David Michael Bruno

Last Night I Read

There are times when I get all inward. Yesterday was one of those times. Of course, being quiet and somewhat melancholy in a home can be difficult for a family, even as it is, all on its own, uncomfortable for the person who is feeling inward. And yet, inwardness does not seem, to me at least, to be a state of being that ought to kindle guilty feelings and stoke excessive apologies. Perhaps with this exception: you got to eventually get over it.

Last night reading helped me get over it. Well, the nap probably helped, too, as well as some quality time with my wife. Mostly it was the reading, though.

The trouble with reading is all that it can do to you. I’m not sure I’ve just said that right, “do to you.” It’s more like reading does things with me. Reading is not a one way relationship.

What is more, reading is not always a predictable relationship. Yesterday I read several essays, and passages from some other books, almost none of which was cheerful or uplifting. I am not saying that any of it was downcast or tragic. It just was not... Well, for instance: last night we considered renting on iTunes a Steve Martin movie, but eventually did not. None of the stuff that I read instead approached the humor of a Steve Martin movie. This is one reason that reading is so sneaky and satisfying. Give me, in a melancholy mood, a heady and even somewhat depressing literary essay, and surprise, it’s possible to put down the book in an affectionate mood.

In that reading mimics life and creates more dysfunction in the lives of those messed up readers who seek only understanding or pleasure. What we know, we know in part. And what pleasures we experience, we experience only in part. All that we read, we only read in part. Since our knowledge and our pleasures and our reading are always only partial, there’s opportunity for the unexpected. There is something healthy and satisfying in that.

What You Don't Know And Never Will See, Is That I Dance

Not very well, but I dance nonetheless. And since tonight was the father-daughter dance, and since I have a sever year old who likes dresses and dances, I boogied on down.

Seven year old girls are kind of weird at dances, though. They walk around the floor and other seven year olds walk around the floor, and every now-and-again two recognize each other and stop. They call out each others' name. Then move on.

I'm pretty anti-social. So hanging out at dances isn't my thing. But I was downright confused by this behavior. And try as I might to get my daughter to just chill with some of her friends, she didn't see the need. And none of them seemed to either. Go figure.

100TC Book Update - Tonight I am feeling kind of

Pissy. And really proud of my dog.

I found out today from Gideon Lewis-Kraus that literary types roll their eyes at vampires and dogs alike. Personally, I've never figured out the appeal of vampires. But dogs...that's different.

My book prominently includes my dog. The cats have already made a cameo. No doubt the guinea pigs will eventually show up. I've even name-dropped gazelles in a working draft of a chapter. We don't own pet gazelles. But I just love animals. I love them all.

My Italian great grandfather raised rabbits for eating, and I have considered talking about him in my book. But his animals and garden and way of life have always been essentially unknown to me. Since discovering and spending years reading Wendell Berry, I have wished, at times, to have known and learned more from my great grandfather, who sort of reminds me of a Feltner. I wonder, thought, if I could only talk about that wishfully and kind of shallow?

Of course if I did, perhaps through self-deprecation my book about the "gimmicky" 100 Thing Challenge would avoid the inevitable middlebrow status the publishing Fates have determined for it.

All this is just slobber. I have to write the thing first. If I manage to, I have no doubt it will miss the mark at literary parties. Do you get the impression that I was turned off by the article in Harper's? Loved the indifference of the climatic f-bomb. Seriously, I was on a highbrow high reading the finale. Would have never seen it coming.

Let me just take a minute now to tell you about Piper. He's such a good dog it's nearly unbelievable. The furry guy cannot help howling at sirens, when police cars or fire trucks zoom by the back-country road behind our house. My wife has discovered, though, that if you clamp his snout shut with your two hands while he is howling, he doesn't stop. Then out of the cracks of his jowls issues his inextinguishable but muffled cry.

Dogs, of course, close their eyes when they howl. But in his humiliation, Piper always looks up at us with large dog eyes, as if to say, "This is fun for you, yes?"

Well tonight from miles away the sirens started coming toward our house. Our youngest daughter was already sleeping in bed, and I paused from my grumpy blog post to let Piper know he better not start in. He walked over to the bed, sat down next to me, and nearly swooned from his effort to resist. He's such a good boy. And do you know what he did when he could resist no longer? He looked up at me with his black mutt eyes, then he clamped his own mouth shut and let out the longest, quietest, most passionately considerate howl in canine history.

Technology and Efficiency and what to do with all that time

It just occurred to me and I could not help posting:

"I think it is a good practice to resist efficiency at the hands of technology. Just make sure you have something good to do with all that time."

Three Months In, Two Things Unused

Before church this morning on a whim, I decided to look over my 100 Things List and see if there are any things that I've not used at all in the little-more-than three months the 100 Thing Challenge has been going.

Presently my 100 Thing List stands at 93 things. Looking it over, I figured out that only two things have gone unused in the past three months:

• Hand-me-down Bible
• Tie

I was a little unsure if the suitcase has gone unused. We did store Christmas gifts from Santa in it, so I guess that kind of counts.

I've figured out that most days I have thirteen things with me no matter where I am:

1. Underwear
2. Undershirt
3. Socks
4. Shirt
5. Pants
6. Belt
7. Wedding ring
8. Watch
9. Wallet
10. Journal
11. Pencil
12. Sunglasses
13. Cell phone

Sometimes I need a jacket, too. Not sure what conclusions to draw from this. Just thought I'd share.