Friends,

Now I have a beard. My face is, officially, beardy. When I eat, say, chips and salsa, and lick my lips, the salsa is hairy.

Several weeks ago Hope Moreland (that's my mother-in-law) and Ashley Brady (that's my sister-in-law) came to visit. Their excuse was our new house; they were to come and womanize it, or, decorate. For four days they stayed with us, and for four days in my house, when all three were here, there was a sound not dissimilar to that of an ambulance's siren. I don't know how a man can raise only daughters, being outnumbered like that. My ears hurt very soon after they arrived, though I loved that they came. Every now and then they looked at me and they knew it. They said, "Oh we're driving Carlos crazy. Poor guy has to put up with three women decorating. How do you do it?" Actually, it was very easy. I love these three women, and having them in town was great. Now in our house are many kinds of knick knacks: a wreath, all kinds of candles, baskets set in special places, pine cones with certain wonderful scents, a wall-clock. And, after much discussion and debating about what should go where (the painting--from Marshalls--was returned [thank God!]) everything is in the perfect spot. I live in a home that feels warm, safe, and the feeling of love is evident everywhere. Thank you, Hope and Ashley. Having you out was one hell of a time. --Then, the day after the women were gone, my dad flew out and stayed with us, and we manned it up around here, put some chest hair on the walls. Many wonderful things happened. He took my friends and me out to the bar. I am told it was very fun, and that my friends really liked him. The next day, we walked around Pittsburgh a bit, and after a while he bought us a TV, with a DVD player in it (somewhat to our arrogant/academic snob mentality's dismay)--so now we can watch movies on our way to bed without getting out the laptop and putting it away again (which, now that we are NetFlix customers--and very happy ones at that--is perfect). I am sure there must be an analogy in there somewhere, something I can't find the words for: women came and bought candles; then the men buy drinks and a TV. Something about that feels very very appropriate, no?

A homework assignment: The problem with Blockbuster is walking into the store and forgetting the names of all the movies ever made. It's like stage fright. You forget everything you came to do. Alli and I will be "in the mood for a movie" and we will drive to Blockbuster, then wander the aisles for a couple of days repeating "Does anything look good to you?" "What do you want to rent?" "Have you made up your mind?" Usually, we end up in a fight somehow, and walk out empty-handed, ed off at Hollywood and each other, kicking ourselves for forgetting to make a list of movies beforehand. So, please, help us out. Send us some must-see movie titles. We can store them up in our "Q" on NetFlix. (Sidenote: Most of the time I am sure that the Internet and pretty much any post-Industrial-Revolution technology is of the devil, but then, after centuries of trying, man breaks through: something like NetFlix comes along, and I'm positive that it's all been worth it. Forget the bloody wars and politics and greed and CEOs and high gas prices and the coalmining and exploitation of "under-developed" countries and ...forget all of that. I have NetFlix now. I can conveniently watch my movie. It's all so easy now, plus my marriage is better. So, thank you to the man who started it all by thinking up the steam engine. Yes, thank you Mr. Steam Engine Guy.) To summarize your assignment, in case you missed it, send us the titles of movies you think are good and are worth the watch.

Another homework assignment: This question came up while Alli and I were painting the walls a few weeks ago--Of the songs you know and love, if you could ask the songwriter "What does it mean?" what are your top five? A couple of rules: No fair naming obscure songs to show off how "indie cool" you are. And no symphonies. Think popular culture (or, something you could buy at Borders or Amazon.com or some such place) from the last fifty years or so. For me, "Stairway to Heaven" is one. Get it?

Thanksgiving: We drove to Maryland. There are friends there, the Duncans. They are a family, by way of the Moreland clan, that I have come to love. It total, there were eleven of us at dinner, and nine of us a couple of days later when we played touch football in the backyard. Alli made two amazing catches for touchdowns, and I made one. We were on opposite teams, something I apparently forgot, because I kept slapping her ass. All of us were sore the next day, hardly able to walk, and, over a week later, I am still sore. I heard a statistic once that sixty percent of all men believe that they are in the top ten percent of all athletes. As of last week, I am no longer in that sixty percent.

Last week, my hair was too long again. So I got a haircut. Only, this time, and for the first time, Alli cut it for me. I look, according to my friend Ian, "like a Russian"--I have no idea what he means by this. I like it. I don't know how she did it--we took out a pair of scissors (old scissors, yucky scissors, scissors that more pulled than cut), and she went to work, no comb or anything. Amazing. Alli is very proud. Whenever we're out now, she makes sure to comment on how good I look, then "naturally" segues into the fact that she cut it--"Did you know," she'll say to whomever is around (friend, acquaintance, homeless guy at the bus stop), "that I cut it? It was my first! Doesn't it look so good? I mean, don't those layers just blend?"

Last night, we had some friends over. One of the MFAs, Adam, who is writing a book about the WWF--a novel, actually--recently purchased a VHS that showed all the highlights from ALL the WRESTLEMANIAs. Of course, we thought, this is a perfect reason to have the kids over. We invited about ten or so people to our place, and we ordered pizza, and now we all know the history of the WWF (now WWE, I believe). We watched while wrestlers, trying to comment on the success of "professional sports entertainment", use words like transcend. It was gross. Sean Michaels said it three times. The Undertaker bragged about having kicked a lot of butt. Hulk Hogan wasn't available for interview, but he was so tough in the ring. So much passion; so much will. He never gave up. He was six-foot-seven, inches from heaven; his arms were the twenty-four-inch pythons; and he was--and in many ways, still is--my hero. I found myself standing up and rooting for the Hulk as if this were still 1986. Man, I feel like a loser, but an awesome one. I am a Little Hulkamaniac, to the death.

It snows in Pittsburgh. It is cold here, and snowy, and white everywhere. It is very pretty. This afternoon, while taking Ray on a walk, Alli looked up to see two deer keeping warm by snuggling their heads on the other's neck. She was stunned. She picked Ray up, so he wouldn't scare them away, then she got the temptation to approach them, walking very slowly and quietly, hoping she could suddenly walk like a Ninja. But they hopped away, "and then," she said, "five more deer--I counted them--came out of nowhere, and hopped away with them. I think deer are the most beautiful animal." I am happy that she got to see this, as we are still city folk (Pittsburgh is a city, sure, but it's also a forest); before we moved out here, we had doubts that deer even existed. Now they live down the street. And the snow. The snow. It is white and and cold and pretty. Our car is covered in white. Our porch, our roof, our street. All white. We will get tired of it soon, maybe, but now it is a cold kind of heaven to look at.

We love and miss you very much,
Carlos & Alli

Friends,

We are in our new house. It is ours. Everything is ours (except the mineral rights, for some reason, so I guess I won't be drilling for oil or mining for coal anytime soon). It is our land. I feel like a Christopher Columbus, or the pilgrims, except Alli and I did not kill or or lie to get our land--we inherited our ability to get land from those who killed and d and lied before us (they called it Manifest Destiny, didn't they?). Our hands are clean. And now, without the guilt of genocide on our shoulders, we own stairs and hallways and cement and ivy and electric bills and now, suddenly, a leaky faucet. I am going to have to learn how to fix a leaky faucet. I expect that I will have to buy the TimeLife series on how to keep up your house. All of a sudden I feel like Jack Arnold, Kevin's dad from that show The Wonder Years. He was a man's man. The only difference is that he could fix everything and I can't fix anything yet, except for grammatical errors. But soon, I will be the quiet tough guy who takes a ladder and cleans out his rain gutters on Saturdays; who slides under the car and stays there till the work is finished; who has more than a couple of spare nails in his tool box (I'm such a wuss). When Wifey asks me "How was work, Honey?" I will loosen my tie and say, "Work's work," then she'll poor me my glass of bourbon. It's all in the American Dream. We are living it out. My muscles are getting hard and strong, and my belly filling with beer, just thinking about it.

On move-in day, without any hesitation or planning--and within, I'd say, eighteen minutes of having felt somewhat situated--Alli went to Home Depot and came back with what she figured would work, and started painting. Maybe she's the real man around here. I admit that I did not help. And she didn't want me to. I had a friend over and we discussed our new literary movement that--in contrast to the real-smart-sounding movements like "Harlem Renaissance" or "Bloomsbury Group" or "Twelve Southerners"--we've named "Reggie." While Ian and I discussed our stories over a glass of wine and helped each other see the flaws of our narrating techniques, Alli was hard at work in the kitchen, unable to stop painting. She's some kind of war horse. She's the decorating equivalent to a binge drinker. Or maybe she's OCD. Within a couple of hours our kitchen was the color Desert Caravan which, to me, looks like yellow. Next is the living room and after that, the hallways and bedrooms. She is all about color. Feel. Ambiance. I am all about Reggie. But I guess I'll give up my vain attempts at becoming a literary giant in order to paint and fix the leaky faucet and give Alli the home she deserves. You should see her face when something in the house pleases her--it's magic.

I want--after having been here in Pittsburgh long enough to understand the culture--to talk about Pittsburgh. They are weird and wonderful. There are many Pittsburgh things that are not at all California things. First of all, at nearly every intersection, there is a No Turn On Red sign. Strange. Why not, Pittsburgh? Why no turn on red? Why not just have a sign at every red light that says "Turn Ignition Off While You Wait"? I mean, who ever heard of No Turn On Right eighty percent of the time? Jeez. And there is something called "The Pittsburgh Left," which is a left turn completed by the effing moron who is supposed to be yielding to oncoming traffic. As soon as the light turns green, this dingleberry who doesn't have the arrow, complete with Steelers jersey and Steelers hat and Steelers license plate holder and Steelers Religion--thinks that he has the right to cut off two entire lanes of oncoming traffic and make a quick left in front of you. I know it's coming everytime. I see it in their eyes. I want so bad, so so bad, to hurt them, to take 'em out, to make 'em enter a world of pain--but it does no good. The is halfway through his turn by the time I can even hit the gas. Sometimes, if you listen close, you can hear his Devil's cackle as you flip him the bird.

It is getting cold. It is regularly in the 30s and 40s out here in Pittsburgh, which, for those of you not so familiar with Fahrenheit, is pretty dang cold. It's not so bad, you know, not really. It's not Siberia. That's what I keep telling myself. It's not Siberia. But then, inevitably, I have to sit down, on unlucky mornings, on the toilet. Eventually, it's my cheeks versus the porcelain--there isn't any escape, unless, like Ray the Dog, I decide to pretty much go anywhere--and the horror; the horror. I'm just glad that it's only tongues on cold metal that stick. And I tell myself at these times, It's not Siberia, but it's close.

Over some drinks a couple of weeks ago, two friends and I decided to grow beards. I thought we were joking. It was my idea in the first place--and I KNOW I was joking. But all of a sudden these guys show up in class and they haven't shaved. So I tell them--I get personal--I plead. I reveal that I was what they call a late bloomer and ever since, hair on me doesn't seem to want to grow. Plus, even if my body were ready to grow a full beard ( which I doubt it ever will be), I don't exactly have good genes. I remember a couple of years when I was around ten when my dad tried to grow a mustache. By the time I was twelve, I think I started to see some real sprouting. Honestly, the hair on my face looks like that kid in sixth grade who doesn't yet know that The Change of Life is upon him. I look like that kid, only I'm twenty-seven. But now I hear there's a fifty-dollar bail-out fee on the beard-growing thing--these guys are killing me. Of course, this fee was not my idea. I am stuck--a victim. They say that we can shave at Christmas. I have been "growing" this "beard" now for almost two weeks. So far, this is what it looks like: the unshaved legs of a woman in winter. This is not a beard. This is humiliation.

As soon as we are painted and everything is in place, Alli and I want to have a housewarming party. You are all invited. But you can't stay the night in our house. There would be too many of you. For the party part, though, you could come over and give us a house plant or a framed print of Starry Night. But, the theme of the party is Bob Dylan. You have to come dressed up as something from a Bob Dylan song--it's an idea I stole years ago from the liner notes on one of his albums. You can show up as Einstein disguised as Robin Hood; Tangled up in Blue; you can "walk into the room like a camel and then you frown"; Napoleon in rags; a diplomat who carries on his shoulder a Siamese cat; all kinds of things. We'll have a great night together trying to guess each other's characters, and we'll have beer and wine and hot dogs and juice and for a few hours, a few hours anyway, Alli and I will be among the people we love, laughing above the music, Dylan's "Shelter from the Storm," about all kinds of things we know and love about each other, and we'll tell you stories you wouldn't believe, and we'll ask about your job or weekend or new baby on the way or how you have been feeling lately, and we'll touch each other's shoulders or faces saying "It's been so long, so so long--we've missed you very much," and I'll fill your glass with beer or wine or juice and Alli and I will show you around the house, then we'll step out on the porch and I'll show you the trees and hills and the lights from across the way; I'll point out our view and tell you how it feels to sit on my porch, then we'll sit on it together and you'll feel what I feel, out here in Pittsburgh, and we'll lean back and laugh at many memories and look at each without mentioning that soon you'll have to leave, soon you'll be off, back to California where you will be far away from us again; no, we won't mention that; instead we'll take in the moments, these rich and lighted moments, you on my porch holding your glass and me finishing my hot dog and juice, then us rushing back in from the cold (it is cold here in Pittsburgh, it can be very very cold at times) and then all of us together in the living room, first one--then anonther--and then all of us--standing up on tables and chairs and furniture and holding up our glasses to sing along, in voices better than Dylan's, not the song "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" but the song "To Make You Feel My Love" and we will all feel, at the same time, in the same way, the warmth of the light all around us.

We miss you and love you very much.

Carlos