All Your Collected Objects

Wendy,
I gave away your tapes,
Your carefully curated catalogs,
And your lovingly thumbed flipbooks.
Last night, I broke the mug you sipped from
In your unsent video letter.
Your books are gone,
Your toys are gone,
And you, too, are gone.
I'm giving up the crazy hope
Of putting you back together again
from all your collected objects.

I've Fallen Into the Cellar

Today, this week, I've been in the grips of a monstrous depression that I can't shake, no matter how hard I try. The weather has been, for the most part, fantastic, but that's not enough to pull me out of this nose dive. I've tried everything I can think of. Just now, I was engaging in some online retail therapy, looking for an American DVD release of Zabriskie Point (no such luck), when I thought maybe what I need to do--maybe what's been wrong with me--is that I haven't been blogging.

I've tried to write again, but it just hasn't gone through. What's left to say after mom's death? Part of me thought that this blog started as a reaction to my father's death, so maybe it should end.

I miss my mom and my dad. Most of all, though, I miss my wife. We announced the first winner of the Wendy Jackson Hall Memorial Scholarship this week. I thought it would make me happy and give me a sense of completion. It doesn't. It's just one more rung on the ladder. I'm holding on to the ladder.

Grief Shaved 30 Points Off My IQ

Foggy Winter Morning

The whole day goes by, and I get almost nothing done. Or it feels like I get nothing done. Or I get nothing consequential done.

I'm surprised, in fact, by how fast morning turns to night. Where did it go?

Here's what I did this week: I slowly built pyramids of laundry, dishes, and recycling. I went on walks. I paid overdue bills. I opened cupboards and didn't close them. I lingered in public places to be around other humans but didn't call on any friends. I half-read magazine articles. I drank. I watched movies. I slept about 10 hours a day. I went to a class. I did a very little bit of work and half-heartedly asked for more. I did my rounds on the Internet. I stewed in the hot tub. I talked to friends and family on the phone.

I feel constantly distracted and unfocused. I feel dulled. I look at what others are able to accomplish and wonder how. How do the get so much work done? How do they have so many hobbies? All I can do is impotently mark the passing of time around me.

Maybe everyone feels this way. Maybe it's the season. Maybe I keep writing things down and never learn from them. January, not April, is the cruelest month.

Happy Thanksgiving

8 years, 7 months, 14 days, 11 hours, 25 minutes and 28 seconds.

Our last photo together

That is, as close as I can calculate, the sum total of time Wendy was in my life: from the moment I met her until the time of her death. That duration represented 23.9% of my lifespan, a percentage that will only decrease as I continue to live. For example, if I managed to live to exactly 100, the Wendy years would constitute 8.6% of my lifespan.

Life Imitates Art

Still from Le Voyage Dans la Lune

I heard the news on Saturday about a European space probe that was launched at, and crashed into, the moon. Their aim (pardon the pun) was to stir up a cloud of dust and examine the images to see if the moon was really once a part of the Earth.

Hearing this reminded me of Georges Méliès' Le Voyage Dans la Lune ("A Trip to the Moon"), a French film made in 1902. In it, a group of astronomers decide to go to the moon by loading themselves into a special artillery shell and being shot directly at the moon. The shell lands in right in the middle of the Man in the Moon's eye.

Wendy had the image framed above when she was working on Puppets on Parade as inspiration for one of the puppets. Below is the footage of the actual impact. It's not nearly as impressive:

When Dad Told Me He Had Cancer

He tried to be composed, but he could hear me start to panic and his voiced cracked a bit over the phone. I tried to stay composed, too. I told my boss that I had to leave for a family emergency, then I went back to my desk and called Wendy to drive over and pick me up from work. We lived three blocks away. I held it together through the ride home, but once my body hit the bed, it was as though I were vomiting tears. My body spasmed and I wailed. And I couldn't stop.

Mantras

The old me, or perhaps the previous me since I'm now the old me and the former me is the young me, was not one for mantras. I have a different take on them now. They're short, simple lessons that you have to re-teach yourself over and over again. I think of them as New Year's resolutions, but rather than making a promise to do something, I'm making a promise to myself to know something and allow the actions to flow naturally from that knowledge. Here are the ones I've written down on a piece of paper and keep with me wherever I go:

• Practice Letting Go. I think this is the central lesson the Universe is trying to teach us. We naturally want to hold onto people, memories, and items in our life, but while we can hold them and travel with them, we cannot keep them. There is no permanence. There is no constant but constant change. They will be taken from us by theft, misplacement, death, and decay or we will be forced, somehow, to leave them. If it weren't for Wendy, I would still be living in LA and maybe working at the same job--not because that's what I wanted, but because I would have been too afraid to let go of what I had.
• Every Item You Let Go Adds Value to Each Item You Keep. This is a practical lesson that helps me face the surplus of things I have in my life. The idea is simple: Everyone has a constant sentimental value inside them for things. If you had, say, a thousand "things" to begin with and you pared that collection down to ten, you'd be left with the ten most important things in your life. You would cherish any one of the ten than any one of the thousand. Plus, you'd spend a lot less time dusting.
• Look for Wendy in the World. When you feel the acute pain of someone's absence from your life, it's very important to remember that you carry them with you in a way that was not possible when they were alive. It's often difficult to access the Wendyness, though, so I have to seek it out in nature and in other people. To quote Bob Dylan:

  I'll look for you in old Honolulu,
  San Francisco, Ashtabula,
  Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know.
  But I'll see you in the sky above,
  In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
  Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Happy Birthday Wendy

The loveliest smile I've ever known

Today is Wendy's birthday. She would have been 33. I met her when she was 23. Blow out a candle and wish her happy birthday.

The Hole in the Middle of Me That Every Happy Thing Falls Into

I went to the Mariners' opening game yesterday. It was another first without Wendy. We've been invited each of the last few years by Maki and Rich, and this time I brought Hendrik with me.

During the 8th inning, though, they played Diana Ross' "I'm Coming Out" over the loudspeakers, and it opened up a trap door of grief for me. You see, that was Wendy's theme song. It was something that I could play when she was feeling really down about herself to boost her back up again. It's the lyrics, the exuberance of the tune that would reconnect her to her own internal confidence.

In my psychologically compromised state, I'm inclined to believe that she's taken over the P.A. controls to play that song to let me know she was there. This feeling was compounded by the very next song, "Mambo No. 5." We went on a roadtrip for our honeymoon, and when we weren't listening to the Rushmore soundtrack, "Mambo No. 5" would invariably come on the radio. I'm always going to remember when that song was charting: Fall of 1999.

So, I say it opened a trap door of grief for me, because that's what it's become: A portal I can often choose to not go through. Grieving under those circumstances are horrible. My friends will want to comfort me, which is an impossible feat. I was able to put the brakes on it, wipe away the few tears that seeped out from my clenched eyes, and carry on. Later, when I was safely home, that black river came up behind me. I was half waiting for it.

I'm tired of grieving. I am tired of giving into it each time it comes. I am tired of contemplating my own mortality and the world's doom. I'm trying to move towards positive thinking. I'm listening to less news and more music. I'm trying not to think of either of my two futures--the planned future that violently disassembled in November and the ambiguous future that has taken its place. Both make me nauseous...sewer pipe nauseous.

One more thing: I just started reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which has sucked me in faster than any novel in a long time. It's mostly about a young, precocious boy coming to grips with his father's death on September 11. Regarding his father's final answering machine message, which he has kept secret from his mother and grandmother, he says, "That secret is the hole in the middle of me that every happy thing falls into."

For me, that hole is the look in Wendy's eyes the last time I saw her alive.

The Impossibility of It All

I met my wife nine years ago yesterday. I always expect these little anniversaries to hit me like a ton of bricks, but they always come and make me numb. Numb is good. Numb is putting one foot in front of the other, in succession, until you get somewhere. Not-numb is standing with your feet side-by-side and wondering which foot should go first.

It's hard for me to believe that the totality of my experience of Wendy was less than a decade. She gave me so much of a future. I was counting on us growing old together. I used to tell her that when her hair went white, I would want her to grow it out long. I would have a long white beard.

And there goes away the numbness. On a good day, it's a border I can cross easily back and forth. I can always move myself into sadness, but I often get delayed there, waiting for my return visa.

It's Like the Sky

I started working back on maggie's farm this last week. It was weird to be back. I feel like my name has attained a sort of grim celebrity. People kept professing to how glad there were to see me.

The hardest part was coming home from the job and not having Wendy at the ferry waiting for me. When I came around the corner, I looked to "the spot." The spot is where she would wait for me. Often, on the ferry coming in, she would call my cell phone and tell me she was in the spot. I wanted to find her there. It hurt, but I guess it's good that I did it anyway. Each time is bound to hurt less. I am looking at her photo now, with Luke. It's up on my refridgerator, along with other photos of us together. I only knew her for eight years. It seemed like a lifetime. I expected it would be a lifetime. we were so happy together.

I've been reading A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. I was reading it while waiting the other day for the work shuttle to take me to another building to get some paperwork done. It was almost too much to read it then. Lewis, too, had only a brief time with his wife. He writes about his love for his "J" and I know just how he felt. Wendy was the only other human on this planet that I never grew tired of. Lewis says, "Her absence is like the sky. It covers everything."

Rabbit Rabbit

Kuschel & Flausch GmbH & Co. KG by Jirjen

When Wendy and I started living together, she insisted that we should say "rabbit rabbit" to each other as soon as we wake up on the first day of each month. She said doing so would bring us a month's worth of good luck. I never thought, until just now, to look it up on Wikipedia. Of course, when we started this, wikipedia didn't exist.

Like so many things in our life together, the ritual became a fun little game we'd enjoy playing. I had heard somewhere that in order to fully receive the luck, you had to say "hare hare" on the last night of the month. We made it so that one could not speak between saying "hare hare" as we went to bed and "rabbit rabbit" in the morning. I used to like to trick her into saying "hare hare" before me, because then I could taunt her, say anything I wanted, and she wouldn't be able to respond without risking the loss of a month's good luck.

Each Death an Opportunity

Here's a hand-addressed personal letter I received last week:

Dear Mr. Hall

First, let me take a moment to offer my condolences on the passing of your loved one; Wendy Hall. While I know this can be a very emotionally sensitive period, I also understand you may be facing some serious decisions with which I might be able to assist you. The reason I am contacting you is often time real estate property must be sold in order to pay taxes, pay any outstanding liabilities and to pay the legitimate heirs.

Often, I buy real estate and other personal property found in estates. It is my understanding that you may have property available to purchase in the near future. If it is, I am interested in buying proerty in this area and would be interested in making you an offer. I'm sure at this time selling this property probably is not a priority for your family, but if in the future the heirs decide to sell, please call and I'll be happy to make an offer.

While I do not know your particular situation, I am prepared to do what is best for you and the estate. Some of the advantages I may be able to offer are: 1. I can buy the property in...[blah blah blah]

Life goes on. The guy is performing a necessary service that I'm sure some people are thankful for. But is he really prepared to do what's best for me and the estate?

That's what turns my stomach about this letter. He's prepared to do what's best for him, his kids, and his dinner table.

Spiritual Beings

Yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker that I really liked: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." That's what I want to believe.

In the last week, I've had some perceived connections to my late wife. Sometimes it's just a feeling of a presence, and yesterday, I feel like she told me where I had misplaced some documents. When these visitations come to me, it's not at all spooky or eerie. It's relieving. It's like seeing the sun after weeks of darkness.

Since she died, I've had family and friends try to fill my craw with dime-store spirituality about the wonders of God and Universe. I can't find the point in resisting it, but I can't just buy into it, either. It's too pretty to believe, like a happy Hollywood ending.

Yeah. So? Even if it is a crock of shit, it's a crock of shit that can comfort me. Why mail myself in a box when I can travel business class for just a few dollars more?

There are no answers. I will never know on this earth whether the voice on the other line really is Wendy or the perturbations of my own troubled mind. So, it comes down to a decision. You're either on the bus, or you're not on the bus, as Ken Kesey said.

A friend recommended a book called The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. The author talks in the first few pages about how depression sufferers often feel relieved to know the chemical basis for their depression, that they feel absolved of the responsibility of their feelings. But, he says, everything inside us is chemical. "Thousands of chemical reactions are involved in deciding to read this book, picking it up with your hands, looking at the shapes of the letters on the page, extracting meaning from those shapes, and having intellectual and emotional responses to what they convey."

Faith, then, is believing that spirit moves chemicals.

P.S. to Wendy: Rabbit rabbit

Why It Hurts So Much

Now She Is Gone

Saturday was great, but Sunday was bad. I woke up feeling shattered, like some hand had moved my game piece back to start on the game board. I went for a five-mile walk since that usually helps, but it didn't this time. I talked to people on the phone, I went into the hot tub.

I went for another walk, this time with my dog. We walked at sunset around our neighborhood and didn't see a single other soul walking and only one car. Everyone, it seems, was locked inside watching the Seahawks play. When I got back, I had sort of a breakthrough (or what felt like a breakthrough at the time). I could concisely describe how I was feeling in these two sentences:

I lived with a woman who knew me as well as I know myself--in some ways better than I knew myself--and she chose to love me each day. Now she is gone.

I found it a little bit relieving to be able to form this inchoate feeling into words. Now she is gone.

Lots of people tell me that her love is still there, but that's not the same.

The Black River of Anguish

The Water's Edge

My wife's death, in many ways, has put me on a different side of life. It's profoundly changed my perspective on everything and I expect that during the next several months, it will make me a much different person than I've ever been.

I have no idea where I am right now or where I'm going. I've described it to some people as being like a ghost. I often feel like I'm only half way there, like I'm permeable. It makes sense when you realize that "my better half" is dead.

I've described my grief to people as a big black river. I'm following a path that winds sometimes far from the river, where it can't even be seen, and sometimes to its banks, and sometimes right into the opaque water.

A man in my position gets a lot of unsolicited spirituality, from quoted scripture to new age tropes. People urgently want to tell me that I will see or be with Wendy again. Their zeal indicates their own desperate desire for that to be true for themselves and their loved ones.

Do I believe in a God or some creative force in the universe? Yes. It just doesn't seem likely that this universe was created for us. Do skin cells go to heaven when they die? I think that we're cogs in the machine. I don't want that to be so. I want heaven to exist! I want to see Wendy again. In fact, if I was convinced that I would be reunited with her after death, there would be no keeping me here.

Alas, this is probably all we have. It's certainly all we can rely on. To be convinced otherwise is to be convinced that the sun turns around the earth. Hope is good, though. Let us all be hopeful.

Magical Thinking

I've been having only a few magical thoughts the last few weeks. On Christmas morning, I was overwhelmed with a feeling that I didn't want anyone to open their presents because that would somehow stop my temporal slide away from Wendy and our life together.

On New Year's Eve, right at midnight when I was popping champagne at a friend's house, it occurred to me that it was now the first calendar year without her, and that she died "last year." That made me feel like something had punctured the universe, and I could see limitless black goo beyond.

And yesterday, when I was walking Cinder in the rain, at dusk, at Battle Point Park, and no one was around, and it grew so dark that I could only see the borders of the path ahead and the darkening sky above, I was crying my eyes out and moaning and trying not to scream. I cried out loud, "Show me a sign!" At that moment a flock of ducks on my left, which I hadn't seen in the dark, jumped up together and flew 10 or 20 feet over my head and landed in the pond on my right. It seems to me that there were about 80 of them, which means there were probably only 30. As I listened to their quacks and beeps, I thought about Wendy's love of rubber duckies, and I thought of the wood rubber duckie that I carved for her as an anniversary present in October. And by then, I was no longer crying.

I'll Try to Have More Days Like These

Giant Robot Destroys Town

Saturday, Wendy and I went to the Fremont Solstice Parade, which made me happy and thankful that I live in such a wonderful area. The parade is basically a blue state take on the First Ammendment...with carnival food. We had a blast. We especially liked the art cars, which were adjunct to the parade. My favorite part of the parade, though, was the giant robots (see above). I also really liked the painted nude people on bikes--especially the somewhat obese ones. It was so beautiful to see someone at expressing level of freedom. I think it inspired most of the people there. Well, the smart ones, any way. There were some hecklers standing behind me, but they were young, dumb, and from out of town. They'll come around.

Yesterday, Father's Day, became Go To The Mountain day for me. The idea about going to the mountain is to get away from your environment and get away from your influences. For me, that means no media. I didn't bring any books, just my little note pad. I went to Port Townsend, WA, which is just about an hour away.

It's just been beautiful today. My desk is next to the window, and I have a very filtered view of the water. Today was one of those days when you mark the day going by outside your window. Today was somewhere between pleasant and glorious.

Around 3:30, I took the dog with me to run some errands. Afterward, we stopped at the park and played fetch. On the way home, we went to Dock St. and played the swimming version of fetch (she swam, I didn't).

And then, when I got home, I sat down in the living room and listened to news on the radio while watching very small insects fly in and out of a box of late-afternoon sunlight. From my living room, they were tiny white glints of motion--just specks of light against the shadows of fir trees in shadow.

These little motes had zig-zag flight paths and would chase one another in downward spiral patterns, one right behind the other. It looks like confetti flowing down an invisible drain, except it's so much faster. I can't understand how they could follow so closely, unless it's some sort of pre-programmed dance. It's fascinating and beautiful.

I then listened to a poem on NPR called "Old Man Tom" by Ruth Forman that brought me to tears.

My Happy Birthday Dance for Wendy

The symbol of infinity

We just got back from visiting Wendy's parents in Cape Cod, Mass. In one of their guest bedrooms, they've put up a remarkable, multi-exposure photo of the moon, taken at the same time every day. It occurred to me that the image looked a lot like the symbol for infinity, with the moon's position taking the outer edges of the figure during the solstices and crossing back over the center of the figure during the equinoxes.

Today, I found Wendy out on our deck watching a small bird perched on one of our trees. She had seen him do a couple of flights, return to the perch, and then sing. She thought it was a mating ritual. Then the bird flew off the perch and, from our perspective, followed the same figure-8 path as the infinity symbol.

We were both awed to see this. I said to her, "Maybe he's doing a dance for his girlfriend that describes to her the moon, the year, and all the romance that those images contain. I wish I could do a dance like that for you."

She said it was the sweetest thing she had ever heard.

Streaming Obscenities and Flying Objects

I think I'm a pretty even-tempered guy. I don't get violent or aggressive with people. I am patient. But two occasions can make me see red: When I lightly injure myself and when I get frustrated while working with a physical object.

Just now, we were coming back from seeing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and I pulled the car into the garage so close on the right side that Wendy couldn't open the door enough to get out. I went around to her side car to move some objects so she could open the door further. I picked up a bucket lid and accidentally knocked over a five pound bag of clay onto my big toe.

The pain sent me into a rage. I had a magazine in my hand, which I threw across the garage as I cursed and tried to walk off the pain. I had a bucket lid in my other hand. I threw that like a Frisbee about 100 feet across the yard while I strung together random expletives and shouted them out for the whole neighborhood to hear. I then went and grabbed the offending bag of clay and tossed it out onto the driveway.

Wendy, frightened, kept apologizing. I told her through clenched teeth, "It's not your fault." It wasn't. It was mine all along, and that--that--is the source of the rage. I don't know why. Self-punishment, I suppose. I get the same sort of reaction sometimes when trying to put together something from instructions...especially when it comes to instructions poorly translated from another language.

Oddly, I never get to that same level of anger and frustration with computers or software.

Good Morning (Afternoon) 2005

I slept in until 9 this morning; Wendy slept to 11. We cleaned up a little, and I started roasting a turkey. It came with a huge liver, so I went online and found a recipe for paté -- turned out pretty good. I haven't heard from anyone this morning, or much from anyone this week. Did talk to Eli Eddings, who grew up in the house next door to me in Panorama City. I was close friends with his older brother, Guy, but I haven't heard from him yet.

Last night we watched the fireworks over the space needle on TV. It kind of sucks to watch fireworks on TV, but it's awesome that as soon as they're over, we didn't have any traffic to get through.

Goodnight 2004

No, we didn't do any work today. We went for a walk, a figure-eight around the neighborhood. The sun was out. I cooked a roast. I played Xbox Live Halo 2 and died more than I killed. I pulled out the metal flask that I bought this time last year and half-filled it twice with cheap Irish whiskey. Wendy made chocolate chocolate cookies. We watched the day fade into night from the hot tub. We were going to go out tonight and listen to some live music, but we felt like staying in.

The Song of Sixpence

Wendy and I were going to pick up her parents from the airport, when I discovered that she didn't know what "bagging" meant. When I was in jr. high, bagging was ridiculing someone, as in "Stop bagging on me." She probably never heard of the game "butts up," either. That is a game that's played by bouncing a ball against a garage door. The idea is to catch it when it comes back and throw it again. If you bobble or drop it, though, you have to run and tag the garage door before someone can pick up the ball and hit the garage door with the ball before you get there. If the ball hits before you do, you go 'butts up,' which means you have to stand with both hands on the garage door and the other players each get a chance to bean you in the ass with the tennis ball from about twenty paces. Local variant rules make the game even more complex.

I talked to my mom today on the phone. Yesterday I called, and I had woken her up. Since her stroke, she's really foggy right when she wakes up. I asked her on the phone yesterday how she was doing and she said, "Well, we're getting ready to come up to where you are, but we might just stay here, too."

"Come up by me?"

"Yeah. Where is that place you are?"

"Bainbridge Island," I said.

"What? Angry Island? You better talk to Lynnea," she said, meaning one of my other sisters, Pam. It's frightening when she talks that way--it feels like she is having another stroke. Today, though, she was clear as a bell and rather pleased with herself that she was able to remember a nursery rhyme ("Sing a Song of Sixpence") that my sister-in-law was trying to remember and had called her for help. She sang the rhyme to me, even the second part which I didn't even know. It was so beautiful to hear her sing to me that way. I wanted to keep it forever.

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his counting house counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose!

My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. I woke up at my mom's house in Las Vegas. She had been in the hospital with pneumonia. She's home again, but she's weak. Hopefully the physical therapist can get her back and more stable on her feet.

Pam took me to the airport. I'm very grateful that she and Brian are now living at Mom's house. I should make a plan to make things a bit easier on them somehow.

At the airport, I told everyone who looked at my driver's license that it was my birthday. It was freeing to do so. For years at work in offices, I feared that somehow my birthday would get discovered and that there would be a surprise conference-room party -- or worse, there wouldn't be. My strategy was to celebrate others' as much as I could while keeping mine a secret. It's just easier to try to keep as many people in ignorant innocence and remove the possiblity of expectation. Boy, is that passive aggressive or what?

Any way, I got on a crowded, uneventful non-stop and was gratetful to be home. I love my family, but I hate Las Vegas. Well, except for its history, sun, and the parts of it that are still desert. The part of terraformed sprawl where my family lives is comprised exclusively of semi-private housing developments with names like "The Pines" and enormous strip malls filled with big-box (Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Best Buy) retail stores, fast food, hair salons, and restaurant-size casinos. By my casual reckoning, 1 in 10 vehicles is a Hummer, 4 in 10 are extra-large SUVs, 8 in 10 are some kind of truck. Most of them are less than 4 years old. And this place went to George Bush in the election. Life, you see, is a party, and what ever occurs in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Flying over Seattle, I could feel the love swelling in my heart. I could see the ferry that was bringing my baby to me, but I couldn't see the island through the fog. The trees, the lakes, the grey, the rain...home.

Wendy picked me up at the airport and we drove to Pike Place Market to pick up some fresh mussels, clams, and prawns for cioppino. When we pulled in, all of our Christmas lights were on. Cinder almost danced and piddled herself inside out when she saw me.

I got a new desk chair, Blade Runner (Director's Cut), Training Day, Kill Bill Volume 1, and Bad Santa on DVD; a fleece pull-over, America (the Book), U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, some fleece slippers, and Halo 2.

We had a wonderful dinner and a delicious cherry pie baked from my mother's recipe (which I had e-mailed to Wendy a few days prior). We fell asleep on the couch while watching Bad Santa. Cinder was cuddled in my lap.

Columbia: Finished Shooting

We're done with shooting, which is a big relief. Still haven't seen a red cent beyond their deposit, but their deadline is tomorrow. If they don't bring the check, I will turn into a gargoyle before their eyes.

Wendy's editing the films now. I got out of the house since there was nothing for me to do. This morning we got up and went to Ernies for breakfast and then found the ERC, the [Something] Recreation Center, and went for a swim in their indoor pool. It puts our pool to shame. We invented a new game called the lazy river alligator, which is basically tag in the lazy river, which is a curving path of water with jets that go all in one direction. It was fun. We were like little kids together. They've got a big slide, too, but it was closed for "lap swim" when we were there. I'm now in their big, new library. It has just about everything you could ask for in a library. Though it's no peer to the Seattle Library in terms of architecture, it's pretty close in services. Lots of books, computers, multipupose rooms, light, and on and on...

I'm just killing time now. I was excited last night, after class, when the 5-day forecast came on the TV and I could see we would miss at least one day of weather here. Not that the weather has been bad--mostly sunny and cold, aside from a couple days of rain and wind--it's just that I can't stand to be away from home any longer. I miss my dog, I miss my stuff. I miss my routine.

We're both getting a lot of sleep, though. I asked Wendy why she thought that was so, and she said it was because we were bored.

I've read two books--Tobias Wolff's Viet Nam memoir, In Pharoh's Army, which I had somehow confused with Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried when I picked it up and The South Beach Diet, which I had mostly finished at home. I stopped into the store the other day looking for a new book to read and picked up 1984. I'm about halfway through and it's going fast.

I've been worried about my Mom a lot on this trip. She's home now, and my sister Lynnea is there with her husband Walter. Youngest sister Pam has been looking after her since she went into the hospital, and now we're all going to take turns helping out with her until she can get a bit stronger and Pam and Brian can move in. I'm going around 12/1, though I haven't bought the tickets yet. Pam rushed her to the hospital a few weeks ago when Jeff had called her and Mom had answered with slurred speech and then dropped the phone. She may have overdosed on blood pressure medicine, but while she was in the hospital, doctors found a moderate blockage in the corroded artery high up in her brain, out of reach. They've got her on blood thinners and physical therapy, but I guess the consensus is that there's a massive, fatal stroke headed her way. She always sounds weary now when I talk to her on the phone. The whole thing makes me feel numb and scared.

Columbia: Election, Hope Lost

I couldn't even write yesterday. I couldn't do much of anything. I didn't even go on a walk, which had become my routine.

Kerry lost the election. We lost the election. I lost the election.

I was so confident, so optimistic. The last four years has shown us a presidency so inept, corrupt, so...base in its dealings with the world that I thought for sure that Kerry would get at least 60% of the vote. Early news throughout the day indicated surging voter turnout, which, everyone believed, would benefit Kerry. And then, as the saying goes, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory.

We had our first class on election night. Things went well, though we're off to a slow start. We're teaching at a women's college, though we're teaching to various people in the community--not just the girly girls of the school. They've even got us set up in an old TV studio--someone said it was the biggest in the state. The studio was shut down years ago when the school abandoned the program. Since then, the studio has been used as an equipment graveyard. There's a distinct, creepy feel to the space. Huge '60s-era tube-camera pedestals supporting '80s-era video cameras look like Raggedy Ann torsos with transplanted Barbie heads. The studio lights are controlled by an apparatus that looks and works like a 1940s telephone switchboard. It would be easy to pretend we were survivors of a catastrophe who had happened upon this studio-in-ruins in hopes of connecting to somebody, anybody. "Hello? Can anyone hear me? Oh, it's no use!"

We stocked up on some groceries and headed back to the house after class. I stayed up until 2 a.m. drinking gin and tonic and watching one of the three fuzzy channels we can get on the TV here--NBC. Everything just looked more and more grim. At one point, an elder Republican statesman from Utah -- can't remember his name -- even thanked Tom Brokah on-air for helping to deliver South Dakota to the Republicans. The camera was on Brokaw at the time, and his face blanched at being outed. He mumbled something about not wanting to "get in trouble" and hurried to the next question.

I went to bed, but was back up again at seven to see if Santa had come during the night to bring us some doubt about the Ohio projections. He didn't. The day was wasted. I smoked some cigarettes (a desperate act for a desperate time) and watched the same chipper NBC news segments and talking-head bullshit until Kerry finally came out of his Beacon Hill spiderhole and gave himself up.

It just doesn't add up. I'd shift into conspiracy overdrive if it weren't for the fact that the polls had been foretelling this story since the Republican convention. I really thought that because no one I knew supported this president (at least no one copped to it), that he wouldn't be elected. I really thought that Wednesday's news would have two big stories: Kerry Wins by Sizeable Margin and The Power of the Unlikely Voter. Instead, we got GWB and the Revenge of the Confederacy.

I can feel yesterday's despair coming back, so I should stop. But let me add that yesterday, we stopped into a Wal-Mart for art supplies for class. I make it a point to avoid WM at all costs, but around here it's about the only option. I walked over to a nearby bookshelf as Wendy checked out. It was filled with laughable contemporary Christian books, like "Proper Care and Feeding of a Husband," "Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul," and even "God's Diet." It made me laugh out loud in the store. Certainly the one book not on that shelf but one, no doubt, influencing them all is "Make Money and Influence People--the Jesus Way." It's a book Carl Rove knows by heart.

Columbia: Day 1

It's strange being in a new place on election day...on this election day.

We flew in last night on Frontier, through Denver. It was warm and muggy. I collected our bags and equipment in baggage claim and Wendy got the car. I was waiting for her to pick me up when a male flight attendant tried to pick up on me. "So, are you married?" he asked.

We drove half way across the state through midnight. We stopped at a McDonalds to pick up a cheese burger and a cup of coffee. It took an absurdly long time.

We stayed at the Downtown Regency Hotel--a depressing and odd building where they cover up the dusty smell of decay with industrial perfume. The only button that worked on the TV remote was the down-channel button. I could tell that they were trying to fix it up, than they have been trying to fix it up since it was built. The outside wall of our room was made completely of glass and the once open-air hallway outside our room was likewise enclosed. To their credit, though, they did have free wifi in the lobby. That one feature made everything better.

I woke up this morning and went down for their free continental breakfast. Aside from coffee, there wasn't anything that my new diet would permit me eating. I brought some food up to Wendy and went for a walk.

I ran into some high-school kids who were holding up a big Kerry Edwards sign for traffic. I told them I had voted for the man, and they yelled "Yay!" in unison--as if, somehow, I had voted on their behalf. I asked them if they thought Kerry would win, and they said that he had won their school election last week by 15 points.

I asked about a good place for breakfast, and they walked me over a couple of blocks to a place called Arnies. When I told them that I was here with my wife to teach animation, one of them said, "You're the animation teacher? I really wanted to take that class, but I missed the deadline."

I ate breakfast and read the thin St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I overheard someone commenting on the thinness of the morning's issue, and his friend commented that it was likely due to all the advertisers holding out for tomorrow's much anticipated results.

I continued on my walk and was surprised by the number of Kerry supporters out on the street by now. Probably 30 people walking up and down the street with signs for traffic.

I walked past the county courthouse and took a moment to view their war memorials. The biggest was for WWI, but there were memorials also for WWII, Civil War, Vietnam, and the Gulf War--oddly, no Korean monument. I noticed on the civil war monument that the names of the county war dead had either CSA or USA after them. It took a second for it to sink in. It looks like half the county went confederate, the other half went union.

I showered and cleaned up, and we came out to our guest house on the Missouri river. It's a nice, pagoda-shaped place with lots of wood (inlaid floors!) and light, surrounded by scrub forest. Things are looking very good for us. I am hopeful.

Wow!

Jose Lima, above, David Ortiz, below.

I just watched David Ortiz win another game with the swing of his bat. That was one of the most exciting games I've seen since the start of the post-season. It's up there with Jose Lima's performance in Game 3 of the NLDS.

Boston, for now, is electric. It wasn't a sweep. That's got to count for something. Can you imagine what it will be like when Kerry wins the Presidency? Be prepared to call in sick that Wednesday. I guess I can't--we'll be in Missouri on Election Day. In fact, I got my ballot in the mail the other day.

Which reminds me. I decided to make today a media-free day after I read the New York Times endorsement of John Kerry for President. It was the clearest, cleanest opinion article on this election that I've seen. Reading it made me think of reading something out of a history text book. It made me realize how important it is that as many people of both persuasions read it before election day. We owe it to ourselves, as Americans, to be well informed on both sides of issues before we vote. I think this is the best case I've seen so far for electing Kerry; now I would like to see why I should vote for Bush.

But the media free day stuff worked out okay, for the most part. Wendy got to see what I was talking about. It gives you a new perspective on the amount of media you let into your head. In the end, though, neither of us could hold out. I try to think of it as a media diet.

We made a fire. Suddenly it's gotten quite chilly. We were in the lower 70s just last week. Now it's down to 49 degrees and the snow level is down to 4000 feet. The trees have gotten beautiful shades or red and orange. Just the other day I drove past a bright red Japanese Maple and felt lucky to be living here at this time.

Wendy hated Pittsburgh. She says it's awfully glum there. She went to the nice places in town, too, and it only made her miss our island even more. She's sleeping out on the couch now. We didn't do too much today except laze around and read. The sun came out this afternoon and filled our living room with low-angle light--the kind that shows you how dusty your house really is. We managed to dust and vacuum the living room.

Sundays are great days to recharge your energy. I was planning to work today and Wendy said that I should take one full day off every week. I'm anxious to get back to work, I guess. I'm having fun and sometimes I want to pinch myself because I love working from home.

Our First Meeting: 7 Years Ago Yesterday

Wendy at a Chinese garden in Portland, OR

As it turns out, I met Wendy 7 years ago yesterday. We couldn't remember for sure if our first meeting was on March 31 or April 1, but I checked the calendar for 1997 and found out it was 3/30 when we met (we both remembered it was a Sunday morning). Seven years. It seems more like three. We went to dinner last night and were trying to re-enact our first meeting, but neither of us could remember too many details...that's when it seemed like seven years ago.

Here are the facts: After talking on the phone and e-mailing a couple of times, we met on a Sunday morning at a cafe on Third street in L.A. called Who's on Third. I was there first, and she came found my table and sat down. Neither of us can remember what we had to eat, though I think I might have had pancakes and she a waffle. I vaguely remember having a café au late in a big, white bowl of a cup. She was wearing sunglasses and her jean jacket. I think I took a chance with a $10 pair of sunglasses that had cartoonishly blue lenses. We chatted, though I can't remember what we talked about, and after breakfast, I walked her to her car. I definitely remember feeling like I was on some sort of probation, and that she was keeping me at a safe distance. She said I could call her again and I did, the next day. It was Easter Sunday, and as I left the place to go spend the holiday with my parents, I wondered if she would be coming with me the next year.

She did.

Family Point System

Wendy nested yesterday, and I love when she does that.

"Nesting" is when she has some free time at home (one of her classes was rescheduled) and she uses the time to clean and reorganize our house. Yesterday she did yardwork, cleaned the kitchen, set up a Ceiva receiver (automatically receives images from the Internet), and reorganized our bedroom so we wake up in the morning to the light and the trees in the yard. I've got to give her 40 points for that.

"What are points?" her uncle asked the other day. We were leaving to go to dinner and I couldn't find my glasses. Wendy said she knew where they were and that she would tell me, but it would cost 10 points.

Points were something we started when we were in Barbados. Basically, they are a reward currency that we trade between each other to recognize extra effort--and because we're always inventing new games. We haven't formalized the rules for when points are awarded, or how much to award in different circumstances, but we did set some ground rules:

1. Point awards are given at the sole discretion of the awarder
2. Points are awarded for purely optional activities.
3. Awardees cannot petition for points after an event, which is known as point-grubbing.
4. An awarder can penalize an awardee ten points for point grubbing if the awardee doesn't desist from point grubbing after an official warning from the awarder.
5. No points can be awarded for fulfilling family obligation (since that is not optional)

Home Again, Home Again...Jiggity Jig

We came home to Spring. Flowers are now popping up all over, and there's still some sunlight in the sky when I come home on the 5:30 ferry. This is good news of a very high order. This gives me an emotional lift.

Of course, another emotional lift comes from just being home. I spent more of February away from home than at home. In surprising ways, I think it's been good for me. I remember feeling kind of this way after we returned from Hawaii last year--a renewal, a hope, a peace of mind--but there's something different to it, too. I'm really considering the possibilities of working with Wendy, maybe taking six months off from the job.

Also, the Barbados trip keeps getting better in my head after it's over. I was a little bored there, it's true--I felt locked in to being there so I could maximize my Wendy time, and I felt a little robbed when she came home so beat that we couldn't even go to dinner. It was a nice reversal, I think. I know she experienced what I've been going through, and I think I understand the toll that my overworking puts on her.

I was so afraid and depressed before we went, and have been for some time. I have built a hermit existence for myself. It was surprisingly easy to just let go of my fears when I was in Barbados--most of which had to do with logistical stuff like losing our luggage or getting trapped in an airport.

Keep On Top of the Water!

On Saturday, Wendy and I almost drowned in the Carribean Sea.

Maybe we weren't in as much danger and it seemed, but we had to signal for help from some of the other hotel guests, who came out to our rescue.

We were ignorant of the water and arrogant in our ignorance. We passed by little red vinyl flags that had been posted to warn swimmers of the undertow. Even a woman who came passing us on the beach warned us not to go in the water, but because there was a man out there with his daughters in the water, we thanked her and promptly ignored her warning. We put our scuba masks on and paddled out into the water. We swam under the crashing waves and remarked on how the water was too choppy to see any fish. We looked back toward the shore and found that somehow, so quickly, we were out about twice as far as the other people. We wanted to go past them, but it was confusing to me how we had gotten so far away in so short a time.

I panicked before Wendy did and told her we should go in. We swam toward the shore, but ended up a little further out still. Then Wendy started to panic. The level of her alarm grew like a grassfire, and when she looked at me, I became so scared. I recognized in her a rich, full fear of death, the fear that is always in the back of my mind, the fear I keep covered and boxed-in by boredom and entertainment and eating and sleeping and sex and distraction and work.

And still, I felt like there was a way out. I shouted at her to be calm, to float on her back, and to swim harder. I could see that she couldn't breathe right (the first ability she loses when I chase her around the house for fun, or when I jump out at her from a closet; the second is her ability to run). "Swim on your back!" I yelled, and she did for a time with her feet kicking my shoulder or my head. She righted herself again to swim forward, and I guess I did, too. It seemed that we were still moving out or at best holding our position. Nothing we tried got us closer to the beach, and we frantically tried every move we could think of--breast stroke, dog paddle, even simple treading.

Wendy found an outcropping of coral and and called me to it, but we couldn't stay. Each wave would hit us and we would get pulled off the coral away from the beach. We kept coming back, gasping for that same spot only to be tossed off it again. By now, Wendy's primal moans and become urgent, shouting pleas of "Oh, God!" She had the good sense of waving her arms and screaming for help--something that had not come to me in time-altering panic of things. The man, who was there with his daughters called "Do you need help?" and I think we both called "Yes!"

He was swimming out toward us and another man had jumped in, too, who was shouting to us as he swam. "Stay high in the water," and/or "Stay on top of the water." With the wild surf, it was hard to hear him, but it finally came through. Stay on top of the water. It sounded to me like instruction from one panicked mind to another; I thought he meant don't go under, don't drown.

They were quickly upon us. One was there first (I can't remember which), and then the other was there with an empty one-gallon jug. Wendy, one of our rescuers, and I each tried to hold onto the handle of that jug. Tim, who we had passed on the beach with his elderly father, gave us clear direction that explained what was shouted at the beach: Don't try to swim, get your body parallel to the surface the water and let each wave push you in. He also had us swim toward the side of where we were because "it is bad there."

It worked. After the first wave moved us forward, I let go of my share of the jug handle. Eamon, the father who was closest when we signaled, was next to me. He smiled and said, "I can taste the beer now. I can taste the beer now."

Two or three waves brought me to where my feet could touch the sand. Tim instructed us not to try to walk in, but I couldn't help ignoring this command. Traction, even in water, holds so much more authority over my senses than even a heroic stranger swimming out to save my life. Three or four other people had come in that far to pull me in by the hand.

I thought Wendy was ahead of me coming in, and I went to where we put our towels, but she wasn't there. I looked around and saw she had come out at an angle to my left and was on the beach. I gathered our stuff and brought it to her. She was crying very hard, and a crowd had gathered to console us. I pulled out a bottle of water for her and it passed from hand to hand to hand before it was tilted into her mouth. Someone instructed me to pour some on her head, so I did. A woman came running with more water, and people relaxed into stories of how this type of thing often happens to people with good and bad results. Eamon, as it turns out, pulled another couple of people out of the water last time they were there.

The panic was the first to subside, and then the embarassment declined to joking levels. We got lots of looks from the other people at the hotel, and some recognition after the fact by people we met ("So you're the ones").

Afterward, when remembering the moment I saw the unspeakable dread in Wendy's face, that dispair of fate in her eyes, I realized that we were at the same departure gate through which passed all drowning victims--a tetherless, helpless position against an ancient mass.

This Shark, Swallow You Whole

I'm coming into work a little late right now because I was up working until 3 a.m. I missed the 8:40 ferry, so Wendy and I went to Pegasus coffee and talked. I said that I felt like the job is burning me out, and she said that after last night, she's starting to think I need to find a new job. I can't help but wonder if I am the problem. No one at my work would like to know that I was up working so late. So why did I do it? Do I need to improve the way I work in order to get things done and defend my time? It seems like I am writing the same thing year in and year out...what do I need to do to change it?

1. Come up with a 5-year plan. Time is passing me by. Do I want to be a lawyer? Get an MBA? Start a business? I really need to figure out what I want, why I want it, and the steps needed to get there. First step: read a book
2. Time management. I have a book about time managment just sitting in my office collecting dust. I picked it up because I thought I needed to read it, but  I   just  haven't  had  the  time. Next steps: Read that book, pad my schedule, take breaks.
3. De-prioritize work. It's very possible that I am doing the thing I love the most and that work has become an outsized part of my life. Remember that people on their death beds never wish they had spent more time at their desks. Next steps: Prepare to be out of the office for the rest of the month. No more than two late nights per month.

Mom Screaming At the Cake

Went out to see mom for her birthday. Wendy and I put together a party for her, and it all went off pretty well. Wendy did a great job decorating with balloons and a banner, and there was more than enough food there for everyone who came. We got a picture cake for mom, where the bakery was able to turn a "glamour shot" of her taken at 16 and somehow print it in edible food coloring onto the cake itself. Wendy wanted to do it because when mom is surprised, she lets out a squeel. This time, though, she let out a scream. She seemed to appreciate the cake, but I think she was taken a little too off-guard by it. Wendy, too, said it was surprisingly difficult to cut into an image of her mother-in-law.

Yesterday we went for a drive to Lake Mead. We bought a Golden Eagle pass, which will let us into any National Park for a year. We'll have to be sure to use it this summer.

Mom's health isn't doing well, though. She seems to have hit a point where, like dad, her medical conditions are complicating each other. Her feet and legs hurt, so she can't stand or do too much walking. The doctor wants her to wear support hose to ease the vascular problems in her legs, but she doesn't want to wear them because they hurt her legs even more. Vertebrae in her back are fractured, so she isn't comfortable sitting or laying down too often.

Good Morning Sunshine

I woke up this morning and sunlight was reflecting off the trees outside my window. It was stunningly beautiful: The bark was orange and behind it, the sky was blue. Hopefully it will mean good things for me in the future.

After an exhausting week at E3, I just crashed. The most I could do was help Wendy stuff envelopes for her job and deliver them to the office. We also took Cinder for a long swim while we walked along the beach at low tide. A guy we saw there said it was the lowest of the year. "Lowest of two, maybe three years," he said.

I feel like I'm going to have to find some new ways of focusing on my job this summer--There is a lot that have to get done, but also I don't want it to take over my life. I remember what Jenn said to me a couple of months ago: Work should be the least stressful part of your life, precisely because it should be the least personal to you.

I still do so much thinking about writing fiction, that, realisically, I should know by now that I'll never be comfortable just letting it go. A lot of what I think about is the Exile novel, but also of new structures (mostly hypertext) for stories.

In Kona

Ate our home-made cereal on the porch of our room this morning. I went out to get coffee and milk. Wendy was already on the porch. She had talked to the neighborhood dog. She asked him, "Who's a good dog," and he wagged his tail at her.
Then we went dorkeling. Wendy invented it. It's like snorkeling, but without fins and with a big, cheap inflatable raft. I was surprised by how much fun it was. "I am one with the fish." Wendy said it was her favorite quote of the day. Between dorkeling sessions, we had lunch at a seaside cafe and got drunk on three strong Mai Tais and one Blue Hawaiian. A great, great time. Now the sun is setting and Wendy is napping, and a gentle rain is falling. We'll have a quiet dinner here at the hotel.

My Funny Valentine

Wendy really likes candy apples, so I went to a store near the Pike Place Market to buy her a $12 dollar one (it also weighs about 5 pounds and is bigger than a softball).
On the bus down 1st to the ferry terminal, I overheard a conversation between two associates who, each in their own way, seem to have suffered long-term chemical dependency problems. That was the most sensitive way I could describe their status. The shorter, insensitive way would have been to say he was a wino in his 50s and she was a tweaker in her 30s. Those ages are adjusted--she seemed to be in her 50s and he seemed to be in his 80s, but her stringy hair and bad skin and his puffy, blotched face made me believe that their lifestyles would preclude them from ever living that long. They noticed all of the people walking on with flowers in their hands; men on their way home to present them, women bringing them home from the office. Anyway, the dialog:

Al: If a man was going to give you flowers for Valentine's Day, would you want flowers more or a plan?
Crystal: No, I think that's stupid. A big bouquet of flowers costs $60 bucks!
Al: Yeah, but if you...
Crystal (ignoring him): I don't want to $60 dollar bunch of flowers, see, because flowers die. And I told my man that. He knows. He knows that if he did bring me a big bouquet of flowers that I would be mad, that I don't want them...
Al (interjecting): So you would be mad if a man bought you flowers but if a man...
Crystal: 'Cause $60 dollars is a lot. If my man has $60 it means he has smokes, it means we got everything that makes us happy. That's more important.
Al: ...but if he just wanted to give you a present for Valentine's Day...
Crystal: Well, if someone just gave me flowers, then I guess it's the thought that counts, right?
Al: Would you want a plant or...
Crystal: But I'm not at that level, see, where I can enjoy things like that. It would be better just to get a card with the 60 bucks in it that said, "These are the flowers you would have got," see?
Al: But if you were just getting a living plant or dead flowers, what would you want?
Crystal (after a slightly stunned pause): Oh. I don't know.
Al: You know, the flowers are going to die anyway, but with a living plant that has flowers, you know, some people, they have flowers for years.

Today is 1-2-3

• I got out of the shower this morning and Wendy said, "Today is 1-2-3. It's going to be good luck." It took me a while to realize she was talking about the date.
• I haven't elaborated yet on my new resolutions for the year, but I remembered taht previous resolutions have been about writing more. I think I've done a pretty good job writing this year in this blog, and a good job reading it, too. I feel like I've accomplished an objective.
• Property of fire: I like the way fire burns when I've got the fireplace going. There's little flame, but maximum glow and consumption of the fuel. It's taken me a while to learn how to get a fire started in our little fireplace insert, but now I've got a system that gets them lit pretty quickly. I start with a few sticks that are an inch or two in diameter and lay them in the basket side by side. I then put a milk jug on top of them (a trick that Wendy's father taught me) and light that on fire. The milk jug melts into a thick flaming goo that is basically the same as modern candle wax (just a higher molecular weight, says PhD dad-in-law) and covers the sticks nicely. Then I lay one more stick over this and, a little management and a few sticks later, a glowing furnace-fire.
  
• The holiday timing this year was great. Thanksgiving came late in the month, so it felt okay turning the day after into the first day of the Christmas season. Christmas Day and New Year's Day came on Wednesdays this year, too, which provided for the maximum relaxation. I had to explain to Wendy that if the Holiday falls on a Monday, Tuesday or weekend day, the official first day back to work is the Second. If it falls on another weekday, the official first day back to work for everyone seems to be the Monday following the holiday. Looking ahead on the calendar, next year is pretty good too--Thursday holiday and another late Thanksgiving.

Early Autumn Weekend

I had a great anniversary-celebrating weekend with Wendy. We went out to the Pleasant Beach Bistro in Winslow for dinner and then to see "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which was pretty good. In the morning, we got up and had a great breakfast and lounged around the house until about 1 p.m. Then we took Cinder to the park--the leaves there are starting to change color, some of them are a brilliant fire red. We then went to the Bay Hay and Feed store, which is a cute little country store on the other side of the island.

There was still a bit of daylight left when we got home, so I went into the yard and cut and split about a half cord of wood while Wendy cleaned out the garage! We also gave each other presents. Wendy liked the red flannel sheets I picked out for us, though they're prone to lint balls, and she loved the woodcut I bought. She even knew the artist's work! Wendy gave us a ship's log, which was a brilliant idea (I wish I thought of it) and she filled it out with the details of our first voyage. Yesterday we went to the Olympic National Forest with Cinder and drove the truck up to an observation point where we could see all the way to Seattle (well, we could have if it had been clear). All in all, it was a great weekend--playoff baseball, too! Go Angels, go Twins!

Our Third Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday was our third wedding anniversary, but since it came during the middle of the week when neither of us could afford to take the day off, we celebrated only in a small way. Wendy was invited to a party at the Space Needle, so I went with her. The party, which was on the lower level about a third of the way up, was overcrowded, so after about ten minutes we went up to the observation level. I had never been up there before. I used to think it was just a tourist trap (they normally charge somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 to get up there), but I have a new appreciation for its design and certainly its view over Seattle and Puget Sound. After that, we walked through Belltown and finally decided on dinner at McCormick & Schmicks. We plan on celebrating more properly this weekend.

I bought a gift for Wendy tonight on my way home. There's an arts walk event in Pioneer Square on the first Thursday of every month, and I found one artist there who was selling very cute woodcut prints he had made. I had a tough time deciding on which, because I wasn't sure if this was something she would like. I settled on a penguine with a bow tie and a cane. I hope she likes it.

Like a Scene From Metropolis

We saw a great thing this morning when getting on the ferry. Wendy is going to L.A. for an animation conference, so she boarded the ferry with me. We were walking toward the overhead bridge and we could see the sunlight streaming through it and the sillhouettes of people slowly boarding inside. Just beyond that, a huge raft with a crane aperatus was pounding a pylon into the harbor with a monotonous clang. Wendy said that it looked like a scene out of Metropolis. We got on the boat in a booth where we could see them driving the pylons down into the seabed. A big steel piston would be lifted in this tube and then come down on the pylon and drive it about four inches with each pound. We couldn't figure out what was lifting the piston, though. A small, dirty cloud of gas would displace from the side with every downstroke, and the piston would fly up again. Wendy speculated that some kind of charge was sending the piston back, but I'm not sure.

Our First Voyage

We did it, we finally did it! We took the boat out for a spin. It was a nerve-wracking, harrowing experience, but it was also pretty nice. We had to get a new battery, but that was just a slow down. Also, the engine was kind of difficult to start, but I think I can learn more about priming it. We ran aground just outside the Eagle harbor just as we were getting under way--the wind pushed us into a sand bar--but I don't think it did any serious damage. The worst thing was I stopped too quickly and the trailer jumped the hitch and punctured a whole in our licence plate and sheared the lighting cable, but we were able to get it home and park in out in front of the house. I've got a bit more boating confidence now, but it is still scary to go out.

Wendy is better at this than I am, which may be because she's got more experience with things going wrong on a boat. I kind of panicked when we ran into the sand bar and when we couldn't restart the engine after anchoring at Manzanita bay. I was a little better when the trailer jumped the hitch, though. Trailering with the boat is what sucks the most about all of this.
I must admit that I only got about a half-pound of enjoyment for my two pounds of anxiety from all of this. I think--I hope--that I'll get more enjoyment and less stress with experience.

On the Boat With Wendy's Parents

We're on a very full flight to Seattle. We're still sitting at the gate at Logan airport. Others are boarding, but we already have our seats.

We had been on Wendy's parents' boat since Monday morning. Yesterday, they drove us into Boston where we got in the car with Marcy and we drove to their house in Swampscott. They live in a very quaint neighborhood, and their house is really cool--built in the twenties, it has both a finished basement and a finished attic, so they have lots of different rooms that fit different purposes.

Being on the boat with Wendy's parents was very relaxing. I can see why they enjoy it so much. We were going to sail to Nantucket on Monday, but the winds were too strong and we couldn't be sure when we could sail back. I think that's the main reason why I would choose a motorboat over a sail boat--sail boats are too reliant on the wind to tell you where you can and where you can't go. We ended up staying the night not far from where they keep their boat moored, and Wendy and I got to jump off the boat and swim to a sandbar. The next day we went to Nantucket, which is about the preppiest place on earth. Bill and I went to the whaling museum, which was very cool. The museum is housed in an old candle factory. There was a room devoted to the Essex sinking, and they even had a first-edition account on display. While we were there, I also got to see the Athenaum, where I flipped through a first edition of Melville's "Benito Cereno."

My Fatherless Father's Day

It's difficult not to let the summer slip away from me. I'm putting in a lot of hours at work again, and when I'm not there it seems like I'm doing some project around the house. Right now we're working on a fence for the side yard that will keep Cinder from chasing the neighbor's car and getting dashed beneath their tires again. We're taking photos of the work and I'm keeping a little log (well, okay, it's still inside my head). I'm planning to make a webpage for the site.

Last Sunday was Father's Day, and it was pretty difficult for me. I wondered beforehand how I would react. I was in the driveway cutting wood for the fence posts when a story came on the radio promoting a new book of essays by famous people on the subject "What Baseball Means to Me." Of course, the day before the holiday, they kept talking about the bonds between father and son forged during baseball games, and how this would make a perfect present. I tried to keep working, but I just stood there with the saw in my hand, weeping into my safety goggles. Wendy told me to sit down and let it all out and I did…for about twenty minutes. I guess the odd thing about grieving is that there is no straight path to acceptance. A couple days before, I felt like I was adjusted to him being dead, but then again on Saturday it felt like the most unbelievable injustice. I had tried to pre-accept his death. When he was sick but still alive, I tried to keep consciously remind myself of the fact that he was still alive and that I was fortunate that he was since two friends had already lost their fathers.

Atmospheric Memory

It's been a pretty tough week at work. My boss has left my department for another, and she's basically been replaced by two people--both of whom don't really know anything about video games. Plus I've just been feeling emotionally exhausted by all of the family turmoil of the year. Wendy says we really need a vacation--our last one was a four-day weekend about a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, there's so many other commitments on our time that we won't really be able to take a non-family-visit vacation until early 2003.

We did spend a lot of evening time this week in the city. On Tuesday night, we went to see a retrospective of Evan Mather's work, which was pretty good. On Thursday night, we went to Olympic Hills Elementary for the premiere of Wendy's Animated Authors project. That was really nice. Wendy spent two months working with each class in the school to write and animate a fable. Some of the stories were really cute, with titles like "The Stealing Aliens" and "The Evil, Stupid Joker". The kids and the teachers were all very happy to see Wendy and they thanked her for all of her great work. I like that I was really able to see her specific sensibilities in the animation (she did some animating of the project between groups of students in the class). Last night we went to ResFest, which was actually very good. We went to the Altered States program and saw one very funny, well-produced short called It's A Shame About Ray about a guy who is forced to review his life after he prematurely dies, and another called Copy Shop, a dialog-free German film about a guy who runs a copy shop who is himself being duplicated by one haunted machine.

But the main thing I want to remember is yesterday morning. I am fortunate to get to walk through part of the city on my way to and from work. Yesterday I had what I would call an "atmospheric memory". It was overcast but rather warm, and that combination, plus the fact that it was morning and spring, reminded me of the June gloom we used to get when I was growing up in the San Fernando valley. Because that always happened at the end of a school year, I've often felt a sort of bittersweet exhilaration during those conditions. As I walked, I listened to an NPR story about how volunteers had planted one million bulbs right after the September 11th attack, and the city was now awash in yellow flowers. I felt happy and thankful to be alive. I could recall specific scenes from my youth and feel no anger or bitterness that they were long gone--they felt just as much a part of me as when they happened. Then I thought of my dad and I started to cry a bit, but he felt a part of me too.

Sundays Are For Taking It Easy

"Sundays are for taking it easy." What a slogan. I just heard it on the radio. Wendy and I are home again. 2002 has turned out to be a tumultuous year, to be sure. The house is a mess, we're months behind in yard work and such, but that's okay--we're home now and everything will get done in time.

Cinder's doing better, it seems. She still favors her leg occasionally, but less so after prolonged use. Wendy's taking her to the doctor for Xrays on Monday. I hope it's all good news.

Wrestling With the Sofa Salesman

Some days you just gotta love the Internet. Today I ordered a digital camera (with some cool extras), fired off an e-mail to my insurance agent (didn't have to wait on hold), added some DVDs to my Netflix queue, and renewed my library books. I don't think that the Internet can or should replace everything, but it's damn good to get some of the labor-intensive stuff done. Rather than taking up my whole day, it just took about an hour. After I'm done writing this, I'm going to go outside and clean the windows.

Compare this experience to what happened to us last night. We are in the market for new couch for our basement rec room. We've got a tiny Ikea luv seat down there and, while that's cozy, it's not very good for entertaining (side note: we're having some friends over tomorrow to watch the Oscars, which is sort of the impetus for the decision, even though it won't be here in time to save the social embarrassment of having to sit on the floor of our cold, dark basement to watch the awards). Wendy did a bit of browsing in other places and found something that came close to what we wanted, so on our way down to see it, we decided to take a detour to Ikea.

We found the perfect couch for us: A red, L-shaped couch at about $400 less than what we had intended to buy. We've had sort of a spotty history with merchandise from Ikea, but after some thought, we decided to get it. The guy who was working in that department didn't seem at first like he wanted to help us at all, but we fired off our second question, he seemed to resign himself to being stuck with helping us.

First, let me say that I know his plight. Being young and working retail for a huge company in return for a very meager wage is, to varying degrees, a soul-killing venture. Still, I doubt he was drafted by the Swedes, so he could have at least known the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground.

First, he told us we could only get it in the red or gray color. Fine, we wanted the red anyway. We asked him whether the couch we wanted was available or had to be special ordered, he told us it was discontinued and that they didn't have any in this store. When we questioned this, noting that it was in the furniture department's prime floor space without any mention of it being discontinued, he agreed that it was weird, but didn't seem interested in probing the issue further. I asked him if there was a manager to speak with, and he said no. We asked if we could buy the floor model and, after some phone calling and computer checking (which included a great deal of running his finger along the monitor's screen to line up rows), he informed us that someone was already interested in buying it, and that it had been reserved for them. The only way we could buy it, he added, was if the original prospect had decided that they didn't want to buy it.

"So, they've put a deposit down?" we asked. No, he said, they're just on the list. "So we can't buy it now because these people might want to buy it?"
"Well," he said, "we can't sell it to you because we've already promised it to them."
"Do they have some sort of time limit to make up their minds?"
"We called them to see if they still want it...but they haven't called us back."
"Okay," I said, "I'd really like to speak to your manager."

He calls and talks to his manager and finds out that it's not discontinued, we can order it, and it will take 6-8 weeks to arrive. By that time, I was pretty angry and no longer wanted to deal with him so we finished our shopping for other items and I waited in the cafeteria for Wendy to go back and buy it. Someone else was in the department, and it didn't take long to order the couch. The woman explained to Wendy that the person on the list was waiting for the couch to be discontinued and was hoping she'd be able to buy the floor model at a discount.

What made me so mad was that I don't often spend that much money, so when I do, I would prefer that someone on the other end of the equation at least care about my business.

the best couple of days

This was the best couple of days I've had since my dad died (January 29). I think about him a lot, but now more with control. When I do think about him, I feel like I have a little bit more perspective on things. Wendy and I were in the hot tub the other day, and I was telling her how bad I felt that I couldn't just call him. I've never gone a whole month without hearing his voice. Today I called to talk to my mom and found his voice is still on their answering machine. It was nice to hear his cadence again, the way he said "Bye" on the phone in a slight southern drawl, probably fabricated to be cute decades ago before becoming a forgotten part of his repertoire (he was originally from the least southern state in the union: North Dakota). It didn't feel odd to hear it, either, but I did think of how preserving someone's voice--a much more intimate part of one's identity, even more so than their physical appearance--was a luxury that our grandparents never had. I don't know what to do with that answering machine greeting; part of me feels like I should capture it and encase it in crystal, another part of me feels like I should let it slip away randomly, perhaps in the next power outage.

"You're so procrastinating with this car," Wendy says

"You're so procrastinating with this car," Wendy says. This is what I've been doing instead of putting the Kia up for sale. Really, I just got the idea last night and I wanted to find a new way to get more writing done. Today we're going to the car wash.