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Damon

• 06.26.08
  date nite
  Daily, Damon, Exploring, Making, Self Portrait Tuesday (7)

  

  He’ll call me around 6 from Streetlight Records in San Jose, telling me he’s found the vinyl he was looking for. The night is young and it’s ours, only us, but I run through the house in a delightful frenzy kissing the boys in one room, only to meet them across the house seconds later to kiss them again there. I always worry they will fall asleep without brushing their teeth. Or fall into the bathtub. Or involuntarily kill each other…those last minutes are restless. But once I’m on the road, it’s all good.
  
  In fifteen minutes I’ve woven a peaceful thread around pedestrian traffic along the creek trail. My muscles are warm and loose and my soul is finally free. I sit at an outdoor table and order a pint of ale under palm trees and tall buildings. A crow flies directly across the peach evening sky. The smoke lingers, still without a smell; affecting no one, it exhumes the sun, a giant apricot, into its velvet folds and I sit there squinting in my chair with a foam moustache. Damon rides up alongside the table, golden with sweat and grinning. All eyes are upon him as he leans his bike next to mine against that palm tree. It’s hard not to swell with affection for this man.
  
  We stay for another round, then bolt through traffic on into San Jose, where we stay a while eating red beans and rice, cajun shrimp and Turbodog to the beat of a blues trio. And then another round.
  
  The trail, at night, is dark as pitch and it’s easy to spill over a catfight. So we slip out of the void and back onto the street, where we glide past rows of underlit palms and pawn shops and good folk waving us on. It’s a righteous pass through the soul of any city, un-tucked for the night but singing itself to sleep. There are no pretenses, just us laughing down the street half-drunk and whizzing off and on curbs because we can and because we should.

  
  
• 05.06.08
  punching in, all punchy and stuff
  Chas, Daily, Damon, Please Bear with Me (1)

  I spent time today in the sunshine, running a fast 4 miles, mulching the flower bed under sweet grapefruit blossoms, listening to the quail, admiring the profusion of blooms and bees, only to feel like complete and udder feces. We all have “off” days, when our perspective is skewed; I’ve had about three off days in a row, wondering where this is coming from and waiting for it to pass.

  All the while, Chas has been enduring a restless bout of coxsackie virus, leaving him whiney, demanding and without neither appetite nor humor to pull him through.

  But I’m helping him, and he is wrapped around me like Silly Putty, molded to my pores. His heightened nipple fetish is getting most annoying of all. It was also our 7th wedding anniversary.

  
  
• 04.19.08
  Lovelocks
  Chas, Daily, Damon, Thinking (2)

  

  When Chas was a day old, asleep in my arms, I ran my fingers through his strawberry hair and furrowed my brow, wondering where the hell his red hair came from. Neither Damon nor I have red hair. Luckily, Chas has the Sicore nose (read: funky nose that only Sicores have, both in appearance and ability, capable of detecting fabric softener within a one mile radius), so I rested knowing I wouldn’t have to prove paternity. But the red hair had me completely perplexed, and a little worried, too; Damon has always made fun of redheads and freckles, and it appeared we’d managed to spawn little orphan Annie.

  But months passed, and Chas’ hair changed. Some babies lose their hair, but Chas only grew more of it. The red paled to a towhead blonde, like Damon’s childhood hair. And while the front half of his crown grew straight, the back half grew wavy and wild. With each day, whether brushed or not, it began to tease itself into little blonde dreadlocks, and to this day it would appear that Chas, even ten minutes after having his hair combed, looks like he just got out of bed, or maybe scrubbed the bathtub with his head.

  Everybody seems to love this head of hair as much as he does; in fact, Chas will grin and tousle his hair after I brush it, just to prove I’m ineffective. He loves his hair like a loose tooth, eager to reward compliments with Bruce Lee-inspired side kicks and leaps off of chairs, which make the gold dreads bounce and fly. “I wish I had hair like that!” is an acceptable compliment, less creepy than “I want your HAIR!” Perhaps the one person who would never tire of seeing Chas’ proud display in light of these gestures, besides Chas himself, is Damon; Damon, in all honesty, would actually love to have Chas’ hair. Which, every time I hear him say it, kind of makes me cringe. I always wonder how Chas perceives this strange compliment, being a three year-old and not entirely versed in the full play of our language.

  So it happened last night, at dinner, while the four of us were in a booth waiting for our food and talking about the day, that Chas’ hair was catching the falling beams of sunset in a glorious flaxen halo. While he could have asked Chas to pass the chopsticks, or the soy sauce, Damon was stunned by the vision before him, and instead he asked,
  “Chas, can I have your hair?”

  Chas bashfully tucked his chin into his chest and grinned at Damon, telling him “Nooooooo, daddy, you can’t have my hair!” and I sat there before my empty place setting, looking for my chopsticks and wondering why it always feels to me like Damon’s asking him, “Chas, can I have your spleen?”

  But I smiled instead, and before I had the chance to ask Chas to pass the chopsticks, I looked up to find Chas reaching across the table to Damon, stretched beyond the limits of love, grinning and holding in his stout little hand a rather large lock of fine golden hair.
  “Here you go, daddy.”

  
  
• 02.09.08
  house of kerchoo
  Daily, Damon, Ford (3)

  We have, since the first day of this month, been a sick house. With the congregation of Mozilla’s worldwide posse upon the shores of San Francisco Bay, there came upon us a force so evil and full of froth that it disabled, at last count, eight employees of Damon’s staff and half of Ford’s kindergarten class, for its part. When I had blamed New Zealand for the wretched influenza, there came evidence in the form of a carbon copy paper in Ford’s backpack, on Wednesday of this week: Your child may have come into contact with one or more of the following contagious illnesses: Streptococcus A and Chickenpox. Whether the bug came from overseas or Cupertino, at this point I don’t care. My birthday came and went as far as Thursday was concerned, and here we are on Saturday night, watching old movies, still in bed for the most part: I have managed to stay uncontaminated so far, but now that I have typed this, I am watching my chronograph tick until I sneeze.

  
  
• 01.28.08
  shhh
  Chas, Daily, Damon, Ford (6)

  

  
  
• 01.13.08
  Chas-ing the Rain
  Chas, Daily, Damon, Exploring, Ford, Santa Cruz (0)

  

  With all the rain we have had in the past couple of weeks, the time is ripe for mushroom hunting. Coinciding with this annual fruiting season is the smattering of fungal swapmeets, and today was the second day of one such fair; this time in Santa Cruz. Jerry, who we have known since dotcom daze, drove down from Berkeley to escort us to the fair; were it not for him, we may have never left the house this weekend, as overcome as I am with molten wax bliss and the sound of Damon and his jazz guitar scales in the living room. Chas, for his part, would have never remembered how badly he wanted psychotropics.

  

  From the get go we recognized his discriminating faculties, glancing around the rooms for a little something beyond cuisine grade mushrooms

  

  

  Finally, he began anxiously inquiring of strangers, like a foreign traveller looking for his stolen wallet,  “Where are the poisonous mushrooms? Do you have any poisonous mushrooms?”

  

  

  To distract him, we ushered Chas to the kiddie room, where we were greeted by a happy pack of breeding hippies and their rosy-cheeked hobbit spawn, merrily dancing around the craft tables and painting colorful paper fruiting bodies.

  

  We were lured like flies back into the common area, where a group of chefs had inadvertently contaminated the breathing air with the most rank, malodorous brew of rotten mushroom stew or something of that nature (there’s no way my mind could positively translate the smell into words, my limbic system was so busy grappling with the extraordinary shock of it). On the surface, everything looked so gourmet, but inside, they were cooking Satan’s athelete’s foot.

  

  We had to split; Damon took the boys outside to the playground while Jerry taught me some basic taxonomy. The room was buzzing with woodsy nerds, all shuffling around the exhibits, crouching down, clicking their camerafones. I learned that I could probably eat one half of a cap from a Fly Agaric and still be okay.

  

  And how to differentiate between a tasty chanterelle and a toxic false chanterelle (the real one has ridges and folds–not gills).

  

  Jerry told me I passed up a perfectly good Bolete, after I described to him what I jogged by on Thursday. They are, apparently, quite tasty. Have you ever tried one? Have you ever eaten wild mushrooms? Would you try? Would you eat this man’s wild mushroom lasagna if he brought it to your potluck?

  

  
  
• 01.01.08
  Cheers!
  Daily, Damon, Home, Painting (4)

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  In bed last night, the four of us baking like cornish hens between layers of flannel, we listened with sleepy ears to our quiet neighborhood as it came alive in hoots and hollers. Midnight lasted fifteen minutes, with laughter and cheers, firecrackers and booms resounding through the wooded foothills. But we lay there, in the dark, and I think I was the only one still awake, smirking at the ceiling in the dark. I started thinking about last year, when we were toasting the new year with packed bags, drunk at Polly and Evan’s, shooting bottle rockets in the middle of the road. When you have friends, you have a party. But last night, all of our resolutions to stay up, to record music and toast the new year quietly slipped out the back door. I think our livers are tired; they need a post-holiday holiday now.

  

  I started painting over the break. The electric griddle in the studio is crowded with tin canfuls of colored wax, paintbrushes sprouting upwards like last year’s seedheads, fertile impetus to behold. I love the heady honey smell, the warmth of the medium. I can sit there at my desk, waiting for a painting to cure, and watch Damon through the glass wall as he plays guitar in the living room. He is recording an album of songs. The first thing in the morning, he gives Ford a lesson. Our house is a creative brew these days.

  

  To myself I think, would I feel so fruitful in another life without my family, our children running circles around us? The frenetic spirit the kid’s provide the house weaves like rubber band through the fiber of my being, breaking the casts of old ideals and sprouting hopes that they will grow into creative young men without a clear path before them, save for strong conviction, brave heart and sensitive soul.

  

  And what of resolutions for the new year?
  Art, every day.
  And this.

  Cheers to you and your families, that you may find the time every day to feed your soul. I wish that for everyone, not just this year but forever.

  
  
• 07.20.07
  Where’s Damon?
  Daily, Damon (1)

  

  One thing about Damon is that he’s an easy caricature. In fact, he’s his own brand. I think I’m going to take this somewhere, if he doesn’t beat me to it.

  
  
• 07.06.07
  Museum Possible
  Chas, Daily, Damon, Exploring (1)

  Above my expectations, the MOMA trip was something I can’t believe we didn’t try sooner. But our mental armor was strong that day. We pared the visit down to a Braque and that huge dog painting in the second floor foyer (hell if I remember; I was too busy trying to convince Chas that, even though the paint looked like dabs of toothpaste, he indeed could not touch it)…

  

  And then, the Matisse exhibit. For both boys, a treat: nothing but nummies, in all dimensions. Having found our medium, our tether to real life, we were set. All we had to do was circulate smoothly without shouting too many body parts and we’d eventually hit the outdoor mezzanine. It was perfect! Couldn’t have dreamed up a better recess.

  

  

  

  

  After knocking out the ya-ya’s, we had pizza downstairs.

  

  The MOMA heats up a good pint-sized pepperoni pizza and the kids devoured it. We swilled a few pints of beer and then Damon and Dwight (Damon’s brother) took the kids across the street to Yerba Buena Gardens so that I could see the rest of the Matisse exhibit in peace.

  

  

  I think the kids, mostly Ford, would have appreciated that second half of the exhibit, being a bold departure from the previous body of work. Matisse had begun cutting pieces of paper to rearrange in composition for his larger paintings. And then, down the hall, the “Jazz” series of prints, all laid out on the white table–what have we all come to know better as the work of Matisse?

  Still, what’s best for the boys is plenty or room in the schedule for freeform fun. And fortunately, what’s best for them worked out to be best for me, too. Thanks, D

  

  
  
• 09.19.06
  A New Laptop Battery is Just Like Having a New Laptop
  Austin, Daily, Damon, Painting (0)

  I am waiting for apple bisque paint to dry on paper and listening to three seperate snores. It’s allergy season. The windows are all open and neighbors just chunked two fireworks into the sky, exploding over the oaks, hissing sparkling arcs across the driveway. I imagine a handful of boys laughing a few doors down, high-fiving over a six-pack and rummaging the garage for more things to detonate. It’s a window into the Sicore boy’s future, enough to make me wince (Watch those fingers, boys!) but also smile. It’s FUN to blow stuff up!

  Damon and I went alone together to the gym this morning. We shared machines and grins. In the middle of the bustling gym floor I wanted to pounce on him. Watching him huff and puff drove me crazy. It was like a shot of Back in College, that undivided attention between us. So as soon as I picked up Chas at childcare, I scribbled down reservations for the rest of this week and next week–pencilling in about an extra half-hour for good measure, each day. Damon did the same. It feels like I’ve found a missing gasket and now I’ve replaced it, allowing the machinery to run smoothly again. This may have been one of those elusive missing things in my life.

  We took the kids out on the lake again tonight. Austin is absolutely lovely right now, fresh out of the shower and sprinkled with joggers and children and rowers and hummingbirds. I’ve been dying to bring along a camera, but too paranoid that it might get wet (which it will); the setting sun just gilts everything on its way out. Chas and Ford shared the middle seat tonight, each dragging the little wooden boats that Damon made them, holding graham crackers opposite hands. The way it should be, we just coasted in and out of cypress coves, above illicit beds of Eurasian Watermilfoil and broad mats of Hydrilla, the boys humming Sonic Youth and we, the grownups, chuckling over cold beer. We ran a Great Blue Heron off its hunt five times, tracing its hunt by accident along the convoluted, wooded banks off the lake.

  The paint is now dry. I’m daydreaming of graduate studies in painting here at the university. Priorities first, though. I close that window in my browser and step back to the table, dreaming up a series of paintings for a show. ‘Self-taught’ is satisfactory.

  
  

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