meditations on a sleepless morn, part V

continued from part I, wherein andrew compares not sleeping to digestion, part II, wherein andrew recites shampoo instructions and says strange things about death scenes, part III, wherein andrew reviews the film phoebe's wonderland, and part IV, wherein andrew confesses to nudity and happiness

if at this moment you burst through my bedroom door, took four steps, and sat yourself down on the foot of my bed--sorry, there's no chair in my room--and attempted to have a normal conversation with me, things would start off a little strange. i'd be shocked at your incorrigibility, barging in unannounced like that, and curious about how you managed to break through our locked front door so quietly. i might jump up in protest or surprise, which would be awkward for both of us and disastrous for my laptop. after settling back down under my covers, i might be happy for the company on this godforsaken, sleepless morning but nervous about the odd relational dynamic, given the presumable difference in our state of dress. 

however, if we somehow managed to bypass these rational responses of incredulity, if, perhaps, i were accustomed to you crashing through my bedroom door on random mornings at six o'clock, i think you would come away from our normal conversation with a sense that i revealed a normal amount of information about myself. even if our conversation meandered into more personal matters, it's unlikely you would later think, "wow, i can't believe he told me that." 

in fact, given my proclivity for question asking or my general sense that other people prefer talking about themselves to hearing me talk about myself (and the fact that i'm often perfectly happy with this arrangement), you might later think, "gee, i told andrew all about my personal life, and he hardly said a thing about himself--what a private fellow."

then you might absentmindedly pull out your iphone and open the facebook app to my online profile--you know you're always doing that. you'd scroll down through some literary links and funny youtube clips, past some obscure status updates that you couldn't decipher, and then arrive at a note from this blog series or a status update that seemed particularly revelatory.  

and then what? would you think the material andrew was too closed off? would you think the virtual andrew was too open? would you think these two shades of my self were inconsistent? 

i think i'm going to leave it there, in this hypothetical, questiony space. i'm not going to attempt an amazing last-minute web of connections between the various posts in this series. i had trouble sleeping and thought some thoughts--that's the plot.

and the conclusion? there isn't much of one. i know there's a lot i don't know--how to sleep, what it's like to have tourette's, or how to balance intimacy, art, and revelation. and more particularly to the theme of this post, should i value and enact openness or privacy? or should i see the two characteristics riding a seesaw of context that sometimes tips one way and then the other?

i do not know.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

PS incidentally, i'm only speaking of openness or revelation in the context of my life and my issues. i feel very strongly that the lives and issues of my friends and family are their business, and i actually think i'm pretty adept at not sharing about their lives or issues. just ask my roommate.

meditations on a sleepless morn, part IV

continued from part I, wherein andrew compares not sleeping to digestion, part II, wherein andrew recites shampoo instructions and says strange things about death scenes, and part III, wherein andrew reviews the film phoebe's wonderland

i fish for my alarm clock. it's wedged between the bed and the wall, and i have to be careful not to pull too hard or the finicky plug will fall from the socket and i will lose the time. 

the red digits read five fifty-seven. 

if i fall asleep now, i'll have nearly three hours before i have to wake up for church, three hours before brendan arrives, knocking mercilessly at my door. i set the clock on my bed and listen to the wind on my windows. i try to tease out the sounds, to match them with their visual counterparts. 

the sounds get the best of me and i abandon the pursuit of sleep and all its nonsensical histrionics. i roll my naked body out of the warm bed and scamper quietly to the living room where i fetch my laptop. i start composing this post in my brain even as i pad back to my room. i wonder whether i'll mention queequeg's teeth or the ridiculous image of me creeping past my roommate's door, a covert mission made absurd by my lack of appropriate creeping attire. 

i wonder, now typing, whether that's too much, whether i should say that. i wonder who will read it and what they will think. i wonder where one draws the line between propriety and personal revelation, between art and confession. i think of anne sexton and robert lowell and the confessional poets, even john donne, the pastor-poet, all saying things straight, not shying from talk of the body or the everyday.

i think of my friend who, as an adult, pooped her pants and then, with a smile and an uncontrollable laugh, proceeded to tell all the world. i think of my ex-girlfriend who penned a brilliant, socially conscious personal essay on race that she never published because it was tangentially about her cousin.

i stop writing, my finger poised over the delete key. will it somehow hurt my reputation or disgust my friends to say that i am naked now, to construct no barrier between the truth and the page? will it reveal too much to nakedly confess that in september of 2010 my every thought spiraled back in a cloud of longing and sadness to my ex-girlfriend but that now, more than a year after we began a slow descent into separation, i am finally happy and content in my single skin?

to be continued one last time . . .

meditations on a sleepless morn, part II

continued from part I, wherein andrew compares not sleeping to digestion 

rinse lather repeat.

this is the magic formula i find myself chanting at daybreak. i'm saying the words earnestly, as if they mean something, as if there is a power to their rhythm. i speak them into my pillow, mouthing the words with silent urgency, believing hopelessly that when said in succession, they possess certain hitherto unknown sleep-inducing properties.

rinse lather repeat, i say, rinse lather repeat.

these words are my deathbed confession. no, they are my whispered communique in that first scene where friends and family cup their hands to my mouth and lean in to drink the honeycomb words of a dying old man, but from our sticky seats in the cineplex, we can see that there is more to those empty puffs than epilogue and benediction. we can see the beads of sweat on the old man's brow, the sudden dilation of the eye. and we know that a clue has been lost, that the dying man intends to convey some truth to break the spell of a tragedy that is now sure to continue. we know that people may die and that the protagonist will require at least an hour to sort things out and save the world. 

don't you think one of us should have pity and tell the protagonist? we could slip into that secret room with the film canisters and projectors and spare him the agony of lost love ones, lost time, and lost sleep. the old man says, rinse lather repeat, we'd tell him, rinse lather repeat.

but god is in the theater. perhaps he wrote the script. and so i'm praying that he knows the words, that he can take my cosmetic cosmology, my nonsense phraseology, and spin the story just right. he can transform my desperate compunction to say these words into a sort of worship. and then, in his great mercy, he can bring down the curtain and i can get some sleep.

rinse lather repeat, and make it soon, lord jesus.

to be continued . . .

the very bad landlord 2

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

7/3/07

you see, a long time ago, say two and a half years, mr. pastor guy was my landlord--apparently leading the mars hill flock doesn't pay as well as playing slumlord in north greenwood.

that wasn't a misprint; after graduating from SPU i spent one year in a two-room apartment across the street from love zone and the liquor store, but aj's basement was the closest i've come to a tenement.

the house boasted 5 dorm-sized rooms and alex, nathan, and i found our way into the smallest. the room was just big enough for alex's bed, a bunk bed, and a dresser. if our blood alcohol level was really low and we timed things just right, we could just manage to walk from one end of the room to the other without knocking a knee against a wall. thankfully, it only took a step or two to cross that vast expanse, enter the hallway, and grope at my dresser, which was sandwiched between the water heater and some cobwebs.

and i had it good. as far as i know, nathan stowed most of his belongings in his jeep cherokee. for those two months of tenement bliss, he lived like a modern gypsy.

i can't blame the minister for our sardine state. nathan was getting married in a couple of months and i was searching for a new roommate; we were too cheap to fly solo in the cruel world of seattle rentals, and alex was too nice to knock us on the head with a crowbar of common sense. i suppose he could have thrown the RCW our way too--there must be a city ordinance against cramming 500 pounds of human flesh into 5 square feet.

which brings me back to aj.

in some sense, aj was charging alex a reasonable price for the room. they were mars hill brothers, so aj probably thought it would be good of him to cut alex a deal. but when alex told aj about his closetmates, the kindly hearted preacher grew stony.

OK, that's a true story, but i don't know where i meant to go from there. at the end of the post i wrote the following:

back story to backbackstage tale of intrigue

this obscure phrase was then followed by a list of names. well, i don't see the intrigue (except in not telling you who was on the list), and i can't recall the story that was supposed to be revealed through the telling of all that back story, but i can tell you this: i can't imagine myself ever doing that again.

a wedding and a precursor

7/1/07

as of this date, my former roommate, alex the indie music hookup, is married. there were three highlights to his wedding:

first, it was the best wedding i've ever attended that consisted entirely of recorded music. well, i can't be entirely certain of that, but generally i tend to think that live musicians provide weddings with a special, unique feel that is noticeably absent when another recording of pachelbel's canon hits the stereo. somehow sappy wedding music that's live is infinitely more tolerable than sappy music from a CD. however, despite my strongly pro-live perspective, i was happily suprised by alex and katie's wedding. they picked a satisfying selection of contemporary songs that lent their wedding a fresh gravity. the only potential for a musical frown during the event was that they didn't hire our band--that's right, they marched out of the sanctuary to sufjan's "chicago" (!) and they didn't hire us. maybe they thought i was too busy with my usher duties.

second, the food was delicious.

and third, the pastor. he wasn't delicious, and he wasn't a highlight in the traditional sense of the word. it was his first wedding and his sermon aimed at the epic rather than the simple. i think he was trying to read through the bible in 80 days or three wedding services, whichever came first. still, he didn't stutter, stammer, or stare blankly at the waiting couple. it was a decent first time.

no, his highlightyness was more related to his role as the protagonist in a behind-the-scenes tale of mystery and mayhem than any personal trait.

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST!

choose your own adventure

suppose you were appointed the role of frodo on a dangerous canoe trip through an unfamiliar land. after several weeks of rowing, your fellow traveler develops tendonitis and is unable to continue the expedition. together, you paddle to a quiet fishing village somewhere on the edge of the world and part ways. she climbs from the canoe, hoists her pack, and you never see her again.

beyond the dock, you spot two or three shacks and the beached hull of an ancient tug. everything smells of fish and decay. the big city, you smirk. the fate of the world rests on this forgotten population of ten. indeed, without another set of hands your mission is doomed. rising from the canoe, you muzzle your doubt and approach the town.

there's no sign of the men and women who created this awful stench (i.e., fisherfolk), but you still manage to drag up three candidates to help complete your quest: a novelist, a fiction editor, and a literary translator. one of these three adventurers will have to do, but who should you choose?

[stay tuned for my answer and how it relates to franz kafka’s the trial in the next post or so.]

[[okay, here's my unofficial back page review (andi's comments made a follow-up post unnecessary). i was going to use this riddle to reveal that either (1) the translator of my edition of the trial was pathetic (and unworthy of quests) or (2) kafka was an idea guy, not a writer. there is NO reason to read this; the cliff notes are probably better written and infinitely more concise. still, i like the concept of the novel; kafka just needs a creative translator with a keen sense of poetry and pacing. (and perhaps kafka would be a good quest candidate if he was only needed to think and not do.)]]

dreams 2

[today's post is continued from yesterday's post in which i recounted 1.3 of my prophetic dreams and speculated about their cause.]

it was the last time that i ever saw the man: i watched him place the $5 million check a safe distance from the wreck and then return to the van. as a storyteller, i'll admit, this feels like an unpleasant way to leave the fellow; he should peel from the parking lot in a cloud of exhaust or shrink into the fabric of his grey tweed coat, a concrete chameleon, a certain spectre of some malovent surreptious secret. but, no, he walked at a rather ordinary pace to the rather ordinary van and i saw him no more.

instead, my dream suddenly exploded in a brilliant splash of colors. razzle dazzle rose, torch red, laser lemon, jungle green--a crayola parade of twirling octagons. apparently, i was surrounded by a throng of umbrella wielding shoppers returning to their cars, each peopling the drab lot with her own customized color. it dawned on me then that i didn't have an umbrella of my own, so i started walking purposefully toward the mall (yes, this is a remarkable dream). near the entrance, i saw a crowd, some tables, and an overhead banner proclaiming UMBRELLAS FOR THE POOR, A NONPROFIT. ah hah.

it was quite a spectacle; volunteers were busily attempting to distribute their wares to the hundreds of needy shoppers. as i watched, i gathered that the number of umbrellas was running low. it was nearing closing time. and then i noticed my college buddy brady hatfield off to one side, listening intently to a bespectacled volunteer in a red pant suit. she looked worried.

i worked my way toward the pair and greeted brady with a smile. he motioned me toward the woman.

"--carol, this is my friend andrew."

"yes, well, hello." then back to business. "after that, right, she asked me to watch him. she said she'd be right back. something about her keys or front door or i don't know." as she spoke, the woman brought a finger up to her cheek and absently performed tiny figure-eights.

"and i didn't have time to--" over the chaotic sounds of mass charity, an infant's screams momentarily interrupted the woman, but she continued. "she just left."

brady sprung into action. he gently removed the shrieking puddle of fat and face from the car seat and secured the boy in a burly-looking mountaineering pack that just happened to be waiting on the ground. "don't worry," said brady, "we'll find the mother."

unfortunately, that's where the dream ends--i awoke before discovering the baby's fate. however, that afternoon, i received an important phone call, and the prophecy was revealed....

[stay tuned for the final prophetic dream post]

andrew david. "a little girl with some flowers." san ignacio town, belize

dreams

[programming note: it's not wednesday, but i've decided to post a little something tonight anyway. also, my travel writing experiment is turning out to be a flop, so i may return to regular blogging again soon. we'll see....]

for my trip to belize, doctor wendy prescribed chloroquine. "don't worry," she said, "this isn't the one that gives you crazy dreams or makes you monster-sick." indeed, there are several ways to kill the malaria bug and chloroquine's side effects are rather tame. it's malaria med cousin is a bit more interesting however: travelers taking mefloquine complain of the usual aches and pains--headaches, nausea, dizziness--and then some more interesting symptoms like vivid dreams and visual disturbances.

i picked up my chloroquine at bartell's pharmacy on march 24th and have been taking the pills every saturday since. they taste rather nasty, but i didn't experienced anything too alarming until late last week. that's when i started having crazy dreams.

okay, in of itself, crazy dreams really aren't that uncharacteristic for the typical andrew evening; my memory and imagination have collaborated on some rather bizarre late night escapades. but this is new: my dreams are prophetic.

the first visitation of the future occurred last wednesday night. i was dreaming of a hotel in belize when some friends from spokane appeared in the lobby. "what are brady and alisha doing in belize?" i wondered. before i could inquire further, i learned that the hotel's staircase terminated about a flight and a half short of their room. this was particularly awkward because alisha was pregnant (and this wasn't one of my office mate james's flying dreams). after clamoring up onto the hotel's roof and trying to find an alternate entrance to their room (you know, ancient apostle-style), i awoke.

no, i didn't climb my way to work the next morning, but there's a surprise embedded in that little adventure. but before i explain, let me recount thurday's dream. i'll warn you though, my newly discovered talent for divination is in no way correlated with an improved sense of timing. that is, i'm not about to interfere with this vision i've been granted, and although much of the dream may seem irrelevant, there's no way i'm skipping to the end.

my recollection of the dream begins with me sitting in the passenger seat of a nondescript white van, watching as the driver, a heavy-set bald man, scanned his mirrors, pulled into the parking lot arterial, and then attempted to repark in the neighboring space. i say attempted because the space was already occupied--my driver didn't seem to care. he pressed the gas and gunned our big white beast through the rear bumper of the unfortunate subaru. with a chuckle, he jumped from his seat and tossed me a can of lighter fluid. as flames reflected off the walls and cars and puddles of that concrete jungle, we admired our handiwork. the man happily quipped about the surprise of the owner when he or she stumbled from the mall into the presence of their smoking car-cass. he then wiped the grime from his hands and reached into his sports coat.

"how does five million sound?" he asked. he nodded to himself, scrawled a figure in his ledger, and dismissed me with a wave. as i walked toward the mall, i turned to watch him stuff a check in a bright green envelope. he placed the envelope a safe distance from the smouldering wreck and returned to the van.

[i foretell that this post will be continued in the future, perhaps tomorrow....]

[disclaimer: this is creative nonfiction with the emphasis on creative--i may be overplaying my response to these dreams just a tiny bit.]

andrew david. "traveling by van" the highway from belize city to san ignacio town, belize.

when getting in the head of a female...

i've had a lot of people ask me whether yesterday's post really happened (well, more than one person, anyway). and, yes, it did. i invented the old lady, urns, and pink slippers, but the basic storyline was conceived in the brick and mortar of the real world.

if time grew on trees (like money, leaves, and squirrels), it might be interesting to see whether my future elaborations of whitney's story got closer and closer to the truth or whether they drifted off in an entirely new direction, an entirely different kind of truth. i'm not sure which would be best, but either way, i still think that i'd struggle with writing as a female narrator. however, my brief encounter with SPU's writer types may have offered some encouragment (should i ever choose this unusual path) and affirmed my earlier writing strategy.

one afternoon, as the MFA students salt-and-peppered the room with their writerly epiphanies, mark explained that he'd had a breakthrough in writing his female character. he'd struggled for months trying to make her seem more natural: he'd made her obsessed with alcohol, sex, and sewing fabrics*, but nothing seemed to work. then one day he tried something counterintuitive: he decided to write her as himself, as mark the lumbering tall guy, just without the lumbering tall guy part. and it worked!

then, during an art and faith lecture, the MFAers tossed about martin buber's idea of writing as the other. they discussed the interconnected mirror-like relationship between the self and other seemingly foreign characters. now, all of a sudden, i'm starting to feel like a writer--i broached that very issue several posts ago! weird....

andrew david. "writer's block" greenwood, wa.

*i can't remember the third item that mark named, so i made this one up. it was definitely something less unisex than beer and sex. something like sewing fabrics.

the crime

as you can probably tell, i didn't get a chance to craft that short story that i'd been planning (and also mentioned here) before i left to visit the SPU MFA students at camp casey, and now that i've been humbled by their brilliance, i'm afraid that the best i can do for this first-person narrative is a basic plot outline:

the main character starts by nervously introducing herself as whitney, a nordic do-gooder with rather central american tastes. we get the sense that she doesn't really want to be here, narrating her story to a thousand invisible cyberfaces.

(although, i'm not really sure how this hesitation would be communicated to readers; after all, unless she breaks the illusion that this is a story and directly addresses the crowd, how are we to know that this whitney is uncomfortable in the spotlight. still, it's a necessary bit of foreshadowing, so a solution must be found.)

she then sets the scene in the cosmetic aisle of the community drug store. a wild looking man in a trench coat and fuzzy pink slippers approaches her and asks for shopping tips. he speaks out of the side of his mouth and smells like alcohol. he seems desperate. the elderly woman who was camped out at the table of free estee lauder samples flees, but whitney considers the alarm bells in her head and can't help but assist the man as he shops for his two girlfriends. if i weren't so clueless about cosmetics, i might mention all of the product types that he tosses in his cart, but perhaps it's sufficient to mention that whitney is surprised by the breadth and volume of the man's generosity.

the story climaxes a few minutes later as whitney finishes her shopping and joins the man in line. his lips twitch as he approaches the clerk and announces, "that this is a robbery."

sure enough, the man appears to have a gun or a convincing ketchup bottle in the left front pocket of his scrappy corduroys. as whitney tells the tale, she spreads the tension on thick. thoughts of violence fill her mind. she peels her attention away from the man and the emptying till long enough observe other customers: a nine-year old tugging insistently at his mother's jeans and estee lauder lady peeking from behind a stack of holiday urns.

and then the man is gone and the police arrive. she then learns that some of the employees think that whitney is an accomplice. at this point, my notion of the story grows cloudy. if i'm writing creative nonfiction, she tells her story to the officer, runs through the store to repurchase her goods (the man took them with his perfume), and has trouble sleeping the next night. if i'm a fiction writer, she is arrested for the man's crime. or better yet, perhaps it's all a rouse and she turns out to be a real-life accomplice.

well, i suppose it doesn't matter much: there is no story, just an outline.

(but there is an afterword!)

espn. "andrew's bracket as of sunday night."

a pretext to an ash wednesday observation 2

"hi, i'm andrew, and i'm an aholic. (see this post for the first part of the story.)"

"hi, andrew."

"i suppose that means that i'm an all-around addict. for instance, steve told me about mike sando's seahawks blog, and i've spent most of my evening reading about the grant (wistrom) release and (deon grant) signing. you've probably noticed that i'm addicted to blogging, and i also tend to grow enamored with particular topics. catholicism is one of those topics. however, my first catholic mass occurred years before the birth of my catholicism obsession. i hadn't yet puzzled over an alberto ferreiro christian history quiz or posted provocative questions on a catholic answers forum. and i certainly wasn't catholic. thus it was with great trepidation that one sunday i found myself in a communion line, approaching a real-life catholic priest.

"in protestant churches, communion is nearly always a serious affair, but there is often a subdued hint of celebration. here, everyone seemed downright stoic. i understood the mood, but i was rather worried about that sober-looking priest. as each congregant received the elements, they performed some kind of a ritual with their hands and then mumbled conspiratorially with the cleric. i hoped they weren't speaking latin. there was no way that i would pull this off.

"for a moment i thought of the last supper. it was as if i was one of christ's oft-confused apostles: nudge, nudge. hey, peter. peter! what's he mean with this 'take and eat my body crap'? he's so bloody morbid. i just don't get it. but that's as close as i got to jerusalem. instead of forgiveness and community, i was wondering how the grim-faced padre was going to handle my insubordination when i failed to dip the wafer at the proper angle. this could turn ugly fast.

"peter (my good high school buddy, not the simon peter, rock of christianity) was now standing with the priest at the altar. that meant i was next. i bowed my head, and prayed 'lord, help me do this right.'

"the heavens chuckled and the priest beckoned me with his eyes. sharp, searching eyes, peering into my soul, scanning my contents for a date of confirmation, confession, anything to identify me as a true believer. i stood still, hoping that the priest would make the first move, kindly offer me some bread and wine. (andrew, what a great surprise! here's a wafer and some juice, take these in memory of christ's death for you.) the second dragged mercilessly into two seconds, and then three. he seemed to be waiting, but i was frozen with indecision. suddenly, my body spasmed into action. i may have cupped my hands, i may have made the sign of a cross, i may have flagged down a wayward aircraft, it's rather unclear. as my body performed this mysterious communion jig, i stared at the priest, channeling silent pleas into his brain.

"and then he frowned. it was only a subtle downward settling of the lips, but i knew that the church was about to erupt into a chorus of fire and brimstone. and then pitch forks, stones, and fiery stakes. i was a goner.

"but the priest spared me the death knell. he handed me the wafer, i drank the wine, and the morning's trauma was complete. i escaped saint joseph's but i'm still haunted by a sense of paranoia whenever i attend a catholic mass. i'm older and wiser, and i now know that protestants aren't welcome in the communion line. while this may mean that i can safely wait in my seat during the eucharist, it also accentuates my sense that i'm an impostor. i walk into a cathedral and think, 'hey, everybody, i'm not catholic, look at me!' "

andrew david. "radical dizziness, an unmentioned symptom of non-catholics who take catholic communion" seattle, wa.

obama and i

some of you have complained that my creative nonfiction is a bit too creative. apparently you want me to warn you whenever i plan to stretch the truth. well, okay. the following story is completely true. this really happened*.

yesterday morning, senator obama and i were carpooling. well, to be more precise, i was escorting baraka--that's what i call him; he laughs and calls me andrewgah; then i frown and return to my story. anyway, the senator has a driver's permit, not a license, and he needs another forty hours before he can take the driving test. thus, as a happily licensed driver, i was obliging baraka with some extra drive time before work.

i climbed into his sleek black lexus and buckled my seat belt. baraka threw it into reverse, peeled out of the driveway, and thrust the car into drive. then, after we barreled along the highway for several minutes, the senator asked me whether the red camry on our bumper looked familiar. i turned my head back and looked at the car. no, i said, i've never seen it before. we were approaching a red stoplight, but instead of braking, he pressed hard on the gas. the lexus leapt through the red light. stunned, i glance back at the camry. it edged into the intersection and then burst after us. baraka was right; something was amiss. as we darted through traffic, baraka warned me that things might get a little messy. he had the look of jack bauer. i closed my eyes as he reached for the hand-brake, sending the lexus into a 180 degree spin. i heard the sounds of scraping metal and shattering glass, and inquired, am i dead?

'the camry hit a tree,' explained the senator. but now there was a honda on our tail. the car chase resumed in a busy shopping mall lot. baraka weaved through parked cars, old ladies, and shopping carts. somehow he managed to lose the civic as he skidded into a parking space at the local gas station and mini-mart. i took a breath and considered our position. there were no cars or buildings within 20 yards of us; nothing obstructed us from the view of that shopping center or the lights of that prowling civic. obama has his head bowed and his hands are rattling in his lap.

we're a bit conspicuous, i thought. searching the grounds for a plan, i spotted my good friend john brawner chatting with a gas station attendant. i figured that if we're being followed, the perps wouldn't suspect us if we're in a larger group. i stepped out of the lexus and waved at brawner. oblivious to my panic, he walked over and blessed me with one of his characteristic bear hugs. and then life slowed down. mid-hug, i saw obama bending over outside our car, i heard the desperate buzz of a floored honda, i felt john's arms tense as he sensed that something was awry. then time snapped back into the frenetic pace of real life. the civic tore through a yellow caution sign, jumped the curb, and slid to a stop 10 feet away; baraka, brawner, and i backed toward the lexus and scrambled into its black leather seats. angry screams burst from the honda and were muffled by the staccato of rapid gunfire. instinctively, i ducked, perhaps hoping that the engine block might somehow impede our assailants rounds. out of the corner of my eye i swear that i saw baraka obama smile and then mumble some wise words of passing. i shut my eyes and began to pray.

on the other side of my eyelids, the world erupted into bright colors: orange, yellow, red. a heavenly welcoming ceremony perhaps. but i was could still feel my legs bunched up awkwardly in the front seat. the fiery plumes of color faded to grey.

i opened my eyes and looked at baraka. instead of seeing a smoking corpse, i watched as the senator dusted himself off and turned the radio dial to npr. i straightened my body and surveyed the scene outside our car. a smouldering wreck sat in the place of the honda. obama grinned *and then i woke up. and, yes, that's exactly how i dreamed it.

5 things: an interview with a fictitious colleague

on december 20th, becky sent me the following email message:

I was blog-tagged and now, apparently, so are you. Supposedly, the "blog tag" assignment was to write five things on your blog that people might not have known about you. Tag. You're it.

i usually ignore chain-mail assignments, but i decided that in a blog-context like the 17 point scale there is no harm in babbling about myself. still, nothing struck me as both interesting and unknown, that is, until i found this odd passage from pages 204-206 of don delillo's white noise:

lasher [a professor] wadded up a paper napkin and tossed it at someone two tables away. then he stared at the 17 point scale [in white noise lasher is staring at another professor, but to accomodate the blog-tag, i have substituted myself in his place; i also used font colors to differentiate myself from lasher--there are no colored fonts in white noise].

"who was the greatest influence on your life?" he said in a hostile tone.

"i'm sure you realize that it's difficult to objectively answer a question like that. it reminds me of the postal service song where ben gibbard desperately tries to reconcile with his lover, and she responds with 'charts and graphs....[and] a lecture on why i have to leave.' it's an uncomfortable embrace of heart and mind. still, i'd wager that my parents have had the greatest impact on my life. that's a safe bet. my dad gave me an easy-going nature and an arsenal of animated facial expressions, and my mom introduced me to faith and morality."

"did you ever spit in your soda bottle so you wouldn't have to share your drink with other kids?"

"i don't recall ever spitting in soda bottles. after all, pop usually came in a can or in one of those waxy coke cups. in any case, my pop was protected by my peculiarity: when drinking soft drinks, i always used two straws. people don't like to admit it, but they find this behavior troubling. thus, my pop was safe."

"how old were you when you first realized your father was a jerk?"

"errrr...that's a presumptious question," i said. "i really can't recall him ever acting like a jerk. this christmas i had a chat with my uncle robin where i tried to dig up dirt on my dad--not real dirt, mind you, just unfiltered memories from my uncle's past. you know, questions like, 'did you guys ever get in fights? ' that kind of thing. all i learned was that robin sometimes 'borrowed' my dad's cars for joy rides, but that this never seemed to upset my dad--hey, aren't these questions supposed to help people learn about me?"

"[....]?"

"i'm sorry, lasher, i don't know that your question is appropriate for this blog, and i'm also afraid that it might generate an unseemly set of keywords. but, speaking of dental hygienists, i suppose most people aren't aware of my orthodontic past. yes, i was lucky enough to have braces as a kid, and later, i had a neon green retainer, which i sometimes used to save gum. but generally speaking, i save gum in on my soccer and quizzing trophies."

"when you bite dead skin off your thumb, do you eat it or spit it out?"

"i chew it and spit it out. however, i have swallowed it before. is that unhealthy?"

"do you ever close your eyes," lasher said, "while you're driving on a highway?"

"no, never. i sometimes imagine myself careening across into the dividing barrier on highway 520, and i've often thought about drifting into oncoming traffic on highway 99. i smile to myself and think 'that'll surprise them.' but it's just the flighty wanderings of a bored commuter.'

"how much pleasure did you take as a kid," lasher said, "in imagining yourself dead?"

"my good sir, i refer you back to postal service's 'nothing better.' i think i refrained from morbid fantasies except when i was in trouble. and then, like any kid, i watched the hearse roll by and thought, 'yep, they'll regret that when i'm dead.' well, that's it, dude. i think we've already exhausted the average attention span of most internet users. also, if anyone is still reading this and would like to know more about me, feel free to comment."

happy new year!

errrrrrr....what's become of the 17 point scale? well, i've been spending my week brewing tea, watching lost, and guzzling nyquil. it's been a blast, but i didn't have much energy left for blogging. besides what would i say? apparently the rattling in my throat is so raucous that the garbage collectors were afraid to visit our block. even beth's house, some fifteen blocks away, missed a pick-up. this is prime time news. in our new age of herocentric dramadeys (lost, heroes, etc), every network is looking for someone just like me. a man that can topple buildings with his herculine sneeze yet--and i don't think that waste management got this memo--has the selfless decency to shield his mouth with a tissue or a sleeve. yep, i'm their guy.

no, that doesn't really fly. but i did have a disturbing dream. last night as i tossed back and forth, i dreamt that i was sleeping with two crumpled lengths of toilet paper jammed in my right nostril. don't coil back in horror yet--that's actually rather realistic; i find that a dripping faucet is less troublesome when plugged. in any case, the makeshift kleenex was getting grimy and needed replaced, so i unconsciously pulled the mutant paper from my nose and prepared to snatch a clean square from the roll. and then, the nightmare. the old paper plug tore in two. one half was safely plastered to my thumb and the other was somewhere in that nostril. panic set in. what if i was unable to retrieve the lost toilet paper? it might slide surreptiously up my nasal cavity and then coagulate, thereby forming an indestructible barrier (of paper) between my lungs and nose. soon it would cut off the circulation of blood to my head. i would most certainly die. fearing the worst, i dug around in the nostril, trying to differentiate between my nose and that dastardly toilet paper. and then, as my finger was going wild, i awoke.

well, errrrr....look at what you have to look forward to this year!

black (death) peak - part II

[continued from the previous post where andrew recounts being marooned on a slippery rock face in the northern cascades]

not yet.

i wasn't ready to risk my life on one crazy superman trick. it was a phantom rock, after all, and i might not spot it until i sailed by. gravity may get me, but there was no need to hasten my fall.

at that point steve suggested that he run up the mountain and see if anyone might have some rope. earlier we'd seen at least two parties making the trek toward black peak. in the sunlight their helmeted heads had glowed the yellow of angel halos. perhaps they'd be ready and equipped for just this kind of thing.

but at first i was oddly opposed to the idea. "try looking from over there," i said. three fingers of one hand were barely wedged in a crack and my other hand was maintaining a tenuous grip on a slippery knob-like rock to my right, but i wanted to do this myself. the thought of seeking help from another group of hikers was embarrassing, humiliating; it was admitting defeat. i had already calculated my chances of survival without a rope - every scenario led to a nasty conclusion, yet hubris somehow stalled my decision to send steve away. i imagined a man with 20 international summits to his credit frowning down at me and saying, "what are you doing, little man, on this class 5.13b cliff-face? where is your gear? hrmmphh."

after several seconds passed, i realized that i could probably bear a condescending smirk, especially if it saved my life. steve sprinted up the mountain after a rope.

after steve left, i quite incredulously realized that i hadn't been praying. "what the crap, God," i began, "why haven't i been praying this whole time?" for some reason, He didn't bother answering my rhetorical question, so i continued with something a bit more conventional, something more like "help me!" and "forgive me for..." and "God, do you hate these emergency, self-centered prayers?"

as i clung to the rock and prayed, my right leg began to shake again. i adjusted myself a bit and then closed my eyes and tried to lay completely still. it was strangely peaceful. i somehow believed that my leg wouldn't shake again and that steve would return with my means of salvation. i thought about sitting, and about what great fun it is to do nothing, to finish a hike and just relax. all this thinking seemed to go straight to my feet: to my horror, they were starting to tingle. "not a great place for my feet to fall asleep," i thought.

occasionally an invisible bug buzzed past my head--perhaps a fly, a bee, or some other insect vulture. like a rogue rescue copter, it seemed to circle my general vicinity, uncertain at this altitude whether i was friend or foe. thankfully, it didn't land. next, my sleepy feet and i heard voices, and then the approach of steve.

"they didn't have rope," he explained.

"uh oh," i thought.

then steve, oh, wonderful steve, concocted a brilliant plan. he tied his two shirts together and knotted them to his pack. as he approached my position, a few rocks tumbled off to my left, frightening the fly and i. then steve carefully lowered the pack down to me. once it was within my reach, i flailed out my arm and caught hold of the shoulder strap. as steve pulled upward, i used my free arm and legs to scramble the remaining 8 feet until i collapsed safely on the top of the ridge.

whoohooo! praise God (and steve), i survived. relieved, i let out a big sigh and a nervous chuckle. then steve and i hugged, took some photos, and made our way to the top of the summit.

beth the s.o. "photos for jessica" moma, nyc.

black (death) peak - part I

i have fallen in love with the piano. for the last week every time i hear music, i want to dash out of the room or fling myself from the car to the nearest piano. it's quite strange--all i want to do is practice. so, if you happen to find my trip report long and sucky, blame it on "claire de lune" (debussy) and "philosophy" (ben folds five).

after consulting with my local hiking expert (danny warren), i determined that the hike to black peak (in the north cascades) is about 6 miles with an elevation gain of a bit less than 4000 feet. at about the 5 mile point, the trail deposits thirsty hikers at wing lake. then the trail jogs upward (and west) in an ambitious climb through scree and loose rock to the top of a ridge. once at the ridge (see yesterday's picture of steve), helmet-clad hikers and the occasional bare-headed fool (aka steve and i) can make a final ascent of the southern slope through a series of narrow gullies and precarious rocks. at the peak, one is surrounded by breathtaking views of the cascades (including glacier and baker mtn) and stomach-churning views of the world 3000 feet below.

despite my dramatic adjectives, climber-folk seem to describe the last mile of this hike as an easy scramble. there may be a few tricky places near the peak, but few reports mention any difficulty before that final ascent. well, i've decided to change that. while the summit is certainly high (8970 feet), it is the ridge that nearly killed me.

apparently there are two ways to climb death ridge: a right way and my way. the right way consists of a very steep switch-backed trail that hugs the northface of the mountain as it approaches the saddle point of the ridge. as i slugged my way toward the ridge, steve wisely chose this route and then snacked on a sandwich as he waited for my arrival. but for some reason i missed the trail and attempted to go straight up. i was within 20 feet or so of the ridgetop and was perhaps overcome by the sensation that i was almost there--go, go, go. perhaps i smelled the rye bread and lettuce. in any case, i was no longer scrambling; i was now climbing.

at first it was easy, but by the time i was within 8 feet of the top, i realized that i was in serious trouble. i ran out of handholds. i looked left, right, above me, left again, and even back down. i considered the rock around me some more--there were handfuls of loose dirt and smooth stone, but nothing substantial for my needy fingers.

"steeeeeeeve...." i called. no answer.

"steeeeeeeve," his face appeared 8 feet above me, "i think i'm stuck."

as steve tried to scout out other handholds or a method of retreat, i snuggled against the rock and tried not to look down. but i had to look--yikes. yesterday's pictures make the incline seem rather tame (perhaps 65 degrees?), as if a speedy fellow with a great big stride could easily run right up the ridge, but from my perspective it seemed like a wicked drop. if i slipped, i couldn't see a point where i would stop falling. even today, i'm pretty confident that if i fell i would have slid on my stomach for about twenty feet and then (a) ripped an arm off as i tried to slow my racing descent or (b) caught an appendage on an outcropping, accidentally spun myself around, and then tumbled down the slope with a broken neck and brain fluids oozing from the gashes in my head. i'd be seriously maimed or maybe dead.

my right leg started shaking uncontrollably. i shifted my weight a bit and looked up again. steve was trying to check out various angles, hoping that a jacob's ladder might be hiding just out of sight. he directed me to a more sturdy foot position so that my left boot had the toes wedged in a crack of some sort and the long-edge of my right boot was perched on a tiny ledge. this alleviated the shakes, at least temporarily.

far above me to my right steve spotted a handhold of unknown repute--"you'd have to lunge for it," he said.

andrew david "jazzer-sizing" brooklyn bridge, nyc.

the story of my life

there was a chap named andrew. he liked to play the piano and surf the web. one day he got a free email account from juno. andrew liked to imagine himself owning a beautiful grand piano with shiny white keys. therefore, he named his first email account "sparklin-ivorees@juno.com." then one day he realized that juno was ridiculous. after this epiphany, he found himself a hotmail account of the same name and passed the old address on to his mom. in the meantime, andrew grew up and went to college. oblivious to the fact that he may one day need this email address for professional correspondence or to apply for jobs, andrew named his college address: "fatman@u.spu.edu." four years later andrew graduated and decided to work for the university of washington (andrewdtwo@u.washington.edu) at the va hospital (andrewdavid@va.gov). in his spare time, he posted random stories and pictures on his blog. therefore, in july of 2006, when google seduced him with 2750mb gmail accounts, it was only natural that he named his newest account after his blog: the17pointscale@gmail.com.

it's a bit ridiculous, but this is the way my generation can tell stories. rather than building a timeline based on outdoor forts, wicked math teachers, or the lives of presidents, we may be just as likely to our electronic selves. in a few years, i'll be saying, "...then in 2005 i started my first blog. it was a happy disaster...."


andrew david. "amazing art" moma, nyc.

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=80103
http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/O0026252.html
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=80103

the monkey tree story

i don't really have much to say tonight so i thought i'd post a ten-minute nonsense story. i'm missing beth at the moment, so it's mostly about her (and me and a tree and a surprise guest). all of the pictures in the story are by matt basinger.

andrew and beth happen to like trees. when the weather's nice, they even climb trees--big, green, sappy trees, sweet smelling apple trees, and even tropical palm trees. however, there is one tree they don't climb. it sits silently outside of andrew's house. the limbs look so inviting, says beth. no, says andrew, remember what the landlord said. andrew leans back in the grass, scratches his chin, and bursts out in a deep bass "you may climb any tree on this lot, but never, no, never, climb the monkey tree."

as they sit and consider the landlord's words, a squirrel tentatively hops from the neighbor's carrot patch toward the tree.

"oh, no," says andrew.
"oh, yes," says beth.

the squirrel leaps from the grass onto the bark--zap! with a sudden flash the squirrel is transformed into a wreaking pile of ash.

"that smells disgusting," says andrew.
"yeah, let's leave," says beth as she wrinkles her nose.

the couple quickly purchases a last-minute deal on expedia.com and flies to new york city. as the plane lands, they are so overcome by the beauty of the cityscape that they forget all about the monkey tree and the recently deceased squirrel. "look!" cries beth, "it's the brooklyn bridge!"

after they arrive at the airport, andrew and beth scurry to the bridge and begin to kiss (see below). as their lips lock, a smart-looking pedestrian turns and watches. he adjusts his glasses in order to get a better view. "hmmm..." he thinks.

as andrew kisses away, beth suddenly senses that something is amiss. she opens an eye and spots the intelligent looking pedestrian.


beth whispers to andrew, "it's matt."

"what?" he asks mid-kiss.

"it's matt," she says.

"it's me," says matt.


after smiling for awhile, matt takes the couple to his home in morningside heights. "this is my wife, jacinda," he says.

everyone smiles. "we know jacinda!" exclaims the couple happily.

sure enough, it's jacinda. she asks everyone about the kiss and then feeds them bright green salad from a monkey tree.

THE END

this is a litle tale about sleeping

once, long ago, a whirling bit of cosmic dust, an almighty deity, or some cosmic accident resulted in this thing we know as humanity. whatever our origin, us bipedal primates were designed to spend half of our lives sleeping.


indeed, the bed is the great equalizer; even honeymooners and dudes on death row must sleep.


finding this sleeping business a bit tedious (and an utter waste of time), beth, angie, and i planned our escape. we traveled deep into the sun soaked land of mexico.


once we reached the coastal village of yelapa, we sidestepped the bed bugs for an hour or so by joining a candle-lit dance party. the locals were a peculiar blend of hippee, tourist, and native, but the dj's fondness for cheesy eighties music made us retreat to our jungle bungalow.


and it was there that we succumbed to that inevitable sign of human weakness--we slept.


like any holy grail quest, our search was in most ways a failure. despite its two dollar margaritas, roaring iguanas, and tropical beach, yelapa could offer us no antidote to the night. still, our sleep was far from boring. as you may or may not have noticed, these beds are covered in netting AND, better yet, they hang: we were safe from all those nasty jungle critters while hanging suspended in mid-air. it was as if the bed itself was a physical representation of our sleep state; that night we hovered happily in our dreams. how can sleep get cooler than that?

(it can't.)

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. what if we're stuck in seattle? should we avoid the boredom of sleep and advocate our friends and roommates to do the same?

2. speaking of roommates, what is one to do if his (or her) roommate serves as a roadblock for this pursuit of waking life? for example, let's say that at 9pm someone intends to delay the call of sleep by watching a hit tv show (e.g., 24) with his girlfriend, but that his roommate says, "no, i have to work early in the morning; i'm going to bed now, and the tv is too loud." what should one do?

3. okay, okay. so assuming that one does the polite thing and lets his or her roommate drift safely to sleep, what if the roommate also says "yep, i've decided that i need more sleep, i'm gonna start going to bed about this time every night. maybe you could use the tv friday nights..." what now? sure, mark needs his sleep, but what about my right to occasionally watch a movie on my big screen tv?

(i was going to ask a sex question related to hanging beds, but then i remembered that i was annoyed about our small house, so alas, i asked no sex question. now it's too late.)

a pg-13 post [3]

[previously on the 17 point scale]
then, momentarily satisfied, it slithers to the synapse machine and taps out a quick command to the rest of the brain: n-o-s-t-a-l-g-i-a. beth sighs...

[not the conclusion of a pg-13 post]
something about this house seems familiar, and not in an everyday-my-boyfriend-lives-here-so-i-make-occasional-yet-obligatory-visits kind of way.
despite a blizzard of memory calisthenics, she can't quite place it. stepping over some obituaries and a front page or two, beth makes her way to my couch.

i greet her with a kiss, coke zero, and grilled cheese sandwich. “that was some sigh,” i say. and it was, but let's face it, i'm a guy: my mind is about a million miles from everything but that kiss.

it was a little like kissing an elf. don't laugh, i don't mean a cuddly holiday elf. beth might look stunning in leotards and a floppy green hat, and her will ferrellian enthusiasm for christmas is legendary, but there wasn't even a hint of peppermint mocha on her breath. no, this was an altogether different kind of elf. this was a salt-sniffing, sea-dreaming elf.

beth snaps open her coke....

[to be continued...]


andrew david. 'an elf and some arches' puerto vallarta, mexico.