I stopped by to see Dale because I'd told him that I would.

He wasn't there but, in his defense, I hadn't exactly told him when I would be passing through town so I really shouldn't have expected a reception.

Our traditions are long-standing but perverse to the casual observer. We've worked many an intense project in every corner of these great United States but have always respected and maintained that requisite heterosexual buffer so often reserved for athletes, doormen, and movie-star vigilantes. Indeed we've galvanized our relationship through near-misses and ratified our contracts through instant messenger.

One such tradition - secret before tonight - has been to sit in the other's chair unannounced when the opportunity arises. While in the position of power the visitor concocts and executes a subtle joke leaving no traceable residue or visible destruction of property.

My specialty is my own blend of flatulence and text messaging.

And so today I arrived unannounced to find Dale's desk idle. I wouldn't see Dale today. Perhaps one day soon before we're all done with this mess.

I sat in Dale's chair, put my foot on his desk, and snapped the phone-picture that you see here. From my phone I messaged the pic to Dale and waited for his response.



Below is our exchange - untouched and unedited (other than the obvious change of names to protect the guiltless):

[14:20] dale: nice pic bitch. u still here?
[14:20] dale: say agin - where u now?

[14:21] trelvix: the sound of an old, male cat;
[14:21] trelvix: rattling growl
[14:21] trelvix: gutteral warning,
[14:21] trelvix: lingering, rolling
[14:21] trelvix: the sound of death, of blood
[14:21] trelvix: of finality.

[14:21] dale: mkay....

[14:22] trelvix: you following the picture I painting?

[14:22] dale: yes

[14:22] trelvix: that's the sound that just came out of my ass
[14:22] dale: nice
[14:22] trelvix: it was long, patient. resolute even

[14:22] dale: rofl!
[14:22] dale: now describe the smell - doucement, slowly

[14:23] trelvix: and it's with me still like haunting face of fallen grandmother
[14:23] trelvix: sticky sweet, like watermelon rind in a bowl of Scope
[14:23] trelvix: and ass

[14:23] dale: yum

[14:24] trelvix: Taco Pizza, Old Milwaukee, Peach Sorbet, Peanuts, Pretzel Sticks, Bourbon and a Red Stripe
[14:25] trelvix: Apple turnover, 20 oz iced coffee, sausage patty and egg
[14:25] trelvix: if you squinted in the fog over here you just might see the faces of dead popes
[14:25] trelvix: It's that good

[14:26] dale: wow. and in my chair in front of pictures of my children

[14:26] trelvix: Tell you what - I will take my underwear off and seal them in a ziploc to share
[14:26] trelvix: check your mail in a couple of days
[14:26] trelvix: but open the envelope VERY carefully

[14:27] dale: oh you know i can't wait.
[14:27] trelvix: i do
[14:27] dale: and you know you ain't win nothing right?
[14:27] trelvix: i did. it smells of win in your office.

Game. Set. Match. Trelvix.

Sorry.

I had this whole thing written about perspective and the care-and-feeding thereof tonight but it turned out to be sentimental shit.

My old friend Hippé is one of the recluses that we used to read about when recluses were either in vogue or on rampages. He was never much for rampages but was one stylish son-of-a-bitch.

Anyway - somewhere between Jamaica, France, Kentucky, chemotherapy, and kindergarten Hippé showed up out of the blue on my doorstep at sunset.

I hadn't seen him for ten or fifteen years.

He'd been out west doing his thing and, as only Hippé would do, had stumbled upon the motorcycle of his dreams.

Always the resourceful one Hippé bought the bike with cash and needed only a destination to round out his brilliant plan.

And so he rode across the country to my city to find me.

He'd wondered what had ever become of me.

This was the point at which tonight's post began.

Once I read it back to myself I thought better and decided instead to post this apology.

So - sorry.

Reckon I ain't quite ready to crawl out of this cave just yet.

OK. I will take a lead from my confidant Dexter Colt and write a five-minute, speed post. This won't be creative and will come dangerously close to describing my real, actual life.

I apologize for that in advance.

I never claimed to be interesting.

It's finally June 16th and we're done for a while. A couple of weeks anyway.

Then we're off to the city for a few days because the girls want to catch the fireworks from midtown this year. We've got the apartment on 48th just off of Lexington and from the roof one can get a pretty good show without fighting the crowds by the U.N. or squeezing in among the sweaty tourists along the East River. Then we're going some place up north to watch the Helene play soccer against Nordic princesses or well-groomed yetis. I don't remember where or why but I wrote it down and will check my notes in time to avoid tardiness or an embarrassing absence. Then we're done. Wait, no, actually then the child starts training for the Olympic Developmental Program Camps. I don't recall where that takes place either but I'll bet good-god-damned-girlie-giggle-tits that it's some place expensive.

At some point we'll hopefully work to align the planets to fit a date in to Carlos' tour schedule such that we might actually spend an entire day with him and his lovely bride while the rest of the band loads up on weed and gunpowder. (We're about to miss Carlos' birthday yet again and this saddens me somewhat. It's high on my list of things to stop doing.)

Then we'll be done, or at least, we'll be ready to start again.

And so I'll give this a go now that my evenings are mine to do with as I please. Just not tonight.

So tired tonight.

Yesterday she asked me if I might not be a bit sleep-deprived.

"Are you sleep-deprived?" she asked. "Because they say now that eight hours might not be enough."

"What the fuck kind of dumb-ass question is that?" I wondered aloud.

I'll win my in-laws over yet. You just wait and see.

"Dude!"

He tends to start sentences this way when he's enthusiastic about something. I've come to accept the affectation as the loser-gen-Y approximation of the upside-down question mark that our Spanish-speaking friends use to delineate the start of a question.

Everyone needs to know when the questions start.

"You TOTALLY checked her out! BUSTED!" he exclaimed.

"No," I replied. "I didn't 'totally' check anything out. My eyes may have lingered on her breasts longer than appropriate but, well, in my world breasts usually have something between them and me."

"Same thing horny old dude!" he clarified.

"It's not the same thing at all," I explained. "You see, that's the difference between your generation and mine. People my age know how to finish things. Dude."

She said "smoking is bad for you, mister."

I told her she was correct in thinking so.

"You know what else is bad for you?" I continued.

"What else?" she wondered.

"A couple of things," I explained. "One is talking to strangers. Another is the apparent inability to mind one's own business."