• The smell of vanity

    Light travels faster than smell.
    Exhibit 1: a man on a bicycle spots a policeman getting into his vehicle, three blocks up the road. After the policeman enters his vehicle, and the man on the bicycle gets within two blocks, the smell of cologne hits the man on the bicycle.

    If you are like the man on the bicycle, you are surprised to learn that men’s cologne could have a blast radius of two blocks. Furthermore, one has to wonder what the conditions inside that car must be like. Could your average scumbag get off, pleading cruel and unusual punishment? And what of that smell? What is the root cause? Is the officer a victim of a freak smoking accident which destroyed his sense of smell? Does he let his two year old help him get ready for work in the morning? Does he suffer from a form of Tourett’s which manifests itself as a series of hand ticks? Did he mistake his cologne for a bottle of body wash? Does he substitute cologne for fabric softener on the rinse cycle?

    I am not a practitioner of the olfactory arts, so maybe my judgment is too harsh. Maybe I should spend a little coin to pretty myself up.

  • Singing in the back seat

    In an age where everything has a sub-category (new-born, infant, toddler, tweener, teenager, young adult, ad infinitum), I have no idea what to call to Beth. To me she is simply a child. Like children from sea to shining sea, her life is about as complicated as a Happy Meal toy. Why then is she singing along with the radio in the back seat with passion, “… why’d you have to go ahead and make things so complicated?”

    It hardly seems like an appropriate anthem for the life of a six year old child, but I guess it could have been worse. She could have been singing “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.”

  • Greatness is measured over time

    There are three possible reasons why I didn’t write anything before now about the Lightning winning the Stanley Cup.

    1. I just didn’t feel like it.
    2. I was waiting for the emotions of the moment to ebb, in order to present a well reasoned and balanced accounting of the events.
    3. I just woke up from a month long coma.

    If I thought about it a little longer, I could probably come up with a whole slew of reasons why I might not have written anything yet, but why push my luck with an over-taxed mind?

    —

    “Bless me father for I have sinned. It has been 32 years and I’ve never gone to confession. The reason I have not written about the Lightning before now, well, I just didn’t feel like it.”

    “Do you know the act of contrition, son?”

    “No.”

    “Just as well, it wouldn’t be enough anyway.”

    —

    In my defense, there are just some things that I can’t capture in writing. I haven’t written about the day my only child was born, nor have I written much about the day I was married. The Tampa Bay Lightning, Stanley Cup Champions, just seemed too ridiculous, too unlikely, so perfect; I just don’t know how to begin to write about it.

    No, I’m not quite that shallow; the Stanley Cup is not as big as seeing my child born. However, it was a singular moment, unique unto itself. Memories of Vinny scoring in the last moments to quiet the fans in Montreal, of Brad all but putting them away with a ricochet of the goalie’s skate in OT, of the whole team pushing back against the Flyers, of Fedotenko finding a scoring touch, of players too tired for emotion after game six in Calgary, of the Wall sliding to cover both sides of the goal in the span of a single moment to preserve the last win, of the final countdown before the last game was over, they all put a smile on my face.