The Long Day

It's morning in Santa Barbara and activity is already picking up along the beach. There are businessmen in ties talking on cell phones, hotel people tidying up, serving breakfast, checking people out, and there are the legions of homeless. Last night, they were set up in their sleeping bags at the veteran's memorial center, in alley ways, in various niches. But come morning, those areas are hosed out, and the homeless already have their possessions assembled, their sleeping bags rolled up, and they're on the move.

If you're going to have paradise, with twenty days of rain a year and temperatures that rise into the low seventies on a daily basis, you're also going to attract anyone who must live outdoors all year. It's a closed society in most senses, but a society nonetheless. They know one another, and even have outcasts among the outcast.

I Forgot Where I Left the Keys

Poor little blog. It's been sitting there for five years without a post. Five years! That is a very long time to go without any attention from the creator, don't you think? And yet... well, to tell you the truth, I just plain forgot where and what this was. I promise to maybe see if I can think about getting around to considering the possibility of writing more on this blog.

Wisdom of the Ages

You can learn a lot from your animals. Our youngest cat, Catie, believes that the secrets of the universe are hidden within the cabinet under the sink. She is sure of this, and there is nothing I can do to dissuade her. She has seen the door open, has caught a glimpse of what lies within, and this has been sufficient to firmly cement her beliefs. Whenever she sees that the door is open, even just a little bit, she is compelled to run over and try to get in. Even if the door is shut, she'll still come over to see if there is some passage that she has overlooked.

Hammer time

First work day of the year, first day of the first week of the new year. Not much to do but answer a request from my manager, something that takes a little research and more than a few minutes. There's an email from our CEO announcing a company meeting in a few hours to discuss "organizational changes." This is not a good sign, but at least I got the email. Then the phone rings. It's my manager, and she lets me know that someone from Human Resources is in on the call. Clearly not a good sign, and I pay little or no attention as my manager reads the company-crafted message about "difficult times" and "hard choices." I've been down this road, and we might as well just get to the terms of my layoff.

That comes soon enough, as I learn that I am now an official casualty of the current recession, another pawn in the economic disaster unleashed by George W. Bush.

Day one of unemployment has come. Since I'm a "remote" -- someone who works outside the office, at home -- my first task is to pack up everything that belongs to my former employer and send it back. This is partly a good thing, since that laptop occupied most of my waking hours. Not having it set up leaves a hole in my day, but also creates the reinforcement that I need to do something else.

The house needs some work. I took up most of the baseboard molding when I put in the laminate flooring, and never got around to putting it back. I've painted every room in the house except for the master bedroom and bath, so there's that, as well. But first I have to get past the first day, then the second, the third, the first week... I've been down this road before. Strangely, it's not unlike the breakup of a relationship. First, you don't believe it happened. It was a mistake, you think. They'll call back any moment when they realize that they needed me and should have let what's-his-name go.

That won't happen, though. Then there are all those things you "need" for work. Papers, little notes on where things are or how to do things or who to call. You think about saving all those, just in case you need them, just in case things get better and they call and ask you to take your old job back. Which they won't.

In the end, none of it matters. Anything you worried about before logging on or punching in last week is nothing that need concern you now. That thing that you were in the middle of, that thing you were thinking of saving or sending to someone who still works there so it won't be lost... that doesn't matter now. They'll figure out how to do it; that's what they do. That's their job. It used to be yours, but it's not anymore. They certainly aren't going to help you wash the dishes or take out the trash or feed the animals or pay your bills; there is no obligation anymore. There is only today, tomorrow, and the rest of your life. Without them.

Good night, Irene

I don't think I've ever been in the building before, but I appear to be downstairs. There are a series of rooms, and I can't remember much about the one I'm in, but a friend -- I have no idea who -- comes into the room I'm in. This seems to be his house, even if it's more of an apartment building than a house. He tells me that my old girlfriend is in the other room. There's no need to tell me who this is. Something unspoken tells me I'm supposed to wait, but I quickly get up and push past him to rush into... the place where she is. This is a series of rooms, perhaps an apartment, perhaps an office space, and I don't know any of the people here. They all seem to be doing something. For all I know, they're volunteers working on some political campaign. Then, She comes out. We recognize each other instantly, even though it's been most of a lifetime since we've seen each other. She stops to exchange a few words with one of the women there, perhaps just to postpone the inevitable, but then we collapse in an embrace, racing against time to immerse ourselves in one another, reuniting those souls long ago separated.

There is no reason for this dream, but there it is.

Crime and Punishment

So why is it that whenever The Wife has to punish The Daughter, she has this fit of guilt and has to go overboard to compensate, doing things like buying The Daughter every snack and dessert item she could possible want? I'm just wonderin', I am...

Stuffed Chicken Breast Salad

Oh, that was good stuff. Regular salad greens with a few thin slices of cold stuffed chicken breast (mushrooms and leeks and ground chicken.) Somebody ought to sell this stuff...

I wonder what that was

Nonsense wrapped in a vacuum, filtered through the wooden clogs that somebody I used to work with wore. Don't know why he did that, but I do recall that he was a real, honest-to-God rocket scientist. Life works like that sometimes, the random little things combining and conspiring to create reality. And the road -- one moment at a time -- seems both endless and non-existent, and the answer to the question "why?" may never be had.

That's the way it is. Or that's what I hear, anyway, and the possibility that one can change all of that is still there, since if it's not possible we'll never know. We'll just keep trying.

Home

There's something about home - familiar, comfortable - that has nothing to do with the locale, the way of life, the time of year, or even the local cuisine. And there's something that defines a particular place as home no matter how much time you spent there or spent anywhere else. There's a place for all of us that, every time we return, is home.

I know, because I went there this morning. Home is a small section of Queens just off the Belt Parkway, directly under the flight path for JFK airport. Home is a nest of 7-story apartment buildings surrounded by 2-story "garden" apartments, dilapidated ball fields, old people bent over from age, hauling their 2-wheeled carts to and from the grocery store.

Home is an old man I've never seen before greeting me -- "Good morning! Happy Holiday!" It's the second day of Hannukah, and this is -- or was -- a Jewish neighborhood.

Home is up there, the fourth-floor apartment, the small window from which I threw things, launched match-head rockets, and even once cast a lead weight out the window only to have it swing back and break the window of my first-floor neighbor. They knew it was me; they were not happy, but (and I did catch a break every now and then) they didn't tell my Grandmother what I had done.

Home is a parking lot that used to be a grassy area with benches, an oasis between two buildings that didn't house anyone we knew, or anyone who knew our parents or (in my case) grandparents. An oasis where we could come with our girlfriends and go as far as the elements and our mutual modesty permitted. The benches are gone, now, and the grass has given way to asphalt, but I remembered the night when -- ignorant of female anatomy as I was -- I decided to go for it and ran my hand all the way up my girlfriend's leg, under her skirt, as far as it would go until I touched something soft. She like it, as it turned out, but we still went our separate ways a year later. I heard she got pregnant and then married some thirty-seven years ago, and I haven't heard from her since, but I still have a Polaroid picture of the two of us. The light is bad and the picture has degraded so all you can see is the outline of our faces, but I'd know her anywhere.

The pizza place is still there, but it has expanded into a full-fledged restaurant. I don't know if the kids still go there for a slice and a coke, but we did. It was either the pizza place or the deli, at the other end, where you could get a knish or the best french fries on the planet. And, of course, kosher pickles straight out of the barrel.

It's not much to look at now. The buildings all seem to have awnings and pretentious names. Signs on the side advertise apartments "for sale." They used to be co-ops and condos; perhaps they're all condos now. The streets and the sidewalks are cracked, and most of the buildings seem to be in need of one type of maintenance or another, but our echoes can still be heard in the stairwells where we gathered for cigarettes, or on the streets where we serenaded the neighborhood with our own rendition of Horse Latitudes or, depending on our mood, Don't Bogart Me.

Everything took place within an incredibly small area, perhaps one-half square mile. We all lived within a thousand yards or so of each other, perhaps one reason why we were able to survive in the days that predated personal computers and cell phones. Everyone was connected by sheer proximity, if nothing else.

(Fast forward. It's time to eat.)

Breakfast is amazing. I've gotten no more than a few hours of sleep, painful and fitful sleep, and I've entered the world where the contrrast is turned up all the way on everything - colors, smells, sounds - until everything starts to resemble a caricature of life. The restaurant is packed, standing room only, and I sit at the counter. It's Sunday and everyone is working. Thomas is there, the namesake of the restaurant, as is the unnamed waitress we normally see every day but Wednesday. My waitress is Gina, someone I haven't seen before, and she's a marvel of nonstop movement until she feigns collapse against the unnamed waitress.

Everyone is talking, everyone is eating, and the only one conserving energy is the big guy -- obviously a co-owner or otherwise important -- who is the other half of the cartoon portrait on the wall. It's him and Thomas, Thomas and him, although Thomas is really Tommy. The accents range from Queens to Long Island, all typically New York. All home. I stare off into space as I wait for my bacon and eggs and just bask in the sounds of it all.