And I Will Wait Forever, These Things Will Never Wash Away, And I Will Wait For You, Will You Even Notice?

--"Knocked Flat in the First Round", Karmella's Game

I'm working on a new idea unlike any I've done before. It came to me as I was reading Naomi Novick's wonderful Temeraire series involving the use of dragons as aircraft replete with military crews during the Napoleonic war. For some strange reason I made this leap about what it'd be like to be telling the story from the point-of-view of the dragons, who by many are seen as more equipment than living creature. I mean--I know it was the author's intent to bring up this very connection, but it occurred to me this would provide useful fodder for a story that's been gestating in my head for awhile.

Basically, ever since I read the Anita Blake series many years ago I've tried to invent a narrative of my own involving a summoner/conjuror, someone who can call forth all manner of beasts to do his or her bidding. Finally, marrying this idea with the one I thought of during my reading of Novick's work, I hit upon the idea of telling a story from the point-of-view of a conjuration, a creature whose life consists of being summoned forth to do a series of tasks and then ceases to exist once these tasks are accomplished. I can't even fully realize how you would tell an entire novel in such stilted episodes, but yesterday's post was my first stab at it. It wasn't written well, I know, but I wrote it before I got to talking some people where the heart of the tale shall lie. And in those conversations I hit upon the angle that very well may make or break the story.

I need to tell the story from the perspective of someone who is fully aware of the limited nature of his being. I need to progress him from that point to someone who ultimately questions whether or not he is, indeed, alive. Does the fact he has purpose actually give him some meaning? Or is having a purpose not enough evidence sustain the hypothesis that he is living somehow? The question if a life has to be both relevant to those around him and possess some purpose in order to be qualified as being a meaningful life is a way more fruitful proposition than telling the same old supernatural tale I love to tell.

After all, man's search for meaning is a story that's been recast and rebroadcast ever since man began writing. That's probably why the individual who told me, "You have to strike that in there, Eeyore. You positively must," is also the person who will be relaying the most advice to me in preparation for this next story.

She should know all about this search. She's probably lived it all her life.

----

When Breanne first told me she ran away from home frequently, I didn't think much of it. I'd run away from home a few times myself. To me running away meant escaping for a few hours, only to return before it got too dark outside. It was a bluff, a charade for the sake of one's parents in order to get them to back down. The idea was that they would be so worried about one that they would cave on whatever issue the argument which prompted the departure had been about. That was always the picture in me head when my friend would talk of running away the nine or ten times she'd done it before she met me.

Then I'd learned her idea of running away vastly differed from mine. When she left home it was fully with the intent to never return. She would tell me how as early as nine she would attempt to get out of the town limits just to be away from all the turmoil she felt was ever present in her household. She would tell me how she, when her parents began deciphering her usual trail leading away, would go to her friend Torry's house with sleeping bag in hand. There she would crawl unceremoniously beneath the house, beneath the porch, and just wait out till next morning. When she left home it wasn't a component of some grand scheme to influence her family; when she left it was to escape something I'd never experienced in my own life.

That's when I began probing the full details of her discontentment. That's when I started understanding the idea somebody could appear on the outside happy-go-lucky and carefree, but beneath be embroiled in a slow-burning anguish that many of us never experience.

She comes from a good home. Being an only child, it's not like she had to share the spotlight of her parents' affections with anyone else. She's just as intelligent as I am, she's always been popular, and, for the most part, she's lived in relatively good health. Like most people I was wondering what could drive somebody to act out in such a desperate manner. Like most people I didn't understand the concept of living in a gilded cage, as she succinctly put it.

It wasn't just the dance lessons, the incessant coddling, the constant talking down to her as if she were somewhat less than a rational human being. It was that coupled with the fact that she's always had an independent streak about her. It was the unhappy marriage of divergent opposing forces. It was akin to attempting to divert the river into a narrow bottle. It was a bad idea right from the start.

She explained it to me thusly. It was never that she questioned her parents' love for her. That was never in doubt. She merely felt that she was smothered since her earliest years. She wasn't just told what to do; she was led hand in glove to the point where she didn't believe she had any options when it came to the schedule of her day. To her her mother assumed all decisions for her, from what she ate, to what she wore, to where she would be at all times. She didn't even know she had the option to act out until years after most of us grow out of this rambunctious stage, so complete was her mother's domineering mannerisms.

That's when the question of meaning began to flit in Breanne's head, she said. That's when she started the whole writing process to work through these ideas she was too afraid to tell her mom about. That's when she distinguished between having the talent or skill to do something--dance, be courteous, be graceful at all times, study, &c...--and the ability to decide when to do something. She started asking the deeper question of whether it's more important to be the fastest filly in the pasture if it meant having to be ridden or if was more important to be free of the pasture altogether. What good was having all these abilities and talents and skills that her mother was trying to teach her or have taught to her, when she had to show them off on command or, worse yet, to put them away when her mother thought they weren't of any use? She started feeling like the painting on the wall one appreciates from afar, but ultimately glosses over because it has no dynamic, no anima, no spirit behind the beauty. She started feeling like life should be more purposeful than being good at everything. Those talents should be put towards something with more personal meaning; the things she did should matter to her first and foremost.

Granted, my first stab at displaying my independence wouldn't have entailed hightailing it out of Sierra Madre, but we all act out in different ways. It's only after knowing her for so long that I realized Breanne's instincts tell her to get moving quickly in any direction the minute she feels threatened or cooped up. To her, the running was the important part not the where she was running to. To her, the display of choice was what mattered; it was the idea that she could survive out God-knows-where that she wanted displayed for her parents' benefit. She thought that when she didn't die they would have to finally acknowledge that she was capable of somewhat handling herself. Of course, when your daughter's nine it doesn't matter how courageous she might be, you're still not going to be kosher with the idea of her being outside all night by herself. They would find her and take her back. They would give her the lecture about how it's not safe. Then, they would proceed to try to wrap her up even more tightly.

A few months later she would just run away again.

In total she ran away some twenty to twenty-four odd times, the last of which I remember was a year after she met me, when she was fourteen.

They finally had to talk to her under her own conditions. They finally had to dig at the real problem that was troubling her. They had to concede that the only way she would ever feel purposeful and a contributing part of the family was if they allowed her the opportunity to contribute. She had to feel everything she did was by her volition and not because her mother expected it of her. When everything was decided for her, she felt like nothing more than an object to be displayed or utilized as everyone else saw fit. After the long series of talks she had with her parents, with me, and with other people who could help her see why she was so unhappy; she came to realize that taking control didn't mean acting out. Taking control meant being responsible too; taking control had to involve showing others you knew how to be an adult in the small things too.

It was difficult for me as well. I mean--my first instinct was to tell her to march straight back home whenever she would call from the road. Even at eleven or twelve I wasn't stupid enough to try making it through a night by myself in somebody else's yard. There were nights were I must've tried a half-dozen tactics to get her to return back, from threatening to call the police, to threatening to never to talk to her again, to plain crying in order to guilt-trip that I was scared of losing her. Nothing worked, not completely at least. There were a few times where I managed to at least get her talking to her parents on the phone. They would talk and eventually pick her up, but I could never quite get her to walk back. I suppose that was her display of defiance towards me.

There were plenty of fights where I called her out for being a stupid, little girl that wanted to be raped, killed, or worse. I still think it was a bad idea, but there were days I forgot how the important thing was to be a friend and keep her safe through these ordeals. I let her mistakes cloud my opinion of her. I would hang up on her because she wouldn't seemingly take my advice. I would abandon her out there, the one friend who treated her as something more than her parents would treat her... and I chose to do that to her. They weren't my most exemplary moments. If anything, I was just perpetuation the behavior, doing a bit of the running away thing myself. I thought I could scare her into taking me seriously if I bluffed her into thinking I was willing to walk away from her and her friendship. But to her it just put her defenses up even more. I was her last lifeline, when I would hang up on her she felt like she had no one else to turn to. That would only prompt her to even act more recklessly.

Eventually, I would call back and concede the best I could do for her is be somewhat there for her when she would get scared underneath that house or when she started to worry that her parents wouldn't want her back. The best I could do is comfort her because there was no talking her out of staying away until she felt it was time to return.

As it got older it got easier. I started to worry about her less. It was a little bit because I'd been through the exercise so many times, but it was mostly because I understood a little more about what it meant to be her. Her parents would call me and I'd act as an intermediary. I'd relay some of what I thought Breanne was riled up about and since I wasn't their son, I think I could explain more effectively than she could. I didn't have to yell to get my point across. They could hear her words better through my mouth, I guess.

----

Whenever I talk to her these days, she sounds like a person. She sounds a lot different than the girl that was always minding her manners with me on the phone. She's always been confident, but these days she sounds more assured of who and what she was. There's a focus behind that confidence; instead of coming off arrogant and boastful like she once did, she sounds quietly proud of everything she's doing. I think that's the difference between someone who knows how to do something and someone who knows why they want to do something. Before she was just some finely crafted instrument that somebody else had to guide; now she's both the surgeon and the scalpel, both the captain and the ship, both the rider and the horse.

Before she used to talk about what she would do when she got old enough to decide for herself about a great many things. She used to dream of the days of driving herself around, of taking the classes she wanted to in college, of the days she did things because she found enjoyment in them and not merely because her mother told her she ought to learn them.

The best example of this I can find is how she stopped going to dance lessons when she was twelve. She stopped going because it was becoming too much like work for her and she didn't want to lose the joy she found in dancing.

She gave up dance lessons, she says, so she would never have to give up dancing.

That's what I mean when I say she now understands what it likes to do something because somebody else is telling you the value of it and doing something when you've already discovered the value yourself.

That's the difference between running away to solve your problems and being able to run away because you've already got all your problems solved beforehand.

That's the difference between being mostly dead inside to finally finding that spark of life.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

But You And Me We Know, We Got Nothing, But Time, And Time Won't Give Me Time, Won't Give Me Time

--"Time (Clock of the Heart)", Culture Club

I come into being.

No time to gather my surroundings, I'm immediately upon the first hooded man I see before me. I barrel into him, a blur of pure white, like a mountain falling upon the man that he is. He doesn't die, he simply is no more. That's when I feel it. The fear. I feel the unmitigated fear of the individual who willed me into existence. I know the task set before is not over.

Finally able to gauge the situation, I notice that there is a gray Honda minivan parked precariously in the drive-thru lane of the Wendy's situated in front of me In the vehicle are four individuals, a family of sorts. Surrounding it are still five more individuals, all with the intention of doing my master harm. I cannot let that stand. Before the first soldier's remains has a chance to fully settle, I'm already heading towards the next man, who is gesticulating wildly at the front of the minivan. If he's shouting anything at the terrified group of four--or is it five, as I failed to notice the baby seat wedged into the passenger seat--I do not hear it. The man, the poor man, is too oblivious in his own threats to hear his companions warning him to turn around. Before he has a chance to heed their warnings, I slam him into the front of the van. The two of us cave the hood in with him taking the brunt of the damage.

Unlike his fellow soldier, this man manages to put up some resistance. Momentarily shaken, I watch his arm reach inside his coat for something. A knife, a gun, some other weapon--who knows? I bite into his arm, my fangs rending into the soft flesh easily, and tear it away from the rest of his body. He too will die in a matter of moments.

Four more to go.

I notice the family's terror has shifted to me. Not only do I see their gaze swivel around to the men who accosted them before I showed up, it has turned to me as well. That confuses me but I cannot dwell on it. My time is limited; my purpose, clear. I have one mission and that is to clear the area of danger quickly. I give them a smile, amusement spreading across me muzzle. That's what you're supposed to do when your master is scared, right? Get them to believe that everything is okay? Instead, I only succeed in frightening them even further. I watch as the apparent father in the driver's seat indicate to his wife and kids to get to the middle of the van. He thinks I'm going to snatch him through the windshield. He thinks I will hurt him, his family. He doesn't know what or who I am.

By this time, the cars behind the minivan have taken stock of the danger they've crossed into. A mass panic erupts as the three cars try to reverse, turn around, and do everything they can to get away. The guy in the blue Scion already at the window drives off as well. The four remaining soldiers, now with their weapons in hand--three semiautomatic rifles and one guy with what looks to be a ceremonial knife--use the confusion to position themselves to attack me en masse. However this goes down, it doesn't figure to last for very long.

I feel my muscles tense. Every one of them. I don't know what I will do next. I don't know if I will survive whatever it is they have planned. Imagine that, born and died in the span of a minute. It must be a new record. If I'm to die the one thing I can comfort myself with is the fact is that I was brought into the world once; it's in my master's power to bring me back again, even from beyond the grave. It wouldn't be a pleasant trip. However, that's my whole point to existing. I live to protect and even to die in the service of that protection. My time is not my own. My time can only be used to do one thing--kill those who would kill whomever brought me into the world. That's all I have to go on.

I move. I move faster than the four men have the agility to react to. The mustached man I come into contact with first dies with one rake of my taloned paw. As his insides becomes his outsides, I leap to the guy standing next to him. He tries to level his rifle at my head mid-air. That's his fatal mistake for, even as he begins firing, I'm already descending. The bullets cannot hurt me. Short of tearing through my head with a lucky shot, I have no fear of this man killing me. The men's only hope was to have coordinated their attacks, hit me when my back was turned to one of them. Maybe then they would have stood a fighting chance. As I land to snap the neck of the second man, I realize this battle has already been one. The other men, seeing their companions all fall in such a small timeframe begin to hasten away. Normally, I wouldn't have let them go. Normally, I would have made sure no one survived to come back for another crack at the family.

But I feel the fear dampen.

I feel the need for me die away.

I'm not letting them go. I'm being let go of. I look back to the van to see who is dispelling me at present. I watch the family still cowering away from the windows. The four of them are still too shaken to have the wherewithal to focus me out of reality. It doesn't make much sense. I want to do some more damage. I want to be sure. The need to destroy things is still creeping over me and they're obviously still in anguish. How can this be happening?

Then I notice the baby... girl. She's wrapped up tightly in her car seat. She can't be more than two or three. I notice she's the only one not scared any more. She's the only one who seems to be calm. Before I fade to nothing once again I take a step closer to my new master. I see something else that baffles me.

She's smiling.

"Snowflake!" she screams.

I leave my existence behind.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

What Would Life Be? Without A Song Or A Dance What Are We? So I Say Thank You For The Music, For Giving It To Me

--"Thank You For The Music (cover)", Amanda Seyfried

Having enjoyed the musical, I knew that I would enjoy the Mamma Mia! the movie. But I had no idea I would enjoy it this much. Not only did they manage to capture all that was magical about the stage show, but shooting on location and seeing all my favorite scenes played out in real life was amazing. Whenever you go see a musical you get this image of how everything's supposed to look, you imagine the sets to be real world locations, you picture the props and the wardrobe to be less extravagant and more mundane, and most of all you get a sense of how the whole story would flow once seen in the actual light of day. Almost always once it is translated to film a musical never turns out the way you imagination.

This film is exactly what I pictured.

Everyone poured their hearts into all the musical numbers. While some of the voices weren't as strong as those of the performers in the stage show, many of them were surprisingly good. Amanda Seyfried does a great job on her pieces and Meryl seemed to be having the most fun with hers. Plus, with a cast of veterans and up-and-comers as the one this movie boasts, I knew the story was in capable hands. I mean--yes, I like ABBA as much as the next guy and, yes, I've been a fan of Amanda's since her days on Veronica Mars, but what ultimately makes this a "hoot-and-a-half," as some would say, is the highly improbable but highly entertaining story. Yes, it's quite unrealistic, but it sure does tie the numbers together and it gives all the performers ample opportunity to go crazy with the material. This is not a story about introverted people. Every character, every last one of them, seems to be bursting with energy and passion. One can't help but be swept in their tale right along with them.

As with any great story, the movie takes something important to these characters, some goal or dream, and spins a series of events that makes it into an unforgettable memory, the likes of which will be carried with all of them for the rest of their lives.

It was as such with me when I first saw Mamma Mia! on stage.

----

I think it was about six months after DeAnn and I broke up, some time in July of 2002. We were traveling together to Vegas for the umpteenth time. In those days it used to be our practice to drive up to the city of Lost Wages every other month or so. I don't know why we went there so often. Perhaps it was for the booze or the buffets. It might have even been for the cheap room rates they constantly sent me notices of. What sticks out in my mind the most were the shows.

Coming from the Los Angeles, there wasn't much opportunity to catch all the latest shows. We are pretty much stuck with whatever's playing in the Pantages and the Ahmanson, and that's it. Coming out to Vegas used to give me a third option to catch whatever show I was dying to see. DeAnn, for her part, was game enough to come along with me because we were still friends at that point and, well, a free trip is a free trip.

I remember when I first spotted the sign that Mamma Mia! was playing in the showroom of the Mirage. We were going through the casino at Treasure Island, where we were staying. I saw the sign for the show plastered up on one of the electronic billboards hanging over the casino. That's when I knew we had to go. That night. I've always been a big fan of ABBA and, at that point, I had heard nothing but raves for that particular show. It didn't take long to pester DeAnn with both my enthusiasm and my lack of giving her any option but to say yes before I was purchasing tickets for the both of us. Providence knows on every other trip out to Nevada I took it upon myself to take in the latest show with her. By that point she should've known the drill.

It was kind of a weird time for me and her then. We'd been broken up for six months and yet there we were still cavorting around together. We were still sharing a room. We were still pretending to be as close as we ever was. However, there was this invisible line that had been erected in those intermittent months that had never been clearly defined. We both knew there were certain things we couldn't do any more. We could sleep in the same bed, but we couldn't sleep together. We could hang out, but we couldn't go to each other's family functions. We were still joined somehow, but no longer together. Like I said, it was an odd arrangement that we found ourselves in.

By the time we got to the theater, I was already half-drunk and DeAnn was only doing slightly better than myself. I think that had a lot to do with why I enjoyed that particular show as much as I did. I mean--yeah, it's a good show and everything, but it's also the kind of show that pure escapism. There are a lot of leaps of faith one has to take when taking it in for the first time. For instance, one has to believe that a woman can engender so many fond memories that not only one, but three former suitors will all be trying to rekindle getting to know her. Or another inconsistency was the fact that they create a world where people can fall out of love with somebody and still want to spend time with them. Lastly, I thought it was kind of odd that at the end Sophie chooses not to know who her real father was instead of getting down to the bottom of the mystery of whom she actually belongs to.

Actually, that isn't true. That's probably how I felt before going into the show, but it certainly wasn't how I felt coming out.

What I was thinking the entire time during the show--aside from how much I loved everything about it--was how it related to me. I understood the three guys wanting to fire that passion up again for a former flame because my whole going to Vegas with DeAnn was about that. I didn't have any delusions that it would go far into winning her back (well, not too many delusions), but I did have the hope that us having a good time would do much in repairing some of the damage we did when we were breaking apart. I did have the hope that we could put back some of the trust that had been missing in the months immediately following our demise. Of course, I saw the immediate relevancy between what Donna had and what DeAnn and I had. She'd fallen out of love with me, but was still willing to give me another chance to win a spot back in her life. And, of course, I saw how the ending where Sophie chooses not to know the concrete facts about her life as something reminiscent of my life.

The two years after our break-up was one extended period of my not asking exactly what we were to each other. At that point it didn't matter if we were just friends, ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend, friends with benefits, or a couple attempting another go at it. The most important part was that I was with who I wanted to be with at that time just like it didn't matter to Sophie that she didn't end up marrying Sky. All she wanted was to see the world with the one person she wanted to see the world with.

That's why I think my complete satisfaction with Mamma Mia! as piece of art has less to do with the staging or the performances. Those could have been doggerel for all I knew. What was important to me on that night and in that audience was the fact I connected with something universal in that not-so-simple story. What was happening before my eyes was what was happening to me at that juncture in my life. The lines sounded like as if I could be saying them or hearing them. The people prancing about on stage could have been stand-ins for me.

The songs all sounded like they were being sung for my benefit.

I believe that's the hallmark of any great play, great novel, or great film, that the audience finds that bit of resonance in what they're parting of. If the audience finds that nugget of truth they can relate to then they'll buy into whatever else is being sold to them. Not only that, but the audience will forever identify with that work as being a testament for their own lives. It'll stand as something indelible and something they hold closely in their hearts. It won't be just something they saw sometime long ago. It'll be a piece of them as they seemed to be a piece of the work.

That's why I hold Mamma Mia! in such high regard and why now say thanks for anyone and everyone involved in that magical night. Thanks for putting on a great show for me and DeAnn. Thanks for making it a memorable occasion.

And thank you all for making such great music.


who found out that nothing can capture a heart
like a melody can?
well, whoever it was, I'm a fan

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Hush Little Baby, Don't Say A Word, And Never Mind That Noise You Heard, It's Just The Beast Under Your Bed, In Your Closet, In Your Head

--"Enter Sandman", Metallica

One thing I've noticed around here since Breanne's been on her extended leave is the lack of good scares around here. I mean--I love all her posts to bits and pieces, but it was always her ghost stories that I loved. It may have something to do with the fact that a lot of the other stories she regaled you all with were stories were there for or, if not, I'd already heard before. While they still had some impact, a story is never quite as good as the first time you heard it. Nope, her ghost stories were mostly new to me since she knew what a great kick out of them I always got. She would even go so far as to not give me one inkling about a new idea she was working on. When you saw it posted here that's often the first time I had the opportunity to read them too.

I've always held an uneasy alliance with ghost stories that scare the beejeezus out of me. On one hand, I've always been titillated by the supernatural. Even as far back as third grade, when I used to check out books like Strangely Enough and The Strangest People You'll Ever Meet, two of the most downright horrifying collection of true-life ghost stories you'll ever read, I've had an insatiable hunger for stories that could really frighten me. On the other hand, almost every good story involving ghosts or witches or the occult has haunted me weeks, months, even years later. I still have the image of the woodcut Tiger Trainer from the story of the same name seared into my memory. I can't even stand to look at an empty doorway for fear of seeing that very image standing before me. Of any subject, ghosts and ghost stories always present me with a love/hate relationship.

Ever since Lucy's stories have stopped appearing here, it's occurred to me that surprisingly I might be addicted to that kind of fear. Like anything one might have grown up with, one spends years and years complaining about how one doesn't like to be scared by stupid stories that probably aren't true. One bitches to his friends that if he ever reads another ghost story it will be too soon. Secretly, though, he hoards them like dwarven gold because he gets a thrill of them. Then, when they're gone, even though he has no more reason to fear much, he sort of misses them. He sort of misses the fear, if only because he had already gotten use to them and if only because without them it leaves a quirky hole in his life that he never knew the fear filled.

Yes, it's true I miss the way she can spin a tale just before I go to bed to make me think twice about drifting off to sleep (she's really good at emoting every single element to ratchet up the suspense).

That's not the reason I'm kind of jonesing for any sign of a new story. The reason I'm in desperate need of a good scare is the fact that without them I cease to be a whole person. A man without fear leads a rather boring life. If everything in life can be handled with utter certainty, then what's the point of doing anything? We all need one thing to weaken us if only to prove that we can be stronger. We all need something to challenge our courage if only to prove that we have it in the first place.

We need the fear just like we need air to breathe.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Da Da Da

--"Da Da Da", Trio

Everyone knows that Avonlea is my show. It's the basis of a lot of my personality, it's the show I've logged the most hours watching, and it's the show that I was the root of a lot of the decisions I made in my life. It's also the show that I most closely associate with Jina, Canada, and the theme of remembrance, which, as you can read, is a theme I consider a motif in my writing.

However, there is another show that I think has also been a great influence on my writing and, indeed, all my creative endeavors.

Northern Exposure.

----

I remember late nights after midnight, sneaking into the den to watch every episode that would come on. I've always suffered from bouts of insomnia and it became a habit of mine to wait till my family were asleep to watch television in the den. At first, it used to be repeats of The Twilight Zone from the 80's, but that only lasted a year. After that would begin my great love affair with the quirky show with heart and intelligence. I remember those first couple of nights getting to know the various characters on the show and loving how they all worked together, functioning as a de facto family. It was unlike any other community I'd ever seen. Avonlea was a quaint town, but the class distinctions and the penchant for restraint placed in a different time period. The fact that the town of Cicely, Alaska was set in the present-day gave the show a sense of relatibility that I cherished. I envied the utopia depicted in the stories and I think that's why I fell in love with the show in the first place.

I remember when I started watching those late night sessions, it was just after I'd met Breanne. I would tell her about all these ideas the show would generate--a great line here, a song they used there. In time, the dialogue between us during those late-night sessions when I'd be waiting up for the show and she'd be already tucked away in bed would include five or ten minutes about the show. If I was to ever name a show that was all ours, I think that'd be it.

Maybe that's why I relegate it to a cerebral arena. Avonlea was intelligent too, but it more appealed to the child-like wonder and romantic sentimentality that I possess. That was a show I quoted because it made my heart smile. Northern Exposure was the show that made my brain sizzle. Philosophy, culture, religion, art, current events, politics--they all found their way into the discussions in the stories. Yes, there were sentimental plots to be found too (I especially loved the sweet scenes between Shelly and Holling), but I never quoted a show so much for its unique take on the world as it was in then present day as much as I quoted Northern Exposure. Yet the manner in which they snuck these ideas in was nothing short of brilliant. They ostensibly made the show seemingly not centered around the world at large; they focused on the town as its own global village... and in the process, it became a diorama of the world around us. It placed these high-minded ideals of how mankind should work and worship and think together, and made you believe that it was possible for it to be a reality, if only in miniature. That was always its greatest strength.

It could have billed itself as the show about nothing, like Seinfeld. After all, who would think that anyone could come to care about an eccentric group of ex-mountain men, ex-astronauts, ex-whatevers, and one fish-out-of-water Jewish doctor from Flushing before this show came out? Certainly not I. However, it made you care. It made you want to see what happened to these people because they weren't just characters. They felt like your family. They felt like people who, if you jumped onto a plane to Alaska right then and there, you could have met in the streets and just shook their hands. That's how well we as the viewers got to know them. That's how much we cared.

I can't think of another show where I actually wanted to know what happened to all these wonderful people after it was canceled except for, of course, Avonlea. It blurred the line between being a work of artifice and became something more to me. I couldn't imagine the characters not existing any more simply because their show wasn't on any more. They had to exist somewhere. They had to be continuing living if only because they possessed twice as much life as most shows that were on in that period of history.



Finally, I'll just say that there was one scene in the third season of Northern Exposure which still gives me goosebumps at how well-executed, written, and acted it was. It was a scene that involved Holling and Shelly (naturally) just after Holling began experiencing his mid-life crisis. Shelly had tried everything to snap him out of his funk and she was growing desperate to show him how important he was to her. Finally, she hit upon the solution that stands both as a fine example of her as a person and as fine example of how much the show liked to stretch out in new directions.

Holling comes back to the bar to find a simple puppet stage set up and a single chair waiting for him a few feet back from the curtains. It seems this performance would have an audience of one.

Then the curtain rises and Shelly proceeds to re-enact by herself a ten-minute account of how her and Holling met, were drawn to each other, and finally fell in love. Never mind the fact that any show would spend the last segment devoted to a one-camera shot of a barren puppet stage devoid of any background music or cuts away to another subplot. If anything, they simply swung the same camera to show some of his reactions every now and again. For the most part, though, it was Shelly's show. What really got to me was the plaintive devotion she had for him. Yeah, Shelly was the cutest girl on the show, but it was the way she was so straight-forward and plainspoken that made her my favorite character. It was the way she said, "okay," within nanoseconds of Holling asking her to marry him in another episode or the way she spoke from the heart much like Eeyore or Linus did that appealed to me. That's what the puppet show was, a ten-minute decree of her love for her man done in only the way Shelly could have done it.

Then, after it's done and Holling has already begun to shed a tear. Shelly shyly peeks her around the stage to see how it has gone over with her audience. He gently gets out of his chair, pulls her by the hand to her feet, and they walk off happily upstairs once again a united couple.

Mid-life crisis over.

On the surface, it seems rather silly and over-the-top eccentric. But it worked and it worked beautifully. It stands as one of my favorite scenes ever from anything I have ever seen in my lifetime.

That's why I watched the show, for those moments no other show would ever duplicate again. That's why I loved this show.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

And She Replies, I'm In No Position To Make Demands, I Have No Past, No One Else Has Done To Me What You Do, I've Got No One Else To Compare You To

--"The Childcatcher", Lush



last week

“I should have handled the situation better. I shouldn’t have said, ‘that’s not my fault.’ I shouldn’t have left you out there on your own,” I told her.

“Do you realize, sugar, that if it had been true, we could’ve had a kid only three years younger than I was back then?” she replied. “Twelve. Imagine that.”

“That’s darn close to how old you were when I met you, Breanne,” I trailed off oddly.

When I was only nineteen I thought I had gotten my best friend pregnant. The scare didn’t persist for long; it lasted all of seven days. However, the idea that if things had turned out differently I could have been a father right now is a thought that I dwell upon every now and again. Most times I count myself lucky because every fiber of my being tells me I would have been ill-prepared to handle such a huge responsibility. I think that that notion coupled with the fact that both of us would have been so young when it happened leads me to believe that I was fortunate that my mistakes didn’t end up costing me too much. In fact, it didn’t even really start to dawn upon me that I had passed a huge crossroads until well after I had passed it. Back then I was of the mentality “no harm, no foul.” I didn’t see much good in punishing myself for something that never came to pass. It just didn’t make sense.

But with age and some hindsight I believe both of us have gotten to the point where we can look upon that week and the immediate weeks that followed with some clarity. I believe both of us possess a maturity and an understanding of just how fallible and innocent we were to the change something like becoming a parent would have brought with it.

“Sounds like the plot of some Lifetime movie, fifteen and pregnant with the father on the other side of the country. Hell’s bells, I could have become the cliché of all clichés,” I hear her attempt to laugh. There’s a hitch in her voice that I recognize now as the sound of someone who has lost some of her brio in the intermittent years since she was that fifteen-year-old girl.

“What about me? I would’ve been no better. At least your parents would have come around to helping you. I have no doubt my parents would have literally killed me. It wasn’t bad enough that I chose to fly off to meet you. I had to go and do that to you… and to them. That’s what they would’ve said.”

“It really could’ve been catastrophic for us, huh, Eeyore?”

“Catastrophic’s apt in that situation.”

The more I contemplate all of it, the more I realize that I didn’t have any reason to be there. It was bad news waiting to happen. Starting with the idea that her parents weren’t going to be home for the four or five days I was going to be there and ending with the idea that the ludicrous notion that nothing would happen between us. I was fooling myself to think that I had sufficient self-control to stop the inevitable. I’ve never possessed that amount of self-control. I knew that. She knew that. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say she tricked me into it, she has always held a certain complicity in any and all intentions and outcomes of that trip. And she’d be the first to admit that, which is a quality I’ve always admired about her. She never once transformed herself into being this “little ‘ole Miss Innocent.” Fifteen or not, she’s always been a lot more deliberate in making her decisions.

Like I said, I handled the situation badly at first. I muffed it royally at first. Going from genuine shock to mild denial is not the most upstanding reaction to hearing the news one might be a parent. I never said I had all the answers. Indeed, when she first called, the first thoughts I had were to flee the scene and escape with as much as I could take. It was all I could do to not go into hysterics when I heard while I was at the bookstore. It was all I could do to reply to her later on, “it wasn’t my fault,” which, in essence, is just the coward’s way of saying, “it’s your fault.”

“Did you ever reckon that we’d be having this conversation thirteen years later? That I’d be married and you’d have gone through an abortion, and that that incident would still be itching away at us like some burr in our britches. We never really did talk about what happened, you know?”

“I just couldn’t talk about it, Breanne. Not to you. Not to anyone. It was just too embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing? How?”

“Embarrassing for me. I handled it all wrong. From not waiting to trying to hide it away from everybody, then to not really be supportive when I really should’ve been. I handled it all wrong.”

“Shush. We survived.”

“Barely.”

The point to meeting her on her fifteenth birthday like I did was because I thought the appropriate thing to do was to go be with her on an important day like that. I thought the right course to take was to do what she wanted and fulfill her wish to spend the weekend with her alone. It never occurred to me that she’d never been alone with a guy before—not like that, at least. It never occurred to me that in four fricking days I could get into so much trouble. The appropriate thing to have done is just to have stayed away like my other friends were telling me. It wouldn’t have been because I didn’t care about her or because I didn’t want to be with her. It would’ve been been precisely I do care about her and because, as someone who did and does care about her, I should have watched out for her more even if that’s what she didn’t want from me. Yes, she was her person and the reason she said she liked having me as a friend was because I didn’t treat her like someone whose opinion didn’t matter. But in that case (and a few cases that followed) I should have taken the reins of the friendship and shut her out of the decision-making process, at least until she was older and more aware of what exactly she was looking for in the long-term.

It wasn’t just her age that leads me to say this. It’s her whole personality. It’s my whole personality. Between her “Breanne doesn’t think, she just goes” mentality and my “if it makes you happy then it must not be the bad” mantra, there just wasn’t a voice a reason to tell us that what happened was a bad idea—not a horrible idea and not even an idea that didn’t have it’s place. I think the better word for it would have been maybe an ill-timed idea. I don’t care that she was young. I’m still only fucking four-and-a-half years older than her. It’s the idea that we were both too young for that or, rather, we were both rather immature enough to believe that what happened wasn’t going to have its consequences.

God, how I did and do love her, though. I think back in those days the will to judge accurately how and why I did things was blown all out of proportion. I didn’t care I was into my second year at USC and she was into her sophomore year at her high school; our age difference never weighed on my mind as much I pretended it did. The weightier matter was always how manipulative I was and how eager to be seen as someone capable of her own decisions she was. That’s not a good combination. I was always worried that she was only capable of liking me because I told her what she wanted to hear and treated her as if she was someone equal to me. I gave her the presence of mind that there were people who weren’t going to treat her like a kid and that gave her hope that she wasn’t going to be one forever. I don’t think I took advantage of that dynamic, but in the heat of making plans and goddamn honestly wanting to be with her I might have indulged her stubborn streak for our benefit upon more than one occasion.

“You know what I dream about sometimes?” she asks me after a brief pause.

“What’s that?”

“I sometimes wonder if we’d have had a child together if we’d have ended up together.”

“With your daddy in the mix, I think I can answer that would’ve been a yes. Hell, if my parents had caught wind of it, I would’ve been looking for a new set of parents so you can bet I would’ve been hightailing it over to you, Little Miss Chipper.”

“I’m serious. Do you think we would’ve gotten married? If so, do you think we would have stayed together? You’re not curious about that, not even a little?”

“I probably would have done the right thing.”

“Forget the right thing. Would you have been happy with me? To be married to me, you know? It’s not as cut-and-dry as it sounds. Like my daddy says, ‘there’s a long way from buying a house and making it a home.’ I wonder if we’d have really been happy together under those circumstances.”

“I would’ve been happy.”

“Even with a child in tow and my having to divert my attention betwixt the both of you, darling?”

“It would’ve been our son or daughter.”

“Yes, it would’ve been,” she trailed off again.

She has this theory that since I was her first qualified boyfriend that it is possible to get it right the first time. I still don’t know what to make of that postulate. On one hand, there’s a lot that feels perfect between us and a lot of me knows how lucky I am to hold onto such a vibrant and personable individual this long. On the other hand, we’ve both made our fair share of mistakes and had our knockdown drag-out fights that there’s nothing to suggest that, if not for the distance between us, we wouldn’t have ended up hating one another. I exist as her first not because it was fated or because it was mean to be, but because I chose her. I made a concerted effort to get to know her better. Like it or not, I’m in the position where I am today because I put myself here. For her part, she made the decision to stick by me too.

That’s why I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that I could be any happier with her. I’m happy with her. To ask for anymore sometimes borders greed. It’s one of those situations where you don’t want to want too much for fear of wrecking what you have already. Married with a kid? That seems like a pipe dream even though there’s a large portion of me that yearns for that very thing with her. I just know that wanting something and having that something be the right thing are two different places that don’t often connect.

It always brings me around to the idea that we might have been better served if I hadn’t been her first… everything. If she’d had some experience or if I’d had less experience, things might have turned out vastly different. We would have progressed at the same right with one another. As it was, I think she put me on a bit of a pedestal and I roleplayed that to the bitter end. I came at her sometimes like I was this wise and all-knowing gentleman when I was just as confused and as addled as she was. Then, when she came to know a little more about how relationships in the real world play out, she became a tad bitter at how I obviously tried to fool her. I wasn’t trying to fool her. I was merely trying to play out that perfect relationship without any input from her. It wasn’t because I didn’t want her input; it was because she just hadn’t about enough relationships to know what she wanted. That’s the truth. If we were in the same place at the same time when it came to me and her, we would have a more equal say in how the two of us developed. I wasn’t some god that knew how to do everything; but it’s a role I kind of took a shine to.

Yet my hypocrisy came to an end when she told she could be pregnant. She saw just how much I was pretending for her behalf and how much of me she was actually seeing.

“We didn’t even think of names, Patrick. We were all so tossing in our own sheets that we never got to that point,” she said.

“What would you have liked?”

“Aaron,” she said unflinchingly.

“Aaron Taroc?”

“And Breanne Taroc. They do have a nice sound about them, you know?”

“I think I would’ve much rather have your name, Breannie. Patrick Holins. See? That’s a name I can get behind. It makes me sound really Irish instead of honorary Irish.”

“It does at that. You can be so silly sometimes…” she laughed.

I know my life would’ve been changed had it all come to pass. But the thing is my life has already been changed from the simple fact it didn’t come to pass. That’s the one event that occurred which changed my perception of her. I stopped treating her like a kid, somebody who didn’t know what was going around her, and started treating her like somebody who probably knew more of what was going on then I did. When that happened, she positioned herself as the decisive one. She’s the one who began carving at the plans. She’s the one who took the lead. All I could do is agree with her and stay out of her way. A big part of our relationship changed in that week or so. I stopped humoring her as being potentially my equal. I started treating her like she was my equal and, at times and in certain instances, my better.

It was one of those milestones in a person’s life where you stop seeing a person as the person you grew up with and start seeing them as the person he or she’ll eventually be for the rest of their life. It was easy to coddle and humor the thirteen-year-old hell-bent on conquering the world. It’s a lot harder to deny somebody who you see firsthand rise up to the pressures being applied around her and, not just surviving through them, but thriving upon them. Before I though she was just paying lip service to how assertive and graceful under pressure she was; but she really is in her element when she’s up against adversity. Fifteen, twenty, or twenty-eight—it doesn’t matter how old she was or is.

Breanne doesn’t think; she just goes. And where she goes is usually the place you want to be.

That’s how I know she would’ve been great.

“Do you think we would’ve made great parents, Eeyore?” she asked me just before hanging up the phone. She yawned just then to emphasize the point she wouldn’t be taking any further questions.

“I have no doubt that you would’ve made a great mom. I’m only sorry that we never got the chance to see how it would’ve played out. I would’ve liked coming along for that ride with you.”

She laughed before she hung up the phone.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Closing Time, One Last Call For Alcohol, So Finish Your Whiskey Or Beer, Closing Time, You Don't Have To Go Home But You Can't Stay Here

--"Closing Time", Semisonic

I started working at Crown Books May of 1995. Originally I had trained at the Hastings Ranch branch, but it was all in preparation to open the store in La Canada. When we finally were able to open the store it was already July and I was rather perturbed at having to get used to a brand-new layout, not to mention that Hastings Ranch was literally blocks away from me while La Canada was a good ten-minute drive. The plan was that I would see how working at the bookstore would rate. If I didn't like it or if I didn't think I could hack while maintaining five classes at USC I would quit within the first few months after school started again. If I did like it, I would stay on for a good year. The plan was to make this a nice, easy job to get some more experience on my resume.

The plan certainly was not to stay five years.

I don't know how that happened. I suppose it had to do with the fact that, as far as jobs go, it wasn't very difficult. It was tedious. It was stressful at times. It was even inconvenient at others. The one thing it wasn't was hard. I mean--how taxing can alphabetizing books, running a register, and answering questions be. Nope, the reason stayed wasn't because I found the duties spiritually challenging or satisfying.

The reason I stayed was because, of any job I've ever had, the crew that passed in and out of Crown Books La Canada at 475 Foothill Boulevard was by far the most close-knit and family-like. I should know. I was there for five out of the six years it was business so the majority of them I knew since the first day they started working there. I already mentioned Heidi and how I'll never forget her. There were others, though. I made great friends with people like Tenny, Jennifer, Heather, Nick, Melody, and even towards the end I even started hanging out with my last manager there, Paul. In fact, almost all the managers I was on pretty decent terms with--starting with Susie, then Barb, then John, then Paul. Having only twelve people total working the store, four managers and eight employees, you get to know them fairly well. If I could compare it to any movie, it would be like how well and tightly knit the employees were in Empire Records. We were that involved with one another.

Aside from Heidi (sigh), one other employee stood out. Tom.

Tom started working there about six months after me. I remember the first time I met him on the floor it was like we'd been hanging out for years because I told him to follow me to play some practical joke on one of the other employees. No introducing myself, no getting to know him first--I basically roped him in to one of my shenanigans and that's how he became my best friend at the store. We couldn't have been more different--he was a total player, having eventually dated and slept with every unattached female employee under a certain age at the store... except Heidi, out of deference to our friendship; he was six years older me with a kid with an ex he had stopped seeing only a year before; he was just unmotivated to do anything huge with his life. Some might have called it laziness; I just attributed it to the fact that he was like Toby. He was just a person that found the joy in the everyday small things and that thinking about the huger issues only brought him down.

Tom was also one of the most genuine people I've ever met. Unlike most of my friends he was simple in a good way. He didn't have any hidden agendas. He never tried to pull one over on you. If you were his friend, he would bend over backwards for you. I remember when Tara and I broke up, he's the first person to suggest Swingers as a cure-all remedy. I also remember going to The Cure concert at the Greek with him when he was dating Tamyra, our assistant manager, or going to The Derby with him when he was dating Tenny. He didn't have to ask me along, but whenever a place or an activity was brought up in conversation he would always suggest going to anyone in earshot. It didn't matter if he knew you four years or only one week; everyone was welcome to pal along with him. I think it was the Deadhead in him; he just didn't know that you didn't have to include everyone when you were making plans. If you were there, he thought you should come--it was that simple.

And that guy was loyal to a fault. I remember one of the funniest examples being that he actually caused one of our managers to quit over who was a better friend to me, him or our manager, Krista. I'd gone to elementary school with Krista so it was kind of a shock when they hired her for our assistant manager, but she turned out to be pretty cool even though we hadn't seen each other for six years. However, those six years of separation caused me to rightly believe that we weren't close. Well, one day Tom's joking around with her about how he could never get me to try pot with him (he was always going to the store's restroom mysteriously at 4:20 every day rain or shine when he worked). He tells Krista on a lark that one day he's just going to ask me out to his car and he would just hotbox it. He would lock the doors and just forced me to inhale. When he recounted the story, I just laughed because I knew he was joking. Krista, however, got all out of sorts. She started yelling at him in front of everybody how I wasn't into doing drugs and how dare he force me to do something against my will. The kicker was when she told him, "I've known him for ten years, better than you, and I know he would never do that sort of thing!"

And I'll never forget what he said. "I'm a way better friend and the two of you weren't even friends in school. You know how I know that? Because he told me!"

Krista quit the day after that fight.

I always thought it amusing that the competition between who was a closer friend to me partly influenced somebody to quit their job.

Eventually, after I graduated, I began to seriously think about moving on from there. I mean--I had my degree already. What possible reason could I have for staying on at a store that was barely paying me five bucks an hour? The only reason I could come up with was the fact I'd miss working with people like Tom. I'd miss their company. I wasn't stupid. I knew most companies I would work for I'd be on friendly terms with, but the camaraderie I shared with those folks would never be equaled. There would be no three hour lunches for me just so I could pick up all eight employees lunches from eight different restaurants (at my suggestion, mind you--it was kind of like a road rally to see how fast I could hit all eight destinations and get back to the store). There would be no Disco Saturday Nights where we would send somebody out for a bucket of KFC and blast the three hour block of disco songs that played every Saturday night on the radio when we were closing. There would be no talking to Heidi for hours at a time in the aisles when we really should have been working. There would be no going to the movies with my boss because we really were close friends.

There would be none of that. It would be just a job.

That's probably why I ended up staying three years after I graduated, because of people like Tom. The way I was figuring it, I had a few years to get my career started, but once I lost all the close relationships I had at that job, I would never get them back. Yes, my work friends had also become my outside friends, but I knew the statistics. Once I stopped working there it would be harder and harder to find reasons to see them. Once I stopped working next to them it would be more difficult to bring up in casual conversation that we should do something that weekend.

Yet I needed to leave. It was getting too expensive for me to live. I needed something that paid me better, even if it meant giving up all those people.

When I eventually did leave I didn't give two weeks notice. I didn't even tell anyone I was thinking about leaving. I just called in and said that I'd found another job. Paul, I remembered, was furious. I believe he hung up the phone on me. But Tom and a few of the others called and congratulated me. He didn't go into a whole spiel about who I'd deserted him and the rest of the crew. He just asked if I was going to be happy in my new job. When I told him yes, that was enough for me.

He gave me his number as well as the numbers of the other people who wanted to stay in contact with me. Silly me, I was too proud to call them. I answered their calls, but DeAnn and I had just moved in together and I had that new job to keep me occupied. I never did manage to come back to La Canada to hang out with them ever again. As predicted, as soon as I stopped working there it all fell apart. I had severed all ability to be friends with those people, be friends with Tom.

And you know what the worst part about it is? It's been about eight years since I stopped working there and sometimes I consider catching up with Tom, but for the life of me I can't remember what his last name is. I know I knew it at one time... but for so long whenever he called me or I called him he was just Tom. It just never occurred to me that we wouldn't be friends one day to write down his last name.

Like I said, leaving that job was like leaving home and leaving those people who worked there hurt even worse than leaving my own family when I moved out. But we all need to leave home eventually.

And once that happens it's painful but it's true, sometimes you just can't go home again.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers