I woke up two hours later than normal today because of an adverse-weather delay. I brushed my teeth, ate, worked a little and briefly showered with my new body wash, the pheromone-loaded kind that comes in an oil can. I ran out the door with a good thought: work.
I knew something besides my odor was wrong when I crossed the bridge over the Haw. North Carolina seemed more desolate than ever before. It could have been the lack of cars or the dismal topic on NPR or my foggy head.
It was the lack of cars. I pulled into an empty gravel lot and parked. My silenced phone contained the message: school was canceled. I refused to unceremoniously drive away, so I walked to the front entrance and pulled a locked door. Lowe's hardware was across the street, so I drove over and walked the wood-scented, concrete aisles. I remembered shopping with my dad when I was little. My only job was to push the cart, but I used to forget to look forward until the front end bounced off his Achilles tendon. Then I would ram his other one a few minutes later. I could not pay attention with all that wonderful hardware stacked up so high.
I wanted to call someone on my half-hour ride home to celebrate, so I called my colleague friend. He was still alive in the middle of the lonely morning. I felt better.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Salinger
Reclusive author J.D. Salinger died yesterday at 91. If you know me a little bit, you know how I love "The Catcher in the Rye." Holden Caulfield has needed a hug for more than 50 years.
How strange it is to express sympathy for an adolescent in a novel. Less strange is that we hurt for Salinger, who let us know his elder self only as an uptight diary writer tucked away in the New Hampshire mountains. He appeared to be the logical conclusion of Holden's few wandering days. In the worst of ways, Salinger seemed to never grow up.
Reports of his life vary. They say that he wanted to control people and held the world in contempt. His daughter wrote that he said she should have an abortion because she had no right to be a mother. She also said he drank his own urine. All this is a far cry from what I know about Salinger. All I can think is that he was Holden.
I read "Catcher" a few years ago. The plot of the book did not matter to me. The real story happened before the narration began. His brother died years before. He messed up at school. He despised most of his peers. He was afraid to talk to girls. I could relate to less than half of his experiences, but I liked to listen to his voice. He was the most genuine narrator I ever read.
More than a decade earlier I had fallen in love with the film "Field of Dreams." The film was about Ray, a man who followed his conscience to a game of catch with his late father. Along the way he met Black Sox player Joe Jackson, retired ballplayer Archie Graham and Terence Mann, a frighteningly disgruntled ex-writer stuffed into a disheveled apartment in downtown Boston. Ray's conscience told him to take Mann to a Red Sox game, so he drove to Boston from his Iowa farm. Mann slammed the door in Ray's face and minutes later let him in to chase him with a crowbar.
In my adult life I strolled through a used bookstore in downtown Asheville and found a copy of the original novel, W.P. Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe." I was pleased to find that J.D. Salinger was the writer in the story. The film's director probably wanted to use Salinger as a character but could not. Salinger was famous for not wanting to be famous.
I forget how, but the film's Ray cooled Mann into offering him a cookie and, yes, going to the Sox game. Then the writer followed the dreamer to Minnesota to find the elderly Graham, who got his first and last career at bat as his younger self back in Iowa at the farm. Mann eventually disappeared into the Iowa corn to see the unknown. We never knew his purpose.
But not quite so goes Salinger. He never stirred us with a final, gripping monologue on America or youth or love like Mann did. He probably never offered anyone a cookie, and maybe nobody ever asked him for one. He went quietly because he wanted to. And here I am saying that I like the man. I know nothing about him except for the things he wanted me to know about him.
How strange it is to express sympathy for an adolescent in a novel. Less strange is that we hurt for Salinger, who let us know his elder self only as an uptight diary writer tucked away in the New Hampshire mountains. He appeared to be the logical conclusion of Holden's few wandering days. In the worst of ways, Salinger seemed to never grow up.
Reports of his life vary. They say that he wanted to control people and held the world in contempt. His daughter wrote that he said she should have an abortion because she had no right to be a mother. She also said he drank his own urine. All this is a far cry from what I know about Salinger. All I can think is that he was Holden.
I read "Catcher" a few years ago. The plot of the book did not matter to me. The real story happened before the narration began. His brother died years before. He messed up at school. He despised most of his peers. He was afraid to talk to girls. I could relate to less than half of his experiences, but I liked to listen to his voice. He was the most genuine narrator I ever read.
More than a decade earlier I had fallen in love with the film "Field of Dreams." The film was about Ray, a man who followed his conscience to a game of catch with his late father. Along the way he met Black Sox player Joe Jackson, retired ballplayer Archie Graham and Terence Mann, a frighteningly disgruntled ex-writer stuffed into a disheveled apartment in downtown Boston. Ray's conscience told him to take Mann to a Red Sox game, so he drove to Boston from his Iowa farm. Mann slammed the door in Ray's face and minutes later let him in to chase him with a crowbar.
In my adult life I strolled through a used bookstore in downtown Asheville and found a copy of the original novel, W.P. Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe." I was pleased to find that J.D. Salinger was the writer in the story. The film's director probably wanted to use Salinger as a character but could not. Salinger was famous for not wanting to be famous.
I forget how, but the film's Ray cooled Mann into offering him a cookie and, yes, going to the Sox game. Then the writer followed the dreamer to Minnesota to find the elderly Graham, who got his first and last career at bat as his younger self back in Iowa at the farm. Mann eventually disappeared into the Iowa corn to see the unknown. We never knew his purpose.
But not quite so goes Salinger. He never stirred us with a final, gripping monologue on America or youth or love like Mann did. He probably never offered anyone a cookie, and maybe nobody ever asked him for one. He went quietly because he wanted to. And here I am saying that I like the man. I know nothing about him except for the things he wanted me to know about him.
"That's all I'm going to tell about. I could probably tell you what I did after I went home, and how I got sick and all, and what school I'm supposed to go to next fall, after I get out of here, but I don't feel like it. I really don't. That stuff doesn't interest me too much right now."
~Holden Caulfield in "The Catcher in the Rye"
Thursday, January 7, 2010
And ever onward flees
My friend Dani left Chapel Hill last week to study education in Charlotte. She invited friends to a going away party at Linda's for her last taste as a Chapel Hill resident. My girlfriend and I went early because I could not stay as late as the others. Ryan arrived, and we talked about chess clocks and Scrabble for a half hour. I drifted into memories of my other goodbyes while we waited for Dani.
I remembered wishing Holly good luck in front of He's Not and reading Wolfe's senior poem with Jesse at Carolina Coffee Shop. Jenna left me in the Park Place parking lot. I cannot remember saying goodbye to Sergio, but I do remember him coming back. I saw Anne in Chicago and barely missed her in Chapel Hill months later. I found Molly within sight of the West Virginia capitol building. I ate with Victor in Union Square in New York City.
But I lost touch with Greg and Clark, who both still live in Chapel Hill. I have not talked with Kim since her wedding years ago. Emily and I see each other occasionally but mostly talk about our careers. My friends are learning, working, marrying, moving and growing. We used to do most of these things together, but it is OK that we cannot anymore. What we share now is a place that we call home or used to call home. For me, the living room of that home is Linda's.
The place is good for goodbyes because it is not. We go to Linda's for specials, trivia and good music, but the main draw is our friends. People at Linda's talk. We go there to celebrate each other. The best place to say goodbye in Chapel Hill is this place where we normally say hello.
I felt strange walking out with Dani still in the bar. I did not see much of her in the last year, a year in which her life changed enough so that something, or perhaps someone, could pull her out of Chapel Hill. It's hard to see a friend like her go even when the going is a casual formality. Over the course of time, she and I lived our lives more and more apart but ever present in the mind of the other. I hope the other side of the red pen is as good to her as she will be to it.
To friends.
I remembered wishing Holly good luck in front of He's Not and reading Wolfe's senior poem with Jesse at Carolina Coffee Shop. Jenna left me in the Park Place parking lot. I cannot remember saying goodbye to Sergio, but I do remember him coming back. I saw Anne in Chicago and barely missed her in Chapel Hill months later. I found Molly within sight of the West Virginia capitol building. I ate with Victor in Union Square in New York City.
But I lost touch with Greg and Clark, who both still live in Chapel Hill. I have not talked with Kim since her wedding years ago. Emily and I see each other occasionally but mostly talk about our careers. My friends are learning, working, marrying, moving and growing. We used to do most of these things together, but it is OK that we cannot anymore. What we share now is a place that we call home or used to call home. For me, the living room of that home is Linda's.
The place is good for goodbyes because it is not. We go to Linda's for specials, trivia and good music, but the main draw is our friends. People at Linda's talk. We go there to celebrate each other. The best place to say goodbye in Chapel Hill is this place where we normally say hello.
I felt strange walking out with Dani still in the bar. I did not see much of her in the last year, a year in which her life changed enough so that something, or perhaps someone, could pull her out of Chapel Hill. It's hard to see a friend like her go even when the going is a casual formality. Over the course of time, she and I lived our lives more and more apart but ever present in the mind of the other. I hope the other side of the red pen is as good to her as she will be to it.
To friends.
"The years will pass and very faint
Will be your call to these,
For time is scornful of the past
And ever onward flees.
But sometimes . . ."
~Thomas Wolfe, 1920
Monday, January 4, 2010
Marvin Austin and others return
The Tar Heels will return all five defensive standouts for the 2010 football season. One of them, Marvin Austin, reminded me why I love him but not Twitter with these notable, consecutive tweets from http://twitter.com/lifeofma.
Austin's publication upset Carolina fans who thought recruits might turn away from a coach on the run. Whether what Austin heard was true seemed to be a secondary concern, but I lost sleep over it. I nervously watched his tweets and Sports Illustrated's college rumor mill for any signs of Davis leaving town. He stayed.
In contrast nobody cared that Austin wrote about preparing for an aggressive shower. Of course Carolina fans know what to expect from him. We expect the same hair tossing, tongue wagging, smooth talking fellow who dances in the end zone during warm ups, and we like to think about him wearing clothes even though we would let him play in the nude if he wanted to.
Take this tweet from Nov. 21 after the win at Boston College: Ayyyyyeeeee how about dat carolina dfence.....it should have a tie on it cause dat b**** mean business...hahahaha...excuse my lingo..lol
Marvin, consider my advice if you ever return the favor and read my blog. Wear that tie you talked about instead of the birthday suit when you start your charity. You are my favorite Tar Heel because you love being one as much as I do.
Go to hell, State.
- Im bout to put on my birthday suit....hahahaha...all black attack
- if u were wondering.......I will be a tarheel for 2010!!!!!!!
- Its officially..official..hahahahaha...yea I could go get paid but in some things it aint all about the money...I love carolina point blank!
- Im bout to be ice cold next year...so I may as well givem helll...hahahaha....oh yea.. Go to Hell state!!!
- Ok so since imma be in n.c for another year..I think I should start up a charity...for less fortunate children in urdan neighborhoods
Austin's publication upset Carolina fans who thought recruits might turn away from a coach on the run. Whether what Austin heard was true seemed to be a secondary concern, but I lost sleep over it. I nervously watched his tweets and Sports Illustrated's college rumor mill for any signs of Davis leaving town. He stayed.
In contrast nobody cared that Austin wrote about preparing for an aggressive shower. Of course Carolina fans know what to expect from him. We expect the same hair tossing, tongue wagging, smooth talking fellow who dances in the end zone during warm ups, and we like to think about him wearing clothes even though we would let him play in the nude if he wanted to.
Take this tweet from Nov. 21 after the win at Boston College: Ayyyyyeeeee how about dat carolina dfence.....it should have a tie on it cause dat b**** mean business...hahahaha...excuse my lingo..lol
Marvin, consider my advice if you ever return the favor and read my blog. Wear that tie you talked about instead of the birthday suit when you start your charity. You are my favorite Tar Heel because you love being one as much as I do.
Go to hell, State.
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