affectation.log

Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her

And it's been a long December, and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
And it's been so long since I've seen the ocean
I guess I should.

"i think i did in fact think you were someone else, but your still cool. probably better than who i thought i was talkign to" [all sic]

"She had a weird night at a party.  Things will look different in the cold light of day."

Me [Sound Engineer]: Man, that Lesley girl's hot.
Kelly [Stage Manager]: Are you going to be saying that every five minutes?
Me: Of course not.  Just the once.
      [two minutes later]
Me: Hot.
Kelly: [sigh]
Me: Right, Zip?  Hot.
Zip [Master Electrician]: Who?
Me: Lesley.  She's Lucy, Lydia's servant.
Zip: Tell me when she's on stage again.
      [shortly thereafter]
Me: Now, Zip.
Kelly: [sigh]
Zip: She's cute.  Don't know if I'd go so far as to say hot, though.  What do you say, Kelly?
Kelly: [buries head in hands]

"Is drinking a way of killing yourself?"
"Or, is killing myself a way of drinking?"

I'm hanging on, here until I'm gone
I'm right where I belong, just hanging on
Even though I watched you come and go
How was I to know you'd steal the show?

"You want to do some blow?"

Guy: "What street are we on now?"
Five: "Highland.  Where are you going?"
Guy: "Somewhere around here.  So where's the party at?"
Me: "Wish we knew."
Guy: "Doesn't seem to be much around here."
Me: "Just follow the noise."

Guy: "So, where's the good sex around here?"
Me: "You're asking the wrong people."
Guy: "Why, you guys don't like sex?"
Five: "No, sex is good."

Guy: "Then what's the problem?"
Me: "Well, he used to go to WPI, and I still do."
Five: "There are four-to-one guys to girls."
Guy: "So what do you do in these tough times?"
Me: "Mr. Hand."

Guy: "I'd love to jerk you guys off."
Me and Five: "Uh..."
Guy: "I may seem crazy.  Are you scared?"
Me and Five: "Uh..."
Guy: "There's no shame in it.  So what's the problem, are you too small?"
Me: "Yeah, I'm tiny. It's embarrassing." [hold thumb and forefinger close to each other]
Guy: [to Five] "What about you?"
Five: "Just keep looking, man.  Just keep looking."

"Spring break!  Yeah!  ...  Well, when are we going to get rowdy?"

Passport, customs, carry on, remember
To shut off all of your
Electronic devices

I remember the stupid things, the mood rings
The bracelets and the beads

You'll never know what happened to me
It's just one of those things
I was sitting by myself
And my thoughts started pouring out

Me: "So last night, when you left your computer, you left your music on.  And this song came on and I was like, 'What the fuck?'"
Lacy: "What was it?"
Me: "I don't know.  Something by Missy Elliott.  Anyway, I ended up talking to Carrie for a while."
Lacy: "Really? So, are you smitten?"
Me: "Totally smote."

I need a sign to let me know you're here
'Cause my TV set just keeps it all from being clear
I want a reason for the way things have to be
I need a hand to help build up some kind of hope inside of me

And I'm
Calling all angels
And I'm
Calling all you angels

Albert's always sincere; he's a sensitive type
His intentions are clear; he wants to be well-liked
If everything is nothing, then are we anything?
Is it better to be better than to be anything?

Einstein's down on the beach, staring into the sand
'Cause everything he believes in is shattered
What you fear in the night in the day comes to call anyway

The Key to My Father
By Harlan Coben

Let's get something straight right away: my father was hopelessly unhip.  He was the corporeal embodiment of an Air Supply eight-track.  He'd come home from work, shed the powder-blue suit with reversible vest, the tie so polyester it would melt during heat waves, the V-neck Hanes undershirt of startling white, the gray socks bought by the dozen at Burlington Coat Factory.  He'd don a logo T-shirt that was compulsorily a size too snug, if you know what I mean, and shorts that were, uh, short, like something John McEnroe wore at Wimbledon in 1979.

His sunglasses were big, too big.  They might have worked on Sophia Loren but on Dad they looked like manhole covers.

He had thin legs.  My mom teased him about this, this 6-foot-2 man with the barrel chest and olive skin, teetering on spindly legs.  His hair, as described by my mother, was "tired," wispy and flyaway.  He had big arms.  To his children, they looked like oak branches.  The biceps would grow spongy with the years.  But they never had time to fully atrophy.

He would play ball with us, but he was a terrible athlete.

I remember going to that Little League coaches' softball game, the one they have at the end of every season, and watching my father—this man who had taught me to keep my elbow up and back foot planted—take to the plate and ground out weakly to third.  Three times in a row.  To his credit, he never made excuses.  "You," he'd tell me.  "You're an athlete.  Me, I'm a spaz."

His after-shave was Old Spice.  There had been a radical period when he tried an eau called Royal Copenhagen—someone had given him a gift set and damned if he was going to let it go to waste—but he veered back onto his Old Spice route.  That is still my strongest bar mitzvah recollection—that smell.

No, I can't tell you what part of the haphtara I recited from the pulpit of B'nai Jeshurun.  Something from Ezekiel, I think.  But there's that part in the ceremony where the father blesses the son.  My father bent down and whispered in my ear.  He said something about loving me and being proud—much as I want to, I can't remember the exact words—and then he kissed me on the cheek.  I remember the feel of his cheek on mine, the catcher's-glove hand cupping my head, and the smell of Old Spice.

On Saturday mornings, we went to Seymour's luncheonette on Livingston Avenue for a milkshake and maybe a pack of baseball cards.  I'd sit on a stool at the counter and twirl.  He'd stand next to me, always, as if that was what a man did.

He'd lean against the counter and eat—too quickly, I think.  He was never fat but he was always on the wrong side of the weight curve.  He was uneven about physical activity.  He'd discover a workout program, do it for three months, go idle for about six, find something new.  Rinse, repeat.  Like with shampoo.

He hated his job.

He never told me this.  He dutifully went to work every day.  But I knew.  He didn't have a lot of friends either, but that was by choice.  He could have been a popular man.  People liked him.  He could feign charm and warmth, but there was a coldness there.  He cared only about his family and he cared with a ferocity that both frightened and exhilarated.  You know those stories about someone lifting a car to save a trapped loved one? It took little to imagine him performing such a feat.  The world was his family—the rest of the planet's inhabitants no more than the periphery, deep background, scenery.

The night was his domain.  He slept lightly, too lightly.  I wonder if that is to blame, the way he'd startle awake.  I would try my hardest to tiptoe past his door, but no matter how great my stealth, he would jerk upright in his bed as if I'd dropped a Popsicle on his stomach.  Every night the same thing:

"Marc?" he'd shout.

"Yes, Dad."

"Something wrong?"

"Just going to the bathroom," I'd say.  "I've been going by myself since I was 14."

During my freshman year at college, after a particularly debauched frat party, I was struck by a strange realization: this was the first time I'd woken up sick without my father present.  His hand was not on my forehead.  He was not speaking softly or rubbing my back.

I was alone.

I blame myself for what happened.

Three days before my college graduation, I dropped my father off at the airport.

We were late.  He ran to catch his flight.  That is the image I can't shake all these years later.  My father, hopelessly unhip and out of shape, running for that stupid flight so he could be at a meeting that meant nothing to anybody.

Six hours later, he called from the Comfort Suite in Tampa.

"Let me speak to your mother."

I handed her the phone.

I watched her listen.  I saw her face turn white.

"What?" I asked.

"He's having chest pains, but he says he's fine."

And I knew.

And she knew.  I called the front desk.  I told them to send an ambulance.  I called my father back.  "I told the front desk to send someone up," and then my father said the most frightening thing of all: "O.K."

No argument, no brave front, no I'm fine.

"But I have to find the room key first," he added.

"What?"

"They'll be here soon.  I have to go.  I have to find the key."

"Forget the key."

"You might need it."

"For what?"

But he hung up.  And again I knew.  He had never been ill, but I knew.  With my father's strength, you somehow still sensed the fragile.

My mother and I rushed to the airport.  I called the hotel from a pay phone.  They just wheeled him out the lobby, I was told.

Wheeled him out.  I pictured the oxygen mask on his face.  I imagined him as I had never seen him: afraid.

He liked building things, my father, but he was bad with his hands.  He gardened on weekends, but our shrubs never looked right, not like the shrubs that belonged to the Bauers, who lived next door.  Their lawn looked as if it'd been trimmed for a P.G.A.  event.

Ours had dandelions tall enough to go on the adult rides at Six Flags.

My father fought in the Korean War but never talked about it.

I didn't even know he'd been in the military until I explored his junk drawer when I was 8 and found a bunch of medals in the bottom.  They were loose in the drawer, mingling with spare change.

Our plane had a stopover at the Atlanta airport, the epicenter of the stopover.  I called the hospital.  The nurse assured me that my father was fine.

But I didn't believe her.  She transferred me to the doctor.  I told the doctor I was calling about my father, that I was his son.  The doctor did that calm voice thing and asked me my name.  He told me, Marc—using my name so often it became like an annoying tick—that my father was in serious condition, Marc, that they are going to operate in a few minutes.  I felt my legs go.  He's awake and comfortable, the doctor told me.  He understands what is happening.  I asked to speak to him.  "The phone cord won't reach, Marc," the doctor said.

"Tell him we're on our way," I insisted.

"I will." But I didn't believe him.

My father always longed for a Cadillac.  He got one when he turned 52.

He listened only to AM radio.  Every once in a while a certain song would come on and he'd turn it up.  His face would change.  The lines would soften.  He'd lean back and steer with his wrists and whistle.

By the time we arrived at the hospital, night had fallen.  I sat in the waiting room.  He was still in surgery.  My mother did not speak, something that is usually accompanied by a parting sea or burning bush.

I began to make deals with whatever higher power would listen, you know the kind, about what I'd do, what I'd risk, what I'd trade, if only it could be morning again and we could leave for that damn plane a few minutes earlier and if he hadn't run to catch that flight, if he'd just walked instead, if he didn't devour his food, if he kept up with an exercise program, if I'd been an easier son.

At 4 a.m., that awful hospital beeping sound echoed down the still corridor, then a rush that stole our breath.  The air was suddenly gone.  And so, too, was my father.

We bury him on Father's Day.

The weather is, of course, spectacular, mocking my gloom.  The men his age come up to me and tell me all about their own heart problems, about their close calls, about how lucky they've been.  I look through them, wondering why they are the ones who get to stand before me, happily breathing.  I wish them ill.  I call his former boss, the one who sold the company and made my father stuff envelopes with his resume at the age of 56.  I tell him that if he shows up at the funeral, I'll punch him in the face.  He, too, is to blame.

I wonder if my father was scared near the end or if he went into surgery thinking it would be all be O.K.  Don't know, of course.

There is a lot I don't know.  I don't know what my father wanted out of life.  I don't know what he wanted to be when he was a young man, before I came around and changed everything.  He never expressed any of that to me.  And I never asked.

A week after the funeral, I call his doctor down in Tampa.

"He died alone," I say.

"He knew you were there."

"You didn't tell him."

"I did."

"What did he say?"

The doctor takes a second.

"He said for you to check his pocket."

"What?"

"You'd need a place to stay overnight.  He said to check his pocket."

Cradling the phone, I go to the closet where his belongings, still in the plastic hospital bag the nurse handed me, are hanging.  I break the seal.  The Old Spice scent is faint but there.  I dig past the Hanes V-Neck and find his pants.

"What else?" I ask.

"Pardon?"

"What else did he say?"

"That's it."

"Those were his final words? Check his pocket?"

His voice is suddenly soft.

"Yes."

My fingers slip into the pocket of his pants and hit something metallic.  I pull it out.

The hotel key.  He'd found it after all.  He put it in his pocket.  His last words, his last act, for us.

I still have the key.

I keep it in a drawer with his medals.

I want the answers now
Must be all confused somehow
Did you say what I heard about
I've heard a million things
Gossip's being sent to me
I don't want to believe it
Until I hear it from your mouth

I'm in the red, 'cause my mind's distortin'
People claim they know me, but they only know a portion
I'm goin' to move mountains and touch the sun
Don't scared now; you knew this day would come
So hold your bids; all bets are closed
And fuck all you ho's

I'm sick of people who hate on me for drinking when they themselves never have.

I'm sick of people ridiculing me for the things that I enjoy.

Go fuck off.

Me: "Does it bother you that you're a nerd?"
Kate: "Why would it?  It's fun, and I get to hook up with cool guys."
Me: "Whoa, whoa, whoa.  I don't want to hear about the guys you hook up with."
Kate: "One of them was you."
Me: "Touché."

[2004.05.06 11:49:09] Enoch Root: I'm just hangin', feeling kind of like Benjamin Braddock.
[2004.05.06 11:49:26] Enoch Root: Except for the whole Mrs. Robinson thing.
[2004.05.06 11:49:50] serlahc: Haven't seen that movie.
[2004.05.06 11:50:20] Enoch Root: Hey, at least you knew what movie I was talking about.
[2004.05.06 11:50:57] serlahc: (Had to google it.  Everything with you is a reference that I won't get.)

When what I came to say is said
And the sun sets on my summer career
How September came for Sinatra
It is winter, then it is a new year

And the big, bright lights take Manhattan
So I take to Berlin
And tomorrow, we all get started
But for tonight, I am turning in

When what I came to do is done
And we all feel a holiday cheer
Then I hear my swan song singing
"It is winter, then it is a new year"

I remember me
And all the little things that make up a memory
Like she said she loved to watch me sleep
Like she said, "It's the breathing
It's the breathing in and out and in and..."

Your self-help book shelf is full now
Your pictures are about to be pulled down
Without regard for a broken heart
It's another year

Ringing in my head
All the things you've said
All the things you've done
I wish I could compromise
But there's only one way to go

"It was Sofia who never fully recovered.  It was she who somehow knew you best.  And like you, she never forgot that one night where true love seemed possible.  Consequences, David.  It's the little things."

"The little things.  There's nothing bigger, is there?"

"Same shit, different state."

"What can I do for you, Leonard?"
"Um—"
"Burt."
"Burt.  I'm not sure.  I think I may have asked you to hold my calls."
"You don't know?"
"Well, I think I may have. I'm not too good on the phone."

[2004.05.17 00:39:20] Rasputina 2 1 7: so, I got your drunken message
[2004.05.17 00:40:10] Enoch Root: Yeah, I really shouldn't be allowed to have a cellphone.
[2004.05.17 00:40:10] Rasputina 2 1 7: and no, I don't regret the night I met you. but I do regret th way things worked out in the long run, meaning they way I handled things.
[2004.05.17 00:41:10] Enoch Root: What do you mean?
[2004.05.17 00:42:34] Rasputina 2 1 7: well, I basically mean that I am very good at not getting attached to people and I am not very sensitive to the fact that other people often have different outlooks/feeligns than I do.

"Man, it'd be nice if you came back to visit, but I harbor no illusions about anything of the sort.  I know that once you leave, you're gone.  You know, I'm surprised you actually want to leave Worcester."

"Why's that?"

"Because you seem to know everybody."

"But I hate most of them.  You should be able to relate to that."

"That's a good point."

Sittin' around the house
Watchin' the sun trace shadows on the floor
Searchin' for signs of life
But there's nobody home

Well, maybe I'll call or write you a letter
Now, maybe we'll see on the Fourth of July
But I'm not too sure
And I'm not too proud

Remember, any time you use both hands at the same time, it's officially called "John Woo style."  Grab a slice of pumpkin pie in each hand and start shoving them both in your mouth.  Now you're eating, John Woo style!

"Hey, I wonder if Moffat is awake!"
"Yeah, EGo, I am."
"Shit!  Did I wake you up?"
"Yeah, you did."
"Sorry!  Go back to sleep!"
"Goodnight, EGo."
"Goodnight!"

"I should probably bring a change of clothes."
"Yeah, in case we run into any fountains."

She tried to tear herself away from him.  The effort broke against his arms that had not felt it.  Her fists beat against his shoulders, against his face.  He moved one hand, took her two wrists, pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades.  She twisted her head back.  She felt his lips on her breast.  She tore herself free.

Sometimes in my bed at night
I'm dreaming that I'm flying at the speed of light
In two seconds I'm brushing past the face of the moon
Eight seconds flat, on the surface of Mars
I'm kicking up the red dust, drinking in bars
I lean back and raise a toast to the stars tonight
Dreaming at the speed of light

"So, Mark, uh... um... I— Uh... I kissed your sister."
"For real, yo?  So how was she?"

"When you return to your quarters, strip in a room free of drafts.  Let two men rub you gently with soft Turkish towels.  Then they should rub you with coarser towels to quicken the circulation and harden the skin."

"Do you get that there are certain ways in which I am not like you?"
"Yes."
"You walk up to women.  You're that guy.  You have a smoothness.  It works for you.  Those are the ways in which I'm not like you."
"I just thought you meant 'cause you were allergic to bees."

"You should have done better.  You should have gotten a 900."

"Big celebrity birthday coming up: Jesus.  Happy birthday, Jesus."