Roddy Ricch 2019 Paradigm Shift

    Something is wrong. Something's terribly wrong. 

    Everyone felt it but they didn't know how to explain it. I also didn't know how to explain it, because I am a part of everyone. A dark cloud came over everything, but there was no dark cloud. And nothing came over anything. There were only normal clouds and a normal sun in a normal sky; sometimes there were no clouds at all, only the suspicion that there might be clouds and the assumption that those clouds would be dark, or light, but ultimately normal. But we didn't know.

    Because normal is abnormal, and because we didn't know, we assumed a lot of things. I drank a whole bunch of whiskey in the basement of what was once my home. I drank the whiskey with a dear friend. We pissed in the yard or inside, in a room with a toilet or in a room without a toilet. We walked around at night and stared at the stars and talked about things, cried about them, and laughed about them. All that time nothing incredible happened to upset the deeper assumption that everything was credible. Nothing made proper sense and I relished in it.

    Things started to make sense. Little things. I understood that a plant grows if you water it sometimes. If you're late to work too often people will look at you funny. I understood that my father was telling the truth when he told me that the friends I had then would not be my friends later on. I understood things but I did not believe or grasp them. When you face your fears, something good might happen. When you face your fears, something bad might happen. I said "I don't know" and I meant it, and it was my favorite phrase.

    We were given unintelligible scraps of reality for food and we ate them. We pretended to be full. We insisted and we lied because it tasted like shit. It tasted like shit because we had never tasted such things before. It was ridiculous and we continued not knowing. We convinced ourselves that all of this was fake and we proceeded to do other made-up stuff. Everything changed but we couldn't tell because everyone kept dying and everyone spoke a different language after they had died.

    I broke my hands trying to punch through a wall.

Raking

     I helped a friend of mine with some landscaping work. We drove over to the yard where my friend was working; it was covered in leaves and scraps from a bush that he had destroyed, all consolidated into mountains of green and brown in the middle of the property. It was a nice yard, and I told the owner of the yard that it was a nice yard. Tools were littered throughout the yard. My friend showed me the handsaw that he had intended to use to chop down the massive bush, which actually turned out to be four different bushes that had grown together against the fence. Four different roots. He ended up using a chainsaw instead, which made his labor more efficient. He showed me his recently purchased felling axe, which he had used in an attempt to destroy a treestump: it was broken at the neck. The axe-head was on the ground next to the handle, separated cleanly. The head weighed four pounds. Fortunately it was purchased with a warranty.

    My friend lent me a pair of working gloves and we began hauling black bag after black bag of yard scraps from the yard to the perimeter of the yard, leaning each one against a chain-link fence. Some of the bags were light enough to throw over the fence, others we walked through the gate and gradually piled. I underestimated the weight of one bag and spilled some leaves and splintered branches onto the ground. I picked them up and shoved them back into the open top of the back, leaning over the fence. Other splintered branches were folded up and packed tightly into the back. I missed some of the leaves, and later on they got cleaned up by the couple who own the property.

    The mountains of scrap diminished, became smaller hills as a result of our laborious hauling. When the piles became small enough, I bent closer to the earth and dragged my hands through the grass. I dragged delicately, trying not to tear up the grass that was alive, mitigating collateral damage in my attempt to hold only the decapitated leaves and branches. My friend came over with a rake, a rake with black tines. He swept the rake across the lawn, combining smaller hills into amalgamated mini-mountains again. When he had finished raking the scraps into relatively larger piles, I grabbed the pieces with my hands, making the piles smaller until I again resorted to dragging my hands across the grass, combing the lawn for the smaller hidden pieces of brown and green. We're doing the same thing, I thought. My hands are tiny rakes. The rake, in its invention, is a natural extension of the body. I thought about how many tools were like this: natural extensions of the body for maximum utility and convenience. The tools we make and use are a reflection of our lives. The rake made combing the yard easier, bigger, faster. My hands, smaller by comparison, made the labor of combing slow and arduous. But the rake was the older brother of my hands. An evolution of my body.

    We continued combing and raking and packing the scraps into black bags until the married couple who owned the property signalled– that's enough. Some leaves and young branches were still burrowed in the lawn; the man of the couple said that it would all get broken up when he mowed the lawn. Lawnmower, scythe, pulling weeds out of the ground with one's fingers, letting the world grow and doing nothing about it... The woman of the couple handed us some beers in the plastic shopping bag: "beers to go." I accepted the bag from her and held it, carried tools back to my friend's vehicle. I fished in the bag to ascertain the quality of beer we had been gifted. Natty Bo. Cold brew beer. The couple had gone digging through their fridge: "which beers do we not want?" Those are the beers that I want. Freewheeling beer.

    Later on we went to Target and bought a TV. I thought about strapping it to my head and walking around with it playing all the time, to see another world while living in this one.

Sometimes I hear a song, or a part of a song, or a movement within a piece of music, and my scalp goes numb. That day there was no music.

Calling

     When I get very busy I cease to be a real person. By a real person, I mean the kind of person that seems real to other people; interacts, socializes, smiles, keeps up appearances, etc. I always try to keep busy because when I'm busy I feel more real to myself, which is a kind of being real in contradistinction to being real to other people, supposedly. Every phone call I make ends with a solemn comment akin to "don't be a stranger!" Something to remind me that I've been a terrible performer, socially speaking. Insufficiently friendly or familial. This seems fair to me. When something isn't there, it's just not there. Like object permanence except with people. I am the object in question. But it's more complicated than that, which is why it's fair.

    I suppose I could keep tabs on and maintain appearances with everyone in my life. If there were eight days in a week I could spend most of the eighth day calling everyone and letting them know how I'm doing and asking them about the same thing. The response one usually receives for that sort of question is generic, so I would ask further questions to determine exactly how and what the person is doing, and perhaps why, if it's not overbearing. Eighthday would be a day for chatting and vibing. As it stands, in a calendar system that contains only seven days in a given week, none of which are reserved for calling people, my ability to make phone calls is severely limited. Either way, it's a matter of choice. No, it's not. Yes, it is. That's why it's fair. Sure.

    So I emerge from an era of business (that's busy-ness, being especially busy) like a newborn, starting from square one, from scratch. A scratched square. I re-emerge into the social dimension like an alien, probably looking and acting differently (heyyyyyyyyyy; met with blank stares, maybe). Begin easily. Don't push yourself too hard. Pick one person who passively resents you for not calling as often as you should and give them a call. Talk about anything and keep talking until one or both of the two parties has something else to tend to. Call someone who has a relatively small number of things to tend to and talk for as long as you can. See what's going on. Listen to their voice.

    I called my grandfather sometime last week and sometime yesterday afternoon. He's an interesting man and he's full of practical sage advice that I assume he doesn't often have the opportunity to share. It's weird that some people talk to older folks and babies with the same cadence. I think we should avoid doing that, in most cases. Both when we talk to babies and to older folks. I'd be alarmed and probably bothered to discover that people were just putting on a voice to appease me (or, in the case of being an older person, to infantilize me? Again?); also, the cutoff and reintroduction ages for baby-voice employment are apparently arbitrary. It's probably easier for everyone to use a regular (not to say disaffected, but natural-seeming) voice while speaking to another human of any age group.

    So I called my grandfather yesterday and spoke to him in my natural, non-baby inflection, and we talked about events and phenomena. He told me that I'm at a point in my life full of potential and possibility–nothing is set in stone or absolute, most things and plans are changing and interacting with other plans and ideas for the future, etc. He talked about how there's only so much you can do to change most people or to influence them into seeing you in a particular way that you might intend or not intend. You can do your best to put your honest self into the world, and the consequences of that are usually unforeseen, or at any rate out of your control. By extension, everyone is totally different and unique. He told me that sometimes he sees people who are totally fucked up, and he thinks "what the hell happened to this person to make them this way?" This is a relevant and sophisticated question, I thought. Something about how everyone in this world is so fucked up that it's inconceivable, almost unreal. I think that's beautiful.

    The conversation continued and he offered further pieces of practical wisdom, informed by so many experiences and thoughts across a lifetime that, as of now, is longer than mine by multiples. We started talking about guns: owning them. He told me, "you don't think you need one until someone is beating down your door."

I will call my grandfather again soon. I'll call other people too.

Special Pen

     Years ago my father gave me a pen. It was a metal pen. When I clicked the push button, a ballpoint tip did not thrust from the pen's barrel; it was a small flashlight where the push button should have been, or where it usually was on a normal, plastic pen. A small flashlight the size of the push button, like one you'd see on a novelty keychain with someone's name on it (or everyone's name, when they're all organized together alphabetically on a rack, flashing out of sync with colorful letters, powered by little solar batteries, maybe. There's always a name missing. There are some names you can never find flashing on the novelty name rack). Instead of a push button, the pen twisted to thrust out the ballpoint tip. It was surprising. If you'd never seen a pen like that, with a little needlepoint flashlight instead of a push button proper and a spinning mechanism instead of a spring mechanism, you wouldn't expect it. Sometimes now I see a pen with an orbicular push-button-area, and I suspect that it might be a very nice metal pen with a little useful flashlight secreted in its design (the bright beautiful head), but it never is. Let me know if you find a pen like this, because usually I find that it's one of those touchscreen styluses disguised as a flashlight push button, disguised as a normal push button. I find this pattern of disingenuous push button posturing a little disturbing.

    I made a joke about the pen. Something like, "hey dad imagine if someone needed to borrow a pen and you gave them this pen and they clicked the top part of the pen thinking that this would make the pen click but it really shined them in their eyes." I often used to imagine childish scenarios like this one, in which somebody who was rude or bullyish would have their life marginally inconvenienced by some intervention of fate or roundabout cleverness. I probably thought that these little inconveniences exclusively happened to those who were assholes or sinners because I didn't really know how else the world leveled out between the assholes and the good people. It's pretty funny to imagine sinfulness as just being sort of an asshole or a rude person sometimes. That was my takeaway from church. Just kidding. When I was a child I was never embarrassed by the things I said, so I would talk about the imagined scenarios. Now I do not do that.

    After I made this joke that was not funny to anyone, although I wanted it to be, which is why I told it (I also probably didn't think it was funny but I would have laughed if other people did), my father told me sternly that this was a special pen, an expensive pen, a pen from his work, and that I would not be taking it to school ever and I would not be sharing it with anyone ever. I think I shut my mouth then because he seemed awfully serious, like he had known and I had not known or even been capable of knowing the importance of this pen. I agreed that I would only use the pen in the ways that he allowed me to use it–purposefully, silently, where nobody else could see it or ask about it.

    I think the pen had blue ink inside. I didn't use it very much because I did most of my writing at school, where I mostly used pencils anyway. I wouldn't appreciate the permanence offered by a ball-point pen until later in life. When you use an eraser to obliterate pencil jottings, you can still see the indentation left by the pencil tip. It's challenging to completely erase the markings. I would always use shitty erasers too, so it would smear the graphite all over the page and make a mess. Eraser shavings and graphite marks would stick to my hands; the words would be printed on the heel of my palm like when you press silly putty onto a sentence written in pencil. Then you squish and fold the putty up and the words stretch into oblivion.

    Anyway, I think the pen is still sitting around here somewhere. Hidden in a footlocker or elsewhere. I wonder if the little secret flashlight still works. I bet it does. 

The Needs

The following text was discovered in the personal journals of Dr. Javier Sniffleur, most well known for his theoretical contributions to the field of functional neurology, after his untimely death in the year 2017. This brief entry, an aberration in a journal that mostly consists of notes on methodology and case studies, offers the reader a number of insights regarding the personal life and amorous deportment of one of the finest scientific minds of a generation. The editors have determined it suitable to include this entry in the compiled text of his essential philosophical and empirical works. As readers and admirers of the brilliant and infamously private Dr. Sniffleur, we have taken the utmost care to represent this text with minimal editorial interference. The reader will notice the tone of supplication effected by Dr. Sniffleur in this entry, despite the fact that his assumed purpose in writing was insular. This is, perhaps, the idiosyncrasy of a mind who worked indefatigably for the improvement of the lives of others; so much that even his personal jottings took on an aspect of prophecy and conscientiousness. We must always remain aware of the reality that Dr. Sniffleur's professional offerings cannot stand to summarize his deeply complicated inner life. Names and details have been amended, within reason, out of respect for surviving family members.

December 20th, 2009

    I have a tendency to hit a wall in every relationship I find myself in. I hold high standards and I'm not sure where they come from. I only know that I'm governed by these needs and I have been for as long as I have been romantically active. When I was a young man, I was confused by them. I tried to deny them in order to appease whoever I happened to be with or to mesh with the accepted ways of the world. But over the years, due to a series of blunders that for a time only served to confuse me further, I learned to accept these needs and stop lying to myself and everyone else. Ignoring my limits only resulted in more suffering. I managed to compile these inescapable standards into the following list, which I have carried with me in every interaction I've ever had. 

1. The person I'm involved with needs to be able to read my mind. I need them to know what I need without me having to tell them. I don't like to talk about myself.

2. I need to be treated as though I'm very important. I know that I'm not, but I can't tolerate spending time with someone who also knows this. It can't be faked either. I can tell very easily when somebody is trying to flatter me.

3. They need to be saintly and satanic at once. And they need to know when and where to adopt either attitude.

4. I need to be treated magnanimously, although normally I am not as magnanimous in my deeds as I would like. Furthermore, I cannot be expected to return this favor in any way, shape, or form. I am a critical person and I cannot hold my tongue for long.

    But there is always something in return, I've come to find. Even if I am not the person who is giving it. Even if what you get in return is nothing. To see into someone's soul is exhausting. Such an act requires the development and constant use of a sort of sixth sense. I've known for a long time that this sort of activity is not for me, but it must be for someone else. I've also found that this expectation is in no way sustainable or humane. I have no excuse for wishing this sort of suffering on someone else. But, as I said, these needs are absolute. And don't for a moment convince yourself that I haven't tried to change. I did, and it didn't work.

    I tried especially to change for my dear A––. By all accounts and standard metrics for emotional health, we got along famously for a number of years. She was my third wife in as many decades, and I hoped that she might be in for the long haul. I was wrong about this. But I was scrupulous enough to ensure that she fulfilled my needs across the board before any sort of engagement took place between us. We met through some friend of a friend that I can't remember now for the life of me. Naturally I found her beautiful, intoxicatingly so, but what I was drawn to immediately was her unbridled admiration for me. She was hopelessly and pathetically impressed with everything that I said. My life, which to me seemed rather dull, was to her as important as her own. Maybe even more important.

    We saw one another infrequently for a while. I was fraternizing with a few other women at that point, but they all gradually fell by the wayside as their interest in me waned or became inconsistent. Obviously, such inconsistency violates the first need. I cannot tolerate a lack of interest. Even if I am ravenously in love with a person, the moment they scale back their appreciation I am repulsed beyond hope for reconciliation. As a consequence, a pattern of relationships that began with short-lived interest and ended with abandonment continued through the years between ages 45 and 50, or so. Having already burned through two depressing and lifeless marriages, neither of which ultimately lived up to my standards, I was in no rush to have another.

    The problem with these first two marriages warrants a digression. The thing is, you might marry someone under the impression that they fit perfectly into your vision for life. This one person among all others, remarkably, is suited to your every need. They fit like properly sized shoes. But later on you realize that they're more like a sock, the one-size-fits-all kind. After wearing out the sock the elastic begins to lose its elasticity, and you realize after all that time that the sock doesn't actually fit your foot. It was, in fact, forced to fit the dimensions of your foot by some design that you were ignorant about because you're not a sock-monger. But inevitably, the fit wears out. Here's a hole in the sock, it doesn't cling at the ankle any longer, the little patch of grey where your heel is supposed to go is for some reason all twisted around the sole of your foot, etc. This is what people are like. It's all a manufactured pretense. We pretend or appear to be that perfect-fitting thing so we can get what we want out of someone else. Or so we can enhance our station in life. Marriage, in this sense, is just the same thing: a long game of pretending made to feel even longer by the fact that both people in the marriage know that they can't keep up the charade forever. So, inevitably, the mask drops. The things they used to love about you are all of a sudden disgusting, despicable. Little buds of hatred begin to sprout. Oh, but of course, it's all in good fun. Of course, yes, that's just how we speak to each other. It's just a game! This is the most egregious posturing of all. I thought we were supposed to be living life, not playing a game.

    But A–– wasn't like that. She didn't play such games. So, as my life became a lonely spiral of strange faces coming in and out, paying for laughless dinners and never calling, slowly depleting my sphere of romantic possibilities... there she was. Always waiting with a smile and treating me the way she always treated me: like someone who mattered. I know I didn't matter to everyone, and I certainly didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, whatever that is, but I mattered to her. And she wasn't dishonest about the specific way that I mattered. That is, only to her. We started to see each other every few weeks, then every week with a phone call every other day, then we saw one another every day, comfortably.

    I was cautious but optimistic during this initial time of knowing each other. She basically seemed to fit my program of needs, but it is nearly impossible to discern fact from fiction in a burgeoning relationship. Most of the judgments made during this phase are intuitive and, as such, I could hardly know the full extent of her character and ability to meet my needs. It was as much a matter of intuition as it was a matter of blind trust, I suppose. My skepticism here mostly accorded to my third need.

    For the first few weeks of our courtship, A–– was damn near pious in terms of her sainthood. She was kind toward me, spoke with enthusiasm during all of our conversations (which were intriguing and highly lubricious to my whittled spirit), and was forward about her feelings. When I took her to bed, she came pleasantly for me and never demanded a thing in terms of positioning or intensity. She seemed to accept me, body and soul, making no claims to ownership or dissatisfaction. Of course, this was all very nice, but I began to worry that she was only fit to fulfill one part of a need that demands two parts. I needed something more devious, more vivacious to erupt from her obedient body. I needed a moment of confrontation, a challenge that could force me into a proverbial fetal position, begging afterward for my pitiful life and an affirmation of my values. Of all my needs, this one is apparently the most idiosyncratic (not to say hypocritical, for that title is reserved for the fourth need), but I had no way of denying it. It would have been insufficient for her to continue this way because I knew that she was hiding some bitter half of her morality. During those weeks, I longed for something to lash out and strike me down–force me to relinquish my power and bow my head.

    So, I started to push the envelope that I had only recently sealed. Shamefully enough, I acted like a child in A––'s presence whenever possible. I did almost everything that one could possibly do to irritate another person within the bounds of civility and reason. At first her responses were kind, almost severely patient, like she was following a rule. Then her voice became firm. She cleaned up my messes with a disgruntled air. She despised my garbage and my irresponsibility. I became more optimistic, but I knew still that she needed further prodding. For better or worse, I needed to see the reality, not merely the possibility, of her hatred; the depths of malice that could betimes let forth great rage. I needed to be told what was wrong with me, and she needed to be correct about it.

    After a line of insignificant pestering, I devised the greatest of my mundane offenses. It was simple, effective, and it summarized all of my previous gestures in what I hoped would stimulate the utmost ignominy. (When you seek to bother someone, and I mean really bother them, it is productive to plant the seeds of dissatisfaction before expecting any great results. These seeds must be fertilized by time and further impositions. At the moment of their devilish blooming, the object of your botherings will have no choice but to recognize the complete narrative of misdeeds you've already established. Keep in mind that I took no pleasure in the sowing, but given that I was driven by unwanted needs, I found little choice in this and awaited a great harvest.) This is what I did: I stayed at A––'s apartment for a whole weekend acting slobbish and incapable. I lounged to the best of my ability, and in my lounging, I made such unnecessary and unforgivable messes. The final mess was the most important.

    A–– went out for an hour or two to purchase some groceries from a grocer within walking distance, for I had left open the fridge, removed clips from bags, and done other things to ensure that most of the food in her apartment went bad or stale by the end of the weekend. She seemed frustrated with me as she walked out the door of her apartment with her reusable shopping bags tucked under her arm. Her footsteps disappeared down the hall. I went into the kitchen, forced ajar all of the cabinetry and drawers, and removed every single piece of dishware, Tupperware, cutlery, and silverware I could find. I laid all of it out at various places in the apartment, even hiding items behind furniture and appliances. Then I lay on the couch in the living room, adjacent to the kitchen, and stared at the ceiling until A–– returned. I was terrified. I knew that if this gesture did not have its intended effect, one way or another, all would be over between us. Yes, thinking now, this was a last-ditch effort to appease my needs and succor my impatient mind.

    She came home and set her bags on the floor. The look on her face, my God. If I could describe it accurately, I would spend my entire life in contemplation of the lone wrinkle crevassing her forehead. I saw every fiber of her good nature erode in an instant, and she marched over to where I lay on the couch like a military general. The obscenities that poured from her mouth, the aggressive waving of her arms, and the screaming that followed... and knowing that it was all directed toward me, I knew that my needs were beyond satisfied. She absolutely hated me and she told me passionately because it was true. She didn't only love me but despised me as well. And she didn't lie about it. She told me the truth.

    We were married three months later. I was fifty years old, and she was thirty-three. The ceremony was quaint and exclusive; I refused to have an exorbitant or otherwise showy nuptial ceremony, and A–– agreed with me for her own reasons. That is, she did not merely adopt my reasons in order to reach an agreement with me. She independently happened to think in a way that agreed with my thinking. We danced for many hours, we got drunk, we kissed, we made love–we did all of the things that a married couple is supposed to do after they are married. That day I felt unexpectedly normal. I felt that sense of normalcy, and for a time I forgot the totalitarian rule of my needs. I thought about family, food, and vacation time. I thought about so many things that I had never thought about before. I thought that maybe I could have a child, and perhaps that child would be free in a way that I am not.

    I hoped that this third marriage to A–– would be the one that brought me unto death, as I said. I was getting too old to be running around and doing the things my needs would force me to do in an uncontrolled environment. But it was more than that. For a time, I simply wanted to be there. I didn't need anything else. I didn't compare one thing to another, and I didn't apply tests to determine how things fit into my algorithmic desires. I think that A–– and I were perfect for each other then, when my needs deceptively passed away. I know it sounds banal, or stupid, or whatever. But I swear that was how it felt. I wanted to die with my A––, and how many times did I tell her that I would never let us be separated, not even if God himself willed it!

    As I also said, I was wrong. A–– and I were married for about ten years, and for all of those ten years, never once did she break the mold I had imposed on her. My needs were perfectly fulfilled, and I think we loved one another as much as two people could. Or as much as someone like me is capable of loving anyone, anyway. We were sitting on the couch one day, apart and unspeaking, embracing a domestic silence devoid of lust or content. And I reflected, for the first time in a long while, about the needs that had years prior set me in opposition to the world of love. I looked to A–– and she looked to me, and she smiled quietly. That smile made me miserable and full of regret for what I had done. Or what I felt I had done. Perhaps things could not have gone differently between us. Our temperaments were set, and we were simply two people influencing each other in the ways that two people do. She compromised in order to get along with me, and I expected her to compromise each time. But I realized then that each compromise was the destruction of her soul. I thought that she had met my terms naturally, or out of admiration, but I saw in that moment and in that sad smile that I had destroyed her life. I had made her life into something that disturbingly resembled my own: a life of imprisonment. Yes, I realized what an unworthy devil I had been. I had convinced myself that my own inadequacies, my own impotencies, were no fault of my own. In a way, they were not. But this is all the more reason to note the criminality of my actions. I roped A–– into a twisted scheme in order to selfishly deter my misery. In meeting my needs, however, no such thing happened. No such thing could have happened. That day I noticed that the repressed longing inside me had not gone away; it had only been ignored, cleverly inverted to fit some feasible kind of interaction with reality, with A––. But all of this had failed. I merely repeated the same grave mistake, and in doing so I had invented a unique hell. There's no way to apologize for that.

    I tried to contain this final realization for a few weeks, the realization that my needs were merely an extension of some deeper hunger, but to no avail. I really did try to keep it in. But my misery soon threatened to consume my entire being, and the life that A–– and I had lived so pleasantly became slavish and cruel. After roughly ten years of flawless partnership, A–– and I parted ways. I was wrong to think that she and I would die side by side, but I was correct to believe she was my final one. I wasn't wrong about A––, then, but about myself. I was wrong to believe that I could ever love.

    Sometimes I think I see her walking the streets, intently browsing the windows of the strip, but I wonder if these are only apparitions. I would not even have the right to approach an apparition of A––, invented by my mind. But sometimes I still offend to think of her when I'm sitting alone, for I will be alone for a long time. The painted image of her smile reminds me of how sure I was of the mistake I made. Such a painted image makes me cry.

In memory of Dr. Javier Sniffleur. We are all your children.

Dream Spread

    I ate a platter of smoked salmon with my sister. It was drizzled with seedy mustard and accompanied by cream cheese, pickled onions, capers, and a warm sliced baguette. I usually appreciate any occasion for eating smoked salmon, so this was no exception, but I was surprised by the quality of the fish and the strength of the flavors contained within the spread. We ate and felt happy. Afterward, we walked through the rain over to a small bookstore on the other side of the street. This bookstore only sells new books, which at one point in my life would have turned me away, but I've come to realize that browsing in an independently owned bookstore can be nice regardless of their wares.

    My sister and I entered and we looked around at the books. I looked at the suspense section with her and talked about the few sci-fi novels I have read. I spoke about Raymond Chandler and the interesting kind of mystery fiction that is coming from Scandinavian countries in the past decade or so. I talked about Jo Nesbo and Harry Hole, mentioning that this is a hilarious name to give to a character. I talked about other things. I walked over to the classics section and looked around for a bit. I looked at George Eliot and Italo Calvino and Camus and poetry by Louise Gluck.

    I walked up to the front desk/checkout area. Two older ladies were sitting there talking and I greeted them by saying hello. They turned to face me and I asked frankly if they had any books written by Stephen Dixon in their inventory. An American writer. Short fiction. I said these things to specify. I spelled out his last name as well to ensure that she could accurately check. The woman checked and mumbled something about children's books. Maybe there's another writer named Stephen Dixon who writes for children. She said something about new things coming in soon but they wouldn't have Stephen Dixon. I thanked the women for their time and walked away to find my sister. While I walked away, I heard the woman who was not on the computer say to the woman on the computer, "that was so funny." The whole interaction seemed odd to me and I wasn't sure what would be so funny about a person asking about a particular book at a bookstore. Maybe she wasn't talking about the interaction we'd just had, but this thought seems a bit too convenient. I wondered if there was something strange about the way I had approached them and the way I inquired about the literature of American writer and professor Stephen Dixon.

    I decided not to buy any books at the book store. My sister and I walked through the rain again and got into her car to drive back to our parents' house, which is also my sister's house in a way. Not in the sense that she owns it, but that she lives there consistently and it is more or less her home. As we walked to the car and got into the car we spoke about abortions and becoming parents. I said that I wasn't sure if I will ever be a father, maybe I'm not cut out for it. My sister told me that she thinks I will be father [sic]. She said that even if I am not father [sic] then I could hang out with her children and be uncle [sic].

    Before we left our parents' house to look at new books at the bookstore with the women who thought something was so funny and to eat lunch which included the beautiful salmon platter, my sister woke me up around 11:30 am. This is a bit later than I would like to be waking up. My father was in the living room watching TV and my sister mentioned that we would be going to get some coffee or eat food or look at books, or something. My father said something about going to get sushi instead, and my sister mentioned that we might go to Jacksonville for coffee or whatever, and he could join us. She suggested that we eat sushi for dinner. My father said no to all of this because he didn't want to go to Jacksonville. He seemed quite firm in this. Instead, he went to visit his father, my grandfather, in the hospital.

    My grandfather had some kind of surgery involving his heart yesterday. I don't know the details about it but we went to see him the night before last to wish him luck and contribute to high morale going into the surgery. It is, apparently, a very common surgery that he had done. My mother said something about praying for him and my grandfather said something like "I'm not dying yet. You're not getting rid of me yet. Who else is going to bother Emily and Owen?" and we laughed. My grandfather then said something about my dad being pretty good at bothering us too, but my dad still has more to learn before he can be as bothersome as himself. We all laughed at this too, and I hugged my grandparents two times each before walking back across the street to my parents' house. My grandfather made a joke about all the hugs I was giving him. Then he said that I could give him as many hugs as I want. My sister made a lighthearted comment about the fact that I couldn't hug them whenever I wanted to, so I had to get all of the hugs in during a concentrated period of time. Even though it was said jokingly, this is true. I worry that I won't be able to hug Grammy and Pops enough times in that short amount of time. My mother insisted that there are many reasons to pray for someone that don't involve fear of death or dying.

    After my sister and I ate the smoked salmon platter with cream cheese and pickled onions and mustard and bread, I sent a photograph of the platter to my friend. We were texting about kindness and what it means to aim for genuine, all-pervasive kindness. We agreed that this is a very hard thing to achieve and requires setting important boundaries and knowing how to work with others, even when others do not apparently want to be worked with. This discussion was caused by my explanation of the bookstore exchange in which nothing was funny. She said that she wished she was me at that moment of eating the smoked salmon, and she called it her dream spread. At that moment I also wished she was me, or at least that I could share the dream spread with her somehow.

    My grandfather's heart stopped for a few minutes during his surgery. Nobody told me this because nobody ever tells anyone anything. He has three cracked ribs from CPR compressions but they managed to surgically implant a catheter in his heart. I don't know what this sort of procedure is called, but I'm going to go see him and give him a hug after I ask how he's doing and he says "I'm good" even though his heart stopped and he has three cracked ribs.

Weathers

    Right now I'm in Yulee, Florida. This is where my parents and my sister have lived since the Summer of 2020. I flew here yesterday from BWI and landed at Jacksonville airport, which is about twenty minutes from my parents' house. The weather is mild today, and it was mild yesterday. About seventy degrees and sunny. It's bright outside in Florida. In Maryland there's usually more cloud coverage even when it's sunny outside. Some days it's grey. Other days it gets pretty cold even after a succession of warm and sunny days. I wonder if it will snow again in Maryland, although that might be strange given that it's almost April. Maryland weather is mostly erratic and the seasons don't change cleanly. One day it will seem like one season has given way to another, and the next day the weather will try to revert to the weather of the previous season. Equinox and solstice are only words there, and the dates that the words are meant to refer to often don't reflect their meaning.

    I'm not sure if the weather is as erratic in Florida because I'm not here as often. When I've been here in the Summer I can say it has been consistently very hot, and then there will be a few days of rain and storms. The storms are more intense in Florida. The thunder is louder and the lightning strikes are veinier in the sky. I don't think it will rain this week, although it will be alright if it does. I like where I live and I like where my parents and sister live, even though they are different places.

    I woke up around 10:30 this morning and took a shower. I went to lunch with my grandparents at a small barbecue establishment with pretty good food and a nice simple environment. They sell all of the standard barbecue staples, which is nice because it makes for a variety of things to eat and try if you end up going there a few times. I've been there a few times. My grandparents had two fifty-dollar gift cards when I was down here last Winter. The gift cards were gifted to my grandparents for Christmas. I'm sure they've spent those gift cards by now, but we can go to the barbecue place anyway because the food is pretty good and it's affordable anyway. My father met the three of us there for lunch, and I think the total was forty dollars or so. This seems like a very reasonable amount of money to charge for four people to eat lunch: ten dollars per person. Or just about. I think more places should adopt this simple method for charging people to eat a meal-sized portion of food. I ate some ribs with coleslaw. This sort of lunch-experience is what I often call a grandparent-lunch, or in this case a rib-lunch. Usually I don't have ribs for lunch. I also had ribs for lunch yesterday. I'm feeling very ribby.

    I walked my grandmother into a small library branch near the barbecue establishment after we ate. It reminds me of a library branch I used to go to in Owings, except it's a bit smaller and has fewer computers. My grandmother and I walked in and greeted the two librarians sitting at the reception/research desk. They greeted us in return. My grandmother was looking for a book by James Patterson co-written by Dolly Parton. I don't know anything about this book except that it apparently exists, but it's interesting that such a book exists. I have no doubt that it exists. Behind the research desk, two men were seated at the computers and they were both watching the screens. The man on the left was watching WWF wrestling, and somebody was being thrown through a table; the man on the right was watching what looked like a pop music video, but I didn't get to watch the screen for very long because he turned to look at me and I instinctively averted my eyes from his direction. I don't know why I did this. I don't think it would've been offensive to keep looking. I could have just waved amicably anyway. But for whatever reason I averted my eyes dartlike. Meanwhile my grandmother was talking about some of the books on the small shelves next to us, mostly lined with commercial authors who I've heard of but never read.

    The man on the right computer who had sharply turned to look at me while I was looking at whatever he had been looking at on the computer monitor then motioned to the man on the left and he said something while he did this. He gestured meaninglessly in our direction, and the man on the left looked at me too. I saw this in my peripherals, and I looked over to see both men looking at me. They looked like they didn't like me looking at them, and I didn't wave because I moved my eyes away from them again as soon as I had looked. I thought that if given the opportunity I could've explained that I was only looking at the computer monitors that they were also looking at and that I was just momentarily interested in what they were watching because there wasn't much else going on in the little library branch. Even if there were something else going on, things like WWF wrestling and pop music videos are flashy and entertaining, so my eyes were naturally drawn to the images. I wasn't allowed to explain these and other momentary concerns, so I moved my attention to my grandmother and listened to some of the things that she said about the different authors and the books they wrote. She ended up picking out an adventure novel about a married couple who solves mysteries written by an author who had written or co-written many other stories about the same mystery-solving married couple. She wasn't able to find the book co-written by Dolly Parton.

    We walked back out to my grandfather's truck and got in. I held the passenger door for her as she entered the vehicle. She made a joke to my grandfather about not actually reading any of the books that she checked out from the little library. I sat in the back passenger side, and when we got back to their house, a house located just across the street from my parents' house, I gave my grandmother and grandfather a hug and helped them carry in two styrofoam boxes of leftovers from the barbecue place. My grandmother invited me to have french toast with her tomorrow for breakfast or lunch, depending on what time I wake up. She likes to save the thick-cut buttered bread from the barbecue place and use it to make french toast instead of eating it with the rest of her barbecue-food meal. I told my grandparents that I would see them later and that I loved them, and I walked back to my parents' house to spend some time in my own company and maybe try to do something like what I'm doing now.