A Home on the Range

This is the moment. What better place to weather the Great Recession than where the Dust Bowl hit? More to the point, if I don't act now, I'll miss the moment. What moment? I'm going to buy a house.

I'm not sure what else to say.... I'm in the planning stages and only know it will be in the vicinity of KC, but I don't know what neighborhood or township yet. Put the word out, send me your comments, your emails, your advice, your spreadsheets. Anything you've got. I'm considering a 15-year mortgage, for instance, because it builds equity faster and costs a lot less in the end. It just depends on how much house you buy. New or old? Carpet or hardwood floors? Single or two-story? These are all big, tough questions.

I'm excited and dream about it. I plan and scheme it. I've been reading up and checking my credit report. I wonder how long it will take? All the rest is just details, but of course, it's all details.

The Death of a Writer

Hearing on the radio today an interview with an author who is writing about David Foster Wallace's last, unfinished book and suicide reminded me of Spalding Grey. This comes late to the latter's death, but now works well for me. Are you available now?

There's a common sentiment that suicide is the most selfish of acts. Whether or not that holds, i always think of Grey's death in terms of his family (a wife, two boys, and a step-daughter). For some reason, his alleged suicide (his body was pulled from the East River) strikes me as most sad in light of the family of which he was part.

This post isn't about suicide, though. Rather, i thought smashingly of Grey and his monologues, so lament the loss of the artist. One could say something about the fire that burns so bright, but Grey's life wasn't exactly brief, so i'm not sure that holds.

Specifically, Grey was a storyteller, and spun his monologues with such craft that you forget you're listening to a man, sitting at a table, talk. You see instead the scenes he'd built up, just as good literature transports you past the medium and on into the message. Witness that you can rent Swimming to Cambodia or Monster in a Box-- that these are selling movies with repeat audiences.

But other forces were at work, as well. The dynamism of his monologues usually lofted into mania. His book Impossible Vacation painfully describes an individual struggling to exist. And it tells too of his family in detail.

So we have to look among ourselves. For i doubt there are many here who have not seen dementia, nor witnessed addiction, nor ever felt so feverishly elated as to be accused of unchecked exaltation. And we know that these conditions do not grow in a vacuum, that they have a persistent history. We grow up with them, around them, learning to abide and adapt.

I often think of my life and actions in terms of a trajectory, but there was no clear target at the outset here. Only that i miss Spalding Grey and had possibly forgotten to mention it. But i think i see from where this thread was borne now. Grey is gone. Our knowledge and memories of his influence weave together our own experiences. They bear a warp against the surface of our thoughts. Be well, at the falling of the light.

The breaking day

I wake while others sleep, but do not wake slowly. Once i have fallen out of dreams, i am immediately, fully awake. Maybe there is a minute of sitting on the side of the bed, focusing my eyes, but it is only posturing.

When last we left, we were bound for Chicago on Thanksgiving vacation. Now, back at work, things are business as usual. My employer announced huge layoffs recently (in good company there, as employers everywhere are doing daily now). There is no certainty, only a bit of anhedonia at CoH.

Some unseasonably warm weather has blessed the locale. Warm winter days are possibly my favoritest season. You have beautiful, blistering vistas, but none of the pesky, biting bugs that mar the warm summer months. My hiking companion and i visited Knob Noster as well as more local spots which during the summer are almost inhabitable.

A deep forest trail is apparently the best place to spot a stealth bomber. They fly out of a miltary base adjacent the park, going, i guess, to iraq or afghanistan.

There is no particular theme here today. Just a general update before the world's alarm clock goes off.