Category Archives: Life

New Year’s Past

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“Jeremiah!” someone shouted. “Jeremiah Murphy!” 

That someone recognized me at this party didn’t surprise me. Of the many I’d attended over the course of the past six months, about a dozen folks could always be counted on to be seen mingling. Their presence was so reliable they were practically staff. And then there were the reoccurring guest stars who popped in here and there, but could hardly be described as committed. I belonged in the second category, but I liked to think of myself as an up-and-comer. In short, the voice could have belonged to anyone. 

What surprised me, though, was that I could hear it, crammed into this Brooklyn loft along with, by my count, about one hundred thousand hipsters, with the music cranked up to be heard over them all. I scanned the crowd until I located someone waving their arms over their head—the internationally recognized signal for “over here!” 

Space was at a premium that night, but the voice had managed to commandeer half of a pool table to use as a chair. She beckoned me with a pale finger, crossed her black-clad legs, and patted the space beside her. 

“Who’s that?” yelled Coral. 

“It’s—” 

“Go talk to her!” 

“What?” I wasn’t abandoning her, not when she knew only one other person here.  

“I’ll be fine!” she assured me. “I’ll just hang out with Rachel!” 

On hearing her name, my sister snapped out of whatever trance she was in. By far, this was the biggest New York party I’d dragged her to, and she was easy to overwhelm. I worried about leaving her alone, even if it was with someone I trusted as much as I trusted Coral. “What’s going on?” Rachel shouted. 

Coral leaned in close to her, and they exchanged a few words. 

“Go!” Rachel told me. 

By now, the gesture coming from the pool table that had once taken only a finger had grown into one that required a full arm. I sighed and obeyed. 

I handed her my plastic cup of beer and hopped up beside her. She turned to me, and her dark red lips said, “I’m surprised to see you here!” 

I’ve always been a sucker for blue eyes and dark hair; Marina’s eyes were very blue, and her hair very dark. And when you added to that pale skin that made her seem mysterious and a smattering of freckles on her tiny nose that made her girlish and cute, it was no wonder I had been so smitten when I’d first met her. 

“Why not?” I replied. “Everyone’s here.” 

“What?” She leaned her ear toward me. Her black sweater wasn’t designed to show much cleavage, but when someone as petite as she is was close to someone as tall as I, it didn’t behave as designed. 

Rather than wait for me to respond, she said, “I haven’t seen you in a long time!” 

That was five months ago in the middle of Fifth Avenue—her headed to the 33rd Street subway station, me headed to the PATH. 

“I know!” 

Her hand rested on my thigh. 

I closed my eyes and sighed. 

“Is that your girlfriend?” Marina asked, nodding her head to the reason her advances didn’t dry out my mouth and raise my pulse like they would have before.  

Across the room, my girlfriend took a sip from her beer to conceal her smirk. 

My eyes begged for help. 

Coral’s eyes said, “You’re on your own.” 

My eyes responded, “You’ll pay for this.” 

Rachel turned away from me so I wouldn’t see her laugh. I’d known her all twenty-one years of her life—there was no hiding that look from me. 

Marina’s fingers squeezed. “Does she know about us?” 

What was there to know about? A fascinating first date followed by a romantic kiss on a crosswalk followed by an e-mail telling me that it would never work? 

She looked at her watch and I looked at mine. Crap. It was New Years Eve of what would ultimately be the last carefree year of my life, and I had eight minutes to free myself to make out with the woman I was pretty sure I was falling for. 

Best Part of Waking Up

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Coffee is something I’ve been drinking for well over twenty years, and it has always had many tastes to it. There is the really harsh sting of espresso (and Starbuck’s style), the weaker, watered-down American variety I prefer—almost like dessert. Overseas I have to order Americano, and even that is too strong, so I have to mix in milk and/or sugar. By itself, coffee feels light and oily. The milk thickens it. By itself, it’s not heavy, but with milk… 

I spoke to my thirteen-year-old niece on Skype today, discovering she was a coffee drinker. At thirteen. When I called her on it, she said she’s been on the stuff since twelve. The first time I drank coffee in earnest, I was fifteen, in a food court in Gallup, New Mexico, after pulling a New Year’s Eve all-nighter. I wasn’t drinking coffee for its taste, but strictly for function. As a child, I had to drown it with cream and sugar, but it was coffee. And so that’s when it kicked in: adulthood. My voice deepened; I walked taller; hair started to grow where it never had before. From that point on, I’ve never gone more than two days in a row without it. Because I am a man. 

The Castle Doctrine: Gulf Edition

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I had an experience today in the middle of the desert that underscored the differences between the culture in the Middle East and the US. Our Guest and I walked into a movie set from the 1970s that we had thought was abandoned. It turns out this was someone’s home, it was clear that we made the owner very uncomfortable. To compound matters, we knew only one word of his language. 

In the United States, we would have been informed of our mistake and shooed away, and there’s a pretty good chance there would have been a gun involved. This literally happened to me twenty years ago. And imagine how that would have gone had I not spoken the native language.  

Here, the man offered us tea, because that’s what you do. 

And that brings us to the second point. The only thing more rude than invading a person’s property and taking pictures in this part of the world is refusing tea when it’s offered.  

We drank the tea, said thank you, and waved awkwardly to each other on our way out. And then he locked the gate behind us. 

A Load of Crap

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Every week I empty my cats’ litter boxes, and every week I’m confronted, not by the narcissistic, preening, sociopathic cuddle bunnies I’ve been living with for ten years, but by three vile ammonia factories. 

When we moved out to the Persian Gulf, the government set us up in a three-story house, despite our objections. We’re a couple who just left a thousand-square-foot apartment in DC, and we were cozy. But that’s not how the US government does things. So I’ve given these purring assholes a litterbox per floor, and I have to walk up and down the stairs, a bag of damp poop in my hands, tears in my eyes from the scent, just to maintain their comfort. 

They don’t say thank you. 

A Jolly Good Time

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When you sucked on a Jolly Rancher long enough, they became this rubbery tongue depressor that changed the color of your mouth. They were not solid, like a butterscotch, which became a shard of sticky glass at the end. They were not chewy, like caramels, which fused your teeth together until saliva freed you, eventually. Name-brand Jolly Ranchers were something in between—a sticky miracle of science. 

You were not cool in the second grade if you didn’t have access to a Jolly Rancher at all times. I did not. I so, so, so desperately wanted that kind of connection, but my parents never bought them, and I never had the courage to ask. I knew the answer already, and I knew how irritated the mere request would make my father. 

Nine

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It’s easy to feel old at the age of thirty-seven, especially in a society that values youth as much as ours does. Almost four years ago, I aged out of the 18-34-year-old demographic that advertisers pine for, and it stung a little. My hair is getting gray, and my joints ache for a day or so after a long run. But really, I’m still pretty young, and in that time, I have lived. I could list the places I’ve been, the people I’ve known, and the kinds of words I’ve written, but I won’t. That would take forever, and that’s really not the point. 

The point is this: For nearly 25 percent of this life, I have been married. This marriage, like all marriages, has been stressful and difficult. When married or cohabiting, you are suddenly accountable for everything you say or do—no living it up at a bar anymore, or dropping hundreds of dollars on comic books on a whim. You have to see movies you ordinarily wouldn’t, and eat cuisine that freaks you out, and sometimes hang out with people you don’t like. Anyone who says they love every single second of marriage is lying. 

However, a good marriage, like the one I have, makes these things unimportant. I love having someone to keep me from dropping hundreds on comics that I probably won’t read more than once; I love having someone who will miss me were I to disappear into a bar all night. I love watching her smile and laugh and talk back to the movies she enjoys but I don’t; I love sushi and Ethiopian food now, even though it’s not what I grew up with (I’m still not eating mushrooms. No way, no how.); I endure people I don’t like, because I respect her opinion.  

My wife is brilliant and brave and beautiful. She makes me want to be a better person, even when I don’t think I’m capable of it. She loves the world, and she insists on showing it to me whenever she can. Her ideals are tempered with pragmatism, and the rest of the world would be so much better if it followed her example. Her stubbornness has turned me into the healthy and happy and (mostly) confident person I never thought I could be. And she has convinced me that I deserve to feel this way. My wife is amazing, even if she does tell people sometimes that our anniversary is April 31. 

I love my wife, and I love that I’ve been married to her for nine years. 

Haggle Rock

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Gather around, kids! Today, I’d like to tell you a story about how much more entertaining it is to shop in this part of the world than it is back home in the States. And so, let’s all go down to the auto parts store, where our hero enters, on a quest for a tow cable and an air compressor. 

I am greeted at once by an older man in a brown suit, clutching a cigarette I never actually see him put to his lips, speaking English with a thick regional accent. After we sync up our vocabulary to determine what I’m looking for, he shows me several cables and we pick the best one. He glances at the sticker and tells me, “Says one-thirty. Give it to you for one hundred. Special price.” I agree that this is indeed a special price. 

We now look at air compressors. He and his assistant, who speaks no English, remove an air compressor from the shelf, unpack it, and show me how to assemble it. “Is Chinese, so it maybe get too hot…” He shows me where it might overheat. “… So turn it off and on. No problem. You know Chinese things. Good quality, though.” He directs his assistant to remove a car battery from behind the counter, hook up the compressor, and turn it on. 

“Looks good,” I say. 

The old man shrugs. “Good quality, even if it is Chinese. You know Arabs. They see it’s Chinese, they don’t want.” He shrugs again and flicks an ash off of his cigarette. “Box say four-fifty, but for you, four hundred. Special price.” Once again, I have to admit this is a special price. 

While his assistant boxes up the compressor, the old man and I work out whether cash or credit is best. We go with cash. He punches a number into a calculator and he sends his assistant out to my car with my purchases before I can stop him. I pay up and hurry out. 

And it’s not until I get home that I realize I’d paid five hundred eighty for both items, which is not really that special of a price. I’m not 100 percent sure what exactly happened there. 

The Glitch

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I am astonished by the news that, due to a glitch in the space-time continuum, most of the United States experienced the same sixty minutes twice. Most of the country had slept through it. Of those who didn’t, I can only imagine the ungodly horror you had to endure as the laws of physics were torn asunder while you watched, helpless, only for everything to suddenly return to “normal.” For you, it is the present, but to the rest of the world, it is an hour into the future.  

There are some who call this event “Daylight Savings Time.” I call it what it truly is: a perversion of the natural order. 

When the Abyss DOESN’T Gaze Back

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I was asked by an agent, whose curiosity was piqued, to send in my full manuscript and give her six to eight weeks to read it. Nine weeks later, I checked in. I was told to wait a couple more weeks. And so, about five days ago, which wrapped up week twelve, I followed up again. This time: nothing. 

Getting a rejection is one thing. It hits you like a punch to the gut, but it only lasts seconds. After that, you have to decide to do next: give up or get up? Does nobody care about your baby, or does somebody somewhere—just not this particular person? How much pain are you willing to endure*? 

I’ve had a few rejections of my writing. Quite a few, actually—professional and personal. Most of us creative types don’t have a lot of confidence to begin with. A large percent of why we do this is validation**. Rejections often make me question my talent and my purpose. And when it stings really, really badly, I still continue to put myself out there, even if it’s just out of sheer momentum.  

But this… this is new to me. And I don’t know what to do with it. I’m frustrated, disappointed, and heartbroken. I just need to let this agent go. Someone somewhere wants to love my baby, I think—just not this person. 

_____ 

* This isn’t a rhetorical “man-up” pep-talk question, by the way. There does come a point that soaking up these blows to the ego is just plain unhealthy. Walking away when you can’t take anymore doesn’t make you any less of a person, no matter what Hollywood says. 

** The rest is “We just kind of have to.” 

Uphill Both Ways

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So, I was thinking about my high school reunion fast approaching, and some things occurred to me. 

For example, back then, if I wanted to look at goofy cat pictures, I had to find my camera, take the picture myself, go to the drugstore, and come back in a few days. If I wanted to see a particular music video, I had to wait for it to come into rotation on MTV. And there was not a single reason to keep my thoughts at 140 characters or less. 

Also, that convenient, handheld device with the bright screen and instant push-button access to all knowledge was called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.