bad day/good day

You're 13 minutes into a 7.5 mile run (on your way home after a half-day at the day job b/c you have to pick the kids up from 1st grade and preschool b/c MM is away at a retreat for a few days to be present as teacher for a local writing/publishing institution), needing to cross the street. You look left over your shoulder and see a biker approaching making your immediate crossing not possible. God fucking dammit motherfucking asshole you think. 

The biker slows, is talking to you. What the fuck you think as you pull your earbuds out. 

Hey man, he starts, some woman stopped me and made me find you. She said you dropped a bunch of stuff from your backpack, a ways back. You nod and say thanks. This isn't news b/c about half a mile back, as you were crossing the train tracks at the W end of the Tillikum Crossing bridge you noticed that your backpack had come slightly unzipped so you threw it off quickly, noting that your pants and work shirt were about to fall out and speedily threw them back in and zipped up before continuing down the path. This biker must be working on behalf of someone who saw that and is now showing unnecessary concern. Biker moves on. You stop your running app. You've been running 13 min and 30 sec for a total of 1.2 miles. Just as a precaution you take your backpack off to take an inventory. 

It's been one of those days already. Lack of sleep b/c daughter up a couple times in the night, up again at 5:45 AM. Groggy cognition. A heavy pot in the drying rack falling into the sink and breaking a wineglass, spraying glass shards everywhere kind of morning. You considered not even doing the run but you're training for a 1/2 marathon next month and you need to stay consistent w/ the training. Open the backpack: pants, shirt, undershirt, work ID badge, keys. All seems good. Wait. Wait. Where's the wallet? You check all the pockets. Can't remember exactly where you put it when you were changing in the locker room at work. It was in with the pants and shirt. Fuck. You double check. you triple check. 

A pregnant woman dressed in black approaches. She's the woman who stopped the biker. She said she saw a shirt and some headphones on the ground back there. The headphones, fuck. These are the heavy, cover-your-whole-head headphones you listen to on the bus to work. They're not in the backpack. The woman is apologetic for not having more details. She motions to her six or seven month belly and says she is running late for an appointment. You are so grateful and say so. 

Moments later you are walking back the way you ran. You can picture everything laying there. You must have been too hasty re-packing the backpack when it opened accidentally. You must have been embarrassed about your exposure to check thoroughly. You feel the gentle stirrings of panic in your belly. All the shit you'll have to cancel, all the dominos, forms, more forms, reapplications.

You attempt to still your mind. More than likely nobody did a thing and all your shit is laying there. This is Portland after all.  As you approach the intersection you can see something laying in the middle, just south of the train tracks. It's...your underwear and socks. Fantastic. No wallet, no headphones.

After walking the promenade back and forth, looking everywhere to the side you call MM and check at a nearby Starbucks. MM calls the credit union to put alert on cards. Starbucks says nope. You inventory to MM all the cards you had in that wallet: our shared cc, your filmmaking cc, 2 cc's particular to The Black Sea (long maxed out), your DL, your SSN card.

You find yourself in a nearby Cha Cha Cha asking the slightly gruff server about a wallet. He says nope. You find yourself noting the hillside littered with tents and makeshift canvas domiciles, skeevy and sketchy. You find yourself walking into a parking lot, pretending to be in the middle of a heated conversation on your phone so you can get eyes on the 3 homeless individuals huddled by a transformer next to their canvas-tethered shopping cart, to see if your headphones are around their neck, or if your emptied wallet is on the ground.

You call MM and decide to abort the run. Take the Orange line back home. You are starting to feel your stomach pulse with self-loathing. Why didn't you take more time to check your backpack you dumb fuck? You check your phone repeatedly. Nothing. You google yourself in aim to see if someone reasonable could track you down online. They could. But no one is calling, no one is emailing. You realize that a reasonable person would probably have just picked up the wallet and called you. A person with sketchy intent would have grabbed the headphones and wallet. You lost it at a heavily trafficked area, filled with Max, Bus, Street Car, Tram, nearby freeways. Anyone with ill intent could be long gone. That SSN card and DL together have merit. Lots a person could do. You google what to do if you lose your SSN card and the result is not reassuring. There is mention of someone using your SSN to buy property, to file false tax reports, to create fiscal accounts. You begin to panic. MM tells you to calm the fuck down. Get off at the Woodstock iteration of your credit union. Go in there and tell them what happened. Tell them you are home alone for 3 days w/ the kids and you need them to issue a debit card. There are pix on the wall of the credit union showing the business that existed in this same space in 1974. There are 2 people laughing on a bicycle in black and white. Their ghost/s must be here right now watching me. 

After credit union you talk to MM waiting for the 75 bus line to take you all the way home. Fraud alerts are filed. SSN alerts are filed. It's been 90 minutes now since you lost the wallet. You curse the dirty, skeevy homeless people who no doubt found your wallet and claimed it for themselves

On bus home you have moment of brief relief, thinking of non-attachment and identity. What could be more tethered to manufactured identity than a wallet, filled with signifiers, both accepted and invented. Maybe this is a good thing you think. There will be a pain in the ass ahead but maybe a good thing. Moments later you realized your day job business card was in your wallet. You call your colleague and ask her to check your voicemail. She calls back saying there is a sticky on your computer screen, left by the reception team: a woman found your wallet and has been calling non-stop. There is a phone number. The woman has the same name as your sister. You laugh in the driveway as you walk up to the front door of your house. 

You call the number. The woman says she is a runner too, was running and found the wallet and headphones, didn't know what to do. She grabbed them and took them back to work. She shares that her wallet was stolen some months ago on a business trip to Chicago - endless hassle trying to fly home and cancel cards - and she felt like this was karma, an opportunity to erase the negativity of her experience by one good deed. You agree to meet up to retrieve the wallet.

You call MM and laugh. You apologize for blaming your problem on dirty skeevy homeless people.  Your problem was your own. Your problem is your own. Your problem is part of you. 

Moments later you are in the basement, quality checking the DVD for your first feature film. You watch reluctantly having seen it a billion times in a billion forms. Your plan is just to watch a few minutes and then jump ahead but you get pulled in. It looks great, sounds great. Can it be that part of you is actually proud of this film, proud of what you made? These are strange sensations. Who are you? Having the DVD be almost done is amazing feeling. A long long road for a multiplicity of reasons. Shot 5 years ago, written across 10 yrs, intersecting with a person you used to be, the ghost of your intentions. 

You pick the kids up from elementary school and preschool. Lose your temper b/c they aren't listening. Later you will accidentally spill an entire bag of frozen blackberries in the freezer. Later you will attempt to get a peach out of a bottle for your kids and inadvertently tilt the bottle and pour sticky peach nectar across the floor. You will laugh about this. All part of a shitty day.

But then:

Later your father will tell you the oncologist has given the all clear. 

Later your sister will share some amazing, shimmering soul-stirring news. 

So, later you will decide to write it all down before you forget it. 

Before you forget about context and proportion.
Before you forget that two sentences of good outweigh paragraphs of bad. 

Before you forget about everything being an ephemeral puff of smoke. 

Here and then gone. Gone and then here.  A train arriving, a train departing. 

Your own ghost stands over your shoulder in 100 yrs, looking back/forward at you and laughs so fucking hard you can just about hear him. 

Rejection & Renewal

today is the 22 yr anniversary of the death of my son's namesake. he was driving back from his mother's funeral in Portland and fell asleep at the wheel 10 min from his house in McKinleyville, CA. (Margaret and I started dating shortly afterward and said if made it thru the hazards of being in a relationship in college and one day got married and one day had children, the boy would be named after him.) The last thing he said to me, in the foyer to our classroom on the 2nd floor of the Theater Arts Building, in a rush to get to Portland, the news of his mother's death fresh on his face was I'll be okay.

I got rejected for a job I wanted. granted still a day job (ie not filmmaking) but one that at least would intersect w/ my creative training and background. The sting was primarily ego-based but enough to mostly ruin the weekend. Late Sunday I started to think that maybe it was a gift, this not getting the thing I wanted, this transformative opportunity, this second chance to rise from the ashes and chart a course forward. That it was the pursuit of the job that was more important than the job itself (esp as relates to how I value my own self and voice).

It hasn't been confirmed but a rejection from a very selective film program I wanted desperately to attend is imminent. Getting in would have been a game-changer for my next movie Sister/Brother (which starts shooting this Spring).  When I got picked for the second round back in August, I had a few weeks to get the screenplay in shape and I did a line by line rehaul. In a sense that was the gift of advancing, not the perceived end goal. I am making the movie regardless.

Thursday I went to see the Pixies. In that weird sort of bookending that only music can seemingly do recalled seeing them 28 years earlier in Atlanta at the Roxy on October 15, 1989. Standing here in the recent present watching them made me think of the small tiny person I was then, a senior in high school, the broad deficiencies and wants that consumed me then. How I wish the me of now could go back in time, telling him not to put focus on such meaningless things. That made me think of the broad deficits and wants that consume me now. Is someone coming from 28 years in the future to tell me something similar? something like this:

Light can conceal as much as shadow can reveal. Things break one way, things break another. You'll be okay.

Today on my lunch break I ran up past the Duniway Park Lilac Garden, up Terwillger Blvd, on the path that circles the hospital where I had 2 brain surgeries, where my son had a fetal MRI when he was in utero to help them get a better look at the mass in his chest that was changing shape week to week, when we didn't know if he would live or die before he got to us, or shortly thereafter. The sun was out and the sky was blue. It was crisp and clear. My app told me when I finished the run but something inside me told me to keep going.

MM on Residency - end/return

really flubbed the landing there. meant to do a real-time day by day account of what it was like with aims to sort of document the price of art and love and marriage where both parties are pursuing something creative and there is taxation w/ in. I'll just say that there were a couple big low points (the macaroni night, Thurs b/f MM came home) but I weathered, we weathered. I am so proud of MM and cannot wait to see what kinds of fruit this trip bore her. Also, I'll get her back when I shoot my next movie Sister/Brother in the spring or summer of 2018

MM on residency - night 7, day/night 8, day 9

a blur of compromise and moments blended with good and bad in equal loops and rotations. two very good things: dinner w/ friends and other kids and playdate the next AM at other friend's house. both of these were moments to re-set and take a breath, find community w/ other parents and get some space from kids and allow them to play/connect w/ other kids. very grateful for that. also grateful that my mom and dad watched kids for an hour or two on Sat afternoon so I could go to New Seasons and then to have a beer at Corkscrew in Eastmoreland (but they of course were closed for private party!). Sunday afternoon, after nap they stepped up again and come over for an hour so I could rehearse my presentation for work today and to go to New Seasons (again! over and over). I purchased app so I can count down minutes/hours til MM comes home. This AM kids up early but school. My mom and dad come over and take them to school so I can go to do my presentation and then they pick them up and are at home w/them now waiting for me. I drove to 17th and Rhine max station again and should really stop on way home to get some food for dog. Just a few more nights. Plus I am home on Thurs and Fri. Hallelujah! (amount of work I have done on anything film related in the past few days is zero. Plus I had grand plans to revisit whole untapped swaths of cinema watching but thus far have managed to take in Remains of the Day, the 1st hour of Mon Oncle, 3 episodes of Mindhunter).

MM on Residency - night 5, day/night 6, day 7

Good things: kids still alive; successful visit to Burgerville, successful trip to Lewis Elementary to play and walk dog; successful visit to Rose Garden w Grandpa and N to watch Blazer game; semi-successful trip to Playground Gym; F agrees to take bath and let me wash her hair

Bad things: kids fight in car on street by playground gym; N karate chops F in throat; things spiraling out of my agency; F punches N in eye; nobody’s listening to me; N brings MMs big ergo ball upstairs even though i tell him not to; N and F play around in hallway in said ball, N lands face on floor, nose gushing blood; screaming; shrieking; nobody is listening to me; me relying on iPad too much; that steady burn in my gut

MM on Residency - Night 4, Day 5

Holy moly, last night was absolute shitshow. Got home to find the meal had been prepared by kids (w/ help from G & G, who promptly departed upon my arrival): fruit skewers and rice bowls w/ lots of fixings and additions. We finished eating at 5:15 and I had to clean everything up. Kids had both had endless rivers of screen time so we couldn’t pivot to a show. I tried to get them in their pjs and start early bed time all while kind of piecemeal cleaning where I could. F still not feeling well is just roaming the house crying ‘mama, mama’ and N I can feel ramping up. Eventually we are in the bathroom and he’s punching and kicking me and I’m trying every stripe of Buddhist patience and honoring the moment and speaking to him as adult and bargaining and negotiating to no avail and I grab him and put him over my shoulder and tactically attempt a primal papa bear type shriek/howl. This would be my great undoing. Things escalate from there and I am awaiting the police any second b/c no doubt the neighbors can hear the screaming and barking. F comes in and is sitting on my lap crying for mama and N is across from me throwing things at my face. I eventually wait it out and things slowly begin to recede from threat and I am able to put F in her room in bed and N in his. Everyone is hollowed out and fried. I make it downstairs with a glass of wine and sit on the futon and within seconds F has coughs herself awake and starts crying. This pattern would repeat several times. Instead of watching a work of cinematic genius my scattered mind tries multiple things: 5 min of The Trigger Effect, 5 min of Bojack Horseman, 5 min of  Mindhunter. None of them stick. I am fried and hollowed out and drink too much and binge eat some raided Halloween candy and none of it makes me feel better, only worse. The only good of the night is that F’s fever doesn’t return. At 2 am she coughs herself awake and then I am up and I begin catastrophic thinking and get fearful b/c MM has not touched base w/ me all night and I know she must be dead in WY frozen or bear-eaten so I call her at 2am and wake her up and freak her out. But she’s fine.

The next day the kids have a dance party that predictably ends w/ F screaming b/c she hit her head on the doorframe.

I take F to preschool. Me and N go to BiMart for mop and clock and New Seasons for shredded cheese and beers. We go home and play and clean up and then at 11 we go see Lego Ninjago. F takes a nap at preschool for the first time all year and her fever doesn’t come back. At present I am writing while they are being annoying as hell around me, near-fighting and trying my patience in severe way. I cannot wait until they are asleep and feel like an asshole for thinking that. My reserves of patience and energy are severely low.

amount of work I've done on anything related to cinema or myself: zero

MM on Residency - Day 4

as it happens I didn't watch Bergman or Cassavettes.  I went back and forth on a few choices, watched the first 4 min of a longer Criterion movie that wasn't a great fit for me, started Weekend by Andrew Haigh and got 2 min in b/f MM called. We talked for close to 40 min and then it was too late to finish movie so I watched the next episode of Mindhunter but fell asleep, waking when F was wailing "Mama, Mama" due to a bad dream, discomfort or some mix of both.

Went to bed. F woke me up at 12:50. I laid w/ her for an hour and then N screamed "Dada, Dada" b/c he had a bad dream. By now I was wide awake so I did crossword puzzle for long time until I finally felt the pull of sleep. turned out light and went to sleep. ten min or so later F woke me up crying. This pattern repeated a few more times. around 5:30 I came out of her room again but cat mewing to go outside, N got up to use bathroom, I fed dog. I pleaded w/ N to go back to sleep and let me sleep until 630, (as we normally are up at 6). he said sure. by some miracle F stayed asleep. He came and woke me at 630 and we read chapter of his book and then F woke up. Kids were crazy. FaceTimed w/ MM and it started good but ended w/ them talking over one another, F sobbing, N hurt in the neck when F pulled him. Oy. I let them start a show and then Grandma and Grandpa came over. I got F fully dressed and got her in the car but electrician showed up to look at bathroom remodel. I had to show him where panel was and explain we've had 3 GFCI's and one overhead light in garage that hasn't worked since demo a few wks ago. he said ok. I drove Fred to preschool. (I gave her a dose of cough medicine and advil right before drop off). I drove to Max stop in Brooklyn, right at 17th and Rhine but it took me so long to park that by the time I was parked and walking to the station and just 2 blocks away the max was pulling up and I couldn't catch it. Waited 14 min in the chilly AM for the next one.

At work I emailed grant guy about sister/brother grant and investor deal, asking him to qualify what he told me. turns out I misunderstood a key point. No big deal. Had acupuncture appt at 10 and went running on treadmill at noon. both were key since I've been exceedingly focussed on others the last few days. Headed home in a few. Grandma and Grandpa are w/ kids making dinner (polka dot rice and fruit skewers). I have to decide which movie to watch tonight provided kids sleep long enough to allow it.

screening 5/6/17 "The Black Sea" and "Ekimmu/The Dead Lust"

I arrived at Clinton Street Theater (via car2go) at 6:30 or so. Had some of the familiar pre-flight nervousness associated with all screenings and was really eager for the lights to go down and for the films to begin. THE BLACK SEA was playing as the 2nd of a double feature with Ekimmu/The Dead Lust. This had great personal significance for me because Ekimmu's filmmaker is Andy Koontz, a fellow brain tumor survivor. Andy and I connected on line some time back and communicated frequently via social media but we had never met in real life. There is an ease and shorthand to survivor communication (particular to trauma in general I presume, not just medical/brain trauma) - where since so much is understood without being voiced. Andy understands things that no one else really can by virtue of his journey and his battle (sidebar: Andy had medullablastoma, I had chondrosarcoma). A few minutes before 7 Andy and his wife Chrissy arrived. We took a couple pix out front and then headed into the theater.

Andy Koontz, me (photo by Kelsey Grace Soriano)

The lights dimmed and Ekimmu/The Dead Lust began. Now, I'd seen it a couple times at home but as with all cinema: see it in the theater, the best and truest way to experience it. Ekimmu in particular benefits from the biggest possible screen and the most dynamic sound system. The film - in part about a young couple who find a bloody woman on the side of a rural road at night - has a raw energy to it and is most impressive considering it was made on the slimmest of shoestring budgets. Andy not only wrote, acted, shot, directed and edited, he also did the sound design and composed and performed the original score. A true labor of love. I can't wait to see how it does on the film festival circuit (I suspect quite well) and even more what Andy does next. Seek his movie out and lend him your support. (sidebar: both movies looked and sounded great at Clinton Theater)

When Ekimmu ended, I wasn't certain if Andy was going to do a Q & A before for my movie or not, we hadn't really discussed it - but it didn't matter b/c the lights stayed down and THE BLACK SEA began. I hadn't seen the film or actively contemplated it all in over a year (last shown in Feb 2016 at the SoCal Film fest) which was truly a liberating experience. Letting go. I watched solely (okay mostly) as random viewer and allowed things to just happen before me, void of judgement. Letting go. Things I'd previously disliked seemed to work. The movie has a dark flow and dream logic to it that I've always felt like I have to defend or rather that I have to be on guard about but this time to put it in crude terms I didn't give a shit. The cast is awesome, score, camera, sound design all top notch. I am very proud of it and eager for it to be seen. (there is rumor of upcoming NW Film Center screening this summer, will confirm - and some possible upcoming West Coast dates/venues that I can't discuss just yet but TBA).

Q & A, me & Andy (pic by Kelsey Grace Soriano)

After Andy and I both went on stage for Q & A. We discussed our influences, how the projects came together, how our brain experiences affected the final product (Andy had already shot and been in post when he was diagnosed - I was at screenplay stage when I was diagnosed). I had a private moment on stage, remembering that a decade prior on 5/6/07 I ran the Vancouver BC marathon to raise $ for the National Brain Tumor Foundation and now here I was with a finished feature, standing next to another brain tumor survivor talking about his feature. I can't fully express with words the power and gravity of this feeling but I'll reduce it to this: gratitude. Andy and I are hoping/planning to replicate our double feature again in the fall at another Portland venue. Stay tuned.


Later, across the street at Dots with Scott (who shot and co-produced THE BLACK SEA) and Erin (who plays Charlotte),  Michael (who plays the gallery employee), filmmaker Ryan Graves  and some other friends a robust discussion about certain scenes arose. What did this scene mean? Why did character X do Y? I didn't answer as much as observe. It was a reminder of the power of cinema and how this movie that I made, that I hadn't seen/contemplated in awhile, that's been in the rearview mirror for me for quite a duration still has a pulse, is still here, is still alive.

Inquiry & Observation in 4 Parts

1) A couple weeks ago I had to go to the dentist to get my chipped front tooth finally addressed. I'd been putting it off and putting it off despite the cosmetic considerations, in part due to my laziness and in part due to my deep primal dentistry fears. There was a lag of a few weeks between making the appointment and the appointment itself so for reasons unremembered by me I scheduled it at 7 AM. God why? Probably thinking that I could pop in early and then head off to work. Exhausted and one-quarter awake I pulled into the parking lot, thinking of how I'd be the first or among the first appointments of the day and - as I am prone to do reflexively (maybe b/c I'm weird or maybe b/c I'm a writer and filmmaker or maybe due to some mixture) - started thinking about the people who worked there and the building turning on for the day and other operational considerations. What time did they have to arrive, 6:45 AM? What personal situations and emotions trailed them in at the crack of dawn before the dental apparatus began humming and demanded their focus? Did any of them regard their job negatively or at the same pitch and register as I regarded my day job? And so on. It was at this moment I noticed a young black woman at the back corner lot, yawning as she beeped her car key. Barely beating the receptionist in I thought.  Why so GD early? Across the lot another poor soul walked from his car to the front door. Inside, I overheard him at check-in: Wisdom tooth surgery. Fuck. Mine can't be that unpleasant, can it?

Moments later I was in the hallway being led to the back by the dental technician. She made small talk as she led me to her station, put me in the chair. I responded in a rudimentary way to her as I was seized by pools of panic, thinking about all the ways this could go wrong, all the problems with tooth and gum they'd find, all the steps and iterations required to fix a chipped tooth, what are they all? what if this is complex as fuck? what if this takes 3 visits? And so on. It was at this moment the young black woman I saw in the parking lot entered. "Ah" said the tech, "Here's the dentist"

A burn began to rise in my belly.

"What do we have on tap this morning" the dentist said
"Chipped front tooth" the tech responded
"Oh, those are fun" the dentist said. Then she looked at me and said "Why are you here so early?"
"Good question" I responded.

40 minutes later I was in the car headed home with a new tooth and a feeling I couldn't shake. Like I was outside myself, watching an innocent movie character suddenly realize his implication in something dire and malignant.

I pulled into the driveway at home.

2) This weekend at Washington Park playground with M and the kids. We'd just been on walk at Hoyt Arboretum and the playground was promised fun after they agreed to the non-fun of the walk. Set free, N began running around like an insane 4.5 year old and F headed straight to the swings, her natural preference. On the swing next to us was a small black boy being pushed by his white mother. My mind went instantly to the vagaries and details of adoption. I recalled the years of trouble M and I had conceiving, the moments we thought/knew it wouldn't happen and begin exploring the actual facts of adoption, the bureaucracy, the classes, the money, the plane flights. Was that this woman's journey? Was it joyous and free of entanglement, this path to her adoptive son? Or did it eat at her, did it consume her, was she still harboring resentment at the process not happening naturally? And so on. It was at this moment her black husband walked up to her, touched her shoulder and whispered something to her the easy, mundane way of a long-together couple.

A familiar burning feeling rose again in my belly, that sleeping man in the movie again, given sudden window to deep, multi-generational corrosion and his unwitting but malignant participation.

The young boy and F were both cute as hell, swinging side by side but out of rhythm. One forward, one back. Then reversed. Then reversed again.  I kept focus on their faces, their unconstrained joy, wondering how soon until they drifted into parallel movement.

3) Alton Sterling

4) Philando Castile

Margaret Malone is the best!

This past Friday Margaret and I stayed home from work to do our taxes. I think most would agree this is naturally a sort of depressing undertaking but for two artists who haven't quite yet monetized their enterprises it can come bundled with deep review of life-decisions, adding in turn to the register of depression. The table was spread with receipts - a burrito I bought in Idaho when I attended the Boise Film Fest; some gas Margaret bought en route to Seattle for LitFix etc - true artifacts of living the dream. Right smack in the middle of that the phone rings and it's the Pen New England Foundation calling to inform Margaret that she was selected as a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway this year.

Shortly thereafter we found ourselves out of the house drinking champagne for lunch.

Margaret hasn't had the traditional sort of writing career trajectory. She doesn't hold an MFA from a prestigious program, much less at all. She's not a veteran of the A-list writing colonies and fellowships. (Now, granted being veteran of those corridors doesn't guarantee anything but it seems/feels like lot of awards at this level share some commmonality of authorial career heritage.) Margaret has worked on PEOPLE LIKE YOU in various forms/iterations across a decade plus while also managing day jobs, pregnancies, variety of spousal issues, child-rearing et cetera. So to have her book recognized at this level is a gut-punch (if there's a way you can see a gut-punch as really really awesome) especially because Atelier26 her publisher is about as indie as they come (current staff: 2). This means one can safely deduce the award is solely on the merits of the work, which is incredible. Yes, all awards probably should just be on the merits but other factors leach in (consciously or not) and the deck can feel stacked so it can breed cynicism (note: in people like me). Margaret getting this recognition feels like a deserved tax credit in the universal balance sheet after years of programmed systemic penalty. Also, it is possible. It can be done. It is all worth it.

Okay, I am a biased party obviously but you should know this about Margaret if you don't already: She is a force in both the artistic and actual sides of this whole ride. In addition to being a ridiculously talented writer I have never met anyone in this world with deeper reserves of kindness, charity, humanism. She's authentic, hilarious, self-deprecating, inspiring, singular just like her book PEOPLE LIKE YOU which you should consider giving a read. (Trailer below!)

put another way: Margaret!!! Yahoo!!!!!



More at Margaret Malone's website here

Here/Not Here

I chipped my tooth again. Last night. I was in the hallway bending down to look at mud on the floor as my son Nicholas was crouched below. He sprung up, froglike, unaware of my head nearby. He knocked me so hard on the side of cheek that my front tooth came out.  Or rather, part of my front tooth. Part is real, part isn't.

21 years ago (Feb 26, 1995 to be precise) the same tooth was chipped by my then friend Margaret. We had all just been at Westhaven Beach near Trindad CA. (Margaret and I didn't become a couple until later in the summer of the following year, 1996) We had been shooting a scene for my super-8 film (with the unfortunate title "One Wacky Mornin'"). George was in the film so he was there, me, Marsha, Margaret, Matt. Marsha drove us all back in her Volvo to the house on Beverly Drive in the Sunnybrae neighborhood of Arcata, (where I was finally officially finally transferred to HSU, after 2 semesters at CR, taking film classes like Cinematography I with John Heckel, for which I was making the Super 8 film). Margaret slid out of the back seat, headed up toward the house. I leaned out the open door to say something smart-ass like hurry up or lets go (she was running in to get something. wallet? Red? ) unaware that she was in the act of pushing the car door shut behind her. The window was half-down and met me right across the teeth.

Last night after verifying my jaw/cheekbone wasn't damaged - N hit it very hard - I went downstairs and found my journal from then Winter/Spring 1995. I was an avid journal-writer in those days. My journal writing taking the place of making anything. I was taking film classes yes and had fierce burning urge to make movies but with deficit of facility and things-to-say. The journal was interim life-raft that I mistook for something meaningful. It has different meaning now as document/snapshot so in one sense it's always contained meaning but the meaning has transformed across the years. I read several consecutive passages: I was 23. Finally feeling somewhere I belonged (or at least could grow to belong) and yet contending w/ some extreme alienation, alone-ness, probable depression. As I read I was struck by how much time has passed and how I am yet in the vice grip of that trio. One passage in particular had me in a piano practice room - I wouldn't take Intro to Piano with Deborah Clasquin until the fall but I would always sneak into the rooms to mess around - staring into a mirror and wondering who the fuck was staring back. Later in the journal contains a embarrassing passage about my imminent world-domination as a filmmaker. Based on zero evidence just gut feeling but i really know that feeling was me vs the world, me delaying, me deferring, me saying just you motherfuckers wait.

I kept reading, hoping to find a great narrative document of what happened when I chipped my tooth but nothing of note. Just a a single sentence at the bottom of the page in a rambling passage of early 20s spew (sample: The heart is split like a harness, a canvas for the finger, the hand, the soul before the solitary painter who mirrors, who reflects.) There it was, a single sentence, no context: I chipped my tooth again.

I have no idea what the 1995 'again' refers to (I chipped my tooth in 3rd grade. Am I referring to that?) but the 2016 'again' refers to 1995.

2 days ago I was at a memorial service. Seeing photos flip by, projected onto the screen - infant one second, parent the next, in the throes of debilitation in the next - crushed me. Vital, then not. Here, not here. There's a Kubrick quote that best gets at what fucks me up about it all: The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent. The scope, breadth, joys/fears of entire existence reduced to a tiny room, an open bar, a speech, then nothing. Just the programmed hum of the HVAC, clicking on/off whether you are present or not.

In Fall of 1995 I was taking Intro to Piano with Deborah Clasquin. [By coincidence Margaret was in the class too. But she wasn't there that often since it was early in the AM and since she and Red were actively splitting. Margaret dropped the class eventually.] Deborah was a great instructor, patient, deliberate, kind. At the very back of the journal I found a ticket stub from a public performance she gave. Feb 4, 1995. It was the kind of artifact one shares on social media these days so I did a quick search for her with aim to send it her way.

Only to discover she died almost 7 years ago, March 10, 2009. I had no connection to her beyond the class, had no contact with her in 20 years but it still hit me sideways, not unlike my son springing up, uncertain my head was just over him. Vital then not. Here, not here.

I am prone to look for meaning in things where maybe there is none. Maybe that makes me no different than anyone. Maybe the answer is always nothing, coincidence, indifference. Maybe the older you get the more numbers, lives/deaths, coincidences you contend with and sift through.
But all that said:
what does it mean that the woman who became my wife broke my tooth in the exact same place 21 years before our son would? What does it mean that the same forces I felt aligning against me in my 20s are still present? What does it mean that my journal is filled with arrogant puffery about the filmmaker I hoped I would become? What does it mean that the night I saw Deborah Clasquin's performance was 22 days away from when my tooth would get chipped, was 21 years and 5 weeks from when it would get chipped again, was 10 years and 1 day away from my 1st brain surgery, was 2 months after Nicholas K - our son's namesake -  died in his van outside Trinidad CA driving back from Portland, was 14 years and 5 weeks from her existing any longer? 

I am writing this at my day job and the HVAC just clicked on here.

silence, gratitude

this past saturday 9/19/15, the per se anniversary of us pulling out of the driveway on SE 14th (see previous post), we are walking in Tryon Creek with our kids, the sunlight mottled on the ground, the faintest smoky whiff of autumn on the edge of everything. I feel momentary overwhelm-ment, a quick involuntary flutter of air-gasping akin to one drowning breaking the surface prior to sinking. Could I be any more fortunate? I thought. Holy shit that was a quick decade I thought.

Everything that resounds and thrums with the amazing vitality and presence of true living is the quiet and mundane and uncelebrated. Markers and rituals are important but nothing trumps a lazy unanticipated moment, hidden significance tucked inside the quiet.

A grove of trees, weather-worn and majestic, silently growing alongside one another.

birthday in ramble form, in picture form

AM of 43rd Bday, awake, play w/ kids, spend interminable amount tracking down superhero cape from N's daycare (he rec'd fri for good behavior and we can't find it anywhere) and finally find in double stroller we never use in garage. walk up to woodstock farmer's market, stellar day, deep blue sky. run into our neighbors and friends the B's, buy blue-berries and salmon and iced coffee (M) and italian sausage (me). Walk back to elementary school and play for a bit (including under the play structure) and head home for lunch and naps. N wakes up before F and comes out to say hi to me and mom in living room prior to heading downstairs w/ dad to watch a bit of winnie the pooh. soon after we're headed to Jamison square to meet N's buddy J, play in the water. Later at home M makes the salmon for dinner. we pajamatize the kids and grandma and grandpa come over to put them to bed. Margaret and I find our way to the Lutz for a needed drink and needed adult conversation, topics covered: owning creative/artistic flaws in the same way as Parisian women, panic & anxiety and the death this week of RK and the seismic aftereffects, pursuing equity financing for film #2, measures of success, ie real-world v internal, good fortune. Later at Laurelhurst to see Kumiko the Treasure Hunter. beer and popcorn. inevitably I fall asleep for part of it. we drive  home. I say to M, "R. dying this week really messed me up" M says "I know". Suddenly i recall the sunrise I got to see this AM, five more than R got to see; i recall my birthday a decade ago (at lovely hula hands if memory serves) and the uncertainty that held me. home on my wave of good fortune, overwhelmed w/ joy

on synchronous stingings

I've been reading and loving The Unwinding by George Packer - non fiction about the end of many precepts and certainhoods in US mythology to put it generally, which may sound dull but it's a fantastic read. Last night I at last got our (almost) 6 month old F to sleep finally and headed out to the kitchen table to read the book and enjoy a beverage, as is my wont while my wife got our 2 yr old N to sleep, prior to our nightly ritual of sitting on the futon and starting one in a cascade of endless Law & Orders and me falling asleep w/o fail 20 minutes in every time.

On page 241 I read about the ascendency of a NC congressman, seen and framed through the eyes of a NC businessman attempting to affect change via biodiesel, and came across this passage which involves said congressman-to-be being tended to by his father in a remote place after being stung multiple times by yellow jackets.

This naturally and immediately suggests to me a whole line of internal inquiry about what to do if/when my son is ever stung by a bee/yellow-jacket/hornet/other. Will he need and EpiPen too? Will he be one of those stories about allergic kids who swell up 3x in mere moments? Will the sting be his undoing? (note: don't be alarmed, these are all the healthy normal thoughts of any parent, sensing/anticipating peril around every corner). I felt blessed we hadn't encountered such yet and was somehow confident we wouldn't cross this bridge for many moons.

This morning we headed down to the river to check out the boats b/c it's Fleet Week. This is when some boats come up the Willamette River and park and allow the unwashed masses to come aboard (note: this is one of those things I would never ever do w/o a kid. It wouldn't even cross my mind. however the calculus of daily decisions is supremely altered w/ children in that going somewhere you don't have any actual interest in going trumps the catastrophe of staying home b/c at a minimum you won't have to look at the laundry/dishes and see them as some tacit reminder of your failings.)

We made it on to one boat, which was fine and neat and made me glad we went. Other boats had long 3 hour waits which we could not endure so we walked around the promenade, around the booths at Saturday Market (on Sunday) and past the not-yet-running-b/c-it's-10-AM carnival rides behind miles of chainlink.

We were standing at one chainlink bit, attempting to encourage N to walk for awhile since I'd been carrying him for probably a mile's worth of distance - now feeling it burn in my chest, arms, legs, in particular b/c I made the ill-informed last-minute decision to wear flip flops instead of the hassle of shoes upon leaving the house - and he was not interested, urging me to carry him instead.

And from nowhere, he began wailing in pain and we looked down and saw a stinger sticking out of his neck. A bee.

Moments later I am carrying him, the sun beating down, him screaming in pain, my flip-flops clap clapping on the walkway, trying to decide what to do - back to the car? find a first aid tent somewhere in the swell of the Rose Festival grounds? He can't stop crying, he can't stop touching his neck. And I am suddenly pulsing with fear - part particular to parenthood, part particular to my own stripe of dark worst-case paranoia - b/c we don't have an EpiPen. (But why would we?) And: Is this just coincidence? that 14 hours prior I was reading about stings and feeling blessed that N had never been stung? What are the odds? 

And: Will this sting be his undoing? 

We made our way to salvation, hearts slowing, N brave as hell. And I was re-presented this seeming
perpetual lesson: The lack/loss of control is a fundamental component of this whole enterprise.

wknd in thumbnail, independence day edition

indeed indeed, i was granted a 4 day wknd from my job, got friday off but i feel compelled to back the narrative up to thursday when my recently-exposed cans of film arrived in seattle and we met sipes and R at dot's cafe in clinton, both of whom are from back-in-the-day collegiate memory-pools as well as present-day. R was here for just a night, en route to seattle for a wk long vacation. we talked baby, movie, zombies etc and parted ways. M and i rented bored to death from clinton video and went home and promptly watched 3 of them.



friday we slept in and walked LB up to the mt tabor dog park. along the way we fell into more memory-pool business, artifacts and long-forgot moments suddenly pulled up from the sludge of time, suddenly alive with value heretofore either un-accrued or unacknowledged. part of this is due to the life-changing undertaking headed our way in a matter of weeks, part of it is getting older but we came to realize that, it being july 1, it was 15 yrs ago or so that we hooked up, which engendered a semi-exhaustive inventory of all the random and free-will things that had to happen for and to both of us to have arrived at that point in space-time and all the random and free-will things that had to happen for and to both of us afterward to continue to be together. kind of a head-twirler. we noted all the things that had happened in 15 years, the trips, the places, the events. all in an eyeblink. later was breakfast at genies. we made a list of all the crap we had to accomplish over the 4 days, all connected directly or otherwise to baby. afterward we drove to hospital, had ultrasound, checkup etc. all on course. large baby headed our way. we noted that he was in the 94th percentile and then we noted how we promised we'd never talk about boring crap like what percentile the kid was in. conundrum.

we went home, attempted to nap. went to academy theater to see Meeks Cutoff which was amazing for several reasons, one the images, one the rhythms, one the screening itself, mere 4 dollars with delicious pizza and beer, sold out on a beautiful summer night and on top of that i saw one of the mechanics I work w/ in my day job sitting in a nearby row - frickin a, so glad to live in portland, oregon. not like other places. also, fantastic movie (lest that get lost in my chittering).




Saturday we woke up. walked back up to Mt. Tabor and the dog park, drove to my parents to borrow the CRV, then drove to Ikea which was supremely un-fun and crowded, a testament to commerce and large-ness, giant carts filled with giant boxes every which way you'd turn inside a maze, not necessarily dissimilar from the one in 'the shining', on an unbelievably beautiful summer day. we wanted to turn and leave but we had some items that we had to get - so we got them. getting them in the vehicle was one undertaking. getting them out of the vehicle and into the house was another. came home and let LB into the yard. He promptly rolled in feces (whether it was his or not was not established). after a quick nap attempt we walked him up the street to dog-washing establishment which he resisted but what choice did he have in the matter? Some time later we returned the CRV to my folks and stayed for dinner which was salad w/ all varietal of bit and tidbit to add and augment. my mother has a propensity for documenting things that may or may not need to be documented which i've certainly inherited (see: this blog entry or see: this blog) and on this summer night she took pix of each salad and then forwarded to all the dinner guests. I think this is my salad. which was delicious (note: i manipulated the colors, camera is functional)

sunday morning we were both exhausted and sore, partly from lifting the ikea crap (me), partly from being 8 mos pg (mm). the skies were overcast so we planned to block off a couple hours and she would do some thank you cards (for last wknd's baby shower) while i assembled the ikea items. everything went smoothly enough, except for the budgeted time part, b/c when i had finally put everything together and we'd moved it to where it needed to live, even if temporarily, it was 4 pm, and, aside from a brief timeout for breakfast, all time was spent assembling and card-writing. This is more stress-inducing than it may sound. At 4 pm our back-up doulla arrived for an interview. she was great. all went swimmingly. M walked up hawthorne to get more thank you cards while i took LB to throw the tennis ball. we reconvened back at the house. we watched a nova special - recommended to us by a compatriot in our birthing class - called the miracle of life (i think) which focused on genes and chromosomes and cell replication and the wonder of it all. this was the perfect thing to see as a sort of appetizer for T. Malick's The Tree of Life, which we saw a couple hours later at the fox tower. I'm still processing the entire film which is long and winding and lovely but suffice it to say that it's Malick - one of my top 3 - and E. Lubezki shooting a film that encompasses the birth of galaxies, planets, and life itself and all attendant developments therein, from conciousness through love and death and all stations in between - and i think my final assessment will be at the highest range of esteem. tbd. at a minimum i think it has to be seen twice. and i'm only at once. but you should see it. [bonus: mm, very pg, got out of her chair mid-movie and upended a 'small' mr. pibb - i use quotes b/c their small is more like a bucket - which ended up soaking the purse and contents of our friend J sitting right next to us. bonus 2: man directly in front of me who had weird/distracting affect of constantly and perpetually moving his head in little circles, like one might do if one had a sore neck but say for 30 seconds or so, not for 2 hrs and 18 min.]



 Monday, independence day, we wake up, one more time w/ LB up to Mt. Tabor dog park. He's come a long way in just a few days, multiple dog-exposures helping to ease his anti-social leash fear thing.  We watch the end of Bored to Death (which is fantastic) and head out to friends' house for bbq. They were kind enough to allow LB to hang in their back yard and aside from one tiny incident wherein he crawled thru a hole in the fence and feverishly devoured all the contents of a metal bowl in the neighbor's garage everything was fine. we ate like kings and talked for awhile and then headed home. intending to somehow take the reins over chaos we inventoried all the gifts, blankets, clothes, and other items that have found their way to our house. It sounds benign enough but in fact it was a strange and stress-y undertaking, each item underscoring the move from abstraction to actuality in t-minus 4 weeks. I mean, it's not all stress, it's mostly lovely but uncertainty is a demon that breeds many hell-hounds as the old song goes (note: that's not actually an old song, i just made it up). We took deep breaths, walked to new seasons (where we heard tu fawning over the pa!), bought a sandwich, walked home in the twilight, as all around us were explosions near and far, cracking and booming, shaking and reverberating, seemingly endless waves rolling in, rolling in, rolling in.

this morning the sky was cerulean. the sun was shining. i rode my bike in to work and could not stop smiling. and i'm not a smiler.

call me

i can't tell you how much i am not a fan of cell-phones. i don't like to watch people 'interacting' w/ them on the bus or at a movie theater or at a restaurant. i count the times i've witnessed couples or families on separate cell-phone calls or texts or whatevers as among the best representation of the worst of modern life. i am aware this makes me look cranky and non-integrated. this is all by way of saying, due in part (okay, in total) to the new arrival (see below post. no, not the song, the one under it) and all the attendant spreading limbs of change slowly wrapping around us, that after a decade of not-having-a-cellphone, which really did not put my life at a detriment in any, way, shape, or form - i've capitulated. last week m found a good deal online, too good to pass up, so we ordered me one.

i came home from work yesterday and the new phone was on the porch in a box. (next to it was another box filled with 16 millimeter film stock from kodak. two separate tracks, alternate worlds, now intersecting, ribboning toward the horizon). i haven't yet opened it. but it's in the house. lurking. waiting.

wknd in thumbnail

my posting in this forum - as the faithful reader will note (hi mom!) - has been reduced to something less than intermitttent trickle, something less substantial than smoke-wisp and - as per usual - this is attributable to a variety of churn and chop in a multitude of oceans, if you'll allow the indulgent metaphoring, and i feel guilty and irresponsible but only up to a certain point. mm and i have a ticking clock, set to arrive in early august, which has moved absolutely everything else to the backburner.  We're steeling for waves of change that we can only surmise - we've watched plenty of others ride the waves but we're beach-bound or at least we will be until early august when we'll have no choice but to venture into the water (continuing the indulgence of the maritime metaphor).

alas, herein and forthwith, i will document our three-day holiday weekend, fittingly deemed 'memorial day' b/c we are certain that it will memorialize our rapidly shrinking autonomy.

friday, i got home early from work. m was home already. our houseguest of several days had moved on (hi e!) and we walked the dog and put our pajamas on. It was the exceedingly early hour of 5:30 pm but we were both fighting exhaustion and illness (m has had a wretched unshakeable cough) so we felt zero remorse about being in for the night, even if night was several hours out. we sat quietly and read in the living room - m is reading salmon rushdie, i'm reading the making of the empire strikes back (don't ask). at one point we started to discuss plans for the wknd but quickly agreed to not discuss anything related to the weekend. instead we ordered a pizza and watched 3 episodes of treme and went to bed. it was a glorious afternoon/evening.

saturday, i made breakfast. we finalized and sent out invites for our party/bbq/shower (a surprisingly stress-inducing undertaking). despite the weather report the sun was out. we walked the treme dvd down to clinton street video, hoping to get the next disc but it was not to be. we put our name on a reservation list. we looked at a store that combines babyness with ecological sanctity. we walked to a cafe on division and drank waters and tried to decide whether or not to go see a movie. we walked to hawthorne and ate frozen yogurt. we stopped in jackpot records and bought things (m got tv on the radio on vinyl, i got the new figurines, we ordered the new bill callahan b/c they were out). we walked home.
we took naps. we got a call from clinton street video saying the next disc of treme was in. we decided it was fate deciding our night. m went to get the dvd while i walked the dog. we got into our pajamas. we reheated the leftover pizza. we were in for the night.



sunday, i awoke in a sort of panic. i am shooting a short film in a few wks and there are multiple threads and strands that i have to address. i scrambled into my office and began listing them all, began multiple emails to various peoples regarding various aspects of the production. i storyboarded most of the movie. i sat down and had coffee as i read 'the making of vertigo'. later i watched david cronenberg's videodrome (which is interesting not only b/c the last time i saw it was 20 years ago, which you can verify at the picture of my journal from this recent interview w/ me and not only b/c the movie is fucked up and fantastic but also b/c it features a character getting a brain tumor and naming his brain tumor Videodrome. when i got my brain tumor i named it 'marla singer' after a line of dialogue in the movie fight club but if i had recalled this movie at the time i may have named it videodrome instead). we left the house (!) and picked up C and went to the laurelhurst theater to see Vertigo which, was stupendously jaw-dropping and affecting and effective even though i'd seen before and even though the print was faded, nicked and less-than-stellar. we came home and ate a late dinner (w/ the corn tortillas C had made) and watched another 'treme'.



monday, i woke to an email that had repercussion for the short film, that contributed to snarling a scheduling problem that i had unsnarled before that would take 3 shooting nights down to 2 and all the attendant haste/error/issue therein. it burned in my gut and i felt a low-grade depression, a malaise spreading through me. all my internal-voice doubt spigots were activated and began flowing. i read interview w/ david cronenberg wherein he cites orson welles' quote about how a director merely presides over a series of accidents, about the illusion of control and i felt mildly better. my dad picked me up and we went to the living room theaters to see werner herzog's 3D 'cave of forgotten dreams', which helped put my small concerns in perspective and which was also awesome. after, we went to hopworks and talked about baby things. later, back at home, we took the dog to the dogpark to throw tennis balls. we came home and i assembled a stroller. (note: seeing it in the corner now, existing, waiting for a passenger, is a strange odd scary thing). we ate dinner and mailed thank you cards for said stroller. we watched the end of season 1 of treme, which rocked our world. already planning to re-watch at some point down the road when we've fully digested/processed. this AM it was the first thing we both thought about.

thank you weekend. i loved you so.

tiny holes

friday evening, just after work m and i meet a friend for a quick drink. on way home we decide to rent a movie and stop by our video store. inside the store, playing on ceiling-mounted television screen is a film i love, but one i haven't seen in probably a decade. it features casual displays of wanton interpersonal cruelty and one key scene displaying such plays as we are waiting in the check-out line. i am transfixed and something inside me is breaking open. moments later we are in the car driving home and i am weeping. then we are home and i am momentarily wracked with sobs. the next morning the film - and the images i re/saw standing in line and my reaction - are the first thing that find me when i wake up. it is a strange sensation, one i don't know that i've ever had, some admixture of past, present, future - involving the way i was raised, that moment standing in line, the way i related to that film 15 yrs prior; something to do with promises the old me made to the future me (which is to say promises the 20-year-old-child made to the 38-year-old-child) and the latter's assesment of progress; something about the interconnected thread of humanity between everyone and the immunizations i've allowed to obscure it. There are also supplementary tangents of film and filmmaking, art and life, life and death.

The experience was at once remembrance and awakening, governed by a chain of random events, causing tiny disparate holes to line up for one fleeting set of seconds and allow the full weight of some heretofore unknown arrow penetrate my heart. suffice to say it was something more profound than can be addressed intellectually in these lines but it was either one of those fleeting moments in life where for one split-second you arrive at crystalline-clarity and then reality washes back in like the tide or it was something else. something new.

changes, podcast, et cetera

after a decade or so, spanning across two states and multiple residences, the death of two beloved animals, the acquisition of another, the hours of my daily life have changed. since 2001 i've worked 10am-7pm (note: and by worked i mean went to my day job. the distinction is important as relates to my sense of sanity and self-worth). As of a  few weeks ago i am now in 8a-5pm land. I feel like i've graduated into some parallel plane where most of the interactions and machinations of the world at large have been occuring this whole time, like i've risen from my dank subterranean box to join the shining, shimmering carnival of normal daily commutes, normal meal-times, normal appointment times etc.

other changes have been brewing alongside this one but i can't discuss them in this forum yet. soon. probably. oh and still waiting for news on the memoir front. something is brewing there too.

in the meantime you can kill 13 minutes by checking out the latest installment of aural-discontentment, episode 5 of the last film i saw podcast. click
here

the last weekend of Henry 10.17.2010

saturday, am we get up and make breakfast, sitting out side on the deck. you and strunk are standing on the table before we eat. you look like two little statues but then she hisses at you. when the food is on the table you attempt repeatedly to get jump up from a chair. you are extremely persistent and i swat you away multiple times w/ the paper. later m goes to laurelhurst park to meet friends and i'm laying on the futon w/ a cozy green blanket. you enter the room, see me, jump up and start purring. i scratch at your head, the bit between your eyes over your nose. you love it.

sun am, you enter our bedroom and begin your mewing to express dissatisfaction or eagerness for breakfast. i'd already gotten up to let strunk out 45 min earlier. i manage to pull you on my chest and keep you there where you purr loudly, laying across my belly. it is the last time you sleep on me. that morning m feeds you and strunk jellied tuna parts which is a delicacy and she ends up giving you the whole can. when we get back from yoga we cook breakfast, i make coffee and as per your usual request i give you some cream and then some more cream. it is the perfect autumnal afternoon now, the october sun warming us all on the back deck, crisp as hell. at one point i see you sprawled out, laying prostrate under the table and for a split-second i picture your death, after all you had that swollen eye thing a few wks ago and you're no spring chicken anymore. but you're alive and well, enjoying what must be the perfect day for a cat. later LB is laying there next to you, his paws grazing the top of your head. later m is off the deck in the backyard helping me w/ the composter. this gives you the opportunity to jump up onto the table and attempt to eat what's left of her eggs. she has to run back twice. later, when we're back sitting there you jump up and scavenge off her plate.

m and i go to ikea to get slats for our bed.  we come home. we take LB to the park and throw the tennis ball w/ him. when we come home you and strunk are eager for dinner. i feed you your part of a can, crushing your pill for the eye thing into the food. then i put the rice on for people dinner and help m put the slats on the bed. i leave to walk to the grocery. is it here? do you exit when i do out the front door? i already can't recall. if you did, this is the last time i'll see you alive. yes, wait that was it. you ran out with me. i went to retrieve the shopping list from the car and you were in our driveway, to my left. as i shut the door i recalled all the times you'd jump into the car if the door was open.

we eat dinner and watch two l & o svu's from season 2. when it's done i get on the computer and m taps the side of a can out on the porch and says 'i put the call out. when you're done there you get him'. this is our ritual. we put the call out for you, summoning you back from your kit adventures. sometimes it's instant, sometimes 10 to 15 minutes. but you always come. usually we hear your bell from near or far, tinkling as you run back. in los angeles you lived in an apartment for 7 years, always aching to be outside. when we moved to portland we let you run free.  but we always made sure you came in at night time. i brush my teeth and then tap the can from the front porch. nothing. no bell tinkling.  i go to the back porch. nothing.

i go back to the front porch and tap the can and hear nothing. it is eerily quiet. then i see it. a black shape laying across the street in the neighbor's yard. it could be a scarf or a discarded piece of something but as i go down the steps and across the street, growing closer i see that it is a cat, curled up as if sleeping.  my stomach plummets. wait, is it you? there's no collar. for the teeniest of split-seconds i think that maybe it's not you but a look-alike. but i feel the tail and that is how i know - you have a distinctive broken tail. it is you, my love. dead. you are gone.  you look as if you could just be sleeping but underneath you i see blood. your eyes are frozen open.someone has lain tiny flowers on your body. i don't know whether to pick you up or not, i end up going back to the house. i find your collar and tag and bell - crushed - laying in the street. i put them in my pocket. i tell m. moments later we are both outside sitting by you, both dumbstruck, crying, disbelieving. we put you in a cardboard box and take you inside and cry some more. we sit over your box in the living room trying to show strunk and LB. i am crying so hard that LB is more concerned with me, licking the tears off my face. i pour a tiny bit of cream for you. i light a candle.

just like that you are gone. nearly 15 years old. a robust life, suddenly over. and you are so warm. it must have just happened. just as we were sitting inside, watching the computer screen. how can you be so warm and no longer be alive? we each hallucinate seeing you take a breath. but no, there is no doubt: the life has left your body. we each speak about you. how glad we are that it happened like this, that it wasn't some debilitating disease, and that we are glad you died right away, that the car or bike who hit you didn't merely maim you, leaving us to take you the emergency clinic, with you in mortal agony, forced to decide whether to have you put down or not. no, this was a swift journey and we thank whomever needs to be thanked for such a mercy as that. we send you energy and good vibes to help you cross over. we check the times of the pet crematory. in the morning we will take you to be burned to ashes. but for tonight, we put you and the box outside, where you would most like to be, so that you can run free. one last time.

xo