Proud grandfather of nine.

William E. Clark

William E. Clark, 89, of Chicago passed away Aug. 14, 2009, beloved husband of the late Jean; dear father of Bill (Marie), Jim, Tom (Andrea), Mary (Peter) Demos, Mike (Patricia) and Patricia; proud grandfather of nine; great-grandfather of five.

Visitation Monday 4 to 9 p.m. at Nelson Funeral Home, 820 Talcott Rd. (at Cumberland), Park Ridge.

Funeral Tuesday 9 a.m. from the funeral home to Immaculate Conception Church. Mass 10 a.m. Interment Maryhill Cemetery.

Memorials to Immaculate Conception Church appreciated. Info: 847-823-5122 or www.nelsonfunerals.com

36 hours until the new adventure.

the sun don't shine in your t.v.

david's brother daniel & daniel's fiance emily made plans to come over tonight and make us baked rigatoni with homemade marinara sauce. (we are fortunate enough to have had them make dinner for us twice in the past week!) and the sauce: homemade! did i mention homemade? emily's italian. they do things more deliciously.

the sauce takes three hours and they weren't going to be here until five, which is how i found myself in the barefoot kitchen mixing and pinching and measuring and sauteing while david mowed the lawn. the instructions for the sauce were deliciously imprecise, which i really appreciate in a sauce. i like sauces. i felt comfortable being imprecise with sauce. so. we used red wine instead of water. and i put a little more basil in than was really necessary. and i couldn't find the garlic press, so i got the distinct joy of crushing a couplea-three cloves with the flat of the knife. they're juicy, and after a certain point they give in to pressure with a weird release, like, "well, all right, no need to be so pushy. we taste better this way anyway." also, the verb "crush" is so violently precise, you can't help but feel a little affectionate for the object being abused so. after the oregano and several glugs of olive oil, feeling like a mad scientist, i tasted and it was a little--acidic. the tomatoes were being a little ornery. so. i added a little butter. and then i added a little sugar. and then daniel got there and stirred and added more water and wine and told everyone to leave it alone and we went out into the backyard and emily and i killed the boys in beanbags TWICE and i had forgotten to eat anything all day but a bunch of coffee and a half a banana and one (1) fig newton, so i ate some pretzel twists and drank one beer.

the smell was terrible. intoxicating. everything in the house smelled like what people invented the word "aroma" for. the dogs were acting drunk. we let that pot sit there for a good three hours just simmering. after the boys were ceremoniously murdered in bags, we had to go back into the house and support each other as the smell hit our stomachs and hungry fatigue started to make us cavemen. i almost clubbed david over the head with a spatula i was so hungry. i almost fought the dogs for their bone right there in the living room. but then i remembered myself.

and of course the casserole and the special mozzarella and the baking, it was all lovely. we ate a whole pan of rigatoni between the four of us. but i have to say something else about the sauce: it was perfect. you taste it and it's wine-y and a little sweet, and then the basil hits you, followed by the garlic and onions, and it's tart. and i felt so good i licked the pot while cleaning up. like a real uncouth individual. and i felt really absurdly happy at this day that i was a part of, and the hand i had in making it what it was, and how sunny and then rainy it was in just the right measure and at just the right time, and then drinking a little more of the marvelous wine and trooper falling asleep in the living room and squeaking like a toy in his sleep. i am reading the "invisible man" for one of my classes, and i am preparing to leave very soon and i feel petrified and unprepared because i am supposed to be a writer and teacher and i have convinced some people i can do these things but i'm not sure i can. i have been basically doing nothing these past eight months. i'm not even really good at that, i worry too much. this sounds depressing, but i'm not depressed. i'm just scared. i am ready to move on to the new "productive member of society" me, i'm just doing that thing where i drag my heels a little. david is well aware of this stage of "change-on-the-horizon-katie." this katie is one of the lesserly pleasant models. (lesserly is not a word.)

i just wanted to tell you about the sauce and how happy we all felt, even the dogs. the dogs were anthropomorphically ecstatic. wyoming didn't have any bearing on that. and then emily and daniel left and david went to sleep curled up in a little ball and i had to put a kiss or two all over his face and touch his eyelids to remind myself of going to sleep next to the only person in the world and then waking up and doing a thing and another and another and going to sleep and then getting up and doing another thing and then what do you know, it's a life that keeps going.

winter dreams the same dream every time.

Seraphine Louis de Senlis

ladies & gentlemen: my boogeyman.

Remember Twin Peaks, the David Lynch comedy/horror/detective show that was on in 1990? David and I got the first season from the Pontiac Public Library today so that A. we could watch it, because David loves David Lynch. (Lynch is credited with our introduction to the nearly perfect protein-in-a-grain quinoa...he's making it and eating it in a special feature on one of his films) and B. so that I could finally confront and conquer the man who haunted my childhood. He is pictured above.

It turns out, the scene that scared me into remembering this guy forever is actually in the first episode. And it's still scary. Laura's mom is halfway crazy with grief, and all of a sudden, she sees the above guy hiding like a creep behind her couch. His appearance is immediately preceded by scary, ominous sounding nearly-eighties music, and immediately followed by Laura's mother hysterically screaming her head off. And the guy doesn't do anything but what you see him doing in the above photo. BUT IT'S ENOUGH.

IMDB.com explains his appearance this way, "The character of Bob came about when David Lynch had a sudden image of set decorator Frank Silva hidden in Laura Palmer's room. Lynch filmed the infamous shot of Silva hiding behind Laura's bed without any idea of what he would use it for. Later, when filming a shot of Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) sitting up and screaming, Lynch noticed that Silva's reflection was visible in the shot, purely by accident. Lynch then came up with the idea of BOB as an other-worldly spirit, giving birth to the series mythology."

After I saw this scene (I would've been six years old when it aired, I think, or nearly six) I kept seeing him hiding behind my bed when I went to sleep. I called him "The Man." Not like, "The Man is really keeping me down," (har). But "The Man," as in, "Mommy, The Man is hiding like a creep behind my bed and its terrifying the living daylights out of me," or (shrieking) "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! AGHHHHHHHH," or "Mommy, I'm sleeping with you tonight, with the lights on," or "Mommy, I have seen The Man, and there is no God where such a man as he is allowed to exist, lurking in my bedshadows."

Thereafter, my intrepid mother invented Monster Spray and sprayed my room down for goblins and The Man every night before bed. Monster Spray was water in a spray bottle, but I felt confident in its exterminating properties. That doesn't mean that fear of The Man doesn't continue to haunt me to this day. And having viewed the first two episodes of "Twin Peaks," I can confidently say that David Lynch is brilliant and scary and hilarious, but also a total freak.

Some people are okay, mostly I just feel like poisoning everybody.

I didn't acutally read the graphic novel until long after I'd seen the movie. The movie is one of those things I saw as a teenager and liked, and didn't realize how much I liked it until 7 years later or something when I watched it again and remembered it with pleasure. It's another example of a thing Scarlett Johansson did right, early in her career:

And who doesn't love Steve Buscemi? He's perfect as the lovable creep Seymour.

The dialogue is snappy and wonderful and hilarious and filthy, and I can't put any of it up here for fear of offending my audience. But it's just a lovely movie and I cry at the end every time.

Soda Customer: Hi, can I get a medium 7-Up?
Enid: ...Medium? Why sir, did you know that for a mere 25 cents more you can purchase a large beverage? And you know... I'm only telling you this because we're such good friends: Medium is really only for suckers who don't know the concept of value.

So, in summation: you should watch it. & read the graphic novel!