1. Make a Mix Tape/CD/Playlist

This will never happen successfully. I love music. It’s a huge part of My life and I both respect and appreciate a well composed list of tracks. But I can’t make a well composed list. For anything. Workout, chill out, space out, commute, work, write. It doesn’t matter what the desired venue of such a mix would be. I can’t assemble one.

I had a radio show in college. Not sure what I was thinking, but I took the plunge with a friend of mine. Luckily, she had a mastery of mix tapes (CDs, actually) unlike anything I’d ever seen. I suggested a few songs, she filled in the remainder of the two hours with what made sense. It was beautiful. The show I did without her that one time? Absolute crap. A mishmash of jam acoustics, indie rock, random CDs from the shelf, and embarrassment.

I tucked this failure away a couple weeks back when Dear Leila released her January mix and I was again hit with the reality of My shortcoming.

Bottom line: Some can do it, some can’t. Those who can have a gift. Those who are Me should stop trying all together.

2. Cook

I know I’ve gone over this before in one way or another (and it will come up again because it haunts Me), but I need to just say it: I can’t cook. I can eat, I can enjoy, and I can pick out the tasty nuances of a dish, but I can’t put those nuances into a dish. I can’t put anything into a dish that makes it enjoyable. She says “just taste it and add this and some of this” and screw that. I can’t do it.

I’ve thrown away too many pans full of food, or what was once food, to pretend any longer. I have many endearing qualities and cooking is not one of them.

3. Get my oil changed without feeling like an idiot.

Never going to happen. I don’t understand cars, I don’t understand filters, and I don’t understand why a transmission flush is required every so-many-thousand miles. I don’t even know what it means when they say “flush” in regards to a transmission. All I try to do is get in and get out for the least amount of money.

The 5W30 conventional, My wipers are fine, I’ll replace the license-plate lights (hell if I know how), and no, My tires are not in need of rotation. They rotate every time I drive.

I should understand these things. I should know when things are due, how much they’ll cost, if I can do them on My own (that’s just wishful thinking). I shouldn’t know these things because I’m a guy, I should know them because I own a car. But I don’t know them. And I won’t know them. I’m so disinterest in anything mechanical that I can’t bear to think about spending time to figure it out. Meaning I prefer to look like an idiot every 3000-5000 miles instead of educating Myself.

In the Airport

He stared at the man over the back of the seat.
His skin was dark, his eyes darker.
He watched the man grab a bag of roasted cashews,
following his hand.
He watched him drink from a plastic cup.
The man watched as well, but the boy didn’t notice.

The man watched.
The boy watched.

He watched the man tear the plastic package.
He watched the scraps. He saw them.
He watched him eat. Hand to mouth.
He wondered why the man put the wrapper pieces
back in the bag. 

The bag was empty.
The man watched.
The boy watched.

The man tucked the wrapper under the handle of his bag.
The boy wondered.
The boy watched the wrapper. Not the man.

The man watched.

Butter (titled for reference here)

The last time I went was with him, just over three years ago. We met there. After a long conversation on a Friday. We met there on Saturday. I brought Nathan. It’s one of the best memories I’d even made with him and it will likely be the best memory he ever has of his grandfather. We sat at our table for four hours. Three generations in one spot. It was as close to a phone call as I ever got in person. Odd to compare a call to a face to face conversation, but the phone was where my dad really took off and duplicating the depth of one of those calls was incredible.

Nathan had never been a part of one of our discussions, but he kept up and he contributed. Our table consisted of four conversations that all wound around and existed together. The conversation between my dad and I. The one I held with Nathan. The one he held with my dad. And the conversation between the three of us that hung mainly on the food and the smell of the bread.

That bread was all they did well. The other food as okay, but I kept going for the bread. We talked about that. About the golden foil of the butter that came with it. Nathan spent 10 minutes studying the creases in order to assemble the wrap without butter to fill it. My dad loved that butter. It’s a specific brand. I’ve never been able to remember the name. I should have just written it down, but when I go to write it, I can’t justify doing it. I can’t justify trying to remember. The type was red and the house that marked the front of the small pat was a blotted brown. The print was always blurred.

The restaurant jammed them in a small dish on the table and there was never one fully wrapped. From manufacturing to ill treatment on the part of the server and the rush and carelessness of the each diner, every pat always seemed to have one of its four corners slightly askew. I sorted through in search of the one with the least exposed surface, but he just grabbed one and opened it. If it was cold, he’d press it gently between his thumb and the pair composed of his index and middle fingers.

He did it without thinking. He did it all without breaking stride in his speech or loosing eye contact. It was satisfying to him. You could see it in his face if you watched the whole process. He’d smile when he saw the dish. When he’d reach out to grab one. He’d smirk if he had to warm it to a spreadable consistency. If I watched, really watched every step, let him do the talking so that I wouldn’t break my concentration, I’d marvel at his simplicity.

It didn’t come through often, but when it did it helped me to remember who my father actually was. A simple man harboring more complexities than anyone I have ever encountered. If everything else about him was stripped away, I was able to see the man that was left. The old man with a pressed shirt, a tweet blazer, and a pair of well-worn denim.

Before we left he ran his finger slowly around the rim of the dish before tapping his fingers lightly on the textured gold foil and taking another two that would go in his shirt pocket. Nathan watched him do this, alternating his stares from my face to the dance of his grandfather’s fingers on the dish. He laughed. My dad noticed and he laughed as well. Wiping the gleam of butter from his fingertips he stretched across the table to ruffle his hair. Nathan grinned. This was their relationship.

His Cousin: Gram. What animal has only one foot?

Her Mom: One foot?

Him: Yeah. One leg. Look at that track.

(Her mom stares outside)

Me: Lowly Worm has one foot

(Him and His cousin pause to consider this.)

Her Mom: Oh, I think that was probably a bunny. Their feet–

His Cousin: No. They have four feet. Maybe it was an elephant.

Me: With one foot?

His Cousin: Yeah. And he’s like thirty feet tall! (staring intently) There could be an elephant out there . . . somewhere.

(He rolls His eyes and shrug His shoulders)

Her Mom: I don’t think there’s an elephant in my back yard.

Him: Maybe it was a flamingo. They have one leg.

His Cousin: No! It was an elephant. He was like (reaching on his tip toes) thirty . . . fourty feet tall.

Me: And he has one foot?

His Cousin: Yeah.

I have yet to find that common ground with airports.

Eating

She ate beneath the stairwell.
Alone and open,
Luke warm food,
Grease, bread, water.
Incomplete.

With Him being nearly 8 years old (this March) We’ve seen Our share of phases. He’s been through the “say ‘holy shit’ repeatedly because I know I shouldn’t” phase. He’s well into the “can I tell you a joke [that's so bad you won't want to laugh but you'll force yourself to because you don't know what else to do]?” phase. And He’s working on eye rolling while already being well on His way to tackling the fine art of sarcasm. We’ve laughed Our way through all of it (with the exception of some of the eye rolling and sarcasm because We’re hypocritical . . . and if you’re going to do it, do it right!) because there’s not much else you can do about it.

So We’re doing the same with the air-quotes. Air-quotes for everything. The best thing about these is that He uses them incorrectly. The way he says it works, the placement doesn’t.

“Do you need to go to the ‘sto-ore’?”

“Don’t forget you ‘wal-let’.”

“Can I have some “mon-ney’?”

And He does the quotes in some sort of slow rhythm with the words, like he actually knows what He’s doing. And He doesn’t. So then we try and tell Him how to properly use air quotes but how the hell do you explain that? So We’re all at the table trying to eat with one hand while air-quoting with the other two saying things like “you only use them when . . . come on, Hun, help me out, when . . .” and “yeah, you have to say something like . . .” Then We can’t think of anything so we just say you have to use them when it’s funny. But that’s what He’s doing because somehow “wal-let” is funny to a 7 year old.

But this is Our fault in the end. He’s trying to be witty (I think?) and We can’t even tell Him how to do it properly. So I go to Wikipedia for help and I leave with less hope than I started with because they took a simple, obnoxious gesture, and slaughtered it with an explanation. Then they round it out with this: “Air quotes are often used to express satire, sarcasm, irony or euphemism, and are analogous to scare quotes in print.”

So that settles it. We’ll just tell Him to only use them when He’s feeling satirical or ironic. Can’t figure that out? Then don’t abuse the air-quotes, kid. Some things are only for adults. Just like vodka.

Midweek Fiction

It was too hot to sleep so he sat on the roof and smoked to distract himself. That’s how he justified it. He doesn’t like smoking. It’s a time filler more than it is an addiction. An activity to accompany a glass of wine at 2AM. A hobby that he picked up after retiring. It was something and it was better than tossing in bed for the next few hours. He lights one after another and shares a bottle with himself. “Beautiful city,” he thinks, wiping his forehead. “Just so damn hot!” This time he speaks, half in his glass and half enraged. It was late spring and not even the heavy bricks of the 1960’s building can resist the heat from the day that radiates from the roof and pulses in waves from the walls over the streets that are doing the same. It does it every spring. One major round of heat before summer. The oppression in the air takes whatever’s left from the day and leaves it exhausted by morning.

He blamed his own exhaustion on the heat rather than his lack of sleep and the only relief for that is water, submersion, but the closest he is to a pool is the wine in his now empty glass, so he pours one after another to compensate. He sits by himself as his wife works another erratic schedule at the hospital as there was nothing inside to draw him in. The nights were his. He didn’t like it, but it had been the same for years, on and off. In fairness to her, it’s been better over the last three or four years, but the nights are still hard and when he can’t sleep he drags himself to the roof with a bottle of wine and the pack of cigarettes he keeps hidden under the lip of the air conditioner mount. It’s self medication through self destruction.

He has no schedule so he sits awake. It was good, and he knew that. He had a busy schedule for over 30 years, from college to career to family. This calm was good but it’s what kept him pacing during the day when she was sleeping and it’s what kept him up when she was gone. He wasn’t the type to retire in the first place. Now 63 years into life and he doesn’t have a single obligation. His grandkids don’t live close with Scott having moved half way across the state and Steph won’t have kids. She can barely find her keys in the morning. But he knows how fast things can change. Leaning on the edge he follows the streets and rooftops out to the lake.

“Just a breeze,” he spoke to the neighboring buildings, “just a small breeze.” He spoke aloud but he swallowed his words as he always did when people weren’t around to listen. Even for Chicago it was hot, but he liked the roof as much then as he did when they bought the unit and he dealt with it. Their condo is on the 10th floor and they are the only residents in the building to have roof access. It was part of the home and it’s what sold them on it.

Back then it was for the party possibilities. He was 28, Carol 24, and kids were a few years off, if ever, but the roof made for great parties. Then the kids came and the roof took on a space of its own. No one seemed to mind the roof paper after a few beers but, with the kids, they sketched out a couple plans and turned the space into something liveable.

That’s where they spent most of their summers and, though it wasn’t of much use in the winter, he built a small gazebo which he lit with a few strings of white lights every Christmas. He never really saw them, but the neighboring high-rises did, so he put them up figuring that it contributed in some way to the overall cheer of the holidays. Even now, with both the kids gone, he hung a few stands or, rather, he left a few up. He told Carol it was because he never got around to it, but really he liked them being there. It was festive in the winter, in the summer it was ambiance, and on these nights it wass a night-light on the roof at 2AM.

He looked at his watch. Carol should have been home nearly an hour ago, with the commute. She must be staying late again he though. It was beginning to seem like she worked late every night, like she was slipping back to how she used to be. Last time she didn’t come home till almost 5AM. This wasn’t the retirement everyone talked about and it wasn’t the retirement he heard about at his party. There were supposed to be trips, vacations, dinners out. He hadn’t taken advantage of any of that. There had been excitement, but now he wanted a retirement with her. He knew he’d never get one. Carol loved her job. She was good at what she did and he liked watching her leave with the same energy she’d always had. It gave her life. He liked that, but he hadn’t planned on retiring alone. He also hadn’t planned on smoking. He hadn’t planned on much of anything that happened post retirement.

He took another long sip of wine and flicked the remains of his cigarette off the edge of the building, watching until it put itself out on the fall. He didn’t like being out there when Carol got home. She worried about him wandering around the roof at night and the fact that he had taken up smoking wasn’t something she liked knowing. He brought the wine inside, fully intending to finish it. He was of the mentality that a bottle should never be re-corked. This belief went back to his college days of guarding booze, which meant drinking it. The wine he had now was better than his beverage of choice in college, and no one was going to take it, but he couldn’t let it go of the habit.

He was tall, bordering on lanky, and his walk was marked with long, full strides which gave the illusion that both feet frequently left the ground in unison. His arms, which swung in beat with silence, only added to this image that portrayed him as casual, simple, and ambivalent, though only two traits could accurately be applied. He carried himself well despite his lanky appearance, and his methodic, almost rhythmic movements suited him because they matched his practicality. Even walking into the condo, halfway through a bottle, he moved without breaking stride, without having to correct a single motion.

Showoff.

And of course that Him is the same Him who’s been asking for a dog periodically for the last three years. And by periodically I mean almost daily. He’s been so desperate that He actually asked for a battery powered dog for Christmas. I know how sad that is. I know that He needs a dog and that the companionship would be great and that We’d look at each other while watching Him chase the dog in slow motion in the back yard and We’d feel this deep sense of having made the right decision, but no. We don’t do dog. Neither one of Us wants to take the plunge.

Hair. Responsibility. Poop. We’ve been through that already with Him. Why would We want to go through all of it again with something that will never speak gratitude and may eventually wipe its ass on the carpet? Yeah, that’s not as poetic as the slow-motion running in the backyard.

We COULD do it again. COULD. But really We just don’t want to risk getting a dud. A dog that barks hysterically when someone comes over. Or one that pees everywhere. Or sheds like crazy. Or some other flaw that wouldn’t come out until We’d had it six months and had no choice but to keep it. So We’re planning to steal one. Perhaps. Or several of them. We don’t really have it all planned out yet. I’m thinking We just steal all the dogs We like from all the people We know and then We can pick the one We like best. Each dog that is rejected will be expected to find its way home. The bachelor without the limo and the awkward hot-tub meetings.

That, or We need to find a pet trial program somewhere. Or CarFax for dogs. Or a return policy. Something. I don’t take chances with things that can ruin the carpet. Or My mornings with a cup of coffee. Or a vacation. Or My black clothing. I’m not a risk taker (though this year may change that). Especially not when that risk would bring ruining and that ruining would come with a cost. We’d be paying to have Our lives taken over and I’m pretty sure I could find a better use for that money. Or a better way to lose control of My life without spending as much.

But there is that whole chasing My brother’s dog in the backyard, bit. And the laughing and the fun and the bonding and the guilt. And then We look at the photos I took and We both think that maybe a dog wouldn’t be bad. Then We drink and the dog slips out of the picture. I just don’t think We can’t drink forever. But if the choice is grab warm poop through a plastic bag or pour wine over My Cheerios at 6AM, I’ll take option two.