Shivering with anticipation

Waiting to fall

Forward, with you, into the unknown

Or backward, alone.

Teetering on the precipice,

Tense and waiting,

Aching for your touch.

Wondering where that touch will send me;

Will you pull me to you,

Or push me away?

Waiting on the edge

Sitting on the line between

Yes and no; the future and the past.

Balanced on the blade of hope.

One touch can decide all.

Waiting…to fall.

Sadly, the greater onus has to be on how you represent yourself. We all display a version of ourselves for public consumption, and at some point it is necessary to take some responsibility for how we are received. While there are some things that can not be erased, they can be mitigated. A gentleman of my acquaintance is 6′ 5” tall with a powerful, athletic build. There is no way it can escape anyone’s notice that he is large, however, he does not give off a threatening first impression. He cultivates a quiet calm, keeping his movements fluid and graceful to a degree that is soothing. He is at heart a very gentle man, which makes being in his presence rather like resting under a giant, old oak tree rather than the sensation of some dour cliff looming above, threatening to come crashing down.

Sometimes we hide things about ourselves, wanting to save them for those who are closest to us, perhaps only to those we trust the most.  Whatever reason we have for withholding pieces of ourselves from display, we must remember that while it makes it hard for anyone to truly reject us, neither can they accept us.  Holding forth a mask that everyone adores is a hollow victory.

Responsible Health Care Reform for All

Health care reform has been a topic of much debate in the past 18 months, and the passage of new legislation has not settled much. No one seems happy with the new law, believing that it either goes too far, or does not go far enough. I think the real problem is that we are traveling in the wrong direction.

Some of the critics of the new law have used the phrase “personal responsibility” in their arguments, but what they really mean is personal payments. However I would like to reclaim the phrase and make it meaningful. I do believe that a nation with our wealth, education and standing should make sure that health care is available to all of its citizens. I also think we need to take personal responsibility for our health to minimize the costs to our society.

The main argument against a nationalized health system is the prohibitive cost, but this is based on costs in a broken system. What we have is not free-market, laissez-fair economics or anything remotely tied to the regulating forces of supply and demand. For-profit insurance corporations need to recruit healthy people, who have very little health care “demand” to pay premiums which cover the medical costs of supplying their UN-healthy customers. Medical care providers, especially hospitals, need to charge exorbitant prices to the insurance companies to recoup the cost of uninsured patients who don’t pay their bills. People without insurance ignore minor health problems they can not afford to pay a doctor to treat, until the problem grows to something major, landing them in an emergency room where the hospital can not refuse to treat them, even if they cannot pay.

HMO s were developed with the idea that if people had inexpensive access to regular care, they would save money by avoiding costly major treatments caused by letting minor problems get out of control. Insurance companies, with their business experience and the ability to use economies of scale to make low-profit margin care, such as immunizations and check-ups profitable, combined with the wealth of information they held, which by its volume allowed them to do statistical analysis on patient care, populations and outcomes anticipated this as the business model that would revolutionized health care, making it affordable for people and profitable for companies to keep Americans healthy. It seemed like a reasonable argument, but it does not help those who don’t have an HMO and still strain the system, and it makes the insurance company, not the individual, or their physician, the arbiter of care.

We need to shift our focus away from care and toward health and that means personal choice and responsibility. I propose we have a nationalized health system, with initial eligibility determined by residency (much easier to handle than citizenship for those who need to check documentation at the desk). To minimize costs, we need to fall back on some personal responsibility.

I think we can all agree that someone who chooses a lifestyle of abusing illegal narcotics, is not taking responsibility for their health. I think most people would be, not only comfortable, but happy, if they knew their taxes were not paying for a heroin junkie’s AIDS medication, or root canal therapy for meth-heads. I do not propose allowing them to come to the emergency room for “free” care because of a lack of insurance, I suggest they become ineligible for national health care services. Oh, I’m sure that there will be some medical professionals who will hang out their shingles as private practitioners for the very wealthy, more along the lines of boutique medicine, and if the drug addicts haven’t gone through all of their own money, or they have wealthy and/or gullible family members to pay for private care, more power to them. I think all in all this policy will greatly reduce costs for care of drug addicts, neo-natal units filled with crack babies (who will now, not be born in hospitals and thus not burden the whole system with years of intervention and therapies) and will probably do more to win the “war on drugs” than DARE or “Just Say NO!”
Taking that idea of personal choice a bit further, I think it would be fair to exclude all smokers as ineligible. Considering the evidence that clearly shows the health risks of smoking, it is no more reasonable to have tax payers foot the bill for lung transplants, cancer treatments, emphysema care, or even asthma medication for someone who deliberately inhales toxins, than it is to pay for the heroin junkies.

Membership in gangs should exclude one from receiving treatment for violent trauma, gunshots, knife wounds and the like. To be fair, people who choose to indulge in risky behavior, like downhill skiing, racing, skateboarding and other sports which frequently cause injuries such as broken bones, should probably be excluded from receiving care for those clearly avoidable health care calamities.

Let’s face it, no one gets to be 400 pounds by accident. The behavior that causes obesity is a lifestyle choice. Obesity leads to stroke, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure and various other health problems. I don’t know anyone who goes out to force strangers to eat Twinkies as Friday night entertainment. It should not be our problem if these people choose to treat a family size box of macaroni and cheese as a single serving. Second graders are taught about the food pyramid so anyone over the age of seven knows they should be eating more fruits and vegetables than anything else Really, how much spinach would you need to consume to require an airlift out of your house because you won’t fit in an ambulance? Cows can’t eat that much!

The policy for sexually transmitted diseases hardly needs to be mentioned. This is clearly an area where responsibility is of the most personal nature. Being responsible about sex isn’t limited to disease of course. Pregnancy and childbirth are a huge part of health care and deserve serious attention. With the drain on the natural resources of this planet, we really don’t need population growth. Everybody should get to make one replacement on the house. I’m sure some people will claim that violates their religious beliefs, if so, let the church foot the maternity bill, or train mid-wives and open a birthing center. Of course, if you have a child in some facility that isn’t part of the national health system, we tax-payers can’t be expected to pay for the health care costs if someone else screws up the birth.

Current technological advances make this an ideal time for people to make really responsible choices about having children, in a way we simply could not have done 25 years ago. We can use pre-natal testing and genetic testing to screen pregnancies and probably, in many cases, couples contemplating pregnancy to avoid children with Down Syndrome and many other congenital birth defects. Just think when we can wipe out cancer and heart disease because we don’t have parents giving birth to children who carry the genetic predisposition! And why should society have to pay for the extensive costs of a child who has a malformed heart or only one lung, when it can be terminated? Parents who choose to raise a child like that clearly need to be cut off.

Critics are going to point out, and it is true, that there are a lot of problems that are not diagnosed until after the child is born, sometimes not until age two or three, but I am confident that improved testing will enable us to catch these things early enough to do something about them and changing our focus to responsible health care will free up money for more research to improve our health screenings.

This, of course, is just a broad outline. Real experts would have to fine-tune the details for situations that are bound to come up. Guidelines need to be in place for those who are told that their cholesterol is high, or other health issues that are not apparent without medical tests. How long does a patient have to take responsible action to correct his behavior before he is ineligible? If he suffers from a heart attack two days after being told he is at risk, I think it fair to cover him, but six months later? That should have been sufficient time to make significant changes. At two or three months, we need the experts to handle those calls.

I may be an optimist, but I predict that within 30 years of implementing these policies, our nation will have virtually eliminated the majority of the problems facing our society today. It is easy to see that gang and drug related crime would essentially disappear, bringing overall crime down dramatically (bringing a huge additional savings in the penal system). Reduced population would mean our school systems wouldn’t be overburdened, producing a better educated citizenry, reduced population would also have to mean lower unemployment and healthier workers would also make for increased productivity, so that should eliminate poverty as we know it. Our nation, being healthier, would walk and bike more, making us less dependent upon fossil fuels and so, more secure. Of course, unless the rest of the world follows our example, we can only stave off the energy crisis, but that may give us the time we need to find a real solution.

As you can see, moving to real personal responsibility will make our nation stronger and healthier while actually lowering the costs of health care for all. There is no denying that this is the solution we have been looking for.

-Concerned Citizen for a Healthy Nation

If one considers the above as something found on an editorial page, there would be individuals wanting to use parts of it as ammunition to “prove” their point. A certain faction would see a new form of “death squad” to scare people away from a comprehensive, nationalized health care system, while their opponents wouldn’t want to claim the whole plan, they would like to tout single-payer systems as a panacea.
Of course, such an essay wouldn’t be likely to appear on an editorial page. This piece is pretty obviously a work of satire. Perhaps there is someone who really would believe in it, just as it is written, but I think that this author is likely to remain a fictional construct, like Franz Liebkind, in Mel Brooks’ “The Producers.” Because Brooks uses so many obvious gags in his movies, from sight gags, to bad puns, to slapstick-style, physical comedy it is easy to overlook subtleties. I do not say that to disparage those comedic vehicles; Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges made physical humor into a high art. It is a special kind of sophistication that makes a four year old and a forty-four year old laugh equally hard, at the exact same thing, for completely different reasons.

The obvious joke is Liebkind, not only is he, shall we say schmuck?, enough to have made his literary “magnum opus” a musical, love story about Adolf Hitler, but he is completely taken in when approached by the producers. He sees nothing odd and feels only vindication that his work is finally recognized. The producers, of course don’t believe a word of their hype to him, they have sought out the worst play they could, to guarantee a failure. We, the movie audience, laugh at the unexpected consequences (and financial obligations) of the producers’ when the musical becomes the top comedy on Broadway. Ho, ho, the scam goes awry, how will they get out of this fine mess? Simple, obvious and funny. Liebkind is upset that what he poured his heart into is taken as a joke, and again, we the movie audience laugh, because he’s clearly a fool to have thought his play, a musical homage to Hitler, could be taken seriously; could be accepted by rational, thinking, non-Nazis as other than offensive; could be accepted by hard-core Nazis as other than simpering, pathetic and offensive; could be a success; could be…a Broadway hit? And yet, they, audience in the movie, do all of that, as a comedy and not a love story, but still glorifying Hitler in the heart of a city with a huge Jewish population. Who has really made the foolish assumptions about the play?
So the obvious joke is the author of this essay, Concerned Citizen. This is the kind of thing the right-wing demagogues would write to lampoon the liberals’ and nationalized health care. This is the kind of thing the left-wing elitist, media would write to lampoon the conservatives’ scare tactics. Which begs the question, if Concerned Citizen is accessible to either side as a lampoon, who is really being targeted? As with, Brooks’ work, it is the audience. No matter where a reader stands on the issue of health care, this should feel uncomfortable to read.
Concerned Citizen opens up with the fact that months of arguing have garnered us with legislation that is an example of perfect compromise, everybody hates it. Although, the suggestion of it going in the wrong direction is likely to appeal a trifle more to conservatives, as they were more united in their opposition to the bill. The second and third paragraphs appeal to liberals on several levels, co-opting a conservative catch-phrase, promoting the idea of health care as an obligation of a successful nation to provide for its people, disregard the arguments about cost because they are not valid and it’s all big businesses’ fault anyway. But because our Concerned Citizen mainly makes statements, allowing the reader to make their own judgments and project them back, conservative readers should not be alienated. After all, the system is not working. There are people out there who are taking advantage of loopholes, getting hardworking Americans, (who manage to scrape together what they need to, to pay their premiums and co-pays even if it means their kids don’t get a new bike this year, or forgoing a family vacation) to pay for their emergency medical expenses either through higher fees at the doctor’s office or hospital, or through taxes. Besides, in paragraph four it is clear that Concerned Citizen understands that the insurance companies have been working hard to try to find solutions to these problems, even if it didn’t work out, business has done more than government.
So our Concerned Citizen has managed to bring all parties along, even if there are some reservations, to listen to the new plan. Introducing not, the plan, but a group of undesirables, gives everyone a target. “I think we can all agree that someone who chooses a lifestyle of abusing illegal narcotics, is not taking responsibility for their health.” Who is going to argue that? We aren’t discussing victims who were maliciously hooked on drugs by some nefarious character. We aren’t even including those who abuse totally legal prescription narcotics. And in a nod to ultimate, liberal tolerance, we are not making any judgments about their character or moral fiber. Whether you believe addiction is a disease, a personal failing or a symptom of a decadent society on the verge of collapse, you are not going to argue that habitual drug abuse is an expression of responsible health care, and so you are hooked.
Conservatives are a little squeamish about socialized medicine, but it becomes palatable if we can weed out the undeserving. Liberals can assuage any lingering guilt with the idea that anyone seeking treatment shouldn’t be classified as choosing to abuse, and you can’t really do anything to help an addict until they ask, besides there is still the “out” that they could receive privately funded care. Everyone can wince slightly over the “crack babies” reference, but it might be a misunderstanding, Concerned Citizen just said they wouldn’t be born in hospitals, not “leave them to die in some dumpster or whatever alley their junkie mother gave birth to them in,” and pass right on to “amen, the ‘war on drugs’ is finally going to be over” whether you believe it will be won or the farce will end.
We are currently pretty primed to vilify smokers and it is hard to refute the same argument you supported for junkies, although you may have some doubts, especially if you smoke, after all, cigarettes are legal. You may feel like you are being targeted by this policy and questions of fairness may start to enter your mind. Or it may bring to mind thoughts of people who abuse other legal substances, like prescription drugs or alcohol and how they might be viewed, but it’s still hard to work up a good argument for these folks that does not apply to the heroin junkies, and unless it’s personal for you, why bother?
Gang-bangers and violent criminal are much easier to think about. We aren’t excluding them entirely; if they don’t get into fights, they can have the same health care as anyone else. We can even feel good, because this provides an incentive for them to reform, win-win from either side of the argument. The slap in the face that excludes a fair number of Olympic athletes from medical care for injuries related to their livelihood is likely to catch you by surprise, and the shock that you can’t really justify your urge to give them preferential treatment over gang members using the criteria we’ve established, (if they don’t engage in things like traveling down a snowy slope at speeds in excess of 30 miles per hour, they can be treated for broken bones, like anyone else who may slip in a shower) might stun you enough that you won’t wonder about other high-risk professions, like construction worker, or fire-fighter.
Moving on to the obese will seem like a bit of a relief. Here we have a cut and dried case of choosing unhealthy behavior. A seven year old can tell you that spinach is healthy and a Twinkie is not. Most seven year olds will still choose the Twinkie, because it is a rare child indeed who thinks spinach is the tastier choice. Our culture has done it’s level best to make over-weight shameful, but we are rarely clear about who should feel ashamed of an over-weight child. Should the child feel ashamed? They usually do, though they are not the ones buying the groceries. They may ask, whine or beg for junk food, but I haven’t found any store clerks who will accept their checks. Of course it is the parents who have control, children of that age don’t get to choose whether to get immunizations, or what kind of education they will get, rarely do they have a choice in their sleeping schedule, some aren’t allowed to pick out their own clothes for the day, so, why on earth would we hold them responsible for making sound nutritional decisions? No one wants to talk about fat kids, not even the Concerned Citizen. Do we take care of them through childhood and cut them off on their eighteenth birthday, or write them off in elementary school and let their parents kill them with cookies? What happened to our easy target?
Concerned Citizen brings government into the bedroom, figuratively flips off a majority of religions and promotes eugenics. Franz Liebkind is goose-stepping in a field of flowers and dreaming of HJ rallies. Nobody wants to be at this party anymore. The problem is, no matter what your views were at the beginning, no matter where you fell on the liberal to conservative spectrum, if you were willing to justify excluding anyone, for any reason, to make some human being worth less than another, there is a thread that connects you to this ugliness.
The proposal to have experts fine-tune, and the bureaucratic process it would necessarily engender, topped by the hyperbole of the new world order that would follow this plan, highlight the absurd and make it easy to laugh off as a joke. We would like to forget that we bought a ticket, we sat down and watched it unfold. Does it matter if you walk out during intermission or stay until the end and talk up how ridiculous it is? Controversy and curiosity will spur as many ticket sales as laughter and pretty soon we have the biggest hit on Broadway.
Satire may draw us in with easy laughter, obvious targets of ridicule we can grasp like low hanging fruit, but for it to fulfill its corrective purpose, we must discover we have grabbed a prickly pear, not a Bartlett. Easy laughter should make us wary about what kind of target we are offering in our amusement. There is a reason we have so many cliche’s about people living in glass houses, eyes filled with motes and beams, and what the pot calls the kettle. It is easier to view others critically than it is ourselves. We must take advantage of the mirror satire holds up for us and look closely at what is there.
We can, in our communities, encourage people to make responsible decisions, about lifestyles, health or the world around us, that is the role of the social community. Providing for the needs of a society in terms of infrastructure, which includes adequate health care facilities such as hospitals and clinics, is the role of government. Making sure that all members of society have access to those facilities should be a matter of equal protection under the law. To forget that equality is, at its heart, placing an equal value on all of us, is to forget who you are, which will make looking into a satiric mirror shocking and unpleasant.
When going to a show, remember, no matter what the reviews say, “caveat emptor.”

I shy away from proclaiming resolutions at the beginning of the year, half the time they are trite repetitions and obligatory cliches’. Yes, of course we should all resolve to live healthier lives and try to make our daily lives meaningful and fulfilling, and world peace, we want that this year too, again.  Too vague and unattainable, but the more prosaic yet manageable goals, such as, “I will start doing 5 push-ups and 5 sit-ups each day and gradually work my way up to 50 of each per day,” are neither interesting nor inspiring enough to share with the world at large. Besides, if your goals are reasonable, what the hell will your excuse be for not following through?

So this will not be a forum for resolutions but a toast to fresh beginnings, life’s equivalent of the “new car smell.”  Here’s to you 2012 and everyone you are taking along with you on this journey.

Let’s ride!

As someone who had been a part of writing and judging AP English exams, it should come as no surprise that his standards were firm and rather high.  Mr. Shilts did not make any attempt to spare the fragile egos of his students.  I believe he graded on a curve, it is the only explanation for my final grade and the number of students who passed in general.  Although I don’t believe anyone failed to improve their writing in his classes.

One afternoon, we had to write a brief essay in class, then we read them aloud.  After collecting our efforts with an obvious air of disappointment, he sat at his desk and stared at our papers.  Holding them up, he posed this question to our class.  “Is any one of these essays worth the price of the match it would take to blow them straight to hell?”

My essay earned the rather dubious distinction of being voted the only one worth the price of the match.

So, when you start to question your worth, ability or accomplishments, just frame things a little differently.  Does what you have done rate the effort of lighting the match to burn it to the ground?  When you set the bar there, things seem to get a little better, if you have any talent at all.  Even if that is as much credit as you are ready to give yourself, console yourself by looking around and notice all the things people around you have done, that are NOT worth the price of the match.

Of course, having made this the a blog topic, I will have to be a little more careful about using my favorite, unrecognized insult.  A lot of people take it as a compliment when I express my opinion that “I wouldn’t burn it.”  You wouldn’t tell on me would you?

I have decided to face down a pack of matches by joining in the National Novel Writing Month project, with many other authors, each with the goal of writing 50,000 words during the month of November.  Toward that end, I may have an occasional guest blogger post to keep things fresh this month, while I am focusing on this new venture.  So, may we all be worthy of matches and aspire to Zippos.  As they say in Greektown, “Opa!”

Blood pounds in your veins

Obsession and primal rage,

Unholiest lust

The Beat Goes On

The pulse of a soul

Damned to eternal darkness

echoes in shared blood

Judged

Seeking finds nothing.

Cavernous wastelands within.

Hollow ones scare me.

All rights reserved.  This blog and all it’s contents is the original creation of Jennifer Browne, the author / publisher.  No part of the contents may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author / publisher.

In high school, we really start comparing ourselves to our peers, and that’s when I really noticed the difference.  I had some friends who were geniuses, and I was smart enough to recognize the difference between my “a bit above average” thinking and theirs, I could follow along some of their ideas and still see where they were going even when I couldn’t keep up.  Some of my friends were amazing artists, drawing a realistic cityscape or skyline as a doodle in the bottom margin of a french test.  I have enough training to recognize many of the techniques and the skill involved, but I can’t do it myself.  Computer programmers, linguists, athletes, performers and writers, I have known a number of exceptionally talented people.

Even my younger brother, Sean, of whom I have been jealous for years.  It isn’t that I envy his musical talent, but that he has a talent he is in love with.  Our parents exposed him to the same variety, but music stuck for him.  He is a fine musician and he has a passion for it.  I can not do what Sean does.  I can not play any of the several instruments he plays, I can not compose music, I can sing over a fair range, but I have not mastered the breath control needed for some of the things he can do.  What I can do, is recognize his abilities and appreciate them.

I am a  dilletante and I know it.  Jack of all trades and master of none, but I know enough to recognize the difference between acceptable and outstanding.  I love to be around those incredibly talented folks, not to boast about how great my friends are, as if that somehow could rub off on to me, or to live vicariously through their achievements.  I enjoy seeing people excel at something they were meant to do.  Like watching a cheetah run, or a falcon hunt, there is pleasure in seeing someone fulfilling their own purpose.

I have managed to learn enough that I have a firm understanding of how little I know.  In my time, I have collected a long list of people, with a wide range of skills, from blacksmithing to spun sugar sculpting and from capturing the special spark of who someone is on film to an unprecedented ability to bring comfort to the bereaved.  In several instances, I am not even particularly close to these people, but I do appreciate what they can do and when the opportunity presents itself, I do my best to put those talents in front of others who can appreciate them.  After all, doesn’t everybody like to have their collection admired?

All rights reserved.  This blog and all it’s contents is the original creation of Jennifer Browne, the author / publisher.  No part of the contents may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author / publisher.

I was perfectly comfortable outside wearing jeans and a turtleneck, it was in the mid 60s with no wind so a jacket wasn’t necessary.  The sky was the white of complete cloud cover without inclement weather.  I love when it is still very bright, but without the sun shining in your eyes.  That brilliant white made a perfect backdrop for the fall leaves as I walked in a wooded park. 

Walking under a maple tree, I kicked up violet-red leaves with each step.  There was enough rustling to drown the sound of a nearby creek, but it was still a soft sound.  The leaves were still fresh, not dried and crackling with every move I made.   There was a grassy, open plain between the copse with the maple and path into the more heavily wooded area I went next.

As soon as I entered under the trees, the smell changed.  There was a lot of underbrush and leaf litter under these trees.  All of the rich loam scented the air.  The rain from the past week had worked its special magic, and I saw lots of mushrooms sprouting in various places, including a purple variety that was completely new to me.  That damp earth, covered in a patchwork quilt of  soft leaves beckoned to me, so I found a place a few paces off the path to lay down and enjoy the view.

We’ve all done this as kids, lain on our backs to spy the world above through the gaps in the trees.  My spot probably wouldn’t show much in spring or summer, when the trees are all green, but today felt like a glimpse through a kaleidoscope.  The leaves here were largely yellow with a little deeper gold shading some and others that still retained a hint of green.   The branches were a sharp contrast, almost black and so sharply delineated as to seem almost unreal.  Through small, irregularly shaped breaks, the white of the sky glinted through, like a blank canvas in a jeweled frame just waiting to be filled.

I lay there, enjoying the sights and smells until a strong breeze came through raining leaves down on me as nature tried to incorporate me into the stunning beauty of the scene.

I am sure that spot is always beautiful, but I don’t think I will be lucky enough to get such a fortuitous combination of light and weather again this fall.  Of course, I will probably go back to check, just in case.

All rights reserved.  This blog and all it’s contents is the original creation of Jennifer Browne, the author / publisher.  No part of the contents may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author / publisher.

 Marnie walked out of the kitchen and saw Jack “asleep” in his ratty la-z-boy, with a nearly empty fifth of Popov next to him, nestled like a teddy bear in the crook of his arm. The living room was mostly clean. Since Jack hadn’t gone anywhere all day, he hadn’t bothered getting dressed, which meant there was no trail of clothes for her to pick up. She wasn’t sure what was more aggravating, cleaning up after a 32-year-old man who was capable of working with just about any kind of engine around, but not of picking up a pair or socks, or when that same man didn’t bother to go out and do the work he was so good at. She turned off the big, flat screen TV, showing some guy eating wriggling bugs, or grubs in much too much detail for her enjoyment. The TV (and premium cable) was one of two nice things in their house. She continued down the hall to the other one.

 At the end of the hall, Marnie turned into her “office,” and closed the door. Taking a deep breath, she stretched and then blew it out, as though she could blow out a birthday candle and make a wish.  Marnie sat down in the little barrel chair in the corner, opened up the laptop computer on the snack table next to it, and smiled. This was her reward after a long day. Jack could go ahead and watch whatever he wanted on the TV, but Marnie had her computer, her link to another world, another life.

 She logged into the computer, password protected, even though she knew Jack would never even turn the machine on, let alone try to check into what she did online. Once he realized all of the internet porn charged your credit card to see anything “good,” he decided the computer was useless.

 She logged into the Jackson Marina blog.

 ”Jackson is laughing at me tonight. Since he has no classes on Thursdays and only evening office hours, we decided to go antique-ing today. He was sure that I would find some new treasure that I would want to refinish or somehow use in my decorating for Saturday’s dinner party.  I insisted I just wanted to look for an old spinning wheel (I still haven’t found one I really like, that works, and although I appreciate all of the posts about lovely new reproductions available, I really want the real thing.) Of course, he was right. I found a beautiful, bronze urn that will make a stunning centerpiece with a dried flower arrangement.  I know, most of you are wondering why on earth I would use dried flowers in August, when there is so much to choose from in the garden.  Because I found, to the detriment of the no-longer-white linen tablecloth, the urn has a leak. I can’t quite get my hand into the bottom to plug the hole, and as Jackson knew I would, I want to use it Saturday night, which means I can’t get it mended by the jeweler in time. So dried flowers it is, and Jackson is laughing.

It can be maddening sometimes, how well he knows me, but I know when I talk to some of my friends, that I am very lucky to have a companion with whom I am so well matched. Of course, we aren’t perfect! We have our spats and differences of opinion like anybody else. I made my chicken breasts with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, and diced fresh tomatoes with garlic and a little balsamic vinaigrette over home-made fettuccine (you know what it’s like when the tomatoes are coming in gangbusters, of course some will be canned, but you want to use them fresh as much as possible) and I put it all on the table with a couple of glasses of vouvrai. He looked at it and said “Again?”

Now, I don’t know what all of you are planning for the weekend, but Jackson and I are having some friends over for dinner on Saturday, when my new centerpiece will be on display if it kills me. I’m falling down on the job, because I haven’t decided on all of the menu yet, although I’m going to indulge a recent craving for Tiramisu at dessert. I may be a little busy for the next few days, so please forgive me if I don’t post for a few days.”

 Marnie, smiled as she finished keying in her entry. She had two days to dream of a wonderful dinner party. She had to finalize the menu, but she was leaning towards fish. August called for something light, didn’t it? What would the entertainment be, besides scintillating conversation of course.  Maybe someone across the lake is going to set off some fireworks that they can enjoy from the deck with their dessert or after dinner drinks. Marnie shut down the computer to head to bed. She was scheduled to work a double at the diner tomorrow and needed to get some sleep. Thinking about the dinner party she was “hosting” would help her get through her work day.

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Mostly I blame Alex. Mr. Zola created his blog at the urging of friends who wanted him to pursue his writing in more consistant way, in a forum that would let him shine. Alex and I have been chasing this chimera, together and apart, since high school. Good friends who can seamlessly reconnect after years apart, because of a shared love of words and concepts (and a minor obsession with Lou Reed), that makes other people roll their eyes and sigh heavily when we start talking. The great thing about old friends is they were around when you first thought up the excuses that you scatter like rose petals down the aisle. They might even have helped you craft and hone your best lines, so they won’t be put off by the lie du jour. These are the friends who will require honest and accurate assessments of the topic at hand, whether it is talent, love, ambition or even (heaven forfend) our egos.

There are plenty of people with talent, ambition and love, who don’t do much, for any number of reasons and rarely for the ones they say. And some light up the world around them in ways and for reasons we can’t understand.
Last night Alex and I were talking about people we had known and where they were. For all that we admired some folks’ abilities, it was attitude that really rated our respect. The guys who decided to take a shot and put their money where there mouth’s were. So what if they didn’t have what it takes to make it? They made the ballsy effort and risked it all. And even in failure, there is the shining light that beckons us from the dim corridors of every day, pushing back the shadows of status quo.

So now it’s time to see if what I have to offer is worth the price of the match.