I just thought of something funny, which I forgot to share when I had pneumonia last month. My doctor said this while he was examining me:

“Holy Shitskies.”

classic

You’ve probably seen this commercial for the VW Toureg: A young couple in a VW take photos of a high and beautiful place, and return the camera to a woman waiting below. It’s a great commercial, right? It made about 26 cells, right in the most middle-aged, acquisitive part of my brain, sit up and say, “What am I doing sitting here? I must have a Toureg. There’s a dealer in Santa Barbara. Where are my keys?”

It wasn’t really the car that caught my attention. It was the music. A soft, graceful acoustic guitar, and a voice that I wish sounded like me.

Oh where you lay

And close on down*

I’ve had it in mind for weeks to find out about that song. I finally got around to it tonight. Turns out it’s Ariel Ramirez by Richard Buckner. I found the name on a forum for Toureg people. I found the lyrics posted on a blog. I fired up Limewire and downloaded the song, then checked out the album on Amazon.com.

My mistake was in going one step further, and trying to learn a little about the song’s meaning. It turns out that Ariel Ramirez is an Argentine composer of very unique and lovely sacred music. I listened to some of his music too. He has a cult following among San Francisco area drug addicts. So I cried. I read that, and in a moment the lyrics came clear to me, and I cried. I tilted on the edge of that lostness, and my heart looked down into nothing but cold stars, pocked moons, and took a hard step back.

I guess I’d been unconsciously teetering on the brink of it for hours, since talking with my Dad about how my grandparents’ house looked when he passed it the other day, now that it’s been sold. It’s gone, sold to people who won’t love it in its desolate imperfection, let alone know the memories of family I’ve stripped from its walls and packed within my chest. They won’t hear the creaking of the floors the way I do.

So much of what is beautiful, soft, and gentle in us lies in the craters of our souls, washed by a sea of rains. We drift in our orbits, taking hits from meteors, space debris. Hoping the scars we bear make us no less beautiful, no more accountable to God. When there is no accounting for our galaxies of grief, we have the cold and stoic face of Ariel, moon of Uranus, empathetic sylph of our long, addicted nights.

Take up your ring

Forget we’re dead*

*Richard Buckner, Ariel Ramirez, from the album Since.

Here’s an interesting New York Times Essay: In My Room, about the homes of notable writers, and the common misconceptions of the writing life.

Recently, my friend Pete posted a spontaneous photo of his fridge and invited other bloggers to do likewise. So here’s a challenge — what’s on your desk? Take a spontaneous photo — no cleaning allowed — and post it on your blog. Then leave your URL in my comments or do a trackback. It’ll be fun maybe!

Looking around my own study, I see some disorderly piles of papers. There’s a hat on the printer. Two cordless phones on one bookcase; one works, one doesn’t. Guess. … Beside the computer, an outline of my book. On the desk, a firm, authoritarian and idiotic notice from the homeowners’ association concerning oil drips in my parking place. Asshats. … Under the desk, my dog Tasha. See her ears? I didn’t realize she was in the shot until I go it in Photoshop.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope,

for hope would be hope for the wrong thing;

Wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing;

There is yet faith; But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

~T.S. Elliot

… because it’s offensive to “real witches.” Idiots. We’re surrounded by idiots.

Earlier this evening, I happened to be downstairs in my garage. Putting on some goofball rituals doesn’t make wiccan a religion any more than my being in the garage made me a car.

Link

John Updike’s 21st novel reviewed in the Kansas City Star.

I’ve read some of his books — I’m reading one now — and I’ll agree that the man can’t seem to write enough about sex. Beyond that, he’s a damn good writer.

Should I blog my book? I’m writing a novel, you know. I have about 65,000 words written. Would anybody read it on a blog? Would you read it in the fog? Would you read it to your dog?

I’m skeptical.

(Maybe I’ll do it, if I get some feedback to this post; otherwise, in the words of “The Chink,” Ha ha ho ho and hee hee.)

Here’s a little dog who needs help.

From my window on the second floor, I see the ocean. I stand for a long time, watching sails appear within the frame. All night, I watch the lights of anchored boats, though I do tire of this sometimes and walk the halls of my house. There are voices in the walls, and the deep voice of the sea sounding until morning for an answer I don’t have. When the sun comes up, I settle in with my family, smelling coffee and biscuits.

Shadows become lights, and Grandpa sits at the kitchen table, reading his paper and eating a bowl of Special K cereal. Many days, he has a short speech for me, about his favorite breakfast. It has more vitamins than the rest. We have toast as well and through the window we watch his hunting dogs finishing the last of the kibble he set out for them.

Kyle Kimberlin, 1.4.2002

The years went by, as years do. The guy got older and fatter and got rid of the little blue car. The dog got older and slower and slept on a folded quilt on the floor beside his bed. They went lots of places together. They didn’t have everything, but the guy didn’t do anything about that, because they had everything they needed. But one night, he saw her laying by the screen door, looking out at the yard. He knew that she could see time passing by and loneliness coming in it, which no dog is supposed to mention.

Want to read the story? Go to my creative writing page and select The Guy Who Wanted a Dog. It’s a very short story, but you will need the free Acrobat Reader.

Today was the day I had to go to the title company and sign the documents to refinance my condo. Dropped it two points. Sweet. But it had been four years, and I’d forgotten how many times you have to sign and initial on all those documents. Dang.

They had a nice photo of my place in the file, with my flag flying on the balcony rail, and the little palm-like plant still alive by the door. It died recently; nothing I could do for it, except maybe water the poor bastard once in a while.

Anyway, the payment for my two-bedroom condo — with ocean, coast and mountain views — is now about what I was paying a five years ago, for a studio apartment with a view of nothing at all. Like I said, sweet.

I smarted off about the weather just a bit prematurely, ’cause it’s coming down now. As my Dad would say, “like pourin’ piss out of a boot.” Colorful, huh? And it looks like Brother Joe et.al. are getting some too.

It’s wonderful, here in Carpinteria. We’ve been hoping for rain, and wishing out loud for it, for a long time. In the past few days, we’ve had our first measurable rain in six months! Alleluia!

I don’t worry about flooding, because I live in a “penthouse” condo on a hill; nothing but good drainage for half a mile. And I have a new roof. I used to live in an apartment that flooded damn near every time we had a big storm, or a few days of steady rain. The living room was kind of sunken, lower than the land, and the land was lower than the neighbor’s land, and it all drained through a cheesy, leaky foundation. If you’ve never woken up in the middle of the night to find half an inch of muddy water coming in, heading for your piano … Anyway, you can see why I like to live upstairs. I’m grateful to be high and dry.