The News from Home:
Sky I Grew Up Under Still As Intimidating as Ever

Sent to me by my parents-- a clipping from the Watertown Daily Times-- my parents' favorite-- the crime notes. This young man, my near-age-mate, apparently didn't escape Northern New York to a place with a friendlier sky like I did.

City Man in Public Square Accused of 'Yelling at Sky'

Corey J. Wiley, 28, of 201 Sterling St., Apt. 8, was arrested Wednesday morning on Public Square, where Watertown police said he was "yelling at the sky."

He scuffled with an officer who attempted to quiet him down, police said, and he was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

He was released following arraignment in City Court and awaits prosecution.

One never tires of the fact that in our small community they publish the entire name with middle initial and exact, complete street address of everyone who gets arrested. It's a great way to keep up with the kids from back home... and far more inspiring than my college's class news column, which is full of news of advanced degrees, exotic research trips, new family members-- it usually brings out that old yell-at-sky urge.

4,000-Year-Old Noodle Found "Sitting Proud" on Sediment

The ancestor of Top Ramen has been found in the ancient land of Chin. It was made from "domesticated grasses" and not wheat. The BBC reports:

It was in amongst the human wreckage that scientists found an upturned earthenware bowl filled with brownish-yellow, fine clay.

When they lifted the inverted container, the noodles were found sitting proud on the cone of sediment left behind.

The Earthquake Rests

I couldn't let the death of Paul "Earthquake" Pena go by unnoticed here.

His movie, Genghis Blues, was the last movie I watched with my partner Kris, on our last night together, about 30 hours before she overdosed on heroin to end her life after a long struggle with breast/ bone cancer and lymphoma. His struggle in the movie to maintain, just maintain, despite the strange circumstances, and the sudden loss of his anti-depression meds, and his despair at his disabilities and lack of language, and how it turned into beautiful music really moved us both. But it particularly moved Kris, an artist herself who had struggled to keep perspective about her growing frailty by writing about her journey and drawing cartoons (she was a somewhat famous cartoonist in her day). She was also a musician- a guitarist- who had once been in a folk/ old time band called the Tampon String Band.

She was not a big one for crying at sentimental movies, but she cried when he sang "Center of Asia". Paul sings solo, in English, accompanying himself on a lonely slide guitar.

Here I sit in the middle of Asia, I can't find the way- to tell them what I need, why I just can't stay...

It's a hard life when you're stupid, a hard life when you're blind... I ain't robbed nobody, but it feels like doin' time...

But, you see, he was a wounded warrior figure, but he was also a garden-variety widower. What the obituaries leave out that -- and how I think about Paul-- is that he wanted to end his life after his wife died. But then he got a shortwave radio, and discovered Tuvan throat singing, learned it by ear, and proceeded into history.

Sometime after Kris died I found in one of my journals a note to myself:

Start.
Stop.
Do something else.

Paul decided to die, to stop. And then he did something else. And the world was a better place for it.

I wonder what you can see now, Earthquake. You were born a year before my Kris, died four years after her. Maybe you two are hanging out over there, on that side, passing the time a little playing guitar together. Whatever you're doing, there's no more sickness and dying for you to worry about. Rest easy.

Injuries Incompatible with the Postseason

On "ER" the way they inform the people who are coming in to see their loved one who they didn't even know was injured but who is in fact very dead is by saying "they had injuries which were incompatible with life." Well, thanks to all my hours logged watching "ER" I wasn't scared to go in for some stomach pain I was having last weekend, and found out I need to have my gall bladder removed. And now, the post-season.

There's something that happens the day after the season ends (i.e. ends for the Giants and A's). I have to look at what parts of my life are incompatible with the postseason / offseason (which are the same, this year, turns out, for Giants and A's fans). And I'm not sure I can handle being on a zero fat diet and dealing with surgery and recovery and bills and all that headache while NOT looking forward to tonight's game or at least replays or at least gossip on the radio about my favorite teams. It's a funny thing, when you have to swivel all that fan-focus back on yourself.

The health problems I've had lately are the sorts of things that (my research tells me) happen to people who aren't popular or attractive. OK, that's not exactly what it says in the Kaiser Health Handbook, but, neither does it say "only caused by genetic abnormality." There is no health profile that says that x-illness tends to happens to relaxed, popular, attractive people. All this leads to even more navel gazing and nervousness.

How many days until spring training?