for our next magical trick...

we sold our house.

and sitting here this moment, we officially have no place to go.

the situation not *quite* dire. yet. i mean, we do have until aug. 21 to relocate our stuff. a rental house, perhaps, somewhere nearby.

or a really big storage locker.

but still...holy sh*t. we sold our house.

after six days on the market and a breathtaking rush of traffic, we ginned up three competing offers. all for full asking price and one for a wee bit more.

(note: we took the highest offer~we're going to spend the extra 50 bucks on a bottle of wine or two. or four.)

we weren't expecting this. if that's not already obvious.

background: mrs. spaceneedl never liked this house. she routinely ruminated on its shortcomings, even as she transformed it into a thing of beauty. during our seven years here, rare was the day when some update, upgrade, or upheaval wasn't underway. and honestly, it was a pain in the ass.

the metamorphosis was tedious and debilitating and costly. also, totally worth it. i would be remiss not to acknowledge the sweep and nuance of her vision. particularly now that it's been completely validated by the quick sale and the lavish praise of nearly everyone who toured the place.

well done, wife.

that said... holy sh*t. we sold our house.

and we have to find someplace new to live, ASAP. someplace that'll accommodate four people, three dogs, a geriatric cat, and a hamster. not to mention an unusual amount of accumulated stuff.

how hard could that be?

~~~~~~~~

update: we found a place to go. it's about a hundred yards kitty-corner thataway (pointing northeast). a nice house that our nice neighbor was kind enough to offer up since she's getting married, and her fiance has an even nicer place.

as a result, we don't have to entertain new neighbors, the children don't have to leave their friends, and the dogs don't have to trek thousands of miles to track us down after we move, accidently leaving them behind.

so, several problems solved all at once.

on a related note, the new place is slightly smaller than the old place. we need to host a garage sale, stat. not everything must go. but the stuff that must go can't stay.

anybody wanna buy a hamster?

the only constant

change is good.

it may take years to recognize it as such, exacting a shocking toll along the way, and leaving people looking like they've peered through the very gates of hell.

but the premise was "change is good," not "change is easy."

we're such silly creatures of habit. we love our routines, and we fight like honey badgers to preserve them. even when they're not particularly good for us.

we drink, we smoke, we send ill-advised photos of ourselves on the internet. not because it's smart (hi, congressman weiner!), but because we derive comfort and a false sense of control from the rituals.

and since the entire world is out of our control, sometimes we get a little nutty trying to establish order in our little corner of it. we call it "being organized," or "keeping a schedule," or "obsessive-compulsive disorder."

if we stray from our morning rituals, for example, bad things happen. we lose our car keys. or neglect to put on our makeup. or forget to drink our morning coffee, causing an extreme bout of lethargy, headache, and irritability, also known as caffeine withdrawl. and throughout the day we think maybe we're coming down with the flu or having a stroke or experiencing demonic possession.

and just as we're about to slog home, hoping not to fall into a catatonic state on the way, we remember, "no coffee today! have i lost my mind? no wonder i've felt like such utter crap for the last ten hours!"

file that under, "change is not easy, but it will help you view life in inaccurate and drama queenish ways."

when we're young, we slip in and out of routines like jeans that actually fit without saying "loose fit" on the tag. change is no big deal, because our brains are still adept at processing new information without insisting it conform to our world view. we see gays getting married and we say, "cool, people should be able to marry the person they love." and we know this is true in the same way we know the universe is continuously evolving, sliding into and out of itself, vibrating with a constant thrum of cosmic ethereal rhythmic velvet. it just is.

when we get older, however, routines become habits, and habits become health risks. our ability to dodge conventional wisdom loses a step, then two, and the next thing you know we're doing a slow, insensate waltz in the cold, rigid arms of dogma. we hear people say, "healthcare is bad," and we say, "yes, healthcare is bad, we should keep it from as many people as possible." we know this is untrue, because it feels false and contrary to every impulse we know, and yet we find ourselves locked into it without really understanding why.

file that under, "change is good because it keeps you dancing fast."

metamorphosis is inevitable. the really smart ones among us constantly reinvent themselves to stay ahead of it, surfing on the aeonian waves. the rest of us typically stand there in the surf, sometimes rising up with the surge, sometimes getting slammed into the sand.

if we're resilient (according to the japanese proverb), we get knocked down seven times and get up eight.

if not, well then we're seaweed.

file that under, "never turn your back on the ocean."

spinal fortitude

late last year i was diagnosed with cervical stenosis, a degenerative condition that signals decline and decrepitude.

if you believe in such things.

fortunately i'm great at denial, so a year later, after a bit of surgical legerdemain, i'm back to playing basketball and preparing for the ski season.

the osteoarthritis implicated in this diagnosis is commonly lifestyle related. if you're active and your workouts tend toward the debilitating, your spine can reap an eventual whirlwind of symptoms. but really, that's kind of a badge of honor, isn't it?

i mean, the alternative of couch-bound lassitude and cardiovascular disease is not much of an alternative at all, n'est-ce pas?

bla bla bla.

this retrospective is prelude to a recent email from a friend who says he's been dealing with symptoms nearly identical to those i experienced last year.

turns out he, too, has spinal stenosis, and he's been referred to a neurosurgeon.

as you might imagine, he's a little upset.

a review of the literature regarding stenosis is disconcerting. absent timely and effective treatment, it can cause all kinds of life-changing trouble. if you like using your arms and legs, that is.

surgery can make a significant difference. it can resolve symptoms, restore strength, and in time, return you to whatever passes for normal in your world. depending on your feel for karma and irony, it might make you better than you were, appreciation-wise.

howard...i feel you, man. i understand how seriously this might be messing with your head. and while your ski season might be over, next season will be here momentarily. and you'll be ready for it.

l'chaim, my friend.

filling station

through timeless words
and priceless pictures
we'll fly like birds
not of this earth
and tides they turn
and hearts disfigure
but that's no concern
when we're wounded together
and we tore our dresses and
stained our shirts
but it's nice today
oh, the wait was so worth it...

~ jason mraz

from the front end, ten days can stretch beyond the horizon, full of plans and promise.

but the fact is, ten days is only 240 hours, and they pass in the blink of an eye.

especially if you fill them up with life.

for example, you could roll out of bed at dawn every one of those days, because that's when you wake up and find you're ready to get your day rolling. however improbable you might've found that prospect on the front end.

and because it's already warm, you might throw on shorts and a t-shirt and walk a couple miles along the beach as the sun comes up, watching the sky change from purple to pink to orange.

you could pass a couple dozen people, who invariably smile a little smile and say a quiet good morning, because they too are experiencing something simple and clean and timeless and therefore profound.

your new routine, which in no way resembles your old routine, might include coffee that smells like coconut, and a bowlful of something healthy that includes actual coconut.

later, your day might find you out on the electric-blue water, hovering over an ancient volcanic crater or a fossilized coral reef covered with contemporary coral. you splash overboard with a tiny cylinder of portable atmosphere, putting a world of distance between you and your regularly scheduled programming. from the boat to the bottom is a matter of a few dozen feet, but the quiet that settles over you feels like a warm embrace of miles.

it's like swimming in the world's biggest tropical fish tank, pulsing with color. until you see the enormous sea turtles paddling around you, which could never fit in a tank. the honu are either mildly curious or completely indifferent to your presence in their world. they drift away in all directions, leaving much more of an impression on you than you made on them.

another day might find you clinging for life to the side of a volcanic ridge, high above a tropical valley floor. your position is made more precarious by the early morning fog and mist swirling around you. each step is an opportunity for a foot to slip. every reach up is a chance to lose your grip.

photos never do justice to the steepness of this climb, or the consequences of an uncontrolled descent. you don't really get it until you're 10 or fifteen minutes up. that's when it hits you that if you fall, you die.

you keep going up, because the thought of not finishing is unacceptable. in fact, the goal is to get to the top quicker than the last time. for no particular reason.

when you get there, you catch your breath but you don't really celebrate. because you know that the trip down is actually more difficult, and now it's raining. en route, how many times does your foot slip off its designated step? four? six? how does that shot of adrenaline feel, every time?

after what seems like hours, you reach the bottom safely. and you're already thinking about repeating this foolishness on your next visit. which means you're an occasional adrenaline junkie, and therefore not very smart.

ten days seems like a long time, except on day nine. that's when you realize how pitifully short it is. and in a time-warped moment of clarity you can see ahead to a day you might be at this place again, after the children have grown and gone. you think back to this trip, when they were here, running around acting like children...and you wonder where the time went.

you feel that moment with perfect lucidity, and find it dusty and sepia toned. it's not adrenaline you experience then, but something else moving and powerful.

ten days is only 240 hours. and they pass in the blink of an eye, whether you fill them up or not.

better to fill them up with something. if you're lucky, it could be something timeless and priceless.

and so worth it.

Sent from my iPad

tough on the outside

my wife is a tough chick.

the toughening started early, as the youngest of five children~four of them girls. her parents were hoping to add one more boy to the mix, see, and her mother, so disappointed by the announcement ~ "it's another girl!" ~ allegedly was despondent.

i'm not saying the child was subesquently neglected, but if she didn't finish the bottle quick enough, her mom gave the rest to the dog. her hand-me-downs came from a pack of javelinas. and on cold swim team mornings, she was the child voted most likely to test the water temperature.

somewhere along the way her mother told her, "you'll never be pretty, so you better be smart." nice, huh?

unfortunately, my wife believed it. and even though she grew up to be quite lovely, she's always seen herself as the ugly duckling. she also turned out to be a biomedical engineer, so at least her mom was half-right.

mrs. spaceneedl grew up in the arizona desert at a time when sun exposure was maximized and sunscreen was unheard of. years of cumulative skin damage eventually manifested itself as a series of basal cell carcinomas. on her arm, her back, her shoulder, and her face (three times).

off to the dermatologist she'd go, for assorted cryosurgeries, excisions and grafts, endured matter-of-factly.

sidebar: we've been together a long time-~26 years, if you can imagine~further proof of her courage. the years have been good, mostly, with enough bad to make us appreciate the difference. the missus has stoically dealt with adult-onset asthma. a thrice-broken tailbone. four miscarriages. the loss of her mom to cancer. three primary cancers for her dad.

there's more, but you get the idea.

last week she went in to have another basal cell growth removed from her nose. it was supposed to be a relatively quick procedure...excision, a couple sutures, a few uncomfortable days. no big deal.

turns out, it was more complicated.

the growth was larger than expected, so the doctor had to remove more tissue from a place where there isn't much excess to begin with. this meant that the fix was more involved, as well. there were a couple graft options, one of which was invasive and barbaric-sounding. the other was no picnic, either, but seemed slightly less horrific.

she came out of the hospital with a large white wrap on her nose, swollen cheeks, and eyes just starting to blacken. so much for the minor procedure.

this morning it was time to change the bandages.

"i dreamed there were just three little Xs on my nose," she said, "and i thought, 'wow, that's not so bad after all.'"

standing at the mirror, i told her, "this is not the time to assess how it looks. two months from now you can make an assessment. this morning is as bad as it's going to be. from here on it gets nothing but better."

she paused, then peeled back the gauze. her nose was criss-crossed with stiches and red, raw-looking tissue. it looked intensely painful, and you could see her calculating how ugly it'd make her by her mom's standard.

after a few quiet moments, she cried.

Sent from my iPad

plan B

plan A never goes according to plan.

most often, plan A goes sideways the millisecond after you put the finishing touches to it. good thing you've got a back-up plan, huh? 

nuh-uh. same thing applies to plan B and plan C and so on through the alphabet.

because no plan can account for the many variables you can think of, and all those you'd never conjure up in your most intricate anxiety dream. 

so while planning is very conscientious and comforting and human, it's mostly an exercise in delusion. the next time you think you're in control of the situation, no matter how innocuous the situation may seem, take a step back and allow yourself the languid terror of imagining how many ways you might be wrong. 

it won't make you feel better, but it'll bring you into the moment like a rake handle between the eyes.

and what could be more fun that that?

let's say, by way of example, that you have a deep, oppressive fear of flying. despite your fear and your careful avoidance of airplanes, some improbable set of variables aligns to absolutely require air travel. so you suck it up and get on the plane. settling into your seat, every sound you hear~from the loading of bags to the closing of the cargo door to the hissing of the ventilation system~confirms what you already know: the plane is seriously malfunctioning and inevitably going down.

take-offs and landings, you know, are the most dangerous. so as you roll down the runway, gaining terrifying speed, you hold your breath and wait for the end...which doesn't come! yet.

in flight, you're quite certain that every bump is the one with your name on it, the one that will put the plane into an unrercoverable dive. next thing you know, however, the captain is asking the flight attendants to prepare for landing. already? is it possible? still, you're not ready to be grateful, as the landing will shirley be disastrous.

but no, the landing is flawless, and as you taxi toward the gate, you're ecstatic. everything went according to (somebody's) plan. you take a deep breath and smile. almost simultaneously, you hear shouting. there's a disturbance behind you. people are fighting!

is it 9/11 all over again? the world goes dim, and you faint... only to learn later that the hijacking was just a flight attendant having a hissy fit and exiting the plane. down the escape slide with a couple beers in hand.

not part of the plan. and now you're traumatized in a whole new way.  

moving on, let's say you're sitting in the waiting area of a local hospital. it's quite luxurious, really, compared with, say, the rest of the world. you got your comfy chairs, your cable tv, your multiplicity of outlets powering everyone's wifi-enabled devices. hungry? there's a nice internet cafe. bon apetit.

there are so many creature comforts and distractions, it's almost possible to completely compartmentalize where you are and what might be happening just beyond the big gray door over there on the right side of the room. almost. because someone you care about is having surgery right through that door. 

and if you accidently allow yourself a stray moment of high alert~entirely appropriate given the surroundings~you remember that anything can happen the next time that door opens and someone in scrubs walks through.

it's a slow-motion moment in which you can hear yourself breathe and feel the blood moving through your veins and you experience the same feeling your ancestors did when they realized the wolf pack had caught their scent and was turning in their direction.

not part of the plan.

this is not to say that every plan goes upside down whenever the wind blows, ushering in an epoch of suffering and darkness (the bush administration notwithstanding). most plans play out just he way they're constructed, blithely unperturbed by the infinite variables whizzing past. any one of which could send the planet spiraling into the sun, but somehow doesn't. 

no, this is simply to say that as responsible as we all are, planning and forecasting and predicting with such adorable certainty...there's really no such thing. and the sooner we realize that plans A through Z have gone hilariously awry, all through history, the sooner we get to beer o'clock. metaphysically, that is.

speaking of which...

ahhhh.

it's good to have a plan.


Sent from my iPad

survivors guide to living

just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
suzanne the plans they made put an end to you
i walked out this morning and i wrote down this song
i just can't remember who to send it to

oh, i've seen fire and i've seen rain
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end
i've seen lonely times when i could not find a friend
but i always thought that i'd see you again

won't you look down upon me jesus
you've gotta help me make a stand
you've just got to see me through another day
my body's aching and my time is at hand
and i won't make it any other way

* * * * *
in "deep survival" laurence gonzales writes there are two kinds of people. survivors and victims.

survivors, he says, are rule breakers. they are independent in mind and spirit. in a tough situation, they do better than people who follow the rules and stick to the plan, no matter how badly the plan has gone awry.

"when a patient is told that he has six months to live, he has two choices: to accept the news and die, or to rebel and live. people who survive cancer in the face of such a diagnosis are notorious. the medical staff observes that they are 'bad patients,' unruly, troublesome. they don't follow directions. they question everything. they're annoying. they're survivors.

"the tao te ching says, 'the rigid person is a disciple of death...the soft, supple, and delicate are lovers of life.' "

boys, quite often, don't fit that last description. not on the outside, anyway.
the boy at our house is soft-hearted and emotionally susceptible, but he wants
the world to believe he's wizened and grizzled and hard-shelled.

we're willing to play along, sometimes. to that end, we recently sent him to a
week-long ymca b.o.l.d. (boys outdoor leadership development) camp in the north cascades.

the idea is to cultivate confidence through the development of wilderness survival skills, some of which might be applicable elsewhere in life. or to just hike around and do some fishing outside the city. whichever.

the boy came back complaining bitterly about a week of privation and forced marches and giant mosquitos and an epic failure, fish-catching-wise. and yet on his return, he was inexplicably exhuberant, as if he'd passed a great test of pre-adolescenthood.

there's no telling what of any long-term value he may have internalized, but maybe he picked up one insight that'll help turn him into a survivor.

maybe somewhere down the road he'll stop and think, "you know, when i went in the lake with my boots on, my feet got wet and stayed that way for two days. that experience taught me that it may not be a good idea to pee on this electric fence, or to pet this pit bull, or to get in this car with my drunk friend."

all we can do is put him in position to learn, and hope for the best.

* * * * *

my friend kary was a survivor. life handed her a raw deal several months ago, but instead of accepting the bad news, she stood and fought.

she endured chemo and bone marrow biopsies and seizures. she ignored an indifferent doctor who told her she had a week to live, and lived on. she kicked a dangerous lung infection so she could undergo a bone marrow transplant, which was cause for much hope.

but acute myelogenous leukemia is a bitch of a disease, and eventually it fought kary to a draw. life's rulebook tells us that in case of a tie, death wins. but kary never gave up, never let the specter change who she was. she showed us what it means to be a survivor instead of a victim.

since no one gets out alive, that's about the best example any of us can set.

at sea

several years ago i fell in love with a painting.

(which is something i hardly ever do.)

it's a riot of blue in a spray of hues and textures. the color explodes off the canvas like a serene bay befrenzied by a hurricane. the eye is frantically led across the scene, top to bottom, corner to corner, but never finds a safe place to land. the patterns we all instinctively seek to help us make sense of our world are nowhere to be found. the chaos is as profound as the very human need to either organize it or escape it.

to that end, in the midst of the bedlam, my eye sees the suggestion of a sail. there's no encouragement that the ship it might be attached to will find its way to safety... just an inkling that such a thing might be possible.

the painting was created by a friend who was going through a difficult time, and to me it exudes the powerful emotions she might have been feeling. i was mesmerized the first time i saw it, so much so that i offered to buy it. (purchasing art -- something else i hardly ever do.) i think eventually i might've offered two or three times, but she wasn't ready to part with it.

flash forward several years to a couple weeks ago, when this note came from my friend...

"So, I have been thinking for the last week and a half that I need to ship the blue painting to you. It's been really strange -- a really strong feeling that I should give it to you. So, dammit, I am. :-)"

i will tell you i stared at those words for a long time, trying to paste together a narrative, a logical explanation for why they came when they did. sitting here tonight, i still can't do it. because the timing coincided with the waning days of another friend who was transitioning through the last stages of leukemia.

she died the day before the message arrived.

i have no idea what metaphysical forces swirl around us. i can't say, "i was feeling pain for a friend, and another friend on the other side of the country came along at exactly the right time to pick me up in a way that defies rational thought."

i don't know what any of this says about anything. but knowing how much i don't know...i'm willing to go with the flow.

and to be grateful for friends, across time, and in the face of the unknowable.

* * * * *

the painting arrived at our house yesterday. it's as beautiful and moving as i remembered it. thank you, maggie.

* * * * *

for kary and frederica

knee jerk

a year ago i was young for my age.

now i'm old for my years.

my, how time flies when it's artificially accelerated.

it was a year ago, see, that i tore my ACL, which led to a couple surgeries, which led to a dramatic change in lifestyle.

weights and basketball and general knuckleheadedness have been replaced by walks and yoga and a bosu trainer. the knuckleheadedness remains constant.

the 9 to 5 desk has been replaced by a sit-stand work station, at which i never sit. I no longer own a pair of basketball shoes. and my clothes have been replaced by the wardrobe of someone significantly less corpulent than i.

the upside, however, is that my knee is now a more dependable predictor of rain than the weather channel.

I think the changes were long overdue, and will be to my benefit for the long haul.

but I miss the old normal.

i'd rather be stayin' in

headin' out to san francisco
for the labor day weekend show...
and honey i didn't know that i'd be missing you so
come monday, it'll be alright
come monday, i'll be holding you tight

i'm heading out today for a different kind of show. over a different holiday. but i'm heading to san francisco nonetheless.

i'll be there over memorial day, and the boy's birthday, to boot. no, i'm not kidding, and i'm not amused.

true, we had an early birthday celebration for him, and all the spaceneedls were together in a far-flung place last week. so it's not like this is a tragedy.

but there are times when the work-life balance is all effed-up. and it never seems to be in favor of the "life" part.

funny how that works. ha ha. and yet, as previously noted, i am not amused.

this is one of those times

there are times when so many difficulties swirl about us that it feels like the inside of a tornado.

and from your tilt-a-whirl perch you wouldn't be a bit surprised to see almira gulch on her bike, pedaling endlessly, as if it were possible to ride out of the storm and into, oh-i-don't-know-what. freefall, maybe.

perhaps you're familiar with times like these. perhaps, you'd say, this life is solely and entirely composed of times like these. that anything else is illusion.

you'd get no argument from me.

just by way of example: a friend of mine, kary, has leukemia. she's been battling it for months, putting up a hell of a fight. recently a nice doctor told her there was nothing else he could do for her, that he wanted to call in hospice, and that oh-by-the-way, she had a week to live.

way to go, nice doctor.

trouble is, kary wasn't prepared to play out her part in that particular script. she wasn't quite ready to stop living, see, so she basically told the nice doctor to go fuck himself. she got on the phone with a different doctor, who agreed dying could wait. to that end, she told kary to hop in the car and drive from flagstaff, arizona, to phoenix, for a red blood cell transfusion.

so, kary and her mom madly drove to phoenix only to find that, hospital protocols being what they were, she'd have to keep driving. to tucson. everyone must adhere to protocols, mustn't they? even the dying. because protocols and formalities and rule-following should be a top priority for the dying, after all.

kary's mom drove on to tucson, to the university of arizona medical center. kary checked herself into the emergency department and got her transfusion.

it's been more than a week now, and kary still refuses to lay down and die (the nice doctor notwithstanding). apparently the U of A physicians and protocols and treatments are focused on keeping the living alive until such time that they're no longer alive.

if you can imagine such a thing.

according to her sister, kary is scared and "in need of hope--lots of hope." which is what i was thinking about as i ran errands today.

on my way to somewhere, i passed a car with a bunch of bumper stickers on it. most of them were old and faded, but one looked brand new, and that's the one i read in the 1.2 seconds it took me to pass by.

it said, "be kind...be true...be brave."

it was one of those surreal moments that go by in slow motion, to make sure you don't miss it. no, i don't believe in such things, but there it was, and there i was, and the moment vibrated like a cosmic tuning fork.

maybe it was a quiet call for me to send whatever good karma i've accumulated on to kary.

and maybe it was a reminder that the challenges facing the spaceneedl family are really nothing by comparison. that we should acknowledge and embrace our ridiculous good fortune, and stop bitching about our diminutive problems.

and maybe, since i don't believe in such things, it was a coincidence.

probably that's exactly what it was.

but there are times when i'd like to believe otherwise.

this is one of those times.