In about an hour we’ll be leaving for Michigan, our car packed with ribbon and picture frames and a small bubble maker to keep the kids entertained and a half-a-dozen cases of wine and 30 small pots of daisies.

When we return in two weeks the daisies will probably be wilting, the wine will have been long since consumed, the ribbon (having been tied to trees) will be frayed (if not burned in a bon fire). But we will be husband and wife and our new life will begin in earnest.

There will be laundry to do and dishes and the kitchen floor (which Penny hates because it scuffs so easily) will have to be washed. We will return to our jobs and there will be bills piled up on the desk (the cool antiquey one we found for $60 at an estate sale) in our foyer.

And nothing will be the same again.

As of this second (and anyone who lives in Michigan knows the weather can change by the minute) there is a 0% chance of rain for next Saturday in Grand Rapids. Thursday and Friday are standing at about 20% each day.

I know that some people will say the act of writing this down has just jinxed us. Well, I’m sure I’ve made this point abundantly clear - I don’t believe in that sort of stuff. I believe in luck (sort of) to the extent that you make your own. Sure, some people are born to rich parents, (or, sadly and more commonly, to poor parents) or with a certain look that their generation finds attractive, but basically your luck is what you make it.

For example, someone who wins the lottery is lucky…but you can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket. That’s making your own luck. It’s the same thing with marriage. You’re lucky if you meet someone you’re “compatible” with (however you define compatibility), but you have to work at making it into a relationship.

As for the weather…there’s nothing we can do about it. You can plan a wedding in a meadow, and if it’s 75 degrees and sunny, you’re lucky. But you should rent a tent just in case.

Forgive my indulgence.

Getting married next Saturday is the best decision I've ever made. I sincerely feel like the luckiest person I know. If I were a religious man I would use the word blessed.

I think of myself as a person whose belief system is based predominately in "reality." I believe in things that are provable. That being said, there are plenty of things I can't measure or "see" that I believe, things I think of often and will never truly understand: time is relative, the immensity of the universe, the power of human emotions.

My "pragmatic" belief system led me to reject ideas I shouldn't have:
-One person can change the world. (They can and do.)
-People can change (they can...for better or worse).
-I had to solve everything by myself (I underestimated peoples' abilities, or their capacity for caring).
-Marriage. (I dismissed it as antiquated, patriarchal, wealth control, institutionalized nonsense. Frankly, I thought it was a con.)

The irony (besides the all-too obvious irony that I'm getting married) is that my parents had an exemplary marriage. What I saw between them was respect, affection, empathy. What I never saw between them was disrespect, hostility, dishonesty. I never saw (and I mean this...never once) spite, hatred, apathy, jealousy.

Of course there were disagreements, between them, between my brothers and I, every imaginable combination.

And too little time.

It's easy to romanticize the past, especially now, so close to my own wedding. The emotions I feel from moment to moment are so heightened that everything I do (I'm not exaggerating...everything, from what I pick up at the grocery store to how I stand at the plate in my coed softball league) is literally imbued with more emotion than maybe such mundane acts should ever posses.

I well up with tears on a daily basis. We were sitting in Leona's the other day, just going over the plans for the ceremony: the introductions, who goes down the aisle when, we say the vows, etc. etc., and I started crying.

And my dad won't be there. I can't believe it's been almost seven years since he died. He never saw me go to grad school, write a play, never met the woman who is going to be the mother of my children. In so many ways he made me a better person, and Penny makes me a better person still.

Whatever good is in me is mine. But I didn't form it alone. Far from it. At this point in my life my human frailties are all mine; my strengths have been absorbed from better sources: philosophers, artists, people I've met (and I'm grateful for what I'm able to recognize as good in the world).

I never believed in "meant to be." And I still don't. It's nothing more than pure coincidence that Penny and I met. We were born in different cities, years apart. Grew up in completely different parts of the country. Our families were from different continents. We weren't introduced by friends, or betrothed as children. There was nothing "arranged" about our meeting; (I know, I know...that makes it seem even more like it was preordained). We were waiting tables in some random restaurant. When we met, there was undoubtedly a spark...but how did it happen that this person grew to become for me ... more than I believed was possible.

We've heard people say (usually in bad movies) I love her so much it scares me. I have no idea what these people are talking about. I've never felt safer in my life. Do I worry about money and kids (I have dreams about them) and "The Future?" Of course.

I'm not walking around in a foggy euphoria (I read way too much about politics to have any delusions). I know life is hard, and I know how lucky I am in more ways than I probably deserve.

Penny is the most obvious example of that.

You know that time between full sleep and full wakefulness? The time when you’re not sure whether you’re dreaming or actually experiencing? I love it. I looked it up; it’s called Hypnopompia. It’s defined as “the experiences a person can go through in the period of waking up.”

Experience is an interesting word. Because when you think about it, you’re not really experiencing anything. You’re just lying in bed. You’re not doing anything. The “experiences” are all in your mind. But they seem almost real. Sometimes you can’t be sure…’did that happen – or did I dream that.’ That’s pretty cool.

If you’re lucky, you get to take your time waking up. You get to experience even more of that other reality that occurs mostly in your head. If you wake quickly, one of those freaks that spring out of bed, that time is (sadly) short.

But I’ve been lucky recently in that most of my days I don’t have to wake at any given second. I don’t have the snooze button to look forward to and hate at the same time.

But I’ve been unlucky in that most of the conversations between Penny and I have taken place with one of us in that hypnapompic state. It’s always sweet, usually amusing and occasionally frustrating. We’ve learned to communicate under the most difficult of circumstances…with one of us barely conscious.

“Honey, did you see my keys?”

“Tfffhere inm…hmmm…de fhhhunt.”

“Thanks.”

If we can do this, then everything else will be a snap.

 

I just returned from five days on the farm. I cleared fallen limbs and branches, started painting the stage and ate more meat than any man (or woman for that matter) should.

The weather couldn’t have been nicer if I’d made it myself. Every day was rain-free. The few clouds were more picturesque than threatening.

I watched my first bull testing, a process so graphic everyone should be made to watch it. The smells…musky bull, earth, shit, and something else I won’t even try to describe though it’s the most palpable…more intuitive than sense-oriented. Loud, angry, frightened bulls don’t moo. They scream, honk, howl. They kick and thrust and fall onto their front knees drooling, their enormous mouths flinging spit and snot and occasionally blood in every direction while their heads are held in place by giant metal bars.

I saw a day-old calf, still wet and wobbly. 104 pounds. (I don’t care how big the mom is, that’s gotta be uncomfortable.)

The meadow and the pasture are starting to bud and bloom. It’s invigorating, physically and emotionally. Every time I leave there I wonder when I’ll be able to go back. (I wonder if I would appreciate it as much had I’d grown up there.)

People in “the country” know a lot about their world. More than the people I daily see. Black walnut trees (and how the taste is different from English walnuts), and multiflora rose (apparently invasive and a total nuisance), and garlic chives (growing wild everywhere in clumps and patches).

This wedding is going to be amazing.

100 days to go. Someone asked me the other day why, after all this time, did I feel it was time to ask Penny to marry me. I’m a person who likes specifics. I prefer the rational to the emotional (though anyone who’s seen me watch sports on TV would argue otherwise).

The only answer I can give in full sincerity is that it just felt right. After thinking and weighing (the options…not myself) and wondering and worrying…it simply felt right.

The old cliché is true; when you know you know. And I knew. And fortunately, so did Penny.

Penny and I went up to Richland Center, WI (thank you so much to grampa Ursin, Lois, Allen and Kristi). The clean air and open spaces almost hypnotized us. And Cody and Ebony are the sweetest dogs ever.

We may have finally found our band. Uncle John was kind enough to send us a demo tape, and we liked what we heard. The disc contained acoustic versions of Ain't No Sunshine, I'll Be Around and Hootchie Cootchie Man. The singer's voice was strong and soulful; what more can anyone ask for?

This has nothing to do with the wedding, but I saw the headline and counldn't help but laugh.

Cubs Buy Pagan Contract

Pagan? That could have been me. I thought only the Devil and Newt Gingrich made contracts like this. (Badum boom..tsshhh)

A billboard in an alley in Roger's Park just off Clark Street.

 

Pictures from "family Christmas." (Who knew I would ever write those words in reference to myself?)


 

The old boat house.

 

Stariway to...The lake behind Jim and Molly's house.

 

The beginning of the New Year is always a good time to reflect, and, more importantly, look ahead. (Frankly, though I recognize the arbitrariness of the date, it is nonetheless a legitimate marker of time; like a birthday, or pitchers and catchers arriving at spring training.)

I ask myself: Did I work hard enough this year? (I think I worked hard in many ways, but there’s room for improvement.)

Did I spend enough time writing this year? (I don’t think I did, though I made some progress, completed some projects and made some good connections.)

Am I a better person? (Uh….)

Money is still a concern, though for a short time this past summer I was as financially comfortable as I’d been in a long time. Things are a little tighter now, especially with the additional expenses we’ve acquired. (Our rent went up by over $150 bucks, but that’s more than compensated for by the fact of our dramatically increased space – from 550 sq. ft. to over 1600, coupled with the fact that we just feel more comfortable here. I can’t say enough about having a little personal space, some “elbow room.”)

We bought a car. And insurance.

And, of course, there’s the wedding.

Questions are constant - about myself, about the larger world (seriously now…what the fuck are these idiots doing? And how did they get in charge of most of the countries in the world…especially this one. But that’s a topic for another blog). But for the first time in my life I have no questions about what love is.

I used to think love was conditional. And who wouldn’t think that? Look at the examples: Fifty percent divorce rates. Infidelity reportedly higher than ever. (Women cheat? Who knew?). The You Suck as a Person Industry thriving. (Self-improvement books, plastic surgery, the bastards at the pharmaceutical companies.)

I was lucky in a lot of ways. I can never appreciate enough the amazing example that my parents set for me.

But if I learned nothing else this year, I learned that love is, by it’s very nature, completely unconditional. (Duh!) I’m not going to try and define love, that would be egotistical, woefully inadequate no matter how long, and probably sort of ridiculous, because anyone who knows what love is also knows that the reason everyone writes about it and sings about and talks about it and dreams about it is because its indefinable. If you collected all the artistic works of human history (ballet, sculpture, painting, film, writing, theatre and on and on) that concerned themselves with the idea of love, you would still only be scratching the surface.

I have a lot of concerns (fears?), but not about love.

In more ways than I can (or should) say, Penny is my savior. She’s my messiah, my muse.

I love going up to Michigan.

The drive is like decompression; arrival is like landing.

We climb into our pod (aka our Toyota Matrix, aka "Neo") close the doors and we’re off, shuffling through half-a-dozen CDs (carefully hand-selected). With one stop for gas etc., (all off-ramp gas station/bathroom/foodmart/rest areas feel eerily similar) we arrive in under four hours.

I stretch mightily, shaking off the vaguely catatonic hypnosis from the road (driving is so much like sleepwalking).

Inhale.

I love the way Penny and I talk during the trip. We share space so well, a lucky combination of disposition, circumstance (man, we’ve had some small apartments) and pheromones.

The route feels like time travel. We leave our tightly packed neighborhood - rows of statuesque three flats between squat and sturdy six and eight unit condoplexes. We turn onto what is, for southbound traffic, the beginning of Lake Shore Drive.

The City eventually gives way to some of the most industrial parts of the Midwest. Gary, Indiana still smells like what a lot of the rust belt communities experienced before the advent of clean air standards: Ash, sulphur, sewage, god-know-what else strong enough to make you stick your face in your shirt.

Indiana becomes Michigan, and the hills and trees look manicured, even when leafless. They have the craziest things out there, things from centuries ago, like vineyards, orchards, farms - with very large animals!

Completing our journey back in time, after 180 miles of pavement, the road evaporates, becoming dirt, then gravel.

Inhale.

 

Penny and I spent our first Christmas eve eve as betrothed walking through the Lincoln Park zoo and checking out the zoo lights display. Neither of us had been before. It's actually really cool, and nicely done.
 

From Uncle Jim.

Yes, well that does bring up a conundrum for the eccentric confronted with a new problem, and lacking the determinism of a well worn rut. Of course true eccentrics always travel in ruts, but sooner or later, there comes a fork. Do you turn your loved one into jewelry, or call a taxidermist? Compress their carbon into a crystal, or stretch their skin over an heroic form? Diamonds offer perfect molecular order, but taxidermy has possibilities that plastic surgeons can only dream of. Consider the Jack-a-lope.

And consider the room: is it right for a discreet head mount, a showier shoulder mount, or, as favored by Mediterranean cultures, the whole body mount? The latter offers many more creative choices as one can pose one’s loved one in action. Perhaps on the stair climber, or cooking breakfast, or flopped out on the couch watching a game.

A mind is a terrible thing.

Jim