coffee at Barnes & Noble

I am killing time
reading Bukowski on tangerines
turning an engine over turning an engine over

this lady's laugh is like that
sputtering, rhythmic, weak, regular
if she doesn't want us to hear she should whisper less loudly.

How can such a falsely bright and animated voice be so boring?

This latte is deceiving me.
Cool white foam on top and searing black coffee from the fire in the
belly in the bottom of the cup.

Even her blouse is passive-aggressive. Red wannabe.
Cloying pink.
Citric.

The book she leaves on the table:
Making the Grade: Everything Your First-Grader Needs to Know.

Poor kid.

Feline Marketing 101

I was just buying cat food.

There was cat food with real chicken, real turkey, real lamb, real beef, real tuna.

I've never seen my cat go after a cow or a lamb or a turkey.

Why don't they make cat food with things cats might actually stalk?

CAT FOOD WITH REAL SONGBIRD.
CAT FOOD WITH REAL MOUSE.

This doesn't make sense to me.

Self-Defense

The Scene: a local community center with a suspended, indoor track. On one side is a large room, and lots of little tow-headed boys in white are hopping around, preparing for their Tae Kwan Do class. My friend and I are doing an afternoon power walk.

She: You know, I should take a self-defense class...

rhythmic sound of our feet in step on the track, sound of our breathing...

I: Yes, I've thought about that, too. Why would you be interested?

She: Oh, you know, to protect myself. Why haven't you ever taken a class?

walk, walk, walk, walk...

I: Good question. I think it's because I've never found a class called Self-Defense Against Your Own Internal Demons.

laugh, laugh, laugh, walk, walk, walk, walk...sound fades...

This clock is busted.

I grew up learning that I would marry and have children. It's what my mother did, her mother before her, aunts, cousins, friends.

I did other things. I went to graduate school, I got a Ph.D., I started a career. I never made a statement like "I choose not to get married and have children." I just didn't do it. Some relationships ended as they should, some were rejected for bad reasons--but never for a principled reason like "I choose not to get married and have children."

In my early 40s, when my biological clock alarmed me, I had a period of wistfulness about it. And then I let it go. I would love other people's children. I would be the Auntie Mame for my brother's family. It would be glamorous and I would be unfettered.

But every once in a while, something like this happens:

I go to my trainer's home gym at 6:30 AM. It's dark, save for her studio in the basement. We whisper on the way down the stairs, shut the door and then turn our attention to strength and balance.

Then I hear muted little feet thud to the floor, one set after another, from three different rooms upstairs. I hear whimpering dogs, the dad's resonant voice through the floor joists.

When I come up from the basement, Mattie, 3, is sitting at the top stair, wrapped in a pink blankie, hair swirled, sleep in her eyes, a baby-husky morning voice saying "yes" to my "are you waking up now, Mattie?"

Yes.

And I am knocked over by a wave of crushing grief between patting her arm, righting myself, and opening the door out into my world and new daylight.

The Bindery

I went to a book bindery in downtown Minneapolis today.

It's in the warehouse district and has been around for decades. It's run by generations of a family, and you either know where it is or you don't. No need to advertise, because they are true artisans and the quality of their work is recounted by word of mouth. It's in an ancient building, through winding corridors and up worn stairs.

Once inside--announced by a tinkling bell on the door--I stand and wait for someone to appear. Smells of ink and paper and dust and machine oil and leather... years of tattered cartoons and notes and phone numbers (still with the old exchanges: FR 4-3444) tacked to the walls...

Finally, an older, large woman wearing a flowered smock comes (shuffles, waddles, effortful) around a stack of books and greets me. I announce my business and she knows who to shout for. Her grandson comes up (long ponytail, not more than 20) and walks me through my options: calfskin, goatskin, vellum, full leather, 1/2 leather, 1/4 leather...do I want the crumbling pages restored, too? He's attentive and loving as he runs his fingers gently over the book I've placed before him. He knows it's my treasure, without me saying so, and he approaches it reverently.

He's much younger than this book.

He says he will have to let his dad examine it and confirm his estimate, but he feels pretty confident about what he tells me.

He's afraid the numbers he quotes me will cause me to balk, and I tell him that I am not just paying for the book restoration--I am also paying for the lift in spirit I get from having a 20-year old boy stand before me, knowing, understanding, in a dusty sanctuary of words and the material that binds them.

I leave the book with him and return downstairs and to the street. I drive away, through downtown, through the suburbs, past a Wal-Mart.

I don't think they carry what I just bought.