Fatal Planetarium

It was already late morning. I opened up my backpack and emptied out the day-old groceries. At the bottom was my speech, three pages stapled together and folded in thirds. At the top I'd written the time of the ceremony, twelve-something. It was already past eleven. I stuffed it in my pocket and let myself out of the house.

When I got to the bus stop there were steps leading down to the platform. I hurried down and saw that the bottom two steps were completely underwater. It was a grey day, the water a deep blue, not choppy but calm and lapping quietly. I stepped into the water because I had to make the bus and it was too late to go back for my boots. Near the bottom of the stairs I woke up a lizard and it swam away lazily. I could just see its dark shape descending. I wanted to stay and look at it but I had to go.

Pivoting my torso and arms back and forth to push harder, I trudged through the water, my gaze fixed on the bus shelter. There were some relief volunteers standing at a table. They were there to hand out emergency supplies but no one was coming to take them. I waded past their table and continued on my way.

Finally I got to the bus shelter and stood waiting, the shadowy water swirling and eddying below my knees as I caught my breath. I looked up to take in the scene. Where the street should have been right in front of me, there was only a massive river of gently gliding water. Beyond it, in the distance, the city skyline stood peacefully in the orange haze: no helicopters, no electric lights, not a ship in sight. It was like an ancient ruin. Many hours must have passed because it looked like the sun was already setting.

I just stood there, waiting for my bus. Knee-deep in the water, looking out over the river and the quiet skyscrapers beyond. Late to give my speech. Waiting.

So lots of people are coming up with lots of different things to say about the Mitt Romney bullying story -- that it's a non-issue, that it was a harmless prank, that after all it happened such a long time ago, that Lauber's family disputes the report, and that the story is a politically motivated attack. I even saw a comment on Facebook that argued that the errors in the Washington Post story, now corrected, mean that the whole thing is akin to the "birther" hubbub over Obama's citizenship.

And the fact is, it did happen a long time ago. I can relate to that feeling. You know, I'm 42 now, so for me, high school is also "ancient history." But you know what? Even when I was barely 21, if you asked me, I would have already said high school felt like a lifetime ago. This is because high school -- that thrilling and painfully intense transitional period between childhood and adulthood -- is by definition "ancient history" to anyone who regards herself as a grownup. That's why pronouncing Mitt Romney's bullying of John Lauber as "ancient history" sounds like a disingenuous way of saying "boys will be boys" -- what it does is diminish the importance of high school itself and therefore high school bullying.

How the grownups deal with a story like this is directly relevant to teens who are still in the situation now. Of course, we adults should try to forgive high school bullies for being immature, and we should also try to reassure bullying victims that adolescence does pass, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. But there's a huge difference between saying "it gets better" and "get over it." By dismissing what Romney did to Lauber as a "harmless prank," we are sending the latter message to the victims of bullying.

Most of all, I don't get this comparison to Obama's birth certificate. The "birthers" are simply in denial of the facts, as much as climate change denialists or creationists are. Even with the corrections, the very long and detailed Washington Post article includes quotes from several people, including people who were friends of Romney at the time and who even took part in the attack, who have independently corroborated what happened and who indicate that the event was so intense they still remember it vividly half a century later.

With all the groundwork anti-bullying educators have done in the last few years, this would have been a perfect opportunity for Romney -- who has the spotlight this year and could use it for any purpose he chooses -- to reflect on what he did and use the hard-earned wisdom of his experience to put out a heartfelt and uniquely authentic message against bullying, against the cruel ostracization of people who are labeled as "different," against the arrogant, exceptionalist mentality that infected wealthy privileged children like himself a half a century ago and that American right-wingers today still yearn to return to. He missed this opportunity. Honestly, Obama has been a disappointment, and I'm not even sure I'll vote for him this year. But to me, the Washington Post article is about far more than just the election.

It's also a wistful and poignant read. In some ways, the portrait it creates of Mitt Romney and John Lauber recalls the "Pensieve" flashback to the story of James Potter and Severus Snape in J.K. Rowling. The scene humanizes both James and Severus, and although of course it's a painful thing for Harry to have to learn about his father, that pain is an essential part of Harry's growing up to fulfill his father's highest hopes. It's an awkward reality that we all try to honor and appreciate our parents while at the same time striving to become even better than them. I hope that eventually, once the stress and competitiveness and artificiality of this election year has passed, Mitt Romney's own kids will be able to read the article thoughtfully, with an open mind to the cruelty of the world, and with an open heart, even to the boy their father once bullied.

"Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents"

1. Betty White. I'm sure she's a nice person, but why is she suddenly everywhere? And the stupid thing is, that's really all the whole joke boils down to: every time she shows up we're supposed to recognize that it's "funny" because ... HAHA, IT'S BETTY WHITE AGAIN! Whatever she actually has to say -- about global warming, or the 2012 election, or Fukushima for example -- really doesn't matter. Hell, it's not like old people are useful for their experience or wisdom or anything! And if you don't love seeing her then, well, you must be a bad person who hates your grandma.

Freud once told a story about an infant boy who loved to play a game his mother called "fort-da." He was bewildered when his mother disappeared, and laughed in relief everytime she came back. He became so obsessed with the game that he would purposely hide his toys from himself ("Fort!") and then uncover them, chortling in pleasure ("Da!") If I remember right, the kid's father had been absent for months fighting at the front in World War I so this was supposed to be his way of dealing with that. So the next time you're watching TV and burst into mindless giggles at the sudden appearance of Betty White, ask yourself: what is the infantile neurosis I am dealing with?

2. People who put too much detergent in the washing machine. Idiot, I have to use that machine after you! That's means I'm going to have to pay for an extra rinse cycle (sometimes two) just to get the nasty chemical sudsing agents left behind from your load out of my clothing and linens! And why would YOU even want all that extra dried detergent in your bath towels? So they can erupt into reconstituted soap everytime you dry yourself off after a shower? Because you like to fall asleep to the soothing aroma of chemical perfumes in your bedsheets? Because drowning your clothes in white soap bubbles is the only way you can tell they're "clean?" Or did you just think the detergent was gone because the final spin cycle made all the bubbles go away?

3. Chrono Trigger. I've been trying to replay this game on the Nintendo DS. Well guess what, it's boring! The blind nostalgia for this game is such that even young geeks who weren't born when it first came out somehow think it's the epitome of Japanese RPG's. But even back then it was never more than an interesting disappointment that we only finished playing because there were hardly any other JRPG's out in English at the time. How could it not be disappointing, coming right after what was arguably the greatest JRPG of all time, Final Fantasy VI? What made it even more of an anticlimax was all the hype -- the historic collaboration between the developing teams for Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest! If that was what they were going for then why hire some hack composer instead of Nobuo Uematsu or Koichi Sugiyama? Why make the lead character a blank wordless cipher, the laziest way in the world to trick the player into relating with him? (Technically, it's not that you even "relate" with him -- it's that he doesn't say anything that you CAN'T relate with because -- he doesn't say anything! Yes, Crono is the Vanna White of RPG protagonists.) The graphics were undeniably pretty at the time, but bear in mind that they had to sacrifice gameplay to fit all that data on the SNES cart. How? By eliminating all enemy encounters from the overworld map, which was blasphemy back then but routine procedure now. Some RPG's don't even have "overworld maps" any more, just decorated flowcharts where your movement, strictly speaking, is one-dimensional. Well, there goes exploration! But ooooh, look at the awesome graphics! What's that you say, it's two decades later and the graphics aren't awesome anymore? Well, they were awesome once and that's all that matters in the land of nostalgic fixations!

4. Cereal inner bags that won't open right. You turn off the clock radio alarm to start a new day of work, drag yourself out from under the warm covers, use the bathroom, stagger into the kitchen, take down a bowl and pour some milk into it, then reach for the new unopened box of cereal in the cupboard. Assuming you can break open the box top lid without giving yourself a paper cut, you then reach the plastic inner bag, which you tug and pull and wrench and wheedle at until you finally decide you can use a little more force despite knowing full well what happened last time so you firmly grab hold of two sides of the plastic in the iron grip of determination to have a healthy breakfast and all of a sudden the bag just gives, the plastic splitting down the middle and sending Cheerios flying everywhere, bouncing off the floors and the walls, flying into the sinkful of soaking dishes, and sticking in your hair. "Next time I'll use a scissor," you mutter darkly. "Next time."

5. George Lucas telling a "reporter" from TMZ that he's not going to make any more Star Wars movies. I first saw Darth Vader right his spinning-out-of-control Tie Fighter and escape from the exploding Death Star in 1977, when I was seven years old. That means that I have gone 5/6 of my life having a new Star Wars movie to look forward to. Now, when I'm only halfway done with my life, George says there will "never" be another one? Well I'm afraid I can't accept that, Mr. Lucas!

I do realize this isn't all George's fault. Part of the blame must go to the so-called "fans" who were aghast at the special editions, or didn't appreciate the prequels. The ones who tricked Lucas into thinking Boba Fett was an interesting character deserving of his own backstory, and then turned their noses up at that backstory when they got it. The ones who laughed at Jar-Jar instead of with him (forgetting that in the 70's people were annoyed by C-3PO too), or who held Jake Lloyd to unrealistic standards, or who had almost forgotten how it felt to be an awkward adolescent in high school and therefore became furious at Hayden Christensen for trying to remind them. Seriously, there was a recent article in Slate about embarrassing authors we loved when we were teens -- the three writers who showed up the most, Ayn Rand, Jack Kerouac, and Raymond Carver, are all easy to imagine Anakin poring over obsessively in his various immature moods.

Then there are the ones who are so cynical and bereft of anything actually worth getting worked up over that they honestly think it matters whether Han or Greedo shot first. And the ones who, blinded by nostalgia, failed to realize Revenge of the Sith was so interesting and so good that it ended up redeeming not only the prequel trilogy, but Return of the Jedi as well. "Fans" such as these are part of the problem. But George is the Maker and in the end he is responsible for giving any new films his blessing.

I don't care what it is. It could be another trilogy or a series. It could be the post-Empire period or the era of the ancient Sith. But it just can't be TV or novels or video games, and I'd really prefer it not be a side story like that Boba Fett movie Joe Johnston was talking about doing. (Mace Windu, on the other hand...) Star Wars is an epic, cinematic experience. Without it being up on the big screen and telling a huge, sweeping, live-action story, it's just not Star Wars. Of course, capitalism and Hollywood being what they are, the only thing that could realistically prevent new Star Wars movies from happening eventually would be an asteroid striking the Earth. But if they're done without his leadership, they could end up in the hands of someone like Michael Bay. And if Lucas blocks them from happening in the near future, it could be too late to have Frank Oz do the voice of Yoda! It could be too late to commission a new original score by John Williams, and his work on the prequels -- "Duel of the Fates," "Battle of the Heroes," "Across the Stars" -- shows that he's still able to deliver rousing and romantic themes as timeless as any he's ever done.

I can imagine why Lucas is feeling so negative right now. When your ego has been pumped up by fan worship for decades, it must be hard not to take it personally when even a vocal minority of them turns on you. It must even feel like you've lost part of yourself. And even if he was open to changing his mind, would you hand over a scoop like that to TMZ?

But remember, his mind has changed before. He wanted to do a total of nine episodes originally, so it's possible that some part of him will feel unsettled until that's done. The fact that he finally came through with Red Tails after literally decades shows that once he decides to do something he's reluctant to let it go. He first sat down to draft Episode One almost ten years after Return of the Jedi, so since Sith only came out seven years ago he still has three more years to revert to his normal schedule. Even some of the infamous changes he's made have been undisputed improvements (remember the original Ewok celebration song at the end of Jedi?). And with the annual 3D conversions, a second look at Revenge of the Sith will help more and more people see what an amazing film it is in its own right, thereby helping people remember their love for Star Wars just in time for the re-release of the original trilogy in 3D.

The fans have always had a love-hate relationship with Star Wars (even I was a bit crestfallen after Return of the Jedi) but the vast majority of them remain fans. The saga's prevalence in popular culture is as high as it's ever been. For the time being, I'll be satisfied with what I have. I'm looking forward to trying the new Star Tours ride they just opened up at Disney. I don't have cable, but one day I'll buy the Clone Wars series and watch the whole thing, probably in one weekend. I'll definitely be reading the new Darth Plagueis paperback when it comes out later this year. And I still haven't cracked open my Complete Saga box, which is only the best-selling Blu-Ray set of all time. But beyond all that, I am also keeping my hopes up for the Holy Grail. As a Jedi Master once told us, "Always in motion is the future." The only thing I feel certain of is that if the scoop comes, you won't hear it first on TMZ.

So this is what happened. After breakfast, she headed home to put on a warmer coat and we promised to meet at the drug store. I stood quietly on the escalator going down, trying not to look at the DVD's or cookie boxes. Wandered up and down the aisles, momentarily distracted by family planning and feminine products, and then I found it. The perfect little eye dropper, plastic tube topped with pink rubber. Actually the label said "medicine dropper," but that just meant it was even bigger. "This'll do nicely." Took it back upstairs, glanced at the pistachio nut mix while waiting for the couple in front of me, then paid and pocketed my new medicine dropper and looked up to see her coming in the door.

The comic book store was on the way there. A new girl, in her late teens or maybe early twenties, found one magazine saved under my name. I started to ask about the 80's Alan Moore Star Wars miniseries I'd just heard of a couple days ago, but she said "anything old" would be at the Manhattan store. Retreated to the back of the store and looked idly at the Final Fantasy summoned monsters but no place I've asked at has ever heard of Eden, and lately I haven't even seen a Bahamut in stock anywhere. Did spot my first Terra Branford action figure, which I stared at in mild awe for a minute. If this was Comic-Con and the price twice as high, I probably would have grabbed it and literally crowed in triumph. But after a few seconds it became just another toy, and I already had my magazine anyway, a showdown between Godzilla and larval Mothra at sea on the cover. Wifey showed me an Empire Strikes Back lunchbox that woulda turned me into Smeagol in the 6th grade but that was more than thirty years ago, so I just paid for the mag and we were back on our way.

We got to the promenade and turned north. That new skyscraper still has the hideous yellow and black checkered coat, meaning that it's probably permanent and actually meant to look that way. Who knows what they were thinking. We paused to stare at two charming birds with sheeny, multicolored feathers who were hopping between the pavement and the fence of a yard filled with bushes. One of them pretended to ignore us and walked around like an old man with his hands behind his back, slightly stooped over, eyeing everybody's business.

At the end of the promenade we turned right and walked down the steep incline to the water. Halfway down there's a dog run on the other side of the street, and we just couldn't resist heading over to have a look. We could have gone in but were content to lean over the fence, not wanting to intrude on this canine paradise. The owners seemed quiet, keeping their eyes on their own dogs, never meeting the eyes of another. The dogs couldn't care less about the odd behavior of humans, just running around and around again, thrilled to be with so many other unleashed dogs, looking so happy. One big dog chased a tiny little one in circles, neither of them going all out. Two more wrestled on the ground without any inhibitions. A beautiful white and brown one stood around proudly, confused that it wasn't totally the center of attention. A hipster with ear buds was about to head in and stopped to calm hers down before she opened the entrance gate and it bolted through. A sharp sobbing bark rang out to my side and I looked over to see another dog sadly leaving the park, its owner pulling the exit gate shut behind them. I thought of Harley and Diamond on our floor and wondered if Roseanne would let me walk them one day.

We passed a picturesque miniature Asian tree and it hit me that I was going to have to buy me a bonsai one day. They're not especially known to filter the air, plus tending and pruning the branches is supposed to test the patience of a zen master, but hey, you only live once. I'd have to find one about six inches tall so my Bandai Godzilla could still tower over it. I could take a snapshot of him standing high above the branches, glancing down in surprise to discover a diecast metal X-wing parked in the dirt.

We made it to the water, looking in vain for the organic ice cream truck. "Blue" something. Too cold for ice cream anyway, but I was getting thirsty. Still, we were almost there. Walked down the jogging path, stopping briefly to consider a somewhat promising pool with a little manmade spout in the center. The water's edge led to a trench that had dried out and sprouted reeds, then disappeared underground and under concrete blocks to emerge again, but it never led us to any natural source. There's definitely a small incubating salt marsh near the outer sweep of the jogging path but we must have missed it this time.

Then the path veered west and we had made it to the most likely target: a landing strip of cobblestones leading right down to the river's edge. I dug in my bag for my new medicine dropper and pulled it open, stuffing the blister pack back inside. Then I found the little specimen bottle I had packed inside the ziploc bag at home and pulled it out, twisting the cap off. All ready, I walked past the "Do Not Enter" sign, climbed over the chain that hung across the path, and knelt down by the water's edge.

No rocks, shellfish, seaweed or even moss, but it was real Hudson River water, some of it bracing with salt, some of it fresh and traveled all the way down from the snowy peaks of the Adirondacks. I had forgotten to hang back and study the waves before coming too close and got my shoes and pants splashed a little, but three or four droppers were enough to fill the little bottle. I stepped back over the chain, pressed the cap down nice and tight, then slipped it back inside the ziploc and carefully stood it and the dropper upright in a side pocket of my bag. As George Bush would say, mission accomplished.

It was cloudy but not too cold, a peaceful Sunday. A little further down there was a small paddling of ducks, drifting complacently by their own private harbor. Two seagulls dove down and sat on the water near them briefly, then flew off again. We saw a sailboat with a proud white and blue insignia unfurled. A ship docked in front of South Street Seaport with a mast twice as high as the three story mall. A helicopter with a flashing spotlight, bright enough to see even from the side, banked around the southeast tip of the island and droned off. Actually, on this walk there are too many helicopters and they get a little intrusive.

We decided to circle back from the south, and try to find a place to buy a drink in Cobble Hill. On the way we found ourselves at the One Brooklyn Bridge condominium, a huge waterfront complex with playgrounds and beach volleyball courts. Along the bike path there's a long two story structure with a sidewalk corridor intended for retail. Right now, though, there are no shops, nothing but reassuring art and words where the shop windows will one day be, selling how perfect and Parisian the spaces will seem once they're rented out, with florid marketing promises of a bistro so wonderful a young lady would never want to cook again, a flower shop so convenient it would supply the perfect gift for a husband to take home after staying out too late playing rugby. I know, advertisers do research, but ... rugby, of all things. There's a lot going on in this stage of the park, all of it open to the public and subsidized by the condo owners themselves (probably in exchange for some variance or tax break), and during the summer there are food carts and laughing children and tanned young people in swimsuits playing volleyball. But I don't think there's any place for rugby.

A water fountain, cruelly, turned out to not be working. Instead of cutting straight into Cobble Hill, we decided to keep heading south to see how far the bike path went. A fence rose by our side, blocking off a parking area filled with trucks that bore the logoes of about a half a dozen different beer companies. The building sign said Brooklyn Port Authority Marine Terminal. Not too far across the water, we could see the colossal, offshore anchored crane structures for loading and unloading shipping containers from the decks of sea freighters. Those things are so big they frighten me even in broad daylight, let alone at night when they're lit up in spotlight and shadow and anti-collision lights up top like shining soulless eyes, and you could almost imagine them lumbering to life like great Martian tripods. From this part of the walk, they're as close as I've ever seen them. I'm sure an engineer would explain that they're exactly big enough to be structurally secure and function without mishap, but a part of me believes they're intended to look that scary. I just don't know why there are so many beer companies parked at the terminal.

Rounding a bend we came to a straightaway and could see the bike path disappear far off in the distance. I was mad thirsty by now so we decided to cut the adventure short and head to Cobble Hill. The brownstones here were as nice as the ones in the Heights, and there was a surprising little playground nestled inside the center of one block that you wouldn't see unless you knew it was there. Not quite beach volleyball, but it felt friendly and warm. When we saw the sign for Fish Tales we knew we were almost to Court Street.

Turned right when we got there and saw the sign for Blue Something Ice Cream's brick and mortar. Blue River? Blue Milk? Blue Lactose? Finally the font resolved into Blue Marble. Sounded more like cheese than ice cream, but hey. Wifey tried a sample of the ginger (the verdict, not as good as Chinatown) and went for the mint chip. I was tempted by the vanilla soft serve but decided to live a little and try a scoop of the butter pecan. Guiltily, I also bought a plastic bottle of privatized drinking water to go with our ice cream. The one small bench in the parlor was covered in children and their grownups so we went outside and kept walking.

Too much pecan, not enough butter. The bottle of water was a relief but we were starting to get tired of walking, and I was growing impatient to get my river sample home. On a whim last month, Haniel had ordered me this neat plastic microscope online; it's not meant for university-level research but with a 100X and a 400X lens it's more than good enough for a Sunday afternoon microbe safari. My guess was that the river's edge was a little too choppy, the sample too clear for me to expect to come upon this miraculous lost world on the very first slide, but I knew a trick from junior high school -- leave some rice or sugar in the water overnight and at least one or two of whatever dominant populations were already there would explode.

After the last two weeks racing to beat a March 31st deadline, the last one week of some acute allergic reaction that the stress probably hadn't done much to prevent, and the last three days of prednisone, nausea, and erratic sleep, last night I had turned off all the light and noise and just lay in bed, trying to breathe deeply, wrapped in a healing blanket of quiet and dark for Earth Hour. Then at 9:30 I got up, finished the submission, emailed it off, and resolved that Sunday I'd sleep in, leave the computer off, head down to Brooklyn Bridge Park and take a sample from the river to bring home and explore with my new microscope.

On the last leg of the walk home, we came upon Book Court and just had to sit down on the bench outside to rest our feet. The animated couple already there moved a few inches over grudgingly, the man with one foot on the bench and the woman talking to him about The Hunger Games. A few seconds of that and we decided to go into the store where at least it would be warm. I went looking for the science fiction section and discovered that there was none, then wandered up to the poetry section and randomly picked out a collection titled Swan, by Mary Oliver.

Well, it won't change anyone's life, but Oliver's poems are full of elegant-sounding wisdom as well as a refreshingly earnest love for nature and solitude and cute animals, and at that moment, this poetic equivalent of some really pretty music by George Winston was more than enough to keep me on my feet reading, the tiny plastic bottle still upright in the side pocket of my bag.

"What Can I Say"

What can I say that I have not said before?
So I'll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.


I shifted a little around another patron who must have been looking for a title on the shelf in front of me, then went back to reading.

"For Example"

Okay, the broken gull let me lift it from the sand.
Let me fumble it into a box, with the lid open.
Okay, I put the box into my car and started up the highway
to the place where sometimes, sometimes not, such things can be mended.
The gull at first was quiet.
How everything turns out one way or another, I won't call it good or bad, just one way or another.
Then the gull lurched from the box and onto the back of the front seat and punched me.
Okay, a little blood slid down.
But we all know, don't we how sometimes things have to feel anger, so as not to be defeated?
I love this world, even in its hard places.
A bird too must love this world, even in its hard places
So, even if the effort may come to nothing, you have to do something.
It was generally speaking, a perfectly beautiful summer morning.
The gull beat the air with its good wing.
I kept my eyes on the road.

I decided that I should try settling into the book a little, to not be in such a rush. My new microscope wasn't going anywhere, this was my day off, I had just submitted my essay two hours before the midnight deadline, it was my first time out of the house in days, the side effects of the prednisone were almost gone, I had just had a lovely adventure of an afternoon walking by the river with my wife. I deserved a little more poetry before going home to the wi-fi connection and the Netflix and my bursting bag of laundry waiting to be done. And I guess I could have just bought the book and brought it home, but something in me knew it was only really perfect for the moment.

"A Fox in the Dark"

A fox goes by in the headlights like an electric shock.
Then he pauses at the edge of the road
and the heart, if it is still alive,
feels something--a yearning for which we have no name
but which we may remember, years later, in the darkness,
upon some other empty road.


Other poems, including one written in second-person to her dog Percy and another calmly singing that there's nothing wrong with a poet who likes to use the word "beautiful," are equally comfortable. They were so comfortable I made it through a quarter of them before I had to go and sit down next to my wife with her vegetarian cookbook, and read some more. They were so distracting I almost got a third of the way through before I put my bag down and absently let it lean at a slight angle against my leg. They were so tranquilizing I was almost half done with the book when my hand idly ran across the side of my bag and felt something wet.

"Oh no," I said.

My wife looked up. "What's the matter? Oh no!" she said sympathetically.

"I guess the cap wasn't tight," I groaned, holding up the wet ziploc above the dark spot on my bag and the drops of water falling onto the floor like rain from a shaken umbrella. My poor hapless protozoa! Sucked out of your cradle of life by a giant tube that fell from the sky, and left to die of dehydration on the hardwood floor of an independent book shop! Well, I guess we'll have to go again next week.

Of course, this is not just about women.

“Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it's usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies.”
– Jim Morrison

Rich, Adrienne. “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying.” On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose. Norton: 1979

It is clear that among women we need a new ethics; as women, a new morality. The problem of speech, of language, continues to be primary. For if in our speaking we are breaking silences long established, "liberating ourselves from our secrets" in the words of Beverly Tanenhaus, this is in itself a first kind of action. I wrote “Women and Honor” in an effort to make myself more honest, and to understand the terrible negative power of the lie in relationships between women. Since it was published, other women have spoken and written of things I did not include: Michelle Cliff's "Notes on Speechlessness" in Sinister Wisdom no. 5 led Catherine Nicolson (in the same issue) to write of the power of "deafness," the frustration of our speech by those who do not want to hear what we have to say. Nelle Morton has written of the act of "hearing each other into speech." How do we listen? How do we make it possible for another to break her silence? These are some of the questions which follow on the ones I have raised here.

(These notes are concerned with relationships between and among Women. When ''personal relationship" is referred to, I mean a relationship between two women. It will be clear in what follows when I am talking about women's relationships with men.)

1.
The old, male idea of honor. A man's "word" sufficed--to other men--without guarantee.

"Our Land Free, Our Men Honest, Our Women Fruitful"--a popular colonial toast in America.

Male honor also having something to do with killing: I could not love thee, Dear, so much / Lov'd I not Honour more, ("To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars"). Male honor as something needing to be avenged: hence, the duel.

Women's honor, something altogether else: virginity, chastity, fidelity to a husband. Honesty in women has not been considered important. We have been depicted as generically whimsical, deceitful, subtle, vacillating. And we have been rewarded for lying.

Men have been expected to tell the truth about facts, not about feelings. They have not been expected to talk about feelings at all.

Yet even about facts they have continually lied.

We assume that politicians are without honor. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandals of their politics: not that men in high places lie, only that they do so with such indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.

To discover that one has been lied to in a personal relationship, however, leads one to feel a little crazy.

2.
Lying is done with words, and also with silence.

The woman who tells lies in her personal relationships may or may not plan or invent her lying, She may not even think of what is doing in a calculated way.

A subject is raised which the liar wishes buried. She has to go downstairs, her parking meter will have run out. Or, there is a telephone call she ought to have made an hour ago.

She is asked, point-blank, a question which may lead into painful talk: "How do you feel about what is happening between us?" Instead of trying to describe her feelings in their ambiguity and confusion, she asks, "How do you feel?" The other, because she is trying to establish a ground of openness and trust, begins describing her own feelings. Thus the liar learns more than she tells.

And she may also tell herself a lie: that she is concerned with the other's feelings, not with her own.

But the liar is concerned with her own feelings.

The liar lives in fear of losing control. She cannot even desire a relationship without manipulation, since to be vulnerable to another person means for her the loss of control.

The liar has many friends, and leads an existence of great loneliness.

3.
...In speaking of lies, we come inevitably to the subject of truth. There is nothing simple or easy about this idea. There is no "the truth," "a truth"--truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. The pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet.

This is why the effort to speak honestly is so important. Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler--for the liar--than it really is or ought to be.

In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even with our own lives.

The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire. The complexity and fecundity of poetry come from the same struggle.

An honorable human relationship--that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love"--is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

4.
I come back to the questions of women's honor. Truthfulness has not been considered important for women, as long as we have remained physically faithful to a man, or chaste.

We have been expected to lie with our bodies: to bleach, redden, unkink or curl our hair, pluck eyebrows, shave armpits, wear padding in various places or lace ourselves, take little steps, glaze finger and toe nails, wear clothes that emphasized our helplessness.

We have been required to tell different lies at different times, depending on what the men of the time needed to hear. The Victorian wife or the white southern lady, who were expected to have no sensuality, to "lie still"; the twentieth-century "free" woman who is expected to fake orgasms.

We have had the truth of our bodies withheld from us or distorted; have been kept in ignorance of our most intimate places. Our instincts have been punished: clitoridectomies for "lustful" nuns or for "difficult" wives. It has been difficult, too, to know the lies of our complicity from the lies we believed.

The lie of the "happy marriage," of domesticity--we have been complicit, have acted out the fiction of a well-lived life, until the day we testify in court of rapes, beatings, psychic cruelties, public and private humiliations.

Patriarchal lying has manipulated women both through falsehood and through silence. Facts we needed have been withheld from us. False witness has been borne against us.

And so we must take seriously the question of truthfulness between women, truthfulness among women. As we cease to lie with our bodies, as we cease to take on faith what men have said about us, is a truly womanly idea of honor in the making?

Women have been forced to lie, for survival, to men. How to unlearn this among other women?

"Women have always lied to each other. "Women have always whispered the truth to each other." Both of these axioms are true.

"Women have always been divided against each other." "Women have always been in secret collusion." Both of these axioms are true.

In the struggle for survival we tell lies. To bosses, to prison guards, the police, men who have power over us, who legally own us and our children, lovers who need us as proof of their manhood.

There is a danger run by all powerless people: that we forget we are lying, or that lying becomes a weapon we carry over into relationships with people who do not have power over us.

5.
I want to reiterate that when we talk about women and honor, or women and lying, we speak within the context of male lying, the lies of the powerful, the lie as false source of power.

Women have to think whether we want, in our relationships with each other, the kind of power that can be obtained through lying.

Women have been driven mad, "gaslighted," for centuries by the refutation of our experience and our instincts in a culture which validates only male experience. The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us. We therefore have a primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each others' sense of reality for the sake of expediency; not to gaslight each other.

Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake, beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other.

There are phrases which help us not to admit we are lying: "my privacy," "nobody's business but my own." The choices that underlie these phrases may indeed be justified; but we ought to think about the full meaning and consequences of such language. Women's love for women has been represented almost entirely through silence and lies. The institution of heterosexuality has forced the lesbian to dissemble, or be labeled a pervert, a criminal, a sick or dangerous woman, etc., etc. The lesbian, then, has often been forced to lie, like the prostitute or the married woman.

Does a life "in the closet"--lying, perhaps of necessity, about ourselves to bosses, landlords, clients, colleagues, family, because the law and public opinion are founded on a lie--does this, can it, spread into private life, so that lying (described as discretion) becomes an easy way to avoid conflict or complication? Can it become a strategy so ingrained that it is used even with close friends and lovers?

Heterosexuality as an institution has also drowned in silence the erotic feelings between women. I myself lived half a lifetime in the lie of that denial. That silence makes us all, to some degree, into liars.

When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.

The liar leads an existence of unutterable loneliness.

The liar is afraid.

But we are all afraid: without fear we become manic, hubristic, self-destructive. What is this particular fear that possesses the liar?

6.
She is afraid that her own truths are not good enough. She is afraid, not so much of prison guards or bosses, but of something unnamed within her.

The liar fears the void.

The void is not something created by patriarchy, or racism, or capitalism. It will not fade away with any of them. It is part of every woman.

"The dark core," Virginia Woolf named it, writing of her mother. The dark core. It is beyond personality; beyond who loves us or hates us.

We begin out of the void, out of darkness and emptiness. It is part of the cycle understood by the old pagan religions, that materialism denies. Out of death, rebirth; out of nothing, something.

The void is the creatrix, the matrix. It is not mere hollowness and anarchy. But in women it has been identified with lovelessness, barrenness, sterility. We have been urged to fill our "emptiness" with children. We are not supposed to go down into the darkness of the core.

Yet, if we can risk it, the something born of that nothing is the beginning of our truth.

The liar in her terror wants to fill up the void, with anything. Her lies are a denial of her fear; a way of maintaining control.

Why do we feel slightly crazy when we realize we have been lied to in a relationship?

We take so much of the universe on trust. You tell me: "In 1950 I lived on the north side of Beacon Street in Somerville." You tell me: "She and I were lovers, but for months now we have only been good friends." You tell me: "It is seventy degrees outside and the sun is shining." Because I love you, because there is not even a question of lying between us, I take these accounts of the universe on trust: your address twenty-five years ago, your relationship with someone I know only by sight, this morning's weather. I fling unconscious tendrils of belief, like slender green threads, across statements such as these, statements made so unequivocally, which have no tone or shadow of tentativeness. I build them into the mosaic of my world. I allow my universe to change in minute, significant ways, on the basis of things you have said to me, of my trust in you.

I also have faith that you are telling me things it is important I should know; that you do not conceal facts from me in an effort to spare me, or yourself, pain.

Or, at the very least, that you will say, "There are things I am not telling you."

When we discover that someone we trusted can be trusted no longer, it forces us to reexamine the universe, to question the whole instinct and concept of trust. For a while, we are thrust back onto some bleak, jutting ledge, in a dark pierced by sheets of fire, swept by sheets of rain, in a world before kinship, or naming, or tenderness exist; we are brought close to formlessness.

The liar may resist confrontation, denying that she lied. Or she may use other language: forgetfulness, privacy, the protection of someone else. Or, she may bravely declare herself a coward. This allows her to go on lying, since that is what cowards do. She does not say, I was afraid, since this would open the question of other ways of handling her fear. It would open the question of what is actually feared.

She may say, I didn't want to cause pain. What she really did not want is to have to deal with the other's pain. The lie is a short-cut through another's personality.

7.
Truthfulness, honor, is not something which springs ablaze of itself; it has to be created between people.

This is true in political situations. The quality and depth of the politics evolving from a group depends in very large part on their understanding of honor.

Much of what is narrowly termed "politics" seems to rest on a longing for certainty even at the cost of honesty, for an analysis which, once given, need not be reexamined. Such is the dead-endedness--for women-of Marxism in our time.

Truthfulness anywhere means a heightened complexity. But it is a movement into evolution. Women are only beginning to uncover our own truths; many of us would be grateful for some rest in that struggle, would be glad just to lie down with the shards we have painfully unearthed, and be satisfied with those. The politics worth having, the relationships worth having, demand that we delve still deeper.

The possibilities that exist between two people, or among a group of people, are a kind of alchemy. They are the most interesting thing in life. The liar is someone who keeps losing sight of these possibilities.

When relationships are determined by manipulation, by the need for control, they may possess a dreary, bickering kind of drama, but they cease to be interesting. They are repetitious; the shock of human possibilities has ceased to reverberate through them. When someone tells me a piece of the truth which has been withheld from me, and which I needed in order to see my life more clearly, it may bring acute pain, but it can also flood me with a cold, sharp wash of relief. Often such truths come by accident, or from strangers.

It isn't that to have an honorable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you.

It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.

The possibility of life between us.

Thank you Adrienne Rich

"Attended" my first ballet yesterday, this Paul McCartney thing. Despite knowing about the poor reviews, I actually liked almost every minute of it. It was really alright. Sure I'm a noob without any frame of reference, but there's an undeniable pleasure in seeing this whole fantasy story played out in key changes and body language and set designs without a single word spoken. It is a little strange noticing the occasional stutters of balance and strength, unedited, but I guess you just can't win against gravity. Before I die, I hope to see Swan Lake, Prince Igor, and The Rite of Spring.

In 1990, creative writing professor was telling our class about a ballet he'd seen the weekend prior. I don't remember the name, but do remember what he said about it: "There is no higher art form." In light of yesterday afternoon, the mystery of that particular statement is now no closer to being unraveled. Knowing him he was probably being deliberately provocative. But he also said something else that day that has stayed with me in the two decades intervening. It was about a fellow ballet-goer sitting across the aisle who opened up her program and started leafing through it in the middle of the performance. Professor Wilson called this an evasion, which is like one of the Seven Deadly Sins of bourgeois New York City intellectuals. Nowadays, it'd be like checking your smart phone in the middle of a Von Trier film or something. I wonder if my frequent lack of discrimination in moral and esthetic matters would constitute an evasion of being evasive. I sincerely do not believe the ballet I went to was in any way "bad." It was certainly not worth the ticket price, but that's a whole different thing.

The body's got a mind of its own though. Got up to hit the restroom, door opened just as I got there and when the dude coming out almost crashed into me, I suddenly pulled off this weird pivotty move to avoid him. Apparently it's called an à la seconde. I was like, how the hell, what?

So I been working on this poem about Philip Glass. Roped a prolific poet, a colleague and friend, into giving me advice, and he's been encouraging and wonderful but warning me not to "take free verse for granted" and that I need to either come up with an organizing principle and commit to it, or prosify the whole thing. He says I could still get it published as a "prose poem," and I have unresolved feelings about that. Deep down inside, I knew form was going to be a difficult problem, which is why I spent so much time on the more seductive ones. Might have to try to step back from it for a couple weeks; first draft was almost three years ago so a little more time shouldn't matter in the scheme of things.

Last night, we finally saw Toy Story 3. Damn, that was crazy good! The Mr. Potato Head trick at the end was delightfully imaginative, and the Caterpillar Room and the surveillance monkey had me NEAR DEATH. Plot was very moving. Wifey's such a softy but you didn't hear it from me. Wonderful homages to The Brave Little Toaster, and then, out of nowhere, a Totoro! Wise lessons for kids and grownups too. Had to play with Rum Raisin, Sleepy Totoro, Kaylee Lou and Quatchy a little before heading to bed. If I was forced to judge I'd say not as good as Up or Wall-E but no matter, Pixar are gods.

Birdsitting the family parakeets over the weekend, and discovered a way of messing with them: playing loud Youtube vids of chirping budgies. They started calling back, then seemed to drift into a relaxed mood and started feeding happily. A sudden screech freaked them out and sent them back to their perch. It's cruel, keeping birds in a cage, but you don't want them flapping around all over the place and going to the bathroom wherever the urge hits them. I'm thinking of clipping their wings so at least they could hop out of the cage and get some exercise, or maybe recommissioning the second cage (RIP Anastasia) and separating the two birdies so they could still conversate with each other but not be able to get into fights anymore. Or maybe I should just drive 'em down to Disneyworld and set them free.

"First thing you gotta know about me, I'm a hugger!"

"Tell me, are you incapable of restraining yourself, or do you take pride in being an insufferable know-it-all?"

Seminar: well it's a hip, snappy, and (for straight dudes anyway) sexy melodrama, but the resolutions are predictable, and the paths taken to get there, contrived. The characters are neither completely cynical, nor cartoonish, nor especially likeable. It's a given that Alan Rickman's performance is the best thing here and worth seeing all by itself: how could you not want to see Professor Snape play a washed-up, Upper West Side writing professor stalking around a rent-controlled apartment and lecturing a kettle of fawning young wannabes about how, to be a real writer, one must always tell the truth? The premise and casting alone are an automatic win and, for what it's worth, the hushed, shadowy, book-strewn interior of Rickman's apartment is almost exactly as I remember my favorite college writing professor's sprawling flat in the west village. I also confess that seeing the show has inspired me to do more writing, but, for a parable about a writing workshop, we aren't treated to a lot of insight into the creative act itself, let alone the process of revision. The only time Rickman ever reads anyone's work aloud is to be funny or disparaging, while the stuff that's supposed to be "very good," in contrast, is left strictly to our own imagination. Which is probably a wise choice: even the best writers can't be fairly judged from a few sentences, but then how are we expected to buy the players acting so deeply impressed, so enlightened with insight into the soul of another, after ten seconds of reading?

The other actors are trying hard, and you can't completely fault the script either. There are a few thoughtful lines if you wait for them, but they're tossed out safely and hastily, then drowned in the continual deluge of laughter from an annoying audience as intent on proving how intelligent it is as a classroom full of teacher's pets. The setup is largely an aggressive, tiresome sendup of artsy academic posturing (one apparently hilarious line about interplay between "interiority and exteriority" gets dredged up FOUR TIMES) and the second half, while noticeably more ambitious, elects to sabotage itself with winking comments on its own narrative shortcuts: "Yes, she cheated on you. Can we stop with the soap opera and get back to the writing?" "A brilliant writer who's never shown your stuff to anyone? Well you're a regular Emily Dickinson aren't you?" By the way, yes a lot of this is sexist and even half-heartedly racist (the Asian nympho who beds half the cast, the rich white chick who can't take criticism and tucks into a quart of ice cream when people get her mad) but that, like too much else, is so unsurprising it leaves you feeling indifferent. An engaging display if you don't think hard or demand too much of it, this is basically a well-penned sitcom for New York City MFA candidates, and not even downtown ones. If nothing can deter you from getting tickets, then at least wait for a sale.

"Has it ever crossed your brilliant mind that I don't want to do this anymore?"

Though I like to think I "grew out of" Harlan Ellison two decades ago, on certain gloomy, cloud-filled days I still regret selling my old copy of An Edge in My Voice. So, as the story goes, Ellison couldn't stand the first Star Wars movie, but some of his friends dragged him to see its 1980 sequel, which left him so pleasantly surprised that he called up director Irvin Kershner and invited him to collaborate on a film treatment of Asimov's I, Robot. (I believe his exact words to Kershner were "Join me... It is your destiny.")

Fortunately for Will Smith and almost no one else, this dream partnership would never come to pass. But almost like the saddest, most ironic consolation prize in the world, what our beloved curmudgeon did get instead was a magazine review assignment for Colecovision's The Empire Strikes Back by Parker Brothers. Even though, like so many of the things I think and write, this is technically untrue, I still take pleasure in imagining that The Empire Strikes Back for Colecovision was and still is the last video game ever played by Harlan Ellison.

Now, like the 1998 Tristar "Godzilla," this was "Episode Five" in name only: no Yoda, no asteroids, no Oedipus. There isn't even really a plot. You're flying a snowspeeder. You're shooting laser bullets at Imperial Walkers. And that's it. A half-baked horizontal scrolling shooter, the game makes Williams's Stargate look like The Iliad.

After hours of staring at his TV, twitching in livid incomprehension, and probably feeling like the protagonist of "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," Ellison finally defenestrated the tiny cartridge, stalked darkly to his Underwood typewriter and proceeded to hammer out his review, which we can only hope was at least cathartic. As do more than one of Ellison's reviews, it turned into an essay. The problem, he found himself arguing to the person in his head, was not the graphics or the soundtrack or even the gameplay as such. No, all that was forgivable. The real outrage was the "lesson" that seems to have hit too close to home: "The lesson is the lesson of Sisyphus. You cannot win. You can only waste your life struggling and struggling, getting as good as you can be, with no hope of triumph."

No matter how many AI patterns you memorized, thumb-bruising maneuvers you pulled off, Imperial war machines you blew to smithereens, or Zen mind tricks you practiced to anesthetize yourself against the relentless onslaught of spiritual fatigue, light-induced epilepsy, and unconscious existential panic, the game would only, could only end in one way: the player's inevitable death. There was no winning: only a seemingly unending succession of poignant, fleeting moments where you hadn't yet failed.

There is no victory: only hopeless forbearance and moment-to-moment survival. Depending on one's mood and the weather, how pointless this strange pursuit; how sad the decision to keep on playing.

"Right now I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself"

So for the year 2011, I had two resolutions.

The first was to go vegetarian two days per week, partly for health but mostly for the environment. Was very proud that I made it for about five months straight, but then I started slacking and finally abandoned this one in the Fall. Two separate trips to Taiwan, plus a conflicting midyear resolution to always finish eating leftovers as soon as possible, made this one very inconvenient and ultimately impractical, even though the veggie meals themselves were okay and I never got to the point where I was going out of my mind with meat cravings or anything like that.

My second resolution was to read the Harry Potter series. I'd already gotten as far as the first two books and half of the third some years ago, so I dusted them off and picked up in the middle of Prisoner of Azkaban and loved them so much I made it to the end of Half Blood Prince by late July! Bursting with confidence over a resolution that appeared certain to be fulfilled early, I decided I could afford to wait a little before tackling the final book so that I could see the Deathly Hallows Part Two movie in August first. (I'd always viewed the movies before reading their corresponding book versions so I didn't want to change the experience.) But then I got distracted by a very clever surprise wifey got me for my 42nd birthday: the Douglas Adams pentalogy.

Though I'd started and hated the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series in high school (back when it was barely more than a trilogy), I found on going back and starting again that the comedy is often brilliant, and that many of what seem like throwaway jokes or random nonsense early on are surprisingly tied into the plot later. The story also gets more serious, and towards the end of the series, Adams actually lives up to the comparisons to Mark Twain. One tremendous scene near the end of the fourth book, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, actually left me in tears. Anyway, by the time I was done with all five of the Hitchhiker books it was already Christmas and I couldn't wait to read my wife's next present, V for Vendetta, and though that was a fast read there just wasn't enough time left to even think about reading all of Deathly Hallows so my second resolution joined the first in officially biting the dust.

The good news, of course, is that I made it through a lot more vegetarian meals and Rowling than I would have if I'd never tried in the first place. Still, it hurts me pride to know that ultimately I failed. So they'll be incorporated into this year's list.

Retooled failed resolutions from last year:

1. Read Deathly Hallows and other books in my backlog. Will probably be amped to read about Professor Snape's ultimate fate after we see Alan Rickman in Seminar. Additional must-reads: Dream of the Red Chamber, Red Mars, Darth Plagueis when it comes out in paperback, and finish some reads in progress: Battle Royale, The 26th Annual Year's Best Science Fiction, and Daikaiju: Giant Monster Tales.

2. Go vegetarian at least four meals per week, NOT counting breakfast. My breakfast is almost always fruit and cereal anyway, so this would add up to the same number of meatless meals as last year's pledge did, only with more flexibility to spread them over different days. To make myself more accountable I plan to write what I eat for these four meals in some public way, like FB, LJ, or at least Twitter.

Retooled successful resolutions from previous years:

3. Go to the gym at least twice per week. This resolution started a few years ago and it's been one of my success stories -- definitely helps that wifey and I are good at dragging each other out when one of us is feeling lazy. I've seen good results too -- upped cardio workouts from 20 to 35 minutes per session, went from a ceiling of about 10 pushups to 16, and even ran that October 5K in 39 minutes!

New resolutions:

4. From January through August, spend at least twelve hours per week writing. This could be academic or creative or personal -- doesn't matter as long as I write, and the twelve hours can be spread out over different days. Plenty of writing stuff to tackle this year, including the tenth year anniversary of Fatal Planetarium!

5. From September through December, spend at least two hours per week writing. Even just two hours could be pretty daunting to squeeze in once my sabbatical is over, but it should be made mathematically feasible by my next resolution, which is ...

6. Be Facebook-free on one weekend day and one weekday. Before FB, one of my favorite internet outlets used to be LJ, so the potential shift back might trick me into doing more writing, even if it starts off just being personal blog stuff, or even, ya know, more time having an actual life with friends and loved ones instead of sitting in front of the computer. A few months ago I already made a midyear resolution to cut down on FB posting. I created a new Bookmarks folder called "FB links for tomorrow" which I filled up every time I felt the urge to share a link. Of course, a day later the urge had usually subsided and that was one less post. So I feel ready for the next level of FB-weaning.

7. Put money into savings once per month. One of the things that really scared me about the sabbatical was the 20% pay cut, but one of the year's big surprises was that I didn't just get by -- I actually managed to put away more money than I'd saved in any other year since I started my job! I guess all that worrying about it made me more conscientious and that was all it took! Even if I don't commit to a certain dollar amount for 2012, just the monthly ritual of doing it should keep me in a saving frame of mind. (Of course, this is more an exercise in simplified living and deferred gratification than a viable retirement strategy, with even the most "generous" online savings accounts currently offering less than a measly 1%.)

8. See at least twenty-five movies that I haven't seen before. I already see plenty of movies, but I've recently realized that they're mostly comfortable old favorites. This had to stop. Was thinking of mandating a 1:1 ratio of new movies to old, but realized that if I did things that way, I'd basically be penalizing myself with new "homework" everytime I felt like watching something I'd seen before. An average of just over two new movies per month seems like a good balance between doable and challenging!

9. Learn some fencing! Last summer some fencing association was holding free lessons in Bryant Park every Wednesday -- was too lazy to do it, but will try again this year, and even if they don't come back I'm sure I can find some instructional vid on YouTube or something. I'll probly never be a competent fencer, but at least I'll be able to have more fun with my lightsaber!

10. Find a new houseplant! I already have one -- a "money tree" that I rescued from the garbage room after a neighbor gave up on it and that has since been restored to green leafy health! (I named her "Biollante.") I've already researched and compiled a list of low-maintenance houseplants that filter out airborne toxins (did you know that in most homes, indoor air is actually more polluted than outdoor air?? Supposedly you should open your windows for an hour every day!) so I plan to find one at a local store and if I don't notice any pests after a month, it'll be welcome to join the family!

I'll officially begin these resolutions on Monday January 16th. And that's it! If you're gonna comment on this one, try to mention your own resolution, and have a great 2012!

“Look Sigmund.” His fingers opened slightly and his arms stretched an inch or two out, then they hastily fell back like magnets and he was gripping the wheel again. “Daddy,” my mother said, admonishingly. Or maybe she just said his name. We were on the open road, me wedged between my parents in the front. I was too young to register his quick motion, but in later years figured out that this must have been before power steering became standard.

It was way past my bedtime but all three of us couldn’t stop watching. A woman had been in danger, and no one knew why or how, and the fact that they didn’t know was almost unbearably frightening. The flow of time had been ruptured by a shapeless, malevolent force that could end all normal conversation and leave us with no memory of what we had once been. The woman stared into a darkness only dimly cracked by electric light, then began recounting her tale in a monotone while the man listened. He became riveted with a dawning notion of his own powerlessness, his own utter insignificance. “Ohhhh” my mother and father said together, equally relieved and disappointed. “The monster was from outer space,” dad said. “There’s no reason to be scared. You know,” he added smiling, “they think WE are monsters.”

The interior was breathtaking, our guide’s narration adding little to it. I dimly became aware of a gangly man with sharp eyes rasping angrily, insistently, his voice like Monsieur Lacombe, like Belloq. My dad, lowering his camera, replying in English in tones that I had almost never before in my life heard him use: mollifying, apologetic, unmistakably sad. But the Frenchman just kept whispering madly. Then it was all too fast – dad suddenly deciding to start walking with the strange man to the front of the church, a Korean man in our tour group striding over and grabbing the stranger’s wrist, that raspy voice still angry but turning frantic: “Laissez-moi!” I ran to the entrance, then doubled back to block off the aisle I found them still stopped in: the stranger sharply whispering "Laissez-moi!", the Korean holding on to his wrist like a smiling Beowulf, asking him in a friendly voice and broken English what was the matter anyway, my father frozen with bewilderment. “He's saying to let him go!” I said, as the Korean relaxed his grip and the tour guide stepped in. The now-freed man turned his invective on her. “Il a le doit de prendre les photos,” she replied vigorously. He disagreed at her and she disagreed at his disagreement and then suddenly he fell quiet and slunk away into the shadows of the medieval sanctuary.

We thanked the Korean for his heroism and took turns staying close to my dad the rest of the afternoon, continually worried that another Frenchman would come and try to haul him away for the crime of taking a photograph inside Notre Dame. Who knew my dad had had the power to pillage the soul of a great culture with a few clicks of his camera? But also, why did he almost leave the church to go with the man? I believe that in that moment, my dad simply didn’t think of him as "crazy." Dad didn’t speak a word of French, but on some level found himself moved by the pure conviction in the stranger’s voice, and felt compelled to acknowledge it any way he could. He could have asked the guide to intervene, but didn’t want his own problems interrupting the tour.

I imagine him imagining what would have happened if the two of them had gotten outside. He would have reasoned with the man, found universal hand gestures to calm him down, clapped his hand warmly on the man's shoulder. Maybe the man would have shown him a photograph of his own children, and they would have bonded wordlessly, as fathers. Maybe dad would have given him a couple of coins, token recompense for all the pictures he had taken inside the sacred space. Then he would have quietly rejoined us back inside the church before we even noticed he had gone. We'd be gazing up at some centuries-old stained glass, and he would simply appear by our side, and say, "Beautiful."

We were in the car, him driving us through an unrecognizable place. Sharp, spiky black mountains rolled by beneath our feet, an endless stream of uninhabited, forbidding planetscape. We couldn’t stop or we’d lose our sense of direction, obliterate our bearings, disappear into the motionless land that surrounded us like a cavern that had been opened out and laid flat. The trip would be very far, but the important thing was that we knew we were going somewhere. It was probably Tennessee. I was running. He kept driving.

On this day, and the 18th of almost every month, I’m straining to think of things to say: reassuring both of us that I am keeping you whole in my memories, telling you the latest so you can hear from my own mouth what I am finding particularly worth sharing. But today I was reminded that one can also ask you for things: health and happiness for family, and even good fortune for dear friends who for some reason we may be concerned about or rooting for.

The first three years of my life without you. Your absence a space that is never filled. Of course you gave me the tools to get by with. But I’d rather you came back. I don't know how many years it will take to stop believing you will.