Today Hannah and Rachael and Sarah’s boyfriend Jeff and I are going to Ghana. I can’t wait to see this country I’ve heard so much about, but most of all, I can’t wait to hug Sarah. My plan is to not let go of her for the entire week.
Sorry, Jeff.
Yesterday Micah and I settled my father into his new apartment in a retirement community. His worn, familiar personal effects seemed out of place and shabby in his new digs, with its generically neutral cream-colored walls and beige wall-to-wall carpeting.
I was feeling anxious. As I made up my father’s bed, it occurred to me that I’d experienced this feeling before, when we brought our kids to their respective colleges for the first time. I worried for father as I had worried for them; would he make friends? Would he be happy? It’s not easy for the young and flexible to adjust to change, and my father is neither.
I heard a voice in the hallway. It was Mrs. Gilbert, my father’s next-door-neighbor. As I walked over to introduce myself, I heard her telling my father what time dinner was served in the dining hall, and to knock on her door if he had any questions.
My father walked back inside, and Mrs. Gilbert touched my arm. “Don’t you worry, we look out for each other here.” I thanked her, and she added, “Go easy on him tonight. He’s had a hard day. And don’t you worry. It gets better.” Then, she winked.
And there you have it: a senior spin on freshman orientation.
Back when Sam was in law school, we spent a weekend hiking in Yosemite. It is interesting to note that the natural splendor is upstaged by Sam’s shorts.
I was reading the cover article of The New York Times Magazine- The Self-Manufacture of Megan Fox: How America’s Leading Starlet Made Herself Up for the Multi-Media Age. It’s an odd (and completely misleading) title.
According to the article, Ms. Fox impulsively, then calculatedly, spiked her popularity by generating her own possibly true, possibly false, but definitely titillating press, which I guess is the self-manufacture to which the article’s title alludes. Did Fox get it on with a female stripper named Nikita? Did she compare Michael Bay, director of the movie Transformers to Hitler? Does she have her boyfriend’s name tattooed, as she put it, “next to my pie”? At first, inquiring minds wanted to know; now, not so much. Since Fox’s bad girl provocateur persona has not cashed in at the box office, there’s been a change in strategy. What she would really like you to know is that she’s monogamous and loves the cheesy biscuits at Red Lobster.
The article ends with her expressing an unwillingness to do nude scenes. “My body parts are all I have left that are only mine. The world owns everything else.” I suppose it’s good she held on to something, but her soul or her integrity might have been better choices. Self-manufactured? Please. Like the shoreline, she’s got beauty; like Jello, deliciousness, but like both, Ms. Fox owes her existence to external forces.
I’ve been feeling old lately, which is reasonable, because technically, I am, and also because this past week, my rapidly advancing age was brought to my attention on two separate, painful occasions.
On Tuesday, I was working at the soup kitchen with some students from school. Before dinner, the manager of the kitchen informed the clients that high school students would be serving them. The first man in line smiled at me, revealing the three or four teeth he still harbored. “Boy, if you’re a student you must have stayed back a whole lot of times,” he said.
Then, yesterday, I was teaching my seventh graders about proper comma insertion when writing dates. I wrote on the board My birthday is December 15, 1909. “I look pretty good for someone who is practically 100,” I joked.
“Actually, you look like you’re around fifty,” said Allen. He paused before earnestly adding, “No offense, but you do.”
Both times I resisted a snappy comeback. I just smiled insincerely and kept doing my job. For one thing, I knew neither Homeless Guy or Allen had intentionally insulted me. They were speaking the truth, unfiltered by politeness or common sense. Also, I wasn’t quite sure how to express the feeling midway between shut up and wah.
For nearly a week we have been living in the shadow of the pimple on Micah’s nose. This was an epic pimple, so enormous that commanded attention and possibly its own zip (zit?) code. Despite Micah’s ability to meet the situation with a mix of good-natured alarm and pragmatism, the pimple ruled our lives.
Micah brought the pimple home from school on Thursday, and even though we’d never seen anything quite like it, ever, he was optimistic that a night’s sleep would reduce its size. Alas, this was not the case, and on Friday, the pimple had somehow galvanized local blood flow and subcutaneous tissue to its side so that it seemed to be vying with Micah’s nose for spatial dominance. On the up side, for reasons unrelated to the pimple, Micah was grounded over the weekend, and as he was still hosting the pimple, he was content to lay low. The pimple used the weekend to relax and regroup, and by Sunday, had grown even larger. We went to Manhattan for Sam’s birthday dinner and Micah introduced the zit to his siblings. “I know you’re all staring at it, and I figured it’s best just to get it out in the open. Yes, I have a massive pimple on my nose, let’s talk about something else.” He was the recipient of conflicting advice from Hannah, Jake, Rachael, and Eliza- pop it, don’t pop it, dry it out, put hot water on it. When we got home Sunday night, on the advice of a friend from school, Micah put toothpaste on it, which seemed to have no effect other than making the pimple smell like mint. On Monday, things had deteriorated to the point that Sam went out at 10 p.m. for Stridex pads and peroxide, which Micah applied to his personal Mount Vesuvius every fifteen minutes.
On Tuesday, we dared to think there was some improvement, and over the course of the day, we watched the pimple deflate. Today, Wednesday, I am happy to report that Micah’s nose is almost back to normal.
As crazy as it sounds, this took a weird toll on us. For six days, the pimple became such an intense focal point that even now, in its absence, I am writing about it. The molehill may be gone, true, but that isn’t stopping me from adding to the mountain that got made of it.
I woke up this morning with my last night’s dream still fresh in my head.
I was raking stuff into a compost heap. Even in the dream, this seemed to be taking a long time. It was also extremely boring.
I mentioned this to Sam. “That’s funny,” he said. “Just the other day, you were telling me you wanted to try composting.”
He was right, only what I meant was I wanted to compost actual organic matter that exists in the real world.
It makes me sad that my subconscious is so mundane- and so literal. If I’m thinking about environmental conservation, why can’t my dream involve flying over glaciers with Al and Tipper Gore? I hate to think my dreams have been reduced to something I could, and should, be doing in my own back yard.
Two nights ago we had our first true frost. My best friend and I bundled up and took an early morning walk around the neighborhood. As the sun rose, we found ourselves in the midst of that post-first-frost phenomenon where the trees give it up all at once. Suddenly, it’s raining leaves.
It’s a seasonal gold mine in New England, those foliage tours with busloads of people, faces and camera lenses pressed against the windows, documenting the colorful hoopla surrounding nature’s annual losing battle. Yesterday, I got to see the sudden grace of the surrender.
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A few days ago, we went to look at a house. The owner greeted us at the door and requested we put sanitary foot covers, the kind surgeons wear, over our shoes so we wouldn’t scuff the floors.
The house was beyond immaculate. I didn’t even see a stray dust mote. The owner led us proudly room to room, pointing out the “buttery finish” of the oil paint he’d selected for the dining room walls, and the gleaming perfection of the brass wall sconces he’d reclaimed from the basement and painstakingly polished to their original luster. Our real estate agent kept gushing that she couldn’t get over how pristine the place was.
“This house was built in the thirties, and it’s only changed hands three times,” the owner replied. “And, my wife and I are like both sets of previous owners; no dog and” -he looked over at Micah- “no offense, but no kids. Dogs and kids really do a number on a house. This place was in top condition when we bought it, and we’ve kept it that way.”
We saw the rest of the house- the carefully color-coded clothing in the closets, the strategically placed pillows on the sofas- and after thanking the owner, walked outside.
“Wow, “ I said. “That house is beautiful.”
Micah nodded. “Yeah. But you know what it could really use?”
“What?”
“A dog and some kids,” Micah said, and we got back in the car and drove home.