writewrite

Last night, in the motel wherever we are somewhere outside of Philadelphia, my brother and dad and I came back after dinner and gradually made our ways to bed. Dad read the entire Sunday Times; my brother and I cracked our lap tops. I read email, tried to write but couldn’t string a decent sentence together; my brother wrote and wrote and wrote. My dad was the first to quit and go to bed.

“Will the light bother you?” I think I asked this. Or, it may have been my brother.

“Nope. Your mother used to read until two in the morning. I can sleep through anything.” And with that, he rolled over and began to snore.

Half an hour or so later, I quit. The sentences were stuck someplace far from my reach. Enough. I shut the laptop, crawled into bed.

“Night Dan.”

“Yup.”

Half an hour or so later, Dan was still typing. Type, type, type. I put the pillow over my head. I could still hear the little keyboard keys making their little keyboard key noises, sentences unfurling under his fingers. The light seeped under the pillow. Turn off the damn light I thought. Type type type type type. I’m sure I heaved a big aggrieved sigh. TYPE type type type TYPE TYPE I put the other pillow over my head.

Eventually, the light went off, the typing ceased (not in that order) and Dan went to bed.

This morning, at about five, I woke up. It’s lighter earlier here in the east, might as well be six Indiana time. Time to get up. Dan and Dad snored away. I could hear sentences out there. There are moments when you must write, and this was one of them. I very very quietly turned on the laptop, very very quietly made some coffee, all by the light of the bathroom light, seeping out the incredibly miniscule tiny crack from the barely open door.

Dan kicked the end of his bed, or did something rather physical and loud. Then he growled, or actually kind of hissed: “gotobe!”

“What?”

“Turn off the damn light and go to bed!”

So. I’m sitting in the bathroom, door closed, typing. It is now six-thirty. For future reference: bathrooms make very nice writing booths. Even lighting, good white noise from the exhaust fan, decent seating (lid down), and a door to shut. That’s all you need, really. Watch those sentences appear.

The hawks are back. A pair of sharp-shinned hawks that were here two years ago are back again, nesting just up the hill. We can hear their screeching calls as they feed in the morning and evening, and sometimes catch glimpses of the big birds strafing the neighborhood for chipmunks, squirrels, the odd cat.

We are in, officially now, a moderate drought. The grass is brown and crunches underfoot; the leaves are falling from some of the trees; most of the lilac bush simply gave up, and died. The squirrels are ravaging the bark of all of the trees, littering the ground with tiny woodchips. No rain of consequence expected anytime soon.

The Presidential Debate Commission came through Richmond (IN) last week. Red, white and blue bunting festoons everything. And for awhile the major streets of the city were free of the usual stuff of our sidewalks: abandoned grocery carts, the odd athletic shoe, cardboard boxes here and there, predictable litter. The newspaper made much of the cleanup. But, curious, I drove down some streets I bet the Commission didn’t drive down. Just to see what really had changed. And of course, not much. Unmown yards, battered houses with peeling paint, drooping siding. Sidewalks littered with trash, toys, discarded furniture. Rusted automobiles hunkered at the curb. Men, and many women, all of whom clearly weren’t working, whether by choice or circumstance, slouched on front porches. Children playing at their feet. Foul-tempered dogs tethered to trees barking, and barking. You tell me, Commission: did you see this? And if you did, would you still come? This is America too. And most of it.

Still. Over all of Richmond — the meanest of it, and the manicured lawns of Lantern Trail and Henley Hills and my own somewhat scruffy backyard — there is this remarkable sky. The sky that has these last few days and weeks been so clear, so blue, it is as though a huge plate is balanced overhead. And the sun is, ah, I can’t continue the metaphor. The sun is the sun.

The hawks are calling again, that strange insistent cry. (And you can hear it here: LINK. ) Morning feed commences.

Forty-nine things to do on your birthday:

1. Eat cake for breakfast
2. Have seconds
3. Arm wrestle your dog
4. Let him win
5. Sing in the shower (any Madonna tune will do)
6. Go to the local bookstore and read some pulp fiction while chewing grape bubblegum
7. Eat more cake
8. Do not get on the scale
9 - 43. Indulge your inner child by visiting every toy department in the town in which you live.
44. Now, go to the garden center and look at the flowers. Bring an umbrella. It’s supposed to rain all day.
45. Finish the cake.
46. Turn the scale upside down.
47. Light all the remaining sparklers in your cache of leftover fireworks.
48. Smoke a cigar.
49. Have a good glass of scotch. And in that short space of time while the sparklers burn, fiercely, like miniature supernovas, reflect — in equal parts of awe, bemusement, and something resembling terror — on this fact: you are now beginning the second half century of your life.

1 - Do not have a root canal.

2 - Do not swallow the peppermint flavored anesthetic the dentist slathers on your gums in preparation for the root canal.

3 - Do not bite the dental assistant as she maneuvers the x-ray machine into your mouth to check the success of the root canal.

4 - Do not sprain your ankle a week before you have a root canal.

4a - But if you do, use the time after the root canal to do what you should have done when you first sprained the ankle. Which is: ice, elevate, and rest the darn thing.

5 - Do not go three times to see a very very cute puppy.

5a - If you do go, do not come back and ask the youngest dog if he wants a sibling.

5b - Because you know he will say yes.

6 - Do not panic when you realize there are only seven weeks left — SEVEN! — until classes start.

6a - But if you do, do not completely deceive yourself that the list you wrote and the plan you made while panicking, that this will actually all be accomplished on time.

7 - Do not forget that “summer vacation” for academics is a laughable concept.

7a - Do not try to explain this to anyone who isn’t an academic/educator/teacher.

7b - But if you do, do not hit them if they insist you have it made because you have three months “off.” Show them your list instead. Watch them get very very quiet.