And I have to do it anyway.

The last few months have been very rich and rewarding for me, and in turn, difficult to blog about.

And much of it made very little sense.

Faryl and I have been planning our wedding. This is wonderful. I love her more than I had ever imagined I could love someone, and this is something I certainly feel I should share with those close to us, if not just to let them share in our joy, because without all of their guidance we would have not ended up where we are. As a practical guy though, sometimes the stress of planning a wedding makes about as much sense as saying, “Hey! I love you! Let’s open a hotel!”

(I couldn’t be happier though.)

Between Faryl and I, 3 of 4 of our living parents got cancer this year.

This doesn’t make any sense.

I have no words to describe this kind of thing other than it seems entirely unfair.

But you have to go through it anyway.

Luckily, the news is looking good for everyone affected. Our thoughts are with them.

Things up at the farm are great. When it gets cold all the land gets covered in a vast desert of snow and you can see the footsteps of where you’ve been. The river freezes and you can walk out on it and see things from a perspective you would not have imagined possible.

Exited for the coming year, and all the possibilities ahead.

Now if you’ll excuse me, the nice traffic cop has just told me I must actually move my car for real.

      … I thought about posting a funny picture of myself in a body cast as a possible excuse for my lack of blogging the past few months, but then I thought better of it.

…

  …okay, what the heck.

…

Life is good – if not wonderful. A big year approaches, with at least 1 ‘major life event’ approaching (No – it’s not my Bar Mitzvah. I almost had one of those when I was 13 because my mom said we could make $10,000 easy, but I couldn’t get it together.).

I ran into an old friend while dining on a ‘Bad Boy’ at Lenny’s Bagels. He asked me why I hadn’t been blogging more. I realized I had been writing about the beauty of the small things in life, but my time had been so full of big things this year, and I didn’t know how to share them.

So we’re working on that.

—

Mr. Thorn tossed his Black American Express card at the clerk like a poker chip.

“Oh boy, you’re going to hurt my arm with that thing.” said the kid behind the counter.

Thorn smiled at him, “What a stupid thing it is! A million dollar credit limit. What a waste!”

The kid looked up from the titanium credit card for the first time.

“Trade me?”

—

Things on my mind, right now, and in general:

1. Wedding

2. Building a house on our own that will feel safe and inspirational. (Sub-questions: How do you patch concrete? How do you frame walls? Why are none of my friends plumbers?)

3. Isaac Asimov

4. Comfort vs. Productivity

5. The Man in Black from LOST

6. THE FUTURE.

—

More later. Good to talk to you again, it’s been too long! You are such a good listener.

Perspective is all about juxtaposition, I suppose.

—

Here are some words of advice from the great Alan Moore. I’m re-googling him after being pleasantly surprised by the Watchmen movie.

—

I finished building the window this weekend with the help of my ‘Friends’.

Over pizza night Paul grabbed my shoulder like an old tennis ball and said, “You did good. The window came out great.” 

So.

After twenty and change years of living in New York City, Faryl and I finally experienced a rite of passage.

We were burglarized.

What’s funny about this…. well… there is plenty funny about this, so, do take your tragedy hat off. What is funny about this is that it happened 70 miles from the big, rough city, in the small, quaint hamlet where our farm lives.

Let’s take this back a step:

Faryl and I bought a small farm last year. It was a ‘jump and the net will appear’ kind of move, and we love it. There are three barns on the land. One of these barns, we are working on turning into a house, but this is a crazy, involved process that involves talking to people with hammers and other people with forms. So in the interim, we’ve allowed ourselves to be charmed by another structure on the land.

It was originally a horse barn (I guess!? There were horse shoes and horse smells in it.) When we first saw it, I hoped it could be a cross between Thoreau’s cabin, Neil Gaiman’s writing Gazebo, and Chris Stevens’ Airstream from Northern Exposure.

+

+

=

After a few months of ripping up asphalt and hammering nails, we ended up with something closer to a Summer camp bunk house. It is just peachy.

Last week, as a surprise to me, Faryl and Analise built the bunkbeds we had bought from Ikea. Faryl arranged our sleeping bags on them so that when I came back the following weekend I would be extra excited to sleep there.

Saturday came, and we opened up the doors to the bunkhouse.

“Shit.” Faryl said.

Everything was there, undisturbed. Electronics, coffee maker, tools were fine. 

Missing: 3 Sleeping bags. 1 Box of tissues. 1. Package of Paper Towels.

So… Hmmm…. List of suspects is quite narrow seeing as we have a neighbor… here… let me see if I have a picture.

She is older, deaf, mute, and tragically steal-y. She has walked into our place before while we were there and gathered up various implements of crazy to take back to her lair. Once Faryl, clutching a shovel and doing a chihuahua shake, attempted to explain to her that it was our  stuff, and to please not take it.

At first we had thought this latest act of nappery had been some local kids causing mischief. I did it. I understand. A few hours into our day though, Log Lady came cruising by in her mini van, CASING THE JOINT. When she saw us she sped away. Also: Who steals paper towels? = Nuts.

So… yes… this is all very small potatoes. We can replace the sleeping bags. No one was injured, we were just slightly violated. Mostly I’m sad that we had to put locks on our utopian cabin. But, as I like to say when people complain, “These are good problems to have.”

—

New York Magazine’s Cheap Burger List. Not actually that cheap, but very enticing. 

—

Talk soon. I know I’ve been a lazy blogger. Mostly, I’ve been so focused on one thing for the past few weeks that I feel in danger of repeating myself. “Oh, farms are so charming. Nailing pieces of wood together is hard. BLAH BLAH BLAH”. But I will be back and bloggy. I love writing to you and it makes me feel great that you enjoy it. 

—

As I wrote this, Faryl had already finished her firey version of the story. Here it is.

Still with you, in very good spirits, just distracted by good weather and hammering things. Will talk to you shortly, promise.

- Cool Summer Dude Nick

—

One of my internet tangents (“mash ups I may have missed”) led me to this. I’ve been stuck on it for a few days now:

—

So I’ve been getting a lot of cuts on my hands.

Not in the “I’m a self hating teenage girl” way either! These cuts have been the result of the dangerous and exciting world of physical labor.

Up at the farm, a blur of shovels and pry bars have been surrounding me on a regular basis. I started up a weed whacker on the first try. Last week, a bug startled Faryl, so I squeezed it against the wall with my thumb.

“That was  a very ‘country’ move.” She said.

At the moment, what I have to show for all this is an array of red, scabby lines up my arms and hands. They vary in thickness and length – but they all serve to remind me that I am not taking it easy.

…and that I’m not being careful.

—

Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of radio. The Dales have an old stereo in their kitchen, the speakers are boomy and beat up and make everything sound like it’s being beamed from the past. Last week I decided the Commodores were a really great new group.

—

It makes perfect sense to me that in attempting to build a writer’s nook for Faryl and I that my level of writing output has decreased dramatically. I think this either serves to prove that things can never be ideal, and the finest pens rarely produce the greatest stories, or that a creative person needs time to recharge, and it’s clever to use that time and energy to help out ‘future prolific you’.

(“And the winner of the 2009 Run-on Sentence Award Goes To….”)

—

Alright. I have  a full day ahead of me of bugging hardware store guys. (“Is this what I need? Is this a good plan? Will this fall down and crush my loved ones?”) Off to work!

I don’t get sick very often – but all of my life whenever I do come down with something, I always have the sensation: I just want to go home.

As one gets older, though, “home” changes, and not just where it is, but what it is. Maybe you had to move from Kansas to San Antonio to be a better archaeologist or whatever, but home to you wasn’t in either place, home  was some cheap perfume your mother used to wear, or a cheeseburger, or Back To The Future.

So, I suppose with this in consideration, I’ve tried to cultivate situations in my life that are conducive to feeling at home. Good friends, good food, fun times are all on the list.

Also on the list is an actual, literal home!

We’ve been going up to the farm almost every weekend – sorting things out, and getting ready for the renovation of the barn we’re turning into a house.

But the last few weeks another project has been the object of my obsession.

This is a small barn on the property. We think it was used for pigs or chickens and perhaps later for hiding bodies. It is awesomely promising to me. Faryl and I decided it would be a good writing space/guest house that we could renovate ourselves as a way to learn about construction.

So in planning this, I’ve been had to ask myself, “What makes a home?”. For weeks now whenever I find myself relaxed in a space I’ll say to myself, “What do I like about this? What is necessesary for this experience?”

I’ve written little lists in my notebook that include bullet points like: “TABLE” and “BOOKS” and “FRIDGE?”.

The whole thing has been not only exciting to me because I get to daydream about us building a cabin, something we’ve always wanted, but because I get to underline how simple happiness can be. Modern comforts are wonderful, and certainly my laptop will have a place at the farm, but it’s nice to be reminded how simple “home” really is.

—

Pretty Unstoppable:

—

One thing I like about digital cameras (and my life) is that if you use them to take pictures of all the places you go over the course of a few weeks, when you look back at them it’s like you’re teleporting from one memorable memory to another.

Like a party at the Metropolitan Opera, where it turned out the coffee is not that good (Boo-hoo-hoo).

Up to the country, where Paul is in the midst of giving me more bad ideas. (He would later, in his sleep, in the rain, in the pitch black of night, fix a leaky roof.)

… To a mythical bird perched in a magical place.

A pile of landscaping supplies I was convinced not to steal.

…and another that seemed promising…

This has been taking up my imagination this week. It excites me to no end. More on things shortly, including the day I dressed fancy only to be mistaken for homeless.

“wish you were her!”

N

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook the other day – and upon hearing it I all at once remembered how simple life used to be. 

Listening to Pavement at Milan’s house in 1997, one of the Day School kids going on about how he saw them in concert, “to sound that apart, you really have to be together!”.

Life goals involved someone finally recognizing the brilliance of your band. A head of long hair flopped at your shoulders as you ate at the outdoor cafe. 

I wouldn’t trade my life as it is now for anything. But the very nature of nostalgia makes you ask questions: Are you remembering only the positive experiences? Would you act differently given the same circumstances now? Were these less complex times for the world, or for me?

…. Brighten the Corners is a very good album, either way.

—

So Faryl’s birthmother demanded we visit in Minnesota.

We obliged!

Mary Grace has somewhere between 4 and 12 children living with her. Here is one of the rare moments in our three day trip that one of them sat still long enough to be photographed. 

While traveling, many fun and magical things may happen. Like:

and:

(I’m afraid of birds.)

but in my opinion, nothing beat the trip to a charming little place called The Coffee Cup for a Sunday brunch. On the drive there, rumbles were heard from the back of the 22 passenger van we drove in expressing displeasure and confusion on why we would be visiting a greasy spoon, but I’m fairly certain the sound of my smiling drowned it all out.

Thanks for the good times, amigos!