The shouts and instructions of the players echo behind me, the language familiar but impenetrable. So many voices, so many people out on this day. A middle-aged man in a suit sits blowing soap bubbles. They drift away from him, rising above the pedestrians on the sidewalk beneath. Given breath, they hover there for a moment, an impossible glistening, before popping and vanishing into sky. It’s a beautiful spring day and people, optimistic after the long winter, are out in the sun. It’s a kind of parade, really, and every one of theses people is the star of their own movie, an unknowable plot churning within that’s just waiting to be realized.
A woman coasts on a bicycle. Her hair shorn down to a grey, jagged buzz. Something that indicates trauma. She slows, glances over to the stadium. It looks like she is going to smile, like maybe the day is a relief to her, too, like maybe all her suffering had been a passage to mercy. She twists her body and spits, a wild and violent hatred in her eyes.
A reminder.
Even on a day like this.
And past her, across the street, shaded by trees and the tall buildings surrounding it, is a little Parkette. A couple, barely visible, are about to sit on a bench. The ice cream cones they hold are a vivid white. They shine like torches. The pigeons, summoned, come softly down from hidden perches, landing like angels to feed on this mortal light.
Each day just waiting to be written.
My hand on the knob of the front door. Jone’s body pushing against it, his legs restless, twitching, like a bull waiting to be released. I open the door and the world is cool and bright and thin, and the first thing Jones sees is an abandoned door lying face down on the ground. He is lifting it, like Hercules, “Come, Daddy, Come!!”
We enter into worlds unseen. Down cobwebbed staircases by candlelight we travel with Superman, a friendly werewolf and sticks. Spiders join us in the forest beyond the waters. And then we are back before our house, slamming the door down on the zombie armies in their moaning pursuit. I catch my breath, look up the street toward daycare. Right at eye level, not three inches away from my face, two sparrows rocket by. One after the other. Like two kids chasing one another on bikes. When was the last time you had that feeling? To be traveling at full and effortless velocity, your body stretched to the perfection of its desire, of its necessity? And Jones, glowing beneath me, now identifying the chalk faces on a brick wall—this world always unfolding in the smallest, most beautiful ways.
*******************************
Rachelle: No, it’s not.
Rachelle: I’m sorry Pickle, you’re wrong.
Rachelle: It’s not the Marie Keto diet.
Rachelle: There are two different things. The Keto diet where you eat steak, and Marie Kondo, a Japanese spirit who tidies apartments when you’re sleeping.
Rachelle: It’s an easy mistake to make.
Rachelle: I don’t know how you’re expected to keep up either!
Rachelle: The world moves quickly, it really does.
Rachelle: Did you drop Jones off at daycare?
Rachelle: “Only Jones and Hulk make the rules now?”
Rachelle: He said that to you when you asked him to put on his boots?
Rachelle: OMG, that is the funniest thing I have ever heard!
Rachelle: I’m not sure I’d want to live in a world like that, either.
Rachelle: Can you imagine?
Rachelle: There would just be SO MUCH SMASHING.
Rachelle: Marie Kondo should be part of the Hulk and Jones team, quietly tidying up after they raze city after city.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: How is that sexist?
Rachelle: And disrespectful to Asian culture?
Rachelle: It just is? Is that all you’ve got???
Rachelle: Look, proclaiming that you’re tolerant of everything but intolerance is not an explanation for why you think I’m sexist and racist.
Rachelle: No it isn’t.
Rachelle: It doesn’t even really make sense.
Rachelle: Yes.
Rachelle: By extension you don’t really make sense either.
Rachelle: Yes, all your friends know that.
Rachelle: For a very long time now.
Rachelle: When you really get going we call it “Murrbling,” as in, “Man alive, was Michael ever Murrbling last night!”
Rachelle: I don’t have time right now, Pickle. My hockey game is about to start.
Rachelle: Okay, I’ll pick up some Jackson Triggs on the way back, and of course I’ll come home with my shield, or on it. They don’t call me the Blonde Volcano for nothing!
Rachelle: Love you, too, and don’t let Jones and the Hulk push you around. You make the rules!
Rachelle: Yes.
Rachelle: By that I did mean I make the rules. xo
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The other day while perusing the products of an online weed dispensary, a chat box opened and a support agent asked me if I needed any help. This is our conversation:
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Stacey: Hey there, if you have any questions regarding our products please let me know!
Me: I’m interested in knowing how you folks come up with the names for all the different strains. I always thought I’d be really, really good at that. Is there any chance I might be able to apply for such a position within your organization?
Stacey: The growers name the strains, so I’m afraid we’re not accepting any applications for that position.
Me: Nuts.
Stacey: Sorry.
Me: I had some really good ones.
Stacey: I bet you did.
Me: You know it! Listen to these… Mystic Space Owl! Howling Cheesie Attack! Electric Light Orchestra!
Stacey: Those are pretty good, but I’m pretty sure the last one is the name of a band from the 70’s.
Me: Really? That doesn’t sound right.
Stacey: Google it.
Me: Sweet Jesus, you’re right! They must have been an amazing band, look at that hair! And the satin, too! Just stunning. I would give it all up if I could look like that. I really would.
Stacey: And speaking as a person who’s spending time chatting on a weed web site in the middle of the afternoon about job opportunities, what would giving it all up mean to you?
Me: I’m not sure. But it wouldn’t be weed. I would not give up the weed.
Stacey: We’re happy to hear that.
Me: I have a cat.
Stacey: Just one?
Me: Yes, his name is Admiral.
Stacey: Is that your duvet?
Me: No, it’s my mother’s.
Stacey: I see. Well, Admiral looks very cute.
Me: He’s a great cat, but make no mistake, I would give him up him for the ability to look like I was in ELO.
Stacey: Well, we must all walk our own path, I guess.
Me: That’s for sure! And let me tell you, I do walk my own path. Always have. I have to be me. Just the way I am.
Stacey: I’m sure you have lots of friends!
Me: And just because one of them might say you’re on the spectrum, that doesn’t mean it’s true.
Stacey: Are you high right now?
Me: No. You?
Stacey: No.
Me: Just a regular Wednesday afternoon then?
Stacey: Yep.
Me: Do you get sent a lot of dick pics?
Stacey: What do you think?
Me: I think that you probably do.
Stacey: Good guess. So, is there anything else I can help you with today?
Me: Have you ever seen a ghost?
( Stacey ends chat)
]]>The film Mahogany was released in 1975.
It was a melodrama of it’s time, a rags to riches story in which Diana Ross fought to become a great fashion icon before giving it all up for love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra71dvxOVX8
It was not a critical darling. It was a one-and-a-half stars kind of movie, an enterprise that revealed that although Diana Ross was a great diva, she was not destined to become a great actress, and ever since, the movie’s been slowly dissolving into the past. I bring this up just to say that if you missed it, there is little reason to want to go and find it.
Nevertheless, when a pair of friends asked if I’d like to see it with them last week, I jumped at the chance. I’ve known both these movie-going women for over thirty years now and the sheer improbability of that– that we would travel such great and impossible distances through time– and still be connected, was a kind of miracle to me and I would have gone anywhere they asked.
It feels important to note that when the movie was made the three of us were all just children. Not one of us would have yet reached the age of ten, and the worlds we inhabited then were as small, beautiful and mysterious as marbles lost in a forest. The movie, regardless of it’s failings or virtues, was an extraordinary time capsule that opened up all around us in the popcorn dark of the theatre. It was impossible not to see ghost-images of your own life as the frames passed by. Perhaps a snatch of music would summon my childhood cat, or the shape of a car would remind me of a family trip, a dress, a friend of my sister…And to be called back to those lost spaces and allowed to just float there for a few hours, to drift along this underground river free from the obstacles, complications and mortal apprehensions of the adult world, was a glowing, holy thing.
And then the movie was over. We chatted for a moment on the street, and then the three of us headed back into our current lives, each one likely marvelling at the forces that charted our days and brought us together again, compressing time on this autumn night so far from where we started.
]]>These are the text messages I received from my wife Rachelle the other day:
Rachelle: I’m not sure I think that’s a good idea.
Rachelle: Look, if you’re putting a pretend cast on our three year-old boy’s arm in order to attract the attention of celebrites at the Film Festival, you truly are a horrible father.
Rachelle: Because you’re using him as bait!!
Rachelle: You are exploiting a child.
Rachelle: Yes, even if he agrees to “play dress up for daddy.”
Rachelle: Jesus. Don’t ever, ever make me type, “play dress up for daddy” again.
Rachelle: Really???
Rachelle: That was actually your tag on Lava Life?
Rachelle: That is maybe the creepiest thing I have ever heard in my life.
Rachelle: I think I might vomit.
Rachelle: No, really. I cannot continue this text conversation.
( TWO HOURS LATER )
Rachelle: Really??!! You got Hugh Jackman to sign Jones’ fake cast for me???!!
Rachelle: That is the best thing you have ever done in your life.
Rachelle: Way better than that prank you pulled on the restaurant manager!
Rachelle: No, it was a good prank.
Rachelle: Yes, a really good one, I don’t think he saw it coming at all, but this, this is HUGH JACKMAN!! What did he smell like? Did he like what Jones was wearing? What did he write to me?? Jesus, did you touch him, did you put your hand on him at any point? What did he feel like? Did he talk to Jones?!
Rachelle: For the love of God, just try to remember what he smelled like!! Try. Try as hard as you have ever tried at anything in your life.
Rachelle. I know you have seasonal allergies and it diminishes your olfactory sense, but just concentrate, goddamit, what did he smell like? Was it the ocean? Was it the moon and stars? Was it roast beef and pumpkin?
Rachelle: Really?!!
Rachelle: Roast beef and pumpkin, I knew it!!
Rachelle: I don’t know how I knew it, I just did.
Rachelle: Yes, sometimes my friends and I talk about that sort of stuff.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: You truly want to know what my friends think you smell like?
Rachelle: Jesus.
Rachelle: Okay then.
Rachelle: Ottilie said she thought you smelled like the interior of an old airplane, one that still carried the ghost smell of crappy sandwiches and cigarette smoke.
Rachelle: Well, if you don’t believe me you’ll just have to ask her yourself.
Rachelle: Just out of curiosity, what do you think you smell like?
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: I have to say, that was a very unexpected answer.
Rachelle: Was Hugh very concerned about Jones? Did he want to know how he “broke his arm?”
Rachelle: Okay then, “fractured his wrist.”
Rachelle: Hit by a pitch?
Rachelle: You told Hugh Jackman you hit our son with a hardball?
Rachelle: Jesus, Pickle.
Rachelle: NO FUCKING WAY!
Rachelle: You got him to sign, “Rachelle, play dress up for daddy, love Wolverine?”
Rachelle: OMG, that is the sexisest thing ever, wait until I post a photo of that in my Annex Parents group! That’ll knock Vivian off the front page for a day or two!
Rachelle: And did you touch him? What did he feel like? Was there any give, or was it all rippling, equine power?
]]>A beautiful woman in a sundress, her hair still wet from the morning shower, was trying to unlock a door. The sun was falling upon her, the wooden porch, the entire red brick face of the home. She didn’t have the right key and was struggling with the lock, with how her morning was assembling itself, and she tossed her head back in frustration. Tiny, almost imagined droplets of water were cast from her hair and caught in the sunlight, and everything seemed to stop for a moment.
And then a raccoon, having slipped from night into day, emerged from behind a tree. With his detached animal knowingness he stared directly at us. Jones, astonished, squealed at the miracle, while the raccoon, keeping to the shadows, disappeared back into the night of some protective greenery. Up at the corner, at the mulberry tree and raspberry bushes, so many berries had been crushed on the sidewalk that they looked like paintball splatters. There were berries hanging above us and growing from the earth beneath us, and it was like we’d passed into a different realm and were now moving through a fertile, green tunnel. As I was picking a raspberry for Jones, a woman sprinted by us toward the subway. Plugged into her iPhone, with a knapsack on her back and a briefcase in one hand, she was ready for the big meeting, ready to present the best version of herself to the world. She was moving fast, like an athlete who still retained her running form from college, days that had recently started to feel further and further away.
An older man, immaculately dressed in wardrobe that looked from another century, ambled up the street coming to pass a college-aged woman wearing a bright yellow dress. Her face was still new, and she carried with her a pronounced, heaving limp that was mysterious and beautiful and sad, and when she smiled past us, there was the unexpected scent of clove cigarettes and skin cream. A butterfly then appeared and it was a sign. Perhaps a spirit guide, and Jones declared that we must follow it, and so we did– everything around us like still lingering dreams from the previous night, only now beginning to fade into the waking day.
]]>- Executive Order suspending Groupon purchases for medical procedures, including colonoscopies and all eye surgeries.
- Executive Order creating a Task Force on toy reduction in the living room.
- Executive Order restoring the “Rule of Law” at sleepy time. No lollipops. No ice cream. No more than 6 stories. No exceptions.
- Executive Order protecting the household from foreign entry of sand, sticks, rocks of all kind, Play-Doh, cutlery and Spiderman lego into the bed.
- Executive Order improving accountability and whistleblower protection at the Department of Picking Up Used Kleenex That Almost Landed In The Garbage But Did Not.
- Executive Order prohibiting the use of Hate Speech such as “Daddy is stink face poo brain,” and, “ Daddy is stink face poo face!”
- Executive Order consolidating withdrawal from The Chore List Accord, as it was a rotten deal for Mike who was always stuck with picking up all the toys AND doing all the dishes AND taking out the garbage, in spite of how tired his allergies make him. Hugely unfair!!
- Executive Order creating a Comprehensive Plan for Reorganization of the front closet.
- Executive Order establishing that I will no longer wear my “A-game shirt” with the basketball players on it beyond the house perimeter, as the un-ironic attention I receive from other women threatens my wife.
- Executive Order imposing economic sanctions on The Red Lobster after that crappy “Admiral’s Feast,” dinner I ordered on Father’s Day.
Make Mike Great Again!
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Rachelle: Well, how do you know that?
Rachelle: No.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: She pretended to retch?
Rachelle: Because you told her you liked her sneakers?
Rachelle: That is pretty extreme.
Rachelle: Was this one of the sorority girls who lives down the street?
Rachelle: The one who looks like Jennifer Lawrence?
Rachelle: I thought so.
Rachelle: And did you tell her this in a way that sounded like what you really meant was that you wanted to see her naked?
Rachelle: I see.
Rachelle: Yes, of course.
Rachelle: Look, I know you’re just trying to generate some light in this crazy, angry world, Pickle, I get that!
Rachelle: And sure, somebody has to help scantily clad sorority girls who are 30 years younger than you, feel like they’re making the right fashion choices.
Rachelle: Imagine if every time one of them passed by a much, much, much older man and he didn’t say something about what they were wearing? What would happen then? Their self-esteem might just crater and then who knows what might happen?! It could be catastrophic!
Rachelle: I’m not being sarcastic.
Rachelle: No, I’m not.
Rachelle: Nope.
Rachelle: Jesus Pickle, OF COURSE I’m being sarcastic.
Rachelle: It’s amazing to me how slow you are to pick-up on sarcasm!
Rachelle: Like at the park when that woman was complimenting how high you could go on the swings?
Rachelle: That was sarcasm.
Rachelle: And at the drum circle, when that man said that you “displayed a beautiful mastery over movement?”
Rachelle: That was sarcasm, too.
Rachelle: Oh honey, I’m sorry.
Rachelle: I am.
Rachelle: You’re right, sarcasm truly is the lowest form of humour.
Rachelle: Look, it’s taking me longer than I thought here, do you mind picking Jones up from daycare?
Rachelle: Oh, I didn’t realize your group was meeting tonight.
Rachelle: I think it’s sweet that you guys get together and play Dungeons and Drama every month! Do you think you could let Jones join in? He’d love to dress up as Spiderman for it!
Rachelle: Dungeons and Dragons?
Rachelle: Oh, I always thought it was Dungeons and Drama.
Rachelle: I don’t know, I guess because of all the screaming and Lord of the Rings languages. Just seemed really dramatic.
Rachelle: Like an even nerdier version of Improv dramatic.
Rachelle: Whatever.
Rachelle: Okay, I get it.
Rachelle: It’s not a children’s game.
Rachelle: Very sophisticated. Very strategic. Good leadership training.
Rachelle: I’m surprised corporations like Google and Starbucks don’t use it as a training tool for their employees.
Rachelle: It really is a journey of discovery, isn’t it, Pickle?
Rachelle: Yes.
Rachelle: That was about 98% sarcastic.
Rachelle: Okay, don’t worry about it. I’ll pick Jones up, and you, my little Dragonborn Sorcerer, you have a great time playing Dungeons and Diggers! xox
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