Min Tull. Monday. October 1. 2018

A bat cannot get in your hair

if with precaution you prepare.

The same cannot be said of those

who want their pipe dreams to expose

on TV and the internet;

for in your hair they'll surely get.

I'd rather have a bat encased

upon my head than be disgraced

by all the schizophrenics who

are currently on public view.

*************************************

Dan Kelly, who describes himself on Reedsy as a 'Fastidious editor; Husband; Father; Golfer; Sports nut; Cat fancier; Harvard grad; and Most interested in Fact, but comfortable with Fiction,' used to be a great friend and mentor of mine. I first emailed him a poem back in 1999, which he immediately published in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press with great enthusiasm. For many years he would publish nearly everything I sent him in his Bulletin Board column, praising and editing my work in a very friendly and supportive fashion. In fact, he pressed me most urgently to compile my work into a book of poetry, and a book of memoirs. For a long time I demurred, not wanting to bother with the tedium of compilation and the boredom of reviewing and editing my own work. Once I write something and it posts I can't bear to go back and look at it.

Then, several years ago, he took a buyout and retired, and his attitude towards me turned mean and petty. When the New York Times ran a profile on me three years ago he was miffed that his name was not mentioned in the article -- though I repeatedly remarked to the NYT reporter, Rachel Abrams, how grateful I am to Dan Kelly for his staunch support over the years. When I finally managed to bring out a book of poetry I dedicated it to him. I sent him a copy, which he did not acknowledge except to say he would not plug it on his own blog because it was too political.  

I've been sending him copies of this work ever since I started it ten days ago. He finally had enough of it, emailing me this morning thus:

Honestly, and meaning no offense, I can't understand why you are pursuing this!

  

There was a time, not so long ago, when such a reply from someone whose judgement and friendship I trusted and valued would have devastated me. But I found his rejection, perhaps even willful incomprehension, of my work to be not at all emotionally crippling. Rather, it settles me further in my resolve to continue with it. For one thing, as I told him in my reply, I want to find out if an artist can give meaning to meaningless banality -- which, admittedly, abounds in this narrative to a generous extent. And I assured him he would not get any further installments. 

And I assure all my friends and family who are receiving this work that if they would like to stop seeing it I will not be offended or turn nasty on them. (On the other hand, I will feel no compunction in sharing with them the award money from the Nobel Prize for Literature when it comes my way.)

(Sidebar:  Can a restraining order be issued for a literary work? You know; it is not allowed within a hundred miles of a library or university or something?)

Getting back to the surprising meanness and pettiness that developed in my old editor friend, I am reminded of what happened between my mother and her oldest friend Helen. 

Helen and mom were neighbors for over forty years. They went from being young housewives with nettlesome children underfoot, and unreliable husbands, to battle-hardened matrons who had managed to hold on to their sanity and savings accounts so they could take Caribbean cruises together. They knew each other's business to the nth degree. But then when mom decided to sell her house on 19th Avenue to move into a Senior apartment she didn't tell Helen about it. She told me not to tell Helen about it.

"Why not" I asked her.

"Oh, that Helen" she replied waspishly, "she's been poking her nose into my business since forever, and I'm tired of it. This'll teach her a lesson!" I shrugged my shoulders and complied with her request.

 Helen didn't find out until the moving van showed up at the front curb. She bustled right over to demand what was happening. When mom told her she looked like she had swallowed a spider, turned around, and went back into her house, where she pulled down the shades. They never spoke to each other again, and Helen was not at my mother's funeral several years later. 

How to explain such pettiness? I cannot. But I  worry that I am prone to that same kind of picayune malice. I am hoping the study and writing of poetry, and the composing of this extended piece of nonsense, will have a mitigating effect on my incipient sourness. Also, I now understand much better why the scriptures often speak of 'enduring to the end.' If I wind up a mean old man I'm going to go to hell when I die, no doubt about it. Me for a happy and foolish and affectionate old age! 

****************************************************************

I'm asking friends to take photos of people holding my poetry book, so I can post them on social media. Here's what my friend out in the Pacific reported to me today about trying to help me out:

As I was leaving for work there was a guy passing our house exercising.  He goes by often.  He always wears the most bright colors imaginable, and he's kind of a Rastafari guy with dreadlocks and all. I've spoken with him before.  He is a psychiatrist, I think, helping the poor people.  He'd had an accident and so he walks rather than runs, for his exercise.  He would have made an excellent backdrop for someone holding your book.  I asked him if he would.  He paused for a minute, looking at the book and said "No thank you."  I was terribly embarrassed.

He did manage to get some nice photos of my book with some interesting objects. He's a good egg, he is: 

**************************************

4:49 p.m.  

After lunch I took the 850 bus down to Deseret Industries on Columbia Lane. Seated in the front row, I was hurled to the filthy floor when the driver stomped on the brakes to avoid back ending an idiot Camry driver who switched lanes without signaling. It took four people to pry me loose from the wads of gum and other unspeakable adhesives on the black bus floor. The driver asked if I were hurt.

"Only my dignity, son" I snarled back at him in my best W.C. Fields mutter.

While not personally funny to me (not yet, anyways), I recognize this incident as the comic highlight of my day. Because the sudden loss of dignity is the keystone of all comedy. Now that I'm back safe and sound at home, soaking my tootsies in a warm baking soda bath, I can speculate at leisure on this dynamic of human existence. When a man loses his dignity little by little, that's a tragedy. But when dignity goes all at once, as in a pratfall, that's the ripest form of comedy there is. Placed in that context, Lucifer's fall from the Celestial Heights was the greatest comic performance ever wrought by man or angels. Strange, how John Milton missed that aspect of it. I always thought he had it on the ball. Oh well, better luck next time Johnny.

I enjoyed my session of subtraction shopping at the DI. I gathered a paperback Agatha Christie whodunit for 75 cents in my cart; a blue paisley bandana for a dollar; a basting brush, also a dollar; and a set of superannuated steak knifes for two-fifty. I'm always a bit leery around the utensils bin at DI -- there are some mighty strange looking customers handling the knives and giggling nervously --

Then I took my cart over to the furniture section to sit in a lumpy recliner (selling for twenty five bucks) to start my subtraction shopping. First I decided I really didn't need another bandana -- I've got a dozen of 'em already. Next I gave the basting brush the old heave ho -- after all, how often do I roast anything that needs basting? I mean, I'd like to roast a turkey once in a while and baste it with melted butter every half hour like my mother did -- but my kids have grilled salmon and quinoa salad for Thanksgiving. They'd turn up their organic noses at a chemically suspect gobbler. Too many steroids and antibiotics. Phooey. 

Anywho. The Christie went next; I'd seen the movie. And last of all the steak knives went back in their bin -- I probably will not buy and cook and eat another steak for the rest of my life. Steak sits in my gut like a block of cement, digesting slower than an Entmoot.

So I left DI just as I had entered it -- and not a penny poorer. In their bathroom I was struck once again with how pleasant and soothing the perfume of their hand soap is. I can't identify the scent. It's not lavender or patchouli or ylang ylang -- and it isn't the same scent the Church uses for hand soap in their ward and stake buildings. If I could soak in a warm tub with that DI hand soap scent swirling around me I believe I could transcend to the next Plane of Existence (or maybe even reach Disneyland!) 

************************************

three colors waving

supporting each other now

and forever -- please

My Daughter Daisy's Missionary Email from California

Helloooo everybody!

Well, transfers have come and gone and I am in a new area now!! It's called Rancho Santa Margarita and my new companion is Sister Ahsmus, from Oregon :)  I've only been here in Rancho Santa Margarita for a few hours, but it seems pretty nice. It's very well known throughout the mission as being very hot because it's as far inland as we can go in our mission. I've heard great things about it though! And we'll be covering two congregations, so that will keep us busy for sure. Exciting things to come!!! 

Transfers always means saying goodbye to the people you've come to known and love, and that's what yesterday was for me. I will truly treasure the time that I've spent in Dana Point and the people that I've been privileged to come to know and love. I think probably the biggest lesson I learned there, was how to truly love people through the Savior by being patient, kind, compassionate, humble and willing to always help. I feel like my heart was really changed by being in Dana Point and getting to serve many people. 

Something that I learned in church yesterday was that the path of life is less like a pleasant garden path that you just stroll down, and more like a spartan race with mud pits, detours, climbing walls and other things that hurt and challenge you. When put like that, it doesn't sound very pleasant, BUT if you look at it from an eternal perspective, all of what we go through makes us stronger when we know where our strength comes from: God. This life was never meant to be easy, you can't just stroll through it without any problems and expect to learn and grow. We were always meant to be challenged and tested, so that we can learn to become as our Savior and Heavenly Father are. 

That's all I have time for today, but I love you all!! I hope you all have such wonderful weeks and see miracles! 

Love, Sister Torkildson

Min Tull. Sunday. September 30. 2018

 The Atonement, which can reclaim each one of us, bears no scars. That means that no matter what we have done or where we have been or how something happened, if we truly repent, He has promised that He would atone. And when He atoned, that settled that. There are so many of us who are thrashing around, as it were, with feelings of guilt, not knowing quite how to escape. You escape by accepting the Atonement of Christ, and all that was heartache can turn to beauty and love and eternity . . . unlike the case of our mortal bodies, when the repentance process is complete, no scars remain because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.   Boyd. K. Packer.

It was settled in the Heavens long before a man was born

that the Savior would atone for sins, that no one need to mourn.

Poor choices and black passions have begrimed us one and all;

yet through the grace of Jesus Christ we get up from our Fall.

So do not fear that you have sinned beyond the mortal pale;

when properly forgiven there's no penalty, no jail.

He is the Great Physician who has healing in His wings.

Embrace His promise to remove all scars and deadly stings!

******************************************

6:54 a.m.

I am going to Fresh Market to buy a fresh bagel, with these words haunting me from General Conference 22 years ago:

"In many countries of the world, and in many states of the Union, shopping on Sunday is not done or is prohibited by law. We as a community of Saints should use our influence, in a positive way, to encourage other citizens to not shop on Sunday. We should start with ourselves. If we will not shop on Sunday, businesses which open on Sunday will have no financial reason to remain open on Sunday. It’s really that simple."  Earl C. Tingey

Some mornings my stomach gets a little dicey from the pills I have to take on an empty stomach. But a bagel with cream cheese always has a soothing effect. And I'd like to be able to walk to Church this morning without worrying about having an accident. Of course, I could have simply bought a bagel yesterday -- but then it wouldn't have that newborn savor I relish so much. 

So I go from praising the sin-cleansing nature of Christ's atonement to committing a minor infraction just to satisfy my belly. Perhaps my friends and children can excuse such behavior, but I'm already depressed about it before going out the door . . . 

On my Church mission in Thailand I worried about breaking the Sabbath by eating out, as well. Being a Buddhist country, they have no conception of the Sabbath -- so Sundays are wide open. Sunday was our maid's day off. Yes, we had a maid who cooked, cleaned, and did our laundry. I felt like John D. Hackensacker. 

So on Sundays my companion and I would dine out, all three meals. Canned food, ramen noodles, and microwavable fare had not yet penetrated the raw environs where we knocked on doors and held street meetings. So it was either eat out or starve. I talked this over with Elder Heier one day, and we decided to carry our own lunch on Sundays when we went out tracting in the broiling tropical sun, and subsist on fruits and leftover rice for our breakfast and dinner. We bought 3-tier stainless steel stackable lunch pails and had the maid fill them with curry and Chinese pickles and other goodies on Saturday night. We didn't bother to refrigerate them, since our maid used an obscene amount of msg -- enough to theoretically disable every bacillus in a ten yard radius. Besides, once filled and stacked they didn't fit in our cramped little fridge. 

That Sunday we walked through an entire muu baan -- a gated suburban community -- and didn't find a single person home. Sensibly, they were all at the beach. At noon we found a shady golden shower tree to sit under and opened our lunches. Noxious steam and gas escaped from our canisters with an evil hiss, but like dimwits we went ahead and ate it all up anyways. It didn't take long for our innards to reenact the Battle of Bull Run. And brother, did we run! Elder Heier and I were hors de combat for the next several days. When our mission president, Paul Morris, found out what we had done in our zealous pursuit of Sabbath purity, he patiently instructed us to forgo the deadly brown bagging and stick to the inexpensive noodle shops that lined every rural road . . . 

10:03 a.m.

Well, sir, I did NOT go to Fresh Market for a bagel. I had cream cheese on crackers instead, with a V-8, and felt very sanctified for doing so. Then I strolled leisurely to Church, taking a dozen photos or so on the way to inspire my haiku. At Church I realized today is the Primary Program -- where the children take over the Sacrament Meeting with songs and stammering speeches. So I bailed after the first fifteen minutes. If any of my own grand kids had been in the program I would have stuck around. But as it was I made a bee line straight back home to push ping pong balls around in my vinegar pool. Nemo Sine Vitio Est.   

2:18 p.m.

All the pickle soup is eaten up -- all nine people who had some said it was good. I put a meal out in the lobby most Sundays. Most of the jello with gooseberries and marshmallows is gone as well. I guess I should be pleased that I whipped up a big meal that gave nearly a dozen old people a pleasant break from their own cooking. But the skies have turned a flat disappointed grey, and I'm lacking the savor of life the way a cow lacks it until it finds a salt block. Another day lacking transcendence, which I've been searching for most of my life -- only to find the Janitor's Closet at the end of my quest instead.

And the vinegar pool is full of dead bugs. Fool insects; don't they know any better than to monkey around with acetic acid?

I'm gonna quit writing for the rest of the day, to - to - to - to what? Sit immobile like a slug? But a slug doesn't sit; what has it got to sit on? It doesn't lean on anything or lay down. It piles itself on itself, then spreads out like an amoeba or spilled corn syrup. The freshness I started out with today has gone AWOL. I need a good movie; something schmaltzy and ethnic. I'll watch Irene Dunne in 'I Remember Mama' on YouTube -- I can stream it for three dollars. I watched that movie with Amy years ago and I still remember her bright laughter during parts of the film. I loved to hear her laugh; it's been nearly 30 years since I've heard that pleasant sound. I could rarely make her laugh myself. Her brother Wiley could make her laugh until she wet herself, but I could hardly get a giggle out of her. So when I did hear her laugh it was always a happy grace note to my day. In the early days of our marriage we would go to bed early and read to each other. She would read Jane Austen to me, and I would read James Herriot to her -- she loved his puckish humor around barnyard animals, giving out with a fluttery chuckle that was both innocent and arousing. 

Joom, being a Thai, loved laughing for laughing's sake. She could go from raging turmoil to guffawing delight in an instant -- for no discernible reason that I could see. One unbearably hot day, when we were both out of sorts, she warned me not to take another handful of her dog Neepoo's food from the bag to feed to the fish in the pond. I said okay, khrab. Then when I thought she wasn't looking I grabbed a handful of dog food, ran out to the fish pond, and began tossing nuggets into the water -- watching first the minnows come up to investigate, then the bigger fish to eat the minnows, then the solemn soft shell turtles to push every other thing aside to engulf the disintegrating nuggets. Enjoying myself, I didn't notice Joom creeping up on me, her scowl like a thundercloud, with a bamboo stick. With a crude curse she let me have one across the back of my legs, then chased me around the fish pond with every intention of raising some hearty welts on my farang hide. Half way around the pond I tripped over a liana vine, crashing into the mud. Joom jumped on top of me to continue her punishment but as she lifted the bamboo cane a gust of laughter overwhelmed her. We rolled around in the muck while I tried to take off her blouse, until Neepoo took it upon herself to start licking the mud off our faces. Joom was still laughing uproariously when she got up to go shower. I was smiling, too; but not laughing quite as much -- she'd left some very sincere weals on me.   

I don't remember my mom and dad laughing very much. At least not with each other. When they were with their own crowd they yukked it up like normal folks, but when it was just the two of them (and us kids) they clammed up and lost their sense of humor. I'm sure that's part of the reason I always wanted to be a clown; to get them laughing together. When Amy and I stopped being able to entertain each other our relationship suffered a terminal stroke.

When I was buying vinegar at Fresh Market yesterday I also picked up a TIME Magazine special edition, called 'The Science of Laughter.' It set me back thirteen bucks. I haven't delved into it yet -- it'll probably just lay around the living room like a piece of fusty bric-a-brac until I throw it out. After being a circus clown for so long, I kinda know all there is to know about any science that goes along with laughter:

When you're with friends or in an intimate setting you work as fast as you can to get the laugh. And you never repeat yourself if someone doesn't get the joke the first time. Just keep going. That's the most effective way to get a laugh.

With big impersonal crowds, you work real slow. Slower than you think you should. I remember watching Otto Griebling, the great Ringling tramp clown, sitting on an elephant tub during come in -- when the audience is finding their seats and getting their popcorn before the show starts. He patiently knitted a formless skein of yarn, holding it up whenever a busty young woman walked by to see if it might fit her generous proportions. He did so in a slow, workmanlike manner -- dead serious. The crowd loved it, giving him a standing ovation when he finally shambled off at the tweet of the ringmaster's whistle. So I kept slowing down my own clowning, until it seemed like slow motion to me -- and that's when I finally succeeded in getting the real belly laughs out of a crowd.    

Sunday evening; nobody calls, nobody visits. Should I watch Supergirl on Netflix or read a book to improve my mind? Seems like I can only read for an hour at a time anymore. After that my eyes start to smart and my attention wanders atrociously. It wasn't always that way.

On my mission in Thailand there was a snafu at the Mission Office, so I was left without a companion the very last week I was there.  I was marooned at the office, since missionaries could not go out proselytizing by themselves -- they tried to give me some gainful employment. I don't remember what I did -- maybe lick envelopes -- but whatever it was I botched it, so I was told to sit in a corner quietly and maybe read a book or something. President Harvey Brown, who took over from Paul Morris, had a ton of Church books, which he kept at the office, so I dived right in. It beat tracting those hot muggy Bangkok streets, so narrow that a tuk tuk might run me over at any moment, or a rabid dog sink its fangs into my tender white shin.

I remember starting with a huge volume: MAN: His Origin and Destiny, by Joseph Fielding Smith. An anti-evolution tome that exhaustively examined the fakes and flummery of early evolutionists like Huxley and Thomas Hunt Morgan. Then I moved on to 'The Fate of the Persecutors of the Prophet Joseph Smith' by N.B. Lundwall -- a hair-raising account of the grisly end of some of the Prophet's worst enemies. I immersed myself in the Cleon Skousen trilogy:

The First 2000 years; The Third Thousand Years; and The Fourth Thousand Years. 'The Miracle of Forgiveness' by Spencer W. Kimball moved me to tears. I inhaled all five volumes of 'Out of the Best Books.'  I read from nine in the morning until seven at night, with breaks only for eating and the bathroom. I didn't want to stop reading Church theology and history, and almost went into shock when it was time to get on the plane back to Minneapolis and I had to leave all those books behind. 

As President Brown shook my hand and bade me godspeed at the Don Muang Airport, he asked me what I wanted to do when I got home -- try college, perhaps, or would I go back to the circus?

"I want to be a barber" I told him, truthfully. 

"Whatever for?" he asked, thunderstruck.

"They always have a lot of reading material around their shop" I replied confidently, "and I want to keep reading like I did this past week."

He gazed at me shrewdly, saw that I was actually sincere, and gave me some profound advice:

"Elder" he told me, with his hand on my shoulder, "girls don't like men that read too many books."

*********************************

A friend in Thailand, with family ties here in Provo/Orem, emailed me back about barbers, thus:  

ohhhhh Tim... you would have made a great Barber!

The barber from my youth, Don Dick, a Menonite with a sharp tongue, learned the trade in the Navy! I like to get my haircut by him just to have the conversation and hear his jokes and sarcasm! 

Maybe you should go to barber school now and start cutting heads in your front room. You could use the Perpetual Education Fund to pay for it. Seriously! You'd make a great barber!

So, girls don't like men that read too many books, eh....what about men who "write too many books?"

Min Tull. Saturday. September 29. 2018

I took an Art class at the University of Minnesota back in 2000. It was held in an old paint factory that reeked of turpentine and Paris blue. The teacher had us draw things. I hated to draw things, so took photographs of things that looked like what we were supposed to draw and turned those in instead. The teacher appreciated my devil-may-care attitude, so gave me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted in class, or in the entire building for that matter. Naturally, I gravitated towards performance art.

One morning I came very early, before sunrise, and hung 32 cheap umbrellas upside down with fish line from the studio girders. The teacher couldn't stop laughing when he saw it; but some busybody from the Dean's office was alerted to this brolly brouhaha of mine and decided there was a chance someone could poke their eye out on one of the sharp ends of an umbrella rib, so I had to yank each umbrella down and hand it off to a stoical janitor. 

A week or two later I once again stealthily entered the Art building before the sun made its appearance. This time I blew up a hundred plus balloons and laid them on the cement steps leading from the first to the second floor. As sleepy students trickled in they initially tried to avoid stepping on the balloons, but then got tired of pirouetting and started stomping on them. This created a booming reverberation that someone took for gunfire. Soon the campus police had the building surrounded, and my Art teacher had to do some fast talking to keep me from being tossed in the hoosegow for terrorist activities. 

You'd think this would cool my jets, artistically speaking. Not a chance. 

Towards the end of the semester the teacher, whose good name I regretfully cannot remember, offered me a small side room on the first floor to exhibit some of my stranger whims if I so wished. It was painted dark purple, about the size of a broom closet. I accepted his challenge, immediately going to the Goodwill Store to purchase the largest glass fishbowl I could find. I swiped a cheesy pedestal from the basement, painted it black, put the bowl on it in the purple exhibition room, and filled the bowl with two gallons of cheap vodka. Then stuck a long straw into the bowl and hung a sign on the pedestal reading: 'NO UNDERAGE SIPPING.'

I had to replenish the bowl every other day, after carefully netting out all the dead flies (I'm sure they had a spiritedly happy demise.)  The Art faculty began commenting on how cheerful yet inattentive their students were for Finals that semester. 

I enjoyed taking that class, though it's debatable if I actually learned anything in it -- except perhaps to refrain from placing hundreds of inflated balloons on busy public stairways. 

That artistic vagary lives still in me today. My last two goldfish died this morning, so I emptied the light green plastic sled I had kept filled with water for them. Then I went over to Fresh Market for 3 gallons of vinegar and a package of six ping pong balls. Now the light green pool is full of vinegar, with the white ping pong balls blown by the breeze into a huddle on the side. 

My vinegar pool, with ping pong balls

**********************************

Readers are becoming passionate about my new book of poetry . . . 

Donuts

Give me donuts, sweet and light;
I can eat 'em ev'ry night.
In the morning, too, I munch
on 'em, and they're good for lunch.

Frosted or filled up with jam,
into my mouth I'll gladly cram
as many as they have on sale.
(Oh stomach, please do not me fail!)

Who cares if logos change a bit?
As long as crullers do not quit!
A baker's dozen I declare
will be the answer to my prayer.  

Min Tull. Friday. September 28. 2018.

According to people familiar with the debate, some officials at the State Department have urged the administration to scale back its military support. Meanwhile, others at the White House National Security Council want to see the U.S. provide more intelligence and advice when the Saudi-led coalition is carrying out risky strikes, such as the one on Aug. 9 that mistakenly targeted the Yemeni school bus, killing more than 40 children.   WSJ

When killing children on a bus

the State Department doesn't fuss.

Why should they ever feel unease

with massacres far overseas?

(Jon Talton, Economics Columnist of the Seattle Times, responded to my above poem thus:  Endless war. USA USA.)

********************************

5:23 a.m. 

My friend in the Pacific advised me to plant fewer poems in my story. Which, on reflection, seems like a good idea. I'll limit myself to just one poem per chapter. But that doesn't mean I should stint on photographs.

Fresh Market Fall for sale

Adam gave me eight Adam Aberback rewrites this week; in order to motivate myself to get them done in a timely fashion I promise myself a fresh bagel from Fresh Market each morning as soon as I finish the first rewrite. Aberback is as dull as dishwater, so these rewrites, which make me twenty five bucks each, are a pain in the tuchas. 

They're a friendly bunch at Fresh Market

I prefer the Cheddar/Jalapeno bagel, smeared with smoked salmon-flavored cream cheese. With a couple of green onions on the side. And an ice cold V-8.

The baked goods case at Fresh Market

I've stopped taking photographs of human beings, even my own family. Everyone nowadays is painfully proprietary about their image. Even my kids get mad when I post a photo of one of the grand kids that they don't think shows them in the best light. Phooey. Bagels don't give me any lip when I post their picture. 

I consider my life to be a work of art, so am anxious to spread the glorious manifestation of my genius to the entire world. Christina Zhao, a reporter for News Week magazine, interviewed me on the phone 2 months ago and promised the article would post by the beginning of September. It never did, so I emailed her about it. Here is her reply from this morning:

Hi Tim,

Apologies - everything has been quite hectic around here. Today is my last day in the London bureau as I will be moving back to NZ to be with family. I'll still be working for Newsweek from NZ :) We haven't killed your story but I had a backlog of stories to do over the past month, as yours was not super time sensitive, I've pushed it back. I will be taking a few months off from writing quick hits and will spend the next few months travelling and spending my time writing longer stories.

I will get your story out Tim. Definitely no later than end of this year. When's your book coming out?

I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Should I be glad that it's still in the pipeline, or furious at her cavalier attitude towards my story? I guess I have no choice but to grin and bear it. But I gotta say, my desire to stay even-tempered today is wearing mighty thin. 

Still, I had somewhat of a pleasant epiphany earlier today after eating at the Silver Dish. I had their Udorn Pork Noodles, for $8.99. The kind of soupy dish that is slurped up with an oversize spoon and chopsticks. Enough of it dribbled down my chin to feed a moderately sized orphan. I chatted up the owner and nonchalantly hinted that I'm looking for a Thai girlfriend. He just kept grinning like a jack-o-lantern, bobbing his head up and down until I was afraid it might fall off. I'm not a mind reader, but I doubt he cares a fig about my romantic inclinations. So I'm scratching the place off my rendezvous list. Besides, something has come up that I'll have to deal with first before proceeding with my Asian bride quest. But more of that in a moment.

 (Note to my future publisher:  I want each page of this novel to be impregnated with aloe vera, lanolin, and vitamin E -- so that each time the reader turns a page their fingertips become a little bit softer, moister, and healthier. Should be a great selling point, nu?)

I can't help it -- this headline from the New York Times today is irresistible --   "Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50 Million Users."

A hacker took Facebook apart,

serving him up a blanche carte

to pick and to choose

what data you'll loose

so crooks can their fortunes jump start.

Now back to my reality -- or at least as much of it as I choose to reveal and analyze. I walked out of the Silver Spoon, having left a two dollar tip in greenbacks, and walked into the Pioneer Bookstore to find a copy of Laurence Sterne's 'Tristram Shandy' -- a book that every civilized being should review and enjoy once a decade. I hadn't read it since Amy and I lived in Wichita, Kansas, where I worked as Ronald McDonald. I found a 1950 Modern Library edition for seven dollars, then sat down to savor it a moment amidst the shelves and piles and heaps of used books. And that's when it struck me that although I loved strolling on a randy beach with Joom in Thailand, and felt easy in the hot tub at the Provo Recreation Center -- there is no place I'd rather be than seated comfortably in a used book store. The smell of decomposing glue and paper and buckram works like aroma therapy on me. Each book, with its sagging spine and dog eared pages, is a tattered friend patiently waiting for me to sit down with it and go over the glorious old times together. The patrons are quiet and timid. They dress in corduroy and baggy sweaters, wearing dingy woolen caps. Most of 'em wear glasses. The floor gives a little creak as I drift from Classics to Sci Fi, and then to Naval History. 

If I had my druthers I'd own a used bookstore and sleep right in the middle of it, making change for customers in bed from an old cigar box, still in my linen nightshirt and night cap. There'd be an insolent and fat tabby cat in the window next to the potted geranium. I'd give away cans of cheap sardines to any customer I took a fancy to. Probably eat them in bed, too, with some Ry Krisp crackers and a half dozen mozzarella sticks. 

That, that is my Happy Place -- the place I'm going to from now on as the possibility of darker and heavier matters looms on my horizon. 

3:42 p.m.

I emailed an older Thai lady of my acquaintance up in Salt Lake City yesterday to see if she could recommend anyone for my bridal cravings. She replied thus:

Hi Tim,

I am well, thank you.  How about yourself?

I don’t have anyone that I can think of right away.  But will keep in mind that you are looking.

I consider you my friend.  You gave 2 years of your life to serve the Thai people.  I am grateful for that.  I will want you to have someone who have your happiness and well being in mind.  Finding a good people in this day and age is like trying to find a needle in an ocean.  Every one has his or her own agenda.

What is marriage to you?  What are you seeking?

Talk soon,

What is marriage to me, indeed? I was going to give her a list of my specific desires after going to the Rec Center for a swim this afternoon, but after I left the Pioneer Book store, headed to the Rec Center, I suddenly became exhausted and disoriented, sweating profusely. This is not the first time such a thing has happened to me. In fact, I often have to stop and catch my breath while walking the six blocks to the Rec Center. My mind clouds over with baseless despair. And I sometimes forget where I'm going. My stamina has evaporated, and I am also becoming incontinent. I can't avoid the Argentinosaurus in the room any longer; I'm too sick to muster the energy to court a woman right now. I need to find out what's wrong with me and see if I can get better.

After waiting eleven minutes on hold I got through to my clinic at the East Park Building and made an appointment to see Dr. Walker this coming Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Having turned 65 this month I now qualify for Medicare, so I can afford all the tests and specialist examinations my GP wants to recommend. 

But who wants to read another old man's story about his aches and pains? It'd be like watching fish sleep. Of course, if I'm diagnosed with something terminal like cancer then my fortune is made -- there's always room for another bestseller about the plucky little everyman who beats the odds with the help of heroic doctors, sexy nurses, earthy orderlies, and eventually triumphs over the villainous insurance companies that want to do him out of his cure because of their skinflint ways. It's a surefire movie option or I'll eat my tam o'shanter. I see Tom Cruise in the roll of me, stoically enduring one colonoscopy after another with that ironic little grin of his.

So that's it, then. My pursuit of an Asian helpmate must be put on the back burner for now, as I marshal all my wit and resources to conquer whatever it is that is demolishing my energy and libido. Right now the thought of taking even Tao Okamodo out to dinner and a movie fills me with dread, not lusty anticipation. I'd rather sit in my recliner sipping Bengal Spice herbal tea while watching Supergirl on Netflix. 

So once again we come to the problem of what the 'narrative arc' of this novel will be. For I am more convinced than ever that this work is not a mere memoir, a jumble of place names and name dropping blended into a jejune cocktail. No! There must be strum und drang aplenty, and raucous, memorable characters whose shenanigans serve to highlight my own flaws and favors. 

Perhaps, since I have already started on an improvement plan to captivate an Asian woman, I should hold to that self improvement motif -- as wise old Benjamin Franklin did in his Autobiography. He listed the virtues he would incorporate into his life thus:

Temperance; Silence; Frugality; Industry; Sincerity; Cleanliness; Tranquility; Humility; and Chastity. 

Some of these virtues I am already on friendly terms with, like chastity, frugality, and cleanliness. I'm a bit rusty with some of the others. Old Ben doesn't mention curbing his temper, so I'm assuming he never saw that as either a problem or much of a virtue. However in my case I feel the need, as I have mentioned before, of combating the sourness and petty meanness into which I so often fall. So I shall add Kindness to the above list. And I intend to do something kind before the end of this day:

I've been reading Deanna Paul's reporting on the Kavanaugh hearings for the Washington Post, and I'm impressed with her balanced and low keyed reporting style. I'll write her a note saying so, and send it snail mail.   Lemme see . . . 

Dear Ms. Paul;

Your work on the Kavanaugh hearings is superb. I enjoy reading it, and learned much from your professional research. Keep up the powerful prose!

Sincerely yours,  Tim Torkildson

There. I wrote it, put a stamp on it, and dropped it in the mail slot in the front lobby. To me, sending a card snail mail is not only kind, but quaint -- kinda like old Ben himself. 

5:49 p.m. 

That tired, confused feeling is creeping over me again. Think I'll go to bed for a while . . . 

Min Tull. Thursday. September 27. 2018

Poetry is like a fireplace in the summer or a fan in the winter.

Issa

Some people are picky about what they want the public to know of them and their opinions. And then there are those sweet-natured beings who understand that a great work of art like this here thingy needs the freshness of open correspondence. My Thai pen pal, who initially seemed to blow a gasket over this issue, just sent me this:

My dear friend Tim,

I do appreciate your response with your Min Tull. Now you have cleared my mind. I am glad to hear your input with the messages in my last email. As you wrote, " My words reveal a loving heart and tender spirit which you believed you should share with the others to brighten their lives." That was good Tim, thank you.

Therefore, I wish to take this opportunity to share with you more about myself. As I have posted my message on facebook on New Year's Day of 2018, I wrote " People use the Internet to benefit them one way or another. That's why I am here to take a leap of faith. I am seeking for a humble  and warm hearted individual. Who intend to choose a new chapter of life. To make the best of 2018 together with me."

I am an Asain woman who loves to be myself and  to speak of my mind. My mission on earth is to help make this world a better place to live. I am blessed with several talents. My speacialty is cooking. I can cook different types of food. As someone have told me before that to get to a man's heart is to get through his stomach. I am sure I would get an A out of this. I grew up in English environment in my country, so I always love to use English to communicate with other English speakers. I love reading, writing and being a translator. I also enjoy philosophy of life. My education background was in music. Singing is my second favorite hobby. I love listening to all types of music. I am not scare to present myself in front of people. I love to tell jokes to make others laugh and to enjoy my company. I belive that laughing is the best medicine for everyone. I want to live in a happy home which I would create a romantic atmosphere. I am also interested to learn more of a new culture, way of thinking, living and etc. Well there are so much more to share but I would put a break here for now.

I wish to find someone who I would build a strong, solid foundation with him. A man who I would respect and honor to be his woman. I will always fix him with healthy meals. I will take good care of him when he is not well. Willing to scrub his back and gives him a Tradition Thai Massage to help release his tensions. We will help each other to achieve our short or long term goals. We will spend our quality time as needed. We will go for a walk, a movie, a swim, a picnic, a fishing or driving to visit some interesting and beautiful places. We will read our scriptures and go to chruch together. 

As I belive that abundance is within us. He does not have to be rich. Because with our wisdom, we can create variety of things out of a few ingredients or elements. I have been living long enough to understand what and how to live so that we can fulfill our life's purpose. All of us looking for happiness and so do I !!! With this email, Tim,  I would like you to help share it to other people. So my message will get across to someone out there as well. 

I am working very hard to get myself as strong as I used to be. So I will start to do myown things and be independent once again. Tim, I hope you are feeling okay with the things I'm writing to you. I will keep following my dreams and desires. I do believe in if there's a will, there's will always be a way. I have been prayers and manifest my desires for more that one year now. And I'm a woman who will not give up easily. I would appreciate if you have any advise for me. 

I still wish you good luck with what you're hoping for. An Asain woman who is 20 years younger than you. Keep looking okay. She's out there somewhere.

Please keep up the good work. May your novel writing will attract your readers attention. Please stay strong and keep smiling okay.  I hope to hear fom you soon.

And my friend in the Pacific has decided to come out of the email closet and let me use his rambling recriminations, thus:

I'm trying to adhere to your requirement that if I write to you I can expect the possibility it may end up in your novel.  I knew it when I wrote it, and I'm willing to face the scrutiny and rejection of any members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint I know now or have known in the past.  It's time to stand up for what I think is fair and decent, and I no longer care what they may think.  My quality friends would not reject me for such things, and that's one reason I feel I can write to you about them. The hearing is over today.  I note there were at least 4 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint senators on the committee and they are all Republicans.  Only one of all the Republicans on the committee who spoke said anything that was decent, and that was Jeff Flake, a The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint person.  It's too bad he's leaving the Senate.  I have no respect for the integrity or even the moral character of any of them, except Flake, if they feel justified in playing the games they have played.  And the other three TCoJCoLdS members make me feel pretty uncomfortable with the idea of being in association with like minded members.  

And I wonder if after you confess your sins to your religious leader that you can justify a complete denial of your past actions, as if "The Lord remembers them no more", so you should forget them too and even deny them.  It is my belief that this is what Kavanaugh has done.  I believe he feels justified in lying.   He probably even thinks that his God approves of his lying.  The ends justify the means, because we need to prepare for Jesus' return and the ultimate fight with the Democrats at Armageddon.

.

Now with that kind of cooperation I can give Charles Dickens a run for his money.

I went back to the SIlver Dish for lunch at 11 this morning, but the Thai woman was back in the kitchen, using a loud voice and rough language because their waiter was gone to the dentist for the day. I'm becoming less interested in her. I'll visit tomorrow to see if anything develops, and then drop the place. Eating out, for me, by myself, is unfulfilling and makes me feel superfluous. 

ice cubs in my glass

plastic straw wrapped in paper

the red table tilts

Thai food doesn't taste as well in Provo, Utah, as it did in Ban Phe, Thailand. The prodigal luxuriousness of the tropics always gave me a voracious physical appetite. Too much so, sometimes. And my sense of wonder while living over there never became surfeited. One evening Alex Janney and I were walking towards his restaurant, Que Pasa, in Nonthaburi. A storm cloud towered above us, shooting up for miles. It was intermittently lit on the inside by vivid bursts of reddish green lightening, but there was no thunder. The majestic silence of the approaching storm held us both in place for several minutes. Alex called his Thai wife at the restaurant to tell her to go outside to enjoy the spectacle, but she didn't catch the urgent delight in his voice. She scorned his invitation in order to stay in a hot, greasy kitchen frying taco meat. We made it to the restaurant just as a sheet of rain fell down from the skies like a cloak flung from the back of a god. 

Alex felt he owed his life to Bart Seliger, a mutual friend of ours. Bart was my first companion when I began my mission in Thailand. He helped Alex overcome a suicidal rage at his first wife divorcing him, and introduced him to his second wife -- a Thai. So when Bart asked Alex to look after me when I came back to Thailand after my divorce in 2000, he did so out of a sense of obligation to Bart, and not out of any respect or affection for me. We tried to work out a mutually respectful relationship together, going into a sales partnership with items I scouted out at the Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok. I found a booth in that bustling oriental warren that sold orchids gilded with gold leaf. Alex and I pooled our resources to buy a dozen of them -- they seemed like a sure bet with the farang women we knew at Church. But we only sold two of 'em. The rest stayed on display at Que Pasa, and when I returned home I took one along for my mother. 

There was a whole alley where they sold nothing but hand decorated postcards and holiday greeting cards. Using wisps of bamboo, tinsel, and bird feathers, dozens of patient, humpbacked women sat hour after hour in the steaming heat that rose from the cracked asphalt at their feet, carefully gluing these bits of fluff and chaff together into marvelous scenes of rural houses on stilts or elegant garudas baring their tusks and spreading their clawed wings. I talked Alex into purchasing a hundred postcards and fifty greeting cards with me for the upcoming Christmas season. We built a capacious display rack at his restaurant, then sat back to wait for the money to come rolling in. But in 2009 the internet had finally taken hold and everyone sent e-cards, not snail mail. All our beautiful hand-crafted cards sat gathering dust. After that debacle Alex didn't exactly turn on me, he just went back to buying and selling by and for himself. He did a brisk business with faux samurai swords and utensils made from heavy stainless steel rods twisted into spoons, forks, and knifes. Up until then he always let me have all the salsa and chips I wanted, on the cuff. But after the postcard incident his staff gave me a bill for 25 baht whenever I snacked there. His salsa was unique; it included a touch of tamarind and galangal, along with a generous helping of fermented shrimp paste. 

Needing something to keep me going, I first tried giving private English lessons to university students in Bangkok. But my pupils kept stiffing me, promising payment next week, next week, khrab. Next week never seemed to come, though. Then I got on with a language school franchise called English Plus. They required me to wear a long sleeved white shirt and dark necktie -- and provided me with classrooms full of obstreperous children whose rich parents had spoiled them beyond the point of insolence. I walked into my first class the first day and greeted my pupils thus:

"Hello. My name is Mr. Torkildson. I am your teacher today."

To which one of the little nippers replied:

" Buzz off, big nose." His pronunciation and diction were flawless. 

"Goodbye. You have just seen the last of your teacher, Mr. Torkildson" I said brightly as I stepped out of the room, down the hall, took off my tie, and told the receptionist my grandmother had just passed away and I would be gone for the next twenty years.

Up next was the Morinda Tahitian Noni Juice Company, where friends set me up as a publicity agent. Did you know that noni juice can cure things like cancer and clinical depression? Neither did I. 

I wrote a passel of press releases, extolling the juice's superlative healing properties, hating myself every minute that I spent scribbling such humbug. One day I broke down weeping at my desk -- and that same day I looked up Dave Phelps to borrow the money to fly back to the United States. 

6:46 p.m.  

I don't want to narrate any more of my past tonight. The waning sun on the mountains outside my patio door casts no long shadows, so why should I?

The above photo, taken in my living room on the couch my son Stephen gave me 3 months ago, shows my very first can of Colman's Mustard -- bought this morning at Fresh Market for $4.99. I bought it out of curiosity, because I want to know why it is such a staple in grocery stores.I remember seeing it in exactly the same kind of container when my mother took me shopping with her to the Red Owl in New Brighton back in 1957. Just having it in my kitchen cabinet will have a calming effect on my frenzied cooking efforts. I'll swing open the cabinet door, looking for the anchovy paste or a bottle of capers, and there will be the little yellow tin of Colman's -- staid and immovable, reminding me that perhaps I don't need to mix in that full cup of balsamic vinegar after all. A steadying influence.

Never volunteer for a suicide mission unless you can take at least one lawyer with you.

 

The Farmer and the Tariff

The Trump administration has started compensating U.S. farmers for damage tariffs are doing to their business.

Many farmers say the payments won’t make up for lost sales to China and other foreign markets they were counting on to buy the huge amounts of crops and meat being producedacross the Farm Belt.   WSJ

You ever plant a tariff, seen it grow into some food?

Or watch it lay a bunch of eggs and look after its brood?

Will tariffs give you milk and cheese or bacon in the pan?

Grind it all you want, but it won't even give you bran.

Yet government keeps pushing tariffs as a great big blessing;

I'd like to see the President try eating one with dressing.

Our barns and silos are so full that they're about to burst --

but damned if we will plant next year while feeling so coerced!

**********************************