Golden arches

When I was in Paris (I don't want to be one of those guys who does this a lot, but come on, how cool is it that I can start a sentence like that?) someone, probably from BF Australia or Canada, said if they lived in Paris they could see themselves not looking at the Eiffel Tower every day because they'd get used to it.

I say they were from the middle of nowhere because I grew up in the Bay Area, about 25 minutes from bridges, buildings and cable cars that are easily as recognizable, if not less romantic than the Eiffel Tower, and I must disagree.

Yesterday I had a job interview (for a job I think I may want) in San Rafael, which is about 7 miles north of the point where the Golden Gate Bridge hits land in Marin County. To get there from my current side of the Bay I take a different bridge but I do see the Golden Gate, just as I do whenever I drive through Berkeley on my way to Vallejo, Sacramento, Tahoe, Chico, Oregon or Canada.

Across the water from highway 80, behind Alcatraz, there is always the orange Japanese animation eyes of the Golden Gate. I look at it every time I pass by. I don't strain my neck to see it, but as I sit in the Maze traffic 100 feet from the water line I glance out my passenger window (when going south, generally home) just to acknowledge it.


It's a beautiful bridge that actually empties into a nice area for both directions, unlike so many other bridges that start or end in poverty, industry, salt flats or oil refineries.

So no, person I met from either Australia or Canada, I don't think I'd stop looking at the Eiffel Tower or any other widely known landmark I lived near. I don't get tired of my favorite shirt, food, or songs. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think familiarity necessarily makes something less remarkable.

A bookstore in California

I've just returned from Moe's in Berkeley where I spent more on books than an unemployed writer should spend. I bought one book I needed to get, another I went wanting to get, and two I had thought a lot about buying. As I said on the phone earlier this week, Delayed Gratification Zac is gone.

As I strolled past the 'F' section I noticed a hard-cover version of "Everything is Illuminated," a book I've always told myself I wanted to read but have never bought or borrowed. I slipped it off the shelf and flipped toward the copyrite page to see if it was a first printing, which it wasn't, then flipped toward the first blank page to see what price was etched into the top right corner in pencil. I would find out in a few moments that it was $10, but first I saw an inscription.

It read, in a sloppy yet still feminine handwriting that was half printing, half script:

A late fathers day gift

To Kevin from Linda
To the best dad in the
whole world - July 2002 -
Ben is so lucky to see your
face every day & to have
you as his dad

I couldn't imagine selling a book, especially a book that was a present and certainly not if there was an inscription.

In my head, Kevin and Linda had a baby boy in May or June of 2002. Her saying he was the best dad in the world was based more on assumption than a proven track record of fatherhood. She thought he was the best husband in the world and, of course, would make an excellent father.

He probably was, and I picture him, mid-thirties with tousled short hair, walking around his and Linda's hardwood floors in his pajama bottoms on a Sunday morning with seven-month-old Ben leaning on his shoulder as he watches the 49ers game across the room.

But something happened, Ben got sick or there was an accident. It was no one's fault but it's a painful memory. In late 2007 Kevin and Linda are moving, probably out of Berkeley, maybe back to her home town, when he recognizes the book as he's boxing up their shelves. He re-reads the inscription for the first time in more than five years and just about cries again.

He wants to get rid of it but doesn't want to throw away the story of a young man searching for his grandfather's past. He considers donating it to someone but he wants someone to want it. He takes it to the used book store and makes a little bit of cash, which he'll add to the annual donation he and Linda make to the foundation for curing the disease his son died from (I've decided it was an illness).

I will show that inscription to everyone I show my books to and ask them what they think. The book will sit on my small bookshelf that I usually reserve for my favorite, highest recommended, or rare books. After I read it.

A golden event

My dad turned 50 yesterday. To celebrate the occasion, my mom, sister and I, took him to dinner at Le Cheval, a French/Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Oakland to get some braised quail, bad service and terrific coconut snapper. After dinner, the four of us had tickets for Mark Hummel's Blues Harmonica Blow Out at Yoshi's jazz club in Jack London Square.

Part of the blow out were John Mayall, the godfather of British blues and rock (Eric Clapton got his start in Mayall's band); Kenny Neal, a young kid (51) from Baton Rouge; Fingers Taylor, my favorite nickname of the night; and Lazy Lester, a tall old black guy with huge hands who must have been 70.

The venue is small, only about 120 seats, the music was great, and the drinks well made. The house band, the Blues Survivors, could jam with all the legends like they've known each other and been playing with each other for decades, which they probably have.

The late set started at 10 and went a half hour longer than the early show so that when we walked toward our car it was past midnight and the rain had stopped but left the deserted streets wet and shiny in the lights. There was no singing of "Happy Birthday," and no cake. The evening was far too classy for that.

Today I woke up to a call from the bounce-house guy, asking if we still wanted it if it started to rain. Of course we did, so he'd be by in the next few hours.

A few days ago I told my friend this weekend was my dad's birthday. She asked if we were having a party and I said no, he didn't want one. But we're still getting the bounce house, I told her. She didn't ask if I was serious, or what I meant by that. She knew. She just said, "The Dillons are a hoot."

When the bounce-house guy got here, we sent him around back and showed him where to set up. As the Monkey House was filling up with air, my mom ran in to call my dad out. At first, he thought it was ridiculous. He'd wanted to get one on Thanksgiving because it was my little cousin's birthday but didn't because she wasn't coming over until later in the day. Ever since then (apparently at least, I was in Europe so I don't really know further back than a month ago) he's been talking about it. "Saw another bounce house today. Looks like fun," he'd say randomly.

But as soon as the guy left and we got in it, he couldn't stop laughing.


We did choreographed flips, tried to not knock each other over, sweat a lot, laughed and bounced. It's how all 50th celebrations should be, and in two years, my mom's will no doubt be incredibly similar. In 25 years, I'll do some kind of futuristic version of today. Like rocket packs or moon boots that don't suck like those Moon Boots from the 70s.

The end of Time

All my life, or at least for the portion I am able to remember, I've loved calling POPCORN. I used to beg my parents to let me call after a blackout or earthquake so I could be the one to hear the exact time and set the clocks. My family referred to 767-2676 as "Time," and it was so familiar, the woman's voice so comforting. Good evening. (so polite) At the tone (ah the tone), Pacific Daylight Time (I always preferred hearing her say "daylight" over "standard") will be seven, thirty two, and forty seconds (ever notice it was in increments of 10 seconds?)... boop.

In an age of cell phones that have their clocks set automatically via satellite, lithium ion batteries that keep computer clocks artificially ticking forever, and Web sites such as www.time.gov brought to you by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, there is, apparently, no need for a familiar woman's voice on the phone. I didn't call as often as I should have the past couple of years, but it was nice to know she was there, waiting to answer my one question accurately and promptly.

Now a different voice, though similar enough that it seems they tried to pull a fast one on us, rather curtly tells callers that "Effective September 19, 2007, the Time announcement information service has been discontinued. We apologize for any inconvenience."

But there are so many questions left unanswered by that answer. For years, I'd call to learn the time but that simple answer prompted so many more questions that the recording would never be able to provide on it's own. Who are you, voice of Time? How was your voice chosen? When did you record all those fragments of dialogue? How long did it take you to record all those numbers? Did you have any creative differences with the guys recording you? At what time of day did they decide to switch from "good morning," to "good afternoon," to "good evening," and then back to "good morning"? It would be strange to call at 12:55 and 10 seconds and hear "good morning." 1:00 am is still evening to everyone I know. And who is the they? Who funded this? Who is the we that is apologizing for my inconvenience?

This new message prompts even more disturbing questions. Does the fact that this never-ending loop ended somehow disprove the theory of time travel? Or prove that the universe is bound to end too? We thought it was a never-ending loop, but it was just such a big circuit we couldn't see that it had an end point.

It was only recently that I learned I've been living in a world without Time. I knew life was different while traveling, and often I would say that the day of the week didn't matter. The day Time was discontinued, I was in Berlin. But Berlin seems like another time, but was such a good time it's still timely. I thought things would return to normal when I got back, but time has been flying and dragging at the same time. I have so much time yet run out of time all the time. It will take some time to adjust to a world without Time.

The absolute worst part is that future generations will now never understand the scene from Full House where DJ, on her first day of junior high, alone at lunch and scared, takes her food into the phone booth, drops a quarter as if she were calling a friend but hears only a voice. They won't crack a teary smile or feel her pain and isolation because they will be hung up on trying to comprehend why some woman's voice would tell a caller the time of day twice in 20 seconds.

That voice was a friend. To DJ, to me, to people without watches but with access to a phone, and to scared preteens everywhere.

Good bye Time. I wish I had more of you, but I'll always remember the good times.

We ski UP hill

"After today, we'll be able to do half a biathlon."

That's the kind of thinking my mom regularly engages in. Or at least, the kind of thinking she regularly talks about. It's the ultimate "glass half full" way of looking at things and she's only ever half kidding (or half serious, depending on whether you think kidding is positive or negative).

It was 6:30 am and we were on the way to Kirkwood to try cross country skiing for the first time. It's something she's been talking about trying for years, and it's something I haven't ever done before. When it came up somehow, I egged her on until she committed to going late Saturday night.

"Are we really going to go, or are you just saying we're going to go?" I asked her. The ball was in her court (she was paying, after all) and after seeing my excitement for free winter sports her eyes got big and she got that wide grin she gets when she's about to doing something exciting.

Our lesson began at 10:30 with a man I would have guessed was 55 but who was actually 73. It seems that the fountain of youth is on two skinny planks of fiberglass.

The surprisingly old instructor remembered my name throughout the hour-and-a-half lesson and I fought hard to not fulfill his prediction that I would try and fly across the training course as fast as possible. Because I was youngish and didn't live up to his old-man expectations of being hyper-competitive and impatient, toward the end of the lesson when no one would volunteer to be the first to try stopping, he of course called on me and I of course fell on my face. Stopping is not as easy as starting, it turns out.

The meadow across the highway from the lodge was gorgeous and the 5k trail went by in a blink. Mom fell a few times, but only because I was harassing her about going faster. Turns out I am hyper-competitive and impatient.

On the way home, Mom said, "All we need to do now is learn how to shoot." Mom, I tell her, after years of shooting zombies, criminals, cops and digital ducks, I already can shoot. I am a biathlete now. Or at least, I'm curious about it.

Necessity of normalcy

My hair is never quite the same. Each day it does something a little different, presumably because, I suppose, it's one day longer. I have yet to lop any of it off since returning from over the pond in part (yes, a pun) because I keep getting told that I have nice curls, in part because I'm not ready to pay someone $20 to take them away from me, and in part because in a writers'-strike-beard kind of way, it helps keep me in that place I've been.

I have yet to take off the leather strap on my right wrist that Sophia didn't have to try hard to convince me to buy, even though I bought two at the same time. It's the one I put on and I have no immediate plans of ever taking it off.

There was talk of posting pictures here, and after a weekend in Sacramento visiting friends with my laptop, being asked to share stories and click through iPhoto, I realize I've never seen a lot of them. I remember taking pictures in general, if not always specifically, but looking through them is strangely foreign. I can see the people, places and events without trying but their photographs look like the caricatures of people sold on the Charles Bridge and outside the Uffizi Gallery. For pictures, they're ironically not very picture-perfect.

And so many of the things that are most vivid in my memory and that I most want to show people, I didn't take pictures of and so many of my favorite events of which I have scant photographic evidence would be boring to all the billions of people in the world but two or three. No one wants to see Jason at the Madrid airport triumphantly holding a plane ticket back to DC, and I don't need a picture to remember, but I know I have one. I've seen it recently and it isn't what I saw that day.

So I will happily share my photos with the world, but I have to see them first. And I'm not ready to replace my memories with photographs yet.