The Public Square

My town has a Public Square. It is a scary place, this square, for visitors; every friend who has ever come to visit me, and my sister, has been frightened by driving around the square. I navigate it at least twice every day, so I no longer fear the square. I simply accept it, and drive on.

The centerpiece of the square is the county courthouse. Unspectacular, architecturally speaking; in fact, the most notable detail about the building is that different sections were obviously constructed using different kinds of bricks. Not an attractive building, inside or out, but I suppose it serves its purpose.

Surrounding the courthouse are parking spaces, the diagonal kind. Outside the parking spaces, the road, then more parking spaces angling toward the stores and shops that make up the outer part of the square.

Four roads lead into the square: West Main, South Main, East Main and North Main. Traffic on the square moves counter-clockwise, except for the occasional newcomer to town, usually someone who has accidentally exited from the interstate onto the highway and then had to keep going, through the heart of town, until he or she could meander back to the interstate. One of my co-workers was laughing and laughing one morning: He had not lived here that long himself, but the sight, on his way to the office, of someone going the wrong way around the Public Square was a funny one, for sure.

At the corner of each square, there is sort of an alley which takes you to a bank (in the southwest and northwest corners) or a parking lot (the other two).

Navigating the square is difficult because there are no traffic signs, except for those pointing you to this highway or that, this landmark or that. There are no stop signs, not even a yield, and if you live here, you NEVER use a turn signal when you enter or exit the square. Though an occasional signal would be helpful.

Someone told me, once, the secret to navigating the square:

“You should constantly be moving,” she said ... or maybe it was a he. “You should never come to a complete stop.”

This is not always possible, as cars are constantly pulling onto or out of the square. Sometimes you will find yourself in the midst of 3 lanes of traffic. Like I was today, and I tried to exit onto North Main, behind a PT Cruiser that was inching, inching, inching along, and from the middle lane, I sort of edged over, but a van that had entered the square from East Main kept trying to nose in, but I kept edging, edging forward, until the Cruiser finally pulled forward and I was able to floor it for a second or 2, giving me just the distance I needed to pull away from the nosing-in van.

: )

One time not as long ago as you might think, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally on the Public Square.

“More tattoos than teeth” was how one of the journalists covering the rally described most of the people in attendance.

My girlfriend and I left town for the weekend. Spent some quality time, somewhere, shopping.

: )

Driving up North Main today, listening to my absolutely fabulous new Mannheim Steamroller CD, I started to feel The Christmas Spirit. Just a little, and mostly because the music is so gorgeous. I know, I know: How many times can you remake a Christmas song or carol? And besides, I already have 4 or 5 other Steamroller albums, some of which contain some of the songs on this new one?

Well, I have no answer, other than I adore their music and their renditions of the songs. And in a couple of them, whoever plays the piccolo is simply outstanding, and it just makes me smile to hear those notes.

Anyway, when I was a little kid, I used to wait for this magical Christmas spirit to hit me. And on a cold late-November, early December day, if I were outside at recess and a snowflake or 2 happened to fall, well, then, yes, sometimes this so-called spirit would hit me. For a minute or 2, at least ... but never in the way that some people seemed to think that it would, or should, or did.

I always kept waiting and hoping, but it never really seemed to take hold. So, today, when I drove and listened, I felt a little warm and fuzzy, and that felt pretty cool. Especially since it was such an incredibly gray and gloomy and rainy and crappy day outside.

The kind of day that is just perfect for type-type-typing away in a journal. Or shopping for shoes, online.

: )

Sunday, Nov. 28, 2004

Never awaken an attack cat whilst she is snuggled in a down comforter.

: )

Especially if you are using flash!

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Apparently, when I was 3 years old, I was “highly intelligent.” That’s according to Aunt Janie, who once told me, “I patterned you after myself.” Which scared me, but only a little. (I am kidding.)

I like to hear about how I was as a kid. Mainly because ... well, I was there, of course, but I was in here ... not outside of me, observing. And every once in a while, I think back to some mean thing I did, and I wonder: “Was I a bad kid?” And then I remember times when I felt BAD, and sad, and I think: “Was I unhappy as a kid?” And then there are parts that I cannot recall because, well, I was just too young.

Occasionally, I ask Aunt Janie.

This time, she was telling us about how, when Mom had Debra, she was in charge of me ... which prompted my question: “What was I like as a kid?”

“Oh, you were highly intelligent,” Aunt Janie said. She knew this, she said, because I could say “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” when I was only 3 years old.

I love my aunt.

: )

Although being deemed “highly intelligent” became the joke of the day at Thanksgiving dinner, and my sister could not resist any chance to remind me of it ... especially after she and Cousin Karen defeated Carrie and me in Trivial Pursuit.

What can I say? I figured out what an anthropophagist eats (people!) but could not come up with the term for the process of splitting an atom (fission).

Hey, what can I say? I am not a rocket surgeon!

: )

I think there must be some truth to triptophan (sp?) and turkey. I awoke Friday morning and felt as if I had been out on an all-night bender, or perhaps drugged; plus, I am pretty sure I slept the entire night on my left side. (Am I wrong, or does that seem incredibly strange?) Never really could get going the next day, especially not by spending 10 hours in front of my computer at work. Gads, remind me next year to insist on having a full staff working the day before AND after Thanksgiving ... either that, or I am taking Wednesday and/or Friday off myself.

: (

Is it just me, or has this year flown by faster than any in recent memory?

I have been told this is because we are getting older. And with every passing year, each year becomes a smaller percentage of our lives. Which is the reason that, when you are 6, it seems to take forever for your birthday or Christmas to get here ... and when you are 39, you realize that Christmas has come and gone before you even finish typing this sentence.

Well ... maybe not that quickly.

Personally, I think the year has flown by so fast because my mind is clear. Finally. Not to say that I don’t feel an occasional pang, and that I wouldn’t trade a few anxious, sleepless nights to hear that sweet, familiar voice (Suuure!), but for the most part, clear is good.

Clear is great, actually.

The Keeper of the Flame

In case I ever misplace this ... which I thought I had done, until I ran across it in the pages of my Snoopy address book, which serves as a filing cabinet of sorts for every valuable scrap of paper that comes along, until I no longer deem it valuable ... which is usually about 20 years from now:



And the flip-side:



Grandma Ginny’s pumpkin pie was different from any pumpkin pie I ever tasted. Her pumpkin pie was spicier and sweeter ... it didn’t even look the same as the others! Whereas most pumpkin pies are about 3 cinnamon shakes/shades darker than the color of an actual pumpkin (basically: dark orange), Grandma Ginny’s pumpkin pie was brown. And it was an acquired taste, too: I can remember, briefly, thinking it tasted rather strange. Too clove-y or something.

But then, one Thanksgiving or Christmas, her pumpkin pie became my all-time favorite pie. Ever.

She used to bake pumpkin pies in mass quantities and then freeze them, thawing a few whenever the holidays rolled around. She brought at least 3 pies to every Thanksgiving and Christmas gathering of our not-so-large family; then, when I and my sister and our cousins moved out on our own, she would bring an extra pie for each one of us to take home. (I would have a slice for breakfast for the entire week after those holidays.)

When we were kids, Grandma used to bake kid-sized pumpkin pies in those potpie-sized pie tins. I liked those best, maybe because was a higher pumpkin-to-crust ratio or something, who knows.

A few years ago, I finally remembered to have her write out the recipe. I expected some kind of “secret ingredient,” but no. The only part of the recipe that seems even a little bit out of the ordinary is the fact that she always used an entire container of pumpkin pie spice (I believe most recipes call for part of a container ... but I could be wrong, for I have not looked at another pumpkin pie recipe for a very long time).

Last year was our first Thanksgiving without Grandma Ginny, so I decided to bake a pumpkin pie. And I followed the recipe to the letter ... even though, admittedly, there are a few parts of the recipe that I sort of had to figure out for myself.

For example, if you are trying this at home: This recipe actually makes enough for 2-plus pumpkin pies ... which is fine, since the frozen pie crusts I buy come in 2-packs. (What, you thought I made my own pie crust??! Please.) Also, any true cook will notice that there is no baking time on the recipe.

I just baked one. I think it was in there for about an hour. I might give the second one a little longer.

The house smells wonderful when a pumpkin pie is baking.

: )

Sometime between today and yesterday, my leaf let go.

Honest to God, I looked for it (briefly) before I went into the house. To no avail.

And then I looked up and saw, clinging to a bare sweetgum branch and sort of smooshed up next to an evergreen, a leaf that bore a resemblance to mine.

Could have been!

More Self-Discovery

Man, I fucking HATE liars.

Not saying I have never lied. Not even saying I have never lied and hurt someone in the process ... which, all double-negatives aside, means that I have lied, and I have hurt someone in the process.

Maybe everyone has; how would I know?

I also hate having to work double-shifts in order to get a day off. Somehow, that does not seem like much of a holiday to me.

On the positive side: It looks as if I will be taking off half the month of December. And that makes it all worthwhile, in my not-so-humble opinion.

: )

For the record: The new U2 album AND the Seinfeld DVDs went on the market today, and I did not run right out and buy either (any?) of them. Three cheers for self-restraint! (Hopefully, there is always tomorrow.)

Insomnia

Tonight, I played tennis for the first time since ... well, I cannot remember when.

And tonight, when we were driving home, the atmosphere was quite foggy.

Then, when I logged in to Yahooie!, the little weather icon looked like this for my town:



Perfect!

For Eleanor

Eleanor Wheeler died Thursday.

And, true to form, me being the journalist that I am, I didn’t even realize she had died until I was putting her obituary on the page, Friday, as I was proofreading it for mistakes and reading her biographical information and suddenly began reading the names of her 5 sons (3 of whom are or were basketball coaches that I have worked with over the years) and her 7 grandchildren (1 of whom was one of the best high school basketball players I have ever seen/covered; his name is T.J. Wheeler, and he actually enjoyed a pretty nice college career, too, playing for the University of Illinois).

“Oh, my gosh,” I said to myself. “This is Eleanor.”

I had read her full name at the top of the obit and had not even made the connection before. But now I knew, and now, I was sad.

I am sad.

Eleanor was 78. I sorta figure any woman who has managed to raise 5 boys, or 5 girls, or 5 kids, period, no matter what mixture of genders, should live to be at least 100, mainly because they have already survived the difficult part of life. But 78 years is a pretty long time, and it makes me smile, somehow, to know that Eleanor is/was exactly twice my age, at this moment.

I don’t even remember when I met Eleanor. All I know is I have known T.J. since he was a sophomore in high school (1987-88) and sported The Best Flattop I have ever seen on anyone, ever, and I started getting to know his family then. Sometime along the way, I met his grandmother, and she and her husband eventually moved to this town.

I went to her house, once. Not sure why; I think I may have been dropping off some pictures or something. It was a beautiful home, simple and welcoming and comfortable. She had a pool out back, and before I left, she told me, “You come by, any time. We’ll go outside and swim.”

I never went back. Oh, I thought about dropping by from time to time, but I never did. I always had something else I needed to be doing, or I probably told myself, well, she’s probably busy, anyway.

Occasionally, though, I would see her out and about. Always, the first week of the h.s. basketball season, I would see her at the tournament at Du Quoin, where her middle son, Wendell, coaches. And once in a while, I’d see her getting groceries at Big John.

Every time I saw her, she made me feel as if she were incredibly happy to see me. Every time.

She’d ask me how I’d been, and sometimes she’d say, “You know, you still haven’t been over to swim in the pool!” And I’d smile and say, “Oh, I know! I need to get over there!”

And when we spoke, always, she would tell me: “I’ve sure been enjoying the articles you write.”

And sometimes, I would be in one of those phases in which writing came easy, and the ideas and words for columns flowed, non-stop. Believe it or not, at one time in my life, I used to write a weekly column. And I flirt with the idea now, but it’s a little like certain other things, with me: If I am not required to do it, then I usually don’t.

“Thank you, Eleanor,” I would say, and to myself, I would make a mental note to remember that words are important, and the writing you put on a page of the newspaper does matter because someone is reading. Always.

We would go our separate ways, and I’d know that sometime, I would run into Eleanor again. And she would make me feel as if she were incredibly happy to see her.

I hope she knows how happy it made me, too.

: )

I stopped by Eleanor’s visitation last night. And yeah, I hate going to those things as much as anyone does, but sometimes, you just have to go.

I went a little early because I had to work afterwards and because I didn’t want to drive at night, if I could help it. And because the funeral home is in McLeansboro, I decided that I would stop by Auten’s and grab a pizza on the way back so The Lovely and I could eat dinner together when I got back to town.

Besides, Eleanor’s eldest son, Tom (T.J.’s dad), was the one who had told me about Auten’s Pizza in the first place.

You go to funerals and visitations to pay your respects. To sign the guest book and marvel over the beautiful flowers and comment on how peaceful the deceased person looks. To hug the surviving relatives, and perhaps to share a poignant memory or 2.

To comfort each other.

There weren’t too many people there, yet, when I arrived. I signed the book and moseyed into the viewing room; there were flowers everywhere, and mostly empty chairs because it was still early.

I saw Tom, and when he saw me, he immediately started sobbing.

“Oh, Di, you didn’t have to do this,” he said, as he grabbed ahold of me and hugged me, and we both cried, together.

We stood there for a few minutes, and then we talked to his son for a moment, and then to his father. Tom told me a little about his mother’s last few days, and then he said he wasn’t sure how they’d go on without her.

“You will because you’re strong,” I told him.

“No, she was the strong one,” he said.

“And you’re strong because of her.”

They will carry on.

: )

The pizza was superb.

20Q

This is by far the coolest game I have seen in the last 5 years. Maybe longer.

Now, keep in mind that I tend to like simple games: For example, Minesweeper can keep me occupied for hours, if I allow it to; in fact, if I ever actually do complete an entire game of it, I will be UNinstalling the game from my computer, just as I did with my previous 2 computers.

(I am nothing if not obsessive.)

Anyhoo, Alice brought in the 20Q from Radica today, and it kept most of the news office entertained all morning. She handed it to me first thing, before I even knew what it was, and told me to think of something, so, naturally, I thought of a Frisbee (??). Twenty questions later: THE DAMN GAME GUESSED THAT I WAS THINKING OF A FRISBEE!!!

Freaky, eh??!

Not that the game is infallible: It did guess “Jack Russell terrier” when Michelle was thinking of her dog, Lucky (who, yes, IS a Jack Russell terrier!) ... and when I was thinking of a bobblehead, it guessed “Pez dispenser” (not a bad try, considering I have 2 of them in my desk at work!) and then “Rubik’s Cube.” (On the anatomical questions: 20Q replied “It’s a dik dik” to one of the inquiries ... and no, it was not ME who thought up that one!!)

: )

Yellow

Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah, they were all yellow.

I have been noticing, these last few days, that the leaves are getting prettier.

I mean, I thought that fall had ended, at least the colorful part, because the bright red and orange and yellow leaves had gone ... or so I thought ... but lately, I have been seeing these other equally amazing colors, including green, even, and lots and lots of yellow, and I am pretty sure that this is not normal, or at the very least, usual, for this time of year.

I like to think the trees are just now showing their true colors.

I like to think that I am like the trees: A late bloomer.

According to the latest online quiz, however, I am not yellow.

I am blue.

Which is cool because I do like blue.

: )

Watched Introducing Dorothy Dandridge today. Amazing film about an amazing woman, played by an amazing actress, Halle Berry.

And as I watched, I missed Grandma Ginny because that was her era, and I would have liked to have asked her what she remembered of Dorothy, if she remembered.

The movie made me sad, really, and mad.

Why do people discriminate? How can anyone justify that kind of behavior?

Hand Writing

I am a journalist, by trade. Actually, I do not feel much like a journalist; I am generally not nosy, and I don’t like to pry into peoples’ business, and to be quite honest, if someone were to divide the world into 2 categories, People Who Make the News and People Who Report the News, I would definitely rather be in the “Make” category.

However, I wanted to start today’s post with this sentence:

I am a journalist.

I like to ask the hard-hitting questions (not really, but, again, for the sake of today’s post ... let’s just say I do, OK?), like the one I asked just a few minutes ago when I stopped by Farm Fresh to buy some dishwashing liquid.

First of all, I should explain that Farm Fresh is a very small store centered around Farm Fresh milk, which is sold in glass bottles. Which is THE only kind of milk to drink, really. (Ask my friend Patti; she will agree.) Seriously. If anyone ever asks you what kind of milk you want, don’t bother saying, “Oh, only skim milk for me!” or “I prefer whole milk, if you have it.”

Say, “I’ll take whatever milk you have, as long as it’s out of a glass bottle.”

Anyway, I walk into Farm Fresh, and I know that because it is a small store, I can mill around and find my Ivory Liquid or whatever they have in less than 5 minutes, probably, but this is a beautiful day, and I really don’t feel like spending even 1 minute searching. As I enter the store, I spy a young man behind the counter, sort of leaning forward. He has somewhat hollow eyes, which look up at me as I walk into the store, and blondish hair.

“Do you have any dishwashing liquid?” I ask.

“Uhhhhhhh ... you mean, soap?”

See? Hard-hitting questions.

: )

On my drive home, I hear a KMOX radio announcer proclaiming that Hillary Clinton will not be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008. And that Arnold Schwarzenegger will not be elected president then, either.

I believe I agree with both points.

Though I have always had a bit of a something for ol’ Hills. Especially since she has a certain “family” quality about her. Plus, she always seemed so smart, especially in contrast to her hubby ... who also is supposed to be smart (I guess?), though apparently he wasn’t so smart about his, uhm, indiscretions ...

Anyhoo, bottom line: After this year’s election, Democrats are in “must-win” mode. They would never have the guts/balls to try to get a woman elected ... or would they??!

As for Ahnold: I do not want him as president. And it has nothing to do with him not being a natural-born U.S. citizen, one of the requirements for the position; matter of fact, I truly believe that many naturalized citizens have a far greater appreciation of the greatness of this country because they have lived elsewhere and know what it is like not to have the freedoms we have here.

We take things for granted here, sometimes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it’s a little like when you have an ability, something you’ve always been able to do, sometimes without any extensive training: You just assume you’re always going to be able to do it. And you don’t even think about it all that much ... until someone brings it up and wants to make you do it their way, or asks you why you’re not doing it more often, or better, or whatever.

Like writing.

: )

My friend Matt has written an insightful piece on writing. Which includes some of the things I have actually thought about, regarding writing, and used to try to explain to various friends, most of whom are not writers, and to my students, who were taking writing classes but were definitely not writers, by any stretch of the imagination (most of them, anyway) ... some of them because they actually hated to write, but many of them because they had been told, or rather, taught, at a very young age, that they weren’t any good at it ... and so they had given up, or lost interest, and no longer cared. Or pretended not to.

Matt speaks of the process of writing, and how it is different now from what it was long ago. I don’t think about that, necessarily, all that often, other than, occasionally, to remind myself how much easier it is, technologically speaking, to write, in today’s world. And then I think of an essay by Frank McCourt in which he described his early days of writing, how he used pieces of wallpaper because he was very poor and could not afford to buy actual writing paper. And then, can you imagine writing entire novels, by hand? And when you think about it all: It really wasn’t that long ago, in the whole scheme of the world and what-not!

I have thought about this a lot, this whole writing process, because writing used to be something I did with a spiral notebook (college ruled, preferably) on my lap, a Paper Mate pen in my hand. And I would write passages and scenes, paragraphs and pages at a time, and I rarely seemed to finish anything, but I was always writing ... though, one time, in 5th grade, I really did fill an entire notebook (20 pages, I think, nothing outlandishly long) with an adventure story about me and some of my classmates.

And then, when I decided to become a journalist, I learned that you HAD to use a computer to write your story because deadlines couldn’t wait for you to write something out by hand and then type it into the computer. And just a few years before that, you would have HAD to have used a typewriter, but the times, they were a-changin’, and this was The Computer Age, finally and undeniably upon us.

So I learned to think and type and create and write, right there, with a keyboard and a computer screen in front of me. Over and over, until it became almost automatic, to the point that now, the thought of writing out something by hand sounds excruciatingly tedious ... in fact, my hands can’t even keep up with my thoughts, really, and the thought of not being able to delete a mistake, or copy ’n’ paste and rearrange, at will, seems torturous to me.

Though there is something, still, very sensual and romantic about a hand-written letter. I do like to write those, on very rare occasions.

: )

When I was a kid, my teachers told me that I wrote wrong.

I mean, my letters were right and everything, but I held my pencil incorrectly, they told me. Instead of holding it between the tips of my index finger and thumb, with my index finger bent at a nearly perfect right angle, I sort of scrunched my fingers around my pencil, almost as if I were making a fist:



I still write like this.

When I write by hand.

(And I just learned that it’s not easy to take a picture of yourself writing.)

: )

Little voice inside my head ...

Said, “Don’t look back, you can never look back”

Yeah, I know better, but sometimes I still do, anyway.

: )

Saw Alfie today, and I loved it. I love Jude Law/Inman. He is one of those (rare) actors that I cannot seem to take my eyes off (a la Brad Pitt), which is a good thing, considering the movie was pretty much all about Alfie.

And Alfie is charming and leads an enviable life, but of course not everything is as simple as it seems.

Great music, too, featuring Mick Jagger and my old pal David A. Stewart, and in fact I had the soundtrack CD in my hands, later, at Target, but for some reason did not buy it.

Made this Simon & Garfunkel mix the other night, finally, for a girl at work:

1. Cloudy
2. The Dangling Conversation
3. Scarborough Fair/Canticle
4. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)
5. For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
6. 7 o’clock News/Silent Night
7. The Sound of Silence
8. I Am a Rock
9. Homeward Bound
10. Old Friends/Bookends
11. Bridge over Troubled Water
12. The Boxer
13. Mrs. Robinson
14. America

Which I suppose reads like a Greatest Hits compilation, but ... well, these are my faves, of theirs.

My favoritest being “The Sound of Silence.” Followed closely by “Old Friends/Bookends.”

How terribly strange to be seventy ...

Reflections on Today

My leaf, last I checked, is still hanging on. OK, so, obviously, it’s not my leaf, but now that I’ve noticed it, yeah, I’ve sorta singled it out as my favorite leaf. Mostly for its beauty, but also for its imperfections. And how its appearance changes, based mostly on the sky and the sun above it, behind it, around it.

And today, in the breeze, it danced. And still hung on.

I will be sad when it finally lets go.

: )

I have a friend — well, she’s not exactly a friend. I like her more than a friend ... but that’s not exactly accurate, either, because I love my friends; in fact, I have always felt that, with my really good friends, my best friends — and I’m very lucky because I have more than one ... which would probably require another superlative term besides “best” because best is a word sort of like “favorite,” in that, strictly speaking, a person can have only one best friend and one favorite ice cream — I have actually been a little bit in love with each one of them, to a certain degree. Because once you see that special something in someone, once you make that connection, there is a special place in your soul for that person, forever. And it doesn’t mean that you would ever take the friendship beyond the level that it is; it simply means that this is a person I will always cherish. This is my friend.

But this girl ... this girl, for whatever reason, is someone I have cared about from the moment we met. And funnily enough, we have never actually met, in person, yet sometimes it seems as if we have, many times. Though, once again, I suppose you can actually meet someone only once ... although, now that I think about it, what about when you meet someone for drinks? You could do that hundreds of time, if you were so inclined ... and if you were a drinker ... and we all drink something, right?

Interruption: At this moment, Jeff Buckley is singing “Hallelujah” on this LAX show that I have never watched and am not watching now, actually; I merely have the TV on NBC because I do not want to miss Jimmy Smits on The West Wing. Though I am sort of disappointed in myself for noticing, as I watched Jimmy/Bobby Simone on NYPD Blue last night, that he is no longer drop-dead gorgeous, as I had once found him to be. (Perhaps it was the camera angle.) Anyhoo, I was listening to Over the Rhine’s version of “Hallelujah” just this afternoon, and I have also heard the song performed by Rufus Wainright and k.d. lang (though never by its writer, Leonard Cohen), and so far, my favorite rendition is Jeff’s. And I am sad all over again that I did not even discover his music until after he was gone. Just like Nina Simone.

Anyway, this girl ... this girl and I are friends (but not quite friends) again, and something about having her in my life, occasionally, makes certain moments a little bit brighter and better, somehow, but also makes me incredibly sad, sometimes, every once in a while, unexpectedly.

Today, though, I think of her and smile. She has a girl, a new girl, though now they’ve been together for many months. Since the very beginning of this year, actually. And when I heard that this girl had a girl, I felt this odd sense of ... I don’t know, joy, or something very much like it, because I love her, in that way that I love and am a little in love with all of my best friends — only a little differently, somehow.

What makes me smile, today, as I think of this girl and her girl is the fact that everything they go through this year, together, is a first: First tail-end of winter together, first spring, first thunderstorm, first fireworks, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas together. I am a little envious, I think — not envious of this girl, or her girl, or them, but of all those firsts.

Firsts are fabulous, and unforgettable.

Fourteenths are fabulous, too, in their own way ... yet it’s difficult not to think back, occasionally, to those firsts, and miss them, just a little.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Part 2

Had to pause To Kill a Mockingbird DVD ’cause it was Saturday and I wasn’t fully awake, and then today I decided I must watch Before Sunset, primarily because Before Sunrise meant so much, SO much. And it was good, Sunset, but it was different, and mostly all I could think about was how Ethan Hawke and I have that same lil’ dent in our foreheads, and how Sunrise had all this other significance because it was all mixed in with my life, at a particular time ... and how sometimes, it almost seems as if it all happened to someone else.

Which, in some ways, it did.

Which makes me wonder: If someone likes you, really likes you, then shouldn’t that be enough? If you have a connection with someone, and, for whatever reason that people like each other, you like her or him and she or he likes you, then shouldn’t that get you past when one or the other or both of you do/does something wrong? Don’t the 1 or 2 “bad” deeds or qualities or whatever get snuffed out by the 101 good things?

Anyway, Ethan and I have both gotten older, Julie Delpy still has that adorable French accent, and Jesse and Celine are listening to Nina Simone as the film comes to an end. What more could you ask for, except that perhaps the first film was complete in and of itself, and there never really is a good reason for making a sequel?

: )

I was thinking some more about To Kill a Mockingbird, the book, and I was glad to get some feedback from Patti. She has read a million and one books; matter of fact, when I think back to our college days, I can remember her almost always being in the middle of a book. Anyhoo, I think I had heard her mention To Kill a Mockingbird, somewhere along the line, and even if I didn’t, I knew, somehow, that of course she had read it.

And, of course, she has. Many times. And seen the movie.

And one of the aspects of both that sticks with her is freedom. And how summer seemed especially free from worries or cares, and how, when you’re a kid, the neighborhood seems so huge. She says she remembers running past the “scary” house. I don’t remember a scary house in my neighborhood, but I remember my neighbors’ names: Chris and Melissa, Brandon and Deana (they were all kids); Mabel and Burl, Mrs. Mahnke (her nephew Tony was my best friend in grade school, and some of my favorite days were when he would come to visit; it is because of him that I became a Chicago Cubs fan, and have always envied left-handers), Carl and Daisy Broyles, John Bodell (he always wore dark pants and a white button-down shirt over a Dago tee, which I believe they now call “wife-beaters”), the Andersons catty-corner from us, Charles Longwell (he was a kid, too; one time, he wiped a booger on Debra’s hot-potato game).

When we went to my dad’s house, there weren’t as many neighbors: Kris and Brad Bolt (Brad was my age, Kris a year older), May Miller and her husband, and their son, John (they had a tire swing, but John was much younger than we were), and Mr. Yakey. I guess Mr. Yakey was as close to a “scary” neighbor as I ever knew, and even then ... well, all he did was sit at his back window and peck on it whenever he saw us peeping out from under this huge bush that he had in his back yard.

I mean, that bush was incredible! Me, Bobby and Debra could crawl in there and fit, comfortably. But Mr. Yakey always saw us. He always knew when we were in there!

We were always looking for a place, it seemed. When Dad lived at the trailer court, we transformed a nearby barn or even a large slab of concrete (the foundation for a pole barn, eventually) into our headquarters. On Main Street, we hung out in Mr. Yakey’s bush or the attic of Dad’s house. One time, we even made a clubhouse out of DOORS! Yes, actual doors ... and for the life of me, I cannot remember where we got them, or how, or anything, but we used 3 or 4 of them (maybe more?) to put together a clubhouse, right there in the back yard.

Bobby was the president, I was the vice president and Debra was the janitor, always. Sometimes Kris got to be the VP or the treasurer. Brad, the boy I was constantly fighting with, was simply a member.

: )

Today I shot photos of a 1963 Corvair. It’s torn to hell, but they’re going to renovate it (or whatever you call it when you completely reDO a car: “We can rebuild it; we can make it better ... stronger ... faster!”) and raffle it off as a fund raiser.

In the midst, I shot a self-portrait.



And then, on the way back to the news office, I noticed the word “Scout” on a building.



And it made me smile. : )

Today

The sky was so beautiful today, it actually hurt, a little, to look at it.

Be gentle.

I managed to order a platter of nachos bellgrande from Taco Bell the other day. With extra sour cream. Granted, they were no Busch Stadium nachos supremas, which in my opinion are THE best nachos, ever (even if you have to walk umpteen levels, or maybe 3, to get some), but they were pretty tasty, just the same. And even better than the nachos were the clever little packets of MILD sauce that came along with them. Reminded me a little of the Heinz ketchup ketchy-phrase campaign, only these seemed more like miniature fortunes. Border Sauce wisdom.

: )

I had a dream this morning. I know it was this morning because I did not even go to bed until 2:30 a.m. (DAMN that iced mocha I had last night around 9!), so it had to have been this morning.

I dreamt the St. Louis Cardinals were playing the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. And it was Game 7, being played at Wrigley Field. The game was tied going into the 9th inning, during which the Cards scored 2 unearned runs to take a 3-1 lead.

Suddenly, as the Cubs got up to bat in the bottom of the 9th, the scene shifted to the north playground at Main Street School. And I was totally pissed because of the unearned runs, and the fact that in their last at-bat, one of the players for the Cubs had taken 2 giant Mother, May I steps OUT of the box, JUST to swing at a pitch and miss ... and also because Karl was giving me grief. So, somehow, I convinced him (and someone else, not sure who) to walk to the steps at the northeast corner of the school so I could re-enact the wonderful at-bat ... and next thing I knew, we were PART OF THE ACTUAL PLAYING FIELD, and the Cubs were HITTING A BALL, RIGHT AT US!

Right at ME, actually, so I told everyone to stand still so the players could field the ball, but they could not find it ... so I fielded the ground ball (cleanly, I might add!) and threw to third. And fans were yelling at us, and Karl was fretting, and then one of the Cubs players hit a ball that looked like it was going over the fence but it did not, and the Cardinals ended up winning the game 3-2, or 4-3, or something like that.

: (

: )

Losing My Religion

No, I am not going to quote that R.E.M. song, though I do have it running through my noggin right about now, mostly because I listened to my R.E.M. mix tonight, to and from dinner and the mall, whilst driving up and down I-57, on a moonless night that, at different points along the drive back, seemed dark as any night I can ever remember.

These are the songs on my R.E.M. mix, which did not include at least a couple of their songs that I really really like (“It’s the End of the World as We Know It [And I Feel Fine]” and “Shiny Happy People”) simply because I did not have them downloaded or on CD when I made the mix:

1. At My most Beautiful
2. So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)
3. Time after Time (Annelise)
4. (Don’t Go Back to) Rockville
5. Cuyahoga
6. Everybody Hurts
7. All the Right Friends
8. Hope
9. Man on the Moon
10. Losing My Religion
11. Sweetness Follows
12. Superman

I am not sure these are in the order they appear on the mix. I mean, I am sure about 1 through 7, and 11 and 12, but honestly, the CD is out in my car, and I am not going to go get it just to check.

Songs 2 through 5, and “Superman” are especially important to me because they are from the Reckoning and Lifes Rich Pageant albums that meant so much when I was in college, hanging out at the Uptowner/Cellar, where they played Reckoning ALL the time (on cassette tape, I believe!). And I remember Lifes songs because someone, somewhere, played them at after-bars parties. Not that I went to all that many: By the time the bars closed, I was usually ready to call it a night, but occasionally ... yeah.

: )

My favorite REM song, at this moment and for probably the last 3 years, is “At My Most Beautiful.”

I quoted lyrics to her, once: “I count your eyelashes ...”

A bit of pleasure followed, and then mucho pain ensued. Months of it.

She quoted lyrics to me, another time: “You always listen carefully/to awkward rhymes/You always say your name/like I wouldn’t know it’s you ...”

(At your most beautiful.)

I will always love that song. Always.

I’ve found a way to make you/I’ve found a way/a way to make you smile.

That was all I ever wanted to do, really.

: )

I keep wanting to get political, but I simply cannot muster the strength. Nor the words.

: )

I started watching To Kill a Mockingbird today, and already I love it, though it is different, in some ways, from the book. I have decided the girl who plays Scout looks almost exactly like my mother, when Mom was a little girl. In this one particular picture that I happened upon a couple of summers ago.

This makes me smile.

One day, I found a railroad track.

OK, so it was probably there all along ... or at least long before I ever stumbled upon it.



And at this moment, I hear a train whistle blowing in the night.

I took this picture 14 years ago, about this time of the year. On a sunny, cool fall day, down past Garden of the Gods (I think; I mean, it was 14 years ago, and I was not the one who drove us down there). We walked through the woods, four of us, and two of us knew where we were going, but two of us did not, and we kept walking and walking, and finally we got to this clearing, and suddenly we were there, overlooking the railroad track.

I used black & white film, mostly, back then.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Part 1

I dreaded today. Dreaded it because it is the day after the election — and because I have never actually covered an election, I was not quite certain how to go about it. Factor in the part about how I basically detest politics, along with the fact that I had a couple of photo shoots scheduled for this morning when I knew I would be busy putting together our election coverage, and add in how I am (somewhat) dreading tomorrow night as well because I have to attend a banquet (I cannot stand banquets, but not quite on the same level as politics; I mean, at least there is food at a banquet!), and there you have it: I dreaded today.

And everything went fine. I LOVE when that happens!

And why does that happen, anyway? Why is it that the things we dread most are never quite as bad as we had feared, and the things we look most forward to never quite seem to live up to the hype?

Well, I take that back. Oddly enough, without even meaning to, I have circled my way back to the topic I wanted to write about: an obscure little novel called To Kill a Mockingbird.

OK, so it’s not that obscure. In fact, in addition to my co-worker Lea, I am probably the last person on the planet who had never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Before yesterday, anyway.

And now I’ve read it. And what makes me smile and renews my faith, on some level, in just about everything, is how this book not only lived up to but actually surpassed any expectations I had of it — expectations that, quite frankly, had kept me from ever even wanting to read the book in the first place.

Everyone I had ever talked to about this book loved it: “Oh, it’s a Classic!” and “Oh, it’s so Wonderful!” And they would go on and on with various favorable adjectives, but no one would ever actually talk about what the book was about. And I had read just enough about it to know that it was about growing up during the Depression and racism and The South, and any time I had ever seen video clips of all-time great movies, the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird would always be included: dashing Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, wearing glasses and a suit.

I bought a paperback copy of the book a few months ago. Maybe longer. Not even sure why, except that I saw it at Barnes & Noble (I think it was Barnes & Noble), and I am pretty sure I had also considered buying The Catcher in the Rye at the same time but did not, for whatever reason. Took it home, laid it on my nightstand, next to the Nave’s Topical Study Bible I have permanently borrowed from my parents and the engraved Bible I received when I entered 3rd grade (or was it 5th?), tried to read the first few paragraphs but lost interest, and then didn’t pick it up again until this past weekend. And really, the only reason that I got started on it then was because I had been doing some cleaning, a bit of rearranging (I put the Nave’s Bible on top of the engraved one, this time), and suddenly thought, Hmm, maybe I should read this book, finally.

I don’t even know what I can say about To Kill a Mockingbird, really — other than I loved it. Because it is such a great story, and the characters are so unique and distinct, and the writing is vivid and honest and real. And funny, in that honest, real way in which situations in real life are funny. Except when they’re not.

And the book is insightful, too: As I read, I found myself making discoveries right along with Scout, and the instant I would realize that she was realizing something — well, obviously, I was not watching myself in a mirror as I read, but I am pretty certain that had I been, I would have seen my forehead make that little flicker of a furrow that 10-month-old Kameron makes when he is trying to figure out just exactly what the nutty adults around him are trying to do ... even though Kam is quite a bit younger than Scout Finch, and God knows I am much, much older than both of them, combined — anyway, as soon as Scout made a realization, it suddenly would click with me, even in those instances when she spoke of things that I had long, long ago realized.

As I closed the book, I realized it was about me. A little bit, anyway.

And so, when I was raving about it yesterday at work, before I had even finished reading it, and Mona was saying what a great book it was, I could not help adding, “When I grow up, I want to be just like Scout Finch.”

“I could see that,” Mona said. “You are like her.”

I am not sure anyone has given me a higher compliment.

: )

There is a part in the book, right near the end, when Scout stands on the front porch of the Radley house and looks out at her neighborhood. And my mind did that thing that makes it difficult to read, for a few seconds, anyway, in which I am reading the words but visualizing my own world, my own memories ...

And suddenly, I am not on the front porch of the house I grew up in — mainly because our front porch always seemed to be in a state of constant remodeling (still is, actually) — but on the front porch at Mabel’s. Her porch is covered but open, with a white wooden swing hanging by two chains from the ceiling at the north end, facing the street, and one of those slidey-couches at the south end, facing the swing. The porch is white, like the rest of her house, and the smooth floor of the porch is bluish gray, or actually more like grayish blue, sort of like this, only a little darker. And at the corners of the porch are wide square columns, and in between, the railings are wide enough to sit on, if the swing and couch are already occupied.

And if Mabel is home, she always has iced tea or lemonade, and sometimes cookies, and if she is not home, she lets us come up on her porch anyway. It always feels cooler up there, even on the hottest days, because the leaves from the two giant maples on her boulevard provide plenty of shade.

And as I sit on the north railing on her porch, my back against the house, my bare feet out in front of me, I look toward Chestnut Street. I see two little girls who could be mistaken for boys, if I didn’t know better, riding girls’ bikes — little red ones, up and down the sidewalk, and then, a couple of years later, a teal bicycle with a banana seat and high handlebars for the girl with the lighter hair, a fuschsia bicycle with the same banana seat and high handlebars for the girl with the darker hair (who’s actually younger but a little taller than her sister).

I watch them playing “pitch ’n’ catch” in the yard, and badminton, too, at their own personal Wimbledon, which is relocated to the street once they take up tennis. I see various dolls and cars and accessories hauled out and in, out and back in; other kids come and go, from across the streets on both sides of the girls’ house on the corner, from catty-corner, from ’round the block and up the hill. “No running in and out!” I hear the dark brown-haired woman say (she is barely more than half my age, but she is already so much smarter than I will ever be).

I look into the house, my house, and see, at the north end of the windowed-in porch, leaned back in a rocking chair, feet propped up along the window ledge, a girl wearing glasses.

She is reading a book.

No, wait: She is writing one.