Shopping

SCENE: A store. Target, to be specific. MAN and WOMAN stroll through, gazing at the racks and racks of clothing on sale. The man pushes a CART, already three-quarters full.


WOMAN (grabbing a pair of jeans): These are cute...


The Woman holds them up, analyzing every stitch. The Man looks on helplessly - deer in headlights.

WOMAN (to Man): What do you think about these?


MAN: They're great.


WOMAN: Really?


MAN: Yeah.


WOMAN: They wouldn't make my butt look too big?


MAN: Not at all.


WOMAN (referring to jeans she is wearing): Do these make my butt look big?


MAN: No.


WOMAN: Are you sure?


MAN: I think they look great on you.


The Woman reverts her attention back to the jeans - the ones she is wearing as well as the potential purchase...
MAN: You should totally get them.


WOMAN: I don't know. They're a little expensive.


MAN: You said you needed a new pair.


WOMAN: I do...I do. I'm just not sure if these will even fit me right.


MAN: Then try them on.


WOMAN: They're probably won't fit over my huge hips.


MAN: You don't have huge hips.


WOMAN: Compared to Sarah I do.


MAN: Why do you always compare yourself to Sarah?


WOMAN: I never compare myself to her.


MAN: You just did.


WOMAN: You make it seem like I do it all the time.


MAN: You do do it all the time.


WOMAN: No I don't.

The man surrenders. He knows he can not win this one. Only lose gracefully.

MAN: Just try them on. I'm sure they'll be perfect.

We rejoin them ten minutes later. The Man sits, waiting for the Woman to come out of the dressing room. This is the seventh pair of jeans.

She arrives.

WOMAN: How do you like these ones?

MAN: I like them.

WOMAN: You said that about the last two.

MAN: Because I liked the last two.

WOMAN: Which do you like the most?

MAN (forgetting what the last two looked like): Um, this one. Definitely.

WOMAN: Why definitely?

MAN: I just really like it.

WOMAN: Were the other ones that bad?

MAN: No, this one is just that good.

WOMAN: I really liked the second pair I tried on.

MAN: They were good as well.

WOMAN: But you said you liked these the best.

MAN (lying): I do. But I really don't think you can go wrong here. It's whichever one you're more comfortable with.

WOMAN: They're all comfortable.

MAN: Well then get the one that looks the best.

WOMAN: You said this pair looked the best.

MAN (wanting to wrench out his tongue for speaking in absolutes, such as best and worst, instead of the vague "like's" and "great's" that he'd been getting by with for the last two hours): I think you looked great in the second pair as well.

WOMAN: But not as good as in these.

MAN: Try the second pair on again and let me compare them.

WOMAN: No, it's fine. I'll get these.

MAN: You should get the ones you want.

WOMAN: I just want to you to think I'm sexy. And apparently I do in these.

MAN: You do in all of them.

WOMAN: Then why do you like these the best?

MAN: I just like how they look on you.

The Woman now tunes him out. Walks in front of a store mirror. Does the obligatory eight or nine turns in front of it. Trying to see herself in the jeans from every angle.

WOMAN: My butt looks huge in these.

MAN: It doesn't look big in those.

WOMAN: It does. Look.

She turns and shows him her butt. To the Man, it looks exactly the same as every other pair of jeans.

WOMAN: See?

The Man nods.

WOMAN: I told you so.

She walks back to the dressing room. The Man checks his phone. Game starts in thirty five. Store's fifteen minutes away.

The Woman returns, carrying nothing.

MAN: Where are the jeans?

WOMAN: I'm not going to get any.

MAN: What about the second pair?

WOMAN: They're too expensive.

MAN: But you need a pair.

WOMAN: Highland Mall's only ten minutes from here. I'm sure they'll have something cheaper there.

MAN: Seriously. Let's just get the pair of jeans right now. You looked great in them. My treat to you.

WOMAN: I wasn't that crazy about them anyway. Made my butt look big.

The Woman walks towards the checkout. The Man checks his phone. Thirty-four minutes now. Pushes the cart towards the checkout, defeated...

Conversation

SCENE: A COW, in a lush pasture, chats with a VEGETARIAN. We join them mid-conversation, after the shock of a talking animal is no longer the focus.


Cow: You're not going to eat me are you?


Vegetarian: Nope. I'm a vegetarian.


Cow: Heard that one before.


The Cow backs away cautiously.


Vegetarian: No. Really, I am.


Cow: Then what are you doing in a pasture?

Vegetarian: Getting away from it all.


Cow: Any you just happened to pick this exact spot?


Vegetarian: Looked quiet.


Cow: How can something look quiet?


Vegetarian: I don't know. Maybe I meant to say it looked peaceful.


Cow: Well then why didn't you say that?


Vegetarian: Guess I misspoke.


Cow: I guess you did.


The Cow stares suspiciously at the Vegetarian.


Vegetarian: Anyone else know you can talk?


Cow: They're both dead.


Vegetarian: Dead?


Cow:Yeah. They knew too much...


The Vegetarian looks uncomfortable. A silence.


Cow: (laughing) HAHAHA! Oh boy. You should have seen the look on your face when I said that. Hahaha!


Vegetarian: Very funny...


Cow: ...I haven't laughed that hard in a while.


Vegetarian: Have you ever killed anything?


Cow: Yeah. A fly that was really pissing me off. Kept landing on my eye ball.


Vegetarian: How can you kill a fly?


Cow: I trampled it.

Vegetarian: Must have been a slow fly.

Cow: What's that supposed to mean?

Vegetarian: Nothing. I just --


Cow: You just what?


Vegetarian: Forget it.


Activist Cow: No. I'm not going to 'forget it.' How would you like it if I insulted you?


Vegetarian: I probably wouldn't appreciate it.


Cow: Well, I think you're fat. But just 'forget about it', right?


Vegetarian: (smirking) Kind of ironic, don't you think?


Cow: What's ironic?

Vegetarian: You, a cow, calling me fat.

Cow: Hey, I'm genetically engineered to be heavy. What's your excuse?


Vegetarian: Overactive thyroid.


Cow: Right...


Vegetarian: No, seriously, I have medicine for it.


Cow: Whatever helps you sleep at night.


Vegetarian: I imagined cows as much nicer animals...


Cow: (sarcastic) Oh, what we're supposed to be best friends because you don't eat meat? You want to make a real difference? Break me out of here.


Vegetarian: You wouldn't fit in my car.


Cow: Really? Another fat joke?


Vegetarian: No. I'm being serious. I drive a Toyota Pruis. You wouldn't fit.


Cow: Good. I wouldn't want to get in that car. With all the accelerator problems and recalls.


Vegetarian: How do you even know about those?


Cow: Because I'm a cow I can't be informed on current events?


Vegetarian: I'm surprised, that's all.

Cow: You know what? Just cut the barbed wire. I'll disappear into the woods and we can both go our own ways.


Vegetarian: Kind of hard to disappear with those spots.


Cow: They aren't the best camouflage, I'll grant you that.


Vegetarian: What purpose could they possibly serve?


Cow: Hey, easy on the spots, alright?


Vegetarian: I was just wondering.


Cow: You 'just' a lot of things. I'm starting to get tired of it.


Vegetarian: Don't have a cow...


The Vegetarian cracks up, impressed with his own pun. The cow stares blankly.

Vegetarian: Oh come on? Not even a little smile?


Cow: You know how many times I've heard that? Why don't you round it out and 'moo' at me?


Vegetarian: Mine was more clever than that...


Cow: Pretty sad when you have to defend your own joke...


And we leave, just as we entered, mid-conversation. We pull back, keep pulling back, as they keep talking, until they are just two specks in a field of green.

A different kind of Jon Keats

I was going to write about health care and abortion today.


That all changed when I read about a man named Jon Keats [his real name], who has an exhibit in New York City.


You're probably asking yourself, "what's in this display, and why is Ed writing about it and not some of the most pressing social issues of our time?" Stephanie Meyer might say you were just wondering. Or pondering. Speculating. Ruminating. Inquiring. Meditating. Deliberating. Musing. Considering. Perhaps you weren't. Either way...


The answer to your query, question, speculation, pondering, wondering, is that his exhibit displays televisions for plants... Let me write it again, this time in capital letters, so the absurdity of it truly sinks in [if it didn't before]. TELEVISIONS FOR PLANTS. It is exactly as it sounds. He positions plants in front of television screens, which play six and a half minute loops of an Italian sky...that's it. There's no punchline. It's plants watching tv. Visitors are encouraged to bring their own potted plants. Take them on a vacation of sorts. I'm not sure which I'm more uncomfortable with. The man who thought of it, or the people who show up to take their plants on an Italian vacation of sorts. They all should be monitored.


This man has also copyrighted his own mind [sounds like something Amelia would do], and has sold real estate in the extra dimensions of space-time proposed by string theory [sounds like something Joe would do].


I found out about these charades in the New Yorker, and I don't know which I was more upset about: the exhibit itself, or that the exhibit was written about in the New Yorker. Because that's exactly what this Keats guy wants. To be written about and talked about and be thought of as quirky and interesting and pushing the limits of thought experiments when in fact people like Jon Keats deserve to be locked in a closet, where they are denied the attention they so desperately crave and they can only annoy themselves. Television for plants is on the same deplorable level of philosophy and art as shitting in a paper bag. It doesn't broaden any horizons except for people who drop acid every day. It doesn't push anything forward. It is a waste of time and thought, the equivalent to being stuck in traffic, doing nothing other than robbing you of irreclaimable time.


You know he goes to dinner parties and when people ask what he does, he smiles and tells them a few of his exploits and they say "that's so interesting" or laugh or something. But it's not interesting! It's not even funny! It's f---ing stupid! And the worst part is, he gets paid to do this. So he has the time and the resources to sit around, do nothing except think of more scams.


I'm fairly certain he's not inundated with job offers...


....


Employer: It says here on your resume that you founded and created an exhibit called "Plant Television". What was that?


Keats: Exactly what it sounds like.


Employer: You made a t.v. show about plants?


Keats: No. I put plants in front of a television.


Employer: And filmed a tv show about it?


Keats: No. I put them there just so they could watch television.


Employer: They?


Keats: The plants.


Employer: I thought plants couldn't watch television.


Keats: They can't.


Employer: Then why put them in front of tv?


Keats: So they can watch television.


Employer: But they can't.


Keats: You don't know that.


Employer: They don't have eyes. I know that.


Keats: Eyes aren't the only way to see.


Employer: Tell me another way.


Keats: Sonar.


Employer: Do plants have sonar?


Keats: Not that I'm aware of.


Employer: Then how do they see the tv if they don't have eyes or sonar?


Keats: I never said they could see the tv.


Employer: Then why put them in front of a screen if they can't see?


Keats: Blind people go to movies. They can't see them.


Employer: When was the last time you saw a blind person in a movie?


Keats: Yesterday.


Employer: You're lying.


Keats: Alright, I was. But I know blind people go to movies.


Employer: At least they can hear them.


Keats: How do you know plants can't hear?


Employer: Because they don't have ears.


Keats: There are other ways of hearing.


Employer: Name one.


Keats: Sonar.


Employer: We've been down this road.


Keats: What about radio waves?


Employer: What about them?


Keats: You can transmit and listen to sound through radio waves.


Employer: Do plants transmit radio waves?


Keats: Doubtful.


Employer: Then how does that help us?


Keats: I guess it doesn't.


Employer: You're going to have to do better.


Keats: What about photosynthesis? Or osmosis?


Employer: Now you're just saying words that sound scientific.


Keats: You caught me again.


*awkward silence


Keats: Ever thought about buying real estate in a fourth dimension?


Employer: Get out. Now.

Galveston

The drive from Austin to Galveston is four hours and simple. It is pavement, yellowy-green grass and billboards. Takes you through the massive city of Houston and small towns you pass through before you realize you were in them. It is 71 east to I-10 east to I-45 South. Cattle and horses in fields by the side of the road, cars sprinkled beside, behind and in front, and the highway stretched out as far as you can see. The drive back is less exciting. No beach to look forward to, the destination already familiar. I made that drive today, and am glad it is, as they say, in the rearview mirror [a fairly good pun].

Galveston is a city that still bears the scars of Hurricane Ike. Houses on the beach have boards where windows should be. Businesses are the same way. One brick building on a main street has "Water Line" etched on its wall. About twelve feet high. The Gulf of Mexico provides the water for all of the beaches in Galveston, and it is the same color as the sand. The most popular street is called Seawall Boulevard. Soaked with hotels, restaurants, bike rentals. The hotel we all stayed in was on it. Last night, my last in Galveston, I crossed Seawall Boulevard, walked two hundred yards and sat on a rock looking out at the gulf. This is what I wrote:

"Darkness. Water the same color as the sky. For all I can see, they both go on forever. Lights across the water. Possibly oil rigs. Maybe boats. But definitely lights. And definitely lower on the sky than the stars. The planes look like blinking comets. Waves coming and going. Appearing suddenly like a white fuse as they burn across the water, then extinguishing and rolling onto the sand, erasing all the castles and messages and hearts. Blank canvas for tomorrow. A few gulls call. Why aren't they sleeping? Sand the same color as dirt, water, stretches out for miles either direction of me. All day, people leave this beach and take part of it with them. In their hair, bags, clothes, towels. Doesn't even make a dent. I can't help but wish there was no road behind me. No Best Western and no street lights. And no McDonalds "M" towering over Kuta Beach. Just rocks and sand and water."

That's it. More later.

Lilly Grace Clark

Lilly Grace is the newest member of the family. The smallest, the most talked about. A healthy, smiling, chubby baby. The best kind. Adorable even through a Skype conversation. Always moving, always playing, smiling, occasionally stopping for a wave or a shrug, but then back to the games. The endless games, and the tireless mother who must play each and every one. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's enjoying it more. Sometimes it's not. Lilly hasn't learned to hide her emotions yet. If she's like Ellie, that day might never come.

Today, Lilly is eleven months old. Even her age - still counted in months, not years - is cute. The eleven months don't feel as distant as I suppose they should. I remember learning how to hold a relatively newborn Lilly, because she couldn't support her own head yet. I've never sweated so much holding something so small and light. Then, I would watch her lie on her back, as she stared at the world with her big eyes, and kicked and gaggled and laughed, and that was how she played. Now she stands on her own, but still wobbly as a drunk. She rides Lilly Lamb and eats cheese by herself and even pursues a tired old beagle in the hopes of grabbing a handful of fur. She has grown [if you think her belly is impressive in this photo, you should see her now]. And continues to do so at an exceptional rate.

Along with her growth, I have watched my sister become a mother, radiating love, laughter. Always love and laughter. In every bath, in every meal of chicken and peas and avocado, love and laughter. I have seen my brother-in-law become a father, a proud, beaming one, who now has twice the amount of pink and green under his roof. Lilly has grown and brought love with her. Just as Amelia did when she was born.

"It [Amelia's birth] created a new little room in my heart and the new love grew there, and its light shone through the window and made my world brighter than it had been before." - Dad.

*[Read the rest of Dad's blog here. You won't find a more simple and honest discussion on love. Or more worthwhile.]
....

I talked to Amelia and Lilly on Skype today. After I hung up, I realized that this little person has done nothing but made me smile since I've known her. When she laughs, I do. When she waves, I wave back. When she growls, I growl back and when she chews on her toes I laugh some more. What an exceptional gift. To bring genuine, constant happiness into a world that is desperately missing some. Leading a good life, in its most basic sense, means leaving the world a better place than you found it. And without saying a word, without doing anything other than being her happy self, so vulnerable, so honest, she has already done that in the most zen of ways - by not even trying to.

....

I don't know much about babies, I'll admit. I'm fairly certain Lilly can't talk. Or read. But I'd like to end this with a short little letter to her, before she turns one. Sometimes it's nice writing a letter to someone knowing they won't read it for some time.

....

Dear Lilly,

I wonder how many teeth you'll have when you read this. I'm guessing more than you do now. I can count your teeth sometimes when you smile. By my last count, you're at five or six now. I hope you keep smiling, not just so I can count your teeth. Because when you smile, Mommy and Daddy smile. So does Granny and thin-haired Grandpa. So do I. And plus, when you smile, Daddy is more likely to cave in and buy you things. Like candy. And ponies.

So keep smiling and waving. There's not enough of it in the world.

-Your proud godfather,
Edward.

....

Waiting

I've worked in a corporate restaurant now for over a year. Let me share what it is like, or can be like at times.

I've waited on people who didn't speak english, couldn't read [not because of bad eye-sight], and one table even ate with their hands when they had knives and forks. I waited on a woman who had schizophrenia [conversations, quite audibly, across the table when no one was there]. I've served people who were stunningly attractive and others who were hideously obese [couldn't fit into a booth]. I've served people who tipped over fifty percent, and those who tipped nothing. I've been called a "yankee". I've forgotten to ring in entire orders, and had tables complain that there was too much ice in their drinks. Customers have confided in me their marital issues and employment setbacks. One guy drank 10 glasses [I counted] of Dr. Pepper. I've had to deliver food to a table as they were in the middle of a fight [verbally]. I've had women leave me their number. A man also.

They are random memories. Nothing more. But that's just the customers. The employees deserve a mention as well.

One of the advantages of working in the service industry, so I'm told, is the absence of drug testing. Safe to say, a fair amount capitalize on this perk, and have a good time in the process. They are an interesting bunch all things considered. One guy has scars on his arms from donating so much plasma. One waiter invited me to a gay bar [said I would be his meal ticket to free drinks. I politely declined]. Another woman I work with offered to give me a full body wax. Yes, you read that correctly. Wax me. All of me. Another polite no. And we always talk about the same things. How many tables you have. Any difficult, interesting, or attractive people at your tables. If you're making good money. What you're doing after work. We never really find anything new to talk about. The questions always the same, answers often different. So we keep asking.

Waiting tables forces you to be social with people you would otherwise never speak to. To smile when they smile and even when they don't. You thank them for coming in and eating, when in fact they should be thanking you. You pretend to care about food complaints, when the truth is you don't care whether the food tastes good, only that it looks good. You don't care if drinks are cold or well made. All that matters is the tip, and so you pretend to actually care because happy people tip well. Orwell describes this false kindness well in his book, Down and Out in Paris and London, when he was working as a dishwashing grunt in a hotel restaurant. He details how waiters verbally abused other employees and himself [quite aggressively, I might add] right up to the moment they walked out into the dining area. Then they were humble, helpful, polite, flattering. Nice to know that not everything has changed. It is still chaotic in the kitchen. Everyone running, yelling that they need this or that. Cooks yelling back. Orders being rung in, brought out, tables being bussed, dish being washed and run back to the kitchen, drinks being made at the bar. It all somehow works.

That's all I've got. There is more to write about, but I have said enough. And I have to go to work.

....

More things:

You should read The Road. Quick, powerful, so simple. One of the best writers alive, and arguably his best book. Reminds me of Hemingway with how brutal he is with his writing. Dialogue is awesome too. Just read it.

Cleaned my bike a couple days ago. Bike training for this year has officially started.

....

Bits and pieces

Days went by, as they always find a way to do. I filled them with Kerouac, Heat-Moon. Glanced over Pirsig, Steinbeck. They all had something to write about: America, the tires and the road beneath, the rambling journey, the stops, the people, the reflections. I didn't have that. I still don't. I will write about my life instead.

....

Went to Jiffy Lube today. William Least Heat-Moon got a new engine fan and serpentine belt for $39.50. I got my oil changed, replaced 3 tail-light bulbs and an air filter for $124. Don't even get me started on gas. Kerouac talks about 35 cents getting him across town. Steinbeck and his truck probably made it across half the country in what it costs to fill up my tank once. America and all it's progress has made the road an expensive place to get lost on, to wander. So has inflation.

....

Chili's continues to be, if I'm being generous, interesting. I often serve tables who don't speak English, or can't read our menu, or don't understand it. They usually don't tip well. It's an easy job, frustrating at times because your income depends on the generosity of others. These "others" aren't always generous, or even educated [refer to my second sentence of this paragraph]. As Shakespeare, and now everyone else, says, "there's the rub." But, if nothing else, it's motivation for my job search. It's tough to find anything when you don't know what you want, only what you don't want. The one thing I am absolutely certain is that I don't want to wake up one day in June and put on jeans and a black polo shirt and non-slip shoes before I head off to work.

....

Snow has passed. Thankfully. Going to be in the 60's all week. Rain expected. I'll be outside most of those days, trying to get in shape for the upcoming racing season. I've got age-group titles to defend, a brother to take down, and a father to "put across my knee".

....

Up next, Death of A Salesman by Arthur Miller. Then, either Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell or The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I'm excited. On deck, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Music for Chameleons, Metamorphasis or Brave New World. As said before, exciting.

....

Another quick note, I watched the movie "Crazy Heart" with Carinne on Sunday. Awesome movie. Good acting. Nice, simple story line with simple dialogue. Definitely recommend it. Some enjoyable country music in there too. A patient movie. The kind I like.

....

Quote I'll pass along for no real reason other than I enjoy it:

"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence