The Water

           

At one point during the hot minute that Dane Cook was on top of the comedy world, he had a bit about knowing a cry was en route. I think today has been one of those moments, but right now it’s acting like that sneeze that just won’t come already.

            It’s the first heavy, summerish day of 2020 in Kansas City. I’m in my home that I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stay in, the lingering threats of COVID-19 are looped around the ears of the face-masked, and American unrest rises by the hour with every heinous act committed by police officers and the stubborn, unchanging minds of so many who just can’t seem to shift their thinking by two millimeters.

            I’m about halfway through A Deeper Understanding by The War on Drugs, and via a shot in the dark, I’d say this is my 50^th listen. This record serves as a kind of medicinal antithesis, and what a dose might do for an ailment seems to be the opposite with depression; your brain magnetizes to things that seem to only pull you in a step further.

            I’ve taken two naps today (one of which was in the same room my kids were watching something), and worried continuously across the week that my air-conditioning unit will vanish like a dying Jedi at any moment. From my dining-room-window view, an Amazon van slows but doesn’t stop.

            The shit is thick and so I turn to one of my only forms of healthy therapy and start the mower.

Mr. Completely

I sent her with soup and made a litmus-test joke. She had them clean and waiting for me. I'd forgotten them. They're home now.

"Hearts will billow when the dream, dream comes and it comes in to me"

-- Trey Anastasio, 

Kansas City International Airport

Somehow three months have slipped by since my last post.

            A lot has happened since then so it’s not been on account of laziness or disinterest. I mean, it’s mostly business as usual with the regular-life stuff: work is work, the kids are still sweet and good and busy, the house is, well, standing, I suppose. I’ve been editing a manuscript for a writer who plans to self-publish. My rec’-league hockey team is off to maybe its best start ever. The Blues are playing well and the Chiefs have a shot at clinching their fourth-straight division title this weekend. I’ve finally gotten consistent again with swimming a few times a week and while that’s great, I still need to ramp up the discipline to make three lifts a week happen. Baby steps, I guess.

Blessings

May 7, 2018 (or somewhere thereabouts)

Beginnings

The pieces resemble leaves of a windy fall afternoon. The pile looks right, the mouth of the bag waiting, but when scooped they scatter, pushed to the neighbor’s lawn, the gutter, the air.

            I keep wanting to target 2002 even though that’s not right. Maybe it’s because that’s when we met; maybe it’s because Dad died that year. His time ended on the cold floor of a hospital room, a bruise on the brain his ultimate undoing after the conclusion of a weeks-long bender brought him to the one place he wasn’t supposed to go: home.

            Now I fear, among many other things, that I have seen myself take my first step into becoming George Webber.

            Regardless…we didn’t get together until the following spring, and everything, like the arrival of a new season, seemed so exciting. Our families bubbled, observed. Our introductions to friends teemed with glee.

            We lived a party life that spring and summer of 2003, some combination of envy, happiness, and annoyance in the eyes and minds of our co-workers. We logged significant poolside time, shared beds, and closed down bars. By fall we were never apart, having tucked-in conversations about our lives ahead. And the following February I moved out of my buddy’s house and into my own place, a joint she helped me find, a pad her father came with us to inspect. I’d received an acceptance letter from my graduate school of choice; hers had come in the form of rejection.