Where, you ask, is this unfortunate subdivision, this mysterious and inexplicable water?

Lakeport. In Lake County, California.

Greenwood Red and I went and “did” brunch. Then we went to purchase nine (nine!) bales of very-exciting straw for my very-exciting straw-bale garden project (I hope it will look like this when it's done, only with vegetables).

So, since we were feeling all suburban and adult by doing both brunch and the hardware store on a Saturday, we thought we'd cap it off with a walk-through of the flea market.

Which was profoundly entertaining. It was a virtual feast, a garden of earthly delights, the detritus and ephemera of people's lives— plus the bizarrely and blatantly questionable attempts by someone (but who?) to make a quick buck in the most delightful and/or peculiar of ways.

Items One Can Purchase at the Flea Market, if One Should Desire to Do So:

A glass Mrs. Butterworth bottle, minus the syrup, cap, and label. This will set you back $3.00.

A piano, without strings. Or keys. Price unknown.

Ziploc bags filled with hotel toiletries, some of which also included a (hopefully) clean pair of socks. ($1.00 per. Get 'em before they're gone. Best Western soaps are hard to come by.)

Ziploc bags filled with unwanted, mixed-up Keurig coffee pods. Cheaper than any Keurig pods from anywhere else. But mostly decaf. Also, still in Ziplocs from someone's kitchen table somewhere. (In my heartless estimation, this would be a questionable purchase.)

Still in pristine boxes: the Disneyland “Monorail” board game and, its brother, the Disneyland “Frontierland” board game. These were shrink-wrapped, probably dated to the opening of the original park, pre-frozen Uncle Walt, and were $22.00 each.

A bedazzled sugar canister. (As in, someone literally took their sugar canister and hot-glued plastic rhinestones to the surface.) $10.00.

A Flowbee. Not bedazzled. Definitely well-used, but still with the original, if battered and dog-eared, box.

Pirate, sea-farer, and other-masculine-weathered-male ceramic mugs (Captain Kangaroo?). Perfect for one's morning cuppa, shared with two friends.

Very popular at the flea market: Patently Obvious Dollar Store/Tree/General merchandise: kitchen spices, feminine products, baby lotion, deodorant, gift bags, and pens. Fair warning: these cost about $1.50 to $2.00 each— because they have that flea market cachet added on now.

Miscellaneous jewelry, beads, magnets, fishing lures, buttons, and (?) in Ziplocs. (Ziplocs are very popular in the flea-market world. You can buy a bag of almost anything– a bunch of tangled anythings– in a Ziploc at the Flea Market.)

Used hats. (Prices vary. Wash in very hot water.)

Still-in-shrink-wrap but clearly aged candy– in large quantities. Like, as in, 36 packs of that gum they don't make anymore; that gum with early '90's popular font. But hey, 36 packs of old gum (new! in package!) for $3.90. Helluva deal.

Dolls. An abundance of dolls. Very, very creepy dolls.

Also, clown dolls. Even more creepy. (Greenwood Red says clowns are fun. Greenwood Red is sadly mistaken.)

A picture frame with someone's family photo still inside– from not very long ago. (This made me sad.)

A 1960 yearbook from a local high school. Reasonably priced at $25.00. (This also made me sad.)

A test missile (seriously). For $33.00.

Fine Art– actual paintings. Priced to support the artist's ego and your budget. Perfect for hanging above a fireplace:

Star Trek, Next Generation figurines (still in battered packages): Picard as Borg, Guinan, Wharf as Cowboy.

The same Lite Brite in the same box that I had as a child and that's still in my Dad's shed, waiting on me to retrieve it (Oh, I will, little buddy, believe me, I will): $30.00.

Two church pews. Not including hymnals. Sadly.

A suit of armor. (It's not real. Don't get excited. I'm an art history major and I checked it up-close. It's real metal, but it's not old; it's certainly not authentic. 'Course, the multiple-different centuries all mixed-up in one suit probably told you that.) Only $259.00 though. Not bad. Plus, it is still a suit of armor.

Samurai swords. $10 to $30 each. Also not real.

Dream-catchers of all sizes.

Chipped mugs, stained bedding, broken music instruments, sheet music, stained and matted stuffed animals. Children's clothes.

An entire corner filled with 20 to 30 vacuum cleaners. (Plug it in before you buy. All sales are final. Bonus: some of the canisters hadn't been emptied…possible treasure surprise!)

Hair clips! $1.00 each. Hot-glue, free time, and a penchant for crochet. Let no one tell you entrepreneurship is dead in America. It's alive and well at the Flea Market.

Vinyl records, cassettes, VHS tapes.

Suspicious laptops and computers. (MacBook Air for $349. Virus included!)

A shrunken head.

A circa 1901 wooden wheelchair. (This was both sad and creepy.)

A china plate with dogs playing poker painted on it. (It's possible that this came home with Greenwood Red and me.)

Salt-and-pepper caddy shaped like a horse.

The thing about a flea market: no fleas, no ant farms, no animals. (It could have used some cats, if you ask me.)

The other thing about a flea market… some of these things, these objects, you just know they've all got a story to tell. They all came from somewhere. Whose kitchen table was graced with that horse? Whose Christmas holiday was enlivened by that big felt thing with sparkles? Whose yearbook was that?

And how did it end up here, on these shelves, in these Ziplocs, jumbled together with big-eyed owl cookie jars and broken bits of clip-on jewelry, and outgrown children's clothes?

Who chose the scary clown? Who loved it?

Who sat in that chair? Played that broken flute?

Who drank from that mug and why did they pick that one out in the first place?

And do they still enjoy country music?

The Sunday Indianapolis Star generally leaves me a little blue (Gannett and their weekly fluff-and-stuff) but today, it seemed a little more sad than usual. Today it announced that children's book author E.L. Konigsburg had passed away (see page A21). For those who've never heard of her, she was a Newbery Medal Winner, and the author of one of my favorite all-time kids' books: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a book which retains its charms even to an adult reader. Now that I think about it, there's probably a very tiny fraction of my highly-impractical Art History degree that I might owe to Claudia, Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the late Ms. Konigsburg.

In memory and honor of E.L. Konigsburg, I thought I'd post some books I hope kids still read, skewed toward the feminine– or at least, a list of books it would be a shame if no kid looks at anymore. The list, generally speaking, is probably geared for ages 6-12, though some will be a little younger or older. And heck, if your girl-children (or boy-children) won't read 'em, some of you adults may enjoy reading or re-reading them (many of them are, well, very fast reads).

The Books:

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. (1868) Despite my heartless fourth-grader teacher's statement that it was a poor book report choice because it's “too sweet,” this is a really great book. Sentimental, yes. Sweet, yes. But not saccharine.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson. A Little Princess. (1905) Also, The Secret Garden. (1909-1911)

Cleary, Beverly: Actually, for this one, not a book, but many. Otis Spofford, Ellen Tebbits, Henry Huggins, Henry and Ribsy, Mitch and Amy, and all the Beezus/Ramona books. She wrote prolifically, from the silly (the Ralph-mouse-motorcycle things) to the serious (Dear Mr. Henshaw). Like most of the other books on the list, these books will seem dated, but that's okay. The heart is solid.

Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. (1908)

Konigsburg, E.L. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. (1967)

Lowry, Lois. Anastasia Krupnik. (1979).

Montgomery, Lucy Maud. Anne of Green Gables. (1908) And also, Emily of New Moon (1923), The Story Girl (1911), and Chronicles of Avonlea (1912).

Raskin, Ellen. The Westing Game. (1979) Smart, funny, fast, with a surprisingly moving finish.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter. All of 'em.

Sainte-Exupéry, Antoine de. The Little Prince. (1943)

Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are. (1963) Every full moon I've ever seen since reading this book has made me think of it. Happily.

Speare, Elizabeth George. The Witch of Blackbird Pond. (1958). I actually re-read this one a couple years ago and it was sadly disappointing to my grown-up eyes. However, to an 8 or 9 year old child, I think it would still be interesting. (I still remember how exotic and new the book seemed as a kid, with “Barbados,” the sea, and peacock-blue kid slippers. Not to mention, reading it young adds a new dimension to the primary school Thanksgiving lessons and primes one a little bit to middle-school readings of colonial history into The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible).

Streatfeild, Noel. Ballet Shoes. (1936)

Honorable Mentions: White (Charlotte's Web), Wilder (The Little House books), Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia), Woolley (Ginny Joins In), Parish (Amelia Bedelia series), Lindgren (most famous for Pippi Longstocking but I always preferred Mischievous Meg)

(Illustration: Mary Engelbreit)

So, my wrist is wrecked. Temporarily and all. Ravaged by years of sewing very fine fabric with even finer thread coupled with incessant typing. And then, then, a weekend of hyper-aggressive yard work. I was a beast, lifting 20 pound bags of soil, thinking not of ergonomics and safety, but only of “get the good dirt to the bad dirt. Pull!” And there was the enthusiastic wielding of the industrial-strength shovel.

Yes, Dad, I still have that. Thank you for lending it to me. Three years ago. I really appreciate it. I love that shovel.

So consequently, a week and a half later, my wrist is wrapped in white tape, like a gymnast’s or something really spectacular.

And I can’t essentially do a damned thing with my left hand. Ta very much, repetitive motion tendinitis. You’re awesome. Also, you hurt just a very little bit.

I don’t mind the wrist thing. It’s what it is. I tape it up and keep typing and generally, do more with my right hand, which is a real trouper. I’m grateful, as ever, that the good lord didn’t, as yet, give me more to bitch about.

But it’s had a weird side effect in its most recent incarnation. If I upset family or anyone else with what I’m about to say, I really am sorry (let me know, I’ll take down the post and hopefully you will forget I ever wrote it).

And also, for those who believe what I’m about to very publicly say I do not, I also apologize. I don’t think I’m right. I don’t think you’re wrong. The last thing I want is to offend anyone. So pre-blog apologies all around.

My wrist thing…the white bandage… it reminds me at times, as I’m fumbling with a key, bag, or coffee cup, it reminds me of my Papaw, my grandpa.

See, before the cancer ravaged his colon, it hit his arm first. The wonders of late ’80′s medicine were such that they chopped out some nerves and tendons in his arm and then gave him a brace so he could operate his fingers. (See, apologizing again. This is painful and a little graphic. I don’t know he would like it, that I’m writing about his brace and putting my thoughts online. Apologies. Seriously.)

This was no mean bit of white tape wrapped all Nadia-like around his wrist. This was a spider made of paper clips. It was a metal praying mantis. It was a puppeteer’s strings, linked to every finger with slender metal jointed pieces: like pipe organs, like Edward Scissorhands, like Rube Goldberg designed a wrist brace with metal finger trusses and then added some hinges and joints so it wouldn’t seem so simple.

And my Papaw, my sweet Papaw, wore all that so he could move his fingers.

Without complaint. At least, not within my hearing.

But there’s something in the bandage, something in my fumbling, which have brought this to mind as though it were yesterday. I can see him, in this thing on his arm. He sits calmly at the dining room table and, with the mobility provided by the metal prongs, applies his Chap Stick after dinner.

He really liked Chap Stick.

And I think about him. And I both curse and bless the memory that’s nearly tactile; that causes me to be able to smell the clean bandages, the Chap Stick; to hear the clicking of the metal pieces, and viscerally to be able to see the movements that happen– but not without the metallic medical assistance.

And I think (among a great many other things; including that “how selfish of me, who the hell cares what I think when people get cancer and go through all that: Shut Up, Michelle”): I wish I believed in something.

Specifically, I wish that I could be sure, in the way some people are sure, that we go on and we go on with some knowing sentience about the people we left behind, the people who love us still.

I really want to believe that my Papaw, our Papaw, knows– really, really knows– that he’s still remembered; that, believe it or not, he’s not remembered for the metal monster but the bravery that accompanied it, for the fact that he loved my earrings one time because they had “ice blue” hearts; that he colored a coloring book dachshund with the bittersweet crayon because “what other color would they be?”

I want him to know he’s remembered. I want him to know that he’s missed beyond belief. That every May 19th brings sadness because that’s the damn day. I want him to know every May 13 that there’ s a mental cake that is built for him. I want him still to be connected in a very real way– him, not his body, not his brace, not the goddamned cancer. I frequently want his advice, his humor, his company.

I will accept that I can’t access those things. But to accept that they just exist no longer is a bit much.

And yet…

I can’t believe in heaven. I can’t believe in continued knowing existence.

I want to, very much.

I want to believe; I want to know, that not only do we go on, with resolution (you, my child, did okay with what you knew and what you had. It was a test. You may not have passed but you didn’t quite fail. It was a really hard test) but we go on, still, with connection to those that join us, those that preceded us.

I want to think that my Papaw welcomed his parents to wherever “there” is.

I want to think that he knows what we know and he’s just waiting for us: not the physical, but the part of him that is actually him.

And someday, I’ll go there, and I will be greeted and I will be waiting and I will know, too, just what it was all for, and more importantly, I’ll be able to see the ones I love so very much. All of them. And we’ll be aware enough to know one another, to remember.

And…

I believe in, well, nothing.

I know what I want. I know there’s nothing to suggest what I want is true, which does not mean it isn’t; it just means we can’t know it in the same way we know other things.

And, for the way my self seems to be constructed, well, I can’t know and I know damned well I can’t know.

And so.

My desire is not enough to be faith.

My desire is not enough to be truth. My desire is faulty. My knowledge too limited. My awareness that what is true doesn’t mean it has to be literal and vice versa…

all of it conspires to make me a person who believes only that we (I) cannot know and anything is possible.

In some senses, I believe in everything. Which is to believe in nothing.

And it is not the most comforting non-belief system to be a part of.

There’s no wisdom to this story. There’s quite a bit of embarrassment and humility. If, tonight, you have faith, I hope you find comfort in it. I hope you are right.

And I find myself wishing I were one among you, questioning what it is in my make-up which prevents me having certainty on anything, defying comfort, no matter how hard it is hoped for.

I’ll keep questioning and guessing, hoping I hit on the faith-formula that somehow sticks, but I doubt that it will ever come.

Still, I’ll keep searching. And if you haven’t found your truth just yet, I will hope you find yours, too.

We do what we do here and it matters.

But I wonder, oh, I wonder: what comes next?

I'm thinking about those things– and a host of others– but I'm not touching them in this post.

Welcome to Saturday. I'm, erm, percolating on a number of things and would rather not write until said things are fully, well, brewed.

So, what that leaves me with is random bits of the following (oh, you lucky three blog-readers, you):

#MadGEDSkills

The Indianapolis Star and the Washington Post, in an Associated Press article, on Monday, April 15, reported that some states are dropping the GED because the new, digital-based replacement in many states is too expensive and too onerous on test-takers than the previous paper-based GED. This may be a fair point. Those seeking the GED are, generally speaking, probably going to find the $140 fee for the new GED a little steep (at minimum wage, that would be 70-plus hours; difficult to manage when minimum wage keeps a person in American-style poverty). But on top of that, some of the test-takers are expressing concern with the computer-based format of the new GED. “You've got to learn how to type, use the computer, plus your GED. That's three things instead of just trying to focus all on your GED test,” said one test-taker, a mother of three.

Here's the thing: one could argue that the typing, the familiarity to use a computer to take the test– these actually are, now, skills that are themselves part of General Educational Attainment. At this point, you basically have to apply online at little computer kiosks for the most entry-level of entry-level positions at Target, Walmart, Kroger. Putting pen to paper is increasingly less useful in terms of getting a job, with or without a GED.

First-graders, second-graders are expected to be able to hunt-and-peck words on a keyboard. They can certainly answer test questions that don't come on pristine white sheets.

In some ways, it is completely appropriate that the GED is moving to an exclusively electronic format: it is a basic level skill, the ability to communicate by and navigate the medium. Maybe, arguably, you should not in this century and at this time, be able to earn a GED without being able to demonstrate a modicum of digital practical ability.

It's part of what should earn one the right to say one has a GED, if a GED is to have any meaning.

Now, that would include: incorporating basic computing skills into the GED curriculum (good god, is it really not?) and not charging extra or, say, more than a week's worth of minimum-wage pay for the actual test (though, maybe it should cost something so as to be worth something, but that's a different debate) just because it's not on paper.

Reading the article, in this strange tango between GED test takers, states, and the educational assessment industry, it's difficult to think the only people who are coming out ahead in the entire world of GED-ness aren't the inventors and peddlers of “alternative” tests. Because, earned digitally or on paper, a GED is necessary without being especially helpful in the long-term; the tests are not the point so much as the educational attainment and skills represented (again, a different debate)– but somehow, one can't help but feel, none of it matters in the face of the profits to be gained by the lower-priced alternatives developed by Educational Testing Services and CTB/McGraw-Hill.

#KidsTheseDays

“I hit him,” said the sixteen-year old, “because he was the closest teacher, and I was mad…I got in trouble yesterday for talking back…and wearing some jewelry. When I got home, my mom took away my Xbox, my Beats, and my cellphone…I was mad because all my stuff was taken away.”

The sixteen-year-old in question clocked a teacher in the face.

Well, in fairness, it does really, really suck when your mom takes away your $90 dollar headphones.

[Grimace.]

So…this was the same week in the greater Indianapolis area as a 15-year old torched a teacher's car and (AND!?!?) a ninth-grader punched another teacher's jaw so severely the recovery time is 6 weeks long.

But let us focus instead on teacher assessments and needing to attract the “best and brightest” in the need for educational reform.

After all, the responsibility for the entirety of the educational problems in the U.S. should clearly be laid at the feet of our teachers– but just the grossly inadequate ones.

Who may or may not be in need of dental work, reconstructive surgery, and/or a rental car.

(And seriously, $90 dollar-plus headphones? What the hell is your kid listening to that he needs costly sound- definition and noise-canceling technology? Please tell me it's at least news or really good music and not total crap. And if he's going to face-plant a teacher at the loss of them, please tell me that this year's birthday gift will be Anger Management Counseling. Or, what the hell, a circa-1989 Discman with $3 Radio Shack headphones. Maybe your kid's just got a little too much to lose. At 16. Headphones?)

#GrosslyNeeded

I propose a program, let's call it “PATCH.” This program would assist citizens applying for benefits (unemployment, SS Disability, VA, TANF, SNAP, housing assistance): it would help direct them to the correct benefit program based on need and eligibility and expedite the process when the need is severe.

I think of it as “Public Assistance to Coordinate Help.”

In my head, it would fill the “holes” between benefit programs and direct people in need to the programs that could actually assist them. It would help benefit workers (and people) by coordinating the various programs so people in need no longer fall between the cracks.

This should exist, but doesn't. Paging a state rep or senator, a grant program, or a fed rep…

People need help, sometimes immediately, and they're getting lost in a sprawling, confusing tangle of state and federal benefits, a wide and equally confounding array of agencies and acronyms. We'd be doing good deeds to assist them. We'd be saving money, labor, and time by directing them to correct programs effectively.

So why aren't we?

#SaveOurFarmland

Further, on domestic policy, I'm still concerned about all this farmland that's for sale, zoned “commercial.”

The flooding of the past week in the Midwest, the increased focus on climate change and “global weirding,” the fact that foreign countries have been spending their free time in the past 6 or so years purchasing acres in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana so as to have farmland in reserve…

I've written before about it, but I'm saying it again:

I do not think it's a good idea to sell off every spare inch of farmland. I do not think it's a great idea to not have farmland in reserve. Just because productivity per acre is high now does not necessarily mean it will be permanently so. And if productivity per acre falls (too much or too little water, bad weather, genetic adaptation, will of the gods, whatever), it might be good to have a couple acres of beautiful, fertile Indiana soil in the pocket and not, say, tied up in yet another strip mall or slab-based-if asthetically-pleasing and multi-roofed suburban housing division.

So can some trust or government or do-gooder purchase some of this beautiful farmland that's continually, daily put on the market for commercial use? And then just let it be? Just in case?

#HighMaintenance

I'm a fan of women, generally speaking. My god, I am one, myself. But.

Some of them are high-maintenance in ways that know no expression and surpass belief.

One of these was strikingly on display at the snack shop the other day.

Here is she, curly-haired, with Friend. She is buying the 85 cent bag of popcorn. She is not just walking away with it, as one would think she'd be doing. No.

She is stopping, at the end of the counter (impeding progress of anyone else, even if anyone else is holding their 32-ounce coffee and ready to fly past her, if only they could), to ask for a bowl. A free bowl. Or two.

Why?

So she can test out the various versions of free cheese powders on a handful of kernels before sprinkling these cheesy accoutrements on the entire 85-cent bag.

No hurry.

High maintenance women. Sheesh.

And then there's Cookie, as I called her. She came running, sprinting, back to the snack shop because her chocolate-chip walnut cookie wasn't hot when she ate it.

What?

It's Otis Spunkmeyer; the little rack says they're baked fresh daily, which they are. And Cookie raised hell in the snack shop because her cookie was not hot.

There was no sign, no slogan, no anything that should have implied to her that it might be or should be.

High Maintenance Woman.

Holding up all the rest of us god-fearing, black-coffee-drinking, non-cookie-eating people.

And getting multiple free cookies just so she would go away.

Ah, womanhood, what have you become?

“I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay

You might have heard.

Prepare yourself and go seek a legitimate obit, if that's what you're after.

I am not about to get into a discussion of the late, great Iron Lady's legacy. I am not going to rehash the things she did or did not do, the things one might have wished she did or didn't do. Others have done and will continue to do that, with facts and thought and perspective.

That's just not where I'm going to go with that.

Here is what I'm going to say (you will not have seen it coming unless you also were in Mr. F.'s history class sometime in the '80's. And also, you would have to be similarly pseudo-philosophically inclined and prone to nostalgia, sentiment, and peculiar twists of mind.)

As an unabashed child of the eighties, I will say: nothing, nothing, has made so plain that childhood is dead and said childhood is basically thirty years gone, like the prime of Ms. Margaret Thatcher, the passing of Margaret Thatcher.

(This is not to say we, or anyone like us, is stuck in childhood– just that we, or I, perpetually drop a decade and the fact that our childhood is not twenty but thirty years passed is a constant surprise. Because we– I– still feel somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 to 25. Anywhere between 13-25; they share such bizarre similarities and we– I– have not managed to become somehow fully formed and complete in said thirty [30!] years.)

The 80's have lost their names: Michael Jackson and Whitney have gone. The Iron Curtain crumbled so long ago that teenagers now are shocked it ever existed. Reagan's been gone forever, gone before he was actually gone. Culture has changed so much that the neon and the fashions have come completely back in style. Tiffany went so far out of style she became a reality TV thing– or so I hear from friends and family who ritually enjoy such things. And maybe that is also so far ago that it classifies as “Past.”

But Maggie. Margaret Thatcher. That's the one that seals the deal: the eighties, the innocence of children of the eighties is irrevocably gone.

The eighties to me were many things. And a surprisingly large chunk of them consists of the non-stop doodles of Chris P. If you're in the year 1987, and you are me or someone like me, your days begin with history (social studies) class with Mr. F. Mr. F. has a perpetual white crust around his mouth that you long to remind him of (seriously, Mr. F., check your face before you stand in front of 7th graders: We are very unforgiving and judgmental). Mr. F. will be one of the first and only teachers you encounter before high school to suggest in red-state, Bible Belt Indiana that alternative religions to Christianity have rich and storied histories and equal validity in the world to the stories of and beliefs about Jesus. Mr. F. served in the military but he was never able to be very specific about it, in class and all, and you (the seventh grader) remember that he served and are ashamed you noticed the inevitable white crust and nicotine fumes.

But your days begin with Mr. F. He tells you about Korea (we had a war there, in the fifties), and Hinduism (more people in India believe in it than Christianity and that's really okay). He mentions the Treaty of Verdun and he doesn't make students spit out their gum. He speaks for 55 minutes exactly every morning, 5 days per week, and seldom gives quizzes. He just talks and waves unconcernedly at the chalkboard he would never dream of getting up from his seat and writing on.

And you, you are sitting there in 1987, and you are taking copious, precise notes in pink, purple, or turquoise ink. Occasionally you will check out the megaphone on your Coke watch, the coral reef on your Swatch. Occasionally you will draw a damn good version of Mr. F.'s head on your notes, which are more complete than could be expected from the Lisa Frank notebook (bubble gum machine, very perky, further festooned with Lisa Frank stickers of teddy bears, unicorns, dewy-bubble-eyed and 80's-fantastic.)

But sometimes, you will look over at Chris' messy, paper-everywhere, helter-skelter desk. You will watch him doodling on loose-leaf paper (can't even pull the Trapper Keeper out of his bag and put it on the desk, nope. Too much to ask). You will notice he never– never– takes notes. What he does, all 55 minutes of first period long, is draw.

He draws boxing gloves (Rocky V!). But mostly he draws weaponry. And there's my complete (your complete, if you're like me) pre-90's introduction to foreign policy, on a Mead loose-leaf, wide-rule sheet of ridiculously cheap paper: bomber airplanes, U.S.S.R. sickle-and-hammers, more bombers. The occasional mushroom cloud.

And in a weird way, retrospectively, you've got to hand it to Chris P: the news I saw scattered in the evening between Kate and Allie and My Two Dads was actually very much a story of bombers, the U.S.S.R., and…

Margaret Thatcher.

Not that Chris P. ever once drew Maggie– he wasn't prone to drawing humans.

But still, she was there, like the (threat of the) mushroom cloud, the boxing glove, Red Dawn, and the Wall-pre-torn-down.

There was anxiety, hidden well by Alf, Rainbow Brite, Coke jerseys, and Guess jeans.

There were evenings of news reports that, weirdly and yet again in retrospect, probably really did come down to Chris P.'s drawings of boxing gloves and Gorbachev's birthmarks.

News reports in which Margaret Thatcher's name was a chronic inclusion.

So, on Monday, it was announced she is gone. She has passed: she was sick and now, she has gone. Stealthily, quietly, in 2013.

And that's when it occurs to you– to me– that time has passed faster than you know. I mean, in your head you're fully aware that it's 2013. You don't generally think of the eighties that much, except in your nostalgia fits, nor the '90's or the aughts. You know it's the day that it is. You go to work. You do the laundry. You read the paper. You worry about the future.

But a lot of the time, you feel uncertain.

Like a 12 year old.

And it occasionally dawns on you that the uncertainty you're feeling is the same uncertainty you've had since the beginning, and that you were really aware of, back in the day of Bonne Bell lipgloss and used clothes you hoped would be disguised by Palmetto jeans miraculously passing as your best and only Christmas Guess (by Georges Marciano) pants.

And then–then– it will dawn on you: my god. That was thirty years ago.

Margaret Thatcher is dead.

I was motoring, along 465 on a grey day, waiting for snow. There were billboards, everywhere billboards, and signs for gas stops, truck stops, the cheap, plentiful, and ubiquitous food. And the mood that's been hanging over my head fell in the way it's been threatening to do for some time.

Thunk.

It's all so insubstantial, isn't it? A culture, a society, a way of life that's built on and of the disposable, the transient, the impermanent. And somewhere between the sign for Concentra Urgent Care (Jennifer chopped more than her veggies. Now she's at Concentra.) and the sign for Chik-Fil-A (Two cows in firemen costumes, appearing to paint “Try Spicee Chikkun”), it occurred to me that this world, or at least here, is built on vapor. You could pass a hand through it. You could see its breath on a mirror, you could see its reflection, but don't try to see the object reflected, the object that's behind the respiration– it was built of plastic and neon in 20 minutes of undervalued labor. It will be torn down in less.

It's been coming for awhile, this sense of inescapable, perpetual insubstantiality; the sense that nothing is solid. People's houses are under water, “security” has seemed to mean only rent-a-cops in doorways and not a meaningful value actual people can acquire for their lives. The murals painted by well-meaning and middle class volunteers on bridges and buildings in poor neighborhoods where a solid investment in infrastructure would have real meaning but, what the hell, paint is cheaper, so we'll go with that. The budgets built on Continuing Resolutions and not actual, annual, literal budgets of needs and income, black columns and red. The way relationships, profits, bills, earnings, livelihoods, health, stability all seem to hang on the slenderest of filaments, easily snipped by poor luck, a moment of insufficient judgment, or a vehicle's mercurial belt.

The way we believe in “middle class values” and tout terms of hard work and respect and decency, and for all our ideals, for all the weight of our history, for all our vaunted beliefs, and despite a very great deal of hard work and capital, at the end of the day, we're stuck in a world of minute-to-minute, a tango of plastic and short-attention spans.

So that was the Sunday drive. That was, is, the mood of the moment: this sense that everything in the internal and external world is TBA: to be announced, written in pencil but never ink, tentative, impermanent. Ether, vapor, and air. But not much else, no matter our best intentions.

Other people have hit on it before, of course, you get Shakespeare's mortal coils and “such things as dreams; ” you get the literary castles of air; you get the Beckett and the Kundera, the “Incredible Lightness of Being.”

And even for the fact that our kin has been there before, written about it before, you can't help but feel they weren't talking about mannequins of cows spray painting the benefits of inexpensive, readily available chicken. They weren't talking about state monuments that were built of drywall and convenience: monuments to decades not centuries. They were talking about something basic, but they were not talking about us– because we're, well, not that.

Which is the mood that has kept going, of course; after all, I'm not a dog capable of easily relenting its bone.

And so long as we live the way we live, all slab construction, paint, and short-term planning, with jobs that don't satisfy and work that has lost its virtue and its rewards, with a culture that can celebrate “Honey Boo Boo” but not remember that just because a word has an “s” doesn't mean it necessarily merits an apostrophe; so long as we go on building everything of vapor, full steam ahead, planning for nothing, or (in political banalities) kicking the can down the road, I think the mood will continue. Hamlet getting trumped by his ghosts. A topsy-turvy world. An insubstantial world. In some senses, an immaterial world.

Of course, I will say, every now and again you see a bird stick its little feathery head out of the recesses of a neon “B.” Or you'll hear a little kid squeal with joy at a Tonka truck sliding across a table. And you'll think Now, that. That is real. There is actually something there. Something solid. Something real.

And you'll be grateful. But that, like everything else, will not last. Because, apparently, for this moment, nothing really ever does.

But moments pass, too. Vapor, themselves, incorporeal, mercurial, impermanent, and temporary. Vapor, electrodes, synaptic connections that connect and evaporate, connect again. Insubstantial. Immaterial. What's next?

Or: A Tale of Two Sweatpants

It was a cold and grey day in Indianapolis. A day of putty-colored sky against putty-colored road accompanied by putty-colored drizzle and a cold, damp, unforgiving wind.

Four lane road, busy at rush hour. Visibility is nil because it's all just one dun-colored world.

And there they were, the busy road and they, on the sidewalk. Non-descript, invisible coats. If it weren't for the sweatpants, they would have been transparent, hidden, completely unseen.

She wore a fleece jacket, invisible in the grey, with bright pink sweatpants and an air cast.

He wore an equally drab puffy jacket, the same non-color as the sky and the rain, but with royal blue sweatpants.

Two sweatpants. In the rain. On a busy road. Hugging one another for dear life and for reasons I couldn't possibly imagine.

They were nowhere near a bus stop. The sidewalk, frankly, led to nowhere.

And in 35 degrees Fahrenheit of cold and wet misery, on a four-lane road of short-tempered commuters, they hugged one another.

I don't know why; I don't know where they could go (she was in an air cast, for god's sake; they weren't going to get very far).

And yet, there was a story there. There was something to make them stop and hug like that, with no shelter and no privacy and no visible hope. There was a reason The Sweatpants made my eyes water.

I just don't know what it was. I don't think anyone ever could.

#Fringe

As in: Why must ladies' scarves always have…?

I wear scarves all the time. I'm cold-blooded, apparently. And I generally resist the urge to go all Dickensian and call them “comforters.” Primarily because no one would know what the hell I'm talking about.

But. Damn it. You know, there's something about fringe that's inherently skittish, unsteady, and unserious. Fringe is just so “gypsies, tramps,” and gallivanters.

I emphatically do not gallivant. Ignore my fringe. I know I do. Or try. Actually, I resent it. Some fashionista designer marketing pro at Target dictated that I would not have an option for a black scarf sans fringe, so here I am, warm but appearing to be unreliable.

I seek a scarf that says I am stalwart and trustworthy.

Unfortunately, the fashion gods have decreed I shan't have said scarf unless I knit it my own damn self. That's not happening, guardians of the accessories, so…

I wear scarves because I am inherently cold. And I confess to wearing them while hoping that they (a) cement my enrollment to Hogwarts (they never do) or (b) make me Benedict Cumberbatch-ish and Sherlock-smart (this they also never do).

The fringe helps neither of my extra-warmth fantasies. The fringe does not keep me warm. The fringe does not contribute to my overall vibe of “stalwart.” The fringe does nothing at all. It's such a waste of inexpensive foreign labor. I don't know what it could possibly be for.

I detest fringe. Yet, there it is. Inescapable and permanent. Perma-fringe. I despise it.

#CarrotsInThe Workplace

Actually, let's be specific: baby-cut carrots in the workplace.

Also known as: 45% of the reason St. Anthony went to the desert and became a saint (no baby-cut carrots there).

Also known as: 50% of the reason Simon sat on a stylus-shaped pillar in the middle of yet another, different, blissfully carrot-free desert and became Simon the Stylobate.

And the reason I will probably have to telecommute and/or sell Avon/Primerica/Pampered Chef/Tupperware from home.

The crunching is indecent. Quite frankly, it's obscene.

Carrots in the Workplace should be either forbidden or Coming to a Theatre Near You: The Horror! The Horror!

Beta Carotene…Healthy snacking: my ass. Carrots in the Workplace could drive a gal to drink. There is no reason for food to be that loud.

But maybe that's just me. I should probably be a hermit. But I guarantee I shall never be a Saint. And I shall never eat a baby-cut carrot within earshot of human hearing. Because I love people too much to drive them mad with incessant, mindless, gut-tearing crunching.

You're welcome, people of the world. You're just so very welcome.

#DesperateMarketing

Uncle Sam and the Statue of Liberty twirl arrows on the street in front of Tax-in-a-Box Shop from January through April. Uncle Sam and Statue of Liberty twirl the same “Sale,” 3-foot arrows in front of “Fireworks-Cheap-Discount” shop every May through July. And Big Nasty Gorilla/Ghoul/Death-with-Plastic-Scythe/Cleopatra twirl paperboard arrows with “Deals! 50%Off!” at me every August through October.

Pizza, pizza employee at Cheap-Pizzas-Are-Us (Little Caesar's, Domino's) twirl the arrows by the road every single day from 4 to 10 p.m.

And they all, every single one of these characters, wave. They wave at me. They wave at you. They dance to the music in their iPods as they pick up 4 hours of minimum wage for braving the elements in costume. And they wave.

I could go off on a rant regarding the moral mystery play that occurs while I decide whether to wave back (no, I shan't) and what I do with the guilt that results from denying another human being one shred of connection or human comfort.

Instead, I will present this public relations-based argument:

These characters with their costumes and their paperboard arrows attract my eye. How could they not? But they never, I repeat, never, entice me to stop and drop in. They do not say to me “this shop is awesome, fairly priced, and professional.”

They say to me “Avoid at all costs. We can't get 'professionalism' right. Our services aren't good. Our prices are mediocre. We're on perma-sale 'cause we gotta be.” They scream “Caveat emptor!” A slogan that would be a better fit for the flimsy cardboard attention-getters.

I have never set foot in a store that pays someone to twirl paper on the side of the road during rush hour and I guarantee I never will.

These are commercial enterprises which reek of desperation and nervous sweat. I do not trust their products. I am suspicious of whatever it is they are peddling.

Do these arrows and these costumes work on anyone?

I'm really curious. Does anything about the flammable Liberty costume tell you to trust your sensitive financial documents to them? Does the equally un-flame-retardant Uncle Sam outfit tell you to purchase the means to Uncle Bubba's Great-Loss-of-Thumb-of-'13 at the store behind the arrow? Does the cheap and jankety Sphinx head on polyethylene pantsuit tell you to stop and seal in your costume party dominance?

Somehow, I doubt it.

So…who's the genius who thought that would work? And why are people still flammably-dressed and initiating deep moral conundrums on people still working the streets of suburban America?

Can anyone, anyone, explain the marketing genius of this gimmick to me?

I know I can't, but surely someone knows why the practice continues. I leave it to you, Dear Readers, to suss out the method behind this madness.