Enlightening Mistakes

I made the mistake of listening to latest Idol winner, David Cook’s first single today. Now I’ve heard the song probably a few hundred times in the last month already but today I made the mistake of actually listening to it, every word. I broke out in hives, my throat almost closed up and I suddenly found my blood sugar skyrocketing. Apparently I reached some sort of sappy cliché saturation level and my body started to shut down. But I’m pretty excited about reaching for my own rainbow now and maybe even trying to run to the edge of forever. Though, might need baby steps for that one.

Learning of the Seven

Let me start by stating that I live with a 7 year old. Let me state further that I have never lived with a 7 year old, the only experience I have with such being the one year I spent living with myself in the early seventies. It was the year Frankenberry cereal came out and I was more concerned at the time with prank phone calls and the fun poked at me on the school bus than I was in trying accommodate the none too subtle nuances of living with me or anyone else that was 7. I’m sure if I talk with my mother she would be able to tell me of the similarities between that 7 year old and the one I live with now though I’m also sure that “I wasn’t like this”. This is a phrase that I’ve actually caught myself saying, by the way, in the same way that we all catch ourselves repeating parental missives that we swore never to do. Again, I’ll have to talk to mom. She’ll probably laugh. Heartily.
As to the living with a 7 year old that I’ve never done? Well I’m not completely ignorant to the world of small early stage humans, it’s just that I’ve never gotten this far in their evolution. My only experience came when sharing a house with my brother and sister and she informed us of her impending babiness, something we weren’t aware of, her included, at the time we decided to throw our hats into the same ring, a small 3 bedroom soon to be circus in Beacon, NY. So there my brother and I sat, bachelor #1 and bachelor #2, looking down the barrel of myths, legends and outright falsehoods about pregnancy that would all prove to be true.
Without even a hint of girlfriends, never mind mom to be’s we were thrust into the world of babies. Everything babies, babies all the time, first, last and second thought babies, babies the book, babies the movie, babies the graphic novel, babies in IMAX (my god that pee stream is huge), babies are the world concerts for babies, babies rock for grandma, babies are babies u can’t touch this. And this was all before any baby was actually produced.
Eventually a baby did reach production, after a grueling 18 hours on the line and amid rumbles of a strike from the union workers: namely me. Across four hard plastic benches in the waiting room, with a newspaper over my face not hiding the early dawn and also not hiding the screams from my sister that led to a C-section, I was ready to walk off the job - that of waiting across four hard plastic benches in the waiting room with a newspaper over my face not hiding the early dawn or her screams. Then Jake came, a brand spanking new model replete with a great working engine, racing stripes and a fully functioning horn.
The next five years were a wonderment and support my contention that I’m not completely ignorant to this world of small humans, but I did regress. After getting my own place I quickly reverted back to bachelor #1 status just minus the main trapping of being a bachelor. Dating. Other than that my bachelorness went well. Benny and Shoes were happy. I fed them, rubbed their bellies, hung out in windows with them and scratched their ears. Shoes even learned how to get his own cat treats out of the cabinet and bring them to me while not knocking down the beer can pyramids on the kitchen counter, a lazy cat guys dream. All was good.
Then I met her. The best her ever. Violent regression backslide. Screeching breaks and smoking tires. Beer can pyramid tumble.
Now I live with a 7 year old. As with my first experience with my sisters’ baby product I’m getting used to a new product, one that comes with no directions or warnings, just like the first, requiring me to discover instead how to use it through trial and error and the common sense that I often don’t have. For instance trying to operate said product early in the a.m. may cause auditory damage if not managed correctly, (tarmac headgear helps, refer to directions you don’t have). Or, when trying to dress product, at least 17 different outfits should be offered to assure that at least one of them will be considered the products’ own choice, if not, be prepared for a really long morning and another tardy note. Also know that the desired breakfast may not be available, either through the dreaded immediate advertising of Nick TV or because you just forgot to buy something that you didn’t know you needed and then ran out of.
Like I said earlier, trying to remember what it was like for yourself is fruitless unless you consult mom, who finds this too entertaining, though she does offer advice amidst her giggling. The amazing thing though is that showering doesn’t always come with wet collateral damage, breakfast does happen, outfits gets picked, teeth brushing gets successful unwanted attention, lunch is made, bought or two dollarded for the cafeteria, shoelace tying is finally tackled on a daily basis. .
It is a slow process and I’ve only touched on mornings. You don’t even want to know, if you don't already, what carnage the phrase ‘bed time’ causes or what it is like to live in ‘contrary land’, and you’ve probably heard the word ‘meanie’ quite a bit. But I’m living with a 7 year old for the first time and the rewards, though they may seem to be minimal to the outside observer, are huge. Bachelor #1 has this new product tying his shoes the same way he does. Give me one check on that imaginary checklist.

sjf

I work part-time for a group of radio stations in the Hudson Valley as a DJ. There’s five stations in all, three of which I can be found on on the air at any given time. Three different stations means three different formats, in this case rock, mix and country, a sort of format schizophrenia for me. Today I was on the mix station and as I was playing a Savage Garden song I thought to myself this is possibly the most misleading band name of all time. If I were in high school back in my day and had heard of a band called Savage Garden I most probably would have gone right out and bought the record sight unheard. That’s the kind of thing I did back then in my unending search to hear something new, unknown and possibly cool. My searches also leaned towards heavy metal, so…Savage Garden? Hell, that name practically screams heavy metal doesn’t it? A savage garden of rock I would have thought, a garden of savage roll, it had my name written all over it right? Boy, would I have been wrong. And If I had listened to the whole thing? I would’ve had to go back to the music section at the Caldor department store the next day to sue them for the fact that I woke up gay. Spandau Ballet had more balls for god’s sake. Savage Garden? That’s like Led Zeppelin being named Plant’s Polka Pompadours or Black Sabbath calling themselves Pretty Poodle. Sorry, I’m stuck on P’s for the moment, I don’t know why. Maybe I need to find my old Planet P Project record (dating myself). Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, without a name change, takes on a whole new meaning in the brave new world where I might have thought that Savage Garden could be a heavy metal band huh? Anyway…

Rosaria Art

Flowers laze her nape
along star beacons
with butterfly guides
to the small
where Tigger and Winnie play
as for Christopher Robin to smile
or blush
in soft blue slatted light
out there unwelcome
but for the glow of a streetlight
redeemed
in the
flash drops of rain
tiny bulbs on the sill.

I hold my hand
slowly
in front of my eye
then the other
back
again
over

Between my fingers light lulls
the pane
in the comfort of rain
where the clock ticks slower
and these fingers are real.

My cheek warms at the art of her.

I’m alive.

sjf

Letter to the Editor Musings

After reading about Don Imus’s imminent return to the radio all I could think was thank god for the preachers, the pastors and especially the reverend Al. Without them what other better examples of exaggerated self-righteous victimization would we have to use as learning tools for the kids? Rev. DeForest Soaries says the girls from the Rutgers team have lots of problems that they’re still working through. Ah yes, back woes from eventually being used as willing soapbox pulpits for self-important melodramatic talking heads. Move on already, your 15 have passed. As to reverend Al who wants to know if there are any safeguards in Imus’ contract against his past behavior. Glass houses Al, glass houses.

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To a voicer in the NY Daily News: You say that another voicer missed two important facts about Adams, Jefferson and Lincoln, that they were raised Christian and it had a profound and positive influence on their lives. Really, Joe, you have no way of knowing the effect Christianity had on their lives but instead make that assumption through a religious arrogance that so many suffer. If any connection can be made to faith or religion, however remote, distant or inconsequential, it is automatically trumpeted as the prime reason for all positives. However religious or not these men were, they were smart enough to know the dire consequences of mixing religion with government, Lincoln even kept a proposed Christian amendment out of the constitution. Sadly being that smart is not something that can be said about today’s “leaders” and the damage is evident on a daily basis here and abroad.

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To those who have found fault with Barrack Obama’s comments about why he no longer wears his flag lapel pin: Please stop already, your overreaction is exactly why Obama has stopped wearing the pin. It’s your voracious hunger for symbols and symbolic gestures outweighing your need for action and results that has Obama making his own symbolic gesture. This appetite of yours is eagerly fed by our current administration on a daily basis knowing it needs no substance and is the easiest way to try and ensure your continued fealty. The symbols also come in pretty handy for distracting you from the truth and even, on occasion, scaring you. You need to look beyond the flag and see what, if anything, is actually being done in its’ name. Be open to profound disillusionment.

A night with benny

I watched Benny a dragonfly propeller in his right mouth
his face could fly if he didn't want to play
he grinned
as cats can't grin
I grinned back as I can
stroked his head and let the dragonflly go
paws flailing after his new friend.
Not much of a dragon,
I thought,
to be caught by a cat.
I opened the door to life
while
Benny chased a spider.
I'd love to fly.
sjf

A Tiger's Tale

I tried to catch tigers by the tail when I was small

mom told me how

but I was always sleepy and woke up tigerless

like I do now trying to catch sleep

as elusive as those tigers

instead envisioning mad worlds of the tailess

turning over and over and over the sheets getting tangled

my feet always trying to push them whole

so if I do sleep I'll wake up in a real bed made

the way it should be

tight with corners sharp hospital ready

when I earned a dime from mom to do it right

never understanding the reason for such a bed

like I do now.

I hear the trains near my house at night

like rain waking me to rythmically loll me back

the cadence of the water spot on

the equal clatter of the trains just as spot

carrying wet tigers

licking wet paws and hinds

before they sleep

as I try to

with a wet face and coarse towel

before my tight bed with sharp corners calling a good night

for only a dime

not much of a cost in these costly times for a tale

of mom stories and sleepless nights where tiger's tails

take guises of whatever it is that keeps you awake.

I don't know what it is that keeps sleep at bay

but trains and rain and tigers help

the clock of my mother's heart beats and ticks

to lull me

to furtive sleep

when I think of her tigers

and their tales.
sjf