Dance Like Echo Dawn

My mom and I are driving through a city looking for something down alleyways. Finally we get out and start walking, looking for it on foot. It was dark when we were in the car but it's lighter now that we're outside.

It's a big, busy city like Boston or NY. Lots of people on the sidewalks. It's evening. People are milling around and we're trying to stay together. There's this big crowd of people ahead taking up most of the road. They've been listening to a band play or something. They're a rough lot. Middle aged but wild looking with a lot of dyed hair, torn clothes and punk jewelry. Blowing smoke and loud, beery voices.

My mom and I are trying to get through the crowd. Suddenly she calls to me, says "Happy Birthday" and reaches over to hug me, but this shortish guy with Rod Stewart style black hair gets in her way and she's effectively hugging him. He grabs her and starts sweeping her along, making a joke of it for his friends to see. It's tense. I extricate my mom from him and he looks mad. We step aside. I explain to him sheepishly,

"It's my birthday Tuesday but my friends are going to be away, so my mom just wanted to say Happy Birthday with some people around, like it's a party."

The guy's face changes immediately.

"Hey, Dom!" he yells, pointing at me.

The guy named Dom comes over and grabs me and suddenly we're up on the stage. He's swinging me up in the air and back down, like an extreme dance routine. I'm weightless, being tossed around like a little toy in the bright stage lights. People gather around, taking pictures.

The closeness of the crowd makes it feel like we're inside. No, we are inside. It's changed. We're in a bar and my dad is there at the front of the crowd, filming with his camera. Dom swings me around smoothly, changing the routine. I'm mugging now, getting comfortable, smiling for the cameras and dancing in time to the music. After what seems like a long time we stop.

I thank Dom and am aware of what he looks like for the first time. He has white hair, is in his late 40's or early 50's, and is nice looking with a deeply cleft chin like Kirk Douglas. He's shirtless. I didn't notice that before but now I'm well aware of the incongruity between our appearances. I'm wearing my green Red Sox hat, grey fleece jacket and black culottes.

I ask Dom politely--feeling very odd because we'd been in such close proximity and I'm still kind of draped on him, my arm around his shoulder, sweating profusely under my fleece--I ask him if he's a dancer or if he just does this at parties?

He says, "I like to say that I can dance like Echo Dawn."

I recognize the name of an old movie and remember that I just read that exact phrase somewhere--in a personal ad on Craig's List. Yes, I just saw this guy's profile.

He continues, "I'm single--divorced. I like to stay in shape." He flexes. His muscles are defined but old mannish. His chest is narrow and seems to be caving inward.

I'm aware of my dad, looking on and feeling not-too-comfortable with me being so close to this guy, but he's also fiddling with his camera, trying to get a good shot. The flash isn't working.

I look at the camera, hold it at arms length and try to get a shot of Dom and me. Turning the camera around to look at the image, I am surprised to see that I look like I'm 14 years old and have cute, even features, looking more like a neighbor of mine than myself.

I say to Dom, "Here, why don't you try taking it? You have longer arms." But that picture doesn't come out well either. One of us is cut off.

As I'm waking up I'm still enjoying the sensation of weightlessness but I am regretting that I don't have a good picture of Dom and me.

I heart them

Hello, Beautiful

Sweet. Very sweet.

Zachry Deputy to me 4:36 AM (4 hours ago)

i hopw to be up that way in a few months keep on the look out ZD

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Please come to NH

Hi Paul & Zach,
I saw your show in Newmarket NH back in February. You were 100 times better than the headliner, Ryan Montbleau. I loved every minute of your show, esp. "Chicken Pot Pie". Funny songs are hard to come by. Anyway, I was delighted to find you on itunes but you're better live. So please come back to NH or even New England. I'd love to see you again. Thanks for the music!

Current mood: Fii-naaa-llly

Poetry x 3

Job is one of my two favorite books of the Bible. The book dishes out basic, though heavy and important questions in beautifully poetic language. The poetry is somewhat diminished in the version I'm reading right now, the New Living Translation, but what it lacks in linguistic esthetics it makes up for in plain dealing straight talk. Like this verse: "I would rather die of strangulation than go on and on like this. I hate my life. I do not want to go on living." And there it is. I like that Job wishes he had never been born, reminding me of Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. There have been times when I related to that, making Job one of the few biblical charaters who seems like a real person and not, well, a character.

The other night I was out walking after dark and I spooked some deer in a field. I stopped and listened to the whistling/blowing/snorting noise they make when they're alarmed or to warn other deer. As I listened to their hoofbeats thudding rythmically away, I could picture exactly how they looked in the darkness. The way they bound lightly and effortlessly, a smooth fluid rising and falling, like dolphins leaping over waves. The hoofbeats and whistling brought that picture to my mind like poetry. Auditory poetry, with sounds rather than words.

Speaking of poetry, I love Amy Lowell's "The Letter" which ironically expresses the limitations of words through...writing, of course.

Little cramped words scrawling all over
the paper
Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves?
Or of my uncertain window and the
bare floor

Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing
in them
Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth,
virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart
against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.

Quoth She

Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness. - Seneca

Rock On

I Zach Deputy Because I Care

Manpoo

Why oh why, I wonder, was "manpoo", as in man shampoo, the first word to cross my mind upon waking this morning? Oh mysterious human brain, wonder of the universe...

Still, something tells me I'll forget to ask God about this one.

Current mood: Ha.

Current mood: So. Very. Full.

Quoth She

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other” -Charles Dickens

From "The Ninety and Nine"

But none of the ransomed ever knew

How deep were the waters crossed,

Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed thro'

Ere He found His sheep that was lost:

Out in the desert He heard its cry-

Sick, and helpless, and ready to die.

But all through the mountians, thunder-riven,

And up from the rocky steep,

There rose a glad cry to the gate of heaven

"Rejoice! I have found My sheep! "

And the angels echoed around the throne,

"Rejoice! for the Lord brings back His own!"

-by E.C. Clephane

Welcome to Snarkopolis

Genius on the bike: that is the worst use of a helmet I can think of. What earthly good is it doing back there? What is it, some pricey little biker decorative accessory? Or wait, lemme guess. If you feel the bike start to tip over, or seconds before some car t-bones you, you'll what, grab the helmet with lightning speed and put it on your head? Riiiight.

I can think of several good uses for your helmet if you're not gonna wear it to protect your frangible, brittle cranium and the ooey gooey all-important brain I assume you've got (though I wouldn't bet on it).

1) planter for seedlings

2) kitty litter helmet

3) ash tray

4) Darth Vader costume

5) for anything where you'd normally use a bowl. Chips & dip, cereal, popcorn, miso soup

6) Uncle Vinnie's ashes

7) stick some flowers on it and wear it to the Ascot races, stick some mosquito netting on it and wear it on safari, or slap some glitter on it and wear it to Mardi Gras

8) paint it green and let your kid use it for a science project, like the base of a volcano or a mountain

I could go on. Or you could just use the helmet for what its intended for: keeping you from being admitted to the nursing home at age 35!!!

The Cranberries

There were zillions of these on top of Mt. Moosilauke


My dad found these while he was fishing. He turned them into the best sauce I've ever tasted.

Current mood: Song bird

Hair of the Dog

Holy smoke, I'm learning some frightening facts about alcohol in my Chemical Dependency class. Alcohol is a POISON!!! OK, probably everyone but me knew that. It is toxic--as in "intoxicated"--but our bodies can tolerate it in small doses. Ether, the substance that makes alcohol um, alcoholic, used to be used to knock people out for surgeries. That's why, if you drink too much, you'll go unconscious. Aaannnddd, if you drink waaayy too much, you can knock your brain unconscious, a condition commonly referred to as "death."

Really...scary... Suffice it to say that next time I hanker for a little nip o' the hair o' the dog I'm going to have second thoughts. Maybe 3rd & 4th thoughts, too.

Castellar

Dear Castellar De N'Hug,

I'm writing to tell you I miss you. There's so much I want say, but the words come to my fingers reluctantly. My heart is unwilling to return to the place it made for you. It did the best it could, on the plane, to patch the hole, walling in cobble stones and ringing church bells and splashing waterfalls like Montresor in "The Cask of Amontillado". But my eyes were not fooled. They ran over and over the picture of you, your green hillsides rising peak after peak. They lingered on your flesh colored rock faces and grottos, your mysterious dark caves.

Foolish eyes, I knew how wayward they would be. Denying them a last look at you, I left in the early morning before the sun lit your stones. But flying away from you, irrevocably gone, my eyes knew they were safe from censure and indulged in their watery ritual. I pretended to read my book. Nearby passengers cast sideways glances at me; in turns curious, then sympathetic. As I continued to cry they politely ignored me, guessing I had left a great love behind.

I lost your gift to me, the honey. The jar with the comb, suspended and shining like a jewel, the walnuts soaked in honey, and the jar of the palest honey I've ever seen, made from the wildflowers on your hills. All gone. I carried them in my bag to keep the glass from breaking and forgot, forgot. I had to throw them away. I cursed every Muslim in the world for the security regulations but really, I had only myself to blame.

I feel like I should apologize to you. I was careless with a part of you. Three jars of your essence.

But maybe you should apologize to me. You've ruined me. I used to think I was surrounded by beauty, but now my world lies darkly in the shadow of your memory.

The longer I write, the more you come back to me. The air smelling of thyme, children's voices rolling through the canyon, joining the river, the bells of hidden cows tinkling high on the hills above.

You will not remember me. People will continue to come and go through your streets as they have for 700 years but you will remain unchanged.

As you should be.

Current mood: God likes buffalo wings?!?!