I've moved to: www.drivebyhighfive.net

2008-06-18T23:35:00.004-05:00

New Digs

I'm glad we got together, blogspot. Honest. I mean, it started out real good. Like remember that time when--but stop... I don't have to tell you that we've drifted apart. You wonder why I haven't been around as much lately, and as much as it pains me, it's time we faced the music. I guess what I'm saying is that I've moved on. Is there someone else? Yes, I'm afraid so. www.drivebyhighfive.net It's just that, well, I have needs. Needs I can't fairly expect you to fulfill. Really, it's that I need space to grow, and sticking around because it's "easier" would hurt more in the long run. I'm sorry. I've already packed. Know that I'll always think of you fondly, and wish you all the best.
Sincerely,
- Brendan, www.drivebyhighfive.net

2008-02-12T15:00:00.001-06:00

The Senate just passed a FISA bill including retroactive immunity for the telecoms that complied with the Bush administration to illegally spy on American citizens. This is bad news, dudes.

Glen Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer and writer for Salon.com does a good job explaining why here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

To quote:

What were the consequences for the President for having broken the law so deliberately and transparently? Absolutely nothing. To the contrary, the Senate is about to enact (ed: has already enacted)a bill which has two simple purposes: (1) to render retroactively legal the President's illegal spying program by legalizing its crux: warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and (2) to stifle forever the sole remaining avenue for finding out what the Government did and obtaining a judicial ruling as to its legality: namely, the lawsuits brought against the co-conspiring telecoms. In other words, the only steps taken by our political class upon exposure by the NYT of this profound lawbreaking is to endorse it all and then suppress any and all efforts to investigate it and subject it to the rule of law.

Please contact your representatives in the house and tell them to stand firm against any bill containing immunity for the telecoms, and to support their own, previously passed bill, the RESTORE Act.

I don’t typically put too much stock in online petitions, but if you won’t contact your representatives, you can at least sign this one and pass it on to friends: http://action.firedoglake.com/page/petition/RestoreFISA

Not that it would have changed the outcome, but it's worth mentioning that Obama voted for the defeated ammendment to remove immunity from the FISA bill, while Clinton didn't vote at all. In my book, that's almost worse than the 13 Democrats who voted against the ammendment. Not worse, but certianly more cowardly.

In other news, I'm ready to drink Obama's Kool-Aid.

Bottoms up!

2007-12-03T18:53:00.000-06:00

Oops...

My mom sent me an advent calendar, a box with little pieces of chocolate for each day until Christmas. Considering the number of days remaining versus the number of chocolates still remaining, I hope maybe Christmas will consider coming earlier this year. Like, um, tomorrow.

2007-06-14T07:34:00.000-05:00

That's Not A Fortune

It's more amusing if you do the "in bed" thing.

2007-06-05T10:58:00.000-05:00

An Addendum

Directions on the ticket say that to plead “not guilty” you need to mail the ticket and your plea within 48 hours. But there's no mailing address on the ticket. There is no phone number on the ticket to ask about a mailing address. The other way to plead not guilty (or guilty for that matter) is to “appear in person or by counsel on the date and time set for appearance at the Court and location specified on the face of this Summons.” The “court location” space on the face of the summons is blank; there is NO court location on the ticket. In sum: the ticket tells you what to do but NOT how to do it. It doesn't even tell you where to find that information.

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon digging around the NYPD and Brooklyn court websites.

Good. Lord.

I haven’t been to such a poorly maintained and designed website since, like, 1998. The phone numbers listed were either unanswered (by human or machine) or straight-up disconnected. The links that supposedly lead to the info I needed were all broken. But damned if they don’t have their own podcast.

Now, I didn’t go to no durn Ivy league school or nothin’, but I think I’m a reasonably intelligent guy. If I can’t figure this out, I don’t see how your average thug or petty criminal could…I mean, if they were so inclined.

And of course, if you fail to answer the summons, you get a warrant. One gets the impression they WANT people to screw up.

Lastly, I present to you, Dear Reader, more evidence that the NYPD apparently has it in for bikes and bikers...
...and a nice little film of the incident to boot.

2007-06-04T14:58:00.000-05:00

bunk (bŭngk)
adj. –
1. Redonkulous nonsense; utter rubbish
2. something totally stupid, not cool, or “retarded”

The NYPD writing tickets to polite, conscientious bikers is bunk.

[Origin: 1895–1900, Americanism; short for bunkum]
SEE ALSO: whack, complete bullshit

Last Friday I moved to my new apartment in Prospect Heights. After spending the whole day loading and unloading, I had to return the u-haul back to the rental place out in Bushwick. I took my bike with me (my old one from back home that I just shipped up here—my previous one on extended loan from a friend was recently stolen); there isn’t a good subway route between my old and new neighborhoods.

I had just left the rental station and was cruising down Bushwick Ave when an ambulance came up the street. Cars nudged toward the curb to let it through, effectively pinning me between the moving traffic and parked cars. I managed to hop the curb onto the sidewalk for 20 feet or so until the end of the block, at which point the ambulance passed and I popped back into the street.

A moment later I heard a new siren coming from behind me. Cop cars are squawking all the time in Brooklyn--especially in my old neighborhood--so I didn’t think anything of it until the car pulled next to me and an angry female cop rolled down her window, glaring at me and slowly panning her head from side to side. I pulled over, or whatever the bike equivalent of that is--stopping I suppose.

“Can I see your ID?”

Not wanting to be evasive I replied, “Yes, of course, but is anything wrong?”

“You know why I’m stopping you, don’t you?” She stepped out of the car followed by two younger guy cops. One of them started, “You from around here?”

They explained that biking on the sidewalk (not something I typically do) is illegal in New York. I asked if they had seen the ambulance that just passed and explained my reason for curb-hopping. The cops looked at each other for a moment.

“I’ll need to see some ID.”

While the head cop ran my ID, the two others stood awkwardly with me in silence, until one of them offered out of the blue:

“I can tell you’re a good guy. So if I can offer some advice: just take care of this in the next couple weeks and tell the judge what you told us. Don’t forget to take care of it or it turns into a warrant.”

“Wait… So you ARE giving me a ticket then? Can I ask why? What about the ambulance?”

“Yeah, y’know this isn’t like the biggest crime going on here. They’ve got us out here doing this...”

“With all respect, sir, can I ask what else I should have done instead? An ambulance was coming and I was pinned in traffic.”

Before he could answer me, the female cop came back with my ID and a pink slip of paper.

“Just tell the judge we didn’t see you until after the ambulance passed and he’ll probably dismiss it.”

SO WHY GIVE ME THE TICKET?!

They got back the car and pulled away.

Okay, so getting any ticket sucks. Even if I can have it dismissed, it’s a pain in the ass and dealing with it is going to eat up my time. And it would be one thing if they were stubborn and stuck to their guns (so to speak) about "rules being rules," but for them to also openly admit what they were doing really wasn’t fair and didn't make much sense…that’s just bunk.

2007-05-30T23:09:00.001-05:00

Eureka!

I'm in the process of packing up my room to move next Friday. All the dust from cleaning was making me miserable, until I discovered a surefire cure for my allergies: ice cream and cheap beer.

Yes!

2007-05-06T15:12:00.000-05:00

Fruit

Every now and then while grocery shopping, I’ll develop a sudden lust for fruit. Last week it was pineapple (which is technically NOT a fruit). This week it’s mangoes. But when I get home, mouth watering for its sweet mangoey flesh, I forget how to properly cut one. And I get impatient. I give it a go as a hand-fruit, but it doesn't really work that well. So I rip off the skin and tear into it in a way that might be described as carnal. I scrape the pit with my teeth, my face is covered with juice. But after tidying up, my teeth are clogged with the stringy fibres that a friend of mine called “mango pubes.”

A quick Google search for “mango pubes” reveals this image, which pretty much nails it.

Except for maybe the cancerous part. Eh.

From Wikipedia: "fruit is the ripened ovary...of a flowering plant."

Mmmhmm.

2007-04-17T13:36:00.000-05:00

Enrolling the Best and the Brightest

I’ve been meaning to post this story for a few days now:

I was browsing the New York Craigslist job listings when my phone vibrated. UNKNOWN CALL flashed in backlit LCD. Those of you who know me know that I’ve gotten into the regrettable habit of screening my phone calls. For the past few days the UNKNOWN CALLer had been calling me at 9:12, 9:15, and now at 9:17 pm. Fuck it, I thought and flipped open the phone.

“Hello?”

“Oh. Ah. Hello!,” Unknown Caller hesitated. “Is this… {pause} Brendan Baker?”

“Yup. And who’s this?” I think I've become less patient since moving to New York.

“I’m calling for the Grinnell Phone-a-thon,” he said (I probably groaned out loud). “Do you know what that is?” the voice asked with renewed confidence.

Oh, yes, I knew. The question was almost patronizing, really, like The Mob “asking” for a “favor.” Of course I knew. This was about to become a kabuki dance.

“Yes,” I assured him, “Unfortunately I’m not really in a position to donate anything right now, sorry. But good lu--”

“Well, there’s another reason I’m calling. I’d like to just verify some information.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We currently don’t have any information about your place of employment. The form on your file is blank...”

“Ah. Well, you see that’s precisely why I’m not in a position to give anything at the moment, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh, I understand.” There was another pause. “So if you could just tell me your place of employment: where you work.”

“Um. Well...I don’t have a place of employment. In fact, you might say I am un-employed.” Thanks for rubbing it in, kid.

“Oh. Okay. But if you just tell me what do you do?”

“Well, I’m looking for… Just say I’m a 'freelance public radio producer.' That’s basically the same thing.”

“Oh, really?” he prodded enthusiastically. “That's so cool! That's what I want to do some day!”

“You don’t say?” I was skeptic: this was a tactic to butter me up to give money I don't have. I asked if he had a show on “K-dick”, the colloquial term for Grinnell College's station, KDIC 88.5 FM.

“Kay what? I mean, I just want to be freelance.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“Oh. You know. Just not, like, in an office. Just—you know, freelance.”

“But doing what? What is it that you want to do?”

“I dunno. Banking. So, I can put you down as ‘Radio Freelancer’ then?”

“Public radio. Yeah, sure. Go for it,” I responded sarcastically.

Then I started to feel bad. The kid on the other end was probably a Grinnell freshman, and he was just doing the job he had been assigned as part of his work-study package. Just like I worked in the dining hall washing students' uneaten food down a garbage disposal my first year at Grinnell. I knew he was calling--along with a row of other students on phones--from a windowless basement in the bowels between Main Hall and Mears Cottage, right next to the dingy equipment closet where we stored all the concert PA equipment. After work, he probably had a couple hours of reading and an 8:00 am tutorial the next morning.

“I just finished an internship at WNYC, New York public radio," I explained. "I’m freelancing A story for the show I used to work on, but that's it. By which I mean, I am not employed at present; I’m trying to figure out what’s next.”

“Oh, really? That’s so cool! " This guy was resilient. "I have just a couple more questions. Is this the phone number we can reach you at?”

I don’t really give out my cell number, and don’t know how Grinnell’s Phone-a-thon ever got it. (Unless they took it off of grinnellplans.com, in which case that just royally sucks.)

“Great! And your same address too?”

I was done this call. “Yup.”

“Oh. Minneapolis is really cool! Okay, thanks. Have a good night.”

“Will do!”

2007-04-01T13:32:00.000-05:00

Smallest Skyline

Today, all I want to do is move back to Minneapolis and start a band.

Perhaps I'm just a little homesick.

2007-03-08T22:01:00.000-06:00

Conscious

There was time when I didn’t care all that much about conventions. I knew what I liked, and didn't feel any need to justify my tastes. Making music in bands during high school was a different process entirely from the way I try to make music (or don't) now, and I miss it. I miss how effortless it seemed, at least by comparison. Granted, I understand music better now. I’m a better player, a better composer with more refined sensibilities and more critical ears.

That’s the problem; I’m too critical. I’m so critical, in fact, that not only is it significantly more difficult to be proud of (or even get excited about) music, but more often then not I can’t even bring myself to make music all together. I’m not even that interested in finding new records, something that used to inspire me to try new things.

I’m so conscious of not being “good enough” for myself and others, that I won’t even begin to try. This extends to other areas, too.

What’s frustrating is that—without being arrogant—I know I’m capable of good work. I think I have talent. I’m just afraid to use it, that my work won't stand out, or that I’ll fail...so I haven't. Yet.

If you can understand that feeling, you'll likely understand a lot about me.

2007-01-09T22:54:00.000-06:00

Best Laid Plans

I'm guilty of this too from time to time, but it seems to happen to me a lot lately:

Somebody--an old friend, an old flame*, recent acquaintance, hot friend of a friend of a friend I hardly know (yet)**, etc.-- says they want to hang out.
And then I say something like, "Great! I'd like to too."
Sometimes they go so far as to say, "we should hang out" or "we need to hang out" or even just "we'll hang out." Just like that, like it's 100% for sure going to happen. (Afterall, we need to. This--apparently--is not up to either of us, nor is it a subject for debate.)
I say, "Great! Let me know when you're free and we'll make plans. Just give me a call."
Sometimes I even suggest a time, say when I'm free and when I'm not, etc.

And then nothing happens.

The ball's in their court now, right? I mean, they DID say they wanted to get together. I DID reciprocate that interest. If they want to close the deal on meeting at some point in the future, they need only to say so. Of course I could always re-ask/offer again or whatever, but sometimes it'd be weird.** Sometimes you just can't.*

2006-12-29T12:33:00.000-06:00

A Synthesis

The Chamber Street JMZ station usually smells like the inside of an ice-skating rink warming house in mid-July, like mildew and urine. Yesterday they hosed it down with bleach. While this didn't necessarily get rid of the previous stench, the odors intertwined into a new potpourri. Now it smells like a public pool locker room.

2006-11-21T18:37:00.000-06:00

No. What you've been is not on a boat...

Lately I’ve found myself feeling a little down when I finally get home from work. It has nothing to do with the work, which I generally enjoy despite not being paid for it (while an internship may not be a job, it is still most definitely work). It has nothing to do with anything, really. Or rather (to pull a Stoppard) it has everything to do with nothing.

It’s just like: “Okay, I’m home…

...what do I do now?”

2006-11-11T12:52:00.000-06:00

Let it be known:

As of three o'clock in the afternoon Eastern Standard Time on Saturday of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the year of our Lord two-thousand and six, I will receive a key to a room in an apartment in a building in a respectably ungentrified neighborhood a little East of Williamsburg, a little West of Bed-Stuy in the borough of Brooklyn in the fair city of New York, and I will call it "home."

2006-11-08T10:25:00.000-06:00

If I can make it here...

I realize I haven't written a lot lately; I've been keeping busy and kind of living day-to-day without having much time to reflect on it. I've got stories (about friendship, working, networking, interning, couch-surfing, money-burning, date-earning and generally learning) but they'll likely have to wait until I'm a little more settled here, which I am decidedly not at the moment.

2006-11-08T10:13:00.000-06:00

New York? You're soaking in it!

During a way later night counting votes at the A.P. than I had anticipated and coming down with a scratchy throat, Lady says: "Way to be a trooper, kid. Come in tomorrow an hour later than I previously told you.”
Delirious with exhaustion, set alarm on cell phone, crash in friend's living room around 5 am.
Wake up; alarm on cell phone still set on silent/vibrate from previous night. 9:45 am Have 15 minutes to get to midtown from Brooklyn. I'm going to be late. And *cough*; I’m sick.
Get belongings together in a hurry, throw last night's clothes in a bag, call Lady as I’m heading out the door to let her know I’m running behind. No response. And it’s raining.
Fuck.
Run to subway, while continuing to try calling Lady. Step in ankledeep streetpuddle.
Make it to station, soaked, sneezing. Lady finally picks up phone. Explain situation quickly, that I’m en route but running behind.
Lady says fogeddaboutit, just go home.
Say, well, I’m already en route and would be happy to come in and offer my help if it’s still needed. Say I really mean it, need the work, give her my cell number to show I do, say call if they end up needing help.
Lady says no, I’m not really needed, fogeddaboutit, really just go home.
Turn around to leave station, realize I don't have one. Watch the rain from the subway stairwell for a minute.
Walk down avenue to look for a place to dry off. Bag of now soggy clothes snaps.
Run into coffee shop to warm up and to use my recently earned off-day to look for more work and an apartment.

2006-10-16T01:16:00.000-05:00

Love and Radio

I'm currently bumming around New York, with the admittedly ambitious hope of (among other things of equal importance; seeing some of my best friends and getting the fuck out of my parent's basement) trying to meet with some people who could conceivably help me achieve a few of my dreams. Granted, I have a lot of dreams, but this is a good place to have them.

(Post title taken without permission from Love and Radio, the brianchild of an old friend.)

2006-10-05T23:38:00.000-05:00

Hay Que Ver Si Voy

Sometimes when I'm unable to put something out of my mind, when I've put myself out there and done everything I can think of within reason to turn things my way and all I can do is wait and see what happens or what might come back to me, I re-read old journals, letters and emails I've written, as if that could somehow give me better perspective on where I am here and now. But instead I guess it just puts you right back where you were when and where you wrote those words.

Yes, I was a de facto English major.
Yeah, that was quite the run-on.
Yes, I've been drinking martinis and dreaming of a sea change.

2006-09-27T15:42:00.001-05:00

Keep ~~Tahoe~~ Minnesota Blue

Oh, fuck this.

I wish I had something much more profound to say, but that's about it.

"Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty told them that the area is 'perfect' for their plans...Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman added, 'This is our time.'" [Star Trib. Online]

Reportedly, the two nodded in agreement, with Pawlenty laughing boisterously as Coleman rolled his fingers, murmering "ehhhxcellent."

And the sad but true part:

"...[Minnesota] has become more of a swing state in the last decade, and Bush made the presidential race close in Minnesota in both 2000 and 2004. Minnesota narrowly supported Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry over Bush in 2004."

I know it's a way's out, but seriously.

Fuck.
This.

2006-09-19T16:46:00.000-05:00

Try the foul sandwhich.

2006-09-18T02:26:00.000-05:00

I write a lot of stuff I wouldn't even put up here. But as for as public self-reflection goes, I think that for the most part I know more of who I am and what I want than most, which is something.

2006-09-12T01:20:00.000-05:00

Can you believe we once had a president who assured us that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?"

I get earnestly patriotic--and I mean without any tinge of irony--when I pause to think of all the things that have made our nation a good place to live in and the rights and privileges we as Americans have come to cherish, enjoy and frequently take for granted, and how far too many of these things have been actively and steadily dismantled right in front of our very eyes since around the time we reached voting age.

Here’s the deal, see:

I want to live my adult life in a place where I can be paid to do things that will engage me--preferably in a way that is socially productive in some way--for the majority of my life, and then retire in peace.
I want to make just enough money to be financially independent enough as to not worry about it too often, to have lodging where I can sleep comfortably through storms, and to allow me and anyone I share my table with to eat good, interesting, healthy food all of the time.
I want to be generally content with things more often than I am not, including but by no means limited to: supporting education as one of if not the most important investment we can make in our nation at any point in history, that women (and men) have the right to make decisions about their own bodies and health, that people can travel and communicate freely without fear or persecution, and that children deserve safe places to play during the time in their lives when they don't have to worry about these kind of adult concerns because, hey, they're just kids.
I want to love and be loved, and for the sanctity of love to be acknowledged and cherished between any two people who are lucky enough to find it.
I want to kick this manipulative, polarizing, ignorance-feeding, fear-mongering, hate-breeding sorry excuse for a political administration and their ilk in the nuts, hard and repetitively.

In any order, that would pretty much about do it.

I don't particularly see myself ever running for any kind of public office aside from being an informed participant in our fragile "experiment in democracy," but I'll be damned if I let the next person who tells me I'm wrong for thinking any of the above get off the hook easily.

That is all.

2006-08-30T00:26:00.000-05:00

We stayed a day longer than I had planned, but it looks like my mom’s ready to get out of her mom’s house. Ironic?

I’m stealing wireless internet from my Grandma’s neighbors and downloading podcasts for the car ride home. I needed a new radio-transmitter for my iPod for the car trip. Target had a couple different ones for 50 bucks give or take, but instead I opted for this, which was less than half the price. Half.

Whatever. I’m secure in my masculinity, and I <3 On the Media. And Science Friday.

2006-08-29T23:36:00.000-05:00

For anyone out there interested in keeping track of me, my Grandma has very generously decided to give me her old car, which was actually the main reason for the trip--aside from, y'know, visiting my Grandma. My mom hadn't visited in a while and as my Grandma very loudly and unabashedly chastised her other daughter over the phone (for not being able to visit while my mom was in town), "Well, the next time they'll be back will be my funeral." Gotta hand it to Grammie; she's got a knack for killing two birds with one passive-aggressive stone.

She also keeps dropping all sorts of little complaints about her new car, referring to it as "my last car before I die." This, mind you, is the car that replaced the one she's giving me. She also told her friend, "I pulled the old car out of the driveway for Brendan to vacuum out and, gosh, it's just a good size for me." Is my Grandma having buyer's/seller's remorse? Thing is, this car is also my ride home...

I’m embarrassed to say that even her old car, a gold (or "champagne" as my Grandma corrected me) is in better condition than either of my parents’ cars. It has 25,000 miles on it, which is amazing for an eight year-old car, but then again my Grandma probably never drove it outside Ann Arbor. That didn't stop her from putting new tires on it "just in case." Basically, it's a great first-car for someone my age, and of course I'm very grateful for her generosity. Granted, I can’t pay for gas or insurance and if given the choice would rather use my dad’s old bike, which I'm trying to give a second life as a fixie. But I guess it’ll be good to have a second car around if/when my sisters or I need it. I wish one of my parents would just agree to take it for now, and maybe that’s what we’ll end up doing. In any event, I’ll be driving it back to Minnesota with my mom tomorrow. I haven't spent that much time alone with my mom in quite a while, so all things considered it could be an interesting ride.

2006-08-28T03:19:00.000-05:00

So I’m in Ann Arbor.

Today my mom and I both met her biological half-brother, his wife their two kids (I guess they're my half-cousins) for the first time. I'd only just heard of them—also for the first time—a little under a year ago. Apparently my mom had only learned of her biological little brother herself not too long before that, though she hadn't gotten around to telling her own family about it for an unusually long while, when I happened to casually ask her about a couple photos my Grandma included in a letter.

Now, my Grandma has this tendency to collect and/or adopt things: dolls; miniatures; garden plants; cats; raccoons, yes, raccoons; other people's families, etc. I figured these photos of my would-be half-uncle and his kids were just another one of these sorts of things, but in reality it was something more like the other way around--sort of; it's a strange story, one in which my Grandma keeps an incredibly difficult and no-doubt painful secret from her family and closest friends for over four decades. Frankly, it's amazing my mom didn't know about any of this until just recently, but then she couldn’t have been much more than ten years old when this particular story took place.

In fact, my mom only mentioned we were going to meet these people last evening after dinner, when she said I wouldn’t be able to sleep in for too long. Needless to say, it was an unusual experience.

I think it was the long eyelashes that got me. I'm looking at these hyperactive eight and five year-old kids bouncing up and down, hanging on their parents, drawing ninja turtles with crayons, and I'm wondering, "just how many genes do we share?" They have no clue what I'm thinking or what that even means or probably even who I am, and in the grand scheme of things perhaps it doesn't matter all that much. As far as personalities and world views go, it became pretty clear pretty quickly that we were literally and figuratively coming from different places—which ironically made them align more closely with my Grandma politically than my mom and I. I guess I've tended to assume that in the nature/nurture debate as it pertains to raising children, “nurture” plays the lead role. It might follow then that this meeting had little significance beyond distant groups of people simply re-discovering lost (or unknown) connections with one other, I guess, simply for the sake of a kind of "hey how about that?" curiosity. But not surprisingly that doesn’t feel right. As I've said, my Grandma likes to passively assimilate other families into her own, but it was pretty weird hearing this stranger call her "mom," and probably more so for my own mother.

My mom seemed uncomfortable and kind of weirded out the whole time they were there, and when my Grandma suggested that we take a group picture, I found myself standing behind my Grandma and my mom, half-filling the small but noticeable gap my mom seemed to keep between them. Granted, I was also the tallest one in the photo—a relatively rare opportunity for me—but the unspoken whiff of awkwardness reminded me of the last "professional portrait" taken of my immediate nuclear family at my aunt's (dad's side) wedding, a couple years after my folks had gotten separated.

The photographer was taking shots of the individual family units in attendance, as well as the liberty of posing these families however he saw fit. For some reason, he decided our ideal pose involved my mom sitting on my dad's lap. Unable to get a decent shot through the haze of uneasiness, the artist tried to tease the shot out of us, innocently joking, "Aw, c'mon. Pretend like you like her." I never saw the shot but I know I, for one, was wearing a grimace. I haven't heard anyone speak of it again.

I think they (my parents) are still separated and not technically or I guess “legally” divorced, but as strange as it probably sounds it really doesn’t matter that much. I took their separation pretty hard at the time, and for the eight years since then it’s kind of been “don’t ask don’t tell” or whatever. My junior year of high school I got pretty pissed when I learned my dad was seeing someone else, and equally upset that my mom and sisters more or less went out of their way not to say anything about it to me. I don’t know if my mom’s ever tried dating since then—it wouldn’t surprise me if she has once or twice, but it seems like that not something she’s interested in. But the don’t ask don’t tell has kind of extended into that territory, and I’ve more or less reciprocated the policy in regard to my love life, or lack thereof; it’s easy not to ask when there’s not much to tell.

I should state, for the record, that my parent get along very well despite not living together--much better than some other parents I’ve seen who stick it out for the wrong reasons. We have meals as a family three or more times a week, hang out and watch movies, do yard work sometimes—I dunno, it’s a lot more functional than it seems on the surface. Still, it makes me sad to think of them both living alone in two years after my youngest sister graduates. Who knows how they’ll change their lives after that, jointly or as individuals? Maybe my mom will sell the house and go live in a commune.

I guess it's just one of those things you can choose to do in life, get through a certain period, and eventually more or less forget about, though nothing ever goes away entirely—which for better or worse, as I’m told, gives character to our lives and the people we meet in them. But I'll never be able to ask my Grandma how she carried to term, gave birth to, and put her son up for adoption, all in secret; I can’t even begin to imagine it and will never be able to.

Another digression: I'm never more appreciative that my mom raised me to eat healthily than when I'm at my Grandma's. Earlier today, my Grandma declared that she and her current husband (her third, a sweet man but one who doesn't think twice about downing a couple chocolate shakes after surviving multiple heart-attacks and subsequent bypass surgeries and good lord I really wish I weren't exaggerating here) were down to eating eggs sometimes as infrequently as only three times a week! They took us to lunch at the Ann Arbor "Big Boy," and when my mom was away filling her buffet plate with watermelon and pineapple, my Grandma leaned over and asked me what I thought about all this as I waited for the sandwich I’d ordered. "Eggs are really good for you, you know," she asserted. I love my Grandma, but like eggs, dining with her is more healthy in smaller, perhaps less frequent doses.

After they left, my mom mumbled something about needing to get some exercise and fresh air, y'know, to burn off the excess calories my Grandma always seems bent on stuffing us with. My mom declared she was going to take a walk in the kind of way that seemed to beg me to join her, so of course I did. After walking a few blocks in silence, I asked her was everything alright? She seemed to sniffle (allergies, you know) and asked “why?” in a tone of almost-pure surprise, which I’m not very good at authenticating or taking at face value. I asked her was she sure? “No, really, nothing’s wrong,” and she changed the subject. Unlike my dad, she doesn’t usually very much about her childhood, her family, or her biological father who died when she was ten. This is just another example of how little I seem to know about my mom's side of the family, and another instance of how absurdly strange life can be.