To Carry a Pencil

A student in one of my classes, a young man from Korea, wrote a lovely composition about having chased David Beckham down for an autograph. The student, breathless but so pleased to finally be in the company of his hero, stood waiting. Beckham agreed to the autograph and asked for a pen, but the student was empty-handed. He had nothing. He remembered the sun beating down hot and heavy as he called out to anyone who passed in hopes of finding a pen, but eventually, he had to walk away, still empty-handed.

And so today in class, I read aloud a tiny story from Paul Auster's The Red Notebook. In it, an eight year-old Auster stands in front of Willie Mays begging for an autograph only to find that he, too, is pencil-less. Auster claims that he hasn't left home without a pencil since and that this is what made him a writer. What fascinates me is that as I read the story the students started reaching for their pens. By the end of it--by the time Auster announces himself a writer--they all sat, quite straight-backed I like to think now, their pens poised, ready, indeed, to write, to write as if their lives--or at very least their memorabilia--depended on it.

126,459,362:

Approximate number of seconds since my last cigarette.

Talk about Luck!

I just found out a story of mine was nominated for "Best of the Web 2007," so now, sipping on hot tea and googling "internet gods that I can thank for such victories," I've come upon this:
If you're even mildly delighted by this image, you might also enjoy my story; "Luck," it's called. Read it here.

My Irish Twin of a Brother

Today the clocks shift. My Irish twin of a brother leaves me to be 33 on my own.

He is afraid; he is very, very afraid:

You've got to understand. I share a mind with this man.
When he is struck, I feel pain.
When I hear a joke in New York, he breaks into laughter in Pennsylvania.
When, thousands of miles away, he stirs up fried potatoes with rosemary, my mouth waters.

Fashionable from the earliest age, this is the guy who taught me how to swing a bat.

Sure, there were some anger management problems...
but ultimately, he cleaned up quite nicely:

Through bad haircuts and invisible casts:

Through unbearable homework and many degrees:

even when we've had nothing, we've had each other.

O, my brother, my hero!

To you the happiest of all birthdays!
(and the birds say:
and many more!!!)

Holy Cow

Gulp.

I just realized I'm getting married in thirty-six days.

Something Borrowed

From Virginia Woolf, one of my favorite paragraphs in the world; watch closely as our dear Clarissa mends a tear in a favourite dress:

"Quiet descended on her, calm, content, as her needle, drawing the silk smoothly to its gentle pause, collected the green folds together and attached them, very lightly, to the belt. So on a summer's day waves collect, overbalance and fall; and the whole world seems to be saying "that is all" more and more ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the beach says too, That is all. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall. And the body alone listens to the passing bee; the wave breaking; the dog barking, far away barking and barking."

O Eve

All day I've been thinking of apples--not the waxy kind in the supermarket bins but the little ruddy crab apples that littered our neighbor's yard. They were sour and mal-formed, and if you took the dare, not just to bite it but to swallow it, you were sure to end up moaning and groaning. I sometimes wonder if life would have been different had it been a real apple tree, say, Golden Delicious or Granny Apple, Pink Lady or Red Rome. Imagine getting the dare to bite and feeling the juice run down your chin; imagine a whole yard of gnawed-to-the-cores and sweet-smelling goodness; imagine wanting pie and already having that which will fill it.