March 2, 2009

Great wingspan, all grace and power. The voice was not raw and hardedged, but smooth and musical. A wonder. Agape, I watched the sweeping arc and felt the sound. Frequency and spectrum resonant.

Closer, larger, the shadow drifts, it is landing. Shocked into action, I run, waving. Shouting clumsily into the opus. Stop! It is not safe here! But it could not hear me. Feathers stretched back with an acrobat's flourish, it reached out of the sky to test the earth.

Small and unassuming, razorsharp, they came quickly. No doubt or malice, so many it was soon done. All accounted for in freezer bags.

Awkward with feeling, my hands ache.

Best Gift I ever had!

Woke up today,with the room full of purple little flowers,with the smell of Heaven inside my nostrils and the scent of Eden inside my lungs.

Still, the Sun glimpsed unashamed inside my room, even though the curtains hid most of my intimacy...

But no matter what,or when, or who...I was still feeling odd.

---

Later, despite that ignoring the sick awkwardness inside made no effect on my swelling thoughts, my answers were to come to me in the form of a heart.

Yes,today I got my heart back!

The best gift ever to be made in the history of gift-making!

But it didn't come in the form of a red velvety box, nor was it made of fine chocolate and caramel, instead, I felt it beating! Drumming! Complete!

Diastole...Systole...Diastole.

---

For I have a heart, now I am alive!

On being a Superhero

"Do you think this happens every day?" - The Princess Bride

So I read mauler's daylog about superheroes, and being the geek nincompoop that I am, I went and completed the daft survey he mentioned. It got me thinking about heroes, and superheroes, and all that nonsense, and it's associated with the date, so here goes.

This is the Phoenix. Despite wearing his underwear on the wrong side of his trousers, he is an intelligent and well-motivated young man. In daily life, he is a badly-made-up goth bank clerk in some dreadful megalopolis. In his superhero persona, he fights well despite his foam-rubber muscle suit and boots that look like they'd belonged to Springheeled Jack. Superpower? Fighting crime all night then rising from the ashes, so to speak, and serving bank customers all day and still balance his till. When does this guy sleep? From the dark circles around his eyes, I'd say never. Is frequently in a bad mood as a result.

Superheroes do exist. They wear firefighter uniforms, police uniforms, nurse uniforms, drive ambulances...I don't need a world peopled with comic-book superheroes. For one thing it would be too noisy with all that THWAAAAAACK KERPOW KLAAAAANGGG.

Turns out that I am a superhero to my wife. Four years ago, as I write this, I was flying over from England to the US to nurse her through breast cancer. Given that I was totally in love with her, had already gotten engaged and had a handfasting, it seemed the right thing to do. Of course, it wasn't easy to up and leave my homeland at three days' notice, but you know what, this is how you know that you have true love. I've determined to stand at her side through thick and thin, better or worse, sicknes and in health, and to be as good a Dad to her daughter as I can be. Apparently that qualifies as rescuing damsels in distress makes me stand out from the crowd. So I'm a superhero in her eyes.

The rest is history, of course. We got married, I have my green card and will be staying here in a new land to make a new life with Christine and Tess.

Speaking of which, these two are, in their own way, superheroines. Christine is suitably modest about this, of course, but I'm sure she'd not be unhappy telling you that she completed her Master's degree in Landscape Architechture whilst bring Tess up as a single mother. Not just that, but she brought her up for six years on her own, and did a marvellous job of it.

Tess is a well-balanced, bright, communicative and talented ten-year-old who has weathered the storms of seeing her Mum go through cancer treatment not once, but twice. Now obviously we're hoping that we're done with that, but you know, if we aren't, then we'll continue to fight. Not against bad guys or supervillains, but for a happy family life.

So it goes. Heroes and superheroes surround us. Peek beneath that crusty exterior of the alter ego, the secret identity, and you see beyond Clark Kent and Diana Prince to the powerhouse that fights every day for what is right. For each of us that transcends the day-to-day life of librarian, produce clerk or landscape architect, there's another superhero with ordinary powers, doing extraordinary things. Just without the tights.

Compassion is difficult to keep from drying up as you grow older.

When you grow up as a lonely, misunderstood kid, you use compassion to seek that one spark of connection with others, because human beings are inextricably social animals. Little hyphae of concern and care take root in other people's souls, and while it doesn't net you any cool points or prom dates, it sure makes your life seem meaningful in the utter meaninglessness of youth. You still make some really great friends that way, and girls think you're a 'nice guy', which you, in your innocence, still think is a good thing. You come to know better eventually.

You grow older. You learn to stand on your own two feet. You fight back against the forces working against you, teeth bared and claws flashing. You understand where your problems ccome from and seek to deal with them in whatever way you do best. You feel like you're getting somewhere in your life. You have defied structure and embraced agency. You wake up one morning and realize that you somehow managed to convince people that you are cool. You are the person you've always wanted to be. Congratulations, you've grown the fuck up.

Other people become more transparent, more understandable, as you accumulate life experiences. You feel empowered, omniscient, as though you can peer into another person's soul and immediately discern the source and cause of whatever's bugging them at the moment. You are a sophomoric oracle of wisdom and platitudes. You can make the most meaningless thing sound profound. You awe your friends into believing you're better-adjusted and rational than they are, and cling to this pedestal with a white-knuckled grip.

But you overextend yourself, overestimate yourself. You think you can save everyone. You befriend people with the intention of turning their lives around, and are shocked when it blows up in your face. A cadre of maladjusted acquaintances crowd around you, calling you at odd hours, filling your ears with minute accounts of their problems, every conversation a confessional, every meeting a monologue. The classmate you tutored for a while now thinks that you and him are best friends and calls you every other day to hang out. It's really getting on your nerves. The barista at the coffee shop you always go to has been flirting with you so persistently that it's starting to get creepy and annoying. You have Facebook stalkers, and it's cramping your style and making you seriously consider closing your account and living your life completely in meatspace.

Is this what being popular's all about, you ask yourself. You see how these people could solve their problems; it's so obvious to you, because you've been in their shoes before and seem to have figured things out well enough on your own. You figure, if everyone just got over themselves for a while and realized that most of the drama in their lives is just invented and imagined for their own distraction, the world would be a better and calmer place.

It's hard to feel compassion at this point. They invented the term 'compassion fatigue' for situations like these. Contempt begins to creep in. You suffered in silence, so why can't all these losers do the same? You got over yourself, so why is it such a foreign concept for these people? You get the notion that they're just using you as an excuse to avoid dealing with their issues themselves.

At this point, you realize your cluelessness and realize that you're still in your early twenties, and no one has it figured out before thirty-five at least (and by then, it just might be too late). The answer to every question is 'mu' before thirty-five.

So I got sacked yesterday. I suppose I really should have seen it coming, working for a drunk, but I had kinda expected to last more than three weeks.....

:sigh: Back to the job hunting I go...

Or rather I should say, I would be hunting for jobs if there where any available. Both local newspapers have blank vacancy pages, and the job centre has nothing.
Heres hoping I can find something soon.....

On Saturday, my daughter turned two weeks old... or negative four weeks, since she was born six weeks early. Her due date was March 28, but she had other ideas about how her entrance into the world should go down. As hard as they tried to stop my labor on February 13, Paloma was born on Valentine's Day three hours after I was re-admitted into the hospital. When she was born, her head was so tiny... I can't imagine how tough pushing a full-term baby into the world must be. At her first appointment with the pediatrician, we found out that she now weighs almost five pounds. When she gets there, I plan to celebrate!

MARCH OF THE MONSTERS: "SNOWMAN"

Cold day. A day to play. Lots of snow has come to stay.
Something else comes in the snow. What it is, we do not know.
Hello. Hello! Have you come to play?
Have you come to play on this nice snow day?

Its fur is white. Its teeth are bright. Its big red eyes are quite a sight.
Where it came from, we can't say. But I hope it wants to play.
Hello there with your fur so light!
Would you like to have a snowball fight?

I throw a snowball and run and hide.
I hit the creature's furry side.
Katie's ball has a rock inside.
The creature's eyes will open wide!

We do not know this creature's name.
But we can play with it all the same.
The thing is happy. It likes this game.
What it is, we don't know, but it seems quite tame.

Then Katie hits it with her ball. It does not like that ball at all.
It blinks. It shivers and it shakes. It shows us claws that look like stakes.
It lets out one long, dreadful call. Now the creature is so tall!
Katie runs away. I hope she will not fall.

This is not good. No, this is bad. The thing is very, very mad.
Oh, poor Katie. Silly Kate! Out on the ice, without her skates!
The snowman follows, and when Kate slips, her head in its long claws it grips.
And when it tugs, her neck it rips. It looks at me, and my heart skips.

I run away to tell my Dad. Dad is home. I am glad.
Dad will know just what to do. He can fix this rotten grue.
But Dad is working. Dad says shoo! I have no time to spend with you!
And there aren't any monsters, you know that isn't true.

There are no snowmen with red eyes.
There are no demons in disguise.
There are no dragons, green or red.
No goblins live under your bed.
There is no Nessie in the lake.
Or Old Ones, sleeping or awake.
There are no kingdoms in the sky.
No fairy realm. It's all a lie.
In fact, no matter what you feel
THERE ARE NO MONSTERS. THEY AREN'T REAL.
Now find your sister, and go play.
I have work to do today.

I walk away. The day is gray.
Kate says Hey, don't you want to play?
I think of saying No, I don't want to play on this bad snow day!
Our snowman has to go away!

But instead I say Hey,
what if the monster ate Dad?

---

(Today is Theodor Geisel's birthday, and this nonsense is dedicated to him.)

So after probably 8 years of browsing everything2, I finally made an account. I still don't know what to write about...