Writing About Love

Last year I entered a writing contest associated with the release of Belle and Sebastian's album, Write About Love. The directions were to write about love (surprise!) in 300 words or less. I decided to re-purpose a post that has appeared on this blog (http://toocoolbyhalf.blogspot.com/2007/12/england-and-italy.html).

I was forced to cut and cut and cut away almost everything, but it was interesting to me to see what I was willing to cut and what I refused to let go. The cheesy last line was just an effort to tie it into the love theme. I don't think I was in love with this person, but maybe that's the point? Anyway...

I won this LP for being one of the "honorable mentions" (http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2011/01/11/write-about-love-contest-winners-part-one-honorable-mentions/):

It's signed by the band and was mailed from the UK. Kind of fun.

This is the piece:

On a Friday I took the train to school. My first class started at 9:40, but I got on the 8:03 train so I could get some reading in. There was a pretty girl near the door, but I was too shy to sit next to her. 

After a few stops, the conductor announced over the intercom that the police wouldn't let us go any further north. There had been a bomb threat. 

We stopped at the next stop, 33^rd South, and we all had to get out. The conductor told us that a bus would take us to another stop where we could take another train. 

I noticed the pretty girl again. Second chance! I convinced myself to sit next to her and asked her where she was going. And then we talked—about everything, somehow, in fifteen minutes.When the bus dropped us off at the “safe” stop, we got on the train together and kept talking.It was perfect. Finally, I asked her for her name and she said it was Venice. 

Like the city? 

Like the city. And then I had to transfer to another line. I stepped off the train and turned around as the doors slid shut. I stood there, on the crowded stop, looking at her looking at me, thinking to myself (suddenly alarmed!), Why didn't I get her number? The look on her face said, Why didn't you get my number? 

I followed her car with my eyes until the train was gone. 

Monday I took the train to work. I got on at 8:03 and at every stop changed to a different car. Then I stopped and waited for the next train, just in case. But she wasn't on that one either. 

Love is an act of faith.

Editing

Does adding a picture that approximates Elder Holland's jacket ruin the post? Maybe.

By the way, I think we can all agree that 2010 was a wash, so no apologies.

"Lost in the Supermarket"

Costco is the undiscovered country. Of possibility. Maybe. OK, probably not. But think about this, anyway:

On Monday, January 17, 2011, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I found myself at Costco with my parents, mostly because I had nothing better to do, but also because Vanessa was at work and I was bored. And we needed butter. Yup, Costco-sized butter. That’s how we roll.

Shortly after our arrival, my father and I were walking by the electronics section, when an older gentleman passed briskly and purposefully in front of us. It was Elder Jeffery R. Holland. He was wearing conservative pants and a white shirt, but, weirdly, with a snazzy leather jacket.

Now, perhaps I am crazy, but I always expect older folks who rock leather to rock leather bomber-style jackets. Maybe it’s because I labor under the (willfull?) delusion that anyone over the age of sixty was in World War II (my psyche is stuck in the early ‘90s), but that just seems right, to me.

But no, Elder Holland was in something Paul Newman would have worn in the ‘70s—and I don’t mean that it was retro: It was snazzy. Cool. Hip. It seemed to say to the world, The man wearing this jacket is in touch.

Elder Holland walked right over to a Costco dude and led off with “Hey! My man!” and then my father and I were out of earshot and I pointed out to my father that Elder Holland is a snazzy dresser for an old guy and we went about our business.

About twenty minutes later, we’d found my mother and we were walking out of an aisle that was capped with a display booth and an anxious gentleman with a microphone selling blenders or something. As we were behind the booth, I commanded an excellent view of the half-dozen or so Costco patrons who were listening to the anxious gentleman’s pitch, and I was delighted to see Elder Holland, again, with his wife, in the front row. And Elder Holland was listening with rapt attention—as, I imagine, Mormons (who are awake) listen to his talks every six months during General Conference.

This, evidently, is what modern-day apostles (as in the Big 12) of Jesus Christ, prophets, seers, and revelators, do on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: they wear generation-defying jackets and think about purchasing blenders.

I'll Keep You Posted

It was so damned cold.

First the heater didn't work and I didn't notice and I sat for hours trying to focus on grading papers in the freezing cold of my basement apartment before V came home and said, "The heater doesn't work." The pilot light was out. I lit it the next day. First time. Felt like a man (not for the first time).

Then there was water all over the bathroom floor coming from the laundry room on the other side of the wall where the furnaces and the water heaters are, too. The next day there were ice sickles hanging from the pipes and the washing machine was full of water that was cold but not frozen and there was nothing to be done. By me. The washing machine guy couldn't fix it until the ice thawed.

Then the landlord's mother, Margie, brought a space heater that I was to keep on low in the laundry room until the ice was gone so I told my upstairs neighbor that if he smelled smoke coming from the stairs while I was gone it was smoke coming from the stairs and that he should call the fire department.

Then we woke up to a bubble in the bedroom ceiling that was getting bigger and coming from the bathroom-side wall and the landlord in New York was worried that maybe whatever had caused the washing machine problem had caused the ceiling bubble, too, so he sent a plumber over. Two, actually. But not for two more days because the landlord in New York did not "sense" that this was an urgent problem.

The plumbers tore open the bubble in the ceiling and decided that the upstairs neighbor's toilet was leaking because they could see the base of the toilet and there was water all over it but the upstairs neighbor was at work so they couldn't do anything until he showed up to open his place which was the next day. So I moved the couch up against the little Christmas tree and dismantled the bed frame and moved our mattresses into the living room. I feared the mold.

Then the plumbers came back and got into the upstairs neighbor's place and fixed the toilet and convinced the landlord in New York that, due to the fact that the dripping in my bedroom had stopped, the toilet in the upstairs neighbor's place was the cause of the dripping and not the laundry room problem. He was skeptical but they were right.

The upstairs neighbor informed me that he was ready to do his laundry again.

Then the water damage people came and examined the water damage and told us they'd have to rip out the ceiling and the bedroom wall and the bathroom wall and maybe some of the bathroom ceiling and some of the upstairs neighbor's floors and walls and dry it all off and dehumidify it and sand off the mold and then put it all back together again and that this would take weeks. Weeks of living in the living room, which sound more appropriate than it seems.

Then the washing machine guy came back in the morning and almost fixed the washing machine but not all the way because he had forgotten to check whether or not the valves in the washing machine had been affected by the freezing and one of them had but he didn't have the part so he had to come back the next day.

Then another water damage person came from another company and waved his magic wand around and rubbed the walls and the ceiling and said pretty much the same thing that the first water damage people said but made it sound a little bit more fun and shaved about a week off of the time-frame so the landlord in New York decided to go with him even though he's scheduled a third water damage company to examine the problem on Monday. This, of course, will be a waist of time for the third company.

An insurance leach is coming on Monday, too.

The washing machine repair man came again, then, and fixed the valve in the washing machine but noticed when he turned the water back on that the water valve in the wall was also damaged and leaking most likely as the result of the original freezing problem that may or may not have caused the washing machine problem and that the landlord in New York had wrongly decided had caused the ceiling bubble.

This means that we will be calling the plumbers again.

On the bright side, the landlord in New York isn't too worried about the water damage being repaired right away because the general fear of mold was not so general even a few years ago and, in fact, he has friends in New York that eat stinky cheese--moldy cheese--and try to get him to try it so he does but it makes him gag but he's making an effort and so eating mold isn't a big deal so it's not dangerous and so we're set.

What was your finals week like?

An Encounter in the Chocolate Shop

C. Kay Cummings. This is where it happened. C. Kay Cummings. But the story starts in my bathroom, around noon, as we readied ourselves to face the day.

Vanessa had gone to the gym and then to work while I read and then took a shower. It’s fall break. I’ve spent the entire week not showering until the PM, reading comic books, and not playing with Sully, the cat, who seems to like me, but only because it’s been thus far convenient for him to do so. He may have fleas; however, they are discreet, keep mostly to him, and have therefore avoided notice except for some scabbing around Sul’s neck. I’ve asked him, repeatedly, why he doesn’t take care of this problem, to which he replies, every time, “Step off my nuts, Henriksen, you’re out of touch.” Although I’m trying, I cannot help but be offended by his cavalier disregard for civility.

Vanessa was putting on some makeup. In her “work clothes” she doesn’t even think about putting makeup on, but when she’s wearing what she wants to wear, she can’t not do it. It’s compulsive, and we’ve often been late as a result of it. I walked into the tiny bathroom and waited for her to notice my “skinny jeans.” The legs were so tight the seams of my underwear were clearly visible underneath the denim. Vanessa had been wanting to see me in them for weeks, but on account of their constrictive nature in certain regards, I had been reluctant to indulge her. Now, I was forced to make a move:

“Do you like my jeans?”

It was a little petty to direct her attention so boldly, but I was impatient. She laughed, but I could see what she was thinking, and a moment later she said it right out loud:

“I couldn’t even fit into those things.”

She could.

Of course she could, but this is how Vanessa works, and, in my experience, most other women as well: they’re never slim enough if they could conceivably be slimmer. The vast majority of them are wrong, perhaps, and it’s annoying either way, but there it is.

She was looking at the mirror again, applying mascara. I pushed my body up against hers, rested my head on her shoulder, and watched her.

“You want some?” she asked, gesturing with the wand.

“Sure,” I replied.

Never ask a David Bowie fan if he wants to try mascara, even in jest.

She told me to open my eyes and look at the ceiling and then slowly moved the wand toward me, waiting for me to tell her I was only kidding. I wasn’t. She began to apply it to my left eye lashes.

“I haven’t done this to someone else in years,” she said; “it’s weird.”

I looked at the mirror as she finished that eye. It was truly unsettling to behold such a strange change to my own regular features. The black lashes were weird and freakish, drawing attention and somehow darkening the left side of my face entirely. It was unnatural next to my red beard and blondish hair. My eyebrows are white. The mascara threatened to take over the entire scene.

“What about the right eye?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. This is weird.”

So I guess that means I won.

***

With my glasses on it was perhaps less obvious. Perhaps.

We went to 9th and 9th so that she could return the bracelet I bought her for her birthday. I’m clueless about that sort of thing, but I try. I always try.

The one I had purchased was a bunch of beads—blues and greens and black—, haphazardly stacked, one on top of the other, and overflowing with spontaneity. She exchanged it for a pink thing that my grandmother would wear.

I told her this.

After, we drove over to C. Kay Cummings. C. Kay Cummings is a chocolate store. We live nearby and had talked about going several times. The storefront is very small and packed with all kinds of chocolates and sweets. Vanessa busied herself with finding chocolate bees for Barb, the Queen Bee of Boston, while I walked over to the large windows looking in on the factory portion which took up most of the building. One woman near the glass was busily adding tiny chocolate swirls with nothing but a gloved finger to the tops of little truffles of some kind as they came out from under a falling drape of molten chocolate. Each one received her personal attention.

“How tedious!” Vanessa said suddenly. She had been standing by my side, unbeknownst to me.

“Ready?”

“Almost,” she said, and we walked over to the counter. A girl had begun to package and weigh the few things we had picked—chocolate covered peanut butter cream, chocolate covered grapes, chocolate covered strawberries; the chocolate bees—when a man in a suit walked into the store and stood beside us in line.

At first I only glanced at him. He was slightly taller than average, shaped rather like a pear, and old. He was standing in such a way that all of his energy seemed to project forward and out; as he looked ahead, he took in the whole room; when he spoke, he spoke to the whole room.

It was him.

A few women had come in after us and before him, accompanied by a handful of young children. One of the women walked between the man and me, stopped, and extending her hand said, “Hello, President Monson, how are you?”

It was him.

“Oh, I’m fine, thank you. We just got my wife out of the hospital; she’s in the car. I thought we’d stop and get her something nice.”

Everyone mumbled congratulations and awkwardly decided how to best comport themselves. I decided against any action whatsoever and continued to lean against the counter. Vanessa continued to talk to the girl helping us behind the counter, periodically glancing at him and then at me as her eyebrows attempted to reach her hairline. One of the women asked President Monson for a picture with her children, to which he acquiesced. He glanced once or twice at every one in the room, pleasantly, confident.

As we were leaving, President Monson turned to one of the children. The boy didn’t notice at first; he was four or five and unaware of the significance—if any can be attributed to it—of the interaction.

“Blondie!” President Monson said; the boy was very fair. “Hey! Blondie!”

The boy slowly looked up at the older man.

“Look what I can do,” President Monson said, and his great ears began to quiver and wiggle of their own accord. “Can you do that?”

Intently, all the while staring at President Monson, the little boy raised and lowered his eyebrows several times and then, embarrassed, turned toward his mother.

“Well, said President Monson, “You’ve got your eyebrows moving.”

And we were outside, walking to the car. In the parking lot, there were one or two well-dressed men who I assume were body guards paying absolute attention to everything that occurred within the small store. We got into my car and I happened to see my reflection in the rearview mirror.

With my glasses on it was perhaps less obvious. Perhaps. But there was no getting around the fact that the Vicar of Christ—the Moses of our time to tens of millions of people around the world—had seen my mascaraed eye (not to mention my conspicuously tight jeans) in the chocolate shop.

There was a lesson in this.

I was sure of it.

SSB

Hey folks,

Check out "Thinking About Music: Andrew Bird Live" at http://www.severalsuchbuildings.com.

Because why not?

Regards,
Me

SSB

Hey folks,

I've got another post up at http://www.severalsuchbuildings.com/. It's called "Thinking About Cooking: Brownies."

It's because I love you.

Regards,
Me