Look at the neph sacked out on his papa, all lank and trust (and 110th percentile in both height and wit). Now go here and see how things have changed in 17 months.

God, I miss the little fucker. And my fucking mutts, as well. This life I’ve chosen is conditioned on missing; there’s always someone I’m longing to see:

Photos by Grandpa Phil…thanks!

One month ago I was in San Francisco—in the same apartment I’m headed back to today—when I posted my house on craigslist. It was a whim, just something I did to make Fannie Mae think I was serious about selling, when all I really wanted to do was walk away.

I never dreamed it would work.

Never dreamed.

But it worked.

And now, four weeks, a home inspection, another appraisal, a shockingly successful garage sale, way too much packing, not enough blogging, a bruisey week of moving, a final walkthrough, and one giant check later, today’s the day. The buyers sign my freedom papers at 10 AM this morning, but I’ll already be on the road, headed west for the next month or two. The title agent will call me when it’s all over—perhaps I’ll be as far as North Platte by then. I’m bound for Rock Springs, Wyoming this evening, where Stella and I spent three snowbound days during the shock and awe campaign, what seems like a hundred lives ago.

It seems appropriate to spend the night passing through a place I’ve gotten stuck before, because that’s exactly how I’ve felt for the last couple years—psychically snowbound, with only war and weather on the tv screen—and it’s the last thing I feel right now. I’m all coltish and hopeful these days, ready for some room to run. Today will feel sunfree, I hope, with no shocks, only awe.

Thanks for all your support over the last months and years—you know who you are, you know what you mean to me. Thanks, especially, to The Subtle Parents for loving and putting up with The Subtle Pups while I wander (and for loving and putting up with me in all my evolutions). I’ll miss you all. And thanks to my sister and the neph for giving me a reason to come back. Thanks to my Lincoln friends for the growing sense of community: you make it hard to leave here. And to my San Francisco friends, put your walking shoes on, we’ve got miles to cover and pictures to take. I can’t wait!

More later, from the road.

Image is Michael Crawford’s deconstruction of Rauschenberg Minus Nebraska by Chuck Close

I went to the bank today—quick, before they discovered their mistake and disappeared the funds out of my account—and got a cashier’s check for the difference between what I owe on my house and what the buyers are paying. You catch that amount? Here’s a gasp-hancement:

Once I had the check in hand, I handed it straight over to the title company because my mom was worried that it might burn up in a fire or something. (Of course, if that happened, I would probably have larger problems.) “I guess I’m just awfulizing,” she said, which is a perfect way to describe the tendency to fret over dire events that probably won’t happen.

When I handed the check to the nice lady who’s been guiding me through the escrow process—and really, who needs realtors? what a freaking racket—she pulled a sad face and put her fists up by her eyes as though wiping away tears. “No, no,” I said. “This is a good thing. This means I’m almost free.”

“You have a really great attitude,” she told me. And at this point, I do, big checks and all. It’s been hard won—just ask The Subtle Parents—and paying down this debt will be one of my top projects for the next year (or three). But y’know, it’s only money, and this is beginning to feel like victory to me. Now if only I had everything packed and ready to head to storage…

PS: Anyone who thinks that ain’t Big Dolla is welcome to make a donation to the TSR Freedom Fund via PayPal. Just use the email over yonder —>

Oh, and by the way: My house is under contract, and we’re aiming to close on July 2nd. A lot can derail the process, although I am trying to practice the art of calm hope in the face of all this waiting. My prayer is that Independence Day is just that.

Today’s inspection went really well, so that’s the first big hurdle cleared. Next week’s the appraisal; keep your fingers crossed, please. And I just put my money down on a 10×20 storage space where the bulk of my stuff will live until the way forward becomes clear. For the near term, I’ll be in my sister’s old room at mom and dad’s, with as much roving as I can manage on the cheap.

I’ll have to write a fat check at closing, then live lean for a while to pay it off. Freedom comes at a price, but man, is she worth it. It really feels like the wheel is turning now; I’m nearly able to see new land—new life—from here.

PS: This is all thanks to Craigslist. If this deal closes, I owe Craig Newmark a big-ass blow job.

MWAH.

I love Ford’s expression in this shot; he looks like he can see the future and while he’s not sure what to make of it yet, he’ll be ready to receive it once it’s here. And then there’s Grandma Cookie, doing what she’s done since I was even tinier than Ford: cheering on her favorite people, taking joy in their possibilities and delight in their presence here and now.

Ford’s eyes are worth a larger look. Just click the picture, then select “all sizes” above it when Flickr loads. Oh, and have I mentioned how much I love this lens?  My Sigma 50mm looks like a giant eyeball behind coke-bottle glasses, but oh, the things it can see.

Now we are two. I started typing here on June 6, 2008. And although it was just a blow-off post, something quick and simple to get me started, it turned out to be just the invitation I needed to keep writing:

Admit it. You want to explore that spooky blue alley. Come on, let’s hold hands and wander in together.

And as it turns out, that’s just what we’ve been up to over the past two years.

I never did write an About Me section for The Subtle Rudder, or any sort of manifesto beyond exploring that spooky blue alley together. I resist description, (of myself and my motives, at least); I don’t like to be confined, even if I’m the one building the pen. Which made the Miss Nebraska pageant especially funny for me, because each contestant has to have a platform, some sort of personal crusade she uses to define herself to the judges. Mentoring is a big one for the Misses of Nebraska:

Mentoring: Little Moments, Big Magic (Miss Blue River)

Building Strong Mentoring Relationships (Miss Columbus)

Building a Brighter Future Through Mentoring and Encouragement (Miss Eastern Nebraska)

Because who can argue with helping young people be the best they can be, particularly if they’re in danger of being bullied:

Bullying Prevention: The Positive Power Within (Miss Omaha)

or developing eating disorders:

Love Your Body, Love Yourself (Miss Northwest)

Eating Disorders: A Generation at Risk (Miss Southeast)

Or neglecting to floss:

All Smiles—The Importance of Dental Hygiene (Miss Alliance)

My favorite platforms were the seize-your-dreamy ones, though, because they were more like motivational verse, successories that swing:

Face Your Challenges, Nurtures Your Strengths, BE THE DIFFERENCE! (Miss Great Plains)

My sister leaned over the night of the prelims we attended and told me she wanted everyone in the family to come up with his or her own platform, as though the pageant was a play-along game. So I’ve been thinking about what The Subtle Rudder’s platform might be. Perhaps it’s:

I Saw That!—The Radical Act of Noticing

Or:

Sit Down and Do The Work!
(Even If You’re Just Posting a Baby Gorilla Picture)

Or if we wanna get all motivational bookmark, how about:

Dream It, Be It, Blog It!

So those are my platforms. What’s yours?

And since it’s my blogiversary, what do you think The Subtle Rudder’s all about? I’ll send ten bucks to anyone who can explain the name…

I just spent an hour trying to resize this neph photo on my iphone, so I could post it here with some just-enough message to satisfy the terms of nablopomo, but I finally said fuckit and went down to get my laptop, where it took about 2 clicks. Sigh.

Anyway, now that I’m here, I’ll say more—and there’s a lot more to say about my last couple of days. I’m back from seeing the second night of prelims for the Miss Nebraska pageant, where my lovely cousin did not make the finals, mainly because she’s always had better shit to do than exemplify glossy youngwomanhood, and those pageant girls—the ones who’ve been competing since they were Ford’s age, back when they were still trying to eat the rocks they found on the ground—are like tensile little machines, all sateen and quadriceps, with their white teeth, their bikini tape, and their high-heeled stride. When dad called to tell me Mariah hadn’t made the top seven, I asked if he knew who had. He couldn’t remember any names, but said: “They were all tall and skinny. Except for the one who was short and skinny.”

And so it goes; blonde will out. While I don’t want to make (many more) easy-mean jokes about the contestants, I will say that the crowd there to cheer on the pageanteers this weekend was an oddball mix of Cornhusker homefolk, with their regular hair, their expansive waistlines, and their unchecked signs of aging, and a sleeker, sharkier crew all duded up in lady armor worn with amazon heels and purchased tits and tans. I often feel like I don’t fit here, that I look different, but compared to the pageant crowd, I am just homefolk, one of the herd.

I have more to say on the topic of pageantry, along with a raft of pictures I’m too weary to deal with tonight, so meet back here tomorrow for more glitter and gossip, and maybe even a little redemptive arc about being the difference.

My boss is doing one of his endless blah-blah-blah live edit sessions where I watch him change my text in real time via the magic of shared desktops. (For every advance technology brings, there’s a giant leap back in terms of privacy or productivity; it’s the snake biting us in the ass). Now, most people who edit business copy just track their changes in word and send you the document—easy, offline, unfettered. But this guy needs an audience; he loves the thought of me sitting there as he types, a well-compensated vessel for his “wit” and “vision” and the occasional “bold” statement that smacks of racism or sexism or stupid americanism. My job is to act as a mirror and reflect back his brilliance. It’s all part of the gig.

But today, I just can’t keep still. I’m due out to my sister’s house in 25 minutes, packed and ready for a couple of days away. But my camera cords have gone missing and I haven’t had time to go through my tank tops and other summer gear to find the stuff that reveals the right amount of fishbelly flesh to stay cool, but not enough to blind the neighbors. Oh, and we’re taking Ford for a swim in the hotel pool. A swimsuit; good crikey, who knows when I wore one last. Morocco? That Turkish bath in Madrid? If I recall correctly, it was Madrid. I bought the suit at El Corte Inglés, and it’s very chocolate eurovamp, with highcut legholes and a plunging neckline with a gold buckle across the chest. Just perfect for the kiddie pool at the Quality Inn in North Platte, Nebraska.

Whither North Platte, you ask? Oh, child…where to begin. We’re all packing up the cars and caravanning west to wear buttons with my poised and confident youngest cousin’s face on them, and to cheer her on as she struts around in gowns and a no-doubt more carefully selected swimsuit for the Miss Nebraska pageant. Pictures to follow, you can count on that.

Happy weekends, everyone! Shoulders back, hand up, dazzling smile—now work it.

Image via

Here we go again: One post every day this month on the topic of NOW.

And since I got up at 4 am, took a dazed series of flights back to the midwest, and have been stuck on a work call for  114 minutes so far with no end in sight, I’m going for the obvious NOW, which is that:

After two weeks away, I can’t wait to see my dogs and my nephew.

One of my big themes this month, beyond NOW, is what The Subtle Mother would call “filling your bucket,” by which she means bringing enough into your life to make your own self happy, and having enough in reserve to roll with the inevitable shit that keeps coming. Relationships are a big part of that for me, and the ones I have with Ford, Stella, and Archie bring me a deeper ease* than pretty much any of the others. Dogs and babies will do that for you.

So I’m off to see the neph and scritch the mutts.

See you when the next now rolls around…

*The insight, however, is sorely lacking.

Vessel via

It’s the day of troops and potato salad, of sacrifice and sunburns, and I’ve been thinking about three men in my life who saw hard action in World War 2.

My Mother’s Father

The funny thing is, I know the least about my own grandpa’s service. I wrote this a while ago, as a comment over at coozledad’s place, and it’ll tell you about as much as I understand of my mom’s dad, even though I knew him all my life:

My grandpa was a man with lots of rules. He drank dark liquids in heavy tumblers and never had much to say to the likes of me. I mostly saw him in his leather lounger, watching golf or some other rich man’s game. He was no warmer to my mother, his eldest child; she was too much like his dead wife, a woman he took for granted for years. Although he was a man who knew the worth of things, he never got an accurate bead on her measure, and once he’d lost her, any grief went deep and came out bitter. He was in the great war, but never spoke of it; I’m not even sure where he served, it was that much a secret.

I think those days festered in the young man, and turned him into an old man who could not even be friends with himself. Scars come in every size, and some cannot be seen. We are, as a nation, excellent at both creating and overlooking such wounds.

My Ex-Boyfriend’s Grandpa

He was rough as guts, his wife always said, and as a former digger, he’d seen the toughest service the war threw anyone’s way. He was eager to talk about it, though, spinning stories over strong rum, in a way my own grandfather had never done. By the time I knew him, his wife’s mind had gone walkabout, and they’d just moved down to Tasmania to be closer to Guy’s mum. He was tall, that’s where Guy got his height, and I always imagined him striding along as a young man, all bluff and blokey in that Australian way.

He fought alongside the Ghurkas and they were like ghosts, he told me, slipping behind you in the dark and brailling your service medal before you even knew they were there. “If yours was the wrong kind,” he said, miming a blade along the throat, ”they’d slit you a new mouth below the first, then take an ear as proof of the kill.”

Although he was a man’s man’s man, I’ve never seen a more tender arm at the elbow as he’d steer his wife from room to room, this woman he’d loved his entire adulthood and all the way through her second childhood.

My Friend Eugene

I wrote all about Eugene here, but today I’m remembering how open he was about his service. As a weird kid who obsessively studied nazis as part of my grade school gifted program, I’d always longed for a grandpa who could tell me stories about that time. My own had been unable to engage, dumb before the unspeakable things he’d seen. But the war was part of what defined Eugene, and he was eager to share those days, just as I was eager to receive them.

It strikes me now how much a part of Bernal Hill he was for me. Although it’s finally gentrifying along Cortland Street, with the obligatory winebars and babystrollers, Bernal remains scrubby and a little wild. I lived there years ago, and it still feels like home to me; I miss the library, the little downtown, the walks around the hilltop with its double-bridge view of the city. Betsy befriended Eugene on one of those walks, just as I had befriended her what must have been fifteen years ago now. There’s something to the bond that forms on a hilltop overlooking a hundred other neighborhoods. It packs the long view, along with the close perspective you get from really knowing someone; I believe such connections are made to last.

Although he’s been gone for more than two years now, I still miss Eugene. And although I’ve been gone for nearly three, I’m still drawn back to Betsy, to Bernal.

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