Stopping by Costco on a snowy evening

Whose mall this is I think I know.
Their money is in the market though;
They will not see me stopping here
To watch the parking lot fill up with snow.
My co-workers must think it queer
To stop outside core hours here
Between the mall and the interstate
The darkest evening of the year.
They give their car keys a shake
To remind me, in case there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of H-VAC wind and traffic's shake.
The stores are full of products stacked in heaps,
But I have deadlines to meet,
And files to proof before release,
And files to proof before release.


- With abject apologies to Robert Frost

I laugh at you, ha ha

The gray '97 Ford Ranger turns onto the northbound residential street, and from half a block away a brand new red Chevy Tahoe SUV comes up behind. Despite the snow, the big bad truck bears down menacingly, tailgating the pickup to make a statement. They both have to stop at the next intersection, and the buzz-cut in the heavy Chevy glowers beneath his baseball cap at the gray ponytail in the Ranger.

It's Tuesday in Methodistville, so the garbage trucks are out, and there's one stopped across from a parked car halfway down the next block, leaving just enough space for the gray Ford to pass through with inches to spare on each side, leaving big red Chevy Tahoe-man pulled off to the curb waiting for the street to clear sufficiently for his attitude to continue up the narrow street.

2³×7

What would Piaget do? What would Ericson say? What would Jung make of it?

Developmentally, you hear a lot about seven-year phases of growth. You have an identity by age 7, you're into adolescence by 14, adulthood at 21, etc.

I've heard athletes and coaches say that it takes seven years of training to become a (fill in blank: runner, swimmer, cyclist). If you extrapolate that principle, it takes seven years of training to become a dancer, guitarist, painter, programmer, or - editor?.

I suspect it has something to do with the rate at which cells die off and replace themselves with new cells. As people age, they grow a new nervous sytem, organ systems, muscles and bones, and everyday practice trains it in a set of habits. Therefore the person that's been practicing activity A for seven years is, in a way, a new body, a runner/painter/editor's body.

As of four weeks ago, I have been working at Large Publishing Co. for - you guessed it - seven years, so, according to the neo-Piagetian logic abaove, I guess I'm an editor now. I am also passing a marker for a multiple of seven in age, so gee whiz, something is happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones.

I've had rumblings of impending change, but there's nothing new about that. Let's see, I've already used up my allotment of "midlife" crises, endured something akin to empty-nest syndrome, and undergone enough career changes for several lifetimes. I've been spared the worst of traumatizing losses. I've entertained other, imaginary, life-changing events but, so far, confined them to the realm of fiction and speculation.

I've been lucky. More luck than sense, my friend Dr. Smith used to say. Not always smart. I've dodged a few bullets and made a few decisions that didn't work out so well. That would be another story. For the present, I'd have to say that things are going well, but not so well I could afford to relax or lose my focus.

In fact, I expect another major challenge just around the bend. I'm not going to tempt fate by naming it right now, and I'm not even sure what form it will take, but there are enough potential problems - personal, professional, financial - staring me in the face that any one of them could become a crisis at any time. Just to add a little tension to the story.

But that's the thing with a milestone with no clearly legible label: you know you're turning a corner, but you don't know which one or what street it is. At this point, I wouldn't expect any radical changes, and most of the major choices have already been made, so radical changes are not really an option. Maybe that's the anticlimactic corner I'm turning.

new balance

The end of a project brings a mixed bag of reactions, and I don't even know yet what that mixture will be, but I can already feel it happening. To go into great detail here would be unwise, imprudent, unhealthy, and possibly self-destructive, but in general terms I think I can process it better if I write something.

The symptoms so far are not unlike any other loss. Relief, good riddance, a gaping vacuum in my day, looking around occasionally for the usual obsessive-compulsive need to throw myself into the fray. Like in high school at the end of basketball season, after being immersed in conditioning, practice, preparation, and games since October, so now what do I do?

I do other things, obviously, and it's nice to have a minute to tie up some other loose ends. Like moving Zelda out of her apartment in Cuyahogaville the other day, when her furniture was packed all snug in the truck, and we secured the bed frame on top of the mattress with ropes, finally tying up that last loose end to the corner of the truck bed. Kind of like that.

But different. I've had recurring dreams of last-minute lists of items to double-check and forgotten page-proofs that turn up after the fact, then I wake up relieved that they were dream page-proofs and dream lists, baut not completely believing that either. Getting dressed over the weekend I was actually looking forward to doing some things that need to be done - notes, correspondence, house repairs, car maintenance, family time - with the caveat that now I don't have The Project as an excuse for not doing the hundred other things that I didn't have time for before.

Then there's everyday practice. During the peak intensity of The Project, I managed to keep a relatively healthy routine going; not the balanced life I would recommend but not a downward spiral either. I was eating a reasonable diet, except for the Skyline Chilidogs on late nights at the office, and exercising at least a little bit every day. My workouts have been baseline maintenance, just enough to keep me going, get enough sleep, and function unimpaired, but I haven't done the kind of workouts that builds strength or endurance.

Alcohol consumption has gone up, and I've become a familiar face to the friendly Vietnamese clerk at the State Store. I will probably cut back a little and undoubtedly feel better now that there's less need to self-medicate.

It will be a different rhythm, and it will be a welcome change. I can tell that it won't happen all by itself, and I won't magically pick up totally wholesome habits; ironically, it will take work to find the new rhythm, and the things I've been neglecting haven't fallen into place by themselves, huh. I remember when I was a T.A. in graduate school, one of my students, an actor, did his final project by placing a running shoe and a taiji shoe on opposite sides of a yin-yang symbol to signify the change in his personal fitness routine. The brand of running shoe was, of course, New Balance.

sorry, glass still half empty

The song says, We shall overcome, we'll walk hand in hand, we shall all be free, we are not afraid, we are not alone, and we shall live in peace.

Maybe I've just had a long week, I'm a little tired, there's a lot going on, and I could use a break. Yeah, well, who couldn't. I won't recite the evidence of the individual and collective, local and national and global, political and social and spiritual not overcoming, not hand in hand, not free, and especially not in peace. It's that day every year at this time when I choke on the words and fail to articulate the reason. And the only way I can think of to appropriately celebrate it is to notice how much work there is to do.

Despite my psychic armor, Rev. Susan succeeded in penetrating my self-absorbed suburban existence yet another time, and it's worth it, of course, to be reminded of what is true about "us". The opening hymn was the Holly Near standard "(We Are) A Gentle Angry People" which demands answers to the follow-up questions "Why so angry?" and "Why be gentle?"

Let's be positive, let's be optimistic. Let's celebrate the official national holiday established by the president most responsible for dismantling the programs set up to address the poverty and racism leftover from slavery. Let's take a day off work and consign that struggle to the history books, because that was a problem in the fifties, and it was taken care of in the sixties, and it's time to move on.

The short answer is, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem (zing goes the cliche-meter). To benignly ignore racism/sexism/homophobia and not get angry is to tacitly support the malignant status quo.

Jerry

What is the meaning of Gerald Ford?

The television eulogies were polite, respectful, and full of references to 'honesty' and 'loyalty' and 'realism'.

The real-world water cooler dialog questioned whether backroom deals had been made to pardon an indicted criminal ex-president. Debate gaffes were recalled, in which the appointed incumbent misstated a belief that Eastern Europe was not dominated by the Soviet Union. He was not exactly in his element, and he was forgiven.

I recall President Ford gamely staying on message during the debate with Mr. Carter, gesturing palms-downward while repeating the phrase "Keep the lid on spending" with reliable Republican anal retentiveness.

My lasting impression of that debate was the amiable and folksy Carter driving his horse-drawn vehicle of virtue along a branching, twisting, turning cowpath into unknown territory, and the the grimly determined old jock Ford driving his Ford determinedly for'd down a known and charted course toward a known and nonexistent destination.

Of course the electorate quickly wearied of its adventure in the cart and its driver, knee-jerking back to a slicker version of the known road four years later with a pitchman who was quicker on his feet but lacked both the honesty and the realism of the Eagle Scout from Grand Rapids. As my college advisor said at the time, maybe he wasn't a great president, but he was more of a man than either of his successors.

This just in: not a vampire

I'm reading a book by the very funny novelist Christopher Moore about young, unsuspecting, and otherwise ordinary vampires in San Francisco. I stay up late reading until I nod off in the chair by the fire. I get up and straggle in to work and drink coffee in my new cube by the 8-foot by 8-foot window on the east side of the building, and joy of joys in the heart of central swingstate, I feel the sun coming in directly in my face. There are check-in tasks to accomplish, e-mails to read and answer, schedules and calendars to remind me of what I'm doing, and lists to prioritize. Then, halfway through my large mug of java, I stand by the floor-to-ceiling window and stretch my creaking, awakening limbs, enjoying the morning sun and thinking, okay, I might live.

I'm clearly not a vampire. Sunshine is my friend. My other friend Gaylord gave a sermon a few weeks ago outlining a kind of theology of sunlight. Briefly, and this in no way comes close to the scope of Gaylord's well-researched argument, it is possible to reconcile a scientific understanding of the physical universe with a theology of a loving and caring community, and one way to do it is to gratefully face the rising sun every morning. I'm with you, Gaylord.

I've mentioned this proposition to several people, and I always get the same (like duh) response, which is what happens whenever I make a major discovery that everybody else knew all along. Reprising a mid-1970s mimeographed chapbook of poems entitled "Belaboring the Obvious," yes, of course we all knew this, but somehow it does some good, as we head into the rainy midwestern winter, to restate this truism.

Gaylord is a recovering Lutheran from North Dakota, so I'm guessing he knows a thing or two about seasonal affective discombobulation. As a SAD fellow-sufferer, and a recovering Methodist from Minnesota, I'm leaving the shades open whenever possible, glare (blinding light in the face, or that look from co-workers trying to read their computer screens) or no glare.

Mr. Bones

Not that I'm superstitious, mind you. But a lot of people are out sick this week, most for just a day or two, some longer, and don't tell me it's "the cold and flu season." Flu schmu! It's the post-holiday immune-system letdown, and it's unacceptable.

Yesterday alone, there was one migraine, one chest cold, one stomach bug, one degenerating disc, an undisclosed ailment, and a sore knee (that would be me). And that's in two rows of cubicles alone, not to mention the silently suffering who stoically choose not discuss their ailments. No lords a leaping, no ladies dancing, and no swans a swimming that I know of.

What's up, people? Just because the intensity of holiday preparations and gatherings is over, and the accompanying adrenaline surge that goes with it, you don't have to let your somatic guard down and succumb to whatever random virus happens to enter your energy field. We have to play better defense!

I have a number of answers, team, none of them foolproof. First, I hung the glow-in-the-dark plastic skeleton, leftover from Halloween, in the window next to the back door. I thought it would be a tasteful, Martha Stewarty way to celebrate the darkest time of the year. Someone else in our house placed a stylish scarf around his/her neck and a pair of wool gloves on those dangling metacarpals to keep the bare bones warm. Pretty soon Mr. Bones was wearing an OSU tank top in anticipation of Troy and the Boyz kicking Gator-butt out in Arizona next week.

But also to ward off the evil eye, ear, nose, and throat bugs. You know they're out there, and if you give them even the slightest opportunity, they gotcha.

Another measure is to sweat. I don't care if it is 50 degrees outside on a January morning, put on your longjohns, drink your hot tea, and ward off the bad stuff from the inside out. Not to mention starting and ending the day with a little workout. Hey, walking up all those steps to the fourth floor would qualify. And speaking for myself, a short mid-afternoon break in the fitness room downstairs works wonders for body and mind after slouching in front of a screen all day.

Now that I've preached the good word, watch me be the next one to fall victim to the dreaded Lower Slobovian poultry flu.

First day of the year

He slept late, having stayed up late watching old black-and-white Commando Cody shorts on TV - bad guys in big suits, on orders from an evil genius on the moon, stealing cars and having outrageous fistfights and shootouts with good guys who fly through the air wearing a jet suit. He took a shower and got dressed, got a cup of coffee and went outside to test the weather. It was warm but windy, so he put on an old sweater and walked around the yard checking on the new shed roof, the unsplit woodpile, the dormant garden with catnip, onions, and kale still green and growing, maple and pear trees that badly need pruning.

Cooling off, he returned to his warm coffee on the patio, found a jump rope, and did a few minutes of jumping, first on both legs, then alternating two right and two left, four right and four left, eight right and eight left, and so on until he was tired. Then he walked around to rest and did it again. When that got old, he went inside and sat down with a new book of short stories from the library. He read a story about two strangers who meet at a party and can't figure out where they've met before, then keep running into each other with no plan or follow-up, and finally acknowledge their attraction years later when it's too late to do anything about it.

It's too warm for a fire, so he toasts some bread and makes more coffee. It's early, so he turns on the crock pot to heat up the soup he made yesterday. The soup was surprisingly good with cracked wheat, the whole pickled peppers really working in the kidney bean broth. Then he got busy outside, splitting a small stack of one-inch boards into a boxful of kindling that will last a few weeks, methodically slicing off thin strips from the roughly foot-long scraps of lumber with an ax. Most of the scraps are wet, but ironically the pieces on the bottom of the pile have been sheltered from the rain, so they get split last and end upon top of the kindling box, dry enough to start tomorrow's fire. He finds a place for the box behind a wicker chair near the stove in the den.

Back in the kitchen he pulls out the broiler drawer to try to locate the problem with the oven that hasn't been baking properly. The pilot area looks normal, lighting up electrically when the START switch on the keypad is pushed. The gas inlets behind the stove and in the cellar look normal, and gas is getting to the burners on top. He checks the owner's manual and goes through the trouble-shooting list twice, finding nothing, and concludes that it's either an electrical glitch in the oven igniter or a blocked gas line to the oven. In either case, a technician will have to check it out.

While he relaxes into another short story about a filmmaker who dreams of images of doors from a film he's become obsessed with, his wife asks what he wants for supper and reheats leftovers from New Year's Eve - sweet potatoes with pecans, roast pork with sauerkraut, red potatoes with mushrooms, French bread with olive oil and garlic - delicious with a glass of Pinot Noir. They talk about the party with neighborhood friends and the game that's not really a game, where each person answers a series of questions about the coming year: who to see, where to go, what to do, and one unrealistic wish.

He walks the dog, and it's still cool and wet outside. He watches a halfway decent sitcom, part of a football game, and part of a PBS jazz special with a pretty good young Canadian singer. He went outside and did a short workout in the yard; while he was practicing, his daughter came home. He went in, made some tea, and went to bed, wondering how much truth there is to the myth that the first day of the year shows what kind of year it's going to be.