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Letters from the Country
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May 28, 2009Tattoo MeFor a while I’ve been saying my second and most recent tattoo would probably be my last. It’s big and bold, red and prominent. People notice it–a lot. It’s on my forearm, and it looks like this:
I designed it myself. It was a time-consuming and painstaking process. I bought a book Last Night I Had the Strangest DreamDashing off a midday quickie because I just remembered an odd dream I had last night, and I don’t want to forget it again… In my dream, I had shoulder-length hair, and I was struggling to part it in the center of my head, rather than on the side. My hair was rather darker and wavier than it is–er, was–in real life, and I spent a great deal of time agonizing over its refusal to do what I wanted. Whenever I passed a mirror, I paused and readjusted, trying to get the part straighter and more centered, and trying to flatten down a little pouf that had formed around the original side part. I remember planning to wash it and style it while wet, in hopes of getting it to behave. This is all very strange, and a little sad. I haven’t had enough hair to form a part in about ten years. If only I could have shoulder-length hair–without, you know, looking like this. Even when I had hair, it was fine in texture, and when I tried to grow it long, the result was deeply shameful. May 27, 2009Catching up on CorrespondenceDear GEICO, I know you’re all about saving money and stuff, but really, you should probably spring for an actual advertising agency. I’m assuming you’re currently using eight creepy guys working in cubicles in the basement. Or maybe they are chimps. Once upon a time, your ads were actually kind of clever. At any rate, I remember thinking so. I can’t say exactly when they jumped the shark, but after years of annoying and brain-dead commercials, I have completely forgotten even the barest gist of the ads that I once thought were funny. May 26, 2009Two Steps Forward, One Step … Sideways?So, yeah, this happened today. It’s not great, but it’s not a disaster, either. At least the existing marriages won’t be invalidated. (Nullifying a bunch of marriages would be a really strange way of defending marriage, wouldn’t you say?) Taking a longer view, it’s kind of amazing to me that we’ve come as far as we have. Fifteen or twenty years ago, the very idea was ludicrous. As few as four years ago, I figured this was a matter for the next generation. And now here we are. Five states have same-sex marriage now. Even in California, there will continue to be gay and lesbian marriages–there just won’t be any new ones. I hope I’m not being rashly optimistic when I say that I’m starting to see a trend here. May 25, 2009It’s Always Warm Where You AreBack in April, I posted some song lyrics, and then a bit of the music. I’ve sort-of-more-or-less-provisionally-with-lots-of-disclaimers finished setting the lyric. That smoky-sounding, low-pitched clarinet is the melody. The range of the song is totally ridiculous. I don’t have the falsetto to pull it off myself, and I doubt I know anyone who does, but I’m (mostly) sure it’s technically within the realm of human endeavor. If not, that’s why we have computers, right? May 23, 2009It’s All Right with MeLast night I went with some friends to see the Tierney Sutton Band at the Cistern. Oh, my word! This woman is a goddess. It’s a commonplace that a singer’s voice is her instrument, but in this case it’s the absolute truth of the matter. This is not a case of a backup band and a singer. Voice, piano, bass, and drums–all work together as a whole, as an ensemble. There were times when the four of them sounded like a small orchestra. Last night’s set was so remarkable that I’m going back tonight, and this time I’m taking Todd with me. There’s still time! There are still tickets! If you live anywhere near Charleston, get online and get you some! Go! Go! Do it now! May 21, 2009Weak As WaterDid I say–or imply–that I wasn’t going to milk my cold for all it was worth? Why, yes. Yes, I did. Even so, I buckled and took a sick day on Tuesday. I was back at work yesterday and today, but I felt decidedly washed out and sleepy. When I’m ill, I’m a giant crybaby. I throw a big old pity party on my own behalf. (Earlier today, as I was talking to a friend on the phone and saying all this, Todd was rolling his eyes and nodding cartoonishly, as if I were greatly understating the case.) I sniffle and sigh a lot. I become a slugabed. I get cranky. And I eat. May 18, 2009SickoN.B.: This post has nothing to do with Michael Moore. I have a cold. A plain old garden-variety common cold. I think I’ve been fighting it for days–on and off there have been inklings of a sore throat, which is almost always the first sign–and it finally kicked in yesterday. I think the thing is actually at its peak, and it’s a lot milder than it might have been. I say this reluctantly, because I generally prefer to milk an illness for all it’s worth. Picture my wasted and disheveled figure swaddled in blankets and surrounded by boxes of tissue, half-empty bottles of Chloraseptic, and a scum of Alka Seltzer Plus dust. Envision my blank staring eyes fixed upon the flickering television screen as Taylor spills the beans to Ridge about his marriage to Brooke. Imagine my parched throat croaking out a hushed and heartrending request for orange juice. May 14, 2009Behold the EminenceI’ve become an “eminent farmer” on Farm Town. No doubt this has no particular meaning to anyone, except perhaps as an indication that I spend way too much time on Farm Town. Before I left for California, I’d spent several days working my farm hard–plowing the whole thing in plots as close together as I could get them and planting them all in four-hour or one-day crops to pump up the experience points. That was getting a little boring, and I’m sure it wasn’t beneficial for the old carpal tunnel, so I decided to make some changes. I added fences and hedges, and I build a funky figure-eight path, and I planted things in smaller patches. Here’s the result: 
My Farm, After Renovation May 13, 2009Tea on Revolutionary Road with the Reader in the SnowOne of my favorite writers is someone you’ve probably never heard of. (That rather wild statement is based wholly on faulty anecdotal evidence. I’ve recently learned that she is, or was, a popular contributor to the Village Voice, but I’ve recommended her to dozens of people who’ve never heard of her.) I discovered Stacey D’Erasmo a couple of years ago, during a weekend workshop at the Nebraska Summer Writers’ Conference. We read an excerpt from A Seahorse Year. Here’s a snippet of the passage we read in the workshop, describing an evening gown on display in an exclusive San Francisco boutique:
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© 2009 Matt Dean; powered by WordPress
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about typographic tattoos. I looked at a lot of fonts. After considering literally hundreds of them, I tested about a dozen. Eventually I combined three variations of a calligraphic font–the a’s and t’s from one, the big round O from the second, and everything else from the third. (After all this time, I can’t remember if the date came from yet a fourth variation, or from one of the three.) I nudged characters up and down and sideways. I fiddled with kerning and tracking. By the time the needle first touched my arm, I knew I’d done all I possibly could to create a design I’d be happy with–and yet I still wondered if I was doing the right thing. 
I picked it up later, and it turned out to be one of the best books I’ve ever read.