Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 75

CarrollBlog 9.22

'In the beginning of their relationship, both proceeded as if they had entered a very dark room and were sliding their hands hesitantly up and down all the walls, feeling for a light switch while at the same time afraid that they might touch something sharp or dangerous. But from the minute they met, there was absolutely no game playing between them because they had had enough of that in their lives. They were eager to get to the heart of this matter. Both wanted to reach the point as soon...

CarrollBlog 9.21

Even when things end badly, there are radiant moments or experiences with failed loves that are permanently written into one's history. Strawberries. Whenever they came into full season in spring, she remembered the day he brought her the strawberries. They were meeting at two and then driving out into the country. She'd had a harried morning in town. Her head was full of irrelevant stuff and tizzy when his car pulled to the curb in front of her. Reaching forward, she opened the door without ...

CarrollBlog 9.20

this is terrific:

for those unfamiliar with it, the Iditarod is the famous dogsled race in Alaska

1989

By Ron Koertge

Because AIDS was slaughtering people left and right,

I went to a lot of memorial services that year.

There were so many, I'd pencil them in between

a movie or a sale at Macy's. The other thing that

made them tolerable was the funny stories people

got up and told about the deceased: the time he

hurled a mushroom frittata across a crowded room,

those ...

CarrollBlog 9.19

Most people like to imagine themselves as big novels– 800 page doorstops that include forty fascinating characters buzzing around each other, major crisis and triumphs, perhaps even a world scale event like a war or a natural disaster in the background. All of this preferably described with the panache and poetry of a Russian master like Tolstoy or a French wordsmith like Proust. But the truth is most of us live 243 page lives, if that. There are only a few major characters in our individual ...

CarrollBlog 9.18

He was grinning when he sat down, as if something wonderful had just happened. Apparently it had. "I've just solved the secret of my marriage. Paper towels." He announced.

I looked at him the way you're supposed to when someone sounds vaguely insane. "Paper towels are the secret to your marriage?"

"Yes. Ann (his wife) has a thing for paper towels. She uses them like crazy on everything and basically refuses to use dishtowels or anything else in the kitchen. For years I've been saying to her ...

CarrollBlog 9.17

An excerpt from a letter. Friends and family were discussing an extraordinary woman who, for some mysterious reason, has had only medium luck in love. Someone who knows her very well said this:

"She wants what very few people know how to give. She wants all the simple things. Not many people know how to do simple anymore. She wants grilled cheese sandwiches at home dipped in ketchup served on a paper plate, not dinner at an expensive restaurant. She wants to sit on the beach at sunset, not s...

CarrollBlog 9.16

Two hours before my favorite dog Jack died, I took him to see the Christmas trees. A week before, it was discovered that he had cancer everywhere although he was only six years old. The doctor said the disease was moving so fast that the kindest thing I could do was to put him to sleep while he was still alert and filled with lebensfreude, as the German language puts it. The greatest thing about Jack was how funny he was. I have never owned a dog that made me laugh as much as he did. His...

CarrollBlog 9.15

The broken guys, the sleazy creeps, the lost, the haunted, the aimless. The ones who lived like you and me once upon a time but for a million reasons left Planet Normal and now exist in an almost-touching parallel universe with its own gravity and color spectrum. Have you got a dollar, a dime, a cigarette, a light, a heart to help me--they ask, plead, demand. A hat in their lap, some of them stare at you with an extraordinary mixture of hatred and help-me in their eyes. The ones on the...

CarrollBlog 9.14

In a heavy rain, I was walking quickly along trying to get there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a large dog dashing across the pedestrian zone. It was so wet that water was flying off its long coat. It was moving so fast and looked so excited that I stopped just to watch where it was going. Twenty feet away stood a very chic, elegantly dressed woman. All in beige, she had long sweeping hair a la Rita Hayworth. She held a newspaper over her head in a futile attempt to keep it dry in the...

CarrollBlog 9.13

Rain is good for romance. Walk through any city on a rainy day and you're bound to see this: couples close and happy under a shared umbrella, one's hand wrapped around the other's on the handle. Or getting gloriously drenched together, usually grinning and soaking wet, the hell with an umbrella. Or head to head at small tables under outdoor cafe awnings. Pretending they stopped here to keep out of the rain, but really using the excuse to sit close together and touch a lot. Others enter a...