Archive for the 'Me' Category

26
Jan
12

Have a nice trip. See ya next fall.

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Me, Philadelphia and Strangers Observed

The first thing I thought as I fell was I’m going to tear my pants.

I knew I was going down. No way to stop it. No time for anything graceful. Just minimize the damage. Oh, shit. My phone.

And then I heard myself say it, casually, calmly—”oh shit”—as I landed on my right knee (There’s the tear.) and my left hand, scuffing the palm. The right hand swung out and landed somewhat more lightly, just to steady me and stop me from rolling forward, the corner of my iPhone scratching hard against the ground. (Its just the case. It’s just the case.) And my gym bag pivoted around my body on the strap across my chest and slammed down on the sidewalk behind me. I heard the combination lock, in an outside mesh pocket, rattle against the concrete.

The high school kid in front of me, on is way to school, looked terrified and suddenly wide awake. My headphones were still in my ears, but I heard the panic in his voice: “Oh, god. Are you all right?” Continue reading ‘Have a nice trip. See ya next fall.’

11
Jan
12

The 12 Ways of Christmas: midnight mass

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Me, My Favorite Things, Nostalgia and The 12 Ways of Christmas
Tags: , , ,

[Part 11]

Mom and Dad had some presents under the tree early, the ones from them and Grandma and Uncle Dennis and Aunt Kay, but they were off limits until Christmas. The ones from Santa, of course, came later. I didn’t have to worry about those, but these were there to taunt me.

Most of them were clothes. Who cared, right? But some of them, the smaller ones, probably—the strangely shaped ones, right?—those were toys.

If I was good enough (if I begged and pestered my parents enough, nicely, gently), they would let me open one present—just one—before we left for midnight mass on Christmas Eve. I don’t think they for one second expected me to not beg. I don’t think I ever convinced them of anything. I think they always had one intended for Christmas Eve. But it was one of those child-and-parent games we played. Continue reading ‘The 12 Ways of Christmas: midnight mass’

05
Jan
12

The 12 Ways of Christmas: the lights

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Ain't That America, Detroit, Fun, Me, My Favorite Things, Nostalgia, Philadelphia and The 12 Ways of Christmas
Tags: , , ,

[Part 8]

This is disgusting to me now, but it would have delighted me as a kid.

It wasn’t December if my family and I were not driving around looking at other people’s Christmas lights.

We started in our own neighborhood, admiring the wild and colorful houses, and the simple monochromatic houses in white, gold, red, blue. In my little kid’s logic, I always assumed the blue houses must be Jewish. Or something. Just a feeling. I wanted to say so, but it seemed rude. I never knew any Jews growing up—at least none that I knew of.

My mom and I especially loved the ones that looked like gingerbread houses with sidewalks lined, every angle of the roof highlighted, doorways and windows lit. Our house should be like that. I studied them carefully as we slowly passed, making mental notes between audible gasps every time a new extreme came into view.

I really appreciated the people who did their trees. Those were the ones who really cared. Random placements among the branches were popular one year. Then our neighbors began to include the trunks, too. A few years later, a tightly wrapped cluster of lights on the trunk with a contrasting color densely filling up the branches was en vogue. Continue reading ‘The 12 Ways of Christmas: the lights’

04
Jan
12

O’er the fields we go, packing all away

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Me, My Favorite Things, Nostalgia and Philadelphia
Tags: ,

We just finished un-Christmasing the house. I have never before seen so many dead pine needles all at once. It’s weird to have things back to normal, but I’m getting used to it.

I came home to find Jeff pulling ornaments off the tree. He was putting them in the wrong boxes, but I didn’t say anything. It may seem like it does’t matter, but I have a system. They should go back in the boxes they came from. Different colors should be distributed evenly to ensure equally even distribution next year when we hang them on the next tree. But at least they’re all put away. We can deal with it next year. Continue reading ‘O’er the fields we go, packing all away’

02
Jan
12

The 12 Ways of Christmas: the cookies

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Food, Fun, Me, My Favorite Things, Nostalgia and The 12 Ways of Christmas
Tags: , , ,

[Part 7]

Santa's givin' you some sugar this year!

There was nothing in particular that linked my mom’s cookies with Christmas, except that we never made them at any other time of the year. You can have eggnog in the summer, but why? Grandma could make her baked beans for Easter, but why? No, these things were for Christmas only.

I always looked forward to those rare and special nights when my mom dragged out her big electric mixer and the glass and metal bowls and wooden spoons. Soon the kitchen countertop would be covered with bags of flour and sugars, syrups, shortening, butter (it was always margarine, but we called it “butter”), eggs, nuts, sprinkles, chocolate, vials of food colorings and flavorings, shredded coconut, candied cherries. Continue reading ‘The 12 Ways of Christmas: the cookies’

13
Dec
11

The 12 Ways of Christmas: the records

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Me, Nostalgia and The 12 Ways of Christmas
Tags: , ,

[Part 1]

Not long into December every year, when I was a kid, my mom and I would start digging out the Christmas albums. We’d play them on the quadraphonic sound system in the living room. (What suburban house furnished in the ’70s was complete without quadraphonic sound?)

You could set up two or three records at a time, resting on an arm that held them above the turntable. When one side ended, the tone arm would lift up and swing back to home position, a notch in the spindle would click, and the next record would drop into place. The tone arm would swing back, drop the needle into place, and new music would begin to play. It was like magic. Continue reading ‘The 12 Ways of Christmas: the records’

26
Oct
11

The Cruelest Dream

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Dreams and Me

Minutes before my alarm sounded this morning, I had a dream that I was getting ready for bed.

It was a deceptively pleasant dream. I pulled back the comforter and sheets, fluffed up my pillows, snuggled in, positioned myself just so. I always sleep with one arm under my pillow. My other arm lies bent in front of me, my palm against my forehead, fingers through my hair.

I savored the coolness of the unmolested sheets against my body. When I stopped moving, I felt the covers settle like a gentle, silent, heavy snowfall as pockets of air seeped out. I was so tired. I pulled the covers tight and heaved a quiet, satisfied sigh. I was just fading off to sleep, and then…

Continue reading ‘The Cruelest Dream’

15
Sep
11

Scat cat, or every creep that creepeth

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Animals, Gross, Me, My Cat and Toilet Humor

When a situation is hard to control, we say “it’s like herding cats,” because cats are bloody hard to control—especially mine. Humans, by comparison—pet owners, especially—are much easier.

However, I can happily report that I have managed a coup of animal behavior control that might make a student of Burrhus Frederic Skinner jealous.

The New Yorker published a remarkable profile of Michele Bachmann in August that delves a bit into (among a great many other things) her devotion to a political conservative Christian principle called Dominionism. It’s based on Genesis 1:26.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Somehow it applies to the notion among some politically active conservative Christians that their ultimate goal is to gain control over every secular civil institution in the country through political action to create (they would say “restore”) a theocratic government run exclusively by Christians.

Makes sense as a metaphor: Control the animals, control the earth, control the system. And there are a lot of politicians who seem to creep about upon the earth. Though I know fundamentalist Christians hate metaphor. To them it’s either the plain truth, or it’s not in the Bible.

But to turn back to the original text, in which god is telling Adam and Eve to make use of animals—not, I might add, to annihilate Barack Obama—this may be one area where Bachmann and I overlap in our beliefs. And it’s specifically in regards to my cat.

Continue reading ‘Scat cat, or every creep that creepeth’

07
Sep
11

Looking outward, looking inward

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Gay, Health, Me, People We Don't Like, People We Like and Philadelphia

Half the fun of going to the gym is the chance to observe its particular biosphere. It’s treasure trove of wildlife. I say you ought to get something out of it. Lord knows I hate going to the gym.

It’s a symptom of my inexorable laziness. But I see results when I work out, and male vanity is even more compulsive than laziness. So I go. But always in the morning before work—because I hate going after work even more.

So I’ve become familiar with the characters of my morning routine. I think you see a more consistent recurrence of the same people in the morning. Everyone’s routines are a little more regimented early in the day. We still have discipline in the morning, and hope—as opposed to later in the day when we are apathetic and undone and much more inclined to get a cocktail than lift anything heavier than a gym bag.

Continue reading ‘Looking outward, looking inward’

25
Aug
11

I feel the earth move

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Me, Philadelphia and Technology
Tags:

I didn’t check in to Philadelphia’s “Earthquakepocalypse” on Foursquare with the tens of thousands of others who did.

I did check in to the Chinese restaurant where I was lunching with a friend when it happened. But I did that when I got there. Nothing to do with the quake.

Where were you when it happened?

Um, I was fighting with a vegetable dumpling as it slipped through my chopsticks for the fourth time.

I don’t check in to anything with the suffix “-pocalypse,” mostly because it’s dumb. It made sense for the snowfall of winter 2009, when we were hit three times for an accumulation of four and half feet, but not now. And the ironic, self-aware over-inflation of ordinary situations just isn’t funny anymore.

However, I guess an earthquake in Philadelphia isn’t, strictly speaking, ordinary—in a Chinese restaurant or otherwise. Bottles shook at the bar. Glasses tinkled against each other on the shelves. Plum sauce skittered across the table. And my lemon chicken sauce quivered obscenely.

Continue reading ‘I feel the earth move’

« Previous Entries

the untallied hours

the tweets

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 808 other followers