Breathless

Yes we can. Yes we can.Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can.

Yes we did. Now let's get to work and make good on all these dreams!

Ceasefire

Dear Reader,

Well, I've been driving myself crazy. I spent 10 hours on Wednesday flipping between MSNBC, CNN, and FOX, and followed literally 600 minutes of "lipstick-on-a-pig" coverage until my soul leaked out of my ears. That night, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think about anything else. My faith in humanity's ability to rise above its reptilian self fell to an all-time low.

And then, praise God for this one small blessing, today was September 11. And I forgot about politics for a day.

I've been watching because I care. Because I have a vested interest. Because the Christian American Moviegoer in me who saw "All Dogs Go to Heaven" wants to see the attack dogs who fight dirty get what's coming to 'em. Instead, I've been slowly dissolving and not, I might add, actually volunteering to do anything other than watch and react.

I know I'm lost in an existential quandary because I grew a beard.

Not an intentional beard, mind you. If you have never seen me with a beard, you're a lucky person. My face is the antithesis of my scalp when it comes to hair production, like "The Peanut Butter Solution" only the Senor is creepily after the boy's 5 o'clock shadow. I'm not dissing myself, it's really an unflattering beard. It adds 50lbs, makes me look mangy and downright scruffy (and not in a roguishly handsome Han Solo kind of way, more in a "hair on a hobbit's foot" way). It's black and curled and greasy and clings to my face like a dirty secret, and I only grow it when I'm feeling too overwhelmed by my thoughts to muster the strength to shave, to cleanse, to release my face from it.

My mom, upon whom experiments should be conducted because she is right more often than any human being should be able to be, told me once that "Disorder on the inside means disorder on the outside." I'm sure you've experienced this. You feel out of sorts and your room gets covered, the kitchen sink fills up, bills sit in unopened envelopes. There's a connection between you and the world, and however your world looks on the inside is what reality starts to look like around you.

This is precisely why I've started avoiding saying things like "That will never happen to me." Because, let's face it, the Universe is a smart ass, the penultimate jokester. She laughs blood and sex and sweat, and She will find a way to make your life ironic.

I remember once, when I was living in Florida, a girl who was a passenger in my car asked if I'd ever gotten a ticket. Now, I had an inkling at this point that the only reason I'd never gotten a ticket was because I had never vocalized the words, "No, I've never gotten a ticket." But this particular day I was feeling brazen. Maybe I wanted to strut a little stuff, put a spit-shine on the old Martin, you know? And so I said it. Out loud. "No, I've never gotten a ticket."

The next day, it's raining. I'm on my way back from class, sitting at a red light, when a cop pulls up behind me. No big deal, I'm not doing anything wrong. The light turns green, I start to go, and he follows me through the light. In fact he follows me for an entire mile, and as I'm about to turn into my apartment complex his lights start flashing. I pull over hoping he'll pass me by like I'd seen people do in movies (how else was I supposed to know what to do?), but no, he was coming for me. Or rather, She was coming for me, because She had heard what I said, and She couldn't pass up the opportunity. Turns out my registration was expired. I didn't even know. The cop did a routine check on my license plate, saw that I was a few months out, and pulled me over.

I. Shit. You. Not.

$146 in fines later, I realized this one absolute truth: Saying something "never will happen" is the same thing as saying "this absolutely must happen." Don't give the Universe the pleasure of proving you wrong. She will do it often enough anyways without any help from you.

So that's what I'm reminding myself of as I sit here all mangy and gross, telling myself I'm going to shave in the morning. Existential questions gather on the idle soul, cling to soft skin and weight it down with the unanswerable. And if I want the world around me to be better, I should turn off the goddamn TV and start fixing the world inside me.

Your,
Martin

Why I Like John McCain

Damn politics.  Some of us actually have to work in the morning.

But I had to write.  I have some sympathy for you, dear Reader.  You come to this blog, all two of you (thanks Mom and Dad), to read about my latest fascinating existential quandary and all you've been getting lately is "Sarah Palin hates polar bears."  

I can't help it.  It's what's on my mind.

As I struggled to stay awake through John McCain's speech, I realized one very obvious thing: This man is not going to win any awards for public speaking.  He may be a maverick, but he was clearly a C-student in "Speech and Debate."  And that's okay.  As the past eight years have shown, you don't have to be a good speaker (or be able to form a sentence) to be President.   Everyone including Evil Tina Fey... I'm sorry Sarah Palin... acknowledges that Obama's appeal is, in part, that he just *sounds* so damn different than the past eight years.  I don't think Barack could sound more different than George W. Bush, do you?  I really like how he doesn't talk down to me.  I like that I leave his speeches feeling better about my country than when I entered them.

But John McCain's speech tonight was respectful, moderate, hopeful, and slightly ironic considering his party had just spent a week doing all the things McCain promises he would get rid of in Washington.  I felt like an alien ship had landed from the 80's, back when Republicans actually represented the center of America and not the scariest of our relatives (now available in cowboy hats!).  A deafening silence set over the hall when McCain honored Obama's qualities and achievement, talked about how corrupt Republicans and the Republican party have lost the trust of America, about how both parties in Washington are broken.  You could nearly taste the desperate thirst on the part of the delegates for the blood of Democrats, Liberals, Media, and anyone else who dares to ask a question about the direction of our country (to their credit, they have yet to blame Canada).  Their applause seemed especially forced save for the end, when John McCain was truly inspiring.  

I give him a lot of credit for going in there and being himself, for not pretending to be a neocon and Sarah Palin's soul mate.  Sure, harping on his Vietnam service is kind of ironic considering he's telling the story to the same delegates who viciously destroyed his campaign 8 years ago. They were crying and weeping for him, but you know if he were a Democrat they'd be Swiftboating him back to Hanoi.

I had the overwhelming sense that John McCain is too good for them.  He is the candidate their party needs but not the candidate their party deserves, to quote an especially relevant movie.  It's no wonder all anyone can talk about is Sarah Palin.  She was much flashier, and she proves that all one has to do to be considered "conservative" is to talk about what a gutless unpatriotic inept elitist [Gore, Kerry, Obama, Big Bird] your opponent is.

But not you, John.  You shared a deeply personal story about the moment in Hanoi when you were broken.  If, in another life, you were instead an author, Oprah would be crying as you recounted your incredible tale of heroism.  But instead you are reduced to being coronated by the same kingmakers who have ruled over the past eight disastrous years with their feigned smiles and warlike chants and their gleaming white skin.  

You are a good man, John McCain.  I'm proud that you're an American.  And thank you for holding the Republican party more accountable for the past eight years than anyone else has managed to do.  That took serious cajones, and in front of 40,000 of them, no less. 

Personally, I do not believe our country's problems can be solved by the same party that created them.  I think you confirmed that for me tonight more than anything else could have.  That you, John McCain, are such an outsider in your own party says less about you and more about what the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Reagan, and my father, has lost.

  

Martin

Sarah Barracuda

Well, Sarah, you did it. You brilliantly and effectively tore into Obama. I'm glad that hope-mongering bi-racial child of a single mother got what was coming to him. You've shown all of the wildly successful Republicans (positively glowing in their shimmering Hall of the White People) that you can fight dirty. A "pitbull with lipstick," as you so eloquently put it. My lady, you fit right in.

Sadly, for you, you've forgotten why the American people fall in love.

You see, people don't fall in love with looks or personality. They don't fall in love with intellect or temperament, eloquence or ideas. People fall in love with how they feel when they're with you.

And Sarah, you don't make me feel so good.

You give me that same queasy, tremulous flutter in my stomach that I felt when George W. Bush destroyed John McCain in 2000 over his military record. You give me that same sick, hopeless feeling I had when I found out Bill Clinton lied about letting Monica suck him off. You give me that same, fleeting pleasure I feel whenever the other teams loses, or the big hitter strikes out, or the movie I was looking forward to turns out to be terrible.

Not once tonight did you or your party propose a single idea that would help Jessie and I pay our bills every month. Not once did your party or its cast of vanquished ideologues (Romney, Thompson, Guiliani) propose just exactly how you intend to undo the damage your party has done in the past 8 years. I truly wish that Republicans were as good at running America as they are at attacking Democrats. Maybe then they'd have a record and a platform to run on.

No, Sarah, I don't feel good when I listen to you. I don't feel good when I listen to the talking heads turn their words to you. I don't feel more hopeful or more positive or remotely convinced that the Republicans will do anything but what they have always done: Talk a big game, win, and accomplish nothing. In fact, you seemed to delight in ravaging a story not unlike your own, a story about an individual who came from little and accomplished much despite every influence to the contrary.

Your speech, in the end, betrays other Americans just like you. It betrays yourself. It is more of the same. And Jessie and I can't afford more of the same. It's just too expensive.

So, politicians of all stripes, I ask only this of you: Level the playing field as much as humanly possible, and then kick the ball and leave the rest to me. A third of my paycheck went to G.W. Bush, so don't pretend to be the party of low taxes. Blacks and Hispanics are going to one day supersede whites, so enjoy your all-white conventions while they last. All I really want from you is Hope. Hope that this nation can rise above its differences and remain that shining beacon I learned about in school, the place I am proud to call my home, the country that I thank God for every time I return from visiting another nation.

Give me Hope, Sarah. John. Barack. Joe.

And then get out of my way.

-Martin

Knight of the Old Republic

Tiran stood at the Cantina door, the cold tip of his blaster pointed directly at the Rhodian's head. He was drunk. Angry. He always got angry when he drank, which is why he did it so often. Angry felt good. Angry felt alive.

Mos, his compatriot, looked on at the helpless alien with hungry eyes. Which color would this one bleed? Blue? Green? The patrol on Citadel Station was too small to keep the law, and the patrol for Entertainment Module 081 kept a safe distance over by the airlock down the corridor, never venturing into the Cantina. It would feel good to kill again.

Suddenly, three shadowy figures appeared behind them. The first, a roguish pilot, tapped a twitchy finger on the modified blaster at his side. The second... the second was beyond the description, like a damaged statue. Her eyes were white. Blank. Staring. Her brown cloak and the odd thrill of death enshrouded her in enough mystery to change the temperature of the room. The third held a vibroblade in his bionic right hand. Tiran could hear the gears clicking as it pulsed on the hilt of the weapon.

This last one was trouble.

The Rhodian pleaded with the strangers to help him. Fools. That modified blaster would fetch money. Modifications were illegal on the Citadel. Czerka's men would be hungry to get their hands on it and turn it on those tree-hugging Ithorians.

The thought was exhilarating. Tiran argued with the group over the Rhodian's fate, but he could barely hear himself think. His temper burned hot for a fight, and he could tell the pilot and the woman were boiling over, too. That's when the bearded man spoke up in a smooth voice.

"Can't we all just talk about this?" he said.

WAIT WAIT WAIT. You mean I will gain dark side points by kicking this guy's ass? WTF? Why does the Light Side have to be a frigging pansy parade? Obi-wan Kenobi cut a guy's arm off in a bar just because he could. Han Solo shot first and put a hole in Greedo you could fly a shuttle through, and I get to be Dr. Joyce Meyer with a Lightsaber and "talk about this"? Maybe next I should ask him how he's feeling. "You seem like an angry mercenary. Tell me about your childhood." This guy kills aliens for fun, and somehow I'm supposed to have a moral dilemma about slicing him in half, raiding his corpse, and using his keycard to ransack his apartment? Why the hell did I spend all that time making my Jedi look cool just to have him be a frigging ween?

Light side. Dark side. Sometimes a Jedi just needs to choke a bitch.

-m

27 Reasons I Am Surely 26

Pop the Cialis. Inform the AARP.

I actually heard my woman say the words "at your age" tonight. As in, "Martin, at your age, you can't really expect to get toys at Christmas."

I replied eloquently. Respectfully. Insightfully.

"What the hell did you just say?" I said.

But it was true. Her guns were stuck to. And in front of my father and his wife, no less, who are visiting from Pittsburgh and so far have seemed to enjoy how stable and welcoming and warm my highly adult life is. They were commenting on how we will be getting "couples" gifts from now on. A coffeemaker, for instance. His-and-Hers socks.

"How about an urn?" I wanted to say, biting my tongue. "Should I draw up a will while we're at it?"

You see, I deliberately did not extinguish my individual candle at the wedding. Jessie did not extinguish hers, either. A wind blew up at that point in the ceremony and whisked what little flames we had enkindled up into an airy smoke that set off to join the Clouds of Time, but that doesn't mean I stopped existing as my own person. "Couples gifts." "At your age..." Bah. Judge me by my age, do you?

Of course you do. I'm 26. At my age, my grandfather had saved the world from Nazis and fathered three children. 7 may be the Age of Reason and 18 the Age of Unreasonableness, but 26 is when you should Have a Fucking Clue About Your Life. 26 is the age at which I thought my sisters should Know Better and Be Adults. They had garages for Christ sake. They were grown-ups.

And now, dear Reader, I fear that I, too, have grown up. Or at least have been asked to dress like a grown-up and be willing to not get toys for Christmas. I worry about what I write on here because what if somebody reads it and thinks I'm not as put-together as I should be? What if someone goes, "Someone his age shouldn't be writing like this" or, worse, "Isn't he too old for this?"

So I've decided to compile a list of 27 signs that I am actually 26. I'm including a bonus one in case one of them is stupid, which is likely considering I'm writing this in my pajamas on a work night (take that, adulthood!)

The 27 Signs You, Martin, Are Indeed 26

1. There is hair on your butt.
2. You were born before "Return of the Jedi" came out. That was before the Original Trilogy was finished and 16 years before George Lucas ruined Star Wars with "The Phantom Menace."
3. You are older than the Super Mario Bros. (Mercifully, you are still younger than the "Pong" paddles.)
4. You take more than two pills at night.
   
5. You remember Michael Jackson actually being a sex symbol. For women.
   
6. Advertisers no longer covet your disposable income.
   
7. You were 2 years old when Apple aired their landmark "1984" ad. You think that ad is retro? You are older than it.
   
8. There is a symphony of popping sounds in your knees when you kneel down and stand up. (It's syncopated, thank God.)
   
9. One of your favorite toys growing up was a Fisher Price record player. That played records (Michael Jackson's "Beat It" on 45rpm? Anyone?)
10. Jesus, you know what a 45rpm record is.
11. I mean, seriously, I should just stop this list right there.
    
12. You remember when computer screens had two colors: Orange, and Not Orange.
13. That CD you made a year ago? When you were born, CDs hadn't even been invented yet.
14. Your favorite shows on Saturday morning were "Garfield and Friends," "Muppet Babies," and "Heathcliff."
    
15. You remember Mister Donut and still resent Dunkin' Donuts for wiping it out. Bitches. America runs on MY FIST.
    
16. You didn't have Cable TV until 1988, at which point your family watched "Perfect Strangers" and "Step By Step" and "Who's the Boss."
    
17. You know who Jaleel White is and you still get excited at the prospect of "Double Dare" reruns.
18. You actually have pains you would describe as "aches."
    
19. The theme song from "Doug" is constantly playing in your head somewhere. Doo doo doo, do do do dooo do dooo do do... doo doo doooo, doo doo doo do, doooo, doo, dee doo... Dammit.
20. Your favorite stuffed animal as a child was a giant blue Smurf.
    
21. You know what the word "baud" means, and you existed before word processors knew how to "word wrap."
    
22. You are older than eBay and Amazon.com combined. In fact, you are older than any website. Ever. (the first appeared in 1991)
    
23. You don't understand Bratz Dolls (a.k.a. "Hooker Barbie"), Hannah Montana (I'll tap me some of th... wait she's how old?!?), or any other manufactured musical demon spawn of Disney. Bring back Alan Menken.
    
24. You still cry at the end of "Pee Wee's Playhouse."
25. Did I mention that you are older than the World Wide Web? Oh, also, and you remember when anyone actually called it that?
    
26. You get most of the ridiculously obscure references in "Family Guy."
27. It took a list this long to make fun of how old you are.

Wow. That was edifying. And depressing as hell. Well, at my age, I suppose I shouldn't be making these lists. It'll be all "couples lists" from here on out.

But I'll be damned if I don't ask for toys for Christmas. Screw adulthood. I have the rest of my life to be all growed up...

Your,
Martin

26 on the 24th

Dear Reader,

It doesn't seem all that long ago that this post was entitled "24 on the 24th." I've been trying to make some sense of the rapid acceleration that seems to have overtaken the gas pedal on my life, but so far my only theory is that time flies when you're having fun. If that's true, then I must be having a blast. Life is hurtling by.

I'm one of those people who largely exists in their head, and it is taking me a long time to accept that every thought, emotion, opinion, and revelation I have is not necessarily unique to me. I thought I was a "special snowflake," but you live long enough and you realize that that belief was the ego-centric fantasy of a younger you who desperately needed to feel original and somehow set apart. I still feel that need. Don't take my cognizance of the need as diluting my desire for it. Some of my least favorite words are aptly applied to my life right now: grown-up, stable, comfy. It is taking a remarkable amount of willpower to not resist the intense inertia I'm feeling in my Good Life. Perhaps that's the definition of responsibility: Not upending a good thing just to feel like you're moving forward.

People have been yelling at me, perhaps rightly so, about my grumbling over turning 26. It's not a spectacular age. It doesn't have the wide-mouthed flare of 18, the newfound power of the raucous 21, or the sober, trenchant 30. It's a middling year, one of those great gray expanses between wayposts where one continues to put on the new outfit of adulthood. I'm struggling somewhat to know how to act, defining myself from the outside in as I do. What does a 26-year-old look like? How do they think and act? I feel like a child playing dress-up in front of a mirror. "Here is me at 18. Here is me at 26. Here is me at 40." What's really changing?

If anything, the blessing of getting older is that congealed feeling I have on the inside. Readers of this blog know that I've been liquid for a long time, desperately seeking to become solid. And I can feel that happening, piece by piece. It's not a hardening, though that temptation exists. How many adults do you know who mistake solid for hard? I look at those people, the ones who are cynical and sour and brittle, and I try to be anything but what they are. I am convinced you can grow older without totally smothering your inner-child.

In my music, actually, I am trying to get back to a place of innocence. We start out, as children, creating with no sense of the outcome. We just create because the joy is in the creation. Who cares if it is good? Who cares if it makes sense or doesn't make sense? The outcome isn't the point. The point is the act of creation.

But then we go to school, and we learn how things "should" and "should not" be done. We learn that there are others who might be "better" or "worse" than us. We learn critical-thinking skills and hew a keen critical eye. We are evaluated on how well we critique our own work and the work of others.

And in the process, we forget that you cannot create with a critical mind any more than you can be critical with a creative mind. We focus so much on the quality of the outcome, which is the domain of the critical mind, that we almost become afraid to create. What if it doesn't come out perfect? What if it isn't good? Would that mean I am not good? What if I'm not as good as I used to be? What if I'll never create anything better?

When I was a child, between the ages of 12 and 16, I wrote 42 pieces of ragtime music. From age 16 to now, I've written 2. That's a 95% reduction in pieces over twice as much time. What really changed? My ability to compose? Not likely. Did the pieces get better? I'd like to think so. But in the process of learning how to be critical, I forgot what it was just create for the joy of it.

So, now that I'm 26, I am going to relearn how to think like a child. I find that devilishly ironic. We spend all that time learning how to grow up, only to realize that what we truly need is to think young.

26. I suppose it's up to me to make it a good year. Perhaps by focusing on what is special and unique to me, I'll be able to feel that all-important sense of "progress," of moving forward.

Your,
Martin

Sunset

Dear Reader,

It is nearly Fall, and with the shorter days and cooler nights comes, like clockwork, a deep, restless yearning for a spiritual life. I know it's coming, because my dreams change. This week brought some of the most intense dreams I've had, ever. One night I dreamt I climbed Jacob's Ladder, and Heaven was a thundercloud that billowed up into the universe. The next night I was in a hospital, where I learned that I had imagined everyone I loved in my life. One by one they left me, taking their warmth and love with them, like seeing your life before your eyes only in reverse, and everyone who entered is now leaving. Even Jessie's loving face, the only constant in the dream, faded into the amorphous face of a nurse I didn't know, and I awoke in terror and grasped for Jessie's warm flesh. "She is real," I yelled silently. "She is real. They. Are. All. Real."

It has been this way for eight years, ever since I turned 18 and bought my first book on Witchcraft out of a deep, primordial, beyond-words desire for a living spirituality. Every year the power takes on a new expression: a deck of tarot cards, scholarly books about Jesus, the Tao Te Ching, astrology, telekinesis, you name it. Without fail, it possesses me, as though this particular change of seasons shifts something within me that needs to exist deeper than I currently am.

I've had an idea for this blog for some time now where I read and comment on a passage from the Tao Te Ching for each post. It's a text that I found particularly inspiring. It's also a ridiculously fun candidate for some clever wordplay and high-minded, low-brow discussions about just how applicable woodsman Lao's text really is. I think we should go for it. It should be fun. And it won't be every post. It won't be this post.

Today at 4 PM, my grandfather called an ambulance for himself. By the time they arrived, he wasn't able to tell them what medicines he was taking. He wasn't able to make words, no matter how hard he tried. The words weren't coming. He managed to call my aunt before the ambulance arrived. She was at work, and didn't take the call, but she had a powerful feeling that something was wrong, so she left work unannounced and went over to the house to find him sitting in a chair, unable to speak anything but gibberish. Twenty minutes later he was at a hospital in Wooster, OH, who told my aunt they didn't have the necessary expertise at their little hospital to give him the emergency care he required, so he was transferred to a hospital in Akron, OH. We're still awaiting the results of the tests.

Mom called me as Jess and I were driving home. The call came as all calls like this come, like lightning from a clear sky, and I regaled her with questions about his condition, whether he would improve. As my mind raced and the tears flowed, I was caught by one of the greatest sunsets I had ever seen in Pennsylvania. The sun, a fiery, rebellious orange, burned brightly in a lavender sky. Clouds tried to pass in front of it, but it singed their edges with blinding light. As it lowered it lit the horizon, and halfway hidden and partially obscured, it torched the sky with a deep palette of brilliant reds and blues and purples. The sunset had burned so brilliant that night never truly came, not the whole way home. I could still see the deep blue, still warm from the raging sunset, as if night could not overtake the memory of the sun that burned so bright. I felt a tiny tinge of peace.

Please pray for my grandpa. We don't know what happens next.

Martin

Why I Am Not a Dogwalker

I used to think I was a dog person. That is until I came into bed tonight - you know, my marriage bed, my sacred space, the fluffy thing into which I plop after a long day of asking the big questions - and there was a dog lying in my spot, growling at me like I was an intruder.

Granted, it's not my dog. It's Josie, Jessie's parent's dog, a Cocker Spaniel/Poodle half-breed with all the snootiness of a poodle and the stubbornness of a spaniel. Josie is the perfect example of how you can drive just about any living thing crazy by picking on it. She's got a hair-trigger, can bite you while wagging her tail, and is OCD about... well... everything.

And she was sitting in my bed, snarling, guarding a sleeping Jess from, you guessed it, me.

We're dogsitting this week while Jess' parents galavant around the West Coast. We didn't exactly volunteer to dog-sit, either. The dog-thing arrived with Tooch this past Thursday when she came down for one of her interviews, and I couldn't convince her to take it back (she already has a dog). I quickly came to realize that Jess saw a golden opportunity to test out my parenting capabilities which, safe to say, are in shoddy disrepair and I like it that way, thank you very much. I'm at a stage in my life when I don't want any other living thing counting on me save for me. Myself. Moi. And maybe my wife, when she's good. We've killed all our plants save for the bamboo, and even that is yellowed at the edges. God help any creature who wanders into our apartment - we've got so many poisonous baited traps set to kill any living thing that enters this Fortress of Doom, it's ridiculous. I haven't seen a spider in 8 months. Flies die a quick and painful death between the thunderclap of fists. And God help the cockroaches if they so much as stop to look in our window on their way down the street. Just keep walking, buddy. [cocks shotgun]

And then here comes this dog. And she needs walked. And pet. And have her poop picked up in plastic bags. And she stares at you when you eat. And she barks at goddamn everything.

Which was fine. I could deal with it. I'm a big boy, I can handle things that are not entirely fun and/or easy. Until she was lying in my bed, in my spot, on my pillows, next to my wife, snarling at me at 12:30 in the morning like I was the stranger, like I had intruded into her life. She barked, and woke up Jess, and the stream of invective I started shooting at this mutt would have made a microphone blush. The dog and I got into a growling fight (I do a wicked dog impression), and Jess awoke furious at me and then she shoved the dog off the bed. It snarled again at me, and I growled back, pushed it outside the bedroom, threw its fluffy bed at it, and slammed the door.

So. Yes. I used to think I was a dog person. Maybe when it's my dog, it'll be different, you know? But right now, I wish this mutt would go the way of the potted plants.

-Martin

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

Dear Reader,

Wow. Just... wow. Last night I took Jess to Wolf Trap, one of the coolest performance venues in the country (and 20 minutes from us), and we saw Lord of the Rings - Live. The above picture is not zoomed in - those were our seats, front and center, perfect. I awoke this morning, hours later, and the only sound on my lips was the Lament for Gandalf. The experience was so powerful and moving it endured dreams and shadow and was with me when I awoke. I hesitated to even turn on the TV this morning. I didn't want to dispel the magic before I absolutely had to.

Bottom line: If this show is playing within five hours of you, go. Indescribable. To actually feel the drums echoing through the halls of Dwarrowdelf... to soar with the moth to the top of Isengard... to have the tension of a live performance, complete with any number of chances for disaster and mistakes, and to have it come off spectacularly, just like you remember only with twists and notes you haven't heard before... THAT, dear Reader, was my Wednesday night. For those three hours, Middle Earth was breathing, and I lay in her palm and dreamed with my eyes open.

Tick-Tock

Sometimes the perfect post just comes to you wholly conceived. Sometimes you have to drag it out, word by word, as it clings desperately to your insides. And sometimes you come back to your GChat window after being away at a meeting, and the perfect blog post is waiting for you in the chat window...

"When Martin left his house that morning, he didn't think anything was amiss. Why would he? He was awake, he was trim, and he had a four minute commute - walking - to work. Nothing could go wrong.

Settling into his chair, Martin turned on his computer, the warm hum buzzing pleasantly in the background. Idle chatter surrounded him, comments about sports teams and television shows wafting through the air. He sipped from his trusty mug. This was a good start to his day.

Only...

What was that feeling he had? Foreboding? Fear? It felt like someone was around him, breathing, sensing him. He glanced around, saw nothing. But the feeling continued - creeping fingers up his back the scratch of a paranoid cat, a dying woman clutching his pants leg as a pitchfork protruded from her back. Did someone have the air conditioning on? Was it cold? It felt like winter but worse... dark and endless, like he was falling into a hole with no bottom... a sideless, bottomless hole, empty save for one thing.

Enjoy it while you can, Martin, Death whispered, her voice the sound of the fading of stars and the slowing of time. You play your game. Score as many points as you can. Try to win.

At the end, it doesn't matter what the score is. At the end, I still win... and you will lie cold in the ground until people forget you, and time erases your words and works, and you are left only the worms.

Martin sat up with a start, his chair sounding on the carpet. He took in the common scene in front of him, sweat beaded on his forehead, trying to slow his breathing. Only a dream. He must have fallen asleep. It must have been a while, as his screen saver was on, displaying its usual scenes of stairs and clocks.

He stared at the screen, his breath stopping. One of the clocks was going much, much faster than normal. He watched it, the minute hand going around in seconds, the hour hand moving with visible motion around the numbers. Had it always done this, and he just hadn't seen it to now? He moved the mouse, and the screen saver vanished, revealing his Microsoft Word document. Wow, that had been odd. Had he fallen asleep in that way before, in that much of a terror before? He didn't -

There were words on the paper.

Tick-tock, Martin, they read. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Tick-tock."

-Mat C.
http://matblog7.blogspot.com
(if you don't check out this blog you are either an inanimate object or a retarded sea anemone. -Martin)

Letter from My Demons

Dear Martin,

It's your demons. Hi. Paul found a typewriter in one of your childhood memories, and we decided to write you a letter. Bob offered some skin as paper, and Jeremy reluctantly donated some black blood to type with (we didn't like him much anyways). It's always nice to get mail. Not that we would know, having never received any, but it always gets quiet around here when you get some. I'm not a fan.

Haven't talked in awhile. You've been busy lately, what with your wedding and your job and your concerts. We've barely been able to get to you since you started working out - Ray over in self-image has been having a fit trying to keep up. He asked me to say hello, and to please stop whatever you're doing. He can't believe you actually think you're making progress, seeing as you are doomed, as you know, to a lifetime of hating the body you're in. But apparently you've managed to rattle a few chains lately, weaken a few links. Bravo. I find the effort rather entertaining, actually. The harder you pull, the tighter our chains get, which is why I suppose you're reading this letter. But you've had so many chances to learn that, it seems almost a waste to spend any more blood on it. You're going to fail sooner or later.

I guess, since you're reading this, it's quite obvious we're still here. You didn't think we'd actually go away, did you? We like the dark, the cool, moist dimness of your inattention. It's quiet, there aren't the distractions of the day, the kind words of family and friends are far way - that's the way I prefer it. No buffer, just you and me and the darkness, as it should be.

"Then why are you writing?" I can hear you asking. Well, to be honest, your inattention hasn't been so dim lately. The day shines so much brighter now, it's hard to get any night in which to work. Your job, your woman, your friends, your music, your movie - they're shining brighter now than they ever have, stretching longer into the night, our night, and frankly we can't work in these conditions.

So, I'm here to tell you, now that I have your attention, that you are never going to finish your movie. I know you think you will, but you aren't. I'll see to that. I'll fill you so full of dread and fear of your own inability that you won't be able to move an inch. I'll tell you how awful it is, how it's not worth finishing, how it is proof you are a bad writer, how you never should have started it in the first place, how you never finish the things you start. You've been fighting us pretty hard on that one for a long time, but you're not going to win. It's a losing battle. Give up.

You are not as good a pianist as people think you are. You cannot play scales. I repeat: You. Cannot. Play. Scales. It takes you a long time to learn new pieces. People are just being nice to you when they compliment you, because they know that without being good at music you would shrivel up and die on the carpet (which would make Ray really happy so I hope you'll at least consider it). If people actually liked your music, you would have no CDs left in your closet. It's only a matter of time before they call you the hack you really are.

Your job is a waste of your time. Instructional Designer? What is that? No one knows what it is when you tell them, which makes you look stupid and useless or overly important and useless. You'll never make enough money. You're going to get stuck doing it because you need the health care and because you are too afraid to do something else. If we're lucky, we'll keep you from doing what you want to do for years. If we're really lucky, and I wouldn't put it past us, you'll never find out what it is you really want to do. Let me tell you what, nothing is more impressive to other demons than to keep a soul from its purpose - all the guys at the pub think I'm the man, so don't fuck that up for me. Chicks dig it.

And your friends. I know you're making a last stand at the wedding, gathering up as many as you can, but where are they the rest of the time? Almost all your friends from the movie are gone. Many are scattered all over the world and away from you. They never really liked you all that much anyways, always thought you were weird and awkward. And you know it's only going to get worse after you get married.

And speaking of marriage, we had a field day with that one, didn't we? Man, the guys and I had a hell of a time. We miss those days when you listened to us more, when a single word wreaked havoc on you. You know that marriage means death - the death of you, the death of everything you are. I know lately you've seen some promise in a "new beginning," but it's a fake just like you. A mirage just like you. An afterthought, just like you. Your relationship with Jess will never be perfect, never be enough. It will always be missing something, be lacking something. You will always wonder what it would like to date others, and you will never be content, no matter how much she loves you or how happy you are.

Whew! That ought to do it. Just wanted to write and remind you who is in charge here. Your days may be getting brighter, but we have sunglasses. And sooner or later it will get dim again, dark again, and when it does we'll be here. It's going to take more than a few notches in your column to burn us away.

Love,
Your Demons

P.S.- Please send money.

From Little Treasure

Have you ever been in a situation where you fantasized about having the perfect excuse? It used to happen all the time in school. "I don't have my homework. My Grandma died last night." "I can't participate in shirts-and-skins with this broken arm." "We were in a car accident on the way here. That's why I'm late." I fantasized about the obligation lifting, that dizzy pleasure you get when a struggle you have is perfectly understandable, when you have a real, legitimate reason to be excused.

The perfect excuse, however, is much more fun in theory. You know that little dizzy feeling? It comes at a cost so complex it's taken weeks to be able to write to you about it.

I haven't blogged, and I have the perfect excuse: I was in the hospital. I had pneumonia in one lung and a pulmonary embolism in the other. Most of you probably know this, being friends and family, but this is the first time I've actually put it into words. PEs are life-threatening and, as I learned later, kill about 1-in-3 people who get them. [I thought writing that would make it more real, but so far it hasn't.] The hardest part was not the week I spent in the hospital; it's been the weeks since that have proven the hardest as I try to incorporate this unexpected patch into my quilt. I'm never nervous writing to you, and I've been petrified of how I would talk about this, or even if I would talk about this. I'll tell the story as best I can.

I woke up on late Sunday night, January 20th, in an unearthly panic, and to this day it still feels like I'm caught in some unfinished dream. This was the night after Jess and I had been to visit Val in Newport News, one day after the last post. I'd been sick with a bad cough for about five days and the smoke from the Hilton Country Club hadn't helped. I knew I was going to have to get it looked at. Having had pneumonia before, I was familiar with the pain in my back when I inhaled deeply, and so I knew I needed to get on some antibiotics. I put the idea on an index card in my head, shoved it into my overstuffed mental to-do box, and told myself that a few more days wouldn't make a difference. I didn't have a doctor down here yet, and it seemed impractically annoying. Besides, I'd probably have to miss work.

I woke up only a few hours after falling to sleep. You know in movies when a character is having a really bad dream, and their eyes shoot awake and you're like, "No one wakes up that fast"? That was me, I woke up that fast, only I wasn't dreaming. I was having trouble breathing. People have asked me what it felt like, and all I could think about was "Turner and Hooch." You know how the old guy at the docks gets stabbed in the back up under the ribcage, and Turner figures he couldn't scream because if you get stabbed there, you can't scream? Well I was the old man, and every time I inhaled it felt like someone was driving a knife right up under my ribcage.

I started panicking because, duh, I couldn't breathe. I stood up, tried to walk it off. I went to the bathroom and got a drink of water, walked back, tried to lay back down, but the pain was sharp and unbearable. My arms started getting cold and numb, and it was at the moment, when the panic seeped over me, that I thought I was having a heart attack.

Anna told me that when I was a kid, I used to take a volume from the encyclopedia to read in bed. She said it was entertaining, but also weird, because what does an 8-year-old want with an encyclopedia? I think I got it in my mind, since my mom had spoken about these books as a treasure-trove of world knowledge, a Library of Alexandria on the bookshelf, that I should, you know, read them. And so I would start with "A," the idea in my mind to read through them. I would skip around, sometimes opting for "D" or "S" ("S" got a lot of reading when I hit 12, as it was my first legitimate information about sex). I would just read the entries that looked interesting. I was into cars and trains and planes then, and I'm sure I read a lot about them.

Well, when I was older, I kept up my fascination with encyclopedias, only by then it had become something of weird pre-teen experiment in the power of suggestion. I would come home after school and, during the two hours I had to myself, research health conditions, things like cancer and syphilis and heart attacks, and then I would sit there and read and, as I was reading, would become absolutely convinced that I had whatever condition I was reading about. I would check my lymph nodes for inflammation. I would look at my hands for rashes. It took Mom coming home to break the spell, to shoo away the thundercloud of ill that I had swirled around myself.

It's heart-attack day I remember best, however. I can still see myself sitting on the couch reading about heart attacks. We'd watched some horrible video in school where a man eats a casserole his daughter made and it was so greasy he had a heart attack and nearly died. Inexplicably fascinated, I opened up "H" to "Heart Attack," and as I read, I could actually feel my chest tightening up. My heart started pounding faster. I could swear that there was a "dull ache" in my arms. It felt so real, like it was happening right there. I felt like I knew intimately what a heart attack would feel like, and I scared the living crap out of myself.

This is the memory that came back to me when I awoke in the middle of the night 13 years later with a racing heart, shortness of breath, and numbness in my arms. A little part of me, the twelve-year-old who is still terrified of the things he can't control, said, "Something isn't right, Martin. Something is very, very wrong."

I woke up Jessie. I was crying. I told her I couldn't breathe. She must have heard something in my voice, because she awoke right away. At first she thought it was a panic attack. I was pacing around our apartment, standing in the living room trying to breathe and belch and do anything to relieve the pressure in my back. We debated for a good five minutes what to do. Should we call an ambulance? Should we draw a warm bath and just try to calm down? I Googled the nearest hospital, found one close by, and at 3:30 in the morning we got in the car and drove through the silent, chilly night to the emergency room.

The emergency room was empty, save for a father cradling his sleeping little boy. Concern hung on him like wet denim, and when I close my eyes I can still see his eyes, how open they were but how they didn't see the room, how they fought to see bright spots through gathering clouds.

I met with the nurse, who took my pulse and asked me questions. Within minutes I was in a hospital bed, taking breathing treatments, getting IVs, taking painkillers. The nurses were jovial and pleasant, laughing and talking and not at all reminiscent of 5 AM. I was set to be out of there quickly until the doctor ordered a test on a hunch. It came back positive, so they sent me down for a CT scan, where I had an allergic reaction to the iodine dye they inject you with. I remember lying on the gurney in the hallway alone, waiting for to be moved back to the emergency room, and feeling this itchiness in my eyes. It felt like my face was filling with salt water, and when I returned to the ER, I asked Jess if anything was wrong with my face. Five minutes later nurses were rushing around injecting Benadryl and saline, trying to keep my throat from swelling shut. I lay in the dark with a wet cloth over my eyes, and after the threat had passed Jessie and I laughed about how I looked like Quasimodo, one eye swollen open, the other swollen shut.

It was then, a washcloth over my eyes, that the doctor returned with another doctor. They told me that I had a blood clot in my left lung, and that I would need to be in the hospital for at least five days. I kept repeating the word "What?" over and over, in disbelief and shock. A nurse came in and told me that I couldn't move anymore, that I wouldn't be allowed to walk to the bathroom, that I could dislodge more clots. I spent that whole first day paralyzed and peeing into bottles, like I'd fallen off of my planet and into someone else's nightmare.

I've gone back and forth about what else to write about that week. It's been over a month now, and some memories are better left to myself. The best moments though were when my family and friends were with me. Mom drove down that night and stayed almost the whole week. My cousin Laura, who lives in DC, was over to keep Jess company and bring a little sunshine. My brother came down, I received daily phone calls from Mat and Dave, my sisters and family, flowers came from Vicky and Dan, Tooch and Jeep, and Emily and Jeffrey surprised me and came all the way from Texas to spend part of the week in the hospital room with me, keeping me company when Jess was at school. My nurses were, frankly, gifts from God, each attentive, caring, and patient. I made it a point to learn the name of every person who walked into my room in ICU 2, from the pulmonologist to the lady who cleaned the bathroom. I wanted them to know that I cared and was grateful, that their motions and thoughts and concern was vital to me.

The worst moments were at night, alone with the tones of IV machines and dream-filled sleep about work and elementary school that was shattered by painful blood draws every four hours. During the day there was enough activity to look forward to to keep me distracted, but at night it was just me and my thoughts. Every ache was another clot, every elevated heartbeat an emergency. When I coughed blood, I thought I was dying. I knew that being in the hospital presented a host of dangers, and I tried to be as active in my care as possible, but when I was alone, I was vulnerable. Things I couldn't control were coming for me. They had already tried once. There were many private terrors that week, tiny moments of despair. But they were countered by an overwhelming goodness and love from people far and wide who took the time to say, "We care about you." I came home to 24 "Get Well" cards and as many phone messages and e-mails. The outpouring was unbelievable.

In the six weeks that have passed since, I haven't gotten my epiphany. I was really hoping for one, you know? Just some moment where it all became clear and everything was revealed, and the fragile, shaken Nothing in my gut would be explained and answered. But it hasn't come. It's not coming. The most I can hope for is a gradual reveal, a slow fade from black. I came out of it knowing, for the first time, that I am not going to live forever, that in fact I am quite fragile and easily taken, a cathedral of windows. That said, I have a profound urgency now about wanting to be "healthy." Jessie and I joined a fitness program, and despite a bit of inevitable whining (mostly from me), the shape I'm getting into will be one of the great triumphs of my life.

So. There we go. On blood thinners for the foreseeable future, and have some restrictions on my diet, but those can be saved for later posts. In the meantime, I am back, and with fewer excuses. What's that old Chinese curse about "interesting times"? I feel as if life has just gotten started with me...

Your,
Martin

Next Up: Lurene

I'm in Newport News this weekend. You can tell this is a place that is compensating for something because it uses the word "new" in its name not once but twice, and this place doth protest too much. I have easily traveled 30 years back in time. I don't even need my anti-wrinkle face wash here - the time differential alone has my skin firm and buoyant.

I'm with Jess. We're visiting our friend Val, who works for the shipyard in Norfolk and bought her first house here. It's been an amazing adventure, mostly because it is so deliciously backwards. I forget sometimes that Virginia is in the south. Not the deep south, but the SUV-centric, fried seafood, strip-mall south - the kind of place where local men look at a girl funny when she holds the door for them ("well, equal rights I guess" they mumble reluctantly). It's a short drive down from Alexandria, and we arrived in time to grab some dinner at the "Crab Shack," a seafood restaurant situated right at the foot of the James River Bridge. We rode in Val's Mercedes coupe - I wasn't even reclined, I was curled in the fetal position in the back seat - and I had a solid fish sandwich and overlooked the water and it was a great start to a weekend of new.

The key lime pie was good, which in my opinion is a prerequisite for any restaurant which purports to sell seafood. I only ever tried to make a key lime pie once, when I lived in Florida, and its legendary horribleness follows me to this day.

After dinner, we dropped the car off back at Val's house, used the jaws of life to extract my ginormous self from the back seat, and walked to the "Hilton Country Club." Please remove any images of plaid pants, golf clubs, or anyone who refrains from smoking OUT of your mind, because this country club was a dive bar for the ages.

And they had karaoke. The fact that I didn't run tells you two things: 1) I really wanted to be drunk, and 2) I knew a good story was brewing. I was not disappointed on either count.

Everyone was smoking. Not a single person in there was without a cigarette in their dry, crackled fingers. These people weren't screwing around with Marlboro "Light" anything - all were smoking straight Marlboro's, and a haze of burning benzene hung so heavily in the air that I could blow second-hand smoke rings. We opened a tab, grabbed a couple of beers, and then Jess, like a meteor pulled inexorably toward a planet, found the karaoke books.

A little history: I hate karaoke. In fact I once described karaoke thus:

Curious buttf*cking George I hate karaoke. I know this makes me an almost unbearably wet blanket in 19% of social situations, but the only things I hate more than karaoke are brussel sprouts and child molesters. Karaoke. Killmearaoke. Put-the-microphone-in-a-boat-and-implode-it-araoke. Not only are we going to make bad music, but we're going to make it LOUDLY, insert it directly in your brain past your shriveling cilia, and wedge it right between your will to live and your need to destroy.

Yeah. Not a fan.

But for two minutes and 40 seconds, I actually liked it. Jess and Val tortured the bar with a seven-minute rendition of Meatloaf's "I'd Do Anything for You," and afterwards Jessie insisted I sing something. She pulled out her cute eyes. She threatened bodily harm. And I don't know whether or not it was the smoke cutting off circulation to my brain or the Miller Chill which I was downing like Gatorade after a dodgeball game, but I heard myself say, "I only know 'Blue Christmas' by Elvis." If you know anything about Jessie, all she needs is an inch and she'll have you dancing naked in front of your Board of Directors within three minutes. She ran to the DJ, signed my name up, I screamed at her, and then spent twenty nerve-wracked minutes listening to Mindi, Mike, Beau, and, of course, Lurene sing their tone-deaf guts out .

The DJ had screens set up with the words, and at the bottom like a CNN ticker names would read off "Now Singing: Mindi. Up next: Lurene." Well, pretty soon it was "Up Next: Martin," and I was freaking out. You have to understand, music is my second language. Playing the piano is an incredibly intimate experience for me. I work really, really hard to play pieces in a way that reaches people, that excites them, that presents me in the best, most talented light. But my fingers do the singing - I do not. The Martin does not sing. Or if he does, it's in the shower surrounded by adoring shampoo bottles, and usually I'm making up the songs ("Martin's in the sho-ow-ower, scrubbing up like a st-ah-orm..." etc...) I don't know pop songs. I don't sing pop songs. But I do do a pretty wicked impersonation of Elvis singing "Blue Christmas." I did it once for Jess as a joke years ago, and she loved it and couldn't stop laughing (especially with the "uh-hun, uh-hun, un-hun...")

So there I was, standing up in front of a bar full of Newport Newsians, my throat thick with smoke, my hand shaking on the microphone, watching the screen read off, "I'll have a Blue Christmas without you..." and three minutes later realizing that I had sung it, that it wasn't horrible, and that the world hadn't collapsed.

...and that no one but me cared if it was any good, because they were all busy waiting to see their name "Up Next."

I wondered how much of my life's energy I've wasted worrying about the outcomes of things that only mattered to me. If any politician could get elected as easily as I've elected the voices in my head, he'd have statues as far the roads could go.

We woke up late today after the first good night's sleep in a while, and caught some lunch at the "Twin Star Diner," complete with bright green ceiling and rusted chrome napkin fixtures. Like I said, I'm 30 years behind you right now. I'm impressed I've been able to tap into ARPANET to send this post to you in the future. Later in the day we caught "Sweeney Todd" at the Cinema Cafe - I haven't had my love of movie theaters shaken that hard in a long time. There were no texting-teenie-boppers and no pregnant trashy girls, but the projector had a bad shake that shook the entire two-hour film. After about the 17th shaky throat-slitting I was like, "Why am I sitting here watching this crummy image when I could watch it at home with pristine picture, the ability to pause, and no scary people?" It's not the first time I've thought it, but I was still an advocate for film-watching being a social experience. There is something special about experiencing a movie with a bunch of strangers. It's like going on an adventure or something - you all become participants in this great unknown story, combined by your common goal of following this story. I usually really like that, and I don't know whether it's because I'm older or because I hate karaoke, but my desire to experience a movie with a bunch of people who don't know how to be in a theater watching a moving being shown by a crummy projector.... I don't know, it's just different. I'd rather invite friends over and have "release parties" and watch a movie on a big-screen TV with friends.

Anyways, I'm rambling. Then again, I'm in Newport News, where everything new is old again. And it's nice. It's balancing. It's a reminder that not everyone is so caught up with all that crap I'm caught up with. And I did get up and sing like the King. That felt pretty good... you know, for something I hate.

Your,
Martin

Juno and the Stomach Flu

Dear Reader,

I've been MIA due to a lovely stomach bug that had me wretching my guts out. Eww. I took a day off of work and laid around. I watched five hours of "Project Runway." It did help me feel a little better to watch some dreams get crushed. The downside is I now know way too much about chiffon and must be shot.

I've been having a blog war with myself over what to name this stupid thing. I think this might be one of those situations in which my capacity for over-thinking actually created the problem I'm now trying to solve. And I imagine this identity crisis is about as exciting for you as it was to watch John Stewart devote an entire show to the writer's strike. Stimulating.

I saw "Juno" with Jess on Saturday. It was a little "thank God I can leave the apartment without attaching a toilet to my ass" party, and I absolutely loved it. It took me awhile to translate modern teen-speak into something I could relate to, i.e "gob"="piehole", but after a few minutes I was in the swing of it. The language is actually one of the great joys of this little movie. That, and realizing that those incredibly hormonal and emotionally exhausting days are mercifully behind you. I've never been more glad not to be a teenager. It was a passionate time. The smallest things seemed like the world, but I realize now it felt that way because everything reverberates louder off the walls of a high-school. I like it better now. Your twenties are like being a teenager only with less angst and more money.

Though apparently the kids today have a lingo. I miss having a lingo. And you can't go up to someone and ask for a lingo. That's just silly.

So, I was delighted that I didn't come out of "Juno" feeling more like a parent than a moviegoer. That's when I'll know I've crossed that line of no return. I am a little creeped out, however, that I find myself relating more to the adults in movies. I swore to a younger version of myself that I wouldn't forget what it was like to be 18, how I saw the world, what really mattered. Of course it was a promise I couldn't keep, which is why this blog is cool, preserving events and my thoughts of them for years to come. But I remember somewhat. I felt much more entitled to success. Diablo II was the greatest video game ever created. The day-old three-cookies-for-99-cents at 7/11 was the breakfast of champions. The late-night drive was the ultimate act of freedom. Phone conversations should last a minimum of three hours. The best way to find yourself was to get lost. Who will protect the memory of those times unless we collect what we remember and inscribe it somewhere safe? And how do you grow up and not lose what was important, what was hopeful, what was vital and optimistic and never dimming?

The advantage of the older worldview is that I see things I would have missed otherwise, or perceive complexities that would otherwise go unnoticed. And I can still summon a sense of wonder. Jess and I watched "Transformers" at home and I seriously uttered, "Oh my God, that is so fucking cool!" like seven times during the movie. Don't know what it is about transforming cars with guns that is so damn cool.

Actually I think I just answered my own question. Cars+spacerobots+guns=I win.

200 Flying Martins

You hate it.

That's okay, I'm not sure of it myself. On the plus side, a search on Google reveals that I am utterly, completely unique. Take that, "Fight Club"! You are looking at (according to Google, which is like the universe) a very special snowflake.

Haven't you ever wanted to utter a phrase that has never been uttered before in the history of the world? Do you think those phrases even exist? When I was younger I would try and come up with them for fun. I would say something and be like, "You know what, I bet that combination of words was never said before." It was exciting to think that I'd perhaps stumbled onto something genuinely new. Then again, back then it felt as though everything I experienced was unique to me. I won't pretend it doesn't still, because it does. I am the center of the Martin-verse. Why else would I write about it?

Potentially new phrases can't be manufactured. They have to grow from changing realities. Don't be alarmed if a whole in space fabric opens up as you read them (and feel free to add your own):

"The meat-packing district is all out of porcupine!"
"I bent the shrew but it didn't make her any rounder."
"Gumdrop purple with a hint of Triceratops."

The trick is getting them to make sense, which is why these examples, as well as almost all user-generated examples, will suck. They really can't be manufactured, as the examples above show. They have to be organic - moments or situations that exist but create the strangest combination of words. For example, at work we use a software bundle called "evolution." I've heard these kinds of phrases:

"Evolution is going to be down for a few minutes, so you might want to finish up and save what you're doing before heading out."

"Have you learned how to use evolution yet?"

"Does evolution have a user's guide?"

Now, are these the first times these phrases have been uttered? Probably not. But it's that kind of situation that creates a new phrase - words that shouldn't be together, but our new reality has pushed them together - and maybe, just maybe, you are privy to the generation of something new.

Like "Beware of Falling Me." I don't know, it kind of fits - I am pretty angsty, I wear emo Versace glasses, I have a penis and talk about my feelings. Tooch suggested I call the blog "The Man of Poor Choices," for which, frankly, there is ample evidence that this would be apropos. She asked me, last time we were together, "How can you be so open and honest on the blog?"

I didn't really have a good answer. I mean, it's probably some kind of mental illness, what with the sharing and the deeply personal and the "I don't even know you but I feel like I was at your birthday party" thing. I like it because, like many things in my life, I feel like it's a chance to perform.

Even if the audience is the computer screen, I'm still writing to you, Dear Reader. And I feel like I owe you new posts, new stories, new thoughts. That is motivation for me to write, and I need motivation. I am someone who wants to see the practical value of what I expend my energy doing, and to know that someone reads the blog makes it fun and worthwhile. I don't know if it could ever have a life outside of friends and family, but maybe it doesn't need to. Mat, for instance, doesn't allow comments on his blog. He updates it at will, whenever the mood arises (and writes beautifully, which you know by now because you've read it), and when I bring up a post of his, I get the sense that I've in some way intruded. The reaction is not cold, not at all. But I get the sense that it was impolite to bring it up, as though it's a place where he gets to exist without worrying about being entertaining or good (both of which ABOFF is).

I'm the opposite. This blog originally didn't allow comments, and you know how often I updated it? Yah, never. If I'm not performing for you, I'm performing for the judgmental audience in my head, and frankly I prefer your silent approval. Now I'm like, "Crap, I need to do more stuff so I have something to write about other than my thoughts about the blog." This is why early 2007 contains my favorite blog posts. I was so dark and stormy, trying new things, depressed, drunk off my ass. It was an excessive and expressive time, a time when I could smoke and spill my life story out of its iron glass and I'm glad I did it and would do it again. Now I can read about it and wonder, "Who the hell is writing this?" It's fun to think I've been more than one person, seen more than one corner of my mind. It makes me feel like I've actually, you know, lived.

Anyways, this is one of those rambling psychological posts, the kind I make when I'm just enjoying writing and don't have much of a point. We'll see if the new title sticks. And it's good to have a counterweight to posts like Sunday's - it is possible to have TOO much happen in a weekend.

Hope you're well, Dear Reader.

Your,
Martin

A Blog By Any Other Name

So I'm renaming the blog.

I've been conducting tireless research, Googling "what to name your blog" and reading through pages for at least for at least five minutes before copying-and-pasting (what I do for a LIVING, people) into this blog.

The first guidelines I found:

1. Determine How Important the Name Really Is (well, I wouldn't be wasti... er, devoting a whole post to it if it wasn't important)
2. Stand Out (From what? The 14 billion other angsty overwritten blogs that exist on Blogger alone? How? Who do I have to kill?)
3. Avoid Generic Surnames (Martin's Blog of Stuff)
4. Avoid Descriptive Names (Martin's Blog of Interesting Stuff)
5. Avoid Acronyms (MBOIS... which sounds like "mmm... boys" which, I'm not sure, might have just gotten me arrested and thrown in the cell with Urinating Man)
6. Avoid Faux Latin (Martinus Blogimus)
7. Avoid Faux Latin (Cont’d): -nt Names (I don't know what this means)
8. Avoid Spaceless Names (i.e. ThingsI'llProbablyRegretMakingPublicSomeday [shamelessly plucked from the corpse of PITS])
9. Avoid “Tech Power Synergy” Names ("Outside-the-Box Paradigm-Shifting Blog of Increased Productivity")
10. Find Examples to Emulate (i.e. pillage like a butt pirate)

Or perhaps instead of trying so hard, I can just "Inventify" a word here:

invent-a-word

My favorite is Avanon+nonexistence=Avanonexistence.

This blog suggests some steps:

Step 1: Without thinking too much, write down every idea that comes to mind. You could even get a friend to brainstorm with you.

Step 2: Once you have a few names, look them up on Google to make sure they’re unique. If you’re thinking about registering a domain name (either now or eventually), be sure to see this video tutorial on Trademark Law and Your Blog Domain Name.

Step 3: Next, research your competition. How can you distinguish your blog from those similar to yours? If you find a blog named “Bob’s Lemonade”, you should probably cross “Fred’s Lemonade” off your list (oh my god I am naming my blog "Martin's Lemonade").

Step 4: Consider ways to improve the names you’ve thought of. Use a thesaurus to find synonyms for lengthy or vague words — maybe you’ll discover a way to incorporate alliteration or rhyme.

Step 5: Once you’ve narrowed down your choices, let them simmer in the back of your mind while you do something else. Take another look at your names after a few hours (or days or weeks — whatever works for you). By then, you’ll probably have no problem making your final decision.

So I guess it is time to simmer. Dave suggested "Soothmancer," which is excellently inventified, but in my mind implies that I have some clue as to what is going on most of the time so I don't think I can use it. I can't resort to movie quotes (That's No Moon.... It's a Blog Station!). I feel like the name should use MY name in some way (just the "Martin" part). Something like "Martin Nonetheless" or "Martin, Actually." Maybe I could steal from a recent post and call it "In a Cloud of Unknowing." That is so pretentious it just might work.

Hm. I could be at this for awhile. Better sleep on it.

Sleep tight, Dear Reader.

Martin

Generous George's Positive Pizza and Pasta

Dear God,

I don't know what I said. Maybe it was something I did. But whatever it was that I did to deserve this weekend, holy shit (sorry), I am penitent. Remorseful. Guilty. Balls-on terrified of your wrath. Because, holy shit (sorry), this weekend could only have been a punishment. I don't know whether it was Jessie puking all over my bed, the homeless man I got arrested for peeing on the tree next to my car, or the fact that the Steelers lost a game they were so close to winning, but Jesus testicles in a Kitchen Aid, this was a horrible, horrible weekend.

It started well enough.

Jess and I had a cute dinner at home, and decided to make a date out of the evening and go to a movie. There are about 11 amazing movies out right now - it's the first time in a long time (maybe ever) that I felt like I wanted to see 90% of the movies that are out. We chose "Charlie Wilson's War" which, if you haven't seen it, shame on you. It. Is. Amazing. I had forgotten what good dialog sounded like. This movie was so funny, so well-paced, so brilliantly acted, and so incredibly damning that it is easily a Top 3 movie experience of the past two years. The combination of Mike Nichols and Aaron Sorkin is something I will now seek out - Sorkin's writing, what he perfected on "West Wing," is pitch-perfect, hilarious, never contrived, and always sharp. Add to that Tom Hanks (amazing), Julia Roberts (likable enough), and, oh my God one of my favorite actors, Philip Seymour Hoffman (who managed, somehow, to steal a movie from Tom Hanks), and you know it has to be good.

And it was. I loved it. I would see it again. I want to own it. Genius. Go. Now.

The night ended with me battling Bowser's minions in "Mario Galaxy" on the FRIGGING WII THAT JESSIE GOT ME FOR CHRISTMAS. Talk about amazing gifts '07 - here, unbeknownst to me, she researched all the different gaming systems, decided that the Wii would be the one we could both enjoy, realized it was impossible to find and so went on craigslist and found a guy selling one for a not-as-insane price whom she then met after school in the library of the Beatley Library, handed a wad of $20s, and surprised me with the damn thing on the way home to Pittsburgh. The thing is amazing, and I'll reflect on it further at a future point (preferably after I've become a "Pro" in Wii Tennis).

Saturday started with mind-boggling nookie - what could be better?!? - and then, oh dear, dear Reader, the weekend took a horrible, horrible turn.

Or rather U-Turn, of destiny, to the most horrible place in Alexandria: Generous George's Positive Pizza and Pasta.

First, let me state unequivocally that this was not my idea.

After years spent eating out instead of cooking for my damn self, I have developed a finely-tuned sense about restaurants. I almost instinctually know if it's going to be a good meal or a bad one within the first three minutes. I see it as the payment for the horrible toll that eating out has taken on the physical age of my body which, at last count, was sharing a birthday with dirt. And I had a bad feeling about Generous George.

I don't know whether it was the matching 15-foot nutcrackers at its entrance or the fact that the building was painted a Pepto-Bismol pink, but whatever early warning system I have flashed from yellow to red, and I, like a good American, ignored the crap out of it. We were ushered into a restaurant full of families with small children. On the wall, a placard hung ominously that read, "Reader's Choice: Most Kid Friendly Restaurant 2003," which, I later came to believe, was when they had made the dough of the pizza we ate. Oh. My God. Who hates me.

This place looked like a dilapidated Chuck E.Cheese. Grotesque wooden animals stolen from abandoned county fairs hung lifeless from the pink steel-beamed ceiling, their faces, a mixture of regret and permanent shock, staring bleakly at the massive bronze clock that stood watch over the pink restaurant with the pink chairs. Between the animals were rusted cars and three-wheeled wagons which dangled like corpses between pink steel teeth. On the wall were massive portraits - a girl, dressed in white, sitting in front of a massive grand piano; a Rockwellian-styled boy and his wagon; one of those old black-and-white photos of a wrestler that you always see in Greek or Italian-styled restaurants. Wait... what? And what are all these old newspapers doing on the wall? It looked like Chuck E. Cheese had gotten drunk and run over the Olive Garden. Horrific.

We ordered the antipasti salad (which was a mistake, as the pillows on my bed would later come to learn) and a pizza, both of which were disgusting, dry, tasteless and, as we found out today, covered in the germs of someone's butt. And which cost nearly $40. This is the first restaurant I've ever been to that was so bad, I am motivated to write a letter.

Flash forward to Saturday night. We have a great time over at my cousin Laura's. She lives over by U-Street, which is this sort of revitalized cultural district that has giant murals of Duke Ellington and other black jazz greats on the sides of buildings. We watched the Steeler's game which, as many of you know, ended with frustration, annoyance, and ultimate acceptance that we just didn't deserve to win with all those turnovers. It was fun to put on my Steelers jersey and root for them, though. They showed us one hell of a game in the second half.

Then came Sunday.

It was the fact that the homeless man had stared me straight in the eye as he pissed next to my car that made me call the police on him.

When he was sleeping on the stoop, I passed him and felt a loud note of pity and concern. I fantasized about going up to him and being able to, I don't know, say something or do something that would magically transform him. I thought of him as I carried the groceries upstairs, because I live in a nice part of town. I mean, NICE. He was a reminder of how fragile all this financial stability really is. Without my family and Jess, I thought, I would be like him.

But then he woke up, and as I was unloading the last groceries from my car - this is King Street, mind you, the place with the French restaurants and the boutique shops - he stood up, came over to the tree by my car, opened his pants, and pissed. For like 15 seconds. Just pulled out his dick and pissed. Two girls walked by behind him, their faces unreadable. I look over at him long enough to confirm that yes, oh my God, he is pissing. I then register that he is pissing right next to my car. Not on my car, mind you, but there is some splashing going on. And he is staring straight at me, his eyes unblinking as he relieves himself as if to say, "I see you, and I piss on everything you are." We locked eyes for, what, 1 second? And that is when I resolved to call the police.

You are on my street. Your piss is splashing on my tire. It is fucking broad daylight, families are walking around, I'm trying to unload groceries, and you are pissing in front of all of us. Isn't there somewhere else you should be?

Of course I was horribly conflicted about what to do. Something about the fact that he'd stared right at me the whole time made me angry, though, the kind of white-boy anger that I never have, and I realized that in that moment I wasn't angry at just him; I was angry at Damascus man. I was angry at the guys with the speakers in the white van, angry at every poor-looking jackass who'd gotten one over on me, who'd played me for a fool. And now you're looking me in the eyes as you piss in front of me? Ooh, it got my goat.

Of course, being an idiot and not being able to find the non-emergency number, I called 911, who promptly explained to me in no uncertain terms that by dialing 411 on my phone, I could have gotten the correct number. Hopefully nothing burned down while I extracted that valuable information. I called Alexandria police and explained that there was a man on my block who pissed next to my car.

"Is he a homeless guy?" the officer asked.
"I think so."
"Black, white, hispanic?"
"Black."
"What is he wearing?"
"A dark blue coat, a hat, dark pants."
"What color pants?"
"I don't know."
"Was he urinating on your car, sir?"
"No, no, he didn't actually urinate on the car, it was next to the car."
"Oh. That's good. Do you want to leave a name?"

I was grateful in that moment that I could call someone and make it their problem, that I could put the onus on them to get the pissing homeless black man off of my block. After I got off the phone I, honest to God, sat with Jessie in our apartment and ate fresh cherries. I ate fucking cherries as the sirens blared, and spit out pits as the mentally unwell black man got arrested for peeing in front of me. It'd be a great scene for a movie, only in it I'm the bad guy. I told myself that maybe they can get him some help, you know? Get him to a shelter, or at least give him some damn food. But mostly I just didn't want him peeing on my street. I felt territorial. Challenged. And dammit, man, there are people walking all around you. At least go in the alley in the back.

I think that might have been when God sent the plague, because it wasn't long after that that Jessie went into my bedroom to lay down. She hadn't been feeling well all day - cramps and the like. I was watching the replay of the presidential debates when I heard this wretching sound from my bedroom. Jessie screamed, "Martin! Help!" and, sensing there was actually something wrong, arrived just in time to watch her explode purple, chunky vomit all over herself, wave after wave of it all over the bed, the comforter, the pillows, her shirt. Between heaves she asked for a bowl and I ran to get it. She couldn't sit up, and just kept puking all over herself. I thought she was going to choke on it and die. I grabbed her hand, pulled her upright, and she wretched into one of our mixing bowls, the bed, her shirt, her hair - everything covered in spew.

Five minutes later we were laughing, but I don't think I'll ever be the same. Here she'd gotten food poisoning from Generous George. He was generous alright, but not, apparently, with the soap in the bathroom, because someone touched their butt and got Jessie sick. I, on the other hand, am inexplicably fine (though talking about it makes me feel like I have to puke). I can actually say I held someone's hair as they puked. You really know, in that moment, just how much you love someone, because if there was ever a time when you DIDN'T want to love someone, it's when they're puking all over your bed.

Poor Jess. It seems like she's always sick. Hopefully she feels better soon. I'm trying to be a good caretaker. I spent the night watching the Republicans and the Democrats debate and occasionally emptying the "barf bowl" (this seemed strangely appropriate somehow). The barf bowl is apparently a grand tradition in Jessie's family - I was taught to, you know, puke in the toilet, but to each their own.

I am terrified at how fragile it all is, how one moment you have a bed to sleep in, and the next minute it's full of puke. It is terrifying to know how close we all are to pissing on the sidewalk, how many things have had to happen that were out of our control to keep us out of that situation. I said a prayer for the homeless man with the half-eaten sandwich. Words echoed in my head, words that I always liked but secretly feared: "Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

Sorry I got you arrested, Jesus. Please make Jess feel better soon.

And, holy shit (sorry), close down Generous George's Positive Pizza and Pasta.

Your,
Martin

Digg It

Check out my sexy new Digg button!! ---------->>>>>>>

I'm not entirely sure what it does. I think it is for bookmarking useful things, so I can't imagine the Captain's Blog ever getting Digged (Dugg?) for any reason. I actually don't really know what Digg is. It just looks so damn official to have it in the post. I feel like a blogger now. Though the "0" is kind of making me self-conscious.

I also had a mini-crisis yesterday because I made the mistake of Googling "Captain's Blog," and accidentally plumbed the depths of my lack of creativity. There are over two million results for "Captain's Blog," many of which are, in fact, on Blogger and many of which, true enough, are not this blog. Sadness. If you google "Captain's Blog Martin" I am the third result, which is weird but at least a little comforting. I think I need to change the title to something more unique. Tooch suggested calling it "The Man of Poor Choices." I can do what Emily did and be a "Martin in the Sun." Maybe I'll steal Mat's and be "A Breath of Fresh Martin." The best name, of course, is taken by Fake Steve Jobs , which has been cracking me up nonstop as of late. Perhaps I'll make a blog called "Revenge of the Frigtards."

I don't even talk about Star Trek here. I mean, I love it - if TNG comes on TV, I'm basically shot until it's over (unless it's the episode where Riker jousts with his father, b/c I've seen that one like 13 times). "Inner Light" was a transformational viewing experience. I still maintain "First Contact" is one of the best sci-fi movies out there. But the name "Captain's Blog" just doesn't really fit here anymore, you know? (I can tell you're enraptured by my inner-monologue). It's a play on words from a show that I love but don't talk about. It'd be like naming this blog "Words from Dagobah." I need something that captures the angsty, over-wordish, haplessly revealing nature of this blog. Suggestions welcome.

So, how is 2008? So far it seems like a decent year, no? Today was the first day back to work, and I confess I was excited to be back. It wore off after an hour or so as the reality of just how busy I am settled back in, but I feel like people have realistic expectations and as long as I'm working hard, they'll have no problem with me. I wrote my first 2008 date today. It felt very weird to scrawl the round little "08" at the end of it. I need to find a non-cliche way of saying, "It's hard to believe it's been eight years since high-school," but, as we learned earlier about me and two million other people, I'm not that creative. (Also, Blogger is trying to spell-check "cliche" as "cloche," and I don't see how that is any better.)

I saw $15 man last night. I was in the car, and Jess got out to run into the apartment for something, and he was walking up the street, dressed in nice khakis which my stupidity must have bought him. He asked her if she knew anything about Virginia, Maryland, and "Damascus," and she said no and ran inside. I watched as he approached an older couple in my rear-view mirror, unfolded the paper he carries around with numbers written on it of the fares to Damascus, MD. I tell you I have never been more tempted to take my car and run over somebody. I wished I had watched more CSI so I knew how not to get caught. The only thing that stopped me from getting out and saying something, the only thing that stayed my lips, was the fact that he played me, and I lost. Jess told him "no" this time and he left her alone. That was all I needed to do, but because I am a sap who wants to save the world one poor little person at a time, I got duped. It was like buying the speakers out of the van, only the only thing I bought was a crushing sense of stupidity. I mean, he's just selling a story, right? I bought his story. Paid $15 for his story. His bullshit story. I'm having fun fantasizing about what I'll say if I see him again. If he doesn't recognize me, maybe I'll pretend to be really concerned about everything he has to say, let him go through his whole shpiel, open my wallet, and then look him in the face and go, "Look, why don't you case someone else's block before I hit you in the face with this metal trash can?" Mmm... passive aggressive rage expression... I was so pissed to see him again, and even more so at my complete lack of action. I kept thinking of the words, "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing." And I realized I am totally that good person who does not want the job of kicking the ass of bad people, even though secretly I wish that I did.

So, new adventures abound. Dave would be proud - I got locked out of my apartment today and so I got creative with a credit card. Good thing, too, because it was cold outside. I waited until all the cars had passed and foot-traffic was at a minimum.

You know, just in case. Who knows who I would have thrown $15 at in a vain attempt to save the world?

Your,
Martin

Happy 2008!

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were festive, painless, and eventful. I've been on a whirlwind tour that started on December 22nd and ends in Alexandria tomorrow evening. Christmas has been a table for one at the Cafe Crazy.

I did everything on my list. I saw friends. I dueled to the almost-death in an epic game of Risk which will soundly echo through the ages (if only for the massive miscalculation that allowed the yellow armies a last dying breath to spit at me). I took up pipe smoking. I gave my grandparents the video Christmas card I made for them (it featured everyone in my family taking turns saying "Merry Christmas!" and adding a personal message). I spent a day color-timing with Dave, and wrote half of the first featurette script. I smoked cigars with Mark on the back porch. I worked from home and actually got some work done. I saw cousins and aunts and uncles and spent more time with my nieces and nephews than I have in the past two years combined. I wrote with Mat. I helped Jessie navigate a friendship minefield as we all struggle to redefine ourselves under the searing heat of adulthood. I got to watch others open my gifts, got to have a little Christmas with my Mom and another with my Dad. I got to drive Mark's manual VW Jetta all the way to Ohio and back and only stalled it once! I went piano shopping for four hours. I met my sister's new dog. I rung in the new year with a kiss or seven from my future wife.

This was, like, in eight days. Jess spent the week sick with the flu. I had a great Christmas. Hers was, frankly, horrible, and we're both excited to go back to Alexandria and regroup. The second day I was here it felt so...comfortable... and I realized that mentally I've barely left. Sitting on the steps at 5725 feels as natural as it ever did. Maybe more so now that I appreciate it for the oasis that it is. I felt like at any moment Scott would come out to smoke a cigarette, or I'd see Bryan walking up the steps after a long day at the office. Time stretched and stood still. In one moment I was seven and creeping down the steps to see what Santa brought. In another I was 70, looking back on all this and wondering, "Where does it all go when it's gone?"

The whole week became a meditation on family and friendship. I have a weird disconnect sometimes with the things of my childhood. I have to remind myself, for instance, that my sisters are the people I grew up with. We just don't get much time to be siblings, what with the kids and crazy schedules. Even more rarely we talk about the happy times before the divorce. It was a long time ago now - 16 years come this August - and those windows are shuttered for longer and longer periods, only opening now for brief, meaningful glimpses that cast a sad shadow on what is left. My father's financial stability should be my mother's, you know? Little sadnesses slip through cracks in the windowpanes.

But so, too, do little joys. I am absolutely adored by my nieces and nephews. Of course you're thinking, "Duh, Martin, you are, like, the coolest!" (I'm paraphrasing your adoration for me, of course), but the adoration of children is in many ways like the adoration of a puppy dog - warm, uncalculating, and unceasingly fixated on play. And when they ask you what you "do," they are asking, "What are you doing?", as in, "What are you doing right now that could possibly be more important than playing with me?"

I totally burned out on being "Uncle Martin," but that's okay. They were worth it. And they're not my kids, so I have the luxury of time to recharge. Slowly the secrets of unclehood reveal themselves.

On the friend front, I had many meaningful interactions. Dave and I had a blast color-timing scenes from the movie. I feel closest to him when we are working on something together, and in 2008 I want to find other things beside the movie we can share. Mat and I had another "Steps of Life" conversation on the hallowed ground of 5725 Phillips. He is allergic to smoke, and yet sat on the stoop with me for an hour as I tried vainly to keep my pipe lit for more than 10 seconds. Trying to paraphrase a conversation with him would be an exercise in futility, so just take my word that it was, per usual, awesome. I am blessed with guy friends who can be cheering the exciting finish of a Penguins game in one moment and discussing the intricate mysteries of love and life the next. Much as the rain does not make friends with shallow pools, I do not make shallow friendships. If you're my friend, it is going to be an intimate affair because, if you haven't noticed, I hate surface-level interactions. Not that we need to be rowing in each other's deepest waters all the time, but I want to feel like I'm interacting with your gears and springs, not your clock face, you know?

I was reminded this break, by some of the troubles Jess was having with her friends, just how important my friendships are, just how fragile the agreement is on which they are based. It was a wake-up call in many ways. When I was younger, I could afford not to pay too much heed. People called me whether I called back or not. Now, though, as those people grow and get stronger, and I realize their value to me, I simply cannot afford to lose one single friend. They are far too precious, and are becoming harder to replace. I will keep that in mind when it's time to write an e-mail or send a card. How hard is it really to make the little motions that remind someone they are in your thoughts?

That's definitely one resolution for 2008. As I approach getting married, I need to shore up my other relationships, too. I have a feeling they are only going to get more important, not less.

-Martin