cookies

They come in pairs, as if to be transported by ark instead of cardboard box, each partnership within zipped plastic baggy inked with permanent marker to confirm the contents. Chocolate chip with Kit Kat. Chocolate with Reese’s. It’s a parade of permutations, a dozen couplets I arrange in a bowl in the kitchen.

My mom mails boxes to my kids like foreign aid to some camp, which I think is basically how she views the lives of her grandchildren in college dormitories. She adds cash but doesn’t tell me, smuggling contraband of kindness. Once in a while, as seasons change, she’ll think that a kid needs a long sleeved shirt; so she sends three after long deliberations about size, color, and style.

These boxes are rarely sent to me, for good reason. The last thing I need in middle age is a giant supply of cookies from my mother. But on this special occasion, I eat them, one peanut butter cup embedded into a foundation of chocolate brownie at a time until I can’t possibly ingest another or until they eventually go stale in spite of the airtight container. I eat them because my mom’s love has this conduit, the routing and mechanism she knows, hand assembled and baked and packed and shipped not because I want them but because she needs to send them.

Maybe out of obligation or maybe out of hunger but mostly out of love, I eat them, one at a time, a communion offering I don’t deserve but am gifted anyway.

rotisserie

It’s always around 3AM. I wake after a few hours of restful sleep and I start to turn. First turning to lie on my left side; then over to my right side, knees bent to align my spine; and soon after to my back but only for a bit before I return to my left side. And it continues, turning round and round, over and over.

Last night I pictured those chickens roasting over a fire turning on an axle pivoting over and over until it was done. I stared into the dark. Three hours later the alarm woke me.

we’ve all got problems

He strode in mostly out of nowhere, slicked haired and dangled earlobes stretched thin by gauges that weren’t there anymore. He wore a yellow t-shirt with a sketch of Lincoln. By way of introduction he explained that he’s just recently gotten out of prison, which is as good an introduction as I’ve heard in a long time. Before that he’d been a student in a program that doesn’t exist anymore, in a building that isn’t standing anymore. This is all verifiably true.

Then he told me me about the nano bots. It was a quick left turn. I’m unclear on the concept but I listened. If I understood him correctly, these were inserted when he was incarcerated, and he’d like to learn how to get them out. This may or may not be the reason for him returning to school and scheduling an advising appointment down the hall from my office where he’d stumbled in.

I believed his claim about the red light in the center of his vision. He could point to it. We’ve all got problems, I imagine, but this seems worse than any of mine. I said as much, though there wasn’t chance to say much more. He switched to his description of past studies, his coursework and some reference to some dark tech that may have been the start of his whole ordeal, and then quickly but smoothly to the revelation that he is Jesus, as in the messiah. I wasn’t sure about the process for that. He admitted it was odd, but he’s embracing it. His family knows, but they don’t talk about it much.

He told me his “government name” as well as his new name bestowed upon him since the revelation but after the nano bots. He shook my hand. And then someone else came in and he quickly left, and I hope he found a good advisor.

when you’re gone

I listen to loud music, loudly. I sing sad songs.

I didn’t make the bed or do the dishes.

And then I did. I couldn’t not do it.

I eat poorly. Mostly cheese. There’s peanut butter, and between the dog and I we realize we are the same. Also beer, but more cheese. The refrigerator’s full drawer of untouched fresh greens is an indictment.

I thought I’d do more yoga and work on the taxes. That is, I thought I’d do some yoga and start the taxes.

I stay up late. I lose track of time. I’d thought I’d write this yesterday, after some yoga.

But I did make the bed. I fed the cats. I walked the dog. And then we ate peanut butter and sang sad songs. It’s been a good weekend, but it will be good to have you home.

explanations

In retrospect, it was my mistake bringing up our family dynamic in the first place, as if appetizers and drinks with these strangers would provide some magical conduit of empathy. Understanding your mother is about as likely for them as learning quantum mechanics in that moment. I’ve spent most of my life trying to understand both; I just barely understand the physics.

dog days

Days like these the dog motions towards the door and glances up at the latch, patiently, and when I open the world to her instead of a mad dash there’s a gentle amble to a sun soaked patch of yard under clear autumn air. And there she gives her full self, body and spirit, right side surrendering to the pull of Earth, left side open to Sun’s light on her black fur. Eyes closed, legs outstretched, still, sandwiched between astronomical bodies and just taking it in, enjoying the moment as the moment is offered. A good self help book might recommend the same, finally, 247 pages in; I should just follow the lead of the dog.

without any mention of the fact that I haven’t written here for so long

Today I visited 6th graders. Their teachers invited me to read an essay to them, fitting because I had actually written that essay, and a good reminder that I should write things down even when I don’t have time.

In other news, I’m going to physical therapy in a few minutes to figure out a hitch in my hip. And as I write this down I think it’s a counterpoint to the idea that I should be writing things down. It should at least be interesting. Or maybe this is as good as it gets most days.

trail work

In the grand scheme of all the grand things, I haven’t accomplish much lately. I was thinking about this truth yesterday, running a piece of trail I traverse every couple of days, me and the dog.

Since this winter on each of my short treks, I’ve been deliberately carrying a rock or two along the path to this one wide, flat, soft patch that invariably becomes a small pond of a murky puddle, filling and receding as a soft muck each spring. Placing a stone I’d carried a few hundred yards along a center line of this low spot each time I passed, I eventually, gradually, over months, formed a connection from one side to the other that rises above.

So, I’ve done this much, one rock at a time, enough to bridge two shores separated by the mud, now marked clearly by a bike’s tread on either side.

obsession

I was just reading accounts of how medication I take regularly can lead some people towards uncontrollably obsessive, compulsive tendencies. Now this is all I can think about.

trans-action

I returned the sports bra that was never put into use, but when the customer service representative asked for the reason for return I didn’t say, “because my son doesn’t have breasts anymore,” like K suggested; I just said, “It wasn’t a good fit,” which is pretty much the same thing.

annoyance

I was aggravated by the presence of the other guy in the restroom, his standing there without a mask in the tightly enclosed space amongst the swirl of spiking infection and disease spread that cripples every facet of my life. But then he left quickly, not wasting time to wash his hands.

a (more honest) 2021 family newsletter

Like so many of you, we’ve been drinking more than we used to. Maybe not as much as last year, and it still is in a range, on average at least, that doesn’t outwardly alarm the doctor. As far as we can tell, he’s doing the same. But on reflection, we realize that the rate of consumption is enough for us to keep asking ourselves if it’s just enough or too much—as if we need one more thing to worry about.

And holy Jesus we’re fat. Maybe you wouldn’t notice just spectating from the sidelines day to day, but there are definitely contrasts between then and now, whatever your definition and timescale might be. It’s understandable, all the starches just sitting here, and it’s not like beer is calorie free.

This might all speak to our general lackings in self-restraint. It’s easy to be sucked into the pit that is the screen on a phone, the doom of the headlines in the news app. I refresh the screen hoping that there will be an improvement, a silver lining or a Hail Mary pass, but it’s just as hopeless as continuing to stare at our flabby selves in the mirror, standing in my boxer shorts with rolls and wrinkles in sharp relief. Which, in spite of the decline, is not itself motivation to actually fix anything myself.

But the kids are fine, at least. They have no idea what they’re going to do when they grow up, but then neither did we; and we still don’t. We love them and they’re beautiful and they’ll be fine.

We bought a new bed last month to help ease our old bones and aches. It’s an improvement, and it’s timely because I hurt myself hauling, wrestling the bed through the narrow doorway and up the staircase to the second story of the house. I’m sure the injury was preventable, but it seemed necessary in order to install the 200-pound.

In retrospect this was a really dumb thing to do, but it’s all par for the course. We’ve gotten stupider in the last year. Or maybe our intelligence has been slowly eroding for some time now, but we haven’t been able to recognize it. I push heavy things up stairs without thinking through the simple action of gravity; I grab at a stovetop pot handle to test if it’s too hot to grab; I lose glasses on shelves or end tables or on my own person; I can’t remember if I took my medication and/or worry that I’ve taken my medication twice in one evening and then worry that I may have overdosed as I lie in bed, aching joints and troubled mind, what mind there is left. Each morning is a miracle, not so much that the sun has risen but that I haven’t died in my sleep as a result from having taken three times my medication regimen, which I would know better if I could find my glasses and read the label on the bottle more clearly.

Being fat and stupid should have increased my empathy for my fellow humans, but in fact I’m completely unaware that my own shortcomings are something that others might have in common. I hate everyone, fat stupid people that they are, undermedicated and overindulged in food and drink. It’s remarkable that we’ve put even this much effort into sending this holiday greeting, even as late as it is, to you.

And so it is that we enter the new calendar, counting our blessings, our foibles, our wrinkles, our inadequacies and complete lack of compassion for our fellow earthlings. We wish you all of the same and more as we all waddle our way into January and beyond. Happy New Year.