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Going The Wrong Way.

Author: September 28, 2015 10 Comments

From here it doesn't really look like a spider web at all. Source: Nashville MTA

From here it doesn’t really look like a spider web at all.
Source: Nashville MTA

It had started to drizzle. This time, however, I hadn’t gone off and left my umbrella in my office. If I had I wouldn’t have hesitated to turn around and go get it. No, I’d left my umbrella at home. I’d just left the building where I worked and noticed a lot of people standing at the bus stop right across the street and the bus was approaching. There were just one problem: the bus was going the wrong way. Also even if this particular bus were going the right way it would not only take me far away from where I lived, its final stop was a parking lot/recycling center almost at the edge of the county. It’s really convenient for people who live in that area. They can park their cars at the recycling center in the morning, catch the bus into town, and then in the afternoon come back to find their car windows smashed in and their radios stolen, but that’s another story.

And that’s when it hit me. This bus was going downtown. All the way downtown. It was going to the depot where all the other buses go. The bus route map is like a giant spider web, a circular one, except the spider is clearly drunk and has been eating some really weird insects which is why there are no straight lines and the threads are all different colors. I probably should have stopped that simile before it went too far. The important thing is rather than walking in the light rain the usual mile to my usual bus stop I could hitch a ride all the way downtown and catch an outgoing bus from the depot.

Yes it would cost twice as much—years ago drivers used to give out paper transfers that were ten cents and that expired within half an hour, which never really mattered because no driver really bothered to look at the time stamp on a transfer. I once found a month old one in my pocket and a driver took it without a second look. Then they upgraded to a new automated system and scrapped the transfers. That didn’t bother me. I’d rather pay two fares and stay out of the rain.

And my plan worked perfectly. When I got to the bus stop near my home it wasn’t drizzling anymore. It was pouring.

Adventures In Busing.

Stung.

Author: September 26, 2015 10 Comments

honeyThis may be advertising. I don’t know. I’m not even sure it qualifies as graffiti, although I don’t think graffiti necessarily has to be painted on. The original graffiti was scratched in stone—in fact the word comes from the Italian for “scratch” and the Latin and Greek for “to write” and I really don’t know where I’m going with this.

And even if it is advertising it’s still art. At least I think so. Whether advertising can be art—and whether art itself is a form of advertising since art often compels us to think differently about the world except it tackles big philosophical concepts whereas advertising tries to compel us to think differently about our need a piece of chocolate cake even though we just ate a huge entrée—is a question I can turn over in my mind for hours even though I get bored with it after about ten seconds. I’m still not sure where I’m going with this.

If it’s advertising it’s terrible advertising because even though it’s trying to sell me honey it’s not trying to sell me a specific brand of honey, but it also caught my attention, and frankly I think the best advertising is the kind that gets my attention and is so funny or so compelling or so thought provoking that I remember the commercial but completely forget what it’s trying to sell, and now I’m really starting to wonder if I’m ever going to get anywhere with this.

To wrap up here’s something else I saw in the same area that I thought might or might not have been graffiti. It disappeared pretty quickly which made me think it was graffiti, but it was really well-done graffiti—the stuff I look for that compels me and others to think about the distinction between vandalism and art without providing any simple answers. Simple answers are for advertising.

002

booyah

The Weekly Essay

The Day After.

Author: September 25, 2015 30 Comments

September 22nd, 2014--last chemo treatment.

What a long strange trip it was.

People often celebrate big events in their lives—birthdays, marriages—on the anniversary of those events. They mark the day of each year and treat it as special, but these were big events when they happened. Marriage days are, for a lot of people, filled with a flurry of activity and there’s not a lot of time for the couple getting married to think of even enjoy it, which is annoying because it’s supposed to be about them. And I don’t remember much about the day I was born, but I’m pretty sure there was a lot of stuff going on with me being dragged from my womb without a view and getting slapped on the ass by the doctor–I told him, “Hey, you could at least take me out to dinner and a movie first,” but that’s another story. It isn’t really until the day after the big event that everything settles down and this new life can truly be appreciated.

This is what I thought as I approached the first anniversary of my last day of chemotherapy, the day when I could officially call myself a one-year survivor of cancer. I had my last treatment on September 22nd, 2014. It wasn’t exactly a happy occasion. It wasn’t bad either, but it was complicated. Three months of my life had revolved around chemotherapy. That’s only a tiny fraction of the time I’d already lived but I’d quickly gotten used to the routine. I’d gotten used to the nurses, to the daily needle stick, the coolness spreading through my chest as the saline first rushed in. The boredom, tiredness, weight gain, the cold rooms, the allergy to sunlight, the swelling in my legs, and, hey, being stuck with a big needle I could do without, but it was all working toward killing off the cancer and that made it all tolerable. It even made it something I looked forward to. I thought, mistakenly, that chemo would be the last step. When I was first diagnosed my goal was to get to remission, but then at least one doctor told me I had “a good chance of being cured”. I’d never heard of cancer being cured—I didn’t even know it was possible, so that excited me. I latched onto that and made the mistake of thinking there’d be an end. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, but I made the mistake of forgetting that when I emerged I’d still be on the same track and that there’d be more tunnels up ahead.

I’ve forgotten most of what my last day of chemo was like. I’ve forgotten who the nurse was, what I did to keep myself occupied, what my wife and I did when I was finished. What I do remember, vividly, is leaving. There was a young man in the waiting room, skinny, with dark circles under his eyes, wearing a heavy shirt that was too big for him and a knitted cap over his bald head. He looked up at me as I was going out. I wanted to tell him things would get better but I didn’t want to offer that kind of false hope. Things were getting better for me but maybe for him they wouldn’t, and I didn’t want to shove that in his face.

It’s a form of survivor’s guilt. There wasn’t a single traumatic event that killed others and left me alive, but I’ve lost people I loved—people I sometimes think, in dark moments, deserved to live more than I do—to cancer. And so many others have died. What makes me special? Why was I so lucky? At least one doctor told me “If you’re gonna get cancer this is the one to have.” Actually testicular cancer is just one of some of the highly treatable types of cancer, but I still don’t know what the odds are or why they fell in my favor. Even when I talk to some other survivors I feel guilty. So many had radiation, multiple major surgeries, and chemo that went on longer than mine. My side effects were minimal. I had a few bouts of nausea—I didn’t even throw up—that were so regular my wife spotted the pattern right away and could make sure I took a magic red anti-nausea pill before they started. I was exhausted but could still manage to get out of bed every day. My immune system was knocked down so badly a cold could have easily turned into pneumonia but that never happened. The worst never happened. I listen to what others went through and I wish they’d had my experience instead. What I went through wasn’t easy, but it doesn’t seem fair that others had it so much worse.

And there’s a selfish side to it too. I think about what I lost. I think about the carefree innocence I had. Before cancer I really sort of felt invincible. I’d blithely wander into labs full of anthrax and bubonic plague and flesh eating bacteria and fix myself a drink and blow my nose with a napkin I found on the floor. That’s an exaggeration, but before cancer there wasn’t any illness that scared me because I could honestly say “I never get sick.” And there’s also the fear that, going back to the train metaphor and the light at the end of the tunnel, I may be in the light right now but I don’t know what tunnels are up ahead. The chances of my cancer coming back are extremely slim but I don’t know if this was just a battle or if I’ve won the war. I don’t say I’m “cured” anymore. I can’t be certain I’ve beaten the crab.

This is what I spent September 22nd, 2015 thinking about. It was not a happy day. Maybe future September 22nds will be easier to get through. Maybe farther down the track there are even days when I’ll forget I even had cancer. Even if the anniversaries are still hard it doesn’t matter. September 23rd I celebrated. September 23rd I put all those dark thoughts out of my mind. September 23rd I sang, I danced, I walked in the sun. I celebrated the day after.

IBEATCANCER

 

Fun With Cancer, The Weekly Essay

In The Cloud.

Author: September 23, 2015 7 Comments

cloudsAs we move into fall the mornings have started to get foggy. Mostly it’s only the low-lying areas, but I’m sure in another week or two I’ll step outside and instead of looking through the trees for Venus in the southeast I’ll see mist. Every time I see fog it brings back a strange childhood memory. My friend Troy and I were standing on my driveway. This was at the house where I lived from when I was four until I finished college. The house is just at the edge of a ridge. Troy’s house was at the bottom so I could look down on it. In the distance ridges of hills seemed to go all the way around so sometimes I’d sit in my room and feel like I was on the inside edge of a giant bowl.

It was cloudy and I think there might have even been a light rain. Troy and I were looking toward the Brentwood area, off to the northwest, to the hills just this side of I-65 where new apartment and business complexes were being built. That must have been why there were cranes that we could barely see through the thick mist. It was miles away but I swear I could hear gears grinding.

“A cloud fell,” Troy said. “They’re trying to put it back up.”

This is one of those memories that’s completely isolated from anything else, like a loose bead that used to be part of a necklace. I can’t remember why we were there or what I said after Troy said that. He may have even been kidding, but from his face he was completely serious. And it made me wonder about clouds. If they could be put back up were they solid? I imagined that people must live in the clouds—and this was years before I read James And The Giant Peach, but when I did I felt a strange sense of recognition. Dahl’s “Cloud-Men” are frightening and take sadistic pleasure in sending down hail and other bad weather, but they’re also seen painting a rainbow and getting ready to lower it to Earth. They’re not all good and they’re not all bad. They’re like everybody else. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t bother me, when I see fog, to think that maybe it’s brought some of the cloud people down with it. And I wonder if they need help getting back up.

Ramble With Me.

The Periodic Table Is Weird Enough As It Is.

Author: September 22, 2015 7 Comments

chemistry1Some scientists believe, too, that adding electrons to extra-heavy atoms can stabilize their nuclei—the electrons might act as springs and shocks to absorb the energy that atoms normally dedicate to tearing themselves apart. If that’s so, maybe elements in the 140s, 160s, and 180s are possible.

-Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: and other true tales of madness, love, and the history of the world from the periodic table of the elements

 

The following have been submitted, reviewed, and rejected as potential names for new elements.

Againogen

Greasium

Yummium

Explodium

Younamehereum

Bolognium

Velvetium

Canttouchium

Puttium

Kirkium

Picardium

Meltium

Lethalium

Justfoundium

Swelterium

Agnes

 

 

Submitted For Your Approval.

Out, About, And Read All Over.

Author: September 21, 2015 14 Comments

006One of the great things about riding the bus is I can read. That’s hard to do while driving. Sometimes if I’m really into a book I take it to work with me so I can hopefully get through a chapter or two on the bus. I know one of the advantages of e-books is you can be discreet about what you’re reading, but I always kind of hope someone will get a glimpse of a cover and ask me about my book in hand. Once I commented on what a fellow rider was reading–something about World War II–and we had a fun debate about whether the Battle of Britain was a major turning point in the war or a minor skirmish.

If I don’t have a book I can buy a copy of The Contributor, a local newspaper that’s written and sold by homeless people. Or I can pick up one of about a half dozen free magazines that are published locally. One of those is Out & About.

One day I happened to mention something I’d read in an O&A article to a friend who happens to be gay. He raises his eyebrows. “You were reading Out & About? Are you trying to tell me something?”

Yeah, I was trying to tell him I really enjoyed an interview with Lily Tomlin and thought he might find it interesting too.

Sometimes I can be incredibly oblivious, but I’m aware that O&A is mostly written by and for LGBT people, but that doesn’t mean only LGBT people read it. I have friends who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. What affects them and what concerns them affects me and concerns me–even if it doesn’t always affect me as directly as it affects them, although in retrospect that Lily Tomlin interview was a lot more interesting to me than it was to my friend.

Sometimes too in spite of my obliviousness I’m aware that the fact that I’m reading O&A might make some people on the bus suspicious. I don’t want to stereotype bus riders, but I understand that LGBT people live with a constant threat of violence or even just intimidation. In a lot of ways things are getting better. I’ve seen family members and friends be able to marry–to have their marriages legally recognized, which some of them thought would never happen. But things are far from where they should be. Violence against transgender people has risen in 2015, and aside from violence LGBT people still face discrimination, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly. There have been at least two cases of copies of the print edition of O&A being stolen by people who didn’t like its focus, one as recently as this year. Just reading O&A on the bus could prompt someone to harass or even harm me.

I refuse to let it stop me from reading what I want to read. That’s all I’m trying to tell you.

And in case you’re wondering I think the Battle of Britain was a major turning point in World War II.

Adventures In Busing.

Mars Needs Money.

Author: September 18, 2015 13 Comments

The next big thing. Source: Wikipedia

All right everybody, I want to start hearing some ideas. This is an important account and I really want the best of each of you for this. Let’s pull together as a team and come up with something. I know we can do it. We just need to answer one simple question: how do we sell Mars? I know. It’s really a hard sell. It’s cold, it’s dry, and there’s nothing there.

Kevin if you make a joke like that about my wife again I’ll fire you on the spot. I’m not kidding around.

Here’s what I’m thinking: we need a theme. We need to figure out what people associate with Mars and build around that. I know in some ways that makes it even harder. We’re definitely not selling the whole bringer-of-war thing. That just doesn’t go over with anybody. At least that means we can scratch some things off the list, like the War Of The Worlds theme. Let’s go ahead and get rid of that because that’s going to scare off people.

No, I don’t think Martians would work well either. No, not even friendly Martians. There’s just no way to do that without putting somebody in a suit, and green-skinned people running around could offend a major demographic. No, I don’t know which one, but, look, it just doesn’t strike the right chord. Besides we haven’t got that much of a budget to work with and hiring actors would eat up most of it. No, drawings of Martians wouldn’t work either. Let’s just get rid of the whole Martian idea, okay?

Now there’s an idea. An Edgar Rice Burroughs theme. How would that work?

Okay, I like where you’re going with this. Princesses, warriors, weird dog things. I don’t want to shoot this down but I feel like it’s still too much of a war theme. Is there some way we can tone it down so that it’s not so aggressive? Maybe there’s another angle we can take on this.

Yeah, I don’t think “get naked on Mars” is gonna sell.

Oh, well, we’ve already got extreme sports covered. Trust me, there are wannabe athletes all over Mars already. Big canyons, big mountains, and gravity one-third of Earth’s? The extreme sports angle pretty much sells itself, but that’s not enough.

What we really need is something that’s family-friendly. How do we promote Mars as a vacation destination, a place the kids want to go? What we really need is cross-generational appeal.

What’s that? A Bradbury theme—yes! This is what we need. It’s got all kinds of potential. It’s artsy and interesting but also homey. The Midwest on Mars. We could really sell this as a whole Mars and apple pie thing. No irony either. Think about it. We could have slogans like “The place you’ve never been is the one you used to love.” Or something. We need to find ways to tie together the future and the past. That’s what Mars is all about, isn’t it? This is great. I’ve got a really good feeling about this. Mars as a place where you drink lemonade and go barefoot.

No, I know you can’t go barefoot there. It’s just an expression. Let’s get started writing some copy. Have the design team come up with some poster ideas. Maybe they’ll even want us to do a television campaign for this. The idea is that good. It really is.

This is big, people. This deal could really be our ticket. From here we could go on to even bigger things. Like what? Well, I don’t want to jinx it but I hear the next big thing is going to be Uranus.

All right, Kevin, that’s it. Clear out your desk. You’re out of here.

martianbaseball

The Weekly Essay

Amber Waves Of Grain Are Surprisingly Expensive.

Author: September 16, 2015 9 Comments

Crispy M&M’s are $2 while peanut butter M&M’s are $1.35. Why is there a $0.65 difference between the two? The peanut and plain M&M’s on a shelf below are also $1.35, so there’s something about crispy M&M’s that singles them out. What’s different about them? Anyone who’s ever held a handful of M&M’s on a hot day knows they do melt in your hand. Maybe the crispy M&M’s don’t. I’m thinking of applying for a $3.35 million research grant to study this question.

m&ms

Quick Takes.

Meta-blogging.

Author: September 15, 2015 22 Comments

005What am I doing here? That’s a big existential question, but one I sometimes ask myself in a much more limited way when I’m writing. I don’t limit myself to a specific genre so I have no framework to start from. I like to tell stories, but I’m also always looking for new and unusual ways to hopefully make others laugh. The other day I was sitting in a coffee shop writing down an idea. If you’re a writer you can probably relate to this: it was a terrible, stupid idea that I knew wasn’t working and would never see the light of day. I was only writing it in my journal because I was determined to get it out of my head. Sometimes the desire to write is so strong it doesn’t matter what the idea is. And sometimes I can go back years later and find some wheat in the chaff, although mostly I find throwaways like this:

If someone told me twenty years ago where I’d be today I would have said, “You have a time machine? Can I see it?”

And then a woman who was waiting for her latte asked me, “Are you journaling?” I’m not sure what the definition of “journaling” is, but I guess it’s any kind of writing in a journal, so I said “Yes”. And that was also a less complicated answer than trying to explain what I was writing. She pulled out a journal of her own and we compared them. It was nice to meet someone else who buys plain journals and decorates them with seemingly random stuff. I didn’t ask her if she had a decorating philosophy; I cut out pictures from magazines that intrigue me, and while I always say that if I’m ever stuck for ideas I’ll use a picture as inspiration that never seems to happen. I always end up writing things that have absolutely nothing to do with the pictures.

It was nice to be interrupted. Sometimes, when I’m writing something I think is a good idea, I don’t want to be interrupted. I try to avoid writing down ideas like that in public places like coffee shops. If I’m writing down an idea I think is terrible I want to be interrupted. I might as well put up a sign that says “Please disturb” because what I’m writing is pretty disturbing. This reminds me of the time I was at a convention watching a painter. At one point I asked him if he minded me watching and he replied, “If I minded I wouldn’t be in a place where people could watch.”

After the woman left a funny thing happened. The idea I was working on took a completely different turn. It was still pretty weird even for me and I still wasn’t sure if I should share it with anyone, but it made me start laughing and I kind of liked it. The ending came out exactly as I’d planned, but some twists that came in after I’d been interrupted made it better.

That got me thinking about what I do here—in this blog, how grateful I am for the feedback, for the comments people leave. Thank you, because they’re entertaining and interesting and they also help boost my confidence. I’ve always wanted to submit my work but at the same time I have a lot of anxiety about submitting. It causes me to have strange dreams that I’m married to Gene Shalit (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of an idea that maybe I shouldn’t have written down).

So I’ve submitted a couple of things to other places. If they’re accepted you’ll see links here, and if not you’ll see a post that includes the phrase “The mayor’s name is Alex Woodston, not ‘Dilgo Jingleberries’ as previously reported. We apologize for the error.”

Also if you’re wondering that terrible idea was a script for a short science fiction film about a spaceship crew crash landing on an asteroid to do repairs. An alien invader begins picking off the crew one by one. The weird part starts when the captain says, “The good news is the klystron transmitter will be an easy fix. The bad news is we’ve landed in a horror film.”

The characters are acutely aware that they’re just players in a fantasy and that most of them will die, that the only reason they exist is to die. Some merely go through the motions but some rebel against their fate. It’s sort of Alien meets Six Characters In Search Of An Author. Any film directors who are interested drop me a note.

journals

 

Ramble With Me., Submitted For Your Approval.