Say, Mister Self, Can You Spare A Dime....

Maybe I shouldn’t think so negatively. I can’t seem to live on a budget. I’ll buy beer even though I have no money. I’ll buy real maple syrup. The occasional cigar. In a foreign country I’ll buy western products. If I am living on credit, I’ll talk myself into buying a bicycle and more computer memory, even though you could argue my current arrangement is just fine.

Most Likely


I want to make money hand over fist.
I want to make a killing.
I want to rake in the cash
be in the black
go like gangbusters
have a booming business
freelance
be my own boss
call the shots
live the American dream
go rags to riches
make my mark
be a self-made man
be nobody’s fool
set my own and my banker’s hours
take all comers
make a name for myself
receive the keys to a city
cut through the red tape
cut through the bullshit
be my own man
go public.

I want to show ‘em
come into my own
find my fortune.

I’ll laugh all the way to the bank.
Yes, sir, now they work for me.

I want to skip the light fantastic
Whatever the hell that means.

“He’ll never amount to anything,” they said.

There’s one born every minute.



I can’t pray that way though. I recently prayed that I would just be able to pay my bills and have airfare for three or four (if I go in the spring to Poland) tickets. I don’t remember what else I prayed (while trying to fall asleep at an unusual bedtime), but maybe it involved my luxuries, too. Amen.

On the train back from the VA Hospital again. Got my measles, mumps, roubella immunization proof. Turns out I’m no public health threat, just as I thought. Cholesterol screening remains to be seen—whether my light weight regiment is doing any good.

Whenever I finish at the VA I go across and treat myself to breakfast, which they serve 24 hrs. This time I had a Breakfast Jack, which has a thin slice of ham, instead of my usual biscuit/cheese/breakfast meat choice. I borrowed eight dollars from my future for the meal.

Late Feedback

Life is not really good right now. I am renting a small room from an old acquaintance, but going into debt even though my rent is not high. I need more work. I have applied to three places for substitute teaching, and so far I have been accepted at one. But I have told two of them that I don’t want early morning calls, so I don’t even know if they’ll use me. When I get home from Rio at night, I want that time to myself and not to have to go to bed right away, tho I will do so if I have to and know abt it beforehand.
You can’t believe how difficult it is to get a job these days, or go to school or whatever. You have to have all your records and papers, shots, licenses, nine or so references, etc., etc., etc. It is the worst kind of full time job you can imagine. It’s like running in place in a dream: work, work, work, with little or no prospect of gain.
The two weeks w/ r were good. He cried when I left—wanted to go to Arizona with me. I whispered in his ear so his mother couldn’t hear, “three months, three months.” I told my friends that I was confident before God that that would work out. Now I’m really in doubt.
I want to buy a Dawes SST single-speed bike. I’m not sure my prostate could take it though. I have a cruiser type bike, which was given to me and feels great on my happy butt. But I want to zip in and out on a fine machine. It’s $300, and I would have to go further into debt for it.
Boy am I tired. I’m falling asleep. I had to get up early today to go the VA hospital for a follow up appointment and hopefully to get and MMR vaccine or immunization, which normally would be $100. I’ve been staying up till two a.m. doing crazy-ass paperwork for jobs, so it’s always difficult to swicht to a four-hour earlier bedtime when I have to.
Think I oughtta get a facebook page? Lots of my friends and family got ‘em. I also could post a link to my blog.
I just got a call from another subbing place—encouraging I guess, but the interview ain’t for 2 ½ weeks.
I’m fed up with how this country is run. It’s impossible to make good laws due to the fact that politicians are paid for.
I am too tired to continue Nice-looking my-ageish woman in the next car. I managed to generate a smile for her. She ignored me.
I hain’t been blogging because I don’t ride the train now. That was when I used to write. Now I sit in my room and channel surf. I am still only working abt 12 hrs per week. There is no subbing thru my current school, due to the fact that they are just combining classes to cover teacher absences.
I started giving money to my church in accordance w/ costs here in the US, not in accordance w/ Polish economic standards. Not easy ‘cause I have no money myself. Now that is more than my beer money.
I might get more hours at my job if not for the fact that they would have to give me health benefits if they did that.

Another VA hospital day. I got an H1N1 vaccine, an MMR blood test, found out abt my tetanus history (up-to-date), and an appointment or medicine to be mailed for a skin spot. My health is generally better here in Arizona. I have one pair of shoes that has lasted me much longer than usual, ‘cause I don’t have foot problems here; also my injured wrist don’t bother me as much.
I went ahead and bought a bike. I had also seen a nice, cheap ($250), light bike in Target and decided to apply for a credit card, which would have given me a further 10% off. The application was turned down, and I decided to buy the bike anyway, even though I am already living on my debit card line of credit. I spent the whole weekend since the purchase turning it over and over in my mind. I already had a bike. Now my prostrate is acting up a bit with this new one. Well, I don’t expect this writing to help my with my doubts and grappling with my decision. I could take it back, though the return policy states that the bike must be “unused,” and I’ve already taken it for a couple of rides. Further, I just can’t get comfortable with that decision, even though I have the time to do so, and they’d probably accept it back. I still have to work on a seat solution and maybe a handle bar one and buy a helmit, lights, gloves, etc. (which I would have to buy anyway). The Dawes was beautiful, except for the rear dropouts, which really looked chincey. Somehow the seat on it looked like it would be ok. And it was a cool bike. Only one speed though, and it already had clips and straps.
I couldn’t stop thinking abt those two bikes, though. And felt a purchase would lift my spirits out of the depressive mood I’m in due to the money situation. Also, I need to really zip over to jobs if I get called up to sub. Also, I will use it to exercise more—20 min. to ½ hr, three times a week, and there are some really nice bike routes near me.
I’m tight about this. Lord, should I take it back? Lord, should I take it back? Lord, should I take it back?
I think I want the Dawes and will get one. Maybe that is a problem w/ my thinking—I am getting into this either or thinking. Gotta go. More turning this over and over in my mind, but it’s my stop.
Still have some time, waiting on the bus. I dread having to pump money into my new purchase. Flip. I’m not a happy guy, you can see. This is just therapeutic writing, you know? It’s not designed to be read for enjoyment. Miss Manners says don’t post your personal life online. Gotta think abt that.
Later.
Here’s what I wrote in my real world journal:
2-12-‘10
The doubts abt my new bike became so strong and alarming, I decided to take it back to Target. After three days of riding it they still took it back. It left me feeling confused. So I went back and ought it again before they’d even reracked it. Now I own it.


On the train—I’m subbing at my old location this week.
Prostrate bugged me last night. It remains to be seen whether the bicycle wasn’t a mistake. I almost want to go through all my credit money and just totally run out of all resources and face the next skids, the way I think my life is going to go. See ya in the gutter.

LTDL--I Hope This Has Been Helpful

If you are flying internationally, avoid using an American-based arlines. They are getting too firm on their policies, all of which continually involve cutting back on service and adding more and more fees. European airlines tend to be more human. You have been warned.
I’m going to be spending a lot of money on flying I guess. If I want to see r at Christmas and pick him up and fly him back for the summer, that’s three tickets a year. I would like to even visit him in the spring if I could. My first tickets here were not paid for by me, as someone had a fanciful interest in my going.
That person has no idea of the economics that were involved in its impetus. I spent a lot of my own money is the short version, but also I didn’t want to come here to Arizona and leave Ricky.
I built a home with V in the first nine or so years of our marriage. The apartment itself and the damned furniture for it that took any excess money we had. I never had money in my pocket, and had to ask for any or steal from her purse. It seemed like everything was always breaking, too.
My struggle with our finances was on two points: one to pay legal taxes; two to tithe—give 10% of my income to a local church. Paying legal taxes in Poland was my first goal. I didn’t see how we could expect to be prosperous and have a totally clear conscience. There is a lot of tax corruption in Poland, probably more per capita than in the US. When I insisted to V several times that we pay legal taxes on our business, she became so bothered and adamant about it that I had to give in and let her do it her way. The marriage was more important. Her reasoning was that everyone cheats and that the amounts of taxes are unjustly high, that all politicians are corrupt, etc. My previous employers in Poland didn’t pay proper tax.
Tithing was the second battle. She was more upset by that idea. Walked around the city crying about the prospect of it, she claimed. I gave in on that one, too. I got around it by letting people of my church attend free. When I did that it seemed like things stopped breaking. But I wanted to tithe, thinking it would make things even better.
When I took the money onto my own, I began to give what I wanted to the thing I supported, church. My church was not a rich church and out of what little they had, they gave some to ministries in poorer countries. God’s kingdom costs money to run. I helped fund it.
I also spent on myself for once. A coffee roaster, the steel guitar, books, CDs, subscriptions to a newspaper, a beer keg, etc. Four things were long on my prayer list: cheddar cheese (hard to find and expensive in Poland—they have about a million types of cheese there, but they are all white and mild and similar—I don’t know why they give them different names.), maple syrup (maple syrup is actually cheaper in Poland), good coffee and beer. If I could get those and a newspaper, I was happy.
My business took a nose dive. You find me in Arizona, where those things are easy to get. A friend who helped encouraged me in writing asked me whether I gave up on the idea of tithing. I guess the jury is still out on that idea. But I can tell you I don’t feel as much faith in the idea as I once did (without saying whether I actually did tithe.)
Tomorrow I go to Poland and I guess I haven’t said yet that I have mixed feelings about it. I look forward to seeing r in the biggest way, of course—in fact I’m afraid I may want to stay. The other problem is I will be staying in my old apartment. I think you can imagine why that won’t be easy.
Happy reading. I’ll post from there if I can.

I did. You just read it.

LTDL--Kawa Czy Herbata (Coffee or Tea)?

The train just stopped across from an adult bookstore. I’ve been away for sometime and I can tell you such places don’t suffer the same business fortunes and failures that other places do.

Do frogs have teeth? That sentence was competing for my first.

I said that the other lesson it took me a long time to learn was that of the importance of church attendance. This is one lesson that can’t be justified by experience—it must just be accepted as necessary. Just do it.

When I first arrived in Elk, Poland, I started sleeping more than two hours a night more than I required in Arizona and I really needed it. Working in the evening and staying up late I found it impossible to get up for a 10:00 church service Sunday morning. (That was the most artistically productive evening time I’ve ever had: I sometimes wrote a [real] letter every night, keeping up with penpals all over the world; I drew and colored; I wrote in my journal nightly.)

I started to attend a Pentecostal service that didn’t start till 1:30 p.m. Unfortunately it was in Polish, without an interpreter, and featured really long sermons. Then I started attending Catholic services—they usually have services all day on Sunday—about once a month. I did that for abt five years. But I thought like a protestant the whole time, even fantasized about telling the minister of the local Baptist church I would tithe to his church—I made a relatively good wage—if he would just have a late service. (Tithing—giving 10% to the church—is a whole other blog entry, for the future.) I also watched Catholic masses online. St. Ann’s of New York, I think it was.

Then one foggy Christmas eve, after Ricky had been born, I was lying on the couch having a beer in a frame of mind of thinking about the church thing, and the thought, “it’s only one day a week” occurred to me. It wasn’t a condemning thought. Just a true one. . I was also thinking abt what kind of example I presented to Ricky by not going to church—not a good one. With those, I found the motivation to get up and go to church one day a week and sleep in the others.

When I went to Catholic mass, I liked it except for the sign of peace, the point in the mass when people turn and greet each other. I found most people in Poland wouldn’t even make eye contact, would merely nod their heads toward you. If you extended your hand for a shake, you got a glance askew. I once saw a half a row of obvious tourists turn around to shake hands and get a shock when those behind them weren’t ready to greet them. Religion in Poland is connected with suffering: Jesus suffered for you—now come on, do your part and suffer for him.

Baptist is not my denomination of choice as a protestant, but in Elk, they were the best game in town. The first day I attended the Baptist church the pastor asked us to greet one another, and a pretty teenage girl gave me a very warm handshake and a smile. I was sold on the place.

It was hell getting up for church from out of my long winter’s nap. First I had to miss some of the week’s only good late night TV get to bed in time Saturday night. Then of course I had a hard time falling asleep so much earlier than normal. I think in two years of attending I had one good night of sleep Saturday night. Then it was up early, abt 8:30, to get ready. I rode my bike if it weren’t snowing or raining. Viola stayed home and watched Kawa Czy Herbata—the Polish morning show.

Church at just about any time interrupts my morning coffee, so after a breakfast, I took my thermos cup and a candy bar—I ate chocolate every day then—to church with me. I sat in the back and filled up the latecomer’s cove with the smell of the best coffee in Elk and tried to not let the other congregants know I was eating chocolate as well.

I kept telling my friend Andy I couldn’t wait until Ricky could come with me to church.
Finally he was old enough to accompany me. I had to set the alarm back to accompany him. It made it even more difficult. But we did it. On many mornings, I would make ham timbales and get some protein in my stomach before heading out. I often couldn’t get Ricky to eat, so I had to bring a snack and juice for him.

It was not easy steering his stroller and holding my coffee cup. On my list of things to do and bring for church, there is still a note to allow ½ hour if I was pulling him by sled.

My mom told me once that you miss a lot of church when you have kids. True. Abt all he would regularly put up with was the worship and singing before the sermon. I got to hear a sermon about once every eight weeks or so. After the music the few kids who were too young for Sunday school classes would go upstairs to play with toys and I would read a Christian book. On warm days the kids played outside in the sandbox.

That’s my experience with deciding on church and doing it. I told you it wouldn’t prove the necessity of going to church or even the usefulness of it. I know if I had been going to church at the time we met, I probably wouldn’t have married a girl who wasn’t going at all. Church corrects you, even if you never hear a word about the area in which you need correcting.
But that's all hypothetical assuming. I know that at least I got someone to go with me out of the deal.

LTDL--The Schoolbus of Hard and Soft Knocks

When I miss a bus or train I can’t get over it. It ruins my day. The bus or train is usually leaving when I pull up to the stop, especially if it’s an unplanned or new trip. That way you have to wait the maximum time for the next one. Curses. I usually can’t do anything constructive during that time. I just fume. My thoughts immediately turn to how much God does or doesn’t care.
This goes way back. There’re two lessons that took me a long time to learn as a Christian: the importance of going to church and of praying. The relationship of one of those to public transportation is a defining event.
When I was in college, I used to have a prayer time every evening. Every night I was there in that triangle-shaped room on one of the padded pews or kneeling, talking with God, maybe one other person in the room, if that. Then for some crazy reason I decided I didn’t have to do that. Problem was I didn’t decide to replace it with prayer at a different time. I felt some imminent dark night of the soul coming during those times, a feeling that something was going to go wrong, was even going wrong at present, really wrong. Without prayer, I started walking away from God without knowing it. If you are close enough in your relationship to God, a lack of it for one day doesn’t feel like anything wrong, like a frog in a pot of water coming up to a boil. Day leads on to day, then before you know it, you are completely out of touch with him; and then if something bad happens, and it will, you may turn away further because you have no contact anyway and you’ll feel like he did it to you. This is what happened to me. I had been out of prayer for several months, and I was feeling an unrelated anxiety. One day before church I was overcome with anger about it, a depth and intensity of anger that was such that it even scared me. Where is God? It scared me so much that I simultaneously ran away from it and God—who hadn’t been taking care of me in allowing those anxious feelings anyway. I found myself in a depression and avoiding all stress of any kind, fearing that any pressure would make me explode or implode or both.
When I was backslidden away from God, I didn’t know that I could come back if I wanted to, didn’t know I could just turn and do the things I used to do. No, I thought I had to be warmed by some feeling before I could go back or be taken back to him. Then one day I lamented to my friend that I missed Christian fellowship—the particular word that Christians use to describe the relationship and participation you have with people who love you genuinely and are in on something you are. He asked me if I wanted to pray. We did and it meant recommitment to me, even though I don’t remember if it was actually offered in the prayer. We went to Taco Bell, me struggling with my recent decision the whole way. It was a decision I struggled with for a long time, even while serving God again. I had become comfortable in living apart from him. I was like the Prodigal son who went back to Dad for food and managed to make up true repentance as he went along and even after he got his belly full.
My first day back with the Lord I missed a bus and had to wait 45 minutes for the next one. How could God let that happen? I wondered. It was a real test. I don’t know if I have matured beyond that sort of thinking, but I guess I have, and in my best moments I can let it not even bother me.
It was fun in its own way being away from the Lord. I could expirement in life. That’s what I missed in that life for a long time. I liked not being guided but rather by learning by going where I had to go, to paraphrase Roethke. Now wisdom guides me more, not necessarily having to try everything out to see if it’s good or bad. I have to make myself experiment now. That may be sad in a way. It is a loss. My brother, who used to do speed and would stay up for days working on his car and tripping, misses that sometimes too. But I have peace now. I still have feelings that are still diffcult to deal with and that scare me even, but I have learned how to deal with them and have peace and comfort inside. My life is productive and organized again. I read, I write, I acquire knowledge. Before I was a Christian, I didn’t do those things, and certainly not for the right reasons.
In the desert Jesus was tempted to do magic and worship Satan and test God’s ability to rescue him from knowingly foolish actions. He responded to the desire to do those in a variety of ways: relying on a several strategies instead of taking a short cut to getting the one thing that isn’t right for you at the time, relying on the fact that one should not expect God’s help in unwise adventures, and a conscious decision to worship God in spite of external and internal voices because it’s known to be right.
I’m not sure how those temptations related to my situation as a backslidden Christian—no I am sure. But you’re in my living room as a guest and so are others….

LTDL--Joe McCarthy and Barney Fife

Today Ricky told his mom to tell me to not use silly names he don’t understand and like. But actually the computer was making a loud noise at the time and I think that’s what he meant. I always call him Snergles, etc. But it makes you kind of indignant when your child tells on you. I’m going to follow up on that somehow.
Evidently I am going to sign sth in Poland which says that our money is separate, and I have “given” V 100, 000 zloties, the Polish monetary unit. So far I ain’t hired no lawyer—I just hope I am hearing from God in not needing to. I have contacted one American lawyer and several Polish ones abt my situation but hain’t actually hired one yet. But I am proceeding very caustiously. She also wants some money to help with the documents we are filing. I am getting very excited abt seeing r, though.
I was going to say that I didn’t feel like I had anything to blog, did say that last entry, but maybe I do have sth to say. Look, I’m saying sth. I just can’t write outside of myself. Maybe it isn’t a problem since my only readers so far really do care about the first person in this blog.
Maybe I should just stop writing. I’ve always wondered what would happen if you got a bunch of English major graduates together and paid them minimum wage to write eight hours a day, with breaks. Some of it could be research if needed. Would you get anything good? It would probably be stuff like this—stories that merely say anything without saying something, stories about writer’s block. I know what my problem is. I don’t know what to write abt unless it’s intense emotion. If you ever read my journal, you’d know that’s what I write abt. Come on, Rich, something intense will come along….
That’s all for now. New York Times time.

Did you hear about the officer here who took an attorney’s papers out of her briefcase while on camera and copied them? The judge told the officer to apologize to the attorney. The officer refused and took jail time instead. He said he didn’t feel sorry like the judge was demanding him too. How immature. We have laws and procedures in this potentially fair system of ours. You don’t break rules because you feel like it. The feeling you did something wrong is not an indicator of whether something is right or wrong. The feeling that you are not doing anything wrong is not necessarily right either. The officer’s leader, who’s name I won’t mention, is also a scofflaw. He is in defiance of the State Attorney General and the national government. He is immensely popular here. He’s showing the early signs of being senile if you ask me. At the very least he’s showing signs of megalomania. He was recently interviewed at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, and the demonstration was so vocal that it had to be cancelled. Shame on the protestors! One should allow people to speak in a democracy. If you do something wrong to a wrongdoer, you just make that person a martyr. Americans are taking free speech away from each other. The government is doing it, and citizens do it to each other. You are not allowed to say anything truly liberal or too conservative. Shame.
There aren’t any labels on alcoholic drinks here saying what percentage of alcohol they have in them. This is a shame because I like super low-alcohol drinks for health reasons: stomach, memory, weight, etc. I wrote a letter to several government agencies about this problem and don’t really expect any action, but I did it at least. I was too lazy and tired when I found out I had two hours to vote for Barack Obama from the Attorney General’s office in Arizona—I was too lazy to retrieve my printer from work and set it up to fax. But I did send money to his campaign. He may get a copy of my letter.
I’ve also written a letter to US Congressman Jeff Flake because he refuses to vote for health care reform. I wrote him one quick email and he sent me a letter back which was not very clear or helpful. I wrote back saying I didn’t understand and how I didn’t think the free market was going to get us out of this one. He hasn’t written back.
But I don’t answer every email myself. I jaywalk and eat on public transportation too—I feel those rules are too difficult to follow. I am a traffic law and restaurant unto myself.
Only abt a week until I get on the plane for Poland. I am getting so excited that I shake when I think about it.

LTDL--Your Crazy Name Here

Frog teeth Larry!
I used to always address r w/ a crazy name like that until he was old enough to not understand the crazy names I was using—when I quit or made them more sensible.
Saturday I did take the AEPA. It was a ball-buster. I only spent thirty minutes on the essay part, though I had wanted to allow an hour for it, and that’s not even w/ abbreviating! Four hours of questions on literature, reading, grammar, editing, oral presentation, etc.
Instead of studying for the test, I’ve been reading a lot of political stuff: Foreign Affairs and National Affairs. I had always wanted to buy FA when I used to live w/ Steve before I went to Poland originally. I never bought it then because of money, but I decided to buy it this time anyway. It’s good. I like that sort of stuff ‘cause it stretches my brain. That’s why I like reading newspapers too, the more professional the better. I’m also reading Ploughshares because I want to be a better essayist.
Today when I told Vie on Skype that I wasn’t sure I wanted a no-fault divorce and that I don’t think any judge would agree with her point of view and that sometimes women end up having to pay alimony, she gave me a sideways smile as she spoke into the mic. I used to always hate that, when she would laugh at something I say. Bitch. Later she lit into me for being selfish and only thinking abt myself because I wouldn’t help for a legal document she felt she had to file, protecting her from any financial collapse I might have. (I don’t make enough money or have enough financial tools to have a collapse.)
It’s the Thanksgiving weekend, the first one I’ve spent Stateside in ten years. And I like the holiday. While in Poland, I used to have to celebrate on another Polish holiday in November. First time I’d ever cooked a turkey, stuffing and, if available, sweet potatoes myself. In Poland I used to remember my wife’s holidays but she forgot mine. She even forgot Valentine’s one year, a holiday that they had begun to celebrate there.
I’ve been watching the TV show Chopped Tuesday nights. It’s a competition where four chefs face off in front of four food critics. They have to prepare an appetizer, an entrée and a dessert from preselected mystery basket of ingredients. I like it because most of my best work is done on the fly. Preparing for lessons I come up w/ a general outline abt what I’m going to do in class then I fill in the blanks as I’m doing it. Last week I had an absolutely sparkling lesson that was observed by my supervisor. I presented the grammar brilliantly then incorporated it into a game.
I’m reading The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood and really liking it. There are enough reading materials out there if you just look around. I just go into bookstores and pick our what strikes me, what I don’t think I can get out of the store without. It usually works out. I also bought a CD recently that way. I seen a song title on a compilation that struck me: “God Don’t Never Change,” by Blind Willie Johnson. There was an album of his near I picked it up and decided I had to have it. I played it and love it. I also picked up an issue of Psychology Today, which I had read an issue of earlier thanks to Mom. Do you give two hoots and a holler abt what I’m reading? The point is there is plenty of good music and books out there, but you just gotta find it.
Only two weeks till I leave for Poland. I’m afraid when I get there I won’t want to leave. I already told r abt the things we’ll do: visit friends, go shopping, stay home and watch movies, go to church, go sledding, etc.
I’ve subscribed to Foreign Affairs.
I’m starting to cook at home again: dogs with everyghin, fish and chips, jacket potatoes, bread, etc. I still ain’t homebrewing, though.
I don’t know if I should keep blogging. Writers block.

LTDL--Steel Guitar, Adult Swim and Other Pleasures of the Hearth

I ain’t been blogging because I been writing an essay which I hope to submit for an essay contest. Right now I can’t decide whether to write this, which I want to, or to work on that. Think I’ll work on that.

I did and submitted it. It’s bits and pieces from this blog, and I enter it here for those of you who didn’t read my previous blog.

Steel Guitar, Adult Swim and Other Pleasures of the Hearth

Do you know how bored I am right now? Painfully bored. Every night it’s the same old thing. I come home from talking about books and getting free drink refills at the local fast food place with my best friend, Steve, plop on my parents’ loveseat and feel a canyon of boredom in my heart. Shows like King of the Hill, Family Guy, Futurama, American Dad, etc., don’t help much. I even played steel guitar for about an hour. I’m working on "Cold, Cold Heart." But it would be so great to have something really interesting to do—it would be great to have my son Ricky here. Going through a divorce is like becoming single again. Remember what it was like to be single, without kids? Your time is your own. You can watch what you want on TV, without having to censor or turn it over to Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! or Yo Gabba Gabba! You can stroll through stores without having to avoid aisles with candy, toys, sugary drinks or blue cereals. You can have an uninterrupted conversation on the phone! But being a parent is not boring, that’s for sure. You may want to drown your kids and actually think that prison is an attractive alternative to parenting, but you are not bored.
I bought the steel guitar on Amazon. I started out trying to learn it about an hour a day, but it quickly degenerated down to fifteen minutes every few days, after the discipline of practice superseded the pleasure of discovery. But every time I hear good steel guitar or read or see somebody doing something great on film or in print, I get encouraged to pull my otherwise channel-surfing butt up to steel guitar and play. Or when I tell people I’m learning steel guitar, I prove it that night.
Ricky was here for a month—what a miracle that was from beginning to end! Let my people go, Pharaoh!—and she did. See, my business in Poland crashed last year. And Vie—my nickname for my wife Violet because she’s contentious—borrowed money for me to leave, though she wouldn’t lend me money to stay. But I wasn’t going to come here to Arizona unless it was with Ricky. It’s too long to describe how I wouldn’t let her buy me a ticket and her violent freak-out sessions. But finally she agreed for him to come with me for a month; then I would fly back to Poland with him and come back here by myself. The flight here was eventful. He is four-and-a-half and long out of diapers but pooped his pants on the plane. I kept smelling something like a fart and finally pulled his waistband away from his back and saw it. To the bathroom we went. But he’s claustrophobic and didn’t want the door closed and started screaming. I left the door half open, but the screaming continued, to the point of passengers complaining. The flight attendants asked me with pursed lips if everything was ok. I got his pants off and his butt cleaned, and through the ordeal, we started praying, and I kept telling him it was ok to be afraid and that God and Jesus were there. “I afraid,” he kept saying, “I afraid.” I hadn’t brought him any clean underwear, and he wanted his underwear back on. So I had to wash them in the sink and put them back on him. When all this was done, he had begun to calm down. “See,” I said, “now it’s ok. God helped us.” “Thank you, Jesus,” he said. We went back to our seats, where I opened the candy hoard and let him choose.
It beat the hell out of any quiet night I’ve ever had at home, that’s for sure.
When we got to Arizona, “Uncle” Steve had a gift waiting for him—Warren Waters, who looks like the Terminator in something like a space suit, on a quad. In Poland, Ricky had been asking for a robot on a motorcycle and I had no idea what he meant. But evidently this fit the bill--Steve had more or less bought it over another on a whim, uncertain that Ricky would like it and if he had made a good choice. Steve presented it and asked if Ricky if he wanted it or if he should give it to somebody else. He didn’t say anything, just pointed to his chest. You couldn’t get that toy away from Ricky, and I was in a real panic when I started packing a month later and couldn’t find it immediately.
We—Steve, me and Ricky—stayed up every night until about 2 a.m. Ricky and I slept on the fold-out couch. I would wake up first, feeling like the early bird mother, at about 10:30 am. You may think it criminal to keep a kid up that late, and I would not disagree. I tried to put him to bed earlier a couple of nights and he just lay there for an hour and a half, requesting endless drinks, snacks and trips to the bathroom. So from then on he would stay up with us watching Adult Swim cartoons, me trying to edit content by changing the channel or asking him a question or commenting on something he was doing at the controversial moments.
After breakfast—sometimes before—it was time to go swimming, the last thing I wanted to do in 115 degree heat. When we first started swimming, he couldn’t. While here, people kept supplying him with pool toys, all of which helped him. When he had a squirt gun in his hand, he would swim to me, first 10 feet, then the breadth of the pool.
He would not let go of the gun, and he would not swim to me without it. Towards the end of the month, he could swim like a frog the length of the pool. When I told my stepfather about it, he didn’t think it was much of an achievement. Any kid can do that, he said. But I thought it was great. We often swam in the evenings, too.
Afternoons we would do whatever our hands or butts found to do. The first day we went to the local park and he ran through the Rainbird sprinklers—first time in his life.
I flew him back to Poland and stayed there one week closing down my business and tidying up my affairs of ten years living there. That morning, when I woke up at 3 a.m. to catch the shuttle bus to Warsaw airport, I had a distinct desire not to go. It turned into a nagging doubt about whether what I was doing was right. I thought the plane would crash over Germany because God just didn’t support my activity. It was long after I was back in Arizona that I got away from that feeling.
There isn’t anything I miss in Poland that isn’t connected with Ricky. My fondest memories involve things like pulling him to church on a child’s sled then coming home and making waffles with applesauce.
The Phoenix area is great to be back in. I love the expansive blue sky here—most days in Poland are one big featureless cloud. I love the dirty little taco shops here. I like supermarkets, which live up to their name. I like how buildings and spaces here (except the dirty little taco shops) are carpeted, air conditioned, spacious, clean and well-lit. I like being with my family, and if it weren’t for their support of me splitting from Vie, I have no idea what I would do or where I would be. I like people watching. I like the
metro train and other public transportation, which is where I people watch. I like the TV. I like NPR. I like the New York Times and can get it and a good cup of coffee and an old-fashioned doughnut at my supermarket, with a clean, well-lit smile.
I took my wedding band off three weeks ago and at first it felt like my finger was naked. I guess I took it off thinking to hasten the process of divorce. But I’m feeling less and less naked now: I’m going to Poland for Christmas for two weeks, where there will be Ricky. And there will be sleds and church and snow outside as I cook something up inside. And we will talk about Arizona and about sprinklers and about swimming and about Yo Gabba Gabba! and about blue cereals and about doing it again.
Meantime, I gotta go either surf or play steel.

I’ll let you know if I win.