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Norwegian Wood, The Saddest Man in the World, Hiding from the Sun. Part 2

2012-02-07

"Do you like my bangs? I only cut them this way a few days before we met." She turns her head a little to her right. The bangs aren't straight. There's a slight angle and then an arc down to her left. It looks good by certain views, and I love the length of the hair, the volume of it, but something about that arc is a little off for me so I hesitate in answering. I'm puzzled, and considering we'd just seen the saddest man in the world on the bus, I think, This is what she wanted to ask me?

"What? I thought you were going to ask me a serious question." I start to laugh a little but cut myself short since I can see right away that I fucked it up. It is a serious question, and my answer let her know that from certain angles, I don't like her bangs. That's not to say she isn't pretty, that her beauty doesn't move me, but how do I tell her about that arc without getting slapped? "Well, if you just don't turn your head this certain way ..." SLAP! "I mean … it isn't that I don't like them, but…" SLAP! Maybe just a mental slap, but that's even worse than the actual so it can't be said, but she knows I think it because I hesitated and then questioned the question. I didn't simply tell her she's beautiful or even utter a simple ,"Yes." Damn. I must be an idiot.

We sit in silence for a moment. Then she speaks. "You know, from the way you look at me, I thought you did. I had the idea that you wanted to make me feel beautiful."

"Look, I'm sorry. You are, it's just ... I mean … I …" Sigh. Sip beer. Maybe the right words will be in there. I look in the glass. Nothing. Had she been thinking about romance with an old guy like me? Given the age difference, I'm not even sure what I want, but this conversation worries me a little, makes me think she's fishing for something I don't have, something I can't give her.

"Don't worry about it. It's OK. What more can I ask of anyone than to be honest?"

I think she can ask for a whole lot more. Most people do since honesty isn't always the best, not by a long shot. Too late now, though. I must really be an idiot. But I guess that's something I've known for years, maybe a number of ex-girlfriends would agree.

"That wasn't what I really wanted to ask you, though," she says, "That movie and the sadness of that guy on the bus made me think of something. Like you, I read Norwegian Wood a long time ago, and now, I want to read it again. When I first read it though, I was happy. I was in love. I couldn't understand the idea of a woman not being able to get wet for her lover. How is that possible? It would indeed drive a woman nuts to want someone and to try but not be able to, to love them but … how shall I say? … not be able to open for them."

"For men they, have Viagra."

"Yeah, but what about women? What can a woman do? Have you ever not been able to?"

"Only when really drunk, but even then, the right kind of coaxing will bring it around."

"Men are lucky that way. The wind blows, and you're ready for sex. Sometimes I think it'd be cool to be a guy." I motion to the bartender for two more beers. Vicki continues, "Anyway, I wanted to ask a favor of you, and it's because I have a good feeling about you even though we only just met. But I think that's better. I couldn't ask a friend I knew well."

That makes me worry more. This can't be good. Or rather, it can be good and bad at the same time when someone asks for a favor for the reason of not knowing each other well. "So what is it? If I can, I will." Our beers arrive. We drink for a moment.

"Like I said, I have a good feeling about you. I could see it when I saw you reading 1Q84 at Mecca that night. And I see the way you look and me, and honestly, I like that, so the thing is this. I haven't had sex in two years…"

"You?"

"Yeah, me."

"I don't believe it."

"Women and men are different. A guy can be heartbroken and crying for lost love and still sleep with the first woman who comes along who's willing. Not so for a woman, or at least for me. I lost someone a couple years ago and just haven't had the desire for anyone else. I haven't even gone on a date in that time. It's like men can see something in me, see that I'm not interested, so they don't ask."

"So you want to go on a date? Is that it?"

"Well, partially." She drinks which makes me drink. We look around the Tap House as if to check that no one is listening. "Yeah, a date I guess, but … I want to have sex. I want to sleep with someone, feel someone. It's healthy, and honestly, I need the release without any baggage or attachments. I think our age difference would help with that."

A man can wait a lifetime for a beautiful woman to proposition him for an evening of sex, unattached sex, just sex for fun, pleasure, and release. I guess I'm not like most men, though, because I fear the whole idea at the same time, fear what it might cost me since a woman who opens up like that to me, who chooses me for such release, runs the risk of my falling for her. Awkward arc in the bangs or not though, how can I possibly refuse?

"And besides, you said it's been a while for you, and you're not getting any younger."

I'm not sure if I should be insulted by that but decide to let it go. Of course I want to sleep with her, but it's like the Cheap Trick song. I want her to want me, and for more than a little release. Maybe I'm weak though because I can't say no. I feel the words coming, and I can't pause them, can't suggest that maybe it isn't the best idea, especially given our age difference. "OK. What do you have in mind?" Maybe it's the length of hair, the way I imagine it on my chest, or her slender body. I'm drawn in, powerless.

"I was thinking Valentine's Day. I know it's a cheap, stupid holiday, but still, it seems perfect since it's just next week."

"OK."

She smiles, "Thanks. I wasn't sure until I squeezed your hand earlier. We don't have to do anything fancy, and I'll split the cost with you since it's my idea."

"OK." I can suddenly say little else.

"You want another? Next round's on me."

"OK.

We drink more beer, and leave the agreement at that for the moment. We talk more Murakami instead. Hard-Boiled Wonderland. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Life is truly odd sometimes with the way the unexpected continues to happen. Each day is indeed a chance for something new. It gives me the belief that the miracle is still out there, still waiting patiently for me to find it. In the meantime, though, it would seem I have a date for Valentine's Day.

"Are you on Facebook?" she asks.

"Yeah, why?"

"Just thinking."

I can't help but wonder what I've gotten myself into.

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Norwegian Wood, The Saddest Man in the World, Hiding from the Sun. Part 1

2012-02-06

"So what do you want to do now?"

"Not sure. I guess during the movie I realized I'd forgotten much of the story so I'd like to get the book and read it again. Let's go to the bookstore." We're standing outside of the Uptown Cinema in Queen Anne. It's Super Bowl Sunday, but rather than football we've opted for a movie, the film adaptation of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. It wasn't bad as such films from great books go, certainly better than the film version of Blindness which made me wish I were blind. It's easy to make a great book into a bad movie, harder to make a decent movie like the one we saw today, and harder still, of course, to make something that has merit of its own in the medium, something that is more than just a book turned into a movie, something that makes one appreciate the differences between page and film, ponder them and read them and watch them again. This movie of Norwegian Wood doesn't get to that point, though. It makes me want to re-read the book to fill in the gaps in the story from things I'd forgotten or that were left out of the movie. In that sense, then, it created a void that needs filling. I suppose that's the reason Murakami is reluctant to sell the movie rights for his books.

"Let's go downtown then, "she says, "I have a Barne's & Noble gift card left over from Christmas." We walk down a half block to the bus stop where the number 15 bus has just pulled up as if specially called for us. As a man in a wheelchair gets off the bus, we wait in line behind another couple, a young couple holding hands and smiling to be out on a 60 degree day in February. They face each other and kiss. I look up at the sun, down at my winter coat. I hadn't checked the weather before leaving the house in the morning.

"Aren't you hot?" she asks as if reading my thought.

"Yeah, but it's easier to wear this than carry it." I open the coat and close it in the manner of a flasher. She laughs. The guy in the wheelchair is finally off and on his way down the sidewalk so we board and make our way to the back of the bus where it's crowded. We find two seats across from each other and ride in silence down Queen Anne to 1st, and over to 3rd. Her name is Vicki, and she's a beauty, thin with the lithe body of a dancer, long red hair with bangs and a natural curl. It hangs mid-way down her back, and after meeting her a few days ago at Mecca, I've thought of little else but that hair and the hope that if would someday soon cover the length of my torso as we lay in bed with her head on my chest, her breath on my skin. That might never happen, though. We only shared drinks and talked about books that first night, "I've been meaning to read that. Is it any good?" she asked of 1Q84 as I sat reading and sipping a Blue Moon. She had a Blue Moon, too, one of those things two people might try to read meaning into if something lasting and memorable should happen. We're both Murakami fans and so after a few drinks and a few words, we agreed to meet this afternoon to see Norwegian Wood. At twenty-seven, though, she's fifteen years my junior, and that seems young, almost child-like so maybe this will never approach romance. Maybe we're just hanging out. Maybe she just wants to talk about books with an old guy like me.

At 3rd and Virginia, a man gets on the bus and makes his way to the back. He sits down two seats away from me and lets out a wail, and we all notice then that he's crying, sobbing more like. He's a bald, hispanic man with a mustache, and there are tears streaming down his face, moans and groans echoing from his mouth in between pleas to the heavens, "Oh, please no … please …" All conversation in the back of the bus ceases. Some people watch him. Others try not to stare. He continues crying. Finally, someone asks, "You OK, man?" There's a pause, more crying. Someone else speaks, "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring some bad vibes on the bus," he sniffles, "but I just got some bad news." Mention of the bad news gets him and he lowers his head as his whole body shakes with sadness. "It's OK, man," someone offers, "you'll get through." Vicki and I get off at Pine Street. Exiting the bus, I look back at the guy now sitting alone in a row of three seats, people giving him his space as if his sadness is contagious.

"I wonder what that was all about," Vicki says, "It makes me sad to think something happened to affect that guy so much that he'd do that in public." I guess it was contagious. We're facing each other, looking into the eyes, holding each other's gaze for the first time, and I can see it there, bits of his sadness rubbed off and clinging to her eyelashes.

"How a bout a drink before the bookstore?"

Someone bumps into me then, a black guy, tall, strong, "Sorry man," he offers before moving on.

"No worries."

We watch him walk off. He has a carefree stroll, almost a swagger. He starts singing.

You can look inside another world.
You get to talk to a pretty girl.
She's everything you dream about...
but don't fall in love...
She's a beauty ---
one in a million girl,
she's a beauty.

It's perhaps the last song I expected him to sing, but there it is, The Tubes singing of beauty. I look at Vicki. She's beautiful but even more so because she's standing next to me as if proximity has lifted a veil that allows me to see a little more than I would if I just passed her on the street or saw her over at the end of the bar, if we'd never exchanged words.

"I haven't heard that song in ages," Vicki says, "My mother loved that one. She pauses, sighs, "… and yes on that beer. How about the Tap House?"

"Works for me."

We walk off toward 6th Ave and the 160 or so beers in the Tap House. It's underground and so easy to lose track of time down there. I smile to think we're going from movie theater to underground bar like we're hiding from the sun, trying to capture some time of our own to see what will happen. As we walk, she takes my hand, gives it a squeeze, lets go. We continue with our hands in our pockets, both of us unsure where this is going but enjoying the uncertainty for the moment.

"I used to be like him, that guy in the bus. Not in public like that, but I have at times been the saddest man in the world. I think everyone has."

"How about now?"

We get to the corner of Pine and 5th. The light is red so we have to wait.

"Now?" I notice she still has a little sadness in the corner of her eyes. I wonder if it's more than what she got from that guy on the bus. I wonder if there's some other sorrow in there that has yet to come out. I met her in a bar, after all. We were both there alone. I was reading. She was reading too, Patti Smith's Just Kids. Who does that at a bar other than people with a little sadness? The solitary drink and a book as others who've come in groups drink and chat and get their merry on. Perhaps both of us are damaged people, wounded people, people alone and on the mend from the pitfalls of life. Perhaps there will be no romance but rather some healing. Here we are no longer going to the bar alone to read. We're going to speak, to savor the moment, maybe find a bit of understanding, a bit of sunshine, in the underground of the Tap House, in shared drinks and stories of our pasts before heading up the stairs and out into the separate paths of our lives.

The light changes to green so I tap her arm as we start to cross the street, "Not so much now. Come on. Let's get that drink." We get to the Tap House and head down the stairs to the safety of the bar. I order two Blue Moons. We get them, clink glasses, and feel the afternoon stretch out before us in the way it only can from the stool of a bar.

"There's something I want to ask you," she says.

"OK, fire away."

"I will."

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Tom Petty, Bus Stop In Snow, The Woman Who Won't Shut Up

2012-01-22

With Tom Petty's "You Got Lucky" in my head all week, I've been playing the chords, Am Dm G, the simple guitar solo, singing, "You put a hand on my cheek," Am Dm G, "And then you turned your eyes away," Am Dm G, "If you don't feel complete," Am Dm G, "If I don't take you all of the way then go..." Big Am chord. Exclamation point.

It's the A minor followed by the F that I've had in my head mostly. There's something fine about hitting those chords and shouting "Go!" on the Am, "Yeah go!" on the F. There's the word, the sound, the action of fingering the chord, the movement of strumming it, the vibration of the body of the acoustic, "Go!" and the transition down the neck from fifth fret to first, the lowness of the F, the rumble of it, laying the index finger across all the stings and the other fingers in their appropriate places, the big strum, "Yeah go!" There's a power in those chords and words that makes everything seem possible, even good love. I played the song every day this week at night and also in the morning before walking to the bus stop where the woman who won't shut up talks non-stop until the bus comes. Wednesday morning was no different.

"You know, my boss should close the shop today what with all this snow," she said as I approached. I nodded to her, looked up the street. No bus. It had snowed all night, and snow in Seattle is always some sort of catastrophic event with the hills and the icy, slippery roads. "I work in a little boutique, and I know we won't do much business in this weather." I consider reading the book under my arm, 1Q84, but it's windy and snowy, and some part of me thinks it might be rude because I know the woman will keep talking.

I'd seen her at the bus stop a few times, and she usually talks to a couple of the regular riders, one black woman, one Asian girl who's in college, but they were not there in the snow of that morning. It was just me and her, and she kept on talking. "I saw the 5:30 bus go by. It was on time, but now that they're on snow routes, so you never know. I hope the 6:00 is on time." I looked at my phone, 5:58.

"Me too."

"Yeah, the 5:30 went by right at 5:30. I can see the bus from my place. I live right over there on the second floor, a little one bedroom." She pointed. I looked, nodded again. "Boy, you must really have to be somewhere if you're out here taking the bus in all this snow. I do too. My boss should close the shop today. I hope it's on time. I don't have a computer so I couldn't check the internet to see if there was any news about the routes. Sometimes they cancel, but I couldn't check because I don't have a computer. I'm not much good with a computer, you see."

She was older, maybe mid-fifties, slightly pear-shaped. She wore a long green winter coat, a yellow wool hat with tassels on each side, purple boots, red gloves. She was quite colorful, and maybe color blond. I silently wished the bus would come on time, too, for the cold of course, but also because I could get into the book sooner and away from the mundane details of her life.

"I didn't eat much breakfast. I usually have a couple of eggs and toast, but not today. I'm trying to lose some weight, you see. I might not look it, but I could stand to lose some. When I tell people how much I weigh, they're always surprised. I say, '185 pounds,' and they say that I don't look it, but trust me, I am."

"Most of us could stand to lose some weight." 1Q84 was tucked under my left arm, both hands in my pockets. I tapped my stomach with my right hand. In a blessed moment of silence, we both looked up the street hoping the bus would make an appearance soon. It was still snowing small droplet flakes, and no cars passed since I'd arrived. It was dark, windy, below freezing, so I was glad I remembered to wear a scarf, but with no hat, my head and laptop case and the exposed parts of the book were collecting some snow. I had no idea if she weighed 185 but did not want to know. Many people I know well who are in much better shape will not reveal their weight, but here she was telling me. She lived alone, worked in a small boutique, probably had few friends, maybe none. I thought she must be lonely, that she must have a hard time of it living alone in a small place at her age and making probably little more than minimum wage. No one ever thinks they'll end up with such a life, but some people do. I wondered what dreams she had and where they went.

"Still no bus," she said, "I don't like the snow as much as I used to when I was younger. It doesn't even look beautiful on the houses and trees anymore." I looked around. It was beautiful. Even the street was beautiful since it hadn't been dirtied by much traffic yet. What makes newly fallen snow so pretty and peaceful? It has a quieting hush, I guess, makes one reflective, sets one at ease. "I rememeber my son used to like the snow. We'd go sledding and build snowmen. That was a long time ago, though. He's a drug addict now, of course."

I smiled and hoped she didn't think I was happy for her son's current situation. I just thought she didn't care what she said. She simply wanted to talk to someone, or maybe have someone really listen. I understand the feeling. I live alone too, and I tend to write things down, and that gives me a lot of solace and release, but there are still times, days, nights, whole weekends where I'd love to talk to someone, but no one is there. I've only lived alone for a couple years, though. I wondered how long she had, probably many years. If I still live alone in ten years, maybe I'll talk to anyone who will listen, cashiers, waiters, random people at the bus stop, and tell them the intimate deatils of all they don't care about. She must, indeed, be lonely. She looked up frowning and let the snow fall on her face.

"Jimmy. James Douglas after his father. Jimmy's a drinker, too, though. I like wine sometimes myself, you see, but only one or two glasses, any more than that and I can't remember my name. Anyway, one time, Jimmy and his father built an army of snowmen in front of the house. The neighbors didn't like it. They said it was ugly, you see, but they were a crotchety set anyway."

"How's he doing these days, your son?"

She looked at me. Her mouth was open. She was surprised at my question, my concern for detail, a response to something she'd shared. I thought about the black woman and the Asian woman. They would nod and agree each morning, "Yeah ... uh huh," but they never asked of things, never sought more information. "I'm not sure," she said, "I haven't spoken to him in a few years, you see." There was a sadness in her eyes, but I could tell she appreciated the question. When was the last time anyone showed her any concern other than hoping she'd be silent? How does a person end up that way, aging quietly, diminishing, slowly living out a lonely, meaningless life? Will I end up like her someday? There was a noise up the street. We looked. It was the bus. She noted the time, "6:10, not too late for a snow day, but I hope it's on time tomorrow so we don't have to stand in this snow."

The bus pulled up, and we got on. She sat near the front. I went all the way to the back, put my laptop on a seat, opened 1Q84. Before I started reading, I looked at the back of her head up there in the front of the bus. She was already talking to the bus driver as he as rounded a corner on the way to downtown Seattle. "Do you know what the forecast is like for tomorrow? I might try to catch the 5:30 if it's snowing again, you see. Of course, the tall guy with glasses is the usual driver for this route. I wonder where he is this morning. Maybe he called in sick. I'd like to call in sick, but my boss wants the shop open so I can't." The song came back to me then, Tom Petty, and I sang the chorus quietly, fingered the chords on the back cover of the book, "Good love is hard to find. Good love is hard to find."

She had a kid, and though he turned out a drug addict, she'd found good love once upon a time, and once in the form of an army of snowmen. She lived alone now, though, and was in that talkative form of loneliness, reaching, grasping, flailing for any response but almost not sure what to do when she gets it so she just keeps talking and isolating herself even more. No one deserves such. She lost that good love she once had, but I hope she finds it again. I hope we all do, and I hope those we find, those we love, realize how lucky they are. I hear the bus driver up front.

"Yeah ... uh huh,"

Tom Petty - You Got Lucky

Two Lesbians, A Kiss, You Got Lucky

2012-01-17

After the Mad Hat Tacoma
book reading
in the tea shop where I
had to substitute two cups of
tea for two
Blue Moons,
I got a ride
home from two
lesbians, one of them a writer
who read,
one a musician who played,
but north off the highway we
opted for the bar
first, then their
place,
and for once
when hanging
out with women
I did not
think about
sex,
did not spend
the hours
and conversation
trying simply
to get
into shirts
under bras
unzip pants
and beyond.
There were beers
and guitars
and songs
and stories
and histories
but no flirting,
no want
on either side
of all
that lay
behind closed zippers.

After the beers
were gone,
we got into the wine.
I knew then
the hangover
would come,
but even after spilling a glass
did not mind
because my jokes
went through
their jokes
went through
and three people
let it all
hang out
without
letting it all
hang out.

Glasses of red were
drained,
were refilled,
drained,
refilled,
and one of them spoke
to the other,
"You were lucky, babe,
when I found you."
They ran fingers through
hair, kissed,
smiled,
laughed.
It was the most
beautiful kiss
I'd ever witnessed,
not at all like
watching a man
and woman kiss
because I knew,
I know,
what it's like
to kiss a woman,
to want to kiss a woman,
and here there
were two women
who knew the same thing,
who longed
for the same thing,
who did
the same thing,
and the phrase went
through my head,
You got lucky.
You got lucky.
You got lucky.

I have my faults.
I do.
I admit.

I am guilty
of loving too quickly
or blindly,
of losing sight
of all else
but matters of the heart
and so becoming
twisted round my
own desires.

But I have the other,
those bits which can
only be seen
by the open eyes
of another,
that which cannot
be explained, but
only felt,
only seen,
only absorbed.

I have it.

I'd almost forgotten, almost
succumbed, but was reminded
when one of them
spoke of luck before a kiss,
and the phrase went on
there, repeating.

You got lucky.
You got lucky.
You got lucky.

A Tom Petty song

You got lucky.

Tom was right,
and we poured more red,
spilled more
red
and I picked the guitar
up,
rested it on my
wine-soaked thigh,
steadied myself,
and strummed
a few simple chords.

First, only I sang,

"You put a hand on my cheek,
and then you turned your eyes away..."

Then we all sang,

"Good love is hard to find
Good love is hard to find
You got lucky, babe,
You got lucky, babe,
when I found you."

I kept strumming.
I played the solo.

They embraced again.
They kissed again.
It was beautiful,

again.

And I thought,
I may not
be lucky
now, but others
have been,
others would be.

---

Tom Petty - You Got Lucky

The Last One in the World

2012-01-14

The blue light of the webcam on my laptop flashes once.

"What the...?"

I have to wonder if my laptop just took a picture of me. I look at it, tilt my head slightly to the left, make the questioning face, raise my right eyebrow. The webcam does not flash again, and after a few minutes, I begin to doubt that it did. Why would it? I'm just sitting here working on a poem about the last vagina in the world, sipping my coffee in nothing but my blue Homer Simpson boxers. I scratch my stomach, study the tattoo on my chest for a moment, then focus again on the still dark square that is the built in webcam of my laptop.

Did that just flash? If so, what malicious software might be taking photos of me? And what's it doing with those photos? And what's it doing with the data, photos, and files I have stored on the hard drive? But then, it couldn't have flashed. I'm careful with the computer. I have my anti-virus software installed and up to date. I have my anti-spyware and all such, run them regularly, keep things clean and speedy. I must have blinked or something, must have seen the light hit it just so. Or maybe it's just the hangover playing tricks on a tired brain. No, it couldn't have flashed.

I get back to thinking about that last vagina in the world and what men would do to compete for it, for the literal last one, to be the one to reach salvation, or at least the first one to reach it. I adjust the screen of my laptop. There is a flicker of blue light.

"What the...?"

I know it flashed this time. I put my face close to the screen. I tap it.

"Hello? Hello, McFly? Anyone home?"

No more flashing. No more blue light. There's just the white of the screen, the cursor blinking after the first few lines of the poem:

A woman
might
say it,
"Not if you
were the last
man on Earth."
A guy
would never
say such,
for the
last woman
would mean
the last
vagina,
and that
would never be ignored...

I'm stuck there. I guess all men are, just nature pointing the way. I try to wonder what life would be like in the absence of such, if I was one of the unlucky guys who failed to reach that last one, if I was doomed to a life without sex for lack of braun or wit or charm, if that last woman rejected me in the face of stronger men, smarter men, men more clever and funnier than I. I look around my apartment. There is some unopened mail on my sofa, unironed shirts on the ironing board, the unused iron on the floor. Empty beer bottles on the counter and floor and desk and end table, some paper towels over the spot where I spilled one of those beers last night. I sniff. It smells of stale beer. It does not smell of sex, no scent or trace of a woman, has not in quite some time.

I think about that imaginary world with only one vagina remaining, the world where that last woman chooses other men, a world full of want. I guess I'm already there, and in a way, that's a good thing. I have all my time to write, to imagine such a world, to think about the body parts of that last woman. I switch applications from the text editor to the web browser. I have it open to a porn site. The banner ad at the top of the page reads, "Cum all night long with women near you" with an image of a woman with some on her face. I click around the site, find a video of two women, click play. I'm writing about it, the last woman and her last vagina, so it's just "research" into female anatomy. Another browser window opens with a prompt to start a live online sex session.

The blue light flashes again, but I don't care. I just smile at it.

A Christmas Story: Condoms, Cigarettes, Pumpkins

2011-12-26

I woke up Christmas morning alone. It's the way I wake up every morning, of course, but not my preferred way to do such. I can handle the quiet solitude of late nights playing with the word over a few drinks, of pacing back and forth in my apartment as I fish for the right phrase, sipping and turning and sipping and turning and then running to the laptop when inspiration comes. I've dropped beers doing such. I've fallen down, banged my knee on the corner of the futon, cursed at the top of my lungs, "Son of a bitch!" but those were good nights. It's the mornings that are hardest.

In the pitch blackness that is my room, I'll wake up and feel the emptiness that is my king size bed, and it doesn't help that the guy who lives upstairs and his girlfriend like to have sex in the morning, and quite often at that. She's a loud one, too. One morning, I heard him leave his apartment, heard his footsteps on the stairs, and then there was a knock on my door. It was 6:00. When I opened it, he got right to the point, "Hey man, you got any condoms?" I didn't. Another time, it sounded like there were two women up there. Lucky him.

I lay sometimes in the dark on my half of the bed as they go at it before work and coffee. There's always a bang or two on the wall, and I try to block out the sounds by thinking about what I wrote the previous evening or what I want to write. There is all kinds of room and space and time to fill the pages, and so I do. There is also room to sleep, a whole half a bed, and all the time and space of every single night if I could, but I can't. Sleep does not come easily anymore without the arms of another so I don't even go to bed until 2:00, fall asleep, maybe, around 3:00 or 4:00, and with the rare exception, I get up no later than 7:00.

My Christmas Eve turned into Christmas in that fashion. I was up just before 7:00 with my standard three hours of sleep, and as I rubbed my eyes on my way to the kitchen, I listened, but there were no sounds upstairs. They must have been visiting family. I considered making scrambled eggs but instead ate one cold potato roll, then another. I thought to write for a bit, but the prospect of staying home alone on Christmas day seemed depressing so I left. I drove out, and luckily, I found a small coffee shop in West Seattle that was open. As I was walking in, one of the women working recognized me, "Hi, Dave! Merry Christmas." She was Amy, the drummer for a band I'd once written about on my music blog. That was a while ago, though, and they had potential so I wanted to see them again.

"Merry Christmas. When are you guys playing next?"

"New Year's Eve for a house party. You should come."

"Maybe I will. Send me the details."

"Done. What'll you have?"

"Just a coffee in a mug for here."

"Done. I'll bring it out to you when it's ready."

I went to a table, sat down, and read a bit of The 1st Treasury of Herman which was a Christmas gift from my brother years and years ago and maybe for that reason still makes me laugh. After a few moments, Amy called out, "Hey, Dave, you want any..." I thought she was going to say cream or milk so I prepared my usual joke of saying that I preferred only caffeine, but she surprised me, "...Bailey's or Frangelico in this? It's Christmas after all."

"Uh...sure. Bailey's, please."

"Done." She brought it over, "Here you go, a little Christmas cheer." Indeed it was, made me glad I left the house. I got to work on the Bailey's and more of Herman and overheard her talking to the other woman who worked there.

"You know," the other woman said, "We need to have a smoke break before we go." Amy's eyes brightened.

"Damn straight!"

The other woman looked pretty good, black hair, straight, long, a few visible tattoos, a nose piercing, but I shook my head and thought I'd never understand smoking. It just doesn't make sense to me with the smell and the smoky breath and the ashes and butts. The last woman I loved told me smoking was a deal breaker for her. That made me smile. "It is for me, too," I replied. And it was. It was one of those early conversations in the relationship that illuminated one more connection, one more common thread. Neither of us smoked. Neither of us would put up with a smoker. We clinked bottles, "Cheers to that," and we drank. We dated for a while, thus, and then that ended as most relationships do. Things just don't last, but I am still the same. I would not date a smoker then. I will not do so now. Some things are more important than the empty space in my bed.

I left the coffee shop at 2:00 when they were closing up. "Bye," Amy said, "I'll send you the info for New Year's." The other woman smiled and waved, "Merry Christmas!" She was pretty when she waved.

"Thanks, you too. See you then." I walked to my car and sat for a few minutes fiddling the with radio and then fumbled in the clutter of the back seat to find the CD I was looking for, Radiohead's I Might Be Wrong. I put it in, skipped forward to "Morning Bell", one of my favorite tunes, cranked it. The drums came in, and I looked back at the coffee shop before I pulled away. Amy the Drummer and the Other Woman were out front smoking. Yeah, they were indeed pretty, but I wasn't attracted. There's just nothing sexy at all about smoking.

I drove across Lake Washington to the AMC theater near Factoria Mall intending to catch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but had some time to kill so I went to the QFC grocery store first. I bought some toilet paper and some beer, the essentials, and put them in the trunk of the car before going back into the QFC where there was a Starbucks kiosk in one corner with a few tables around it. I sat at one and read more of Herman and laughed out loud a few times while thinking I should call my brother more often, but that was followed by my usual response to the idea, "I'll call him tomorrow."

A sadness hit me then. It was Christmas day, and I was sitting alone at a table next to a Starbucks kiosk and reading. I was planning to see a movie later, alone. I woke up alone. I would go to bed alone. Alone, alone, alone. I looked around and said it out loud, "I'm in a fucking QFC on Christmas." A young couple came in then. They were holding hands and made haste to disappear in the aisles to seek whatever they wanted to buy. After ten minutes or so, I saw them leave. The woman was carrying a bottle of red wine, the guy a plastic bag. I wondered if there were condoms in it, and then for no reason at all, I bought some condoms myself, a three pack of Fire and Ice because it was the first box I saw on the shelf. I supposed I'd be ready the next time there was a knock on my door at 6:00 in the morning.

When it came time for the movie, I walked through the parking lot thinking, again, that it was Christmas, that I was alone with a pack of condoms in my coat pocket. Perhaps the movie would cheer me up. I crossed the street to the theater. There were two women on the sidewalk about thirty feet in front of the box office, and as I approached them, I heard my name.

"Dave!" It was the Other Woman from the coffee shop.

"Hi."

"You know Amy. She's a rad drummer, isn't she? You going to write about her band again?"

"Yeah, I think I will. I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name this morning."

"Clara. This is Lisa." We all shook hands. Clara still looked pretty good, a few extra pounds maybe, but nothing wrong with that. I'd rather have a little more than too little. I'd noticed at the coffee shop earlier that the tattoo on her forearm was not a design but some writing. I usually ask of such but hadn't this morning. I thought maybe I would there in front of the theater, but things took a turn. Clara pulled a pack a cigarettes from her purse. She gave one to Lisa. She offered one to me, and I remembered seeing her smoke outside the coffee shop.

"No, thanks. I don't smoke." I thought to make an excuse to get away from them but was too slow.

"What movie are you going to see?" Clara asked.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

"It's sold out."

"Yeah."

I put my hands in my coat pockets. "Oh," I said. "I'm not sure then." I was suddenly at a loss. Even with the cigarette, she still looked good, and that surprised me. I never think such of a woman holding a smoke. I squeezed the condom package with my right hand and for some reason got a little excited.

"I like your coat," Clara said. It was a black, wool topcoat that went down just above my knees. "Makes you look like an artist."

I squeezed the condom package again and looked down at my coat not sure exactly what she meant, but it felt good to hear her say it, "Thanks. I guess the coat makes the man..."

"Hardly." Eye contact. Squeeze. "Amy told me you wrote a book. I've never known an author."

"I did."

"You wrote a book?" Lisa asked.

"Yeah."

"Quote me a line."

I thought for a moment and said the first line that popped into my head, "We write books and songs and poems. It is the only way to make love eternal."

"I like that," Clara said, "and I agree. Nothing ever really lasts." Her head was tilted slightly, and she was looking at me in a way that made me think she was considering something. "Amy and I looked the book up online, and I ordered a copy from Amazon after reading the first few pages. It seemed interesting."

"Thanks." Those words, of course, made her look even better. I ordered a copy from Amazon ... It seemed interesting ... Such words made her sexy in spite of the cigarette. Squeeze.

"Since the movie is sold out we're going to go to a bar nearby. It's the only place open on Christmas night that we know of. Want to come?" She took a drag, exhaled. She was polite to turn her head, but the smoke still drifted back to the non-smoker. Lisa was checking something on her cell phone.

I thought about that last woman I loved, the deal breaker that smoking was, our connection in that. True, she didn't smoke, but then, in the end, she never loved me. She went her own way, at her own pace, but I thought that I would still have loved that woman even if she had smoked. Can one help such things? Are there any deal breakers? And besides, people do quit smoking. With the right kind of conviincing, a loved one will stop. It's impossible, though, to convince someone to love. It just can't be done. Pigs can't fly. I can't seem to get laid—squeeze—, and no amount of persuading can make love take root. The deal breaker should be the person, not the action. I guess in the end, then, I was the deal breaker, me, something about me just wasn't right, or maybe many things.

Clara spoke, "Well?"

"Hey, I gotta run," Lisa said looking up from her phone. "Family stuff. Got to love the holidays."

"She's my ride," Clara said.

"I'll give you a ride. I'm parked right over at QFC." I pointed across the street.

"Okay."

"Sorry, I really do have to go. I'll call you tomorrow," Lisa said hugging Clara, "Merry Christmas. Nice to meet you." We shook hands. She left.

"Where do you live?" I figured I should ask since I'd volunteered to give her a ride.

"West Seattle."

"Me too."

We started walking toward the QFC. She stamped out her cigarette, bumped into me a couple times, felt the package in my pocket. "What's that?" She reached in to get it out. "Oh...condoms, eh? You always bring condoms to the movies?"

"You never know what will happen when you get out of bed in the morning." I was trying to sound confident and bold to hide my embarrassment.

"Fire and Ice. Hmm...never cared for these." She opened the package, and as we walked through the QFC parking lot she placed a condom under the driver's side windshield wiper of three different cars. "I don't think we'll need these." She was laughing, having fun, darting between the cars. She was probably right, though. We would not need them. I wondered what I would do if I found a condom on my windshield. She pulled another cigarette out but did not light it. Instead, she bumped into me again, and we spun around. She grabbed my hand, and we continued walking to my car. "And anyway, if it comes to it, I have my own." From the tone in her voice, I was pretty sure it would come to it. Maybe I would regret it in the morning, but smoke or not, sometimes, that space does need to be filled, and maybe, smoke or not, it stays that way, and really, there's only one way to find out. Maybe the only deal breaker is the trying, the experience of letting another human in.

"You live alone?"

"Yeah."

"Me too."

We got to the car, got in. "So where's the bar?"

She just smiled, "Got a light?"

And for the first time ever, I made use of the car's cigarette lighter. She cracked her window a bit, exhaled a stream of smoke out, and I put the car in drive, eased it onto the street. "This way," she said pointing, and I followed the direction of her finger. I remembered the tattoo.

"What does that tattoo on your arm say?"

She looked at me, puffed again, smiled again, pointed again, "This way." When we got to the bar, she tapped her coat on her forearm, "It says, 'Merry Christmas'." I knew that wasn't true, but rather than question her on it, I thought that, finally, I would get some sleep tonight.

After a couple beers, we got back in my car and headed west over the I-90 bridge. She fumbled through the CDs in the glove box and the back seat, found one, the soundtrack for Singles. She popped it in, clicked forward to "Drown" by the Smashing Pumpkins. She tapped to the slow rhythm of the song on the door, puffed away, mouthed the words as she looked straight ahead and let it play all the way through the feedback solo after which she hit the back button, and the song started again. She took out another smoke and pushed the cigarette lighter in, "I like this."

I didn't know if she meant the night or the music or me or Christmas or the beers or that I'd let her smoke in the car, but I didn't care. I spoke to all such questions.

"Me too. Where's your apartment?"

She sang along this time, maybe needing that first pass through the song to remember the words. "Let's go to your place," she said between verses. I listened to her sing, "All of those yesterdays..." I was no longer alone, but I wondered if she was like me in simply not wanting to wake up in an empty half bed on the morning after Christmas as others made noises, if this was a one time thing, just a bit of Christmas cheer, but I decided that question could wait until we had a chance to wake the guy who lives upstairs.

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Smashing Pumpkins - Drown
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Herman

Present Tense Reprise

2011-12-19

Because sometimes things bear repeating, and because 2012 will be the best of years, and because just as at the end of 2009, I find myself here at the end of another calendar year on the verge of plunging into the writing of another book, the next book, my second book, here's something I wrote on 13 December 2010. All things considered, it is a good life.

---

There used to be
all that
which prevented me
from doing,
from writing,
and I was one
of those people.
"I want to write,"
I'd say,
"but there's work,
an oil change
for the car,
and the girlfriend
wants to spend Saturday
at IKEA before cooking
cabbage rolls
and watching DVDs."

Now,
all I do
is write,
and there is no
girlfriend,
no Saturdays whiled away
shopping for made-to-put-together furniture,
no evenings given
to cabbage rolls
or enchiladas
or various stews
as I rarely cook for one,
no moments on the couch
wrapped in arms
that can't be still
as movies are ignored
and clothes come off.

It is the words
that rather light up
the night, that keep
the walls from closing
in, that make the hours
something to remember
as phrases are typed
and read and reread
and shouted to the heavens
with arms upraised
for the beauty and joy
I hope
others will experience
when they read said phrases.

This, of course,
is followed
by the doubts
that seep in
after lowering arms
and looking
around to see,
again,

there is
no other
here.

The bars
and the bartenders
and the beers on tap
call then. "I'm here,"
they say, "The beauties
are here,"
they say.

But I'm strong
now. And though I do want
someone here,
need
someone here,
as there are moments of ache,
trembling, loneliness,
even despair,
they are only
moments, and I
do not go out
to seek beauty.
I sit.
I breathe
in, out
in, out
I twist open
another beer,
notice the indentations on the cap
match the permanent ones
on my thumb and index finger.
I give that bottle
a good long hit.
I do have my sorrows,
but there are
no regrets as I smile
at my good fortune
in this life,
the freedom
to remember beauty,
to place a name on it,
and from its loss
create
type
live
here
in the present tense
knowing unknown beauty
of one form or another
awaits on the next page.

----

Love the Life You Live

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Early Morning Phone Call

2011-12-13

The phone rang at 5:00 this morning. I almost didn't answer it. I rarely do, but I looked, of course. I had the thought, "Who the fuck calls at 5:00 in the God damned morning!" It was Her. The phone buzzed, and Her name flashed on my screen, and I was oddly calm. There were times when I would have jumped out of bed and knocked over lamp and nightstand and pulled down the curtains in my scramble to answer a call from beauty, but not this morning. My heart was thumping, but I slowly reached over, picked up the cell, clicked the button.

"Hello."

"Hi. It's me. Sorry for waking you."

"I don't mind."

"I knew you wouldn't." That makes me smile. "I'll be in Queen Anne today. You want to have some lunch?" It was an unexpected question at that hour.

"Lunch?"

"Yeah. I couldn't sleep so I was sitting here thinking and thought I'd see about lunch."

"Uh … sure … of course."

Who do we let into our worlds, and why? And to what extent? I've been down at times in my life, very down. Sometimes about a woman, sometimes about the lack of success or meaning, sometimes about nothing at all. At my worst, though, even at my lowest, I'd never end it all. I'd never chuck it in and intentionally trade in this life for whatever comes next. Never. Doing such would mean missing calls at 5:00 in the morning from a beauty who wants to have lunch with me, with me. You never know which way things will go. The good leads to bad leads through to good again, to calls from Her. it is indeed a beautiful thing, life, the opportunity to get such a wake up call, to run a woman over my brain cells that store the shared conversations, and look for connections, threads, fingerprints, anything that leaves a mark to build upon.

"So what do you want to eat? I'm thinking Pho or Mexican?"

"I have no idea."

"Or how about that place where alcoholics serve alcoholics?"

"You trying to imply something?"

A laugh, "Me? No, just an easy slogan to remember."

"It's called Mecca."

"And how do you know?"

I laughed. It's good to have a woman make me laugh and know that she wanted to do such. It made me laugh more.

"What's so funny?"

"You.

"Good. See you later at …?"

"I'll text you."

And so here I sit at work at 9:30. I've been up since 5:00 thinking about food and other things. I have no idea what I want for lunch, but I know where I want to go. My phone beeps to indicate a text message. It's from Her.

"So, where are we going?"

Put Your Whole Thing In

2011-12-08

And so after a couple hours talking about the truth of the book, our time comes, our time to sing. We venture forth to the stage where she takes hold of the microphone. She'll do most of the singing, thankfully. I'm just here for a little support, and the big choruses. The music starts with some bongos, a shaker, a shout. "Sympathy for the Devil." It's one of the few songs I can actually sing in my low-key kind of way. I did so years ago for a group of students in Korea. Being middle-school Korean boys, they laughed at the question, "Who killed the Kennedy's?" and its answer, "you and me," but they applauded at the end. Just as the vocal is about to begin, just as that bouncing ball is about to land on the first lyric, she hands me the microphone. Yikes! Looks like I'll do the singing, she the grooving. I clear my throat, and in my best imitation of Glenn Danzig (minus the poses and fishnet shirt) impersonating Mick Jagger, I sing.

"Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste..."

It goes on, and she moves off the stage to watch, to listen. We make eye contact sometimes, but I mostly look at the bouncing ball on the lyric screen even though I know the words. She continues grooving, and seeing her get into it, I get into it. Nothing moves more than music, and though I know I don't sing well, it's passable. I get through. It's karaoke after all. There is some applause, and as I step off the stage, she takes a picture of me with her phone. I'm smiling. She is smiling. Success.

"You left me alone up there," I say.

"You did fine on your own. Want to see the picture?"

"Sure."

"Hold on. I'll send it to you. I guess I need your number though." She opens her phone's contact list, types my name, hands me the phone. "Here, put your whole thing in?"

"Uh...sadly, I don't have women say that to me often?"

She laughs a big "Ha!" that echoes and makes me wonder now if she's thinking of what I'm thinking. It's the first genuine laugh I get out of her. Our conversation had been mostly serious until now. We're standing by the edge of the stage, looking at her phone, shoulders touching with those magnets like our thighs had been earlier. Attraction starts like that. The eyes, the handshake, the sitting closer and closer together, the leaning as thighs touch, then shoulders, possibly foreheads. Eventually, those other parts may be drawn together by that most powerful of all magnets. Yeah, I know. It's a bit early for my mind to go there, but then, I'm a guy. My mind is always there, especially next to beauty. Typing my number in her phone, I notice a blond hair of hers on the sleeve of my coat. I leave it there.

"This woman's good," she says of the woman now on stage singing "Smoke on the Water". I hand her back her phone. She looks at my information for a moment, touches the screen. "Hey, This has been fun, but I need to get going. I've been up since 5:00."

"I'll walk you out."

She smiles, "Thanks."

We leave. She leads us out of the bar and to the right. About a half block up, there's a busker in front of a shop. He has a guitar case out, long, thick, graying hair pulled back, a scratched Martin acoustic that had once been a valuable guitar. Oddly, it probably plays better and suits him more in its beaten condition. It is his instrument. He strums chords, rings out a few familiar notes. Being musicians, we stop and wait for it. Then we sing along.

"Gloria ... Glooooooria! ... Gloria ... Glooooooria!" She sings louder. I listen. The busker stops singing and just plays as she takes over the vocal and riffs on an improvised version of The Doors doing this song, "Now that we know each other a little bit better..." and then there's the chorus again, "Gloria ... Glooooooria!"

It ends. We drop money in the case and keep walking to the corner where we wait for a taxi. I put my arm around her, squeeze a little, but sadly, a taxi pulls up almost instantly. Sigh. Only when you don't want them, there they are. She gets in, looks back before shutting the door, "See you soon. We'll talk more about the book." And then she's gone.

I walk back to my car and drive on out. It's just another night to go home alone and curl up in the darkness that is my bedroom. But then, it isn't. There's a tune in my head, and it carries a voice that is not my own.

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The Truth of the Book

2011-11-27

"I love the cover."

"Everyone seems to. I just hope they like the story as much as they like the cover."

We sit with the awkward closeness of new attraction. Our legs touch, my right, her left. Our shoulders touch sometimes too, her blond hair hanging down over the black of my coat. We're getting a sense of the space of each other. "Come on, you can tell me ..." There's a drum roll, and a guy starts singing "Hello, I Love You" up on the karaoke stage. I like that song but do not turn to watch. I listen to her instead, look at her knee while she speaks, "... how much of the book is true? I get the idea that it's like 90%"

"It's semi-autobiographical fiction, and the semi is ... well, much less than 90%"

"50?"

"Not even that much. Hard to put a percentage on it, really. Only a few things happened exactly as they're written. The rest have been embellished and significantly modified or created entirely from scratch," I scratch my head, "Maybe you should ask me about a certain event from the book, and I'll tell you the truth of it."

"OK." There's some mild applause as "Hello, I Love You" ends. We don't clap though. I nudge her shoulder as she thinks of the book. It isn't often that I know someone is thinking about me, but here it is. And it makes me smile because she's beautiful, and she likes my book, is thinking about it, thinking about the truth of all those words, figuring it to be 90% which means she's thinking of me doing all that stuff from the book. It's interesting to watch someone's brain cells give me the once over looking for truth in me and in that which I've written. It's like watching a mathematician work over a problem in search of the right formula to plug the unknowns into. She looks up at the ceiling, mouth moving slightly, "Umm … OK, I have a few. Did you really run out of gas on the highway?"

I answer the question.

"Hmm … interesting. I like that."

"Thanks." I don't know what else to say.

"I wish I could do that ..."

"What? Run out of gas on the highway?"

The karaoke DJ calls out a name, "And now, can we get Stevie on the main stage?"

Main stage? No one else seems to notice so I say nothing, but I do wonder if the guy also works at a strip club. His voice interrupts our moment for a bit as we look to see that Stevie is a guy. He takes hold of the microphone. We turn back to each other. "How about that sex scene in the bar?" I smile to think of that, to think of that with her, to think she's asking of that scene in particular. Stevie starts singing, "When you were here before..." Our legs are still touching, more like pressing now as if there were magnets in there pulling, and if anything, we're seated even closer together. "What are you smiling at? Did you?"

I answer the question.

"Wow." Seems she's not sure what else to say now. I have the book in my head so I say the first thing that comes to mind when leaning into a beauty at a bar.

"You up for a shot?"

"Let me guess, tequila?"

"Yup."

We order the shots, Patron Silver, do them, laugh to think we're mimicking a scene from the book, a scene of beginnings. We're leaning into each other now, almost forehead to forehead, "OK, I know everyone probably asks, but what about the Shit Woman? Is she real?"

I answer the question. She asks more.

"Seattle Dave?"

I answer the question.

"The coffee shop in Columbus?"

I answer the question.

"Did you really throw a chair in class?"

I smile. She knows the book. I answer the question.

"Thanks," she replies, "I have a better understanding of it now. You up for karaoke?"

"I don't sing well."

"I know."

"OK."

She goes to sign us up for something to sing. She knows the truth of the book, of my singing ability, and still, she wants to drag me up on stage. I sip my drink and wait a little fearful for our turn.

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Three Years of Halloweens, Henry Miller, Cast Away

2011-10-31

Those of you who have read the book will know why Halloween was chosen as the official publication date, and that date is, of course, today, October 31, 2011, and that makes today one of the best days of my life, and two years to the day on which was another one of the best days of my life, "sands and soil and layers and strata rearranged to create something new, something lasting, something permanent." A lot can happen in two years, though, so I won't say anything about Halloween 2010 except to offer an apology for the weakness in my character. Yeah, three years of Halloweens and two of them exceptional, life-changing, entrenched in permanent memory. Two out of three isn't bad, I suppose.

Over the last two years, I followed Henry Miller's advice. I wrote and wrote, and lo, I got a book. I closed a book. I drink my coffee this morning as I get ready to head over to the Elliott Bay bookstore to find myself on the shelves, but first, I remember. I look at old pictures one last time. Then I bury them forever in the closet. Life moves on. Love moves on. People move on, too, and because I can be a little thick at times, I realize only now on this third Halloween that it is best to let them, to allow those who want to move out of our lives to do so, to offer no resistance, to not linger on the edge of their lives hoping to somehow step back in.

These three years of Halloweens have taught me that the miracle can happen at any time. I just need to be there when it does, be there in the present of my own life, not clinging to some shred of hope from my past. I feel like Tom Hanks at the end of Cast Away with miles of open road in all directions, all of them leading into the unknown. A woman gives Tom's character some information about where each road leads, and then she drives off. "Good luck, cowboy." Tom watches her truck, looks all around, pauses at each turn, looks again in the woman's direction. He's traveling alone with choices to make. He is standing next to a car with a map and the desire to find a bit of the miracle, with the knowledge that you never know what life will bring and that it can come at any time. I am there, here, alone, looking in all directions, deciding, choosing which way to go.

And after three years of Halloweens, it is a good place to be.

Imagining The End ... while still in the Air.

2011-10-26

We're flying from Columbus to Houston where I will board a flight back home to Seattle. The plane is cruising at 36,000 feet. I'm right over the left-side wing looking out and pondering what it means to be up here. It's a small plane, an Embraer RJ145, The wing seems a fragile thing there just outside the window. There's the bent, blue tip, the flaps and hinges, the screws, the metal of it slightly shaking. The pressure on it must be enormous. I get excited sometimes when I arrange a few sentences just so, but I can't even imagine the brain that can conceive this structure, design it, manufacture it. It blows my mind. How the hell are 50 people up in a tube in the sky? I often agonize over comma placement, or the description of the sun, or the words to give a fictional beauty, and yet there are men who design planes, and these planes actually take off, fly, land.

I look out the window again. There are the clouds below and off into the horizon that say simply, "You're pretty fucking high up." I finger my book, flap its pages. It is my book actually, the one I wrote, the accomplishment of my forty-two years, and it feels like a security blanket in the moment. It contains everything I've ever felt. I'd gone to Columbus for a book signing. And I sold a few, signed a few, spoke to some old friends. It was a good trip. The book is out there. The story is out there. In a way, my life is complete. And then Shakespeare comes to mind, Othello.

"If it were now to die, 'Twere now to be most happy."

And then, it happens. The wing shaking slightly more, and then more, and then big sweeping flaps like a condor, and then it's gone, ripped from the side of the plane by the force of the wind because a few screws were too loose. I imagine the airplane being prepped back in Columbus, screws checked and tightened. The power drill dies for some reason, and a mechanic says, "What the fuck, I'll just use me this here screwdriver." The wing is now gone, and we're spinning, descending. Air masks have dropped. There are screams, shouts, pleas to God, other shouts, "Mother fucking hell!" Some people are frozen, fingers wrapping the arm rests with a death grip, faces already dead.

We're plummeting, spinning more. The captain is saying something over the speaker, but maybe I just imagine it, the pilot up front trying frantically to somehow save the plane and also somehow managing to attempt a few soothing words to the passengers. "Ladies and gentlemen, we're experience a bit of turbulence right now so I'd appreciate it if you'd return to your seats and please fasten your seatbelts. Thank you." The Mexican guy next to me vomits. We twirl out of control through the clouds, now below the clouds, and there's the land fast coming up to meet us. There are patches of various shades of brown, some houses, a few roads. It's somewhere rural. We will all die in a wheat field. Some poor farmer on a tractor will witness it all.

I take out my cell phone. It's already powered on in "Airplane" mode, but I switch it to normal mode thinking to text a goodbye or two. I think about my Mother who I will soon meet. No need to text her. There's my family. Father, Brother, Sister. There's my Aunt and Uncle and Cousins, my Grandmother, my Father's new wife and her daughters. There are Close Friends, Dear Friends, Best Friends. Women I've loved. Women I'd hoped to love.

I text one group of people:

"Thank you."

We're almost on the ground. I see a stadium down there in one quick swirl of the plane. Then I see a small lake.

And then I text three individuals messages meant only for them, a single word each as there's time for nothing more. I'd been holding my own book before the screws came loose so I look at it. I flip through it one last time. There's another patch of brown outside the window. It's gone in the turn of the plane, and I see sky and clouds, and I wonder if it's Heaven. I read the dedication in my book, trace my finger over it. I close the book, hold it to my chest. There are cries in the plane, and I join them. I squeeze the book and scream those last words at the top of my lungs ...

Where are you from, and where are you going?

2011-10-23

"So where are you from and where are you going?" She is sitting to my right, roughly my age, maybe a little older, all smiles with an empty bloody mary glass in front of her as she waits for the bartender to bring her another. We are in the airport bar in Denver. It is October 22, 2011, and I'm on my way to a signing party for the book. It's the first time I've ever traveled for such, and I must admit it feels good to be in an airport bar waiting for a connecting flight that will take me to a city where a pile of my books awaits me, and where, hopefully, more than a few people will come out and buy said books, read them, love them. Traffic's "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" is playing on the bar's sound system.

"I'm from Seattle, heading to Columbus, Ohio."

"I went to Ohio State," comes the voice from the woman seated to my left. She's a little younger than me, very pretty in an understated way, the kind of pretty that reminds me of waking next to a woman and then donning sweatshirts and heading out unshowered for breakfast in a moment where she looks good simply because in her smile all pretense is gone. There's just comfort, the desire that the previous evening should not end. I wonder what we'd talk about over breakfast. The previous night? Future nights? Lives and dreams? Would we nurse our hangovers with coffee and water or get right back at it with Bailey's or mimosas?

"Me, too. Graduated in 1995."

"2006 with my master's in Environmental Studies." A smart woman. Nice.

"English Literature. I'm Dave."

"Abby." We shake hands.

"Frankie," says the woman to my left. I shake her hand. It isn't often I get caught in conversation with two random women at a bar. I make a note to write about it later. Frankie continues, "So what do you do with that degree?" Until very recently, I would have talked about programming web pages but still writing a blog in the odd, long, sometimes dark, hours after work, but now, I have a book. It's out there so I can finally answer the question the way I've always wanted.

"I write. My first book was just published." I sip my Fat Tire.

"Nice. Congrats," Abby says, "Cheers to that!" We all clink glasses. "So what kind of book is it? Fiction? Non-fiction?"

"It's a semi-autobiographical novel."

"About ...?"

I go into my usual bit about the book. The bartender comes. We all order another drink.

"Sounds interesting," Abby says, "I need a good novel to read. What's the title?" Somehow this conversation is perfect. This moment. These drinks. These women. I had not intended to bring up the book at all. I just wanted a quiet beer while waiting for my plane, and now there are two women interested in my book.

"Yeah, my daughter has been working on a book for four years," Frankie says, "I'll tell her about yours."

"Thanks. Mine's called Horse Bite." I smile as I say it. This day couldn't have started any better. "I'll write it down for you." I grab a pen from my laptop bag and write the book's title and my name on the back of two Fat Tire coasters. I hand one to each of them. Abby reads my name aloud. "Where are you going?" I ask her.

"Chicago."

"I was born there. My grandfather used to go on about how we were related to Mrs. O'Leary and that infamous cow, but it was just all a big story. Where do you live now?"

"Montana." The name of the state slides across my brain. Montana. That isn't too far from Seattle. I look at her. She still looks very good, black hair pulled back into a ponytail, black sweatshirt, a book in front of her on the bar. A reader. A smart woman. Nice. We talk for a bit about writing, about Columbus, about how a beer in this airport bar costs more than a six pack. I look at my phone to check the time. 9:30. My flight is probably already boarding.

"Shit. I have to go." We all shake hands again. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm headed to a book signing. Can't be late for that."

"Understandable. I'll look up your book. Good luck." Frankie says.

"I will too." Abby smiles. If it were anything else, I'd probably say "Fuck it!" and miss my flight to stay and talk to her, but this is for the book. I've waited forty-two years for this. Abby and I shake hands again.

"Nice to meet you."

"You too."

As I leave the bar, Abby is again looking at what I wrote, my name, the name of the book. She is pretty. She lives in Montana. I hope she likes the book when she finds it, and finding that, she may just find the blog, and finding that, there's no telling what else she might discover.

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Steve Jobs, AC/DC, Could have got so drunk last night, Big Red Bus

2011-10-07

Yeah, I'm sure you've heard by now. Steve Jobs died this week. Pancreatic cancer did him in. My mother died of the same, and having witnessed the end of that, it's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. She was the first person close to me who passed away, and she did so too young, just like Steve Jobs. My paternal grandparents died when I was in my early teens, and though I loved them as one tends to love grandparents, I was too young to understand the significance of the last beat of a heart. What could it mean to the young teenage boy I was with a changing body and a sudden interest in pretty girls and rock music? I went to my first concert around that time, Ozzy Osbourne, Diary of a Madman tour. I went to a few dances, and though I was slow about it, I did eventually kiss a couple of girls, not on the same night mind you, never been that lucky.

I discovered one day I could play an A chord on the guitar, and an E too. There was D, and suddenly, I could play my first song, AC/DC's "Jailbreak". And then a G chord, a monster G chord. I loved the sound of that one, and it lead to more songs, "TNT", "Walk All Over You", "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap". The first riff, "Sin City", the second, "Whole Lotta Rosie", the first one I tried to sing and play, "Ride On", and then other bands, other songs, whole new worlds in music and books. Everything about everything was discovery, everything was a first. I knew I had a whole life to live, every young living creature does, and though I did mourn my grandparents, I understood none of it.

There was a girl who died in high school. She committed suicide. Sadly, I can't remember her name, but I did know her somewhat. She was at my house with a couple friends only a week or so before she did it. I still have a picture of her from that day. She was sitting on the sofa in our living room, smiling, petting our black lab, Sparkie, but again, I didn't get it. I didn't give it a second thought. The idea of death simply would not take hold, not even in later years when a friend from Detroit flipped his car on the highway once, and once, of course, was all it took. I went from Columbus to Detroit for the funeral but remained my detached self. I watched Young Frenkenstein before going to the service and thought more about "Yummy sounds" than I did the final up and down of my friend's lungs as he lay crushed underneath his car.

I was fearful, you see, only I didn't know it. I suppose I didn't know much way back then. Maybe I'm a late bloomer, but I didn't realize it until my mom's funeral when I was a thirty-five year old man forced to finally confront Death rather than side step it. And Death was there, there in the funeral home just up the street from St. Michael's Church. I walked up to the coffin alone, knelt. I listened to some of the others whispering in the back of the room. Somehow they knew well enough to give me a few moments alone with what had been my mother. I looked at the fragmented, withered body that cancer had left of her. For a few moments, I refused to believe it was my mother because she looked so different and small and gray and hollow. But it was her. And it was Death. I opened my mouth, but what does one say to a dead mother? I'd wanted to whisper last apologies to her body and soul but could think of nothing. I touched her right hand, recoiled. It was cold. It was stiff. It terrified me.

I didn't cry though. I rather got drunk alone on Killian's Irish Red later that night in my mom's house. I scattered old pictures of her and us and my family about the floor and toasted to her life, and to the life she'd given me.

And to living the life she'd given me.

Sadly it takes a death sometimes. It's one of the reasons I have trouble sleeping. Even on the brink of having my first novel published, I lay awake in the dark in the wee hours wondering if my life is making any difference, wondering if the words I've written will mean anything to anyone, wondering if the women I've loved remember me kindly, wondering if anyone anywhere when on their death bed will call out for me, or if there's anyone in this world who will stop at nothing to be by my side when my time comes.

I read a lot of quotes this week regarding things that Steve Jobs said about life and death, and some of them were quite good, inspiring even, but a friend of mine posted a comment online that was not from Jobs, and I actually liked that one the best. Her comment:

I'm reading a biography on the Queen Mother. She said on the occasion of her 100th birthday: "Wouldn't it be terrible if you'd spent all your life doing everything you were supposed to do, didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't eat things, took lots of exercise, all the things you didn't want to do, and suddenly one day you were run over by a big red bus, and as the wheels were crunching into you you'd say "Oh my God, I could have got so drunk last night!" That's the way you should live your life, as if tomorrow you'll be run over by a big red bus."

And so I do.

And that means I shirk responsibilities at times, miss deadlines because Time is all we have, and so little of it, and sometimes things need to be shirked and missed as other things are tried, experienced, savored. And of course, ever wary of that Big Red Bus, I certainly tend to fall in love too quickly, or maybe it's better to say I open my heart too quickly. Why waste Time otherwise? If I see the possibility of friendship or love in someone, I don't bide my time. I have tried on occassion but always failed miserably. Perhaps, I should have learned how to do such by this ripe old age, but then, I don't want to learn such. I'm forty-two, not too far behind the 56 of Jobs, and Time is running, maybe even sprinting, ahead, and that Big Red Bus could be around any corner.

There is only ever now.

I say it aloud to myself.

"There is only ever now."

I have a glass of red tonight as I think about The Big Red Bus, and I toast Steve Jobs and my Mother. I toast my Grandparents and my Detroit Friend and the Suicide Girl. I pick up the guitar and play and sing a few measures of "Ride on". I stop playing, keep singing, "One of these days, I'm gonna change my evil ways. 'Til then I'll just keep riding on ..." I think about every song I've ever played and pour another glass of the red, Terra Blanca Arch Terrace Merlot, and raise a last toast to every woman I've ever loved, even those who never knew, and those I want to love, and to those who struck the very core of my being, and, most importantly, to those I have yet to love. I wonder which one of them, if any of them, will be by my side on that last fateful day.

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Receiving The Book, Karaoke, Beginnings and Endings and Bathrooms

2011-09-24

I get home after work and eagerly check the mail. I've been waiting for my first copy of the book from the publisher, and it's been delayed for reasons I won't go into now. I've been anxious, thus, uneasy. My words are finally on actual bound pages somewhere out there between the press and my mailbox, and they've been there for days, days on which I've driven home with the foot a little heavier on the gas pedal than usual, days on which the empty mailbox has given me a feeling akin to seeing no presents under the tree on Christmas morning. I'd look into the emptiness of it, widen my eyes a little, reach my right hand in there as if I expected it to find something my eyes simply couldn't see, but that failed too. There was no book ... yet.

It is Wednesday, September 21, 2011. It is 5:47 when I pull into the driveway. I grab my laptop and the book I'm reading, A million Little Pieces, from the trunk and walk to the mailbox. I pause. I breathe. I open it.

And there shines the light, a package just the size of a paperback book, my paperback book. It has a sticker in the upper left corner with the publisher's info. It has my address there in the middle. I pick it up and squeeze it, but it's a book so it doesn't yield much. Words are like that. They don't yield. They settle. They take hold. I go inside and set the package on my desk. Before I open it, I have to set things right. That means a beer in hand, specifically a Blue Moon, the right music on, Beethoven's Appasionata, certain pictures laid out on the desk.

I get everything arranged, sip the beer, listen to a few measures of that wonderful piano. I open the package and pull the book out, flip it over and over again, flip the pages, smell them, run my fingers up and down, front and back, flip the pages again in front of my face. I open it finally and read the dedication.

"For ..."

I look at the pictures on my desk. She inspired a book. I hope she does not mind that, and though it is dedicated to her, I did not use her real name but rather a name only she would know, a name we would know from something she shared with me once when we were first getting to know each other. Beginnings and endings and beginnings and endings and ...

I get a text message. "We R at Hula Hula. C U soon?"

... and beginnings. Friendships, relationships, loves. Who knows? There are many new beginnings these days. I reply to the message. "Yes, B there soon." I finish the beer and then grab the book and take it into the bathroom as that piano shakes the walls of the apartment because like in Spinaltap, I have it cranked to eleven.

In the bathroom, I sit and read my own book and laugh to wonder how many other people might read this story of mine while emptying their bowels. I know some people who only read in the bathroom. I finish and take the book out to Hula Hula for some karaoke. There are drinks. We eat chicken wings and quesadillas. I show the book to the small group of people I meet there. One of them smiles, says she can't wait to sit and read the whole thing. With my book in hand, she asks, "Are you going to sing tonight?"

I hadn't planned on it. I'm not much of a singer, but it feels right, the night, the time, the mood. I have a book. A woman holds it in her arms and asks me if I will sing. So I do. I sing The Doors. "Hello, I Love You," not for the feeling of any new love, just for beginnings and endings and beginnings and ...

When I step off the stage, she hands me my book, and I smile at that thought. It is my book, not just a book I own, but my book, a book I wrote. After forty-two years, I've reached a lifelong goal. I don't have any kids. I haven't found the cure for cancer or fought for world peace, but I did write a book. "You did good up there," she says.

"Thanks."

"I'm looking forward to the book party."

"Me too."

And I am. She goes up to sing, and there's a rumbling in my stomach. I finish my drink, and with book in hand, I head to the bathroom. The chicken wings I fear are not sitting well, or maybe I just want to read some more.

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The Book Cover and Title ...

2011-08-30

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in this case, it's more like 100,479.

Title: Horse Bite (And no, there are no horses in the book.)

Publish date: October 31, 2011.

It was an offer from a new company, Infinitum Publishing. Mine will only be their second book. Their first is here: This All Encompassing Trip. Funny thing that I mentioned Pearl Jam specifically in my book too, and more than once. Coincidence?

I hesitated before going with a small publisher, a new publisher. It seemed a risk, but then anything is. I've seen bands sign to major labels and though said bands were quite deserving, the labels used them for little more than tax write-offs. There are books and books and books from the major publishers in the bookstores lining the shelves and eventually the recycle bins. There are no guarantees no matter which way you go, so you go the ways open to you, or you make your own way.

And with Infinitum, it just fell into my lap, and I tend to go with such things. There is no coincidence. Plus, I like them. It feels right, this publisher, this time. The time is now. "There is only ever now."

For those of you in Seattle who absolutely cannot wait until October 31 to get your hands on a copy, there will be a pre-release party at the Feedback Lounge in West Seattle on Sunday October 9. Details and invites to the party are coming soon.

So if there are no delays with the printing, it will be available on Amazon and in various bookstores on Halloween. I don't know which bookstores at the moment. That's all being worked out now by the publisher, and well, that isn't my job anyway. My job is just to crack open a beer and relish in the fact the someone offered to publish my book, that someone is publishing my book, and of course, to start the next one.

Oh, and for those of you squinting at the image trying to read that text on the back cover, here goes ...

Horse Bite is the story of Dave and his efforts to find a bit of permanence in the balance of the things we create and the things we do to sustain ourselves. His journey jumps between morning pit stops in the ubiquitous coffee shops of Seattle and the evenings of beers and bartenders and music clubs where some bedrooms are longed for, some found. Everything slips away, though, until he meets elusive Yvonne who brings the realization from past and present that things "do end ... so we write books and songs and poems. It is the only way to make love eternal." At its core, Dave’s tale is one of monster G chords, poetry, booze, goodbyes, and the chance at that which matters most of all, the heart of a woman.

Author Bio for the Back of the Book, Just Breathe, I Have No life

2011-08-23

I receive an email from the publisher asking me to write a few lines about myself for the back of the book. The design is done, you see, and yes, images and more details like the actual title of the thing will be revealed very soon. There just remains this last business of a little blurb about me, an author bio, a few short sentences to sum up something of me and my writing credentials.

"No problem," I email back, "I'll send you something in a few minutes." It should be easy enough, I figure, what with the blog and the music writing and a degree in English literature. I refill my coffee thus and get ready. I type.

"Dave ..."

Then I read it aloud, "Dave ..."

Nothing.

I read it aloud again, "Dave ..." and again with force, "Dave!"

I walk around the room. Sit. I play some guitar, and Nazareth's "Changing Times" flows with ease from my fingers. I sing the song, "Just can't get myself thinkin' straight / I'm all shook up and in a terrible state." I find it on You Tube and watch it a few times. I play along right into "Hair of the Dog" and finally get back to typing a good forty minutes later.

"Dave ..."

I just can't think of what to say about my life. Maybe I shouldn't say anything. Maybe the book itself is enough. Throw Momma from the Train pops into my head, and I think, "Dave was hot ... humid ... wet ... Dave was hot and wet ..." Sigh. Then the Naked Gun, "I like it very hot, and awfully wet." Double sigh. Think.

"Dave ..."

The book is indeed the thing. The play is the thing. The song. The poem. And I can write them all, but I can't think of two or three measly sentences for this GOD DAMNED AUTHOR BIO!!!!

"DAVE!"

Just Breathe, Dave.

I text my editor, Stephen, "I can't think of an author bio blurb for the book," and go to the kitchen and open a beer, give it a good hit. Stephen replies, "That's a good problem to have." He's right, but still, no bio comes to mind, nothing, just that one word, my name, "Dave ..." It appears, thus, that I have no life, and maybe I don't. I have a book though, and a blog where the book originated. And I write about music too. The writer's life can be a lonely life, and in some ways, it's no life at all to spend so much time alone as others marry, have kids, grow old together. But it is my life.

And it is enough.

Time, I guess, to get started on the next book.

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Final Version of the Book, Mother's Awkward Questions, Pepperoni and Publish

2011-08-15

There are thirty printed versions of my book scattered about the three rooms of my apartment. The earliest manuscripts, versions one through seventeen, are stacked in the other room, some on the ironing board I never use for lack of a date, some along the wall, some in the closet, some in the corner by the window surrounding the vacuum, keeping it at bay so that it doesn't get any bright ideas to clean the place. I call that room the Chapter Room as it still has orphaned chapters spread in rows on the floor next to empty rectangular spaces where chapters that made the cut once resided before being whisked away into future versions. It's like an attic in there, a room full of old stuff that's fun to visit, to look at, to trail a finger along collecting dust and then blowing gently to create a little cloud. I pick up these old versions sometimes, read through a few pages laughing or cringing, but ultimately, I set them back down carefully in their place and leave them there collecting the dust that has settled again.

Versions eighteen through twenty-nine rest on the floor of the living room and would make vacuuming difficult if I could rescue the the vacuum from the Chapter Room, but then I never did clean or throw out much anyway. The old versions, the dust, the orphaned chapters feel a part of the whole, a part that cannot be discarded until that whole sets foot outside my door and makes those first hesitant steps out into the world. I tread carefully among the stacks of papers, taking pains not to step on them just as I would not step on old pictures of a child, if I had a child. When my drink is empty, I tip-toe nimbly from the desk to the refrigerator and back, trading the empties for fulls and typing and churning out more drafts to cover more floor space and feeling that life was made for nothing but this as the piles of pages rise and the carpet becomes a crinkly white.

Version Thirty is the last, the final word. It resides on the desk freshly warm from the printer, so newly born that I'm hesitant to touch it for fear that it isn't real, for fear that all those words within will shatter if I pick it up. I look at it for a few moments, finish my drink and do my tip-toeing bit. I use the bottle opener and have a swallow in the kitchen before working my way back to the desk where feeling bold, I do pick it up. I say it, "Version Thirty." It has a solidity, a familiar weight. I flip through the pages back and forth and back and forth fanning my face a little and then suddenly stopping on page 81 where one word leaps from the page, well two words, "blow job".

I guess it's good that my mother never lived to see me write about such things, to see me go on at length about erections and orgasms and the tasting of menstrual blood for there would be the awkward questions, "David, why do you write about such things?" or "Do you have to write about that?" I would rather she were here, though, no matter the questions, because even in the questioning she would have understood and simply been happy that I went on for pages about anything.

My mother and I met for lunch once in 1993 just after I switched from Electrical Engineering to English Literature for my studies at Ohio State. I wanted simply to read and write and as she was the one who'd pushed for the engineering degree, I wanted to tell her of the change, of the new direction in my life, the direction I'd always wanted to go. So I suggested lunch, and she suggested the Pizza Hut on High Street a little north if campus. We met and ate from the salad bar and the buffet, and in between the slices I told her. She listened. "I guess might teach someday," I said.

She sipped her Pepsi, took a bite of pepperoni, "So instead of programming, you'll write." She chewed a bit, sipped again, "... and publish."

Until then, I knew I wanted to write, that I had to, but I wasn't sure if I could, wasn't sure if I had that many words within me, if I could print version after version of something and see the mountain of sentences and paragraphs and poems accumulate into something resembling a story that would find its way into the bookstores of the world. I wasn't sure. I was fearful and full of doubt back then in my youth. But she wasn't, and there, with a slice of pineapple and ham pizza in hand, I suddenly new I could. It's taken a long time, but she was ever the one to believe in me, and she was right. It was the way she said it, so matter of fact, more like something one simply does like wash the car, pay the electric bill, write a novel. "So instead of programming, you'll write ... and publish."

And I have.

I just wish she was here to read it.

Ohio State, Second Thoughts on Getting a Publishing Deal, The Best Lines

2011-08-05

With the reality sinking in a little more each day that I will actually have a book published this fall, I am reminded of those who were in my creative writing classes in college. I went to Ohio State, or as it's put sometimes, The Ohio State University. I majored in English. I was perhaps too lazy to major in anything else that would have required a great deal of study and memorization of facts. I just wanted to read novels and poems and write a few lines of my own along the way and still somehow end up with a degree.

College was easy thus. In the reading classes, I was introduced to Oscar & Lucinda, Ulysses, and Mrs. Dalloway. That one left an impression of course, and rather than write a so called "academic" paper on it, I wrote a bit about going to Wrigley Field in Chicago and getting lost in the hustle and bustle of bodies before a professional baseball game and infusing some now forgotten comparisons to Mrs. Dalloway walking the streets of London with the leaden circles and all. I got an A. On the last day of class, those of us twenty-one and over went out for a beer with the professor, and as the night wound down to just the two of us drinking, he said of my Wrigley Field-Big Ben imagery, "That was really creative, Dave. You should take some writing classes."

In the writing classes, there were a number of talented writers, many who I thought at the time were more so than I was. There was the guy who wrote a poem about a frisbee and somehow worked the language to make that damn thing magical, a circular angel of sorts. The professor loved it and praised it, and rightfully so. It was a great poem, language used in a way that made things soar. I wonder if he kept on with the poems, if he ever published any.

There was a woman in the creative non-fiction class who wrote a piece about driving past an oddly phrased street sign and the question, "Did it really say that?" and the turning around and driving back, putting off her destination to answer the question because that mattered more than getting home to make dinner for her family. And she did answer the question. It did say that, and the professor hooked her up with a contact at the Columbus Dispatch, and the paper published the piece. Again, rightfully so. I can't remember her name, and unfortunately, I can't remember what that sign said, something that was commanding and slightly biblical as street signs tend to be. Her article made it seem an utterance from a deity that hadn't quite mastered his grammar lessons in whatever school deities attend. I wonder if she's still driving around Columbus and taking note of the odd things and writing them down.

There was the beautiful woman in the same class who wrote a very funny bit called Ten French-y Things to Know. She'd spent some time in France of course and was following that age old advice to write about what she knew. And she made us laugh. The professor said, "I love that bit about the baguette!" and others chimed in to agree. It was a little risque. She took chances. I tried to talk to her after class a few times, and she was polite and would walk with me for a couple blocks before our paths home diverged, but I never mustered up the courage to ask her out. I wonder if she's still writing about France and other places, still traveling, and of course, if she's single after all these years.

On the first day of a writing class, I could tell if it would be a good one. It was easy. The professor would say one of two things. It was either, "You're going to write three stories each in this class and read and critique the work of each other. Now, who has a story that can be ready by Wednesday?" Those were the good classes. Or the professor would say something like, "I've developed a series of writing exercises, and we're going to learn this craft in incremental steps so open your exercise book to page 1 and ..." Exercises? I'd stay for that first day and then drop that class and spend that time writing stories and poems and leaving the exercises to others.

In one of the good fiction classes, we had a grad student for a teacher. She'd published a few short stories and was hard at work on her first novel. Near the end of the term, she scheduled individual meetings with us at Bernie's Bagels which was a bar in addition to a bagel shop. I got there early, and since she was still talking to another student, I ordered a beer. I took out my story to read and prepare for the meeting. I ordered another beer, and then she called me over, "OK, Dave. I'm ready." I took the beer and the story to her table. "You're going to drink that during our meeting?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah."

She puzzled for a moment, "You know, you're my last meeting today. Maybe I'll have one too." So she got up and exchanged her coffee for a Rolling Rock, came back, "I like Rolling Rock too." And we sat then drinking and talking about my writing. She was direct and honest, said good things and bad, "That character is compelling, but I want to know why she did what she did." It was the first time I'd ever tried to write from the perspective of a female character, and my teacher was right. I needed to delve a little deeper. So we sat and discussed it over a couple more beers, and in the end she said, "Keep at it, Dave. You'll do well." Great advice, but sadly, I can't remember her name to give her a proper thank you for it, and for the talk and the sharing of beers.

And here on the eve of publishing my first novel, I wonder if she kept at it herself, published that novel of her own that she labored over while working with us on our own little stories. I hope so. I hope they all did, all those names I've forgotten. I remember the first day of one of the poetry classes. The professor said, "I'm going to pass around this paper and I want each of you to write a few lines, a collaborative poem, if you will." So he passed it around and as it happened I was last. I was nervous when the guy next to me had the paper, all eyes on him pondering his few lines. He was John, the only name I remember, and when he handed me the paper, I had no idea what I would write, but I read his bit, looked up at him. He nodded, and the words came. I wrote and handed it to the professor who then read the whole poem to the class. Afterward, John leaned over and whispered, "Our lines were the best."

At the time, I hadn't thought so, but that may have been modesty, or doubt. Doubt does come in waves sometimes, but I've kept at it. I have a manuscript sitting here on the desk. There's another copy on the desk of a publisher, and another on the desk of an editor, and thinking about it now, that collaborative poem, the words of John, "Our lines were the best," the thought comes. Maybe he was right.

Alki Beach, First Thoughts on Getting a Publishing Deal

2011-07-29

Two years ago today, July 29, 2009, something miraculous happened, something other than the record temperature of 102. There was an introduction, "Hi, I'm Dave." It was a chance meeting at a bar, and those words lead to beers and beers and so much more than introductions. And here, two years later, two years later to the day, I can say something I've wanted to say my whole life. I can raise my arms and shout, "I got a book deal! My book will be published this fall!"

My book will be published.

I can hardly sit still knowing that is true. It is indeed a lifelong dream. I can give myself the self-congratulatory pat on the back. I can think that after 42 years I've finally succeeded in something, but I know that it never would have happened, this book and this time, without the introduction, without her stepping into my life through some undeserved stroke of luck. Somehow we sat next to each other, and as we got to drinking beers, I spoke, "Hi, I'm Dave." The three words that made everything possible, the Book, the Publishing, the Joy of it all. So strolling the beach here at Alki two years later, I remember it. I relive it. She looked at me that first day, set her beer down, took my hand and shook, spoke a few words of her own, "My name is ...."

I marvel that such simple beginnings somehow take hold, that such joy can be found, that it can be captured, and yes, that it can be published. Thank you, Life, for being something that I do enjoy living. I have my down moments sometimes when the despair comes and the walls close in, but all I need to do is remember the introduction, the moisture from the beer glass on her hand, the simplest of phrases, "My name is ...." and the world is a good place because for a time I entered her life.

I entered her life.

How is that even possible? How could the likes of me be so lucky? I don't know, but after all those beers, the book will be published, and she will situate herself in the long term memory of the reader, just as she has this writer. And her beauty will know no bounds.

Still over at Alki, I walk from the Statue of Liberty to the Celtic Swell across the street. It's one of my new favorite places for its view of the water. I get a window table and leaf through the final manuscript, stop on the last page and read the last few lines but close it when the waitress comes over. "Can I get you anything to drink?" I look up and we make eye contact. "Hi," she says, "I read a lot of those articles on that music website. You're a good writer. I liked that one where you asked the woman for a drink. The beer one was good too."

"Thanks." The last time she served me we talked briefly about music. Before I ever came to this pub, she'd spotted me in the Moore Theater one night scribbling in my notebook before The Head and the Heart took the stage, and she remembered my "face and hair" as she put it when I first came here even though it was a few weeks after the show. So we talked briefly about music as she gave me beers and I gave her the website information where she could find the articles. We didn't exchange names because I was with someone that night. Not so today. I'm here alone for the view, the beers, the book of course, the endings and beginnings we go through in this lifetime. She reaches out her hand, says one word as we shake.

"Beth."

"Hi, I'm Dave."