“Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
they’ve all gone to look for America”
-Simon & Garfunkel, “America”

My new Allison Weiss CD and I rolled up for an early venture into Philadelphia this evening, carrying plenty of board games and extra jackets in the back. The GPS told me to avoid Route One and I-95 and pay for the use of roads as much as possible, so I decided to be charitable and comply. I was a bit concerned about the possible nature of traffic, but I needn’t have been, aside from the occasional merge or person insisting on driving twenty over the limit into the back of the truck ahead of me. I fumbled through the awkward unsurity of trying to sing along with songs I don’t quite know yet, alone with my thoughts and the vision of leaves blowing down the road like a living advertisement for the holiday to come. As though someone were standing in southern Jersey with a leaf-blower and a pile of bagged cast-offs, swirling the brown mass into the air in the hopes we’d all get in the spirit as they smacked windshields and flew away.

I spent the day with Russ today, wandering around New Brunswick like it’s my new home for the showing. A lost truck even stopped and asked for directions I was all too able to give. We ate at an empty diner and toured the campus of bleary vacation-hungry undergrads and played nine games of chess while we talked of the fickle aspects of place and purpose. How being cognizant and deliberate about these concepts sets one mostly apart from those who let fate clasp them hard by the hand and drag them in whatever direction represents apparent least resistance. That questioning place and purpose looks a lot like being lost. That Russ will always be as at home in New York as I’m not, but neither of us much wants to be there. Or here. Or perhaps anywhere.

The Turnpike dumps Philly-bound drivers out in the midst of Camden to traverse a couple sideroads adorned with signs for Rutgers’ least desirable campus. Navigating these required carefully divided attention between the accented voice of my GPS guide and the Indigo-Girls-imitation (she’s from Athens after all) belting of the disc, already on its third full spin. I was almost able to sing along by now, though a couple more complicated upbeat tunes eluded me as I just managed to keep up with the curvature of the roads. All the while, the wind picked up and threatened to swerve me into the next car, let alone the one brave/reckless individual hugging the cement median as s/he walked slowly in the eighteen-inch semi-shoulder left of the fast lane. What kind of desperation or disorientation has to inform walking that kind of path? And what viewpoint might someone that detached from safety might examine my own alleged risks with? The visage of industrious insects, impervious to the exterminator’s call, determined to build structures that would defy the greatest human architects if only we could make ourselves small enough to see.

The Ben Franklin Bridge and the lights around City Hall were purple and gold, as though Philadelphia had somehow decided to fuse November’s holiday with a February celebration in New Orleans. By the time I got to Fish’s neighborhood, it was obvious that the wind was no less drastic in the city, and also that it was trash day. Bags and boxes, cans and glasses, little bits of refuse and debris were doing their best imitation of leaves on the Turnpike. It took many minutes to find a place to park, jutting up against an overturned fruit crate while just managing to preserve the sanctity of my back-right tire. I gathered up five days’ worth of activities and costume, clutching them close less they intermingle with the billowing garbage on the air. Soon a doorbell rang and I was in the midst of something a bit more like home.

About an hour from getting on my way toward the plane to take me away from Monrovia, which means I’m still a good five hours from the plane actually getting airborne. Things run at a slightly slower pace around here. The good news is that my flight is 16 hours from take-off to last landing (JFK in NYC), as compared to 30 hours on the way out here. Also two take-offs and landings this time as vs. four.

It’s been emotional. It is utterly clear to me that it was the right decision, though even clearer that the best possible decision would’ve been to come out here on Monday the 19th. I will never get to undo that one, though at least I didn’t make it worse by not flying out here at all.

Still an incredible number of decisions to sift through on my return, including how to try to craft a life for one after living for two for so long. Every assumption, location, and activity is on the table. Options start to narrow in my mind, only to explode again with further thought. It’ll probably take at least a month before I’m anywhere close to a single decision.

Tag, August, you’re it.

I want to thank everyone for their tremendous outpouring of support as I confront the very difficult task of putting my life back together in the wake of a seven-year marriage I never thought would end.

But I’d also like to ask everyone to support Emily as well. I’m not happy about the way she’s handled all of this, but this is very hard for both of us. And it’s very important to me that I remain friends with her – my commitment to her may change with the events that have transpired in the last two weeks, but it doesn’t end. We don’t agree on every aspect of our marriage and how it dissolved, but Emily is always going to be an important person in my life and she needs love and support to get through this time too.

Not everyone knows Emily that well and that’s fine. But if you do, reach out to her. She’s isolated out here in Liberia. This is tough for both of us. And it’s something that both of us could use your help getting through. We’re going to try to get through it together, so helping each of us is helping the whole effort.

I’m in Liberia, where my marriage just ended. It’s a long sad sordid tale of woe, to be told in full detail at some point when I’m feeling a little more stable. It’s 29 July in Liberia now, sixteen days from my 7-year anniversary with the love of my life, who on that day sent me this e-mail in reply to an e-mail note sweetly wishing her well on that day:

Thanks love…
This actually made me cry, but in a good way.

I’ve decided to declare that today’s going to be good and I’m going to make it happen by sheer force of will if I have to. I had the rest of my breakfast burrito fillings this morning, so I’m off to a pretty good start. I may or may not go to some Bastille Day party at the Alliance Francaise tonight. Either way, I’ll be thinking about you all day and missing you.

Hope you get to do something wonderfully fun, and I’ll try to plan something cool for us to do once you get here. And then we’ll go to Egypt, so that’ll be kind of awesome.

Thanks for marrying me. It’s been amazing so far, and I’m really excited to find out where the next seven years take us (I promise that it won’t be to anything PIRGy).

I love you.

Love
me

God help us all.

He wakes up alone, as he has done for fifty-five consecutive mornings. But it is different this time. The feel of the air, the emptiness, the texture and smell of the environs. He has been here before, repeatedly, and almost always alone. But this is different. Everything is different.

There is no reason to get up. No reason in the world. Dreams are more appealing somehow. This is all but unprecedented, echoes of a wedge-shaped room bedecked with posters and pictures of ineffably distant faces offering mild support and outstretched hands. The soft sad derision of a one-time friend, slinging a shoulder bag in a picture of hurried productivity, shaking his head as he charges out the too-thin rickety door. A roommate. A roommate. The echoes plink down the caverns of memory like a musical pebble. Playing “Moonlight Sonata” or perhaps “Taps”.

Back and forth, left and right, light on both sides, the strange overlarge pillow offering infinite patience as the dreams remain out of reach. They are less scary, less haunting, less true. They will not come back. There is only the dirge-like shuffle of time in its plod, the hard roll of the streetcar, the loungey traverse of the aimless local down the sidewalk. Step, pause, step, pause, step. Living in steps, in hapless direction, in picking up one leaden ankle to put it in front of the other for no particular purpose.

Everybody feels the wind blow. You don’t spit into the wind. The wind has been my friend, my ally, trusted and sure, but it is a force of nature and not to be trifled with. The wind, like time, chooses a direction and points unrelenting, offers assistance in one way but only angst in the other. You can fight it, fight them both, fight everything in your path. But you’re going to lose. You’re going to lose.

I’ve been here before and I deserve a little more.

If I ever make it, creatively, meaning that I get to the point where I not only am expected to write more for a public audience but that some people consider making movies out of my stuff and I may even get some control over who’s involved, I’m giving first crack at film adaptations to Johan Grimonprez. It’s taken him only two movies in twenty-four hours to earn this honor, dubious as it may currently be.

For the unfamiliar, which should be everyone (Gris?) and would’ve been me a day ago, he’s made only two real films in English as far as I can discern, but they’re both appallingly good. One’s playing at Albuquerque’s barely-breathing Guild theater in Nob Hill by the university district, 2009’s “Double Take”, a film ostensibly about Alfred Hitchcock, but much more about the Cold War, power politics, media, and what’s going on with the planet. My Dad and I saw that last night and had to come home to find his other film, 1997’s “Dial H-i-s-t-o-r-y”, which is about 9/11. Except it was made four years before 9/11. But watch it and tell me it’s about anything else. You can find it online; you may still have to pay to see Double Take.

Almost exactly halfway through editing The Best of All Possible Worlds, putting me well behind the expected pace at this point, though that indicates a general enjoyment of this trip that has made it all worthwhile. The themes for the book are finding resonance in all kinds of places, not least perhaps in the Grimonprez movies, all of which means that either the book is scarily relevant or I’ve just got it on the brain. Reality is probably a mix of both, but it’s generated a comfortable excitement for me about the work that has prompted this very lax attitude about actually getting the editing done. I think once I get on the plane tomorrow and head back to the East, it’ll be time to just put my foot down and get work done. If only so you all can have some idea what I’m talking about.

In the last couple months, I’ve found it harder than any prior point in my life to focus on reading one thing. In the midst of watching Dial H-i-s-t-o-r-y tonight, I realized that I’ve been carrying around Don DeLillo’s White Noise in my backpack since buying it alongside If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler in Ariel & Michael’s favorite Philadelphia bookstore. All I want to do tonight is start it, setting aside editing yet again and certainly bypassing The Spire and War and Peace and Madness and Civilization. Prior to this year, I don’t know if I’d ever gone more than a week or so reading multiple books at once and now I’m on the precipice of starting a fifth simultaneous book. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I mean, sure, I’ve lost some interest in all of them in one way or another, and maybe that’s the problem, that I haven’t just given up on most of them. What does it say about now or my state or something else that I seem incapable of completing readings while churning out novels of my own? Why am I losing interest so quickly? How will I be impacted when I head to Liberia and have to hole up with books for days on end, according to what Emily has led me to believe about the schedule there?

Speaking of which, it’s the first anniversary of our seven to date that Emily and I have been apart. It’s enormously challenging, but I take some solace in the nice round joy of the sound of seven years. A marriage is forever, but it takes some time for its lifespan to start sounding like something that reflects the permanence and seriousness of the commitment it contains. I’m not sure quite where the threshold is, but seven years seems a lot closer than any of the prior milestones.

Been spending much of this leg of the trip discussing the nature of God with my Dad, working out Jumbles and crossword puzzles with surprising interest and aptitude, downing green chile and old memories in equal measure. Just a moment ago, I landed, and already the plane station looms with its promise to whisk me back away. The tighter I hold on, the more sure I become of the need to step back, relax, put it all in context. Watch my Mom knitting in the comfy corner chair. Pull the threads.

It seems like both a lot and very little has happened since I last checked in with this form of communicating with the outside world. But since I haven’t dialed in for a while, it’s probably good to put out the obligatory “not dead yet” missive.

The car thing from the last post worked out fine. After a truly comedic attempt at stuffing Fish & Madeleine into the Smart Car and then resigning to putting them on the Hertz shuttle, we went to one of the four people working behind the Hertz counter and it was thankfully not the same person who gave me the half-car in the first place. With Priceline already committed to investigate the issue of why’d I’d gotten the wrong car and send me a settlement in the next fortnight, I was hoping someone could possibly actually resolve the issue without me forking over more cash. The guy looked at the mismatch of car I’d reserved and car I’d been given like something crazy had happened, resolving to quickly restore order for free. I refrained from pointing out his crazy co-worker who’d bluffed me into the joke car and ran to get the keys and mileage from same. We spent the rest of the weekend cruising around in a spacious Toyota Yaris. You know, a car with both four seats and four doors!

The rest of the weekend was a great time – hanging out with Fish, Madeleine, Gris, Anna, and occasionally Nagrom as we interspersed discussions of politics, history, and race with Boggle, Yahtzee!, Bang! (one-word and exclam-heavy games only, apparently), tennis, and watching World Cup matches. Also got to see a very little of Jaque and Jenny both at a dim sum breakfast the morning of the wedding and at the wedding before they departed early. Saw even less of DK and Sara amidst their nuptial fervor, though their ceremony was beautiful right up until the officiant made the bizarre decision to pelt us with sexist Red Skelton jokes as we were contemplating the sanctity of their vows and commitment. So it goes. Catching up with both, especially DK and his parents, who remembered all the old crew, was great fun and it seems they’re putting together quite a good life in LA.

Then it was back to Russ’ where we completed our second-ever conquest of the World Cup for Denmark on the ultimate (World Class) level before checking in with the Wilsons in the first-ever conference with all of us in the Pacific time zone. The power of Skype has definitely been impressed on me in the last few weeks, between my video chats with Emily and periodic other conversations over free computer-to-computer networks. Also at Russ’, I saw two movies which probably join “The Corporation” as required viewing for the thoughtful person these days. And as scared as I was that “The Corporation” came out more than half a decade ago, it’s downright terrifying that both of these movies date from the time when I was barely verbal. Anyway, add “Koyaanisqatsi” (1982) and “My Dinner with Andre” (1981) to your upcoming playlist. I have since discovered that the former has two sequels, but they don’t quite have the same power of the original it seems, despite some thematic verve, especially in the conclusive piece subtitled “Life as War”.

Been in Albuquerque since a 7/7 flight where I overheard my two rowmates encouraging each other in their love in America and infinite faith in its power to both rebound and offer infinite opportunity to all. Made some major progress on editing thereon between the eavesdropping, and now stand a little over a third of the way through editing The Best of All Possible Worlds. Given the encouraging feedback that’s been coming in for all sorts of my creative endeavors, I’m really looking forward to hearing what people think of this one as a real departure from my past novels. Also newly reinvigorated to start submitting ADO to agents when I hit the sweltering East Coast once more. Everything’s coming up Milhouse.

Albuquerque has been the usual good mix of New Mexican food (Frontier 2, Waffle House 1, Garcia’s 1 as of this writing), long conversations, and perfect warm weather. The yard is in full bloom and I’m starting to believe all the bees left alive on the planet are actively engaging the flowers in my parents’ well-tended garden. The house is less changed than usual as my Dad struggles with arthritis and my Mom seems to be prone to pulling or straining various things. They’re doing well otherwise, though, in good spirits and with plenty of energy. The new cat, Nesbitt, has also been a joy, though he seems more thoughtful and reserved than any of his species I’ve known in the past.

Today just got word that Cliff Lee, one of my favorite and briefest Mariners, has been shipped to Texas in exchange for Justin Smoak and a bevy of prospects. Given the pitching staff and prospects to come, the length of Lee’s contract (ending after this year), and the need to restock our farm, it’s clearly a great move. Especially looking at the 34-51 record they’ve compiled, an inexplicable shock that’s the sum total of bad luck and an abandonment of the very concept of clutch hitting. The team continues to build around the right things, though, and I have to believe that the new GM will be able to continue to work magic that will hopefully lead to a breakthrough. But this season is over and I guess I don’t mind much, since it takes the pressure off going to Africa and feeling like I’m missing something back here.

Other than the friends and family I’m trying to see before I go, there’s just not much to miss.

Yesterday was a good day to get shredded in the corporate thresher that is contemporary America. Mmmm lightly shredded people.

It all started when I had this crazy idea that not only would I head to LA for DK’s wedding and see some friends while there, but that I would rent a car in LA to help shuttle Pandora to her summer home in Altadena, as well as seamlessly move myself and some friends between Santa Barbara, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, and Marina del Rey. If you don’t know the LA area, just imagine a couple East Coast states and picture yourself driving from the corner of one to the far corner of the other and most everywhere in between. Got it? Good.

So night before last, I was staying in Philadelphia with my friends Ariel & Micheal who’d generously offered to put me up and drive me to the airport in the early morning for my flight to rent a car at LAX. And while an alarm didn’t go off, I was awoken by the sun in plenty of time to pack up, get bitten by Pandora, get her into the carrier all the same, and prepare to embark for strangely less sunny climes. I was offloaded at the airport gate with about 45 minutes to flight time – cutting it as close as I’d like to, but certainly shouldn’t be a problem for a domestic Sunday-morning flight on the world’s most easygoing airline (Southwest). So far so good.

Then I got in line for the Southwest counter. It seemed absurdly long for a Sunday morning, but I quickly realized that they had shut down half their check-in kiosks to compensate for it being Sunday morning. No matter, I thought, for surely the friendly SWA attendants will soon be coming down the line asking if anyone is about to leave on the next few flights and allow those people to skip ahead in the line lest they miss their flights and cause trouble for everyone. This is what happens in most SWA airports in my experience.

But no one came and the line dragged and people cooed at Pandora in her carrier as she mewled for release instead of moving up in the line. It was nice and social and while I was getting a little concerned, I realized that the security line would surely be a breeze and we still had time to make it. So I got up to the kiosk, took the requisite beratement from the guy behind the counter that I hadn’t left 372 hours to make my flight and stand in lines, was told to hurry to the gate and that my luggage might trail me by a flight or two. All fine, I thought, for I was renting a car! The power to return to airports for late baggage and such would be mine.

Then the security line was a monument to inefficiency. They had all of four of their fifteen scanners open, funneling people as slowly as possible through them, all while a propaganda video that attempted to explain arbitrary rules about liquids and shoes blared in the background. I wish George Orwell could have stood in that line with me. Except that if he’d been ahead of me, I would have been even later than I already was.

Needless to say, we didn’t make it. Not by half. I even had to fight with the security guards over my attempt to transfer Pandora from her carrier to one of those ubiquitous gray plastic buckets to walk her through the body scanner. I understand why they have to scan her carrier in case I’ve lined it with plastic explosives, but do they really think I’ve had time to line their own gray bucket with same?! No, they insisted on me carrying the cat by hand while her sensual perception of the world atrophied amidst the beeping, pinging, and clicking of the modern airport threshold experience.

So I made it to the departure boards at 8:48 for my 8:35 flight. Apparently, as Russ told me later when I (spoiler alert!) did in fact make it to LA alive and in one piece, the expectation was that someone in my situation would start elbowing people out of the way under the gruffly enunciated claim that my flight was leaving soon and I had a right to go before they did. I’m just not one of those people though, so Pandora and I moseyed up to the Southwest gate counter around 8:52.

“I take it I missed this one?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Well, what are my options?”
“Let me check that out for you.”
“Thanks.”
[Pause]
[Pause]
[Pause]
[Pause]
“Looks like we can do 3:20.”
“3:20?”
“3:20. To Phoenix. Though you might not be able to make it out of there.”
“It’s 8:55.”
“Yeah. Sorry. That’s the best shot we have. It’s not looking good.”

So Pandora and I settled in for six and a half hours of unfettered bliss in the Philadelphia International Airport. We visited five of their six terminals, sampled many of the foods, spilled many attempts to put in a little water cup in her carrier so she didn’t dehydrate after hours of plaintive crying. I did get to watch almost all of Germany’s thrashing of England in the World Cup, plus a little bit of Argentina:Mexico before finally boarding the plane, well after sending e-mails to those who were expecting me soon to expect me much later. At least I’d traded a long layover in Chicago for a quick stop in Phoenix, a city that is unequivocally on the way from Philadelphia to LA.

Finally, LAX, with Pandora still breathing and even sipping a bit from the clear plastic Southwest cup I’d offered her. I kept waiting for her to be unable to hold it, desperately hoping it would be in the airplane or the rental car shuttle, not the rental car itself. But I finally got to the desk of the rental car company, looking to pick up what Priceline had promised me would be a Chevy Aveo or similar. You know, a car with four seats and a trunk.

“Are you planning on taking anyone else with you on your stay here?”
“Well I’ll be the only one driving.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. Are you planning on having anyone else in the car with you?”
“Well maybe. I was going to pick a couple friends up at the airport.”
“Not in this car.”
“I can’t let other people ride in my car?”
“Well I see you have some luggage. This is an economy car.”
“Yeah… so?”
“It’s very small.”
“Well it has four seats, right?”
“No. This is what I’m trying to tell you. Why I want to talk to you about it now before you get out there.”
“It doesn’t have four seats? I’ve rented economy cars before. They have four seats.”
“Not this car.”

At this point, my mind is racing to what could possibly be going on with my vehicle. I am entertaining the idea they have somehow classified a Corvette convertible as an “economy” car. I can’t even picture what could possibly be going on. I think back to my contract with Priceline and the diligent research to make sure that golf-carts or Hot Wheels could not be considered economy cars by mainstream rental companies (in this case, Hertz).

“It doesn’t have four seats?”
“No, honey, that’s what I’m trying to say. Now we can upgrade you to something with four seats.”
“For how much?”
“Just $10 a day.”

I was only paying $17 a day to begin with. This was not happening, the classic upsell. I was sure she was bluffing at this point, just trying to scare me like the dings and the dents and the insurance and the everything else that corporate America uses to try to bludgeon one sale into an all-expenses paid four-star cruise to luxury for their profit margin.

“No thanks, I’ll take my chances with this car.”
“Okay, but can I offer you insurance for only $12 a day?”
“No thanks, I’m good with the basic.”
“How about gas? We’ll refill your tank for $2.92 a gallon and it costs $3.07 a gallon out there.”
“Really? So however many gallons I’m short of a full tank, you’ll refill for $2.92?”
“Well, honey, not exactly.”

Here I immediately remembered Hertz’ old OJ Simpson slogan: There’s Hertz and there’s not exactly; make sure you choose the right one.

“Oh?”
“You see, your tank holds $25.98 worth of gas at $2.92 a gallon. So if you don’t bring it back full, we can take care of that for $25.98.”
“Oh, I get it, so even if it’s a dot down from full, you charge me $25.98.”
“Well. Yeah.”
“Yeah, I’ll bring it back full.”
“Now if you change your mind when you bring it back, we can do the $2.92 a gallon thing.”
“I’ll bring it back full.”

Full proved to be a relative term for this car. I’m not entirely convinced it has a gas tank. As I approached the spot, 397, I was pretty sure there was no car actually parked there until I found the half-car actually crammed in the front third of the space.

It looked like this:

A Smart car. They had given me a Smart car. A car that looks like someone took my Prius and lopped it cleanly in half, then painted it red. A car that had two seats and a foot-wide bench in the back for anything else one might want to carry. A car that, upon getting in and driving it to the check-out gate, felt like someone had built a small car-like shell around my person.

Being the stubborn opponent of corporate America that I am, I refused to balk and return to the counter, but instead went on my merry way, trying to picture how I could get Fish and Madeleine, to whom I’d pledged an aiport pickup three days hence, to share the other seat in the car with minimum consternation and illegality. I quickly also became convinced that (A) the only reason corporate America had allowed such small efficient vehicles to come to market was so that rental car companies could redefine the economy class into something no one could possibly picture when signing up to rent a car and (B) Hertz kept exactly one Smart car on the lot as a bluff to customers who would all go traipsing back into the desk to get a reasonably sized vehicle for whatever upgrade price they wanted to extort. If nothing else, I was driving away their bluff and the next person like me would have to be given a Chevy Aveo or similar.

I soon, however, dispelled a myth I’d heard that Smart cars literally could not drive on freeways. My little personal red pod had no trouble getting up to 65, though every ten-mph jump felt like I was whipping a horse into gear or perhaps shifting a standard transmission with my foot. The car actually rocked back and forth every time it went from 15 to 25 or 45 to 55. The trouble soon proved that, as irate as I was about the whole scam, I actually really enjoyed driving the little glorified golf cart. Parking is a dream, as are lane changes, and the turning radius would make it possible to do a U-turn in a one-way half-lane Boston back alley. It’s really quite fun.

So I may keep my absurd little half-car, depending on how game Fish and friends are to share seats or maybe even grab a spot of bench in the tiny tiny back. The car feels like it would crumble in a strong rain storm, but is about three times harder to hit than the standard vehicle, given that it’s probably smaller all told than most motorcycles. So we’ll see. Much of last night’s rage has subsided into mild enjoyment of the novelty of being tailgated by cars that are literally a couple feet from my back.

The moral of the story, I think, is that the distinction between capitalism and extortion has completely evaporated. And yet, you may still enjoy the ride.

After a torrid night of typing amidst the rages of what is almost certainly a sinus infection at this point, I am pleased to announce that I have completed constructing the second draft of my second novel, American Dream On.

There are still some very minor inconsistencies to iron-out, a couple last things to fact-check, and a few other small formatting issues that will keep me from sending draft copies to preliminary readers before I leave Albuquerque in four hours. The upshot, however, is that it will take me very little time to complete these last i-dottings and t-crossings, enabling me to send out copies quite soon.

The elation I feel for this is heavily mitigated by my ongoing illness and my predictable sadness at leaving New Mexico. It’s been a great visit, if one of the most sedentary, featuring the revitalizing time with parents and friends that has made coming back to Albuquerque so important every year. This trip in particular has yielded important talks and a deep-seated feeling of family, not to mention ever-winnowing progress toward a readable manuscript of what I have every hope will come to be considered a major work.

2010 seems ready to deliver on the same highs and lows that marked the previous year (see previous post). Today, I’m looking forward to Waffle House, making it through two plane flights with sinuses intact, seeing Philly friends and Pandora, and making it home. Tomorrow, maybe, you should be looking forward to a nice long read.

I’m thinking about compiling one of these for the decade too, but let’s look at what made 2009 great and not so great.

In summation, looking back at this year, it’s been one of those seminal and all-encompassing annums. It’s been a slow and generally joyous year, punctuated with some really lousy events. I think it’s good to look at the good and bad of a year, lest one think that any year, no matter how great or terrible, is all one or the other. Ultimately, however, I have to say that I’d be pretty happy if all the years were like this one.

Let’s start with the lowlights (who knew I could have a happy ending in something I write?!)…
9. In June, we were informed that we would be getting a small (464 square foot) apartment from the housing lottery at Princeton. Emily and I fought about to what extent the preferences I’d asked her not to list on the housing form had determined this decision and the ensuing tension lasted for much of the summer and the early part of our time moving into Princeton. Upside: We ended up being happy with the place and sincerely calling it “cozy” instead of just tiny. Though it will always be Tiny House to us.
8. In August, at the conclusion of a great six-week trip, we moved to New Jersey. We’d come to accomplish many great things in school, debate, and writing, all of which wound up going pretty well. But… New Jersey. Upside: Yeah, we were moving to Jersey for some pretty good reasons.
7. In December, a co-worker of mine from Glide passed away. While he was not my closest friend or someone I’d even contacted since departing Glide, his passing hit me very hard with its suddenness and the loss of such a vibrant, joyous personality. He’d moved me to tears the day I sent out my e-mail announcing my impending departure from Glide, coming down to my office, giving me a hug, tearing up, and saying “I don’t want you to go.” I can’t stop thinking about this scene, how much it meant to me, or how little time he proved to have left. Upside: While one never wants to see an upside in death, it does always get those still living to examine their mortality and priorities, which never hurts.
6. In November, I got tremendously sick, derailing my writing at the time and prompting my parents to cancel a long-anticipated trip to see us on the East Coast. I had extreme trouble breathing and went through a number of inconclusive tests, ultimately requiring simple time and rest to recover. Upside: The illness didn’t derail my novel as I feared it would at the time.
5. In July, we left the Bay Area, possibly never to return long-term. While I felt we’d stagnated a good bit in the Bay and needed a change, the actual departure was tough to swallow and required leaving jobs we’d felt were the best we’d ever had, people we really enjoyed, and an area that seemed more naturally like home than where we’d be going for some time. Plus, there was a lot of packing. Upside: (Most) everything that followed.
4. Over the course of the year, I lost an impressive amount of money in the stock market. I had been up big and got complacent and started losing like crazy. While all of this could theoretically be recouped, I’d started betting against banks right about the time people got irrationally excited about banks again. Granted, I hadn’t risked anything we couldn’t afford to lose and it was all in long-term futures anyway (i.e. money we can’t touch till we’re 65). But it still hurt. Upside: Banks could still collapse.
3. In July, Emily and I were informed that all of our stuff making the cross-country trip to support our life in Jersey had been in a rollover accident outside LA. This proved to be more devastating in the resignation and loss it inspired in us between then and finding that the damage was generally much better than anticipated. Almost all the most sentimental items came through minimally scathed, though we still took some costly losses. Upside: It was a good reminder of the relative insignificance of material goods.
2. In January, Emily and I were informed that her mother had colon cancer. We endured a horrific month of ambiguities and tests and worries. Upside: Not only was the surgery successful, it wiped out the cancer so completely she didn’t even need chemo.
1. In October, Emily and I were in a car accident that could have killed me were it not for a pickup sandwiching itself between a passed-out octogenarian and myself. The Prius sustained 5 digits worth of damage and Emily and I had 4 digits worth of damage assessed by the ER. Upside: We survived the accident.

And now for the highlights…
9. In September, Fish and I (accompanied by Madeleine and Emily) saw John K. Samson play “Sounds Familiar.” live.
8 (tie). In November, the same four of us (no John K.) enjoyed a restful and rejuvenating Thanksgiving weekend in Washington DC. It was just what we needed at the time and recharged our batteries to make a last push in the book and the semester.
8 (tie). In March/April, I spent a similar week of restful rejuvenation in LA with Russ, the last of my many trips to his apartment while I was living in the same state. We watched movies, talked about everything, played chess endlessly, beat FIFA on World Class mode with Denmark for the first time ever, and I even won the most money at online poker I’d ever won. It was just what I needed to get through the last 45 days of day job I had left.
7. In March, Emily ran the table on her grad school applications, going a perfect 5-for-5 in schools applied and allowing herself to have the maximum possible options. This culminated in her full-ride to Princeton, freeing up our options as a couple to pursue what we’ve spent most of the decade putting off in terms of personal aspirations and fulfillment.
6. In June, many New Mexican friends and I reunited for Jake’s wedding. We had a fabulous “bachelor party” hiking in the woods above JPL that would later be endangered by fire. Many of us wrapped up the weekend of celebration with a visit to Disneyland and California Adventure that was probably the most efficiently jam-packed such visit of my many to such parks.
5. In May, I watched Randy Johnson pitch what was almost certainly his last game in Seattle, going out to a triumphant standing ovation from an infinitely appreciative fanbase. Though watching him shut down the Angels in the ‘95 one-game playoff, let alone his relief appearance in that year’s ALDS, will always be more charged memories, those were witnessed on TV. This was my single greatest live moment of Mariner fandom to date. No less, it was enjoyed from the best seats I’ve ever secured at a Major League Baseball game. This was the highlight of a generally great trip to Seattle.
4. In November, the Rutgers team I’d been coaching for two and a half months enjoyed their first break in almost two years, to quarterfinals at American University, a tournament fielding 90+ teams. After being uncertain of the impact I was making on the team, I finally had confirmation of progress and great reason for optimism about the coming semesters. The team celebrated at a DC diner that night with spirits raised high to the future of the team.
3. In May, I left Glide exactly as I’d hoped to, going out after ten weeks’ notice with a perfect day of meetings including the long-anticipated foray into what would ultimately be the new database solution for Glide’s programs. I could not have scripted a more fitting exit and I finally got to leave something on my own terms, with a great replacement, and with people wanting me to stay.
2. In July, Emily and I departed for a six-week tour of the US, with stops in National Parks and baseball parks, plus plenty of time with friends and family. Highlights from this trip alone could fill this list, so it’s only fair to group the whole trip. Our anniversary dinner at the Wawona in Yosemite, hiking the Grand Canyon, and camping in the Badlands are probably the most lasting memories from this epic journey.
1. In December, I finished writing a novel for the first time in eight and a half years, after working on it for seven and a half. The culmination of everything I’ve hoped to do in the last decade of struggling to write against a backdrop of day-jobs was finally reached, five days ahead of my deadline. I had once again proven to myself that there’s reason to take this writing thing seriously. Just before year’s end, I finished editing the work.

Yeah, like I said, I’d be pleased if every year could be this full of life, decisions in the right direction, survival, and joy. I’ll take ten more like 2009 any time. 2010, care to start with one?

I am elated to announce that, 20 days after completing the first draft of the novel, I have edited the entirety of American Dream On. Granted, two-thirds of the edits still have to be typed in, and there are some very minor inconsistencies that still have to be resolved. But the second draft is on paper and the third will be ready for distribution soon – maybe even by my goal of New Year’s Day.

This completion was spurred by an incredible wave of motivation that came from approaching the finish line, combined with the last few chapters just being better (thus needing less editing), combined with being sick for the last 48 hours. The sickness has been a bizarre hybrid of sore throat, nausea, and chills that would sound for all the world like a mild flu were it not for the sore throat. I’ve never had a sore throat with the flu that I can recall. Regardless, the illness was quite debilitating yesterday, but prompted a remarkable amount of work both then and today, when it was feeling more strange, achy, and voice-constricting than anything else.

I am in no way pleased to be sick so soon after being sick in Jersey, though I still hold out some hope that this will be more like a 72-hour bug than a week-long wipeout. More importantly, typing in edits is about the easiest thing to do and should go even faster with my current knowledge that this will be all between me and the feedback of actual readers.

For over eight years, I’ve been kicking around the idea for this book. I have shared almost no information about its contents with anyone. In less than two days, people who are not me will get a chance to read it for the first time.

It’s almost enough to make me forget that I’m sick. Almost.

Don’t freak out if you’re getting scary-looking red screens from portions of the Blue Pyramid, especially the front page or the currently archived Women World Leaders Quiz. The site was hacked. It was actually hacked via PHP scripts that were hacked on the Camp Kupugani website (hence why the WWLQ is the epicenter of the problem and has accordingly been archived). Everything should be fine now and even look fine to everyone (i.e. no red screens) soon.

In the meantime, hi, how are you?

We made it to the Bay Area on Friday night for a whirlwind meet-up at Mario’s La Fiesta in Berkeley with a bunch of old friends and co-workers. Then we drove over to Tracy that night, down to Fresno Saturday morning, and have been holed up with the Garin Clan ever since, mostly still unassembled until later this week. I’ve been editing about as much as I can stomach, finally over the halfway point for chapters (51%), but still with about 60% of the pages to go. The later chapters are (apparently much) longer, although there’s one exceptional chapter that helps throw that off, and hopefully won’t require much editing.

New Year’s Day distribution to volunteer readers is looking less likely, but is still sort of the optimistic goal. I’ll keep you (probably excessively) posted.

The only other real news to report from this relaxing tenure with my manuscript and Em’s fam is how heartbroken I was to miss the foot-plus snow in Princeton that came the day after we flew away. The odds are overwhelming that it will be the largest winter storm in Jersey during our two years living there, and while getting snowed in and having to delay this trip would have been less than ideal, editing by the heater between frolics in foot-deep snow is just about my idea of the best living ever. I still can’t think about the storm without getting this gut-turning sadness. As I told Emily, I just don’t think I’ll ever really be happy until I live somewhere like Minnesota or Nevada City or Buffalo or Siberia for at least a year or two, where snow is so commonplace and expected that I don’t have to cling to every prediction and forecast, but can instead have confidence that it will abound. Suffice it to say that had I been born in such an environment, I think I would be a lifelong optimist. Snow makes me that happy.

I hope you’re as happy these holidays as I am in snow. Once I’ve sent out PDF’s of my fully edited tome, I will be too.

Then one day
the sky fell in
and freedom lost control
and ran off the road and hit a pole
And it was all
and it was nothing
at all
-Josh Joplin Group, “Dutch Wonderland”

Woke up this morning in Denver after a pretty severe series of nightmares involving burrowing underground and interacting pretty negatively with space aliens therein. It was the eighth distinct location where I’ve woken up since the open of this trip 2.5 weeks ago, making for further discombobulation of my already rather tormented subconscious. The details of this particular dream are needlessly grisly. Suffice it to say that I’ve had better nights.

The morning voicemail on Em’s cell, however, was in some ways darker still. Apparently the moving truck with all our stuff, save the few items we found relevant to our six-week Sojourn, was in a car accident outside of LA, turning over at least once. No word yet on the extent of the damage or even whether any people were injured (though it sounds pretty bad). There was a claim from the President of the moving company who kindly left the message that, while their insurers were still sorting through it, the damage wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Whether this is an accurate reassurance or an early attempt at liability limitation remains to be seen.

In any case, it requires the contemplation of all of our stuff being gone or irreparably damaged. One’s mind quickly jumps over the furniture and the replaceable though seemingly indispensible stuff (vaccuum, lamp, and so on) and straight to the really sentimental stuff. Stuffed animals. My collection of small carved/sculpted turtles. A few papers. And oh, the photographs.

While the turtles are probably toasted oatmeal, being fragile as all get-out, one would think that most of the sentimental items would survive such a crash well intact. But then the pivotal question, one we can’t likely ask till Monday, is whether the truck opened or not. If it remained closed (and didn’t catch fire or something), then we can at least be sure that there will be an accounting for everything. But of course the vision that quickly develops in the mind’s eye is one of whipping winds carrying burst-open boxes of heart-rending items across the heartless LA freeway, careless convertibles dodging and weaving amongst the testimony of decades worth of beloved accumulation.

Damage I can deal with, but total loss is challenging. And the potential ambiguity of knowing what was lost, the direct result of a failure to sufficiently inventory box contents amidst the madness of frustrating packing, is perhaps the worst of all. And though we are steeling ourselves in an attempt to mentally imagine that there will be no truck at all showing up in New Jersey, just a settlement check for some number of thousands, there is some space between this mental commitment and the understanding that one’s wedding albums and pictoral history of high school are gone.

Of course, there is also opportunity. Like the disasters that would whip through SimCity, wreaking the best-laid zones of half a century to waste in a couple months, the losses that at first seem devastating are often incredible invitations to rebirth. I have been all too aware of the conflict between my own desire to transcend materialism of all kinds and my affection for a certain amount of material items and the collection thereof. It may be just this kind of event, like meat making me sick in high school, that is necessary to nudge me in the right direction. Em and I even talked about this possibility (hard to invoke discussion of insurance, to which I begrudgingly assented, without contemplating doomsday scenarios, which is incidentally one of the many reasons I conceptually hate insurance), realizing among other things that we would probably stop collecting books (probably the only type of item we overtly collect) should something like this set us back. Perhaps we will emerge from this completely devoid of our physical attachments to inantimate objects, able to face the future with a new fearlessness. The very thought is strangely inspiring.

And yet, there are the pangs. A history told in words and pictures. The computer that I didn’t back up quite well enough, or some of the backups that were insanely packaged in boxes in the same shipment as the computer itself. The fact that my decision of whether to start over with American Dream On, my second novel, or work with the 80-some-odd pages assembled over the last 8 years, may be determined by the condition of that machine and its survival or lack during the accident. (I’m pretty sure I wasn’t that stupid and that there are backups of this in multiple places, but one never really knows until something like this happens.) And some things dear to Emily – her grandmother’s music boxes and the candelabra. And the few bits of shared accumulation in 6 years of marriage, few to none significant in their own right, but this is how Americans are taught to mark the passage of their time. It’s not right, but that doesn’t abridge the emotional twists and agonization.

I would love to tell you that I just don’t care. And while I feel closer to that than I ever thought I would, it’s not true. If it were, we wouldn’t have packed up just shy of two tons of stuff and sent it across America’s dangerous highways in the first place.

It’s overshadowed the last week of events, suddenly, which is too bad. In some ways, it could cast a pallor over the whole trip if we don’t start to get a decent handle on how totalled our stuff really is. But it’s a stuff-tragedy, not a personal one, and for that I’m grateful. Stuff can be rebuilt or rebought (or more likely not), but people are inconstructable. The sting of an event like this could create a lifetime of counterbalance to American training about stuff, which could be just what I need. A little bell that goes off every time I crave an item, a Pavolvian antidote to the way capitalism makes us pigs.

There’s just no way of knowing till it all shakes out.

I would love to now launch into the travails of a return to the Grand Canyon and the roundtrip to Indian Garden, of a whirlwind Albuquerque with my parents in full fervor, of the discovery of Manitou Springs, Colorado, a town that joins Nevada City, CA and Madrid, NM, and probably a few others as potential small-town retreats for a future I still can’t flesh out. But these will have to wait – personal timing of the trip unending calls us to another outing and my own wrestling with late developments makes such review seem relatively trivial, or at least not primarily pertinent. There will be time and space to discuss those details – they are not forgotten. And suddenly, those may be some of the only photographs of the last 15 years that I have.

Someday, I will leave this world. And take not a single physical possession with me on my way. Perhaps it’s time to enact the latter early, well before having to engage in the former. An opportunity indeed. Not one without pain, but perhaps, over time, one without sorrow. Or at least regret.

Perhaps.

I have posted just three prior days this month. Two of them were Wednesdays. As an actual Wednesday’s child, perhaps it’s destiny. Guess what day it is today?

I’ve been wanting to write more than I have – I’ve even had more Internet than I might’ve expected. Somehow, however, the inspiration has been limited. I have been tired. I have found my already trying struggles with sleep made all the more wearying by waking up in a different place most every morning (or middle of the night). I am both hopeful that my inspiration is storing up for winter and dining lightly in the meantime and trepid that I have somehow been sapped and zapped entirely. The latter seems utterly unlikely, but the former all too convenient, no?

My green comp book still remains unsullied by language, my mind an uproar of milder things than the trip embarked. Or past things. Or non sequitorial things. I have been having a predominantly fabulous time – don’t get me wrong via my temporary tone. The Canyon is always and forever one of my all-time favorite places on Earth. Infinitely spiritual, challenging, magnificent, overwhelming. I may have actually taken 500 pictures there alone. It makes for a mesmerizing feast of visual overwhelm on my parents’ relatively new giant screen.

My parents are busy and with a latest project, this more of the rabble-rousing variety than the entrepreneurial. It at once makes it harder to fully commune with them and happier to see them involved and engaged in something they find inspiring. I find myself more tired as a result of the relaxation that comes with feeling at home. And tomorrow I depart again.

There is more to say, much more to see, but for now a Wednesday note of my persisting state and forward progress will have to do. I have been a bit melancholic in the last 24 hours, prompted by rehash and review of experiences that have not yet settled into their mostly concluded state. My angst with some of the order of operations at Glide, my anticipation of the upcoming balancing act of trying to work as hard for my own efforts and long-desired outcomes as I could for others. Trying to hold on to every location, every person, every turn of events that in this journey would alone be sufficient for a trip entire. And yet they come, fast and fleeting, back to back to back to back.

Sometimes it is enough to live, knowing the reflection will catch up with the events soon enough. Soon enough.

Yesterday, I wrote 2,944 words about our trip so far. Today, as the old adage goes, I will add 22,000 or so. But you know what I think of that adage. I guess this is for those who disagree with me…

Our goodbye party (Ohlone Park, Berkeley) setup on Sunday the 5th of July:

All packed up and ready to ship:

After our last dinner (at Bangkok Thai in Berkeley) with Gris & Anna:

The old place, finally empty and clean:

The Prius, full and ready to go:

One last visit to the Grand Lake on our way out of town. Normally we wouldn’t have seen “Ice Age 3D”, but the Grand Lake made it worth it:

Fast-forward to Saturday the 11th of July, which we spent mostly in Kings Canyon NP. Here, Emily had just bonked her head on the interior of a fallen sequoia:

We also went into Boyden Cavern in the national forest just outside Kings Canyon:

Sunday midday, heading out to embark on our hike to Ostrander Lake:

Emily looked happier somehow:

6.2 miles!

See, I really did pack in War and Peace:

Further review today revealed that I failed to get a shot of a mid-jump fish. But the lake was still beautiful:

Our campsite:

A marmot said hello when we awoke in the morning:

My John Muir impression on the walk back:

And Emily’s:

We made it!

Buffalo guarded the car while we were up the trail, as per usual on cross-country roadtrips:

The Wawona Hotel. Best parking spot ever in the foreground, our room in the top left corner, and the restaurant just below:

A mule deer ran through the Wawona grounds at dusk:

On the road again:

About a week into the trip and still in the state of California. The smart money says we better get out of here before the state officially secedes by printing its own currency. If you think IOU’s can’t be considered legal tender, you should consider that they have exactly the same properties that all our other tender does – people ascribe value to them and they are made of nothing tangibly valuable in and of themselves. But I’m getting all political and I haven’t even told you what I’ve been up to.

We’ve spent much of the trip with Em’s family – the Paul IV set in Tracy, followed by the Paul III set and Jen/Geoff and kids in Fresno/Clovis/Sanger. There was a whole lot of Transamerica, a pretty fierce board-game losing streak by me (I think my first loss of Puerto Rico among Em’s family in a couple years), and a lot of heat. It was hot enough for me to both wear shorts and get in an outdoor pool. As I commented repeatedly, it’s been seven years since I’ve seen summer. Quite a welcome change.

On Sunday, we wound our way up into the mountains above Fresno to visit Yosemite and get a wildnerness pass to camp in the high country. Emily and I have noted a devolution in the terms and practices of camping in modern America – “camping” used to mean taking a tent and a backpack into the woods and, after a decent hike, unrolling them for an overnight stay. Apparently this term has now come to mean driving one’s car to a parking lot and getting some things out of the trunk for an overnight stay within a stone’s throw of the bumper. Meanwhile, “backpacking” is now the term of choice for what camping used to be. And pretty much nobody does it.

I mean, not nobody, but it’s pretty proportionally rare. Legend has it that camping spots fill up in Yosemite between 9-18 months in advance, especially for summer months. And while the park deliberately keeps somewhere between 30-50% of its camping reservations free for same-day spontaneous booking (thus debunking the legend on face), it’s true that the “campground” spots fill up quite early in the morning, especially for summer weekends. Of course, close examination reveals that this is all for bumper-proximity “camping”, while there are essentially limitless wilderness passes for real camping, er, backpacking.

Of course, everyone could just be reacting to an up-sell practice from the local rangers that we only discovered on Sunday. Witness:

“We’d like a wilderness pass for one night and we’d love to get a suggestion or two.”
“How many miles are you looking to hike?”
“About four each way.”
“How about 6.2?”
[pause]
“Uh, maybe. Is it mostly flat?”
“Yeah, it’s kinda flat. I mean, there’s a pretty steep uphill just at the end, but it’s worth it. It’s a beautiful lake.”
[pause, wherein we realize that we could be totally screwed]
“Uh, sure.”

I mean, yes, we could have counter-offered and demanded four flat miles. But in response to our uncertainty, the ranger (who looked young enough to be my child had I lacked moral discipline in high school) waxed eloquent about the beauty of the lake, the grandeur of the views, and the quick pace with which we would conquer the mileage. We pretty much had no choice, lest we appear to this precocious thirteen-year-old completely unworthy of our wildnerness pass. And it wasn’t just about image – there would be a lot of regret if we wound our way through a runner-up mulligan trail that wasn’t so beautiful and did it with ease. We would always wonder if we could have done more. Plus, we’re still hoping to hike into the base of the Grand Canyon and back up (a mere half – or really less – of what I did in the summer of 2000’s fabled Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim journey), so I figured this would be good preparation.

But there are some big differences between the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, not the least of which is that one can see and evaluate the Grand Canyon before descending into it. The main difference, in July at least, is what one packs.

In Yosemite, the lows (even in July) are in the high 40’s or low 50’s, which necessitates your narrator packing a variety of layers. In the Grand Canyon, if memory serves, the low might hit 85 or 90 in the base of the Canyon on a cold night, while the temperatures otherwise hover close to 120 if there’s anything resembling sunshine about. Plus, there’s no real need for a tent in the Canyon, or a bear canister (required silo for all food and scented items to prevent Marpellian “bear country” attacks). And, I wasn’t reading War and Peace in the Canyon. Yeah, I know, this sounds like a bad joke. But I start reading it a few days ago and thought briefly about ditching it for a shorter tome for one hike only. But then I thought it would make a good story that I actually packed in Tolstoy’s epic on an uphill journey into Yosemite.

I hope you’re enjoying the story, because I don’t think it proved worth it.

Part of the problem, of course, is that our juvenile delinquent of a park ranger totally sold us a bill of goods. The 6.2 miles were almost entirely uphill, with exactly four downhill stretches combining for some hundred yards tops. The first 3 miles were a gentle uphill, enough to create a false sense of security to be shattered on the loose rocks of the grueling latter half of the trail. We spent the last mile and a half pausing every few hundred feet. It was laughable. Spurred by the promise of a shining lake on the hill, we pushed ourselves well beyond any predicted limits of exertion, only failing to collapse in anguish by the sheer force of will. Emily encouraged me on with discussion of a forthcoming sense of accomplishment, but I think it unwise to trust anyone who spent high school running cross-country in matters of endurance or the reasonable expenditure of physical energy.

Suffice it to say, of course, that despite this pain (and the journey was still punctuated by lovely views, countless butterflies [and mosquitoes] of many shapes and sizes, and an expanse of blooming flora, making it enjoyable despite the struggles), we almost immediately determined the trip worth it upon arriving at the lake. The lake (Ostrander Lake for those scoring at home or considering similar trips in future) was gorgeous, contained the cleanest water I have ever seen in my life, and surrounded by enough boulders of varying shapes and sizes to satisfy a year’s worth of rockhopping urges (this is one of my favorite physical diversions – slightly better on rocks nestled amongst creeks, but pretty good without rushing water as well).

We navigated a few boulders, found a patch of flat dirt already tamped by previous campers nestled between three boulders, checked for minimal frequency of ant tunnel openings, and set up shop. We were still in the setting sunlight and had a good view of the lake and only when the tent was set up did we suddenly realize how starved and exhausted we felt.

After a scarfed and inelegant dinner of snack food (we were certainly not packing any cooking gear), I headed to the lake to do some rockhopping and soon discovered that the only sound audible for miles (we were the only ones at the secluded lake, one of the joys of Sunday-night camping) were periodic bloops in the water, which it didn’t take long to discover as fish jumping out of the lake to swallow surface-skimming bugs whole. I immediately had to trek back to the tent (almost getting lost amongst the Rohrshach of boulders, manzanita, and dirt) to retrieve the camera and waste many digital shots attempting to get one of a fish mid-jump. I’m pretty sure I got one (the image is almost inscrutably small on the digital camera’s playback window), which I may upload before we leave LA if time permits, but paid for the shot with about a dozen mosquito bites and near discarding of the camera in the lake out of quick swiveling to the sound of bloops as they crested the water.

Then I returned to the tent where Em was already asleep, to read War and Peace as the light faded. I spent a good bit of time laying awake thereafter, failing to acclimate to the silence punctuated by wind rustling the rain-fly across our tent. The first night I go camping after a long while, especially when there are no other people around and I’m camping either alone or with Emily (I’m talking about this like it’s a common phenomenon, though it’s been unfortunately relatively rare), I tend to have a hard time adjusting to sounds. And when there has been much prepping for how to deal with bears, mountain lions, and so forth, every sound sounds like an approaching predatory mammal. I almost never have trouble falling asleep, making the process of having trouble doubly consternating in this environment, all due to a primal irrational interpretation of auditory experience. Suffice it to say that I eventually had to haul out the booklight and immerse myself in Napoleonic Russia to the point of lid-drooping exhaustion, which I should have just done in the first place. But it’s so easy to go from that state to adrenaline-pumping frozen listening with just one good rustle that sounds for all the world like an approaching bear.

The moral of the vignette is that I need to get out more. Way out way more.

As an aside, it’s interesting to trace patterns of fear over the course of my life. Not only have I realized a marked increase in weird fears and even random paranoia as I’ve gotten older, being able to at once rationally grasp that I’m going through the hackneyed process of becoming more conservative and fearful as I age and yet irrationally feel it all the same, but my fear of death may be at an all-time high. As someone who was pretty sure he had conquered such a trivial phobia at age eleven, this is both extremely disconcerting and supremely annoying.

The problem, of course, is that I like my life way more than I did when I was eleven. Don’t get me wrong – I had baseball and animals and my parents were very supportive. But I frankly spent most of the years between 11-21 being able to take or leave my life. I talked pretty openly about this perspective with a bunch of friends and family, to most of their chagrin and loquacious objection. And I simultaneously touted a spirit of fearlessness and triumph over concerns about mortality with intellectual trappings that I now fear were somewhat baseless, at least on a primal level.

I mean, yes, I had reasoned out the limits of this mortal coil, consolidated my reasoned belief in God and an open-ended afterlife, and come to accept how insane it was to truly fear the only surely inevitable result of life on Earth. It seemed pretty academic, and it was. And certainly my bout with suicidalism just before shored up my appreciation of life and my understanding of its fragility. All true thoughts that haven’t faded over the last 18 years.

What has changed, though, is an ever-increasing feeling that I have something to lose in this mortal experience on this planet. And the big difference between 21 and 29 is that not only do I have Emily, giving me a massively unprecedented reason to live, but I am now about to embark on the first open-ended stage of my life where I am doing what I feel I should be doing with my time and mental energy, namely in writing full-time. It’s hard to fully convey what it feels like to have felt like one is primarily wasting one’s time or building limited and mostly pointless skills for some unnamed and unmarked future for three decades. Three decades. I realize, of course, that most people live their entire existences in that state, often discarding the idea that they should even try to do something they feel called or driven to do amidst the endless compromises of their passing life. But to actually be in the midst of transition to that higher use of time and energy is to understand how vivid the contrast is between that state of being and everything else.

It’s a white-hot glow of excitement approaching euphoria, yet it comes with a burdensome sense of responsibility that mostly seems to be manifesting in really really not wanting to die. Which, frankly, is a newish feeling for me. So maybe this will help shed some light on why the wind rustling on the tent in the secluded wilderness bothered me even more than usual, bothered someone who used to brag about having cast out fear of death like a pair of shoes that no longer fit.

Anyway, morning brought an end to the fitful sleep and more pain for my already backpack-sore hips. For some reason, Emily and I have decided along the way that bedrolls are excesses in camping trips, given their awkward bulk and limited assistance. My hipbones are the only part of me that ever disagrees with this assessment, but they were certainly singing about it Monday morning. We had breakfast, relaxed by the lake (wherein Em managed to get severely sunburned reading amongst shining white rocks), did some rockhopping, and packed out. The downhill version of the 6.2 miles was a cool breeze, though the last 1.5 miles were painful (I think our self-assessment of 4 miles each way was pretty much precise, though hopefully we’re stretching out our endurance by processes like this). We then booked it by car to the Wawona Hotel, wherein our Yosemite experience shifted gears from hardcore wildnerness exploring to refined old-school hotel visiting.

Both aspects of the trip were fantastic and complemented each other nicely. The Wawona Hotel was not our first choice from the largely misleading Yosemite website, but proved to be by far the best option (it was the only place with vacancy when we booked, which made us sad right up until we actually visited the various lodging facilities). The oldest standing hotel in the park, the Wawona has retained most of its 1870’s appeal and appearance, and was replete with baseball-park-style bunting that bothered me less than most displays of American patriotism, probably because it just seemed nostalgic rather than jingoistic in this particular manifestation. We lucked into some really prime real estate within the hotel, a second-floor corner room of the main building, with claw-foot bathtub in-room and a sprawling green veranda(h) overlooking the lawn, swimming tank, and other buildings.

We celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary with a leisurely four-course meal in the downstairs restaurant, sitting outside on the hotel’s front porch as we worked our way through some pretty decent vegetarian food for a place aspiring to finer dining. The highlight was a lentil-and-spinach soup, but every item was surprisingly edible and the overall experience was exquisite.

The next morning (we’re up to yesterday morning), we toured a bit more Yosemite, including the expansive historical village, then flew down the mountain all the way to LA, with Emily picking up a good stretch of driving while continually telling me how much of her promised 8% of the total trip she was already fulfilling. Years of “splitting” driving on roadtrips with me have convinced her that “under-promise, over-deliver” is the method of choice, made all the more amusing to me in light of our wedding “sermon” that her brother delivered six years ago, highlighted by his apt and eloquent comparison of marriage to a long car ride.

Our slate is rapidly filling in LA, with most every trip to LA being somewhat similar but all quite rejuvenating and fun. I was going to note something in here as well about how I have really struggled to write about this trip while on it so far, but I’ve pretty well shot that theory to pieces with this post. Indeed, I have a green comp book with me that remains unsullied by written word as yet, despite my intent to write most every day. Perhaps I just haven’t had enough time for reflection until this morning, with Russ asleep and Emily dozing and reading. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last eight years, it’s that I need time for reflection to write most anything. I’m hoping, however, that when Internet is less plentiful, I still have time to chronicle this journey. I guess my journals like this always get off to a slow start – I’m thinking of Russia ‘95 and India ‘08 in particular. Someday I will transcribe all those to the web as well.

For now, people are stirring and there are games and activities to pursue. I am elated to consider that we still have a month left on this trip, that it really has just begun. And that all of this is just prologue to the greatest adventure of all, my upcoming foray into the written word. No wonder I put so much stock in how well I can use same to track my progress toward that shining year on the hill to come.

Pray with me that I make it there against these weirdly resurgent fears that actually signal hope and promise of a future that matters.

We have departed from Berkeley for our 6-week, 16-state tour of eastward travel. The last week has been filled with incredibly busy days and nights of packing, shipping, cleaning, and saying goodbye. Sometimes there just isn’t enough time (or a hooked-up computer) to chronicle the happenings.

Currently in Tracy, CA and on the way to Fresno sometime this afternoon. More updates, likely on a quite sporadic schedule, when time permits.

There is a quiet communion about the world as it is meant to be. I write this while sitting in a pasture, llamas in the distance, gentle winds overwhelming the wheaty grasses of the Central Valley of California. Not connected to anything, even the Internet (I will upload this later), my back against a metal fence that is just the right balance of sturdy and sufficiently comfortable. There are bird sounds and trees reacting to winds, the sun bearing down under mixed clouds that threaten an eventual sullying of this dried landscape. Bugs hover and dive amongst the grasses, perhaps subtly aware that they have just a few hours until rains will temper fulfillment of their tasks.

Today, they tell us that the oceans are so full of garbage that there are spare airplane seats in the flight-paths of missing jets that are not from those jets. That it’s perfectly reasonable to expect all kinds of discarded material to show up in the sea, since we’ve been leaving it there as long as we can remember. Our species has so blatantly disregarded the gifts we have been given that we don’t consider them gifts anymore – the only gifts we can accept are those we give ourselves. We have lost a sense of perspective, of balance, of harmony. We don’t sit in pastures anymore, trying to describe what we’re missing. We think everything we’re missing is on the Internet.

And yes, I’m aware of how both (1) unoriginal my comments are and (2) how ironic it is that they are appearing on the Internet. The Internet offers us wonderful things as well, like the ability to connect with others from a field with just the minimum of time-delay.

Nonetheless, I have to think that we lost our way, collectively, when science split from religion. Or vice versa. Surely there were crimes committed on both sides, as there always are in human disputes. Conflict is nothing if not mutually assured on my home planet. But when the scientists stopped being interested in God and the religious stopped being interested in solving mysteries, then surely something was irrevocably torn asunder. How anyone can accept the answers offered by one group in total ignorance of the other eludes me daily.

(As though to taunt me, a wireless network has just been found by this laptop. Or maybe a metaphor about ability to make connections from remoteness or the seeming lack of connection? You decide.)

In any event, we can all look to extreme examples and see the absurdity. Science reducing all human existence to a collapse of uncontrolled synapses, eliminating free will and indicating that all human existence and creation is a lie, while pleading endless randomness in the face of the most wondrously perfect system ever built or discovered. Religion claiming that God will decide all and answer all, that those who die are meant to, while those who are afflicted should not fight but simply resign themselves to a fate larger than themself. A similar abdication of free will, a similar destruction of meaning, a similar breakdown in the purpose that ought drive human existence, both on a macro scale and the individual level. How are these examples not sufficient to get everyone to attempt to strike a middle-ground? Even atheist scientist friends are uncomfortable with the elimination of free will altogether, and certainly don’t live their lives like they believe it’s true. Even religious zealots seem to assert themselves as though they have the ability to change something around them. So why all the trouble seeing across the divide?

Surely the closest society to holding these interests in balance was the first society to settle on my home continent. Or series of societies. There was wide-scale recognition of higher powers behind every aspect of the universe they saw, as well as interest in developing and advancing to higher levels of understanding of that universe. The respect that was afforded each of these concepts led to the development of a minimally invasive culture, with much time for contemplation and communion.

But it was not a culture designed to particularly assert control or dominion, and it is a telling lesson about my species that this is one of the few cultures upon which an all-but-complete genocide has been visited in recorded history. The very idea of trying to learn more from the land than one was taught was so reprehensible that its adherants were forced to either change or die.

My wife, Emily, is not particularly spiritual, not much of a believer. About half of our conflicts for the more recent half of our marriage so far have evolved from some sort of discussion about this topic. I struggle with reconciling my love of Emily and my respect for her intellect with the fact that she not only doesn’t overtly believe in God, but finds the question to not be fundamental to existence on the planet. It should be noted that most of my friends feel this way as well, and while this also concerns me, one’s identity is far more wrapped up in a spouse than a friend. It feels like more of a reflection of oneself when one’s own life partner rejects something so fundamental to one’s own perspective.

And yet, Emily says that she feels something whenever she is isolated out in nature. That connecting with animals, with the basic forces of the natural world (wind, water, flora), simply being “out there” is enough to get her thinking about the bigger picture and often feeling some conviction that there is something greater afoot. She often remarks, either in nature or when confronted by amazing constructions of human hand that she finds less impressive, that she has never seen something made by humanity that can measure up to the lowliest product of nature. While this sometimes surprises me, grandson of an engineer who learned about bridge-building and to differentiate styles of columns before most anything, I think she has a telling route map to those who are otherwise disinclined to believe. What makes us (collectively, as a species) think we’re so great? Why do we even bother scarring the Earth’s surface with our contributions when nearly everything impressive is already there?

It’s a competition, in part, or even an offering as an aprentice. That we have something to contribute which can hope to allude to the grandeur and beauty of what we already found when we first opened our eyes. Look ma, no nature. I did it all by myself. Like a crude reflection of the world around us for taping on the refrigerator with a quietly pitying love. And just as high-quality, just as worthwhile in the face of the real thing, as a four-year-old’s lazy finger-painting.

Which is not to say that there’s nothing worthwhile in the Pyramids, the Internet, language, or art. But compared to the systems and understanding implicit in your average field, your average patch of non-garbage-infested ocean, your average rainforest? I think the metaphor flies.

Part of what I’ve never understood about the pitched battle between science and religion is the respect that each have for order. Science even calls the discoveries it makes about the universe’s order of operations “laws”, the same word religion uses to indicate its principles and guidelines for living. Science interprets the world around it with a presumption towards order, towards compacting what it finds into a series of laws that are never abridged, or at least never contravened except where another identifiable law overrides. And indeed this bears out – we hardly see gravity working some of the time in Iowa and then failing to at random times. But somehow, science is disinterested in a source of all this order and law and perfectly behaved matter, insisting that all order came from one moment of complete chaos. This theory itself fails to stand up to science’s own presumptions and policies of rigorous study – were it about anything other than something in impenetrable pre-history, it would be rejected on face. But because there’s no other explanation available without resorting to the three-letter no-no, it is offered as fact. How can science not feel that every additional law that holds up, every extra consistency and element of order that is found, how are these not evidence for God?

The only explanation is that religion has mangled God into seeming arbitrary, somehow the opposite of order. Because in its rejection of scientific practice, many religions have tried to ascribe unending magic and mystery to the figure of God. Mysterious ways, inexplicable methods, something that cannot and should not be known. This idea is just as dangerous and worthless as atheism. Perhaps moreso, for it rends people’s conception of the most important aspect of the universe from the reality of that aspect, thus nullifying it for the interpreter far more thoroughly than mere denial would. This resorting to inexplicability is just as senseless as resorting to the Big Bang – for wont of explanations, those who expect themselves to seamlessly explain everything appeal to something wholly inconsistent with the rest of their theory. And then wave the crutch of paradox or the rest of their intellect about to try to fend off naysayers.

The truth, of course, is that science can prove God with all of its order, and thus God is knowable. God is not mysterious and inaccessible and hopelessly oblique – God is in the systems that work every day to maintain life in its countless manifestations. God is the laws and rules and policies and structures that keep it all just so in ways that humanity fails laughably to imitate. How is it that humans have never made a computer that can’t break down, and yet life on the planet persists from well before humanity to (likely) long after it?

But perhaps this would rend the people who pursue science and religion from what they’re really after – power. If they were not maintaining some sort of supremacy in their ability to properly interpret God or the laws of the universe (truly the same thing), what use would there be in the respect they are accorded in our hierarchies? And if they did not do battle, how could they build their power by tearing each other’s down, by fighting for followers, by bringing the urgency of a following and extreme loyalty out because of the urgency of a false conflict? You think nation-states are the only ones that can raise a false-flag to ask unthinkable sacrifices of their minions? No, only by mystifying and cloaking the fundamental and simple realities of their alleged domains can scienctists and religious leaders exert their authority over those they attempt to mislead.

Perhaps not always with such a nefarious intent, I’ll grant. But certainly with that level of nefarious effect.

So what is to be done? How do we get to a place where people recognize the order in the universe as the signifier of something greater than themselves rather than the converse? How do we make peace between scientist and religious leader before it is too late to fish the garbage from the ocean, or worse, before it is after anyone cares about such things? Like all of the important realizations, it cannot be forced or likely even persuaded. It must be found within each person, of their own volition.

In the meantime, I spend time in the pasture, contemplating a day I have long dubbed Mortality Day, a reflection of a larger scientific/religious order I find in the planet’s course of movement through the same space every 365 days. A day laden with symbols (6), the memory of an unbelievably significant mass-murder (D-Day), the steady approach of a day when the planet is held in balanced opposition to itself. It is vital to neither dwell in the anticipation of death nor to ignore its daily possibility, but for me, setting aside a holiday of sorts to recognize the mortality of myself and others, has worked well. Eighteen years to the day after the death of my mother’s father, I continue this personal tradition, sometimes to the fear of those around me. But fear not for me in the context of death, for I have conviction that it would be merely a step, and probably ultimately a relieving one. I have not felt less that way than now for some time (about the relief), and yet I still can recognize that no matter how much I personally desire to cling to this planet and help it out, there are wonders beyond my imagining ahead, other planets and other learning to be had.

And whenever this faith wavers in the slightest, as it sometimes trembles like the trees in the wind, bending with the difficulty of a given circumstance or a cold black fear, I come back out to nature. And the wind itself reassures me, reminds me of what I know even in the worst challenging moments. How can you look upon the world, upon an “ecosystem” or a “valley” (whichever you prefer to call the same thing) and not be awed by the presence of God? How can you understand the depths of human understanding and think this is all for the purpose of one isolated planet, 60 or 80 years only?

Go out into the fields. Walk. And then come tell me it’s all random, happened for no reason, that there’s no purpose to anything we do or try or contemplate. Tell me all these rules are either figments or coincidence. And tell me that, somehow, the pursuit of a means of exchange or sheer hubris is worth destroying it all.

A plane tears through the sky, close enough to hear but not to see. Through the clouds that are darkening the sky and escalating the threat of rain. Rain that will not be enough to wash it all away.

We could live beside the ocean
leave them far behind
swim out past the breakers
watch the world die.
-Everclear, “Santa Monica”

Russ and I went down (up? over? out? – I have no sense of direction in LA) to Santa Monica yesterday and wandered around this open-air mall area near the ocean. We had a good time and caught some sun, but I was also sort of overwhelmed with the sense of impervious obliviousness of the people of Southern California. I had a hard time putting a precise finger on what was befuddling me, but I had a strong sense that a meteorite could have landed nearby and no one would particularly pay attention. A combination of intense absorption in one’s own world with general apathy to everything.

This then sparked a debate about LA apathy vs. NY apathy and Russ defending NY as an insider, which contrasts with my general perception of NY as an outsider. Place puts a real filter on the way one perceives what’s going on, though. This is not a new concept, but it can be startling to see (really feel) it in action. If nothing else, the Bay Area feels very raw and exposed. It’s as though there’s a bubble or force-field around LA that shields it from everything, while the Bay Area just feels completely open to whatever’s going on, if not actually having a magnifying glass bear down on it for extra fun.

But watching the stock market revel this morning, I get the sense that my bubbly feeling in Santa Monica was enhanced by a larger denial rippling all over the place. The ostensible reason being proffered for a return to 8,000 on the Dow is the impending demolition of mark-to-market accounting, which you can find under “accountability” in your financial dictionary. Without this rule, the same financial geniuses who created our current economy would be freed to attribute whatever value they wanted to whatever assets they have. Keep in mind that this entire mess is largely attributed to a massive bubble, followed by a period of uncertainty sparked by not knowing how much someone’s holdings are actually worth. Now you’re trying to cement a reality where we bubble up in positive reaction, followed by a world where everything is valued by unconfirmed self-perception? Really?

If you think people lack confidence now, wait till absolutely everything on the balance sheet is measured by optimistic, self-interested accountants! Sure, this house could go for a million if everything transforms tomorrow. I mean, there’s no evidence that this Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card will ever be worth six figures, but if I value it at that price, why not give me credit for same? Don’t you want to invest in my outfit that has access to millions, nay billions, because of a stockpile of baseball cards, used books, and cat litter?

It makes sense as a reaction to a world where currency governs most everyone’s life and currency is manufactured out of whole cloth (literally) by the government at their random and manipulative whim. It is the perfect answer to a country spinning out of control in its own realization that it has no idea what anything is worth, what anything even means anymore. It’s a little like the whole place just became LA. Put on your sunglasses, get gussied up, and let’s go pretend everything’s fine. Bring the credit card and the substances, for tomorrow we die.

This may be a weird time to mention that I won $781 in an online poker tournament the night before last, more than paying for the trip I’m on. Hooray gambling.

Tomorrow morning, unemployment figures will be announced for the US in March. They will be worse than anyone could imagine, probably fueling an even greater rally in the stock market (it’s how they roll). It’s a nice thought that we can value our household appliances and trinkets at millions of dollars to make up for the fact that no one will pay us for anything else anymore. But eventually, an economy based on tying people in the bondage of day jobs and profiting from their enslavement will fail when no one is employed anymore. I promise.

If you need me, I’ll be at the beach or in the casino. Seriously.

I could never imagine living in Southern California, but this region of the world has pretty much always served the same role for me. It’s basically the exact role in my life that it pitches to everyone everywhere at all times with carefully spent marketing dollars. Southern California is a place to come and relax and leave your cares behind.

It’s not something that SoCal would be for me if I didn’t have a continual stream of friends in La Jolla or Pasadena or Beverly Hills or other vacationland sounding destinations with their sun and smog and beaches. And what I end up doing in SoCal is usually a lot longer on video games and all-night conversation than anything beachy. And yet, when I think of SoCal, it’s exactly like watching some minds-eye palm-tree laden commercial, knowing that days or weeks spent in this area will recharge me and get me through whatever obligatory nonsense I feel I need to complete (college, work, etc.) or emotional wreckage I’m in the wake of (see, for instance, May 2000). If only I’d had friends in SoCal in the summer of ‘97. Or ‘90 for that matter.

It makes me wonder if, long after all my friends have left LA, I’ll still feel this emotional attachment to the area as the place to go to rest up and regroup. Not that there’s anything particularly daunting facing me now, beyond another April/May that will hopefully be my last two months of day jobbing for at least two years. Maybe I’ll always have friends in this area. But I attach such emotional significance to place that this association will probably transcend the scale of whoever ends up living here. Would I still come here in the aftermath of something really trying even if there was no one to see? I guess it’s unlikely, since in the end, truly, people are home to me and place is just association.

For the purposes of chronicling, highlights from this particular incarnation so far have included Denmark beating FIFA on the second hardest level after just a day and a half, actually filming crazy celebrations of same for possible YouTube clip-show purposes (stay tuned), epic chess matches of an hour of calculated brilliance usually coming down to some tremendous blunder, buying Russ a coffee maker because it’s cheaper than going to Starbucks for a week, the inevitable revisiting of the year where every move we made held the universe in the balance (quadfecta, etc.), and watching our most recent YouTube creations conquer the Internet.

We’re gonna ride it till we just can’t ride it no more.