maybe baby

Putting my binky where my mouth is, so to speak. I just signed up with an agency to investigate adoptions. I'm not promising anything. I am putting off major purchases for awhile though. Better to pay down my debt then get a sweet new Mac which, although not as drooly, is only half as cuddly. And binkys ain't cheap.

If you want to dissolve into a warmish puddle of tears go browse the NYC kid adoption site. Like one of those stray pet sites but way more serious. As in, they are severely traumatized yet adorable children with a positive light straining over them. ("Kayla is nine and loves the Spice Girls! She takes medications to deal with her moderate psychiatric disorders....has four siblings in other placements she would like to remain close with...reads at a first-grade level and really progressing with her speech and anger issues.")

Adoption websites are almost overwhelming. Ads for 'prospective parents' (not the adoptive parents but the parents giving up the babies can't help but give a faint anti-choice whiff to the pages. Means well, one would hope, but it is enough to make me uneasy about my pro-choiceness. I don't want someone talked out of doing what would be best for them so that I can blot drool from a tiny chin.

I'm a tiny bit obsessed with drool in case you couldn't tell. I'm a drooler. Watch me fall asleep in your vehicle and you will know this. I guess I'm surreptitiously looking for a family resemblance from the get-go.

The blogosphere is daunting. It's almost too much. From loans and financing to immigration to cross-cultural hair care.

Love: A Useless Manual

There are people you love because you were borne to them, borne of them, familial. There are people you love because of familiarity, longevity. There are people you love because you care, you want to take care of them, they take care of you. There are people you love because they make you feel wonderful, happy, and full of laughter, for a moment, for a lifetime.

Then there are people you just love, completely.

I don't know how important the distinctions are. I just know them, all.

pithy, no?

people are like
oranges
a thin outer layer of intensity
a tough layer of bitterness
a sweet juicy nourishing center

Mornin' thinkin'

If someone makes you feel smarter, cuter and funnier than you sometimes feel about yourself, odds are you're going to want to keep them around. Right? Huh? Well?

Even if it freaks you out a bit.

Oh, and -

"If you're not fully emotionally available...be fucking celibate. Jerk fucking off.
Stop dating people who still have feelings who can still be hurt."
- Dan Savage, "Savage Love" podcast

I mean, it could be forever. It could be temporary. But, all in all, a good fucking rule to live by.

Once again, someone says it far better than I

Read it. It's truly compelling.

Inarticulately yours

Earlier post

What I'd like to say to people, what I need to say to people and what I do say to people are quite different.

deleted

I bet I delete this within 24 hours.

I know myself.

In the meantime why did the Sopranos and Entourage end in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY?

Celebrate something beautiful.

This is a touching essay by Jeff Pearlman on espn.com (I don't have anything to add, really):

Celebrating life in the face of death
By Jeff Pearlman
Special to Page 2

"Death tugs at my ear and says, 'Live, I am coming.'"
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Two Mondays ago, Cindy Sherwin's life ended.

She was riding her bicycle through New York City, training for the upcoming Ironman Triathlon in Lake Placid, N.Y., when she suffered an aneurism and became brain dead. Unable to save her, doctors at Roosevelt Hospital kept Cindy on life support so her brother -- married two days earlier -- could return from his honeymoon in the Maldives to say goodbye.

I first learned of this story when my wife hung up the phone, turned toward me and said, simply, "You won't believe this." Cindy was the daughter of one of my mother-in-law's closest friends. She was, at age 33, a model of vigor and health. Along with the five marathons and myriad triathlons she'd completed, Cindy worked as a personal trainer. Fitness was her life. Her passion. "The rabbi asked us to sit down and throw out words to describe her," says Elaine Schaller, Cindy's mom. "My thought was that she was a gift from an angel. She was my gift from an angel. 'Special' is too trite of an adjective for her."

My wife was right. I couldn't believe it. For the next few days, Cindy's death consumed my thoughts. One moment you're doing the Hora at your brother's wedding, the next you cease to exist.

Three days after Cindy was taken off life support, I switched on my computer and saw the headline CARDINALS' HANCOCK KILLED IN CAR ACCIDENT. Although major league baseball was my beat for nearly six years, I had never met Josh Hancock. Truth be told, I knew almost nothing about the man. Was he a lefty or a righty? Was he married? Religious? A smart dresser? A Travis Tritt fan?

What I did know was that in the ensuing days and weeks, precise rites of passage were certain to unfold. The media would zero in on the Cardinals, pull players aside, ask in (understandably) semi-hushed tones, "How do you cope with something like this?" and "What will you remember about Josh?" Members of the team would respond, in (understandably) semi-hushed tones, "We're gonna do what Josh would have wanted, which is to continue to go out there and play hard." Shortly thereafter, the Cardinals equipment manager would affix a black patch with Hancock's uniform number to a sleeve, or maybe somewhere above the chest. There would be moments of silence, the unveiling of a mural or plaque. A month later, maybe two, Hancock's relatives would throw out the first pitch at Busch Stadium. They'd receive a standing ovation. "Josh is loving this up in heaven," Jim Edmonds or Braden Looper or Chris Carpenter would say. "I'm pretty sure he's smiling down on us right now."

I am by no means mocking such a routine. Death isn't a 6-4-3. It's complicated. Slippery. Dimensioned to the infinite degree. But as I was wandering the streets of Manhattan last week, perhaps crossing some of the same blocks that had comprised Cindy Sherwin's final journey, I stumbled upon something of a personal revelation. When those close to us pass, we immediately -- often robotically -- turn to ritual. Jews like myself sit shiva, tell some funny stories and eat cookies. Military personnel fire off shots into the air and play taps on the bugle. Baseball players wear patches and hang the deceased's jersey from an empty locker stall. It's all in the name of healing; of finding a way to understand why a Cindy Sherwin or Josh Hancock passed and -- most important -- to soothe the pain.

But maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be in such a rush to soothe the pain. Cindy Sherwin is dead. Josh Hancock is dead. Soon enough, you and I will be dead, too. We will no longer possess thoughts or feelings or hurt or joy. We will be lifeless. Nothingness. Such is not hypothetical, but reality. Life ends.

I want to force myself to think about that, and then embrace what Cindy Sherwin and Josh Hancock no longer can. I want to order the Reese's Pieces Sundae with extra whipped cream. I want to lounge in the sun at Shea Stadium on a lazy August afternoon alongside my 3-year-old daughter and a gimantic (her word, not mine) box of Cracker Jacks. I want to run in the pouring rain and belt a karaoke version of "Sometimes When We Touch" and drive for layups in Paul Duer's driveway and wrap my arm around my wife's shoulders as we watch the sun set from the bench in our front yard.

I am petrified of death. Beyond petrified. But do not soothe me. I demand to be reminded of my mortality every day. That existence is not permanent. That our time is fleeting and our hourglass easily breakable.

From my vantage point, that's the way we truly honor Cindy Sherwin and Josh Hancock and the many others who pass on too soon.

First, think of all the joyful, amazing, life-defining things they will forever miss out on.

Then, without delay, go do them.