Poetry & Blindfolds

Everyone is very, very aware that life is short and time is fleeting, but it is a far better thing to feel that it is.

For no one special reason, but rather a domino avalanche of them, several members of a Myspace blogging collective reunited over last weekend. Last year, I was pleased to go and meet a few of them for the first time – including, but not limited to, Aaron Dietz, Gus Sanchez, Andrea Burlingame and Michael ‘Spilt Milk’ Grover – in Seattle. And this year, a trip to New York guaranteed meeting not only Aaron and Gus (and their respective loved ones) but Kristin Weholt, Inga, Erin McParland, Mike Garvey, Shaina Cohen, Christy King, Amanda Van Horn, Jannell Lannon and Luis, etc. within three days.

To merely describe the dinners and social events would prove a disservice to the people who came from all over the world for no other reason than to meet other people who came from all over the world to meet them. So I will attempt mere character sketches of a few of the people I met for the first time, and hope that the minimal lines below will coalesce to form a portrait one can see in one’s mind but one would be unable to draw. Note: I have purposefully avoided talking about girlfriends and wives in any detail.

I will start with Erin McParland, someone who I just missed meeting last time I was in New York. She went out of her way to suggest or arrange places for us Out of Towners to go to, as well as being generous to host a big party with everyone from everywhere. Her smile is easy and her youthful energy is infectious. And she opened her home and heart to everyone.

Mike Garvey was known to me for many years as Armand Assante’s Left Testicle on Myspace. He is acerbic, crude, vile and nasty – but it comes from such a good place that, upon meeting him, the handshake was quickly abandoned in favor of a warm bearhug. Although we did not have too long to have a heart-to-heart, we were able to share a few minutes and a few years of history together. He’s genuine.

Christy King is angular, stunningly attractive and energetic like an Oprah-in-waiting. She described her religion/god to me as the nature she finds in the hearts and minds of other people; one could picture her hosting her own hour-long show and telling her stunned studio audience to look under their chairs. When the audience would return to their upright position, she would smile and say, ‘I didn’t say you were going to win anything – suckaz.’

Amanda van Horn would be a good cartoon lioness. Soft eyes, a perfect mane, a sly smile, a tat of a heart on her right shoulder. Virtually impossible not to greet her with, ‘gawsh, yer purty.’ We did not talk much, but she was a great pleasure not to talk to. I will work on that sentence.

Shaina Cohen sports one of those smiles that turn down at first, and is as vibrant as the ink that decorates her arm. An author/artist finding her way.

Allie Smith – a Smith girl and a Leo – was the biggest surprise.  We are e-friends of an e-friend and only got introduced as Allie was considering relocating to Chicago.  As it turns out, we were very old friends immediately, and while she had not met any of my fellow refugees from Myspace, she dove right in and held her own brilliantly.  Sharp as a razor, soft as a prayer.

Finally, there is Kristin. Like my friend Inga, Kristin hails from Norway. She is what one imagines when one imagines Nordic goddesses, which I never do. She was the first person I met in New York and the last I saw. So New York can be bracketed by the hugs with Kristin. I believe we find each other equally adorable and annoying. Instant siblings. Encouraging words come from one when the other is a little down; and when one is feeling overly confident, the other one pours a nice hot cup of sarcasm. As a result of our multiple meals and long walks through Central Park, we were very adept at finding each other’s buttons. Whenever I might look at her for more than two consecutive seconds, she would snap back, ‘What?!‘, drop-kicking me into a fluster that would take me some time from which to recover. She also enjoyed calling me “creepy”, which is one button that terrifies me – and one that was pressed more repeatedly than Helen Keller’s doorbell.

In return, I would poke fun at her many stories of her boyfriend – and how she misses him and how wonderful he is, etc. It did get to the point where Kristin was thinking of him so often and fondly that whatever we were discussing would snap, quite quickly, into a story about her boyfriend. During one of the days, lounging in a hotel bar and sampling oysters on a half shell, Inga and I wondered if there was anything that we could say that would not instantly turn into a story about her boyfriend. I offered up that my wife was enduring her time of the month. Within a minute of this revelation, Kristin pointed out that, yes, her boyfriend, too, gives plenty of blood.

And coursing through all of these people was, of course, that beast known as New York, with its constant murmuring, breathing and rumbling that make it sound like either an underground animal, living under the pavement and plotting to escape, or a music more melodious than Mozart and thick like jazz. Even at 330am, when the city is most quiet, one is aware of something under the pavement, itching to get out to take on another day.

As I sit on the stoop of Park 79, the bastard child of any number of overnight facilities (hostel, boutique hotel, YMCA, some social experiment), I am pleased and happy and on fire with inspiration. It is these diamonds of contentment that, when worn properly, permit one to forget about who one is and what journey one is on and simply bask in the reflections of the friends one has.

Perhaps the group is best summed up by something Aaron Dietz said to me as we were saying goodbye for the second time:

“Keep hugging me. She’s going to take a picture.”

Commuting: the limbo between lives; the bridge between comfortable chairs; the arc of a tennis ball before it is batted one way or another.

I have taken to reading books on the short-term travels to the places that alternately give me money or relieve me of it. When I first commuted, all bright-eyed and bushy-mustached, I would read simply to appear clever and attractive. Since I have never been much of a weight lifter, I figured I could lure the ladies by my highly developed and defined tomes. I never did. But that’s ok, because I never really read the books anyway. Instead of reading, I would practice making interested or amused expressions on my face in case I was being observed.

Now that I am as alluring to the opposite sex as a potted plant, I have taken up reading on the train again. Books are like orphans that need to be picked up, held and understood. The only difference is that you can’t burn orphans afterwards.

But, to be frank, I read to ignore the fact I am commuting – and have become as alluring as a potted plant. I have taken to reading Neil Gaiman (an intentional purchase of his “Neverwhere”) and Sloane Crosley (a spontaneous purchase of her “How Did You Get This Number”). Gaiman’s book is a darker “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, with Arthur Dent replaced by Richard Mayhew, Ford Prefect replaced by a girl named Door, and the comic imagination replaced by a cousin of that same comic imagination, but who had a drinking problem once.

I know nothing of Crosley so I am just getting to know her as I tiptoe through the first few stories. At first blush, she’s quite funny, which impresses me, as I know very few women who can pull off comedy. That is no affront to women. Comedy is all about the banana peel and the fall – men do that naturally. You expect men – idiotic, stupid men – to hit that banana peel every single time. For a woman to do that, it usually feels forced or unnatural. Crosley, however, places and descends on her own banana peels quite fluidly. Her only flaw is that she is seemingly quite aware and proud of this, and so the comedy does not always come across as honest.

But literature aside, I am finding more and more reasons to continue my spate of reading on the Blue Line.

• I can nearly tune out the white guy next to me, who is mouthing the words, and doing what he must think are subtle gestures, to a rap song about smacking bitches and whatnot.

• I can avoid being looked at with a look that says, ‘You should give your seat to me.’ I’m a liberated man. I’m not giving up my seat for anyone. If that sounds a bit cold, then let me point out I am as alluring as a potted plant, and potted plants can’t stand.

• As said potted plant, I am very aware I am no longer being scoped out. As a result, the less I see tons of people looking in all directions but mine, the better I feel when I reach my destination.

• If I see a person who is obviously sad, I get sad. Genuinely sad. And empathetic. I want to look at them until they make eye contact, and then I want to give that nod that says, ‘I get it. It’s fine. Everything is ok, really.’ If I have a book, fuck ‘em.

• And the whole trip seems to take very little time at all when there is no external stimulation or distraction. As they say, time flies when you’re having none.

It’s interesting what we human beings do in order not to feel one things or another. And, with a book, you can feel all sorts of things – while avoiding feeling anything remotely important. Yay, civilization.

I generally don’t write about being an atheist, in the same way I don’t write about being left-handed.  Both are fairly engrained in who I am, so writing about them seems a little indulgent.

However, I wanted to at least address the former (the latter will have to wait for another time), as the secular voice in the world is still clearing its throat and could use any sliver of encouragement I could give to it (and those who are searching for it).

One of my final concerns – after well over a decade of dealing with other concerns – about adopting the ‘atheist’ title was: what was I going to be left with?  After I officially dismiss religion, spirituality, theology and all other god-isms, what’s in it for me?  The word on the street is, after all, that atheists believe in nothing, have no basis for good and evil and are generally untrustworthy.  Ultimately, though, any living, breathing adult is aware that things are rarely what they seem.  Columbus discovered America and everyone was happy?  No.  Pat Tillman was killed by the enemies of America?  No.  The Vatican would have had nothing to do with the Nazi Party?  Oh, yes they did.

The most beautiful benefit I have found in my atheism is that, aside from finding I still believe in things, have a good basis in right/wrong and am trustworthy, is that my philosophy makes it impossible to acquire and adopt eternal superiority.  Specifically, there is no person, alive or dead, who I would conclude will suffer for eternity because of their behavior on Earth, while my eternity is self-evidently assured to be posh and full of rainbows, wine and no weight gain.  Further, there is no entity I can draw on to reach the same conclusion. 

With atheism, I am backed into the corner of being a peer.  I cannot be more and I cannot be less. 

Jews, Christians or Muslims will neither triumph over me nor will they suffer because of my philosophy – and I like that.  I cannot be dismissive of the concerns of gays, women or minorities (even if, at my straight-white-male core, I may wish to, upon occasion) without an artificial philosophy – and I like that, too.  Atheism makes intolerance of human beings very difficult, yet makes empathy an effortless experience.

One of the reasons I did cling to Christianity once upon a time was that I simply wanted to be on the winning team.  I wanted all bad people in hell and my family and I in heaven.  The bloodlust to be a “winner” while others are deemed “losers” is a VERY male trait, often sold wholesale to women.  And it is very difficult to shake.  However, shaking it did open the door for me to make the leap of no faith whatsoever.  And what could I conclude?  Not having the ability to “win” or “lose” is a distinctly humbling honor that can be enjoyed thoroughly. 

I try my best.