Poppin' Pills

I was briefly back at my father’s house the other week, between the business trip in DC and Natalie’s memorial service in Loudoun, and within twenty minutes of arriving I was out on the back deck with my dad and a BB pistol. We didn’t have any cans to shoot but we did have some old prescription pill bottles which we subsequently massacred.


Sometimes my memoirs write themselves.

Father Figured

I don’t write about my dad as much as I should.

My dad is a hero of mine, and I say that without a sense of irony or exaggeration. He is entirely human (and thus, flawed) but, in my eyes, the sun rises and sets with him. I unabashedly love my father.

My dad moved out of the house when I was 8. The moment he sat me down to tell me he was leaving is one I will forever hold, not because I want to, but because it was such a benchmark. Likewise, I remember the day we loaded up the moving truck, I remember the smell of the cigars he smoked as we did the drive back and forth from his new house to what was now my mother’s house. I remember the day when I realized he wasn’t coming back home.

But the weekends spent at the farm with him were full of magic and adventure. He taught me to shoot, he converted an old chicken coop into a clubhouse for us, he helped me build the model rockets that we’d launch and chase across the fields. For my 15^th birthday, he bought me my first guitar.
I know that he has tried to be the best father he can be, and for me he has mostly succeeded. Much of what I know and love is because he taught me. Camping, canoeing, books, plants, the Redskins, guitar, music: the stuff of him in me. I carry that with pride.

It is difficult to be so geographically far from him. I moved in with my dad two weeks after I turned 17 and have called his house my home ever since. There were weekends when I’d choose to stay in and hang out with him instead of going out with my friends. His back porch is a sanctuary of sorts. He is my friend.

In a few weeks I’m meeting up with Dad in Virginia and then we are riding together to Canada, where we’ll camp for 8 days on a remote lake with other family members. I haven’t been on vacation with my dad since I was 16. I’m so looking forward to the time spent with him.

She's Hot to Go

Asheville has the worst collection of radio stations I could imagine compiling so I rarely listen to it. I listen to NPR or my iPod. However I forget to charge my iPod all the time. It has only run out of juice once or twice since I don’t use it that much anymore (commute is half the time and falls during prime NPR hours). Now I have the stock stereo in my car; I never felt the need to update it and so I still rock a cassette player in my dash. Why would I need anything else?
Last night was one of those times that my iPod died and it was an off-hour where my least favorite NPR program is broadcast. It is for these moments that I still have cassettes floating around my car. Most are mix tapes from college that have withstood the test of time and better tastes. I blindly grabbed one and stuck it in and was immediately flooded with memory and comfort. It wasn’t one I made; it was a mix that my dad recorded in probably 1990 or 1991 that is comprised of Lyle Lovett’s first three albums taped from records. The tape has the scratchy and mildly tinny quality that distinguishes it; as if the imperfections make it more personable. I stole it years ago and have kept it because I have memories of listening to the same tape on childhood trips to Maine and Canada; it is something that is so concretely familiar. I have the CD versions of those albums but they don’t have the character of that mix tape.
Thanks for that, Lyle.

Plates

I bought my little Subaru five summers ago and happily moved the license plates from my POS Tempo to my new upgrade. I've had the same plates since two weeks after 9/11 and through my six moves in four years, they were my constant. I kept my car registered to my father's address as he was still a co-signer on my title and I moved so often it wasn't worth the money to change them with me. And so there they were, a little piece of Virginia no matter where I was; proof I had a place to go home to.
Today I finally got around to switching my car to North Carolina tags. I avoided it; North Carolina doesn't issue a front plate and that drives me crazy. But I needed to and so I did.
I picked up my lone little plate at the DMV office inside a mall that looks like it was shabby and mostly empty even when it was built in 1985. I took it out to my car and, sitting in my driver's seat, I burst into tears.
I love where I live; I believe that this is the closest thing to a sense of home I've ever had. But that simple act of switching two plates for one was an admission that I was one step farther from my father's house.

And really, he is what I know of home.

I Wanna Know What [Danny Glover] Is

Sorry for the lack of posting lately; life is a wind-up toy with fits of extreme motion and then crippling lethargy. I stayed in Virginia an extra night to spend time with my dad and it did not disappoint; if anything it was one of the more enjoyable portions of the trip. We drank scotch and sat on the back deck and talked about goats, guns, politics and fly fishing. It may sound strange but I feel so loving and loved in those moments. It scares me how much I love my father, how much I understand him, how I know him. The idea that a part of that may die if I ever get married is something I don't want to even consider; my dad isn't just my dad he's a close friend and to lose that...well, it'd be sacrifice. Daily I am thankful for the father I have.

I finished listening to Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler on my drive back from VA and let me tell you, it is a worthwhile listen. Get this book on CD if you can; you will be crying laughing while cruise control takes you down the Interstate. Most of the drive to VA was totally lost in the book; I don't remember it being as arduous as it normally is because I was laughing the whole trip. Thanks to my co-worker for buying that for my birthday.

I got back Tuesday evening and immediately changed clothes and started to rip up flooring. I just want the flooring project to be done, I hate it weighing over my head. I hate (strong word but I mean it) half-finished projects, I want them to be complete and not in this pubescent stage in which they are settling. I burned out the motor on Andy's hammer drill so I had to buy him a new one (yay unexpected costs!) to mix the mortar but hopefully by the end of the week all the backerboard will be done and it'll be time to tile this mofo.

I wouldn't ever date an actor no matter how amazing he may be. I wouldn't trust him to be truthful (he is an actor after all) and it would kill me to see him saying loving things or kissing another woman on screen. I don't care if they are lines, it would negate whatever he'd said to me. I'm a jealous type apparently.

Scotch Whiskey + Anything Else = Awesome. Even when “Anything else” includes “Watching old SportsCenter commercials on YouTube”

So that person who came back into my life after five years of being gone? We actually spoke on the phone for the first time and it was like hearing a voice from both a haunting past and the best kind of dreams. I have literally been praying for that voice for five years and to hear it again...well...wow. It was almost to the day that my friend from college died (six years ago...blows my mind how it still stings and how I miss his voice) and it was a lot of ghosts in one phone call because of that. But it was also like an invite into a bouncing castle; I was on air for the rest of the night with thankfulness and hopefulness and joy.

Quizzo without Andrew? Blah. What a terrible idea.

I'm rereading Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell and I love how she loves US History. It makes me even more passionate about it all, and I'm already in the “pick another topic to talk about or you'll never get laid again” sorta category of American history nerdom.

Darts: Not my spiritual gift.

(What's Danny Glover Got To Do With It)

Dog in a Pond

Yesterday Jane had the flu and was stuck on the couch. I had the day off and was planning to rip up some flooring but it is rather loud and dirty and probably isn't a good thing to do when one is convalescing in close proximity, so I took Nant (Jane's sweet sweet dog) and we went up to Windy Gap to play and see some people. That dog ran herself HARD. We played lots of fetch, lots of tennis balls into the pond, lots of swimming (which I believe is life-giving to the heart of most lab-mixes). It was a joy just to see her so joyful. I needed something really simple and clearly exuberant to experience and it filled that. She was sound asleep in the car on the way home and had to be given some baby aspirin for her creaky old bones, but I still think she had a time.
I talked to my dad for a half hour last week and it was so much fun and positive and hilarious...he sounded like my dad again. I have missed him sounding like that. Dearly.
Tonight: Kathleen Edwards at The Grey Eagle. I'm pumped. I'm getting some Twin Cousins Alligator Balls (seriously) and a Pisgah Pale and I'm going to sit on my little butt and enjoy some good tunage.

On a completely separate note, I got disc one of "My So-Called Life" which is the first three episodes and here's my confessions:
* I now identify so much more with Angela's mother and her teachers than I do with her. Wow, age. I think, "Angela! Listen to your mom!"
* I now also think that Angela would do better to stick with Brian Krakow rather than Jordan Catalano, because Brian will probably develop good personal skills in college and go on to be very stable, successful and loyal while Jordan will barely graduate from high school and probably won't do anything with himself. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means I may be too old to be watching this show in the same light that I recall it in.