caleb walker

ten less

Yesterday I dropped in at KR's shop after work since it seems like I hadn't been there for a while. While I waited for her to get off the phone, like I sometimes have to do when I visit, I looked at the magazines on her counter, watched the traffic outside, paced back and forth, checked my watch, washed my hands, drank from her water glass.

Then I spotted a bathroom scale way in the back of her office and, like one does, I had to step on it. It showed that I weighed ten pounds less than what I thought I weighed. We don't have a scale at home, so I don't ordinarily see my weight. And I don't remember when I last stood on a scale. Now I was looking at a number I hadn't seen for probably ten years.

This morning I told KR about this and she said, "That's good, isn't it?" And I said, "Well, it didn't happen through clean living." I don't exercise, except a daily walk, and I don't eat badly, though I do manage to have a portion or two of ice cream and alcohol every day. Look for my Ben and Jerry's and Tequila weight loss program on an infomercial channel near you.

hb, sherman

Today, according to The Writer's Almanac, is the birthday of Sherman Alexie, one of my favorite authors.

He wrote, "He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing."

Update: Here is a recent piece of his from The New Yorker.

Second update: In that New Yorker piece he writes, "If you really want a woman to love you, then you have to dance. And if you don’t want to dance, then you’re going to have to work extra hard to make a woman love you forever, and you will always run the risk that she will leave you at any second for a man who knows how to tango."

hb faulkner

Over on The Writer's Almanac I see that it's the birthday of my nephew's favorite author (who I don't think I've ever read).

He liked to get up early, eat a breakfast of eggs and broiled steak and lots of coffee, and then take his tobacco and pipe and go to his study. He took off the doorknob and carried it inside with him. There he wrote his novels by hand on large sheets of paper, and then typed them out with two fingers on an old Underwood portable.

the new normal

One of the people in my writing group tonight used the term "the new normal." When a family experiences a crisis, things eventually get back to normal, but not the old normal. The new normal becomes ordinary, though it's not as good, as comfortable, as healthy as the old one.

qotd

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating." -- Oscar Wilde

(via Quote of the Day)

hb molly ivins

Tonight's tequila shot is in memory of Molly Ivins, whose birthday is today.

Today's Writer's Almanac entry has some tasty quotes, including this one: "I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners."

communimacation

A few loosely related things:

• I follow a few friends on Twitter, but I'm thinking about unsubscribing to some of them since recent tweets look a lot like this: "RT @Vandelay @HDoofus @Mulva July 25 #Nothing event at bit.ly/LiNkItY #Whatsit #UmWhatNow." And it's just too much cognitive effort to figure out what's being said. Why not use the 140-character size limit as a challenge? Like the 100-word essays we do in my writing group as an exercise in word choice, in focus, in clarity.
• I got a cell phone last weekend and haven't received any calls yet. I'm not too happy about paying a monthly fee for a digital pocket clock.
• When KR cooks, the dogs like to lay around her feet. I'd think they wanted to catch dropped food, but when she does drop something they're oblivious until she points it out to them. Anyway, they're always in the way when she's cooking and the command she uses is "Get out of the kitchen." Georgia slinks away then, and Kaden stands up, not sure what to do until we push him far enough away. The other morning KR was doing her yoga in the bedroom. This attracts the dogs, too. I was in the office next to the bedroom when I heard her say, "Get out of the kitchen." The results of the experiment were inconclusive; Kaden gave the same slack-jawed stare as when he's actually in the kitchen.

That's about it for now.

fireworks and such

KR and I ventured out of the house last night to drive to Spring Hill for dinner with friends who built their own house, a Bauhausian tower in the midst of a neighborhood of old brick Pittsburgh-squares.

After dinner, from the roof, we saw fireworks in every direction. Though we couldn't see Pittsburgh's main fireworks show (there was a hill in the way), we saw a surprising number of little homegrown explosions along the river downtown. Big round colorful explosions were coming up from the horizon beyond the city and further along to the east. From our vantage point we saw neighborhoods full of houses, lots of lit windows. Among them, little sparkles and flashes off into the distance, like colorful fireflies among the field of lights.

At the horizons we figured we saw Monroeville's show way off to the east and Aspinwall's behind us. Then a luminous jellyfish appeared from between the houses nearby. A single transparent balloon, lit by a little flame inside, rose and drifted to the south. It seems to me now that everything paused as the thing went by, getting higher and higher. We watched until we could no longer see its flicker.

At some point over the Hill or the South Side or maybe even over Mount Washington or further the flame would have gone out and the thing would have drifted to the ground or into a tree. But while it was in the air it seemed magical. Amid the noise and sparkle, this silent thing held our attention for several minutes.

worms

Before everything went insane last Friday evening I was sitting on the front porch reading, as usual, while the dogs were in the front yard. I noticed Kaden with his face in the ivy over by the forsythia. When I got over there I saw that he had vomited his dinner and was trying to reintroduce it to his digestive system. After getting him away from it I cleaned up as much as I could and saw a long earthworm squirming away from my bare foot between the ivy leaves.

I realized it had been quite a long time since I'd seen a live earthworm, and even longer since I'd seen one so long and so active.

Later that night, after our neighbor came up for a visit with her dog (as she often does on their evening walk) and Kaden got into a big fight with him, after it broke up leaving us all covered in mud and blood, after we searched for an hour or more for Kaden, who had fled the scene on (we later discovered) a broken leg, after KR and I retrieved him from the police station, after all that, in the veterinary emergency room, after the receptionists had gone home at midnight and given me the TV remote so I and the other guy in the waiting room could switch away from the weather channel (we found Fight Club, appropriately enough), after all that I saw a long black millipede walking between my feet on the tiled vet's waiting room floor and I thought again of that earthworm.

the magic word

My inbox is filling up. I don't know, I'm able to start replies to incoming email messages, but am somehow unable to finish them. So, sorry. It's not you, it's me. So let's see if I can begin and finish a blog post. Here goes.

Kaden has come into his voice lately. He hums, howls, grunts, growls. And he barks at every little thing. None of our dogs have been big barkers, so we don't know what to do with him. A couple air molecules will collide out on the front porch and Kaden will run to the screen door and bark and yow, he has a good solid bark.

So I'll yell at him to stop it or shut up or be quiet because I'm still not sure what words will make the noise stop. The other day, though, I'd reached the end of my rope and hollered, "Kaden, would you fucking stop barking?" and he stopped. Found it.