Wow, I’ve neglected this for a while. I still seem to be getting traffic, though, and not just from my wife, so I might as well put something up. I’ve thought about dozens of things to write in the last few months – actually sitting down to do it has been the problem. I’ve been intending to review the comics I pick up, so maybe I’ll start that with the next run. I’ve thought about doing books, but I don’t really read anything new, so it often feels like the discourse is over by the time I get to something (I could leap into the whole Golden Compass fray, but that’s so overblown on all fronts that it’d just be tiresome). When it comes to more personal things, well, I dunno. That’s more of what I started out with, but when I do that it’s something that I have to phrase just perfectly. I care more about the nuance of such posts, so I can’t just sit down and bang one out for all to see. How I say something is just as important as what I’m trying to say. I’d like to do some skeptical blogging, but I don’t have a lot of time to devote to it. Besides, with established pros like Bronze Dog and the Two-Percent Company out there, I don’t feel I have a lot to add, especially as it seems they have more time. I could blog on some gaming items – reviews of my esoteric collection. While that has been overdone elsewhere, that’s one thing where a fresh perspective is often welcome.
I really started this thing to help me practice my writing, in pursuit of actually doing some on a serious level. I’ve got dozens of story hooks and ideas bouncing around my head; unfortunately, I’ve always been a stronger rhetorical essayist than storyteller. I can make an inflamed, well-backed article to rival Chris Hitchens; ask me to tell the story of a man and his dog, and I’ll scratch my head for a while. Oddly enough, my talent as a skilled bullshitter translates better into the nonfiction realm than into an engaging fiction. One exception is my magnum opus of fast-talk tall tales, the “West Virginia Snow Snake”. I’ve been developing that one for more than a decade, and can go on at length about this rare and deadly breed of winter-adapted reptile. I once had a supervisor in the process of canceling her ski reservations before I let on that it was just a story. Maybe I’ll put it down in print sometime, but I really think that the telling sells it as much as the myriad of “facts” that some online goober will inevitably google to “prove me wrong” about my own damn bullshit story. With things like that, someone always misses the point. Not that I wouldn’t like to see it picked up as a meme (someone had to be the first with the “Pirates vs. Ninjas" crap), but snakes were done to death last year.
Maybe I’ll expound more later. I’ve got an essay starting in my head about the themes of absence and/or bitter domesticality of mothers in the comic Bloom County. It’s a rather obvious thing, if you take the time to notice, and Breathed, being a Pulitzer winner, is a valid target for deep examination, even a quarter-century after his heyday.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
I got a letter from Mom the other day
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was strange, for no other reason than she died almost seven years ago. My Dad was gathering things to bring down for my son's birthday party and came across an envelope with my name on it. Now, to be sure, it was not the first posthumous communication I had gotten from her, but it was the first in a very long time. She left genealogical files; letters to disallow certain people from attending her services; diaries for grandchildren not yet born. They trickled in over several years, but had mostly dried up until this weekend.
Mom was a heavy smoker, and it wasn't really a shock when the cancer diagnosis came in. I mean, it was, of course; these things just don't happen to your own family, until they do. But after the initial reactions, it wasn't something where anyone could sit and rail against the injustice of it all. We had a year. It was mostly a good year, especially after her doctor beat the idea of chemo into her head. That left her functional, if not healthy, until the cancer just spread too far. In a rather cruel twist of fate, she died while my wife and I were out of town attending the funeral of my wife's grandmother. I had said goodbyes on the chance that such an event could happen, but two important figures passing a week before the holidays made for a somber season. That year, I took one of the few drinks I've ever had as part of a toast to family.
So, the letter itself was a few handwritten pages, and a printed poem. The most potent parts of the letter were admonishments to enjoy the small things in life; to take care of my family and stay close to my father and brother; expressions of pride about who I had become. I was young then. I hadn't really accomplished much, other than managing to never need bailing out from lockup. She was always proud, just the same.
The other parts of the letter were religious in nature. A lot was about her expectations of heaven, and to keep the faith myself so that we could meet there, and so on. I don't know that I was as much an atheist then. I've always been fairly agnostic, leaning toward no higher power, but I'll admit to waffling for most of my life. Mom and Dad pretty much dropped out of church life when the pastor at the church where they met refused to marry them in the church itself -- they'd both been divorced, you see. That was bad. He'd marry them anywhere else, even the parking lot or the lawn out front, but not the church itself. They declined and never looked back. That's not to say my parents didn't have faith. My father was a lay minister's son from a long line of the same, and my mother was raised in the coal camps, where religion was so deeply ingrained that not having it really wasn't an option. From then on, neither really saw a need to push it. I and my brother found our own ways, which I think is what my parents intended. We found opposite directions to take, but it doesn't come up for discussion, because that's the way we were raised.
As Mom got sicker, her old-time religion came back out. Now, she was never a forgiving person; even at her most desperate, she didn't step foot in another church. She did, however, go back to what she was taught as a child, and her own personal study. She was terrified of death. I know that. I think it just got to the point where the old programming kicked in as a defense mechanism. She didn't cry or wail to god, at least not in public. She had more an attitude of, "I've led a good life, dammit, and I'm going to heaven. Just try to stop me." There wasn't any other option, and if anyone could take god in best-of-three falls about opening the gates, it'd be her.
I have to wonder what that letter would have done to me seven years ago. In my grief, would it have pushed me in the direction of being more religious? I had been getting more exposure than ever through my wife's extended family, and was in probably my most vulnerable and seeking period. I could see it happening. I note that my mother never questioned that I might not believe; it was assumed. I think she knew better than that, though. I was never really what she assumed at any point in my life.
I sat down with my son Saturday night and talked about the Grandma he never got to meet. We do that now and then, but I usually don't cry as much as I did this weekend. It was good to hear from her.
It was strange, for no other reason than she died almost seven years ago. My Dad was gathering things to bring down for my son's birthday party and came across an envelope with my name on it. Now, to be sure, it was not the first posthumous communication I had gotten from her, but it was the first in a very long time. She left genealogical files; letters to disallow certain people from attending her services; diaries for grandchildren not yet born. They trickled in over several years, but had mostly dried up until this weekend.
Mom was a heavy smoker, and it wasn't really a shock when the cancer diagnosis came in. I mean, it was, of course; these things just don't happen to your own family, until they do. But after the initial reactions, it wasn't something where anyone could sit and rail against the injustice of it all. We had a year. It was mostly a good year, especially after her doctor beat the idea of chemo into her head. That left her functional, if not healthy, until the cancer just spread too far. In a rather cruel twist of fate, she died while my wife and I were out of town attending the funeral of my wife's grandmother. I had said goodbyes on the chance that such an event could happen, but two important figures passing a week before the holidays made for a somber season. That year, I took one of the few drinks I've ever had as part of a toast to family.
So, the letter itself was a few handwritten pages, and a printed poem. The most potent parts of the letter were admonishments to enjoy the small things in life; to take care of my family and stay close to my father and brother; expressions of pride about who I had become. I was young then. I hadn't really accomplished much, other than managing to never need bailing out from lockup. She was always proud, just the same.
The other parts of the letter were religious in nature. A lot was about her expectations of heaven, and to keep the faith myself so that we could meet there, and so on. I don't know that I was as much an atheist then. I've always been fairly agnostic, leaning toward no higher power, but I'll admit to waffling for most of my life. Mom and Dad pretty much dropped out of church life when the pastor at the church where they met refused to marry them in the church itself -- they'd both been divorced, you see. That was bad. He'd marry them anywhere else, even the parking lot or the lawn out front, but not the church itself. They declined and never looked back. That's not to say my parents didn't have faith. My father was a lay minister's son from a long line of the same, and my mother was raised in the coal camps, where religion was so deeply ingrained that not having it really wasn't an option. From then on, neither really saw a need to push it. I and my brother found our own ways, which I think is what my parents intended. We found opposite directions to take, but it doesn't come up for discussion, because that's the way we were raised.
As Mom got sicker, her old-time religion came back out. Now, she was never a forgiving person; even at her most desperate, she didn't step foot in another church. She did, however, go back to what she was taught as a child, and her own personal study. She was terrified of death. I know that. I think it just got to the point where the old programming kicked in as a defense mechanism. She didn't cry or wail to god, at least not in public. She had more an attitude of, "I've led a good life, dammit, and I'm going to heaven. Just try to stop me." There wasn't any other option, and if anyone could take god in best-of-three falls about opening the gates, it'd be her.
I have to wonder what that letter would have done to me seven years ago. In my grief, would it have pushed me in the direction of being more religious? I had been getting more exposure than ever through my wife's extended family, and was in probably my most vulnerable and seeking period. I could see it happening. I note that my mother never questioned that I might not believe; it was assumed. I think she knew better than that, though. I was never really what she assumed at any point in my life.
I sat down with my son Saturday night and talked about the Grandma he never got to meet. We do that now and then, but I usually don't cry as much as I did this weekend. It was good to hear from her.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Odd things
Have you ever just looked around your home and seen things that make sense in the context of your life, but that others might find a bit, well, off? I started paying attention the other day for some reason, and, given that the hobbies of me and mine aren't typically what you'd call "mainstream", there are some interesting results.
Master bath: A dozen half-wilted roses
Walk-in closet: A fog machine, a disassembled game of "Trouble", two toy golfclubs, a plastic pirate hook, and various and sundry other bizarre items.
Sewing/wife's hobby room: 8-inch buck knife, various dominoes, a pile of art prints, and an unassembled model of a mammoth skeleton.
Main Bedroom: 18-inch robotic ninja which, apparently, can "sense my fear".
Living room: Last year's Christmas decorations, a scooter that my niece received for the same holiday (unassembled, still in package), and a folded-up school bus play "room".
Laundry room: A 2" wide rubber band with around six feet of overall length, and a coconut. Hilarity ensues.
Kitchen: A plastic lunchbox thermos from the original run of "Battlestar Galactica".
Family Room: A Mr. T "1-800-collect" fridge magnet.
Male spawn's room: A two-foot piece of 2"x4" and a pizza pan. This is relatively clean because we confiscate most of the interesting stuff on a regular basis.
Guest bath: An unopened can of "Play-Doh".
Female spawn's room: A plastic garden spade.
My hobby/computer room: Where to start? Two battleaxes, combustible stage effects, a miniscule pair of nunchucks (perhaps belonging to the ninja above), a shelf for a cabinet we no longer own, a scratching post for cats that no longer live indoors, a bent curtain rod, a "collection" poster of M.U.S.C.L.E. Men . . . let's just say there's quite a bit.
But again, I don't think we're quite normal. Homes and lives pick up a lot of detrius as time goes on. I just think some of our detrius has an interesting story lurking somwhere.
Master bath: A dozen half-wilted roses
Walk-in closet: A fog machine, a disassembled game of "Trouble", two toy golfclubs, a plastic pirate hook, and various and sundry other bizarre items.
Sewing/wife's hobby room: 8-inch buck knife, various dominoes, a pile of art prints, and an unassembled model of a mammoth skeleton.
Main Bedroom: 18-inch robotic ninja which, apparently, can "sense my fear".
Living room: Last year's Christmas decorations, a scooter that my niece received for the same holiday (unassembled, still in package), and a folded-up school bus play "room".
Laundry room: A 2" wide rubber band with around six feet of overall length, and a coconut. Hilarity ensues.
Kitchen: A plastic lunchbox thermos from the original run of "Battlestar Galactica".
Family Room: A Mr. T "1-800-collect" fridge magnet.
Male spawn's room: A two-foot piece of 2"x4" and a pizza pan. This is relatively clean because we confiscate most of the interesting stuff on a regular basis.
Guest bath: An unopened can of "Play-Doh".
Female spawn's room: A plastic garden spade.
My hobby/computer room: Where to start? Two battleaxes, combustible stage effects, a miniscule pair of nunchucks (perhaps belonging to the ninja above), a shelf for a cabinet we no longer own, a scratching post for cats that no longer live indoors, a bent curtain rod, a "collection" poster of M.U.S.C.L.E. Men . . . let's just say there's quite a bit.
But again, I don't think we're quite normal. Homes and lives pick up a lot of detrius as time goes on. I just think some of our detrius has an interesting story lurking somwhere.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
