to someplace where it's warm. Like Canada, maybe.

FF We still have not repaired the porch roof. I tore up a third of the shingles in the corner where we've had leaking. That was two weeks ago. One time, when I was a kid, I dismantled an electronic toy I had been given for Christmas because I wanted to see if I could put it back together. I failed. I hid the toy in my closet because I was afraid my dad would kill me. My folks called the other day to say they were coming over and for a split second I actually considered hiding my porch. How lame is that?

FF No dear, I don't agree with you. I can't keep my hands or my eyes off of you. You must be doing a whole lot of something right...

Friday is For Fragging

2009-08-21T05:36:00.000-07:00

Friday Fragments are my way of imparting to you a certain twisted wisdom. Read these little snippets of goings-on, and it shall set you free. Mrs. 4444 over at Half Past Kissin Time is to blame for this. She is the Fragment Zen Master. Please pay her homage.

# I got changed in the bathroom after a short swim the other day and as I reached the door to leave, realized something was amiss. I looked down and saw that I had thrown on Corrine's tan skirt, the kind with the shorts in them. I felt so...liberated. And then I got my period.

# Corrine and I are second-act parents, in that we both had children, raised them out of infancy and into their teens and then had children together of our own. We both, it has become obvious, forgot how much infants can absolutely kill a romantic relationship. Plans to go out together fall through; plans to snuggle on the couch together are interrupted by the 1-year-old needing a diaper change, or the 3-year-old wanting to be between us. Recently we were sitting on the couch talking about watching a movie since our older kids were at their other parents' respective houses and the little ones were asleep. As we sat there, flipping through the movie channels we pay for but never use, it was 7:30, the sun had not yet set, neighbors were barbecuing. Two hours later we both woke up and went upstairs to bed.

# Speaking of parenting. I made it a mental mission to never disparage my ex-wife in front of our children, no matter the temptation. I wish she had gone on the same mental mission.

# I'm a week from college orientation and do not have a second-hand car yet. Like all things in my life, I must wait for money. The college is cutting a check for the difference in financial aid. (Aid includes housing and travel, and since I am not living on campus, I will get cash instead) Anyway, part of the money will go toward a used car. The check has not come yet. My dad went to the University of Maine at Orono, some two-plus hours away. This was when he was a young pup married to mom. He used to HITCHHIKE to and from college just to be with my mom. And people ask how the hell does a couple last for 50 years? There's your answer. I, on the other hand, can't fucking wait for that check.

# Gabrielle, our three-year-old, has been potty-trained for some time now. She still announces when she needs to go, but she can climb up and do her thing all by herself. The other night I was watching her and Griffin while Corrine was at play rehearsal. Gabi went to the bathroom and trotted back afterward, exclaiming she had pooped. In the most genuinely impressed voice about pooping that I could muster, said "Wow, that's fantastic!" To which she replied, "Yeah, I did a baby poop, a mommy poop and a daddy poop." I asked her what that meant. She took me to the bathroom and showed me. There were little turds, medium turds, and one really large dad-looking turd. I think she's gonna be a writer, what do you think?

# Corrine and I took Fallon, my oldest, for her senior portraits this week. Corrine had found a beautiful spot in town with these expansive views, rolling lawns, gardens, picket fences and even a Japanese waterfall. The woman who owns the property gladly let us stroll around with the photographer. It was a gorgeous summer day. One I have already stored in my Fallon Memory Bank. Watching her pose, I could not help but feel ... well, you probably already know how I felt. The girl used to fall asleep in my arms, for chissake.

# My cousin, Matthew, came up from North Carolina this week. He's in the Marines and will be shipping out to Iraq in September. The Turner clan gathered at my parents to wish him well. It was nice seeing my father's brothers all together, talking about growing up. It's the way families should be when they gather. I wish there was more of it. As for Matthew, I wish him well and know God will go with him.

# I have this recurring dream that Corrine is pregnant. There's no chance in hell that she could ever get pregnant, of course. not by me anyway. I had the old cables snipped. No, this is not a dream of lament, or wish. I think it means something else, but I'm just not sure what.

# I'm replacing the roof on our porch with metal. That is to say, I'm putting metal over the existing shingles. The corner where the roof meets the house is an ice trap and leaks every winter. I pulled up the shingles there to see what damage there was to the wood. Like I know what the fuck I'm doing, you know? Anyway, the wood looks remarkably good. No rot. What I discovered was that the previous owner had had it re-roofed and left gaps between it and the abutting house, through which water can naturally flow. Okay, I'm no carpenter, but even I know that gaps mean trouble. And that's my metaphor for the week: gaps mean trouble, folks. Fill the gaps in your life, don't just shingle over them. That and wear old sneakers because roofing tar sucks, man.

Deep huh?

Nearness of You

2009-08-19T05:36:00.000-07:00

It's not the pale moon that excites me
That thrills and delights me
Oh no
It's just the nearness of you
It isn't your sweet conversation
That brings this sensation
Oh no
It's just the nearness of you

When you're in my arms and I feel you so close to me
All my wildest dreams came true
I need no soft lights to enchant me
If you would only grant me the right
to hold you ever so tight
And to feel in the night
The nearness of you

~Norah Jones

Gabrielle is THIS Many: III

2009-08-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

Gabrielle turns three today. And to honor her, I've selected some photos I consider my favorites.

Corrine took this and it's one of my absolute favorites. Big eyes. Fat cheeks.

A completely candid shot. She found an old pair of glasses and put them on. Corrine took the picture just as her daycare friend, Ty, looked at her. Is that not a cute shot or what? And it PERFECTLY captures her and him. I've told you here before. Boys better watch out, because she's not gonna take prisoners.

She loves her Fiffin ... and chokes him and kisses him and knocks him in the head and hugs him and takes his toys from him and tells him she loves him. You know. The usual sister-brother thing.

Do I have to say anything more? This, my friends, is Gabrielle Marrae Turner.

Photo I took for her first birthday card invitations. Great expression.

I have very little hair. And I've lost most of it because of her.

My favorite, probably. No feeling surpasses that of your child sleeping in your arms. None.

She's actually playing, and winning. Something she has always been able to do.

She loves it when other people read. She also loves chewing the bindings.

I was in The Nerd as the title character. Gabrielle is actually making fun of me here. What, you can't see it in her eyes?

Ahoy! Shiver me timbers! Walk the plank!

The cake-eating champ of 45 High Street. Arrrrrgh!!

These are MY boobies, Nana!

She will always have the love and support of her brothers. Because they are afraid of her.

Don't recall what she's dressed as, but that's beside the point. She's stylin in whatever she wears.

Two Weeks and Counting

2009-08-17T05:40:00.000-07:00

Corrine bought me a backpack for college this weekend. In two weeks I start. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Four classes in History, Algebra, Philosophy and English.

I went online to see what textbooks are required and the total came to nearly $300. Do you know how many cheesy $5 movies I could buy at Wal-Mart with $300?

This whole college thing better be worth it.

On the other hand, I subscribe to Writer's Digest and in FOUR articles I read where first-time published authors went for degrees in creative writing. And they swear it made the difference between being an aspiring author, and an actual, published one.

The thing is, I consider myself a published author already. Self-published, to be sure, but published nevertheless.

It was still heartening to read that these authors went for the same degree (well, technically it was an MFA, not a BA) as the one I am striving for.

If they allow me into the program, I should say. I have to ace my remedial algebra and do well in my other classes before I can petition the creative writing department. Then they take my writing samples and decide if I'm worthy.

Wouldn't it be the cat's balls if I was rejected? A 12-year journalist, published novelist, and one helluva cute 41-year-old man, and I get a thumbs down.

I shiver just thinking about it. What would I do then? Major in physics? I suppose I could go for English or History. But, you know, I'm doing this college degree thing so that I can mingle with writers. So that I can improve my writing by being under the tutelage of published professors. So that I can engage in a worthy dialogue about writing with someone other than myself and my dog, Sammy.

I did make a decision last week that I will go for a double major. I'm split, though, between philosophy and theater, with a writing emphasis.

I like philosophy because of its focus on the human condition. I think it would go well with writing. I mean, it's all about people, right, and what makes them tick?

Theater is a hobby of mine, though. And Farmington allows for self-designed majors. Theater with a writing emphasis makes sense because playwriting is an interest I have. But it may be too close to creative writing.

A third option would be history, which I love. Hmmm. I'll have to weigh a lot before I decide.

Anyway. That's a cart-before-the-horse debate for now. I'll wait to see how well I do my freshman year before I expand into another degree.

I have a backpack, a Dayminder calendar for class schedule and assignments, a box of my favorite uni-ball pens, with the micro tips. I will purchase my books probably at the end of this week, and the first week of September buy a used car for $1,000 that's great on gas but probably no larger than a locker.

I'm not sure if I'll get new clothes. No need right now, where it's still summer. When I went to college the first time, my mother harped on me the entire summer about what to get me for clothes.

"What are the kids wearing now?" she would constantly ask me and I had no clue. For my entire life my mother bought my new school clothes for me, which was basically whatever was on the racks at K-Mart. Corduroys, Oxford shirts, and Wranglers. Hush Puppies for shoes.

I didn't care. I had...and still have...no fashion sense whatsoever. I was more psyched about getting the new Bionic Man pencil case.

I go into stores now for my OWN kids, and Corrine has to guard against me picking something that will get my son's ass kicked.

"Honey, it's velour. Don't be that guy."

I imagine college to be filled with kids wearing jeans and t-shirts, the boys letting their hair grow long and not shaving; drinking coffee for the first time in their lives and having no clue what the real world is like but pretending they do.

I don't want to be 18 again, but I sure as hell don't want to stick out either. I'm fairly young looking for my age. If I wear jeans and t-shirts, Birkenstocks with wool socks, and lose the glasses, then I will be fine.

Have you seen the movie Never Been Kissed, with Drew Barrymore? She's a reporter that goes under cover at her local high school to write an expose. Her first day she dresses the way she did in the 1980s. Flaming pink boa and all.

That can't be me.

I have it on my checklist as "Look at your high school senior picture, and make sure you're NOT HIM"

Mr. Snuggles

2009-08-11T05:28:00.000-07:00

My youngest son, Griffin, cannot get enough of me, so it seems.

When I come downstairs, he's at the foot of them yelling my name.

When I go into the bathroom, he's pounding on the door yelling my name.

When I go outside, go into the kitchen, go into a deep thought ... he yells my name.

He toddles up to me, his arms raised, monkey-like, throws his head back and pouts.

"Dadddddddy!"

It's not anything I am used to, I have to tell you. My oldest children were loving. They still are, in fact. It's not that. It's that they were more apt to chase their mother around and cry for her to pick them up. Not me. That's just how I thought it worked. I mean, since the womb these children have been attached to Mommy. They come out and are first held by her, breastfed by her, and more than likely, diapered by her.

If I deny Griffin, he plops down on his bottom and cries the cry of a ruined man. Decimated. Destroyed. All that he believed in has come crumbling down. Might as well jump from his crib. It's all over.

How the hell can I do that to him?

I do walk away some times. Only because, the kid needs to learn that he's not going to get picked up every time he wants something. But I always come back to him. I'm a sucker. One of these days I'm going to get a picture of his face when this happens. And I would defy you to walk away too.

I have come to crave hearing him yell my name. I have to be honest. And I feel a lift when I see his face light up when I enter the room and he throws his arms up. To be wanted so demonstrably. It's something I am not used to.

I have become accustomed to being the one with the arms raised, and toddling to my children for a kiss and a hug. (And they have gladly provided me that, don't get me wrong.)

But Griffin... Griffin is a snuggle monster. And I like that.

I Spy Friday Fragments

2009-08-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

Friday Fragments are brief bouts of blogging flu in which I enumerate things that have happened these past few days - or weeks - that are too small to stretch into a full-blown blog. Mrs. 4444 over at Half Past Kissin Time is to blame for this. You should check her out. I mean that in a blogging kind of way.

I dedicate this week's fragments to spying.

- This morning, a child care dad dropped off his infant son. He gets a ride with one of his construction buddies in a white, nondescript, construction site sort of van. The same kind Buffalo Bill the serial killer in Silence of the Lambs lured his victims into.

Anyway, while the child care dad was busy downstairs talking to Corrine about child care stuff, I observed Bill the Driver press a finger to his nose, lean out of the window of the van, and blow snot all over the place. The van, his arm, my driveway. I even think hit a sparrow in flight.

He then wiped his finger on the door of the van, then checked his nostrils in the driver's side mirror.

It blows its nose with a tissue or it gets the hose again!

- At Borders in South Portland this week I was in the Reference section looking for books on the writing craft when I spied, over in the Romance section, a woman with her back to me. She was, um...full figured. And apparently having problems with the tag of her underpants because she reached behind, dug deep, and yanked that fucking thing out like she was weeding a garden.

How she didn't give herself a bleeding wedgie will be one of those universal questions that will stay with me forever. I will, however, use it in a novel.

Carla reached around and sunk her fleshy arm deep, up to the elbow, fishing, fishing, her fingers grasping at air. Until, at last, they fell upon the offending tag and with one Herculean heave, tore it free. She studied it for a moment, near to her nose the way a boy considers an ant before burning it with a match. She then promptly discarded it by placing it between the pages of I Was a Middle Aged Virgin

- We have two dogs. A pug and a border collie. Just the other night I was watching television and, from the hallway, I heard the pug grunting, as if he were lifting weights. A rhythmic sort of expression of air, short and ... well, obscene like. So I peeked around the corner and found the collie mounting the pug. They're both males.

And I swear to God himself, all I could say was "Oh! Sorry!"

- I drove into town recently and, as is the norm, began talking to myself. For miles. And then it suddenly dawned on me I was having a discussion with myself. I looked in the mirror and said "Are you talking to yourself?"

Now, that's just really psychotic on so many levels, isn't it? Talking to yourself, then catching yourself talking to yourself and then asking yourself if you're talking to yourself, as if it were unclear to you that you were indeed talking to yourself and needed to be reassured.

- Is there any person on earth filled with more self-importance than a construction crew flagger? They rule the universe don't they? Standing out there in their steel-toed boots, greasy jeans and Motley Crue wife-beater on. Holding a sign that has two sides: SLOW and STOP, nothing more apt at describing the speeds of their brain activity is there?

Anyway, I came upon a line of traffic and watched one such road nazi as he did his thing. Eventually, after oncoming traffic was bled through, our line was allowed to go. He flipped the sign and stepped out of the way. The guy first in line didn't move.

The flagger/parolee pointed his walkie talkie at the driver and gave him a "fuck ya waitin for, dumbass?!?!?" look that all construction flaggers are trained to perfect, but the driver didn't move.

The flagger - who moonlights on the midway of your local county fair - tapped the SLOW sign heavily with his hand and waved the driver forward. The driver still didn't move.

At this point, the flagger raises both hands and starts yelling. What he was saying I could not tell, but I'm sure it included Bitch and Pig Fucker.

At which point the driver of the vehicle poked his head out the window, spewed a colorful epithet of his own and pointed demonstrably down the road - at the two large construction vehicles heading our way.

The slacker ... er ... flagger backed off, to the side of the road, and waited for the trucks to barrel on by.

The driver then sped away, but not without first flipping the flagger off.

Maine. The Way Life Should Be.

The Kids Keep the House

2009-08-06T07:24:00.000-07:00

Corrine and I bought our house in the summer of 2006. She was working full time at a bookstore, but 7 months pregnant and therefore contemplating staying at home - whatever home turned out to be. I was working full time at a nonprofit as its web developer. Talk about job security. I was making enough money to support Corrine and I, who were just starting out as a couple.

We went house searching that spring and looked at half a dozen places in and around western Maine, which is where we are both from and where our families still live. The idea was that we needed a place big enough for our four children, and the one on the way. Corrine decided to stay at home as a child care provider, and to pick up her love of horses. We found a couple of beautiful places with attached barns, but needing renovation to fit our family.

They both fell through.

Finally, we found this colossal 1850s farmhouse in Buckfield with three stories, seven bedrooms, enormous dining room, living room, kitchen and two bathrooms. Not to mention a three-level attached barn, a sprawling deck and three acres.

Bingo!

We made an offer, the owners said yes, and after giving them a month to move (big house=lots of shit) we moved in.

Corrine quit her bookstore job, Gabrielle was born and we were ripping up carpets and painting like bastards.

And then I got laid off.

Out of the blue.

As in, no warning. Not even a hint.

There goes $40,000 a year.

Three years later, and months and months of agonizing and nightmares of the mortgage company showing up with an eviction notice - we learned this month that we qualified for a loan modification.

Not a hand out. Our loan was pushed back, of course, and the interest rate adjusted upward. We will pay more for this house, in the end, than what we originally agreed to.

But we keep the house.

There were many nights - countless, in fact - when I would be awoken from nightmares that included finding one of those FORECLOSURE SALES signs stuck to my lawn. Or locks on the doors.

Foreclosure has been a very real thing. In fact, a sheriff's deputy showed up with court documents to which I had to write a legal reply and take it over to the county courthouse explaining that we were in the midst of negotiating with the mortgage company.

There is nothing in this world I hate more than money. And the thing is, since high school, I have had full time jobs and made the most of my talents without a college degree, working my way up through the ranks of journalism and then taking a leap of faith and moving to Minnesota where I was making more money than I ever thought possible - for me anyway.

And you know something, I hated money then too.

I'm not good with it, I'm not satisfied that it's the be-all and end-all to happiness and I'm convinced that it truly is the root of all evil. And yet, in order to give my family what it needs, money is almost always at the center of the equation.

Everyone I know is driven by this and it's infuriatingly unfair.

But there it is.

The kids keep the house after all, despite every indication that we don't deserve to.

I sound happy about it don't I?

I am.

But there will always be a large part of me that feels there's gotta be a better way. A newer living equation that eliminates the need to prove oneself with a yearly salary.

Thank You Marc

2009-08-04T06:18:00.000-07:00

Apparently it is the expectation of your Internet service provider that you pay your bill, which in turn encourages them to allow you to have Internet service.

What a crock.

I thought the Internet was supposed to be free.

Anyway, Corrine and I are relegated to scoffing wireless from our neighbors. We're not sure which neighbor, all we know is that if we sit in a particular spot, with the computer facing a particular way, the screen tipped to a certain degree, then we can get one bar of Marc's Wireless.

In this manner, we are capable of surfing the 'net, but it's a tenuous arrangement at best. At any given moment the connection can be lost. A rain storm, a truck passing by, Marc walking in front of his wireless router.

So this is why I have not blogged. A. Because I didn't pay the bill; B. Because in a Free Market economy, it's more about Market than Free; C. Obama's push toward a complete Socialist state continues to be derailed by the GOP; D. Marc's Wireless is not very dependable but I have no one to complain to because I don't know who the fuck Marc is.

It has proven what I already knew: nothing in life is free, but you can't fault me for trying to work the angles.

Which reminds me. When I was in college the first time my roommate and I opted to split the cost of cable. We got sent one of those little boxes dropped off by the cable folks and told to just screw it in and we were good to go. It was a college and therefore no set up was necessary.

Anyway. We quickly found out we had all the movie channels, including the naughty ones. My roommate was gay and therefore did not give two shits about the porn. The movie channels he loved, however, and for an entire semester we feasted on free Premium Cable.

Did I mention this was a "Christian" university in Texas?

My point is, FREE PORN. Woo hoo!

That was before the Internet, by the way. Now, if you're paying for boobies online you're an idiot.

But I digress.

Eventually we will reconcile with the ISP and pay the damn bill. I can't stand this. I need Internet in my office again, where I can have some privacy. You know, for research on my novel.

Rangeley

2009-07-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

So, we went camping in Rangeley over the weekend with our entire family.

We got there late, set up as it started to rain, and the kids' tent had an inch of standing water in it by midnight. Not a great start. The next day, however, the clouds lifted and the rest of the time was sunny and warm and a great time. No Internet, no showers, just trees and grass and dirt.

And they all loved it.

Ok. Down the road from us was a more secluded site, at which previous occupants had erected two different toilets. The first is just a toilet seat on a 10-gallon plastic jug. The second - this one - was more elaborate and offered you a view of the river. It was wood-constructed toilet with a seat. This is NOT the face I usually make when evacuating my bowels. If it were, I'd go see a doctor.

Me carrying Griff on a wooded path on the way back to seeing the waterfalls. Treebeard is to my right, and if you know that reference you're as big a geek as me. Sorry. Facts is facts. Live with it.

We camped with several others, one of whom had a daughter - Molly - just a few days younger than Gabrielle, but cooler. She had a - OMG!!! - Barbie Jeep. I mean, come on. Gabrielle decided to drag Griff into it for a ride. He loved it. Of course, he was the first to shout SHOTGUN!!

Sammy will chase anything you throw for him, all day long. Griffin, seeing me throw this stick all day, decided he would try. He's barely strong enough to lift the thing AND stand up. It bored the hell out of Sammy because Griff couldn't throw it beyond his toes. Doesn't it look like Griff is conducting some sort of ancient conjuring ritual here? Like he should be chanting in Latin?

Say wha???

Gabrielle on the road of life all by herself. Boy is she a rig. Even the wildlife stayed away.

When ya gotta go, well...you gotta go. What you can't appreciate about this picture is that Gabrielle's stream was this spectacular arc that shot out between Corrine's legs, missing her by millimeters. The moose were impressed.

She's a one-of-a-kind, that Gabi Girl.

Alyssa and Ty. Ty is apparently still hung over. The big drunk.

Fallon and Harrison. She slouches like me. He's built like me. They don't stand a chance.

Ahhhh. Perty, aint it?

There we are. The Turner-Wyman clan. Notice Gabrielle is the only one refusing to look at the camera. That's because she's spotted the marshmallow she threw into the woods the night before and she wanted to eat it. Also, note to self: next time, take it in the shade.

You Be The Judge

2009-07-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

Ever find yourself in a position of being at odds with those around you? Of liking something, for example, that many others don't?

A movie? A musician? A book - or broader yet - the author of books?

And how does it make you feel? Can you be cavalier about it and shrug it off?

In the face of peer pressure, we all tend to shrink, I've found. And that leaves you feeling icky. Like you've dipped yourself in a vat of moral molasses.

If you fight for you views, you risk becoming a boor. If you don't, you suffer the slings of your own conscience, and he (or she) is the most brutal of them all.

I would love to sit here and tell you that I am the former, and that I wallow in my churlishness. That I am capable of taking a shoe off every once in awhile and bang it on a desk to make my point. That I am capable of thumping my chest and telling those with whom I disagree the twelve reasons why I am right and that they can all go pound sand for all I care.

The truth is, I tend to take the path of least persistence when it comes to arguing my position. And boy, can I argue. Just ask ... shit, anyone who knows me.

But that's in hand-to-hand combat. When squared off against a tribe, I tend to tuck tail.

Mostly.

Now, in my defense, I will tell you that I don't just sit there and shrug and say "Awe shucks. You're right. About everything."

I'm much more clever than that. More than likely, what I say is along the lines of "Well, I disagree. I really don't know why ... I just (hate Neil Diamond) or (love Jim Carrey) or (prefer not to read anything by Nicholas Sparks)..."

It's not a defense of my position, if you'll notice. It's a cop out to a degree. It's a way to show opposition by not being oppositional. You're saying you disagree, but not getting into it.

If I had balls, I would lay out an argument the way Tom Cruise does in A Few Good Men when he's giving it to Jack Nicholson. Man, I wish I had that kind of presence, the kind of iron conviction that what I am saying is the absolute moral truth.

And Aaron Sorkin as my scriptwriter.

But I don't. My scriptwriter is more like Fielding Mellish, Woody Allen's neurotic character in the movie Bananas. In it he's on the subway and sits by as an old woman gets mugged by Sylvester Stalone and some other cronies. He goes to such great lengths to not get involved that even when the woman is being assaulted practically in his lap he just keeps his nose in his newspaper.

I am that way in crowds of dissenters. The one who buries his head in a newspaper while my convictions get mugged by the mob.

I don't have a specific or current example. I just get thinking every so often of the small instances in my life in which I am confronted with something contrary to my own beliefs.

Like, for example, the folks lingering around local Wal-Marts trying to get you to sign a petition to ban gay marriage.

Instead of telling them precisely why their efforts are - in my opinion - akin to something you would read about in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts ... or Congressional hearings in the 1950s ... I clamp shut and just say No Thanks.

Or, for another example, the whole concept of vacation bible school and how it's so blatantly Hansel and Gretel in its inception. Luring children to Jesus with promises of games and crafts and good times. Why not just put out a banner that says "Kids: Come here to learn about Jesus. Singing, praying, and bible reading" and see how many actually show up?

But I digress...

I do not have the oratory faculties to present a public argument strongly, something I had to face a long time ago.

I do love to write, however, and can spin a grand indictment of something. But I wonder if that isn't cheating a little. A verbal discourse takes intellect, patience, politics, and timing. Writing has all of that ... but the advantage of multiple drafts.

Camping Illustrated

2009-07-13T03:38:00.000-07:00

So, you had to know I would have pictures for you when we returned from camping. And here they are. In all their glory.

We camped on the Saco River in Conway, New Hampshire. I got up with Sammy Friday morning and walked to the beach with him. Tranquil. Serene. And no day care kids. Ahhhhhhhh.

Action shot! Gabrielle had a ring pop and Griffin was trying to pry it from her hand. There is so much I have to teach him about women.

Smack! Gabi is a good kisser. Especially when she's got a mouth full of food.

Say cheesy. Me, manning the grill. I'm such a goober.

Me feeding Griffin while trying to blog. I'm such a goober.

Mommy's turn. We made the mistake of forgetting the Pack n Play, so we had to carry him everywhere. Here, he sits in a backpack. I sit in this too, but that's for another post.

Griffin after a shower. Corrine carries me too.

Please, sir, may I have s'more?

Cheerio Daddy-O

Me and my baby doll.

Saturday Night

2009-07-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

It is Saturday evening, our last night at the campground.

A storm is brewing on the horizon. Fat, gray, menacing clouds. The leaves are flipped inside out and they're calling for thunderstorms over night.

I've started a fire nevertheless because a camp without a campfire is like s'mores without chocolate.

We have a radio tuned to a local station, and I'm writing a blog post.

Okay, I will be the first to admit that WiFi and tents do not seem to go together. But, I have appreciated the chance to check the weather and my email while here.

Next weekend we go camping in the northern part of Oxford County, where there isn't even running water. REAL camping. SO I will make up for surfing porn while in Conway.

That was a joke.

Corrine is the only one who does that anyway.

These last couple of days away from home have been a needed respite from everything.

Getting back tomorrow, however, I need to jump back into Purple Holly. I haven't written for a week.

Ugh.

Not Good.

Ever get the feeling that someone who is talking to you doesn't really have a point.

:-)

Frag Town, U.S.A.

2009-07-10T04:21:00.000-07:00

These are Friday Fragments, an idea originated by Mrs. 4444 over at Half Past Kissin' Time. It's a collection of weekly thoughts, none of which alone would make for a complete post. Okay, that's a lie. I could probably stretch all of these into complete posts. And no one reads this intro, so I could probably write donkey balls and no one would pick up on it. The first one to mention it gets a prize.

++ I got my class list for the fall from the university. At this point, starting the very first week of September, I'm enrolled in Bridge Math (a.k.a. Algebra for Dummies), U.S. History, English, and Philosophy.

The math class is non credit. Sort of like a primer class for when I take a real college algebra. That means I'm actually only getting credit for three classes. Which is fine. I'd rather start out slowly and ramp up.

++ We weren't able to do anything we planned at the beginning of the week because of the fucking rain. 26 out of the last 28 days of it. That and no money. Can we not transpose this? Can we not have 26 out of the last 28 days of money and no rain? Please? Enough already.

++ I am obsessed with my wife. I love looking at pictures of her when she was growing up. She has this impossibly long, blond hair, a magnetic smile, and in every photo I can see her extravagant character: some have called it loud and obnoxious. I call it full of life and fun and I am lucky to have her.

++ Gabrielle has an invisible friend named Jack. Who also just happens to be a kangaroo. I don't ask questions anymore, folks. Not after fathering four and step-fathering two. I just go with it.

++ I am estranged from my sister right now, but it won't last. Over an argument about money. We'll go for awhile without speaking and then the air will clear and all will be good. This week, I thought of something. A moment in time. She (three years my senior) and I sitting in our parents' living room on a Saturday night watching Disney on the television. My father sits on the floor while my sister sits behind him on the couch, combing his hair with one of his black pocket combs. He used to let her do that for the entire show.

An enduring image of my sister, one that transcends all the frivolity and meaningless sibling arguments we have had through the years.

++ Griffin says "Dora" and "hi" and "Daddy", "Ty", "mum mum", and "Eye." He also knows sign language for "please" which is a hand across the stomach, and "get the fuck off the road", which is really just one finger thrust through an open car window. He learned that from Gabrielle, who uses both hands because she's older.

++ As I write this, we are sitting in our campsite at a campground in Conway, New Hampshire. Yesterday and so far today, the weather has been magnificently brilliant and is expected to be, for the most part, for the next couple of days. The trip is our vacation together (as much as together means with two smelly exuberant young ones) but also a chance for Corrine to meet my very good friends, Gianna, Jami and Sean.

I met Gianna while living in Vermont and we became fast friends, theater being the tie that bound us. We did shows together, and even directed one.

Whenever we get together, we regale each other - and anyone else in the room - with theater stories past and present, and it never gets old. Corrine has met Gianna, but not her little sister Jami and Jami's husband Sean. Nor have any of us met their daughter, Ryan, who has probably the coolest name for a girl ever. In fact, we liked that name for Gabrielle but, alas, it was taken.

We will drink margaritas (especially Griffin), talk about theater and politics and movies and books, and life will be very good.

++ I am going to get a new tattoo. I have a purple ink quill on my right forearm, but I'd like something else. I know what it is but I'm not telling anyone. I think it'll be on my back shoulder. But then again, I wouldn't be able to see it. Hmmm. I'll keep you posted.

++ So, feast or famine it seems for us and the world of adoption. I have not chronicled for you the infuriating process it has been for us to adopt. The short version is that we decided to adopt because we saw a child needing a permanent home. We took the required classes, did the home ~~invasion~~ study where they told us the 1,290 things we need to do to adopt a child. And we've been assigned arguably the most inept, laziest, most uncaring people at the state agency. In the end, the child we have advocated for for months was sent to live with an aunt - who gave him up once before but decided to try again.

Anyway...we moved on and are in the "running" for a child. We are one of two families out of dozens chosen. And then, this past week, we got a call about our original child - learning that the situation with the aunt was not going to work out after all. (no duh.)

So now we're in a predicament. We're in the "running" for two young boys.

What the hell do we do now?

++ Corrine and I watched Into the Wild last week. A movie based on a book written by a man who, after graduating college, gave up all of his earthly possession and hiked, kayaked, swam, hitchhiked, and crawled his way to Alaska. It was a test of resolve. To slough off the grime that accumulates in a life of excess and strip malls and credit cards. He succeeded and failed. In the end (of the movie - I did not read the book) he writes in his diary that personal happiness is best served among friends, not in solitude. That's an extreme paraphrase. But that's the gist.

I recommend you to watch it, and defy you to not feel an overwhelming desire to hug your friends and family afterward.

My Beautiful Baby

2009-07-09T04:04:00.000-07:00

Corrine shared with me lots of photos of her youth, which included a stretch as a beauty contestant. She was absolutely the best, in my humble opinion, and I've shared a few photos here. The first one is with her dad. The second is her publicity shot. The rest are from pageants.

How adorable is she anyway?!

And, of course, I had to use the Frank Sinatra lyrics....

You must have been a beautiful baby
You must have been a wonderful child
When you were only starting to go to kindergarten
I bet you drove the little boys wild.
And when it came to winning blue ribboms
You must have shown the other kids how.
I can see the judges' eyes as they handed you the prize
You must have made the cutest bow.
You must've been a beautiful baby
'Cause baby look at you now.

Does your mother realize
The stork delivered quite a prize
The day he left you on the family tree?
Does your dad appreciate
That you're merely supergreat
The miracle of any century?
If they don't just send them both to me.

You must have been a beautiful baby
You must have been a wonderful child.
When you were only starting to go to kindergarten
I bet you drove the little boys wild.
And when it came to winning blue ribboms
You must have shown the other kids how.
I can see the judges' eyes as they handed you the prize
You must have made the cutest bow.
You must've been a beautiful baby
'Cause baby look at you now.

A Major Coop

2009-07-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

Ty clipping the chicken wire to prepare it for stapling to the coop. Gabrielle wants to help. In fact she demands it.
Griffin was our foreman. He's got the scowl, the mouth, and I even think he shit himself.

Griffin: I can eat this, can't I?
Gabi: Um..yeah. Eat it!

"Tra la la la laaaa"

Corrine knows sign language. Either that or she's letting everyone know my shortcoming. You know. That I have a lame pinky.

I like to move it! Move it!

Harrison holds one side. Corrine the other. Gimli looking for a place to crap. Sammy sniffing.

Let's see. If I close my left eye it's level...if I close my right eye I ... I ... can't see! Ahhhhh!

Okay. I'm on the verge of a hissy, Corrine is calming me down, and Sammy is laughing his ass off.

I'm stapling. Corrine is apparently teaching Gimli how to take a dump.

Adults are working. Teens are not. Hmmm.

La Coop

Corrine is holding the door in place while I look for JUST the right ratchet. Harrison is saying "You won't find it in there." He was right.

But I still kept looking anyway.

Is it me or is my bald spot moving according to the sun? And are they riding up, dear?

Corrine: Hey, when your dad comes back out, tell him this is upside down.

Foreman Griffin flirts with the hired help.

I. AM. A. CHICKEN. GOD.

Nevermind the Bollocks, Here's Friday Fragments

2009-07-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

This is Friday Fragments, a list of random thoughts and observations by me over the past week. This was originally created by Mrs. 4444 over at Half Past Kissin' Time. You should check her out.

** Corrine and I are on the same wavelength on just about everything, a sure sign that we were meant for each other. It's so scary sometimes that just the other day, out of the blue, I began singing a song I hadn't heard for years, and so did she. Almost at the same exact moment. Now, I don't claim to be prescient, and I can't see ghosts or speak to animals. But, you have to admit, that's fucking weird.

** In 2003 I was in a play called "The Nerd" as the title character. It was the first time I met Corrine, actually. I took my son to auditions, she took Alyssa as well. Harrison did not get a part, but Corrine and Alyssa did. Alyssa was actually shorter than me and didn't have boobs. Today, she's a gorgeous 15 year old with spectacular acting talent (I cast her in the play I just directed, in fact).

Anyway, during Never Too Late, most of the original cast were there on the final Sunday's performance. See the photo. We had a little reunion! Wicked cool!

(From left to right: Joel, the producer; Me, Meg, Ed, Bill, Corrine, Alyssa)

It was the first show I did after returning from Minnesota, and the first one I had done since 1999.

I had such a fun time doing it, and it led to three more shows before jumping back in this spring with Never Too Late.

** It has been implied recently by a close relative that I am lazy. That I need to get off my ass and go out and get a "real" job. When the truth is, Corrine refuses to allow me to. She knows that my dream of being a writer is a supreme sacrifice, that it is time consuming, frustrating, but ultimately what I love more than anything. Corrine has been my champion, my bodyguard, my keeper and my soul. For taking upon her shoulders the burden of running this house so that I can achieve what I know I can. A day does not go by that I am not burdened with more than a little bit of guilt that I am not working a 9 to 5. But she always thwarts such self-loathing. I did not sleep well last night because it flared up yesterday in a fight with a relative.

This morning I woke up and saw Corrine's face and it was all better. We have an arrangement - on her suggestion and all her doing - that I work hard now, so that I can be a successful novelist later and allow her to be free.

Now, if I were in law school and she was working, people would not second guess me. People just don't see writing as a viable and sane pursuit.

Oh well. They always said writing would be a solitary pursuit. I have Corrine. And really, that's all I need.

** Speaking of Purple Holly. I've written 12,555 words thus far, or 37 pages. That's actually at a faster clip that Surfacing. It's not a race, I know. But, it's heartening. My favorite passage so far:

We come upon the edge of the screaming midway and there is an amphitheater and upon the stage a man named Captain Rick with a guitar sings children's songs. In front of the stage, a bouncing and jubilant throng of kids are dancing.

Purple skips down the middle of the amphitheater steps and I follow. She joins the children, half her size. She bounces, and prances, twirls. Captain Rick's music blasts outward from a pair of speakers on stands. A rapid, fun, sunshiny song about alligators eating dandelions.

Purple finds a girl, maybe 7 or 8, and takes her by the hands and they twirl together in a tight circle, both laughing crazily. I stand off to the side, with the parents and I cannot take my eyes off the twirling girls and that is when I understand Purple.

A fear dissolves. A recognition comes to the front the way a cloud disperses and the sun spreads outward.

Twirling Purple, laughing Purple, giddy girl in the sea-colored skirt and the short-sleeved blouse. Her sandals getting dirty from the spinning. And she looks at me and smiles and laughs.

And so do I.

** Speaking of solitary pursuits with the help of Corrine. Everything is clear for school to start August 31, which is less than 8 weeks away. My classes have been submitted and are being set up as we speak. Financial aid has been taken care of. All I have to do now is wait.

** Speaking of waiting. Our 17 hens are getting fat! I removed a Plexiglas window from their current nesting quarters (an old built-in outhouse in our barn) and replaced it with a screen window so they can breathe. Yuck, did it smell in there. Dirty birds, hens are. Anyway, we should start to see eggs shortly.

** Speaking of eggs. Griffin turned one and Gabi is closing in on three. Holy shit.

** Speaking of eggs, part II. Corrine and I are impatiently waiting word from DHHS about adopting a boy. We are one of two in the "finals". Meaning, they have narrowed the field to us and another family. We go to an interview in Augusta from which they will decide which family is best suited for the little guy. Don't you love how they turn it into a competition?

** Speaking of competition. The grass on our lawn, because of the rain (23 days out of the last 27) is vying for the title of Longest Blades. I'm waging a bet on the patch above our leech bed. I can't mow at all because the mower will drown.

Snaggle-Toothed Birthday Party Boy

2009-07-02T03:40:00.000-07:00

Griffin on his very first birthday. Woo hoo!

Lately, he's taken to scowling. Snarling. Like a cross between smelling something bad and looking to pick a fight. Very strange young lad. Maybe he's not understanding the hat? We're not sure.

Corrine made the cake. It's a tractor! Made of cake ... you know ... stuff. Frosting. Twix. A Twinkie is in there too, I think.

Yay! Griffin LOVES it.

Griffin is trying out the texture of the frosting.

WTF?!?

Griffin's not loving it anymore

Griffin's gonna kill Ty

Or he'll just stick it in his mouth. That always works.

Griffin, among many other gifts, got a four wheeler. Again, he doesn't smell anything bad. He just likes to snarl lately. Very weird child, that Griffin.

Walk On, Baby

2009-07-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

Gabi started horse riding lessons today and she seems like an expert.

Well, as much as a nearly-three-year-old can be.

We had her going to another place that was pricey, a long drive, and didn't really teach her anything other than what a horse looks and smells like.

It was also crowded and we think she may have been a bit overwhelmed by that. Her new lessons are private, very inexpensive, and with someone I've known since I was a child.

The video is odd. I still have not figure out how to make it run at double speed.

In it, she has come back from riding up and down the road with the trainer who then stopped her in front of Corrine and me so that we can see how much she learned in one lesson.

Quite impressive, if you ask me.

Groceries

2009-06-30T03:42:00.000-07:00

1. Write a novel lots of people will read
2. Make enough money in my life to be healthy and happy
3. Compose a ballet and see it produced
4. Go to Europe for and extended time (i.e, as a non-tourist)
5. Write a play and see it produced
6. Learn to play guitar and piano
7. Get a college degree just for the sake of it
8. Write novels I want to write, (sans fear of recrimination)
9. Grow happiness and thwart anger
10. Watch all of my children grow to be happy, however that may happen
11. Reconcile my differences with family members
12. Own a summer camp somewhere
13. Buy Corrine an incredibly beautiful and unique ring
14. Give Fallon and Gabrielle away at their weddings, if they choose that path
15. Be the one they turn to
16. Act in a motion picture, if only for one scene
17. Be remembered for the writing, not the celebrity
18. Understand myself
19. Attend the Oscars, Tonys and Emmys just because
20. Get back to the days I was filled with inspiration and joy (1985? 1986?)
21. Be quoted by people after I'm gone
22. Inspire someone
23. Less cynical
24. Stop comparative living
25. Buy a house on the coast and wake to the sound of the Atlantic
26. Write and sell a screenplay and see it produced
27. Meet a famous world leader upon their request
28. Understand religion
29. Bring value not contempt into the lives of others
30. Provide solutions not derision
31. Travel the US
32. Be interviewed on television for doing something great
33. Expel the demons of the past
34. Be understood and taken seriously as a person and an artist
35. Tread lightly
36. Understand my dreams
37. Be the example
38. Strip away pretension
39. Appreciate the value of the lupine given to me more than the wild one in the field
40. Exalt my achievements rather than discount them
41. Write a poem that is published
42. Learn to appreciate a compliment
43. Eliminate regret
44. Open my heart more
45. Sit with my children at a Red Sox game
46. Give someone a fortune
47. Teach my children to do what they love now, and do it forever
48. Know beauty when I see it
49. Give a child a family who didn't have one before
50. Chalk it up to their ignorance, not my ineptness
51. Get in shape
52. Fight for it more when it seems a lost cause
53. Celebrate their youthfulness
54. Understand what makes me blush
55. Give her the love she deserves
56. Appreciate myself
57. Have faith in the words
58. Learn art appreciation
59. Expand my tastes in food
60. Understand wine
61. Be a citizen of this world, not the one I think it should be

Post Mortem

2009-06-29T04:33:00.000-07:00

We finished the play yesterday afternoon after two successful weekends.

I've been in a few shows, as an actor, and only one other as director. I've seen enough to know the difference between a terrible show, a mediocre show, and a hit. Never Too Late was a hit. We had Eight shows with eight nearly-full houses (we seat 100, and the number dipped below 70 only once.)

The audiences were responsive, appreciative, and fun. No stinkers. No sleepers. None of those audiences that for whatever reason left their collective sense of humor at home and scowled through the whole show. (I've suffered through shows like that. It felt like sitting in a laundromat on the hottest day in August).

Someone who is associated with OHMPAA (Oxford Hills Music and Performing Arts Association) who has produced and acted in and directed numerous shows, said it best. There's no science to it. There's no way to know, until it's all over, how a show will be received. He produced arguably the best OHMPAA show three years ago. With what many believe to be the best musical talent we've ever staged.

And it was a bust.

Corrine and I went to see it and went away thinking we had somehow been transported to Off Broadway. It was that freakin good.

They only sold 400 tickets. That's less than half the total available.

They produced a Neil Simon show this past winter and it fell flat. Neil Simon!!

I had never heard of Never Too Late. But, reading the script, knew it had the potential to be very funny.

After the first night of rehearsals, when I had very few show, I worried we would have no show and I would be the first director in OHMPAA's illustrious history to shut down a production before it even began.

Second night of auditions, I hit the lottery. With a female lead who had never had a lead and who hadn't acted on stage since music was purchased on something called "an album".

My male lead had never been a lead before.

My second female lead was 15 playing a 24-year-old.

But, it worked out. We had a couple full houses, and a few near-full. We made a profit. We put on a show that audiences left still laughing about.

I couldn't be happier with how it all came out in the end.

Love Me, Please

2009-06-26T03:50:00.000-07:00

This is Friday Fragments, a bunch of unrelated thoughts and events that have occurred to me or at me or near me this past week. Mrs. 4444 over Half Past Kissin' Time is the originator of this cool idea. Check her out. She's wicked.

# Corrine and I watched 3 Days of the Condor recently. The main character's name is Joe Turner, who makes a reference to Dick Tracy, the detective. Joe Turner is my uncle. Dick Tracy is Corrine's uncle. Just a coincidence, or a sign that, in 1973, the movie's producers knew Corrine and I were fated for each other? Hmmm? Come one. You know it's freaky, don't lie.

# I never thought my grandmother, who is in her early 90s, would outlive Farah or Michael. Are you shitting me? I was not a Farah girl. I liked Kate more, maybe because I never had a thing for blonds. And, I am NOT ashamed to say, I was a huge fan of Michael. He was and will always be one of the greatest entertainers of this or any other age. His personal weirdness aside, his departure is stunning and sad and pathetic.

# Griffin turns a year old today! Dude! You've got to be kidding me. He's walking, he's teething, he's dancing, he's amazing.

# Today, I head to Farmington for a Course Selection Day at the university. I meet with my advisor, get a tour of the campus, and pick classes. I'm cautiously excited. Excitedly cautious.

# I have come to the conclusion that I have a persecution complex. You know, where I think everyone is dicking me around and I'm not getting any love from anyone. It comes and goes and it really brings my mood down. It works like this: I have dreams at night in which real people in my life dog me for this or that; during the day, I think about this person or that person who dislikes me (for real); and at other times, my blood boils at the various times in my life when someone I know has insulted me. Why does this happen? When am I going to just let go of the haters? When am I going to just face the facts: I'm human, and to err is human, and that I cannot go through life putting myself on trial, and acting as my own defense attorney?

I think I am a nice person, a worthy human, with flaws. I have a temper, I am moody, but I also have a soaring spirit. A giving heart. A mind toward the happiness of those around me, not their despair. I wish for the success of those who hate me. I put my family first in all things, but I also selfishly steal hours at a time alone so that I can pursue my art.

If I have failed you, I am sorry. If I have hurt you, I did not intend it. It was not with malice, but self-preservation, that I made decisions that altered your path and the perceptions of others.

# My daughter told me she thought Corrine was attractive. I'm not sure why, but after I dropped her off, on the drive back home alone, I felt like crying.

# The title of my autobiography, so far: "What Is and What Should Never Be"

Purple People Readers

2009-06-24T04:09:00.000-07:00

Purple Holly is coming along. I've written several scenes, and I like the way it's going. I had a dream, however, that someone broke into my blogger account, stole every scene, and published it themselves.

But in my dream, it was a hit, so I suppose I should be proud. Right?

Andrew Whitaker, the main character, and Purple, are both becoming more clearly defined. I like them both. I understand them better, which makes the ending painful for me. I can feel resistance building in me. To avoid writing what happens. It makes me sick.

I worry about little things while I write, I noticed. And I wonder if this is the key to my numerous blocks: the little worries ensnare my creativity.

For example, Purple goes to the local thrift store to buy clothes from the 60s and 70s. She alters them to fit, and also to make them relatively current. (In my mind, Purple - who is 17 - is a throwback to the days of Hippies. She loves the style, loves the music, etc.) So I went to Google and searched things like "Hippies" and "Hippie clothing styles" and "Pot-smoking free-love Woodstock"

Found lots of porn, as usual. But also stumbled upon what I was looking for: BOHO.

Apparently there's this "new" fashion craze happening that follows the bohemian look (thus BOHO) and I'll be damned if the photos I saw didn't remind me of Purple Holly.

But here's my little fear: how the hell am I gonna write about a girl who alters clothes? I don't know the first thing about fashion or alterations. I know, research, research, research. I can do research. But, my fear is, will it sound authentic?

Little fears like that.

Like, am I coloring my world correctly? Skies are blue, grass is green (or brown, if dead) fire engines are red. Yada yada yada. I get it. But I don't want to use cliches. I want the story to vibrate through the use of ever sense. And color is a biggie. Corrine reads my stuff, and she says it's spot-on. I suppose I'll have to list her as "technical expert". Maybe she'll model BOHO for me? Smoke a reefer. You know, to help me get the full effect.

(DISCLAIMER: Corrine does not smoke reefers. That was what we in the writing business call "A LIE IN ORDER TO GET A CHEAP LAUGH AT THE EXPENSE OF SOMEONE ELSE")

I've asked a few of my very closest of friends, Corrine, and my older children to follow along as I develop the story. I write a scene a day, and post it in a private blog. But I've turned off the comments because I don't want to know what they think. That sounds ridiculous, I know. Why create blog, invite them to it, and then deny them the chance to make a comment.

Well, I like the idea of having an audience to write to. When I work each scene, I am thinking of my little "reading committee", helping to spur me on toward each new entry. A guilty pleasure of mine, to know that eyes are on these words. It forces me to continue.

The scenes are rough. This is, of course, the first draft. Some things will not make sense. The writing is not 100 percent fluid, yet. You can read one scene one day, and the next day the tenor of the writing will be just a slight bit different.

But this is the writing process. The readers are getting a glimpse of it in its raw state. I'm dying to know what they think, of course, but knowing would influence the writing. And you should never, ever write under the influence.

Corrine can get loaded all she wants.

(see? told you)

Cold Potatoes

2009-06-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

Father's Day was good, if not a little busy.

The matinee was at 2, which meant we all had to be there at noon, which meant I had little time in the morning, and little time last night really to share with my children.

I was treated to breakfast and Fallon, Harrison, Gabrielle and Griffin were there. And of course Corrine. Gabi and Griffin both love drinking those little creamers you use in your coffee. Fallon and Harrison used to drink them too, when they were little.

The show went off really without a hitch. The fourth and final performance before a three-day layover before the final four performances this week. I can't possibly be any happier with the performances or the audiences. They both have been great.

Last night, Corrine made supper on the grill. Steak, seasoned potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, and corn on the cob. I got to eat only the mushrooms and potato.

Griffin threw a fit (he's teething and it's causing all kinds of pain and fever and runny nose...) and Gabrielle awoke from a long in a mood. A bad one. I took her in my lap and sat with her while she ate, and to allow Corrine, Fallon and Harrison to eat their suppers.

I didn't mind. But it did piss off Corrine. She went to all that hard work to give me a Daddy's Day supper and I didn't eat.

But frankly, Corrine makes supper every night. Not just Father's Day. I would rather her eat first, for a change, than have to drop everything for the two littlest.

I'm not looking for an award here folks. But honestly, I am blessed to have Corrine, someone I don't have to ask anything from because she gives of her all, constantly, and with little recognition. If you're a mother or a wife, you know what I'm talking about.

And besides, it was Father's Day. Shouldn't I get to decide to watch the screamers so that the others can eat for a change?

Farther Out

2009-06-21T06:29:00.000-07:00

my father
on a cliff
in the grass
looking out
over the blue
waters of the Atlantic

a jetty reaches out
to his left
a finger of rock and trees
pointing

and his eyes
follow the direction
as if it wants
him to notice something

my father is always
looking farther out
to the far reaches
to the horizon

my father is
always
looking out

for me

Six Frags Over Griffin

2009-06-19T05:32:00.000-07:00

This is Friday Fragments, a disparate bunch of unrelated thoughts and events that have occurred to me or at me or near me this past week. Mrs. 4444 over Half Past Kissin' Time is the originator of this cool idea. Check her out. She's wicked.

This week, I dedicate FF to my Son, Griffin Allan Kent Turner.

- Griffin was born, we were told, with only one testicle. Not a really serious thing, although as the doctor was saying this, he happened to throw in the possibility of cancer in men with one ball.

("Oh sure, go ahead and swim in the ocean. Just watch for those sharks!")

So Corrine and I have taken him to see a urologist, who spent the better part of an hour massaging my son's sack looking for the absentee.

She found one, but it was the opposite one the original doctor had found. There was a debate. Was it the right nut or the left? I'm standing, hands in my pockets, weighing my own and thinking "How the hell would you know? They feel the same to me" when Corrine looked across the examination room with a knowing look. ("Dude, are you in junior high? Stop it!")

After 30 minutes of the urologist groping, MY testicles sucked right up into my pelvis. Jesus fucking christ woman, FIND it, don't turn it into cornmeal. Well, we left her office knowing nothing new.

This week, we took Griffin "The Uniball" Turner to have an ultrasound. Laid out on his back, his business just hanging out there, his little manhood a mere penis and no luggage. The ultrasound technician swabbed her ultrawand (looked like a grocery store scanner) with goo and proceeded to do her thing. Rolling it over and under and around. (Griffin's smile said "Little to the left ... no no .. right there! Do you charge by the hour, doc?) The television screen behind her looked like a movie of a cloudy night. This mass of dark and gray until, magically, forms took shape. It's how I imagine the universe was created. Just a lot of hot gasses and puffy strange black clouds and then, out of the haze, a planet...then two...)

She had found BOTH balls. Rock on, big boy! Of course, looking at it on the screen, the three dark masses (two balls and his penis) looked like a skull. A very Stephen Kingish moment.

- Griff was not circumcised at birth, a decision we both made before he was born as being unnecessarily traumatic and holding no biological value. I was hesitant. My oldest son was not circumcised either, but because his mother's brothers are both hemophiliacs and since hemophilia is passed down through mothers, we could not have him cut like that. As it turned out, Harrison does not have hemophilia. HOWEVER, at the age of 13, he needed corrective surgery because the foreskin was not separating. It was a painful procedure, a painful recovery, not to mention humiliating for a kid going through puberty. I mean, come on. Forget that the doctor had to even LOOK down there. He had to do SURGERY. AND, as an added bonus, it was swollen, black and blue and felt like he had been punched. The poor kid had to wear a bag of ice.

AND as another bonus, he could in no way do anything strenuous because of where the stitches were. Read: puberty. Read: teenage boy. Read: Every time the wind blows. I mean, jesus, when I was 13, just about everything reminded me of ... never mind. You get where I'm going.

Poor chap. I felt for him. I really did.

So naturally I feared the same future for little Griff. We expressed this to his urologist, who prescribed a testosterone gel concoction to lather onto the tip of his penis to promote development.

The bottom line? My youngest has had more female hands on his unit than I have my entire life and because of the testorub, will have to legally change his last name to Holmes.

- Griff will be one year old on June 26. At 11 months and two weeks, he took his first steps. And not tentative, one or two steps, but a stroll across the kitchen floor. We knew this was coming. He has been gearing up for awhile now and only needed a little confidence.

I personally think news of having two balls and a wonder shlong was a welcome relief and he had to celebrate by taking a victory lap.

- Griff has three teeth coming in at the same time. His mother has stopped breastfeeding immediately and for obvious reasons. The problem with this should be evident. No longer getting nourishment from the breast means nothing to him. Latching on is his way of being soothed., however. Corrine, no matter how much she loves to connect that way with him, does not, under any circumstances, give a shit about his separation anxiety if it means losing a nipple.

The Kid Makes His Move

2009-06-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

Went into town this morning for a bit and when I returned, Corrine met me outside with Griffin in her arms. She wanted to show me something.

We went inside, and lo and behold, the little shit walked.

Across the kitchen floor! He doesn't turn one for another two weeks.

I got it on video with a digital camera. For some reason, the entire video is sped up, like a Chaplin movie. Oh well.

Anyway, let it be known that, on Thursday, June 18, at around 10 a.m., my boy took his very first (in a drunken sort of way) steps of his life.

Dressed to Kill A Toilet

2009-06-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

Dan Rennie, left, playing Charles, with Dennis Twitchell, as Harry, with the now-infamous toilet between them.

We ran dress rehearsal last night for Never Too Late.

And a toilet died.

In every show I've acted in, or directed, there is always some magnificent FUBAR moment that nearly brings the show to a halt. The mark of a good cast is its ability to navigate around the mess without the audience even suspecting.

Last night, my male lead, playing the part of Harry Lambert, the acerbic lumberyard owner who finds out his 50-plus-year-old wife is pregnant, shattered the tank of a toilet. Destroyed it.

The scene begins with Harry and his son-in-law arriving home after a night of heavy drinking. Drunkenly they slur about, stumbling and joking and having a gay old drunken time.

At one point, a brand new toilet destined for installation in an upstairs nursery, is pulled out of the living room closet (put there in an earlier scene when the Mayor of the town suddenly arrives and Harry demands it be hidden from view.)

Well, in Harry's drunken state, he comes to the brilliant conclusion that the toilet should actually be placed on the front steps of the meddling, officious Mayor, to get back at him for being a jerk.

Harry stumbles over to the closet, retrieves the toilet, and brings it downstage, center, imploring his son-in-law, Charles, to celebrate with him in the christening of the toilet as an award to the mayor.

Last night, it went off without a hitch.

Until Harry set the toilet down.

He ambled out of the closet, the toilet in his arms, the bowl between his legs, and delivering his lines drunkenly (enunciating and projecting! always projecting!) he made the tight turn at the edge of the stage to place the toilet facing front.

The idea is that he sets it down and sits on the toilet seat with his back to us.

Which he did.

And the tank shattered magnificently, this cracking, crumbling noise, pieces and chunks raining down onto his knees, down to his feet, and all over the braided rug.

And the entire audience gasped ... and then laughed.

The rest of the scene is supposed to play out with Harry carrying the toilet out the door with Charles right behind him. Them placing the toilet (off stage) on the mayor's front porch and then running back into the house laughing and dancing, triumphant in their prank.

Last night, they did all of that. Sort of.

At this point, Dennis (as Harry) is still sitting on the toilet seat, his back to us, and his head bowed over the shards and pieces of what is left of the tank. And I noticed his shoulders were bobbing, as if laughing. Dan, who plays Charles, is still very much in character, and ad libs "Oh, Dad, you did it now..."

Unscripted but hilarious and proving once again the fortune we had of casting him. As well as Dennis, because, without missing a beat, he soldiered on, hoisting the toilet while Charles picked up the larger pieces of the tank and they both exited out the front door like they were supposed to. And the audience gave them a much deserved applause.

What I didn't know - and no one did until Dennis came back with Dan - is that Dennis had sliced his hand in three places. Dan, in the few seconds back stage "planting" the toilet on the mayor's front porch, had told Dennis to hold a piece of cardboard in the injured hand and to not loosen his grip, to stop the bleeding.

And for the rest of the scene - a good 10 minutes - Dennis did that. Clutching this piece of cardboard tightly, doing his best to hide the injury.

Luckily we had a nurse in the audience, sitting up back. Without anyone knowing, she was told of the problem and hurried back stage and was able to bandage his hand within seconds of his return to the stage.

He played out the rest of the show with this great gob of white bandage, looking like the tape boxers use on their fists before slipping on the gloves.

The audience loved the show. As a dress rehearsal, it played like opening night. All of the cast were dead on, but it was saved by Dennis and Dan. Without losing their heads, they played through. Blood, porcelain pieces, and all.

After the show, Dennis went to the emergency room and had to have at least 8 stitches. He didn't get out of there until after 1 a.m.

Opening night is Thursday and we already have a replacement toilet in the wings.

But if dress was any indication of the level of commitment these actors and actresses have to making sure this show is their absolute best, then it's going to be an excellent run.

Mary Ellen, my stage manager, was of course back stage when all of this transpired, and did a wonderful job keeping the show running. Click here to read her persepective of the events.

Girl In the White Hat and Sun Dress, 2009

2009-06-16T05:23:00.000-07:00

Girl in the summer dress
and wide, white hat
tip toes to a nearby puddle

a furtive look
over her shoulder
toes poking out of sandals
she can feel the grass tickling

she wants to know
if she'll be stopped
or if they'll let her
go ankle-deep into
the water

they let her
and she giggles
retreats
tip-toes back

girl in the summer dress
and wide, white hat
on a June day
34 months old
happy

Let Them Eat Cake ...

2009-06-15T05:13:00.000-07:00

My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday and it couldn't have gone better.

It rained the entire week leading up to Saturday, and then miraculously it was sunny and mid-70s all day during the party, and then yesterday it came in and started raining again.

Like the weather took a break to allow my folks to have a great day before resuming its torrent.

Not much to say about the party itself.

Except that I am so incredibly proud of my wife. She, by far, did the bulk of the work that went into this. She baked a three-tier cake that resembled the original wedding cake; she made three floral centerpieces for each table (12 tables in all); she added sprinkles of seashells - we were on the coast - and she decorated the guest book/gift cards table as well as the cake table. She even arranged a singer to belt out three 50's-era songs for my folks to dance to.

But also...

She endured the caustic looks of my ex...including a complete about-face on a walking path when Corrine was approaching.

She endured the absence of conversation from a few of my family members, who could be seen chatting up the former Mrs. like she was their long lost friend.

She endured the cold-shoulder treatment some of my family gave her own children.

She was fearful of this on the ramp-up to this day. Corrine - because of the divisive nature of my divorce, the inevitability of some to judge the manner in which we fell in love; the completely inane excuses some have used in the past to look down upon her - has worked harder than anyone I know to secure the acceptance of some, and the unfairness of it is palpable at times.

And, remarkably, everyone - to a person - I speak to has said the same two things to me, in various iterations: You Look Happier Than You've Ever Been... and She's The One You Needed.

I know of no one in my past life, before meeting her, that ever championed me, my children, my personal victories, more than Corrine. And it's so fucking obvious that it's difficult for me not to say "No duh. Now you understand why..."

The problem is, she toils in that foggy other-world known as Wife #2, laboring against perceptions fueled by rumors and innuendo and the biting words of the self-righteous.

Let me be clear. It's only a few people. A great majority of my family and friends have accepted Corrine and with open arms. In their own way, they have come around and rejoined the sane world, where adults do not hold grudges and see the beauty and potential of something rather than the ugly past.

But you know as well as I do that it really only takes one person to shred an already tenuous confidence. Especially when that person is in some way related to the one you love, and therefore, through marriage, is now related to you.

I wanted to stand upon one of the tables, crushing seashells in the process, and enumerate for everyone the things she did for this party. And, by extension, all the things she does for me and my children - her step children.

Not to cast a spotlight on her for her own glory, but to chase away those few remaining shadows cast by some who want to dog her for no other reason than to feel self-important.

It was a wonderful day. It really was.

My parents (who are NOT a party to the aforementioned - they visit us more than Corrine's own parents do and they love Corrine) were extremely happy about all that was done for them.

I fear that this post is casting a bad light on the event. I'm not.

I'm merely commenting on the subtext that went on. The pale current that runs through our lives barely noticeably, and getting weaker as the years progress. People are coming around. But a spike in the voltage hits us every so often, like it did Saturday. And Corrine, in her beautiful way, did not let it jump her.

The irony?

People complimented Corrine on the cake she baked. It was devoured. There was none left. I've never been to a wedding, birthday party, anniversary or mass-gathering in which the entire cake is consumed.

Corrine cut it and I served it with my own hands. To people who, in the past, would not even shake my hand. They've managed to come around, like I've said.

There were those who did not get in line, however. Just a few. The usual suspects. And I can't tell you how pleased I was to see that now, they are in the great, great minority. Because life is just too short to not have cake.

If you know what I mean.

Art & Alice Turner - June 13, 1959

2009-06-13T02:53:00.000-07:00

My parents celebrate their 50th anniversary today with a lobster feed on the Maine coast. Their four children, 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild, along with 100 or more friends, will celebrate a union that has lasted for MORE than 50 years.

There is nothing more I can say.

50 years.

Dr. Fragenstein Lives Here

2009-06-12T04:24:00.000-07:00

Friday Fragments come to you every, you know, Friday, and is an idea started by Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin' Time. It's a compendium of thoughts, observations, quirky opinions, things seen and heard, smelled, tasted, sat on or stepped in.

- Woo hoo! I'm an award winner! Mrs. 4444 awarded me THE prestigious FRIDAY FAVORITE FRAGMENTER award for last week's entry, specifically the one about masturbation, thus proving my father right - once again - that I CAN accomplish anything when I use my head.

- Unintended Humor Award: Last night, at play rehearsal (I'm directing a comedy for our local community theatre called "Never Too Late"), one of the actors had to use a neck tie around his waist to secure his pajamas. He's the Mayor and shows up in the middle of the night. The tie was tied in such a way that the fat end of it drooped down over the knot right at his waist. And it looked phallic. I couldn't stop giggling. I'm such a fourth grader.

- Maine - The Way Life Should Be, My Ass: My parents have their 50th tomorrow. Outside, on the coast. It's been raining all week. In fact, it's pouring right now as I write this. The weather report says it'll clear up and be in the 70s, partly cloudy. Here's keeping my fingers and toes crossed.

- My Marty McFly Moment: I would set the DeLorean's clock for June of 1991 and drive to Oxford Hills High School's graduation. I would hand Corrine, while she's marching to Pomp and Circumstance, a letter that said "In about 15 years you're going to make me the happiest I've ever been. See you then."

- Inappropriate Song to Sing to On the Radio Award: Every so often Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are" comes on the radio. It was the song to my wedding. My FIRST wedding. To my FIRST wife. The one I'm NOT married to. Anymore. My NEW wife, Corrine, is not a fan of it so much. Sorry honey. Old habit. You know you're the only one for me. And that I'm not reliving anything, it's just that he's my range. And I have a plate in my head.

- My Theme Song This Week: Paperback Writer by the Beatles. I'm back to writing fiction every day and it's a great feeling. It's my Prozac.

- Movie Quote of the Week: From Broadcast News. Aaron Altman, played by Albert Brooks, is a television news reporter who carries a torch for news producer Jane Craig, played by Holly Hunter. He's trying to talk her out of falling for pretty-boy, airhead news anchor Tom Granick, played by William Hurt.

And if things had gone differently for me tonight then I probably wouldn't be saying any of this. I grant you everything. But give me this: he personifies everything that you've been fighting against. And I'm in love with you. How do you like that? I buried the lead.

- One Thing About Me You Don't Know: I once seriously considered becoming a youth minister.

Wii Bit Fun

2009-06-11T05:16:00.000-07:00

A. Supreme concentration, mixed with self-doubt, a little bit of early-morning irritation. And I haven't even started playing the game yet. Ty giggles when I swear at my Mii (my digital avatar cartoon likeness, for you non-Wii aficionados).

B. Action shot! Wii controller is blurred. I'm still not playing, I just like to make the little hand wiggle on the television screen. It's cool. I can make it pick my Mii's nose

C. WTF? look from Alyssa. As in, "WTF? Why is he holding the Wii controller upside down? And what's with the sweatshirt?" (See F)

D. Wedding band on left hand. Not sure why I put that in here. It's silver and inside Corrine inscribed the Latin phrase "Utre varnum singularum infinitum" which means "If found, please return to 45 High Street and make yourself comfortable so that you can watch me kick my husband's ass"

E. The only real nick-nacky thing in our house. It falls on unsuspecting heads of visitors, offering countless moments of fun. Ty giggles when it falls on my head and I use the F word.

F. A Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt. It's comfy. I like it. It's Corrine's. I go to the local market in it and a pair of my mother-in-law's old slippers she gave me for Christmas. They give me the 20 percent off special-needs discount whenever I do.

G. Left ear, pierced. Like the right one, but on the other side of my head. Keeps our neighbor, who is the town's Baptist minister, guessing. That and the occasional profane outburst from Corrine on the back deck in her negligee. God I love that woman.

H. Soul patch. When I shave the rest of my face, I look hip. When I don't, I look like a fraternity prank.

I. Coats hanging in our entryway. We like to play a game with our teens, called "Where's my coat?!" And Corrine, Gabi, Griffin, the two dogs and the two cats sit and watch them run around the house at the last second before school looking for their coats. Everywhere EXCEPT where the coats are hanging in our entryway. We have other variations like "Where's my shoe?!", "Where's the front door?!", and "Where's my brain?!" Griffin plays "The Entertainer" on the organ throughout.

J. Picture of Fallon. Her eyes follow you when you walk through the room. Fucking creepy, man.

Origins

2009-06-09T05:22:00.000-07:00

I've written in this space before about the various fictional projects I have underway. The current one on my plate, Purple Holly, is a novel and it's going well.

I decided to publish my daily excerpts in a separate blog, and invited a select number of people to check in occasionally to read the progress. It's an interesting way to motivate myself. But, given my penchant for slacking off, it's a good idea.

My daughter, Fallon, sent me an email from school (she's a junior in high school) yesterday which started a brief exchange that went like this:

Fal: I know you're not looking for opinion right now, but I really like what u have so far on your blog for purple holly.

Me: Thanks Fallon! How are you getting to KFC by the way? (she just landed a job at KFC)

Fal: walking it. haha

Me: Get a ride with Kyle! (Kyle's her boyfriend. He drives)

Fal: i would but he's walking home because his mom has to use the car today. hey, by the way.. what is your idea for purple holly? like what is your story line idea so far?

Me: The story line? Um...well. That's top secret. You'll have to keep reading :-P

Fal: Oh that's real cool. haha. didn't i have a doll named that or something?

Me: Yes. You had a doll when you were about Gabi's age and you named her Purple Holly. There is a doll in my novel. Named Purple Holly. There's also a girl in my novel. Named Purple Holly. I'm not saying anything more.

Fal: i know u want to tho

I share that for a couple of reasons. First, to illustrate that I do actually communicate with my children, even my 17-year-old. And this is the form in which in typically takes. I take what I can. She's a busy girl. She's 17. And I'm not cool. I do cringe at the complete evisceration of the English language at the hands of her generation, but beggars can't be whiners.

But also, I wanted to point out an example of how a story has its origins. How flimsy and fragile the idea-getting process tends to be.

The Purple Holly Premise: A 17-year-old boy, in a rural Maine town, aspires to be a great journalist someday and manages to convince the editor of the local newspaper to allow him to write a feature article. The editor, whom the main character looks up to, tells him he must choose a person and write their story. The main character, as part of his non-paying apprenticeship at the paper, collects arraignments at the county courthouse every Monday and one day spots Lucinda Jones, a girl his own age. Her mystical sense, her strangeness, attracts him in a journalistic way: He MUST write her story. So he pursues her, and after some resistance, she relents. But only if he agrees to give her a pseudonym, to protect her identity. She chooses Purple Holly. Through the course of the story, the main character comes to understand a lot about Purple: that she lives in poverty, that she is a wild girl, mystical, carefree, childlike in her view of the world. In the face of adversity, she has an optimistic, bright outlook. When the main character discovers the most shocking truth of Purple's existence, he decides he's ready to write his story for the paper, in large part to reveal the truth so that someone might intervene on her behalf. The end of the story is explosive, shocking, and nothing what people expect.

So that's the story, generally speaking, without giving anything away.

Now the pieces:

- I was a journalist for about a dozen years, so I draw on my experience, particularly as a court reporter who saw stories of physical, mental, and sexual abuse against women. Real stories.

- I've lived in rural towns in Maine and Vermont my entire life, so I draw on that.

- I knew a Lucinda Jones once. We all have, probably. She's the "strange" girl in class, the one who wears odd clothes, says odd things, is estranged from her peers because of her oddity. She's the one people pick on.

- Fallon, when she was about three, had a doll her mother and I gave her as a gift. She carried it everywhere. But it didn't come with a name. We would ask her the name of her doll, and she would always say she was thinking about it. Then, one day, while driving, from her car seat in the back, she said "I know the name of my baby." Playing along, I asked her for it. "Purple Holly."

I have no idea where she came up with it, but it hit me so hard I nearly drove off the rode. Not because I thought it would someday make a great novel. It was just a lightening strike kind of moment of inspiration. I put it away in my mental catalog for future use.

Fast forward 14 years and one day I'm playing the "what if" game that all writers play. In this particular case, I was stuck on a very simple premise: why are the Lucinda Joneses of the world so fascinating? What makes them the way they are? Non-conformists, against-the-stream, happy-in-their-own-world, etc.

I loved the notion of Lucinda, but notions don't make good stories.

After a few days, though, I had a newspaper, I had a courthouse, I had domestic violence, I had a narrator who wants to be a reporter, and I also had the ending.

See? There's no magic to it. Novels come from the far corners of your experience, get mixed together, and when the ingredients flash, and you see smoke, then you know you've created something that just might be a good story.

My Pretty Faces

2009-06-08T03:59:00.000-07:00

Watched On Golden Pond with Corrine yesterday, a movie I have spotted in our collection from time to time but skip over deliberately. There are certain types of movies that illicit fear when I think of them.

Movies about cancer, particularly (Terms of Endearment, for example) and then there's On Golden Pond, the story of a curmudgeonly Norman Thayer and his wife Ethel, who own a camp on Golden Pond in Maine.

It's a movie about death, and the inevitability of the ends of things we love. Throughout we see images of decay and death: the screen door that has come off it's hinges; Ethel's wooden doll, Elmer, who took a nose-dive off the mantel and into the fireplace; the death of Miss Appley, the 90-year-old "lesbian"; and of course the loons. The loons are a constant symbol of lifelong companionship and when one is found dead during a fishing excursion, it becomes a symbol of the eventual demise of Norman and Ethel's companionship.

We don't see anyone die. Not like in Terms of Endearment, which has that horrible scene in the hospital when Emma Horton's children come to say good bye.

Yuck.

On Golden Pond has a different effect on me than the cancer movies. On Golden Pond is about a camp, on a lake, and a couple who have lived and loved for many years, but who now are faced with not having that anymore.

One of the more poignant scenes comes early when Ethel sends Norman out to pick strawberries and he gets lost at the end of their lane, a lane in a wooded thicket he has visited a million times before.

He manages to find his way back eventually, and when Ethel presses him on why he came back so damn quickly, he explodes.

Do you want to know why I came back so fast with my little bucket? I got to the end of our lane and I ... couldn't remember where the old town road was. I went a little way into the woods, and nothing looked familiar, not one tree. And it scared me half to death. So I came running back here, to see your pretty face, and to feel that I was safe. That I was still me.

I get all choked up when he gets to that part. Every time. Because I feel it for him. This bent old man hobbling down a wooded lane, looking for the pretty face he's known his whole adult life, his safe harbor. The one that makes him feel that he is still himself.

The thing is, there's a lot going on here, for me anyway. I suppose that's what makes fiction so powerful. You can relate to the really good stories on multiple levels.

There's the fact that my parents, who turn 70 this year, are celebrating their 50th this Saturday. They are Norman and Ethel, just younger. And by no means is either of them close to retiring from this earth. But, they will not go on forever. They will come to the end of their own lane at some point, and not turn back to hurry home.

Then there's a couple I knew who actually had a summer camp, on Hogan Pond, and whose son was and still is my best friend. I used to spend a lot of time at that camp, and it is as close to the Thayer's in its rusticity as is possible. We boated, we swam, we listened to the pine needles tapping on the roof.

Fran and Larry, the couple who owned the camp, saw their companionship come to an end with the death of Fran this past winter. She was barely in her 60s. I spoke to Ted, their son, recently who mentioned opening up the camp for the season. The first one in Ted's life without his mother. The first one for Larry without his wife's pretty face. And it was a pretty face. For many of us.

And then there is my own mortality. It's a ways off, I would hope, but it is there nonetheless. Like for all of us. And it isn't the end part I fear. Because when it comes, I won't know. Not consciously. What I fear is the notion - the one presented in the story - of something beautiful ceasing to exist.

It's a heady reality. An idea that shakes me up: of all those strings of my life falling away - the ones that connected me in a thousand ways to beautiful things. Pretty faces all.

Fragalicious

2009-06-05T04:24:00.000-07:00

- I received my course preference form from the University of Maine this week. It reads like a 1040 Federal Tax Form, complete with muddled directions; a heart-felt Greetings From Farmington form letter with NINE reminders that I need to have the form to them by June 26; and the assorted assembly of paperwork, each in contradiction to the other, and therefore underscoring the imperative that I get a degree so that I can understand long forms.

- Play rehearsal for Never Too Late entered the full-run-through stage this week. This is where we run through the entire show three times a week on the lead-up to the dress rehearsal which is June 16. Out of books and on their own, the actors are now responsible for their own lines, NO PROMPTS. Two weeks from last night, we're live, ladies and gentlemen. Muahahahahahahaha.

- Griffin, who turns one at the end of the month, waves, growls, says "kitty" and puts up both hands and shrugs when you say "Where's ______?" He's flirty and handsome and a comic. To the ladies of the class of 2026, watch out!

- I woke up with some sort of rash on the palms of my hands. But no hair, so masturbating is still a safe bet. If I were to ever resort to masturbating, I mean. Does it bother you that I keep saying masturbate? They say that 98 percent of all men do it, and like, 10 percent of all women blush when you talk openly about it. But, you can make statistics say anything. And besides, who can trust a survey conducted by Vaseline? Am I rubbing you the wrong way? Is this subject matter hard to take? Oh, get a grip.

- My oldest daughter, Fallon, had a job interview Wednesday. She's 17. This is her first foray into the workforce. Did you hear that? It was seven new strands of gray hairs sprouting upon my head.

- At some point I'm going to have to see a dentist. I lost a part of a filling, and my tongue cannot leave it alone. Always excavating and investigating, it has turned the tiny hole into a full-blown cave. And now the nerve is starting to throb. Should I wait until it's infected? Should I put it off until the decay invades my jaw bone and half my face balloons up and it becomes an abscess and requires sedation?

- Corrine and I are trying to adopt, something I have not blogged about here. Her blog Buckfield's Mad Momma has been chronicling our adventures in DHHS Land. You should check it out.

2009-06-04T05:04:00.000-07:00

Your Love Is a Green Hill

Big brother you
How do you do?
Come play with me Today

For tomorrow you'll be
A busy bee
And I shall miss your stay

A moment in the grass
Is all I ask
With a ball and a little sun

Upon this hill
We'll roll until
We've had our share of fun

Big brother you
How do you do?
I know your time is Gold

But keep in mind
Your gift of time
Is a treasure at least 10-fold

So when the time has come
That green hills are done
And we've moved onto something new

I know I'll recall
My love above all
For the hill and Big Brother You

Good Fellers

2009-06-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

Had to drop an old tree today that had died over the winter. I looked out our kitchen window a week ago and noticed, in the foreground of our lush acreage, a lone biddy, naked from the trunk up.

We're not sure how old the tree was. We inherited it with the mortgage, along with the pond, the two-and-a-half acres of forest, the rock wall borders and the leaky leech bed.

The tree, looking down the property toward the east, stood to the southerly side, 50 yards from the pond, 20 or so yards from the south wall, and a million or so leaves from being a sapling.

We wonder the story of her; did she have a stiff upbringing? Was she tall for her age? What was her favorite autumn color? Did she have any friends, like the blossoming apple tree up the hill? Certainly not the thicket of snobbish firs out past the pond.

My father helped, bringing with him his oily, toothy chainsaw. He angled out a thick slice of the trunk first, laboring mightily. To and fro, slicing the spinning chain through and out and through again. The saw screamed and sputtered, kicked and growled. The tree stood.

Dad went 'round the other side and cut a thin line with the saw, deep, and we then took turns hammering a wedge into the slit as a way of encouraging her topple.

She stood.

A bigger saw was then employed, six inches longer and fatter and meaner. Dad sliced deeper still, pulling the saw back and forth, revving the engine, backing off, plunging it further still.

She stood.

I had an up-slope view of the trunk and could see daylight through the cut on one side and the pizza-slice wedge missing on the other. In the dead middle, an inch of wood kept the whole lady upright, an aging ballerina on point.

We drove a thicker wedge into the slit and both of us in turn pounded it deeper and deeper, and slowly we began to hear cracking, as if the knuckles of her toes were popping.

A breeze came down from the west, over the top of the house, across the upper lawn and nudged her upper branches.

And then, gracefully, she tipped over and landed with a remarkable softness across our lower lawn. Pointing north by northeast, branches straight upward like a diver's arms.

Now, she lay across the lawn, and from the deck of our house, the property seems out of balance. Where a pillar once stood we now find clear blue sky, while below, old biddy finally rests.

A Question of Verse

2009-06-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

I don't like fads very much. I don't like following the flock of lemmings to their inevitable cliff edge, and then descent to their deaths.

Which is why I reluctantly chose free verse for Purple Holly

Purple being the novel I'm working on.

Verse being a form of novel-writing that, over the past decade, is gaining popularity.

I chose it, however, because the form felt comfortable in my hands. The way it forces the writer to be very sharp in his writing and the way it evokes emotion with an economy of words.

The verse novel hit it big time with Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse's story about the Dust Bowl of the mid 30s.

It came out in 1998 and I bought it back then. That was my introduction to the verse novel. I was intrigued. I liked the story. I was at first put off by the verse.

But I got used to it. And came to appreciate its power.

Fast forward to 2009. And here I am, doing initial character work for Purple Holly when it dawns on me just how much verse fits the style and tenor of the story.

Here's an excerpt.

A woman in a black suit

Sits in a chair at the foot of my

bed

Smiling the smile of a compassionate aunt

A vague relation at a funeral

Head slightly tilted

Dull eyes. The eyes of a woman who has seen

too much sad

Andrew?

I nod.

I think I nod anyway. A haze

of unreality makes my

head swim

There's the hint of pain in my

side. A searing stitch

And then there are the tubes in my arm

My name is Hester Lynne.

I'm with Child Protective Services, Andrew

Hester? Did she say

Hester?

The police want to talk to you

But I told them I needed to

first

I'm a psychiatrist, Andrew

I have to establish that you

are stable

Hester the Psychiatrist is

here to make sure my

head is not going to roll

off my shoulders

What?

Trauma affects people in different ways

Andrew

There is a window in my hospital room

through which I can see

the leafless maples and elms

of autumn

down on Fair Street

The brown of the dead

the mirthlessness that

the end of October brings

before the start of snow

I want to talk to you about

what happened so that I can

determine your

state of mind

Fair Street is straight

and bordered by the naked trees

before it intercepts Main Street

with her soldierly brick and historic

wooden buildings

I can see the clock tower of the

Opera House at the end

of Main Street

And beyond it, the ridge of

forest: denuded hardwoods, stoic conifers

Over that ridge somewhere is

Owens Mills, last stop

before the White Mountains of

New Hampshire

It affects our memory

Trauma I mean, Andrew

It can play tricks. When someone has

been through a tragedy

I look back at Hester the Sympathetic

Psychiatrist

Tragedy ... ?

Suddenly I know what it feels like

to be high on something

There's stomach-tickling levitation

A disconnectedness

A lifting up out of reality, not fully

Slightly

Just barely

Toes hovering above the ground

A giddy feeling, where words seem spoken through

a gauze

Yes. A tragedy

Andrew, maybe we should start with your story?

Story ... ?

A blink takes me an hour

Hester holds a sheaf of papers in her

hand

Holding it up

You write very well, Andrew

Yes. I know

I'm getting higher, it seems, and the stitch

in my side is slip-sliding away

Tell me about Purple Holly

That's the first chapter. So far. It could very well end up not in it at all, or greatly altered. The point is, that's verse. A free-flowing, non-rhyming, chunky narrative. When it's well done, it's evocative and direct and powerful.

In some recent verse novels (written primarily for the preteen and teen groups) the verse floats all over the page, and in others, dialogue is offset to the right while the narrative is on the left.

I'm going to finish it in this form, and delay judgment until then.

We'll see.

Pic This

2009-06-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

Took six rolls of 35mm film into Walgreens yesterday. Thought I'd offer a few of the results here.

Ty got glasses this year, and is hitting the ball better than ever in the local organized town league, where 10-year-olds are just learning to pitch curve balls and stop picking the uniforms out of their asses. Some anyway. Here, at home, Ty gears up for a homer.

Gabrielle's kitty, Peekaboo, thinks she's a dog. She wrestles with Samwise and bullies Gimli away from the food dish. Here, she's the master of the jungle, on the prowl. For that elusive, vomit-inducing blade of grass.

Easter, 2009. Corrine, Griffin and Nana Greene commiserate. Griffin wants to know how Nana keeps her hair that way. You know. All white and fluffy like clouds.

Fallon's Prom. I like this picture a lot. I'm not blinking, drooling, yawning, or sneezing. I like that our earrings almost match.

Lupines we planted this spring. One of a few out front. Aint it perty...?

I love Griffin's expression. Doesn't it say "You expect me to get in there? It's got Gabi's ass in it."

Griffin loves his Mommy. And the camera.

If this couldn't go on the cover of L.L. Bean's catalog, nothing should. She takes this blanket everywhere. It smells it too.

I had to ask Corrine what this was. And then I had to look up its spelling. It's a rho-do-den-dron.

Fallon, prom again, this time next to someone cuter than me, Harrison. Here, she is impersonating Carol Burnett. He's thinking "Who the hell is Carol Burnett, Dad?"

Fallon and Gabrielle. She cried when Fallon drove away with her date, Kyle. "My best friend,' she calls him. I fear for the lives of every girl Gabi ever meets. They don't stand a chance.

Fallon a la Macarena.

Alyssa, with weapon, and Harrison, weighing his options. Memorial Day whiffle ball game in our back yard. These two are the same age, and one of them is supremely competitive. Hint: it's the one with the legs.

Gorgeous meets handsome. Alyssa's prom 2009. Same prom as Fallon's. I did her hair.

Gorgeous meets adorable. Gabrielle was terrified of being held by Alyssa because, in her words, "I all dirty" If Alyssa could not pose for a magazine, no one should. And people wonder why her father is bald...

Alyssa, Memorial Day whiffle ball game in our back yard. She may not be athletic, but she gets an A for effort. (And, truthfully? She's much more athletic than people give her credit for.)

From A Mountain Top

2009-05-30T04:56:00.000-07:00

I had a mind to write a poem this morning. I found a photo of Corrine that I like. In it she's posing, wide-eyed, broad-smile, a little bit of mischief there.

I was hit with a lightening bolt of inspiration, I suppose. But then, when it came down to it, I found the words wanting. The language left me. And so much as it always does, inspiration evaporated.

It was to be something about my feelings for Corrine, of course. I am unashamedly and unabashedly, sickly-sweetly in love with her. I make no apologies about wearing my feelings for her on my sleeve. And lapel. And chest, arms, legs.

Which is peculiar, considering how these types of public displays used to be so stomach-churning for me. To hear someone talk about another with passion was embarrassing. There was a sort of desperation in it, like they were trying just a little too hard to justify the love, and therefore perhaps it was their way of projecting. That the reality of their relationship was quite the opposite of what was being said.

The truth is, I was inwardly jealous of that level of exorbitant love. I scoffed outwardly. I told myself that no one could realistically feel that much about a person without shining it on just a little.

Just as men are not to cry in public, there was this unwritten rule about romantic utterances.

I don't believe that anymore. It was an attitude I adopted somewhere in my early 20s and deepened every year until it was just part of my mental fabric. Love, but love quietly. Together, alone, but not in front of people.

My poem this morning was to be about my emergence out of this.

How a single person can affect you in such a way that it shakes up your foundation. Tears down walls, perceptions, breaks through and sheds light. Forgotten light.

I'm no poet though, as much as I'd like to be. Those fellows can say in 15 words what it takes 1,000 for me. The good poets can capture the feeling like a photographer freezes a moment, yet seem to speak volumes.

I'm a novelist. Therefore, I MUST speak in volumes and hope that somewhere in the rambling bramble of my thoughts one can spot my MESSAGE.

Which is simple: I love Corrine.

For lots of reasons. Some I've said here in my blog, many I have not. But probably the biggest reason of all is for teaching me that love should be exclaimed often, and loudly, vociferously, without apologies and certainly with passion and conviction.

Because if you feel it, but are afraid that people will hear you, then you shouldn't be allowed to feel it at all.

Frag It

2009-05-29T03:43:00.000-07:00

Friday Fragments is an idea from Mrs. 4444 over at Half Past Kissin' Time. Check her out. A lot. She's cool.

Folks at 50

Mom and Dad will be celebrating their 50th on June 13. Corrine and I, along with my three other siblings, have been working on preparations for it since February.

It's going to be a fun time. We decided to have it on the coast, and to serve lobsters and steamers, my folks' favorite Maine dish. We're having a singer perform three of their favorite songs, including Etta James' "At Last".

This is the front of the invitation I designed. I can't believe they've been married 50 years. Who does that? They should get a Presidential Medal, not just a lobster dinner.

Never Too Late

The play I am directing, "Never Too Late" is coming into the home stretch. The actors are close to getting their lines straight, costumes are taking shape, the set is all but finished.

The play is about a couple in their late 50s who find out the wife is pregnant. They already have a daughter, who is 23 and lives with them with her husband.

It's a farce and it's hilarious.

I'm having a great time directing and I'm positive it'll bring in a full house.

Purple Goes POD

I made a decision yesterday that was not all that easy.

I published my first novel, Surfacing, using a process called publish on demand. It's sort of like self-publishing, in that you don't go through a traditional publishing house (like Bantam or Random House.)

With POD, you do all the hard work like, you know, the writing, then you contract with a publisher who acts as your intermediary. Whenever someone orders your book online, or through a bookstore, the order is placed with the publisher and just that copy is printed. As opposed to traditional publishing, which prints a certain number of books and distributes them to bookstores in select areas.

Here's the rub. Literary snobs will tell you that if you go POD, you're not a "legit" writer, because it's "too easy." Any schmo can get something half-assed printed and call it a novel.

The problem with that argument is that I still do the writing. The toiling. Shedding blood sweat and tears. Not to mention the fact that I've some God-awful pieces of shit from traditional publishers.

Going POD means I get the book immediately and no paper is wasted. My books are on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, etc. It also can be order through any bookstore in the world.

The only reason I would go traditional is for the added "legitimacy" still attached to it. Reviewers, for example, will not review self-published or POD novels. At All. And a favorable review would be HUGE for sales.

Anyway.

I don't like snobs. I don't like conventional thinking most of the time. Therefore, Purple Holly, my second novel (and one of three fictional projects I'm currently working on) will be POD.

I will have to suck it up and work hard at getting the message out when it's published. I'll be in touch. I have an idea for getting you, dear reader, to help me.

:-)

The Lovelies

2009-05-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

"Love you, Fiffin"

Food for the Fiction Monster

2009-05-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, then I'm sorry for you.

But seriously, I have moments during most days in which I recall something from my past that is so utterly random and so detached from the present that it makes me stop in my tracks.

I chalk it up to my writer's mind trying to unearth bits of things that I might want to use in my fiction. God knows I can't do it while actually sitting down at my computer WRITING.

For example? Well, here are a few memories that came up in recent days, the ones I remember anyway. I've GOT to start carrying around a small notebook.

Chatty Cathy

- I worked as a night editor for a daily newspaper in Vermont. It's the last job in newspapers I ever had, actually. I would come to work at around 9 p.m. and work until 5 or 6 a.m., when the paper was beginning to be put together. My job was to edit the copy from the previous night's stories. Well, to keep awake, I made a fresh pot of atrocious sludge and drank it throughout the night. The taste killed me. The caffeine kept me employed.

Well, one morning, I was heading out when one of the copy editors waved me over to her computer. Copy editors tweaked the last stories. Spelling, grammar, that sort of thing. Nothing heavy. Never getting into the guts of the story to reshape it into something readable. This particular copy editor - I'll name her Cathy for the sake of privacy - was no shrinking violet. She told it like it was. To anyone. She had an opinion about everything and it was never flattering.

The thing that made it worse is that Cathy was in no position to criticize anyone about anything. She was a chain smoker, a bit frumpy in appearance, not well-read at all (of anything of substance beyond the tabloids), an admitted hater of men, and a fucking know-it-all. About EVERYTHING. I know you've met someone like her in your life. The type of person who just can't shut up and whose opinions are always vile and cutting.

Anyway, Chatty Cathy waved me over and I obliged. The morning copy editors were instructed to consult with me if they flagged something in a story beyond misspellings. So here I am thinking she's read something she doesn't understand and therefore must have me okay her corrections.

Nope.

I bent low, over her shoulder, peering at the story on her screen and she says, loudly, "Nobody wants to see your open fly."

I had everything I could do to refrain from shoving her forehead into the monitor. Instead, I straightened. And zipped up my fly. Right there next to her.

Slow like.

Sonny

- I was with my father the day he told my uncle, on my mother's side, that their brother had awoken from a coma and had smiled.

The back story first. My uncle Sonny, my mother's oldest sibling, had blown an aneurysm while going to the bathroom. They rushed him to the hospital and the prognosis was grim. He was not expected to live.

He was in a coma for over a week, the expectation being that he would never wake up. He was maybe not yet 50 years old and had two young children and a wife.

Everyone in the family visited him, that somber shuffle of people in an out of his hospital room who were there to give their last respects more than anything.

His youngest brother, my uncle Sheldon, was building a house from scratch. Ten days after the ambulance rushed Sonny to the hospital and the doctors had delivered their best-guesstimate for his lights-out, Uncle Shelly stood on the sub-floor of his unfinished house and was hoisting a beam into place when my dad and I arrived.

I remember this part most vividly. My uncle Shelly, in a sweat-stained t-shirt, stubble, worn-out from the combination of physical labor and emotional grief, his biceps straining against the pull of the huge beam, and my father stepping up onto the foundation.

"He opened his eyes and smiled at your mother," Dad said.

The beam fell to the floor and Uncle Shelly broke down in tears. My father embraced him. I looked out beyond the skeletal framing of the walls of his unfinished house, out into the trees, and I was angry at how awkward I felt.

The Coward

I'm pretty sure my college roommate was gay. My second college roommate, I should say.

I lived with Daryl my first semester, and he was a local. He lived on campus even though his parents were both professors at the college and therefore lived just a block from campus.

Daryl was not a nice person and the Yankee sensibility in me collided with his Texas-sized machismo on a regular basis. (pro-choice versus pro-life; women are partners versus women are housekeepers and child-rearers; black people are people versus black people are...you can guess what they were to Daryl.)

I say this not as an indictment of Texans. I actually fell in love with the people I met there. They were gracious, warm, and giving people. And I learned a lot from being near them.

Just as there are smart-mouthed assholes in New England, so there are in Texas.

Daryl was also vehemently anti-gay. The college I attended was a Christian university, so you can imagine his attitude toward certain "types" - gays, lesbians, liberals, Muslims, soccer players, anyone living east of the Mississippi, north of the Mason-Dixon; any football team outside of Dallas - were echoed throughout the campus. Even celebrated.

I stuck out like a sore lobster.

And boy did we have colossal arguments.

I mean, how could we not? He didn't even know who Steely Dan was for Christ Sake, and I absolutely refused to listen to Waylon Jennings.

But I regret to say, when it came to his stance against homosexuals, I failed.

Predictably, Daryl chose a new roommate for the second semester, a kid who lived across the hall from us and a fellow Texan named Jeffy. I'm not kidding you. His name was Jeffy.

Jeffy's roommate, Bob, was also a Texan, and was more or less ordered, by Daryl and Jeffy, to move his shit into my room. That's how I found out I had lost a capable sparring partner, and gained a new roommate.

Bob was quiet. Bob was a business major from San Saba who lived near Tommy Lee Jones. Bob was gay.

It was that obvious.

And while the subject was never broached between Bob and me, it didn't have to be. His effeminate leanings made me wonder, but I shook the thoughts off as an unfair, and cliched, prejudice. A book-by-his cover sort of self-admonition. The tearful calls home to his mother at night while I was "asleep" was what answered my question, however.

It's not like I got dressed in the bathroom stall from now on or feared some prison-shower kind of scenario being acted upon me when I least expected it. But I did feel fear, and that fear was realized.

Daryl and Jeffy, one morning, assaulted Bob with such a barrage of insults I felt like I was back on 4th-grade playground and kids who had just learned to swear were trying out every adjective.

Every homophobic epitaph ever uttered came from their mouths, and all because Bob had the audacity to ask Jeffy for his table back. The one they had used for their television when they were roommates and had been given to Bob by his mother as a college send-off.

Bob got his table back. In eight pieces.

I didn't say a thing to Daryl or Jeffy. I froze. I froze with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Of all the arguments I had had with Daryl about politics and sex and religion, I had lost my nerve when it really mattered.

To this day I hate remembering this. Of being a witness to a crime and doing nothing. I have never reconciled this with myself either. This fear that I am a big talker among big talkers, but when the battle ensues, that I become a coward's coward.

Bob finished the semester and we were never close and we never spoke about the incident. I left college and never found out what happened to him.

And the Winner Is....

2009-05-22T03:35:00.000-07:00

Mrs. 4444!

Otherwise known as Half-Past Kissin' Time

She correctly identified the five quotes out of the 100 posts I've written, including one dating back to 2005!

Oh. Did I mention I had a contest yesterday to celebrate my 100th post?

Well, I did. I randomly chose five quotes from all of my posts, and asked them to be identified by date and title.

I seriously did not expect anyone to do this. I mean, come on, it's having to drudge through a lot of writing. (Except for those who follow me religiously, then it would be easy)

But Mrs. 4444 did it! AND she even commented on a couple of them. Holy crap.

I need to have more difficult contests.

And what's REALLY scary is that she even knew what the prize was.

A signed copy of Surfacing. My first ... okay ... my ONLY novel (so far)!

The truth is, it was Corrine's idea to have a contest. I was actually going to list one quote from each blog entry and I got as far as, like, 64 and gave up.

That would have been one helluva long post.

So congrats to MRS. 4444.

Go check out her blog.

It's funny, poignant, insightful and well written.

(Mrs. 4444: Send me your shipping address to turn68(at)yahoo.com.... and don't forget to tell me who to autograph the book to....)

100 Posts Contest

2009-05-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, you read that right

Large-breasted women love Nerds

Oh, and this also happens to be my 100th post

So, in honor of this, I have a contest!

Below are 5 quotes from the 100 posts.

The first to correctly identify the date (month/Day/Year) and the title of all quotes, gets the prize.

1. On coming back, I feared he would start yelping. I was sure his guard-dog instinct would erupt in him, and that he would start pouncing my wife's back in an attempt to alert her to THE STRANGER ON THE PATH. This is what loyal dogs do for their families: they bark obscenities at angry bears while the family can escape; they catch white-shirted Bible-thumpers in mid sentence and rush them off your lawn. ("Good morning, have you found...JESUS!")

2. There is zero romance in trying to eat mushroom caps stuffed with seafood, and baked stuffed jumbo shrimp, in a great restaurant while a 2-year-old eats the tabs of butter and the baby has audible gas. The elderly couple seated next to us were French Canadian and were noticeably put off by Gabi's hide-and-seek behind a restaurant curtain. They kept giving Corrine dirty French Canadian looks as they sipped their wine.

3. The house, built in 1850 during John McCain's first run for the presidency, is slightly pitched toward the middle. Door casings slope toward center, as do the floors, the stairs, the windows. Anything made of wood, let's say. In fact, my second-oldest brother complains that he needs to be drunk in order to walk a straight line in my home.

4. Avis is where I began. And where we all began. Avis and Howard, Ina and Ralph, my father's parents. They were the May Poles around which we, their offspring, have danced for so long, holding onto their streamers and not letting go.

5. I had one of those moments when you're being confronted by someone unexpectedly and the light around the corners of your vision blurs and your face gets really hot. That was how the email ended. Not a word about whether he liked the story or the characters or something.

Colour My World

2009-05-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

The second job I ever had was at a department store called Ames.

Ames was like most department store chains, with a rank of checkouts in the front, a sales floor segmented by carefully choreographed departments, and all within an expansive, box-shaped building usually anchoring one end of a strip mall.

I was hired, at 19, as a stock boy, forever running in and out of the back room to fetch this or that; or assembling bicycles and grills; or checking the price of something. All the while working to keep the shelves filled with merchandise. I even had one of those price guns on my hip that spit out little price tags.

My manager was a guy named Dave who chain-smoked, kept a pile of new, unwrapped dress shirts in a tall filing cabinet in his office, and who was reputed to have slept with just about every cashier there, except for Gloria, the women's undergarment associate who was 64 and, ironically, never wore the right sized bra. I never understood why they called her the Muffin Top Lady until one of the other stock boys explained it to me.

Dave was the one who hired me, in late June, while sitting in his office. I had just finished filling out the application at the front desk when, passing by, Dave stopped in his tracks and took the application right out of my hands. Ink still wet.

"Stock?"

"Um.."

"Ever stocked merchandise?"

"Um...I bagged groceries at..."

"Good. Follow me."

And then Dave was off. Not walking. Not running. He was just there and then he was suddenly somewhere else. The only other man able to do this was my father, usually materializing a split second after I've said the would "fuck" or "shit".

Dave could be in Toiletries in the northeast corner of the store one minute, and then in Fabrics at the opposite corner the next.

The fucker was fast, man. And short. And intense.

"Sit."

He pointed to a chair across the desk from him in a 10x10 office that had a one-way mirror in the wall the size of a bay window. We were perched above the entire store and from this vantage point I could see a couple of 13-year-olds drawing pairs of women's panties over their heads and laughing.

"Get the little shits out of my store," Dave barked into a phone. "Aisle 17. Row 12." I hadn't even seen him pick up the phone. Down below, a man in plain clothes snuck up on the two boys, who scattered in different directions. The ensuing chase was like watching a mouse in a maze. I expected the piped-in Muzac to suddenly switch to the Benny Hill theme song. A grown man chasing two little boys with panties on their heads.

"Loss prevention," David grumbled. I looked at him. He had changed out of his shirt and was buttoning up the top button of his new one. I hadn't even seen him fetch it from the cabinet behind me.

"So," he said, sitting now and pondering my application.

"Bagger?"

"Uh..."

"Don't be afraid of me, Drew. I'm not the cops."

Drew? Who the fuck was Drew?

"Turner?"

I nodded.

"Artie's son?"

I nodded.

He sniffed.

"Had him as a teacher," he grumbled.

The truth is, I didn't even want this job. We were on Summer's doorstep. Outside, it was in the upper 70s. It was sunny. I was 19. I wanted to be where all the other 19 year olds were. At the arcade playing Galaga.

Down below us, through the one-way mirror, I watched the teens being collared by the loss prevention guy and escorted roughly through the doors.

"No?"

I looked at Dave. He was halfway through a cigarette. I hadn't even seen him light up. Jesus Christ, this guy was wigging me out. And he had a tie on now. What the hell.

"Can. You. Start. Tomorrow?" he asked, like he was asking a 2-year-old if he wanted to go poo in the potty.

"Um...okay."

"8 a.m."

And then Dave was gone. I looked and he was down in Hardware already, talking to Suzie, one of the newer cashiers. She was blond. She had nice legs and was graduating from high school in a week.

So, I told you all of that to tell you this: for the longest time I used to lie on my job applications. I feared complete truthfulness would keep me out of work, and as a teen, I wanted what every teen wanted: my own spending money. You know. To beat the high score on Galaga.

So, when it came to the line on the application that read "Are there any physical limitations that might hinder your performance as an Ames Associate?" I didn't put down that I was colorblind. I always figured that my inability to see any color whatsoever (except black, white and a narrow band of grays) couldn't possibly hinder me from, you know, checking the price of a pair of socks or assembling the newest Coleman.

I. Was. Wrong.

A three-word phrase I have said more in my lifetime than any other, beating out I Love You, I Need Money, and even Let's Have Sex.

That first day. That very first day at Ames Department Store, Dave pulled me aside 15 minutes into my shift and just fresh from being shown the rounds by Greg, who would roll a joint after work every night the size of a cigar and grin like Jack Nicholson in The Shining and say "It's show time!" before hopping behind the wheel of his Gremlin and squealing away.

"Got an end display I need you to facilitate," Dave said.

"Weren't you just wearing a tie?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

An end display is the space at the very end of an aisle of merchandise used as a marketing tool for those walking along the wide corridors between departments. In Ladies Apparel, for example, mannequins wore sexy lingerie, one plastic hand on hip, the other turned up in a creepily seductive way; in hardware, a collage of tools; in Seasonal, child mannequins wore beach clothes amid sand pails and beach balls and towels.

We were standing in Stationery in front of an empty end display.

"New plastic stacking crates," Dave said, pointing to boxes of opened milk crates used as shelving units for college kids.

"I want to snag the back-to-schoolers," he said.

"It's June," I informed him. He gave me the same look my father used to give me when he wanted me to stop being a dope.

Who was I to argue with Dave, Ames Manager of the Year for three straight years? And, let's face it, I was in no position to try and understand the mysteries of department store merchandising and retail marketing. I shrugged at him.

"Anyway," he said. He was halfway through a cigarette already. It was pinched between his lips as he spoke.

"I want you to facilitate this. Show me what you got. You're 19, you're probably in college, right? Make it collegiate. I'd ask Greg but look at him, he's stoned."

I looked at Greg two aisles away. He was licking a ball peen hammer.

I turned back but Dave was gone.

I spent an hour rearranging these plastic milk crates that came in three sizes: large square, rectangle, small square. You could mix and match them, stack them in any array of combination to give the appearance of a filing system. A tower of cubbies. I had fun with it, creating three tall towers on the end display platform.

I raided the stationery and filled the cubbies with notebooks, pens, pencils. I took some magazines from the front magazine-and-book racks. I folded up jeans and t-shirts from Misses. I found a couple of pennants from last year's back-to-school special and pinned those up.

I stood back and admired my first end display. A veritable marketing triumph. No kid between the ages of 18 and 23 would pass this by and not want to buy everything there. In fact, high school kids undecided on college would most certainly choose a post-secondary education after seeing my display.

An hour later, while helping the Muffin Top Lady take down outdated signage for a 3-for-1 gurdle special, Dave's voice cracked the P.A. system, interrupting Barry Manilow.

"Drew! Stationery!"

From my perch atop the ladder in Ladies' I could see, across the entire store, my handsome display. And Dave was already there. Smoking.

I rushed to him.

"Is this your way of being funny?"

I stared at him. Then at my display. Then back at him. He was on his second cigarette already. I didn't even seen him dispose of the last butt. I think he ate them.

"Uh...no?"

He looked at the display, then at me, then at the display. The way a man looks at a pile of dog shit, the dog, and then the pile again, tapping a rolled up newspaper.

"Are you stoned then?"

I had never smoked or ingested any form of contraband in my life.

"Uh...no?"

"Why do you think that's attractive?"

That's a parent's kind of no-win question. The kind that you feel you must answer, but know that you can't and therefore sound like a short-bus passenger.

"I guess ... that ... the stacks, being stacked, would appeal ... um ... to collegiate types. With, you know ... here you have ... I used pom-poms here. Thought that would catch their eye. I mean eyes...because a lot of eyes go past here. A lot."

Dave shook his head.

"You think purple and green, mixed together like this, is attractive? And why would you put the lime greens and yellows together over here. I mean, there isn't even any pattern. Like a checkerboard. I mean, that I could understand, maybe, but ..."

He trailed off, speechless. A crowd of shoppers had stopped to see who had gotten hit by the train.

Did he mention purple, green, yellow?

Oh shit.

Back in his office he had my job application in front of him and he was wearing a new shirt. Come to find out he had a chronic underarm sweating problem. The pile of used shirts in the corner had telltale rings.

"Colorblind?" he scowled. I had tried, meekly, quietly, to explain while still standing in front of the display, that I was colorblind. It sounded like I was trying to make an excuse for farting in church.

In his office he scowled at my application, then lifted it up for me to see. His eyebrows raised.

"I just didn't think it would ever, you know, come up," I offered.

He put the application back down and looked out the one-way mirror. A crowd of people were throwing up in front of my display. Apparently the particular combination of colors and patterns I had chosen induced vomiting and migraines. Sales were down that week by 28 percent.

"No color? At all? Like a dog?"

I nodded. I had already removed my associate's badge and placed it on his desk, like a shamed deputy sheriff who had just been accused of shooting an innocent civilian.

And then he started laughing. His head thrown back, his nicotine-stained teeth flashing. He slapped his hands on the desk.

And then he was gone. I looked down and he was talking to Misty, the newest cashier. She was a brunette and Miss Oxford County Fair for 1981 and 1982. No one has ever won it twice since.

I didn't lose my job. I worked there all summer until I got a better offer in a GTE/Sylvania plant making parts for phones that didn't involve color.

But that summer, Dave found it amusing to call over the P.A. system every so often.

"Drew! I need a color check ..."

And then laughter.

I never lied on my application again. About being colorblind, I mean.

Corrine Montage Song

2009-05-18T05:24:00.000-07:00

I found it!

I found the name of the song I had been looking for for quite some time. I am ashamed to say, I learned it was by the Allman Brothers, when I should have known.

Anyway...it's called Jessica

I love it because it is my montage song for Corrine.

A song called Jessica for my girl Corrine.

Get beyond the title. The point is, if I were in a theater, watching a movie about Corrine, this would be the montage song. You know, the montage? When there's no dialogue, just a string of scenes? A bridge between the beginning and end, to denote a passage of time?

This is the song in the montage of my Corrine movie.

I am big on soundtracks and the importance of music in one's life. I write my fiction to soundtracks that I have compiled on iTunes, in fact. I hit play and write to the songs. I'm serious.

For my Corrine movie, I close my eyes and a mental video projects the things we've done together, of things in her youth I recreate, of snapshots of her.

I would say go out and find the song and play it, but it won't have the same effect. This is a closed cinema, a private showing for VIP guest only.

I'm just glad I found the name of the song.

Okay, go away now. I'm watching a movie here.

The Coop

2009-05-16T03:49:00.000-07:00

The current economic crises has affected yet another housing project, this time in Buckfield.

It appears I will have to put off a building project I was expecting to accomplish this weekend but can't for lack of funds. Boy will the tenants be pissed.

We purchased 17 baby chicks to whom I am contractually obligated to build a coop.

The chicks - well, 15 chickens and two bantams - scuffle around a cardboard slum beneath a heating lamp in the back hallway. We feed them. We water them. We check to make sure they're not too cold or too hot.

All the while they bitch about how their new 7-foot-by-12-foot, wire-mesh-and-strapping condo has yet to be built.

I am their contractor, hired to build their rental with the agreement that payment would be in the form of eggs. And insect abatement.

They did not check for references, however, and I made no representations to them about my ability. They seemed blithely content to chirp away and leave everything to fate, as it were. And lots of trust.

They trust I will build for them a habitable home, one with a view of Buckfield Lake, shit removal and a lifetime supply of feed; and I trust they will produce the source of my favorite breakfast as well as exterminate the tick population that has, these past few summers, used our back lawn as a Lollapalooza venue.

Gabrielle, our two-and-three-quarter-year-old, likes to check on the baby chicks regularly. As do Samwise and Gimli, our canines, and Peekaboo, Gabi's new kitten.

Samwise looks at them as fetch things - he expects all objects to be thrown for him, including shoes, cell phones, and bras - and Gimli, too short to actually see the chicks, merely stares at the side of the box and listens and sniffs. Of course he misses the fun in the fact that he is staring at the word PURDUE this whole time. Pugs are so humorless.

Peekaboo is still a kitten and therefore, it would seem anyway, has not acquired the instincts born in all cats when it comes to birds. She too is short like Gimli, and therefore stares at him staring at the box. And then she tackles him by the ankles like a playful younger sister to an older brother. He hates it when she does that.

I do pick her up occasionally to have her peer into the box itself, but the heat lamp makes her sleepy. I would pick Gimli up if I thought he'd appreciate the view better, but I'd be afraid he would mistake the heat lamp for The Light. As in, Don't Go Into The Light. He would pass out in my arms and I'd have to douse him with cold water.

The coop plans call for nothing more than a glorified cage, really. Using wood 5/4-inches thick and 3 inches wide, I will build two 7-foot-high by 6-foot-wide frames and fasten them together, with a door on the lake end, and a small chicken door on the other end that will abut our barn. A roof will cover the entire thing, made of metal roofing material.

A Noah's Ark ramp will lead the chickens up through their small door to the barn and into a room that used to be a three-hole outhouse. The three holes, and their seat lids, are still there. Therefore, leaving open the possibility that one smart ass among the group could rightfully bitch "We live in a real shit hole."

I'm not going to tell them the truth though. To them, it will be where they nest. I want them to feel comfortable, warm, and dry. Besides, the outhouse has not been used in decades. Below the holes is the dirt floor of the barn. If they were to get smart all of a sudden and lift one of the toilet lids, they could do an Alcatraz on me.

Next, after the coop itself, is the manufacture of transportation. Corrine wants me to build them an RV so that we can wheel them to different parts of the property to peck at the grass and eat the aforementioned ticks.

This rig will be a wire-mesh box with wheels at the front corners and handles at the back, allowing the conductor, as it were, to lift and wheel the ladies to and fro, like a wheelbarrow.

They can take day trips to the far reaches. North, to the border, a wooded area best known for shade and thick grasses. Or east, down along the shores of Lake Buckfield, which enjoys the most sun and views of ducks.

This of course is all contingent upon an upturn in the economy. If our income cannot afford the penthouse and touring bus, we'll have to set them about the property freely, and hope they stick to within the borders.

I will, as ever, keep you posted.

My Gabi Girl

2009-05-14T03:45:00.000-07:00

Took this photo of Gabrielle this past January. A brilliant, shrill kind of blustery day. In the midst of one of the worst winters I can remember.

Gabi Girl climbed into this toy castle and, when I called her name, this was the face she gave me. Click on the photo and you'll get a better view of her wonderful face.

It best describes her personality. At once lovely and mischievous; happy & demanding; wanting and giving.

I loved the day her mother told me she was pregnant with her, and I loved the day she was born because she represented so much hope for me, a chance for my own sort of rebirth at a point in my life when I faced what I thought was an insurmountable wall.

Gabrielle Marrae is my daily reminder that life is hard, but giving. It can be insolent but teach you something new. That I should play more and worry less.

She is and always will be my Hope Girl.

Found this blog while poking around and I love the idea. Go here to learn more about Thousand Words Thursday

Apple Tree Blossoms and other unrelated nonsensical musings

2009-05-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Apple Tree Blossoms

We have an apple tree on the north side of the house whose flowers are in full bloom. It's the ultimate sign of spring for me, the white blossoms that look, from a distance, like the tree had suddenly sprouted cotton balls.

I missed them last spring for some reason. Not this year however. I mowed the lawn for the first time and ran right into a blossoming branch, scattering the white pedals all over the place.

A veritable shower of white poetry. A poetic shower of white. A white shower poem.

Speaking of movie quotes

Corrine and I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button two nights ago. She got it as a Mother's Day gift from her two oldest children, Alyssa and Ty.

It's Forrest Gumpish, a little on the maudlin side, but a pretty good movie, I thought. I was in the mood for something like it, so it worked.

Anyway. There's a quote in it I wanted to find. So I Googled "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button movie quotes" because you can find ANYTHING when you Google it.

Benjamin Button, narrating, says toward the end of the movie:

For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit... start whenever you want... you can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that stop you. I hope you feel things that you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

So, that's a bit on the sappy side, but I still like it. I still think it's a truth, and I like truths in movies. Things that speak to the human condition and what it's all worth.

Like "Hey, Cameron. You realize if we played by the rules right now we'd be in gym?"

See? Ferris knew what the fuck he was talking about, man.

Speaking of friends and their lives

A friend of mine told me recently that her marriage will more than likely end this year. I would say to my friend this:

I'm sure that it is for the better, and that you will be happier in the long run.

But I would then say:

I'm sorry I said that just now. You can kick me in the balls if you'd like, because, let's face it, anyone who tells you that it's probably for the better isn't helping. It still hurts, it still is inconvenient, and the pain is not something that will go away just because a friend said this was for the better

And speaking of my dog Sammy

This was Corrine's idea. To get a dog she can walk/run with because her pug, Gimli, can't walk more than a yard without convulsing and needing to be picked up.

Sammy - Samwise Gamgee - is a border collie. And he very quickly has become my favorite dog of all time, supplanting Spike, my retarded black lab when I was a teen.

And this is coming from a person not known for being a pet lover.

Samwise fetches things and brings them back to me. He whines when I leave for town because he wants to be with me. He sleeps on the floor of my office while I sit here and write about things he could never understand, but his support is felt nevertheless.

So, thanks honey, I LOVE my dog. You can walk with him anytime you like.

Speaking of lyrics so bad you love them

Chic's song, Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah) has no meaning whatsoever, but, like most songs from the Disco era, it has that little something about it that makes you put on something polyester, tap your foot and sing it for days on end.

So, on this hump day, get up on yo feet and sing it with me, all you hip muthas...

Dance
Dance, dance, dance
Keep on dancing
Dance
Dance, dance, dance

Just dancing' to the beat
Feel the heat
I'm movin' my feet
Headed towards the floor
Gonna get down
A-get down some more

Rumba and Tango
Latin Hustle too
Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah
I wanna boogie wit'choo

Bop-bop-bow
Bop-bop-bow
Bop-bop-bow
Bop-bop-bow

Oh, what a treat, feels so sweet
(Ah) That body heat
When I'm dancin' with my baby drives me crazy
Makes me hazy

Rumba and Tango
Latin Hustle too
Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah
I wanna boogie wit'choo

Bop-bop-bow
Bop-bop-bow
Bop-bop-bow
Bop-bop-bow

Dance
Dance, dance
Dance
Dance
dance, dance
Dance
Dance
Dance, dance
Dance
Dance
Dance, dance
Dance

Dance
Dance, dance
Dance
Keep on, keep on
Dance
Dance, dance
Dance
Keep on dancing
Dance
Dance, dance
dance
Keep on, keep on
Dance
Dance, dance
Dance
Dance
Dance, dance
Dance

Fictional Me

2009-05-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

I spend my creative hours working on the new story ... the one about the man and the frozen pipes and all that.

A lot of note-taking. Getting to know the main character. It would seem that would be easy to do, given that the entire premise is based on my own experience this past winter, and that therefore, by extension, my main character would be yours truly.

However, I am aware, at least subconsciously, that I really don't want this to be about me, just about what I experienced. And even then, that is not enough for a fascinating story (see: one that doesn't get boring).

So, my notes comprise bits of dialogue, bits of scenes both real and imagined, and bits of character. Well. More than bits.

Writing is a searching-out process for me, where I truly endeavor to get to know the people and learn to fall in love with them.

This main character is a version of me. Someone who, at this point anyway, seems to have some of my psychological features, while being devoid of others.

For example, I grew up going to church. My main character did not. My years attending a fundamentalist Christian organization - through my formative years - shaped my attitudes about God, religion, faith, right down to what I like in food and television and music. I have unflattering views of most aspects of religion, yet I envy those who have a faith in something. That seems like a contradiction but it isn't.

Religion (because of my experience) was and still is about dogma, organization, man's punitive application of Biblical precedents. Faith is in the heart and represents his or her internal application of scriptures as it refers to a direct relationship with a higher power.

My main character?

Doesn't give a shit one way or the other.

Neither atheist, agnostic, or believer. He has not been raised in a house where church-going was practiced, or prayers were said before every meal or Christmas was a religious holiday, not a secular one.

I don't know why these things pan out the way they do. It's part of the joy of writing.

I wish I didn't have the baggage. The internal conflict, the unresolved tension that runs like a current between my father and I whenever we see each other. (It's a low, triple-A battery current most of the time. Wouldn't even light a bulb)

No, this guy I'm discovering doesn't have that in his wiring. He IS similar to me in other areas, though, the frozen pipes and shit-for-a-car notwithstanding.

He's rarely taken seriously, a fault of his own. But a real sticking point for him.

He failed once in a marriage that he should not have entered into, but after he did, managed to fuck it up.

He's unskilled, unmotivated, and unlucky, the three worst things to be if you want to be a successful writer. And each of them is a direct result of the way he was not taken seriously while growing up.

The list is longer than that, but those are the big ones.

I don't know where he's taking me, to be honest. What his 'story' is, if there is one. I don't even know yet if he's a strong enough character to hold the line of a story.

All I have is a broken bathroom pipe in February and a man with a lot of bad luck, no discernible technical skills, but one big dream.

This Mother's Day: No Words Necessary

2009-05-10T04:14:00.000-07:00

Today's Word: Psaltery

2009-05-08T03:35:00.000-07:00

psal-ter-y
(sal-ter-ee)

1. An ancient stringed musical instrument played by plucking the strings with a plectrum or the fingers

There once was a girl who craved Big Sam Tuckitt
Whose voice made girls quiver, but was as dumb as a bucket
To get him to sing, she showed him her psaltery
Down upon which he scowled rather dumbly
"Now all you must do is pluck it"

Sea Change

2009-05-07T05:29:00.000-07:00

I sit in my 1850's farmhouse in Buckfield and I feel a little sea sick.

The tide is inexorable, and its tug is felt in my chest. Or better, my ego. I tend to cling to the firm shore along my rocky coastline, for fear of the rip tide of life that I know is waiting to suck me under. It's the mysterious underthing that has kept me from casting out these past 25 years.

I love the shore, the warm, white sands of solid earth, where I can watch the sailboats from a safe distance.

But now, for the first time, I've grown desirous to be out there among them, to see what life is like on the waves.

I'm 41 years old and in a few months I will be a freshman at the University of Maine, Farmington. The place my own father, now 70, earned a teaching degree some 50 years ago.

I therefore enter the ranks of adults across the nation who have decided to go for that college degree after all, and beside whose names are printed “non-traditional,” the moniker given to those of us who (in my narrow, movie-fed, Animal House-distorted view of college) will not be going to keggers on Friday nights or living in co-ed dorms sharing bathrooms with mysteriously tantalizing members of the opposite sex. We are part of a legion of folks who are old enough to be most freshman's mother or father.

I am nothing if not non-traditional.

Married twice. Six children, three of whom are in high school, one a year away from middle school, and two not yet out of diapers. I have worked in two factories, I've been a journalist, and I've slaved within the boxy confines of a nondescript cubicle, within a desert of cubicles so broad and long one could barely see the bank of windows at the distant horizon. My employee number was larger than my picture, the one on my badge, my most important form of identification.

I've seen my four children birthed and have reveled in the accomplishments of two step children.

I've been to the funerals of three of my grandparents, an aunt and two uncles.

I have made colossal errors in judgment; weathered a divorce; spent more money than I earned; maxed out my first and only credit card; flirted with bankruptcy; forestalled foreclosure and been laid off from three different jobs.

I was a teenager when hip-hop was invented, back when they called it “rap” when we all wore parachute pants and the girls had Mall Bangs they aerosoled into frozen tsunamis.

The arc of my character development, you could say, is quite expansive. I would like to think it has yet to hit its zenith. I would like to think – probably naively – that I won't hit my peak for sometime. My life expectancy quotient says otherwise. If you believe life expectancy quotients that is.

I don't. Most of us non-traditionals don't put stock in a lot of things fed to us. That's why my aspiration to be the next great American novelist has stayed with me since Hank Burn's sophomore English class, back in 1985, when I was 17 and Hank was just about everyone's favorite teacher at Oxford Hills High School. I held on to that dream when so many of the kids who did go onto college after graduating saw theirs vaporize into a mist of post-collegiate job interviews and dispiriting 9-to-5's.

Since high school, I've witnessed my sea ebb and flow continuously, coming in and going out, bringing with it – and taking away – the flotsam and jetsam of a life lived. Of debris resulting from wreckage (from failed voyages) or deliberately tossed out there from where I stood. Debris of experiences, of failures and successes. It all becomes debris after all.

I bring this with me to college classrooms where kids my daughter's age will be studying next to me, and I wonder who has the advantage? Me with my lifetime of bumps and bruises, or them with their wide-eyed naiveté? Cynicism versus optimism? They wanting to be me, me wanting to be them?

It doesn't matter. They will have to learn for themselves after all. And they do have one thing going for them: they have, at 18 or 19, taken ship when I am, until now, still ashore. Heels dug into the cooling sands against my fears when they, it would appear, are facing theirs with sails full set.

In the fall, with this new tide, I take up new oars. Perhaps they will propel me further out, away from the shore this time. Someplace where I can see the horizon better. Away from the rip, away from all the detritus of my life, out and out, so that this time when I look back, I will no longer miss the sea for sake of the shore.

In My Queue

2009-05-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

We signed up for Netflix last week, in large part because I have a couple of good friends, Sean & Jami, who do something on their blog each week called Netflix Fridays.

They order these movies and watch them, um, on Fridays. And in their blog they discuss the movies they've selected. (They also have something called Margarita Classics in which they describe watching incredibly bad movies while drinking ... um ... margaritas.)

Anyway, they're a fun couple, they have the second-cutest little girl, Ryan, I've ever seen**. And I have been a friend of theirs and Jami's sister, Gianna, since back in the Pajama Game days. (Ask them the reference someday. It's Jami and Sean's favorite community theater story..)

Anyway.

Netflix.

Here's what Corrine and I watched this week:

The Impostors. A comedy with Oliver Platt and Stanley Tucci. And a shitload of other actors.

Why I love This Film: The story revolves around two out-of-work, down-on-their-luck actors before WWII. There's a scene where they sit on the edges of their beds in their one-room NYC apartment doing "exercises": facial expressions based on an emotion their partner gives to them. Like "Ecstatic" and "Fortunate". All you see is a close up of each man's face and I go into hysterics every time I see it. The scene ends with Stanley's character standing and looking straight up into the camera as he does an Oliver Twist sort of impression, cockney accent and all.

Vicky Christina Barcelona. A drama? Comedy? By Woody Allen that takes place in well...somewhere overseas. I don't know. I fell asleep. Then I woke up and realized it was still playing, so I fell back asleep.

I didn't like it, in case you missed the sarcasm just then.

All I could do was hope that Javier Bardem, who plays the male lead, pulled out the cattle gun he used in No Country For Old Men and used it on the females. (You have to admit, that cattle gun was way cool. Wish I kept one in the trunk of my car)

Well, not on ALL the females. Corrine thinks Penelope Cruz is hot, so any woman my wife thinks is "hot" I think is hot too.

Coming Attractions

A Room With A View

I watched this when I was a senior in high school and then had a crush on Helena Bonham Carter for the next 20 years. I'm not sure but I think this was her first feature film.

Why I Love This Movie: Wow. So many reasons. It's Merchant & Ivory; it's got English actors, and I'm a HUGE anglophile; (I used a fake British accent to seduce Corrine.) it takes place in Florence, a place I've never visited but have always wanted to; (After going to the U.K. of course); and it's historical; and it's well-filmed; and...well, I watched it at a time when I went to see every movie that came out.

Howard's End

Another Merchant & Ivory and therefore with English actors, this time taking place in England, and starring Helena, who, in my dreams as an adolescent, gave me shivers with the way she said "How do like your tea, Luv?"

Man.

Anyway, there's a really good story here too. About class distinction, the power of wealth, the weakness of the poor, and all those fancy story-telling techniques they used to have in movies, back when movies had messages.

** But THE cutest in New Hampshire

:-)

Youth Rant, Old Argument

2009-05-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Neil Simon was 30 years old before he wrote his first play? The author of some of the greatest Broadway comedies (see: the Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park, Last of the Red Hot Lovers) didn't get his "start" until he was old.

Older. I meant older.

Like me.

This gives me unimaginable hope.

(Technically Neil Simon wrote for the Golden Age of Television's funniest shows in the 50s, so he was a writer in his 20s, but not a NAME. His name was not on the marquee.)

I live in the same world you do: where "talent" and "success" are prepackaged, televised, and shoved down our throats. Individuality is out the window. In order to be a "great" singer, actor, writer, etc., you must be no older than 26.

I've been seriously worried about this. I'm not kidding. Each year I get eight new gray hairs over my temples and I get one year further away from stardom.

Okay, I don't want to be a star. Writers are not celebrities. I would love to be a success, though, and there's a part of me that keeps wondering if aging is pulling me further away from that?

You laugh. You scoff. You guffaw at my lameness. But I am serious.

I can't pick up the newspaper, go online, or watch television without seeing youth served while my favorite actors are getting older while in fewer movies; my favorite novelists are older and not producing anymore; my favorite musicians...okay, my favorite musicians are all from the 80s. Bad example.

The point is, and I KNOW age has nothing to do with being a writer, I'm still a bit edgy about our culture celebrating a celebrity's YOUTH, not his or her talents per se.

Know what I mean? Is it me or are we enamored with their youthfulness first, their talent second?

Okay. Fine.

You're right.

I'm putting off writing by talking about how afraid I am that my age is hindering my chances of being successful when really the only thing hampering my chances of success is...well...not writing.

Today's Word: Otiose

2009-05-01T04:29:00.000-07:00

O-ti-ose
(o-she-os)

1. Lazy: idle
2. Futile: ineffective

A wife said to her man 'Adios!
I can't find a thing in this house'
To which the man yelled
'Margarite, What the hell?!
You would if you weren't so otiose!'