March 19, 2012. Soda Springs, CA

up at the cabin. it’s been snowing all weekend. the nearest place with an internet
connection is about a mile away. yesterday i drove there to upload my post. today the
roads were covered with snow, so i walked. i thought about the postal service oath;
“neither snow, nor rain…”.
i also thought about skipping a day and doing two tomorrow, but something compelled
me to make the trek. the act of following through, i guess. keeping a commitment.
even if it doesn’t really matter, it matters.

hugo and his friend lewis are sledding on the roof
we had a snowball fight earlier; erica and me against the kids
the dogs were on their team

hugo’s been wanting to come to the cabin since thanksgiving, so this trip’s been planned
for a while. there were storm warnings all week, and we thought we’d have to cancel. every
day hugo asked if we were going or not. we told him we didn’t know, the roads might be
closed, we’d just have to wait and see. he really had his heart set on it. one morning he
asked me: “should i keep my fingers crossed or just give up?”

then on saturday the storm let up so we headed out
hugo was so excited, he said it was “a magical day”

November 14, 2003. Journal Entry. Berkeley, CA

it’s 11:13 pm. everyone in the house is asleep
i have a spider bite or something on my wrist and it keeps itching

what happened today:
it rained
erica drove for isabelle’s field trip
i ate at vik’s
the roofers didn’t come

there are too many noises out here – raccoons or opossums climbing on the roof. i don’t
like it. i could never go backpacking in the wilderness alone; way too scary.

i just thought about christopher walken

i found a kid’s story i started about a girl named sylvie who can hear ants whistling.
it’s really cute. i want to write more on it, but i’m worried i won’t be able to
recapture the spirit of it. the voice i wrote it in. i’m always like that, thinking
“oh, that was an unrepeatable moment”. it’s very rarely true.

i’m sitting in a lame old desk chair that i bought at a salvage yard. it’s totally
uncomfortable. i’ve been using it for years. why don’t i get a better chair?

right now i’m thinking:
about dessert
that writing something is better than writing nothing
i should go to bed

night, night

1999. Museum Of Natural History, NYC.

erica, isabelle and i were in new york for the opening of erica’s new store. there was
lots to do to get ready; my job was keeping isabelle entertained.
“what would be a really fun thing for a three-year-old to do in new york?” i wondered.
dinosaurs! the museum of natural history.

the first thing we saw were the dioramas on the first floor. she didn’t seem interested.
i was surprised. so we went up to the fourth floor to see the dinosaurs; i headed
straight for the t-rex – couldn’t wait to see her reaction. i knew she’d seen lots of
dinosaur books, but to see a life-size t-rex was sure to be a thrill.
she wasn’t thrilled.
in fact she looked kind of sad.
what was going on? i asked her what was wrong. she replied; “everything here is dead”.

it never occurred to me that she might expect otherwise. of course dinosaurs are going to
be dead – why would i have to tell her that? – but little kids think like little kids.

she’d imagined we’d see living dinosaurs.
i’d imagined that she’d have an amazing experience and talk about it for days.
we were both sorely disappointed.

we left and walked into central park. got a pretzel and sat on a bench. she was quiet.
some dogs started playing together. that made her smile.

2000. Berkeley, CA

i had a really cool car when isabelle was born. an old plymouth with huge fins. it was
the type of car that people recognized when they saw it and honked, usually giving a
thumbs up. i got notes left on the windshield; “if you ever decide to sell your car
please call me” with a name and number.

but old cars are hard to keep in repair; it leaked in the winter and the brakes were bad. i
couldn’t find anyone to work on it, so i stopped driving it. the worst thing you can do with
an old car is not drive it. i knew i had to sell it to someone who would keep it running.

i contacted the person i bought the car from. she had sold it under dire circumstances – her
mother was sick and she needed the money.
she was thrilled to have the chance to buy it back.

when she came to pick the car up i kind of panicked. maybe i was making a huge mistake. i
knew i’d be less cool without the car, but how much less? i’d already bought another car.
a sensible car. but i still owned the plymouth – that counted for something.

i told the woman i couldn’t sell it. i was sorry, but i just couldn’t part with it.
she was disappointed but understood.

a few weeks later i called her again. she came over, and that time i did sell it to her.

1989. NYC

i used to be very grumpy in the morning. when erica and i were first dating she tried
to wake me up to go to work; she was being very sweet, talking in a gentle voice,
saying it was getting late and i needed to get ready. i responded with six words that
not only weren’t true, but unfortunately became part of our relationship contract;
“i can take care of myself”.

i’ve tried to take it back, but it doesn’t work.
milan kundera writes about the phenomenon in “the book of laughter and forgetting”:

Every love relationship is based upon unwritten conventions rashly agreed upon by
the lovers in the first weeks of their love. They are still in a kind of dream but at
the same time, without realizing it, are drawing up, like uncompromising lawyers, the
detailed clauses of their contract.

maybe in the long run it was good for me to be left to fend for myself, but i can’t
help wondering what i might have missed out on by making that remark.

1978. Davis, CA

i received a card from an ex-girlfriend when i was in high school. printed on the front of the
card in big letters was; “steve, i think of you”. inside was a flexible red plastic record, also with
“steve, i think of you” printed on it.

the recorded message was written and read by rod mckuen. here is an abridged version:

hi steve,
caring is a special feeling, and these thoughts are especially for you.
every now and then it’s nice to stop a minute and think about those people you like.
yesterday i thought about you. today i think of you. and probably tomorrow thoughts of you will
help make the day just a little bit quieter. a little bit better.
thank you steve
thank you for being you

it’s all very nice and, well, thoughtful, but i remember being kind of shocked at how hokey it
was. i knew there was no irony intended; the person who gave it to me was being sincere and
wanted me to know she was thinking of me. it was a challenge to receive the message in the
way it was intended, given the way it was presented.

1979. Davis, CA

the first band i was in was called amperage. we mainly played parties at the houses of friends
whose parents were out of town. i have memories of drunk people falling and knocking over
the PA speakers, spilling beers on us and our equipment, yelling that we sucked or that we
rocked, depending on the night.

we practiced mostly at my house. my parents were amazingly patient and tolerant about it.
we would play the same songs over and over, until my mom got them stuck in her head;
i would hear her around the house singing “cat scratch fever”, or “running with the devil”.

one day the guys showed up unexpected, with their guitars and a friend tagging along. i asked
them why they were there. they looked at each other, confused, then started laughing as if
they’d heard the funniest joke of their life. they were obviously very high. i didn’t want my mom
to see them, so i snuck them back into my room.

after a while we added a guitarist named danny who had a van. having a van to haul
equipment to gigs was the dream of every young band. we were living large.
danny’s mom made him a “stage outfit” of white and rose colored silk; big billowy sleeves and
pant legs. the rest of us dressed like slobs, while he looked like part of a circus high-wire act.

Drawing circa 1995. Bayer Campus, Berkeley, CA.

my last ‘desk job’ was working for bayer. their berkeley site employed over a thousand people.
once a quarter the management held a sitewide meeting to talk about how the company was
doing, and to say inspirational things about the future.
at the end of the talk they would take questions.

one year at the november meeting an employee raised her hand right at the beginning.
the speaker acknowledged her, and politely asked her to save her question until the end.
the employee ignored the request, kept her hand raised, and started waving it around.
it was very distracting, so the speaker took her question just to be done with it.

the woman stood up and asked; “why do we have to have lasagna every year? we’re tired of
lasagna. why can’t we have something else?”
she was referring to the free meal given to all employees each year at the company cafeteria
around thanksgiving. apparently she felt that this was an urgent issue, and that any other
company business could wait.

for the rest of the day people talked and joked about the lasagna lady.
i was bored, so i sent an email to some coworkers asking if they’d be interested in forming a
lasagna task force to further investigate this pressing matter.
someone forwarded the email to the site manager – the one that had given the talk.
fortunately she had a sense of humor and was amused by it.

1964. Walnut Creek, CA

on the back of this photo my mom wrote: ‘sleepy guy in daddy’s chair with chocolate face’

a friend in new york told me that the first time he met me – which was in the morning – i looked sleepy. the next time he met me – which was at night – i looked sleepy.

i’ve always been in awe of people with boundless energy. they seem like a different species to me. my daughter recently described the teacher of a dance class she took as “ridiculously upbeat and energetic”.
i’ve accepted the fact that i will never be described that way

 

2009. Berkeley, CA

things i will miss when my kids grow up:
1. bedtime stories
2. a bucket of bath toys in the bathroom
3. crazy hair day
4. going trick-or-treating
5. hello kitty band-aids
6. school pictures
7. bunny-shaped pasta
8. superhero lunch boxes
9. scooters in the hall