A Diary of Small Things

Mar 8

71 // via Nikon Coolpix L12: Signs on the cars

I know, I know. That headline was a stretch. I was going for a play on “Signs in the stars,” which isn’t even really relevant.

Anyway, moving on.

My daughter has taken to drawing little love hearts on my car in the noxious chemical waste left over from the most recent snowstorm.

Because of that, I had to tell her to stop doing it. (I am, deep down, a sort of responsible parent.)

But it was dreadfully cute, especially when she told me she was doing it because she wanted to show me she loved me.

It may be the one, the only thing I enjoyed about that snow.

Mar 1

70 // via Samsung Instinct M800: Kisses

When it’s cold the kids and I wait in the car, and such it was a few weeks ago before the blizzard. That’s when they started attacking me in a pretty unique way. The video, commissioned by my daughter, tells the story.

Feb 24

69 // via Strange Neural Pathways: More Poetry

Part of being a journalist is the realization that you will never truly have another holiday off like the rest of the normal world. It’s OK, it comes with the job. Well, OK sometimes. This year, in return for not having to work Christmas Day, I took New Year’s Day.

I got to the newsroom earlyish, and there was no one there. It was peaceful, quiet. Being on your own in a newsroom, normally a place of noise and activity, with nothing but a buzzing scanner for company, is almost a spiritual experience

I think this poem came out of that reverie. It’s a reflection on the night before, spent welcoming in the New Year with my wife at a bar called Firestone’s. I occasionally like to play with rhyming, which you can see here:

New Year’s Day 2010

I can see the mountains as I leave my house out along Shifferstadt Drive
Like they’ve always been there, those lumbering bastards
Speckled
with
snow
and
half dead trees

And here I am, on my way to work along roads that on busier days are more alive
As sleeping revelers from the night before slough off revelry, those slumbering bastards
A flash
party pop
and
dead drunk girl

At the bar, sleepy-eyed from too much booze, I could sense inside her, in this upscale dive,
Date-hatred that has shackled her to this bar-rail boyfriend, that encumbering bastard
Crush
people
roaring
and

Globe
descending
ticking off the year
That numbering bastard.

3 …
2 …
1 …

Feb 12

68 // via Nikon Coolpix L12: Weatherman

I’m so very tired. But in a good way. Wednesday night, me and a few others were snowed into where I work, The Frederick News-Post. This required sleeping on the floor, but hey, we’re a newspaper, and if we’re not going to bring you news, who will?

Anyhow, once a bulk of work was done, I went out to get my bag. The wind and blizzard were astounding. I grabbed a camera and headed back to do an impromptu bit of in-the-heart-of-the-storm reporting. You can’t hear most of what I say (like the bits about the plowing and my car), but a picture is worth a thousand words, as they say.

You can find some pictures from the night posted by me to Flickr here.

Feb 8

67 // via Samsung Instinct M800: Radio Gaga

I confess. I am a fan of the radio. Not the whining, all-you-can-repeat music radio that’s homogenized the airwaves. Erg. No thanks.

I mean National Public Radio radio. Well, at least, I listen to that when I’m in the car because it’ll tide me over ‘til I can get home and listen to the real heavy stuff.

Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. My favorite, absolute favorite thing to do is to listen via the Interwebs to BBC Radio 4.

Radio 4 sprawls across topics like an aging society dame on an Ottoman and the discussions inevitably fall on the intellectually weighty side. (For example, a rousing discussion of the morals behind one of the week’s big issues, or on the development of the lesbian novel.)

I like listening to the programs (programmes?) if only to feel bright for a while, even though I know I don’t get half of what’s being talked about.

Feb 5

66 // via Strange Neural Pathways: Bucketlist

I recently confessed on local radio (WFMD) during a discussion about New Year’s resolutions that I had entered my 40th year.

This is somewhat astounding to me. I’ve done a lot, and achieved some things, and even incrementally grown as a person. I have a full life. Really, if I get taken tomorrow, I can’t complain (not that I’m advocating that. Universe, are you listening?).

But four decades, whether I like it or not, as forced some self evaluation, some stark reflection, some philosophical macromicrointrospection. In short, as good as life has been to me, I have a couple of to dos. OK, more than a couple.

A few months ago I started writing a bucket list, that is, a list of all the things I’d like to do before I kick the water pail. And this year, damn it, I’m going to tick two of those off that list. And the next year, and the next year. These are things that I want to do for me. They won’t supersede the important stuff, like family. But I will elbow aside a few of the more minor things to make time.

So, when the radio show host asked me what was on my New Year’s resolution list, I had a ready answer.

I’m going to write and draw a comic. That’s the first one. None of your super hero stuff; I’ll leave that to the experts. But it will be a story that has meaning for me, that I’ve wanted to write for some time.

And come Dec. 31, I want to have accumulated a book’s worth of poetry. I know. Poetry. If you know me, you probably won’t believe I’m a poetry appreciator. But there you have it. I may not be deep, but I am broad. Never mind the quality. Feel the width.

I don’t ever mean to publish the book. I just want to have it. In that regard, I’d like to share an entry now and again, if I may, and if you’ll indulge me. This is called … Ah. I got stuck here. Nerves. Performance anxiety. Which one, which one? Now I intend to reveal one to the world, none of them seem good enough. My poetry, like the human condition, is a work in progress.

Take a breath.

All right. No one’s reading this anyway.

Speaking of depth, this poem is called “I am not deep.” It’s among the first I wrote, but still a favorite.

I am not deep.

Depth takes time

I do not have

For attendant thought, reflection,

or a period of calm,

To consider, to contemplate,

To move and swell in the tides of consciousness.

Instead I chart slate waves,

Tack crashing water

That threatens to sink my boat,

drown my sails and

show my keel to the stars.

Maybe one day

The sea will calm at sunset,

revealing the world’s curve.

Then I will scupper my vessel

and sew myself

into my white sail.

(The formatting is a bit off, but it’s supposed to have three line stanzas.)

Nov 23

65 // via Samsung Instinct M800: Inside leg

I’ve realized what’s better than shopping for new pants when you’ve lost weight. It’s finding old ones that you threw out three or four months ago because you’d given up on ever wearing them again, because you’d given up on losing that couple of extra inches, because you’d given up on yourself.

Sorry Goodwill. I’m keeping these.

Nov 12

64 // via screengrab: Early delivery

I love ordering things online. There’s something about the anticipation of getting a parcel in the mail, then getting it. And with online tracking, it’s even more fun.

I recently bought an overcoat from Target. The estimated delivery time was next week. So, I logged in today to see which exotic part of the country it was flying through next.

Turns out it’s probably sitting on my doorstep. And just in time for the really cold weather. Sweet.

Nov 11

63 // via Flip UltraHD, Samsung Instinct M800: The Flip Off

This one speaks for itself.

Nov 3

62 // via http://mk2weddings.blogspot.com: Genius

I’ve had two epiphanies in my life this year: One was during a white chocolate ganache dessert at Volt, a restaurant hear in Frederick. The other was this morning while looking at photos by Mary Kate McKenna, a local photographer.

These moments are hard to describe, being a sort of emotional reaction. How shall I couch this? I’m a cynic, a realist pretty much convinced that if we can’t experience something in some way, it doesn’t really exist.

I thought food, for example, is just nature’s way of maintaining our bodies. There is nothing special or extra-sensory about it. You eat. You go. That’s all. Then I ate at Volt. The food was good, sure. Bryan Voltaggio’s proved he’s a world-class chef from his time on Top Chef.

Then I ate dessert. I was no longer there, in the conversation. I wasn’t present in the restaurant. It was just me, this taste and … well, I guess I entered a state of what Zen masters call “no mind.”

Now, that’s genius. The epiphnay was understanding, experiencing, what all these obnoxious food critics go on about. (If you’ve ever seen “Ratatouille,” you’ll remember the scene where the food critic is instantaneously transported back to his childhood by a single taste of ratatouille). Food, I believed, couldn’t possibly do that.

I believed the same thing of pictures. What can a static image teach us about ourselves?

Looking at the photographs taken by Mary Kate, I experienced something profoundly different, but every bit as much a moment of enlightenment. Mary Kate and my family spent about an hour on Carroll Creek for a photo session that I wanted to give my wife for her birthday.

Mary Kate sent through a link to the photos today. Here’s the thing, they are awesome. Philosophers, mainly of the Continental school, have this concept called authenticity. It’s kind of a subjective term, but it’s to do with capturing the truth of something, and in doing so, making it subjectively genuine.

The photographs I saw had that authenticity. The pictures of my children made me see them as I always see them. That may sound common or garden, but in reality it is not. Pictures don’t capture the truth of what we see everyday. They are, supposedly, a moment in time, divorced from all the preceding and antecedent moments. But these still moments of my children held in them the absolute and authentic timeless essence of my kids.

That is to say, they captured something eternal. In 20 years, in 50 years, I will be able to look back on these photographs and say with absolute certainty, “This is my son and this is my daughter, and this is how they were in this moment, and countless other moments like them. this is them in a moment of truth.”

It takes a true artist to be able to give the experience of authenticity. It takes a true artist to provide us with a transcendence that allows us to touch on a thing greater than ourselves, something immutable and eternal.

A Diary of Small Things

69 // via Strange Neural Pathways: More Poetry

66 // via Strange Neural Pathways: Bucketlist

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