Hey Frank! Eat This!

Frank Shorter is a Boulder icon. He has been cast in bronze and plunked at the entrance to Folsom field at the university. A painting of him graces the side of a wall on the corner of Broadway and Pine streets downtown. He's an Olympic champion, blah blah blah. Ooooh, Frank Shorter.

I was at the gym last week, doing my elliptical cardio, kinda watching CNN and kinda watching the women's Olympic track qualifiers, when I hear this loud voice boom, "Thank GOD they look like women again!"

What the fuck? My mouth dropped open. Really, my jaw hit the floor and I looked up in time to see a poor kid arranging the magazines on the rack. He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders to his ears and turned red like a beet. He walked up and said, "Do you think he knows he was so loud?" I said yes, I did, and what an asshole.

I'd seen this loudmouth before but couldn't put my finger on where. Then it hit me: it had to be Frank. I googled him, and sure enough, it is. Frank Shorter, venerated Olympian, king of all runners. Who is glad that women athletes look like women again. Because really, appearance is so much more important than how strong, fast, and healthy they are.

To you, Frank, as we head into the summer Olympics, I say only this: please shut the fuck up.

La Vie en...en....en...

As many of you know, I was supposed to have spent my 40th birthday (in April) in Paris, sipping cafe creme in an outdoor bistro, wandering aimlessly along the quays, getting hopelessly lost on the Metro, maybe cooking a chicken or two in the apartment I rented.

Alas, this was not to be. For reasons I won't describe here.

Instead, my dear friends threw me a fete to end all fetes, even though this fete ended at 11 and not even really that drunk. The theme was Paris, of course, and below is the speech my lovely friend Mark made. Read it in the very worst French accent you can possibly muster. I love you too, Mark.

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Tu Speak le Franglaise?
Je Speake le Franglaise.
What est Franglaise, tu demander?
Il est le lingua of l'amour et le lingua of le brain simultaneoslement. Englaise et Francaise! Oui?

So...because our dear Hollie representment le perfect combinacion of amour et wit, il est seems tres fitting ce soir to honneur our tres beautifulment ami, Hollie, in le lingua Franglais.

Let je starte avec le storie about how je have knowledge about dear Hollie. Je met Hollie en le summer of two thousand quatre. Hollie requirement assistance avec le move. Alas, je could not assist, mais we met por le drink l'alcholique (Some vin, perhapsment some bourbon ou gin) et Le Bar du Corner. After zat drink l'alcholique, we shared beacoup more drinks and beacoup bien times.
Since then, Je have had beaucoup opportunitie to witness Hollie en elle vie and avec elle amis. Je think le monde of Hollie and J'aim sure zat each of tu, do alsoment. Naturellement, beaucoup things have changed in Hollie's life en le past quatre anyos, as most of you know. Quatre Anyos ago, Hollie was a writer du freelance. And today, onlement quatre years later, Hollie il est....oh...Je suppose that not everything has changed.

Just kidding...Je kid! Je kid!

Mais seriouslement, beaucoup things have changed and beaucoup things have stayed ze same. Ze good things, le passion por la dancer, por Nia et Soul Motion, por amis et bon vin, por elle famille, elle mob mol grand-mère espcialiment, have stayed ze same. Le Travallier-le work- has changed, from freelancer, to titan of l'agency, back to freelancer. Quatre anyos ago, Hollie had no dog with no legs. Now Hollie has un dog avec troi legs. Le home, at least after ze move in 2000 and quatre, has stayed ze same. Mais les roomates have changed. Primere, l est David. Now il est Jeff. Les sleeping arrangements have changed, presumableax. Plus, Je ne think pas David ever painted les walls naked, wearing perhaps onlimentun cravatte. Hollie's love for Esalan on les cliffs, its clothing optional chaud springs, and its les grand plus salad de Kale ne change pas. Nor has Hollie's amour pour elle amis, those plus fortunate of which are here avec Hollie to célébrer quarante anyos.

Je must say un thing about un plus thing, and this is a thing which ne changer pas and which has changed. And zis thing et amour. Il ne changer pas, because, when true il cannot changer. Il has changer, in Hollie's case, because les truest, most plus unchangerment amour has developed a neaveau object since Je met her. Zees object et Jeff. Before Jeff, there il ne Prince Albert pas, il ne painting nudes pas, il ne union pas, ne commitment to a life spent loving a partner pas. Zis change. Zees changes are tres bien. No? Tres Tres bien.

And so, as a witness to zere ceremony le matrimonial, as a witness to quatre anyos of friendship, joi, plus hard work, and hard dancer, as a witness to le celebration du Quarante anyos on le monde, je propose le toast to Hollie- a Franglais Toast, ne French Toast pas. Please raise your glass de la vin. To Hollie. A beacoup friend. A tres beatifulment presence in me life, in all of our lives. Happy Birsday and Many Happy Returns. Voila.

The Six Word-Memoirs

Smith magazine published a book of six-word memoirs a la Ernest Hemingway ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.")

Here's mine: Sometimes she took the long way.

What that leaves out is this: that sometimes she took the long way on purpose, simply to put off whatever was next. The fact that this is in the third person is not lost on me, and I promise to discuss it with whatever therapist I eventually hire.

The economy of language in six-word memoirs comes easy to me because I've been writing economically for years now. In fact, I've been in a prose straitjacket on account of my job, which is to write marketing stuff for technology companies, and to help others do the same. This stuff that I (and they) write must be very specific. The words we use are very specific, and the order in which they are arranged next to each other must also be very specific. And of course, the sentences that form must be nestled together without any chinks so that no light can get through.

The end result of all of this is, of course, a life-threatening lack of circulation. Interestingly (or not; I really don't know), my massage therapist pointed out yesterday that my hands and feet also have a serious lack of circulation.

Now that I sit at my table to write fiction, I'm finding that I do not know what to do with all the extra space that possibility affords me. I stretch for elusive adjectives; I delete helping verbs; I write sentence fragments on purpose just because I can. More often than not I stare dumbly at the screen wondering, "What do I want to say?" rather than "How do I say what Client X wants me to say?"

I think about the immigrant who, when faced with the vast choices in an American supermarket, passes out and then leaves with nothing.

That comparison may be a bit over on the dramatic side. But still I can't seem to reach what's up on the top shelves here.

Soon this space will be too small.

Sometimes the lessons I receive at Esalen wallop me over the head while I'm there, staring at the ocean from a cliffside hot spring. Sometimes they sneak up when I shuffle along a path or stop on the wooden bridge to listen to the river. Sometimes they gently nudge me after I've arrived back home.

Used to be that time would slow down at Esalen. That everything, including my digestion, would take a long, peaceful, relaxed journey into a state where hours and minutes barely existed as measures of how many breaths I've taken or dances I've melted into. Maybe it's because my experience there is so incredibly precious to me that it seems to slip through my fingers.

The five days I spent in Big Sur were gone in the blink of an eye, in the time it takes for a sea otter to deep dive into the kelp. I feel like I arrived, got my room key and massage and then got burped up onto Highway One northbound, unable to stop the forward velocity until I was sitting at Filorio in San Francisco, sharing the bone-in ribeye for two and a bottle of wine with Jennifer. And then some Frenet. And bourbon. My friend JJ, who lives at Esalen, told me this week that "vegan" is Indian for "bad hunter."

Anyway, my teacher took me by the hands somewhere in the vicinity of Wednesday and looked me in the eyes and said, over the microphone so really to everyone there, "Look into the eyes of who you perceive to be doing you wrong. Remember that we share the same condition." Or something like that. I may have the words wrong, but I believe I got the meaning right.

It kind of sounds trite when I type those words here, but for me it was a profound, "Lordy shit, I've been doing it all wrong." Yeah. And now that I spent a few hours pondering the human-ness of my comrades that I perceive to be doing me wrong, they are suddenly doing me right, acting with integrity and kindness instead of fear and anger. Like my grandma says, go know.

Soon This Space Will Be Too Small is the title of a song. I don't know who sings it. But the title was pointed out to me by my teacher while the song was playing and I can tell you this: this place, this body will one day be too small to contain my spirit. So will yours be. And the other temporary housing we erect for ourselves -- our jobs, our homes, our relationships -- well, sometimes they get too small too. And we turn in on ourselves when we choose to have no where else to go, when we're trapped in a glass bottle without an opening. It's the outward turning we need to follow.