REGARDING PLACE : THE GREEN WILD (a 17-track playlist), part I

The following is a 17-track collection of tracks important to me that I tie in some way to a time and a place.

Here is part I. 

___

The Way Life's Meant to Be / Electric Light Orchestra (1981)
Probably one of my absolute favorite times of the year is this little band of time early Thanksgiving week. The promise of everything glorious about the holidays is ahead. You'll be legally listening to Christmas music soon. All will be smooth with every family interaction. Every moment will be filled with hugs and music and food and conversation that is the right amount light banter and deep introspection.

The promise of everything good ahead.

| 2013 |

In my heart.
Salome / Old 97's (1997)

A known place in Netarts, Oregon + A secret place outside Missoula, Montana.
When I was eleven or so, my mom used to drive me 20 minutes out of town to mow this elderly gentleman's lawn. I know exactly where it is. Netarts, Oregon. Few minutes from the beach. She'd drop me off, I'd do the 45-minute mow and then read a book until she got back. So she'd drive somewhere between 40 and 80 minutes to take me to a job, so I could make $15. Or ten bucks, or whatever it was. Whatever it was, I am certain now, being a parent, that it would have been more cost-efficient for her to simply hand me twenty bucks, call it good, and take one item off her plate for the day.

But she knew there was more at stake. Thank goodness.

When I was in grad school, a teacher asked me to mow his parents' getaway cabin once a week while he was gone. Drove 45 minutes or so. One week, two of my little brothers came to visit. They "helped" mow, then we played some pool and headed up the creek to do some swimming.

No one there, just us and these smooth natural rock water slides on hot summer late morning. We stripped down to nothing and bodysurfed down white water with nothing but our glorious birthday suit bodies. Somebody pulled out a camera, whoops.

The money I made off mowing was absolutely not worth it, at age 11 or at age 28. But I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything. Cruising down an Oregon backroad with my mom, ready to mow in the hot sun and read a good Hardy Boys book in the shade afterward. Cruising down an unknown Montana road with my little brothers, listening to Modest Mouse and Old 97's and go naked swimming afterward.

Priceless.

Salome is one of those songs I never get tired of. Melancholy and world-weary.

And I'm tired of makin' friends and I'm tired of makin' time

And I'm sick to death of love and I'm sick to death of tryin'

And it's easier for you, yeah it's easier for you

Never get tired of it. Tired and weary, and still chugging along, alone. Except I have the memory of listening to it on a hot 2005 afternoon not alone. So a whole new layer of meaning and memory for me. That's what happens when a great song's associated with a great memory.

Sometimes it's easier to be alone.
Sometimes it's easier to be not alone.

I can't remember but I don't think I smoked drugs this morning.
Outta My System / My Morning Jacket (2011)
Honolulu, Hawaii.
This is such an interesting one for me to include. I am the straight edge-ish guy you might have known in college who leaned against the wall at parties and drove people home. The one whose closest to being high was transporting a couple dozen dazed and confused partiers in a VW bus home after a long night. A night in which I leaned against a wall, watched my my friends and "friends" get drunk and wondered why I wasn't hammered and why I didn't drink. Or get high. Or introduce anything else fun into my bloodstream. I don't know. A lot of reasons, I guess. For another post.

But maybe a lot of times the things I was thinking about and interested in discussing were topics I had to wait for other people to get inebriated or high in order to talk about in an interesting way. I don't know. I was both conformer and iconoclast. I went to be with people I wanted to be with. But I didn't want anyone, any person, any institution, anyone telling me what to do or pressuring me. Lifelong iconoclast, that me. 

I was at a club in Hawaii years ago. When I dance, I need space. Physical space. Because I am a violent and careless dancer. Also, I don't believe in smiling when I dance, because I look very cool and Timberlake-ish and it would spoil the vibe if I grinned. So I am A) physically aggressive, B) extremely serious, and C) totally non-drugged, non-boozy when I dance. Also, I am uncomfortable in the spotlight, so I have to fully focus my willpower to let my inner moves out for the world to see...without chemical assistance.

So I'm at this club in Hawaii and they move past the Spice Girls and Usher remixes and they kick off a sesh of German hardcore techno. I have a special place in my heart for good techno. Good techno. So I leaped back onto the dance floor, cleared some room for myself, and pretty soon, was alone. I am okay being alone.  Got through a few tracks, which in techno-speak, might be twenty minutes, and a couple friends motioned me over, shaking their heads.

What's up?

I asked, trail of sweat on the floor behind. 

There's been, like, three people,

they laughed, and kept laughing, and shaking their heads,

who came up to us and wanted to know what drugs you were on, and where they could get them. 

Oh.

I said.

Why?

Uh,

one said.

Have you seen yourself dancing?

No.

I said.

I've been busy dancing. But you can video me if you want.

But that was it on the German techno for the night, so I guess I didn't make it out to the floor again. 

They told me not to smoke drugs, but I wouldn't listen

Never thought I'd get caught, and wind up in prison

Chalk it up to youth but young age I ain't dissin'

I guess I just had to get it out of my system

Glad I went and got it all out of my system 

The lust of youth VS marriage and security

I'm glad im here now, but just between you and me

I had to get out and make the deals

And learn to know how it feels but that it ain't real

Outta my system, outta my system

I never really did drugs and shit. And I guess maybe some of that shit cool to do when you're younger, but I guess I just hate rules for life made by other people for me, even if they're reflections from an insanely talented band like My Morning Jacket, and I get it, to the degree I can get it not having done it, and I sort of agree...maybe? Better out of the system before you're married, have kids, and are planning for either an Italian vacation or a mid-life crisis.

But I'm good at creating things to look forward to, to being excited about. There's so much I haven't done. Maybe I'm waiting to get it into my system way later on. That's something to look forward to. We'll see. I need to hit a club soon with some good German trance. Need to get some moves outta my system.

I do drink a lot of coffee. 

I Want You / Bob Dylan (1966)
Walla Walla, Washington.
I was in an eastern Washington pawnshop looking for cool flannel or something when I saw a beauty: a portable record player. An old one that worked. Not a new one that looked old and said 'vintage' or 'retro' on it.

A few weeks later, I was at Everyday Music in Portland and found a scratched-up, well-worn copy of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits. Normally I'm not a huge fan of greatest hits albums and compilations for the same reason I don't enjoy listening to most radio stations: I don't like the easy pickings of grabbing the poppiest and most accessible tracks by any given artist and sticking them in random sequence onto a single album with no discernible connection or order other than that they were made by the same artist. Anyway. I got Bob's Greatest Hits. A diminutive collection of ten tracks, including I Want You.

One of his most straightforward songs in a career filled with inscrutability and lyrics to keep linguistic PhDs and poetry professors busy for decades. And here this simple little ditty with his ragged voice plaintively singing...a love song. A straight ahead love song.

I never get tired of it. Especially when it fingernail-chalkboards across vinyl and makes his voice even scratchier than normal. His sexiest song ever.

Murder in the City / The Avett Brothers (2010)

Make sure my sister knows I loved her 

make sure my mother knows the same

always remember there was nothing worth sharing

like the love that let us share our name

A college dorm room, we did nail polish
Nothing / Mason Jennings (1998)
College Place, Washington, and the West Coast of North America.

I've never spent a long stretch in prison or jail - or actually any time - but in college I hung out with this one boy who was a lot of fun. We ran all around the West Coast. Literally. As in: drove down to L.A. for a weekend. Drove up to Whistler/Blackcomb in Canada for a few days. Stuff like that. Always up for doing something, somewhere, that didn't involve classes. He was not a strong academic influence. 

Like me, he seemed to inhabit a strange place in a certain scene. Most of his friends partied more than him, but he seemed to end up the epicenter of trouble. That second part is very unlike me. And not bad, malicious trouble. Just the kind of trouble that led to parking fines and cops getting called in and people yelling and him always sort of being the catalyst, but simultaneously coming across as completely innocent and unaware of anything happening around him.

We used to paint our nails, some of them. Black, blue, etc. He finally realized he was gay, or bi, later on, and had a killer color palette. Funny that he found my colorblind self cool on some level.  I trusted his aesthetic and borrowed his shirts and nail polish sometimes. Also, I think he bleached my hair once and it turned out badly. Most bleachings do, I think. I'm glad I did it though. Now I know. 

That was a year in college, a good year, and I'm glad I didn't end up in prison. I shouldn't have, so it's good I didn't, but I could have. He's not, which is also good. But I bet he has a bunch of unpaid parking tickets in a bunch of states. 

I saw him at a club a while back - and by casually saying 'club,' I'm inferring that going clubbing is a regular part of my life, when the reality is, it's the last time I've gone to a dance club, and 'by a while back,' I mean a decade ago. Anyway, I was dancing, because I'm an incredibly unforgettable dancer, and he recognized me and said nothing, just hugged me for somewhere between three and seven minutes. The beats was throbbing, so we probably couldn't have heard each other anyway, but then we squeezed goodbye and his night began and mine wound down. 

He was a unique friend. I'd never mistake him for being any other friend, no matter how many years passed. 

Mason Jennings is a singer guy with a voice I'd never mistake for anyone else's. That's a good thing to have said about you, unless it was said about Gilbert Gottfried, should he ever release an album of show tunes.

___

Our Love / Sharon Van Etten (2014)

Astoria. 
Astoria is an Oregon City on the Columbia River near the Pacific. It is rugged and windy and salty and famous for being the setting for the fantastic film The Goonies and the good for a once through film Kindergarten Cop.

I spent a day, a rainy day with Becca and the children, and my sis Rachel and her children.

We picnicked at the Column, a scary and magnificent monument atop a hill where you have a panoramic view of the bridge and river.



We hiked a tiny little hike and found sticks.

We walked along the pier and lovingly watched sea lions from California roar their affectionate grunts to one another and pile up three high on docks not intended for them.



We ran barefoot along the stormy beach and some tiptoed into the raging waters close to the Peter Iredale wreck, a sailing vessel that ran aground in 1906 and still sits there, lonely, waiting for swimmers to come on cold days for companionship. Others hunted for sea creatures and crabs with total focus. The moms ducked their heads and bundled up and looked beautiful and wild, as they often do.



We headed home, wet and sandy and dirty. Hot coffee to guide us to North Star home, we headed home and I hit play. One by one, they fell to slumber as we we drove through mountains and forest.

Sharon Van Etten's sweet and sad love refrain crooned loud, and louder as I turned it up: 

You say I am genuine

I see your backhand again

I'm a sinner, I have sinned

We're a half mast flag in wind

It's our love

It's our love

It's our love

It's our love

It's our love

It's our love

It's our love

It's our love

It's our love

I sneaked a peek beside me, and a quick glance behind and I smiled and cried a little inside, knowing the moment and day was special and would exist forever in my mind. But never quite like this again.

___

CONVERSATIONS. Koda and Drake, lost hikers on a backroad.

The night was getting dark as we drove the last couple hundred yards up the mountain; almost home after seven hours on the road. 

Look!

One of the children said.

There’s two teenagers walking up our mountain!

On this rare occasion, they were correct. I looked out and there were two boys; one shirtless, weaving their way up the mountain a hundred yards from our place. 

I pulled in. Me and three of my favourite girls: my 10-year old daughter, my eight-year old niece, and my 22-year old sister. Home at last. I turned off the lights, opened the car door, and stepped outside.

Daddy!

she whispered urgently. 

They’re coming down our driveway! 

Sure enough. Two young men slinked down the driveway. After 10pm, dark night, lonely mountain, two strange characters in my yard. 

I shut the door, tossed the keys in, and locked it from the inside, not in that order, and walked up to confront them. 

Hi!

I said. 

What’s going on?

They both started talking, but then the shorter, shirtless, inked one anointed himself the alpha. I’m not going to try quoting him, because very little made sense, but apparently there was an ex-girlfriend they were supposed to meet, and then they somehow got lost. Lost on the top of a mountain three miles from the Safeway at the bottom where they had started off. 

Can I use your phone? 

he asked. 

I’m really sorry, mine is almost dead and I need to call my mom to see if she can pick us up.

Right, I thought, and bypassed his question with my own

Are you drinking?

I asked. 

No sir,

He said. 

I mean, earlier we were, but not since we started walking up this mountain.

You smell like booze. 

I said. 

What’s the number?

I punched it in and handed the phone to him, crowding him a little and keeping his tall skinny friend in my field of view. 

The children peered through the car window and he noticed as the phone was ringing. 

Your kids are so cute.

He said.

I love kids. I’m definitely planning on having my own kids.

I decided to wait until he was off the phone to suggest that perhaps he consider having his own children with someone other than his ex-girlfriend, and also possibly investing in an automobile, and possibly a lifestyle change or two. 

An older female voice answered at the other end. He jumped right in. Hey Mom, can you pick us up? We were supposed to meet ____ and ______ and then _____ so can you pick us up at the cross street of ______.  

Okay, see you soon, love you Mama. 

Hung up, handed my phone back. My body relaxed slightly; happy that I wasn’t going to have to chase someone in the dark to get my phone back. 

Hey thanks so much,

He said.

Sorry to bother you. 

Sure thing.

I said.

They started walking up our driveway. I gave twenty seconds to make sure they weren’t bluffing and made a decision:

Hey,

I called.

Call your mom back. I’ll give you a ride to Safeway. 

Really?

He said.

That would be so awesome!

Yep.

I said.

Give me two minutes.

I unloaded my daughter, niece, and sister our of the car quickly and hustled them inside.

Lock it behind.

I told my sis. 

I’ll call you in ten. 

They climbed in and I drove out. One hand on the wheel, one on my phone and two-foot length of sturdy fiberglass club I keep handy for such situations. 

So...

I said.

Explain to me again how you came to be up here?

Again, they both started in, but the shorter, the one in the passenger seat, took over. Short version is they were trying to walk partway up the mountain to meet his ex-girlfriend, and obviously paths got crossed up, and cell phones were going dead, and...

What were your names?

I asked.

Koda. 

Said the shorter alpha in the front seat.

Drake.

Said the taller sidekick in the back. 

Joseph.

I said from my position in the driver’s seat. 

So she’s your ex, Koda? 

Yeah.

He said.

I mean...sort of. It’s complicated. I mean, I still love her, and she sometimes likes me, but she yanks me around a lot and I’m okay with it. I know what to expect. 

Well...

I said. 

I don’t know what to say. That’s not cool. Sounds like you’re a loyal guy. Meeting up with her tonight and all. 

Yeah.

He said.

So what keeps you guys busy when you’re not hiking mountains in the dark?

I asked.

Koda jumped in. 

I’m gonna travel and buy property. My plan is, I’m going to school to learn HVAC, and when I’m done I’ll start at $60 thousand a year, and then I’ll be making in the triple digits after a few years. 

Whoa.

I said. 

Sounds like a good plan.

Yeah totally.

He said.

So I’m gonna save up three or four hundred thousand and then buy property. I’ve been researching and you can buy, like, 40 acres for $20 grand in Montana.  

Montana’s awesome,

I said, checking out quiet Drake in the back seat. 

You been there?

Nah,

He said.

I’ve never been further away than Bend. But there’s, like a bunch of places in the world where you can buy cheap property. After I’ve saved up three or four hundred thousand I’ll go buy some and then get a 5th wheel with my buddies and set up a drifting track. 

Pretty cool!

I said.

Have you checked out Tokyo?

I’m really into drifting,

He raced ahead.

But I wanna make my own track, so we can build it how we want, and then just, like, do it whenever we want, you know. 

That sounds like it’ll be a pretty awesome experience and setup. 

I said. 

I would love to find out about some of these property deals. And maybe start HVAC school. 

Yeah.

He said. 

I’ve got it figured out. 

What about you, Drake?

I asked.

What’re you up to?

I did have a job until a few weeks ago,

He said.

I worked with my dad loading pallets and cargo and stuff. But then he got fired for drinking on the job. So they fired me too because I guess they thought I wouldn’t be reliable either. 

That’s unfortunate, I’m sorry,

I said.

Are you reliable?

Yeah,

He said. 

I’m planning to go through IBEW training so I can be an electrician. You make good money. 

That’s what I hear,

I said. 

Good luck. So how do you guys know each other?

We went to the same high school,

Koda jumped in. 

But we weren’t friends. We were in, like, totally different groups. But then I saw him at a party and I was like, hey, I know you. We should, you know, so yeah, we were trying to meet up with my girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. 

I’m supposed to be in Maui right now,

Drake explained from the back.

But I missed my flight.

Uhh...

I said. 

How did that happen?

I was at a party the night before,

He said.

And I forgot to set my alarm and my friend that I was supposed to go with called and said we gotta go RIGHT now, and he said he could come pick me up if I was ready right then, but I was too out of it and I just said, ‘just go man.’ So he did. 

So...

I said.

What happened to your ticket?

I told him to take his girlfriend,

Drake said.

So originally he was going with you, 

I asked.

But then his girlfriend was ready to go last minute and the ticket transfer worked and all?

Yeah, pretty much,

He said. 

Maui would be pretty cool, I’ve never been there. 

I’ve heard it’s kind of spectacular,

I said.

But on the bright side, at least your friend’s girlfriend is enjoying it.

Yeah.

He said. 

It’s like, I probably shouldn’t have gone to the party the night before.

Yeah.

I said.

That might have been a good idea...but you’ll have a drifting track to hang out at soon!

Yeah!

Koda said, and Drake nodded in the back. 

I pulled into the Safeway, directly in front, and stuck my hazards on. 

You guys gonna be good from here? 

I asked.

Oh yeah, yeah yeah.

Koda said.

Thank you SO MUCH. 

He reached out his hand and gave me a firm handshake. Drake leaned in and gave me one too. 

Thank you SO MUCH.

He said also.

Sure thing, guys,

I said.

Good luck with everything, and school and work and property ownership!

I drove away and watched in the rear view mirror as they scanned the parking lot for their ride, which I was not inclined to wait around for. 

SIX MINUTES LATER:

I parked for the second time that night in our driveway. Stuck my key in the front door lock, twisted, opened, walked in...

...and was greeted by a 22-, 10-, and 8-year old in suspended state of attack; ready to repel unknown entrants. I believe one - my daughter - was aggressively holding a pair of scissors in front of her. I do not recall whether my sister was wielding a machete, or whether or not my niece had a chainsaw. Those details escape me. What I do recall is that apparently my return was not expected; they were in fact quite certain that “the teenage boys,” as they derisively called them, would be returning, sans me, to attack the house, rob everything, and leave a trail of carnage behind. 

Somewhere between one and three of them fully believed this. 

*

FOOTNOTE: my daughter corrected this incident to the following: “I didn’t think the TWO of them would be coming back. I thought THEY were the distraction, and after you left, a THIRD would be coming along to break into the house.” 

Where she gets her out-of-control imagination, I have no idea.

*

I spent the rest of the night on the phone, talking down my son, my nephew, and various other family members and friends that had been alerted during my eleven-minute absence to the near-catastrophe. There were tears, there was certainty that we would be under home invasion for the rest of their childhood, and there was nowhere in any conversation the acknowledgment that I was, in fact, the hero of this story and handled it exceptionally well. I am, in fact, the only one that has truly stated the simple facts, which are that absolutely yes, they were planning to attack the house and do horrible things, but due to my calm, firm, and non-violent intervention, a Manson-esque tragedy was averted. 

Again, my involvement in this has never been the focal point in this story. Am I a hero? Who’s to say? Who’s to say. I just live my life threading the guy wire between Sergeant John “Die Hard” McClain and Nelson Mandela. The streets are safe, the mountain is secure, and Koda and Drake...I wish you the best with your future jobs, properties, and relationships. 

And maybe learn to prioritize between a party and a Hawaiian vacation. Mazel tov, boys. 

HIGH, WE WERE ALL HIGH ONCE.

The throne he sat upon and within,
Contained by constraints and controlled and satiated with the patronizing gift of what the authorities called “dinner.”

The throne called “high chair.”
A device meant to enslave and prevent independent movement; a device intended to prevent the widespread spreading and sharing of food from a single geographic space;

An horrific instrument whose purpose was to control and keep a lesser species - homo sapien childus - from engaging in what Sir William Wallace called simply

“Freedom.”

My brother Joshua fought for freedom hard; alternating between fight and acceptance, and I learned much from him as he silently accepted morsels from the guards and would pretend to enjoy the prison meals he was begrudgingly gifted; I never saw him scream or heard him whimper.

He accepted the fate and ate in what the Italians call “silenzio,” save for when he sang, and his tool of protest was his hands. A refusal to bow to the authoritarian mandate of the ruling class, the Parentals, and to use his bare hands as Romulus once strangled Remus with his and lived in glory forever, as my brother certainly will, with his quiet Spartacus revolt against tyranny as he sat on high and devoured his “dinner” with bare fingers and fists; fork and spoon defiantly dropped to the floor far below.

Freedom, he sang in his heart to all; freedom was the song he sang, and slavery was the chair upon which he lived on high.

WOULD.

She would take him to walk the beach.

He would wear a long-sleeved striped shirt, and she would don a pink coat with hood; mom and boy a picture on the seashore.

Would she ever think about leaving him on the beach, alone, to fend for himself; a neo-Spartan infant fighting for survival against wolves and winter, but on Oregon beach and seagulls?

The waves would lap close to their ankles, and Jamey would squeal in terror, and were Mom to have run away, would he have perished in the slight water, alone? He would; he would; he would certainly have laid down and let the tide carry him, in a glorious Viking burial ceremony, at two years old, and still alive while the sea carried him to grave.

Would that have been a sad history; yes, were it to have happened, but it did not, because Mom knew what the world would miss, and it was him, it would have been him. I would have it not otherwise.

CONVERSATIONS. Ham, Bacon, Sausage, Allergies.

The terror of navigating a school cafeteria does not necessarily leave you at 39 years old, I discovered.  If you skip to the ending of this conversation, then you will still not know whether or not someone nice sat by me or not. But you will hear some interesting observations on ham and vegetables from a fascinating figure, and one of my favourite new people I've met this year.

I pulled out my carrots and Dave's Killer Blues Bread veggie sandwich and began chewing nervously. A shadow, then a second, then a third flitted across my table and then the swarm surrounded me. Two across, one next to me. A total of three partial-humans crowding in on my lunch table. I estimated their ages varying wildly from six to seven.

They ignored me initially, for which I uttered a silent thanks. The boy across from me began pulling out his lunch. I have never eaten at a Michelin-rated restaurant, but I would imagine that a gourmet being seated at a Friday night dinner after a three-month wait would not begin to approach his culinary repast with any less anticipation, salivation, or enthusiasm than this person.

He carefully held the bulging plastic sandwich baggie with both hands, turning it around gently, examining the piece of edible art, breath quickening. I watched white and yellow squish together inside as he slowly began unzipping the loc. He carefully folded the top back around the sandwich, and leaned in to take a first bite.

Drops of mayonnaise and mustard danced their way out of the bread slices and gracefully decorated his cheeks as he, with a deep sigh of contentment, engorged the first bite. One rebel globule tangoed its way down his shirt. He looked over at me. Aaaah!

I love,
he said.
I LOVE ham sandwiches.

Oh.
I said, improvising quickly.

I love them so much.
he said.
Sometimes I love them so much I eat two.

Whoa!
I said.
You must really like ham.

Yeah,
he said,
kindly letting a wet ham-mayo crumb escape his mouth and parachute to the floor, possibly to be recovered later.
You know what I love even more?

Peas?
I guessed,
and internally slapped myself, realising the likelihood I was wrong could be high.

No.
he said calmly.
I'm allergic to peas.

Oh.
I said.
So what do you like more than ham?

What I love,
he announced, delicately chewing so as to give me a glimpse of what was happening to the delicacy being ground to bolus between his teeth.
Bacon is SO GOOD.

Oh.
I said.
That's cool.

Do you like bacon?
he asked, respectfully opening his mouth enough to let me get a Durrer-detail level visual of what ham looks like being vivisected by incisors.

I am actually,
I said.
Vegetarian.

Oh.
he said.
I'm allergic to gluten.

Bummer!
I said.

I also like sausage.
he said.

Do you...
I asked, choosing my words carefully.
...like any foods that were not once animals?

Yeah.
he said.

What about peanut butter?
I asked.

No, I'm allergic to peanut butter.
he said, inserting a finger carefully down his pharynx to help guide food particles in the right direction.

What about...broccoli?

No,
he said, carefully wiping his finger on his napkin, which also doubled as a shirt.
I'm allergic to broccoli.

Really?
I said.
What about carrots, or salads, or corn, or -

- No,
he said, gesturing with his mustard hands.
I'm allergic to those.

You're allergic to all those foods?
I said.

Yeah.
he said.
I'm allergic to vegetables.

Oh.
I said.
That is...fascinating.

So you don't like bacon?
he asked, giving me one last peek at a piece playing hide-and-seek around his teeth before settling down to the back of his throat, and then popping back to the front, where it escaped disembowelment by sliding down his neck and coming to rest just underneath his collar.

Well,
I said.
I'm vegetarian, so bacon is kind of not a big part of my diet. At all, actually.

The reason,
he pronounced, as he fisted the last morsels into his mouth,
is that you''ve probably never had MOUTHWATERING bacon.

Oh, is that different than regular bacon?
I asked.

Yes!
he said.
The mouthwatering kind is the best kind.

Well,
I said.
It has been a pleasure talking about about food with you. I appreciate your enthusiasm for a wide variety of, umm, meats. Enjoy the rest of your lunch!

Yeah,
he said.
Sometimes I like to have two ham sandwiches.

I'm going to recess now.
I said.

And that's what I did.

MY HEART WAS HURT BAD, AND I'LL BE FINE.

I don’t want to call undue attention to this, but I do want to update everyone who might have seen me limping around Portland recently, and apprise you of the situation, as I know some of you are curious.

What happened was this:

I woke up, and made my way from our bedroom to the kitchen. This is a normal activity, based on my understanding of what normal people do. I was contactless, as I quit wearing my contacts to bed sometime during college, and the idea of wearing them overnight is excruciating. I was also glassless, which meant my eyes were naked, which is not optimal if I want to see anything.

I felt my way along the wall, colours and shapes swirling around, and I arrived in the kitchen, where I heard my name. I looked over, and saw a hazy shape by where I knew our computer was. I deduced it was my wife, based on the fact that there was music coming from the speakers by the computer by the hazy figure, and I think it may have been Sea of Bees, of whom she is a big fan -
before I go further, I am also a massive Sea of Bees fan, although I do not normally approve of her sparse and beautiful music being played in the early morning hours when what we need is Xavier Rudd. But that is another conversation.

I said ‘where is a lemon?’

before I go further, I should explain that this is not a strange question. Nor was this any kind of metaphoric query. I literally, in the most simple way possible, wanted to know where a lemon was. Before I go further, a lemon is an ellipsoid-ish yellow fruit that is generally smaller than an orange, and is rather sour, due to a five-percent citric acid content. Its juice possesses a fragrant and distinctive property that makes it an excellent toxin-cleaning, liver-waking additive to a mason jar of hot water first thing in the morning.


Many years ago, we began drinking a jar of hot water with fresh-squeezed lemon every morning, before we have coffee.

before I go any further, I should note that I do not have coffee every morning. There was a morning three weeks ago, and a separate one four months ago, when I did not drink any coffee. That allows me to state that I do not drink coffee every day. I do, however, drink lemon water every day, as I have not missed that in many months.

So in asking where a lemon was, I was in truth asking where a lemon was. Had I had more information than I did, I might have asked ‘where is THE lemon?’ rather than ‘where is A lemon?’ I would have used the definite article rather than the indefinite, because I was unaware that we had only one left. My assumption was that we had many lemons left, and thus used the indefinite article implying that we did, in fact, have multiple lemons remaining.
as an aside, this is a strong reminder to be careful about making assumptions, because you know what they say about making assumptions (I do not know myself). Be cautious though about what ‘they’ say, because ‘they’ could refer to anyone who is not there in your presence at the time, unless they are part of a group you are pointing at in the distance, and you can see them, unless you have poor vision, and do not have eyeglasses or contacts, in which case you would not be able to see them anyway, unless you had a telescope. But the important part about what ‘they’ say is that what they say is probably just based on their own assumptions, which may not be based in solid science or assuming.

I asked where a lemon was. The next thing I know, I heard a voice screaming my name.

My name is Joseph. As an aside, it is not ‘Joe,’ except to a few people. It is ‘Joseph,’ which is a favourite name of mine, and it is also my name. I recognized the timbre and harmonics of the person screaming my name, but I did not immediately recognize the urgency with which it was being screamed, as we live in a loud house. Soon, you will understand the urgency with which it was being screamed, and the motivation behind the particular volume. But for the time being, just know that I heard my name being screamed.

I have certain challenges with colour, so I cannot state definitively that it was black that I saw. As I said, I was not wearing eyeglasses or contacts, so I do not know if it was actually black, or a dark gray, or a blackish purple, or turquoise. But it certainly had some elements of blackness in it, or it may have been light. It may have been all white that I saw. I heard my heart hit the ceiling, and then it hit the floor, and I realized in that moment a truth that I had never realized before: there is a cliche that people use about not trusting your head or your heart, but I had never really thought about my heart’s hearing. Because what my heart heard was a thud. I realized later that it was not my heart hearing that, but my ears, which should be used for hearing. But in that moment, it felt - my brain felt
- that it was my heart hearing the pounding on the ceiling, and then the floor. But it wasn’t. It was my brain reacting to my heart actually being hurt.

You may be wondering what it takes to hurt a heart. My first understanding of this was watching the Temple of Doom, in which I observed a person’s heart being removed from their body as part of a horrific ceremony, which is also, as an aside, one of the primary reasons the PG-13 rating was created.

There are also other things that can hurt a heart as well. Such as: eating too many tacos at one sitting. Such as getting stepped on by an elephant. -
as an aside, elephants do not, in fact, have a steady diet of lemons.

Also, your heart might be hurt if all your friends went over to somebody’s house to watch The Lion King together while you watched Speed by yourself without any black licorice.

There are other ways a heart can hurt. For example, if you’ve ever seen the movie Innerspace, or the animated film with Bob Wiley, then you know there are microorganisms or tiny spaceships that can potentially get into your bloodstream and hurt your heart. But these kinds of things are not the kind of heart-hurt I’m talking about. The kind of hurt-heart I’m talking about is being hit in the heart with a lemon.

as an aside, my wife didn’t grow up playing baseball, and I have never referred to her as a baseball fanatic.

I have been working with her on learning to throw using the shoulders and legs, and how to plant the opposite foot forward, which in this case would be her left foot. She has become skilled at the motor mechanics of throwing. Before my heart hurt, in the microseconds before my hurt heart, but immediately after I heard my name shrieked at an Apache helicopter level, then everything slowed down to slow motion. My immediate thought was that ‘if anything horrible is about to happen, then I hope one of the children is filming this right now.’ And then my next thought was that ‘if they are filming, I hope they are using a good camera for this particular situation, like my GoPro, because a GoPro can shoot at 240 frames per second, so it would be cool to see this tragedy slowed way down.’
However, this was early morning, and of course -

as an aside, you know that if you’re shooting at a high frame rate, then there should be sufficient light available to compensate for the increased frame rate, otherwise it could be severely underlit.

So I was hoping that if anybody was filming, then it would be on a GoPro at two hundred and forty frames a second. At this point, two hundred and forty frames a second would have to be shot at 720p, which is tolerable for high speed action; unfortunately as you know, it is not possible yet to shoot 4K on a GoPro at 240 frames a second; a feature that my wife has never grumbled about.

This was going through my head, and then I was wondering if I should really be wondering about resolutions and frame rates in the microsecond before -

Suddenly, it all went black. It didn’t really go black, because the world didn’t change FOR ME.

I think that is a concept that parents would do well to pass onto their children: that the world does not exist to accommodate them. However, on the flip side, it’s also important to understand that they have the ability to change the world. Not necessarily change the laws of physics, although there are children who will someday be adults who will someday investigate those kinds of scientific matters, and at that point, with our understanding of biotechnologies and machine-brain interactivity, combined with quantum mechanics, will likely make it possible. But in a relational and sociological sense, the world does not exist to accommodate an individual human, or microhuman. So it’s important to realize that -

we can come back to that thought later.

Suddenly my heart pounded. In the spirit of accuracy, it was not actually my heart. It was the area above my heart. Actually, it was on the opposite side of my heart; east, or rather north-east of my heart. Or, if somebody was facing me, it would be more northwest. Or, if it was a tall giant looking at me, then it would be south-west of my heart for them. But that would be a relative difference. We could have a good conversation about absolutism versus relativism, but that’s a different conversation.

Suddenly I was struck in this area - the proximity of my heart - by a projectile. The world froze, or seemed to. I realized I had been shot. I had been shot by a lemon. A lemon that had been projected by my wife’s arm. Even as I looked twenty feet away at this hazy shape laughing in horror, then relief as she realized that she had not murdered me, and I wondered what thoughts she was wondering, and if she was wondering about going to prison, if she had in fact died me with the lemon that she threw as hard as possible. I wondered whether I should begin crying. She came running over and I was able to confirm that it was my wife. I was not able to confirm whether she was laughing, or crying. She came over and began hugging me, which hurt my heart even more, although it did make me feel slightly better to know that she wanted to help my heart. But in that moment, the purplish-bruise over my chest (on the opposite side, and north by six inches) was hurting as if a twenty-ton obelisk had been hurled at it by Godzilla. That is what it felt like. The lemon that was hurled at my heart. By my wife.

She claimed that it was an accident.

When I was a baby, I had an accident, on top of a second-story deck, and through the decking, onto some fellow’s new Harley-Davidson. That was a type of accident. I’ve also been a part of accidents where people broke their arms, and cars lit on fire, but I had never been in an accident where somebody hurled a lemon at me, and then laughed about it.

I do not know if I will ever know whether she was laughing in relief, or in horror, or mortification, or because it was funny, which it was, but I do know, that I don’t know that the stain on my skin - the stain-ish bruise - will ever disappear, but if it doesn’t, I know that I will always have it in remembrance of the day my heart was hurt by a lemon, and I am glad to be alive, and to know that I have a wife who would love me so much that her love for me would overcome her good judgment, and her exuberance to show off her throwing skills to me because of that affection and faith in my catching skills; that she would do something that would overwhelm her judgment and do something that could hurt me is something that makes my heart warm, in a pleasant way, although it still hurts across from my heart.

We hugged, although I tried to back away, due to my heart. Then we took that lemon, that sacrificial lemon, and we gutted it. Squeezed it dry, and we drank the lemon-blood in our water. Right now, I feel healthy, except for my heart. My heart does not feel very healthy due to the bruising.

I am happy to be here, and I hope that does help you to understand, if I was limping at all, it does not have anything to do with my heart. It was probably a pebble in my shoe. A lemon would not cause a limp, unless one was to get hit with one very hard in the leg, or if one was stuck in your shoe. Which is not what happened. It was the heart, or across from the heart, which has nothing to do with my walking.

So if you saw me limping in Portland today, then it was probably not me, as I was not in Portland today. I am doing fine. Thank you for your concern and be purposeful with any accidents you start.

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

I totally believe in values and stuff, so I tell lots of true-ish stories to our children to instill those values deep, so they will turn out perfectly roasted and delicious when they are adults, like a good casserole, which coincidentally I'm just realising is relevant to the short story I'm about to share. This is my morality tale for today, and looking into the far future, I think it's going to have an appreciable effect on our children's moral center. Here it is, in case you forgot to read any ValueTales books today. It's about honesty.

HARRIET.
When I was a kid, we would go to church, and after church, there would sometimes be a potluck*; which is yet another thing stolen from Native Americans, and a bunch of people would bring a bunch of different food, and some it would be very good.

There was a little old lady named Harriet**, and she would stand behind her pots of soup and casseroles, double-dipping a massive serving spoon in and out as she taste-tested dishes to ensure their quality, cheerfully, surreptitiously flattening health code guidelines like traffic cones beneath a steamroller.

Also, the potlucks were vegetarian, which is beside the point, as is the fact that I am still vegetarian, except for the fact that people expected and assumed everything to be vegetarian. 

There was the day we discovered that Harriet made it a practice to spice up her dishes in un-vegetarian like ways with not-quite vegan additives like beef; a small point she brushed aside with a smile, spoon lick, wink, and "...nobody can really tell now, can they?" 

So, she was not being very honest about things.
And she eventually died.
It's important to be honest.

The end.

Go live your life with honesty today. I'm certainly going to try to, I think.
____

*potlatch
**not her real name

THE NEFARIOUS NATURE OF ASHLEY FREDERICK MINION, IN WHICH YOU MAY ALSO GAIN INSIGHT INTO HOW I LIKE TO TEACH OUR CHILDREN STUFF THEY SHOULD KNOW.

I already told you about my Great-Grandpa, and the things he always had with him:

a piece of straw dangling out of his mouth,
his hat,
his moustache.

But I guess I didn't tell you about the candy. I'll do that sometime. On this day, we were standing around admiring his pony in northern California. I was a child, and already very short. So we are standing around the pony, and the pony's name was - 

- this might not be absolutely correct, but I'd like to think his name was Ashley Frederick Minion. We'll call him Fred. So Fred got an evil smile on his face, yet I was the only one to see it. All of a sudden, he purposely, purposefully, deliberately lifted up his foot and - 

- there are basically two different kinds of vision in the animal kingdom. A lot of animals who are trying to avoid being eaten have what's called monocular vision, which basically means their eyes are on opposite sides of their head so they can see all the way around their body and look out for predators, like anacondas and warthogs. The other kind of vision is the kind that humans, and a lot of non-vegetarian animals have, where the eyes are in front of your head so you can see far away and have depth-of-field. Where ponies fit in, is that they unfairly 

have BOTH kinds of vision, sort of,

which means they can pull nasty tricks when most people aren't looking, which is exactly what Fred did. He got an evil grin on his face while no one else was looking, and lifted up his hoof, and STOMPED on my foot as hard as he could, on purpose, and he drove my foot six inches into the ground.

(how much is six inches?)

I think I remember blood spurting out of my foot. 
(what colour is blood?)

I could see bones coming out of my foot. Do you know how many bones there are in the human body? Two hundred and six. Every homo sapien has about 206 bones. Do you know how many bones you have in your feet? I don't remember, so look it up. It felt like I could see bones in my feet bursting up through the skin. Do you know what another word for "skin" is? 

Epidermis. So I thought that I could actually bones bursting and breaking through my epidermis, which is an elegant way of saying "skin." So I started doing - 

- what do we do when we get hurt?

Yes, we scream and cry; we express ourselves like Stravinsky riting a composition based on a brand new atonal harmonic progression. So of course I did that; the bravest thing I could do. Sobbing and crying as loud as I could, because I wanted Fred to know how badly he had hurt me, and I wanted him to feel guilty, which is something adult humans do a good job at: giving guilt trips. Do you know what Fred did then?

Ashley Frederick Minion started laughing, and you might be thinking that ponies don't laugh. But I would like to ask you this:
Has a pony ever TOLD you that it doesn't have the ability to laugh? If it hasn't TOLD you, then how do you know it's not possible, because Science has certainly not proven satisfactorily that ponies are incapable of displaying a sense of humor, grotesque though it might be. So, it has not been satisfactorily proven to me that a pony can NOT laugh; it's one of those unprovable things, which is as good to me as saying that it's probably possible. 

So if I remember correctly, this pony was laughing evilly at me, and I was reacting in a brave way, and I was like:

"I don't care how many hooves you have! I don't care if you have twice as many legs as I do! Mine aren't hairy, or hurtful!"

Fred just kept laughing, and grinning. But every time other people, my "family" looked at him, he wasn't laughing or grinning. He was just a regular old sweet pony. It was only when I was looking at him that he got this evil look on his face. I was: "that's not cool, Frederick, my foot is broken."

My dad looked at my foot, and my Great-Grandpa was looking at it, just kind of shaking his head. I think he was shaking his head in anger at Fred, and I was standing there, bravely screaming and wandering how many stitches and splints - 

- do you know what a splint is? No? I'll tell you sometime.

So I could feel the bones shifting around and I was brave. I was born brave. I was mentally preparing; thinking ahead to splints and recovery and surgery options, and my Great-Grandpa was standing there with a long blade of grass or grain and his hat and his tiny little moustache, and I was there telling him calmly:

"You need to get rid of this pony. This is an evil pony. Have you read Animal Farm?"

I'll always remember this day as being the day I realised that sometimes people just don't care. Because my Great-Grandpa looked at me, and I think he might have said, if I remember correctly: 

"No, I'm not going to get rid of him. He's a good pony. Stop crying."

And I was: "No, he's not a good pony. He's a bad pony! A very bad pony. He just about took off my foot, and if I had been laying down on the ground, then it would have been my head. So do you know, Great-Grandpa, how close I was to getting my head taken off by your evil pony?"

Great-Grandpa took a big puff on his piece of grass. Shook his head; shook his head in disgust at the pony, I think, as he walked away, probably to get candy. Because he ate a lot of candy. He always had a little candy dish around. If there's one thing that would have helped me then, it was candy, and moral support. But he didn't bring me candy, he just headed off to get it for himself, I think. That would have made me feel better. Candy, and Great-Grandpa sending Frederick off to work in the mines.

But he didn't do that. It turned out that fortunately my body heals incredibly quickly, so by the time my Dad looked at my foot, it turned out that the bleeding had stopped, and there was no break in the skin at that point, and the bones were no longer poking through the epidermis, and because I had such a healthy and strong body from eating a lot of green vegetables, and a very strong internal system -

- internal means "inside."

So most of my bones started working again, all three hundred and six of them. I guess I remember that day with the pony as being the day I realised that sometimes when bad things happen to you, then people don't take you seriously, but I also realised there's a good piece to that story. Do you know what I learned?

I don't remember, but I learned something good on that day too, which also goes to show why you should keep a daily journal, so you don't forget important lessons you learn along the way.

I also learned from then on that I needed to not trust other people to keep me away from ponies that might injure me; that that was something I would need to do myself. That's what I learned, and since then, I have never been injured again by a pony,

or as I like to call them, poodle horses.

I wish my kids could have known my Great-Grandpa. They would have loved him, and his candy.

Topics covered:
spelling
story structure
colour theory