Not Even That, Anymore

I've started numerous entries with some variation of the line, "I'm almost thirty years old now." Apparently I couldn't believe it, although evidence was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: the invitation to my ten year high school reunion, the fifteen pounds of unnecessary flesh that's been subtly accruing around my midsection, and an increasing bafflement over "young people" and whatever the fuck it is they think they're doing.

To quote a role model of mine, however, "It's not the years, Honey, it's the mileage." It seems all my life I've been looking forward to being an old man. As children we cannot wait to grow up, and first learn the perils of getting what one wishes for when we do. Most people look back in longing, and I am no stranger to nostalgia. Surprisingly, though, my subconcious appears to have taken the more logical route and looked forward for respite from the present, wishing instead for grey hair and suits rather than care-free summers and school days. I'd rather be the Tom Waits version of myself than the bucktoothed, painfully worrisome version I was during my adolescence.

Sadly, obviously, I've romanticized some parts and completely overlooked others. For instance, the perceived self-confidence and hard-won collection of life's lessons that older men seem to posses is something I've been looking forward to. The inherent, negative physical changes are something I, along with all the previous-young, believed would not apply to me. People have always prophesied the end of my enviable metabolism, and for years I have been laughing them off. Dietary doomsday is finally mushroom-clouding on my horizon however, just when I'd reached the point of actively reworking my style into one that doesn't depend on Internet t-shirts and the same two pairs of jeans.

Vegetarianism may have assisted in prolonging my unfettered eating habits if I'd stayed physically active, but innumerable circumstances conspire against our acheiving any constructive activity; it's a wonder we can even get dressed in the morning. My own inherent laziness notwithstanding, a two year old son and a climate of frequent, smothering humidty are chief among rationalizations deployed to half-heartedly defend against my own internal castigation.

I'm also beginning to suspect that the confidence and bemused detachment I attributed to maturity is nothing more than being too worn down to effectively care. I simply do not have the energy required to be upset by the majority of things that once bothered me, while trivialities now plunge me into a black mood. The aperture of my ire seems to be collapsing, and only allows successively smaller and smaller objects to come into focus. I cannot tell if this is growth, or surrender. Ironically it's a kind of sick, angry self-confidence that follows a muted ability to care, as the imagined judgements by those around me are finally becoming internalized through repetition; I no longer wonder if the terrible whispers of self-doubt are true or not. I have inundated myself with them too long not to believe them.

Through the years I've looked ahead with a smile of pleasant expectation, but as I get older I see people of all ages are unsure, unhappy, and making the same mistakes they did when they were young. Optimists will try to use this to their advantage, saying I am not alone, no one is perfect. I'm only twenty-eight, but these last two years have worn my optimism down to the nub, and taught me that solidarity among the suffering is as common as snowballs in Hell. Everyone is too occupied with their own escape to reach back and pull you out of the dungeon as well. History has made clear what I can expect: Living alone, while my child makes his own life in a different part of the country, with bi-monthly phone calls and visits even less frequently.

What can I do, if anything? One of the hardest things about writing honestly (especially about oneself) is remembering that it doesn't have to be lasting to be true. This is the truth right now; tomorrow it may be different, but that shouldn't excuse me from telling it, although too often I convince myself it does-both on and off the page. I'm marking the side of a sailing ship to show where I dropped something overboard, but it's still important to me that I do it. See, we're already moving past the point where it fell in.

So, what to do? Read, write, work, eat less, move more, listen to music, play with my kid, cuddle, clean, throw out all my clothes, cultivate my style, be kind, call my folks, get up early, sleep in late, surprise my girl, surprise myself, breathe, live, enjoy it.

-David

I Been Reading Some Books

Here's a list and some parts I like of them.

I just finished "Billy Dead" by Lisa Reardon. I immediately liked the main character, Ray. The entire book is told from his perspective and begins after his brother, the town asshole to say the least, has been murdered.

Here's an excerpt I like:

"Jean's handling the Malibu okay for the liquor she's had. We're quiet, hanging limp somewhere real nice, halfway between awake and passed out. The red dot of Jean's cigarette sits above the steering wheel. I watch it swoop through the dark toward her mouth. It flares for a second, then swoops back again. That's when the deer pops up from the pavement smack in front of the car. A doe, red eyes staring straight at me, froze solid.

"'Oh,' says the doe in a brown velvet voice. 'Oh, no.' Like her heart's broke at the thought of dying already. Her disappointment is soft, giving up, resigned to the death about to hit her. My foot slams into the floorboard, kicking for the brake."

Luckily the deer escapes, untouched. The subject matter of the book is a little hard to take, I'll admit. There's domestic violence and worse, much worse. But it's one of those works that isn't about the horrible things that are happening, but the way they're presented and the things that happen after which make it so good. The main character is so well done I miss him already, and I about cried once or twice.

Also in rotation for the last couple of months is "The Bloody Chamber", a collection of loosely related short stories by the amazing Angela Carter. I'll never be done saying how much I love this woman's writing. She's the first author I've read where I regularly stop and shake my head at how well she can put a sentence together. Her skill is the kind that simultaneously inspires and depresses because it is just that good.

The following is from the story, "The Lady of the House of Love", which is like a mix of Nosferatu and Snow White:

"She rises when the sun sets and goes immediately to her table where she plays her game of patience until she grows hungry, until she becomes ravenous. She is so beautiful she is unnatural; her beauty is an abnormality, a deformity, for none of her features exhibit any of those touching imperfections that reconcile us to the imperfection of the human condition. Her beauty is a symptom of her disorder, of her soullessness."

If you've ever seen In the Company of Wolves you know the type of stories to expect from Angela Carter, as that movie is based off a story in this book. I also have a collection called "Burning Your Boats" which is definitely worth picking up.

Two eBooks I've been impressed all to hell with are "We, the Drowned" and "Touch".

"We, the Drowned" is "an epic tale about a small village by the sea" that spans a generation or two, at least, beginning in 1848 in Denmark. It reminds me of a collection of oral histories centering around Albert Madsen, beginning with tall tales of his father, following through with stories of his childhood and adventures as a young man sailing the world in search of his father, through the First World War, and beyond. I'm about halfway through on page 285. I love the stories in this book; I get seasick and I feel like I have hardcore sailing experience, and I love a book that spans a character's entire life. It feels like I've grown up with Albert, and I'm sad that at the current point in the book he's an old man.

"Touch" has turned out to be great, albeit accidental, companion book to "We, The Drowned". It has the same oral history feel to it, but this time the subject is a logging town in Canada, founded tamed by the narrator's grandfather. This book is full of powerful moments, realistic and otherwise; from the story of how hundreds of birds suddenly flew into the shack of a man about to starve to death after his dog seemingly calls to them by singing, to the sudden childhood loss of the narrator's father and sister after they fall into the iced-over river. I'm loving the realistic yet dreamlike quality of this book.

As these are both eBooks I've been reading for some time, getting excerpts is going to be too much of a pain. Just head to your local Barnes and Nobel or take my word for it and pick them up. If you have to pick one between the two, I'd go with "Touch".

Books, electronic or otherwise, are cheap and wonderful. Go out and get a couple. Give your passive entertainment a break for a while, exercise your brain, expand your horizons and your vocabulary. Then challenge someone at Scrabble or Words With Friends (I'm DavidCrake, btw) and show off all your work.

 - David