Wednesday, November 30th, 2005--
When I started this blog I really thought I had a decent idea of how what I wrote affected people. This belief was
based on my having misspent a great deal of my youth writing and performing comedy, which boasts a very short,
very ruthless feedback loop. You are in the same room with people as they hear your writing, and they are
encouraged by custom and plied by drink to let you know, immediately, vociferously, just what they thought of it.
After a few years of this, you begin to believe you know how to navigate the border town between What You Wrote
and What They Hear. The best bars, the darkest alleys, what you can get away with, what you can't.
But that's Comedy, and though it is much harder than what I am attempting to do here (what is that again?), it is
different, and I've learned those experiences do not apply here, and I am constantly amazed by what others pull out
of things I write down.
Sometimes people are very sweet with concern about this or that "sad" entry. That is always a shock, because
even in the worst of times, if I sit down and start writing something, anything, about anything, and just vent it all out
on the page, I invariably end up fairly chipper. There is just something about being involved in the experience of
writing, some sort of interior ritual your brain needs to undergo to get words on a page in the right order...it must
use the same sections of your brain devoted to depression and worry.
"So sorry, really, but I'm afraid we're going to be needing this bit of the brain for a while...we're very sorry. Yes, I
understand Worry and Depression are very important...yes...a long history and all that...right.....all your
furniture...yes, I understand. And you have done wonders with the place...the dim lighting...very Downtown...It's just
that somebody-and believe me, we are all upset about it-has begun writing something. Yeah. So you see...
Umm, actually I'm not quite sure. It started with a date, a comma and then 'blah, blah, blah.
No. Literally the three words, "blah", "blah", and "blah", separated by commas. Yes, you're quite correct, it hardly
does seem worth it. Still, heh, rules are rules... We'll be sure to tidy before we go...oh, leave it? Right then..."
I'm not sure why the hell it works, but generally it does, which allows me to drop in a segue so awkward it really
doesn't deserve the name, but it does relate to a post a couple days down the page. If you are reading this, and
you are in the sort of place in your life, or your head, where things are really just god awful black, I can actually
recommend two things, one of which easy. That easy one is to just start writing, about anything, but knowing in the
back of your head that there is stuff in there that needs to get the fuck out. I actually have just written "blah,
blah,blah..." over and over until something else came, or done two pages describing dogs at the dog park.
Anything that gets that part of the brain going. That is some of the most cliché advice of the modern age, but it has
worked for me, so whatever.
The real piece of advice I wanted to put out there, but which didn't seem to fit the previous post, is to put your body
into the ocean every day. I know that is impossible for a lot of people, and sounds nuts, but as I said above, it
always amazes me what people pull off this page and act upon, so who knows, maybe if I throw something in here
on purpose...
Whatever.
I described below just how little money the job on Martha's Vineyard paid that summer. I could have made much
more in Boston, where I lived at the time. But a few parts of my life had blown up simultaneously, or, more likely, I
had destroyed them, and when there seemed no hope life would ever get better, I got this job offer, which sucked,
but which required living on an island. And out of nowhere some part of my Colorado-raised, landlubber head
declared with complete confidence and clarity:
"If you swim in the ocean every day, your life will get better."
And the crazy thing was, it worked. I bought two swimsuits and a towel and kept them in the bed of my pickup, so
one suit would always be...well, not really dry, but...less clammy. And the first day I got there, I jumped into the
freezing New England-in-May water, nearly hyperventilated, and kept doing that, every day, all summer. On lazy
days I spent hours in the water, on rushed days I just ran in, dunked myself under and ran back out. But I did it
every day, and my life got better. There is something about being enveloped in something that--
It's like this; I would stand/float/tread water with the ocean around my neck, look out toward the horizon and think
about the water touching my skin, which was connected to the water between me and the horizon, which was
connected to the waters of the Atlantic, which was itself connected to other bodies of water which continued,
unbroken, around the world, encompassing the entire globe. Not with a paper-thin representation of water on a
map, with masses of water so deep and heavy as to never have seen light nor man.
That was a big piece of water I was immersed in. Stupifyingly so. An entity so much greater than myself that all
the terrible...everything that it pulled from my head or heart or soul or whatever, as I floated there, had no effect on
it. The ocean really couldn't care less. It couldn't be bothered with something as insignificant as Me And My
Problems. But it did receive them without complaint and I did leave the water a lighter person each time.
So I would recommend that. Or mountains, or night skies in the country, or jumping on freight trains. Anything
which reminds you how insignificant we are. How tiny, and by association, how tiny our problems. It sounds a
little counterintuitive, even depressive, but you are, at the time you experience these Grand Things-even though
they do not know or care, even as you experience, in their presence, your own insignificance-simultaneously a part
of these Grand Things. You are among the Cosmos, you are standing on the Mountain Range, you are in the
Ocean, you are on the Freight Train. And your problems are not allowed to participate in this
insignificance/magnificence paradox. They just get the first part.
...Pity..
And that right there is a perfect example of why, when you think, "I probably shouldn't put that in," you probably
shouldn't.
Back on topic, or at least a little more recognizably on topic, I didn't really think I was telling sad stories on this site.
Most of them I find pretty funny. I do still think of this as an entertainment at best, often dipping below the line into
Leisure Activity and often still farther into the depths of Something To Do Instead of What Others Expect You to
Have Completed By the End of the Day. I wouldn't fill those sacred, wasted minutes with sadness. Besides, many
people read this at work, precluding them openly hanging their head over a glass of alcohol, once chilled, now
room temperature and watery as their eyes, which is really the only proper way to fully appreciate the sad tales of
others, measuring them against your own and finding them a bit, well, trite.
So cheer up, God knows I am. Two days of RICE did a fantastic job of preparing my ankle for work today and
everything went well. I taped the beJesus out of it, wrapped it in an ace bandage, put the whole rigmarole in a
tightly laced, high work boot and popped 3 generic Aleve on my way out the door this morning. Aces.
I even caught myself thinking, ever so briefly, about a return to the Field of Honor this Sunday...in a limited role, of
course.
Insane. Yes. I know.
Maybe if I can get it down to a monochrome color scheme by Sunday morning...
When I started this blog I really thought I had a decent idea of how what I wrote affected people. This belief was
based on my having misspent a great deal of my youth writing and performing comedy, which boasts a very short,
very ruthless feedback loop. You are in the same room with people as they hear your writing, and they are
encouraged by custom and plied by drink to let you know, immediately, vociferously, just what they thought of it.
After a few years of this, you begin to believe you know how to navigate the border town between What You Wrote
and What They Hear. The best bars, the darkest alleys, what you can get away with, what you can't.
But that's Comedy, and though it is much harder than what I am attempting to do here (what is that again?), it is
different, and I've learned those experiences do not apply here, and I am constantly amazed by what others pull out
of things I write down.
Sometimes people are very sweet with concern about this or that "sad" entry. That is always a shock, because
even in the worst of times, if I sit down and start writing something, anything, about anything, and just vent it all out
on the page, I invariably end up fairly chipper. There is just something about being involved in the experience of
writing, some sort of interior ritual your brain needs to undergo to get words on a page in the right order...it must
use the same sections of your brain devoted to depression and worry.
"So sorry, really, but I'm afraid we're going to be needing this bit of the brain for a while...we're very sorry. Yes, I
understand Worry and Depression are very important...yes...a long history and all that...right.....all your
furniture...yes, I understand. And you have done wonders with the place...the dim lighting...very Downtown...It's just
that somebody-and believe me, we are all upset about it-has begun writing something. Yeah. So you see...
Umm, actually I'm not quite sure. It started with a date, a comma and then 'blah, blah, blah.
No. Literally the three words, "blah", "blah", and "blah", separated by commas. Yes, you're quite correct, it hardly
does seem worth it. Still, heh, rules are rules... We'll be sure to tidy before we go...oh, leave it? Right then..."
I'm not sure why the hell it works, but generally it does, which allows me to drop in a segue so awkward it really
doesn't deserve the name, but it does relate to a post a couple days down the page. If you are reading this, and
you are in the sort of place in your life, or your head, where things are really just god awful black, I can actually
recommend two things, one of which easy. That easy one is to just start writing, about anything, but knowing in the
back of your head that there is stuff in there that needs to get the fuck out. I actually have just written "blah,
blah,blah..." over and over until something else came, or done two pages describing dogs at the dog park.
Anything that gets that part of the brain going. That is some of the most cliché advice of the modern age, but it has
worked for me, so whatever.
The real piece of advice I wanted to put out there, but which didn't seem to fit the previous post, is to put your body
into the ocean every day. I know that is impossible for a lot of people, and sounds nuts, but as I said above, it
always amazes me what people pull off this page and act upon, so who knows, maybe if I throw something in here
on purpose...
Whatever.
I described below just how little money the job on Martha's Vineyard paid that summer. I could have made much
more in Boston, where I lived at the time. But a few parts of my life had blown up simultaneously, or, more likely, I
had destroyed them, and when there seemed no hope life would ever get better, I got this job offer, which sucked,
but which required living on an island. And out of nowhere some part of my Colorado-raised, landlubber head
declared with complete confidence and clarity:
"If you swim in the ocean every day, your life will get better."
And the crazy thing was, it worked. I bought two swimsuits and a towel and kept them in the bed of my pickup, so
one suit would always be...well, not really dry, but...less clammy. And the first day I got there, I jumped into the
freezing New England-in-May water, nearly hyperventilated, and kept doing that, every day, all summer. On lazy
days I spent hours in the water, on rushed days I just ran in, dunked myself under and ran back out. But I did it
every day, and my life got better. There is something about being enveloped in something that--
It's like this; I would stand/float/tread water with the ocean around my neck, look out toward the horizon and think
about the water touching my skin, which was connected to the water between me and the horizon, which was
connected to the waters of the Atlantic, which was itself connected to other bodies of water which continued,
unbroken, around the world, encompassing the entire globe. Not with a paper-thin representation of water on a
map, with masses of water so deep and heavy as to never have seen light nor man.
That was a big piece of water I was immersed in. Stupifyingly so. An entity so much greater than myself that all
the terrible...everything that it pulled from my head or heart or soul or whatever, as I floated there, had no effect on
it. The ocean really couldn't care less. It couldn't be bothered with something as insignificant as Me And My
Problems. But it did receive them without complaint and I did leave the water a lighter person each time.
So I would recommend that. Or mountains, or night skies in the country, or jumping on freight trains. Anything
which reminds you how insignificant we are. How tiny, and by association, how tiny our problems. It sounds a
little counterintuitive, even depressive, but you are, at the time you experience these Grand Things-even though
they do not know or care, even as you experience, in their presence, your own insignificance-simultaneously a part
of these Grand Things. You are among the Cosmos, you are standing on the Mountain Range, you are in the
Ocean, you are on the Freight Train. And your problems are not allowed to participate in this
insignificance/magnificence paradox. They just get the first part.
...Pity..
And that right there is a perfect example of why, when you think, "I probably shouldn't put that in," you probably
shouldn't.
Back on topic, or at least a little more recognizably on topic, I didn't really think I was telling sad stories on this site.
Most of them I find pretty funny. I do still think of this as an entertainment at best, often dipping below the line into
Leisure Activity and often still farther into the depths of Something To Do Instead of What Others Expect You to
Have Completed By the End of the Day. I wouldn't fill those sacred, wasted minutes with sadness. Besides, many
people read this at work, precluding them openly hanging their head over a glass of alcohol, once chilled, now
room temperature and watery as their eyes, which is really the only proper way to fully appreciate the sad tales of
others, measuring them against your own and finding them a bit, well, trite.
So cheer up, God knows I am. Two days of RICE did a fantastic job of preparing my ankle for work today and
everything went well. I taped the beJesus out of it, wrapped it in an ace bandage, put the whole rigmarole in a
tightly laced, high work boot and popped 3 generic Aleve on my way out the door this morning. Aces.
I even caught myself thinking, ever so briefly, about a return to the Field of Honor this Sunday...in a limited role, of
course.
Insane. Yes. I know.
Maybe if I can get it down to a monochrome color scheme by Sunday morning...
Tuesday November 29th, 2005-
I couldn't tell you-who could-if my current state is directly related to the posting of pictures of myself as a young,
light-on-his-feet fellow, just below on this page, but the older I get the more superstitious I get, so it seems hard to
dismiss the idea out of hand. The day after posting those photos I earned a free ride on a time machine and am
now around 80 years old. Or at least thats what you would think, watching me from a distance or a height.
Sunday, minutes before the end of the second and final flag football game of the day, running and jumping to break
up a long pass after I had let my guy sneak by me, I landed on my right ankle and just crunched it.
Hop-off-the-field-arms-over-the-shoulders-of-others crunched it.
And now I am 80.
It's not so terribly bad, really. Especially in this city, where everything is a rush. Is it? Not if you just cannot physically
get there quickly, it isn't. Things are just going to have to wait. And if they don't, well, what the hell was I going to do,
flap my wings? The transformation to Old Person Thinking is nearly immediate. The willingness to stop for the
smallest reason, the blustering annoyance at Average Speed Walkers "cutting you off" in the doorways of stores. It's
all right there.
Perhaps its all right there because it, everything, exactly the moment you are injured, is suddenly very far away. The
five minute run to the corner bodega? Twenty limping, shuffling minutes. And I'm lucky. I'm only 80 on one side. I've
still got another leg that can propel me to far away lands like the drugstore and bank on my bike. Did you know you
could limp on a bike? Me either, but you can, pedaling along with one foot, and it must look hilarious...
I am very sorry I sent my camera in for servicing, as the visual is really quite colorful. A sort of Autumn Harvest
palette of plum, pumpkin and maize-colored splotches flowing over a puffy pink package. It's really more like
somebody slipped a large, translucent hot water bottle over my ankle and filled it with all those crazy colors...or a
rotting fruit salad...
Or, you know those old ladies, the larger ones, who's thighs have given up and dropped all their skin to the floor,
giving those women a kind of elephant ankle? Now imagine that ankle was tagged with graffiti. Its a little like that.
Not quite so much, anymore, to be honest. I just rewrapped it and after two days of ice and elevation it's only about
two-thirds of its previous size. And in the nick of time. I start an installation job at 7am tomorrow, so the ankle is on
notice. 6 hours to shape up. Nothing an economy-size box of coaches tape and a handful of anti-inflammatories
can't fix, or at least make bearable. These are the moments it pays to be out of general construction and into the
lighter stuff.
I couldn't tell you-who could-if my current state is directly related to the posting of pictures of myself as a young,
light-on-his-feet fellow, just below on this page, but the older I get the more superstitious I get, so it seems hard to
dismiss the idea out of hand. The day after posting those photos I earned a free ride on a time machine and am
now around 80 years old. Or at least thats what you would think, watching me from a distance or a height.
Sunday, minutes before the end of the second and final flag football game of the day, running and jumping to break
up a long pass after I had let my guy sneak by me, I landed on my right ankle and just crunched it.
Hop-off-the-field-arms-over-the-shoulders-of-others crunched it.
And now I am 80.
It's not so terribly bad, really. Especially in this city, where everything is a rush. Is it? Not if you just cannot physically
get there quickly, it isn't. Things are just going to have to wait. And if they don't, well, what the hell was I going to do,
flap my wings? The transformation to Old Person Thinking is nearly immediate. The willingness to stop for the
smallest reason, the blustering annoyance at Average Speed Walkers "cutting you off" in the doorways of stores. It's
all right there.
Perhaps its all right there because it, everything, exactly the moment you are injured, is suddenly very far away. The
five minute run to the corner bodega? Twenty limping, shuffling minutes. And I'm lucky. I'm only 80 on one side. I've
still got another leg that can propel me to far away lands like the drugstore and bank on my bike. Did you know you
could limp on a bike? Me either, but you can, pedaling along with one foot, and it must look hilarious...
I am very sorry I sent my camera in for servicing, as the visual is really quite colorful. A sort of Autumn Harvest
palette of plum, pumpkin and maize-colored splotches flowing over a puffy pink package. It's really more like
somebody slipped a large, translucent hot water bottle over my ankle and filled it with all those crazy colors...or a
rotting fruit salad...
Or, you know those old ladies, the larger ones, who's thighs have given up and dropped all their skin to the floor,
giving those women a kind of elephant ankle? Now imagine that ankle was tagged with graffiti. Its a little like that.
Not quite so much, anymore, to be honest. I just rewrapped it and after two days of ice and elevation it's only about
two-thirds of its previous size. And in the nick of time. I start an installation job at 7am tomorrow, so the ankle is on
notice. 6 hours to shape up. Nothing an economy-size box of coaches tape and a handful of anti-inflammatories
can't fix, or at least make bearable. These are the moments it pays to be out of general construction and into the
lighter stuff.
Saturday November 26th, 2005--
You just never know. You look through your email Inbox, you see messages you must have overlooked, they have
attachments, you open them...and all hell breaks loose.
Ladies and gentlemen, for your point-and-laugh enjoyment...I present 17 Year Old Don Wood...TAPDANCING!
You just never know. You look through your email Inbox, you see messages you must have overlooked, they have
attachments, you open them...and all hell breaks loose.
Ladies and gentlemen, for your point-and-laugh enjoyment...I present 17 Year Old Don Wood...TAPDANCING!
These abominations come to you courtesy of a Ms. K. Ryan, who was "kind" enough to send them to me after
finding them in a box in her garage. I could identify a few of the lovely young ladies in the photos, but I'll be a
gentleman and leave them their dignity.
I had never done any dancing beyond a fourth grade P.E. unit involving Square Dancing and The Hustle, so it
was a big hurdle, but I had great teachers, some of whom are standing in these photos. Our high school drama
teacher had been one of the Jets in the West Side Story movie, as well as in Hello Dolly and a bunch of others
before he got drafted for Viet Nam and barely survived being shot out of the sky in a helicopter while serving with
the special forces. I took drama as an easy language arts credit, but ended up staying around and eventually
auditioning to be in the nonsense captured above just because I was so compelled by this teacher. Here,
suddenly, was an adult in the suburbs of Denver that had actually lived his life in the world instead of a hamster
wheel, and somehow still managed to treat the teenagers around him with more dignity than the Eloi/Morlok
paradigm we got most of the time.
You can see, above, how cavalier one can be with dignity so dearly earned...
Who needs a visual palette cleanser? Me too...
finding them in a box in her garage. I could identify a few of the lovely young ladies in the photos, but I'll be a
gentleman and leave them their dignity.
I had never done any dancing beyond a fourth grade P.E. unit involving Square Dancing and The Hustle, so it
was a big hurdle, but I had great teachers, some of whom are standing in these photos. Our high school drama
teacher had been one of the Jets in the West Side Story movie, as well as in Hello Dolly and a bunch of others
before he got drafted for Viet Nam and barely survived being shot out of the sky in a helicopter while serving with
the special forces. I took drama as an easy language arts credit, but ended up staying around and eventually
auditioning to be in the nonsense captured above just because I was so compelled by this teacher. Here,
suddenly, was an adult in the suburbs of Denver that had actually lived his life in the world instead of a hamster
wheel, and somehow still managed to treat the teenagers around him with more dignity than the Eloi/Morlok
paradigm we got most of the time.
You can see, above, how cavalier one can be with dignity so dearly earned...
Who needs a visual palette cleanser? Me too...
Larree in a cape.
Whoops...perhaps not the soothing image I had in mind. That,there, is a photo of Larree on the occasion of his
birthday, for which we took him to the Superhero Supply Store in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Highly recommended, and
all the proceeds go to a good cause.
Here is something a little more like it, though I still can't seem to get a good shot of McGolrick Park down the
street at dusk...
birthday, for which we took him to the Superhero Supply Store in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Highly recommended, and
all the proceeds go to a good cause.
Here is something a little more like it, though I still can't seem to get a good shot of McGolrick Park down the
street at dusk...
Here's a decent dusk...looking back to
Manhattan on the way over the
Williamsburg Bridge
Manhattan on the way over the
Williamsburg Bridge
And this is just a gratuitous shot of Noah creating special
effects shots for "Automatons." I still haven't been reimbursed
for melting damage to my ladder, by the way...
effects shots for "Automatons." I still haven't been reimbursed
for melting damage to my ladder, by the way...
Friday, November 25th, 2005--
I saw something beautiful today. Wait. Let me interrupt myself-I'm a terrible interrupter-to give full warning to
the reader-did I mention I was a terrible interrupter?-that I write this while in a spooked state of mind. I meant
to sit down after work today, after walking Henry, after running myself, after making myself some of this great
new canned organic Indian Food I found in my new "Fuck it, I'll try Indian food" lifestyle, before walking Henry
down to the Brooklyn Ale House where poochies are welcome and C. might be back from his honeymoon and
behind the bar, and write a little about this beautiful thing I saw.
But I was heating water, listening to songs shuffle through my computer and thinking about how one stretches
"I saw something beautiful today and here is what it was" into something a little more appropriately long for a
blog entry weeks in coming and the goddamn computer started reading my mind. I thought of other beautiful
things I had seen and songs directly related to those events popped through the speakers. A song from one of
two cassette tapes I had in my truck that summer I worked on Martha's Vineyard. A song I used to love from the
period when I thought I would married and happy forever. On my way over to the computer to investigate, it hid
itself behind the screen saver, which displays random pictures from the hard drive. There on the screen, C, in
all his glory, behind the bar, clumsy as he tried to strike the pose of a quarterback holding my American
Football.
All of which kind of spooked me out.
But I did see something beautiful today.
Not the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, though when I think about it, I'm not sure what that would be. It is
a question you almost never get asked. I may have never been asked that question. People are dying to know
plenty of other things:
"Where's the craziest place you've done it?"
"Who's the worst boss you ever had?"
"How much did you pay for that?"
Maybe if I was a different person it wouldn't be that way. I imagine Viggo Mortensen can't make it twelve feet
across the room at a Hollywood fund raiser without some woman mustering the white wine courage to
half-accidentally weave into him and ask that question.
"I just want to know...Viggo...tell me...what was the most beautiful thing you ever saw..."
But left to my own devices, and without the advantage of previous inquiry, the most beautiful thing I ever saw is
a tough call. Today was not it, of course.
There was the time I was working on Martha's Vineyard. Mike had come to visit/work and we were out late.
Late for Martha's Vineyard, which means around 11pm. Tired from a day of diving off bridges, we were both
still up and nearly giddy. Mike because he was out of the stifling Boston summer and me because Mike had
actual money burning a hole in his pocket and on my wages I was eating the same exact meal every day:
oatmeal for breakfast, a can of beans for lunch and oatmeal, redux, for dinner. One of the healthier diets I ever
had, actually, as Steinbeck will tell you in "Sweet Thursday."
Anyway, I had heard of a nice beach protected at night by a closed road which forced a mile and a half walk.
Outfitted with a six pack, we left Brownie-my trusty '78 Ford 150-tied to the metal bar that blocked the road and
set off down the trail on foot.
I had learned a lot about moonlight by that point in the summer. Outside the three main towns the roads on
Martha's Vineyard are unlit and I had learned, for instance, that under a full moon, I could drive without
headlights in perfect safety. I had also learned, the hard way, that riding a bicycle home on a night with no
moon required the courage to pedal forward through ink so black the double yellow line in the center of the
road was invisible, waiting to hit one gravel shoulder or the other and adjusting course. We had about three
quarters of a moon that night and the path was wooded but wide. Easy going.
We had been walking for a while when we left the woods and started up the dunes, each of us with a crushed
empty beer can in our pocket by this point, my fingers through their former collars, dangling the rest of their
doomed gang. We could hear the breakers, of course, but the dunes rose from the edge of the woods, so we
never saw more than the next dune and the stars. Finally, laughing and reckless and all wrapped up in our
stupid, laughing, reckless world, we came over the last dune and evaporated.
Everything were saying, everything we were thinking, everything we were, it all just stopped, instantly, and
floated away.
In front of us, empty beach ran about 200 yards and around a corner to our right, to our left, as far as we could
see. Not just empty beach, perfect beach. The beach had been closed before high tide. It was now low tide,
and as it was pulled away from the earth and out toward the moon, the ocean had put each grain of sand in
place, leaving it smooth as glass, without a footprint, without a ripple. 60 yards away, maybe more, the waves
broke. Trying to describe ti seems silly. I'll just say the night was crystal clear and with no clouds to reflect, the
surface of the ocean was an impossible black quicksilver type of force, drawing in the moon's light. So black it
was almost not there. But then a wave would peak and curl, and the foam would burst into existence, pushing
the moonlight back out into world, and you could see that the ocean was there, still there, and what it was up
to.
And of course we wept, silently, smiling, because that was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen.
That did not happen to me today.
Not that it couldn't have. I don't know why people, myself included, weep when something is beautiful. Out of
thanks, maybe, or maybe just because it is the most intense expression of emotion we can bring to bear
without breaking something or making others feel left out. Whoop and shout and throw your arms in the air
and people wonder why they can't feel that way and if you've possibly done something behind their back, that
they may be the unwitting source of the fun. They want in.
Nobody looks at tears on your cheeks and wonders "When, oh when will that happen to me?"
It has happened to me, since then. Once I was so young and so in love with someone that making love to
them was the promise kept of a world gracious, fulfilling, compassionate and warm. I wept then as well.
It's the sort of mistake you only make once.
I didn't even realize it was a mistake until months later when we were in therapy and that experience had forced
its way past epic struggles with finances, fighting, insecurity and just plain bad timing to make it to number two
or three on some sort of "Inventory". That night had convinced her, early on, I was either crazy or gay. A word of
advice:
If confronted with such a question while in therapy with another "Who isn't, in these troubled times, a little of
both?" is not the correct answer. Odd, isn't it, how humor is just not appropriate during what are clearly the
most absurd moments of your life? (And what happened to the highlight above?)
Today was not absurd, though it did contain an absurd moment, when at one point there were two carpenters,
two counter top installers and an electrician all trying to work in the same galley kitchen. I was one of the
counter top installers, helping my friend Fynn on a job in Brooklyn Heights, which is a neat neighborhood
unless you have to park. I did, and forgetting just what sort of situation I was about to face, jumped into Fynn's
Subaru wagon without my coat, on my merry way to quickly stash the car. A half hour later, striding coatless up
the hill and through the 20 degree, 20 mph wind at a pace I hoped would keep blood flowing into at least my
most important organs, I looked up. The squared-off spire of a 30's era hospital (why did they put towers on
hospitals in those days?) shot up beyond the brownstones, the excess steam from it's furnace being twisted
by the wind around and above the top few floors. The sky was High Wind Clear and the sun at that exact
moment was just across the hospital tower from me, giving the handsome old building the back lit glamour
lighting it deserved and making the steam sparkle.
I was still really cold, and I didn't stop walking, much less weep, but it did remind me that there are beautiful
things to see in this city. And though it is a place where every subway station has at least one corner that
smells like piss, and every block has certainly, at one time, been a crime scene, it is also a place where we've
built, from time to time, glorious things, and where you can't walk five blocks in any direction, in any season,
without passing an opportunity to buy flowers.
So that was the beautiful thing I saw today.
I saw something beautiful today. Wait. Let me interrupt myself-I'm a terrible interrupter-to give full warning to
the reader-did I mention I was a terrible interrupter?-that I write this while in a spooked state of mind. I meant
to sit down after work today, after walking Henry, after running myself, after making myself some of this great
new canned organic Indian Food I found in my new "Fuck it, I'll try Indian food" lifestyle, before walking Henry
down to the Brooklyn Ale House where poochies are welcome and C. might be back from his honeymoon and
behind the bar, and write a little about this beautiful thing I saw.
But I was heating water, listening to songs shuffle through my computer and thinking about how one stretches
"I saw something beautiful today and here is what it was" into something a little more appropriately long for a
blog entry weeks in coming and the goddamn computer started reading my mind. I thought of other beautiful
things I had seen and songs directly related to those events popped through the speakers. A song from one of
two cassette tapes I had in my truck that summer I worked on Martha's Vineyard. A song I used to love from the
period when I thought I would married and happy forever. On my way over to the computer to investigate, it hid
itself behind the screen saver, which displays random pictures from the hard drive. There on the screen, C, in
all his glory, behind the bar, clumsy as he tried to strike the pose of a quarterback holding my American
Football.
All of which kind of spooked me out.
But I did see something beautiful today.
Not the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, though when I think about it, I'm not sure what that would be. It is
a question you almost never get asked. I may have never been asked that question. People are dying to know
plenty of other things:
"Where's the craziest place you've done it?"
"Who's the worst boss you ever had?"
"How much did you pay for that?"
Maybe if I was a different person it wouldn't be that way. I imagine Viggo Mortensen can't make it twelve feet
across the room at a Hollywood fund raiser without some woman mustering the white wine courage to
half-accidentally weave into him and ask that question.
"I just want to know...Viggo...tell me...what was the most beautiful thing you ever saw..."
But left to my own devices, and without the advantage of previous inquiry, the most beautiful thing I ever saw is
a tough call. Today was not it, of course.
There was the time I was working on Martha's Vineyard. Mike had come to visit/work and we were out late.
Late for Martha's Vineyard, which means around 11pm. Tired from a day of diving off bridges, we were both
still up and nearly giddy. Mike because he was out of the stifling Boston summer and me because Mike had
actual money burning a hole in his pocket and on my wages I was eating the same exact meal every day:
oatmeal for breakfast, a can of beans for lunch and oatmeal, redux, for dinner. One of the healthier diets I ever
had, actually, as Steinbeck will tell you in "Sweet Thursday."
Anyway, I had heard of a nice beach protected at night by a closed road which forced a mile and a half walk.
Outfitted with a six pack, we left Brownie-my trusty '78 Ford 150-tied to the metal bar that blocked the road and
set off down the trail on foot.
I had learned a lot about moonlight by that point in the summer. Outside the three main towns the roads on
Martha's Vineyard are unlit and I had learned, for instance, that under a full moon, I could drive without
headlights in perfect safety. I had also learned, the hard way, that riding a bicycle home on a night with no
moon required the courage to pedal forward through ink so black the double yellow line in the center of the
road was invisible, waiting to hit one gravel shoulder or the other and adjusting course. We had about three
quarters of a moon that night and the path was wooded but wide. Easy going.
We had been walking for a while when we left the woods and started up the dunes, each of us with a crushed
empty beer can in our pocket by this point, my fingers through their former collars, dangling the rest of their
doomed gang. We could hear the breakers, of course, but the dunes rose from the edge of the woods, so we
never saw more than the next dune and the stars. Finally, laughing and reckless and all wrapped up in our
stupid, laughing, reckless world, we came over the last dune and evaporated.
Everything were saying, everything we were thinking, everything we were, it all just stopped, instantly, and
floated away.
In front of us, empty beach ran about 200 yards and around a corner to our right, to our left, as far as we could
see. Not just empty beach, perfect beach. The beach had been closed before high tide. It was now low tide,
and as it was pulled away from the earth and out toward the moon, the ocean had put each grain of sand in
place, leaving it smooth as glass, without a footprint, without a ripple. 60 yards away, maybe more, the waves
broke. Trying to describe ti seems silly. I'll just say the night was crystal clear and with no clouds to reflect, the
surface of the ocean was an impossible black quicksilver type of force, drawing in the moon's light. So black it
was almost not there. But then a wave would peak and curl, and the foam would burst into existence, pushing
the moonlight back out into world, and you could see that the ocean was there, still there, and what it was up
to.
And of course we wept, silently, smiling, because that was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen.
That did not happen to me today.
Not that it couldn't have. I don't know why people, myself included, weep when something is beautiful. Out of
thanks, maybe, or maybe just because it is the most intense expression of emotion we can bring to bear
without breaking something or making others feel left out. Whoop and shout and throw your arms in the air
and people wonder why they can't feel that way and if you've possibly done something behind their back, that
they may be the unwitting source of the fun. They want in.
Nobody looks at tears on your cheeks and wonders "When, oh when will that happen to me?"
It has happened to me, since then. Once I was so young and so in love with someone that making love to
them was the promise kept of a world gracious, fulfilling, compassionate and warm. I wept then as well.
It's the sort of mistake you only make once.
I didn't even realize it was a mistake until months later when we were in therapy and that experience had forced
its way past epic struggles with finances, fighting, insecurity and just plain bad timing to make it to number two
or three on some sort of "Inventory". That night had convinced her, early on, I was either crazy or gay. A word of
advice:
If confronted with such a question while in therapy with another "Who isn't, in these troubled times, a little of
both?" is not the correct answer. Odd, isn't it, how humor is just not appropriate during what are clearly the
most absurd moments of your life? (And what happened to the highlight above?)
Today was not absurd, though it did contain an absurd moment, when at one point there were two carpenters,
two counter top installers and an electrician all trying to work in the same galley kitchen. I was one of the
counter top installers, helping my friend Fynn on a job in Brooklyn Heights, which is a neat neighborhood
unless you have to park. I did, and forgetting just what sort of situation I was about to face, jumped into Fynn's
Subaru wagon without my coat, on my merry way to quickly stash the car. A half hour later, striding coatless up
the hill and through the 20 degree, 20 mph wind at a pace I hoped would keep blood flowing into at least my
most important organs, I looked up. The squared-off spire of a 30's era hospital (why did they put towers on
hospitals in those days?) shot up beyond the brownstones, the excess steam from it's furnace being twisted
by the wind around and above the top few floors. The sky was High Wind Clear and the sun at that exact
moment was just across the hospital tower from me, giving the handsome old building the back lit glamour
lighting it deserved and making the steam sparkle.
I was still really cold, and I didn't stop walking, much less weep, but it did remind me that there are beautiful
things to see in this city. And though it is a place where every subway station has at least one corner that
smells like piss, and every block has certainly, at one time, been a crime scene, it is also a place where we've
built, from time to time, glorious things, and where you can't walk five blocks in any direction, in any season,
without passing an opportunity to buy flowers.
So that was the beautiful thing I saw today.
November 2nd, 2005--
FORUM WOES:
Yes, if you've been following this story you already know...I've screwed the pooch on this one. It must seem
heinously irresponsible and arbitrary for those of you forum goers because, frankly, it is. I really didn't have the
right to mess with the forum, knowing as little about php and sql as I do. I was tampering with something that
wasn't really mine, but the product and work of 189 other people. So, at this point, with probably about 20+ hours
of work trying to get the thing back to normal, I apologize. It may be that I need to just start the damn thing over
fresh. I m still battling to avoid that, and I've only got a half day of work tomorrow, so I'll give it another go once I'm
done.
In the meantime, if anyone happens to be a whiz at this, drop me a line.
And thanks to everyone who has sent me words of encouragement. I should mention here that I try to only write
the at-least-half-interesting stuff on this page, a subset which does not include long periods of just living a very,
very, lucky life, where toothaches and poverty are events unique enough to warrant mention.
If you have a yahoo ID and are just dying to chide my foolish forum actions with others, ye olde origynal Don
Wood forum is still up here.
FORUM WOES:
Yes, if you've been following this story you already know...I've screwed the pooch on this one. It must seem
heinously irresponsible and arbitrary for those of you forum goers because, frankly, it is. I really didn't have the
right to mess with the forum, knowing as little about php and sql as I do. I was tampering with something that
wasn't really mine, but the product and work of 189 other people. So, at this point, with probably about 20+ hours
of work trying to get the thing back to normal, I apologize. It may be that I need to just start the damn thing over
fresh. I m still battling to avoid that, and I've only got a half day of work tomorrow, so I'll give it another go once I'm
done.
In the meantime, if anyone happens to be a whiz at this, drop me a line.
And thanks to everyone who has sent me words of encouragement. I should mention here that I try to only write
the at-least-half-interesting stuff on this page, a subset which does not include long periods of just living a very,
very, lucky life, where toothaches and poverty are events unique enough to warrant mention.
If you have a yahoo ID and are just dying to chide my foolish forum actions with others, ye olde origynal Don
Wood forum is still up here.
Don Wood Online
For the love of Pete, who's in charge here?
For the love of Pete, who's in charge here?
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Saturday November 26th, 2005--
You just never know. You look through your email Inbox, you see messages you must have overlooked, they have
attachments, you open them...and all hell breaks loose.
Ladies and gentlemen, for your point-and-laugh enjoyment...I present 17 Year Old Don Wood...TAPDANCING!
You just never know. You look through your email Inbox, you see messages you must have overlooked, they have
attachments, you open them...and all hell breaks loose.
Ladies and gentlemen, for your point-and-laugh enjoyment...I present 17 Year Old Don Wood...TAPDANCING!
These abominations come to you courtesy of a Ms. K. Ryan, who was "kind" enough to send them to me after
finding them in a box in her garage. I could identify a few of the lovely young ladies in the photos, but I'll be a
gentleman and leave them their dignity.
I had never done any dancing beyond a fourth grade P.E. unit involving Square Dancing and The Hustle, so it
was a big hurdle, but I had great teachers, some of whom are standing in these photos. Our high school drama
teacher had been one of the Jets in the West Side Story movie, as well as in Hello Dolly and a bunch of others
before he got drafted for Viet Nam and barely survived being shot out of the sky in a helicopter while serving with
the special forces. I took drama as an easy language arts credit, but ended up staying around and eventually
auditioning to be in the nonsense captured above just because I was so compelled by this teacher. Here,
suddenly, was an adult in the suburbs of Denver that had actually lived his life in the world instead of a hamster
wheel, and somehow still managed to treat the teenagers around him with more dignity than the Eloi/Morlok
paradigm we got most of the time.
You can see, above, how cavalier one can be with dignity so dearly earned...
Who needs a visual palette cleanser? Me too...
finding them in a box in her garage. I could identify a few of the lovely young ladies in the photos, but I'll be a
gentleman and leave them their dignity.
I had never done any dancing beyond a fourth grade P.E. unit involving Square Dancing and The Hustle, so it
was a big hurdle, but I had great teachers, some of whom are standing in these photos. Our high school drama
teacher had been one of the Jets in the West Side Story movie, as well as in Hello Dolly and a bunch of others
before he got drafted for Viet Nam and barely survived being shot out of the sky in a helicopter while serving with
the special forces. I took drama as an easy language arts credit, but ended up staying around and eventually
auditioning to be in the nonsense captured above just because I was so compelled by this teacher. Here,
suddenly, was an adult in the suburbs of Denver that had actually lived his life in the world instead of a hamster
wheel, and somehow still managed to treat the teenagers around him with more dignity than the Eloi/Morlok
paradigm we got most of the time.
You can see, above, how cavalier one can be with dignity so dearly earned...
Who needs a visual palette cleanser? Me too...
Larree in a cape.
Whoops...perhaps not the soothing image I had in mind. That,there, is a photo of Larree on the occasion of his
birthday, for which we took him to the Superhero Supply Store in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Highly recommended, and
all the proceeds go to a good cause.
Here is something a little more like it, though I still can't seem to get a good shot of McGolrick Park down the
street at dusk...
birthday, for which we took him to the Superhero Supply Store in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Highly recommended, and
all the proceeds go to a good cause.
Here is something a little more like it, though I still can't seem to get a good shot of McGolrick Park down the
street at dusk...
Here's a decent dusk...looking back to
Manhattan on the way over the
Williamsburg Bridge
Manhattan on the way over the
Williamsburg Bridge
And this is just a gratuitous shot of Noah creating special
effects shots for "Automatons." I still haven't been reimbursed
for melting damage to my ladder, by the way...
effects shots for "Automatons." I still haven't been reimbursed
for melting damage to my ladder, by the way...
Friday, November 25th, 2005--
I saw something beautiful today. Wait. Let me interrupt myself-I'm a terrible interrupter-to give full warning to
the reader-did I mention I was a terrible interrupter?-that I write this while in a spooked state of mind. I meant
to sit down after work today, after walking Henry, after running myself, after making myself some of this great
new canned organic Indian Food I found in my new "Fuck it, I'll try Indian food" lifestyle, before walking Henry
down to the Brooklyn Ale House where poochies are welcome and C. might be back from his honeymoon and
behind the bar, and write a little about this beautiful thing I saw.
But I was heating water, listening to songs shuffle through my computer and thinking about how one stretches
"I saw something beautiful today and here is what it was" into something a little more appropriately long for a
blog entry weeks in coming and the goddamn computer started reading my mind. I thought of other beautiful
things I had seen and songs directly related to those events popped through the speakers. A song from one of
two cassette tapes I had in my truck that summer I worked on Martha's Vineyard. A song I used to love from the
period when I thought I would married and happy forever. On my way over to the computer to investigate, it hid
itself behind the screen saver, which displays random pictures from the hard drive. There on the screen, C, in
all his glory, behind the bar, clumsy as he tried to strike the pose of a quarterback holding my American
Football.
All of which kind of spooked me out.
But I did see something beautiful today.
Not the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, though when I think about it, I'm not sure what that would be. It is
a question you almost never get asked. I may have never been asked that question. People are dying to know
plenty of other things:
"Where's the craziest place you've done it?"
"Who's the worst boss you ever had?"
"How much did you pay for that?"
Maybe if I was a different person it wouldn't be that way. I imagine Viggo Mortensen can't make it twelve feet
across the room at a Hollywood fund raiser without some woman mustering the white wine courage to
half-accidentally weave into him and ask that question.
"I just want to know...Viggo...tell me...what was the most beautiful thing you ever saw..."
But left to my own devices, and without the advantage of previous inquiry, the most beautiful thing I ever saw is
a tough call. Today was not it, of course.
There was the time I was working on Martha's Vineyard. Mike had come to visit/work and we were out late.
Late for Martha's Vineyard, which means around 11pm. Tired from a day of diving off bridges, we were both
still up and nearly giddy. Mike because he was out of the stifling Boston summer and me because Mike had
actual money burning a hole in his pocket and on my wages I was eating the same exact meal every day:
oatmeal for breakfast, a can of beans for lunch and oatmeal, redux, for dinner. One of the healthier diets I ever
had, actually, as Steinbeck will tell you in "Sweet Thursday."
Anyway, I had heard of a nice beach protected at night by a closed road which forced a mile and a half walk.
Outfitted with a six pack, we left Brownie-my trusty '78 Ford 150-tied to the metal bar that blocked the road and
set off down the trail on foot.
I had learned a lot about moonlight by that point in the summer. Outside the three main towns the roads on
Martha's Vineyard are unlit and I had learned, for instance, that under a full moon, I could drive without
headlights in perfect safety. I had also learned, the hard way, that riding a bicycle home on a night with no
moon required the courage to pedal forward through ink so black the double yellow line in the center of the
road was invisible, waiting to hit one gravel shoulder or the other and adjusting course. We had about three
quarters of a moon that night and the path was wooded but wide. Easy going.
We had been walking for a while when we left the woods and started up the dunes, each of us with a crushed
empty beer can in our pocket by this point, my fingers through their former collars, dangling the rest of their
doomed gang. We could hear the breakers, of course, but the dunes rose from the edge of the woods, so we
never saw more than the next dune and the stars. Finally, laughing and reckless and all wrapped up in our
stupid, laughing, reckless world, we came over the last dune and evaporated.
Everything were saying, everything we were thinking, everything we were, it all just stopped, instantly, and
floated away.
In front of us, empty beach ran about 200 yards and around a corner to our right, to our left, as far as we could
see. Not just empty beach, perfect beach. The beach had been closed before high tide. It was now low tide,
and as it was pulled away from the earth and out toward the moon, the ocean had put each grain of sand in
place, leaving it smooth as glass, without a footprint, without a ripple. 60 yards away, maybe more, the waves
broke. Trying to describe ti seems silly. I'll just say the night was crystal clear and with no clouds to reflect, the
surface of the ocean was an impossible black quicksilver type of force, drawing in the moon's light. So black it
was almost not there. But then a wave would peak and curl, and the foam would burst into existence, pushing
the moonlight back out into world, and you could see that the ocean was there, still there, and what it was up
to.
And of course we wept, silently, smiling, because that was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen.
That did not happen to me today.
Not that it couldn't have. I don't know why people, myself included, weep when something is beautiful. Out of
thanks, maybe, or maybe just because it is the most intense expression of emotion we can bring to bear
without breaking something or making others feel left out. Whoop and shout and throw your arms in the air
and people wonder why they can't feel that way and if you've possibly done something behind their back, that
they may be the unwitting source of the fun. They want in.
Nobody looks at tears on your cheeks and wonders "When, oh when will that happen to me?"
It has happened to me, since then. Once I was so young and so in love with someone that making love to
them was the promise kept of a world gracious, fulfilling, compassionate and warm. I wept then as well.
It's the sort of mistake you only make once.
I didn't even realize it was a mistake until months later when we were in therapy and that experience had forced
its way past epic struggles with finances, fighting, insecurity and just plain bad timing to make it to number two
or three on some sort of "Inventory". That night had convinced her, early on, I was either crazy or gay. A word of
advice:
If confronted with such a question while in therapy with another "Who isn't, in these troubled times, a little of
both?" is not the correct answer. Odd, isn't it, how humor is just not appropriate during what are clearly the
most absurd moments of your life? (And what happened to the highlight above?)
Today was not absurd, though it did contain an absurd moment, when at one point there were two carpenters,
two counter top installers and an electrician all trying to work in the same galley kitchen. I was one of the
counter top installers, helping my friend Fynn on a job in Brooklyn Heights, which is a neat neighborhood
unless you have to park. I did, and forgetting just what sort of situation I was about to face, jumped into Fynn's
Subaru wagon without my coat, on my merry way to quickly stash the car. A half hour later, striding coatless up
the hill and through the 20 degree, 20 mph wind at a pace I hoped would keep blood flowing into at least my
most important organs, I looked up. The squared-off spire of a 30's era hospital (why did they put towers on
hospitals in those days?) shot up beyond the brownstones, the excess steam from it's furnace being twisted
by the wind around and above the top few floors. The sky was High Wind Clear and the sun at that exact
moment was just across the hospital tower from me, giving the handsome old building the back lit glamour
lighting it deserved and making the steam sparkle.
I was still really cold, and I didn't stop walking, much less weep, but it did remind me that there are beautiful
things to see in this city. And though it is a place where every subway station has at least one corner that
smells like piss, and every block has certainly, at one time, been a crime scene, it is also a place where we've
built, from time to time, glorious things, and where you can't walk five blocks in any direction, in any season,
without passing an opportunity to buy flowers.
So that was the beautiful thing I saw today.
I saw something beautiful today. Wait. Let me interrupt myself-I'm a terrible interrupter-to give full warning to
the reader-did I mention I was a terrible interrupter?-that I write this while in a spooked state of mind. I meant
to sit down after work today, after walking Henry, after running myself, after making myself some of this great
new canned organic Indian Food I found in my new "Fuck it, I'll try Indian food" lifestyle, before walking Henry
down to the Brooklyn Ale House where poochies are welcome and C. might be back from his honeymoon and
behind the bar, and write a little about this beautiful thing I saw.
But I was heating water, listening to songs shuffle through my computer and thinking about how one stretches
"I saw something beautiful today and here is what it was" into something a little more appropriately long for a
blog entry weeks in coming and the goddamn computer started reading my mind. I thought of other beautiful
things I had seen and songs directly related to those events popped through the speakers. A song from one of
two cassette tapes I had in my truck that summer I worked on Martha's Vineyard. A song I used to love from the
period when I thought I would married and happy forever. On my way over to the computer to investigate, it hid
itself behind the screen saver, which displays random pictures from the hard drive. There on the screen, C, in
all his glory, behind the bar, clumsy as he tried to strike the pose of a quarterback holding my American
Football.
All of which kind of spooked me out.
But I did see something beautiful today.
Not the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, though when I think about it, I'm not sure what that would be. It is
a question you almost never get asked. I may have never been asked that question. People are dying to know
plenty of other things:
"Where's the craziest place you've done it?"
"Who's the worst boss you ever had?"
"How much did you pay for that?"
Maybe if I was a different person it wouldn't be that way. I imagine Viggo Mortensen can't make it twelve feet
across the room at a Hollywood fund raiser without some woman mustering the white wine courage to
half-accidentally weave into him and ask that question.
"I just want to know...Viggo...tell me...what was the most beautiful thing you ever saw..."
But left to my own devices, and without the advantage of previous inquiry, the most beautiful thing I ever saw is
a tough call. Today was not it, of course.
There was the time I was working on Martha's Vineyard. Mike had come to visit/work and we were out late.
Late for Martha's Vineyard, which means around 11pm. Tired from a day of diving off bridges, we were both
still up and nearly giddy. Mike because he was out of the stifling Boston summer and me because Mike had
actual money burning a hole in his pocket and on my wages I was eating the same exact meal every day:
oatmeal for breakfast, a can of beans for lunch and oatmeal, redux, for dinner. One of the healthier diets I ever
had, actually, as Steinbeck will tell you in "Sweet Thursday."
Anyway, I had heard of a nice beach protected at night by a closed road which forced a mile and a half walk.
Outfitted with a six pack, we left Brownie-my trusty '78 Ford 150-tied to the metal bar that blocked the road and
set off down the trail on foot.
I had learned a lot about moonlight by that point in the summer. Outside the three main towns the roads on
Martha's Vineyard are unlit and I had learned, for instance, that under a full moon, I could drive without
headlights in perfect safety. I had also learned, the hard way, that riding a bicycle home on a night with no
moon required the courage to pedal forward through ink so black the double yellow line in the center of the
road was invisible, waiting to hit one gravel shoulder or the other and adjusting course. We had about three
quarters of a moon that night and the path was wooded but wide. Easy going.
We had been walking for a while when we left the woods and started up the dunes, each of us with a crushed
empty beer can in our pocket by this point, my fingers through their former collars, dangling the rest of their
doomed gang. We could hear the breakers, of course, but the dunes rose from the edge of the woods, so we
never saw more than the next dune and the stars. Finally, laughing and reckless and all wrapped up in our
stupid, laughing, reckless world, we came over the last dune and evaporated.
Everything were saying, everything we were thinking, everything we were, it all just stopped, instantly, and
floated away.
In front of us, empty beach ran about 200 yards and around a corner to our right, to our left, as far as we could
see. Not just empty beach, perfect beach. The beach had been closed before high tide. It was now low tide,
and as it was pulled away from the earth and out toward the moon, the ocean had put each grain of sand in
place, leaving it smooth as glass, without a footprint, without a ripple. 60 yards away, maybe more, the waves
broke. Trying to describe ti seems silly. I'll just say the night was crystal clear and with no clouds to reflect, the
surface of the ocean was an impossible black quicksilver type of force, drawing in the moon's light. So black it
was almost not there. But then a wave would peak and curl, and the foam would burst into existence, pushing
the moonlight back out into world, and you could see that the ocean was there, still there, and what it was up
to.
And of course we wept, silently, smiling, because that was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen.
That did not happen to me today.
Not that it couldn't have. I don't know why people, myself included, weep when something is beautiful. Out of
thanks, maybe, or maybe just because it is the most intense expression of emotion we can bring to bear
without breaking something or making others feel left out. Whoop and shout and throw your arms in the air
and people wonder why they can't feel that way and if you've possibly done something behind their back, that
they may be the unwitting source of the fun. They want in.
Nobody looks at tears on your cheeks and wonders "When, oh when will that happen to me?"
It has happened to me, since then. Once I was so young and so in love with someone that making love to
them was the promise kept of a world gracious, fulfilling, compassionate and warm. I wept then as well.
It's the sort of mistake you only make once.
I didn't even realize it was a mistake until months later when we were in therapy and that experience had forced
its way past epic struggles with finances, fighting, insecurity and just plain bad timing to make it to number two
or three on some sort of "Inventory". That night had convinced her, early on, I was either crazy or gay. A word of
advice:
If confronted with such a question while in therapy with another "Who isn't, in these troubled times, a little of
both?" is not the correct answer. Odd, isn't it, how humor is just not appropriate during what are clearly the
most absurd moments of your life? (And what happened to the highlight above?)
Today was not absurd, though it did contain an absurd moment, when at one point there were two carpenters,
two counter top installers and an electrician all trying to work in the same galley kitchen. I was one of the
counter top installers, helping my friend Fynn on a job in Brooklyn Heights, which is a neat neighborhood
unless you have to park. I did, and forgetting just what sort of situation I was about to face, jumped into Fynn's
Subaru wagon without my coat, on my merry way to quickly stash the car. A half hour later, striding coatless up
the hill and through the 20 degree, 20 mph wind at a pace I hoped would keep blood flowing into at least my
most important organs, I looked up. The squared-off spire of a 30's era hospital (why did they put towers on
hospitals in those days?) shot up beyond the brownstones, the excess steam from it's furnace being twisted
by the wind around and above the top few floors. The sky was High Wind Clear and the sun at that exact
moment was just across the hospital tower from me, giving the handsome old building the back lit glamour
lighting it deserved and making the steam sparkle.
I was still really cold, and I didn't stop walking, much less weep, but it did remind me that there are beautiful
things to see in this city. And though it is a place where every subway station has at least one corner that
smells like piss, and every block has certainly, at one time, been a crime scene, it is also a place where we've
built, from time to time, glorious things, and where you can't walk five blocks in any direction, in any season,
without passing an opportunity to buy flowers.
So that was the beautiful thing I saw today.
November 2nd, 2005--
FORUM WOES:
Yes, if you've been following this story you already know...I've screwed the pooch on this one. It must seem
heinously irresponsible and arbitrary for those of you forum goers because, frankly, it is. I really didn't have the
right to mess with the forum, knowing as little about php and sql as I do. I was tampering with something that
wasn't really mine, but the product and work of 189 other people. So, at this point, with probably about 20+ hours
of work trying to get the thing back to normal, I apologize. It may be that I need to just start the damn thing over
fresh. I m still battling to avoid that, and I've only got a half day of work tomorrow, so I'll give it another go once I'm
done.
In the meantime, if anyone happens to be a whiz at this, drop me a line.
And thanks to everyone who has sent me words of encouragement. I should mention here that I try to only write
the at-least-half-interesting stuff on this page, a subset which does not include long periods of just living a very,
very, lucky life, where toothaches and poverty are events unique enough to warrant mention.
If you have a yahoo ID and are just dying to chide my foolish forum actions with others, ye olde origynal Don
Wood forum is still up here.
FORUM WOES:
Yes, if you've been following this story you already know...I've screwed the pooch on this one. It must seem
heinously irresponsible and arbitrary for those of you forum goers because, frankly, it is. I really didn't have the
right to mess with the forum, knowing as little about php and sql as I do. I was tampering with something that
wasn't really mine, but the product and work of 189 other people. So, at this point, with probably about 20+ hours
of work trying to get the thing back to normal, I apologize. It may be that I need to just start the damn thing over
fresh. I m still battling to avoid that, and I've only got a half day of work tomorrow, so I'll give it another go once I'm
done.
In the meantime, if anyone happens to be a whiz at this, drop me a line.
And thanks to everyone who has sent me words of encouragement. I should mention here that I try to only write
the at-least-half-interesting stuff on this page, a subset which does not include long periods of just living a very,
very, lucky life, where toothaches and poverty are events unique enough to warrant mention.
If you have a yahoo ID and are just dying to chide my foolish forum actions with others, ye olde origynal Don
Wood forum is still up here.
NOVEMBER 2005 BLOG ARCHIVE