Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day. You may ask yourself, just who the hell was Saint Valentine? Why do we give chocolate to our loved ones? Why do we think today is the ultimate time to score, as it were? Well let's talk about scoring since I have no clue as to the other stuff.
As I write this, the United States of America has scored five Olympic medals in the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. We are number one, so far, in the medal category, which means we are better than the rest of the world when it comes to sliding on blades across slippery ice, or wearing boards on our feet and allowing gravity to inexorably pull us down hills, fly through the air, ass-over-teakettle, land on these wooden boards and continue sliding down hills, or lie on our back on a luge, and go as fast as possible, limited only by our form, gravity, and our unanticipated screwups like trying to see where the hell we're going at 90 freaking miles an hour, which causes the air to slow us down. That said, "WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!!" But is it really about American pride that makes us cheer, or is it really about our human need for competition as a way of measuring our intrinsic worth? When we pull for the home team, it isn't "US" who won--it's a group of people who practices endlessly day-after-day, year-after-year, to be faster at, stronger in events that we have invented as a way of measuring this intrinsic stuff.
I believe we are all Number One. We are all worthy simply as humans. We don't need to slide, fly, or glide faster to prove anything.
But I enjoy the games.

snow job

I love snowy days and hiding under the covers knowing the alarm clock is not going to awaken me. Instead, the kid upstairs, the kid with a shrill scream like a banchee, like the god Pan, like a horror movie queen, awakened me. "I wanna go out!" I heard her screetch. "I wanna I wanna!" Thasneem slept through it because Thasneem comes from India, a country where drivers blow their horns to indicate their intentions, and they always have some intention for something. So I'm awake and it's a freaking winter wonderland out there in Brooklyn, Faggedabowdit. My mind reaches back to my childhood, when I'd play all morning in the snow, my feet would get wet and all itchy, and I'd come in from the cold and Daddy would rub Noxema on them and make the itch go away. I miss those days and I miss Daddy even more. Life is so short and then there you go.

Mom

January 29th would have been Mom's 91st birthday, but it was a year to the day since she died. I miss her. I miss her simple philosophy of life--a don't make any waves approach to people. My mom was benign, and I mean that in a good way. She was like her father, I think. My grandfather was a quiet man who didn't make trouble for anyone. Mom learned how to get along with people from him. I find myself waxing nostalgic a lot more lately because I'm getting older. When your mother would be 91 means you're pretty old yourself. I don't believe we go anywhere once we die, but I still feel badly that she's under the cold cold earth. Does that make any sense?