Category Archives: Where They Have to Take You

The Unmuffled Machineries of Joy

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“Did you enjoy your time off?” asked one of them.

“You owe me sixteen hours,” said the boss. It would be easier to hear this sort of shit if I’d made some shinier memories, or accepted that the day after Thanksgiving is a work day at this place, or felt that Thanksgiving was still my favorite holiday.

It used to be, when I was little (and also when I was as tall as I am now, but thinner and with zits) and we went to my grandparents’ for five days in a row. Looking back I imagine that my parents must have dreaded those visits. So many days in close quarters, and nights in a lousy bed with your son in another, in the same room. At least we got a room with a door, and not just a pullout sofa; my grandfather and uncles all snored like walruses.

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‘The Customer Puts the Dollars in Your Paycheck’

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“Umm, there’s a hearse out front,” I said to my wife and son a few Wednesdays ago. We were in my kid’s upstairs room, and I could just see a black vinyl top that had appeared out his window. I was only puzzled for a moment, and then I ran down the stairs and yelled, “Dad!”

No, nothing bad had happened – I knew he was driving!

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I Do I Mean It’s Fine I Just I Am

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“Communitive. Ta-tive? No, it’s communitive.”

“Commutative, the commutative property,” I said. “I think. I mean, what do I know, consider the source.”

“No, communitive,” my co-worker Dan said. “The one that says A+B is the same as B+A.”

“Right, I got it. Because I was working on the thing for Scott, and I know you don’t care which of us gives it to you as long as – “

“Oh I care!” He looked at me with his chin down, eyes lifted up under his brow as if to say, how dare you accuse me of not caring. He was kidding in his caring, and I laughed, and so did he. It was after 7 pm on a Wednesday.

“I get it!” I said, “YOU need the thing WE’RE doing, and you don’t care what order –“

“Commutative?!” He smiled at me and then went back to the serious chin-down face, and picked up the phone.

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On the Outskirts of Consequence

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“It’s clear, we could probably see from the back yard,” I said to my son, about tonight’s eclipse.

“Except for the trees,” he said.

“Okay, the front yard? We could use the telescope.”

“Really we need to go up to Estabrook where it’s open and dark,” he said, walking away from what he’s left me to do.

“Yeah sure great,” I said, not really wanting to do that, and wondering how we went from planning to stand on the porch together, to me having to lug a heavy thing a couple miles. Now he was in his room, where he’d stay for the duration if I didn’t remember to suggest that he come down and let me lug a heavy thing for him. He’s my son. I did the same to my Dad, with different things, in another house in a similar suburb where we heard the ocean, not the highway, like we do here.

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We’ve Got Five Years, or Three Hundred or None

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“You’re going on one of your walks,” she said, from her desk by the office door.

“Yup, just up and down the hill, only exercise I get,” I said, in the doorway. “My legs give me a hard time if I don’t.”

“You just go up to that crosswalk right?”

“Actually, I’ve started to loop through that neighborhood that’s right there,” I said. She nodded and said there were some gorrrrgeous houses up there, but I think she was thinking of a different street, well past where I walk. I waved and didn’t correct her as I went outside, across the lot and around the tall wooden fence, where I texted my wife in the shade.

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On (and Off) the Swing of Things

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August 20, 2012

All of us spend some of our lives doing things we don’t enjoy and aren’t very good at. The less time we spend doing such things, the happier we are. You could telegraph your life’s discontent by blacking out squares on a calendar, dot dot dash, for tasks done joylessly and badly.

This is not an unqualified endorsement of the fun and easy. Chips and salsa are easier and more fun than boneless chicken breast, mashed potatoes and canned peas, but you could live on the latter, though doing so might make you wish you were dead. And there are jobs that look like work that we do for fun.

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