25 March 2005 | Socks
Beth is writing something she calls Not Dead Yet. It’s a website. Each day Beth deletes whatever she wrote the previous day and replaces it with something new. The entire website is whatever Beth writes on this particular day, and nothing else.
This is not in itself interesting. Someone could do exactly what Beth is doing and it would be boring. But Beth writes things I like, in a way I like, and so I look forward each day to reading what she will write. Today Beth wrote about wearing socks on her hands, which is something she does to help herself sleep.
Another thing Beth does when she can’t sleep is think of a mermaid. The mermaid swims down through levels of caverns. When this doesn’t work, Beth thinks of an old Indian yogi humming on a hill beneath a starry sky. When this doesn’t work, Beth puts socks on her hands.
Today I realized that when Beth dies, someone will have to create a new website for her. This new site will consist of a single page, like Not Dead Yet, and it will have today’s date, like Not Dead Yet, only there won’t be any words on it. Each day it will be blank.
This new site will be called Dead.
This reminds me of a clock that Andrew made. He took a regular analog wall clock and removed the hour and minute hands. All that’s left is the second hand, which goes round and round. The clock is on the wall in Andrew’s apartment. Because it looks exactly like a regular clock, I always forget what Andrew did to it, and then inevitably I look up, and there’s that second hand, spinning in circles. Each time this happens—each time, seemingly, for the first time—I laugh. It’s a laugh less of amusement than recognition. Andrew’s clock is only clock I know that shows the correct time.
22 March 2005 | Proof
Nothing is uglier than
they did it to me
This has nothing
to do with whether
they did it to you,
which I have to assume
they did
Still, whatever
they did, your life remains
yours
When you say they did it
to you
you give your life to them,
ruined
You say,
I’m damaged
and you’re the reason
I’m damaged
The damage is your proof
11 March 2005 | Done
In every musical there’s a song called Me and What I Tried to Do. This is according K’s friend, a Broadway composer. When K told me this, I said, “That’s not just true of shows but people.”
Then I wondered what other songs there are.
This reminds me: someone once said that all songs are love songs. I couldn’t remember if this someone was me, so I looked it up online. It wasn’t me.
One day, when I lose what memory I have, I will believe I made up everything, only I won’t be able to remember any of it.
This may sound like a punishment meted out by a Greek god, something like what they did to Sisyphus or Prometheus or even chatty Echo (who was sentenced to speak only the last word spoken to her), but I actually think I’ll enjoy it.
Been there, done that, whatever it was.
04 March 2005 | Apple
A conversation between my friend David and his then three-year-old son Jacob, subsequent to their visit to the aquarium:
—Dada, are you going to die?
—Why are you asking that, Jacob? Did you hear someone talking about dying?
—Well, Dr. Martin Luther King died out.
—Yes, that’s true.
—Are you going to die?
—Well, everyone dies eventually, Jacob. But you don’t have to worry about that. That’s far far in the future.
—When?
—Far far in the future.
—I don’t want you to leave me.
—I’m not going to leave you, Jacob. I’m going to be right here with you.
—Always?
—Well, yeah, always.
—(Really getting upset now) I don’t want you to die, because mama goes to work and then I’ll be all alone.
—Oh, you won’t be alone, Jacob. I’m right here with you.
—If you die, will I get another dada who talks just like you, and does things just like you?
—Jacob, you don’t have to worry about that. How about this. I promise not to die until I’m 100.
—When will you be 100?
—You just don’t have to worry, Jacob. I’ll be with you the whole time you’re a kid, and when you are an adult, too. Grandpa Joel was my dada the whole time when I was a kid, and he’s still my dada now that I’m an adult.
—Is Grandpa Joel going to die?
—Everyone dies, Jacob, but he’s not going to die for a long time.
—If he dies, I want a new Grandpa Joel.
—Sweetheart, don’t worry about it.
—Am I going to die?
—Jacob, people die when they are really really really old.
—I don’t want to die, because then I’ll have to go to a big field, and you’ll have to come back and get me and be my dada again.
—Oh, sweetheart, you’re not going to die.
—How can we not die?
—We just have to love life and stay healthy.
—If we stay healthy we’re not going to die?
—Right.
—We haven’t eaten an apple in a long time.
—Would you like me to go downstairs and get an apple? We can eat an apple now.
—No, let’s eat it after school tomorrow.
—That’s a real good idea.
—I don’t want anyone to die out. I just want Dr. Martin Luther King to die out and no one else.
—That sounds good, honey.
—Let’s watch the video now.
—Okay.
—And I want a snack.
—What do you want? Booty?
—Booty, bread sticks, and prentzels. And crackers. Just one kind of cracker.
—Okay, honey.
I wanted to visit a friend of mine (J), so I called him and he said “Okay I will be home in an hour’s time.” I went to his house, his girlfriend let me in, we talked etc. It took J nearly four hours to get home from the shop. He did not say why, but seemed stressed. Later he offered me a ride to the other side of the city. I had never been there, and he wanted to show me some nice place near the house where he lived as a kid. We drove past a building site, turned off the street, and followed a “road” along the river that no one had driven this winter. J said that the road or rather path led to the end of a peninsula in the river. The path was covered with thick snow and it was difficult to get further. At one point we had to drive up a small hill, but there was so much snow it was not possible. I wanted to tell J we should turn back, but J was so anxious to show me that special place that he convinced me to shovel all the snow off the slope. We made shovels by cutting a plastic can in two. After fifty feet or so we got stuck again. This happened three times more. First our feet got wet and then our wet pants froze. At one point the snow was so hard we had to use an ax to break it. When we almost reached the road we saw there was a steel fence in the way, so we had to push the car all the way back the way we had come. I was angry and exhausted. Then we drove to the center of town, near the President’s palace, and drank champagne, which for some reason was in the car. When J was drunk, he said he had something to tell me. I didn’t know what it could be. J was quiet for a long time before he said there was no special place, that he had made it up. I asked why but he said he didn’t know, it was just something that came to him.
