strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
« October 2005 | Main | December 2005 »
Nov 20 05: the society pages
Awww. I knew that the Times was covering gay & lesbian commitments, but I’d never actually seen two boys getting the whole photographs-from-the-fabulous-ceremony-and-story-of-their-fabulous-romance treatment before. Now I have.
Times, and the Times, change. Congratulations to Messrs. Finley and McGee, total strangers to me, and to anybody else who’s got somebody to keep them company as we all move through this world, severally.
Nov 17 05: ebullience
I can’t exactly articulate why I’ve been bouncing around the house like a crazy person over the story I found on BoingBoing this evening, but I have. A guy from St. Paul has done what scientists had long thought impossible: he developed the colored soap-bubble. It took ten years of endless, obsessive tinkering, and of ruining clothes and kitchens and dying various bodily tissues funny colors, but he did it. And they’re beautiful: gemlike blues and oranges and reds and greens and yellows; something I can only call ‘opaque ivory,’ even black. (Goth kids everywhere, your hour of glory is at hand.) Plus when they pop all over your skin/your hair/the sofa, the dye magically fades away after a few seconds’ exposure to air, water, or pressure. My mind, she is blown by the sheer coolness.
That dye has innumerable other exciting applications, too. The inventors are gonna make a skillion dollars off this.
Science! It’s neat! Yay for people obsessed with quixotic, whimsical nonsense! Yay!
ny moment #39,987
So a friend has posted her personal experience of one of those New York stories. It’s not a new story, nor is it unique to NYC, but it’s a mournful one nonetheless. It’s the one about how there’s the smell that nobody in the building could quite agree on what it was, until the ambulances and the cops show up and you discover that the nice guy in the basement apartment, the one who used to play his music too loud, passed away peacefully in his Lay-Z-Boy about a week ago.
I feel the sympathy for the neighbors who have lost a friend. I feel the sorrow at the untimely death of the man in the recliner, at the way it took a week for somebody to feel his absence enough to come looking for him. I feel the chill at the smell of death that hasn’t yet left the front entryway. I feel all of these things.
But—and this is the part of which I am somewhat ashamed—I also found myself thinking, “I wonder what the apartment’s like? Does it have garden access?”
Nov 9 05: moment of oof
What divides I’m fighting off a cold from Okay, now I’m sick? Is it the act of giving in and buying chicken soup for lunch?
I think it is.
Nov 8 05: ny moment #38,215
Why do I love this city?
Because it’s the sort of town where you can go to your polling place, half a block from your apartment, and find three volunteers at the table for your precinct. Two of them will be checking your name against the list of voters, getting you to sign the book, that kind of thing. The third will be a grizzled, portly man in his early sixties, maybe. He’ll be having a conversation on a cell phone tucked between shoulder and ear: You remember her, right?… That’s ridiculous…. She’s rich, she can buy her own goddamn groceries…
Only then you realize that he has no cell phone. He’s just chatting with the voices in his head. You make eye contact with the other two volunteers; one of them looks at you and says Mmm-hmmm, and the other just rolls his eyes in a way that plainly says Buddy, don’t get me started. You go into the booth and pull the Big Red Lever, and outside the curtain you can hear all the poll workers talking about him: How the hell did he get this gig? Do you think we should maybe call the Board of Elections?
And then you vote and you go home and your partner has scored a mess of Girl Scout cookies at the office, some for eating soonish and some for archiving in the freezer until you forget about them and then discover them accidentally at some point in the future.
That’s why I love this city.
(Texas, on the other hand, can go to hell.)
Nov 7 05: barbellate
Oh, and I kept the beard.
avuncularity
Paul and I went to my sister’s house on Long Island over the weekend. It was, as we discovered, Uncle Appreciation Day, so imagine our delight at our good timing. We, being the only uncles present, got to be the guests of honor. Our hosts were particularly appreciative of our having dropped everything a few weeks ago, when our nephew was born and somebody had to look after his big sister for a while. There were cupcakes that said GO UNCLES GO and I ♥ UNCLES and UNCLES RULE and suchlike. Even better than the cupcakes (which were delicious and also touching and made me ever-so-slightly sniffly) was a card. The text was by Avery, age 2 1/2, as transcribed by her mommy. She put happy-flower stickers on the card all by herself, and also drew on it with a colored pencil. She loves those pencils.
Dear Uncle Andy and Uncle Paul— [the card says.]
You’re welcome Uncle Andy and Paul. Thank you for taking care of me. I’m drawing on the paper with my pencil. You’re welcome Uncle Andy and Paul. Don’t have my pencil or it’s really expensive. Come to my house and play with me. You’re welcome Uncle Andy and Atticus and Paul and you. You can’t use my pencil.
I love you.
Love,
Avery
Apparently the hip kids these days all use “you’re welcome” when they say “thank you.” Who knew? There was also a drawing to put on our refrigerator.
I am the happiest uncle in the world, I think.