i never meta analysis i didn't like

"Stay on pace & don't try to keep up with the youngsters." ~ derek s.

that's good advice, generally.

it's particularly good when you're running your first half marathon.

it's advice i had no trouble taking this past weekend, mostly because i felt like i had no choice. i mean, i had never run a half marathon before, distance-wise, let alone race-wise. the farthest i'd gone previously was a 10.5-mile training run the weekend before...so, i didn't know what to expect, how 13.1 miles would feel, or if i'd even be able to finish.

i thought i could...but (this will shock you, i know): there's often a significant difference between thinking about something and actually doing it.

the good news: the weather was perfect. not a cloud in the sky, start-time temperature about 55 degrees. this is seattle, after all...the chance of cold, dreary and wet any given day is about 90%.

also, mrs. spaceneedl got out of bed at 5:45 a.m. to drive to kirkland with me. on mother's day! crazy. and incredibly endearing.

the bad news? there was no bad news.

lining up in the starting corral (why do they call it a corral? are we animals? moo.), i relegated myself to the section marked, "8-12 minutes/mile expected time." there were a lot of very fit-looking people congregating around me, so however fast or slow i ended up running, i felt like i was in pretty good company. but my goal was to stay closer to the 8 than the 12, and...hey, we're moving!

mile 1: the start was slow. and crowded. there were runners ahead of me as far as i could see...which wasn't far, because there was a hill and a right turn not too far ahead. passing people was not really an option, because the was nowhere to pass to. the upside: not many people were passing me. ha!

mile 2: more hills, heading up. i thought this was going to be kind of a flat course. this is not flat. at all. where's the flatness? or some downness to go along with all the upness? the good news: the pack was thinning, stringing out, as people slowed on the hills. conveniently, i did a lot of hill training over the past few months. the bad news: still no bad news.

mile 3: i don't remember much about mile 3, other than it seemed a lot like miles 1 and 2. with slightly less upness, maybe, and a little more downness.

mile 4: took a first look at my watch. whoa. about five minutes behind my target pace. not entirely good news. but in the big scheme of things, not really bad, either. the better news: the pack stretching out significantly. plus, some flatness.

mile 5: took another look at my watch. still behind, but making up time. an even distribution of upness and downness. interesting self-diagnostic: i'm actually better on the uphills than the downhills. i pass a lot more people on the up. and the down...hurts. wtf?

mile 6: i have no memory of mile 6. or mile 7, for that matter. i know i ran them, because i never left the course. aside from that? i got nothin'.

mile 8: i remember the mile 8 marker. i remember thinking, "eight miles already? huh. that went by quick." and then, "holy sh*t, there's still five miles to go..."

mile 9: i remember very little about mile 9.

mile 10: it was here i began to worry, a little. as mentioned earlier, my longest run previously was 10.5 miles. we would soon be entering tiger country. (note: no actual tigers in kirkland, as far as i know. then again, maybe they're eating the people who would report on such things. it's possible.)

mile 11: i remember mile 11. the highlight was a steep hill complete with a doubling-back hairpin turn. this was followed by a long, gradual ascent on a stretch of severely crowned road. which meant one foot was constantly, uncomfortably landing lower than the other. or higher than the other, as the case may be. either way, it sucked. additionally, the cones were set up to herd people into a narrow band on the side of the road, where the slope was even more pronounced. most people ignored the cones, getting as close to the middle flatness as possible. yeah, mile 11. not my favorite mile. except when compared to...

mile 12: remember the extreme uphill of mile 11? it was followed immediately and not coincidently by a comparable downhill stretch in mile 12. as unpleasant as mile 11 may have been, mile 12 was more so. my quads are feeling mile 12 today, every time i walk down the stairs. ow ow ow.

mile 13.1: as noted in mile 5, i had considerable time to make up if i was going to hew to derek's advice. and so, the last eight point one miles were an exercise in time management (not to mention an exercise in exercise). the good news: i was feeling surprisingly strong. my pace was quickening, my form felt sound, and there were some youngsters just ahead of me to keep up with. or (raising an eyebrow) ...to pass.

another look at my watch told me i had a good chance of making my target time, if i didn't fall down or otherwise handicap myself. some kind of strong emotion subroutine was running in the background of my brain, but i ignored it. "stay on pace and don't pay attention to subroutines," i didn't really say to myself.

i passed a couple of young women who had been ahead of me for the last two miles or so, leaving one thirty-ish guy to catch.

he seemed stubbornly disinclined to be caught, staying about ten yards in front of me. suddenly, a vision of derek s. appeared. "you don't need to pass this youngster," his voice echoed in my brain. "stick to your plan." 

"i don't need to pass this youngster," i agreed, hypnotically. "i just need to stick to my plan."

plans are good. passing the thirty-something youngster with about a hundred yards to go was better. finishing a minute and a half ahead of my goal? better still.

i left the course, looking for the missus in the crowd. there she was, walking toward me, saying something about not getting the photo when i crossed the finish line. i was oblivious, mostly, because i was busy hugging her and crying.

"what's wrong?" she asked.
"i don't know," i snorfled.
pause...
"are you okay?"
"yes...i feel great."

the good news: the crying thing lasted just a few moments. and then i smiled.

a lot.

the bad news: there was no bad news.

****************

results:
# 794
Michael Miller
division: M 50-59
overall finish: 157/946
division place: 8/43
time: 1:48:30
pace: 8:18

the end of the weekend

calm down. i'm not saying they're doing away with weekends. i'm just saying this one is nearly over. and i'm getting irritable. does this happen to everybody? i could certainly understand and empathize, if that were the case. as long as your little end-of-weekend fit of pique doesn't get anywhere near me. because, you know, fuck you. (see? that's what i'm talking about.) the fact is, i've had a great weekend. the mariners won both days, and we attended saturday's win. felix hernandez threw 8 innings of one-hit ball, and it didn't rain. moreover, kate and i ran 5.5 miles through discovery park, which never fails to rejuvenate. plus i did a bunch of chores that had to be done. still on saturday. then, today happened. and it was even better than saturday. crazy, right? the mariners won again, and i did more chores. i mowed, shopped for groceries, did laundry, and ran 10.5 miles. all in one day! it should be noted that i've never before run 10.5 miles all at once. but i did it today. that alone would have made today exceptional. but as noted above, that was but one part of the larger story! crazy. plus, the weather was tolerable. not great, especially saturday, but not awful, either. it was chilly, particularly at the game. multiple layers and more than one beer were unable to fend off the cold. but at least the mariners won. did i mention that? today was warmer, though still not what i'd call "warm." warm, see, involves more degrees farenheit than 62. still, it was tolerable, and fairly ideal for running ten and a half miles. all at once. now, after an amazing dinner prepared by mrs. spaceneedl, i'm eating a chocolate chip cookie and drinking some decent red wine. and the denver nuggets are beating the hated los angeles lakers. all in all, a truly fabulous weekend day. which will inevitably end with a thoroughly unwelcome and annoying monday morning. which is why i'm irritable. i mean, obviously.

vital signs

i washed my hands afterward half a dozen times.

it still didn't seem like enough.

i dislike cadaver lab.

don't get me wrong...i understand the value of the research. i respect the people who contribute their earthly remains to the cause of science. and i appreciate the opportunity to participate in the work.

i just wish i didn't have to be there for it.

most of the time, i'm fine. as long as i keep my eyes on the instruments and the monitors and the activities of the physicians. but that's not possible 100% of the time. and if i get even a little distracted from those things, i notice the person on the table in front of us. and for just a few moments, my imagination kicks on.

i conjure up a life for him. a smiling, bright-eyed wife. a son he taught to throw a baseball. a daughter he taught to ride a bicycle. a mother who held him when he was a boy.

sometimes a vivid imagination is less an asset than it is a curse.

the unwelcome images flash past me in half a second. their effect on my heart lasts longer. none of it is reconcilable with what's happening on the table. or with the cardboard box, lined with black plastic, on the gurney nearby.

near as i can tell, no one else is similarly distracted. the physicians chatter away with a detached, clinical demeanor. the engineers are professional, moving with purpose from one task to the next. i circle the table, taking pictures, tracking the conversations. i hover over the subject, within inches, as the work goes on.

my iphone contains dozens of images i would like to simply delete. instead, i will have to download and archive them for others to review. much as i'd rather, i can't imagine assigning such a task to somebody else.

the lab lasted two-plus hours that went by in the blink of an eye. toward the end, i was offered, and accepted, one of the devices, and used successfully it on the subject.

by "successfully," i mean "my eyes never left the monitor."

**********

this morning the missus and i walked the dogs down to the village, like we do every weekend. we went to the bakery, as we usually do, ordered coffee and a piece of quiche and a walnut raisin roll.

after a while, a frail, elderly man with a cane hobbled through the door and eased himself onto the bench a couple tables away. he looked over at me looking at him, and gave me a little smile. i smiled a little and nodded back.

but i will tell you, what i really wanted to do at that moment was get up and run out the door.

contortions, convolutions and miscalculations: fun with gymnastics

reason for absence: view-monia.

live-blogging the washington state gymnastics finals, 2012

we're here at glacier peak high school, home of the grizzlies...and the best cafeteria view i've ever seen.

seriously, these kids have a 30-foot high wall-of-windows view, across a wide verdant valley, of the north cascades mountains. it's ridiculous. if i were teaching here, i'd hold every class in the cafeteria. if i were a student...well, i'd be arrested for impersonating a student. but if i were a student, i'd be late for every class, staring out at this ridiculous view.

we're not in the cafeteria, however, we're in the gym. it's hot in here. unlike every other metro seattle gymnastics meet ever, where you can't wear enough layers to stay warm through three hours of sitting, shifting, sitting some more...suddenly it's uncomfortably warm.

i'm not complaining.

the falcons from seattle pacific university, decked out in their usual purple and lighter purple and silver sparkles, are ready for this meet. they're peaking at the right time, competition-wise, in that they're here and there's a meet going on.

after march-in, in which the gymnasts, um, march into the gym, the host and announcer usually says, "and now everyone please rise for the national anthem." i was literally shifting into a nonsitting position in anticipation of the ritual, when the guy said, "okay, we did the national anthem earlier today, so we're going to get right to the events. gymnasts, let's move out."

i feel strangely unsatisfied and anxious now. apparently i'm a creature of habit.

the first event for the falcons is the vault. in this instance, the vault is a quick run down a blue bowling alley lane, launching off a springboard into a handstand, followed by a flop onto a four-foot-high cushion. it looks like it would be a great place for a nap, if it weren't for the constant stream of gymnasts flying around and raising a ruckus.

avery is good at this flopping. this year she's put up a string of 9+ scores in this event, setting a high standard for springboard flopping. the score is based on the average of two running flopping attempts. our girl ran fast, flopped expertly, and came away with a 9.025.

"great flopping, AG!" her mom and i didn't really yell. it's best not to distract her with that kind of unnecessary embarrassment.

in between events, there's a lot of waiting. this is particularly true at gyms that have no heat in winter and no AC on freakishly warm spring days.

we're sitting, we're sitting, we're waiting. we're sweating...and not with nervousness. must. not. doze...

holy moly, it's time for the bars. i must've dozed. avery's up! get the video rolling! focus! she's launching!

this seems like an opportune time to note that "bars" is a bit of a misnomer here. yes, technically they're competing on the uneven parallel bar apparatus, but at no time do they actually touch the upper bar. it's all-low-bar all the time for the level 4 gymnasts. which is just as well. avery is neither confident nor proficient in this event. every meet, there's some disastrous error/miscalculation/equipment failure that keeps her off the medal stand.

she over-rotates, she under-rotates, she forgets to stick the landing. this despite my excellent, season-long imitation of olympic announcers who thrill tv audiences with, "she sticks the landing!" whenever a gymnast does, in fact, stick the landing.

back to the bars. she's doing pretty well. she's neither under- nor over-rotating. she's yet to hang upside down when she should be right-side-up. all that's left is the landing...

she didn't stick the landing. she did, in fact, fall on her butt. there's gonna be a deduction for that, i'm pretty sure. and the scoreboard says...8.575. that's gonna keep her off the medal stand. barring huge, breakthrough scores on beam and floor.

where there are more events, there is hope.

nothing's happening now. the falcons have moved over to the vicinity of the beam, so we can only assume their next event is beam-related. it just wouldn't make sense to have them warm up on beam if their next event was floor. so, the team moved moved from a seated position under the washington state championships banner to the doors near the beam. then they moved to the wall next to the beam, and resumed sitting. nothing's happening.

we sit. we shift. we note, once again, that it's warm in here.

now seems like a good time to get up and leave the gym. hit the restroom. take some iphone photos of the ridiculous cafeteria view. stand by...

...and we're back. turns out, i missed the event. the falcons had, in fact, warmed up while i wasn't looking. no, i wasn't dozing. so almost immediately after i left, the team raced through their beam routines. i caught the very last one, and it wasn't avery. according to the missus, she wobbled like a weeble but did not fall off. this was not good enough for a breakthrough score. she received an 8.75.

perhaps there's a 10.0 on floor in our future. that might get her on the stand. probably not. we wait. no, i'm not leaving the gym.

********

it was a solid floor routine, but not a ten. the girl's final score on the final event of the year was a respectable 8.75.

and on the final tumbling pass, with the compulsory back handspring...

she stuck the landing.

the kate escape

you know who likes running?

my dog.

kate loves getting out of the house and away from her pack-mates. they're barky little dogs, and kate isn't much into the barking. she's smart and affable and disinclined to scurry around yapping every time a raindrop hits the house.

so, a couple times a week we gear up and head over to discovery park, a semi-sane place where people and dogs and other wildlife can go be bucolic for awhile. to forget, temporarily, that we live just a jog from downtown and jammed-up traffic and foolish urban errands.

i say, "kate, go for a run?" and she heads toward the door, waiting for her leash. she does a little dance and bursts out the door ahead of me, like a racehorse at the gate. and so we go.

i keep her on the leash most of the time, but if there aren't too many people about (i.e., when the weather sucks), i let her off to run. i wasn't sure what to expect the first time i did that, semi-worried she'd disappear into the woods after a squirrel. nope. she stays right with me, within a few feet ahead or behind. i find that very endearing.

in the park, we transition from road to paved trail to dirt trail, winding our way through woods, over hills, always in sight of water to the west. on a clear day, the olympic mountains glow crystal white across the sound, breathtaking. and so we go.

the vet says kate is built for five to seven miles of running, tops, so we keep our little journeys to 4.5 - 5.5 miles. i'm now "training" for a half-marathon in june, so on "long run" days of eight, nine, a dozen miles, i'll have to leave her home.

running alone, i wear headphones and listen to music. with kate, the headphones stay home and we talk to each other. yes, i do most of the talking, but she communicates very well...

"i need to slow down a bit."
"i'm thirsty."
"i'm going to roll in this grass now."
"i have to pee."

(note: those are the things i say to her. generally, she just says, "whatever, dude.")

kate was a rescue. she was abused early in life, and when we got her at six months old, she was like some feral creature that didn't even know she was a dog. it was the little dogs who taught her how to be part of the pack (for which i'll always be grateful...even if they are yappy little dogs).

that was two and a half years ago. people who met kate back then can't believe how much she's changed. the dog who cowered and cringed and feared every unfamiliar sound has transformed into a confident, attention-seeking biscuit-hound. "she's a completely different dog," they say, perhaps thinking such a thing was impossible.

she still doesn't like loud noises, but then again, neither do i. which is another reason the park and its quietude and expansive breathability are so appealing. also...i'm grateful for the company. much better than the headphones.

kate likes running.

and so we go.

on the dark side

organized religion is adorable.

it's so full of enlightening enlightenment that its subscribers don't know whether to joyfully celebrate or go on a five-state killing spree.

so, obviously, sometimes they do both. just to make sure their spiritual behinds are covered.

other times they merely meander about, spreading the gospel-as-they-see-it. the results are usually hilarious. or sad. or alarming.

the yoga thing, for example. denominations from baptist to muslim to oh-i-don't-know, seventh-day krishnas have condemned the practice as wicked. or heretical. or just too darn much fun and too good for you to be anything but evil.

as a sometimes-practioner of and benefitter from yoga, i can confirm that it is, indeed, mystical. magical. other-worldly. it has powers beyond the understanding of most humans, and several species of kelp. it can restoreth health and sootheth the soul in ways you didn't even know you needed. the best part is, it happens from the inside out, rather than the opposite, which confuses and frightens some people.

and that is why the perniciously pious would like to shoo people away from the practice--they don't understand it and cannot control it.

or, it could be because the typical yoga class is populated by scads of scandalously clad yogis, a transgression over which righteous folks tend to feign horror. and, to be honest, healthy, scandalously clad people practicing yoga are a distraction...unless you're doing it right. in which case, you know, om.

**********

it's interesting how many people, instead of celebrating life, prefer to celebrate death. then again, what do i know? maybe that's how they celebrate life...by re-enacting horrific-tragic-death-things. it helps them feel like they're more alive than dead people.

titanic cruise, anyone?

see, you go out in a big boat, recreating all the fun of the titanic's maiden voyage (okay, its only voyage, for those of you keeping score).

like this:

The organizers are trying to capture the onboard experience — minus the disaster — including the food and a live band playing music from that era, in a tribute to Titanic's musicians who reportedly played their instruments until the ship sank.

While on board, passengers also will dine on meals based around dishes served in April 1912, with a formal dinner on April 13 made up entirely of dishes served aboard the Titanic.

note the very careful "minus the disaster" clause. this is probably to avoid lawsuits from passengers who bought their ticket expecting a terrifying collision with an iceberg, followed by a fatal plunge to the bottom of the ocean. wouldn't want to mislead those folks.

also, note that the voyage is carefully orchestrated to mirror the rest of the titanic onboard experience. the costumes, the food, the band, the music...and yet, inexplicably, some people are questioning the, um, propriety of the venture.

which is crazy, obviously. even if tickets cost up to $9,500 and the whole thing sounds like a mel brooks movie.

"I don't think the cruise is morbid. It's like saying Gallipoli is morbid or commemorating the (Crimean) war," said Carmel Bradburn, 55, who is from Australia. "Remembering those who died is not morbid."

which is true. remembering them isn't morbid. at all. a creepy recreation of the voyage of the damned? that's morbid. ghoulish, even. ("guess what, mabel? i've booked us a fabulous cruise on the love-death boat!")

sidebar: auschwitz. the killing fields. pearl harbor. you know what these places have in common? lots of people died there. that, and they're all big tourist destinations. really. look it up.

the difference would seem to be that those places aren't choreographing unintentionally funny re-enactments of the atrocities. (though it appears that the cambodian government is going all-in with a khmer rouge theme park nearby. divine!)

then again, in a world where anything goes if there's money to be made, maybe these people are missing the boat (see what i did there?). maybe what's missing from these solemn, respectful memorials is the chance to experience the sensation of being trapped below deck in a burning ship, or role-playing scenes from sophie's choice.

what? no? too much free-wheeling capitalism? tell that to the folks at the holy land theme park in beautiful orlando, where you can watch a blood-splattered jesus being crucified and resurrected six days a week! but never on sunday. obviously. that would be an outrage.

**********

breathe.

that's a big part of what you learn in yoga. just...breathe. in. out. focus on being present and balanced. embody a state of wellbeing. move fluidly, languidly, with just enough purpose to feel the heat of your qi.

that i can write this without a hint of irony or self-consciousness is testimony to the blasphemously euphoric effect yoga can have on one's soul. it's that, or my sad susceptibility to the insidious seduction of sin. (a lot of esses there...soundsss like a ssssnake...)

either way...namaste.

oh, yay : day

"it's colonoscopy day!"

that's what the tweet said, but the exclamation point was disingenuous. i wasn't excited about it. at all.

still, it had to be done, and there was no need to set a bad example. or to make it seem worse than it was.

okay, drinking a quick gallon of gastrointestinal drano was unpleasant. and yes, the results were slightly alarming ("i don't remember eating that!").

doesn't matter. part of the process.

you know what else is part of the process? "conscious sedation." that's where the patient is whacked out on versed to the point that they allow a tube and a light and a camera to go where such things are not generally welcome.

most patients, i was informed, sleep through the whole thing. others remain chatty during the procedure~~though they don't remember the conversation (or the procedure) later.

apparently i was chatty. the nurse says it went something like this:

me (reading monitor): my blood pressure is 110 over 74...that's pretty good, right?
they: yes, it is.

me (still reading monitor): my heart rate is 45 beats per minute. that's pretty low, right?
they: yes, it is.

me (recalling a random point on the patient information sheet): so, i really can't have wine with dinner tonight?
they: push a little more versed on mr. miller, please...

i remember none of these things. i don't think they really happened.

but you know, as confirmed earlier, a bp of 110 over 74 and a resting heart rate of 45 bpm are pretty darn good. more importantly, the exam revealed just one small polyp~~benign.

so, to commemorate what we've forgotten, ameliorate that which we'd rather forget, and celebrate the blessing of good health...

tonight's bland, easy-to-digest dinner will be accompanied by one (1) very good glass of wine.

monologous dialogue

where do all the secrets live?
they travel in the air
you can smell them when they burn
they travel
those who say the past is not dead
can stop and smell the smoke
you keep saying the past is not dead
well, stop and smell the smoke
you keep on saying the past is not even past
and you keep saying
we are smoke
smoke
smoke

~ben folds

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the human brain is not a precision instrument.

it's a fabulous, intricate, brilliant piece of biological engineering...but it's simultaneously spectacularly flawed.

that's how i explain, to myself, the recent visit from my self. which is to say, my 25-year-old self.

it was jarring. one moment i was jogging through our neighborhood, the next i was accosted by a callow, cocky, cavalier criticizer.

i think he was as shocked as i was. and not in a good way. near as i can recall (if you care to believe anything as unreliable as "memory"), it went something like this...

25: holy shit. what have you done to us?

50: (hesitating) what?

25: this...hurts. our neck, our lower back, our knee. this is why we hate running. have you lost our mind?

50: who are you? what's happening? am i dying?

25: i don't know what's happening, but you're not dying. you're killing me, but you're not dying. yet. you're just old.

50: i know you. i had forgotten...but i know you.

25: well, i'm happy to hear that. congratulations on not being totally senile. but you are kind of broken down.

50: no, i'm not. this is just what 50 feels like. it's not so bad...

25: the neck, the back, the knee...

50: oh. yeah. i know it's hard to believe, but the running actually helps.

25: were we in a car wreck or something? this feels fucking awful.

50: you swear a lot, don't you...no we weren't in a car wreck. we did have a couple surgeries, though. the neck? started as a basketball injury. the torn acl...basketball. the back...

25: i don't like where this is heading...

50: basketball.

25: we've always said, "there's nothing like being in basketball shape."

50: which is true, except for when it's not. we didn't notice it while it was happening, but it turns out we put in a lot of hard miles over the last 25 years. apparently it was a little debilitating.

25: the point of the exercise is to avoid feeling like this. you must've done something wrong.

50: everything i did, we agreed to long ago. all i did was hold up my end of the bargain. no point in complaining about it now.

25: yeah, but...we feel awful. you've forgotten what young and healthy feels like.

50: no, i...i still feel young. sort of.

25: no, you don't. trust me. it feels way different than this. for one thing, when we were young, our joints didn't also function as barometers. "hmm, tonight's gonna be cold, rainy, and windy." and that's without watching the weather report.

50: we live in seattle. anyone could've predicted that.

25: maybe. but i felt it.

50: (silence)

25: this is not what i expecting. you've made a huge mess of us.

50: not entirely true. there are lots of people our age who are a lot worse off than we are. check it out...we're running a 1/2 marathon in june.

25: my god, you have lost our mind. (hesitates) sigh...what else are you keeping from me?

50: well, there's the colonoscopy the end of this week.

25: i hate you.

50: i'm not wild about it, either. but i'm thinking of it as preventive maintenance for the next ten years.

25: i prefer not to think of it at all, thanks. i'm out of here. but i want you to know, this isn't over.

50: that's a line from a movie, isn't it? but you're right...there's lots more you should probably know about.

25: i can't wait to see what happens next. wait. i take that back.

50: (whispers) too late...

25: (silence)

sfx: (wind through trees, footfalls on pavement)

social sherds and check-in chaff

people who disdain facebook and twitter say they're not interested in reading about the boring, inane details of other people's lives.

they don't know what they're missing.

today's not half over, and i've done enough interesting stuff to keep social archeologists busy for years. and, thanks to the magical miracle of social media, i can share all of it with my friends. wait, that's too limiting. i can share it with...the world.

the good stuff, from the get-go:

mrs. spaceneedl says the dogs need to be let out to go pee. rolling out of bed...now!

since i'm going downstairs anyway, i'll take the laundry basket with me. chores starting early!

dogs let out. stop barking, dogs!

chose to do a dark load first, followed by a white load. i am the laundry decider!

dogs let back in. suppose i should feed them. poor hungry creatures!

whew. see? the day's not ten minutes old, and look how much excitement the world would've missed were it not for my ability to update my status instantaneously, spontaneously, anywhere, any time.

already wondering what you missed in the time it took me to type the last two sentences? i don't blame you! let's find out...

fed dogs. now they're waiting by the door to go outside to poop. good dogs. wait, kate, don't eat the poop!

need coffee. should i have the coconut macadamia nut, or the hazelnut caramel? can't decide!

remembered we have coconut milk in the fridge. so, went with the hazelnut caramel. i'm the coffee decider!

wife is up and around now, gearing up to walk the dogs. dogs are excited. more chances to poop!

walking to the village now. gives a whole new meaning to "go dogs, go!"

just so you know, i'm leaving out a bunch of stuff that, frankly, is none of your business. can you imagine the quantity (and quality!) of the content if i didn't have this awesome self-filter thing going on in my brain? for example, i'm completely omitting the post about picking up three bags of poop in the back yard, and the one about hosing some poop off one of my shoes. i just don't think you need to know about that sort of sh*t. sorry!

where was i?

dogs, laundry, poop, village...oh, right.

wife wants to shop at "vixen." note: it's not nearly as racy as it sounds. this is magnolia, after all!

wife playing the "retail therapy" card. where's my retail therapy card? i don't think we're playing from the same deck!

yes, dear, those jeans look very nice on you. what? they're on sale? you don't say!

funny thing about vixen: they carry nothing for men. i'll get nothing, and like it. aren't i a good sport?!

vixen trip complete. jeans, earrings, tank top: $178. great husband status: priceless!

once again, i've left out a bunch of excellent, post-worthy stuff here. the entire stop at the bakery, specifically, will remain undisclosed and up to your imagination. but trust me, it was scintillating. "hollywood wives" has nothing on "magnolia bakers and baristas." the whole place just pulses with hot, sweet, savory, fresh stuff that's none of your business. and it happens there every day, except mondays, when they're closed, probably because they need to rest up after all that hot monkey, um, bread.

so, go ahead, scoff at the social media all you want, scoffers. but this is the last time i let you peer in at the real-time reporting of breaking news, not to mention the intimate details of the dirty laundry you can't read about anywhere else.

probably.

quadrennially yours...

february 29th doesn't come along every day, y'know.

which is good, since this year it coincides with me being sick. yes, i got the flu shot, therefore it isn't the flu. i insist. regardless, for the last 48 hours, maybe 72, my head hasn't been right. (far longer than that, you say? oh, very funny. ha. ha.)

while awake i've been sneezy, achy, dizzy, sleepy, and a couple more of the seven dwarves. while sleeping...i've had some really weird dreams.

he (disentangling from she): i'm going to have to get some sildenafil citrate to keep up with you.

she (still smiling): what's that?

he: generic viagra.

she: generic? why generic?

he: for what we're doing, cheap is more appropriate.

she: that was not nice. not nice at all.

he: you can't have tawdry without audrey.

she: yeah, well you can't have odd without todd.

he: my name's not todd.

she: my name's not audrey.

[pause]

he: i have to go.

she: me, too...

for the record, i was not the "he" in this dream. also, i don't know any "todd and audrey" couples. nor was i aware that i was aware of the generic name for viagra. who notices that kind of thing? and who has dreams like this? bizarre.

~~~~~~~~

since monday, i have experienced several episodes of back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back sneezes. much to my discomfort, and much to the amusement of those around me. to them i say one thing: snot funny. it's fortunate i wasn't operating heavy machinery during any of these sneezures.

~~~~~~~~

in other news...

the president of the california fish and game commission, daniel richards, recently traveled to idaho, where he hunted, killed, and ate a mountain lion. he couldn't do these things in california, because they're illegal there.

apparently dozens of california lawmakers have called for daniel's resignation, saying his actions aren't consistent with his position with the state. he has declined to quit, essentially telling the lawmakers to go fuck themselves. i may be slightly exaggerating that last part.

legally, daniel is correct. he participated in a legal (in idaho) activity, broke no laws in doing so, and seemed to really enjoy it. good for him.

me, i have no quarrel with hunters, mostly because they carry guns, and people with guns are dangerous. what i've never been able to understand, though, is why so many of them get so much joy from killing.

i bet they wouldn't enjoy it so much if the quarry were shooting back. which is kind of what's happening in afghanistan, where u.s. military personnel recently burned several copies of the koran.

this was bad form, and a bad idea, in that it set off riots and killings in that country. recognizing the danger that riots and killings pose to u.s. forces, barack obama apologized to the afghan president, and told him it wouldn't happen again.

unless of course one of the gop candidates wins the presidency in november. then there'll probably be koran burning parties at the white house every week.

rhetorical query: if afghan troops, occupying america for the last ten years, were burning bibles willy nilly, what do you suppose the reaction amongst christians would be? someone should ask the gop candidates that question, i think.

~~~~~~~~

disconcerting moment of the day: a tweet from someone named megan calhoun (@social moms) showed up on my twitter feed today. the tweet said, "I'm happiest when ________ (fill in the blank)."

the disconcerting part: i couldn't fill in the blank.

~~~~~~~~

grotesquely overrated: filling in blanks.

quietly underappreciated: weeding out the daily surfeit of choices.

~~~~~~~~

note to the lovely mrs. spaceneedl: i don't know if you bought it, or i bought it, or if it was a cruel gift with purchase...but we have to promise~~promise!~~each other never to buy this institutional-grade toilet paper again.

~~~~~~~~

seen today on facebook: "Collective sob ladies...Davey Jones has passed away. How come I always got stuck with peter?"

i have no further comment on this post.

~~~~~~~~

ajax, epilogue

no more walks in the wood
we and the trees and the way
back from the fields of play
lasted as long as we could
no more walks in the wood

~~j. hollander

bubba left us last night.

santorum time

i got an email from rick (google problem) santorum!

i mean, i think it was meant for me. it began, "dear patriot," which is different and much better than "dear conservative."

something tells me, though, that this particular email is gonna be as disappointing as the recent note i got from newt gingrich. yeah, that didn't end well...

but, let's not prejudge...let's find out!

"We did it again! We shocked the moderate establishment and pulled off what the media elites said was impossible by winning three HUGE contests that we were told we couldn't win.

I'm exhausted, but I'm so elated. Before I try and get some sleep, I had to sit down and write you this letter."

if by huge he means, "nonbinding contests in which no delegates were secured," then yes, these were huge. and does rick really sit down and write his own campaign emails before going to bed? i wonder how his wife feels about that.

"All the momentum is on our side now. A Rasmussen survey over the weekend revealed that there is only one Republican Presidential candidate who would beat Obama if the election were today – and no, it wasn't the mushy moderate that wants you to believe that this race is over. No, instead it's me, Rick Santorum, and our campaign – with its bold, conservative ideas and platform."

actually, polls show obama well ahead against any of the current republican candidates, including santorum. meanwhile, the economy is rebounding and the gop is shooting itself in the foot on issues like contraception, if you can conceive of such a thing. so the prospect of the president being rickrolled is as likely as a good-looking sweater vest.

"I can beat Mitt Romney and then President Obama with the kind of conservative ideas that you support. But to do that I need your immediate support. Will you give $25 or $50 immediately to make this happen?"

santorum can't beat obama, but it's quite possible he might win the gop nomination. he has that special kind of crazy that republican primary and caucus voters love. it's almost tempting to send him a quick $25, just to feel like you've helped pay the crazy forward.

almost.

"hello, this is lawrence, kansas...is there anybody there? anybody at all..."

am i the only one?

not watching the super bowl, i mean.

it kinda feels that way.

earlier this afternoon, prior to gametime, the stores and roads were packed. the line at the carwash wrapped around a couple times. at one grocery store there were no parking spots. none.

now? ghost town. just a handful of cars on the road. front row parking at the grocery store. no one at the carwash.

it's a little creepy. post-apocalyptic. i expect to see zombies any moment.

and then i think: wtf? seriously? so many people are so slavishly addicted to this game that civilization shuts down ten minutes before kickoff? sure, the infrastructure is still in place, but the people have abandoned it.

full disclosure: i used to be a super bowl zombie. the idea of missing a play or one of the fabulous tv spots was heretical. but as the years and the games and the roman numerals clicked by, i drifted away. and i remember the day the epiphany happened.

it was during some undifferentiated mid-preseason, and i was watching the chicago bears play some team or other. suddenly it occurred to me that this game was exactly like the games i watched the season before, and the season before that. there were some running plays, followed by some pass plays, followed by a punt. or a field goal. or a hyperbolic touchdown celebration.

aside from the names on the back of the uniforms, nothing ever changed. not the pregame shows, not the postgame interviews, certainly not the games themselves. check that, one thing changed: the hype. the hype has gone up orders of magnitude since then. the importance of each and every contest is on an arc to which nothng else compares. every game is a must-win, every play is a game-changer, every shot of the head coach on the sidelines is apoplectic.

the drama is unbearable, the tension must be carved with rhetorical chainsaws. the outcomes are so serious that nothing outside the lines matters.

that's what the machine would have us believe. trouble is, i'm no longer a believer.

this puts me (and my wife and our children) in what feels like a suspicious minority. i'm starting to worry we'll be visited, one sunny super bowl sunday, by the nfl inquisition, demanding to know why we're not participating in the national day of worship.

i'm not saying i had a big fun day, sans super bowl. but i did.

it started with a walk to the village for breakfast with the missus and the dogs. followed by the aforementioned trips to the grocery stores. the car got washed, as did four loads of laundry. folded. i ran 4.9 miles (41 minutes), cooked dinner, drank some good wine, and typed up this little whatever-it-is. oh, and i cut up a fresh pineapple. i like fresh pineapple.

it just occurred to me, i do not have the express-written consent of the nfl to use the name of its signature game in this post. henceforth, i should refer to it as "the big game," as so many nonpaying nonsponsors are required to do.

yeah, fuck them. super bowl. super bowl! super bowl!!

that should've felt good. but it didn't. it just felt kind of blase. which is exactly how i feel about their big game. i mean, really, the last time anything remotely interesting happened was the janet jackson-justin timberlake wardrobe malfunction. the fact that a painfully insignificant slip of a nip could be such a HUGE scandal speaks volumes about america's IQ. meanwhile, george bush was busy tossing the country about like a gorilla with an american tourister suitcase, raising nary an eyebrow amongst an anesthetized populace.

but the momentary appearance of a nipple during the sacred game!? OMG!

i digress.

frankly, i wish the nfl season would never end, and every sunday were super bowl sunday. my weekend errands would go a lot quicker, and i could feel increasingly superior to everyone not taking advantage of all the time not spent ingesting the hype.

but eventually people would catch on, and the stores would fill up, and the carwash would be full of cars. and i would sit there in line and wish for the good old days when everyone was addicted to the nfl.

almost everyone.

...are you talkin' to me?

i got an email from newt gingrich!

i mean, i think i got an email from newt gingrich. it came to my email address, after all.

come to think of it, though, it started out "dear conservative..." ...and, uh, the thing is, i'm not exactly a conservative. what i am, in fact, is a liberal.

so, if you think about the political spectrum in terms of "liberal" on the left and "conservative" on the right, picture me standing in left field in a beautiful, all-american baseball stadium, and gingrich standing in the parking lot on the far right side of a dog-fighting ring in georgia.

i hope that helps.

back to the email...what else is newter saying?

"As I write this, Barack Obama and the Democrats are raising thousands of dollars per hour, waiting for a Republican nominee to emerge. He's a radical, secular socialist who wants to reinvent America in the image of the faded, decrepit Republics of Western Europe."

hang on. i may be biased here, but i'm also well to the left of barack obama. which is how i know he's neither a radical (much to my chagrin), nor a socialist. as for the "...faded, decrepit republics of western europe," wouldn't the failed communist regimes of eastern europe be a more apt comparison? i mean, if obama really is as far left as gingrich would like us to believe (which he totally isn't), then surely barack must be a red-loving, failed communist-statist.

why has newt-the-historian-and-reagan-conservative failed to make this connection? could it be because he's actually a revisionist historian and not remotely a reagan conservative? as if being a reagan conservative were actually something to embrace, rather than run from, screaming.

and before we leave the subject...why does newt hate europe so much? aren't some of those countries among america's allies? i'm no cartographer, but i'm pretty sure they are. is it really a good idea to insult them like this?

you know, i'm starting to think newt and his emailing minions made a mistake. several of them, in fact.

"I believe that a second term for Barack Obama will be a disaster for this country and I am committed to beating him."

i have no doubt that newt actually believes this. but most sentient creatures and several varieties of mushrooms believe the exact opposite. especially if newt is as committed to this endeavor as he was his first two wives.*

(* was that a cheap shot? nah. especially since newt is selling himself as a holier-than-thou roman catholic convert, blithering on about the sanctity of hetero marriage. historical note: newt raised a ruckus over bill clinton's blowjobs at a time when newt himself was happily hypocritizing in an affair of his very own. no, when you look at it that way, it's not a cheap shot. at all.)

thinking back to newt's glory days in the house, i recall him leading his party to remarkable lows in civility and willingness to govern via compromise. in fact, i see a direct line from the newt-led 104th congress to today's hilariously hostile, nonfunctional government, as well as the chasm of contempt between the right and left. these are not fond memories.

maybe i'll respond to this email and let newt know i'm disinclined to send him money or volunteer for his campaign. unless he'd be willing to negotiate (gasp!) some sort of compromise.

for example, in exchange for a few minutes of my valuable volunteer time, he could put me in charge of his email blasts. without irony, i would do nothing more (or less) than quote the candidate (in context!), and solicit support on that basis. all the way to the convention.

this would be consistent with newt's stated desire to run a "positive campaign, based on the issues."

it's a high-minded goal, one befitting a serious candidate with serious ideas, like putting poor children to work as janitors, or drug-testing people applying for unemployment, or building a permanent colony on the moon.

this way, voters would know exactly what they were getting with a newton leroy gingrich candidacy.

it's a straightforward, strait-laced, straight-talking strategy, with newt providing the content.

what could possibly go wrong?

random variability as seen through a prism of love

the odds of any of us being born are stupidly small.

there are just too many uncontrolled variables requiring perfect synchronization, dusted with a generous layer of faerie dust, to predict any of us.

so it follows that the odds are smaller still that a couple decades after an improbable birth, any of us would follow a path leading to a random meeting with a person with whom we will fall in love.

think about it. if any one of a zillion variables changes anywhere along that path, the chance meeting never occurs. you walk down the opposite side of the street. you dawdle over a text message. you get hit by a bus.

you don't meet your person, love never blooms, everything changes. this is true for all of us, every day, but we just don't notice it. or we choose to ignore it because it's too big and too mind-boggling to tolerate much scrutiny.

somehow, amidst all this improbability, my friend rob met ronna. they had enough variables working in their favor that they fell in love twenty-some years ago. they stayed in love, mostly, changing together over time the way people must if they are to keep that little flame flickering.

because, again, any one of infinite switches could flip the wrong way and the love would be gone. politics could come between them, or religious beliefs, or a cute young thing from the steno pool, if there were such a thing as steno pools any more.

or, just by way of random example, something in the environment or a quirk of heredity or i-don't-know flying too close to the sun could one day lead to ronna discovering that she had breast cancer.

she and rob, not being the kind to let a little thing like that come between them, would wage all-out war with it, hammering it down and away and out of their path. they would do what strong, intelligent people can do to control the variables that come at us too fast and too numerous to count.

they would fight, furiously, for a good long while.

still, the cancer would take ronna from rob on a recent friday. it had the power to do that.

but it was powerless to take the love.

"you will see each other again in your dreams...where you'll both be bright-eyed and happy and healthy. may those dreams be more real than this reality."

armed and genderous

Happiness is a warm gun
Happiness is a warm gun, momma
When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know nobody can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun, momma
Happiness is a warm gun
Bang bang, shoot shoot...

~~john lennon

i don't mind guns.

it's people i don't trust.

people and guns are a bad combination. anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is lying. or foolish. foolish liars with guns are an even worse combination.

"chicks with guns" (the concept and the book) is only slightly less disquieting than "children with guns," or "monkeys with guns."

women, see, are the life-affirming, life-giving, life-worth-living side of humanity. our better half in more ways than one should attempt to count.

put 20 million guns in their hands, and what do they become? what do we become? irredeemably dangerous. frightening. and, best avoided by creatures that prefer their bodies unpunctured by fast-moving metal.

"but, guns are for protection! women deserve to feel safe from other people with guns. people with bad intentions. you know, men!"

this argument seems valid, until you look at the fine print. the part about 30,000 u.s. gun deaths each year. the 17,000 suicides, and the 1,000 accidental deaths-by-gun.

when you put it that way, being anywhere near a gun doesn't sound like such a good idea. it sounds about as safe as petting a ravenous mountain lion. or befriending a masked man with a chainsaw. or fracking a volcano.

or indoctrinating the next generation of gun-toting tots...

Some of the more haunting images are those of moms with their kids.

In one image, a woman who lives in Healdsburg is seated on her bed with her daughter. The woman, named Lake, holds a stainless-steel Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. Her young daughter, Ruby, sits behind her and holds a vintage cap gun. Both stare impassively at the camera. Another portrait shows a woman in Houston, cradling her naked young son in one arm and holding an Ithaca 20-gauge side-by-side in the other. The woman told McCrum, "I'm eager to teach my boys everything I know."

if she gets started on that lecture now, those boys should be ready to go out and shoot living things any minute. heads up, y'all.

if we're being honest here (and we are), we should agree that guns are made to kill and maim animate objects. and if we can agree on that, we can also feel the dissonance of turning women into steely-eyed weapon wavers, a hair-trigger away from something horrifying and permanent.

men, historically, are the hunters and killers of all things with a pulse. back in the days of mammoths and saber tooth tigers, you could make a case for weaponizing the males, so the women could focus on perpetuating the species. now? not so much. the threat of extinction is no longer imminent, so men with guns kill things for fun, or because they're drunk, or because they're stupid.

until proven otherwise, we should agree that men can't be trusted with anything more dangerous than a plastic butter knife. and that the women are too smart, too civilized, too invested in the future of humankind to set their sights that low.

or maybe that's just whistling past civilization's graveyard.

Author and satirist Christopher Buckley called the book "a serious work of cultural iconography, and visually stunning, alternately sexy, arresting, haunting and mesmerizing."

visually stunning and haunting, certainly. indicative of our culture's cheerfully homicidal nature? definitely. sexy? um, right. nothing says "sexy" like a woman with a gun in her hand and a look of vacuous indifference or calculated menace in her eyes.

upon further review, it occurs to me that if you mentally photoshop out the guns, most of the women in "chicks with guns" actually are sexy. but then, they'd have to change the title of the book to something like "random chicks in fields," or just "chicks." which would be kind of odd.

the conclusion, then, is that that the chicks with guns should stay far afield~~farther...no, really, farther~~and i'll stay over here with the living things that don't care to be shot or shot at or even have a gun anywhere near them.

we can agree to that, yes?

thanks.

truth is a maverick, and other foibles

“You can’t hide from your record of making this country bankrupt, from destroying our national security and making this nation one that we have to restore with Mitt Romney as president of the United States of America!” ~~john mccain

i don't know why i let this kind of thing bother me. i really don't.

yes, i do.

it's because i was taught early in life to tell the truth. or risk a swift beating. it's not the best rationale for truth-telling, but it stuck with me.

a couple decades ago, john mccain seemed to have a stubborn streak of the truth-telling in him. while his colleagues on the right were busy defining down the concept of "facts" and "reality," mccain would get all contrary and say something like, "no, that's not right, and i'm not going along with it."

that's not a direct quote. but it does capture the essential mccainness that earned him the "maverick" moniker among his admirers.

compare that with today's mccain, who has sold his soul to the loony-fringey sarah palins of the world. to the point he will blame barack obama for bankrupting the country, destroying our national security, and oh-i-don't-know, cooking up endangered species in the white house kitchen.

as if everyone wasn't painfully aware george w. bush did all of it first, and far more efficiently. with a monkey grin on his face.

the fact that mccain has endorsed a candidate who would take us back to the glory that was the bush years perfectly illustrates how the old maverick is now not much more than an old barn horse ambling from fence to fence, hoping someone will feed him a carrot.

mccain used to be someone whom you could admire, sort of, if you overlooked his cognitively dissonant politics and the fact he was a lousy pilot.

one day, though, it seemed like senator maverick woke up believing the hype. overnight, probably during the 2008 presidential election, he jumped his own shark into the land of self-parody. from that moment on he's been kind of a sad charicature, an unfunny punchline who doesn't get the joke.

the lesson here is that it doesn't take much, or long, to fall from prominence and relevance to absurdity and bewilderment. this is especially true if you walk away from the qualities of character that made you interesting in the first place.

mccain's vanished integrity (and empty ranting) really isn't worth a moment's dudgeon. it shouldn't bother me in the slightest.

but for some reason, it does.

the end of the beginning

this is it.

unless something really interesting happens (let's hope not), this is the last blog post of 2011.

the last one by me, anyway.

i know several people who, for an assortment of very good reasons, did not enjoy their 2011. "i can't wait for this year to be over," they say, hopeful that adding a digit to the calendar will bring better results. or at least some breathing room.

i hope it works.

of course, 2011 wasn't bad for everyone. the 1%, for example, got richer. sure, the 99% got poorer, but the tide may be turning. the 1% really hate that prospect, which is in itself a good thing. #occupy 2012.

the spaceneedl family managed, once again, to keep heads above water. that too may change in 2012, when the missus quits a job she can no longer tolerate and goes in search of a new career. while i'm not eager to be poor, i'd rather be poor with a happy wife than comfortable with an unhappy wife (because, really, there's no being comfortable with an unhappy wife).

besides, i am fortunate in many nonmonetary ways. for example, i have the great good fortune to work with some of the most fiercely intelligent women i've ever met. they amaze me every day...plus, they make me laugh, for which i'm very grateful. i live with a couple females who fit that description, as well. the older one continues to be my best friend, as has been the case for many years. the young one continues to keep me wrapped around her little finger (and every other fiber of her being), as has been the case for all of her eleven years.

i do know a few intelligent males, but they're fewer and farther between. maybe it's because men are rumored to think of sex every sex seconds (which would certainly make concentration difficult, if that were true, which i'm sure it's not). i happen to live with an intelligent young male who tries hard, every day, to convince me he's not very bright. so far, i'm not buying it. but for the record, he is very persuasive.

collectively, we are healthy, we have enough to eat, and we have a roof over our heads. this makes us far more fortunate than many. we are grateful for our good fortune, and empathize with those who are not so lucky.

moving on...

at the end of last year i did a review of my itunes downloads for 2010. it was cathartic, and served to remind me that not every idea that pops into my head is a good one. yes, i needed the reminder. this year, instead, i offer the following random observations on the pop culture i stumbled across in 2011. make of them what you will. but try the wine...

movie of the year: (tie) "the help" and "midnight in paris"

album of the year: low country blues, gregg allman

song of the year: "god loves me" melissa mcclelland (2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T2_NAbtTZE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

wine(s) of the year: (red) 2008 tres picos garnacha; (white) 2009 chateau montelena chardonnay

chocolate of the year: coconut milk & caramelized ginger 55% dark chocolate (madre chocolate, honolulu) madrechocolate.com

best fitness-related decision of the year: stop playing basketball, start running. for real. as a demonstration of this zeal, today i was about to blow off running. late, a thought occurred to me: "LAST CHANCE TO RUN IN 2011 !!!" that got me moving. three and a half miles as the sun w
set over the olympic mountains.

best running shoe ever: new balance baddeley 890 (bought on a whim for $45.00 at nordstrom rack)

top projects for 2012: finish "the rally," start "the midlife wife." also, goad brenda into starting "deadwood SD" (or maybe "secrets of deadwood." still thinking about that one)

that's it. bring on 2012.

and don't make me regret it.

why so serious, son?

"You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying."

so, apparently the war in iraq is over.

you might have heard about it last week~~but then again you might not. the 'news' didn't get a lot of play in the press, and celebrations were muted.

VJ-day it was not.

"The last convoy of heavily armored personnel carriers slipped out of Iraq under cover of darkness and strict secrecy to prevent any final attacks. The 500 soldiers didn't even tell their Iraqi comrades on the base they were leaving.

"The fear spoke volumes about the country they left behind - shattered, still dangerous and containing a good number of people who still see Americans not as the ally who helped them end Saddam's dictatorship, but as an enemy."

officially, the last u.s. soldier killed in the conflict was a young man named david hickman, from greensboro, NC. speaking about hickman's death, and the outcome of the war, a friend said, “There aren’t enough facts available for me to have a defined opinion about things. I’m just sad, and pray that my best friend didn’t lay down his life for nothing.”

if we don't find horror in that kind of numb ambiguity, it's likely our souls are full of novocaine.

and sadly, plenty of facts are available. to recap, there was no link between iraq and 9/11. there were no WMDs. in fact, there was no justifiable reason at all to wage war there. in the end, there was just a surfeit of carnage. huge deficits. and a middle eastern country left wide open to the kind of threat we were warned to fear beyond all rationality.

did you know: the u.s. spent twice as long fighting in iraq as it did fighting WWII. would anyone like to make the case that saddam hussein was twice the threat of hitler, et al?

in lieu of that, it would seem that a langourous conflict in iraq, along with an endless "war on terror" was actually part of someone's mind-boggling plan.

and we haven't even mentioned afghanistan (aka, the place empires go to die). that plan, ten years later, is still reaping grimly, with no end in sight.

in both cases, despite all evidence to the contrary, there are still plenty of people who insist not enough time, money, and blood have been squandered. as if a pyrrhic nonvictory that laid waste to three countries (yes, the u.s. among them) isn't enough. what would satisfy them, one might wonder?

particularly since the u.s. is leaving behind a significant military presence, in the form of nearly 53,000 military contractors. plenty of money still to be made on that front.

to sum up, the u.s. spent nearly nine years at war with a third-rate dictator; hundreds of thousands of people were killed and trillions of dollars were spent. america became known for torture, prison without trial, and irradiating/strip-searching hapless air travelers.

for that horrific cost we earned the opportunity to sneak out of iraq under cover of darkness.

not to worry, though. it was all according to some sort of plan.

In the end, many of the departing troops wrestled with a singular question: Was it worth it?

Capt. Mark Askew, a 28-year-old from Tampa, Florida, said the answer will depend on what type of country Iraq turns into years from now - whether it is democratic and respects human rights.

"People are asking themselves: `Was this worth it?'" he said, speaking to his troops before they set off to Kuwait. "I can't answer that question right now."

ajax, au revoir

bubba's days are running out.

he's 20, see, which is old for a cat. it's hard to say if the liver failure or the kidney failure will get him first.

what is certain, in the meantime, is that bubba's light is dimming. his back legs no longer work very well...a far cry from the smoothly athletic stunts he used to pull, like leaping from the bathroom counter to the top of the door. or flying up the trunk of a large pine just ahead of two pursuing dogs. he was a sight, back in the day.

these days, bubba doesn't stray far from the space heater near his bed. his eyes are clouding, and his coat is perpetually full of mattes, despite the fact that i brush him every day. he's tired, mostly, and you can't really blame him. we should all be doing so well when we're the equivalent of 100 years old.

still, it's a little heartbreaking. some days, if i'm overly tired or stressed or otherwise out of sorts...it's a lot heartbreaking. we've been together a long time~~and though i can see a future when he's no longer around, that prospect doesn't feel real, or possible.

denial is a remarkable thing.

there are other, parallel endings imminent. for the wife of a good friend. for an uncle in hospice. strangely, there are more just outside our orbit. they resonate here, adding to the disquiet.

time slips through our grasp, not like sand or water, but like hard radiation, desiccating everything it touches.

and the simple, obvious, inescapable fact is this: at the end of the day, no one gets out alive.