Fatherless Day

Fatherless Day

I suppose it’s not surprising that now, each time I visit the house I grew up in, my feeling of missing my Dad deepens. He is palpably still here; in the woodwork, the crappy furniture, the signs of disrepair, the glorious garden that rises and falls along steps and narrow pathways covered in brown oily leaves from the olive trees. Everywhere there are the skeletal remains of his inexpert handy-work; more than 50 years of sagging redwood structures and listing trellises. Everything is drenched with both his attentions and his disregard in equal measure. The shadow and light of his moods slant and scurry about the walls and through the windows, the property so christened in his personality that it will never be rid of him. The next owners will remodel, paint, scrape, scrap and scrub – but he’s in the foundations now, in the pipes, the joists, and the belly. No amount of cleaner can get him out of here. Sorry, Realtor. Apologies, Mr. and Ms. New Owners, whoever you may be someday. He conveys.

While he lived, his happiest days were in this house, and when it came time to die last August, he did it here, suddenly, after a brief decline of body and spirit. His wife – love of his life – is here still, looking for him in all the strange, unlikely places of the house. It is incomprehensible that he is not here with her, and so she simply fails to comprehend it. She demands to be taken from room to room, looking to see if perhaps he is napping somewhere. She is sure she’s just seen him – out in the garden, or passing into the pantry on the way to the bourbon. She beseeches us to go and look. In her enormous bed, when she closes her eyes, she can smell him in the dark, feel his weight next to her even though now the bed sheets are smooth on his side, his stacks of pillows gone. On the towering bedside bookcase are his watches, his hearing aides, coins, gum, eye drops, his memo books, a box containing paper clips and European coins, his thick Swiss Army knife. No surprise that she feels he’ll be back at any moment.

Each time I visit, a few more things on his side of the bed have been removed. The radio alarm clock is gone. The electric blanket control. The water glass. The bottles of Advil, aspirin, and stool softener. Most of the old dust is still there, which is of some comfort to me. The day the old house is dust-free is the day none of us is living here anymore.  

Father’s Day is certainly the wily invention of a clever marketer - our family of dry-eyed skeptics has never doubted that. Nonetheless, on that day, we kids always happily phoned, or celebrated in some homemade way with our Dad. This year is our first without anyone to celebrate. I am not sure what will happen, but I suspect we will gather at the old house to eat and drink - typically more than we should - and raise toast after toast to the plaster, wood, walls and pipes where he still lingers, shedding his wit and hospitality on all present. And our Mom will twinkle, as she always does when he is near, and ask, again, if one of us won’t just nip out to the garden to see if Dad is there and ask if he’d like to come in and join the fun. 

My Losing Short Stories

Originally published: September 16. 2011

From the Washington Post

Style Invitational

Week 933

“... in which we asked ... for 56-word humorous stories. We had a hunch that this one would be difficult. It clearly was.”

 Not even an honorable mention, but hey, it was an honor just to submit. 

Here are my losing entries:

Closer Than They Appear

Pit stains belie false bravado while Teenager angles semi-recumbent, hands clutching the requisite three and nine, mocking blinker still tick-ticking - like it’s relevant, man. iPod shuffles obliviously. Eyes close, breath escapes like steam as the amputated side mirror bounces, gutter-bound. Lectures will have to wait. It’s fine, kid, I’ll crawl out on your side. 

Dog Daze

Her belly rumbles sweetly as yellow eyes stare into mine, pondering perhaps man’s hubris, his harsh footprints upon mother earth, his selfishness. Her tags jingle, harmoniously discordant as fleas sup and bacteria renders her breath otherworldly. Sandwich crumbs fall, snow-like, upon her upturned face, her expression begging the question, “Are you going to finish that?”

Community on Rayburn Street

Originally published: February 18, 2011

A Thursday evening in September

There’s the haphazard warm up before things even start. The saxophones – a lone clarinet in their midst - range in age from mid-teens to the upper reaches of middle age. Two altos, two tenors and a baritone stitch separate scales around the skinny drummer with the itchy foot. In back, three older trumpeters purse their lips and one or two hit high notes while the third flips through his charts, brow knit, a spit rag dangling from his palm. Each has a variety of mutes within reach. Across the room, the vocalist wails up and down the scale at the piano.

More musicians, some in workday attire, others in standard issue student wear, stride or stagger in depending upon the heft of their Instruments. Each sets up in front of a stand stamped with the name of this elementary school on Rayburn Street, the regular site of the college’s music rehearsals. In honor of this – and because it makes for a spicier name than the Northern Virginia Community College Jazz Band - the group calls itself the Rayburn Street Jazz Ensemble. As they set up, many greet each other; the violinist calls out cheerfully to the djembe drummer in French, the pianist gives the vocalist a one-armed hug, the lead trombone grins at his neighbor after he trips lightly down the scale like a rippling laugh. The guitar checks his amp while the bass outlines chords softly next to him, squinting at his chart.

The young, slender bandleader writes their rehearsal set list on the whiteboard: Take the A Train, Tangerine, Brazil, Don’t Get Around, Birdland. A smattering of troublesome bars from these begins to sound out furtively from around the room as the musicians squeeze in some pre-emptive practicing. 

Time for a concert B-flat and reminders: vibrato on the Ellington – on anything longer than an 8th note! But if playing in unison, give the vibrato a rest. The sax section gets the most attention – the bandleader has his own alto clipped around his neck. Lip up, push in your reed. He needs more sound from the trombones – but heeds the solitary flute player and the violinist. His ear catches what most can’t, and his voice has a pleasantly nasal drawl, a hint of the Bayou about it, though it is rumored that he hails from the north. Maybe this is just what happens to jazz musicians over the years – like a vocal callus. It suits him.

He holds up his hand and says to the group – which has mostly fallen quiet, “OK, let’s take that A Train. Under tempo at first.” He sits in, seeming more comfortable as one of the band than out in front of them. The third trombone rushes into the room, playing her instrument practically right out of the case- no time to lose. The drummer loses the beat with chaotic consequences. The bandleader waves his hand to signal them to stop. OK, again, this time at tempo. He stands behind the first trumpet, frowning at his chart and returns to the front and encourages all the horns to build. The drummer loses them again.

The smooth tune is bumpy. Smiling benignly at the back line, the bandleader says, “Trumpets, when you have your mutes, you have to play out ‘cause you have these five mean saxophone players and they will eat you up! You gotta blow your brains out.” The trumpets nod uncertainly and square their shoulders.

New to them, Tangerine, is next. “Let’s try a little reading and see how we do,” There are questions about the nomenclature. He teaches them hand signals – a fist means go on, for example, and when he pats his shoulders with both hands, he wants them to provide background for the soloist. There is breathless magic as they play and pull it off all together. He throws the choice out to them – keep Tangerine in, or throw it out? They look around at each other. It’ll stay for now.

Next up, Brazil – slowly, as they sight-read the charts. It seems moribund at halfway, but mysteriously revives, the bossa nova beat breathing life back into it. He gives them a rascally smile. “Just for fun, should we try it at tempo?” They groan, then go on, surviving the key change. He looks around gently as they catch their breaths and wiggle their fingers. “OK, I think I got enough information. We’ll keep it in for now.” 

Don’t Get Around Much Anymore condemns them to more sight-reading – and the challenge of supporting a vocalist. She has trouble competing with the trumpets, even with her microphone. She gets lost – or the band does, or they simply lose each other. They seem to be in different rooms, speaking different languages. She loses her key completely – then finds it. The band wanders inside the arrangement like actors who have wandered onto an unfamiliar set. But the next run-through has fewer surprises, and they decide, for now, to keep this one in the book, too. 

Birdland, the bandleader tells the younger members, was named after Charlie Parker’s club in New York City. “It’s got a rock feel to it, so don’t swing it,” he cautions. It begins ferociously, and as the trumpets struggle to make sense of it, the baritone sax valiantly holds them all together when they threaten to fall apart. The bandleader stops them. Surveying the group, he says, “Hey guys, come with me for a second,” He tells them about the Spanish Tinge, about how Jelly Roll Morton coined the phrase to introduce an Afro-Caribbean feel into jazz. They listen, in various states of attention, and after some debate on the charts, they go again from bar 77 – “If the trumpeters’ chops will hold up,” he smiles. After the last notes have stopped ringing he says to the drummer, “You hear how sloppy they sound? That’s your fault.” The drummer blushes and says he knows.

A Thursday evening in November

Hayburner is going well this evening. The bandleader confesses to the group that back in September he wasn’t sure if they could handle this challenging music, but that he is pleasantly surprised. “You’re sounding pretty good,” It is at this moment that the first alto saxophone confesses he can’t find several of his charts and did the bandleader perhaps have any copies that he might borrow...? The bandleader’s face doesn’t betray much but there is a certain rigidity in his manor when he says no, it is a musician’s responsibility to always have his charts and the first alto, a sunny, open-faced young guy, nods and quietly withers. The vibes player is noodling around, and the bandleader, uncharacteristically crisp, says, “And we can do without that.” Their first gig is in a week, so this is their last rehearsal. He passes out flyers for them to post wherever they might be seen.

It is a subdued group that then tackles Tangerine. Both tenor saxes are absent, as is one of the trumpets. Everyone is chastened. A cautious Somewhere Over the Rainbow follows, the vocalist still unsteady and, with a weak PA system, repeatedly overwhelmed by the horns. The drummer stubbornly keeps his own time despite the singer’s frantic vocal cues at a denouement. The bandleader stops him and smiling wryly says, “There’s no point in my waving my hands around if you don’t follow me. I just look dumb.” As the group laughs, the drummer stammers that he had no intention of doing that. The leader reminds his band to look up at him so he can guide them to the necessary ritardando. The next run-through is an improvement.

Blues in B-flat is a loose structure for improvisation. The alto sax (with the missing charts) solos beautifully, as the second alto and baritone support him. The violin gets her nod, leaps to her feet and practically dances as she plays. With this number, the bandleader has succeeded in loosening them up.

After explaining to the group that a riff is a melodic idea that repeats then builds to an exciting peak, he has them begin Blue Bossa. As they play, the bandleader shows the bass what he’s looking for, and next moves over to the particularly young 2nd alto who then stands and takes a self-conscious solo. The leader nods to the trombone to take the next. They move on to Sophisticated Lady, a drunken slow-dance of a tune - a woman can almost feel the too-familiar hands creeping down the dip in the back of her gown.

Take the A Train needs work. He reminds them of how fast and unforgiving the New York subway is – then pauses and looks around the room. “How many of you have been to New York?” Some nod knowingly but many of the youngest are shaking their heads. He smiles. “Well, the New York subway isn’t the Metro, you know.” Everyone chuckles, acknowledging the prissy reputation of Washington’s metro. 

The leader shakes his head during Don’t get Around Much Anymore “That’s our sloppiest song right now,” He is resigned. But the most difficult still remains. Birdland, with all its changes and odd rhythms and fusion elements is the run-away train A Train isn’t yet. The rehearsal is almost over – only seven minutes remaining. This arrangement jumps right in with just about every band member in tow – yanked straight off the dock.  It’s out of control in parts, the trumpets racing to catch up, stumbling here and there, but in several places it all comes together and the band catches its collective breath. They make it through once before they have to stop and make room for the large symphonic band that has the use of the room at 7:00. Already the next community of musicians is circling, beginning to move chairs and open cases. 

The bandleader thanks his people, reminding them of the dress code for the following week’s performance in the school cafeteria as they pack up. 

Next Thursday evening in November

The cafeteria is humming with conversation and the sound of food being both consumed and discarded. The Rayburn Street Jazz Band filters in, snappily dressed in black formalwear, and begin clearing the space in front of the windows. The round communal dining tables are shoved back – and then back some more - as extra chairs and music stands are fetched and maneuvered into the tight space. The violinist snaps a few pictures as her friend the drummer races in after six. Luckily they are running late.

In a moment they’ll begin. After the first two numbers, the bandleader will promote the program to the audience, inviting the musicians in the crowd to come rehearse with them. Relaxed and personable, he’ll help the audience know when to applaud - always tricky for the uncertain jazz listener. The band will play up to the occasion – play their best yet - the vocalist will sparkle and sound more confident, and despite some dicey moments during Birdland and Take the A Train - and a comical scene when the clarinet’s quick rise from his seat for a solo scatters the charts from his neighbor’s stand - they will do well. 

But for now, the bandleader stands and smiles at them, his back to the mundane cafeteria activity. The players look sharp in their dress-ups, even if the jackets of the younger members seem a bit ample in the shoulders, a little long in the pants that fold onto the tops of their stiff shoes. They all look back at him, instruments poised.

He counts off, they take a big breath and - begin. 

Climate Change

Originally published: September 3, 2010

The Washington DC area recently hosted a rally featuring conservative talk show host, Glenn Beck and an estimated 87,000 attendees. The event was well covered in the news and blogosphere, so no need to add to that. But I find myself wondering if this event heated up the atmosphere, strengthening a mere squall into conditions favorable for a prolonged and brash anti-liberal downpour. If so, then my family and I definitely experienced a couple of weather-related incidents that week.

The first occurred late Thursday night. During a week of deadline-induced long days, my husband boarded Metro’s Orange Line for home. Standing inside were two young men, dressed in cargo shorts, sandals and casual button-down shirts. As the train idled at Farragut West station and people got on and off, the two began clapping and singing boisterously, “If you hate Obama clap your hands (clap clap)!” They were looking around, assessing the reaction from those around them, exuding a celebratory vibe. A commuter called out as he headed to the doors, “Go back to Utah!” One of the youths quipped that he didn’t live in Utah, to which the man answered as he exited, “Well, you should.” Then one of the young men said loudly to a different man who making his way out, “I guess you didn’t like the Obama thing! Hey, are you married?” As he stepped out of the train, the man answered that yes, he was married. With glee, the youth yelled happily after him, “Well, at least you’re getting screwed by your President!”   

A few days later, my husband was working from home, and as school had not yet started for our kids, we decided a lunch out would be just the thing. So we drove to the Arlington neighborhood of Clarendon, parked on a metered side street, and enjoyed sandwiches at a local joint called Earl’s. When we returned to the car, there was a large truck unloading bikes next to us. We still had 9 minutes on the meter, but there was a white square of paper under the wiper, which couldn’t be a ticket. I thought immediately that someone had hit our car and that the good citizen had responsibly left a note. I glanced at the truck, half expecting the driver to give me an apologetic wave. My husband extracted the stiff paper and read it. It wasn’t a ticket, or a confession with insurance info. It was this:

Typical

Liberal Douche

- taking up 

two spots

- Unreal you

Pinko Tool

Granted, we drive a Toyota Prius, and yes, it has a number of what might be considered liberally-minded bumper stickers: United Nations, Obama (x3), Human Rights Campaign. And yet in spite of these damning sentiments, I was perfectly situated within the dimensions of my allotted parking spot. There was a space in front of me and a car parked behind. And since when do we Liberal Douches typically slop over into two spaces? Are you kidding? We’re so full of guilt and self-loathing at our own carbon footprints that we can barely muster the strength to occupy one such space. He/she (Ok, let’s be honest: he) really got it wrong. 

And an older “he” certainly. Pinko? (Would you like a slice of Cold War 

Pie with that epithet, mister?) The handwriting was lovely– very old school. Lots of Big Capitol Letters. The mark was thick and black – none of your cheap-o chicken-scratch ballpoints. The ink was so juicy it even smeared in places. 

To write this missive, this man had taken the time to dig out paper and pen from his car – wherever he’d managed to park (actually, there were lots of empty spaces). Flipping it over I saw it was written on the back of a parking receipt from Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington. It records that he pulled into the Blue parking level at 6:06 PM on 10-1-09, almost a year ago. So either his car trash is not often cleaned out, or he keeps a stash of scratch paper in his glove compartment, just for writing notes like this. Or maybe this was one of many stubs from Virginia Hospital; maybe the floor of his car is littered with them. I checked the hospital website; Blue level is for surgery, radiology, blood lab and other services. Could he be sick? Despite his note, I couldn’t help but begin to build a backstory, imagining reasons for his rage. Maybe he or his wife underwent surgery back in October and the surgeon didn’t get it all. Maybe it was his wife, and he couldn’t afford to give her the sort of funeral he’d wanted to. Maybe his children don’t come to see him anymore. 

But then, maybe he’s just an angry man who got old but not wise.

So wherever you are, angry old man, my thoughts are with you, and I honestly wish you a speedy recovery from what ails you. And to you, cynical young men, I fervently wish you wisdom and temperance before you find that you, too, are angry old men. It’s true that these two incidents may have had nothing to do with Mr. Beck’s rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. But given the glowering storm clouds, at the moment it’s hard to imagine otherwise. 

Please Send Cash

Originally published: June 30, 2010

This was a new one on me in the madcap world of getting hit up for money.

I recently received a plaintive letter, printed on paper as blue as the mood of its content. It was a cry for an immediate infusion of cash from an unexpected source. This new supplicant was not a needy person, a charity or a non-profit. The plea was not even from my political party or its eager relations. 

It was from my doctor.

She and her colleague/suitemate were requesting $25 from each of their patients, to – and I am paraphrasing here - keep their awesomeness going. The letter stated that the decline in Medicare reimbursements, the high cost of malpractice insurance, and the relentless free services they provide (authorizations, pharmacy calls, pesky primary care consultations), are reducing their income by more and more every month. With each passing year they are reimbursed less, making their jobs, one gathers, barely worth the bother of slipping into their white lab coats.

They called this a “suggested annual maintenance fee”, which would, they said, cover some of the many costs for which they are not reimbursed. Our $25 would enable them to continue such things as teaching at the nearby world-class hospital, enhancing their ongoing education to keep their expertise current, and continuing their selfless volunteerism. They were inviting us to share in the cost of our specialty needs because otherwise, they would be forced to nickel and dime us for each “subtlety”. This word interested me because I had never before seen the noun subtlety used so subtly.

Now, I have no intention of disclosing the name of this doctor. I will say she is a specialist in a legitimate field of medicine – not some scatterbrained offshoot having to do with crystals or colonic cleansings. Her specialty is not cosmetic or imaginary in nature, but is a real field of medical study, a ratified and recognizable ology. And, no, it’s not one of the embarrassing ones. I don’t name it because I don’t want her (or him - I might be intentionally misleading you) to read this, recognize my name, and then extract revenge upon me in either a legal or a physical manner. Who knows what might accidentally get written on my chart. Doctors have ways of making you wish you’d kept your mouth shut.

And yet some of my closest relatives are doctors. My brother, for example, has been an internist at a major healthcare organization for 30 years. He currently has 2,200 patients but has had as many as 3,400 at one time. All his patients have his email address. His life - like that of my specialist, apparently - isn’t easy. He is on call every other weekend and often works the night clinic. His raises are modest merit-based bonuses and cost of living for the most part. I wondered if he’d ever asked his patients – most of whom seem to find him awesome enough to remain his patients into their old age - to chip in a maintenance fee. He said no. I thought, does he know what an opportunity he’s missing?

I understand that private practice is different from health systems where doctors are salaried and can concentrate exclusively on patient care. Doctors in these systems have the luxury of leaving the accounting to others. My private practice doctor is at a disadvantage because she must be attentive to the financial side of things if she wants to stay in business. Then again, how private is a practice when its physicians need to make public their money woes, passing the hat ‘round the room to fill the coffers? I find myself torn between sympathy and indignation. 

In the letter, my doctor pointed out that she and her colleague are considered national experts in their field. I worried that if I didn’t pay them the $25, they would somehow lose this status. Then they would lose still more income, making me ultimately responsible for the disintegration of their mission – and the resulting loss of their awesomeness. 

Enclosed with the letter was an envelope, for my convenience. There was no stamp on it. There was, however, a line for patient name, address and phone. Just so they’d know who you were and where you lived. And if you anteed up or not.

Damn right I sent the money. What am I – stupid?

In Search of

January 22, 2010

I wonder if I have a stamp on my forehead that says, I.S.O. life advice. Apply within. 

In the last few months, strangers have been offering me lengthy discourses on the how-to and wherefore of a life well lived. They find me – in the grocery store, in line for a movie, on street corners – and their eyes travel to mine, inexorably drawn like a moth to a house on fire. Maybe I send off smoke signals. Maybe it’s just that I notice them.  

Back in my days as a city dweller, I was adept at sidestepping strangers who looked like they had something to say to me. Second nature for hardened urbanites everywhere, I’d stare into the mid-distance and blow past like Amtrak at a signal crossing. I honed my skills in Berkeley, California, where people on the street are full to bursting with cosmic insight they’re itching to share (and I use the word itching in its most literal form here). I’m not over-stating when I say I developed gymnastic avoidance skills.  

These days I live in the ‘burbs where one is less apt to encounter clusters of muttering prophets. That does not mean, however, that unsolicited advice is absent. I am older now, and considerably happier than I was in my urban days, and maybe this acts as a sort of psychic welcome mat, because surprisingly often – over the turnips, in line at a bathroom, while waiting for the walk signal – a stranger will home in on me. I smile, and sometimes speak. I swear that’s all I do. And then they are recounting stories about their diabetes, the wife who is bedridden, the son at war, the old dog on dialysis. I am suddenly, overwhelmingly, privy to the intimate details of their lives. Usually the encounter ends with a litany of warnings and advice, sometimes with just a smile and a shrug. When the person turns to go, it is with an attitude of  - what –satisfaction? Relief? 

I feel that in listening, I have somehow helped. But occasionally I succeed only in enabling habitual monologuers who might best be shut up. Recently, while volunteering at my children’s school during our county’s H1N1 mass-inoculation, a teacher’s aid joined me to watch the kids for allergic reactions. He seemed friendly, and I thought, how nice to have someone to talk to while watching the sleepy high schoolers seated in front of us. Our conversation, however, soon became a one-man dissertation as he began to instruct me on the pitfalls of child-rearing, and how he himself had triumphed. Privately I disagreed with him on just about everything he said, but he was on a one-way roll with his instructive narrative. It would have been like arguing with a self-help audiobook, as with pride he told how he’d turned his son into a perfect specimen of young manhood. When his hour was up he shook my hand without another word and returned to his classroom duties. On my break I checked my forehead in the bathroom mirror, in case it now read, I.S.O. self-affirmation lecture. Line forms here.

That same day, I stopped by a local Safeway with my 14 year-old son Julian for salad makings. This wasn’t my usual Safeway, and I didn’t know the stocky, grey-haired man loading onions into the bin. (Kevin, my regular produce guy, and I are on a first-name basis, our conversations having evolved way beyond the usual, “You want Romain? Hold on – I’ll get you some fresh from the back.”). 

Julian and I marveled aloud at the huge sack of onions the man was hefting. That was all it took. He put down his load and his box-cutter, wiped his hands on his apron, and then proceeded to tell us that he was about to retire after 35 years and how his body had been wrecked by the grueling work, and then confessed that his liver, kidney and bladder woes were due to youthful hard living, rather than to the honest, back-breaking work of labor. Suddenly his whole focus shifted to Julian. “You got to start taking care of yourself now – don’t wait! Cut out the sugar and red meat! I had my share of drinking and all the rest and let me tell you, you can’t get it back. And money! Save your money, kid! There’s nothing so important as that!” He followed with a lengthy outline for a savings plan my son should follow now -  how he himself had been born again– which had saved not only his soul but his life, and about a buddy who’d squirreled away a dollar a day and now owned a million dollar condo in Florida. 

Finally the man reached out and shook Julian’s hand. “So remember what I said. Some day, you’ll think about the Produce Guy and what he told you, and maybe you’ll come back and see me when you do.” Julian dutifully thanked him and we continued on our way. 

I assumed he’d be sniggering by the next aisle, but he wasn’t. As we perused the two-for-one sale on pasta, he said, “That was pretty cool for that man to give me all that advice. Maybe I will start saving my money. I think I just might remember the Produce Guy,” Smiling, he reached for the fettuccini. 

And I thought, it’s people like you, my boy, who keep ‘em coming. Is that a stamp I see on your forehead? But I was proud of him. While rationally I know that he’ll still eat hamburgers and all those sugary cereals he loves so, and that money will continue to flow through his fingers as it has always done ever since he realized what it could buy him, at least he listened, providing a service by lending an ear.

I’d guess that’s all people hope for when they buttonhole a stranger and pour out cautionary tales. They just need to be heard by anyone who will give them the time of day.

Little Big Medicine

Originally published: December 7, 2009

Fingering the lint in the pocket of my jean jacket, elbow tucked in, I bob toward the hospital, headphones creating a parenthetical phrase of my face. The rotisserie joint that bastes this corner with the ghosts of rubbed and roasted chickens isn’t yet open for lunch, though the smoke is billowing. Across Lee Highway I stride, past the new bank with its anachronistic columns (an architectural tic in these parts) casting old-world shadows over new grass and juvenile shrubs dwarfed in dark mulch. 

A couple of blocks along, I pass the house on the hill that has the words JESUS IS LOVE arranged in white stones where the scrubby lawn slopes to almost vertical at the sidewalk. Faux mums and carnations bloom everlastingly among the letters, unevenly faded by months in the hot sun, their cloth petals ragged from genuine rain and wind. I imagine they will look otherworldly when it snows in a couple of months. The house above stares down George Mason Drive, a satellite dish cocked expectantly on its roof, tinkling wind chimes swinging crazily off a downspout. Someone had enough faith to balance on this slope arranging the truckload of stones and sticking those plastic stems deep into the earth. I guess there are less benign things they could claim: JESUS IS WATCHING YOU, maybe. I can live with JESUS IS LOVE. 

I say hello to anyone I pass, their answering nods pantomimed to the music in my ears that drowns out everything but an ambulance wailing toward the ER. The hospital looms ahead, the cars now parked grill to bumper along the curb, filling in the no-pay spaces before the metered parking nearer the building. Being on foot has its advantages. 

Through the automatic door, past people in wheelchairs, up the stairs and into the waiting room my doctor shares with several other orthopedic surgeons. There is the ubiquitous fish tank. Every medical office must be required to keep one. Waiting for my name to be called, I wonder if the fish mix it up to stave off boredom – ok, now you be the one that darts manically in and out of the resin castle. Your motivation? Um, you’re angry at being stuck in this stupid fish tank your whole life. Is that motivation enough for you? Up and down, in and out, over and under - that was great! Now I’ll do the castle thing and you hover around that tube and act shocked every time bubbles come out. 

When it’s my turn, Dr. A is all smiles as usual. He’s one of those rare doctors who makes you feel witty and lovely and valuable. When he touches you it’s light but intimate – not in a creepy way, but in a way that says, you are a person and are hardly loathsome. You are probably not riddled with disease. 

When some doctors touch you, you know they’re doing it because an old professor in medical school required that they do so, even if that patient is repellant, the professor would instruct. These doctors undoubtedly attended a seminar on the issue of doctor/patient touching and probably sat in the back reading their biochem notes. When that kind of doctor touches you, it’s an after thought, as if that old professor is hissing, Touch! Touch now! Oh, for the love of Pete, just put your Goddamn hands on her! And then they do touch you – a pat on your shoulder, perhaps – and then act as if you might bite and most certainly wipe their hands on their white coats afterwards.

But Dr A has an Italian name, so maybe he’s just a good toucher by genetic predetermination. And he’s handsome, but not embarrassingly so, not so that you feel uncomfortable. It’s an unassuming, brotherly kind of cute. He’s the kind of doctor who makes you think, if only all my doctors were like him.

So we chat and he examines the elbow in question for my allotted 3 minutes, but he makes me feel so witty and lovely and valuable that it seems more like 10 minutes. He tells me in the same voice a coach might use to chasten his team before the big game - to take it easy, not to lift anything. He does not, he says, want to redo the surgery. Tendon surgery takes a long time to heal, he reminds me. He touches me again on the arm (and it is, as I say, not at all creepy but nice), and says he’ll see me in a month. 

Then Technician J comes in and smiles as he sets down his tray with suture-removing tools, gauze pads and Steristrips. As he gently tweezes the blue thread out of the puffy flesh of my elbow, I remind him that he took the X-rays of my son’s broken leg a while back. I am sure he’ll have no memory of it. He looks at me and I notice that one eye is looking at me and the other is looking toward the far wall and that it gives him a kind of tragic nobility, like Quasimodo only not remotely monstrous. He looks at the name on the chart, and says, “Oh. Yes. The soccer player, right? That was a very bad break. You don’t see that very often,” His voice is softly accented, and his face serene, despite the unusual directions of his gaze. And I think, if only all my medical technicians were like him.

Downstairs in the physical therapy suite, for the first of many sessions, I am assigned Therapist C. If I spelled out his full name, you would see it’s a name that didn’t allow him many other career choices – it was destined to be something muscular. But he wins my heart because when I walk in, right away he’s there with a heating pad folded in a towel. This he wraps gently around my now bare and vulnerable elbow and tells me to relax and to holler if it becomes too hot, which I tell him it won’t because I love heat. The pad would have to be on fire to be too hot for me. 

We begin so gently that I hardly know he’s doing anything as he holds my hand and massages my arm from elbow to wrist. This is done with a business-like intimacy; he has ownership of my elbow for this space of time. It’s strange to relinquish control of a body part, but also relieving –ok, friend, you drive for a spell while I get some shut-eye. He tells me about his long-distance girlfriend and how complicated that can be but also how they seem to make it work, though of course it’s hard to say because it’s been long distance from the beginning, and you know how that can be. We agree that you can get to know someone pretty well through phone calls. I find myself offering encouragement and advice because he makes me feel worldly and effusive all at once. Sometimes he gets so involved in what he’s telling me about his relationship with his girlfriend that he stops working on my arm. I glance away from his blue eyes down to my elbow, subliminally reminding him, dude, you’ve still got work to do despite this disturbing moodiness she’s exhibiting, and he’ll take the hint and get back to the manipulation of my bruised arm, changing over to stories about his roommate who leaves bread crumbs and tomato seeds all over the kitchen counter when he makes himself a sandwich. 

C then gives me some simple exercises, apologizing for their ease, but reminding me that that’s how we do things post-surgery. I feel pretty stupid doing them – hand up, hand down, hold for five, repeat thirty times. Pronation, supination, hold for five, thirty times. Things like that. On the next table, a woman is on her back, a huge rubber ball between her knees, squeezing it and almost weeping. Across the room is an ancient man in a Las Vegas sweatshirt doing towel slides. C is now up on a table, astride an athletic man, pushing against his hip, the man grunting in pain. And I – up -twothreefourfive, down-twothreefourfive - feel like a malingerer.

I am under the watchful eyes of Assistant T, who makes sure I am taking this seriously. I am. What I cannot do is keep count, and I’ve no idea if I’ve done 20 or 30 reps. T doesn’t judge, however, and when I say I’m done, he brings me another pad in a towel, this time icy cold, which I am not such a fan of, but which feels appropriately therapeutic on my sore elbow. Ten minutes in the freezerwrap, and I am done. I say see-you-next-time and stride out of the hospital, fishing the headphones out of my pocket, past people – mostly old yet some disturbingly young- parked in wheelchairs near the sliding door to the outside, all waiting for someone to transport them somewhere, or at least for someone to push them into the fall sunshine.

    I pick up my playlist where I left off.

                                                                    *************

It’s almost February and I’ve been watching snow through the windows of the therapy room. I’ve also confirmed that indeed the faded flowers of JESUS IS LOVE look obstinately – perhaps insanely - colorful against dirty snow crusted with sand and salt.

Now that I am these many weeks post-surgery, I’m allowed to lift weights, and have moved up to the gnarlyest colored Theraband – black. I rotate hammers, squeeze contraptions and manipulate putty. I throw a heavy ball at a trampoline and do push-ups against the wall. And I have learned a lot more about C’s girlfriend situation. The other therapists are pressuring him to get engaged, a topic that makes his brow furl and his massage technique on my elbow get uncomfortably deep-tissue. 

After my last session I remove my final icepack. As I zip up my sweatshirt, shivering a little, I smile at an elderly woman who grimaces back good-naturedly as she spins her swollen legs on the contraption in front of her. Grinning, she says, “I surely am glad to see the hind end of that year! I seen pain and infection and thought I was at death’s door. Now this smile’s back on my face, and I ain’t never gonna let it go again.” She looks at me from under her bright purple hat. “You got to smile as much as you can. They can’t take that away from you. That happiness is yours alone, and if they do manage to steal it, it just won’t work for them ‘cause it’s yours and you alone get to keep a hold on it.” She raises her big, welcoming arms for a hug, which I give her, suddenly having to resist the urge to cry on her shoulder. Into my ear she says quietly, “You carve out time for yourself every day. If some days you just can’t, you put it in the bank. You’re young, and it accumulates. And girl, keep up that smile!” 

C shakes my hand, gives me a sheet of exercises and a pep talk about not slacking off. As I walk home, heavy coat buttoned up and headphones back over my ears, I realize I’ll never know whether C gets engaged to his moody, long-distance girlfriend. And now that therapy has ended, Jesus will have to go on shining his love onto George Mason Drive with out my observations, because now the love - and the exercises and the smiles– are entirely up to me.

I (heart) Everything

Originally published: November 30, 2009

I really do. I pride myself on being just about universal in my feelings. I ♥ all the normal stuff, like kittens and cubs and milk chocolate and such things as you might expect someone like me might ♥. But that’s all so easy! It’s a sure bet everyone ♥s those sorts of things, and I’d be nothing special if I stopped there. 

No, I go a step further in my ♥ of everything. Like ♥ing ugly things, such as fat or disfigured people – which I do! And my ♥ extends even to things considered gross by most people – sputum, sweat, earwax - and more! I ♥ non-Christians, cannibals, homosexuals, Mongoloids and liberals. I ♥ Ramadan, Hanukah and that African sounding one, as well as Brussels sprouts, burritos and egg foo young. I absolutely adore everyone at my hunt club, and each and every deer, rabbit, fox and vagrant who provides us with such wholesome fun. 

I even ♥ the un♥able, like Atheists – I sincerely believe that the Godless among us are very much in need of my ♥, and it is a great responsibility. Come to think of it, I ♥ responsibility, too! Believe me, it’s a huge testament to my ♥ of all things that I continue in my unrelenting ♥ duties. I am sure you’ll understand me if I confess that in my heart of hearts I’d ♥ to introduce these people into Hell’s perpetual fiery embrace because they certainly deserve it for their doubting and their philosophizing and their science and their double-talk, and it would be a very righteous thing to see their eyeballs burning and their skin melting from their bones (and re-forming only to melt again!) and their ears shriveling up as they scream and supplicate and beg for a mercy that will never ever come because they didn’t believe in the ♥ of the One True God. 

Having so much ♥ at the start of the holiday season fills me with good cheer and a deep, abiding ♥ of my fellow man that’ll float me right up to New Years. That I can feel the ♥ so deeply and with such conviction reassures me of the goodness and the rightness of everything. And as I told you before, I ♥ absolutely, positively everything. 

Spare the Divining Rod

Originally published: June 9, 2009

Three democrats at the school bus stop, three strong candidates in today’s Virginia primaries for governor, three opinions about who to vote for, none of them very adamant. As our kids climb onto the bus, we shrug our shoulders. Whatever.

I still don’t know who to vote for. I’ve been trying for the last few weeks to find a clear winner, but they all seem to have equally good and bad points. Why couldn’t we have had this embarrassment of riches a few years ago, guys? All we had then were pale tumble weeds.

The morning had dawned under the weight of a massive electrical storm and there is evidence of its violence everywhere. But it has blown past, so I decide I’ll vote early – lest I forget later in the day. Perhaps, I muse, as I put on my raincoat, something will happen along the walk to my polling place. Maybe I’ll be shown a sign. 

McAuliffe, Moran or Deeds. Terry McAuliffe was the belle of the ball, with Bill Clinton’s endorsement, but Creigh Deeds recently bagged the Washington Post’s, so he’s shoving past Terry. Also Deeds is the only candidate not from northern Virginia, which might help when it comes time to go up against that McDonnell fellow. But what was the gun thing? Did he really vote to allow guns to be carried around in DC? Like, into bars and such? I can’t find anything intelligent on the subject by anyone I’ve heard of (sorry NoVaMomma26). Even Politico is sketchy. But could that make Deeds more likely to beat McDonnell in the general election? Virginia is for Gun Lovers, after all. Brian Moran garnered local endorsements in Arlington, but has a rather confrontational brother (Rep. Jim) who has turned a lot of people off. I can’t find Jim mentioned anywhere on Brian’s website... guess family only goes so far. And Moran is buried, spending-wise. 

I walk across Williamsburg Blvd and up the hill. McAuliffe, Moran, Deeds. The storm has left a clear trail of debris. I find myself wishing for a large clap of thunder to punctuate my thoughts and maybe give me direction. I am not superstitious, but I’d really like anything that’d nudge me one way or the other. 

Passing a neat little rambler just over the crest of the hill, I almost step on a dead bird. In dodging it, I almost step on another. This one is still alive, its soaked feathers barely moving as its thin legs spasm. Then I see a third dead bird lying in the grass nearby. They are all the same species – sparrows I think. I stop and look up at the beautiful plum tree above their corpses. No obvious sign of lightening strike, but what else could have killed all three in one blow? There is a Deeds banner in front of the house. Could I ask for a more direct sign? I mentally cross him off my list.

The rest of the way I see nothing to help me with the final decision. No candidates banners skewered by charred fence posts, no burning cars with melting bumper stickers, no bolts from the blue. As I near the doors of the school where I vote, a cluster of pamphleteers crests towards me with names and smiles upon their lips, but none displays the Sign of the Beast or anything else that might dissuade me from their candidate. 

In the end, I vote for the man who has the endorsement of local leaders I respect. I vote for Brian Moran. I don’t break a nail or get electrocuted when I pressed the “vote” button, so I guess that’s as good a sign as any. Chagrined, however, I realize that I must also vote for Lieutenant Governor... OK, there’s a Jody Wagner here at the top of the list. Oh well – vote for the woman, right? Yes, my gut tells me so. 

The Nieman Conference: Into Something Rich & Stranger

Originally published: March 23, 2009

Not everyone around me was a seasoned conference attendee. I’m certainly not. And maybe after years of being imbedded in gatherings of journalists, a person forgets to be impressed. For my part, as cool as I tried to be – you can’t really enthuse around journalists as it’s considered gauche unless you’re drinking together - I was mentally slack-jawed, encountering an openness and generosity I hadn’t imagined would fly in such a competitive line of work. This, at a time when the profession is reeling under the forced march of Change or Die. 

A strange thing came of all this. Because of my own dubious entry into the field (practically tripped and fell into it, never paying my dues as a beat reporter, stumbled through the learning of such skills as interviewing while actually interviewing, absorbed my schooling on the job and under the bloodying strokes of an editor’s blue pen) I have generally felt an outsider. I’ve resisted referring to myself as a journalist, always qualifying, not wanting to profess something at which I was so woefully under-pedigreed. But even though the people around me had the experience, had the lingo, the skills, the discipline of the profession, still, I was seated among them. And despite my habitual separateness and lack of regular attachment to a known entity, despite having no office Christmas party to be invited to, suddenly I realized I was one of them. 

The more I talked with people, the more it occurred to me it was time to stop qualifying. A young and gracious magazine editor from Cleveland told me over drinks - after I’d explained my unusual history under his reporter-like inquiry - “You were first published 10 years ago? And you’re still writing for them? I’d say, yeah, you do this.” It was as if, un-solicited, I had been granted a waiver, and awarded unqualified membership. He then offered me invaluable book proposal advice. And I hadn’t even bought him a drink.

At such a conference, speakers and presenters are paid to share their talents. But in every class and session I attended it went beyond that, from Connie Schultz’s keynote address about why journalists shouldn’t turn up their toes just yet, to Tom French bouncing with boyish delight as he illuminated everything from the art of invisibility to the joy of dashing out a spontaneous A-B graph of Slumdog Millionaire (assuring us it can all come down to mapping if you chill out and expand your mind!). 

I heard Adam Hochschild, on the role of suspense in narrative journalism, take us from the Three Little Pigs to the tyrant Leopold, and I watched as June Cross and Callie Crossley delightedly ganged up on Walt Harrington regarding the power of the documentary film producer. Sydney Trent and Maria Carrillo discussed the irreplaceable nature of serials and long-form narrative and the still-fledgling multi-media web links that bring them new dimensions. There is a primal power in story telling that no slapdash blog or disembodied head of a sound-bite could ever replace. 

I am now vibrating with intention and courage – a weird feeling in an era when some are reporting the death rattle of journalism. They’re wrong. Journalism may be operating on deadline, but don’t mistake that for dying. The rattling sound you hear is that of metamorphosis, of kicking back the old and squeezing outward into the new. We know enough about evolution to understand that change is usually good. In fact, change is life. 

Atlas at Last

Originally published: November 20, 2008

Barack Obama was elected just two weeks ago and already the world’s weight – which had been shrugged off eight years ago by a far weaker man - has been hoisted onto his shoulders by the world’s biggest crane - us. 

I can’t help it. I worry. Mightn’t we - like Lenny whose caresses snapped the spines of his beloved rabbits - handicap our hero in our enthusiasm? Obama is no rabbit, but he’s flesh and blood, and oh boy, can we be heavy-handed. If I had the power, I would cast a protective shield around the man – to ward off those who hate him, certainly – but even more so, those who love him too much. There’s nothing like a little post-traumatic delusional hysteria to stoke the fires of our Great Expectations. 

Not one of us doubts that Barack Obama will restore dignity to the White House and that we’ll be invited back to the table where sup the grown-ups of the world. But already, with savage ardor, we press in, weighing him down with our rapturous certainty that he’ll cleanse all that was fouled: the economy, health care, the energy crises, the war, climate change, intolerance, injustice, inanity. He will banish terror and outlaw stupidity, and through his skillful hands and bedside manner, he will nurse the earth and all her peoples back to health. 

Surely after all these years of embarrassment and ruin we’ve earned this! We look into the President-Elect’s face and wonder where he’s been all our lives. We search his eyes and bathe in the serenity, the intelligence and the hope we see there. Climbing into his strong arms as into a lifeboat, we at last close our eyes and sleep for the first time in years, knowing that when we wake, we’ll be refreshed and all will be right with the world. 

It is strangely evangelical - this rebirth of our faith in the system, in the presidency, in him. In fact, I have to suppress the urge to capitalize that “H”. Full disclosure regarding my titular metaphor: in the original mythology, Atlas supported not the earth on his shoulders, but the heavens. Does President Obama then have to assuage the needs of the whole universe? Rationally we know this might imply that he’s more than human, and Barack Obama has shown himself to be one-hundred percent human- magnificently so. But he is the man who started something, an engine deep under the earth of our country, and now we are all rrrevved up, our engines straining, our expectations through the stratosphere. Let’s not crush anything in our haste, or add impossible tasks onto the to-do list of the man who lead us here. Just check the rear-view, and make sure everyone’s safely strapped in. Then we’ll put the pedal to the metal and leave the last eight years in our dust.

The New Rock Stars

Originally published: November 15, 2008

 “OK, Mo – make a path right between the chick in the halter top, and the dreadlock guy.” 

Chet reached his muscled arm past the figure seated on the creamy leather upholstery in front of him, grazing the man’s Versace four-button cuff. Flicking the lock of the limo, he murmured, “Excuse me, sir,” Into his wrist he said, “We’re on the move. Mo, take your position. Do you have his ID? Make sure it scans on the first try – tell the guards to back off this time. I swear, IMF ain’t International Monetary Fund – it’s gotta stand for Interfering Mother Fuckers. Damn, I need a clear entry or we’re gonna get mobbed.” He cast his eye out the rear window, over the head of the man in the rimless glasses for whose safety he was responsible. “Oh, and Vince, we got a weeper. Clear that baggage, and set up the perimeter. Over.”

An enormous man in jeans and a leather jacket stepped out of the following SUV and shoulder-checked the sobbing young woman who was hanging onto the limo’s antennae, causing her to stumble into the crowd. There was a general swaying as the other women absorbed the weight of her, and then surged forward again, calling out things that the man in the backseat couldn’t hear through the bullet-proof glass. He was reading his magazine, and sipping oolong tea from a travel mug. 

Straining to see over the heads of people in front of her, a black-clad law student looked wistfully at the limo’s sleek outline. She turned to her boyfriend. “My dad followed the Dead when he was my age, so I figured, you know, that this is legit. I mean, this guy is so much more fiscally in tune than Jerry ever was”. Her boyfriend nodded. “This guy’s totally neo-Keynesian. He’s a rad thinker who knows his way around the theory and actuality of the markets. Have you heard his latest? The whole stabilizing exchange rates riff? It was like seeing God, man. I mean, he’s an economist’s economist, know what I’m saying?” They clasped hands and crushed forward with the crowd, some of whom were calling out for quotes from the man’s most popular articles.

He went by the name of CredX - to his fans, around the lecture circuit, and on his record label. Of course both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, in interviews he’d given in the Business pages and Weekend Arts respectively, referred to him as Dr. CredX, which he found unnecessarily stuffy. In the New Yorker article he was currently perusing, they had headlined his four-page spread, The XQuisite Dr. Cred. He looked up with a sigh – at least the Leibovitz photos were nice, he thought - and glanced out the window at the women, in particular the one who had slipped past Vince and was pressing her open blouse against the window. A hard-boiled DC cop expertly peeled her off the glass and frog-marched her back into the crowd while the rest of the officers were barely holding back the now shrieking crowd. In a strangled voice, a sergeant radioed for barricades.

Chet took a deep breath before opening the door. Two blond girls were hugging each other and jumping up and down, their cell phones pointing at the limo. A brunette was waving a slip of paper – which Chet assumed had her phone number on it. A thin young woman looked as if she might faint. Not overly threatening, but you never knew with these econ groupies. They could be awfully wily. He put his wrist to his lips.

“This is it. The Professor is moving. Vince, on three.”

He looked at the slight man across from him, at his flash suit and his thinning hair, at his discrete progressive lenses and rain-stained briefcase. This guy was the real deal. It was an honor to protect him.

“Three!” he shouted, as he threw open the door of the limo. Vince loomed up and plowed the way with his big arms while Chet shielded the Economist from any who might approach him from the other side. Camera lights flashed and reporters were surging forward, shouting questions about his game theory models and the new paper that was currently in revisions, and the Italian actress with whom he’d been seen having a late dinner. The crowd went wild, and the shrieking could be heard up and down 19^th Street, from Pennsylvania Avenue to the dorms of George Washington University.

One small Asian woman suddenly darted past Chet and threw her arms around the Economist’s neck, practically toppling him to the ground in her passion. But before Chet could grab her, CredX had gently taken her hands and smiled, calming her with the intensity of his gaze. The crowd hushed. Then he cupped her face in his soft palms and planted a long, soulful kiss full on her lips. Chet barely caught her before she hit the pavement in a dead faint. The crowd then screamed as one and moaned, leaning in, the mixture of perfumes and sweat almost overpowering the men. 

They reached the entrance and were ushered in, the doors shushing behind them with a welcomed finality. CredX was smiling, wiping his lips on a silk handkerchief and straightening his tie before heading for the elevator, to ascend to his windowless office and the formulas and graphs awaiting him on his computer screen.

Outside the crowd, now deflated and abandoned, milled at the doors and peered into the smoky glass, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Economist, or even of one of his associates - perhaps rising stars themselves. The girl he’d kissed was still out cold on the sidewalk.

Then someone yelled, “Oh my God, it’s Ûbersight! He’s back from the summit tour! Look! OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!! There he is!” 

Cars and buses slammed on their brakes as the screaming crowd ran flat out across the street to the World Bank, where a limo, sandwiched between two black Escalades, had just sidled up to the curb, its engines purring.

New Observations at Dawn

Originally published: November 5, 2008

Four years back, creeping young November was all malice and rot. On the third day of that month, a day gray in all its aspects, fallen leaves lay slack on gutters and asphalt, decomposing in a gutless wind amid the litter of summer’s death. 

Today at dawn I walk lightly under a pearly sky, and wonder how I could have been so blind! The leaves at my feet are not dead, but wholly alive in reds and oranges; delicious embers revived by the breath of all who walk this land. They blanket the sidewalk under a maple who has just released her splayed leaves all at once in a giddy exhale. Reflected color bounces off my cheeks, illuminating the air around me as though dappled with gold. The last leaves leap to catch the current and surf the enveloping air. Brave and naked branches stretch against the sky. Glorious November! 

Across the country and the whole world over, people came pouring out into the streets. They sang and danced and embraced. All ages they were, their faces all colors, each amazed, each alight. 

Four years back, my bitterness flowed onto the page, and I apologize with all my heart. Dear Ohio - in truth, our whole magnificent nation – took on a new sweetness as we watched throughout the night. This time, people rose up and came crashing out of their homes. This time fledglings found their voices – and found them to be loud and beautiful! - and we all stood and waited and were cold and drenched and we stayed, we spoke, and raised our hands as one on November 4, 2008. As one.

Four Years back: A Column re-run

Observations at Dawn: November 3, 2004

The wind herds the leaves in pointless circles, stealing the warmth of orange and yellow and depositing brown mummified flesh into the gutters.

Ragged Halloween decorations sway and clatter, grinning skeletons spilling crepe paper innards cleave to lampposts. The sidewalks are slippery with shattered pumpkins, their candles toppled, their faces kicked in.

The sky squints, grey and gloating and old.

Acres of blue-haired ladies clutched their Grand Old sample ballots, looking them over. 

Ranks of Grand Old white men stood with set jaws, eyes front in fear, staying the course.

Seventeen percent in 2000. 

Heaven and earth moved in courtship. They danced and rocked and stroked and promised.

Seventeen percent in 2004. 

Class, what do we learn from this? Hey, are you there? Were you ever there, or did the excitement die once the music stopped. Is it true what the grown-ups say about you, about your attention span and your fickle allegiance? Will you forever let the seventeen percent speak for you? Will you ever really rock and roll?

Where were you? What occupied your time yesterday instead of standing up for yourself?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to stay seated. Not this time.

Rights of marriage. Rights of choice. Rights of uniqueness. No rights left untouched. Back! Back in the closet, down the alley, into the cellar! 

From my Cold, Dead, Hands.

We were so close to home, young and old. Now there are miles to go. 

Ohio. Ohio. Ohio. 

It's Time to Hate My Neighbors. Again.

Originally published: September 1, 2008

I love my neighbors. You couldn’t imagine better ones. They have great kids, a sweet little dog, and a yard that, while well-tended is not so coiffed that it makes our own look unkempt. They are thoughtful, honest people, ready to lend a hand if we should need it. When we chat about child-rearing, education today, our jobs, or our household projects, we’re on the same page. We know many of each other’s sorrows and joys, and although we don’t exactly party together, there is an air of mutual respect that flows back and forth across our common, well-maintained fence. Compassionate and community-minded, they are Good People.

But every four years, there comes a time when I feel I live next door to strangers, when the mere profile of their house seems harsh and unfamiliar and the very roofline frowns unyieldingly. It happens when I remember they’ll once again vote Republican. 

This manages to shock me every time, like a glass of ice water down the back of the neck. How can we agree on so much when our votes agree on so little? For a while this time ‘round, I tried to reconcile my mind – perhaps they are voting not for the self-promoting, condescending, rights-revoking John McCain, but rather the John McCain of The Daily Show, the smart, funny, reasonable McCain with whom Jon Stewart used to banter so enjoyably. But then McCain cast the appalling Sarah Palin in the role of understudy, and still our neighbors remained unwavering. That ended my unilateral concession. Again, as four years ago, and four years before that, they’ll vote to support so much of what I believe is wrong in this country. All I can think of, now that it’s again time to cast our ballots, is how can you - when I like you so much? I must assume – the doctrines of each side being inflexible – that they wonder the same about us. And so the comfortable familiarity that exists between us is swiftly graffitied- over, tagged in red and blue, color-coded to define the differences in our hopes, priorities and beliefs. In non-election years these creeds are able to stay buried in the kind of don’t ask, don’t tell discretion of neighbors who do not discuss politics. When an election is brewing, they surface, like oxygen-starved Orcas.

And I suddenly I find myself annoyed by little things that I normally wouldn’t take notice of: the stodgy placement of their lawn ornaments, the yapping of their dog, their incorrectly sorted recycling. I glare at the long-dead branch of their oak tree whose bleached fingers mar the view from my living room. I close my windows to the vented smell of their dryer sheets. And I begin to hate the torturous whine of the gas-powered blower that, it now seems to me, they run every time we plan to eat outside, or settle down for a quiet read of a book their own candidate for VP would surely consider elitist and profane. These thoughts do not normally occur to me.  What is normal is for me to look warmly at their house as our two families duck back and forth into each others yards at a moments notice. Now, as happens every four years, a partisan magnifying glass is scorching a line of demarcation between us, threatening to set our shared fence ablaze. 

In actuality I have no idea whether this quadrennial estrangement is two sided or not, since we so adeptly avoid talking politics – but for my part, I have a hard time putting it out of my mind. Their smiles and waves still seem genuine, while mine feel hollow as an old cardboard tube. I rant at the newspaper, the radio, the TV with each new outrage perpetrated by the Republican candidates, and assume our neighbors are doing a mirror image routine in their own home, hammering their fists at the Democrats, calling us baby killers and elitists and Muslims and whatever else it is that we are rumored to be. 

My husband, weary of my baffled sputtering as I gesture towards our neighbor’s house, suggested that I talk with them, ask them simply and calmly why they are voting Republican so that I can understand their position and stop guessing as to their reasoning. He argues that the truth of why they vote as they do can’t possibly be worse than my fears. But I am afraid that he might be wrong. I am afraid that my neighbors will tell me about opinions and beliefs that I won’t be able to erase from my mind even when the election is over. I am afraid I will learn, perhaps, that they listen to and believe Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter and their ilk. That would most certainly fall under the heading of things I wouldn’t ever want to know. What if they revealed that they support the teaching of creationism in public schools? What if they believe that George W. Bush was a good president? Feeling this way is bad enough for a few months every four years; I am not anxious to extend it any longer than necessary. For now I still wave, and chat when we meet – about our kids, about our jobs. Neither house has political signs up. I think of it as an unspoken agreement. They don’t even have bumper stickers. Me, I have bumper stickers. Two on each car.

The people on the other side of these neighbors, however, just today put up a McCain/Palin yard sign, Some canvassers for Obama came by my house the other day and asked, almost accusingly, what was up with the house on the corner, and that sign blaring out into the boulevard. I felt guilty, like I wasn’t holding up my part of the bargain here in this Battleground State. My signs were in the mail, I told them, which is true. The gloves are off, I guess.

We are entrenched here in our small street of four houses, where we always play out a miniaturized version of the Big Race. The house on the other side of us, also full of Good People, contains Democrats, so we’re two and two. Because my husband is not a U.S. citizen, we Democrats have been traditionally outnumbered, the adult voter tally three to four. Our neighbor’s oldest son can now vote – which may add to their tally. But the Democratic neighbors have three marvelous daughters who have been steadily coming of age over the last few years, so now it’s 6 – 5, or perhaps 7 – 4, if the oldest son ends up voting democratic. I rejoice quietly. Ha. 

I am looking forward to the end of this election, finding myself exhausted by bouts of outrage, by hope, by the episodic plunges into near-despair. If we win, I suspect my feelings toward my neighbors will be quickly repaired, and I’ll stop dwelling on the differences between us, and think rather on when we might have them over for a drink – the following week maybe. I’ll be feeling magnanimous by then, proffering my hand across the mulchéd aisle between our yards.

And if we lose? This time, it would be a thousand times worse. A million times. It’s one thing to avoid discussing politics with people you like. It’s another to try to forget politics when you find yourself holding those same people eternally responsible as the ground crumbles away, and the world tilts into madness. It would be sad to find that we could no longer wrestle the blame back into the shed to sleep for four more years. Something would be lost.  

So I hope we win – more than ever before. Obama and Biden have restored my hope in many things, including the wish that I can continue to appreciate and love my Good Neighbors, even if I have to hate them for a few months while doing it. 

Grandmaster

Originally published: May 15, 2005

He enters a few minutes late, to applause, and is introduced to the crowd. His eyes quickly roam the cafeteria – not resting on the faces of the people, but taking in the room itself, its dimensions, the storybook paintings on the walls, the utilitarian linoleum floor. It takes him not more than a few seconds, during which time he seems like a novelist or a detective though he looks more like an associate professor in his khakis and gray wool blazer. And really, he is here to teach. He is here to play chess.

Patrick Wolff is an international grandmaster, a rank he achieved at the age of 22. He must be 37 or so now, but looks younger. He is, for the most part, retired from the world of tournament chess, though he writes about chess, maintains a website, and coached Viswanathan Anand who challenged Gary Kasparov for the World Championship in 1995. In front of this group of parents and kids, he is relaxed and funny – in a disarming, chess-geek sort of way.  He is charmingly self-depreciating as he speaks briefly; “Once upon a time, when I used to really play chess…”   

Dominating the room are several mismatched tables that have been arranged in an orderly though patchworked bracket. There are 26 regulation National Chess Center green and white chessboards set up on the battered Formica tops. Waiting on chairs pulled up to the outside edges of the tables are 23 kids and 3 adults. Two of the younger ones are mine, and I have set them up on opposite sides of the bracket – so they don’t see each other’s boards. The kids range in age from about 8 to18 and run the gamut from solid club players to nationally ranked. One, Douglas Stanley is a shooting star at 12, beating just about everyone he goes up against despite the fact that he just started playing chess 1½ year ago. Another, Darwin Li, beat a grandmaster back in June. He was 10. My two boys are 10 and fall into the “solid club players” category. I just want them to be able to leave the room with their heads held high. In this case, the old cliché holds true: it is an honor just to play. 

Wolff begins. With each player he shakes hands, then waits for them to make their opening move (he has agreed to play black on all boards). His own opening is lightning fast and he barely pauses at each board as he makes his way around the inside of the bracket. The last player on the loop is Ruixin Yang of Thomas Jefferson High School, the top rated player in the room next to Wolff. One of his long legs is twanging under the table, though his face looks calm and impassive. 

Wolff makes his second, third, fourth rounds. There has, I’d guess, never been such a concentrated silence in this cafeteria when full of people. A collection of little kids - lower-ranked or siblings of those now playing - move along the tables, mirroring Wolff, watching his face, his hands. These are consistent: the left is in the pocket of his khakis; the right moves the black pieces on the chessboard. Sometimes he pauses for a long time, and not only at the boards of Yang and the other highly ranked players. Sometimes it is at the board of a third or fourth grader. Every opponent is taken seriously.  After each move, a pencil goes up as White records the moves on the provided score sheets – both his or her own, and that of Black - the grandmaster. No matter the outcome, this is a game they’ll want to replay later. The top players have their own well-used pads for recording the games, a thick clump of pages already turned back, used up in previous tournaments.

There are only two girls among the 26: Yang Dai of Louise Archer Elementary in Vienna, Virginia, and Madhu Karamsetty of Lake Anne Elementary in Reston. Our own school has no girls among the top rated players – leaving me to ponder this, as I look at these two, poised and intent.

Ruixin Yang, tall and lanky with the requisite teenage slouch, ambles over to his coach between moves and takes the dinner the shorter man wordlessly offers him. Back at his seat, he peels back the foil from the sandwich and chows down in a relaxed way as Wolff approaches.  Yang looks into the distance and coolly takes a swig of orange soda as Wolff makes his move – but the young eyes slide sideways and watch. As soon as Wolff walks away across the linoleum to begin the circuit again, the soda can is replaced on the desk and Yang studies the board, head in hand, face hidden, leg twanging again.

More rounds. There is the occasional soft clicking of plastic as one piece captures another, consigning it to sit out the rest of the match sidelined on the tabletop. Wolff frowns, smooth brow drawn downward, wire glasses reflecting the board. He nods slightly after his opponent’s move, bottom lip thrust forward slightly. 

An hour into it and no one’s out yet. More pieces are beginning to fall, though – knights and bishops. One queen. Then another. After the kids move their pieces – they must wait until Wolff arrives at their board to do so - many of the younger ones look up into his face, studying it for something; a reaction, a hint. Does he approve of their move, or did they just expose their youth, their weakness, their jugular? They are so used to looking at adults for approval – but Wolff treats them as equals this evening and does not give away his opinions.

Some kids – again the younger ones – have a cocky manner when taking his pieces. I happened to be standing behind my son Julian when Wolff moved in front of his board. I realized that Julian was practically quivering with excitement. He moved his queen in front of Wolff’s king and said in a would-be casual voice, “Checkmate,” and looked up at him. Wolff, just as casually, gently even, said, “It’s not checkmate. ” and took Julian’s queen with the bishop that had been lying in wait across the board. To his credit, Julian did not roll up into a ball and die on the spot. Instead he wrote down the moves and stared at the board, pink-cheeked but upright. 

More carnage, emptier boards, some kids out. Wolff’s only physical adaptation was to remove his hands from his pockets and place them on his hips. His eyes see the board as a fluid whole. Sometimes, with the more experienced players, there is a quick, bloody skirmish where instead of the one move per turn, the two engage in 4 or 6 in quick succession, and the dead litter the table. Smoke rises from the board as Wolff moves on to the next.

It’s fast now. My own kids are out, all the adults are out, and some kids remain only because they don’t concede the game when they should. With experience, they’ll know, and won’t make a grandmaster hash it out until the bitter end. 

Yang’s battle ends in a draw. At one point, Wolff offers Yang Dai a draw – which she politely declines. But Douglas Stanley, the 12-year-old, who began with the very unconventional opening of a maverick, wins his game against the grandmaster. It is quietly done, and the two shake hands. Most of the room is unaware it has even happened until later. 

Finally all that’s left are four – and the two girls are still in it. One of them, Madhu Karamsetty, has lost but fights on until the end, her glossy black braids brushing her squared shoulders. Atul Kannan hangs in a while longer but falls too, as does Darwin Li. Finally, Yang Dai is all that’s left. Wolff lets out a muffled whoop and grabs a chair, sitting opposite her with evident relief – he’s been circling the tables without rest for more than 3 hours by this point. 

Within 10 minutes he has won, and then immediately asks her name (the printed name cards only have the first initial and surname). She tells him in not more than a whisper, and he begins to speak to her quietly, just to her, though there are many parents and kids leaning in.

“First of all, I want to say that you played very well. And also that I know you’re kicking yourself right now for not accepting my offer of a draw earlier. But I want to tell you that you were right not to accept it. You had the stronger position. You were right.” She nods and looks at him through her glasses.

“Now, let me show you something.” And he proceeds to set up the board as it was at the moment of the offered draw, and lead her through what she might have done to save the situation. Softly, gently - a teacher in his element. 

It was 10:30 PM. The janitors were waiting curiously but patiently to put away the tables and chairs for the following school day when the cafeteria would again be full of noisy chaos befitting an elementary school. Parents moved as one to put away boards and pack up pieces, stack chairs and shift tables. Wolff  hurriedly signed a couple of copies of his book for an adult participant, then headed out quickly, calling over his shoulder with a wave to Mark Ryan, the organizer of the exhibition event: “Ok, this was great - see you next year!” and he was gone.

Mark smiled at us. “Did you hear that? ‘See you next year!’ He shook his head. “What a great guy”.

Some of the Whole

Originally published: April 26,  2005

Part 2 of “It’s in the Holiday Mail”

I had been in California for the holidays, and when I returned, they were all waiting for me. Some were in large stiff photo mailers, some in plain envelopes. One was even stuffed in my suitcase, cradled in newspaper, shrouded in a bag. The Body Parts had arrived right on schedule.

I carefully opened the envelopes –all postmarked California - and spread their innards across my workspace. I eased the charcoals and oil pastels from between their waxed paper sheets. There was a pair of feet - with ankles intact, a woman’s thighs with partial pubic area, a posterior view of a trachea complete with thyroid cartilage ripped from a medical textbook, a self-portrait of Picasso, a pair of eyes, a whimsical sketch in ballpoint pen of what might have been a penis – or a section of esophagus or fallopian tube – or perhaps a finger...? There were two colorful pastels, similarly tube-like, and, oddly, thirteen female breasts – eleven in the mail and a pair that had arrived via e-mail. The Parts lay on the table with the prose-wrapped, spike-holding mannequin hand, and the left hand of my Papier Maché man, which I’d salvaged at the last moment, wanting in the end, some small memento of him. For several days I left the Parts lying there, looking them over occasionally, moving them around, admiring them. I noted the range between the sensuous and the cooly clinical. I admit my first thought was, wow, what a lot of breasts! That thought was followed by a quiet acknowledgement that these were some very talented people and that my man’s spindly papier maché hand looked cold and dead compared to the warmth of the yellow-blue torso next to it. 

There are some of us – and I’m guessing this is true of my fellow Body Parts recipients – who use art in order to interpret the world. I am not an artist - if I compare myself honestly to the artists I know. I have always felt that a true artist must be fearless or insane or at the very least condemned to view the world from the angle of a different plane. I know a couple of people like that – which is how I know I am not. My schooling in art, (and my subsequent degree in the subject) was particularly valuable because it taught me this truth early on. I am a member of the legion who struggle daily with what art is, and where they fall in the scope of it.  We engage in art, often in the vacuum of our own tiny workrooms, simply because we have to. We lack perhaps the panoramic visions of the great, but we see things with the eyes of Everyman, and translate what we observe into a medium that suits us. And so we go about our lives, knowing with certainty that if we didn’t have this outlet, we’d be in some way disabled. The Body Parts project united eleven of us, allowing us to share our secret stashes, to dismember and disseminate, spreading our Parts to others, others who would see the value of them, the beauty, and unavoidably, the humor. This wasn’t really a “sociopath’s chain letter” after all, but instead the romantic correspondence of sudden and fantastically intimate pen pals. 

Very quickly, the Parts became precious to me– I didn’t want to rip and tear as I had originally thought I might do. I wanted to respect their integrity, to preserve them. I sprayed the pastels and charcoals with fixative and trimmed the ragged edges off the sketches, mounting them all on acid-free mat board. The little penis /esophagus/ fallopian tube/perhaps-a-finger pen drawing had arrived on a post card, without benefit of an envelope, and was sadly crumpled. I flattened it under an anatomy book. Slowly I added my own touches, applying color to some, and ripping just one - the reproduction Picasso self portrait - just to play with the Picassoness of it. The ideas for assembling these Parts into a whole came more easily as each became more familiar.

I still had one intact section of the ladder my papier maché man had been built on. It had an alter-like shape I felt was appropriate to hold these Body Parts, and it fit with my desire to archive rather than maim. I installed my man’s hand above the top step, and fanned out a stack of small purple breasts like playing cards between his thumb and forefinger. The mannequin hand went on the lower step, the spike driving toward a pair of dark, ample breasts. The matted oil pastels and charcoals were nailed or pasted on, including some text from the artists, such as, “This should be a fun project, Holiday Body Parts Exchange, just like cookies or toys!” 

The final presentation of the Body Parts project was on January 5th in Palo Alto, California, only a mile or so from where I grew up. Having just been there for the holidays, I couldn’t very well justify going back for one night of art, so I e-mailed digital photos to Parts Master Linda. The piece looked like fused fall-out from an explosion of drawing pads. That I liked the result was merely a perk - I had enjoyed the process so much that the finished product was secondary. It made me feel part of a community and that was enough. 

A few days later, Linda sent me images of the final night. For the most part, people were careful – almost reverential - with each other’s Parts. One person had attached the Parts to a cylindrical lamp with black photo corners, so that the light glowed through each drawing - my man’s foot dangling below. But the project was not without pain for some: one wrote, “ I am afraid of my body parts wearing out before I am done with them... it is hard not to see only death.” He’d arranged the Parts behind a long list of fears and disappointments regarding his own body: skin cancer, plantar fasciatis, spare tire, hammer toes, crow’s feet... A prescription bottle was band-aided to the bottom of the list. Still others struggled with taming the endless possibilities of the project. The day before the final presentation, I’d gotten this e-mail from Part Master Linda: 

  “I've done two collages and taken them apart, and now have all the pieces (except yours) stuffed in a jar.  Know the title is about manna and woke up this AM thinking they all needed to be attached to strings hanging from the ceiling in a "wall".  I still have through tonight to get this together...”

Seeing my man’s parts incorporated into the other’s projects was strange. Magically, ugliness and proportion no longer mattered - a severed leg has nothing to relate to except itself. The sheer size and weight of his parts had them acting as anchors or foundations for the two-dimensional, most often, as Linda had envisioned, hanging from a string. Scattered about that room, 2,500 miles away from where he’d started his existence as an ungainly duckling, it was clear that his reincarnation had given him a gravitas he’d never enjoyed until I took the hacksaw to him. Clearly, his new beginnings allowed him to thrive in a way that had escaped me – and that, too, was enough. 

Lemon Red

Originally published: April 22, 2005

Fed up with his troublesome 1994 Chrysler LeBaron, a Florida man fired five rounds from a semi-automatic pistol into the hood.

"I'm putting my car out of its misery," John McGivney, 64, said after the incident outside an apartment building in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, according to a police report that listed the car as "deceased".

McGivney surrendered to police, was jailed on a firearms charge last Friday and released on bond a day later. He told them the car had been giving him trouble for years.

"I think every guy in the universe has wanted to do it," the South Florida Sun-Sentinel quoted McGivney as saying. "It was worth every damn minute in that jail."

                                                                                                                            Reuters

I felt for the man, I really did. It brought back to me the acrid smoke of roasting metal and plastic, a noxious, non-organic burning reek accompanied by the soft, rhythmic sound of bubbling radiator seepage. It also brought back a murderous rage, a desire for revenge, an overwhelming impotence. In our case, the particular candidate for euthanasia was an anemic red money pit with four doors and a crappy attitude. In all fairness, it was a used vehicle, purchased in Bogotá, Colombia. Bogotá is notoriously hard on cars – apparently particularly so on this 1986 Renault 9. As I drive my almost laughably reliable car today, 16 years later, I wonder where the old Renault Naught is now. I would like to imagine that it is enjoying its eternal rest. I’d like to, but I am just as certain the pathetic thing is still coughing around the streets of Bogotá, its fourth-hand parts cobbled together with exhaust soot, glue, and surplus duct tape, its insolent refusal to die driving its tenth owner to the brink of insanity. 

Living in a new country (new to me, at least – Adolfo is Colombian and was well schooled already) affords one many lessons about the ways of the world. Any residual innocence infecting me was quickly cured. Here are some excerpts from what I called my Running Letters – about life in Bogotá during those years. We were just married, and quite without money – Adolfo was still in the midst of Graduate school, and I had just left a modestly paid job as a jeweler’s apprentice. By comparison, life was cheap in Colombia – but salaries were low and inflation was high. It amuses me now to read back, to see how green I was - and to note how quickly my blood pressure rises again, as if for the first time…

Bogotá, Colombia, early March 1989

“Buying this car here made us aware of one thing: car dealers are the same all over the world. Not only do they all wear the same suit, the same tie, use the same hair-pomade and cologne, they all have the same evil boss who won't let them give you the discount they'd really like to, (but he'll ask, just for you...) and the same already "rock-bottom" prices that can't possibly be lowered any farther. Do you know what we paid for this baby? Do you realize how much work we put into her? Do you know what other car dealers would charge for a fine machine like this one? You'd be, well, a fool not to take it! If you walk out of here today, tomorrow it'll be gone. A car like this? Do you know we've already had three offers on this beauty this morning alone? And for over the sticker price, too! But you seem like such a fine, young couple we wanted you to see it first, and after all, we've done business with your family for so many years... What's your dear mother's name?...And how do you spell that?... 'Robert' in San Jose, CA. and 'Roberto' in Bogotá, Colombia. I'm beginning to think it's the same guy. At any rate we finally got the best terms we could and shook hands, accepting a rather scary monthly payment plan. It's a good car, in excellent shape, which will retain its value. We will be able to sell it for almost what we paid. This is probably the only place in the world where used cars go up in value each year. They are very, very costly, as much as three times the cost of cars in the U.S. Here, since the value goes up, cars are bought as an investment. Driving this 'investment' around the streets of Bogotá is a lot like hiding your jewelry in a shoe-box, placing it out by the trash and hoping the garbage men don't take it away. 

(Reading back, the part I like best is where I said, “ It’s a good car, in excellent shape, which will retain its value.” God, I was hilarious back then!) 

March 20, 1989

Less than two weeks and the damn battery dies. 3.5 million pesos plus financing. In the middle of Semana Santa, a weeklong Easter holiday. Parked at the bottom of a very steeply inclined driveway. The image that keeps coming into my head is that of the oily salesman telling us that the car had been completamente gone over and made absolutamente  perfect for us. In fact, the Renault was so perfect that he could never seem to find words wonderful enough for it, and each time he wanted to enthuse over the car, he had to resort to nonverbal means of communicating his excitement. "This car is… is..." and his black eyes would brim with tears of joy and insuppressible fervor as his mouth worked to find words rapturous enough to express its beauty. Finally, in a reverent gesture, he would raise his hand, the first two fingers touching his thumb and the ring finger and pinkie raised, and then bring the hand down in front of him in a fast, straight line from his forehead to his chest. He would sigh happily and his moist eyes would seek ours, to see if we understood the depth of his suffering and his sacrifices in getting this car ready for us, that in this world of thieves and cheaters, here was one man who was, well...(put your fingers together and bring them down in a straight line in front of you from your forehead to your chest.) Yes, Josue was one in a million. 3.5 million to be exact. 

March 4

        Semana Santa is the longest week of the year, especially since there's no mail delivery all week, no newspaper for several days, very few stores open, and no mechanics on duty. Yes, our car is still having problems despite the fact that it was supposedly "fixed" at our dealer. Yesterday we'd planned to take a beautiful drive together, just the two of us, to the ancient town of Villa de Leyva. It was to be our first escape from the city since we arrived here 21/2 months ago. We got all our cameras together, extra film, and extra clothes, and headed happily down to our newly "fixed" car. We threw the things into the back, hopped in and Adolfo confidently put the key in the ignition and turned it. Grrr,urrr, uuurrrr, uuuhhhh, click. And again. Rahr, rahr, rr..rr..cliickk. And finally, rr..r..uh...u... click. A fine repair job. Lasted a day and a half. We stormed past the poor doorman who was still holding the garage door open for us, although he knew as well as we that the car was going nowhere that day, and up to the apartment to call dear, reliable Carlos Mejia. The uninterested voice of the watchman informed us that Sr. Mejia was away for the rest of Semana Santa. Swell. Adolfo went down to get our things from our car. On a whim he put the key in and tried it. Like something rising from the dead, it started up immediately. We stared at it in wonder and began to think there was something to this Semana Santa stuff after all, what with things coming back to life and all...

We haven't tried the car yet today. I assume that the miracle has passed and that we have once again a common car with no special powers. We are looking forward to biting Mejia's head off its scrawny little neck regardless. Yep, Semana Santa is a looong week if you have nowhere to go.

Monday March 27 

        Sometimes people are born with clouds over their heads. Bad things happen to them and life in general just doesn't seem to work out smoothly. Some cars are made with the same inherent tendency towards disaster. Our ill-fated Renault 9 is such a car. At 7am this morning, the first working day after Semana Santa, finally it was well and truly dead. During the preceding week it had limped along in a strange fashion, rolling over in the morning and coming grudgingly to life after an initial ominous 'click' that sounded hopeless. Today there were no such miracles. It groaned, sighed, clicked and wheezed, and gave up without ever turning over. I was forced to miss teaching my English class altogether, and Adolfo and I stormed righteously back upstairs to call Carlos Mejia. He's never in before nine, and having to wait another hour and a half, we were forced to sit and have our usual cafe-con-leche and bread, all the while cursing Mejia, his ancestors, and his forefathers as the crumbs sprayed from our mouths with the force of our insults. We called Mejia. No answer. We waited. We called Mejia again. Finally we caught up with him. He said he'd talk to the mechanic and call back. When he finally did, Mejia said we were to go to Megautos, (the dealership) and pick up the mechanic because it was too difficult for him to get to our apartment himself, poor thing. Furiously we drove my mother-in-law Fanny’s car to Megautos, which is not particularly close by and stormed in to find Mejia. He was waiting at his desk, looking small and gentle, his eyes bearing a pained, martyred expression. He stood, shook our hands and without letting us speak one word, said that the mechanic would crawl over every inch of the car and put it right. He admitted nothing and denied nothing. He just smiled sadly at us with the expression of an unappreciated parent. We sighed and got back into the borrowed car, our anger still glowing but expertly diffused. The mechanic climbed in back with his jumper cables and off we went. 

        Back at the apartment we drove down the steep driveway and nosed in towards the red Renault 9. The doorman, the mechanic, and I pushed the dead weight of the car back until the cables could reach. The jump did the trick and soon the poor red car was humming away. We handed the mechanic the papers and watched him drive away back to Megautos. At least this time they would fix it for sure. 

        Half an hour later Mejia called Adolfo. As the mechanic was driving back, a drunk in a jeep had crashed into the Renault, caving in the right side and the back passenger door. Mejia was racing around filing the correct insurance papers and getting the police record straight. When Adolfo called and told me, we almost started laughing. It was just the crowning touch. We're still in the middle of the situation, so as they say, more as the story develops.

 March 28

        The car started up this morning like a dream, but I got my first look at the damage. Apparently the drunk was turning right, totally misjudged the distance, and in his soggy, benumbed brain thought he was going in front of, or behind the Renault. What he did instead, of course, was to careen directly into it.  Excellent hand-eye-foot coordination, apparently enhanced by the tremendous quantity of Aquardiente or rum or paint thinner he'd been guzzling. Most of the damage was done with the oversized jeep tires. The door is now a neat convex shape, with a nice appliqué of light-blue jeep paint streaked across the chipped red enamel in what could be considered a dramatic and compelling statement of individuality. The rubber guard strip that once ran the length of each side of the car has been peeled up and it curls backwards over itself like a Husky's tail. 

To add to the injury, it turns out that we have to do all the insurance-related running around ourselves. Mejia, apart from giving us the proper names and papers, is suddenly helpless as far as legwork goes. It's up to us now, although we weren't even in the car when it happened. When Adolfo angrily pointed all this out to Mejia, his rather terse defensive answer was, "But you could have been!"  Not up to his usual high standards of slipperiness. They argued for half an hour before Adolfo gave up and angrily turned to go. Mejia seems very determined that we have a good feeling about him; that we like him. (I am reminded of Buck Henry in "Catch 22" when he grins broadly at a morally crushed and paranoid Yossarian (Alan Arkin), and says, "All you have to do is like us!  Be our pal!") Mejia has said many times that the dealership is very concerned with service, that he doesn't want us to drive by his store six months from now and say, "There's that jerk who sold us this pile of junk!" 

One guess what it was we said each time we drove past his store. And “Jerk” was not our word of choice. Our next fun with the Renault came soon thereafter: 

Adolfo and I had been talking about the necessity of getting the car tuned and checked out. It had a strange sporadic clutch problem, and we once had gone to put water in it, and found it bone-dry, which we found odd. So we'd decided on taking it in to a garage just as soon as we had the time and pesos to do it with. 

The lunch-hour traffic was horrendous, and we crept and crawled up the streets, heading northeast. It had been raining earlier, and the pavement was still wet and the cars were all steaming a bit as the moisture evaporated from their surfaces. At one light, I noticed with slight interest that the car in front of us seemed to be letting off quite a lot of smoke, and that it smelled like burning oil.  Hmph, I thought. What a fool to drive his car in that condition. The light turned green, and then red again, leaving us at the head of the line of traffic. I thought, how strange; the smoke from that other car is still lingering in front of our car... then I came to realize that the smoke and steam and smell were coming from under our own hood. We continued edging our way through traffic, hoping to see a gas station at each block. At the next light, a bored taxi driver leaned out his window and gazed dully at the smoke-screen we'd created, and said something to the effect of, "Ya know, ya got a lot o' smoke there, buddy." I stared at him, marveling at his perceptiveness, when at that moment we spotted a parking space on the left, and we pulled in and switched the damn thing off.

Adolfo lifted the hood and the steam came bellowing up like smoke from a barbecue. Adolfo used the nearby public phone to call Fanny and ask her to call her mechanic. She called back directly and said she'd called Carlos Mejia and he was sending a tow-truck. We waited what seemed like hours, and were about to call Mejia, when a tiny little jeep pulled up behind us, and a mechanic got out and walked toward us. He shook our hands and then peered into the depths of the smelly engine. After a few tests, he said it was a good thing we stopped when we did, that if we'd driven any farther, we might have done some real and costly damage. As it was, he said we'd tow it back to the garage and check it out. Adolfo got in, and steered as we pushed the car back into the street. Then the assistant backed this little jeep up to the front of our rather big Renault 9, and proceeded to hook it up to a tiny little tow bar, supporting it with two blocks of wood while Adolfo still sat inside, peering over the hood. When the mechanic was satisfied with the hook-up, he gave a nod to the assistant, and the mighty little crane raised up the front of our Goliath. I was giggling as I watched Adolfo's eyes widen as he felt the front wheels leave the ground. I stopped giggling when the mechanic busily signaled me to climb in, too. 

It's an odd feeling to be reclined at a 30-degree angle, in a constant state of tailgating, as only the rear wheels take the impact of the various potholes and dips the make up the streets of Bogotá. Adolfo found it disconcerting to look out the rear-view mirror only to see pavement rushing by. It was actually a lot of fun, despite the fact that the driver of the tow-truck seemed determined to lose us. This guy was passing other cars! And, like all drivers in Bogotá, ran yellow-red lights. It did occur to me that we would be the ones stuck in the intersection when the cross-traffic started up. 

That afternoon, Adolfo called to say that it was indeed the radiator, and the car wouldn't be ready until the next afternoon. 

That night, I walked up four blocks from work and grabbed a taxi. It cost about 280 pesos to get home, about .60 cents. If one didn't take one's life into one's hands with every taxi ride, I'd say dump the car and flag a taxi every day. (It would take twelve thousand five hundred taxi rides to equal the sticker price of that car. That doesn't include the 40% financing costs, the gas, the repairs...)

Conspiring with the internal turmoil of this car, were the dark forces of the city itself. One does not come unscathed from the streets of Bogotá. Each day Adolfo drove from his job at the central bank downtown to pick me up from work halfway across town. Each day sucked another sparkplug of life from the Renault. Bumper cars. That was Bogotá. Especially the day Colombia qualified for the World Cup:

Adolfo had been caught in one of the worst jams in the city, and had been completely trapped. Some drunk had rear-ended him, and had taken off, leaving us with a cracked taillight. The city had gone from celebration to mayhem in the last six hours. In addition to that, Fanny had scraped the side of the car when trying to park it earlier. This is a truly battle-scarred automobile. 

Slipping finally into full-blown paranoia, I began to suspect malevolence on the part of the Renault. 

One's life begins to seem terribly narrow and predictable when most of the major events revolve around one's automobile. But it is true that our lives for the last two weeks have centered around and depended on this car of ours, this well-over $10,000 piece of red scrap iron. 

 In all fairness, many of the catastrophes were not the direct fault of the car; Rationally I am aware that these accidents were a result of misfortune rather than mischief on the car's part, but I suspect that the Renault has a wicked inclination to get itself into these situations. It chooses the wrong route at the wrong time, it provokes other cars into hitting it, it distracts the driver with strange, new, and worrisome noises, and it periodically disconnects it's own warning lights, so that when some terrible problem is in progress, the last one to be informed is the driver, and then only because his engine is on fire.

 Admittedly, Bogotá road conditions destroy tires, axles, and shocks at an astonishing rate, the altitude dries up fluids and make gasoline less effective, and the insanity of the drivers here means that the only unblemished cars in the city are the ones that are never taken out of the garage. 

But our car had been having new problems every day. The over-heating, that horrible boiling under the hood, seems to have been caused by the idiot mechanic who fixed the radiator. He had simply not reconnected the fan correctly, and consequently we were driving around without a cooling system. The electrical engineer at Fanny's store, a nice and sensible man by the name of Héctor, had determined the problem and fixed it in about three seconds. He also fixed a disturbing difficulty that had developed with the lock on the front passenger door (mine). One day, it wouldn't open. It remained locked although the button, (which had broken within days of signing the final papers on the car) was up. Well, after several day of battling each time I wanted to extricate myself from the car, we mentioned the trouble to Héctor. He grabbed some screwdrivers, and all 5' 3" of him marched out to tackle the problem. He basically took the door apart, and righted the twisted-up rubber window guide that had been the cause of it all, then quickly reassembled the door. It took him no more than an hour. 

It was becoming more and more evident that we needed a major tune-up. This is a four-speed car that was straining so hard at high speeds that it sounded like it desperately wanted to give birth to a fifth gear. It was a deafening, nerve-shattering sound that we had to endure each time we hit the highway. 

Finally, when we felt we could afford it, and when we thought we could be without the car for a day, we took it to Fanny's mechanic, José Aldana. The next day it sounded like a new car. We were amazed to discover that it actually had power. Based on Aldana's performance, and on his low estimate, we entrusted him with the job of fixing the dented door and the smashed grill (we’d long since given up on Carlos Mejia fixing the damage his inept mechanic had caused) 

The next night, Adolfo picked me up in a car that looked like leprosy had struck. The dents and nicks were fixed but unpainted, so the right rear door was patched in a sickly gray color. But at least we were on our way. All that was needed now was the paint and the grill. 

The next day, Adolfo and I met for lunch. Afterwards, I still had about half an hour before I had to return to work, so I picked up my things from the car, said good-bye to Adolfo and walked off towards the post office to mail a few items. Half way down the block, from behind me, I heard the crunching sound of buckling metal. This isn't a terribly uncommon sound in this city, but I glanced back in mild curiosity. Then I saw our car pulling back into the parking space where it had been, disengaging it's rear-end from the side of a Fiat. 

I ran back to where a crowd of people had already gathered. First I saw the woman leap out of the Fiat and begin screaming at Adolfo, who had also gotten out. Then I saw our entire bumper lying on the ground, then I saw the crunched in side of the Fiat behind the driver's door. The woman was abusively telling Adolfo he hadn't looked and had just creamed into her, and Adolfo was trying to explain to her that he did look, but that she had seemed to come out of nowhere, and on the wrong side of the street to boot. Her brilliant and nonsensical comment had been, "How do you go the wrong way on a two-way street?!" This kind of logic leads me to understand why there are so many accidents here...  

As is common in Bogotá, delivery trucks tend to just park wherever suits them, and on this day, one was blocking the northbound lane of the narrow street. Adolfo began backing out slowly, looking first left, then right. Having determined that it was clear, he pulled out at a normal cautious speed into his lane. Now, the woman in the Fiat had pulled out a few cars down from Adolfo, who could not have seen that because yet another truck was obscuring the view on that side. She pulled out, then headed into the wrong lane in order to avoid the parked truck. So, when she came barreling past Adolfo, she was actually going the wrong way, and I say 'barreling' because she literally ripped our bumper right off. Adolfo had not been expecting anyone to be on the wrong side of the street, and so had not seen her as she sped up behind him.

As the unpleasantries flew, finally a traffic cop came up and took both drivers aside and talked to them. It was decided that we would deal with it on our own, as the legal system here regarding this kind of minor thing is a nightmare. The cop had implied it would all turn out to be Adolfo fault since by law here, the person who does the backing into is at fault, whether the other person was on the wrong side of the road or not. 

Once the woman realized we were going to pay for the damage to her car, she became all smiles and condolences, agreeing that it really was the fault of the street conditions. We exchanged all relevant information under the wise, watchful eyes of the police officer, and then drove off with the bumper wedged into the back seat. 

The next day, good old Héctor fixed the twisted bumper and replaced it on the car, making it look better than it had before. We called Aldana and explained the situation to him, and he agreed to fix the Fiat. The following week, he repaired her car, and painted ours. I've missed three classes and delayed my pay check due to lack of car, paid for taxis five times, and we've been hit with bills for not just our car, but for the Fiat. We'd finally pulled ourselves out of a financial hole and were actually saving some money, and now we're back where we started. Charming. 

That was the last I wrote about the old car. When it was time to return to the US at the end of 1992, I went on ahead to start work in California. Adolfo was left to sell off our stuff, including the Renault. It is true that cars do hold onto their value much better in Colombia than they do in the US, and we were counting on a good price. But even in parting with the little succubus we had a nasty surprise. The prospective buyer gently informed us that upon inspection, his mechanic had determined the car was not the model we’d been led to believe – the model number affixed on the back of the trunk was never manufactured in the year our Renault was spawned. It was, in fact, a less powerful, less expensive model than what we’d believed we’d purchased. The long, nimble arm of Mejia had even gone so far as to sand off the real number on the engine. Adolfo was forced to take a rather sizable drop in price.

So I understand the man who shot his car. I feel his pain. I consider myself a pacifist, and advocate the total control of firearms, but I know to the depths of my now jaded and stony heart that if I’d had access to a gun back then, I would have drilled that red tin devil right between the headlights.

It's in the Holiday Mail

Originally Published: December 18, 2004

So there I was, crouched low over the rug, dismembering a body with a hacksaw.

That’s not a line one gets to write very often in non-fiction. I can’t even remember the last time I got to write such a colorful sentence. You really have to know the right people to get to write something like that.

But the truth is, before you earn the writing of such a sentence, you’re faced with the actual dismembering itself. I like to find something to help take my mind off the sheer drudgery of the task. For me, audiobooks are the answer. Listening to Al Franken read his, “Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” made the hacking and sawing more enjoyable – not that it wasn’t already. Hearing the transparent anti-truths of the pundits and politicians Al lambastes, gave me a soothing, almost transcendental rage that helped the hacksaw move very smartly through the dense material at hand. By the time the kids got home from school, my tricep was exhausted and the room was strewn with body parts. I was almost done, except for the especially troubling thorax, so I left the midsection propped in a corner with the saw in its sternum. Man, was that floor a mess!

The interesting part, of course, will be mailing these bits and pieces – ten in all – to the people on my holiday list. This is likely to be fairly expensive. The body as a whole was no featherweight, and the exploded diagram version certainly adds up to the sum of its parts – minus a few less attractive scraps and oddments that I already disposed of.  Then, I’ll have to rustle up sturdy boxes for each piece, not to mention the Ziploc Double-Guard gallon-sized plastic bags (The best for freezing meat! Actually says so on the box!). As with any fun but messy project, it’s the sorting out and cleaning-up that’s the real pain in the neck. 

You’re wondering why I did it. Truth be told, I just never liked him. He was stiff and awkward, and, well, to be blunt, ugly. Plus he didn’t photograph well, which really bothered me. His penis was so small that people actually pointed and laughed. I know they did. I heard them. But it was true. And when I finally made the length-wise cut through the torso, the little thing actually just detached – came right off in my hand!

So with a little nip and tuck, I turned him into a woman, and I like her so much better now! When I mail her out to those people next week, they won’t have any reason to laugh. Not anymore.

Did I mention all the blood and viscera? Ok, obviously there was no blood and no viscera, this body having been made out of papier maché - although frankly, it didn’t make sawing through it any less disturbing – it might as well have been actual flesh and bone. I made the sculpture in late 2001, the inadequate body proportions perhaps reflecting my feelings for the newly installed squatter administration. But reflection or not, it was a terrible piece, and it deserved to be drawn and quartered – or in this case, tenthed, as the parts are destined to be mailed to 10 other lonely hearts artists like me. They in turn will mail me back one body part each - like some sort of sociopath’s chain letter. Then, after the holidays, each of us is to stitch together his or her own Frankenstein to share with the others in a collective kill-and-tell session.  This project is the brainchild of my friend Linda Corbett, an artist and teacher in California. The participants, all unknown to me, are her life-drawing students. As far as I know, I’m the only one mailing three-dimensionally. I do like to stand out in a crowd.

One week later

After dumpster-diving for flattened boxes behind a small but upscale McLean strip mall, I scored and folded and sliced with my standard-issue box-cutter until I had ten boxes the right size for each of the body parts. They ranged from about 10” square to 12” x 18”, depending on whether there were limbs involved and how much had remained intact after the hacksaw faze. I’d been hoarding packing material for some time in my basement, and so had plenty with which to cushion the stumps and protuberances.  In a little paper insert I mailed with each box, I told the recipients, 

“This body part is made of papier maché, and so can easily be drilled, cut with a saw, painted, gouged or altered in any way quite easily. Have fun!”

I loaded the ten boxes into my hatchback yesterday morning. The small Arlington post office was packed with holiday customers, most clutching a single package, or a stack of Christmas cards needing festive holiday stamps. When I began to unload the boxes into the post office lobby, a series of cheery, polite people opened the door for me with each armload I brought across the parking lot. When I next had to move the huge pile into the room where the line formed, a young, smiling woman held the door open for the entire load. I stacked the large boxes in a corner before getting behind her in line.  I had caused a bit of a stir in the cramped room, but I accepted the grins and nods with good humor. It was clear from their jovial faces that these people thought I was full to over flowing with the spirit of Christmas. All those big packages! She must have so many loved ones! Such generosity! Guess nothing’s too good for her family ‘cause that’s gonna set her back a pretty penny!

 And it did – around $67.00 total for parcel post, no tracking, no insurance. But in the grand scheme of things, I consider it money well spent. Compared to what a lot of people in my situation go through, I disposed of the body pretty easily - and I’d thought that disproportioned little millstone would be hanging around my neck forever! 

I like to think that by dismembering him and scattering his parts I have not only removed a source of irritation to me, but have encouraged him (her!) to find new beginnings, to do in pieces what was never accomplished as a whole. I admit, too that I like the thought of the recipients faces as they open the boxes right before the holidays... 

As I waited in line, a jolly older gentleman passed by who had just finished his transaction at the counter. He smiled as he passed me, and glanced at my many boxes. 

 “That’s quite a Christmas someone’s gonna have!” he said with a wink.

I smiled warmly back at him. Mister, you have no idea.   

In this holiday season, it’s so nice to know that I can put cheer in someone’s heart, even if they’re making false assumptions about me. It’s the thought that counts.

Observations at Dawn

Originally Published: November 3, 2004

The wind herds the leaves in pointless circles, stealing the warmth of orange and yellow and depositing brown mummified flesh into the gutters.

Ragged Halloween decorations sway and clatter, grinning skeletons spilling crepe paper innards cleave to lampposts. The sidewalks are slippery with shattered pumpkins, their candles toppled, their faces kicked in.

The sky squints, grey and gloating and old.

Acres of blue-haired ladies clutched their Grand Old sample ballots, looking them over.

Ranks of Grand Old white men stood with set jaws, eyes front in fear, staying the course.

Seventeen percent in 2000. 

Heaven and earth moved in courtship. They danced and rocked and stroked and promised.

Seventeen percent in 2004. 

Class, what do we learn from this? Hey, are you there? Were you ever there, or did the excitement die once the music stopped. Is it true what the grown-ups say about you, about your attention span and your fickle allegiance? Will you forever let the seventeen percent speak for you? Will you ever really rock and roll?

Where were you? What occupied your time yesterday instead of standing up for yourself?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to stay seated. Not this time.

Rights of marriage. Rights of choice. Rights of uniqueness. No rights left untouched. Back! Back in the closet, down the alley, into the cellar! 

From my Cold, Dead, Hands.

We were so close to home, young and old. Now there are miles to go. 

Ohio. Ohio. Ohio. 

Bumper to Bumper, to a Point

Originally Published: October 27, 2004

The ample hind end of the SUV is thrumming above my car, its taillights blazing, its license plate vibrating in rage. The glinting Bush/Cheney ‘04 bumper sticker is placed with precision on the rear window, somewhat to the right of the huge American flag decal, which, I muse, must impede the driver’s view despite the vast tracts of glass that cover the lower forty of his vehicle. When the light turns green, the SUV thunders off, the blackened exhaust pipe waggling at me like a tutting finger.

 Here at this traffic signal, almost touching for a moment in time, were two drivers in two automobiles, each idling impatiently on opposite ends of the current political roadway, each waiting for that green light. He in his late model SUV, I in my brand new Toyota Prius, with its gas conserving, zero-emissions Hybrid engine. I have two Kerry/Edwards ’04 stickers on my rear window – one in English and one in Spanish -and I feel so smug I could just about die.  However, nose to ass in traffic as we were, (his ass, my nose), the SUV driver couldn’t even see me - or my bumper stickers for that matter - so I was entirely alone in my compare-and -contrast-the-following-characters moment. His opinions were in my face, and mine, invisible to him, were tattooed on my rear end. With no cars behind me, my stickers were mute, crying out to no one. 

It is very irritating to be so ignored. How much more obvious can I be? Should I have pulled around his massive vehicle, cutting in front of him to show off my Kerry/Edwards stickered, Prius-driving rebuttal? Perhaps I should consider putting on more bumper stickers, papering the front and back so I can catch ‘em all coming and going. Hey! I’m a liberal! A tree-hugger! Pro-family, pro-choice! I support separation of church and state! I believe in the Geneva Convention! War is not the Answer! Send W back to Texas! Jon Stewart for President! I heart the French! Come and get me, you! Wouldn’t that be great?

But, well, my Prius is really new - still has the dealer plates in fact, and bumper stickers can be such a challenge to remove. I placed the Kerry/Edwards stickers on the glass rather than the bumper itself. Just a precaution – they don’t call them stickers for nothing. I’m a committed Democrat, but when the time comes – a respectful amount of time after November 2nd of course - I imagine it’ll be easier to peel the stickers off glass than off bumper. Did I mention I had to wait six months for this baby? The color wasn’t my first choice, and the package was more expensive than I’d wanted, but what are you gonna do – I mean after six months, you’ll take what they give you. Can you believe I’ve only bought gas twice? She’s still squeaky clean. Heck, I don’t even let the dogs ride in her yet. No sir, the old van’s good enough for those hounds, them and their muddy, muddy sharp-clawed paws, their anal excretions, their stinky ear infections and their ever-shedding coats. 

Where was I? Oh sure, being a Democrat with less than a week to go until the elections. Five days. Four. Wait - three and counting. But at least it’ll be over soon. Or not. I think I need to go for a long (guilt-free!) drive.

I live in Arlington, Virginia, just a few efficient, non-polluting miles in the HOV lane to downtown Washington DC. Right in the middle of the action. Though, I guess the action is really in places like Ohio and Minnesota and Florida these days. Actually, here inside the beltway, we’re pretty lonely. When you’re a zillion percent democratic, both sides just leave you alone. In Arlington, too, we tend to be mostly democratic, although our little street of just 4 houses is fifty-fifty come election time. And right over the border, in wealthy McLean, it’s pure Bush Country. So things are not as tied up as they might be. 

In an effort to keep a finger on the pulse of the local voter, I’ve set myself to observing what seems to me to be a record number of election-related bumper stickers in the last few weeks. Here are some of my entirely unbiased, scientific observations: 

The bigger the SUV, the more prominent the Bush/Cheney ’04 sticker. 

A Bush/Cheney ’04 bumper sticker guarantees there will be an unyielding expression of bitterness on the driver’s face. You can catch a glimpse of it through the tinted glass as he tailgates you.

He who sports an NRA sticker will also display a Bush/Cheney sticker.

Hybrids are incompatible with Bush/Cheney stickers.

Vehicles with Bush/Cheney stickers rarely have a decal from an accredited University. 

Vehicles with Bush/Cheney stickers always look mean and aggressive. Something about the grill looking like gritted teeth and the headlights like angry eyes.

The driver of a vehicle with a Kerry/Edwards sticker is invariably more likely to let you merge than the driver of a vehicle with a Bush/Cheney sticker.

Humorous bumper stickers on vehicles that also bear Kerry/Edwards stickers are wittier and possess greater subtlety than those on Bush/Cheney vehicles.

Vehicles that have “Firefighters for Kerry/Edwards” bumper stickers have hotter drivers than those bearing “FF4Bush” bumper stickers.

School parking lots are like a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker clearinghouse. 

And as far as the political lawn declarations go, my son claims that in his keen study during the school bus trip across the heartland of Arlington, the Bush/Cheney signs tend to be installed on ruthlessly neat, trim lawns - lawns that have clearly had their maintenance outsourced to a gardening service. The Kerry/Edwards lawns are unkempt and scruffy, in an endearing, patriotic, hometown sort of way.

All this rigorous, nonpartisan observation aside, in a few days these signs and bumper stickers will be yesterday’s news. Soon, they’ll be peeled away to make room for the inevitable, “Don’t blame me, I voted Democratic/Republican” stickers - that incidentally will also serve to cover any residual glue the vehicle owner couldn’t get off from their previous sticker. 

Winners tend to leave their bumper stickers on for a long while, just to make sure other drivers associate them with the winning side, the side from which history will be written. The losers sadly scrape away the once hopeful name of their candidate, too depressed to face the knowledge that four more years will pass before another chance is given their side. 

So it’s the losers who first learn the tricks of safe bumper sticker removal.

When the time comes, after I’ve finished a few months of gloating to the drivers around me, it’ll be time to remove my Kerry/Edwards stickers. I guess I’ll have to find a willing Republican to show me how.