The Categorization of Days

Some days just don’t fit into a category or a to-do list or a goal-accomplishment metric. No, they don’t. Some days you just wake up and wonder, hmmm, what the fuck? Time’s a wasting here, what am I doing about it? I’m 37 years old, maybe halfway done, where’s the old carpe diem? Some days it takes so much strength to not dial up more Law and Order episodes on the Netflix that there is little gusto left to accomplish anything else except, possibly, throwing down some wandering language about that very fact.

This morning I passed Spady and his killer Scottish Terrier on the Belmont Blvd. dog walking circuit. He’s apparently 25 chapters into a novel. I wonder about Spady. He kind of reminds me of the Key West dudes, the tiny Hemingways who seem to have surrendered to the pointlessness of it all and are more than content to be carried along on the whims of existence. Experiencing his presence in Nashville is akin to witnessing a dried starfish washed up at the entrance of the Whole Foods Market. Anyway, Spady told me the plot of this book when I saw him out a month ago. Not much about it sticks with me except some allegory relating to numerology and a murder… it all gets hazy in the early-Summer humidity.

Doesn’t it, though? This document can stand as a testimony to the scatteredness of it all. Some days the Universe finds it goddamn funny to pour a vat of molasses straight into your skull and watch you stumble around the house in a sorghum daze, thinking one thing whilst doing something completely different, like trying to come up with a two-letter word that begins with ‘C’ as you take what will hopefully be the first of several dumps today. There is no two-letter word that begins with ‘C,’ you remind yourself, just as there is no particular dietary regimen that will guarantee more than one dump per day at the age of 37.

Men, I tell you. Let’s ponder the endless derogatory remarks made by women about men in certain comedic entertainments these days. If they could only peer into the gooey brains of the species itself… my goodness, the thoughts that men actually have about men. Like women, we are constantly comparing, and perhaps in not too different of a manner. Take Spady vs. Me. I don’t really have any particular desire to beat or one-up Spady in any specific area, but I can’t pass the motherfucker on the street on a perfectly good Wednesday morning without wondering whether or not my life is measuring up to his by some indeterminate scale of which I have little comprehension or mastery of. 25 chapters into a novel? Really? I have nothing to compare to that, in my mind, and here’s why: I feel completely unable to focus on anything that requires the dedication and commitment a novel demands. I have been focused on things that last for three-and-a-half minutes for quite awhile now, as well as the means by which to foist them upon the world, which are probably best suited to people who with even shorter attention spans than three-and-a-half minutes.

Meanwhile, I have male friends whose marriages are falling apart. The dark hours of abandonment and disappointment these folk are currently experiencing crush my piddling piddliness with an iron fist. They are being drawn towards real man-child moments, those seething encounters with the ego that find a dude waving a fist at life one moment and curling up in a corner like a baby the next. Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Ernest… just please make it go away and I promise to either beat it so far into submission or nurture it like a lost kitten, if only to prove a point.

Years ago I was motoring around Bristol, England with my radio promotions guy. We crested a hill in the city and were greeted with the site of hundreds of students sunning themselves on a lawn that sloped down towards the city center. A lawn, that glowing, illuminated green that only occurs when the sun comes out on certain days in England, setting the grass pulsing, aglow with all the stored-up chlorophyll generated by days and days of endless moisture.

Neil (the radio guy) and I had been riding around for days at this point, hopping from station to station, plying my new single. Neil was eternally sparky and blissful, always happy to be doing his job, to be cresting another hill in another city. I was depressed, completely absorbed in the slightly confusing process of attempting to gain acceptance at radio stations and with the British public in general. Had there been a forest, I would not have been able to see it for the crab apple trees. Truly, there was nothing but grass, centuries-old buildings everywhere and young, nubile people relaxing and enjoying themselves. The moment escaped me. I imagine I was wondering how long it would be until we could stop off for our afternoon pints.

Today I have a yard that is in desperate need of cutting and flower beds that could be weeded but should probably just be completely dug up and begun again. I have what feels like an endless list of administrative tasks to do, most of which seem daunting and mindless. I am writing from the confines of the nicest house I have ever lived in, one that needs some attention here and there but is remarkably perfect. Yes, something is telling me that I am, once again, missing a great moment here, but I feel incapable of reaching out and grabbing. Recent experience has taught me that taking small steps towards the goal is the best way to proceed. I suppose that this little missive is the first one of these. However, I am still thinking of Law and Order: SVU and wondering how they will solve the next hideous crime they are faced with. I would still very much like to get through at least one computer Scrabble match. Neither of these tasks would involve engagement with the world on any level and would, I fear, only draw me a little further into a particular hole.

And thinking back on what seems to have been written so far here I am taken with how completely self-absorbed it all is, how I will never care to read it again and how it probably serves no purpose whatsoever. About how Social Media, the most tempting outlet for these labors, would actually accept this load of hooey with open arms as something worth sharing, having contemplated and commented upon. I just can’t get with the ide of airing these thoughts for consumption. We really have to rise above the idea that this crap is worthy of sharing with each other. That is the problem with art today, I believe; we have become utterly convinced that these type of musings constitute a relationship with an audience, an interaction when, in fact, these kind of musings are exactly the shit that we should keep to ourselves, the grist that will (hopefully) propel us to creating something higher, something infinitely more useful, for our compatriots in existence to chew on and to share.

Did someone mention breakfast? Since moving in with Liz three years ago, I have become infinitely more attuned to the needs and goings-on of my body. I know that part of the issue with getting this day going is merely the fact that I have given myself nothing to work with on a cellular level besides caffeine and nicotine. I need protein mixed with just the right amount of carbohydrate to achieve a roper balance that might assist in seeing things in just the right light. That solidity that sets in after a couple of eggs or even a fat dose of almond butter. Meat is a possibility but some days you just don’t feel like thinking through the reality of the death, the slaughter of innocents, the very real possibility that you could just as easily be eating the dog you were so tenderly walking only hours ago. Goddamn meat. Why are you so tasty and wrong.

Our friend Emily Leonard is a startlingly good artist. She gave us a gorgeous print for our wedding, a gorgeous print that I have yet to have framed. A plane of happiness that currently sits furled up on a bookshelf, its joys hidden from me. It is a painting of a forest, oddly enough, one rendered impressionistically enough so that there is not really a hard option of actually seeing individual trees so well. It’s like the perfect existential rendering of woodlands. Just merge with it, don’t let the small stuff get you down. Asshole.

One of my favorite avoidance pastimes is reading The New Yorker. I don’t recall at what point in my life this magazine took hold of me, but goddamn it, it did. Its promise of weekly sophistication and high-mindedness has driven me toward of number of unrealized ambitions, such as being an eminently cool musician, a well-regarded writer, a long-time resident of New York City. All things I have touched upon at various junctures in life, none of which I would say that I have ever really achieved. But the New Yorker still comes every week, still promises and idealized frame of mind that seems achievable somehow. I don’t know why, anymore. I have finally reached a stage in life where I feel comfortable not reading every goddamn word of it; yes, I am now capable of skipping ahead after reading a few paragraphs of the 15,000 word piece on Ugandan sheep hymens without feeling as if I am cheating myself out of some seriously necessary life knowledge… or merely not getting my money’s worth. It’s a step.

I am beginning to question my newfound allegiance to the IPhone. I waited ages until my Verizon contract was up last October to jump on board but, once I did, I was shocked by how it immediately influenced my life. Everything seemed to get infinitely more organized and categorical: blobs of unintelligible ambition aligning themselves into brightly-colored squares on my ICal, legions of unforeseen needs suddenly met by the acquisition of another smartly-programmed app, badly-written emails from other IPhones instantly replied to with my own badly-written email.

But in recent weeks I have begun to wonder if all it has, ultimately, been for naught. If all these perfectly-scheduled new events (with reminders) are actually getting me anywhere or merely serving to fill up all of that undefined white space on my calendar. If these apps that get used maybe once a month are really just filler to camouflage the Scrabble and FIFA 11 games that get most of the action. If those badly-written emails are just going out into the universe attracting more half-baked thoughts and ideas.

I love to look at the IPhone. It brings me pleasure. I won’t be getting rid of it anytime soon; the transition would be way too much of a pain in the ass. Nothing is really that big of a deal, anyway. This I should know by now. All things get done eventually, just don’t get too stupid about it. Right now babies are being born, children are starving, divorce papers are being served. Life is coming to a series of very hard and immediate conclusions, whether I am paying attention or not. You can’t get an app for that shit, no way.

Mort n' Lucifer

I spent the first three hours of yesterday assisting Bob in the shoveling of approximately two and a half tons of flood-induced landslide off of a hill behind his house. The offending mess looked and smelled like what might have happened if, after consuming a steady diet of huevos rancheros for the last millennium, the hill had decided to relieve itself, mightily and without reservation.

As I was about to thrust in for my 219th shovelful of funky earth, a small and oily patch of something on its surface caught my eye. The something began twitching, then wriggling, slowly working its way out of the mud and into full view. It was a frog. Once freed of its earthy prison, the amphibian froze and regarded me with one bulbous eye.

"Allright!" I cheered like a mother at a soccer game. "You made it!"

With a pithy look worthy of George Costanza, the frog hopped away.

For a moment, I reveled in this small victory. In the face of the destruction and despair that has swept through the Middle Tennessee over the past week, any sign of life amongst ruin was cause for some celebration. Then I reconsidered: That frog might have really been enjoying himself down there. Maybe he was already happy. As I got back to shoveling, I imagined a conversation that may or may not have occurred a few weeks earlier:


"Gotcha!"

Mort had been in mid-flight, stretched out to Olympian lengths above the surface of the pond, milliseconds from contact with the water, when something odd happened. Instead of the cool familiar slap of the water on his belly, he felt rough, hot ridges, callousy and crinkled. His entire body was squeezed by hot fingers, tight enough to constrict any movement while allowing just enough room to breathe.

Mort opened his eyes to find two very large orbs staring at him from a close distance.

"Hello, Mort," the voice assaulted him on warm, garlicky breath. "Going for a swim?"

"What. The. Fuck." Mort glared into the big eyes and urinated with all his might.

"Well, then." The man set Mort down on the bank of the pond and shook the liquid off of his hand. "I see you're staying hydrated."

"Actually, no." Mort collected himself. "It's been getting hotter and hotter. Short Spring this year."

"Ah, you don't know hot, my little friend," smiled the man, his face creasing into a hundred tiny wrinkles. The eyes glowed crimson under the brim of a ratty porkpie hat. Black hairs curled out from his wide nostrils. A black wool suit with ragged sleeves wrapped around him like a sarcophagus, revealing a shiny black shirt unbuttoned at the neck. His skin was chalky and, in spite of the sweltering heat, bore no hint of perspiration.

"Excuse me," said Mort, turning to leap back into the pond.

"Don't move." The man's voice took on the rumble of thunder, the shades of hell. "I need to speak with you."

Mort slowly turned himself to face the man again. "OK, I'm listening."

"I have a proposition," drawled the man. He extracted half a joint from the breast pocket of his jacket and breathed on the black end of it. It immediately ignited in a tiny burst of flame.

"You shouldn't smoke that stuff," said Mort. "It will make you emotionally unavailable."

"Huh," the man snorted before taking a long, searing hit off the joint. "Imagine that. Listen. I've got a little something planned for Nashville in a few weeks, and I'm going to need your help."

Mort noticed that the man never exhaled any smoke.

"I'm going to take care of your little hydration problem, lickity-split. This is going to be big. Water everywhere. You'll love it." He held the remnants of the smoking joint down towards Mort. "Want a hit?"

"Uh, no thanks," said Mort, closing his eyes against the cloud of smoke suddenly surrounding him. It was a pointless exercise; the amphibian's highly-porous skin absorbed the THC in the air like a wet sponge and, within seconds, Mort was high as a kite.

"I'm talking flood, little fellow. Apocalyptic shit, as much as I hate to use the expression. Now," the man paused to flick the joint into the woods, "you may not think that a tiny little frog is going to matter much in the middle of all this mayhem. But if a butterfly can set events into motion, you certainly can. Mort? Mort. Are you listening?"

Mort did not say anything.

"Mort!"

"That's correct," said Mort.

"Sour Jesus," said the man. "OK, so. Here's the deal. On May 1st you're going to see a lot of rain. On May 2nd, it's going to get really crazy. You'll need to be positioned at the top of that hill," he pointed to the hill behind the house. "About three in the afternoon, a good portion of that thing is going to go running down the slope like chocolate pudding. I need you to be smack in the middle of it."

"Pudding," said Mort. "Puuuuhddd-eeeeng. What is it?"

The man snapped his fingers on either side of the frog's head, eliciting slow, mucousy blinks from both. "Come on, Mort! Pull it together."

"OK," said Mort, sleepily. "Why am I doing this?"

"Mud, baby." The man grinned. "The sweet, healing properties of earth. You'll be under for a couple of days, max. You'll be nourished by the abundant minerals, the comfortable flow of moisture. Think of it like a weekend in Sonoma."

"Been there," yawned Mort.

"My ass."

"I just mean, like." Mort rolled over onto his back and let the sun warm his yellow belly. "What's the purpose of my participation at all? Like, what does it mean?"

"No one knows what any of it means, little guy," said the man. "I don't really do meaning. I've always been into chaos, misdirection, smoke, mirrors, that kind of thing." He rotated his chin and cracked his neck. "Meaning is for humans. I gave it up a long time ago. Look," he poked Mort's shiny belly softly, "just be there on Sunday."

"Cool," said Mort, turning, with a little difficulty, back onto his belly. "I'll let you know how it goes."

"Don't worry about it," said the man, repositioning his hat and dusting off his trouser legs. "Word gets around."

And, with a loud sizzle, he dove into the shallows of the pond and vanished.

Water Conservation: Keep It Cool

Due to this weekend's flooding, Nashville is currently undergoing a shortage of drinking water. Two of the city's water treatment plants were compromised because of their proximity to the now-mighty Cumberland River. The call is out to conserve. Adapted from a very informative list on CoolPeopleCare.com, here are some quick and fairly painless ways to cut your consumption, possibly in half:

1. Don't wash your car. Splattered grass and dirt are, reportedly, "flood chic." Think of your car as one of those ridiculous t-shirts at Urban Outfitters. Get out there and make something of yourself.

2. Cut off your sprinkler system at home and at work. Again, culture has been trending toward Middle Asia for the past couple of years; a little brown on your ground will only enhance your street cred.

3. Don't shower unless absolutely necessary. This, a decidedly French affectation, is not particularly cool nor pleasant but at least your house didn't float away down the river.

4. Don't wash your clothes unless you're out of underwear. Or, if you are of the "freeballing" persuasion, simply wait until the crotch of all of your pants take on the texture of a well-used dish sponge.

5. Let the dirty dishes stack up. Nashville's restaurant industry could always use a good kick in the pants. As always, be wary of spending more than $13.00 for an entree anywhere except Margot, Marche or 1808 Grille. This town runs on cheap local indigenous and immigrant fare; get into it, and give that money you would have spent at J. Alexander's to these people.

6. Use and reuse the same drinking glass all day. Enjoy the unexpected blending of flavors, the aroma of surprise, the texture of pure "otherness."

7. If you must shower, get in and out in four minutes. Set a timer. Be diligent. Yes, you might be thinking, "I'm, like, French now; what do I know about managing time?" But we know you can do it.

8. Don't shave. Armpits, legs, face, back, crotch or knuckles. Pretend you're running amok in a Hustler shoot from 1977.

9. Don't let the water run in the sink. Think when you turn the faucet on. See how little water you can allow to go down the drain. It's a little game, like Parcheesi.

10. Don't use a hose to clean off debris and dirt from your sidewalk. Let it dry and use a broom. Again, tres chic. If you missed the brooms on the runway at the Dolce Gabbana show in Milan recently... well, seriously, what were you thinking?

11. In regards to toilet etiquette, let's quote the Eminient Ed Koch: "If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down." Let's take a moment to reflect: Actually, if it's brown, you just ate it four to ten hours ago. Don't hate it so much. But, you know, go ahead and flush it.

David Henry Braves The Flood

The TrueTonian spotted in the vicinity of yet another flooded basement. Photo by Rann Russell

Hardwood

The weather in Nashville really doesn't get much better than today. Sunny, breezy, just a hint of crisp in the air, a touch of moisture, everything blooming and swollen with life. Eureka!

I spent the day in Joelton working at Bob's house on Clarksville Highway. The drive out of town was fine, early Spring light washing over everything. Upon arrival, I grouted a tile backsplash, installed some light fixtures and sanded and sealed the new floor in one of the bedrooms.

I am crazy for wood these days. I really like working with it. Bob and Raymond taught me how to lay hardwood floors last year and I have come to find the process very rewarding. Laying the planks is pretty hard on the back, but there is something magical about building this really strong organic surface out of a lot of individual pieces. I like to try to coordinate the different grain structures of each piece into some kind of harmonic visual pattern when possible. When I stare at it all for awhile the grain starts to look like water, like the boards are kind of flowing together.

I used to dislike the sanding process because of the unwieldy nature of the sander, but I've grown into it. It requires a certain kind of patience that a lot of other activities in my life do not. The trick to doing it correctly is performing multiple passes with different grades of sandpaper. It looks like a brutal process with the sander whining away and dust flying everywhere. But it is kind of delicate, in a way. It's like I'm rubbing off all the dirty fingerprints and grit and general Home Depotness the poor wood has had to endure since it left its original condition. I like the way the friction of the sander reforms the wood and seems to kind of seal the surface. I have to go fairly slowly, doing six passes in three different directions with 40 grade sandpaper (the roughest), then six more with 80, then four with 100 and 120 (the finest). Then I go around the edges of the room (Where the big sander cannot reach) with the small orbital sander, repeating all of the grades there.

By the end of it, the wood is gleaming. It looks supple, almost flesh-like. I vacuum it very thoroughly with the Shop Vac and then apply a coat of oil-based sealer with a roller. This leaves the surface very shiny for a minute or two, like a girlfriend that just stepped out of the shower. Then the grain of the wood starts to raise up a bit as the sealer seeps into it. Yes, it is a little disillusioning to watch the smooth texture disappear, but I take comfort in knowing that, once it dries, I will go back with an even finer grade of sandpaper, knock down the raised grit, vacuum, and then apply a couple of more coats of varnish. I'l take a picture when it is finished.