July 1, 2004

• tenant memory
  
  These walls feel black

  And untouched during

  The middle of the night

  Past one when
  I tiptoe through the hallway.

   

  Thinking only of the morrow

  When I’ll wake early to see

  Written chances and tests,

  I open the bathroom door

  To see Eileen, my old landlady

  Squatting.

   

  Both yelping, I stand groggy as

  She sits frozen in that half second

  Which feels like ten minutes,

  And I’m disturbed by a senior citizen’s

  Skin and aged vulnerability.

   

  In Peter, it says a day is like a thousand years

  Depending on the actor in question:

  Yelling sorry, closing the door
  I run to my room laughing

  At absurdity and sadness

  Because apostles are right

  By definition.
  
  —
  
  
  
  Keith III, 1981 (Chuck Close)
  
  —
  
  

  I love my dad but lately, I’ve wondered if we’re drifting.  Well, coast to coast, we live far away from each other.  But I realize a part of it is me – this weird ambition, a drive to go it alone.     But he’s always been nothing but love and pure support and I know he understands the need to have space, explore and live adventurously.  I’ll share a message he left for me back in college.  It was to-the-point and short and I remember how he said he loved me.  Friends were there when the message played and I remember feeling proud and unashamed to have a father who was frank and unsappy with his affections.  From the perspective of a son, the man is exceptionally kind (and he gave me a lot of facial hair).

  Earlier, before heading home, I was filling out some paperwork – signing on the dotted line, etc. – and I noticed something that left me laughing quietly.  I looked at the loop of my letters and realized I was looking at his penmanship.  It was uncanny. 
  
  And disheartening too because I could never read his medical script.  Well, no one’s perfect but I’d like to be a dad like him.  In our family, the narrative is always that my brother takes after dad and I take after mom but through the years, I realize it doesn’t break down so simply. 
  
  He’s got big hopes for his sons.  It’s been a blazing fast year but we’re pushing hard and taking risks in our own ways/places.
  
  —
  
  Pray for my brother, he left for Myanmar a few days ago.
  
  —
  
  
  
  Watch Against Impatience: Buckley’s solid.  (love his point about cotton ears and conventions)  Read “Aweigh” in the latest Atlantic.  Regardless of political affiliation, that sort of disposition is a rare these days.
  
  Fits well with N. Kristof’s 30Jun NYT column.  And with D. Brooks standard tone.
  
  And flies in the face M. Dowd and Krugman… who hate everything (and won’t yield an inch) on the other side.  Remember how badly the Republicans wanted Clinton to fail in Kosovo w/ Milosevic (and the work is far from done even now)?  Now, it’s the Democrats and Bush and Iraq w/ Saddam.  The parallels are amazing.  Of course, if you read old editorials/headlines on post-WWII… it’s eye-opening.  Likewise for Post-Hiroshima Japan.  “Doomed to failure” sans 24-hour news coverage and much more access to gov’t/military affairs (for all the talk, access is at unprecedented levels of openness).  If we knew all the lies FDR and Truman told… We talk about Kennedy, Wilson, Lincoln and others with a tone that evokes an inarguable, assumed goodness & leadership.  But we forget how divided the country was even in their day.
  
  Politics and Religion… surprised me.
  
  The Political Show… wrapped up nicely. 
  
  And I’m currently reading PJ O’Rourke’s Parliament of Wh*res… there’s a punchy, self-effacing (often) realist for you!
  
  Woodrow Wilson, that geyser of American messianism, called Hamilton ‘a very great man, but not a great American.’ However, that is true only if political realism is un-American. (said WILL!)
  
  —
  
  Relaxing:
  
  
  make like paper
  
  —
  
  Might Surprise: Study on Media Bias (brow-raising)
  
  

  Matt11:28
  

  • 1:28 am
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