proteanme

The rain came back with a vengeance, but friends and family countered with an out pouring of well wishes and good times. Thanks to everyone who celebrated my birthday with me today. You all really made the day. Seriously. I’m feeling kinda sentimental about it. I had some of the best dang food, shared some terrific company and heard from a whole slew of people I really like but don’t get to see nearly as often I wish I could. Good fortune. That’s what I call that. Thanks everyone for making that happen. You all rock.

Welcome to our world, Finely and Carter. I’m really happy for all the parties involved in bringing in all this new life, helping the families adjust and just generally getting things off to a good start. I also wanna take a second or two to nod to a couple other reasons to celebrate, even if they are not as momentous, like a good paying job, a well working bike, fours days of sunshine in a row, damn good food, and a way forward with my sister. Plus, Becky’s coming to town.

Everyone in my family is grieving differently, although my sister and I share a little more common ground in that we both are my father’s children and that legally it has been our responsibility to take care of the business of his death. I have to stop sometimes and imagine my mom’s grief. My father was the only man my mom was married to and after they divorced they remained friends.  She knew him for something like 56 years. And she likely knows as much about his life as anyone, even as he part and parceled it out amongst various groups of people over the course of his 83 years.  In many ways she is like his widow. The last time we were all together as a family was to celebrate a milestone of being alive — my mom’s 75th birthday. My dad spent a good chunk of time with us during our short visit.  And that was sweet. It felt good, that family feeling.

I also celebrated a personal milestone this week. After putting in some crazy hours for the last month and a half, we launched a redesign of my work’s website.  Our brand has a new point of view and the photography is really the star piece. This is the first time I’ve seen my own design work go live such a big project. To be fair I worked in closely with the Art Director, but the concept was largely driven by me. And of course I wrote some ass kicking CSS/XHTML.  It was incredibly satisfaying work.  Incredibly. Satisfying.

That was the theme for today because mostly I was feeling like what was the point of cleaning my house or putting away my laundry or taking out the trash or eating anything besides a bagel and chocolate bar if my dad’s still dead, and this girl I like is still be as sick as she’s ever been, and another important girl in my life is still laid off, and my friend still has cancer, and seven people I work with lost their jobs. What’s the point? But something some where inside said why not, ya know. Why not fold your boxers and make braised chicken with shallots and take the washed glass bottles out to the recyclable tub by the curb. And then  I even went so far as to clean out the bottom of my fridge.  It had been two years. I know that’s gross. This apple doesn’t fall from the tree.

Do I feel better -not really. But I don’t feel worse either. A zero sum game seems ok to me, though. In a Buddhist kinda way.

I read some poetry today. This girl asked me to send her some poems. I swear it’s a task she thought up for me as much as for her; it’s as if she’s saying don’t shut down, man. I’m an expert shutter. She wrote me a letter. At the end she said, “be brave.”

Yesterday it was sunny and RU, who loves to walk as much as she loves the elusive Portland spring, got me to go on two walks. A coup for sure. She even got me to smell spring. Her plate is full these days, but I don’t know how I’d be getting through without her.

Friends are sweet and check on me and tell me I’ll be ok. A couple friends at work take walks with me and let me rail when I’m pissed, or just look at them across the lunch table and say “what the fuck”. People call and invite me over to eat or take me to dinner. And they listen when they should or talk when I don’t wan to. Whatever works. I’m lucky to know such generous hearts.

Hard to believe it’s Christmas eve. Pep had it right about kindness. That’s one thing I’ve thought about a lot this year. Enough can’t be said about kindness. Truly. A good thing to think about as the year winds down.

In honor of the most snow in something like fifty years.

I love twilight. In a nearly clear sky.

I’m lucky in that one side of my cube is almost all windows, extending from side to side and then up three feet. This way I get to notice the sky. Today I sat for a few minutes and looked at dusk and thought to myself, wow, this is what liminal looks like. This is liminality done up nuanced and stunning at the same time.

So quiet here. Amazing. I went for a walk and took a bunch of pictures. I live on the cusp of a swanky neighborhood, bordered by a small commercial district and within a few blocks from a middle school. Typical urban scene in Portland where city living is high density. But it always reminds me a snapshot of history. Urban life before the sprawl of the fifties. It really is one of the best things about Portland — how high density packs us in and makes us all live together.  I felt grateful for the pleasure of walking for ten or twenty blocks surrounded by trees and old buildings and gardens and old homes. Lucky, even.

I have been missing Indiana lately. Missing all the things that add up to home. I want to send a special note to all my Hoosiers, including the expats, like Martha and Pep, that you are on my mind often and I wish I could see you all with much more frequency. And Pep even though I know you’re not from Indiana, because of how I know you you’ll always be a Hooiser to me, which I mean as the highest compliment. I feel awfully lucky to count you all as friends.

Mostly, things are ok and I’m very lucky that way. I realized the other day how ‘ok’ can be such a luxury. So I try to be grateful for it cause I’m not entitled to it. Lately I’ve been thinking about all the people I know. So many are so kind and generous.  So many are so nice and sweet.  And everyone puts up my with horrible typing. Everyday shit happens that distracts me from the truth of all that. But then I’ll have a nice phone call like I did tonight or another friend who never emails me sends me a message and I remember that I’m a lucky guy.

Reasons to call it a good day:

• Made fresh fava beans, Roman style.
• Tackled some web work that had been giving me a headache.
• Beach Boy’s Good Vibrations was playing when I was standing in line at the grocery store.
• This girl I like said the sweetest things to me about wanting to be close.
• The sun was shining.
• My friends, had a nice wedding and I was thinking how glad I was to get to be a witness to it.  That and to get down a little later on the dance floor.  These Hoosier guys can get their boogey on.

Went to a party where a bunch of fellow Geminis were celebrating their birthdays and once it came out I was a twin they put a candle on the cake for me too, which was very nice. I ended up spending a chunk of time playing with these little three and four year old kids, although the twelve year old would have liked more attention. And I had forgotten how much I liked that – the way they make up songs and dance, the way they are always imagining something, the way they like you or don’t and whatever they are feeling is just so right there. Mostly we built these crazy tall towers out of blocks so they could take turns pretending to be a t-rex or a tornadoes or an earthquake and knock the towers down. Later when I was playing with this little guy he stopped and looked at me for a little bit and said, “you have rainbow eyes.” So sweet. And my eyes are this mix of green, blue and brown. Thinking about hanging out and playing made me wonder if I should add playing with kids to the list of things that make being alive feel special to me.