We Are the Brady Bunch

11/17/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

I love the holiday season. It gives me an excuse to celebrate the absurd, to make art, and to fill my life with color and memories. The 400+ pictures I used to decorate the living room for the yuletide season weren’t enough, apparently.

Today, something I made for my wife Dawn arrived: a canvas of us with the Brady Bunch. Dawn is the baby in the middle, her sister Darla is on the right, and my mother-in-law Julia is on the left. (She’s the retired boxer). I’m the weird dude on the right demonstrating what I might look like if someone surprised me and stapled my tongue to a board. PS: The scenario of getting my tongue stapled isn’t too far-fetched.

I’m hoping that Crystal Bridges doesn’t make Dawn an offer for this masterpiece. Like the infamous leg lamp from “A Christmas Story,” this canvas is a true work of art, designed in the mind of a singular genius.

Note: Snapfish made this canvas. It’s hard to beat them for quality and price.

I’m in no way being compensated for saying this, either. I’ve bought a massive number of items from them over the years.

Personal, Social Media, Social Rules, Writing

A Little Commentary About Social Media

11/16/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

I’ve not posted in a few days because so many people who’ve never met me read my last post on my public figure page. ( My public-figure FB page….) It’s a separate FB page of mine, still using my real name. My personal FB page is at: My personal FB page… I took the time to stop and consider every word shared with me, whether shared on social media or my own website. Instead of posting or writing, I took the time to ingest anything sent to me.

Every once in a while I write something, albeit inexpertly, which resonates with a wide swath of people. The post about “The Glass Castle” was one of those things which echoed and ricocheted. It drew very little attention on my personal FB page but it went far on the public-figure version of my FB. It is a strange thing to see total strangers react to my words and engage in a way that people who know me don’t. It led a few people to find other things I’ve written; many of them reacted with surprise at the sheer quantity of it. If they wrote, they told me that they were caught off guard by the mix of personal stories and weird humor.

None of them have gone beyond casually mentioning that my grammar is sometimes in need of a ruler across the knuckles. The internet’s usual trollish response was nowhere to be found. One person reminded me of something I wrote several years ago: “Write without the discoloration of perfectionism. Someone else can proofread and edit. You don’t need to know how to plumb your house in order to turn on the kitchen faucet and prepare a gourmet meal, do you?”

To anyone who has written, I’ve replied by including a request that they share a story of their lives, whether it is funny, serious, or unpolished. I explain to them that we have one of the best communication tools ever devised being wasted on resharing and repetition of what others produce. It’s my hope that most of them will think about what I’ve asked and use social media to tell the rest of us a story.

Several have sent me anecdotes and shared stories of their lives with me. To me, this is the essence of social media – and one which we tend to neglect. So many say they are displeased with social media, but rarely does anyone put in the effort to make it interesting and personal.

To anyone who shared, I consider it to be a gift, one of the most personal ones possible. If I can write anything which propels another person to take moments of their lives and share a little of theirs, I’ve achieved a measure of success. These types of exchanges erase almost all the animus of political and personal animosity people experience.

What total strangers continue to teach me is that it is difficult to know one’s own story in the way that others might recognize. I’m enthralled with the strangeness of social media reaching so far, through the almost impenetrable fog of the unfamiliar.

I’m still contemplating the fact that very few of my friends interacted with the post, while hundreds of strangers read what I wrote, and some then took the time to share their own stories. I got a glimpse of the power of words, even at the hands of a hack like myself.

Biographical, Movie, Personal, Social Rules, Uncategorized, Writing

Living in a Glass Castle

11/12/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

This isn’t simply a review of the movie “The Glass Castle,” nor is it simply a biographical reflection. It is, however, an unsettling hybrid of a portion of myself and the movie. Like all things observed, our own peculiar perspective discolors the content of what we occupy ourselves with: our own face and temperament are reflected in the things we deceive ourselves into believing to be mere entertainment. While I was entertained by the movie, I was also stabbed in a way that few movies can achieve.

I knew the movie preview was slightly misleading and that it had artfully avoided showing the underbelly of what pervaded Jeannette Wall’s life. To be honest, I had forgotten the memoir, even though it was a book that I very much wanted to read a few years ago. After seeing the movie, I can appreciate just how much of the grime, horror, and shock was dropped from it. People love great stories but often recoil when the truth is laid bare. When a good writer is determined to be both honest and unflinching, some stories become too overwhelming. It’s quite the art to begin telling a story that people want to hear, but cringe as they lean in to hear the words they know will hurt them in a way that’s difficult to see.

Perversely, I was relieved to know that my instinct about the movie being sanitized was accurate. Much of the nuance was powerful and authentic; as a student of family violence, a couple of the scenes seemed disjointed to me. Perhaps it is madness to expect continuity in craziness but once you’ve filtered out the normalcy, even lunacy has its rules.

In the movie, Woody Harrelson as the dad is arguing with his daughter, insisting that she’s a revisionist to history. This pathos is one I’ve long held close to my own heart in my adult life. While I sometimes fail to steer away from revisionism, I at least know that I’m not impervious to the tendency. So many others, though, they cling to their idealized fantasies about people in our lives. They frequently take out their acquired masks and repaint them, all to tell themselves that the monsters in their past weren’t really monsters, just tormented and troubled people. People who do their best to tell their stories and to unmask their monsters are a threat to their self-identity. I want to see the monsters, both in my own life and in the lives of others. It does no one an injustice if you are sharing a piece of yourself. Each one of us owns our stories, even those pieces which darkly silhouette our lives.

I’ve written before that sometimes I observe the world and am amazed that most people seem to be unpoisoned by their own secret boxes, the ones some of us have managed to swallow, surpass, and mostly overcome. In my case, I judge most other people to be novices regarding human violence. Knowing the box is there at all robs me of a portion of my ability to live freely. It’s ridiculous to assert otherwise. If you don’t have such a box, feel glad, rather than doubtful that others had the necessity of constructing one to avoid fragmenting into incoherence.

After the movie and during the credits, the dad Rex was shown in grainy black and white, peering out of an abandoned building’s window, ranting about capitalism and property. It was clear that he was much angrier, unmoored, and detached than the movie would have us assume. My wife wouldn’t know it as she sat mesmerized beside me, but it was a visceral punch for me. The flash of recognition I experienced in seeing Rex as he really was versus Woody Harrelson’s impersonation of him almost untethered me. Seeing his as a ‘real’ person somehow unmasked the subtleness and veneer of the movie. Gone was the pretense of nobility or great acts. I could only see the residue of a base life, like the yellowish tint which permeates a smoker’s life. No matter what good Rex Hall might have done in his life, he was a part of what allowed children to be damaged. That any of them took this stew of disaster and emerged with great lives is a testament to our creativity and resolve.

So many of us had family members who would only marginally fit our definitions of what it means to be human. We individually adjust, trying to come to terms with the insanity of anger, knowing in our own hearts that some people are permanently damaged. We fight against the ignorance of others, the ones who insist that forgiveness and acceptance are on our plate and must be consumed. We know that anyone who hasn’t been in a room with a family member and suffered the inconvenience of knowing that our loved one truly might kill us in that moment cannot ever be reached on an emotional level. Until you’ve felt the metaphorical knife, the blade is just a vague unknowable threat.

One of my demons in life has been my aversion to a return to the crucible of anger and those who live there. I’ve been happiest when I’ve been able to reject such associations and cut the strings, and in some cases to stretch them. It’s always a fight, though, because those still melting in the crucible fight to keep you tethered to it as well. I no longer judge as harshly as I once did. Each of us decides for ourselves how our lives should proceed. Seeing the strings is all too often the first step to either severing them or ignoring them. I don’t take kindly to the angry insistence that I pay homage to the monstrous portions of my own past. I’m well aware that I have more than a few people who would gladly bash my head against a stone if it would mean they could resume believing the fantasy that my stories expose as untruths.

I know that intelligence forces us to do strange things with horror and mistreatment. Most of us buttress our sanity by converting these things into humor. It’s a skill I’ve honed for a few decades. As the credits rolled, I watched as Jeannette’s brother joked about his father’s memory, even as he sat at a table with his siblings who shared his past. I can’t speak for him. I do note, however, the brush of nostalgia in his words. Time is what grants us peace and the ability to laugh. Because life goes on, the fists and shattered bottles on the kitchen floor fade. We count our scars, both seen and unseen, and put one foot in front of another.

And sometimes, we watch a flawed movie that somehow reaches a talon inside our clenched hearts and ruptures a piece of what we’ve imprisoned away from the light. Because I know that the author of “The Glass Castle” had a life which was much worse than the movie revealed, my memory is slightly more forgiving. It makes me glad that the grandmother’s legacy has been forever stained and that some things were allowed to slither out from under the rocks to be viewed.

That a memoir such as “The Glass Castle” was written warms my heart. Jeannette Walls overcame and used her gift to sling arrows out into the world. Arrows are both weapon and tools, and she has done a great service to her own survival. The discomfort people might feel is an acknowledgment of how much suffering happens in the world. Next door, across town, wherever people live and breathe.

Social Rules, Springdale, Uncategorized

Brad Paisley Couldn’t Have Written This

11/11/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

The wind insisted on stealing my enthusiasm this morning. My cat Güino had already sounded the alarm several times until I reluctantly got up. He’s lucky I’m able to overcome my fleeting urge to punt him into the next room. But I walked, cutting through neighborhoods, watching as endless security lights flashed on the houses of uncaring and slumbering folks. A dog ran up to me at one point, without barking, and I petted him, checking him for a collar. He accompanied me a block and then stopped. I gave him a few more rubs and off he went. We were friends for a few minutes. It was a mutual exchange of pleasantries, although he didn’t reply to my mutterings.

Feeling the urge to buy nonsensical items that I ‘needed,’ I went to the larger Wal-Mart on the west side of town. While it wasn’t quite a ghost town at that hour, I could hear echoes of Adam Lambert crooning. I needed a few trinkets for my yuletide project, the one I started yesterday, even as Dawn eyed me with suspicion, uncertain as to the intended scale of my efforts. Had she asked, I would have replied, “Think of the Eiffel Tower – only larger.”

I cut through the wide expanse of the store, observing workers hollering instructions and banter at one another. The night shift and the people inhabiting it have their own patois and rhythm. I wasn’t going to need any assistance, so I knew this visit was going to be stress-free. One of the reasons I feel like a rich man is that there was nothing in the store I couldn’t buy if I really wanted it. It sounds a little trite and dumb but I’ve come to believe it more forcefully.Once I got home, my wife might hit me with the rolling pin she hides under the couch, that’s true, but I could get it out of the store if I had the urge.

While standing near the Xmas aisles, I began to hear some terrible music. (As a Glee fan, I’m familiar with terrible music. There can be joy in music better suited to mask a garbage truck as it does its crushing. Brad Paisley fans can nod their head in agreement with this, too, as his voice sounds exactly like Tim McGraw would if someone punched him in the throat.) It grew louder and louder. I, of course, began to wonder what toothless cretin was shopping at that hour and what possessed him to believe anyone would want to hear that claptrapper music. Words became distinct. In the space of a few seconds, I heard the “N-word” 3 times, then “bitch,” followed by the even worse permutation of the same sentiment. Whoever the singer was, he was attempting to mimic George Carlin and insert every potential curse world imaginable into his lyrics.

It’s important to keep in mind that I am totally unaffected by profanity unless it is couched in denigration or anger. Words are just words, after all. Expecting to see a camo-wearing weirdo come around the corner undoubtedly amplified the surprise of the listener’s identity.

The music reached a crescendo and a male employee, pushing a cart, came ambling up at 1 mph. He had a music box in his cart, one which pulsated blue in rhythm with the alleged music. It was cacophonous and startling to see that the perpetrator was a Wal-Mart employee. He was walking so slowly that even a National Geographic slow-motion camera would not have been capable of catching his movements. He seemed to be in a catatonic state, listening deeply to the garbage emanating from his music device.

Despite the surprise, I bid the gentleman good morning. He looked at me, and continued on his way, without any acknowledgment. I stood at the endcap, observing him. About 20 feet away, another employee approached the first and passed him. I could see that he was shaking his head in disapproval after passing the employee with the bad music. I could still hear the music plainly as the somnambulist worker shuffled down the main aisle. Why I picked up my phone and took a picture as this employee passed, I’m not sure. When I hit ‘click,’ though, I was horrified to note that my flash went off – twice. Luckily, no one turned to glare menacingly at me. I’ll note though, given the employee’s apparent molasses feet, there’s no way he would have been able to catch me.

During checkout, the cashier and the younger man behind me in line had a great time one-upping each other’s crazy quips. It sounds a little unbelievable, but I think the young man was lonely. On a whim, I jokingly pretended to introduce the cashier to him, inventing a short, fake bio to accompany the introduction. They both laughed. I walked away, wondering if my impromptu introduction might have created new friends.

After finishing shopping, I found a female employee who seemed to be in charge. I asked for the manager. She, of course, asked me the reason and I told it was a sensitive issue and would be better suited to be only said once – and to the manager. She radioed in and after a minute, a tall gentleman approached, his face reflecting the dread of yet another customer interaction. Were I myself a manager, I think I would rather eat from the floor of a crowded bus station bathroom than field complaints or questions.

I introduced myself, as I didn’t want to make an anonymous complaint. It seemed like it was worth it for me to complain in full view of the consequences. After I told him what happened, his eyes widened a bit and he told me, “I’ve had this problem before. I will definitely take care of it.” He seemed both relieved and pleased that I had told him. Whatever this manager’s background, he listened closely, the single most important trait when a customer comes forward to say something, no matter how barking-crazy the person might be.

I won’t divulge the other details of the conversation, as it was sensitive. For those who might criticize me, it’s difficult to explain why I complained. There were a couple of details I omitted. I’m almost certain that the employee listening to the profanity-laden ‘music’ at high volume was going to be fired. I’m equally certain that he was already not only skating on thin ice but carrying an anvil on his shoulders while he did so. I requested that he not be fired – that a compromise solution was available. Whether the manager would heed my request was up to him and he seemed too familiar with the mentioned employee already.

As I exited the Wal-Mart parking lot, I considered putting the windows down and blaring some Brad Paisley music, just to torture anyone unlucky enough to be on the west side of town at that hour.

Humor

Roll Out the Carpet!

11/09/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

A couple of afternoons ago I realized I had taken a serpentine detour just to follow a white van in front of me. Whatever instinct controls my brain caused me to reach up and turn off the radio, too, as if my interest would be dissipated by music. In fascination, I observed the van precariously careening around corners, the driver undoubtedly unaware how precipitously close he was to losing most of his cargo. The van was well-used; even the logo of its previous owner was barely perceptible along its flanks.

In the rear of the van were several huge rolls of carpet and padding. One solitary and tired bungee cord stretched across the rusty hinges about halfway up the doors. As the weight inside shifted, the carpet would push against the doors, each one slightly bulging outward, almost palpitating. I’m not sure whether the driver slept at a Holiday Inn Express the night before or not, but how anyone could believe that a single bungee cord would be a safe method to secure all the carpet behind it was a question for the ages. (Picture your Uncle after Thanksgiving dinner, belly stretched across the rim of his pants, an explosion just waiting for one button to yield and explode loose.)

I tend to take strange paths both to and from work, most of the time without any observable motive. If the CIA or FBI is surveilling me, I’m sure that several meetings have contained the words, “What in the devil is he DOING? Does he know he’s being followed?” If such is the case, I hope there’s also an angry bald man, smoking and shouting, ignoring the “No Smoking” signs literally above his head, demanding that his minions do a better job at guessing what craziness I might try next on the roadways.

If you’ve ever gotten angry at a driver in front of you for failing to signal, it’s probably me. Using the blinker only gives the person behind you a clear sign of what you’re doing. If you’re being followed, this is the sort of normal behavior that will only lead to further trouble. Likewise, acquired paranoia demands that all drivers are considered to be members of the alphabet agencies and that they are watching you specifically. It’s my duty at times to pretend I’m fleeing from some unseen force. (Other than those guys handing out pamphlets at the airport, I mean.)

I had turned off Zion Road without realizing it, just to stay close to the van. Across from the Botanical Gardens, the carpet rolls had protruded so far from the rear of the van that I laughed when the driver accelerated and the rolls miraculously avoided spilling out. Had they fallen, Crossover Road would have been carpeted for a brief moment in history.

As I followed, I realized that perhaps my sense of adventure was getting the better of me. I’m not sure how quickly my reaction time would have jumped up to meet the challenge had the carpet been flung out the back of the van and directly in front of me as I watched. It seemed to be a risk I was willing to accept because the image of me running over the carpet and careening into the edge of the urban wilderness at the edge of the road made me laugh. My wife will tell you that when I’m driving by myself I tend to be much less likely use the thing that allegedly slows my vehicle if a surprise befalls me. I’ve caused more than a few people to suddenly turn white-headed or to crack their knuckles in abject terror as they gripped the steering wheel too tightly. To all those people: You’re welcome.

The van finally turned off without spilling the rolls of carpet. I could feel the disappointment wash over me. It felt like I had been robbed of some essential experience. For a brief moment, I thought about tailing the driver and to wait for him outside the convenience store. There’s no way he made it to wherever he was going without losing his cargo. He, too, undoubtedly has an angry, smoking, bald man to berate him in case of an accident.

I had even envisioned what I would tell the reporting officer, as he pulled on his 80s-style mustache, surveying the hundreds of square feet of carpet flung all over the roadway: “It was a carpet bombing!”

Humor, Uncategorized

A Higher Dosage of Nothing

11/08/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

Announcement: I am accepting appointments for my new R&B / Urban door singing service, just in time for the yuletide festivities. It’s called GIFT RAP.

Time-saving tip #24: If you are sufficiently lazy, anywhere in the house can technically become a fireplace pretty quickly.

Now that my mother-in-law Julia’s 82nd birthday has passed, she’s decided to have her eye surgery. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that we switched one of her 2 “cats” with a raccoon last year.

We’ve decided to wait until after the surgery to tell her unless she figures it out sooner. We assume she will announce the discovery with a high, piercing scream, similar to the one which woke Darla from her 22-hour nap on Nov. 8th last year.

Once her eyesight improves following her surgery, she’s going to be surprised by a few other things, too. Those surprises though I will leave for another day.

retrter

My mother-in-law’s cataract doctor, Dr. Marty Feldman, gives each patient of his a personal guarantee that their eyes will not only have improved vision but will also look as good as his once the procedure is completed.

Don’t be nervous, Julia!

We are all behind you. Hiding, but still – we’re behind you.

PS: How much do you know about raccoons?
Love, X

I’m starting a hybrid fast-food place: Taco Bill. It fuses bbq and tex-mex, and the fabulous punchline I wrote for the end of this joke is unbearably insensitive.

dfsdf

I too worked as a 9-1-1 Dispatcher for the City of Springdale.

…at least until some guy identifying himself as “The Captain” ran in and yanked my headset off my and reminded me that I didn’t work there.

Life can be such a startling slap in the face.

As I walked around a building this morning, I heard screaming. I ran through the dark to find a woman being thrown out of a vehicle. As she vainly tried to extricate a bag from the back the car tore away. The woman sobbed. It was a heart-wrenching sound.

It was one I heard too often in my youth.

I calmed her down and listened to her. Another person walked by and I told her it was okay and motioned for her to get help while I listened. After a couple of minutes someone did come out and I wished the sobbing woman well.

But the sound of her scream will linger in my day. I’m sure of it.

Her life will need a lot of supoort in the coming months.

That man, whoever he was, he might not realize how closely he came to feeling the wrath bubbling from my youth.

My colleague Jake Elliot just finished the course requirements for his Early Soviet Economics degree. He’s finally a Lenin-grad.

I heard that the new guy James Covert was starting work today. But I can’t find him anywhere.

I invented a new hybrid breakfast decongestant cereal: Halls and Oats.

I walked a mile in his shoes because the parable instructed me to do so.

He had a lot of questions, such as “How did you get in my house?” and “Why do your feet smell like rotten avocados?”

At work today, I pondered the Kennedy assassination – but only because my supervisor made me feel like I was with him on the gassy knoll.

(This joke won’t work if you misread it….)

As you may have heard my good friend Chip Mhoon was in a collision on N. College.

He was exiting Whole Foods and hit an accountant head-on.

He is okay but his car was sub-totalled.

Time-saving tip #24: If you are sufficiently lazy, anywhere in the house can technically become a fireplace pretty quickly.

Personal, Social Rules

70 Degrees of Daylight Savings Time in November

11/05/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

I’m not sure if it was 3 a.m., 4, or 5, given the reach of idiotic daylight savings time. Want to have more daylight? Get up earlier. (But not so early as to infest my beloved early morning treks across our shared urban landscape, please.) Daylight savings is proof beyond reproach that we can collectively tolerate some of the most outlandish and ridiculous impositions.

It was 70+ degrees this morning, another bit of lunacy to match the time change debacle we all are experiencing. The wind was howling and the moon was huge in the early morning sky. I parked at an old, vacant church and walked roads I had never walked upon. Since the roads were all mine at that hour, I walked down the middle of the highway, the wind whipping me. At the low point of one of the valleys, the wind carried the glasses from the perch atop my head. I was wearing shorts and briefly considered walking shirtless, the idea of such a thing in November making me chuckle.

At a considerable distance from my car, two dogs confined by a fence howled and jumped into the air to express their disdain at my presence. Against my better judgment, I approached and spoke to them in a low voice, putting my right hand across the barrier of the fence. Being left-handed, I decided I could afford to feed my right one to them, if necessary, in the pursuit of comforting a canine or two. It turned out that the only danger from those two howlers was one of being licked to death. I think I could have stayed in that spot and petted them both until noon, given the enthusiasm and whimpering they repaid me for petting them. As I left them behind, they ran around in circles, happy, barking at the night. It was my hope that the owners were in bed, listening and wondering what nonsense their dogs had begun.

Toward the end of long arc away from where I parked, one large house caught my attention. It was a 2-story house, or 3, depending on whether the owners considered the top to be for storage of disliked in-laws or their hoarded possessions. Its yard was massive, suitable for riding horses or playing a full game of soccer. Every light in the house was on. Most of the windows were large and beautifully inset. Given that I had quite a long view of the house, I watched it with interest to see if anyone would pass in front of the windows. No one did. Except for the entire structure being internally lit, there was no sign of life or movement. As creative as I consider myself to be, I couldn’t devise any reasonable explanation for it.

Returning, I noted an ambulance parked about 50 feet from my car, the doors open wide, and a stretcher sitting parallel to the ambulance. At first, I couldn’t tell if anyone was on the stretcher. It was an unusual sight in the Sunday morning dark. I watched for a minute to catch any movement. None materialized.

Across the intersection, the bright moon hung high above, illuminating the cemetery at the crossroads. Above, the spires and wires of a 6-line high voltage tower marched across the landscape. I walked across the intersection before leaving, leaning against the fence facing the cemetery. I bid the silent occupants a good morning as I turned and departed, leaving their stones to have their daily exchange with the moon as it looked down upon them.

Off I went, to take advantage of this mysterious hour the powers that be insisted that I agree to accept, even as none of the clocks surrounding me could reach an agreement on what time it actually was.

Personal, Razorback Greenway

Saturday Morning Considerations

11/04/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

The fog was thick this morning, enveloping everything. It looked like a 1970s bingo hall – and just as promising. The hilltop towers seemed to be just floating red orbs, blinking their presence. For November, I was once again pleased to see that I didn’t need a jacket to walk in comfort. I had on pants, though, for the comfort of any potential onlookers.

Leaving the house, I toyed with the idea of pranking one of my neighbors. He came home yesterday afternoon, probably under the influence again, and sat in his vehicle in the road, windows down, radio blaring at an insane volume. His issues aren’t limited to alcohol, though. I have an ongoing bet with myself regarding how long it is going to be before he kills someone, and I’m not referring to his poor fashion choices, either. At least I haven’t seen him urinating in broad daylight in a few days. I keep an eye on him because I hope to be as classy as he is one day. It would have been so easy to startle him awake at 4 a.m., the stupor of bad choices and a mean spirit still thick in his eyes. PS I did confuse him yesterday. I exited the house through the back door, went around the opposite side of the house and entered my car from the passenger side. I then hit the horn a couple of times, holding it for a few seconds, dipping my upper body below sight as I did so. It amused me but also made me a tad sad because, in a just world, I would have been able to fling open the front door, aim a bazooka, and launch the raucous neighbor into the stratosphere.

I added a couple of versions of the theme song to “Stranger Things” to my playlist, knowing the eeriness of the music would be perfect for this warm November morning. I wasn’t disappointed, either. As I walked along the Razorback Greenway, I looked up at the largest of our local cell towers. It loomed like an alien monolith, partially obscured by the fog. I had parked at Lokomotion, the only car within sight, and walked from there. As I often do, I paused in the middle of 71 below the mall, the neon promise of a slow death by grease flashing behind me in the guise of a Golden Corral sign. I just can’t help myself. There is something sublime and glorious about my solitary status in the middle of such a major road, absent cars, people, and the demands that will choke the pavements as the day progresses. I stood there a full minute, looking both directions and only chose to move along when headlights crested the hill between the Mall and Zion Road.

I walked a long distance on the portion of the trail intersecting 71 near Golden Corral. It’s a beautiful stretch. At 4 a.m., when you start walking, the building on top of the hill at the edge high above the trail looks like an imposing modern castle. The light emanating from the commercial behemoth above is surprisingly filtered, yet somehow casts an eerie light across the trees, creeks, and brush below, similar to a surgical room with a dimmer set to “starting anesthesia,” if such a setting were possible. I laughed when I encountered the “Speed Limit 15” sign along that section. I could have been riding a rocket through there this morning. The only thing to slow me would have been the mass of spider webs I collected as I walked. I managed to get several in my mouth, too, which is always a surprise. As far as I know, no spiders were present. As for the speed limit, I vote that we allow cyclists to go 40 mph if they can. The dropoffs on the other side are spectacular and I can think of nothing more amusing as a careless cyclist flings himself off the side to the creek far below, the theme song to “Dukes of Hazzard” echoing in the leaves as I laugh.

“Welcome to Johnson” the concrete inlay indicated ahead of an elegant bridge near the creek. I looked around, half expecting to see one of their finest on a small bicycle, loaded with a million dollars of hardware and 3 radar guns, just waiting to issue me a ticket for having sunglasses too tinted or failing to indicate a turn by morse code. The one good thing about getting a ticket in Johnson is that it invariably is written in crayon and in the language and font most commonly used on Chik-Fil-A billboards. I’m not bitter about the Johnson police; likewise, though, they shouldn’t get defensive when I use satire to mock them. They should have thought of that while submitting me to the shenanigans of their playbook. “Never start a fight with an ugly person,” and “Don’t argue with someone who buys ink by the gallon” are both true for a reason.

The trail section through the area, though, is hauntingly pretty. Oddly enough, though, I’ve never seen it in actual daylight. There are a few trees along that mile stretch which should be removed. I’m glad they haven’t been, though, especially now that they’ve dropped their leaves. Their limbs now reach craggily across the trail, wide and expansive. They are a sight to behold in diminished light of early morning. I’ve always loved the look of leafless trees, even those already dying. If I could afford it, I would have a tree similar to the one gracing the entrance to Crystal Bridges Museum.

The trail was mine this morning, as is usually the case. I saw no one and found the tranquility so compelling that I removed my headphones for almost all of the walk. It’s still hard for me to believe that other people aren’t out there in the dark. The trails are such a treat and the world is a different place during those hours.

On the way home, I stopped at the neighborhood market, the one which looks like it is being redesigned by an expert on urban torture. Dawn and I went to Harps yesterday afternoon. I had to dig in the freezer section for her to reach a few Lean Cuisine pizzas. (Which, by the way, are exceedingly good.) I didn’t check the dates. Dawn had already wisely decided to ignore the yogurt selection, as it suffered from the “O Brother Effect,” meaning everything in the selection range was at least two weeks out of expiration. When we arrived home, Dawn discovered that Harps had once again punched us in the face with poor inventory control. Harps is a place we want so much to love – but we can’t. The location near us is like a brother-in-law with a heart of gold but also suffering from a massive heroin addiction. (He’ll give you the shirt off his back but sell your dog.) The Gutenshon location is such a massive upgrade from our branch. Dawn was surprising her mom with a cake, though, and she had ordered one from that location.

As I wandered around the market, I had several encounters which amused and confused me. Several areas were roped off due to store redesign and I stopped to ask a question. The employee looked at me as I asked and just walked off. I laughed at his brazenness. He might not have spoken English very well but I’m not sure walking away without comment is the correct choice. I could be wrong though. Maybe my picture was on a “Warning” sign in the breakroom?

The next question I lobbed at two women holding either scanners or stolen Star Trek phasers. It’s tough to know that early in the morning. “Where are the canned vegetables?” They looked at one another, spoke a few quiet words back and forth. One of them said, “We don’t know.” They turned and walked away. I made a mental note to write J.D. Powers and nominate them for some kind of award.

I went around past the hideous meat section and found a small cadre of employees in front of a massive stack of supplies on the floor. The younger male was a few feet away, watching a video on his phone. Just because I was now in a mood to engage in tomfoolery, I stepped slightly behind him, acted like I was looking at his phone and said, “PORN?!” in a very loud outdoor voice. Everyone froze and looked at me, standing behind the young man holding his phone out. I pantomimed and pointed at his phone and laughed. He jerked the phone in the other direction and put it in his pocket.

“I wasn’t looking at porn. This guy is crazy,” he told the other workers.

“I know what I saw!” I said, jokingly.

Still laughing, I asked them where the canned vegetables were. One of the girls pointed back behind me and I walked away. I could feel the porn guy’s eyes drilling holes in my backside as I sauntered away.

I left the store without any canned corn. But I had something much greater: a great story to amuse myself with.

Humor, Music

Don’t Take Notes! A Cautionary Tale

11/03/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

When I attended the University of Toledo I took 4 semesters of music theory. It’s a world-renowned musical arts university, eclipsing even that of the famed Cincinnati Arts College. As part of the curriculum, I was required to attend several lectures by prominent composers and music composition experts. I considered opting out for religious reasons, as the university adopted a policy that stipulated that music theory was just a theory, like evolution, and if you wanted to pretend it wasn’t a real thing, no one would stop you. Even percussionists were allowed to invoke the rule but due to their chronic lateness, we couldn’t be sure they ever heard about the exemption.

Before each outing, the professor would always look at the students sitting in front of him and insist that we take notes. It was a refrain we heard as often as “good morning.” I knew he was going to be a pain in the ass the first time I heard him speak, right after he told us that he started learning music on the clarinet. Reed instruments are the byproduct of devilish design – a fact well-known in music circles but seldom expressed so as to not harm the delicate feelings of those unlucky enough to have been cursed with reed instrument afflictions.

In my last semester of music theory, I was lucky enough to get an invitation to Fred Winnebago’s solo performance at the Nancy Drew Arts Project. Fred had just had his 6th major symphony recorded and was doing musical presentations around the country. Interestingly, his prosthetic leg didn’t slow him down very much.

Before the performance, Fred Winnebago took 30 minutes to lecture the audience about his musical methods. My professor had already done the introduction and once again reminded us to “Take notes!”

As the curtain opened, Fred sat at an ornate piano. The lights dimmed. As Fred’s fingers began to press the ivories, no sound emerged. Fred seemed confused and removed his hands from the keyboard. After a moment, he once again dropped his fingers lightly to the keys and began to move his fingertips over them. No sound whatsoever.

The professor stepped out from backstage, tentatively, holding a microphone up so that he could speak.

“It seems as if we are having technical difficulties,” the music professor began.

“Yes, you shouldn’t have told us to take notes – now there aren’t any left to play,” someone shouted from the back.

After a long, loud collective groan of mock disgust from the audience, we broke out in applause.

Even the professor, who now seemed uninterested in anyone taking more notes.

Death, Whimsical

Goodbye, Butterfinger

10/31/2017 X Teri Leave a comment

It’s befitting that I stand here now on a diminishing Halloween afternoon. Hours ago, family and friends hovered near, all collectively somber and looking for solace in the dried grass and impervious headstones. There’s nothing more dangerous than the familiar terrain of the faces of friends and family while we are gathered to dismiss someone from this realm. It’s easier to look away or to retreat inside oneself.

I didn’t even know of your death until today, when someone said, “X, you’re not going to believe this. He died. Butterfinger died.”

We weren’t friends in the traditional sense. But we shared some outrageous moments, most of them fueled by your ability to go places most people would hesitate to cross. There were times when our shared laughter lifted us up to heaven, raucous and not befitting polite company. Life, though, it thrived in those moments. It had no choice and I couldn’t help except to laugh harder as you dared to strangle the oxygen from around us.

After a death, we think we know a person or have gauged the sum of what they were. No matter who you are or who they were there is no escaping that we are simply floundering around with our presumption of knowing them. It is a rare thing for people to congregate after a death and all agree that they share a clear picture of who someone was while they walked amongst us.

As we often do, we personalize a death and transpose ourselves, wondering how wrong people will have been about us. It’s a human tendency, one powered by the relentless ticking of the clocks we all pretend to not hear. I think of all the hats I’ve worn and of the distinct ways I’ve touched people, for good or ill. Depending on your perspective, you measure me with hate, admiration, humor, seriousness, apathy or total disregard. We all leave different maps behind us, often several of them; often, many don’t align. Our friends and family are left to conjure some semblance of reason from the mismatched versions of ourselves in the puzzle pieces. It’s not so much a question of who is right or wrong. Rather, it is one of the complexities of our lives and personality as we overlap with differing groups: work, church, family, and friends.

While I can’t speak for everyone, I honestly mean it when I say that I pass inordinate amounts of my life without sharing anything essential of who I am. Of course, I can explain it away by using words such as “business,” or “work,” or whatever other label excuses our inability to properly enjoy our lives as the human beings we are. People who know me in these moments of expected impersonal interactions will have no means to measure me, though they struggle to do so.

Having the reputation of being someone with an exaggerated sense of dark humor, I swear an oath to you that I don’t use these words accidentally or lightly. While I am no speaker for the dead, I am not one who enjoys the idea of failing to pay homage to the totality of all the people who lived inside a single person. I embrace the idea of the breadth of someone’s life, even if some of it doesn’t lead to the glorification of our potential. We all know and recognize that almost all of our life is comprised of little moments and many of those most enjoyed in retrospect are not ones we would wish everyone to see.

Butterfinger, though, he was a strange creature, powered by the touch of the strangest humor and affections. Because I didn’t have a Venn diagram between the sliver of life I shared with him and his other realms, I can’t speak to those other spheres. But I can say without qualification that in the sense that I knew Butterfinger, he was alive in the truest sense, though many would not understand him in this regard. Were he an angel, it would be one prone to mischief and fun-loving devilry.

I’m not here to argue about who he was, what motivated him, or even the significance of his relatively short life. I’m here to tip my hat at a crazy angle toward his outlandish laugh and smile.

Goodbye, Butterfinger. May your first night in the soil bring forth the warm remembrance of all the zaniness that I remember you for. May your memory be confirmed and conformed to each of us, all of whom knew a piece of you as you ambled about on the surface of this planet.

I’ll stop by another day and place a Butterfinger on your little piece of the earth. And I’ll probably laugh like a dark bastard as I do so.

No disrespect – only remembrance. In a life of small moments, it is more than sufficient.