Friday, February 26, 2010

"SNOW-LOCKED: SUBURBAN DC STORY" SEVEN PARAGRAPHS

The snow has not abated. It falls, still, steadily and implacably. It shrieks, with its brother wind's help, sideways through the suburban streets of DC. Great voluminous drifts--pure blinding white--squeeze our streets into impassable trails. My 4x4 is useless. I wish I had snowshoes. Born in the great state of Louisiana, I had never seen snow, let alone blizzards. We--my wife, our two daughters and our dogs, a Beagle and a Boxer--are sticky-stuck. We're snow-locked.

The first few days weren't bad. We held faith that the crews would be able to clear the roads, clear them, at least, to the point that going to the grocery store would be a viable option. Hell. The first two or three days, we had fun. No work, no school? What could be better? Paid days off and no school for the teen aged girls. We watched the Olympics, and saw the US men's puck team cream Finland. (What else was expected? The US and all its accroutrements are a juggernaut. Power, greed, success.) And but then the power went out. Briefly. It came back, but the TV was fucked. No matter, I said to my wife. We go Outside. We play. And we did, building snow forts and snowmen and -women till the setting sun withdrew its brilliance from the reflective white world.

Inside was cozy. We had fires roaring nonstop in the living-room-dining-room pit and we had steaks and chicken and mashed potatoes and chicken Caesar salads and all the canned fruit you could shake a stick at. But.

But the snow never stopped. It has not, still. It hasn't stilled. Live is "Evil" spelled backwards. I have reached my wit's end. The girls bickering has reached a fever-pitch and the wife is incommunicado and the dogs are shitting and peeing all over the place because we have about three feet of snow wedging us into this Colonial, this place we call Home. I have reached my wit's end.

***

It is a White Wash-World. DC is under(frozen)water. The snow is omnipresent. It's ubiquitous. It's always here. You know what I'm trying to say. When we and the girls eat, snow is what I think of. When I shit, snow is what I think of. When I go to the basement and bring up yet another bottle of Absolut, snow is what I think of. When I sleep, I dream of snow. I have nightmares in which snow is the villain and I am the hapless victim. Or, verily, I nightmare in which I am the villain and snow is the angelic White. I'm fucked-up, man. My wife of eighteen years and my daughters (and my dogs) are a-scairt of me, now. They're frightened, man. Can't say that I blame them. You see, the last few nightmares I've had have been of White, yes, but they've also been splashed with innocent red blood. I just pray that it's my own.

***

We ate the dogs last night. It was tough for me, but. I'd known them since they'd been puppies, but.... The Beagle tasted better; he had more body fat. The women ate the pets hesitantly, with tears in their eyes. There were some tears, here, too. I, after a prayer for Friendship and Companionship, ate greedily. When one's cupboards are bare, when one's Hunger is omni-fucking-ubiquitous, one has to do what I had to do. I had to eat. We had to eat, so I killed the dogs--humanely!--and we ate them up. We had to use a ten rusted Sterno canisters that I found down in the basement (from earlier, more peaceable camping days), but it worked. And, yes, it's what "they" say: it tasted like chicken. Only stringier.

***

I have blood on my hands. Not to mention my lower face. And, definitely, my teeth. Look out the window, if you will! Oh! That's right! You can't. The snow is.... The snow is.... I have problems even writing this. Before the goddamned motherfucking SNOW came, I was living beautifully. Everyday life, man. You know what I mean. The garbage cans, the fucking grass-cutting. Shovelling NORMAL snow?! Yes! I could do that! All that! And I did. But, wait, Reader, look out the windows. Does it seem dark? Of course. It is. The Sun can't slant through 30 feet of snow. You know. I really truly do not want to go in to graphic details. Let us leave it at this: I'm single again. I'm starting anew. My dogs have been shit out and I still have half of my wife in the snow outside and my two precious girls. I guess it comes down to the survival of the Fittest. Who is stronger? Who has more pull with the butcher's knife? I had more pull and so I have the longer lifespan. I made--I made!--the difficult decisions and so I am still alive. Here. Under three stories of snow. Did I mention that the heat has blew? It's gone. Whatever. The kitchen table--so many good fucking memories--will heat my bones adequately. At least for today. Oh! Come, Spring!

#

Friday, February 12, 2010

THE OLYMPIAD--21ST WINTER GAMES

The Winter Olympics, the 2010 edition, is upon us. I love watching the Olympics. Summer or Winter, it's all good. I enjoy watching the women and men--for the most part, amateurs--competing, in their chosen sport, against the best that the world has to offer.

Sometimes, when the Olympiad is not upon us, I sniff and scoff at the banality of sports like downhill skiing, bobsled, beach volleyball, archery.... But then, when the Opening Ceremonies, well, open, I'm hooked. It's the stories, I guess, that grab my watchingeye. The stories of the athletes' tribulations and triumphs. The stories suck me in.

I think it's the athletes' passion that convinces me. The arduous training days, the postponement of basic human wants and desires and lusts that they, more often than not, smother in the hopes of achievement. Well, that speaks to me. I am a somewhat athletic person. I can rain threes in basketball, I can make diving catches in softball, I can throw a tight pigskin spiral, I can juggle.... But, I know, I lack the passion that these men and women hold.

[I'm not an Olympic athlete. There. I said it. I feel so much better now.]

Which makes what happened today so damned tragic. A 21-year-old Georgian (Russian Georgia) died as a result of an accident during a training run in the Luge. Lugers are fucking crazy to start with, I think. Basically, they're lying on their back, on a sled, on something like a bobsled track, wherein their speeds can reach in excess of 80 miles an hour. Um. Yeah. Sounds safe. It's just horrible, though. A 21-year-old, ranked 44th in the world at his sport, hit a curve a little too tightly and thus upended himself from his sled and went airborne, slamming into a steel girder, back/neck-first at, probably, 85 miles an hour. (In a case like this, the helmet ain't a savior.)

I just think of all the time that that kid put in to training and postponements of Want and it just makes me fricking sick.

What a way to open The Games, eh?
Mister Rogers: "Can you say 'pall'? I knew you could."

Another thing? That makes me ill? I am human. I am not immune to craning my neck at an accident site, to, perhaps, see some carnage. But I was shocked, actually, when, on the national news on whatever network, I saw the hapless Georgian going into his death-soar.
>>>Meet steel girder/column.<<<
We were warned, of course, before they aired the video of the guy's imminent death, but, still. Did they have to show it four times? Twice in slow-motion? I think not.

Sure. It's news. Being the Olympics, it is world news. But. Just...no. I think most of us human beans have the (perhaps) Neolithic urge to survey tribulation and say to ourselves, "That bad. Sho. But that not me. Sho." But there should also be some small amount of dignity in death. The guy was a fucking athlete, you know? He trained the majority of his life for his chosen sport. Was he great at it? Well. 44th in the world is nothing to sneeze at. But for what will the Georgian be remembered? His slow-motion death.

"Hey! Remember that dude that died before the '10 Olympics even started?! He, like, flew off his bobsled, or something, and then, like, smi-zashed into a concrete wall, back-first?!"

"Um. No?"

...Consideration...

"Oh! Yeah! He died, right? But it wasn't, like, bobsled, or nothing, it was...what'd'ya call? Loogie?"

".... Oh! Yeah. Luge. It's a sport where you slide down icy tracks, on your back, in a kinda sled, and you go, like, 45 miles an hour, or something. Wait. Make that 85 or 90. Damn."

Damn.

Well, anyway, I love the Olympics. I just do. Sure it's over-journalized, sure it's sssssssappy, sometimes, most times. It is what it is. I am geeked to watch as much as I can.

(Also? Lindsey Vonn? She is fucking hot. Her face? Her tightly-toned body, sculpted out of years of skiing and training? Um. Yeah. Mmmmmm....)

=o)