The Modern Man

(1.)

Over crab cakes in Damariscotta, my brother let it slip that he'd lost his license. Again.

I was eating a giant haddock sandwich, and I glared at him over the roll I'd just finished slathering with tartar sauce. "YOU LOST YOUR LICENSE?" I said. "For how long this time?"

The last time this happened, he'd lost it for a month. He'd gotten too many speeding tickets in a very short period of time, and the state of New York thought he could use a little break from anything vehicular.

"Six months," my brother said. He said this casually as he stuffed another crab cake in his mouth. "These are delicious," he said.

"SIX MONTHS?" I said. This time I turned to glare at my mother. She hadn't breathed a word of this to me in any of the calls we'd placed to each other in the days prior to their trip to Maine.

"What?" she said. She had her own crab cakes to contend with, and she busied herself with her own plate so as to look simple and innocent.

("He kept that news from me for a long time, too," my father told me tonight. "But why didn't Mom tell you? She obviously knew."

"Probably because she didn't want to give me any more reasons to ask the kid if he was an idiot," I said.

"Right," my dad said. "Of course.")

I put my sandwich down. "Are you an IDIOT?" I asked.

"It's no big deal," Adam said.

"NO BIG DEAL? SIX MONTHS?"

"Whatever," he said.

"Well, what happened?"

"I got a few too many speeding tickets in an unlucky time period."

"STOP DRIVING FAST."

"It's not that I drive fast," he said. "It's just that I don't pay attention. That's all."

"How do you get around now, without a car?" I asked. My brother has inherited my father's restlessness, and he's always moving, always going somewhere, always leaving one place for someplace better. I couldn't imagine him living his life without a car.

"Well, I can drive between set hours to work and back, and only within a certain range of miles. If I'm caught out of that, I'm done," Adam said. "Plus, I've got a driver, too." He poked his girlfriend in the side. She smiled at him over her pulled pork sandwich.

"It's going to get tricky soon," she said. "My car is not a good car in the winter."

I found that almost impossible. My brother's girlfriend drives a big old car that could, in a pinch, serve as a small tank in a small nation's budding arsenal.

"Isn't that thing pretty badass?" I asked.

"Oh, hell yes," my brother said.

"That's not exactly the problem," she said. "It's that it doesn't have heat."

"No heat?"

"Nope. None."

"How do you stand to drive it in the winter then?" I asked.

"Blankets," she said. "Lots and lots of blankets."


(2.)

Thanksgiving morning, my brother woke up twitchy. He prepared a pot of coffee in the coffee maker he'd packed and brought along with his fondue pot, and then he announced he was going to the gas station.

"I am going to get the paper," he said. "I want to look at the Black Friday ads."

My mother and I said yes, yes, sure, fine, whatever. We were busy. I was making a pumpkin cake, and she was making an apple pie. We didn't need Adam puttering around my small kitchen, underfoot while trying to perfect another brew.

So Adam and his girlfriend went down the street for the paper and came back ecstatic.

"Look at this!" my brother said. He shoved the ads in my face. "So thick!" he said. "We're going out! We're going out early!"

"Have fun," I said. By this time, I'd moved on to making biscuits. "I'll be here. At home. In bed. Warm. SLEEPING."

"It's going to be great!" he said, and then he and his girlfriend sat down to sift through the ads until they came to their favorite: Wal-mart.

My brother held the paper up to his nose and took a whiff. "Ohhhh," he said reverently. "Wal-mart."

I leaned over to my mother. "I will kill him before the day is out," I whispered.

"Make your biscuits," she said.

Ten minutes later, it was settled. My brother had seen enough. He'd seen exactly what he wanted to see. There were indeed great deals to be had at Wal-mart. So good, in fact, he was nervous about them. He figured everyone in their right mind--except me, except our mother, who were so clearly addled--would be staking their claim at Wal-mart and that meant he and his girlfriend would need to head out extra early to guarantee that they got the things they wanted (a laptop for her, a video camera for him).

"We're leaving at nine," he announced.

"NINE?" my mother said.

"That seems drastic," I said.

"It's necessary," he insisted. "Trust me. I've got a feeling this is gonna be big."

And it was big. When my brother and his girlfriend, still full from dinner, still full from the two desserts we forced on them before they left, arrived at Wal-mart just after nine, they were not the first people standing in line. The store would open at midnight, but the items could not be sold until five AM. They would simply have to stand in line to prepare for the lunging after the workers unwrapped the stack of deals.

And that's exactly what they did. My brother and his girlfriend had to stand on opposite sides of the store for their items, and they had to raise their hands when they wanted to use the bathroom, and they had to get a hall pass from the person in charge of their line, and they had only twenty minutes to use the facilities, and if they weren't back in twenty minutes--and the time was clearly recorded on their pass and on a master checklist--they lost their spot in line and, thus, their deal.

But they mustered through. My brother--the boy without a license--and his girlfriend--the girl without a heated car--spent over four hundred dollars on electronics.

Later, as my mother and I combed Freeport for deals at the Banana Republic outlet, I abruptly stopped admiring the silk scoop neck I was certain would look fantastic with a pencil skirt at a holiday party.

"Mother," I said, "why the hell did they just spend all that money on electronics instead of, you know, a car with heat? Doesn't that seem like the more important item to have during a Buffalo winter?"

"Don't think about it," my mother said. "I try not to anymore. We'll just drive ourselves crazy."


(3.)

My brother and his girlfriend slept in after their escapade at Wal-mart and met up with us later that afternoon. Adam called when they rolled into town, just as my mother and I were finishing up our mid-afternoon lobster stew.

When my mother got off the phone she looked exasperated.

"What now?" I asked.

"Your brother," she said. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

"What about him?"

"He's wearing his Crocs," she said.

At that moment, we both turned and stared out the window. It was pouring so bad that the road had turned lake-ish in spots.

"His feet are sopping wet already," she said.

"Jesus!" I said.

"Now, now..." she said.

"No! I mean Jesus!" I said. "Does that kid THINK? Like, EVER?"

"Jess," she warned. "Stop. We can't change it now. Don't say anything to him about it, okay? It'll only cause a fight."

But fifteen minutes later, my brother was standing in front of me in the vestibule of LL Bean, and he was hopping from one foot to the other, trying to force water out of his shoes.

"Are you an idiot?" I asked.

"I didn't know it was raining," he said.

"I have a giant sliding glass door in my living room," I said. "How could you not notice it was raining?"

"I just didn't, okay?" He flicked his Croc at me.

"And then when you went downstairs to go to the car--you didn't notice it then?" I asked. "You didn't notice it the minute you stepped outside?"

"I did," he said. "I noticed."

"But you didn't turn around and walk the fifteen steps back upstairs to change your shoes?" I asked.

He glared at me.

"Whatever," I said. "Fine."

"I'm going upstairs," he said. "I'll be in Fishing. See you in eight hours."

But things didn't get any better for the kid. When he'd had his fill of LL Bean, we figured we'd take off for Portland, get some dinner, duck into a few of the cute shops in the Old Port. But it was raining even harder then, and my mother and I--under the cover of an umbrella, coats, and appropriate footwear--were soaked by the time we got to our car. Adam was almost drowned.

But he's nothing if not resourceful. When we got to Portland, he--suddenly inspired, suddenly giddy with invention--grabbed two bags from the earlier Wal-mart excursion, stuck his feet in them, and then tied them around his ankles. He slid the Crocs over the bags, and he traipsed around the Old Port and sat through dinner with the Wal-mart logo beaming up at anyone who passed us by. And he didn't mind in the least.

In Addition to the Chocolate Moose, There Was Also This Beachy Goodness

Amanda and Jason's visit as about more than just seeing some water and a chocolate moose. It was also about forcing Amanda to try lobster (she did, and liked it), about sunning ourselves on several beaches, about staring up at the flashing eye of a few lighthouses, about posing in front of the things I make every visitor stand in front of (giant L.L. Bean boot, giant Freeport Indian, and any moose--stuffed or otherwise--that we can find), about stuffing ourselves to the point of bursting, about reminiscing over college days--the days when Amanda and I had just met, the days when I looked at Keith's friend Jason, who was having trouble with some blond whippet he was dating at the time, and said, Huh. I wonder if I can find him a woman.

Well, check and mate. We did all that. We did all that and then some.

Sprung

Amy left Wednesday night. She'd been here for a week, and that was a week full of loveliness. I don't know if there is a phrase I can turn to accurately capture how nice it was to have a girlfriend in town. When I came home from work, Amy was there watching What Not to Wear, and I would sit next to her and begin very important discussions like how we could get Clinton to make out with us if ever the situation presented itself to us. Do you know how nice that is? Do you know how nice it is to see someone else have to fan themselves off after Clinton has said something witty about Crocs or Mom Jeans or Shoulder Pads? It's just not as fun when you have to do that by yourself.

What Not to Wear wasn't the only thing that graced the television when Amy was in town. There was one night when we--tired, lazy--decided to pour wine and flick through the channels. We landed on an episode of The Dog Whisperer. And when that episode was over another was on. So we watched that. And we watched the next one, too. By the end we felt one with the animal kingdom. We were walking around the apartment (and, days later, around Maine and Massachusetts) hissing tsssst! at anyone or anything that looked at us wrong.

Of course, watching television wasn't all we did. We toured extensively. This was just the right time for Amy to visit. Maine is suddenly leaning toward lovely again. Everything is melted. It is warm. People are smiling. The number of curse words I utter each day have decreased substantially. Things are looking up all over the state, and so we took advantage of it. We went to Freeport, to Popham Beach, to Bath, to Portland. We even hopped The Downeaster and went to Boston for the day last weekend. We drank cosmos and margaritas. We drank wine. We mixed orange vodka with pomegranate pop and raspberry-lime ginger-ale and Loganberry (official name: The Cowboy Daddy). We posed, too. We posed by lighthouses and moose and historical statues and bronze ducks. We posed by Indians and boots. We posed in the rain, in the wind, in the sun. We hammed it up all over New England.

The whole trip felt just like spring should: kicky, free, happy. It felt the exact opposite of the last few months, which have been gloomy, painful, and sour.

When we were at lunch one afternoon, Amy and I overheard a bunch of gossipy old ladies tut-tutting over how awful, how wretched, how foul this winter had been. Amy spooned more soup into her mouth and raised her eyebrows. "Was it really that bad?" she asked me. What she wanted to know was this: was it as bad as Buffalo Winter?

Well, it wasn't. There weren't days when I couldn't see a foot out the window to the street beyond. There weren't days when I was convinced I had somehow woken up in some wintry ring of hell. But there was snow. And there was always drama. The weathermen would get on the TV and prepare us, warn us, caution us, and everyone would get worked up for what turned out to be nothing. And when it did snow--really snow--it came in big, consistent gobs. It would go away in a day or two, then it would come back again. It was a constant here-gone-here-gone-here-gone that drove me crazy. And living on a narrow road that arcs over a surprising hill in a quiet section of town is different than living on a well-traveled country road during the winter months. My road here was hell, there was no snow removal, the banks towered high and then spilled over into the road, making it even narrower, even harder to navigate. It was demoralizing. I longed for a driveway of my own, for the comforting rumble of the snowplows making their passes at the country road, for space for the snow to move, to fall, to not build toward the sky, blotting it out, making the dark winter sky even gloomier.

But all that is over for now. Now nothing matters. The sun is out, the breeze is blowing in the salty smell of ocean, and I had a good week that reminded me of what's important in life. And no matter how many times this semester I thought What the hell is happening? or Kill me now! or Are you for real? I know that it's all going to be okay now. I'm very close to a summer spent touring to Mexico, Canada, Buffalo, and Michigan. Just a few more weeks. Just a few, few more weeks.

And until then, here are pictures from Amy's visit and our mini-New England vacation.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Merry Christmas from the Mad Bomber

And so, just like that, the Christmas season is over. The Boy From Work and I have passed through our first Christmas together, and I thought we did it in fine fashion. I wrapped his presents, made up a stocking (crammed with random things like disposable heat pads, beef jerky, iced tea, chocolate, and magazine subscriptions--this is just how we do things in my house), and asked him to do the traditional pose-by-the-tree holiday shot. We survived. We did fine.

And I think I did particularly fine. Sure, the BFW might not be what you'd call 100% thrilled with some of the clothes I bought because I thought he'd look good in them, but he is 100% thrilled with one of his presents, which, really, was the crowning glory of all my Christmas shopping: the fur-lined bomber hat.

When the BFW visited me back in October, we took a ride to Freeport and visited the LL Bean flagship store (which is, interestingly enough, open 24 hours a day every single day of the year). Once there, the BFW took to a giant wall display that boasted lots of fur-lined bomber hats in every color and fabric imaginable. He told me he used to have a hat like that, that he loved that hat like nothing else, and he lost it. He was sad about that. He was really, really fond of the hat.

I, however, was not fond of the bomber hats. I mean, a fur-lined, ear-flapped hat doesn't scream SEXY!, SOPHISTICATED!, or DEBONAIR! in any language. And I could see by the gleam in the BFW's eyes that once he put that hat on his head, it was going to be a real fight to get it off. That made me nervous.

But still, that gleam in his eyes haunted me for the entire Christmas shopping season until finally, when I realized I was going to have to go to LL Bean to get the LED head lamp my father wanted (more on that hilarity later), I broke down and decided to buy the hat for the BFW. He was just so thrilled when that warm hat was clamped down on his head, and I knew I couldn't deprive him of a winter full of that thrill.

So I didn't.

Freeport, The First Time

This weekend I went to Freeport.



Freeport is home to the flagship LL Bean store (and a giant boot). It is also home to gorgeous state parks, dozens of seafood carts, and outlets for stores like Burberry, J. Crew, Banana Republic, and Abercrombie & Fitch. And even though it's an outlet-town, it's very anti-outlet mall. It's not like those monstrous buildings that pipe in Michael Bolton's greatest hits and have food courts that boast Sbarros and Chinese restaurants that sell dry fried rice. In Freeport, all the outlets are housed in old buildings made of brick. The side streets are winding, the visitors speak mostly French, and there's the distinct smell of ocean in the air.

I spent half a day in the town, going from store to store, sneaking down alleys, ducking inside a coffee shop for a mug of chai. I considered buying lobster-shaped potato peelers and moose magnets. I dug through bins in the Banana Republic store so I could outfit the Boy From Work. It was the most lovely way to spend an afternoon, and I only scratched the surface of the town.

I didn't go to the wharf, to the ocean. I didn't stand on the rickety wooden docks and watch the sailboats leave for a day out on the water. I didn't watch people unbuckle their kayaks and ease them into the bay. But I will. I have an awful lot still to see.

And eat.

Tucked in alcoves every few hundred feet was another sidewalk stand selling portable snack food. If I were in New York City, they would be selling hot dogs or pretzels or hot nuts. But I wasn't in New York City. I was in Freeport, Maine, and these vendors were selling lobster rolls, crab rolls, and fried clams. I'd just eaten right before getting to Freeport, but every time I passed one of those stands and inhaled their salty steam I wanted to fork over all the money I had to get just a bite, just a nibble.

By the end of the day I was feeling relaxed and perfect and, despite stuffing myself before my arrival, starving. I left wanting more than ever to buy all my clothes at J. Crew, to dress myself in tweed, to come off looking smart and like I belonged to the Kennedys. By the end of the day I was so impressed and ensorcelled that I wanted to buy up all the argyle in the town. I wanted to soak large pinkish-red chunks of lobster in miniature vats of melted butter. I wanted to drive home along the winding river road, my car singing over the country asphalt, and I wanted to think, "I could do this every weekend."

And that's exactly what I did.