Author: Mr Benchly

I'm quirky. And a writer. Sometimes in that order.

Benchly At the Bat

In honor of my summer beer-league softball team’s first practice/scrimmage tonight, I’d like to share with you a poem I spoofed last year after CP and I challenged each other to a wiffle ball duel during our lunch break. With apologies to Ernest L. Thayer, I present to you, my faithful readers, Benchly At The Bat:

Then from five throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through Waterbury, and rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon Green Mountain Coffee and recoiled upon the flat,
For Benchly, mighty Benchly, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Benchly’s manner as he stepped into his place,
There was pride in Benchly’s bearing and a smile on Benchly’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he pretended to doff his hat,
No coworker in the crowd could doubt ’twas Benchly at the bat.

At least ten eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
And then five tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher, CP, ground the ball into her hip,
Defiance gleamed in Benchly’s eye, a sneer curled Benchly’s lip.

And now the little plastic sphere came hurtling with a wiffle sound,
And Benchly swung with all his might, nearly falling to the ground,
And missed the ball completely, for it curved as much as it sped.
“YES!” said CP, “No!” said Benchly, “Strike one,” the umpire said.

With a smile of confidence, great Benchly’s visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult of the coworkers and bade the game go on;
He signaled to CP and once more the wiffle ball flew;
Benchly swung and missed the high heat and the umpire said, “Strike two!”

“Yes!” cried CP again, and the tension slowly grew,
But then she wasted the next two pitches and the count went 2 and 2 .
The coworkers saw Benchly’s face grow stern, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Benchly wouldn’t miss that ball again.

The sneer was gone from Benchly’s lip, his teeth were clinched in hate;
He pounded with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now CP holds the ball and now she lets it go,
And now the ball is shattered by the force of Benchly’s blow.

Oh! somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy for CP– mighty Benchly hit one out.

The Evil Empire…or how I learned that the real world sucks more than I thought it did

As is their legal right, the Evil Empire recently told a coworker of mine that he will be laid off in two weeks after his medical leave runs out because he was unable to beat his cancer in the federally-allotted 12 weeks of time. Once the lay-off is official, his health insurance will disappear and if he wants to continue fighting for his life, he’ll need to foot the $350 monthly health insurance bill as well as continue to pay for what his health insurance won’t cover.

In recognition of the fact that I need to tread very carefully when discussing anything about my company, I won’t pass any judgment…but I hope that my faithful readers know that they are strongly encouraged to pick up the slack…

In the Words of My Good Friend, Stiller

A few years ago, while navigating my way through yet another in a long line of depressingly long and overwhelmingly single Valentine’s Days on which I lamented about commercial holidays, Mia Wallace and I discussed the expectations and insincerity of said holidays. My point was that flowers on Valentine’s Day, although nice, were expected and therefore lacked the sincerity of flowers on any other day.

To those who will listen and even those who have grown tired of listening, I voice similar frustrations every year around the December holidays. I think it’s great when people donate money to charity, but where are all the donations when the fat man in a Santa Claus hat isn’t begging for them with a bell outside the local mall? Why is it that most people need the holidays to feel charitable? It’s because of this lack of January-November charity that I often doubt the sincerity of those giving money into the big red December can, including myself.

One of my pet peeves in this world is people who do things not because they want to, but rather because they feel it is expected. I don’t like it that we live in a society that conditions women to think unshaven legs are less desirable than shaven ones; that conditions men to think crying is a sign of weakness; that conditions Christians to think God cares whether or not you’re wearing a tie in church; that conditions people to think piercings are acceptable only on the ear lobes of a woman; that conditions men to think that anything less than a dozen red roses hand-delivered February 14 is not acceptable; that conditions women to think anything less than a dozen red roses hand-delivered February 14 is not love; etc.

(In an effort to be as sincere as is humanly possible, this issue is one I overanalyze every day of my life and so, in an ironic twist that would make any writer proud, like the PC person so aware of race issues he thinks about the color of one’s skin enough to make him racist, I’m probably less sincere because of my overanalyzation. But that’s for another entry.)

I want to address what’s really on my mind and what inspired this rant: the office card. Like clockwork, at least once a week, someone from my office will approach my desk and declare in a hushed, matter-of-fact voice what kind of card they’re presenting me as well as the reason for said card. (“Card for Bob. Grandmother died.”) At this point, I have approximately 5 to 10 minutes to determine the person about whom they’re speaking, relate somehow to the event that inspired the card, and figure out what kind of short message I should write in it.

As an English major, and as someone who just finished venting about the insincerity associated with expectations, it’s not surprising when I say that I feel the need to be original in my office card entry and so, my first action is to scan the card to see what has already been written so that I avoid duplicating anyone. If it’s a celebratory card (like a birthday or wedding), that means I have to avoid jokes about working too much, working too little, drinking too much, drinking too little, and not “doing anything I wouldn’t do.” For mourning cards, that means I must avoid “thinking of you,” being “so sorry,” and including family “in my thoughts” or “prayers.”

It is at this point in the office card process that I typically suffer from an extreme writer’s block and the stress that accompanies all the pressure associated with performing a literary miracle in such an intimidatingly small timeframe, and I panic and write something either incredibly boring or so random it makes no sense (like the times I quote an imaginary friend named Stiller). For obvious reasons, I typically write the less-inspiring boring stuff in the mourning cards, and save the lines filled with randomness for the celebratory cards. Regardless of whether or not I find something original to say, I always end up struggling with my fear of insincerity so much so that I’m nearly always insincere.

And so, consequently, while a coworker struggles to deal with the loss of her father this week, instead of knowing how devastated I am for her because I can barely deal with the thought of that very same inevitable loss in my life, all she will know is that I am sorry and that her family is in my thoughts.

Torn and Restored

“Would you like paper or plastic?” “Would you like fries with that?” “Who can spot the dangling modifier?” English majors are familiar with these questions because, in their loved one’s collective opinion, these questions accurately reflect the only possible postgraduate avenues down which someone with an English degree can travel. After the laughter from these career punch lines has died down, what everyone fails to explain to the English major is that variations of these jokes exist for other fields of study (philosophy, history, art, music, etc) and that hundreds of thousands of students around the world have been victims of these living-room/kitchen table verbal firing squads. In essence, as we venture off to the world of academia, our first lesson is that we are about to waste the next four years of our lives; that unless we choose science, or medicine, or technology, or education, we are wasting ours and our parents’ money.

As I sit back and watch Freckles’ brother (a recent college grad with a history degree) attempt to shield himself from the barrage of “do you want to teach history?” questions, I find myself yet again struggling with my own English-degree identity in this English-degree-fearing world. Yes, I’m an editor, but the qualifications for my job have slowly but surely begun to mirror those of a McDonald’s manager and, though a respectable job, that’s not the career path I envisioned the day I declared my major. The path I convinced myself I was choosing was that of a storyteller.

Although I’ve never felt emotionally or intellectually qualified to teach English, I can say without a doubt that I chose this path for myself because of the influence of two English teachers: my 7th grade English teacher, Mr. Gagnon; and Professor Hudnall in college. In his class, Mr. Gagnon once told a story from his childhood and after building up the suspense for 10 minutes, every eye was focused on him as he delivered the climactic ending that left every student in the room as full as a compulsive eater on Thanksgiving. If Ms. Parker’s memory is as capable as I think it is, she’ll swear that I’m confusing Mr. Gagnon with Professor Hudnall. I’m not, but to her credit, I easily could have interchanged the names because Professor Hudnall accomplished the same feat 9 years later. Though unique in every possible way, in my mind, Mr. Gagnon and Professor Hudnall will forever be linked by their ability to bring their students to the edge of their seats. They were teachers, of course, but like every English major before and after them, they were storytellers first and foremost.

After graduating college and entering the classroom-less real world, and while fine-tuning my own craft, I found myself starved for the good story that had been lacking for the first time since I was old enough to know a good story from a bad one. Consequently, I ate up all of the books a postgrad guy is supposed to (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; Catch-22; On the Road; etc) and with my book clubs, that trend hasn’t really stopped. I also watched as many movies as possible. Unfortunately, it seemed like I graduated college around the same time the majority of stories told in movies were dumbed down to reach a broader audience. But then, something wonderful happened. Either the film industry experienced an explosion of creative talent or I got better at finding the good stories. And so it was in 2001 that I found myself on the edge of my theatre seat on three consecutive occasions: Memento, Moulin Rouge, and Amelie. All three movies captured my imagination but as the first of the three released that year, Memento was the film that made me believe in storytelling again. (If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it.)

Like a born-again Christian desperate to share his faith with anyone who will listen, I made all of my loved ones watch Memento; and like that very same born-again desperate to consume anything that tastes like the crack that is his newfound love of Christ, I have since made a point of watching all of the films by Memento’s director, Christopher Nolan (Following, Insomnia, and most recently, The Prestige). Because Freckles was desperate to consume the crack that is her love of Christian Bale, she accompanied me to see The Prestige this past weekend. Like Memento, The Prestige had a symphonic feel to it; each scene was arranged and interwoven in a seemingly random way with a hint of purpose. The scenes began to harmonize near the end as a twisting crescendo built to a climax comparable to The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” or the movie Requiem for a Dream. And yet again, I left the theatre satisfied with and inspired by Nolan’s work, as well as invigorated by a renewed faith in storytelling.

And so it was with great pride that I recently discovered that Christopher Nolan was once a student of English in London who had most likely shielded himself from the same barrage of “do you want to teach English?” questions that were fired in my direction 7 years ago. Now I don’t pretend to believe that this common denominator means that I’ll ever be as successful as Nolan has been, but I’ve also never been naive enough to think the size or reaction of an audience is proof of a good story. All that matters to me is that Nolan’s success brings with it further recognition that there is a place in this world for storytellers and that we should stand as proudly as doctors and teachers. My only hope is that when my time has come to pass, and I’m asked what I’ve done with my English degree, I can say with confidence that I wove a few good stories.

Even Flowers Have Their Dangers

Sister #1 and her husband celebrated three additions to their home this year: their third beautiful child, Niece #4; a new 2nd floor bedroom, built to accommodate Niece #4; and a second full bathroom, built to accommodate a household with 4 females. On a whim, I visited their home last Friday night to see the new bedroom and bathroom, but mostly to see my nieces. As my visit came to an end, Sister #1 walked me down to my car. A minute later, Niece #1 came outdoors with a concerned look on her face as she told us that her sister, Niece #2, was getting scared because their mother had disappeared. Sister #1 assured Niece #1 that everything was OK, we said goodnight, and they retreated into their home as I drove away. In retrospect, I figured that, most likely, Niece #1 was the one who was scared because although she likes to look after her sisters, she was worried that no one was looking after her.

While visiting with my sister, we briefly discussed the local news, which, for most of my faithful readers, became national news last week: the disappearance and murder of University of Vermont senior, Michelle Gardner-Quinn.

After saying goodnight to her parents, who were visiting for Family Weekend, Michelle ventured downtown to meet up with her friends. When she couldn’t find her friends, and her cell phone died, she borrowed the phone of a considerate stranger. After failing to connect with her friends, the stranger was kind enough to walk her home. The video camera of a jewelry store captured footage of Michelle and her good-deed acquaintance walking up our city’s hill to her home. Nearly one week later, her body was discovered near a gorge 20 miles away.

As only my most loyal readers will note, my hometown has not been without crime, as evidenced by the Great Inga Beep the Jeep Burglary; however, in the time that I’ve lived here, I’ve honestly never felt anything other than a refreshing belief that this place is where I needed to be if ever I wanted a lost wallet returned to me or if ever I wanted to be the “victim” of a random act of kindness. And after reading and listening to every news report I could find, it became increasingly clear that this sense of security had been shared by most, if not all the residents of our small community. So as law officials do their best to put together the pieces of this tragic puzzle (having arrested the stranger on unrelated charges), it’s not without reason to say that the residents of our Queen City are doing their best to put together the pieces of their crumbled sense of security.

Considering my home’s close proximity to the events of this crime, I’m sure it’s no surprise when I say that my way of coping with this tragedy has been to reflect on my own life. Although my frustration with professional athletes who use the phrase “this puts things into perspective” surfaced yet again last week at the news of a professional baseball player’s death, I admit that I’m guilty of feeling these exact same thoughts regarding Michelle’s death; something like this really does help you remember what in your life should truly be valued, and what’s extraneous.

At the top of the list of values for me, as always, are my loved ones. And just as I instinctively drive slower and much more defensively when my nieces are in the car, I feel the need to protect them from the evil in this world. I want to take Niece #1’s hand and lead her back into her home and tell her that everything will be OK; she has her parents, and her sisters, and her uncle, and that’s all she needs. But as hard as it is to admit, that’s not what she needs. As her loved ones, we owe it to her to help mold her into someone capable of conquering the world; someone capable of making the right choices; someone capable of living a rewarding life. We can’t shelter my nieces forever because in the end, they will need to deal with the reality that I’m dealing with today:

That as much as I want to, I can’t rewind life like I can rewind the jewelry store camera tape. I can’t walk Michelle and the stranger back down the hill until they disappear out of the camera’s view. I can’t walk them back to the bar and make different decisions for Michelle. I can’t walk Michelle back up the hill to her loving parents. I can’t walk Michelle back into their outstretched arms so that she can hug them goodbye once again and know that everything will be OK.

Sometimes Life Gives Us Lessons Sent in Ridiculous Packaging

As it has every year, the Little League World Series has signaled the impending demise of the summer as well as all summer-related activities that have so mercilessly wedged themselves between my creativity and my blogging time. Each night, the boys of summer race to finish their seasons before the chill rains of fall arrive. After sacrificing my body on the softball field every day to help keep my men’s league team’s playoff hopes alive, I’ve spent my nights watching 10-12-year-old Little Leaguers pour their hearts onto a smaller field to help keep their dreams alive.

In an effort to keep this experience as rewarding as possible, I’ve done my best to avoid all the swearing, fighting, and anger that nearly always accompanies a men’s beer-drinking softball league; I’m there to have fun and play an innocent and beautiful game I’ve loved since my Little League days. And so, it’s disheartening to learn of recent Little League events that have shown a loss of that very same purity I’ve tried so desperately to recapture…

In a 9 and 10 year old Utah league, the team playing defense needed one more out to win the championship by one run. All that stood between them and their (read: their coach’s) dream, was the opposing team’s best hitter. But rather than take the opportunity to teach his young team about courage and playing their best, the coach decided to teach his team about strategy that’s only appropriate at a much higher level of play. He instructed his pitcher to intentionally walk the best hitter to face the worst hitter: a cancer survivor with a shunt in his brain. The boy struck out while the fans booed the pitcher, and the winning team’s coach got his trophy.

A Little League New England game between Vermont and New Hampshire also made headlines thanks to more controversial coaching. With his team up by a run and one out away from winning the game, the VT coach realized that one of his players had not yet batted; a rule violation that guaranteed a forfeit. Understanding that the only way for his team to win the game was if NH tied it and forced extra innings, he instructed his pitcher to intentionally throw wildly to let NH score. The NH coach quickly realized what VT was trying to do and promptly instructed his team to lose the game at all costs by swinging and intentionally missing the wild pitches; ignoring VT’s third baseman who stopped wiping away the tears from his eyes long enough to beg the NH coach to “please let him hit it.” NH struck out, lost the game, ultimately won by forfeit, and now stands two wins away from a Little League World Series title.

It’s sad to think that the once-in-a-lifetime/rewarding memories these kids will take away from this summer will most likely be overshadowed by the instances when the adults in their lives chose to manipulate their experiences by injecting the kind of reprehensible morals that only adults are capable of displaying. Because of this, I’ve found myself thankful for my own less-tainted childhood memories.

As a child of the 80s, my memories, at first glance, are carbon copies of everyone else’s: Little League, We are the World, Hot Wheels, Swatches, Transformers, Bill Buckner, Bill Cosby, MTV, Reagan, the Challenger, Fraggle Rock, etc. Although it’s slightly comforting to think about how I’m connected with millions of people through these memories, as an individualist, however, I’m also alarmed. Didn’t I have any unique experiences? Isn’t there a memory that only I can claim as my own? I’ll worry about that in another entry; for now though, I’ll focus on one other memory from my childhood: the Choose Your Own Adventure books.

For those of you who lived in a cave, or maybe Vermont, the Choose Your Own Adventure books led readers like myself through an exciting plot full of twists M. Night Shymalan could only dream of imagining and at nearly every turn, when the characters were faced with an important choice, the reader decided what to do next. Go to p. 47 if you choose to fight the rabid 1200-pound dog. Flip back to p. 39 if you want to escape in a helicopter with the cute girl. And just like in life, the first instinct, the seemingly obvious choice, isn’t necessarily the right one. If you turned to p. 39, you discovered you crashed the helicopter and became trapped in quicksand. If you cheated (and we all did) and then flipped to p. 47 anyway, the 1200-pound dog wasn’t rabid at all…just a lonely dog wanting to play fetch who ultimately led you to safety. Like snowflakes, no two Choose Your Own Adventures were alike, and so, in a way, I can consider these books to be my own unique childhood memory. And as has been the case in most of my entries, this revelation is directly related to the most recent events of my life. If you disagree, your helicopter has crashed and you are stuck in quicksand. If you agree, flip to the next paragraph…

When I was 4-months-fresh out of college, I accepted a unionized position at the Evil Empire, earning more than twice as much money as I had ever made in my life. (Of course, that’s not saying much when you consider my paper route/work study/sandwich shop/telemarketer/camp counselor background.) Within the first two hours of employment, the union representative was smothering me like a toddler on her newborn sister, and I was ordered to join the union and pay dues for this representation. Always the one to respond to orders as if they were given on Opposite Day, the adventure I chose was to join the union “under protest”; although represented by the union, I gave up my vote and voice in exchange for a world without dues. (At 22, I considered getting out of paying money to strangers as a wise financial decision.)

Through numerous twists and turns I won’t discuss, it can be argued that my refusal to join the rabid-dog union led me safely through the 5 or 6 Lay-Off Marches to my current and much more English-degree-appropriate Evil Empire job. Like Marty saving the peeping-Tom George McFly, this decision made in the blink of an eye changed the course of my history. I won’t argue that my snap judgment was better than a carefully planned decision, however. Stated simply, the down-the-long-road fortunate effects of my choice were pure dumb luck and like the former Lay-Off March victims, my fortunes can change on a dime.

And so, yesterday, as I sat there and listened to the familiar “in an effort to remain competitive” speech, and quickly realized that I was most likely one year away from my very own Lay-Off March, I couldn’t help but think about those Choose Your Own Adventure books. With the nine lives I’ve lived at the Evil Empire, I feel as though I’ve already flipped to p. 39 to discover the helicopter crash and now I have the chance to take what I know and run to the rabid dog of p. 47. Like the kids of Little League who still have a chance to learn the values of honor and respect and fair play, I still have a chance to leave this place on my terms and discover new adventures. And in doing so, I’ll remember the valuable life lesson inadvertently provided by one more Little League team as it traveled home from a baseball tournament. When the team passed a kiosk selling popcorn, one player excitingly said, “Oh, popcorn! Let’s come back!” Another player responded that they couldn’t come back, “because we’re only 10 for one year.”

The Infamous Benchly Waterslide Incident of 1984

At work, I was recently asked why I had a fear of pools/water and so I described in vivid detail, the events that transpired over 20 years ago that, to this day, still greatly affect me. During this global-warming-reminder of a summer, when water is our source of sweet relief, I think that maybe we could all benefit from this lesson-learned in water safety. And so, without further ado, I present my dramatic retelling of the Infamous Benchly Waterslide Incident of 1984:

Oh! the Infamous Benchly Waterslide Incident of 1984, a dark stain on our family’s history. It was a hot summer day not unlike today, and my family ventured to the water park in Lake George, NY. With trepidation, I climbed the stairs with Papa Benchly to the top of the highest* waterslide in the park. The waterslide waters were fast** that day, my friends! But with encouragement from my father, I placed my 7-year-old body on the slide and pushed off into the dark, abysmally unknown water world. Five seconds later, as I slid faster and faster down this wet labyrinth, unbeknownst to me, in an effort to expedite the wait in line, the park attendee was forcing Papa Benchly to push off into the same slide despite his loud, vocal protest in which he cited various kinetic formulas. As I quickly neared the end of this ride, I slowly gained confidence in my ability to master the slippery world of water, but this ride was not to have a happy ending; indeed, it nearly had a tragic one. For as I reached the bottom, and with Mama Benchly standing in the pool with her loving arms outstretched, ready to catch me, Papa Benchly proved his various kinetic theorems by crashing into me and pushing me to the bottom of the pool. Emotionally crushed by my father’s apparent attempt to murder me, I lost sight of any reason to live and decided to stay below the surface. If it wasn’t for Mama Benchly, who snatched me out of the waters and carried me to shore, I might not be here today.

*Exaggeration.
**Unconfirmed. The waterslide park in question refused to comment on said accusations.

“He waited in the garden ’til that cat came walking ’round”

On our pseudo-daily walk today, CP told me a story that I felt the need to pass on to my faithful LJ readers. This is a story that was passed on to her by her husband, a carpenter. I smell urban legend, but regardless, it was too good, and too painful to keep to myself. It goes like this:

One of CP’s husband’s carpenter friends and his buddy were working on a home in Vermont a few summers ago. The carpenter decided, as most Vermont carpenters apparently do, to bring his dog with him that day. And because many Vermont home owners are rich snobs, the owner of the home took one look at the dog and said, “I don’t want dogs on my lawn.” So the dog was reluctantly banished to his owner’s truck (with the windows down, of course).

After the home owner left for the day with her young daughter in hand, and because the home was in a remote location, the dog’s owner felt that there would be no harm in letting his little friend out of his vehicular cage to run around for a bit. And so he did. An hour or so later, his dog emerged from behind the house carrying a dead and dirty cat in his mouth. The cat, who, for the sake of the story, will be called Fluffy, had a collar with a tag wrapped around the very same neck on which the dog had been chewing. The collar listed the home owner’s address. The dog owner and his friend silently screamed.

It’s hard to imagine what you’re capable of doing when placed in a situation such as this one. I, for one, might have fainted and then, subsequently run away, never looking back on the home, its owner, and the half-day’s pay I was leaving behind me. Others might have ventured to the local pet store to find a suitable match. Others still might have thrown the cat in the woods and pretended nothing had happened. With this in mind, reader, please do your best to refrain from judging the reaction of the dog owner and his friend. For it’s a reasonable assumption that they must have passed plenty of judgment on themselves as they stood there in their customer’s bathroom, washing and blow drying the dead pet cat’s fur.

After Fluffy’s coat of fur was cleansed as best as could be, the dog owner and his friend decided to place her on a chair near a window, curling her up in a position in which they imagined all pet cats found themselves at one point or another during the day. At this point, with the dog safely back in the car, and the dead cat pretending to be alive, the dog owner and his friend went back to work. As if on cue, shortly thereafter, the home owner and her daughter returned home. As the mother and daughter entered their home, the dog owner and his friend held their breath. A minute or two later, the expected shrieks from the young girl could be heard coming from inside the home.

When all was said and done, the dog owner and his friend learned a lesson on the value of honesty. Though most people would never have told the truth in a situation like that, the shocking heartache the young girl experienced that day could have been avoided if the dog owner and his friend had come clean when they had had the chance. Instead, they had to answer to the home owner and her crying daughter. But seriously, can you blame them for what they did? I mean, honestly, how were they supposed to know that they spent an hour that day cleaning up and placing Fluffy in her family’s home only days after her family had buried her in the backyard?

The Stolen Child

Part I
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand

One piece of Benchly gossip I neglected to mention in my last entry is what my favorite Christmas present was this past year. As the wrapping-paper dust settled on another Benchly Christmas, Mama and Papa Benchly said, “Don’t forget. [Mr. Benchly] has one more present.” Considering there were no boxes left unopened, I was puzzled and my expression said as much. And it was at this point that everyone in the room turned in my direction and told me in unison that Sister #1 was pregnant. So yes, that’s right, faithful readers, if the fates have their way, Niece #4 will be gracing our presence in August.

It’s been a long time since my last entry. In fact, it’s been more than a month since my discussion of second cousins, and while I’ve been actively responding to other people’s entries, it can safely be said that I haven’t been keeping up with my fair share of the blogging. And for that, I apologize. I’d like to get back into the habit of posting at least two significant entries every week; I just need the will power to do so.

I think it’s fair to say that my relationship with Freckles has affected my writing. Before Freckles, I was lonely, miserable, and filled to the blonde-haired brim with inspiration for meaningful (read: misery-filled) entries. But after that fateful June day when Freckles charmed me by saying she was a “bad, I’m talking off-the-road bad driver,” my focus has been more on her and less on my writing. But I don’t blame her, and you shouldn’t either.

I think Sarah the L will concur with my assertion that writers are most productive in their bitter, heartache days than at any other time in their lives. Knowing this, my new goal in life is to cherish and focus on my happiness while simultaneously channeling the miserable emotions from my past for my writing. If I can find a balance between the two, I believe I’ll be able to be both happy and a good writer.

Fortunately or, more to the point, unfortunately, my life as of late has been filled with some negativity that has Inspiration written all over it. And so, consequently, in this first entry of the new year, I’ll be able to draw on emotions from the present negativity, rather than worry about experimenting with those from the past. But before the negative, first some positive because, as is often the case, there was a poetic quiet before the storm…

As some of my 5 or 6 readers may remember, my last entry described my excitement over the revelation that a member of my family was performing on Broadway. Well, thanks in whole to the unbridled generosity of Freckles’ family (both extended and immediate), 2005 ended with quite a harmonious bang. Following a limo ride from Pennsylvania into New York City, and a rewarding dinner at a fine Italian restaurant in the Broadway district, Freckles’ aunt handed us 6th row center seats to Spamalot (aka, my second cousin’s show). Both the show and my relative were amazing and although I’m slightly bitter that my cousin was a no-show at our last-minute-planned meet-and-greet after the show, I was excited when Freckles and I were able to score autographs from both Hank Azaria and David Hyde Pierce.

The remainder of our New Year’s trip to Pennsylvania was spent celebrating Freckles’ cousin’s engagement, eating a never-ending supply of delicious snacks and meals, fighting off the little cousins for time on the X-Box (and losing), shopping the outlets, and aiming my paintball gun at the freckled redhead wearing the bright red sweatshirt who was aiming her paintball gun at me. Not only did I discover that I can survive and prosper in a paintball game, I also discovered, thanks to a direct hit to my middle finger, that I won’t ever want to play paintball again. And then, as the sun began to rise on the new year, I stood on the beach and watched the ocean water of my life recede to the horizon at an alarmingly fast rate.

Part II
For the world’s more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Some days, when I’m overwhelmed with the anguish that seems to have set up shop in my world, I can find ample solace in the promise of my sister’s unborn and uncorrupted child. Most days, though, this baby can be only what he/she should be: a sweet footnote to an otherwise tumultuous month.

After enjoying our four-day weekend, Freckles and I returned from our Pennsylvania trip unenthusiastically ready to take on the working world again. First thing Tuesday morning, we were greeted by our company’s president, who read a statement he had been assigned by his bosses to read. As it turned out, the statement was, in effect, our termination notice. The company that owned our company had decided to close shop, move most of the work to a sister company, and offer one-fourth of the workers jobs at a sister company. As luck would have it, Freckles and I found ourselves in the group of workers “traded” to another company. As The Doctor said, “I feel as though I just used my eighth of nine lives here.”

It’s an odd feeling, this feeling of survivor’s guilt at the site of 150 of your coworkers doing the Lay-Off March. These are people with families; some with very little education and/or limited skills who fear the world outside of this small Vermont town they’ve known their whole lives. And yet I still have a job. With that said, although my intentions are still to leave as soon as a better offer comes along, I won’t pretend that the predominant emotion I’ve felt the last month is anything other than relief at having this job on which to fall back. But even so, other events in the month have served as reminders that life is more important than the company from which your next paycheck is coming.

I mentioned earlier that anguish had seemed to lay its roots in my world. I think that that’s the gentlest way to describe the fact that, in the past month, the lives of three of my loved ones have been greatly affected by four instances of cancer. The best friend of one of my best friends lost her fight with cancer earlier this month. And in the past month or so, I learned that the fathers of three wonderful women in my life were diagnosed with various cancers. After looking on from a secondhand point of view, I’ve learned how incredibly helpless one can feel at the hands of this powerful and mysterious sickness.

Again, I think of my sister’s unborn child. When anxiously awaiting all the joyous moments of this soul’s life, it’s difficult to overlook all the heartache that awaits it, too. Why do we do this? Why is it our pleasure to bring children into a world of pain and suffering? It seems that for every child that fulfills her childhood dream of starring on Broadway, there’s one that begins to successfully enter her adult life only to discover a loved one at risk to exit it. But then. Then, there are unexpected moments in your life that bring with them such a clarity that helps you recognize how worthwhile your life is.

And so it was that I found myself in the passenger seat of a car driven by Freckles, shaken up after skidding off the road into a snow bank/ditch, checking to see if Freckles was OK, making sure I was OK, fighting off the inevitable shock to determine what needed to be done, and saying a silent prayer of gratitude for being allowed the opportunity to continue to share my life with someone so special. Yes, the world may be more full of weeping than a child can understand, but as you grow older, you begin to realize that it’s mostly filled with love.