Wishful thoughts on The Passably Pleasant Beyond.

[Scene: The bedroom. A little explosion goes off over my head, smelling vaguely of cologne and lighter fluid. From the remnants,  a figure appears.]

-D…. D…. Dad?

-Hey, Bubs.

-… What are you doing here?

-Just popping in to check up, say hey. Your mom got any deli meat in the fridge?

-….

-I’m hungry. It’s been a long trip.

-….

-What? Do I have five heads or something?

-….

-Oh, for Christ’s sake.

-I… I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting to see you.

-Heh, yeah, sorry. I can’t really eat your food, anyway.

-It’s okay.

-This whole visit is pretty spur of the moment, I guess. I get caught up in karaoke night and football, you see. It’s all good times  out there beyond your plane of existence… on a constant rewind, repeat; I tend to forget about my first life sometimes. Yeah, I’m really sorry, kiddo. So here I am.

-Well … I … we all miss you.

-I miss you guys, too, with every fiber of my bei–oh, would you stop crying.

-I’m sorry, I just wa–

-Stop with the melodramatics, the pissing and moaning. What’s important is that I’m okay. I miss you all every single day, but I’m okay.

-Well, that good, I guess. But I’m still allowed to–

-Actually, I’m not okay with that Obama bumper sticker I saw on my way in here. What the hell is that?

-Dad, are you really going to bring that—

-You’re a smart woman, what didn’t you like about an upstanding man like John McCain—

-Is this really necess—

-a veteran who is looking out for the personal liberties of Americans everywh—

-Dad.

-… I really don’t understand, except to say that it’s probably your mother who–

-DAD.

-What?

-Really? Right now?

-Heh, I’m sorry. These things don’t really play a part in my new life. Y’know, I think I miss the arguing and anger sometimes, at least now that I’m hovering here.

-It’s okay. Should I go wake up Mom and tell her you’re here? I think it would be a comfort to her.

-Nah, I’m just stopping by for a few moments, just to say hello. I’d hug you Bubs, but it’s the bitch of non-corporeal existence on your plane.

-I guess I understand.

…….

-Uh … sniff …  soooooo…  What’s the afterlife like?

Cake Pose(u)r.

I’ve been lacking anything resembling a mildly interesting or original thought these days, so updates are slow. I have, however, been watching a lifetime’s worth of cake decorating shows, as they seemed to have completely blitzkrieged cable television this year. (Think Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes, Amazing Wedding Cakes, Ultimate Cake Off, etc.) And like millions okay, thousands of my fellow less-than-capable audience members, I thought I would try my hand at making a staple of the craft: rolled fondant.

For the uninitiated, rolled fondant is that lovely layer of generally unpalatable, sugary plasticine you find on top of many high-end decorated cakes. If you’re like me, you usually end up peeling it off like a crazy-ass fruit, leaving it to its lonesome while the rest of the cake is eaten. You might wonder what the point of topping a cake with fondant is, especially when butter-cream frosting is perfectly delicious on its own. However, because it’s pliable and sturdy, rolling fondant opens up far more amazing decorating possibilities than normal frosting could ever even dream about. Delicious? No, not really. Unnecessary? Maybe. Super pretty? FUCK YEAH. In a country of Can-Do and Because We Can, I don’t see any reason why we can’t have desserts shaped like cars or baroque churches.

I won’t tell you that my food is better than sex or that I should have run off to become a pastry chef, but I consider myself a decent and reasonably courageous cook. Cake decorating, however, has never been my thing–but  je suis artistique ohn ohn ohn mustache twirl, and I love anything that combines food and a little visual creativity. I’m not aiming to do anything fancy. I’d just like to say I’ve got another basic under my belt.

It can’t be too hard, right?

The hideous gift of knowledge.

Life ruiner.

Each Christmas, my maternal grandparents gave my siblings and I spending money and the obligatory savings bond. Gifts of endless possibilities, when you think about it. That $25 in cash will go right towards a new Barbie doll or the roller skates you’ve been saving up for with your allowance. And while you won’t be able to use it presently, that bond will help pay for your laptop or to study abroad as a college student. (Which bond specifically went towards throwing up at a bar in Paris? I imagine Christmas of 1996 matured enough to pay for several rounds of lemon drops.)

Dad’s parents went the opposite route, however, and gave us a full caravan of crap. I don’t say this to be mean or ungrateful, because we were always taught to be appreciative of everything we’re given. I only use those words because I have no other way to succinctly describe what the annual Yuletide haul from Brigantine, New Jersey looked like. My brother, sister, and I always came home with a black garbage bag’s worth each of presents, which sounds exciting until you realize they were always full of the misshapen and off-putting toys you found in the dollar store. G.I. Jim. Celeste the fashion doll. Edible bubbles. Echo microphones. If your bag sat near the heater during the long ride home, there was a good chance you’d later open it up to find an amorphous mush of plastic and lead paint in place of all your presents. Not that a baby doll with a water pistol coming out of its forehead isn’t awesome, but expecting the unexpected from my grandparents could get a little tiring.

What I could always count on, however, were all of the weird picture books and children’s encyclopedias that found their way into the mix—books that were all in perfectly decent condition, save for lopsided pages or weak binding or a mysterious blood stain here and there. And I loved every single one dearly—finding long-term homes for them in our bookshelves, under our beds, by our toilets, letting them keep me company throughout the years. Long after Celeste the fashion doll had all of her matted hair hacked off, you’d still find me in the corner of the living room reading about rapid-eye movement. I might have thrown up an entire bottle’s worth of kiwi-flavored bubbles over the following winter months, but I hadn’t made myself sick of the Eyewitness Book of Snakes. I didn’t care if my echo microphone was taken away by my parents on the grounds of being ‘utterly suicide-inducing’, just because I could fascinate myself with photos of nebulous small pox when I got bored.

Weee!

This is just a little obnoxious post to wish my sister a…

BIG MCLARGE HUGE HAPPY FUCKING 21ST BIRTHDAY!

She got pretty drunk last night when we took her out to the bars. I really hope she didn’t vomit in bed, that’s how much I love and treasure my best friend in the entire world.

Similarly,  I made this for her:

In case you didn’t pick up on it, we here at the Pug-Flavored Sub household have a pretty subversive love for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, especially the taped version starring Donny Osmond. I’ll probably elaborate on it at some point, but … have you ever watched it? It’s ridiculously weird and filled with some pretty questionable cinematography.  If you’ve ever been involved with a production of the show, you’ve probably seen it at least 500 times.

Family bonding.

I love you!

When she's drunk, all my sister ever talks about is Hugh Jackman.

Observations on the Great Euphemism, pt. 1

Squint. Even the sea slugs get it.

Warning: There is really no narrative to this post. Someone crazy suggested I write whatever the heck was on my mind and not worry about it. Which, supposing you actually do read this on a regular basis, is really mean of me. I’ve also had maybe four hours of sleep total over the past 48 hours, so I’m writing under the influence of holy-freaking-crap-I-want-to-curl-up-and-die. Unfortunately, I’ve also been thinking a lot about The Education of Shelby Knox, so this is what you get as far as subject matter goes. If any of this makes sense, well … goodie.

I’ve just turned six. Mom and I are in the car riding around the neighborhood at night. The context? I dunno, maybe she had just picked me up from CCD, or maybe we had gone grocery shopping together. I don’t remember, but it’s irrelevant anyway. The point is that I sense something big is about to be dropped onto my shoulders. Something that will change my world forever. But oh ho ho, little do I know.

Mom pulls the car over underneath a street lamp, looks me right in the face, and dishes out these words like Prometheus bringing fire down from the mountains: “I want you to hear this from me, just in case your brother or the kids at school are trying to tell you anything else.” She studies herself in the rear view mirror for a split second, then turns back to me. “Women have vaginae. Men have penises. They have sex when the man puts his penis in the woman’s vagina. That’s how women get pregnant. You shouldn’t worry about having sex for a long time, not until you are an adult. If anybody ever tries to make you have sex or touches you in a weird way, you say no. And then you tell me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

There is electricity in the air, a new sense of intellectual responsibility bestowed upon me. Mom offers to take any questions I might have. Somewhere in the back of my head, I’m outlining a dissertation.

Next at twelve.

“Come on, everyone! Into the car! It’s getting late and we’ve got a long ride home.”

No one hears Dad over the splashing and shouting. He frowns, scratches behind his left ear for a moment, and then folds his arms.

“You think I’m joking, but I mean it! Pick up your little fannies and get into the car or–” Someone has just launched into a magnificent cannon ball. “–or I’ll wallop each and every one of them.” We answer him with a chorus of joyous, chaotic screaming. My brother has just surfaced, covered in waterlogged spatterdock and stinkweed, waving his arms around and roaring like a horrid sea monster. My sister and I are almost breathless from laughing, gasping; We try our hardest to swim out of his reach as he paddles closer to us.

Dad leans against the car, takes off his ratty baseball cap, and wipes his forehead. “Are you even listening to me? No, you’re not.”

It’s not like we don’t hear him, or that we enjoy being willfully disobedient. It’s just that it’s too beautiful of a day to be spent in the back of a station wagon. The mosquitoes are strangely absent. The water still holds the day’s warmth. The sky is not even dark yet, and the way the sun is just beginning to set behind the trees gives everything a gentle glow. I don’t understand why we have to leave right now, because everything feels perfect. But that’s my father for you.

“Alright, then…” Dad concedes, but none of us hear it over my brother’s howling and retching.

“I am Swamp Thing’s evil twin!” He flings mud up into the air.  “I will destroy you all!”

“No, you’re not! You’re a runny piece of crap,” we yell back angrily, wiping the droplets of dirt out of our eyes.

“SHUT UP.” His head disappears underneath the obsidian water again, and my sister and I squeal, trying to anticipate where he will come up next. We cry out all sorts of horrible names into the air, hoping that these will somehow magically slow him down or discourage him.

“Fart face!”

“Asshat!”

“Turd burger!”

“Turd burglar!” Talismans, you see.

Ladies–A rough draft.

Marc-Jérôme Pierpont was a good man. An awkward looking thing, admittedly, somewhat dull in personality, rather akin to a bathroom towel that falls on the floor and lies there unnoticed for a few days, but all-in-all an honorable human being. What else do you say about a man who always says his pleases-and-thank-yous and washes his hands after using the lavatory? What else do you say about a man who takes great pains to sneeze into the crook of his arm, rather than in your face? What else do you say about a man who attends Confession every Sunday before Mass, honestly and painstakingly admits every transgression committed that week, and still manages to make the priest fall asleep? Those are special talents. That is Marc-Jérôme Pierpont.

Lady with the Rose (Charlotte Louise Burckhardt), 1882. John Singer Sargent. Oil on canvas. Detail.

Born into a bookkeeping family, beaten into submission during those long years at St. Genesius’ School for Boys, most likely meeting his maker with a ledger in his hand: If you could say one thing about him, it was that Marc-Jérôme had been blessed with the gift of being too stupid and too good of a worker to ever find reason to complain. By the age of twenty-eight, he had manged to land himself a mildly impressive spot with a large accounting firm, where he was tucked away neatly into his very own office with his very own window overlooking the Rue de Rivoli. And after a typically blissful day of balancing budgets and nibbling on his pens, M. Jérôme was even luckier still—an uneventful carriage ride across the Pont Neuf brought him home to a comfortable flat by St. Germaine du Pres, where his precious little Hortense would be reading her gilt-edged Bible or tinkling away at the piano.

Yes, little Hortense, who was everything a man could wish for in a marriage that fell somewhere between being pre-arranged and a convenient business transaction. She had all of her teeth, large gray eyes, black sausage curls, high cheekbones, and a decent size chest. And, really, as far as looks went for someone like Marc-Jérôme, this was all that mattered. This was enough. She might as well have risen up from the sea on a giant clam shell.

Bird-Brained.

I’ve been feeling sick, under the weather, and generally all-around moody for the past day or so—as a result, I’m keeping this update fairly uninvolved, short, and centered around a video that made my week.

I don’t know how to say this without sounding crass, but I spent most of my college career with an immense girl-boner for Andrew Bird. I mean immense. Enough to potentially take on Tokyo. At this point in time, I rarely ever get crushes on famous people, so it’s a bit of a trip to think about how much I dug the dude way back when. As music-related boners are wont to do, however, they come and go after a certain amount of time—you listen to the same albums over and over to the point where you get sick of them and then–BAM–along strolls another intriguing package of talent and charm for you to ravage until you’re utterly bored once more. It’s not that you dislike that which has become familiar, but … you know … the relationship becomes too comfortable and you just gotta keep up with those biological urges.

Anyway, all bad metaphors aside, I give you this and beg you to watch all seven minutes of it—just to wonder at what one man, one glorious voice, one violin, and one loop pedal can do with some pointed arches.

I am so sorry if I ever ignored you, Andrew Bird. You are awesome. [Insert the requisite wailing, hair-pulling, gnashing of teeth, begging of repentance, etc.]

On a related note, I know Pitchfork is pretty much nothing but hipster fodder, but I adore their Cemetery Gates series—partly because it features great bands, but mostly because the series is shot in the beautiful little chapel at Brooklyn’s immense Green-Wood Cemetery. And, if you know me, well … as much as I like the clean and simple, I still get weak in the knees for fancy trappings. Especially when it comes to religious architecture. Oh, shut up.

A friend and I sitting in the chapel pews this past July. More for relief from the disgusting heat, less for the spiritual ecstasy.

Easy Targets.

I talked to Ramona three times over the past week—riding the elevator on Monday, in line at the McDonald’s down the street during lunch break on Tuesday, and this afternoon as she walked past the bus stop where I wait for my ride home from work. I’m trying to rationalize it as best as I can in my head, the ways she and I keep bouncing into each other like this: We work on the same floor, we take our break at the same time, the bus stop is fifty feet away from our office building.

But, happily, I have reached a conclusion that supersedes all of these options: Ramona and I were cosmically fated to be together. I don’t think she’s picked up on it yet—but, then again, these revelations don’t come easily, so I’m planning on giving her a week or two to realize it. Heck, I only figured it out myself when I was unlocking my front door and putting away my mittens about an hour ago, right as I was reliving the journey home on ol’ route 35-B.

I took notes on a napkin:

Me: sitting on the bench with my regulars–harangued working mother who grows taciturn when I ask about her children, Mumbles the Hostile Janitor, and Old Lady. We never talk at all, not after three years of the same Day-In-Day-Out. Here comes Ramona (!!!!!)

“Hi, Ramona!”

“Hey.”

Ramoana (heh) already down the block in five seconds, a shadow in a little green coat (looks thrifted, but she makes it look new), probably too flustered to think of anything witty to say to me, to charm my Dockers off.(heh)..

BYE RAMONA. ^___^

[End scene]

Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault. Portrait of a Kleptomaniac. c. 1822. Oil on canvas. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Ghent, Belgium.

I like to think we’re on the same intellectual level, Ramona and I. Last week she saw the newest disaster movie with her with her friends, or so I heard when she was three spaces behind me in line at McDonald’s. I let the guy right after me order first, just so I could keep listening. Anyway, I believe our interests may be matched, because I saw it two weeks earlier at the midnight showing. Well, that was the first time I saw it, at least.  Upon an initial viewing, you are simply overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the explosions and boobs, it’s so awesome, but the deeper intricacies of it warrant at least five more viewings. The second time you go, for example? That’s when you start noticing the subtleties of the film—like how did the director decide six bullets blasting through that one terrorist in the third fight scene (the terrorist with the machete, not the one with the gas can) would strike a most perfect balance, create such a harmonious statement about machinery and our own mortality? It’s breathtaking stuff, and I’m working really hard on an eight page essay regarding the subject, as a matter of fact.

These are the sorts of things I would like to discuss with Ramona over a smoothie. I don’t drink coffee because it makes me throw up and because the Doc says my bladder is already easily excitable as is. She likes coffee because she has it every morning, but I figured she would find the change of pace refreshing. I’ve written out how the conversation will go, because as much as they tell you that life is unscripted, I think it’s much more fun to pretend I am living out a really, really long movie in which I star.

[Scene: Jamba Juice on a leisurely afternoon. We see two people pouring over each other at a little table off to the side. One is RAMONA, a strikingly beautiful woman of about 32 (note: caught a glimpse of her on the Employee Birthday Board for this month, she's almost 32! Nice.) years in age, skittish but in that attractive feminine way.  Her eyes are dark brown, full of shine and wonder. Her hair is flat-ironed and pulled into a chignon and black as a raven. Her nails are red like a fresh apple from the grocery store. The dress she is wearing is short--making her petite legs look long and minxy. The other person is ME.]

ME: … So, in conclusion, Throatripper is a high-octane paean to all things that make the human psyche ache and feel alive.

[RAMONA nods and smiles.]

ME: Would you agree that the way the female bosom is portrayed so full and so round and so unabashedly is a tribute to the ‘Nourishing Mother’ trope? That she and by she I mean WOMAN succeeds as a care-giver and feeder so well that us men, heh heh, can only thump at our hairy chests in awe. It’s pretty poetic and universal.

RAMONA: Why, yes! I never thought of it that way!

ME: I have an appreciation for things like that. I first recognized the empowering power of the female body after long marathons studying the Tomb Raider video game series in high school!

RAMONA: Well, at least you spent your time productively as a teenager! I wish I could turn back time and take back going to things like the prom and Senior Beach Week.

ME: Hah hah! [They laugh quietly with each other, and a heavy, electric silence falls over the adorable couple as they sip their smoothies. They both chose the Orange Dream Machine.]

ME: … Y’know, you’re not like other women I’ve met, Ramona! You’ve got hindsight and a great appreciation for more interesting, important things. You like metal detectors with your long walks on the beach. You shirk all discussion about politics, because you, like myself, have renounced most of mankind as idiot robots who only want to feed the machine running us into the ground.

RAMONA: [giggles] Why, thank you! You know, we ought to see Throatripper again. With your insight, who knows what an eighth viewing will merit!

[THEY (Note: should I use WE??) do.]

In the event that this scenario doesn’t work out (I can’t imagine why),  I’ve started making a flowchart about how I’ll work around it. And if the first choice doesn’t work, I simply redraft it over and over again until it does. You might laugh, I know, and I used to spend a lot of time sweating the small things—buying longer belts, asking girls out and getting rejected, having exact change for the bus fare. (I discovered they sell electronic passes, but I feel more like an old-fashioned urban romantic using coins.) But taking notes and planning out my life have been working out pretty well as my New Year’s Resolution. It’s funny how sure of yourself you become upon realizing that somewhere out there… you are someone’s John McClane. Someone out there is your Vicky Vale.  And when someone depends on you to save the day, it makes you pretty freaking confident. And confidence, I’ve read time and time again, is sexy.

I see Ramona at work, fat files in hand, the way she drums her nails against the photocopier without a care, how she only seems to laugh when she finds things really funny. And, you know what? I think she knows this and sees it in me. She’d be an idiot not to.

The influx of posts coming over the next few months is part of a resolution to write as much as possible and to cool it re: Talking about myself. Not gonna lie, this was partially inspired by following unsmith on Twitter and by spending about two seconds on the message boards at IMDB.com. Fish in a barrel, I know.

I don’t know where this was going at all.

Long suffering.

I love you.

Mark Rothko. Untitled (Sketch for Harvard Mural). 1961. Pen and ink and watercolor with graphite annotation on wove paper. The National Gallery of Art.

Every night, you fall asleep in my arms without saying so much as a word—there’s no ‘how was your day’, no ‘I was thinking of you while I was at work’, no nightly declaration of love for me. Nothing. Never. But I’ve accepted ours is a love that has no need for artifice. Sometimes you’ll stay up all night reading, and I guess you really enjoy your books, because (apart from a wayward belly laugh or sigh) you never tell me what they are about. I suppose you think I won’t be able to understand, and it makes sense (old, lumbering me), so I deal neatly with these realities and carry on. No big deal. Because feeling your weight up against me is the sweetest thanks I could ever receive. Watching your eyes gently flicker underneath you papery eyelids is sacred. Knowing that I’m cradling all of your tossing and turning, through all your dreams and nightmares, is what I live for.

Yes, I love you.

Every morning, I am given the gift of you waking up in my arms. I don’t think you notice, but it’s all the glory in the world to watch you stretch: seeing your body silhouetted against the sunrise, a blur of oranges and dark purples so beautiful that it escapes words. Quiet still, you slip into the bathroom and start your morning litany of gargling and grooming—a shower, a teeth-brushing, combing your hair, putting on your clothes. Before I know it, you’ve already hit the light switch and shut the bedroom door behind you without so much as a goodbye. I would love to call you while you’re at work, but I know it’s pointless and impossible to reach you. And so I’ll remain at home, counting down the hours until your return, when you’ll barge in and remark “What a day.” Three magic words that make me quiver.

Some days it hurts, the way you abandon me so quickly. But I keep a brave face, if not for the rainy, dark winter mornings. Those are my favorite. Our alarm clock will go off and you’ll brusquely knock it away, burying yourself deeper into my embrace and mumbling sweetly, and even though you don’t use the words—trust me on this, I know.

Dearest, how I love you.

But sometimes the way you insist on bringing other people into our room is really trying my patience—is what we share not good enough for you? Am I so unimportant to you, or are my emotions so unreadable that you can’t see how much I’m sagging under the weight of these infidelities? I firmly believe that I was brought in this world for only one person, and as you and your newest sidekick roll around, giggling and enjoying each other, I become nothing but a sour, groaning third wheel. And I hate that.

I forgive you because I love you.

Most will say that you make me. And I guess that’s true—what would I be but a disastrous mess without the stern-yet-gentle guidance of your hand? Make me. Change me. You have. You do. You will. I submit because I have no choice, because it’s my purpose in this world, but I’ve learned to take pleasure in the act of doing so. And, yet, I’ve also sadly come to accept that we’ll probably part, in spite of my silent devotion; I’ve come to accept that I’ll be dumped for one of those beautiful, younger catalog models I catch you staring at when you accidentally leave the bathroom door open.  Yes, I do know about that, my love. And I also know I’ll grow old, knotted, weak, and unwanted. And these two inevitabilities combined will leave me used, wrecked, worthless.

But, still, I bunker down and repeat this mantra to myself daily, so quietly that I can’t imagine you ever hear it at all: I love you, my darling, and I will always be there to comfort you, in sickness and in health.

I pray hardest for the rainy mornings.

The punchline: I’m really bad at making my bed, guys.