The last two nights I have locked my keys in my car.

The first night, Tuesday, Valentine’s Day, I was at Target geting things, came out reaching for my keys in the pocket I always try to put it in so I don’t misplace them and, lo and behold, they were misplaced. But not in any other pocket. I actually had no idea where they were. I retraced my steps past the toothpaste and toilet paper. No keys. Through the books and DVDs. No keys. Past the bathroom rugs and sticky things you put under rugs to keep them from slipping on wood floors. No keys. I checked the toilet and around it. Thank God, no keys. So I called AAA, I’m just about to finish the order for a locksmith and get my confirmation number and my phone dies. I use Targets phone and have to go through the process again and they tell me that they will try to rush it as Target was closing in ten minutes and it was C-O-L-D outside. At first the security gaurd said I could wait in the draft catcher area, but then his supervisor told him it was against policy. So they kicked me out. It can take AAA up to an hour and a half to show up, so there was no way I was going to sit outside. I ran to a nearby McDonald’s that was doing remoldeling and got to sit with the sounds of shuffling construction workers and power saws waiting for the McDonald’s phone to charge so I could let AAA I had moved my location. Before I could get a call in I saw a tow truck pull in the parking lot about a quater mile away. I booked it and waved him over to my car. With a few tugs and bending of his special balde he had my door open. AAAhhh… (hey that would be a good marketing campaign for AAA. “With AAA your worries can die with your car. AAAhhh…”) I found my keys and drove away.

The next day: I go to church. Same thing. No keys. But this time I felt a little foolish. So, I searched the church for a hanger. Found one, and tried to break into my car, the guy made it look so easy the night before. So here’s me with a black coat, skull cap, big, leathery Carhartt gloves trying to brak into a car at 9 o’clock at night. So I found it humiliatingly reassuing that so many people felt the need to look into what was going on:

” Yeauh. I’m trying to break into my car.”
” Do you want me to call a locksmith?”
” Naw, I got AAA.”
” Well, why don’t you call them. That’s what you pay them for.”
” Well, uh, I kinda did this yesterday too, and I had them come to open my car and I don’t want to use all of my free ones. It looked easy enough. I’ll be all right. Thanks.”

Car drives away. Next car in a line of twenty pulls up:
” Hey. You need some help?”

Well, the hanger didn’t work so well. I think it wasn’t stiff enough. I think if I wasn’t already tired and it wasn’t so freaking cold I would have persisted, but it was and I caved. Again, I gave AAA a call. The guy on the phone tried to encourage me with, “Well, at least you didn’t leave it running and you’re in a safe place. Those locksmith guys always find churches real easy.” These words of course following a little chuckle.

So I wait. This time longer, but I get some emailing done and go over some choreography I will teach to some grade schoolers the next day. The guy comes, lets me in, and we go our own ways. Now you know, I missed a witness opportunity there. I could have made an analogy alluding to how we as sinners are locked out of the car of everlasting Life and that Jesus, if you will, is our locksmith and that AAA is our prayer to God to let us in. But God, who is good, doesn’t make us wait an hour and a half to open the door, He does it right away. But the guy looked cold, so I just signed his waiver-form-thing and drove home shaking my head in my shame.

So I guess I have proved our dear president wrong when he said,

‘Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again’.

I have played the fool. My keys have outsmarted me. As hard as I try to keep a habit of placing them in my right breast pocket they will always find a way to lodge themselves between seat and parking break. They will forever find ways to distract me to leave them swinging in the ignition. It is a fact of life. I can buffer the experience with aids like AAA, but the day is quickly approaching when my AAA benefits will run out, and I will not find a hanger, and no church people will be around to help, and there’ll be no McDonald’s around (that’s stretching it a bit, I know), and I will find myself clawing at the window of a white, padded room.

Pure love.

Don’t cry. God gave us sweet ol’ Tom to keep us warm these cold February days. I know I feel loved.

Tom Sellek: God’s Valentine to earth.

* And I don’t mean that in a gay way. Just a warm, satisfied way in seeing a fellow man wear a mustache well. I say to myself, “Yes, that’s the way to do it!”

For such a long time I’ve been climbing this mountain. Feels like an Everest, but it’s probably closer to a Rainer. There seems to be more crevices than clearings, more fog than sun. There seems to be more mountain than I can handle. On this climb I once saw the bright, cold sunlight over a ledge above. It was far and obstacled, but I went toward it. It wasn’t a trully warming light, but it was a hint of what was at the peak and would have left me encouraged had I reached it and climbed with it on my face. I found myself stuck, though, and had to retrace my steps and find another route in the dark.

The dark is not always bad, I sometimes have my best dreams of the warm sun in the dark.

I found another clearing. It appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I was probably looking at my boots, dwelling on my soaked feet. But the brightness caught my eyes and held them. I took two steps and it faded. I could still make out the clearing, but I was mostly blind and cold. There was that promise of a clearing that offered hope. There was the relief that the light I saw was warming other climbers, and might come back. But I can’t stop the sick tingle in my gut that’s whispering, “It’s another impass. A crevice to remind you of falling, that you are alone.” It is a lie. There may not be any clearing, a trick of my heart, but I know that I won’t be alone.

I’m not alone. It feels good to break the cold with that Truth. It almost settles my stomach. Maybe I’ll wait with this new heat in my coat. Pull my hands in. Close my eyes and wait. Maybe the light will show again.

The last few weeks of January I was on tour with Shapiro and Smith Dance in
New York City. It was a great experience and the company got some pretty
good write-ups. I got mentioned in them even! The Times compares me to a
flea. Anyway, check them out, it’s kinda neat:

New York Times

New York Newsday

Village Voice

And what would I have done if I
saw Tracie on the beach today?
Walk up to her and say, “Funny
meeting you here.”
We would walk one-by-one toward
the sun setting and then head back
toward my car.
She would be at the Sheraton
wiping me out etch-a-sketch style,
or like how the water wipes out
a hole in the sand, but usually
it takes several tries because
there’s always something left after
the first few times.

We would get to my car, the last
four years passed between us, and by
then she would have confirmed that the
guy with whom she was traveling
was her boyfriend.
I’d have a few moment’s feeling
of superiority’s swell,
a few moments.

She would need to walk back to the
hotel because so-and-so would
be waiting and nervous because
he’d know who I was but he’d be
a great guy so he’d let her walk
with me alone and at sunset.
I’d walk her back and by this time
we’d be talking of the irony
of the situation and she’d
be saying that she thought something
like this might happen and she would
say that it was good that it did,
yes, good for her.
“Wow! I’m so glad you’re doing well, Eddie.”
She would have forgiven me for
our last conversation and be
walking slightly faster than I
would like to walk.

We’d pass the torches and the International Market.
We’d pass lovers and families.
We’d stop in the entrance to the hotel
and lots of people would be coming and leaving.

Her boyfriend would be sitting in
the lobby but he wouldn’t get
up when he saw us, tamed and trained.
He would have a book and a pen,
hiding his lips he’d smile at us.
And he’d be sitting there writing
wearing flip-flops.
He would be taller than me and I would
not be able to smell cologne on him.

I’d leave the hotel and
walk back a thoughtful pace
and stop for an ice cream
at a Baskin-Robbin’s:
Blue Moon over Cotton Candy.
I would sit in patio seating and watch the sidewalk.

Then I would replay our walk in my head:

– Tracie always seemed to know
stuff like that was going to happen.

– When I looked back to see
how far we’d gone since we started
I saw what a good job the water
was doing replacing the sand, mechanically.

– When she talked to me I felt
as a listener must feel when being
told a person’s near-death/out-of-body/
light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel story
just after her return.

– Why didn’t I ask her
to drive for a little while with me or
sit by the water with me for a little while?

My list would continue as such until
I would remember where Tracie’s eyes were;
she’d have been looking at the horizon.

Check it out (it’s in Philly): “Wooooo!”

It was just confirmed to me last night that I will be doing a solo at the Southern Theatre in Minneapolis in the first few weeks of November. I have still yet to choreograph it, but I am very excited as it may be the first time my choreography will be officially reviewed!

Generally I am pretty good at holding my tongue. Once in a while an explative might slip out when a wrench slips or I put my finger in the wrong place when opening a tin can and I cut myself or leave a largish bruise. Well, my cussing last Thursday was more thoughtful than simple explative. What made it complex explative is that when I sprained my ankle in the last minute of my workout, on the home stretch, I was thinking about the couch that I have to jump over when I go on tour this Friday.

My workout consists of a quick warm-up jog to the park, just to get a little sweaty and get my breathing regular. When I get to the park I run to the baseball fences (You know, the tall ones that sometimes have an overhang?) and climb over a series of fences until I get to some trees. I scale the trees and come down the other side. There are about 4-5 of them. Then I run to an elementary school, climb a bigger tree, then weave through several columns to a wall. I scale the wall and run across it to jump down and continue to a few more tall trees. After climbing those I run down the street, turn a corner and dive-roll through people’s yards and jump over fire hydrants. When I come to a jack pine I climb it and leave it to find a few more trees in a another nearby park. After those I climb another basebal fence, climb a hockey ring fence twice, head to my last tree and start my run home. I keep a good pace until the last minute, where I take off with all I have so that when I finish I’m finished.

It was in that last minute, with my eyes on the prize (my mailbox), that I hit some crappy sidewalk and rolled my right ankle. %$@$&*#@*$&*#@*!!!!! I’ve been looking forward to this tour for a year and a half and this happens now!

I thought I heard a “POP!”, but I could still walk on it. But that doesn’t always mean much being that my body was warm. I’d feel it when the ankle cooled down. I could feel the weakness of it, though, as I approached my stairway. I let my breath out a little when I felt the ankle and didn’t find too much pain to the touch at the tendons and ligaments. I iced it immediately and elevated it, sweating all over my living room floor. I talked to my cat and asked her why this had to happen a week before tour. She didn’t know. I came to my senses and became motivated. I knew how to take care of a sprain, and I have had worse. I cancelled my sub job for the next day and stayed up until 2:30 icing and elevating. By the time I showered there was a swell on the outside joint about the size of a medium-sized marble; I’ve had much worse. The trick would be staying consistent with the physical therapy, which includes icing, massage, ankle exercises with a theraband, and wrapping it with an Ace bandage to keep the swelling down when I was on my feet.

I have been doing so, although I’ve been more active than I would have like to have been, and the swelling has gone down quite a bit. It bruised up nicely, but that is pretty much gone now too. I can feel the scar tissue settling, tight little pills forming around my ligaments that impede movement and make it easier to re-sprain , and so I dig into it a few time a day to loosen it up so that healthy tissue can take its place.

It’s healing nicely and with the exercise my ankel feels stronger. I have symphathy and prayer and people are being gentle with me. I still am nervous about having to jump over a couch. The danger of a worse sprain is still very present.

There’s something about Puma’s shoe, the Clyde, that puts my heart at ease. If you are unfamiliar with The Clyde, it’s a shoe that came out at first in the 70’s and was discontinued several years ago…

… and I am particularly fond of the classic green suede ones. I’ve gone through three pairs in the last six years and they’ve been through A LOT. I bought a blue suede pair and a dark mustard green suede pair, but I keep coming back to that classic green. It’s like my genetic make-up is engineered toward these shoes! I don’t get it!

It’s odd to me. I like change, even crave it, but this shoe keeps reeling me back in. I try to look at other shoes and seriously consider them, but they just don’t match up to those green Clydes. Simple and reliable, and Goshdarn aesthetically pleasing! Like the Rainbow Sandal (I just ordered a few classic Rainbow ones and some dark brown hemp ones!), there’s something about them that brings little head nods after a long exhale. Like cuddling with an orange tabby under a quilt or a low-angled sun on a Montana river. Little bits of perfection. Not it, but hints of it.

For a while I thought I might need to find a new shoe, but apparently they are reissuing it (they’ve already reissued 1000 limited edition pair in July, probably to see how the market will be) to larger retail stores in October and Decemeber this year!

Yes, I am starting to see how old people can get set in their ways.