Labor Day

Here we are, the end of the summer, six Vonnegut novels down, a trip to New Hampshire looming ahead (hours away), and a mental breakdown on the horizon. Throw into the mix a trip with Don DeLillo's White Noise, and you have the surreal experience of a lifetime. DeLillo really works the whole post-modern, radar clogging background noise into his novel (which I haven't finished) by throwing lists of all sorts at the reader: commercial products, popular (1985) clothing, malls, the often foolishly myopic view academia takes of all subjects (come on, Hitler studies?), cleaning products. He virtually hammers the reader with them. This book won the National Book Award, so I was intrigued. I find it funny, cutting, and acerbic at times. Probably not the best book to read at this point in time, all things considered, but any port in a storm.

I sent out two more stories this week...hope springs eternal.

The Right Words

I love to write. Writing makes me the Alpha and the Omega, the big Kahuna (yes, I capitalized it), the man. I am in complete control. Yes, I can make my characters as angry, sleazy, teary, or grumpy (dwarves?) as I need to, and I can make them speak out of that emotion. And what they say will be, for me, the perfect thing at the perfect time. And if I don't like what they say, I can delete it and try again. Thus the power of writing, the unrealistic sense of control.

Which is much different than real life, obviously.

Events in my own life have transpired in such a way as to show that the real art is seen in conversation, the spontaneous act of discussing your emotions especially. No trickier spot than there. I have been such an emotional wreck lately, that trying to divulge my feelings has become something of a parlor trick. I have been trying to speak without saying the wrong thing, without hinting the wrong way so as not to be misconstrued. What do I get instead? Murky thoughts, misleading comments, strange conversations.

I want to apologize to all of the people that I possibly led astray, or said something to that could be taken the wrong way. Speaking isn't like writing. And when you're reeling in an emotional morass (funny word) like I am, things often fall apart at the lectern, so to speak.

Forgive me, I can't articulate well. Clarity still eludes me. I hope that all people will do is judge me by what I do, and let me work on the things I say. At least when I write I can edit.

Busted

Ah, the power of children. They can make us do things we wouldn't normally do, say things we wouldn't normally say, and feel things we wouldn't normally feel. Which is beautiful. Normally. In this case, my youngest daughter made me feel pretty bad about something I couldn't justify at all. Which is pretty good, but very hard to confront. God, I need a good rationalization.

I had taken the girls for an overnight in the Adirondack Mountains with my buddy and his two girls. We've done this for a few years now, he always gets the same cabin on 13th Lake, and we all feel pretty comfortable with the arrangement. We swim in the lake, have a hot dog roast, the girls have squirt gun wars, and, once darkness falls, we have a nice fire for smores and- for the dads- beer.

Now in years past the festivities have stopped at that, but this year we added one element to the grown up buffet: Cigars. Now, my kids know I don't smoke. In fact, I haven't had a cigar in ages, but I figured this one night would be okay. I even went to Habanas, a premium cigar shop in Albany, to purchase the smokes. These were not cheap cigars, either, although they weren't as expensive as, I learned from shopping, some of the more premium varieties.

So, fire roaring and children tucked away, we imbibed a bit of single malt and lit up. Now, I'm not sure if the sudden Adirondack storm that forced us onto the side porch played any significant role in my being discovered, but I know that my proximity to the house didn't help much when my ten year old came down unable to sleep. I held the stogie behind my back, and I thought she was groggy enough to not notice, but these are cigars, right? The smoke is enough to stun a four hundred pound grizzly. She noticed, although she didn't say anything as I gave her solace and sent her back to bed.

At ten the next morning, though, as I was battling a bit of a big head from the single malt, she called me into the mudroom for an impromptu conference. "You were smoking last night, I saw you," she said. "Mom's going to kill you." I tried to placate her by saying that my wife, in fact, knew that I was bringing the cigars. This only added to her consternation. Unable to come up with a justifiable reason for my actions, I hustled us into pack up mode and hoped for a sudden bout of pre-teen amnesia. No such luck.

In the car on the way home, my oldest joined in. Now the guilt was flying full force. "You lied to us, Daddy. You said you would never smoke," she said. And this, with the addition of tears, "Why would you make such a bad choice?" There it was- my words thrown back at me. I could almost hear myself saying "Make good choices!", and see my kids nodding gravely,big brown eyes staring back at me from the living room floor. What could I say to their accusation? I had no response other than Grown ups can make choices, and sometimes they're not always good, but as a grownup I can make those choices. Kind of lame. Kids can make you think in those ways. I have no legitimate reason to have smoked, I just did. I got caught. The kids rightly made me feel like garbage. Like I was a teenager all over again and I had let my folks down. Lesson learned. Actions and words, which are the strongest? Duh. So I taught them a pretty crappy lesson, and got saddled with a whole mess of much deserved guilt.

And, like guilt, the vile taste of the cigar still lingers in my mouth. Gross.