First Person.

"That's noble of you, but will it bring you joy?"
Which may be a misquote; by that point my mind was already disappearing into a caffeine-void alpha-state of floating colors and snatches of forms; but the message made its way through the fogged perception and sat, boulder-like, on the conscious.

"That's noble of you, but will it bring you joy?"
The antithesis of generations of Scotch Calvinists, fatalistic believers that joy is not to be trusted, that it is a veneer of faux finish deceiving the casual glance into a vortex of ... of what is the fear? Loss of propriety? Loss of work ethic? What do these god-obsessed too-noble Scotsmen most fear, besides mismatched plaid or the English?

And so, gazing deeply into the eyes of my forefather's forefathers, I blink, shuffle the papers, sharpen a pencil, annotate the to-do list (subcategorized by purpose, destination, intention, and importance), and side-step the question.

"That's noble of you, but will it bring you joy?"
But what is joy, that slippery, slithering construct of more than happiness and not really contentment: the joyous are more likely to be found singing off-key in the alleyway than quietly taking up knitting. What is joy? Does it disappear into the ephemeral cloud-land of emotion, lost through one's grasp as the evenings shorten and life responsibilities gather, storm clouds of unwashed dishes on the horizon? Does joy simply escalate discontent, the framework of an operational reality agreed to by a sober society lost to the altered state of joy?

Joy is dangerous; nobility builds societies, provides medical care, feels the poor, establishes schools, enforces the substructure that keeps everyone having coffee, slicing bread, playing dominoes, washing cars. Nobility plants trees, salvages from hurricanes, restores order, learns the multiplication tables, visits nursing homes, embraces expectations.

Joy claims to be able to do all this, and more.

Joy taunts with building respectful and nurturing communities, providing free and timely medicine to the neediest of humanity, teaches agriculture to the poor, building irrigation systems and supplying seed, stocks schools with globes and textbooks and passionate teachers and engaged students, brews free-trade organic coffee in espresso machines with the foam poured out in the shape of a heart, bakes the bread from grains milled at a reopened water-powered grist mill, plays Mahjong and dominoes and serves martinis and canapes, washes cars in service of high school fundraisers, proceeds buying new trumpets and refurbishing band uniforms.

Joy plants apple and pear trees, espaliered against brick walls, glowing in afternoon sunlight; joy houses itinerant families and their dogs, displaced by hurricanes, and helps secure jobs and housing; creates a new paradigm of order, where the laws and expectations are enforced with dignity and respect and kindness; turns multiplication tables into games and flashcards, handing out achievement stickers progressively flashier as the numerals increase, until the illogical twelves tables are conquered, and victory dance ensues; gives manicures at nursing homes, joining a game of checkers after dinner, playing the rather lackluster piano in accompaniment of Christmas carols and happy 103rd birthdays; exceeds expectations by such leaps and bounds that they shatter into fragments, the infrared and ultraviolet suddenly appearing as part of the visible spectrum.

Joy is seductive. Imagine always living in technicolor, swinging around lamp posts, stomping in puddles, jumping into piles of just-raked crackling aromatic leaves, feeling the presence of each microbe, bacterium, cell, parasite, organ, system as the body charts its daily schedule, interacts with every surface, feels every breeze, exists as one part of the continuum of reality, alive.

Imagine the first bite of chocolate mousse, the tang of hot cider after a winter walk, the smell of the paper of a new book, the feel of clean sheets, the satisfying crackle of a fountain pen on hot pressed paper, the soft spot just behind a cat's ears, walking unexpectedly past a rose bush in full bloom at dusk.

Imagine experiencing all of these things, while otherwise engaged in vacuuming, bill-paying, rodent de-festing, oil changing, rush hour traffic, dish washing, town-dump running, blood donating, waiting in line, jury duty, but still enhanced by the palpable joy that is merely being alive at this moment surrounded and embraced by such beauty that dragonflies dart at sunset and the moon rises through the clouds.

The dryer eats another sock, the cat has a hairball, the neighbor throws a party that may or may not be infested with questionable substances, but still, underneath: socks are, well, socks, and can be replaced by striped woolen ones with contrast heels; cats have miraculous recovery powers and carpets can be cleaned, and hairballs are, after all, less distasteful than a pile of partially decapitated mice; the neighbor mows the lawn regularly and shares wireless access freely, and doesn't complain about morning harpsichord music played at full volume; underneath is that seething resevoir of embrace, of humor, of a contentment built according to the lines of the perspective of joy.

And so the lecture of duty and nobility runs its pre-written, well-inscribed track in the grooves of my brain, the lessons of get-it-done, see-it-through, take responsibility, do-it-now instilled by generations of the uncreative or scared or merely law abiding Scotsmen, a code handed by whip and by lecture to the rumored ancestral cabin boy on the Mayflower (why not, indeed? we had to come over at some point, and it wasn't on the Santa Maria and it wasn't on the Titanic), the cabin boy still internalized these expectations and brought them along with his Calvinism, his dour nature, his tendency towards glum, his partial literacy, his sincere faith in the wrath of God, his malnourished body and his somehow still adventurous soul; and passed them to his sons, and his sons' sons, and their sons, until at some point all those sons begat daughters, also, who were duly informed that the right and proper way of the world could only be achieved by the nobility of duty above all else.

And so, gazing deeply into the eyes of my forefather's forefathers, I blink, shuffle the papers, sharpen a pencil, mark off a few recent accomplishments on the to-do list, still subcategorized, annotated, amended, and alphabetized, and decline to avert my gaze.

I'm tired of the exhaustion of selfless dedication; I'm tired of engaging with a dialogue which is banal and petty and rather insipid; I'm tired of not mixing my plaids, I'm tired of fearing the god damned English. Nobility doesn't have to be separate from joy; selflessness is not synonymous with appropriate action; the pursuit of joy is not the pursuit of self-satisfied hedonism. The energy of joy feeds the self and feeds the world, and, no, these rules really are rather pedantic.

In short, well advised. I'm choosing joy, and bequeath the nobility of the planning board for someone whose own joy will actually be served by civic obligation; but that person is not myself; my joy, and in it my more sincere nobility, hover and wait in other endeavors.

---

reading
Pema Chodron, "The Places that Scare You," a book which I would like to hand out to everyone I know and love

weather
this much rain has not fallen over a summer since that which I spent in Edinburgh, the summer that laundry never dried, endless pots of tea were steeped, and I purchased the umbrella that still serves today

it is us

Six word memoirs. Is the difficulty in the six words, or in the memoir? Is the memoir more approachable when it is someone else's?

Tried. Failed. Tried again. Gave up.
        anonymous suicide jumper from Sears Tower,
        later discovered to have been younger, less accomplished sibling of [insert multi-billionaire media mogul]

Had a little lamb. Lost him.
        a quite contrite Mary

Porridge, chairs, beds, bears; oh, shit.
        Goldilocks, the uncensored version

My mother didn't love me enough.
        Sigmund Freud

Evil stepmother, demanding dwarfs, handsome prince.
        Snow White
easily becomes
Evil stepmother, glass slippers, handsome prince.
        Cinderella
in either of the above, "true love" may be substituted for "handsome prince"

Wrong turn; sorry about the calculations.
        Christopher Columbus

Why just one wife, not six?
        Henry VIII

Watched apples fall: gravity into Calculus.
        Isaac Newton

No! Not you! I love him!
        Viola, Twelfth Night

Saved that kid too many times.
        Lassie

Russia seemed so easy. My mistake.
        Napoleon

God, I'll give back the apple.
        Adam

Perhaps I wrote them. Perhaps not.
        Shakespeare

Intense man; mad wife in attic.
        Jane Eyre

Cherry tree, wooden teeth, crossed Delaware.
        George Washington

Printer, diplomat, scientist, author, lover, repeat.
        Benjamin Franklin

Don't get caught. Destroy this message.
        Richard Nixon

Six words is just sufficient to show how little we ever know of a person, to illuminate the cliche and leave open a wide field of supposition. Did they care a whit about the Nobel prize, the knighting, circumnavigating the globe, mapping the heavens, balancing ledgers, changing the boundaries of the civilized world, shooting a lion, or penning a major component of literature, philosophy, or music?

What does the bare platform of six words allow for the reason to get up in the morning, the stripe of sunlight across the carpet, the saunter of a cat across a parlor whilst tea is being poured?

Six words leaves out too much motivation, the hour hand suddenly leaping forward in the absence of the reassuring clicking progression of seconds. He lived miserably, but discovered the elemental make up of the atmosphere. Was a mediocre surgeon, a baker of burnt bread, a sloppy workman, an illiterate bore, but an amazing lover. Could read in twelve languages, design aeronautic instruments, but regretted stealing his sister's allowance his entire life.

Guerrilla freedom fighter, secret butterfly collector.

Decorated General; always lost the map.

Not much to say, but beautiful.

Dammit, no sugar in my coffee.
Dammit, No water in my whiskey.

Speechless with awe at life's bounty.

Actually, I take it all back.

Reconsider, reflect, count each word, calculate.

Was that the epitaph on a life fully lived, to be parsed down to a cliche concentrate, a pastiche of all that once mattered? Concentrate on what might have been, leave out what actually occurred, leave out the mundane, the repetitive, the second, tenth, fifty-third attempts, and instead record

Opened hearts solidified by heavy eating.

Perfectly manicured lawns, striped in sunlight.

I loved him, and he left.

Decoded Church secrets; burnt at stake.

Created secret decoder ring, lost key.

Heard voices of God, electroshock therapy.

Repaired cars with hope and spit.

Censored world-wide, partial translations available.

Thought revolutionary thoughts, lacked revolutionary will.

Calculated the odds, and stayed home.

Rewrote the ending, lost both copies.

Upon reconsideration, would alter battle plans.

Didn't mean what I said, ever.

---

reading
Compiling the August retreat Reading List, which is currently bulging with Rilke and with Buddhism. Contemplating several weeks of caffeine-free vegetarian sobriety, which terrifies. Is a detoxed me, still me?

weather
from sun to rains and back again

connections

To trounce is not to pounce, excepting in the greater metaphorical sense of jumping upon someone's beliefs, opinions, or actions, and beating the life out of them.

Per Merriam Webster:
          trounce [origin unknown] : to thrash or punish severely : as 1. FLOG, CUDGEL 2. to defeat decisively
The following word in the dictionary is troupe.
          pounce [ME talon] : the claw of a bird of prey
            1. to swoop upon or seize 2. to make an abrupt assault
            the act of pouncing
The preceding word is poultry man.

Rather than allowing the mind to swoop and swerve and dash and dally with all the lovely addictive words contained within Webster's; rather than meandering into the territory of those persons adored as founts of new vocabulary words; rather than becoming endlessly lost in the forest of text that is the hallowed hunting and haunting grounds of semiotics and semantics passionistas everywhere; instead allow the mind to refocus on the threads and twirls of those two words and the cousins by proximity.

To trounce, to thrash or punish. Origin unknown. No origin can ever truly be so obscure as to provide nary a hint of its parentage or lineage. A peek at the labors of Mr. Johnson or a delve into the depths of the sacred Oxford English might provide a smidgen of DNA evidence, the concept of paternity, the dropped fingerprint waiting by the scene indicating the presence of something else. And thus would go the entire evening, lost to the pleasures of letterforms and the puzzling options of language use chosen by the compilers. It would provide neither character nor plot, would preclude any forlorn hope of dialogue or development, and thus would the sunset descend upon another day lost in the web of obscurity.

Let the bully Trounce, hypocritical, aggressive judge of others, thrash and punish as it must. Or allow the overachieving Trounce to declare victory, victory at soccer, chess, verbal dexterity, mathematical equations, political maneuverings, allow the uncompromising vaguely Machiavellian Trounce to win, and win again, and again. That it, after all, its purview and prerogative.

Perhaps its mother was horrified at the shape of the word at birth, left it upon the lexicographical doorstep with a plea to provide care and nourishment to the unpromising foundling. Perhaps Trounce takes after the paternal side, a love-'em-and-leave-'em type who deserted the scene when inconvenience descended. Perhaps Trounce simply, suddenly, was, and there endeth that discussion of begets and legacies.

Trounce needed to exist, and was formed of hurricanes and blizzards, invading Nordic marauders and territory hungry knights, and the defeated, lacking a word to describe the miserable process of loss and pillage, took another draught of mead, watched a cat kill a mouse in a corner of the pub, and the pounce became a trounce: dead mice don't return to a rematch the following day. So declares the Middle English, the talon of predator dispatching the worldly desires of the prey, not deigning to spare a second thought for the alternative life plans of the recently deceased.

An abrupt assault can often lead to a trouncing; so say the military histories of the world, so does the owl or the lion or the bat acquire sustenance. And as pounce, of the talon of the bird, follow directly after poultry

(and its second cousin, the mythical beast the Poultry Man, he who haunts chicken sheds at night, causing anger and aggression among the roosters, laying the blame on the raccoon or the fox innocently visiting the neighborhood on a restful farmyard holiday package, two days and three nights of milking cows and apple picking, not realizing that travel insurance fails to cover litigation fees caused by circumstantial evidence linking the presence of said fox or raccoon to the scene of the crime, when in reality it was that terror of the chicken coop, warn of from mother hens to chicks, guarded against by vigilant roosters, the terror and fear of the Poultry Man, who keeps chickens restless at full moons when he develops his terrifying tendencies, the avian version of the werewolf: sharply defined beak, claws growing at the ends of feet, powerful wings creating dust storms and opening gates in addition to permitting flying in the very orbit of the moon, the Poultry Man leaving behind only a signature pile of feathers and carnage. The Poultry Man developed from a strain of chicken pox run amok, a salmonella virus unkilled from insufficiently cooked flesh, eating the cookie dough made using raw eggs, the eggs tainted with the super-bugs of the poultry world: and ever after, the Poultry Man rises with the full moon.)

As as pounce, of the talon of the bird, follows directly poultry, one is tempted to concede to scientists their theory that dinosaurs were the ancestors of birds: so much aggression hidden in the seemingly demure "p o u". After all, lizards, excepting alligators and their ilk, rarely attack, but Hitchcock well described the horrors of the hollowed-boned community of sentient beings, what evil lurks in the heart of birds.

Thus the poultry provides the unproven link to pounce; thus the cat trounces the mouse; so proceed the unceasing documentaries of domestic drama as view in Days of Our Lives or The Nature Channel or the publication that manages to collage the two together in one montage through the auspicious privileges of anthropology, National Geographic.

Remember, if it is possible given the meanderings of this text, that troupe directly followed trounce; that gangs easily destroy individuals; that when one is outnumbered, even if one is skilled in the martial arts or fencing or witty repartee or turns into a werewolf or a poultry man and it happens to be the night of the full moon or has the element of surprise or superior brains -- in fact, anything less than gunpowder or small pox will still fall victim to the laws of numbers, which consistently declare that the troupe, be they commedia dell'arte performers or puppeteers or a scrum of rugby players or the full House of Representatives or a room overflowing with rabid toddlers, will always trounce the individual.

Bring germ warfare, bring pyrotechnics, bring maneuverings and manipulations, bring a picnic, but mostly, bring back up. Even up the odds. To avoid a trouncing avoid the troupe; and always beware of the poultry man. Double check shadows for the hidden danger of pouncers, and drink a draught of the linguist's own, the heady intoxication of suppositional semantic lineage.

Family trees available upon request, for an additional fee.

---

reading
How lovely when amazing artist's books are issued in trade editions; especially when one knows the artist, and / or friends own the high-end version.
Very well done: ABC3D
And hooray for Johnny! Over 10 years and three children in the making, Pictorial Webster's gets a wider audience. Pre-order through Amazon today!

weather
the days of summer when cool lingering mornings give way to sultry afternoons and unceasing evenings of brilliant clouds

two parts

Fiona's Life
        as dictated by Katie
        transcribed by Pippi

There once was a little girl named Fiona and she was nine years old. She lived on the beach in a little house and her house was brown. Also her house was a little far away from the ocean but she could see the ocean from her bedroom window, even though her house was one storey tall.

She had a garden and she had pink, purple, red, white, blue and turquoise flowers that grew behind her house. There was sand in front of her house. She had lots of tall trees that were good for climbing.

Fiona had a pet seahorse named Alfred who was 4 inches tall and ate seaweed that was green. Fiona got the seaweed for him from the ocean. Alfred could not talk but made mumbling noises
          mrmrmmmrmm
when he just wanted to talk. Fiona had no parents because they were washed away by a big wave when they were next to the sea shore and the big wave came, so she lived all alone, except for Alfred. She's happy that she doesn't have any parents to boss her around, but she misses them. She was four years old when they washed away, and she took care of herself. Her parents taught her how to do that, and how to escape from a fire, and how to protect herself from hurricanes, and how to kayak.

Her house has a lot of furniture like comfy couches, chairs, a desk, and an ottoman (the little thing for your feet). She has notebooks that she writes and draws in. She writes stories about little girls like her and draws pictures of her seahorse.

Fiona has a little tiny turquoise boat for kayaking in the ocean. She takes her notebook with her on the ocean and studies the ocean. Sometimes she does it while it's raining, with a pinkish-purplish umbrella. She sees clownfish that are five inches long that are orange and black striped. She sees lobsters, and sometimes she sees little dwarf sharks that can fit in her hand. There are seagulls and whales and stingrays and jellyfish and dolphins and seals. The dolphins and seals are her favorites. Fiona never learned how to swim: her parents were about to teach her and then the wave got them. So she doesn't swim.

She had a weathervane shaped like a cat on top of her house, that tells her when storms are coming. There haven't been any storms since the hurricane that got her parents.

Fiona found her seahorse Alfred on the seashore, and it was almost dying, but she got it in time. It looked like an Alfred seahorse she [already] had. so she name it Alfred, too. The first Alfred died, on its own, like people do.

Fiona doesn't go to school, because there aren't any. She eats seaweed and drinks water from her well (since saltwater gives a tummy ache). The boats on the ocean are too far away for her to see.

She isn't lonely since she has seal friends. They play tag, with Fiona in her kayak and the seals swimming. When the seals tag her they slap the boat with a fin, and Fiona taps the seals with a newspaper when she paddles up next to them.

Fiona is not a girly-girl. She wears kind of torn up clothes, but not too bad, and she wears her mother's old clothes. She has five matching outfits that are torn up, and one little sweater. She goes barefoot, but is really careful where she walks. Sometimes she cuts her foot on a rock, which hurts, but doesn't really hurt. There isn't any trash [on the beach], and she picks up any trash that washes up.

People walk on the beach sometimes, when they drive to the beach to visit. None of them are her friends: they might make friends for the day but not forever. She doesn't tell anyone that she lives there because it is her own secret and she doesn't share her kayak with anyone.

When no one is on the beach she goes into her house, where she has seaweed for dinner. She never gets tired of seaweed, because sometimes it's salty and sometimes it's sweet. So that's the life of Fiona. Sometimes writers get carried away, so I stopped right there and that is the end.

        -- Katie

[transcription note: the labyrinthian minds of children are amazing; they notice everything; and it is all relayed in such a matter-of-fact tone; this is their only reality. Punctuation and spelling by the editor, who also supplied minor grammatical structure.]

----------------------------

Operational Report.

Force 8 Gale. Generally impedes progress.

I was trying to go there - just there, under that tree, across the way. You can see the tree so clearly, each branch delineated, each leaf and individual entity, the squirrels chasing up and down, the general feeling of permanence.

The force of gale 8 is, at this very moment, breaking twigs off of that very tree, and the squirrels have changed their mind about playing tag and to say that progress has generally been impeded would be the least descriptive way of stating that my umbrella is inside out, my hair is alternately plastered to my head or spinning wildly in a vortex, my hat disappeared ten minutes ago, and it is all I can do to hold onto this lamp post and hope for the best.

Have I mentioned that there is imminent danger of the electrical wires overhead ceasing to remain safely strung above, offering a perch in gentler times for all variety of bird life, from the humble sparrow to the feisty cardinal to the eloquent owl to the despised starling to the unappreciated grackle, all of which would be delightful to contemplate if it weren't for this force 8 gale that seems intent upon impeding my progress and potentially about to tear the power lines from their too-fragile connection to the lamp post?

Perhaps determining a course of action when the barometer is falling and all predictions warn: be ware! be ware!, shutter the house, batten the hatches, tie down small children, close up the barn! would have preferably led to a situation other than holding on to a lamp post fighting a gale while ill-advisedly journeying from here to there by way of somewhere else.

Remember the wisdom of limiting peripatetic adventures to weather conditions of force 7, which merely inconvenience, or the force 6 which merely causes difficulty with the use of one's umbrella (presumably a sturdy umbrella, taut oiled cotton over an engineered frame, a pole of polished mahogany, as the generic travel umbrella is useless at much over a force 4, the fabled moderate breeze); henceforth vow that gale 8 winds will be left to their own devices, that once umbrellas are used with difficulty and inconvenience is noted when walking into the wind, thence one will remain where one started, unimpeded stability.

---

reading
Edward Lear by the light of the moon

weather
self-evident

away always away

On the Lam [Bonnie & Clyde]

On the lam. Running from the law. Backing away quietly.

Changing identity, forging papers, assuming aliases.

Dyeing hair, colored contacts, growing a beard, appearing in cross-dress clothing, wearing a wig, walking in shoes with lifts, acquiring a cane, faking a limp, borrowing a wheelchair, wearing a uniform, drawing a false tattoo: displaying the outward appearance of a rector, a UPS driver, a bohemian, a dancer, a clerk, a scholar.

Remembering that the shoes will give the game away. Rectors don't wear running shoes. Doctors don't wear Converse All Stars. UPS drivers don't wear footwear that isn't brown. Bohemians don't wear penny loafers. Dancers don't wear Teva sandals. Clerks don't wear wingtips. Scholars don't wear combat boots.

Remembering to find the car to fit the part. Rectors are rarely seen in BMW Z3 convertibles. Doctors seldom drive 1962 Chevy pick-ups. UPS drivers drive UPS trucks. Bohemians rarely are found behind the wheel of SUVs. Dancers seek out fuel efficient hatchbacks. Clerks buy used, featuring rust in wheel wells, flaking paint. Scholars can be identified by Volvo.

Remembering the dialect to go with the identity: the rector, articulate, considered, crisp, every phrase parsed from the canon of the Church. The doctor, hurried, distracted, jumping ahead to the next sentence before completing or beginning the first. The UPS driver, friendly, briskly efficient, but still with a biscuit for the resident dog, and a comment on the weather. The Bohemian, speaking slowly, unless forgetting to speak at all, then suddenly remembering that there are lines of narrative, and speaking in metaphors referring to Wittgenstein and Rilke, dark matter physics and all night raves. The dancer, speaking always with the body, the hands gracefully arcing through the air. The clerk, slightly officious and monotone, never expecting to be spoken to, rarely volunteering an expression, thought, or interjection, just waiting quietly to be addressed, responding in monosyllables. The scholar, endlessly off-topic, diversions into criticism or Freudian analysis, mentions of similar studies and research, a quizzical frown when tasked with the mundane.

These are the priorities: the shoes, the cars, the dialect. The clothing for each role varies little, aside from the professional demands of the rector and UPS driver. The doctor and the bohemian and the dancer and the clerk and the scholar can rotate through gently worn chinos, Levis with attitude, flannel shirts, wrinkled buttoned-downs, variations in corduroy, experiments in plaid. The difference between the role will be displayed in the shoes and the language.

Stay consistent. If the subtleties of switching from a clerk to a scholar to a doctor to a bohemian become unbearable, assign each a uniform, in the manner of the rector or the UPS driver. The scholar uses a cane. The doctor has green eyes. The bohemian has shaggy blond hair. The dancer wears black. The clerk wears a Swiss Army watch.

The roles can have the same alias or change nomenclature, running the gamut from Alfred to William by way of Henry, Mitchell, and Richard, throwing in a Gilbert or a David as needed. So many identity cards, false credit cards to keep track of; much easier to share one name amongst the group, appearing as the same Walter or Robert regardless of borrowed profession or vehicle.

The difficulty with being on the lam is knowing the whereabouts of one's pursuers. Are they everywhere, almost there, nowhere near, couldn't care? Is the case passively dropped, permissible to settle into a role, take up a hobby, consider measuring the length of a living room for a new coffee table, spending a bit of the quantity of cash, negotiating the parameters of a new self now that the old is off limits. No more Christmas cards or thank you notes. No more family birthdays or high school reunions. No more exes, no more alimony, no more back taxes, no more monogrammed luggage, no more bookplates, no more life insurance payments, no more of the collection of detritus that became an inescapable component of the old way of life.

Of course, the new identity will require a new collection of detritus, a convincing backstory for a life which was theoretically lived. The rector probably has an old Bible, a carved ship, a photograph of Rome or Ireland. The doctor has his framed certificates and golf clubs. The UPS driver raises goats or racing pigeons. The bohemian has amassed a collection of vintage German paperbacks, heavily foxed, stained with coffee, smelling of tobacco and cloves. The dancer has ice packs, painkillers, scarves, stories of Paris, St Petersburg, New York. The clerk has the backstory of a life almost lived, the collection of reissued childhood television shows, Gilligan’s Island, M*A*S*H, the A-Team. The scholar feigns a Buddhist aesthetic, each piece of kitsch appropriately Asian and ostentatiously simple, an expensive Persian rug quietly anchoring the room.

The new identity becomes domesticated, settled, the same apartment chosen for whichever role is adopted, the same furniture, small variations in accessory mirroring the anchoring of the clothing decisions by the footwear chosen. Of course, there might be a personal life, it might develop into a family life, a steadfast administrative assistant making pot roast and feeding the family dog. Except in the case of the rector, unless he is Anglican.

As the apartment remains the same except for the accessories, as the clothing remains the same except for the shoes, so the domestic scene remains the same, except for the dog. The rector often adopts a fox terrier, the doctor a black lab. UPS drivers favor Australian shepherds, while bohemians seek out Afghan hounds or Jack Russels. Dancers tend towards greyhounds, full scale models or petite Italian, clerks throw endless tennis balls for golden retrievers, scholars teach obscure commands in ancient Greek or Cantonese dialects to Portuguese water dogs or Rhodesian ridgebacks.

In the background the sturdy, dependable administrative assistant steams broccoli, vacuums, files for health insurance, provides children, avoids asking inappropriate questions. Unless being on the lam becomes a series of continuous relocations, in which case the domestic anchors of devoted partner and dog make quick getaways less efficient, more prone to error, complicated by finding the leash, the water bowl, the right shoes to match the going away ensemble, the favorite lamp, the collection of cookbooks or throw pillows or hand crocheted afghans.

Dogs must be walked, even when speeding away down interstates and back country roads, and if progeny were also acquired, home schooling lessons fit into the backseat of the car which was chosen for its appropriate alignment with the alias, not as a moving schoolroom smelling of fast food and tantrums.

The life on the lam can be accomplished in character with these accessories; the accessories become part of the character; the devout rector or drifting bohemian or dedicated doctor or career UPS driver or retired dancer turned choreographer or unambitious clerk or absorbed scholar anchored into the role of regular human being by the presence of the steadfast administrative assistant, the variety of dog, the unavoidable children.

In the end, though, someone will see past the dyed hair or the shaved head, the limp or the wheelchair or cane, the uniform, false tattoo, or beard. Even the shoes, the car, the dialogue, the appropriate accessories, the dog will one day cease to be enough, and that will be that. The sharp-eyed spinster, the sudden encounter with someone from the past, an unexpected fingerprinting, a close scanning of identity papers, an audit by the IRS, an inadvertent reference or a throw away remark out of character: and they are suddenly there, waiting in close proximity, and the life on the lam comes to a close.

---

reading snippets here and there, without delving into any particular texts:


Interesting observations about social and domestic expectations parsed by socioeconomic and education levels.
I'm not sure that I agree with the author's conclusions (mellow out, post-grads!), but it is generally accurate that codes of behavior are adjusted and modified and reconsidered in the light of the rigors of other commitments (such as the intensity of graduate study focusing the mind).


Books Briefly Noted: Go Down Together by Jeff Guinn | June 22, 2009

Probably won't read the book, but enamored with the review:
[Clyde] Barrow’s real strength was as a driver who maneuvered through multiple states with reckless speed, and Guinn’s engaging book reads like a road story—two kids from the Dallas slums in a fast car, headed to nowhere good. The truest part of the legend of Bonnie and Clyde was their affection for one another. "

weather
the ephemeral beauty of fresh raspberries