A HOPE FOR THE NEW YEAR

I just can’t cotton to the notion of a soul mate.

Plenty of people can, and believe you me, they do. They cling to the thought that in all the world, there is but one, single person they were meant to be with.

That’s fine and good, I suppose. It peddles lots in the ways of books and movies, but for the life of me, I just can’t work the math.

In a world populated by billions of people—some male, some female; some gay, some straight—it would seem to me that there are plenty of possibilities, and more than just one person who, in the words of Cameron Crowe, could “complete” you and me.

But that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it?

For all of the scenarios, and for the heady potential behind each one, considerate of the people who might be, who could be, who would be, if only… there is just one who will be the girl I’m going to marry.

I don’t know who you are, or where (or when) it is that I might find you. I suppose that’s a bit of a stumbling block, just now, but on this very night, in cities and towns throughout the world, people are welcoming a new year. Billions are putting on their party hats, and setting out in search of someone to kiss, come midnight.

Truth be told, a kiss as the clock strikes is easy enough to find. But in this New Year, I want more than that, and a whole lot more.

So as I head out this evening, first to dinner and then onto a party, it will be with a thought knocking about inside my head. It is stolen from a song that I simply adore, and it is one that has been playing at points throughout the day.

“When the bells all ring, and the horns all blow, and the couples we know are fondly kissing / Will I be with you, or will I be amongst the missing?”

I don’t know what you are doing this New Year’s Eve. Maybe you’ll be with your friends or family, at a party or a club, or watching the ball drop on TV.

This evening offers plenty in the way of possibilities, but wherever it is that this holiday may find you, I wonder if maybe—just maybe—you will be keeping an eye on finding me.

After all, 2009 could be our year. (And wouldn’t that be something?)

ALL I WANT

We can talk all we want about the crass commercialism, or of the money-grubbing marketers who fleece the very meaning from a holiday that once was a non-secular affair.

There is shame, shame (shame!) in all of that, I’m sure, and those particular topics are likely worthy of derision. Thing is, I’m just not in the mood to complain. Chalk it up to my sunny disposition. Call me merry, if you must, but these days?

I’m all caught up in a positive approach.

Besides, the holidays offer so much to cherish. There is eggnog, parties, and mistletoe, too! The real disgrace, in my mind, is that Christmas comes but once a year. How else to explain the cultural travesty that insists our favorite Christmas carols be relegated only to the Advent weeks?

It was Thanksgiving Day, as I was walking through the grocery store, when I noticed that the onslaught had begun. The place was playing songs from the likes of Burl Ives, and I simply couldn’t help myself. Four times I turned a corner, only to be caught singing along—red-faced, to be sure, but relatively on key.

I reasoned, if the grocery store had started in, then the Gap could not be far behind, and well… that was all the excuse I needed. That very afternoon, I went home and placed a Christmas mix on my iPhone.

This particular playlist is something I concocted a few holidays ago. After weighing any number of worthy contenders, I hit upon a collection that was something to behold. So I burned it onto discs, wrapped those up in bows, and sent them out to friends and family. Now it’s just my holiday staple.

It may not feature a number from Tchaikovsky, and there’s certainly no Burl Ives. All the same, I think that it may well be the very best Christmas playlist ever.

I love it, and I hope that you do, too.

JINGLE BELL ROCK – BOBBY HELMS
Go ahead and try. Just try listening to those opening chords, and then the faint, persistent tinkling of the holiday bells, and again I say try… but do you not just want to lick something Christmas? There is a quality to this song that is simply Pavlovian.

IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR – ANDY WILLIAMS
Is it really Christmas without the voice of Andy Williams? The merriment begins with that man and his honeysuckle tones. Besides, if this song isn’t an example of truth in advertising, then I don’t know what is.

DONDE ESTA SANTA CLAUS – GUSTER
Sure. This may have been a gut reaction to the one phrase of Spanish that everybody knows, but I for one am glad that people can wander into a Chevy’s Tex Mex, or some such place, and wonder aloud where the bathroom is. I mean, let’s face facts. Christmas isn’t just about the Anglo Saxons.

SANTA BABY – EARTHA KITT
Her given name notwithstanding, Madonna tried to cover this number and she failed, failed (failed!). When it comes to Eartha Kitt’s version, no one else compares.

ROCKING AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE – BRENDA LEE
I think Brenda Lee is kind of sassy, and if I’m being honest? I don’t think she ever sang without a cocktail in her hand. So there’s that.

DO THEY KNOW IT’S CHRISTMAS? – BAND AID
How immensely cool was this song?!?

First off, everybody on the track was European, and let me tell you: For a kid growing up in the Midwest, that was pretty darn appealing.

I remember watching the video, over and over again. Paul Young led it off, and he had a mullet. Boy George followed, and that was long, long before I even knew what it meant for someone to be gay. This song had George Michael (again, pre-gay awareness), not to mention something like three-fifths of Duran Duran. The girls of Banana Rama were relegated to being background singers, and as for Bono, half the world hardly knew who he was at the time. To top it all off, I think this is the one that got Bob Geldoff his knighthood.

MAYBE THIS CHRISTMAS – RON SEXSMITH
Is it a classic? Perhaps not, but it was featured on one of The O.C. Christmas albums, and in my defense? I really do have a crush on Summer Roberts.

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN – TONY BENNETT
In hindsight, it is a bit unfortunate that Tom Jones never covered this song, but I mean, come on… it’s Tony Bennett.

BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE – DEAN MARTIN
This is the way they used to do it, and frankly? I still flirt this way.

GOD REST YE MERRY GENTLEMEN – BARE NAKED LADIES
Try though I may, I cannot listen to this song without envisioning a jug band. Well, a jug band and Sarah McLachlan.

CHRISTMAS (BABY PLEASE COME HOME) – U2
I’d pick this one for the vocal alone. For the record, this is Bono’s second appearance on our countdown. Don’t worry, though. While his voice is doing stratospheric things, he’s keeping his feet on the ground and still reaching for the stars.

THE CHRISTMAS SONG – THE RAVONETTES
A few years ago, I spent a day not long before Christmas wandering around Disneyland. Although I totally and completely love all things Disney, it was a bit of a scarring experience. Had this song been playing in the It’s a Small World ride, not so much.

FELIZ NAVIDAD – JOSE FELICIANO
Spanish speakers are a passionate people, and I’m nothing if not in their corner.

WHITE CHRISTMAS – BING CROSBY
One could have no heart, and still this song would tug at something tender. It is the quintessential Christmas song, and its title, one of two things that I wish for each and every year.

FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK – THE POGUES
You can actually tell what Shane MacGowan is singing, which makes this number a standout track. But between the two of them, who would have thought that Kirsty MacColl would be the first to go?

I SAW MOMMY KISSING SANTA CLAUS – THE RONETTES
As a child, I never truly understood the implications of these lyrics. I doubt that you did, either.

LITTLE SAINT NICK – THE BEACH BOYS
It was round about the time when I spent a day at Disneyland, so I know a thing or two about Christmas time in southern California. Honestly, I just don’t know how people do it.

JINGLE BELLS – FRANK SINATRA
Dare I admit, but were I ever to revisit this Christmas mix, then ol’ Blue Eyes might well be replaced with Mr. Burl Ives.

CHIPMUNK SONG – ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS
There really is no choice here. I think you simply have to include it.

LAST CHRISTMAS – WHAM!
I’m not ashamed. This may well be one of my favorite Christmas songs of all time. I mean, like, E-VER.

I’D LIKE YOU FOR CHRISTMAS – JULIE LONDON
Because it’s the other thing that I wish for, each and every year.

BLUE CHRISTMAS – ELVIS PRESLEY
Knowing the way I tend to think, I probably keyed in on a connection between a lyric in the last song, “I won’t be blue on Christmas,” and then the title of this one. A cheap trick, to be certain, but there’s something to be said about the ways in which this track picks up the pace with a lighthearted feel, and all before moving onto the next.

Oh, the art of the mix tape. Kids, nowadays… they just don’t understand.

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU – PLAY
I think “Play” might be one of those generic, pre-produced, pop-tart quartets. Me thinks they’re probably English, in the vein of “Take That” or “S Club Seven.”

I’m a bit scared, right about now, that those band names even came to mind.

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS – JUDY GARLAND
She sang this one in 1944, at a time when she was young, vibrant and at the height of her powers. To hear it sung today, however, knowing how the story ends, you’d think the very opposite. After all, there was living evident in every note of this performance, and I think the song is more poignant for it.

OH, HOLY NIGHT – NAT KING COLE
Beyond the shadow of a doubt, this is one of the most beautiful songs that I have ever heard. Nat King Cole had a lovely voice, but to hear this sung in the original French is to know there is a God.

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS – BOB & DOUG MCKENZIE
Because no Christmas is complete without a beer… in a tree.

CHRISMUKKAH

It used to be a simpler time.

Understand, I’m not being nostalgic. I don’t feel a pang for an age gone by, or for those halcyon days of my pre-pubescence. On the contrary, I have little to no interest in rattling on about the ways things used to be (for some strange reason, no matter who you hear it from, those times always seem to be described as kinder, gentler, more… Republican).

It’s just that I remember the winters of my childhood, and I’m telling you: Snow blanketed the ground all of the time. From November through till April, there were whole heaps of the stuff—so much, that friends and I were able to shovel it back behind my parent’s house, right up to the wall of the garage, and create piles so high, they would reach up to the lip of the roof. Things wouldn’t really work until the pile was large, but once it was? We’d climb out of my bedroom window, crawl out onto the edge of the roof, and then jump.

It seemed like a bright idea at the time.

In any case, winter marked the coming of the holiday season, and when I was a kid? Winters would kick off in what was a fairly simple and relatively consistent process:
1. The snow would fall.
2. The carols would play.
3. The stories would be told.

By stories, of course, I’m not referring to The Night Before Christmas, but rather to the biblical tales of three wise men meandering in the desert, or of the shepherds gathered in the fields, ostensibly tending to their flocks. Looking back on it now, even those stories feel altogether sanitized, and just a bit too saccharine-sweet.

What’s to say those shepherds weren’t on a bender, and that, in truth, the wise men were trafficking mass quantities of “gold”, “frankincense” and “myrrh”, in the hopes of smuggling the stuff across some long-forgotten border? Whatever. If people want to insist that those shepherds were all about the livestock, and that these supposedly “wise” men were just out there running errands for King Herod, I’ll buy it. (Frankly, I don’t care enough to argue. Besides, I’m no Dan Brown.)

The point is you’d get the snow, and then the carols, and then the stories of the shepherds who were knocked off their rockers and, like, totally freaked out by the angel of the Lord.

This was how you knew. Christmas was right around the corner.

Nowadays, the burning of fossil fuels has left us a bit short on the snow, and every low-rent pop star can drop a Christmas album. As for the rest? The standard procedure has been usurped. It has been cast aside and dutifully replaced by the ubiquitous Starbucks holiday cup.

I mean, it’s not Christmas until that little, red cup works everybody into a frenzy, and drives us all to buy more in the way of “a tall, soy, one-pump, half-caff, white mocha with no whip.” And it’s not just the cups. Starbucks has a whole holiday agenda, which they gladly foist onto global consumers each and every year. You could be in Coral Gables, Florida and yet the minions of Howard Schultz will have you believing that there’s a veritable chill in the air.

Not everybody believes in Jesus Christ, and by no means is the holiday season specific to Christians. There is Hanukkah and Kwanza. Buddhists celebrate Bodhi Day, and the followers of Islam mark the Day of Ashura. With the winter’s solstice falling on December 21st, there’s no telling what the Druids might have gotten up to.

People will celebrate whatever way they choose, but this used to be a season of meaning. It was a time to believe in something, not to buy something.

Christmas, for one, came about due to the birth of Jesus Christ. It had nothing to do with quilted hoodies from the Gap.

The thought occurred to me, though. This may finally be the year when the heavens end up with the last laugh. I mean, the financial system is sputtering. The stock market is pitching a fit. American consumers are spending less, and the retail sector is certain to take a hit.

But if Starbucks can only make a cool enough coffee cup, then by rights... I’m thinking Jesus can be credited with saving the economy.

Otherwise, we are all in for one fucking long winter’s nap.

(Oy vey.)

LOVE IS LOVE

I’ve taken pains not to make this blog overtly political, but if I’m being honest? If I’m to be open and forthright about the ways in which I feel and also think, then it is rightfully time to loose a few boundaries.

Let’s talk about Proposition 8.

In last Tuesday’s election, citizens in the state of California passed a resolution that overturned existing statutes, making it against the law and unconstitutional for same-sex couples to marry. In effect, they took what was a legal right and made it something criminal. All of this, because a majority of people in the state of California felt they were entitled—that it was their responsibility, even—to tell other people how it is that they should love.

I am flummoxed. I am crestfallen. I just don’t understand.

The connotations of “love” are abundant, to be sure, but let’s look to the gist of it, to the meanings and interpretations of the word that have long been accepted throughout the world. Dating back to the times of Shakespeare and beyond, to be in love has been to feel affection for another, to be devoted to someone, to care for them, to worship and adore that person.

That is it. That is all.

What part of love is dependent on nearly 53% of California’s population coming together to agree that one’s particular brand of adoration is just like theirs, and therefore “okay”?

I am befuddled. Gobsmacked, even. Again, I just don’t get it.

There is beauty in this idea called America, in that we’re not always quick to get things right. But we keep trying. Our founding fathers had the audacity to bother with fractions, and now, thank God, we have the audacity of hope. Our President-elect is a person possessed of what the columnist Nicholas D. Kristoff called a “fertile mind”. Oh, and he just so happens to be African American.

But what if he were gay?

Would it honestly matter, even one little bit?

There are pundits and politicians aplenty, and on both sides of the aisle, who have endeavored to make an argument similar to the one here. Nearly every one has done a far better job of this than I have, but then again, it wasn’t my intention to add to this debate with new insights, or to unearth additional layers of meaning. I’m not harboring any illusions, here. I'm just telling you what I think and how I feel.

To put it simply, I believe that love is love.

In the political cycle that has just ended, the debate over Proposition 8 was merely one of many. Nearly every one offered plenty in the way of nuance, and there were no easy answers. So, why does this outcome seem so blatantly erroneous?

Maybe it comes down to this: As much as I might like to find that girl who makes me weak in the knees, I know that it isn’t easy. (I suppose it could be the person who commented on my last posting, except that she did so anonymously. In any case, I hear she’s quite a catch.) I’ve got special treatment on my side, like a resolution newly passed in the state of California, and yet it doesn’t place me any closer to walking down the aisle.

Meanwhile, we have friends and neighbors, family and loved ones who are in committed, caring relationships. They want the very same things that I would hope to find with you. The only difference? They are homosexuals, and so some lame-ass law says that they can’t have them.

Along with more than 47% of Californian voters, I am calling bullshit.

POSSIBILITIES

On any given day on the isle of Manhattan, the possibilities alone can be enough to level me.

My commute this morning? No less than four.

Crossing the street this afternoon, on my way to grab a cup of tea? Two.

A week ago, while standing on the corner of Bleecker and Broadway? There were at least fourteen, and just in the time that it took for the light to change.

As for what it is that brings these on, these possibilities? It might be nothing, but that’s all it really takes. Chalk it up to a wayward glance, followed by a smile, or to the way that someone will continually, absentmindedly tug loose the hem upon her sweater. Maybe it’s a kind gesture, one slight and seemingly unnoticed, that she makes when she thinks no one else is watching. Honestly, it could just be that she drinks beer from the bottle.

The point is, not a day goes by that I don’t run across someone who, from my brief and fleeting vantage point, would seem to be the kind of girl that I might like to meet. Someone, by chance, who might be you. (There it is again: Possibilities.)

Of course, these things are seldom as simple as they seem. I can’t possibly ask after every girl who I might find attractive, but let’s suppose for a moment that I saw you standing there, and that instantly I knew; I wouldn’t be able to walk away without asking your name. Never mind that I’d be nervous, or completely uncertain as to how to proceed. Prior to taking a step forward, long before the words began to form inside my mouth, my heart would make the first move. It would take the shape and form of a simple, unspoken plea.

Don’t be married.

It’s not asking much, really. Just keep a safe distance from walking down the aisle, from secret betrothals, from seeing someone else. Keep that heart of yours open to the possibility that the boy you were meant to meet is out there, still.

I just need for you not to be wearing a ring upon that all-important finger.

It is the first thing I look for, you know. From the moment that I see you across the way, once your eyes catch mine, I am casting a long, hard look in the direction of your left hand. So maybe you can help my cause, and think before putting your hand in your pocket. As for the gloves that might be warming that same delicate hand, perhaps you can find an excuse to remove them—if nothing more, then while indoors. If all else fails, might I ask that you run your left hand through your hair, if only so that I’m certain to see it?

(Besides, I’m going to like that anyway.)

While I might not be advocating the wearing of rings, at present, it’s not that I have an aversion to them, or to diamonds, for that matter. On the contrary, I adore all it is for which rings stand, and don’t even get me started on the Four C’s. I just don’t want to see a diamond, a ruby, or any precious stone in place on your ring finger—not yet, anyway, and not until I have something to say about it.

So then, I’ll ask you again, just one more time.

Don’t be married.

It will dash what possibilities we may have had.

DEFINITELY (MAYBE)

The other day, my cousin wrote to say that she had watched the movie Definitely Maybe, and that the actor in the film had reminded her of me (apparently, in the best of ways).

It was odd that she would think so. Several years ago, I dated a woman who, at some point prior, had dated the actor Ryan Reynolds.

As for what that mere coincidence might say about Ryan Reynolds or me, I can only speculate. It’s fair to assume that at certain points in time, we both took a liking to the same girl. Beyond that, I don’t know. He’s moved on to six-pack abs and a wife named Scarlett Johansson, while I’m still mastering the art of being single.

Someday. Somewhere. Someone.

I was in Texas yesterday, waiting by my gate at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. A Starbucks wasn’t far away, and so I walked over to grab a cup of tea. It was still the early morning, and I thought that cup might make the perfect companion for the book that I had tucked under my arm.

Ages were spent nursing that Earl Grey. Chapters passed before the cup was finally empty, and only then did I think to remove the little cozy that was meant to keep the cup from burning my hand. I wanted to read from the feature they’ve been printing, the series titled, “The Way I See It.”

I don’t go to Starbucks often. In fact, I kind of make it a point not to, but you can imagine that “The Way I See It” would be the type of thing I’d just adore. (It is.) My cup featured words from Augusten Burroughs, the writer of the memoir Running With Scissors. I haven’t read his book or even seen the movie, but I’m aware of the guy’s name. I know that he writes for a living, and that he used to work in advertising.

In any case, I have been living in New York for the past several years, and have been struggling of late with this nagging feeling. Never mind that I always have something to do, or that within a mile, I can stumble upon an entire gaggle of those I know—friends and family alike. Even in a city of eight million people, it’s all too easy to feel alone.

That thought lingering in the back of my mind, all the while staring at the side of this Starbucks cup, I began to read the words that Burroughs had put forward. He was talking about how he used to feel the very same way, so alone while living in the city. The man didn’t know how to meet new people, or how to make a personal connection. He struggled with the prospects until he finally realized, until he just decided, that all it takes is to say, “Hello.”

That is how it starts.

The way he put it, the person might think that you’re totally crazy, or they might end up being the person you marry. Chances are, he reasoned, the possibilities were worth that single word.

I loved the notion—so much so, that I decided then and there to steal a page from Burroughs' playbook, and see what I could do about adopting the practice.

So far, at least three girls at the grocery store think I'm completely insane. (Oh, and did I mention that I’m mastering the art of being single?)

No matter, for today is a new day, and with the morning comes more in the way of opportunity. Besides, I might walk up to someone this afternoon and decide to say, “Hello."

Who knows? You might think to smile in return, and maybe take a chance.

I like the thought of that.

TODAY

It has been this way before, and while I suppose the feeling will always remain, it is particularly affecting to be in New York on the anniversary of September 11, 2001.

Of course, this morning marked the seventh anniversary of that tragic, fateful day. In years past, my Mother would call the night before and advise me to stay away from public transportation (just in case). I would always make a deal with her, that I wouldn’t admit to using the subway, provided she didn’t ask.

A couple of years ago, on the eve of September 11th, I made my way north to 107th Street and to an evening mass at the Church of the Ascension. Near the end of the mass, the priest began to detail the next day’s arrangements, and the efforts that would be made to honor the fallen, and to remember those who rushed to their aid in New York, in Washington, and in a field in Pennsylvania.

The useful information of times and locations was suddenly upended by a personal note. “I won’t be here,” he told us. “As many of you know, I lost my nephew when the North Tower fell, and I’ll be gathering with my family at Ground Zero.” He paused for a moment before going on. “It’s the closest thing to a cemetery that we have.”

Seven years removed, and what a different world this has become. Still so many of our men and women are stationed overseas. Our civil liberties—the very lifeblood of this democracy—have been subject to debate, our privacies put in limbo over an administration’s seeming need to tap our phone lines. The aftermath of those attacks—the war in Afghanistan and the chaos in Iraq—is still an electoral lightning rod, even if both candidates have put down their rhetorical barbs, if only momentarily, and gathered together today to recognize those we lost.

Seven years removed, and I have to think that the questions still remain: Are we safer? Are we prepared? Could it happen again? With an election looming on the horizon, it is absolutely pertinent to wonder… Where do we go from here?

The 1 train runs along the west side of Manhattan, north and south from the Bronx to Battery Park. I am sitting in my office on Franklin Street, one stop north of Chambers Street, only nine streets removed from the former site of the Twin Towers. Throughout the day, ceremonies will be taking place just down the road, only a stone’s throw away. I would imagine that they’ve read the names of those who perished, and that they have stood quiet in remembrance. Meanwhile, life around the financial district quite likely presses on, at times oblivious to all that’s happening, and to all that’s happened in the past.

For a long time, I was resolved to feel that way. I wanted to wipe away the memory. Every part of me had wanted to forget, and to push away the recollection of how it felt to be alive that day.

On September 11, 2001, it wasn’t a question of where you were, or who you were, or of the flag you pledged allegiance to, with a hand pressed firmly over your heart. If you were human, and with the capacity for tolerance, then you couldn’t help but be affected and somewhat changed by the sick reality of what had transpired.

For a very long time, I had wanted nothing more than to tamp those feelings down, to keep them hidden below a placid surface. I had wanted to look the other way, to forget those names and to never again feel the way that I did that morning, when first I heard the news of an “accident”, or when the report of that accident was amended to read, “attack”.

Then I went to that mass a couple of years ago, where I was privileged to witness a priest—someone I had never met—reaching out to a congregation of strangers.

“I’ll be on the east side,” he continued. “We’ll be gathering at my sister’s parish, but you’re all invited to come over and join us.”

It was in that moment, in the sharing of a simple story, that my attitude was forever changed.

My apologies for rambling on, but I was reminded this morning of a story told some seven years ago, by a man named John Hodgman, at what was supposed to be a literary reading. It is posted every year on this date, at www.mcsweeneys.net.

Delivered in the aftermath of the attacks, his remarks were poignant, touching, and deceptively profound.

Here and now, some seven years later, I find them comforting.

'TIS THE SEASON

For some time now, summer plans have taken shape and form based not on the amount of weddings I’m invited to, but on the number of those I am able to attend.

From May on through to Labor Day, the march is on. Blushing brides are heading down the aisles, while the rest of us go running toward the nearest bridal registries. As guests at these weddings, we can hardly be blamed. Any one of twelve might land a table setting, but it is only the anxious and fortunate few who triumphantly snatch up the Delonghi Gran Dama Espresso Maker.

There was a span of time during which I decided that the bridal registry was something to eschew. I know it is filled with things that the bride and groom have asked for, but come on, already. Who sits around in thirty years and says, “Oh, Honey… remember this soup ladle? George and Nina Banks bought us this soup ladle!”

Truth be told, I’m not convinced that registries still matter.

Going back a generation or more, people truly needed place settings. They didn’t have tumblers, or television trays, or any of those otherwise fancier things. Guys and girls would go from their childhood homes straight onto the bridal suite. They did so without those basic tools that could transform a house into a home.

Nowadays, the landscape has shifted. Society isn’t what it used to be; neither are priorities, meaning that those of the marrying kind are choosing to wait before walking down the aisle. Frankly, it’s because they can.

Women are having kids at a later age, and so people are putting the wedding off for a while. Instead, they are going places and doing things. They are choosing first to see the world, and figuring out what it’s like to be single. As for the filling of kitchen cupboards, it is a straightforward process. In every port of call along the way, they find themselves a Crate & Barrel.

Considerate of the circumstances, and being mindful of how far we’ve come, isn’t it fair to say that we’ve got this whole thing wrong? It is not the marrying lot that needs the registries; it’s the single people!

Give the KitchenAid® Tilt-Head Stand-Up Mixer to the kid who has just graduated from college. I mean, let’s be honest. We’re talking about someone who still believes that a Hot Pocket constitutes a full meal, and therefore an integral part of a balanced diet. The least we can do is help to wean him off the toaster oven.

When I got out of college, I didn’t have two spoons to rub together, let alone a can opener. The sheets didn’t match. Neither did the towels. My flatware I found at a nearby garage sale. (I liked to tell people that it was vintage.)

Those things have been remedied, over time, but not without some effort. I now have what people might consider a respectable abode. Maybe the lean years made me appreciate it more, but I’ve still got to wonder.

Where was Williams & Sonoma when I needed them most?

MYSTIFIED

Will someone please explain to me the puzzle that is Capri pants on men?

I’m honestly not certain if they’re pants or shorts, and therein lay the problem. When Thom Browne upped the hemline on his signature suits, it was by mere inches. Though to my mind, his pants looked adolescent and a bit immature, you knew full well—still—that they were made to be purposeful, if not proper, suit pants. But Capri pants? I just don’t understand.

This afternoon, as I was making my way down to Wall Street, there was a guy on the 2 train who was wearing these… “pants”. Hitting, as they did, just below the knee, those things didn’t do a single thing for him. It was as though he woke up in the morning and said, “Yeah, I want to cover my legs in big, skinny tubes that have no drape to them, whatsoever, and therefore cling to me in truly unfortunate places.”

Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t the whole purpose of shorts simply this: That when you’re wearing them, you’re not wearing pants? There is a reason that civilized people don’t eat with the spork. I’m thinking that in the case of the Capri “short”, the same logic should apply.

Guys aren’t always the most fashion-conscious of people. I am a guy, and I’ll be the first to admit it. But here and now, I’m instituting a new rule. Unless you’re a woman, else a person from Europe who has the accent enough to compensate, there shall be no wearing of Capri pants.

They freak me out.

THESE ARMS OF MINE

What am I doing right now, at this very moment?

I am going to tell you.

This evening, while I am here and you’re away, I am listening to the music of Mr. Otis Redding. God knows what I was thinking, when I pressed the button labeled “Play”, but I should have known that this wouldn’t be a good idea.

Anyone familiar with the music of Mister Otis Redding (remember Dirty Dancing?) cannot help but appreciate the passion as it pours from every single lyric that man delivers. Just listen to him. This man is hurting, and bad. Either that, or he is feeling it, just as badly, with every sweet, soulful syllable spit from that mouth, that beautiful, dead mouth of his.

Did Otis Redding have a beautiful mouth? I don’t even know what the man looked like, but I can tell you how he sounds. He sounds like something that I shouldn’t be listening to alone.

It’s the blessing and the curse of this, now isn’t it? Here I am, spending time with something of such quality, something so very good, and yet I can’t quite enjoy it in the way that I should, not unless it is something that I can share.

Suffice to say, but these arms of mine? Well, it’s just as Mr. Otis Redding sings... so sweetly, so earnestly, with that beautiful, dead mouth of his.

TERPSICHOREAN

Come with me.

Far from the frenzy and the steeped skyscrapers, away from the noise of the nattering class, we can find a place.

There we will spend our days barefoot, wandering up and down the shore, until the nighttime skies come alive with wonder, peppered with the pinpricks of primordial light.

I want to go there, to that place where I can hear your heart beating, even as I feel it, hand held in mine.

We’ll pack light. What we don’t have we can buy; else blithely go without.

Far from those places with the rarified air, where blue-blooded people employ “summer” as a verb, we will find ourselves a sanctuary. In a shack or a chalet, in a cabin by the woods, our days will idle by, spent absent of our mobile phones, without a laundry list of things to do.

This, my Dear, will be living.

In my life, I have known of places much like this. It is where I have been these many days, away from it all and in a place like this. I want to go back, before long, and quite often. I just don’t want to do it in the very same way—not alone, not by myself. Not anymore.

Come with me, and soon.

Let us find that place together, and when we do? Say that you will grant me but one request: Dance with me. Be it in the mornings or in the waning hours, I want to be the one to spin you round the room, to make you float across a well-worn floor until we both fall over, laughing, giddy, dizzy with delight.

I do so like it when we dance.

BLOOD BOILING ON THE BOULEVARDS

It happens without fail.

On Thursday and Friday afternoons in Manhattan, the avenues running north and south fill to the brim with fleeing people. Well, they fill to the brim with people fleeing in their cars (too many of whom, it should be stated, do not seem to carpool).

They make their escapes to any number of places. Upstate. The Shore. The Catskills. The Berkshires. Some head east to the Hamptons, while others run away to the cool, ocean breezes of the nearby islands.

While the summer’s weekend exodus is not something I do too often, I don’t blame them. It gets hot in the city, with the asphalt acting like a radiator, driving the mercury higher and higher.

I can understand their desires to beat traffic, and rush on out a bit early. The problem is, everybody has the same idea. What’s more, they all decide to leave at the exact same time.

The result is total gridlock. Nobody moves for what seems to be hours. While that makes it plenty easy for me to cross the street as I leave the office, it can’t be much fun for those stuck behind the wheel. At least, it doesn’t seem to be—not with the way they honk their horns.

I can hear them now, from the confines of the office. There are horns over on Hudson, droning on like a sixth-grade symphony with no proficiency for their instruments. It’s just a whole lot of noise.

A horn is a tool that has its moments—when someone doesn’t see your car, for instance, or when they cut you off as they jut across two lanes of highway. In other words, feel free to bang on your horn and wail away when the situation calls for it. But in circumstances such as these, when they know full well that they’re not going anywhere, and there’s nothing that the guy in front of them can do to even inch forward, can’t they all recognize the futility, and perhaps show some restraint?

We might all prefer a summer that is simply stress free.

THE SOUND OF WHAT'S TO COME

Out of the blue, it happened. I developed a crush.

I feel the need to mention, for this wasn’t some sort of schoolboy affair. Not that the dropping of a note in study hall didn’t once have its moments. It’s just that now, this is not that place and time. Besides, I’m not sure it was ever a winning tactic, or one that I feel the need to be falling back on.

Considerate of the circumstances, I suppose that’s shockingly ironic.

In any case, this crush had real meaning. It was something more than a mere infatuation. It offered possibilities.

Poets have put their pens to use, and all in the effort to describe such things. I won’t bother you with a weak attempt, but suffice to say? Clouds parted. The sun shone brighter. The sky took on a more intense shade of blue. Entire armies lay down their guns. All sorts of things (hope, among them) were borne anew. It was one of those moments.

The odd part was, it wasn’t for a girl. In fact, it wasn’t for anyone at all. I developed a crush… on a song.

I didn't wish for this to happen. The tune appeared so suddenly, its timpani rhythms trickling forward, tickling the tips of the cilia to set vibration in motion. It swelled in waves, this song, rising, cresting towards the chorus, before darting off in directions wholly unexpected, the minute that it hit the bridge.

Press “Play” on a song like that, and speakers swell with pride. The air is so electric that it pops with opportunity. To hear a song like that is to know what it means to feel indomitable, as though nothing in this world of ours can ever keep you down.

A song like that is a sweet elixir. Ebullient and effervescent, driven forth with a percussive purpose, a song like that makes you want to scale small buildings. It sends you up to the rooftops, iPod in hand, in some strange interpretation of a Lloyd Dobler moment. It compels you to share, to shout to the world, “This is the sound of what’s to come!”

That… or you decide instead to make a mix tape, and all for the girl you’re going to marry.

NOTE TO SELF: NOT THE GUY WHO WON PROJECT RUNWAY

Quite recently, I’ve come to know of the designer Christian Louboutin and his fabulously red-soled shoes. Do you own any of these? Say the word, if you don’t, because I’m telling you: I just don’t care how much they cost. If we have to work second jobs and mortgage our future, you are going to have a pair. I will buy them for you, if need be.

Sure, his web site is a bit pretentious, even by my standards. The biography reads like the self-aggrandizing statement of an insecure and callow boy who would like to think himself the apotheosis of the scene. Never mind that it is written in the third-person. Louboutin himself was probably responsible. At the very least, he had to approve it.

Of course, I don’t know the man. Branding being what it is, it helps to perpetuate a certain image. Eventually, the icon trumps the individual. For all I know, he’s probably a really nice guy, and of the type you might want to go and get a beer with. All I am able to say, unequivocally, is this: The man can craft fantastic shoes.

Just look at his work! With their lacquered red soles, those stilettos are simply stunning. Talk about imbuing the modern age with a whiff of timeless elegance. The soles alone look rich, sumptuous, like corporeal decadence—and they are the parts you walk on!

Look, I go weak in the knees over a t-shirt and jeans. I like the girl who feels comfortable in her own skin, no matter what she’s wearing. But those shoes? Those shoes are something special.

I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I can see no way around it. I think you have to have them.

WHY I PUT OUT

When I was in high school, I knew plenty of girls who would labor under the belief that if they only put out, they might be wildly popular.

Yeah, I tried that. It didn’t work for me, either.

On the other hand, there is a reason why I kiss the way I do. Given the manner in which I tore through college, you’d think that my knowledge of osculation might be well in the vicinity of encyclopedic. Apparently, it’s not.

According to a recent article on msn.com, there is a whole bunch of stuff that I never knew, and in some cases, never wanted to know about kissing. Some of these points are indeed “quirky”. Others are banal. A few of them, though, I felt the need to pass along.

Take, for instance, this: “A simple peck uses two muscles; a passionate kiss, on the other hand, uses all 34 muscles in your face.” Their writer opines, “Now that’s a rigorous workout!” This writer opines: For all of those days you can’t get to the gym? You know where to find me.

Personally, I think “because it’s fun” is a pretty good reason for the doing of most anything, and I’ve got to say: There’s a whole lot about making out that’s really, really fun. Alas, this isn’t about your amusement (or mine). I’ve got it on good authority from the aforementioned article: “Kissing is good for what ails you. Research shows that the act of smooching improves our skin, helps circulation, prevents tooth decay, and can even relieve headaches.”

(I’d like to see you try and use that excuse now.)

Amongst the list, there were several points that smacked of a double standard. To wit: “The average woman kisses 29 men before she gets married.”

As for the truth or relevance behind that point, only you are qualified to answer. I have to admit, though. I’ve got that one beat. (By a lot.) Nevertheless, there was something about the mere mention of the number that bothered me, and it may have been this: Nowhere on that list of quirky kissing facts was there a countering point. They didn’t bother to call out the boys.

It could be that an average number for men was not available. Perhaps no one has bothered to do the research. The thing is, I doubt that’s the case. By listing a number for women, not men, it’s almost like telling the world of women that we’re watching—as though we care about how many people they are kissing; as though it matters. Meanwhile, the men get by with a free pass? It’s as though the omission creates some strange form of implied absolution.

Isn’t there something about it that’s just a bit puritanical, even prejudiced?

Why it is that men can run around kissing anyone and everyone short of the lipless, whereas women apparently stop short of 30, lest they be tagged with any number of unfortunate (not to mention unfair) labels?

I know the answer to this one: “Society.” Well, I say society should do a whole lot more in the way of kissing. It might shut them up for a while.

(It wouldn’t hurt their complexions, either).

FOR THE RECORD

I started to think about it. I mean, I really began to mull it over.

What if my life had taken a different turn? What if proximity had been a factor? What if somewhere in my youth (or childhood), I had learned to settle?

When I was growing up, there was a girl who lived just down the road. Technically, her house was next door to ours. If memory serves, she was about my age. We might have even been in the same year at school.

I grew curious, and so I did some research on this one. Made some phone calls. (My Mom. She talks to people.)

If my very own version of the girl next door had turned out to be the girl I’m going to marry?

We’d all too likely be divorced, and you would definitely be a stripper.

(Insert a long, obligatory pause.)

Kind of dodged a bullet on that one, now didn’t we?

IT MAY BE JUST THAT SIMPLE

I am going to tell you a story.

It takes place some time ago, prior to the birth of the automobile and before anyone had bothered to invent the superhighway.

Across the country, in cities and towns, the average American was going about his daily life. He was attending school, getting married to the girl next door, having kids. He was working in a mine, on the family’s farm, in a factory, maybe. The details were just cursory.

That’s because, for the average American, little in the way of divergence existed to set his story apart from the rest. Time and again, life would unfold in a predictable fashion, much the way it did for so many, all around the country. A person was born into a city or town, and he would die in that very same city or town. It was because of this: The average American never traveled farther than six miles from home. It’s an actual fact. People were sequestered, in some strange way, by an apparent lack of mobility.

Let the nostalgic look back and wax lyrical about a kinder, simpler time. They’ll obfuscate with their descriptions on the beauty of the proverbial girl next door, or the purity of the farmer’s daughter. When those women ended up with the local town stud, it wasn’t the hand of fate intervening. Those crazy kids may well profess that they were meant to be together, but don’t believe it for a moment. It was that they had little in the way of choice.

To a person born in this day and age, that fate would seem akin to a prison sentence. For goodness sake, our generation will travel more than six miles for sushi. We waltz into the restaurant and we’re asked to select from sparkling, still or tap water. There is a wholly separate menu, just for the sake.

As a generation, we have been blessed with an overabundance of choice. Not only is it obnoxious; it’s enough to make you wonder: Are we better off for it?

What is the take rate on marriage, these days? Is it one in five that last the first five years? One in three that are expected to stick it out a decade? There is a reason that we’ve coined the term “starter marriage”.

Please, don’t think that I’m being cynical. On the contrary, I want you, the house, and if we’re blessed to be so fortunate, then kids. I want all of that and more, but importantly? I believe that it can be made to work. I just think that too many people of our generation are complicating the situation.

When it’s the person who you’re going to share your life with—when it matters that much—then I've got to believe that all you truly need to know can be mined from the answers to just three questions. Yes, you did read that correctly. Just three, and in particular, the following:

1. IS THIS PERSON MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE, WIDE WORLD?
If so, then check that box and move onto the next one!

2. DO I WANT TO THROW HER DOWN ON THE NEAREST FLAT SURFACE, EVERY CHANCE I GET?
Safe to say, but I do. A lot. Like, often. Now. So then, it’s onto the last!

3. KNOWING NOT WHAT LIFE MIGHT BRING, BUT BEING PRETTY CERTAIN THAT YOU’RE LIABLE TO FACE CHALLENGES THAT NEITHER OF YOU CAN PREDICT, LET ALONE PLAN FOR... KNOWING THAT, CAN I EVEN IMAGINE GETTING THROUGH IT WITH ANY OTHER PERSON?
(Enough said.)

Is this some sort of litmus test for love? I don’t know. Not that I presume to have the whole thing figured out, but I know what I believe. I know how it is that I feel. Granted, this list of mine might dumb down the issues, if just a little bit. It may miss a few shades of meaning, or gloss over any number of important points.

Then again, it may be just that simple.

FREQUENCY

I don’t believe in Writer’s Block. It’s an excuse perpetuated by fourteen year-old students who don’t have an original bone in their bodies, let alone a clue as to how they might express themselves. Writer’s Block is a myth. It’s bullshit. It does not exist.

And yet, here we are. The days have flown by and the hours have mounted, as all the while, I’ve done nothing about writing to the girl I’m going to marry.

There may be a silence cast across your inbox, but never a day goes by when I cannot write. There is always something new to say, and the desire exists to fill blank pages.

In this head of mine, subjects and predicates continually collide. Synonyms and antonyms vie for my attention, as paragraphs begin to take shape and form, only to move about like building blocks. It is an unending process. The language is forever being fashioned, fiddled with, and all to create new bits of polished prose.

But one man’s prose can be another’s pestilence—hence, the deafening silence that we’ve been dealing with, of late.

You see, I tend to go quiet when my quality suffers. When the text meanders; when words won’t come as easily; when the prose seems to lack any poetry or pluck, I immediately shutter the doors and windows. If I don’t like the stuff I’m putting out, I’ll close up shop and toil away until that time when things are right once more.

Up until now, this has served as my preferred excuse. It has been my favorite bedtime story, meant to explain away the dearth of my production, but I’m deciding not to tell that tale anymore. I am putting an end to the practice. It is one tactic that has grown tired and stale, and I’ve decided that I’m done with it.

Life is too short. It allows no time to dawdle. I am eager and anxious, and I’ve got so many things to say. There are tales that I have to tell, and importantly, there is a person I want to share those stories with.

So then, I am opting for "yes" more often than "no". I am choosing to act in the face of indecision.

Were I to continue along the present path, waiting around until things were just right, until circumstances fell into line, then I’d one day wake beneath the weight of disappointment, only to find that life had passed me by. Hopes and dreams will not come to be when one’s stopping to script the situation.

A first kiss would never happen under those kinds of conditions. Why should this be any different?

THE PROVERBIAL YOU (MEANING ME)

You’ve been having one of those mornings.

It’s been one of those mornings that follows one of those evenings, when through no prior thought or premeditation, you find yourself alone with a bottle of wine.

Without a word or so much as an invitation, that bottle becomes your constant companion. You go for walks with the bottle, to and from the far corners of your apartment. You lie back on the couch with it. You watch TV together, and it even follows you to the bathroom, much the way a good girlfriend should… were you a woman and headed to the loo.

At one point in the evening, that bottle up and leaves you. The fact that it's empty comes as a shock, as most things unexpected tend to do. There’s no point in denial. Suddenly, that bottle is gone, and so you do what any sensible person might.

You go to find another.

While there is another bottle on the kitchen counter, that would take some time to chill. Never mind that the show on the TV can wait, for you have Tivo. That’s hardly the point, now is it? You don’t want to wait and the fridge is filled with beer, and so you do what any misled person might.

You switch.

One… two… three… four beers later, and how are you not laid prone upon the floor? Actually, you’re upright (to a point). There you are, sitting on your bed, propped up against the headboard. It might seem to be a harmless condition. After all, you’re just sitting there. It would appear to be benign, this place in which you find yourself, except that a computer is perched upon your lap. It’s turned on and you’re online, and so you do what any inebriated person might.

You begin to Google the names of women who you kind of, sort of, maybe dated once upon a time, and then—wait for it—you decide to reach out to one or two of them, or maybe a whole handful.

So, yeah… you’ve been having one of those mornings.

It’s been one of those mornings that follow one of those evenings, and though the details are hazy and you can’t quite recall exactly what it was that happened? There is a part of you wishing, hoping—pleading, even—that the Googling is all that you got up to, but truth be told?

No part of you can quite remember.

(Sigh.)

MEANING

My Dear,

I have come to realize that life can disappoint, and that things seldom happen in the ways they frankly should. The older one grows, the more of life one passes through, the more one comes to understand that the “bitter pill” is not proverbial, but a recommended part of a balanced diet, and that higher minded ideals—things like “justice” and “integrity”—will not always come to be, not when evil and inequity exist within our world.

A lesser man might turn a cynic in the face of all of this. He might find himself a corner of the world in which to cower and escape, but I am no ordinary person.

I believe in hope. I believe in faith. I believe in the power of optimism, and in the doing of good works. For that matter, I believe in a mandatory, four-day workweek, as a testament to family values.

I believe in science. I believe in miracles. Therefore, I believe that science and religion can peacefully coexist.

While we’re on the topic, I believe in drinking decent beer, and that while a draft beer calls for a proper pint glass, any beer ordered in a bottle should likely be consumed from that very same bottle.

I believe in speaking my mind. I believe that an opinion can be the most attractive thing about a person, and also the most reprehensible. I believe that even the slightest voice has the volume to be heard.

I believe that people are, by nature, fallible creatures; therefore, I believe in instant replay.

I believe that language is a gift from God Himself, and that those who choose to mangle the language do so at their own peril.

I believe in marrying up. I’m still working on that one, but I’m kind of hoping you can help.

I believe in all of this and more, and always in the notion that meaning can be derived from the most unlikely of places. There are moments lost on consequence. It’s the sum of these smaller parts—the stolen glances, the lost afternoons, the silly and innocuous—that when added up over the course of many years, over a lifetime, end up mattering most of all.

This is about those moments—the times that we share together, to be certain, but especially those for which you’re not around.

I believe it’s in those moments that I miss you most of all.