Front Porch Cafe to the rescue...

One of the reasons I could tell that last night's sleep disruptions were excessive is that, the third time, I didn't snap awake until there was light pouring in from the hallway, one of my shoes had found its way onto the dresser top, and the entire 3-layer bedcover ensemble had been twisted into a bow-tie and replaced sideways. So when I finally turned the bedside lamp on, again, at 3:36 a.m., and guided Jeff to the bathroom, my instructions were at best curt.

Another reason I could tell is that the literary character I most resembled in the morning--at least until a cinnamon bun and a coffee on the way to the grocery store kicked in--was Gollum, in one of his less obsequious moments.

Conveniently, our room at the Nags Head Annex--that is, the rental house where the bulk of our extended family stays during beach week--is equipped with a bathroom, and we can stumble around in the wee hours in various states of abject disorientation without too much bothering anyone else. And, as for the morning aftermath, I'm not bad at glowering quietly to myself until I begin to feel human again. This is good, since Jeff certainly cannot be held accountable for his state of mind any more than my 3 year old nephew (who squeals a good deal more.)

As I recall, last year about this time, Jeff asked me if I was hoping to divorce him. Sometimes that's the sort of thing that's stewing in his brain which is, for the most part, disconnected from the influence of the prevailing moods of me or anyone else in the house. About all I can say to that is "Sorry buddy, no such luck," and try to maintain whatever gravity of delivery the situation seems to call for.

This week, his thinking has not plumbed such dark depths, and he rode along with me to the Harris Teeter grocery store, smiling placidly and benignly, with no notion that my pinched brow existed, let alone was the result of sleep deprivation caused by his funky and erratic biorhythms.

Even after years of Alzheimer's it can sometimes be hard to make yourself accept that--to the AD person--kindness is all in the overt actions and the facial expressions. Cranky is as Cranky does, and if Cranky behaves tolerably, and smiles--even if it's a facade--that works for the AD guy.

Tonight I'm cooking--locally caught tilefish and not so locally caught tofu, marinated in teriyaki--and perhaps with a smidgen of an afternoon nap, I will not burn it.

Beach house half-life

The transitory nature of human dwellings is nowhere more evident than along the barrier islands of the U.S. East Coast. What happens to these houses is that they fall in the ocean. This is all well and good if your lot is 3 houses back and you're waiting for a crack at waterfront property because--bide your time--you'll get it. But it's also a bit like becoming Head Chancellor to Henry VIII--you've maximized your shot at power and prestige, but it's only a matter of time before the next nor'easter takes your head off.

It is fortunate that our (and by "our" I mean my mom's) beach house sits on a lot which runs from Old Oregon Inlet Road to the Atlantic Ocean...however far up it may be lapping at the time. Had she and Dad not had it moved back several years ago, it would have been among the casualties of the tide by now. As it is we're a tolerably comfortable beach-front. But it is equally common to have a short line of cottages behind you, with each front-runner falling off one at a time, like bags of M&M candies in a push-button vending machine.

Generally, before each house disappears, it becomes something of a gawkable attraction--a derelict beyond rentability--its septic tank exposed, decks and staircases dangling off, and windows broken. I don't know whether, by this time, any insurance claim could be made, but there seems to be little incentive for the owners to pay haulers to take the carcass away. Most likely it becomes a municipal problem if the ocean gods don't step in with some major flushing action.

We hit the jammed and melting road...

With the heat index spiking, I set off with Jeff to accomplish what should be a four hour drive in roughly 6.5 hours. The Soobie's air-conditioning system took a noble stab at keeping us from experiencing (Raiders of the Lost) Ark of the Covenant face-melting special effects, and we got to Norfolk, Virginia in time to join my mom for an excellent Indian Restaurant dinner. Let me take a moment to thank the iPhone app: Yelp, and all the contributors for pointing me--once again--in the right direction, dining-wise.

Most of the rest of the crew will join us in Nags Head--the beach!--tomorrow, after a lengthier one-day drive. By then we will have obtained some of the basic gustatory necessities, and a house full of young-adults will not need to stage a full scale hunger-unfueled uprising.

In such heat (106°F on the heat-radiating macadam of the Holiday Inn parking lot, according to my Mom's car thermometer,) my head is given to a bit of lightness, and Jeff's visuo-spatial challenges take a leap from impediment to road block. Cutting up of his mango-ginger chicken prior to handing him the proper utensil was of absolute necessity tonight. He is to bed early, as I will also be soon. And tomorrow we'll join Mom for a breakfast of impressively weak coffee and a toasted bagel or so downstairs.

Can we get from Norfolk to the farmer's market to good old Old Oregon Inlet Road in South Nags Head without a leash? Stay tuned...

pre-beach

It is the week before the week we go to Nags Head. The week in which I scribble lists on a handy legal pad, reminding me that I can't plan anything without lists on a legal pad. This is good.

This week I can take a step back from my story, and throttle down a bit from my usual mind-shredding pace of 5 words a day, and focus instead on a perfectly good reason to accomplish nothing.

Finally, enough responsibities--a cat scheduled for dental work, social obligations with parents and friends, children arriving from hither and requiring some assistance to go yon--are coalescing in sufficient density to leave me feeling, at the end of the week, as if I've earned a vacation. Meanwhile, the ants are stepping up their game, and finding new ways to tunnel through the foundation such that targeted strikes are almost pointless, and they remind me--once again--that I will lose the evolutionary battle, and they will win.

But off I go to try anyway. More news from the front. Or the beach.

Full of beans

Old Stewball was a racehoooorrrrse.... I am belting, which is not always something you want to be around. And I wish he were miiiiiine...

Jeff gives me an odd look. “Doo-Ball? Whose horse is this?”

”Stewball,” I say.

”Ok, Too-Ball?” he says. He is clearly trying to make sense of whatever it is I’m trying to communicate.

”No, STEW-ball,” I say. “Stewball. It’s a Peter, Paul, and Mary song.”

”Paul and Mary,” says Jeff. “What did the horse do?”

”He won the race,” I say. “And that’s all, as far as I know.”

”Huh...” says Jeff. “I don’t remember that song. Well, I learned something new today.”

Then I stop singing about Stewball.

Instead, I finally remember to look up the species of a tree which grows in large numbers along our usual beach-circuit dog walk. I have lived here for 24 years and have never remembered to look up that tree’s identity, except while passing by. And at those moments I have no internet connection. 5 different online flow charts...well, not charts, because you click. I guess they’re flow programs...but anyway, 5 take me to dead ends. One gets it bang on. (I don’t know what’s wrong with the others.) It’s a Northern Catalpa, recognizable by its very large heart-shaped leaves, and its lengthy bean pods. It is sometimes called an “Indian Bean Tree,” and usually they’re found in Ohio or the Mississippi River Valley. Someone apparently brought them here for ornamental purposes, and they appear to like it very much.

This afternoon, the weather was far too fine to take a nap on the couch, so that’s exactly what I did. Which means I’ll be up past Jeff’s bedtime, watching The Tudors if I can get a crack at the tv...or possibly whatever Olivia and her bf Brian select, provided it’s not a rerun of last night’s “Hooters Girls” pageant. Although Olivia and I did have somewhat of an interesting time making a critical analysis of real vs. not-real, anatomically speaking.

touch that dial...it's ok

I'm going all googly-eyed over transmissions from a daughter on a road-trip across the southwest. Friends on a road-trip across the northwest. A cousin's family on a sea-way trip to Bermuda. And I'm thinking: I've gotta take a road-trip or DIE!

There was a time when the summer slow-down was a good thing...no lunches to pack every morning, no bed times to enforce each night, a break from the daily treadmill of days bracketed by school and work schedules. But now that all those kids are--more or less--free agents, I'm having a way different emotional response to the poky dog-days of July.

Oh, for sure, I am bummed at karma. I did the time and didn't get the expected pay-off. Now I am a big babysitter. Well, I'm no bigger than normal, but the baby's on the large side.

I want to work on my book. No doubt, it's a bit of a silly exercise, but it keeps me sane and stable, probably much in the same way that drilling a hole provides satisfaction to a carpenter bee. And that, I say, is what I want to do! (Not the hole-drilling...the bees have that one covered, thanks.)

Trouble is, it's very hard to get to that immersion space in my head--that spot where I can live, for moments at least, in the invented world of my invented characters...and that's because I can't disengage. Most of the time I'm being vaguely gazed at. Fuzzy signals are emanating from what remains of the brain occupying the chair just 12 feet that-a-way. Sometimes he's looking at me quizzically, smiling blankly. Sometimes he's wandering vaguely about, his belt through 2/3 of its loops and only half-buckled. Or examining a mismatched pair of shoes, as if unfocused scrutiny will cause them to make sense. Sometimes drowsy, sometimes bewildered, sometimes unquestionably satisfied with a life of sitting in an Arts&Crafts armchair placidly surveying nothing.

So what does one do with that? Trouble also is, I guess, that having my receiver tuned to that station since 1983 has made it danged hard to ignore even the fritzy bits of static still transmitted. While there's a quality about them I recognize, I can't patch them into anything more meaningful than "zzzrbtxxx....still here...zzzziiiixxx...here....ccccchhhhhhxx...still..." So I'm like a desperate SETI geek in my garage outpost, distracted by the crackles and whistles from my radio, but utterly unable, by conscience or nature, to turn it off.

A road trip will clear the mind. A road trip will present its own ephemeral purposes and meanings, and I will report from the field. Something I can sink my observational teeth into. Here, I just hear xzzchzzzsqueeeeeee...

A Trip to IKEA

Tonight I will be trying out #4 in a series of pillows purchased with the hope that I won't wake up with tense neck muscles and a headache. The ergonomic "memory foam" ones seem snazzy enough when I test them out but, over the course of a night, are simply not squishy enough. Today I bought a "Gosa Hassel," which, as far as I can figure, means "Thanks chump" in Swedish, and we'll see how that goes. I would blame these sleep/muscle/tension problems on stress-in-general, but since I can do little to nothing about that, it's convenient to scapegoat the pillows.

The ostensible purpose of the trip was round #1 of collecting college needs for Gabe. He easily zeroed in on the proper towels--orange. (Orange is, you see, the most awesome of colors.) And selected two handle-free mugs--one white, one black. His desk lamp has a conical shade, giving it the appearance of a small robotic coolie, and I tossed in a few things of my own choosing--hangers, the most expendable of flatware, and a batch of laundry baskets which will be as close as Gabe gets to organization. Once we outfit him with some sneakers which are not separating upper to sole, and his Toshiba arrives, he'll be almost as ready as he needs to be.

Olivia came along. No surprise. It almost always pays to accompany me on a shopping expedition where the credit card is destined to come out anyway, and she located, in short order, a portable storage unit which would save her stealing her sister's. The sister who, according to unconfirmed reports, has accepted a teaching assignment in Washington, D.C.

D.C. is not ridiculously far from here. Neither is it a rational commuting range (though many do endure just such a commute for years on end.) More likely, when said sister returns from her cross-country odyssey to regions of dead cellular zones...(or at least dead as far as my phone is concerned. She apparently communicates with the other sister who, thus far, has not been implicated in this entry)...ahem, when she returns, it is entirely possible that another trip to IKEA will be in order. Or perhaps preferably, we can cobble together a roomful of supplies from what remains in the basement. I have extra pillows.

For it's no, nay, never...?

We visited Brigid the Nurse Practitioner, at the Memory Disorders Clinic at Georgetown University Hospital last week. Seems we've about stumbled to the end of our tour of duty in the Merck vaccine trial. I know two new things: Everyone in the trial received vaccine--there were no placebos, and although nobody in Phase 2 (our phase) achieved immune response, the results are not yet available from Phase 3, which got a bigger dose. Not that it's of any consequence to us even if Phase 3 suddenly mounts an immune response that would make any rebel alliance proud. We (as in Jeff) are ineligible for the "open-label" phase (in which all participants may receive the effective-level dose) because of microbleeds, as revealed by the MRI.

Ho hum. It would greatly surprise me if, even with immune systems everywhere locked and loaded, any reversal or containment of the Alzheimer's process were realized. For reasons that amount to little more than whimsical hunches, this is not the avenue where I anticipate advances in the cause. Don't ask me where I do anticipate advances, because then I'd have to pretend to have a grasp of biochemistry, and I most certainly do not. But, from the 2 new things I learned, there is one take-home point: Every time I tell the Red Cross people that Jeff can't donate blood because he was the recipient of an experimental vaccine, I am not merely blowing smoke.

Brigid did point me in the direction of a researcher at NIMH who is interested in the more unusual variants of Alzheimer's, of which Jeff's version appears to be one. I discern from the website that they are conducting shorter term studies, mostly involving PET scans. Part of me says, "Oh why not, what else do we have to do?" And the other part--the more phlegmatic twin--says, "Of what possible efficacy could it be to stick Jeff in a hour or so-long scanner several more times?" (Apart from the general contribution to research which, truth be told, was really the only driving factor the first time around.)

But now, even considerably less than 3 years ago when we started the Merck trial, he has so little personal interest in or grasp of the whys, wheres, and hows of these clinical trial processes that, frankly, it would only be of interest to me. Jeff would just be going along, as he usually does, wherever I go, gently accepting the needlesticks and cognitive hoop-jumping, while enjoying the simple perks of food, coffee, and the same 4 iPod playlists over and over on the way to and from D.C. (It might be time for me to snag some new tunes.) So, I'm inclined to consider his days as a research monkey over. I'm not 100% sure of that, but it's a decided inclination.

This has been a curious year of somewhat inscrutable disease progression. Progression has undoubtedly occurred. Getting in the car presents new levels of challenges as Jeff must be guided to the proper car, the proper door, and the proper car appendage on which to pull. (the door handle, not the side view mirror.) Getting dressed has gone from semi-reliable, to a ritual where--at shower time--I lay the jeans on the bed, spread out so it's clear they're jeans. I place the briefs on top of the jeans, to insure they are approached first. I select a clean shirt and set it next to the jeans, and just south of Jeff's wallet, belt, and hanky. I can still expect him to turn up needing help with the belt. The dirty clothes I must grab as they drop, or else they'll likely be re-worn for days, jammed into mystery drawers, or handled in such a way as to cause the handful of mixed nuts and dog treats that have been stuffed in the front pocket to scatter all over the bedroom rug.

The inscrutable aspect is that I still don't see this beginning to look like the inexorable march toward the time when I may need to, justifiably, consider seeking caregiving help. Realistically, it cannot be other than that very inexorable march, but I'm not yet seeing the landmarks that tell me I'm getting close. I still have this weird sense that this is how it will be forever. "This" being a life condition wherein I'm the spouse-parent to an unusually compliant toddler, who happens to be in his 60s.

Spell "ragspwaggler," or else.

Do you ever sit somewhere that's not your usual perch and notice how--from that vantage point--there are some rather serious lapses in the thoroughness with which you vacuum up dust and animal fur? Of course you do, unless you're quite meticulous, or someone else who cleans your house is.

Mostly, I'm not ready to go to bed. It's 10 pm, but I did not sleep wonderfully last night (something about the dog voofing at the bedroom door, and me--not quite with it--interpreting that to mean "I have to go outside, or else." Since "or else" has not happened in over 10 years, I needn't have worried...but I was half-asleep, until I ended up having to chase her around the back yard at 1:30 am, so she'd come inside and I could go back to sleep.) The result was that I took 2 short naps today, and am therefore not ready for bed.

Last night I was in a spelling bee. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, to be specific. That was the show we saw last night at the Annapolis Summer Garden Theater. Somehow I ended up as one of 3 audience participants--last one standing, in fact--eliminated precisely where they intended me to be eliminated, by a word that may not be a word at all, but sounded something like this: "ragspwaggler." If you can identify a word similar to this, please do let me know. Until then I was doing fine with "jihad," "cow," and "apoop." I know I had to be stumped at that point anyway, by hook or crook, since the actor in the boy scout costume, who'd been whispering me my cues, got booted (by dint of script) just one song and dance before, and I'd have been left high and dry without a killer word to trip over.

Jeff enjoyed seeing me "perform," and had 3 of his kids nearby to keep him oriented in the meantime. This morning Becca asked him if he'd liked seeing me in the play. He smiled blankly. Sometimes you can't tell if all has been lost, or if the question just didn't make it through the language processing filter intact.

Today I found myself having to speculate on the investment value of retaining certain life insurance policies, initiated by the hardware store a number of years ago, when Jeff was still insurable. In order to do this, you take out your Hewlett-Packard 12-C financial calculator, and input the monthly premium, an interest rate you think you could reasonably expect investing elsewhere, and the number of years of such an investment (which is equal, in this calculation, to the number of years you suppose the insured will live). It is a task that is both bizarre and impossible, because you're deciding how to gamble based on someone's longevity and, particularly with Alzheimer's and its variants, you can't possibly guess anyway. As it turns out, the policy under consideration falls under the joint purview of my brother-in-law and me, and will be something we need to hash out after I speak to the agent on Tuesday morning.

Perhaps by then I will have written 2 more paragraphs in my silly book. I am glad to be back in that saddle, though it seems to have put the squeeze on Japanese study. I am sure though, that ragspwaggler is not a Japanese word.

Pleasant Valley Sunday? (except we're not in a valley.)

The weather gadget on my Tosh mini is telling me it's 93º F outside at 4:30 in the afternoon. I don't know about that. It feels rather hotter, and our walk was truncated by mutual agreement between me and the dog. Jeff usually just goes with what we think.

Our neighbor, Jim, was out, fully drenched in the sweat of labor, and we exchanged a bit of chatter. Jim has always liked Jeff a great deal (as most people do,) and focused the banter on Jeff as Fredfred and I attempted to hold a patch of shade.

Quirky little phenomenon, synchronicity. I actually initiated the walk, despite the heat, in an effort to budge myself from the doldrums of what has been--for me--a fairly un-busy week or so. I know, it sounds like a good thing--an un-busy week--and in a way it undoubtedly is. But I'm certain, now that I stop and think about it, that I've acquired some new habits and techniques in the face of life with Alzheimer's. And one is to get up and go, as a means of distraction.

Sometimes I say that I'm trying to distract Jeff, who by default will otherwise divide his time between sitting in a kitchen armchair, gazing placidly about the room or dozing, taking a genuine nap, or standing in the driveway, watching the world--such as it is around here--go by. But I am, to be honest, probably more interested in distracting myself from several inescapable realities--the tedium of babysitting, hunger for actual conversation, and the ever-present queasy guilt I still feel that I can't single-handedly fake a long-gone relationship which has not existed for years, and would be fake, even if I faked it.

But as for synchronicity, neighbor Jim, and the banter: I started our walk thinking I've got to get out of here...just stick Jeff in the car and take a short, overnight trip somewhere. More distraction, better distraction. Leave the girls to handle Gabe and the pets. Then we passed Jim, and exactly that topic--brief getaways--was on his mind too. He said that he and his wife, feeling a bit stir-crazy, just took a long weekend in historic Williamsburg, and it was great because they could: Talk. Reconnect. Discuss the future. Be together.

Well, Fredfred and I stood tight on our patch of shade while Jeff grinned at Jim, happy to see his friend, but processing virtually nothing of what Jim was saying. While I was thinking exactly, Jim. That's exactly what getaways used to be about, before they came to be about a change of pace for my brain, and distraction from the truth that I can do absolutely nothing for Jeff's brain, other than keep him content with nice food and pleasant scenery.

Well, I have corn to shuck--another distraction, and it's 5:00 pm--time for Jeff to have a glass of chardonnay. He finds it quite pleasant.

Don't touch that dial! Or, well, I'll do it.

I'm reading an article in AARP magazine about the "culture of distraction," and how adults over 50 (of which I am not yet one...quite) are, for various reasons, the most susceptible to the cacaphony of competing stimuli.

Exactly while reading the article, I happened to be distracted by a full-page advertisement for easy to use "boomer friendly" cell phones and cell phone contracts. This was, after all, AARP magazine. (which, truth be told, is one of the few magazines I'd bother with. Turns out it's often relevant and interesting.)

I have often, over the past several years, given thought to obtaining the simplest of cell phones for Jeff--one with little more in the way of buttons than a standard touch tone phone. (I must interject, though--there really isn't such thing as a standard touch tone phone anymore. The last couple of cordless phone selections I've made have been with the express purpose of avoiding excess buttons. Not an easy task nowadays.)

Then, looking at the advertisement displaying phones of enticing simplicity, I realized Jeff could not use even these. Then it occurred to me: he has not, as far as I can recall, even picked up a telephone and made a call in months. No question it was getting difficult. In the last 2-3 years when he did wish to make a call, 9 times out of 10 I'd end up dialing for him as hitting 10 numbers + a dial key in sequence was proving to be too much.

Well, there's not much point in testing, but I suspect that--for Jeff--placing a phone call has fallen off the edge of the map, capability-wise. Nor has he swept the porch in some time. I think he could though, and maybe I should ask him to, once in a while.

Well, back to my article. (Nothing, it seems, gets a solid 10 minutes of attention from me. I'm not even sure I can apply such luxurious amounts of time anymore.) The article is called "May I Have My Attention Please?" It speaks of scattered focus in a zany world--a life ambiance I know well. Even a boomer friendly phone with big, raised buttons isn't going to add a snippet of calm to that.

He ain't heavy...

...nor is he exactly a lightweight at 160 lbs, but raising the kid has been a bit of a long road, with many a winding turn. Gabe never much wanted to bother with driving. Still, he gamely sat through driver's ed in the Fall of '08, and completed 2 out of 3 two-hour on-road sessions with the driving instructor. I was advised however, after session 2, that Gabe needed a hefty measure of more road experience before we should bother scheduling #3, and therein lay the problem. Road experience would require me and Gabe in a car at the same time, but opposite to our usual configuration. There was, in other words, no one around to sit shot-gun with him except me, and this simply proved to be a non-compatible way to place the two of us on the gameboard.

So I dropped it. Gabe had no itch to drive, and I had no itch to push a cantankerous (in that setting) 16 year old into situations he was not ready for. But, as his senior year of high school, '09/'10, pressed on I realized that mentoring a new driver was not a task I wished to postpone for future enjoyment, and that the kid needed a serviceable photo i.d., and that we might as well buckle up and git 'er done.

So, at Christmas break '09, I badgered him to once again do the online practice tests so that he could (and did) once again pass the multiple choice computer test needed to replace his now-expired learner's permit. As Spring rolled in, I got back in touch with the driving school (who do retain their records that long...Gabe is hardly unprecedented in drawing out the process,) and hired Rich, the placid-like-a-cow road instructor (as opposed to the other guy, whose name I've forgotten,) to take the kid on-road for an extra 10 hours.

I failed to mention the vision part. Amblyopia as a little child has left Gabe with a right eye which plays left field to his left eye's first baseman, but the right eye's acuity is not improved with glasses. It's a brain thing. And in obtaining his first learner's permit, we played a lengthy game of telephone/fax/and pass-the-buck-to-the-supervisor before the optometrist had filled out the proper paperwork to the MVA's satisfaction. There is, you see, no button to push on their monitors that says "one eye crappy/glasses not required." Hence, I made extra sure, before we went for permit #2, that he'd had a fresh eye exam and the proper paper was in hand.

So, it was at the end of this process--a rather organizationally-intensive one on my part--that we set off this morning for his official on-road driver's licensing test. On-road is a misnomer. It's more of an on-course test, where you cover a total of roughly 100 yards, distance-wise, but must pretend you're parallel parking between actual cars (rather than orange cones,) look over your shoulder to ensure that another vehicle has not magically materialized onto the closed course in your way, and use your turn signals for all you're worth.

I'm sure it did not hurt that Gabe's appearance of maturity in years, and unruffled nature gave a sense of greater experience than he in fact possesses, but I won't argue. He passed, and my decidedly not-unruffled innards heaved a great sigh of job well done. Even though we had to sit around the MVA for 2 hours (yes, really, 2 hours) waiting for number G75 to be called so he could sign the little screen, get the glamour shot in front of the blue towel, and snag the license.

Meanwhile, we concocted many ideas for flash-mobs which might make any time spent on the MVA's metallic benches more entertaining. Bingo cards for instance. So, as the synthesized female voice calls "A 25, F 213, I 9," (every number, in other words, except G75,) your planted people could pop up occasionally and yell "BINGO!" Or, how about a sudden onslaught of balloons and confetti as you congratulate some random person for being "the 10th customer we've served this year!" and present him with a giant check for $10 and five cents.

Or perhaps we'll leave these ideas for Gabe's future creative writing efforts. Next year. At college. Where he won't have a car anyway.

Pass the cheese.

Clarence the cross-eyed muse and I...we're working it out.

I found out something interesting--half-finished books can be like cheese. Leave them lying around long enough and they may just acquire a character you weren't expecting. This is better in the case of the book than it is in the case of the cheese, not that I'd recommend either on a canapé tray. But a little smell, a few streaks of je ne sais quoi which you hardly knew you were inoculating the manuscript with when you eked out the words, can cause it to come out of that dusty stack of stuff-you'll-get-to-eventually with a patina you're certain you didn't beat into it. But you did. It's just that in the trudging...during the times of painstaking doldrums, when you could cough up little more than a sentence or two a week...you couldn't see it. The character of the characters, in their tedious squeezed-out familiarity, was invisible to you.

So you toss it aside, to gather dust with the map of Ohio, your kid's report card, and a book called Making Sense of Japanese. Then, when you pick it up again 3 months later, just to see if you really need to start all over again from scratch, you discover that the characters have, in fact, improved with age, total absence of oaken barrels notwithstanding.

I suspect that Clarence knows that will happen.

Bad stardust! Bad! Dang, now I scared it.

I am only elaborating on this because it is something that I otherwise never discuss, and I’d like to give it some air, although I doubt it will help much. Here is what I don’t like about concerts: It is not me making the music. I might love the music, absolutely, but it is intensely unsatisfactory that I am not a part of it. Being a passive observer is horribly inadequate.

Take that and multiply 20 or 30x, and that’s how I feel every time I read fiction I love. I might love the story, but I hate that I didn’t create it. And I’m intensely jealous of the person who did. The pseudo-historic, but mostly fictitious, character whom I relate to the most on this subject is Salieri. Enraged that a little sh*t like Mozart was gifted with the talent that he himself craved, he pretty much went kookoo. Well, I don’t think I’m in danger of either going nuts or poisoning Amadeus, but I hope I’ve conveyed the point. I am angry to feel a calling to a task (creating enjoyable things for people to read,) while being denied the requisite talent or inspiration. I am beyond angry. I am, like Salieri, enraged.

Notice I’m using words like “calling” and “denied” which suggest that something in the cosmos is in the business of orchestrating, or speaking to us in some way. However, to suggest that the whatever-it-is would both call and deny is to either conjure a ridiculously puckish force, or else to tie a silly knot of primitive thinking, and not simply accept that we are what we are, the universe is what it is, and it’s not anyone or anything’s fault. Because if something were in any way responsible, I would also ask it why it would present me with such a conundrum (urge to build/no toolbox,) while simultaneously depriving me of the one human who used to be capable of breathing sense into me when I went wacko.

I have mentioned Edison, and his 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. Exactly why, you see, I have gone to the trouble of writing 3.5 books. Because what do you do with a situation? Well, you do what you can with it. So, if you can bring the 99% to the table, you bring it, trusting and/or hoping that the 1% will show up too. J.K.Rowling has said that Harry Potter, the concept and character, sprang fully formed into her brain as she was riding a train. I don’t know where Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games, which I’m currently reading, fishes for ideas. I’ve never found a fishing hole, and nothing useful has ever sprung fully, or even partially, formed into my brain, so this is how I’ve concocted fiction: It is absolute barrel scraping. I begin to scratch random thoughts--names, notions, places, quirks--into a working notebook. I continue to do so, until I can begin to link them together by means of more scrapings, or a bit of ribbon, or a wad of chewing gum. Slowly, and with the desperation you feel when pinching the last blip of toothpaste out of the tube, (you know--the point where you actually jam the toothbrush bristles into the tube opening,) I patch something together. And sometimes, I actually sort of end up liking the result. But frankly, I’m pretty sure that 1% has never shown up, and I believe I have presented my work to the world sufficiently that--if it were there, that 1%--someone would have noticed it by now. But it’s not there. Because the 1% is one of those things that you may not be able to describe, but you know it when you see it.

So who gets it, inspiration? Where does it come from, why does it land where it does? I don’t have an answer, so I’m calling it stardust. And there’s really, really no point in being angry at stardust.

with a p.s to Zoto, who is one of the few people reading this! At your M.A.T. graduation, the speaker concluded by saying, "now go out, and be useful!" And that was both wrenching, but so right--because you guys have a chance to do that, and will. Once I said to your dad that I supposed I brought little to the world but a decent and interesting set of genes to pass along so that I could have useful children. He told me that thinking of myself as just a gene pool was a cop out. Maybe I was right. Maybe he was right. I still don't know. But maybe you can harbor and pass along stardust--like one of those skip-a-generation phenotypes. Not entirely bad.

Maybe stardust tea?

I am planning, and expecting (based on a quantitative analysis of the vagaries of mood and emotion,) to be in a much better mood tomorrow.

Gabe noticed as I was tossing some ravioli in a pot for him. ”You seem mad,” he said. ”Yes,” I allowed, ”I am mad. But not at any people. Just mad.”

Yesterday, I was trying to study Genki, my Japanese book. It’s different when you don’t have a class to go to, and I had one of those flash moments--I am doing this for no reason, and that doesn’t work for me. This is also why I do not write the book I’d been working on--there is no reason.

It would seem, based on a study of myself, that humans are better off when they have motivation to do what they do. So if, for example, you would enjoy studying Japanese, you will engage in the pursuit with greater vim if you expect to be airdropped into Osaka with a napsack and an apple. Likewise, if you would enjoy writing stories, you will feel a greater yen to do so if there are other humans saying ”Your work pleases me! Please do more.” Short of this kind of feedback, or the expectation of being airdropped--or at least something analogous--I cannot think what motivates people to do what they do. And that seems to be what is making me mad today.

Yes, see...the cosmos didn't give me a function, and I'm pissed. I know. I know I have a neurodegenerating spouse who needs me, and I'm totally on it. No worries. But would that be enough for you? It's not enough for me. I was enjoying the delusion that I could--while taking care of my spouse, which is clearly in many ways a downer--take refuge and comfort in being someone who writes something that people want to read. But that would require what Tia Dalma in Pirates of the Caribbean calls (in a weird Creole twang) a "touch of destiny," and I have long since had to concede that--apart from a certain population of trendily named 80s babies--there is no one named Destiny.

Which leaves me, as far as I can tell, to invent my own sense of purpose, and there again, I am on a bit of a lookout for Thomas Edison's 1%. (You know--genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration?) The 99%, I can offer in spades. The 1% is like fleeting specks of stardust settling randomly but sparsely on the inhabitants of Earth. Chances are it will miss you.

So, make tea?

Ungroomed food and lawns R us.

While waiting for Gabe and his buddy Matt to enjoy the festivities at their second classmate graduation party of the season, Jeff and I took gustatory refuge in Edo Sushi on Reisterstown Road, just north of the urban congested part.

It was much more clean, attractive, and tasty than you might expect from a strip mall location, and--thanks to my iPhone Japanese dictionary--I learned something I should have known already but didn’t: Edo is a former name of what is now Tokyo.

Why is it that when I go in a Japanese restaurant I cannot bring myself to say “Hajimemashite” (a greeting,) or anything else more interesting that a mumbled arigatoo? It’s because I’m intimidated by my inadequacy in any foreign language, and all I can do is make up for it by scrawling something in hiragana on the merchant copy of the credit card receipt at the end of the meal.

I ordered Jeff a bento box. This was a mistake, and I realized that the moment I offered him the option, but by then he’d said “that sounds good, I’ll have that,” and I didn’t feel like doing any more pointed steering. But the upshot is that a compartmentalized tray of assorted sushi rolls, spring rolls, and skewered chicken is not amenable to his preferred method of eating. Here’s what he usually does with food: Rather than attempt the brain-jangling task of deciding what to eat first and sorting it from everything else, he mixes all his food into a hash, and shovels it in. This is only a slightly more intense version of how he’s handled food his entire life, but now he couldn’t distinguish a dragon roll from a slab of raw salmon to save his life, and just the presentation of it is clearly a mind boggler.

The server, being sharper than most, caught on quickly, and brought out a fork and knife, and I helped point him to one food after another, while stopping him from eating edamame, fibrous pods and all, five times. Finally I scooped them all up and shelled the beans onto a side plate, then returned them. Yes, I did manage to eat most of my veggie rolls in the meantime.

Next time I will remember. Donburi, “bowl of food.” It’s already in a pile. All you have to do is scoop.

The boys, meanwhile, had a nice time. It was in one of those houses, in one of those neighborhoods--you enter past a stately brick pseudo-gateway, boasting a name such as Hunting Prawn Estates for the Upwardly Exclusive, and coast up and down gently hilly drives, past vast acreages of grass which you’re extremely grateful you don’t have to mow. The houses are chateaus without the benefit of quality windows guaranteed to function well for more than 5 years, but that’s ok...because windows which open are not the point. Trickling fountains, vast foyers, and carefully groomed landscaping features are the point.

Plus, I freely allow as how people may spend their money and enjoy whatever aesthetic they wish. It’s not as if I, in all my homespun elitism (or is it anti-elitism?) am in any way self-actualized. ; )

walk this way...no THIS way.

What are you thinking as you (once again) cannot discern which car door to approach? Here is our car. It is parked at the Annapolis Mall, in a row in front of Punk's Backyard Grill. You follow me to the driver's door.

"Why don't you head around to the other side?" I say, making a little semi-circle with my finger. Other side computed, in an odd way. You walk clear around the hatchback on our port side and try that car's driver door. "Let me show you," I say. I walk around the hatchback too, say "C'mere," and escort you to our shotgun door, which I open to make things quite obvious.

You are neither ruffled nor frustrated. Maybe slightly bemused, in a "well, that was tricky," kind of way. Like I would be if I couldn't quite figure out which way to insert the disk into the Wii, and Gabe had to show me. The thing is, if someone had to straighten me out on game consoles every day, and I never learned, I would become quite perturbed, but you do not. It is a fresh little bit of trickery every time, and, as far as you're concerned, it could and probably does happen to everyone. No fretting required. Who would argue that there's not at least a little bit of fortunate irony in this?

not the wise person on the mountaintop!

I have a Facebook friend, a decade younger, many of whose posts reflect the angst of self-dissatisfaction in the face of a life which seems objectively lovely. Sometimes I want to respond: There is no “there!”, It never begins to make sense!, and Befriend the disquiet--it doesn’t intend to leave.”

But I bite, or at least nip, my fingers in their urge to reply. Clearly, among the other cosmic callings I am not cosmically called to fulfill is mentoring. Advising the anxious to embrace the pain seems hardly the warm fuzzy that is called for. Even worse would be “You think you’re insufficiently fulfilled now? Wait until you get a load of aging!”

Despite my easy access to these un-choice pieces of advice, I am not marching forward into the swards of middle age with any major chips on my shoulder, monkeys on my back, or rainclouds hovering over my head a la Joe Btfsplk. I am content and willing to see what comes next, open to possibilities, and my optimistic streak has never been completely quashed.

But I can’t see the value in encouraging the notion--one which I have fondly harbored--that a nip here, a left turn there, or just THINKING HARDER is going to get you self-actualized. Or cause you to stumble into the narrative path of destiny. Because, seriously kids, it’s not. I hearken back to the call of the teacup, because it is--I find--such an apt illustration of what you need to do instead. Pour the just-boiled water over your favorite brew, in your absolute favorite cup...and watch it steep. Sip it. Say, “that’s pretty good, isn’t it?” Because it is. And it will rarely get better.

As for cosmic callings in general...I do doubt that the cosmos is in the calling business. It just bes, and all you can do is be with it. I realize this is not very satisfactory to those who (like me) were hoping for divine inspiration. And I’m not going to claim to have the last word on this--perhaps I have reached an erroneous conclusion and will be happily disillusioned at some future point on the timeline. (Or unhappily if it turns out that I’m actually the anti-hero of the story, or a minion. All narratives, after all, require their antagonists.)

In the meantime, tea.

Car Hop

Olivia let her wishes be known early and often. When you get a new car, she said, I want the silver one.

This, she explains, is because she does not prefer stick-shifting, despite the fact that she's been doing so almost from the advent of her driving career 4 years ago. I still stall out, she says. I'm bad at it.

If, on the other hand, one compiles the sum total of Becca's utterings on the matter (few though they've been,) one comes away with the impression that she likes manual transmissions, prefers the green '99 Forester over the blue '02 Outback, and otherwise has no particularly assertive horse in the race.

What can be said of the blue '02 Outback is that ever since it went to live in St. Mary's County with Rachel a few years ago, it has come into contact with so much mud, guinea pig stuff, and organic farm effluvia that no one apart from Rachel (who is perfectly content) makes any claim on it whatsoever.* (Though I must say I got it nice and clean in April. You may ask why. I will tell you. It was left in my custody during Rachel's 5 weeks in Costa Rica, and I was too embarrassed to take it in for service without cleaning it first. Her room, I will not touch. Well, not at least as long as there's a chance she'll still be inhabiting it.)

So, when it became indisputably obvious that I had 3 girls with 3 jobs going in 3 directions, 2/3 of a vehicle/girl failed to compute as a mathematical result.

Here again, I invite you to wonder why I don't kick my fledglings out of the nest without the padding of a parent-provided car. (Because I knew you were going to wonder that anyway.) I have no doubts that dealing early with the reality of economics is good for humans. If the girls in question showed signs of feeling entitled, or hadn't--from early on--demonstrated a capacity for recognizing what life requires and taking it on, then I would probably see being an auto-enabler as not a good thing. As it is, they understand that--while I help where I can--my future economic capacity is a big question mark covered with scribblings like nursing care, life expectancy, and if/when/what paying job could Emily possibly do?

So, after a bit of foot-dragging, coupled with some online research, I returned to Annapolis Subaru and the pleasantly un-slick salesman Ed Rucker, and came home with another blue Outback. It is mine, and I don't plan to upgrade for years to come.

It was at this point that Becca realized that her baby sister was about to assume main-drivership of a car 7 years newer than the green Forester. And that the green Forester was full of cds, dirt, empty juice bottes, and stuck-on gummy sharks only some of which were her doing.

Olivia took on the cleaning job as gamely as you'd hope for, and--except for one gummy shark which will require overnight cool weather and a chisel--it's now a clean green Soobie. A clean green Soobie which will go in for service on Wednesday, at which point vehical longevity is going to be largely a function of how meticulous each driver cares to be.

I would like to say that, at this point, I'm swearing off parental oversight and intervention in the area of personal cars. But as Rachel drove off on Saturday, after a couple days home, and I heard a car noise (the sort you don't want to hear--a clunk, chink, or squeee,) I looked at our next door neighbor, out mulching his shrub, and made a how 'bout that noise? face. He replied that he cannot count the number of similar noises he's heard emanating from the cars of his 3 adult children as they've driven off over the years. But there's only so much you can do, isn't there?

*I need to append that organic farming, animal rescue, and the development of abandoned and muddy ex-farms into environmental education centers are all goals I deeply appreciate. Not to mention that Rachel has been on the move between living situations and the car has, therefore, been more overstuffed than usual. I'm not knocking, just explaining.

I mean gaps

Today, Carlos the Do-Everything guy is out back bulldozing sticks, stumps, and bamboo roots out of the way in preparation for the fence people to re-enclose us with the 15 extra feet of backyard which was formerly under the scruffy shadow of a row of no longer extant Leyland Cypresses. One of which, in fact, had a dispute with the existing fence, during the January snow inundation, over whether horizontal is an appropriate attitude for an evergreen. I ruled in favor of the fence, which I patched, and against the cypress, which was carted off, along with its few remaining scraggly cohorts.

Here is what's curious about the approaching Fall: I thought, for at least a little while there, that I was going to find out what empty nest felt like. Here's what's not apt to happen: Empty nest. I suppose I should have named all my children Skippy, because it looks like we're segueing from the college years to the boomerang years right about now. With a healthy smudge as Gabe's collegiate tour of duty begins in August and stretches toward a horizon 5+ years distant.

I am not complaining. Boomerangability is a quality of this house that the smaller, lower maintenance dwelling of which I daydream would be hard-pressed to fill. Hence, the next time I ask myself just why do I live here again? I'll need only to glance at the pile of slides, flipflops, running shoes, sandals, and cowboy boots in the front hall, to reply Oh yes, that's why.

Plus, Jeff has been missing chairs a bit lately. By that I mean aiming poorly. So I won't object to an extra pair of hands or two to help get him back on track as he closes himself on the wrong side of the door, looks for orange juice in the freezer, or topples over the dog. And yes, I do still fully intend to take him on a train trip in October. But don't worry. We will mind the gap.