Waking up to a snowstorm, with a tournament ahead and yesterday’s great news behind, I find myself to be wildly content. It may seem like a strange state of being, to feel such a passionate sense of a relatively dispassionate feeling, but that’s how the end of my first week being 30 is seeming.

Since committing to a life of writing, I’ve had an overwhelming sense of coming around to what I was always supposed to be doing, to living the life I’d always envisioned. Living deliberately, purposefully, with meaning – all the things I’ve been talking about on this blog since its inception and perhaps my whole life since conception. And while I’m not sure I would’ve picked New Jersey out of a hat and I’m not convinced of Em’s happiness in this new life, I couldn’t see myself doing much better than I’ve been doing. It’s early yet and I’m already hiccuping a bit on the second book, but I’ve gotten enough confirmation that this is the right path to feel simply satisfied. At peace. In my place.

As I’ve aged, I’ve steadily felt more and more comfort with being in the world. The world still depresses the stuffing out of me and I rail against its problems, but I’ve felt more at home here with each passing year. Most of my youth felt like a perpetual struggle, that I was just flailing against an insurmountable tide that I didn’t understand. I had great parents and fantastic friends, but I was never good with where I was, what I was doing, how time was passing, how I was living my life. Maybe for the first few weeks at Broadway, now that I think about it, and probably parts of senior year at the Academy. But they were rare and fleeting glimpses, all the way up till pretty recently.

The glimpses have gotten longer and more sustainable, though. Even times on the debate circuit or at Seneca or Glide started to feel like the world was a place I could be, that I had figured out enough to carve out something worthwhile from the recalcitrant rock of an unfriendly planet. And each year has just brought a little more smoothness, a little more pliability. It gets easier.

I think this is the bottom line. I’m not saying it works for everyone or I haven’t been lucky or that I haven’t made hard choices to help myself on the way. But it gets easier. They told me that adults have more to worry about than children, that one can’t comprehend the stress and difficulty that awaits with age. It’s not true. It gets easier. Grow up, relax, breathe. Youth is the test we pass to show we’re cut out for living.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

About an hour ago, it was announced that American Dream On had bested 80% of its competition in the General Fiction category of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and has moved on to the second round.

Given that was based exclusively on the pitch I wrote, which I had the least confidence in of all elements (pitch, excerpt, manuscript), I’m wildly excited to be through to the next round. Not only does this mean that I have a chance of continuing on toward winning the contest and getting a contract with Penguin, but it means I’ve written a compelling pitch statement that can be used for other submission prospects.

Woooooo!

It’s not exactly people bringing down the statue of Saddam Hussein, but this kind of image is being levied to the American people as a sign of the grand liberation they’re bringing to a backwards and otherwise hopeless land in “the good war.”

But let’s let this picture speak for itself a little, shall we?

First off, we have a major offensive into a town/city that’s been described as ranging from a population of anywhere from 50,000 to 125,000 people. Presumably this is the town square, a patch of green field that may be what fallow poppies look like. If you’re going to have a ceremony for a city this size, it’s safe to say you’d pick a place reflective of the grandness of the city itself. This is a place that makes abandoned pueblos in New Mexico look like thriving modern metropolises.

Where are they hiding all those people?

If you look up Marja, you’ll find a hastily assembled Wikipedia article with no images and a discussion of the 2010 offensive, a vague 1950’s reference, and the latitude/longitude coordinates of 31°31′N 64°07′E. Plug those coordinates into Google Maps and you get an image of a dirt triangle in the middle of green fields like the one in the image above, revealing enough housing for at least 5,000 people scattered over an area the size of a small county. Where did all those people go?

Scroll around a bit and you’ll find an actual city, Laskar Gah, in the northeast of the region. But this is not the city of the offensive, not the site of the resistance, not the area in dispute. South of that is an actual fortress, the ancient stronghold of Qala Bist with its famous arch and corresponding inspirations.

This is not being billed as the war for Laskar Gah, though. It’s a war for poppy fields, like those depicted in our ceremonial flag-raising above. Look at all the guards on each side of the tiny ceremony. Surely they have to guard a formal ceremony in a land known for suicide bombings, right? This makes sense. But, uh, why are they facing toward the crowd rather than away from it? How does that make sense? They’re not guarding against a marauding individual who comes careening in to spoil the party, but rather preparing to gun down anyone in the dense packed crowd who makes a false move.

Which, frankly, doesn’t make any sense either. After all, with the crowd this closely packed, you couldn’t even see into the middle of the crowd. And that’s where a clever suicide bomber would be. With this density and proximity, they’d probably be able to wipe out the whole thing with one explosive. The fact that this didn’t happen indicates there was probably quite a perimeter and possible strip-search at the gates of this gathering. Which makes sense, but then why the inward-pointing guards?

The message of this picture seems clear to me. There just aren’t that many people in Marja, at least not that many who want to be associated with the ancient flag. The flag is fringed with gold, tinged with the blood of civilians who died for an uncertain future, liberated from their lives made miserable by the same invaders who ended it all. Is it any wonder you can’t get more people to come to this party?

There may not be stars and stripes on this flag, but there are wreaths of wheat. The flag waves over the amber waves of grain in the distance, planted to cover up the opium, cover up the still warm bodies of the dead. What if they threw a flag-raising and nobody came?

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

I didn’t think I’d make it to thirty. For a long time, I felt fairly confident about that. Over the weekend, I proved myself wrong. And I’m pretty happy about that.

Since the Princeton tournament ran till 1:30 in the morning on my birthday proper, we ended up putting up some of my Rutgers team that had planned on going back to New Brunswick when the trains were still running. Em tipped them off that the day was significant, so after the tournament they went out and got cupcakes, a book I’d been meaning to read, and two hats, including my first-ever beret and a wool bear hat which is truly amazing and fits neatly in my collection of somewhat ridiculous headgear.

Em and I went out to dinner at the infamous Tortuga’s that night, I got a migraine, and was actually asleep at 2:56 AM Eastern on the 21st, the moment (11:56 PM Pacific on the 20th) that I turned 30. Would not have predicted that.

The next day, Em had said there would be a small gathering of people, but totally misrepresented the size and schedule, creating a pretty hefty surprise party that started at Chipotle! It went on to bowling, wherein I notched a 198 high game after bowling a so-so 443 series. We had time for so many games because the entire party save four people (Fish, Beth, Em, and I) ditched after just one game of bowling. It was still great that so many people came out though.

Here are some obligatory pictorial depictions of the event:

30’s a big number:

Cake!

How did I get to be so old?

Resisting the temptation to faceplant…

A lot of people came from Philadelphia and Jersey:

The opening frame. Note the lack of pins in the lane!

55% of our lives and counting:

I’ll have something about the deeper reflections of what it’s like to actually be thirty sometime later. It feels remarkably different, remarkably weird. As I’ve stated frequently, I’m really glad I finished American Dream On to ward off feelings of failure and insignificance that are still wafting in a bit. Today, I also maintained a February/March tradition by creating a mix CD, my first since last March. Entitled “Triple Threat”, it mixes themes of three decades, the state of the world, and creativity. Like being thirty itself, I’m not entirely sure what I think of it yet.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Yesterday was one of the best days in a good long while. It snowed all day, with total fall probably somewhere over a foot, tacked onto the 4-6 unmelted inches from the storm over the weekend. I came in and out of the house as often as I dared under a strict rubric of refusing to get sick for a third time this winter. I’ve finally figured out how to stay suited up sufficiently and when I have to come in. I think. I’m not feeling 100%, but I’m certainly not sick either.

Anyway, for those who prefer things visually, here are ten more takes on the day that was…

When Em got up and I told her class was cancelled, we decided to make an impromptu breakfast that wasn’t cereal:

Back to work on the fort:

Roof!:

Emily made a snow-person. For reasons that remain opaque, she dubbed her “Fraulein Francesca”:

The snow was really coming down:

Expansion:

Almost a containing cave:

This was actually us both in the snow fort:

Substantial wall additions:

The beginnings of a tower, with a window on the side:

Epilogue: When I went out this morning, the new window-wall side had collapsed, mostly because of the weakness of the window. I worked on rebuilding it for about an hour. When I just looked out the window about five minutes ago, I saw that the entire roof has caved in, leaving just some walls. So it goes.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

We are living right now under a swirling Nor’easter that reminds me why Emily was able to convince me to move back to the East Coast. My love for snow simply can’t be underestimated. Really can’t. I am just walking around in a state of euphoric bliss as the precipitation accumulates. It even figured heavily in the short story I wrote last night, the second in a week.

Here’s ten quick pictures to get you started on the storm of last weekend and the much bigger storm underway now…

On Saturday, it snowed!:

I finally made good use of our fancy new scraper thing:

We made a plan to meet some friends in the afternoon and play in the snow. I immediately set to work on a snow fort that wound up looking a little mazey:

Emily made a snow angel, her first ever:

Obligatory artistic shot:

When we got home and a day or so had passed, I missed my snow fort. So I started another one in our yard, with a much smaller footprint, but aspirations for greater height:

This morning, as dawn broke, it was deja vu all over again:

This tree is right in front of our house:

I had worked on the fort last night as it started snowing again… there’s some real potential brewing here:

The Prius was ready this time. If by “ready” we mean “prepared to look silly”:

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Read Duck and Cover at the Blue Pyramid.

Rarely do I feel as inspired in my life as when I’m just starting out on a car trip (of almost any length), looking forward to where I’m going, with music blasting. Life is just good under those conditions, but there’s more to it than that. Like taking a shower or playing certain kinds of puzzle games (e.g. Tetris), the process of embarking under these circumstances precipitates an extra uncanny layer of inspiration. My mind works in a slightly different way, one that’s quite simply much better than everyday functionality.

I have known this for most of my driving life, especially since I got a car (post the ‘51 Buick era) that could play music. I remember driving out in the Kia the first few times, blasting Counting Crows, realizing that not only could I conquer the world but I had the thoughts in mind right then that would do it. I don’t recall exactly how many of the novel ideas I’ve developed were composed at the outset of music-blasting trips, but I can tell you exactly how many short stories I wrote tonight were.

One. And it might just be the best story I’ve ever written, a 3,200 word gem called “Haywire” that I could not feel more euphoric about. I came up with the idea on the outset of my journey to New Brunswick tonight for debate, letting the concept play in my mind for about two and a half songs before I let myself believe I was really on to something. Then it was time to grab the flowpad at stoplights and jot down as much as I could, just in case the idea simulated some inspirations I’ve developed in dreams and fled as soon as I had a grasp on the real thrust of its direction. But I needn’t have worried and I needn’t have written. Until I got home, of course.

Which I did, promptly, spending the 2.5 hours since arriving crafting the thing. And then I started celebrating, as much as I could pump my fists in the air and jump up and down without waking Emily. No, seriously. I really did this. I feel that euphoric right now.

It’s not just about the quality of this story, which may be inflated in my perception – I will have to read it tomorrow to really know for sure. It’s about being able to come up with a story I feel this confident about, start to finish, in six hours, three of which I spent at debate. That the stories are supplying the fiction to breathe life into my months designated for writing non-fiction, just as I hoped they would. There’s a part of me, sure, that looks at all this euphoria with an eye to the past and considers that this might be the last short story I write for months. That this might all be a lot of sound and no fury. That this is an exception, an anomaly.

But God, I hope not.

I once joked with Emily, noting the phenomenon of how this inspiration struck, that I should just go for short drives with music every time I wanted to get jump-started on writing something. But I surmised, shortly thereafter, that this somehow wouldn’t work. That it might be cheating. That I couldn’t trick my brain into getting in the state where the world slows down and opens itself up to a new idea.

But at this point, I’m ready to try. Bring on the showers and the Tetris and the driving with music. Bring on the life that I am living. Everything I’ve done has gotten me to this point and it’s all been worth it. Thank you, thank you God for letting me get to this point right here right now.

Gee, I really hope this story is up to all this swagger.