The Lights Will Guide You Home

I just saw the end of the world. In case you are wondering what it looks like, the end of the world is an overweight, balding man in his late thirties. He is carrying a Louis Vuitton checkbook and a cell phone in a Burberry holster, which went very nicely with his lime green t-shirt. I went to Target today to pick up the new Coldplay album, X&Y, and in what had to be a cosmic joke, this man ended up in front of me in line. Because his persona wasn't already ridiculous enough, this human disaster decided to pay for his cart full of groceries at the electronics counter. Yes, apparently you can do that.

The poor kid behind the counter was just overwhelmed. Firstly because the word 'counter' is a bit of a misnomer here. In actuality it was more of a wall with video cameras placed precariously over most of its surface, and a cash register teetering on a plank of wood at the top. So, this kid had to take the items out of the cart one by one, scan them with an awkward hand-held gun, and then place them in a pile at his feet before he bagged them. It took over 10 minutes for him to make it through the shopping cart, which was full of an odd assortment of things resembling a collection a senile old man might toss in the cart if you lost track of him in the store: three pink dog-leashes, a coffee maker, five sets of crappy computer speakers, several gallons of milk, a bathing suit, and a single spoon. When the cashier finally had all this in order, the computer rejected the check he wrote, so it was time to call the bank. There was more to the episode, including this clearly out of shape man ridiculing his friend for "never eating a fruit in her life," but basically there you have it: end of the world.

26 minutes later I walked out with my new CD. (And for $9.98 what a deal!) I should mention that this is a phenomenally good album, upon first listening probably the most powerful albums I have bought in at least a year, if not longer. I actually teared up during one song, which I don't often do, even though music is such a visceral part of my life. And speaking of my life, it is at a point right now where this album fits so perfectly it's almost uncanny. Here you have the endlessly happy and worry-free kid spinning his wheels in a rut that seems to stretch beyond sight in all directions, full of fear and doubt, sadness, and maybe even a little pain. I'm unsure of the beginning and even less sure of the end, and yet music can still rush in, in an instant, and fill all the voids, make it all ok.


Is there anybody out there who
Is lost and hurt and lonely too
Are they bleeding all your colours into one?
And if you come undone
As if you've been run through
Some catapult it fired you
You wonder if your chance will ever come
Or if you're stuck in square one

...

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try

To fix you

Not Even Your Dog Is Safe

There's a lot to be said for a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline when a furious storm is approaching. I'm not gonna say it though. The storm was definitely among the most spectacular that I have seen, but not nearly as spectacular as the idea that came flying to me while I was watching it.

I got up early to browse the job listings, and by about 3:00 I was cross-eyed. I decided that I should do something relaxing, so I went down to sit by the pool and read a bit and maybe tan myself to a nice off-white. The sky looked foreboding so I figured I didn't have much time. I stretched out on a chair as far away from everyone else as I could get, and opened my book. I read exactly three sentences when the lifeguard came over and asked me to move. I figured it was reasonable, since the pool is actually on the 9th floor of our building, on top of the parking garage. It's basically a nice basin of water thrust a hundred feet in the air on a steel pedestal into the waiting arms of the approaching thunderstorm.

But he didn't ask me to leave, he asked me to move. He cleared the pool not because it was going to rain, but because the photographer wanted to get a picture of it for a brochure. And any fool knows that when you are showcasing the recreational areas in your apartment, you don't want the scene to be all mucked up by happy people having fun. Instead, what you really want to do with these people is enlist their help in mechanically arranging the pool chairs in rows so neat you'd feel bad sitting in them without a plastic covering. And then you would of course want to have your former swimmers stand huddled, dripping wet and whipped by the wind, while you tell them it will just be a minute (in what will become a very liberal use of the word). Then you are free to realize your vision, proudly displaying to potential tenants that you have a pool deck that is so beautiful on a warm summer day that no one is allowed near it. Also that the chairs are bolted in place.

So one by one my fellow disappointees and I peeled off from the crowd. I went back upstairs, with a good six minutes of sun added to me, and watch an amazing light show over the city. This storm rolled in quick, with rain so thick I could barely make out the flooded streets 27 stories below, and wind so strong it shook the building. But it passed quickly and left behind some very cool air. I was happy because this meant I got to open the windows. I basked in this for a good minute or so before I realized my living room did not smell like fresh air, but rather, nicotine.

With the coming of summer, the lady next door has taken to smoking out on her balcony. Due to the way the wind blows around the building, 100% of her exhaust is whisked 10 feet to the left and right into my living room. I don't smoke, but even if I did I would find this annoying. I know this because I do shit, but I don't want her bathroom vented into mine. I think what gets on my nerves most is the strength of it, and the regularity. I can always tell when she is out on her porch because a visible cloud of smoke comes rolling into my bedroom.

I'm a big fan of trivia, but I couldn't really think of a use for the knowledge of when exactly my neighbor is out on her balcony. Then it hit me. I have a lot of bills to pay right now, including some pretty pricey dental work, and the cash isn't exactly flowing in. It seems only natural that I should use this information to systematically burglarize her apartment. That's right lady next door: I will sell your belongings. Not even your dog is safe. China Town is right across the river hon.

Arrrrr Matey

How a person deals with adversity is probably one of the most telling things about their character. What do you do when things go wrong? Do you laugh? Do you cry? Kick and scream? Do you act like a pirate? I'll leave the question to you, because my decision was made for me. At about 3AM. While I was peeing.

Ahem.

In my lifetime I have had all manner of dental work. Braces, headgear, one of those stretchy things with the screw. I even had my teeth filed once without Novocain. It's a badge of honor. Also, because enough cash wasn't yet sunk into my face, I had bridge work done. I was born without two teeth. I think they are called laterals? The ones next to your front teeth. It runs in the family. Apparently it's a common thing, but screw that. I was in braces for over three and a half years and then a partial for another 18 months. I got this bridge done right before college, and all was well. That is until this spring when it came loose and had to be repaired three separate times by two different dentists. They would fix it, and it would come loose about a week later, and I'd live with it like that for a month or so before getting it temporarily reattached. Such is life.

I was so tired last night that I debated just getting in bed and going to sleep. No teeth-brushing or face-washing or anything! It was so rebellious. But then I thought no, I'll be good and do the hard thing because it is healthy, and it's just the right thing to do. My reward was questionable.

Really, what do you say when you open your mouth and your tooth falls out on the floor? Arrrrr. It's all I can say really. I look like a pirate. Plain and simple. All I need is an eye patch. Maybe a clever parrot to sit on my shoulder and tell my friends to shut up when they try to comfort me with comments like, "At least you didn't lose your glass eye too!" Yeah, I suppose that's a plus. That's what friends are for.

I was thinking yesterday before "the incident" that I am about at the end of my rope. This abysmal job search (thanks Dubya!) and never-ending financial concerns are just overwhelming. But now it seems that the end of my rope has turned on me and kicked my ass in a bar fight. I mean really. This is too much. Did I mention I was peeing?

Arrrrr, at least it didn't fall in the toilet.

Redemption

If you know me, you know I am a mess. Not in the figurative sense, though I suppose that is up for debate, but in the literal sense. It's not that I don't shower or clean things, it's just that I am disorganized. Appallingly so. I reformatted my computer in the spring of 2003, and I never got around to installing a new email client. For the last two years I have been using NYU's web interface to check my email. How unbearable. Anyway, I've been feeling more progressive than usual lately, so I installed Mozilla Thunderbird and set it to task on downloading all of the emails that have been sitting on the NYU server since March of 2003. It is here that I will assert that the bing-bong sound that plays when you get mail should be a lot more thunderous when the slider it accompanies says, "You have 768 unread messages."

Then began the yet unfinished task of sorting through these. Almost all of them are going to be deleted, but I had a feeling, which was affirmed within minutes, that I shouldn't just highlight them all and send them flying from memory. Among the first things I found was an email from my grandmother, written in April of 2003. She mentions her new computer, and how it hurt her hands to type too much but she wanted to say hello, and she hopes to hear from me soon.

I should probably tell you flat out that my grandmother passed away earlier this year. Not before I got to talk with her many times more, but as is usual, much too soon. She said measureless things to me which have planted me firmly where I am, but I feel it’s somehow incomplete that I didn't get to talk with her more. I was not lucky enough to see her as much as the rest of our family, maybe didn't know her as well as I could have, and I still feel an unsettling lack in that empty space. She was the perfect grandma, wise and caring beyond her long years. She could break my worries with a few slim words. She showed me that I can believe in love, that this whole earth is bound up and washed in it, at a time when I was not so sure it was.

All of this is why I felt sick when I found this two-year-old email. I know myself. I didn't respond. I let it sit there, thinking that a bit later perhaps would be a great time to write a nice long letter, but certainly not now. New mail came in and since I did the same thing with each one, hers sank beyond my sight and I just...forgot. Here was an absolute mistake. There really was no correcting this horrible lack of judgment, this reckless dearth of respect for such a blessing. I didn't have to look, nor did I want to. I knew I didn't respond. Waste. Loss. And worse: regret.

I felt sick and I did the obvious thing. I read her letter over, and then I gave up on searching through the mass. Nothing else could be this important; I didn't care to see what else I had overlooked in the last few years. I took a break, made some dinner, even did some dishes (because I am quite fine at cleaning up things not made of paper, be it virtual or actual). Then I thought I'd go through and delete a few more emails before bed. It's not like anything I would find was going to make me feel worse about it than I already did.

The thought was absolutely accurate. The very first thing I found when I sat down was a copy of a birthday card I had mailed to my grandmother, not a week after her letter. It even had a note attached. A picture of her dog and a suggestion that we should force it to wear a birthday hat. So now I am thinking, and I can almost hear her saying, that if you are going to go looking through your past, make sure you look through all of it. Maybe the things left unsaid are not as important as things that weren't. I'm not sure why I forgot about sending that card, but I suppose if I hadn't, the remembering would not have felt nearly as good.

Still, I miss you Mamaw.