David Foster Wallace

I don't really know where to begin, but I guess I should say that David Foster Wallace was a writer that I greatly admired and looked forward to at all times. Hearing about his suicide was a shock. It is not as if I knew him or met him or even saw him ever in person, but there was definitely a personal connection that I had with him because of his writing. I cannot think of another contemporary writer who is as personal as he was. His fiction and non-fiction have such a unique authorial voice that I feel as if I knew him personally. That is definitely a trap that readers shouldn't fall into -- but I would say that I read a lot and I don't fall into that trap with every author I come across.

Maybe it is the fact that he was a wunderkind author with talent to burn, maybe it was his wide-ranging interests from advanced math to politics to life-after-death, maybe it is just knowing how incredible his grasp of the English language is, maybe it was the fact that he grew up playing tennis like I did. I do know that there were times that I was reading him when my heart started to beat a little faster, my breaths took in more air, my eyes got a little misty -- and I could imagine an author on the other side of this story that was typing away about as fast as my eyes were reading the words. The reading verged on the physical. Reading him was a different process for me. I was truly invested in what he had to say. And it saddens me to have to think that someone who gave me such great joy would have been in a place that was so devoid of it.

Hammocks

Is there anything better than a hammock? That kind of weightless feeling as you lay suspended between two trees or poles or even if you forego a traditional bed in your Manhattan apartment and have a hammock as your full-time sleeping means. That would be a pretty aggressive move in my book. But the type of hammock usage I am thinking of it the kind that involves the outdoors. Something that mixes it up with the elements. The best hammock I have ever used was in a house that was the sole structure on an island. It was right by the window of a room, and the floor-to-ceiling window opened like a door out onto the Atlantic Ocean. It was unreal. Although the sun glinting off the water meant it could get pretty heated at times, there was nothing better than hopping in the hammock and having the breeze cool you off and lull you to sleep.

I guess the weather has to cooperate to enjoy the hammock the way I want. And it would help if one were wealthy enough to own an island with a large house to protect said hammock. But I think I would take a hammock even if it was raining. Something about a nice cooling mist seems to work well with hammocks -- not sure if I could do with a full downpour or gale force winds. But a hammock under a thatched roof? Blue Lagoon style? That Brooke Shields sure knew what she was doing.

A Return

And so after some time off I come back, not triumphant but kind of ashamed: rubbing a circle in the dirt with my Buster Browns; chin into my chest; hands deep in my pockets. I started out of nowhere and dropped out just as fast. But I come back renewed. I have recently performed my civic duty as a juror in New York City and maybe it was the thrill of judging people, maybe it was the incredible diversity of people who were called, maybe it was a reaction to sitting in windowless rooms for hours on end for two days. I do know that I have needed to take a step back into the writing world and this is a nice blackboard to scribble on. A couple of friends have told me that I need to do this, so who am I to disappoint?

America is a place for second chances, right? Think of me as a Doc Gooden or a Darryl Strawberry and blogger.com as George Steinbrenner. I'll try to talk more about how I am like them, how I am a part of America and what I think of America and what I think if Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were running America. Here's a sneak peek: universal healthcare.

All I want to do (again) is stake out a little piece of internet paper and say my part. I'm not sure I'll have anything truly valid to say outside of relating to the '85 Mets, but I feel that once I squeeze some of my mind grapes I can amuse or provoke or maybe both at once. I'm not expecting to change the world - just small movements that might change the quality of someone's day. I wish I could be more specific but I think I'll just have to make it up as I go along. So until the next time, I'll be cleaning my Buster Browns.