A New Start

I've decided to make a new start.

Beginning next year, I will become a 32 year-old single woman of uncertain ethnicities living in Brooklyn with a calico cat named Cattywumpus and two fulvous canaries named Yellow and Yellower. In my Crown Heights apartment with the bird cage hanging from the ceiling on a macrame rope by the bay window I will write stories about my inability to have a meaningful, sustainable relationship with a man or a woman because of my suffocating, shallow, trifling and often drunk mother, who insists that the Rose of Jericho tattoo around my belly button is offensive and unflattering. Using my formidable and exalted abilities to craft riveting and detailed narratives about my slightly overweight body, my anxiety-ridden brain, my oily complexion and oilier hair, and the cavalcade of lovers that come in and out of my life like spectral kangaroos, while employing my celebrated powers of detailed observation, I will become the favorite of literary critics the world over, almost indistinguishable from at least a dozen or so identical writers living in Brooklyn with a cat named Cattywumpus and two fulvous canaries named Yellow and Yellower.

Later that same year I'll fall in love with a tall, graceful Masai warrior after spying him sunning his dusty tallywhacker on the Serengeti plain, where I have gone into hiding after a much publicized affair with the married female director of the Bennington MFA program. My love for the wondrous Masai warrior, his stupendous spear and unintelligible language will backfire when I am accused of cultural misappropriation in my imagined flash fiction stories of sex with lions, hyenas, elephants, rhinos, baboons, orangutans, gorillas, warthogs and wildebeests. Tail between my bruised and battered thighs, I return to Brooklyn as a nobody, a nothing, a has-been wannabe, along with at least a dozen or so identical writers that have ventured to the Serengeti seeking the spiritual equivalent of the storied spear of the tall, graceful Masai.

And so, reluctantly, I return to Coon Hollow, a much wiser but still completely irrelevant and aching 60-year-old man with a beautiful, caring, warm, and understanding wife of 33 years, and two amazingly talented, beautiful and inspiring adult children, and Mr. Boo, a  4-legged ball warrior with a coat of pure velvet cacao, all of whom wait patiently for my next new start.

Grab it! It's not about a 32-year old woman, or about a graceful Masai sunning his dusty tallywhacker, but it's just as stupid!

Time, the Avenger (or The Curious Case of the Chrome Codpiece)

All righty this here will be the last limbo blast of this godforsaken year; the final flapper when the fat lady lets her bottom sing an aria like no other, giving OhThirteen a final and definitive "whoosh" into eternity. 

As far as New Year evolutions go, I've been instructed to shut up about my aches, pains, existential nightmares, apocalyptic visions, hemorrhoids etc. if I expect to have any friends at all, and I suspect this is good advice. But, as Alice so wisely observed before she popped that LSD-laced biscuit between her rosy lips, "I often give myself good advice, but I very seldom follow it." Anyway I thought I would give it a try. The LSD-laced biscuit, I mean.

That said, as I was tripping my brains out the other day (oh not really I mean jeez an acid trip at this late stage of the game would prolly be a one way ticket to Napa) I met the most enigmatic, twisted, reptilian motherfucker I've ever seen. I was stretched out in my beach barcalounger down in front of the castle at Stinson, and even though it must have been 70 degrees as it has been the entire second half of December I had on my old navy blue down parka, Pivettas, a flannel and 501s, my filthy hair pasted back under a Giants cap, my Vuarnets held together with Scotch tape, a fifth of Skye in my one of my jacket pockets and a carton of Marlboro reds and a foil of crack in the other. I guess you could say I’ve been having a high school flashback for the past couple of months, but strangely enough it’s not MY high school flashback. Instead I’m pretty sure it’s the late Scott Colburn’s, Mark Menzell's or one of the Barich brothers. I suspect my charade as a seventies stoner playing hooky from auto shop class is what caused this odd fellow to plop down on the sand beside me, pull the vodka bottle out of my left parka pocket and a pack of Reds out of the other - I could only watch, not only completely drunk but now equally dumbfounded. He took a long pull on the sapphire blue Skye bottle - the most tempting bottle of booze I have ever seen with it’s promise of crystal blue persuasion spilling over my inflamed and throbbing cerebral cortex - then shook a stick out of the fresh pack and lit up. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Happy New Year to you too,” I said with a slur that I couldn’t control.

He just continued staring out on the high noon diamond studded Pacific, smoke billowing out of his furry nostrils. After another long pull he said "I don't go much for numerical measurements that mark the passage of time. New Year's being a prime example, right up there with birthdays, anniversaries, memorials, and just dates in general."

I took a long look at him: not your typical beach bum by any stretch in his rhinestone lederhosen, propeller beanie, knee high moccasins and chrome codpiece. Being accosted by such an outfit might normally send me scuttling over to the Sand Dollar for a cup of coffee and a shot of crank, but when this odd little fellow passed the bottle back to me, I froze. 

"You see," he continued, picking tobacco from his tongue, "numbers, measurements, calculations...all pure inscrutable abstraction in my book. What real difference do these measurements make in a life? Do we subscribe to them so we know how to feel, how to act, what to wear, what to say, what music to play, what songs to sing, what colors to don? Of course we do, for without them life would be chaos, wouldn't it?"

He suddenly gripped my leg with his rubber gloved hand. "WOULDN'T IT?"

But I was already far beyond complete catatonia. While he caterwauled against the existence of time, I couldn't help but watch his eyeballs roll around in his sockets like marbles swirling down a funnel and his tongue dart in and out, in and out as if to snare a passing insect. And he couldn't have been more than four feet tall!

As far as I could tell, all was chaos with or without numerical markers. But sitting there as I was in the exact same clothes Scott Colburn or Mark Menzell might have worn to the beach on this absurdly globally warmed New Years Eve day, I felt an upwelling of joyous agreement, a profound yearning to be a member of this enlightened club of humans unfettered by the whims of the calendar and answering only to the movement of the non-numerical sun around the globe; to the turning of the leaves and the great migrations of the fowl; the flow of the tides under the spell of their lunar master; the rhythms of their lungs and beating of their hearts. Who were these enlightened, arithmetic souls that roamed the planet in rhinestone lederhosen and chrome codpieces? Where could I get such a cool outfit? Did they make them for full grown humans?

And then, as if to remind my new friend and I that the rest of the world in their stinking ignorance were

still slaves to time as measured out in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years...a earsplittlxngly loud horn atop a fifty foot tower, loud enough to blow a million walls of Jericho to dust, blanketed the beach, the lagoon, the multi-million dollar homes in Seadrift and the little shotgun shacks in the village, the soft-serv snack bar, Ed's Superette; all of it, buried in sound for an entire 30 seconds.

"Ah, well, so much for your escape from the big fat motherfucking clock, eh dude?" I said, chucking him on the...but wait, there was no shoulder to chuck, for my new best buddy had fled, high speed waddling through the sand like the famous TV midget Dr. Loveless at the blowing of the five o' clock whistle. I jumped up in hot pursuit, my Pivettas flying over the sand, shouting "hey, what the fuck, man!" just like James West might have, and it wasn't long before I caught up to the mind-bending midget.

"Hey, what's the big deal?" I said once I had the little monkey pinned. "I thought you had liberated yourself of numbers, your pure abstraction, your enslavement to the clock!"

His eyes were rolling furiously, tongue darting in and out like a lizard.

"Of course!" he hissed. "But there's only three hours and 58 minutes until I have to ring in the New Year, so let me go!" he cried.

"Wait," I said, trying to get a fix on his spinning face, "you're telling me that you...a midget in rhinestone lederhosen, knee high moccasins and a chrome codpiece...you are Father Time?"

"Yes, you idiot! But I won't be for long if you don't let me go! I can't be a nano second late, or the entire universe will be...OFF SCHEDULE!"

And with that the little turd squirmed out of my grasp, just as a Blackhawk helicopter appeared overhead, stirring up clouds of sand, seagulls, snowy plovers, harbor seals, Dungeness crabs, great white sharks, migrating gray whales and oil tankers. Then a rope was cast from the copter, Father Time grabbed on and was swept up in a clouded instant and before I could clear my eyes of sand and grit he was gone, headed no doubt for Times Square where, behind the scenes, he would direct Angela Sotomayer, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, on the delicate task of pressing  the button that would signal a new marker, another measurement by which the existence of the human race will be tracked, judged, categorized, labeled and rated.

This is all okay by me, as I have slipped into the dubious existence of days long gone by, perhaps even 1972, when Scott Colburn, Mark Menzell and the Barich brothers wore puffy down parkas, Pivetta hiking boots over the ankle, threadbare Levi's, stolen Vuarnets and were never, ever on time for anything.

Another number, this one denoting the 366th consecutive day and thereby triggering a change in the measurement known as a "year", is advancing forward. A meaningless demarcation, perhaps. Another checkmark in the box. A chance to reflect, let bygones be bygones, and screw up various official documents for the next few months.

Let's be nice to each other, make sweet of it, and maybe even pretend that this will be the best year yet.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

(...and you thought I would say something puerile and sophomoric like "Happy Nude Queer". Well, I'm giving up poor taste in OhFourteen, which is also the year manatees will learn to fly.)

Jeb

Git yer copy today and be a life hacker!

The Great Unbecoming Part. I

Of the several dozen epiphanies I had today, one was so disturbingly profound as to be downright epiphanous.

No it wasn't the ephiphany y'all have been so patiently waiting for: the realization that chronic cleverness will be the ultimate undoing of civilization as we know it. I've been patiently waiting for that one too, as it will be major relief to be freed from the compulsion to be the clever one, the one who must continually disguise simple, straightforward information in an inscrutable coat of arcane language and overworked metaphor. No, I've yet to come to such a realization, but I sincerely hope that soon the clever cloak will fall and simple naked honesty will prevail. Meanwhile I guess we'll just have to settle for the usual unabashed and tasteless silliness. Oh well. 

Some of you may recall a Limboland loony toon entitled "@ Fifty Seven" where I faithfully listed my various failing factory parts and the efforts made at installing replacement equipment. There's the successful and unsuccessful surgeries, the arthritic joints, the irreparable brain damage, failing eyesight, sleepy pee pee and on and on it goes, clear evidence that I am not, nor will I ever be who I once was. In other words much of what I had become was now becoming undone, or unbecoming. Physical and mental capabilities have not simply evolved into a different state. Instead, it's all unraveling into a state certain uncertainty, coming apart bit by bit until my atoms will ultimately be dispersed into the cosmic soup to perhaps become rearranged in some other form. A lemur, perhaps. 

I received an instant message from Cosmic Headquarters the other day that warned me against fighting this great unbecoming. "Resistance is futile" it said. "You will unbecome like a flower drops its petals, one brain cell and body part at a time. But don't despair, as you unbecome who you were so shall you become who you are." And I'm thinkin' what? I don't get to keep anything just the way it is? If not a flower then what? A weed?

Seeing that Cosmic Headquarters offers a "live chat" feature, I posed my questions to the resident subject matter expert. 

"What about the skiing, the body surfing and boogie boarding?" I asked. "What about the golf, the backpack trips, the frisky marathon sex, the wild tequila dancing, the loud rock and roll, the devastating effect my gap toothed smile has on the opposite sex? And what about the supreme confidence of knowing I am indeed a chosen master of the universe and can solve any problem no matter its size or importance, and the knowledge that I can beat Larry Ellison in a spelling bee if not a sailboat race? I don't get to keep any of these things in a state of Billy Joel-ness; that is, just the way they are?"

The chat reply was instantaneous, so I figured it must have been a cut and paste from the Cosmic Headquarters knowledge-base. "Not exactly," the chat box read. "Think of it as adjective adjustment: you were once an aggressive, expert skiier who hiked into the out-of-bounds for the deepest powder, sought out the Volkswagen-sized bumps on the steepest runs, and avoided turning in traffic. You are now a conservative, mature skiier who likes to cruise the groomers from approximately 11:30 to 3:00. Even this will cause you great pain."

After a few more answers from the chat support desk I decide I am not liking the sound of the great unbecoming, but at least it is not the complete cessation of physical activity. I googled around for snow-walkers and other aids, prosthetics and potentially useful drugs. Discovering there is a abundant cornucopia of such aids to the great unbecoming, I now look forward to the possibilities of the new becoming: the softer, mellower perhaps even acoustic renditions of "Let it Bleed", "Not Fade Away" and "Midnight Hour"; the afternoons picking blackberries and pedaling our bicycle made for two down to the wine bar/art gallery; the hours spent directing the gardeners in their care of the sensitive succulents and fruit trees that adorn Coon Hollow, our coastal home; the long and tender bowel movements and parallel literary explorations; the bemused expressions of young women and their soft, sensitive requests "you're cute but would you please stop smiling at me like that?"

I can accept the idea that in the face of the great unbecoming one must be open to considering all likes of revisions, some foreseeable and some lying in wait. Reality may appear fleeting between middle age and post-middle age, sometimes willing to negotiate and sometimes not. Perhaps, in ponderment, it is possible to unbecome without entirely becoming unbecoming, at least to those that have either officially or unofficially agreed to stick it out through thick and thicker. We can only take this one fallen petal at a time. 

Perhaps it is impudent to share such uncooked thoughts, such silly word play in the greater, grander scheme of things. But, this is Limboland me hearties, and anything goes!