the 30+mph winds have arrived for the year 😬

Dad Letter 020721

7 February, 2021

Dear Dad--

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! It is, unsurprisingly, cold as hell here in Maine this morning. Usually we keep it about 68 degrees inside, and if we allow the heat to creep up to 70, we begin to feel like hedonistic libertines. (And we get utility bills north of $250.) But when I got out of bed this morning it was 17 degrees outside and 64 degrees inside, and I thought I was gonna freeze to death. I still prefer having these problems over warm weather problems. I can always add another layer of sweater, or blanket, or kitty cat, to keep warm. 

I’ve been watching the movie The Revenant on repeat for a while now. As I predicted, it’s become a sort of screensaver for my living room television. It is, far and away, the prettiest movie I’ve ever seen. As predicted, I’m becoming less bothered by the violence--the lots and lots and lots of violence--and now I’m able to appreciate the cinematography, even when Leonardo Dicaprio is getting noisily torn asunder by the bear. “Hey, that shot is pretty! Shut up, Leonardo, I’m trying to enjoy the background foliage.” I’m enjoying this phase of movie love, when I find a movie that becomes special to me, and I’m still in the process of discovering all of its little secrets. 

As an example, after I’d watched the movie a few times, I realized something about the bear attack scene. The way the players are positioned, the scene is set up in such a way that, when he first hears bear cubs, they’re in front of him. Then, when he hears the adult bear, it’s behind him. I realized that the movie was suggesting that Leonardo Dicaprio got right between the bear cubs and their mom, and by the time he realized he was between them--literally the most dangerous possible place to be--the big bear was already charging him. I always watched this scene, and thought, “Bear cubs, awfully cute, except oh shit, there’s the mom, and they’re off! Go bear! Fuck up his face!” It didn’t occur to me until I’d seen the movie a few times that the director was careful to physically place the main character between the bear and her cubs, which would have encouraged the next plot point--Leonardo getting half et by the bear--to begin. Smart movies do that, you know? After viewing a few times, you’ll catch a subtle detail that you missed, and it’s like finding an Easter egg.

I can think of at least one more example, from Apocalypse Now. When Willard is sort of introducing us to the guys on the boat, and we see Chef reading a beat-up paperback. It took a while before I noticed that his lips are moving as he reads. And it took many viewings before I noticed that the book he’s reading is Henry Miller’s Sexus, which is rather hilarious in itself. I’m given to understand that Henry Miller is something like very well dressed pornography, attempting to be literature, and that’s a great metaphor for Chef: He’s no one special, but he has aspirations of becoming a great chef specializing in sauces. It makes sense that he’d read high-class porn. Those are some great little details. 

I have to admit, I’m running out of ways to describe how profoundly tedious this pandemic has become. We really don’t go anywhere but the store any more, and I’ve had the same tank of gas in the car for about three months now. The weather is helping! Every day we seem to get a little bit of snow, and I just love it, every time. Yesterday it was mostly sunny, but every time a cloud passed overhead, it dropped a little snow on us. Today we’re supposed to get a swift-moving but still inconveniently heavy snow, and that’ll mean more snow shoveling. I probably didn’t like shoveling show in Chicago when I was 9, because of the compulsory nature of the endeavor. Now I view it as fun exercise! We don’t have much driveway, but what we do have is not plowed by anyone. (By the way, “plow” and “plough” are pretty much interchangeable, which I know, because I looked the shit up, but “plow” is preferred in North America, and “plough” is preferred elsewhere, like the U.K.) What this means, is that we not only have to shovel about 15 feet of driveway to get to the road that runs through the trailer park, but every time they run the snow plow through the trailer park, it dumps a mountain of snow on the end of our driveway, and fucks up all our hard work. 

Fortunately, I spent a lifetime preparing for moments like these by living in Texas, and all snow is magical, dammit, even unwanted plow snow befouling the end of our recently-shoveled driveway. Even if the snow is still coming, if I have to drive somewhere, I won’t mind getting all my heavy winter clothes on, going outside into the blizzard, and clearing up the driveway. It is exhausting work, but I don’t seem to mind. 

I typically do have some minor fears that a neighbor will come along and (a) breathe Covid onto me, or, more to the point, (b) tell me that I’m shoveling incorrectly. “What are ya, from Texas or somethin?” But I think I’m shoveling properly. I mean, it’s not rocket science; use the shovel to move the snow from here to there, piece o’ cake. Not only do I think I’m doing it properly, but I noticed several of my neighbors got their cars stuck in snow trying to leave after the last snowstorm. Some of them got hilariously stuck; people had to dig snow from around their wheels, or get behind the car and push, and I avoided those pitfalls. I think I have a natural aptitude for this shit. And, can’t stress this enough, it’s quite good exercise. I remember I used to watch the TV show “ER,” which was set in an emergency room in Chicago, and every once in a while they’d get, “a shovel,” which was their euphemism for a patient who had a heart attack while shoveling snow. I suppose the idea there is to pace yourself. I find the exercise makes it a lot easier to fall asleep at night. 

So, my days are still spent doing mostly the same thing; looking for work I can do from home, and waiting until the state of Maine gets its shit together with regard to Covid vaccine sign-ups. Right now I have no idea when I might get vaccinated, and I’m counting on that to help return to a somewhat normal life. (Visiting friends, going to restaurants and movie theaters, having company over, etc.) I have found one source of work that I’m going to dedicate a few hours to tomorrow: It’s called Amazon MTurk, and I have no idea why it’s called that, but basically, it’s little tasks you can do for Amazon.com to earn small amounts of money, like categorizing photographs, or reviewing products, which Amazon then pays you for. The idea is, they don’t pay worth a shit, just a penny, or a dime, or 50 cents per job, but if you can do enough of these little jobs quickly enough, it approaches actual income. I have applied and been accepted, so tomorrow I’m going to start doing little mini-jobs for little mini-money and see if it resembles, in any way, the pay from actual employment.

As for today, it’s the Super Bowl! I couldn’t believe the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are participating, but then again, I haven’t watched any games, or kept up with the wins and losses this year. Whenever the Cowboys are sucking, like now, my interest in the NFL sort of goes into hibernation. The next time the Cowboys stop sucking, I’ll care more about football. But the thing about the Buccaneers is: I don’t ever remember them being anything impressive when I was growing up. In fact, and I don’t know why I thought this, but I always thought of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as the team that was only barely a real team, that existed only to lose, that was composed of high school players and prisoners, who had to keep other real jobs, like waiting tables, keep the bills paid. As I say, I don’t know why I believed this about the Buccaneers, but now they’re in the Super Bowl! Well. Guess they’re a real team after all. 

I do hope things aren’t too boring (or too exciting) where you are. You’re in my thoughts every day. All my love to you both!