The stink of mortality
Today Deron took me to the dump, where he and I heaved out a Jeepful of my late mother’s detritus as a thousand gulls swirled about us.
Greetings from the Middle East
My Mom and Dad are on a trip in the Middle East (where we spent many of the years of my childhood):
Greetings from Jerusalem… wanted to send you word that we are having an unbelievably wonderful time in the Middle East.
We are seeing signs of the tension here… ALL interesting, will tell you more later. Syria was incredible. Our days have been full of sights and sounds of the ME… keep wishing you were here to experience it. The swirl of life is intense and always full of person to person interactions that are welcoming and important. Seems we have made an impression with our own spirit of willingness to interact… people have responded with such kindness and generosity.
Food is incredible. Swam in the Dead Sea today and saw the Qumran ruins and community structures…
Could go on and on. Love you all.
Wish I was there.
I’m going back
to Texas tomorrow, y’all. For a week, anyways.
Big party on Dutton Drive. The last waltz. The final hurrah.
“Hey, my mom’s not at home. You wanna come over?”
another novel
Or a subplot in the last one:
Jamie Paulin-Ramirez was a straight-A nursing student when she abruptly left Colorado last fall with her 6-year-old son and turned up in Ireland, where her parents say she was arrested this week in an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist.
Chuck Norris
Forced Entry
February 19, 2010. Dutton Drive. Dallas, Texas.
Would-be thieves had broken into my late mother’s house eight or so months ago, but the kind and vigilant next-door neighbor took it on himself to padlock the door.
Baby
February 24, 2010. Dutton Drive. Dallas, Texas.
Sometimes you find things exactly when and where you expect to find them. When I entered my late mother’s house, I expected to find this old baby doll of hers in a drawer in a closet in what used to be my bedroom. And there it lay.
strut
Did I already post this? (another for Andrew)
For Andrew (ala Sheila)
Thinking about grief, thinking about my brother.
Photography and Parenthood
That we would prefer the shadows over the things themselves is, of course, nothing new:
For a parent, this time-consuming vocation has twin payoffs: it wins you a break from your actual children while bringing you closer to their images. Pictures of kids, like idealized Victorian boys and girls, can be seen but not heard.
The child’s life, reciprocally, becomes that of a model — and more. Every aspect of the family business becomes familiar to a child. Early on, she learns that she can examine a photo on a viewfinder as soon as it’s snapped; that she should monkey around rather than pose, as “film” is distinctly not at a premium; that a substantial share of her parents’ mysterious clicking at their computers consists of organizing and reorganizing images of her. My own son’s first word for laptop, when he saw a woman plugging away at one at Starbucks, was the word he used for himself: “baby.” What else could the woman be doing so intently at a screen but what he saw me do — paging through picture after picture of him?
there’s a novel in the details of this
The professor at the University of Alabama who gunned down three colleagues in a tenure meeting — and who probably killed her brother in a shooting in 1986 — may have orchestrated the details of her brother’s shooting from a newspaper clipping police discovered in an enlarged photograph from the original crime scene.
Keating declined to be specific about the incident in the paper. Boston newspapers were reporting the article was about the November 1986 killing of the parents of actor Patrick Duffy, who starred in the TV series “Dallas.” They were slain with a shotgun during a robbery attempt at a Montana bar they owned. The two teen suspects then stole a truck at gunpoint from a car dealership. They were arrested after a high speed chase.
from the comments
Lucy:
I think those people wanted to go to bed together and have stilted, regretful sex with Greatest Wagner Arias playing in the background on a poor quality mini HiFi system, surrounded by pictures of their relatives in freemasonry costumes (they themselves would be wearing chicken outfits without quite understanding why). Perhaps they will, now that they are emailing privately.
“That’s where it all began,” Ventola said.
The media reported that black-tar heroin was sweeping through town, killing users. That “made people want it more,” said Paul Hunter, a Huntington police narcotics officer. “Addicts are always looking for the best high.”
From a series of articles in the LA Times about Xalisco Mexico, middle-class America, black-tar heroin, decentralized business models, and addiction.
from the comments
He gave us a real good deal on a Massey Ferguson front axle spindle. Straight shooter. Love him and his wife. His breath stinks from the diabetes though.
are you raising a douchebag?
I think it’s a serious parenting question (says the single, kidless man), but the article is very fluffy:
But inevitably the moment arrives when all your doting and care come back on you in the form of a precocious little barb that reminds you in no uncertain terms of . . . you. It might be that his friend Jake’s eighth-birthday party was “unbelievably lame” or that “it’s weird that Brandon’s family flies first-class and we don’t,” or maybe it’s simply that “these taquitos taste like turd.”
It’s then that you must reckon with the real possibility that your drive to make little Johnny better, smarter, and hipper has merely turned him into a douchebag. Put it this way: If it’s your child, not you, who gets to choose your weekend brunch spot, or if he’s the one asking how the branzino is prepared, it’s probably time to take a hard look at your own behavior.
Redemption
Sorry I’ve been quiet of late. I have much to share that may or may not be of interest to ‘flockers, but this glimpse into the mind of my late Uncle Ray (through a letter to his friend Jim) may provoke:
The once “Bro. Jim”,
After prayer and meditation the Lord, in His wisdom and compassion, has led me to extend the hand of civility and forgiveness to you who have fallen so far from the fold. But I do not want to place undue emphasis on how far you have fallen or the depths of your depravity but rather on the Hope that shines eternal through His grace and redemptive power. It is truly grace because you, of all people, have through your sins, blasphemies and contemptuous behavior, earned an eternity in hell. If you escape your destiny only grace can account for it. It warms my heart to extend a gracious welcome back to the fraternity of the true believers, the promise keepers if you will. All you need to do is open your heart. It matters not that you reek of fish, gin, campsmoke and possibly loose women (could not tell from the fish odor) so long as you are sincere in your confession of sin.
Come as you are as we softly sing “Just As I Am”.
You cannot imagine how my heart swells to see a sinner return to the Truth as I see it. You should be aware that the Lord’s forgiveness is complete and total but mine is more exacting. Lacking the supernatural powers to see into your heart, I must judge by outward behavior. You would serve your rehabilitation well by inviting Joyce and me up to a Cardinal game before the season is over. That would be a splendid sign of an intent to climb out of the cesspool of degradation and self-elevation that you have inhabited.
You were once a good boy. I’ve been told that. By you, but it was convincing at the time. Open your heart. Accept this lifeline. Put on the raiments of salvation and join me when we celebrate for an eternity. Just put your hand on the computer and say “Bro. Ray intercede for me because I am lost and unworthy but I want to be found and redeemed.”
Jesus and I patiently wait,
Bro. Ray
Spiritual Warrior
These letters keep my dear Uncle alive for me. I hope you enjoy them too.
Jason remembers his father flying
Like when he made a crosswind landing in a Cessna 172 ahead of an oncoming storm which we later learned had spawned some tornadoes while running a bit lower on gas than was generally acceptable by the place’s captain. He’d already attempted one landing, aborting after the wind dropped us like 10 feet in half a second while about 30 feet from the ground. The sensation of that crosswind landing — of gliding over the runway twenty feet off the ground at ~60-80 mph while pointed about 30 degrees off axis and then, just before touching down and presumably tumbling down the runway wing over wing, straightening out for a surprisingly gentle landing — was one of the freakiest things I’ve ever experienced, partly because I wasn’t scared at all…I knew he’d get us down safely.
Dear Clusterflock
Today I quit on an online survey concerning a “buying experience”; the only reason I was doing it was because it kept popping up in my mail and taking it seemed the quickest way to make it go away. But I came to a question that pissed me off and made me delete the whole thing. It asked me to indicate my “position” in my household: was I the Head of household? The spouse of the Head of household? A dependent of the Head of household? and so on. Do you find yourself thinking as I do that the whole notion of there necessarily being A head of household is archaic? In my view, the whole thing smacks of that Southern Baptist insistence that women “submit” to the will of their husbands, which I find to be one of many reprehensible notions they espouse. Can’t we get past the whole Command Structure thing? Is this just me going off, or do you have feeling about this?
time can ease the restrictions on some secrets
Children of CIA agents:
“Mom said: ‘Don’t ever get on that phone. When I am on it, get away,’ ” said Sullivan, whose office staff greets callers with a chirpy “Hello, irregular warfare.” “The notes my mom would keep, she kept in a safe. Now, the safe is gone.”
His younger brother Jimmy Sullivan, however, recalled picking up the Spy Phone when playing video games with friends. “We’d be playing Atari, and we’d listen in,” he said. “Or we’d pick up, and it’d be some dude in German ranting and raving.”
from the comments
I own stuff I wish I didn’t and resist owning stuff that I love.
Oh, Phil! Yes. I intend to change that equation, soon.
Just like Liz Parker said
My grandmother watched CSPAN like it was a marathon of General Hospital. While she thumbed through the morning’s newspaper and Senate committees hocked in the background, we kids jumped in and out of the swimming pool and then raced each other down to the beach. On the off-chance that she’d manage to grab one of us for a cuddle, Grandma would point at her 6″ television screen and say, “See that man? Look, see that wide smile? That man is a Democrat.
“Now wait. See that scowler? Can y’see how unhappy that man is? That’ll happen to you if you become a Republican.”
I never doubted her, not even for a minute. And then I came across this research, coincidentally from my grandmother’s nephew.
tummy time
I can’t help it; I’m a proud uncle.
from the comments
So long was that shadow of one so little, stretching across the stubble of the field, snagging and tearing but going on. I would reach home late, and knew it by the light at my back that failed into my larger self. I tried to imagine I was huge, and a faint courage came then with each stitching lift of my shoes. But when I was bigger still—as large as the night—approaching a small light in a window, I stopped, and looked. Fearing to go in to my father.
“Bad pinhole,” she said.
Fuji 200 C-41 developed in expired Fomadon LQN for 10 minutes. Presoaked and rinsed in water.
“Why do I keep trying?” my Flickr friend asked. ” I just can’t make myself stop wasting film on this whole pinhole thing.”
The ensuing conversation is a long one, I warn you, but it’s a good one. You might enjoy reading it even if you’re not into the whole pinhole thing. People talk about what constitutes waste, about learning by experimenting, about what film is made of, about how to save money on food, about pinhole cameras — and about paranormal phenomena.
Read more