I don't usually write today's thoughts here; the purpose, in fact, in starting a blog, was to blog the past: things I wrote back then, and things I wrote about from back then.
Tonight I write right now, about right now: the sore throat, the Democratic victory in the midterm elections, the Baccus family visit to DC; the exciting prospect of finding a house to live in.
The present is bland, isn't it? The past isn't glorious; it has a texture, a smell, and you know how it's going to turn out, more often than not. It builds itself in your memory, changes from joyful into heavenly, from fearful into heroic. I was a super-being at ten years old, according to my memory.
Here's my method so far: I have been google-desk-topping my writings to find this month's entries. Any Novembers that show up in the last 21 years of entries I have in digital formats, then, will come up.
The problem are the non-digital entries.
(11/13/2006)
Monday, November 13, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Alfred and Carla on Ice (fiction excerpt)
(1996-2000; excerpt from much longer story Up and Down the Ladder)
The minivan was stuck on a small patch of ice in the Howard's driveway. This would be easy to free up but Al was caught up in his old feelings, knowing Carla was bringing him to the silly party he'd never otherwise have attended just for the purpose of not telling him something really awful like that she wouldn't like to see him again. She'd brought him out on a couple other occasions not to tell him to back off--but he wasn't getting her message. In fact he never seemed to receive any of the messages she didn't send. Carla was terrible at sending messages, or not sending them, in this silent way; Al actually knew it, instinctively, but there was a romantic and highly foolish impulse squelching the instinct Al read most clearly in Carla's dinner invitations: the message "stay away from now on". So he kept making new drawings for her and calling her after work and speaking to her mother when Carla was out with other friends, creating an increasingly awkward web of unbearably blurred communications between them in which he moved closer and closer to feeling in love with her even though he could tell it was hopeless and even though she returned his calls with less and less enthusiasm but without any true hint of "no" in her voice.
He would have a couple of visits a week in which she brushed off lightly all attempts to touch her and in which he'd begun to see evidence of her non-attraction, after a couple days of Al telling himself, the next visit is going to be different.
Tonight was the next one and it was no different. He sat in the passenger seat of her dad's minivan noticing she had it hung up on a spot if ice listening to a stupid song by his favorite singer. She liked that singer too except his stupid songs were her favorites which Al had originally found interesting or at least amusing but which lately had begun to seem like a warning sign. The stupid song and Carla's absent minded and unfrustrated attempts to move the car were enough to create an air of amusing yet depressing ambience. He noticed that snow had begun to fall. He'd like to watch it accumulate through the window at Paul's house."Let's forget the party and go to Paul's", he said. Paul was a nearby friend who offered Al's favorite types of distraction day or night. He knew Carla would not end up going there-he even asked himself why he continued on with her when so much of her actions he knew ahead of time. But it always seemed worth trying. What he'd been toying with for months was the idea she might have a drink or smoke some pot with him and begin to loosen up and talk about how she felt about him. Paul liked to call pot the "golden lasso" which never altered but simply "magnified the salient aspects of our personalities so we can't be false any longer." Paul was a big vocabulary builder for his Alfred, who loved to be with people who seemed incredibly intelligent.
It never occured to Alfred that Carla didn't need a lasso, that she might already be telling him how she felt.
Carla refused the golden lasso by saying "oh, maybe later", in a far off whisper, but not without a bit of an eager flash of her eyes and a squeeze of his hand saying, if he could have given noticing the physical hints that she might want him, it would have saved Al quite a bit of trouble. The lasso itself was a delicious idea to her, but she didn't much care for Paul.
In fact Carla wondered why Al was having such a hard time seeing what she really wanted from life. As he traded seats with her to casually remove the minivan from the icy spot with cautious reverse-forward, reverse-forward rocking motions she repeated to herself mentally what she'd not said so many times: "I'm not ready. If I were ready it'd probably with you. I like you a lot and I know you're ready but I'm just not." Was he not listening? Did he think she was kidding? Did he need to hear more? It was a busy life for her preparing to graduate and to face the absolute confusion of college applications and all the other senior year headaches. Wasn't he too busy for chasing her this way? True he was one of the most honest and creative people she knew, and he had a great knack for introducing her to other people he worked with or met in other towns, and she even found it flattering that Al constantly ignored blatant advances by Caroline from Ireland, the exchange student all the lower classmen boys lusted for- because he was too stuck on her, Carla. But Carla's reason was plain and simple with no hidden truth beneath it. She wanted to get education over with and start seeing the world and start making some difference in it instead of all this silly, amusing talk.
They drove in considerable silence through the freezing November night to her friend Margaret's house-sit, Carla feeling the sense of relief at hearing other company and Alfred welcoming another oncoming attack of gloom and reflection. It would be awful to stay at Margaret's house-sit long unless there was plenty of intoxicant on hand. This Thanksgiving break business was a bit rough on his psyche because of a memory of a very strange thanksgiving when he was five and the whole town saw Mom and Dad throw groceries at one another along the Massachusetts Avenue near the town common after some confusion at a repair shop had left them stranded with a flat tire and no spare, forty-five minutes late for Aunt Ruth's family dinner gathering. Thanksgiving is when everyone shouts, he'd told his first grade teacher inadvertently, only to be rewarded with a full year of afternoon counseling sessions and some paperwork for Dad which caused another uncomfortable public scene (which he found out about later) between the school principal and Dad.
He thought about telling Carla the old Thanksgiving story but that was potent poison to be dumping on her holiday Wednesday night out so he let it go. He forced a bit of cheer and small talk to help her relax, silently brooding that he had to be at an overcrowded high school Van Halen and J. Geils party instead of back at Paul's with a big joint and some Velvet underground playing But when they arrived he was delighted to see Paul and some of his cronies on the back porch by the full keg, quietly criticizing the whole world . Carla trotted off toward her dependent, sullen-eyed friends who awaited her at every turn, and Al let himself relax a moment, laughing at nothing except the opportunity to escape to his dependent, sullen eyed friends.
Alfred woke up alone at 8:30 on Thanksgiving morning 1984 with a raging headache, alone in someone's bedroom, with a Led Zeppelin poster over the bed and a model something hanging off the ceiling. Shoes off but clothes on. He could smell Carla's hair but she'd left him with a kiss on the cheek and embrace, probably. The driveway was empty of cars and there was a substantial snowstorm in progress. As he searched the house for his jacket he found a few survivors, friends of Margaret and Carla that he hardly knew, and he helped them pick up cigarette packs and beer cups for a while. He'd been paid early because of the holiday so he had plenty of cigarettes to share. He was happy to be among such a neutral and cooperative scene for the moment. But it was Thanksgiving and he had to figure out how to get his ass back to Dad's before someone sent out a search party. So he started walking toward the center of town a couple miles away with the great wet chunks of snow sticking to his hair and no sound but the falling of it.
(1996-2000)
The minivan was stuck on a small patch of ice in the Howard's driveway. This would be easy to free up but Al was caught up in his old feelings, knowing Carla was bringing him to the silly party he'd never otherwise have attended just for the purpose of not telling him something really awful like that she wouldn't like to see him again. She'd brought him out on a couple other occasions not to tell him to back off--but he wasn't getting her message. In fact he never seemed to receive any of the messages she didn't send. Carla was terrible at sending messages, or not sending them, in this silent way; Al actually knew it, instinctively, but there was a romantic and highly foolish impulse squelching the instinct Al read most clearly in Carla's dinner invitations: the message "stay away from now on". So he kept making new drawings for her and calling her after work and speaking to her mother when Carla was out with other friends, creating an increasingly awkward web of unbearably blurred communications between them in which he moved closer and closer to feeling in love with her even though he could tell it was hopeless and even though she returned his calls with less and less enthusiasm but without any true hint of "no" in her voice.
He would have a couple of visits a week in which she brushed off lightly all attempts to touch her and in which he'd begun to see evidence of her non-attraction, after a couple days of Al telling himself, the next visit is going to be different.
Tonight was the next one and it was no different. He sat in the passenger seat of her dad's minivan noticing she had it hung up on a spot if ice listening to a stupid song by his favorite singer. She liked that singer too except his stupid songs were her favorites which Al had originally found interesting or at least amusing but which lately had begun to seem like a warning sign. The stupid song and Carla's absent minded and unfrustrated attempts to move the car were enough to create an air of amusing yet depressing ambience. He noticed that snow had begun to fall. He'd like to watch it accumulate through the window at Paul's house."Let's forget the party and go to Paul's", he said. Paul was a nearby friend who offered Al's favorite types of distraction day or night. He knew Carla would not end up going there-he even asked himself why he continued on with her when so much of her actions he knew ahead of time. But it always seemed worth trying. What he'd been toying with for months was the idea she might have a drink or smoke some pot with him and begin to loosen up and talk about how she felt about him. Paul liked to call pot the "golden lasso" which never altered but simply "magnified the salient aspects of our personalities so we can't be false any longer." Paul was a big vocabulary builder for his Alfred, who loved to be with people who seemed incredibly intelligent.
It never occured to Alfred that Carla didn't need a lasso, that she might already be telling him how she felt.
Carla refused the golden lasso by saying "oh, maybe later", in a far off whisper, but not without a bit of an eager flash of her eyes and a squeeze of his hand saying, if he could have given noticing the physical hints that she might want him, it would have saved Al quite a bit of trouble. The lasso itself was a delicious idea to her, but she didn't much care for Paul.
In fact Carla wondered why Al was having such a hard time seeing what she really wanted from life. As he traded seats with her to casually remove the minivan from the icy spot with cautious reverse-forward, reverse-forward rocking motions she repeated to herself mentally what she'd not said so many times: "I'm not ready. If I were ready it'd probably with you. I like you a lot and I know you're ready but I'm just not." Was he not listening? Did he think she was kidding? Did he need to hear more? It was a busy life for her preparing to graduate and to face the absolute confusion of college applications and all the other senior year headaches. Wasn't he too busy for chasing her this way? True he was one of the most honest and creative people she knew, and he had a great knack for introducing her to other people he worked with or met in other towns, and she even found it flattering that Al constantly ignored blatant advances by Caroline from Ireland, the exchange student all the lower classmen boys lusted for- because he was too stuck on her, Carla. But Carla's reason was plain and simple with no hidden truth beneath it. She wanted to get education over with and start seeing the world and start making some difference in it instead of all this silly, amusing talk.
They drove in considerable silence through the freezing November night to her friend Margaret's house-sit, Carla feeling the sense of relief at hearing other company and Alfred welcoming another oncoming attack of gloom and reflection. It would be awful to stay at Margaret's house-sit long unless there was plenty of intoxicant on hand. This Thanksgiving break business was a bit rough on his psyche because of a memory of a very strange thanksgiving when he was five and the whole town saw Mom and Dad throw groceries at one another along the Massachusetts Avenue near the town common after some confusion at a repair shop had left them stranded with a flat tire and no spare, forty-five minutes late for Aunt Ruth's family dinner gathering. Thanksgiving is when everyone shouts, he'd told his first grade teacher inadvertently, only to be rewarded with a full year of afternoon counseling sessions and some paperwork for Dad which caused another uncomfortable public scene (which he found out about later) between the school principal and Dad.
He thought about telling Carla the old Thanksgiving story but that was potent poison to be dumping on her holiday Wednesday night out so he let it go. He forced a bit of cheer and small talk to help her relax, silently brooding that he had to be at an overcrowded high school Van Halen and J. Geils party instead of back at Paul's with a big joint and some Velvet underground playing But when they arrived he was delighted to see Paul and some of his cronies on the back porch by the full keg, quietly criticizing the whole world . Carla trotted off toward her dependent, sullen-eyed friends who awaited her at every turn, and Al let himself relax a moment, laughing at nothing except the opportunity to escape to his dependent, sullen eyed friends.
Alfred woke up alone at 8:30 on Thanksgiving morning 1984 with a raging headache, alone in someone's bedroom, with a Led Zeppelin poster over the bed and a model something hanging off the ceiling. Shoes off but clothes on. He could smell Carla's hair but she'd left him with a kiss on the cheek and embrace, probably. The driveway was empty of cars and there was a substantial snowstorm in progress. As he searched the house for his jacket he found a few survivors, friends of Margaret and Carla that he hardly knew, and he helped them pick up cigarette packs and beer cups for a while. He'd been paid early because of the holiday so he had plenty of cigarettes to share. He was happy to be among such a neutral and cooperative scene for the moment. But it was Thanksgiving and he had to figure out how to get his ass back to Dad's before someone sent out a search party. So he started walking toward the center of town a couple miles away with the great wet chunks of snow sticking to his hair and no sound but the falling of it.
(1996-2000)
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