Straight No Chaser

Pause and Give Thanks

i am the me again. during my short stint as aaron, i learned a lot, not the least of which was that it takes real grace, to pull off all that sensitivity. admirable, very admirable. like what you said to me, when i was freaking out about losing the baby, i doubt i could manage that. but i know you can.

we lost an uncle in the wee hours of yesterday morning. his diabetes finally got to him at the ripe age of eighty-eight. they all had it, my grandfather and all his siblings, seven originally--there are two left now, the two youngest, and they both left dinner early to start packing for the trip to indianapolis. funeral tomorrow afternoon. my grandmother's going too. she was going to stay with us through the weekend, to spend time with me for the first time since summer, but instead we'll cram it into the forty-five minutes it takes me to drive her to the airport in the morning. i don't remember the uncle well, if at all.

there was something about a missing tablecloth. mom left it in its mail-order box for just a bit too long, probably had it right in the middle of the floor where dad had to step over it one too many times; he got fed up, finally, and relegated it to the garage, where it's probably been for weeks. she complained about it all day yesterday. tablecloth this, tablecloth that, have you seen the tablecloth, shannon look for the tablecloth, your father's going to be sorry he ever laid eyes on that tablecloth, and so forth. i finally promised her that if i didn't have to hear the word tablecloth again, i'd let her play her kem cd all through dinner. i got slighted twofold.

my grandmother and one aunt are sleeping in the basement bedroom tonight. trooper's sleeping on the pullout couch in the office, which is just a bit deja vu-tastic, because before all the boarding schools and the jetsetting and the new york studio apartments, he used to sleep there every night, from four in the morning till two in the afternoon, nintendo cartridges scattered across the carpet around my dad's desk. we were little kids then, and completely incredulous when it came to his unchecked adolescent habit. how do you sleep that late? daddy doesn't care? he lets you play nintendo at night? he was more or less a brother then, eleven and fourteen years older but still, we figured, subject to our parents' buppie manual-inspired rules. not so. after aunt sandra died they totally raised him, but they were young, too young to be ideal surrogate parents, so he got a lot of slack. he broke them in, so to speak. and amazingly, he turned out very very well. still pretty much a brother, if a much older one with his own life, totally distinct from ours. what's remarkable is, i'm still his favorite person in the entire world, because he remembers me at three, how cute i was and how smart, and i don't have to do or be anything in particular for him to remain totally convinced that i'm a miracle. we talk about books now. he's into eugenides, impressed but hypercritical, like me. we agree that zadie smith's talents saw their peak with white teeth. (read it, aaron? you should.) he has a new baby goddaughter in australia, and i'm going to help him with his christmas shopping at the baby gap in manhattan. i'm beginning to think he won't ever get married, and totally fine with that--how benevolent of me. it's his life, of course. i'm glad he found time to come home.

the eleven-year-old cousin didn't come because of some crazy custody caveat. new jersey with her dad, instead, which means we get her for christmas. and which meant more attention for zaire, who at three is growing like a weed and talking like a parrot. he knows me by name is and comfortable spontaneously climbing into my lap, which is amazing because i only see him three times a year, at best. his widowed mother is doing about as well as can be expected, i guess. she is still painfully deluded on some things, but she always has been--it's a function of her schooling, says grandma. let's just hope zaire aligns her, through the years. i really don't know. i mean, he's adorable, has enough personality to fill a room and will probably adore her forever, but it's hard for her to believe in constants anymore, understandably. they were sitting on the couch when he died. she was five months pregnant, he was getting up to set the timer on the vcr.

with my car still in georgia and a kitchen full of dirty dishes, it's hard to make a case for going out tonight. i'm not heartbroken. i have stuff to do tonight anyway. lots of writing. i'm going to steal my mom's regina carter cd and "cinema paradiso" my way through the rest of the strange journals, and work on some other projects in between. i found my rubber cement, the good kind that doesn't flake off of matte paper. and for that, i am truly thankful.

i'm also thankful for my family. the more things change, the more they stay the same, and i wouldn't have it any other way.

i'm thankful for my friends. several of whom called today, not because they wanted class notes or a ride somewhere, but because they wanted to. good people.

i'm thankful for you-know-who, and all who have gone before. teachers and professors. the authority figures who have enriched my life, led by example, provided me with a flawed ideal toward which to strive.

i'm thankful for marcus. there's no hope of avoiding the obvious cliches here, so i'll leave it at that. he feeds my heart its oxygen. or something.

i'm thankful for your new house. paint those walls and raise some truly exceptional people in it.

i'm thankful for your children. let them be your strength when things are difficult, as they are now--they love you anyway, and they are your reason.

i'm thankful for your new outlook. the world was missing out, before now.

i'm thankful for your newly serviceable car. i mean that in the least trite sense possible--you deserve the flexibility to be the angel that you are, five days a week.

i'm thankful for your job. i know it's not your gold-trimmed purple velvet damask, metaphorically speaking, but it's a step toward everything else you deserve and will achieve someday.

i'm thankful for you. i feel your pain and it will pass, at which point we'll take out our matching rhinestone pens and rewrite this world into something deserving of our talents.

happy thanksgiving.

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