Pressing Concerns

I don't know what kind of lives people are leading around here, but I noticed about half a dozen condoms in the parking lot outside my office yesterday, along with a half-empty apple juice bottle full of what I've decided to just assume is apple juice. All this is just from this weekend. Nobody's touched any of this stuff so far. I think we're all just hoping it washes down the storm next time it rains. It's supposed to rain tomorrow.

Also, I have this awful feeling of dread that it's just a matter of time before somebody gets famous as a Jewish rapper, propelled into the national musical and religious spotlight by the surprise success of his infectious dancefloor hit, "Challah Back."

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Lottery Winner

Recently, a talented photographer/illustrator named Jessica Poundstone commented that she enjoys getting inspired to write by the things she reads here.

That's about the noblest service I can provide, the way I see it, because I personally find writing terribly intimidating and hard to talk myself into. Anything that gives me that shove in the right direction is greatly appreciated. So for her, and me, and anybody else interested, I'm passing along an Official Writing Assignment.

*****

I saw in the news that a couple weeks ago, a record number of people in Iowa won the Powerball lottery on the same day, and an unusual number of entrants played the exact same set of numbers. Eventually, somebody asked some of these winners where they got the numbers, and it turned out they all came from fortune cookies.

Obviously fortune cookie messages are mass-produced and distributed, and somebody is responsible for writing those messages. So imagine you're the CookieCo employee who made up that series of numbers that went in the cookies - 22, 28, 32, 33, and 39. (You missed the Powerball, by the way - your final number was 40 and the winner was 42. Otherwise they'd all have won $25.5 million.)

Nonetheless, because of this turn of events and the various intricacies of the lottery program, 89 people won $100,000 each, and 21 more won $500,000. 110 people ended up with almost twenty million dollars altogether - thanks to your numbers.

Now: write one of them a letter. It can say whatever you want. You can try persuading them to share the wealth, or just congratulate them, or just amuse them, or yourself, or whatever.

*****

One letter from you, fortune cookie number-maker-upper, to them, recent winners of the West Des Moines Multi-State Lottery. It sounds kind of hard, as I sit here thinking about it, but maybe it'll be fun as well.

I promise I'll do the assignment too.

My Mind Is Like A Self-Describing Thing

I was just thinking about my brain just now, and while I can't remember everything I thought about, I think it had something to do with my having a bad memory.

It's awful, actually, my memory. So's the predicament of having a bad memory. They're both awful.

Well, not entirely, I suppose - I'm a great confidante, for example, because I'll never reveal your secrets. "You swear you'll never tell anyone?" "Yep. I swear." Of course, I'll need to be told those secrets all over again if you ever want to talk about it with me, but that's a small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes with spilling your guts into a sieve.

Maybe this is why I'm such an avid photographer, note-scribbler and receipt-saver, I wonder. I could be holding on to these things as prompts, memory joggers that might one day lead me back to some of the many moments I've lost. My scraps of paper are like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs. Or was it Little Red Riding Hood? Whoever it was that scattered the crumbs as they (or she) (or he) walked through the forest... that one.

I swear, I could have solved the mysteries of the universe in the car this morning, and they'd have been gone by the time I hit the front door of my office. Caffeine may have something to do with this.

So I've decided what my mind is like. It's definitely not like a steel trap, and while it would be easy to compare it to some sort of computer - what with the input and output and so forth, and a teeny tiny hard drive - I don't really want to be compared to a computer.

It's also not like a drum. I have a drum here on my desk, and it's really cool - all hammered metal with a stretched animal skin head. There are two, and the other one's just as cool - smaller, and wooden instead of metal. I actually wouldn't mind having a mind like a pair of tablas. Tablas are from Northern India and Pakistan, you know.

If my mind were like a drum I could make arcane comparisons, like that I am an instrument, and that the universe beats against my mind and causes it to resonate sympathetically, harmonically, casting my tone out into space. That might solve the whole Mysteries of the Universe thing at the same time, actually. That would be nice.

But my mind is not like a drum. It doesn't just transform pressure into sound; in fact it's pretty quiet.

Nope - my mind is like a magnolia tree. It sits in the dirt and absorbs what's around it, watching the birds fly past and the cars honk their horns. It's one big thing made up of millions of tiny things, all interconnected, and each of them does its work individually, and shows its progress individually, but if you stand back from it you can see how all the little parts are doing the same thing at the same time, and the whole thing changes color. Occasionally.

You can water the soil, or prune the branches, or talk to it all you want, but you can never predict exactly when it will bloom, or exactly what it will look like. But it will be pretty - that's almost a certainty - as long as you like magnolia trees. Not everybody does.

And then, after just a little while, it drops its petals, forgetting what it did or how it did it or how many times it's done it before. The petals cover the ground below, gradually breaking down into the dirt and being reabsorbed by the tree's roots, making it a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger than the last time it bloomed.

The flowers are replaced by leaves, and the birds continue to fly by, and the cars keep honking past, and sure enough it goes dormant once more. But it'll be back.

I should write that down ... take a picture ... something. I must try to remember that. It will be back.

The Difference Between Brian Wilson and 2Pac

One was responsible for the 1966 Beach Boys masterpiece Pet Sounds, which included the song "God Only Knows"; the other was behind 1996's All Eyez On Me, and its defiant "Only God Can Judge Me."

These two compositions, thirty years apart, both invoke a deity, though for vastly different purposes, and it's up to the listener to decide which has more musical merit.

What cannot be argued, though, is the grammar. The placement of the modifier "only" is tricky, and the plain fact of the matter is that Brian got it wrong while 2Pac got it right.

What Brian *meant* was that no one besides God knew what would become of him without his beloved companion. This would have been correctly expressed as, "Only God knows what I'd be without you," or perhaps, "God alone knows what I'd be without you." It doesn't sound as good that way, I'll grant him, but hey: accuracy isn't always catchy.

'Pac, on the other hand, could probably find part-time work as a substitute English teacher, were he not dead.

"Only God can judge me" is an airtight, thugged-out refusal of personal responsibility, and even Brian, who was in contrast not shot four times in a drive-by following a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas, must concede that, in at least one respect, 2Pac got the better of him.

One More Reason to Look Forward to Summer

When it’s hot, my dog looks like he’s smiling more often.