Please Unsubscribe: Another damn newsletter ep 3
Oh shit, I wondered. Was he expecting some attention? I’d just cut my son’s hair and, in a wacky photo series, put the remnants from his head on mine. People loved the pictures but it shouldn't have been about me. It’s about him and I realized that at 3am. 3:01, the clock said, the time I was born nearly 42 years ago, so you’d think in that span I’d learn that it shouldn’t be about me. I think of my high school basketball coach telling us we should never have “shoulda, woulda, couldas,” a nice rhyming reminder to leave everything out on the court. But at three in the morning it’s often “shouldn’ta, wouldn’ta, couldn’ta.” If only it could always be as easy as working hard.
I have worms
So in this deceptive way I’m getting things done. It’s deceptive because yesterday at 2pm I was taking pictures of worms in my garden. It was the most therapeutic thing I’ve done in months. You gotta get your hands dirty once and a while. And even then, staring down from god-like heights at writhing annelid, I was trying to straighten out a nonlinear schedule of hopes and dreams. You can think in 3-d but realizing it in real life is a difficult task. You can only be one place at a time and you’ve got to have your head with you. I’ve tried to stretch it across X, Y and Z axes but my brain’s really hoping — or I’m really hoping — that I let it run on ahead.
Restless Writing
I got back from the park about 10pm and expected all of the kids to be sleeping. One wasn’t. It was my oldest hunched over a notepad and scrawling down some ideas. Oh man, I’m so sorry, child. It’s my fault. I had no idea restless writing syndrome was genetic. This kid is exhausted, too. Third grade in spring is mostly a track meet. Every other day is some kind of field day and he goes from running to school to running at school to running in the park to running at home to running himself into a little corner of hysterical kid crazy (kid krazy if I were marketing it right). And now, after a jawbone breaking day of more steps than I take in a month, he’s awake and writing. If he can figure out how to get his writing done before he goes to bed, that will be a victory for the family. Maybe even a sign of evolution. I start at 10pm, get frustrated, and then wake up again at 3pm to see if I can redeem my efforts. I’m about two restless nights away from cryptic screeds written in letters cut out of magazines.
I didn’t want to get gushy on him, but I did say his efforts are inspiring. I told him I was going to write as well. If he can do it after crush of physical activity and standardized testing, well then I most certainly should after emails and meetings. It really boggles my mind that I know the following two things:
- If I don’t write I’m sad and no writing gets written.
- If I do write, writing is written and I’m not sad.
It seems like — with the exacting force of a hammer to the head — a very clear cause/effect has emerged here. The crystal clearness of the situation should have me diving into the wellspring of words every evening. I’ll stop making the very obvious point.
Screw the political climate
So Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the candidates for the 2016 presidential election. And while I’m not one to throw my hands in the air and declare that they’re both crap, because Hillary clearly has credentials, it is the mere fact that someone like Trump garnered 40% of his party that scares the shit out of me. And on the train today I realized that “Oh, Canada” is also the epiphany that many Americans are having. Are things really that bad? What ‘things’? I feel that our politics aren’t nearly as bad as our reality. Politics is theater that adds up to all kinds of edicts and land-shaping machinations that makes a country what it is. Still, it all seems like a distraction to a much larger problem: Climate freakin Change. Global goddamn Warming.
Or maybe the real issue: our willful neglect. Willful ignorance. Maybe Trump is the right guy for us.
Really, every headline should be “Holy shit it’s really happening.” Somewhere in the bottom of the page, maybe the entertainment section, could be a thing about our presidential election (and then maybe we’d participate more fully as we do with our entertainment options.) But every headline needs to be “Sweet God The Coral Fucking Reels Are Dying You Fucks.” The subtitle could be something about how only a planet of goddamn morons wouldn’t be doing something to avert a food chain collapse.
The morning television shows could sputter out daily advice as to what we might do to be less of a bunch of goddamn assholes. Every goddamn day. Their breath being short because they have to pedal to power their studios.
Kids would get a break. Schools would be a well-funded respite of learning and positive decisions. Their college will be paid if they can build a goddamn solar panel. Or make fusion in a fucking coke bottle. Something positive. The creative writers would get cush gigs writing headlines to torment the stragglers and deniers. Any American presenting evidence of energy savings and otherwise sustainable living would get a guaranteed salary.
We’d tax the living shit out of fossil fuels.
Slow talking disclaimer
My dog has taken me to the park for nearly ten years. Every day for ten years we’ve been to the park. I’d concede days off and work trips, etc but for six years we went twice a day. He’s getting up there. My last vet visit ballooned from 75 bucks to $375. They scared the Hell out of me. Showed me actual heart worms in a jar (like rice angel hair pasta) and took a gallon of blood samples. I still have a partially listened to phone message going on about his liver. I had no idea that vets had become auto mechanics. I took him in for routine maintenance and suddenly everything was in question. I very nearly paid to have his spots removed.
Overall, he’s in good health, but today I rode past a guy walking an old golden retriever. She had a huge growth on her right side and she hobbled as she walked. You could see her undying dog devotion was wreaking havoc on her body. Puppy joy in her eyes as she kept up with her human. I almost cried. Well I did cry. Just a little. I wonder if one day I’ll keep going to the park by myself. I really need it. Paco would want it that way.
Well, actually, no because he gets pretty ticked if I go without him.
Dogs are never easy. But that that’s their greatest gift: you can’t simply tell them you love them, you have to show it.
