Friends,

Alli and I are almost halfway done with our time in Pittsburgh. The third of six semesters is soon coming to a close, and all that’s left after that is to finish my novel, then somehow become famous enough to hang out with people like Mark Twain and Dante and Homer in all required high school textbooks, and rich enough to buy ice cream for all of Norwalk and Downey, because it can get pretty hot out there.

All of our friends who are not in Pittsburgh, it seems, are parents. By the end of this month alone, there will have been three more births: Babies Ellison, Hartenburg, and Vasquez, in that order. We recently found out, too, that there is one more on the way, coming sometime in July—Baby Brady—which, since this baby is not only friend but family, makes us especially happy to think about. This means that baby fever is spreading, and Alli and I are not sure how immune to it we are. Lately we have been talking about names, even though there is no embryonic analogue. We have names enough now for our first fourteen or fifteen children, give or take, be they boys or girls or a little bit of both. This means we are very nerdy, as this conversation has recently taken up quite a lot of our time; soon we’ll start researching Car & Driver’s top five minivan picks. We have an interview next week at White & Privileged Preschool, hoping that our future child will qualify as "white enough" for their tastes.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and we are going to spend it with the Morrises, who live around the corner. The two Morris children—Jillian Rose and Hillary Jane—are two very beautiful parts of our lives out here, proof that being around children is a gift, and reminders that we are missing out by not being in California. Alli and I are grateful to have spent time around them, to have their love and trust, to be people they like to have around. But then we think of the children now being raised in our family, the children of our brothers and sisters, of the time we are not spending in California, and we feel sad to be away, because our nephews and nieces bring our family together in unimaginable ways; they are a natural source of happiness, and to be loved by them makes you a very lucky person. So now then: even though (or perhaps because) we’re far away, Alli and I would like to express our loving thanks this year for family, for in their absence we forget how trying they can be, and only remember the good stuff—which, like we said, we’re thankful for. The rest you can keep.

Here is a confession: Alli and I have a favorite wrestler. His name, by God, is Joey Quervo—they call him "The Drunken Luchador"—and he is one of the stars of the Keystone State Wrestling Alliance. According to his profile, he hails from Tijuana, Mexico. Apparently, though, Joey recently entered 12-step recovery, which was a tough transition for Señor Quervo, first because they can no longer really call him The Drunken Luchador—and a loss of identity is hard for anyone; but, more importantly, he hasn’t won a match since he got sober—because now he actually feels the pain of being thrown around a wrestling ring. In his last bout he didn’t last more than two minutes before he was pinned, disgracefully, by someone he outweighed by more than fifty pounds. Before, when he was still drinking the tequila, he could get a chair smashed over his head, drive into a tree, fall from a balcony three stories up, and walk away laughing, saying, Man, èse, whattabahmmer, thattagohna hhurrt mañana. We expect him to relapse any day now, if only to regain his wrestling abilities, and with them his KSWA honor.

Yes, by the way, what you are thinking is true: Alli and I have actually gone to watch these wrestlers wrestle.

And, yes—we love it.

We saw "Zero," and "Ali Kaida," and "Biker Al," and "’Mister Devastation’ Lou Martin," and many others. There was beer and screaming and dollar hot dogs and they raffled off a gift certificate to WalMart. You heard me: WalMart. (Please understand that while I do know that that is funny, I mean it’s really really funny, and that it should not appear in a true email but in a Saturday Night Live skit—it is still true. Someone actually, and gratefully, won a small shopping spree at the WalMart. I, too, have a difficult time believing it.)

The events are monthly, and they take place over the hill from us in a small banquet room called The Moose. Yes, the Moose. They set up a ring in the middle of this room—the kind of place you’d hold an Over-Forty Single’s Dance for women named Wilma and men named Burt, or have a wedding reception in (if your budget is around thirty bucks), and when you walk in, you walk straight back into 1979, into a Bad News Bears sequel: the women have feathered hair, feathered blonde hair with dark roots, and their husbands are already cross-eyed by the booze, and they’re smoking a cigarette in one hand and holding a baby in the other. Young men with an "Is that a mustache or dirt on your lip?" and the "I’ve never shaved these nine hairs on my chin that curl over one another, and yeah—what’s your problem?—I call this a goatee" take their dates here, sit in the front row and drink ten beers and barely resist the temptation to fight each other, and yes, their dates are excited to finally get out, to be taken to a show. The winner of the 50-50 raffle—we’ll call her Dora—who brought her son and three of his friends all at ten bucks a pop (and who had been recognized by the announcer of the raffle as one of KSWA’s old time regulars, one of the loyal, the proud), told us afterwards that she had been laid off seven months prior, and was grateful for having won the money. She seemed nice, but she did not seem like she’d use that money to do anything other than buy more raffle tickets next month.

Take a look through the website; visit the Profiles section, the Title History, the Picture Gallery. Notice that the hometown of Ali Kaida is "Saudi Arabia" but you know he was born and raised in the heart of Pittsburgh, that "Justin Sane"’s hometown is the "Pittsburgh Mental Hospital" and that "Zero" (the only wrestler who actually took off his shirt—and who just should not have bothered, with his tiny nipples and his snow-white skin) looks like he should instead be driving a really bitchin’ mini-pickup truck, showing up for Prom drinking orange juice spiked with the only liquor in his house—Coors Light. There’s a guy called the "Blood Beast," and when he came out to wrestle, the group of guys behind us yelled out, "Hey, Satan! Your haircut could be much more evil!" This is a very small room for a wrestling match, and the Blood Beast heard them, and was embarrassed, and I think he was insecure about his mid-to-late-thirties balding up on top, which really isn’t very evil, when you think about it.

My main questions are these: What do you tell your new girlfriend when she asks why you won’t take her out on Saturday nights? –No, sorry, honey, it’s just that I, I, I…am a semi-professional wrestler. Or worse: –No, sorry, honey, it’s just that I, I, I…am a semi-professional wrestling referee. How do you go about auditioning to become a semi-pro wrestler? When in God’s name did the idea enter their minds? Were they playing video games one day, just barely beating Hulk Hogan on level sixteen, and suddenly they thought, Yeah, dude, yeah, like, I could do that for real! These guys don’t look like they work out much—actually, they look like they hang out in places called Sonny’s Tavern most hours of most days…and I mean, it’s really a bunch of George Castanzas out there, hoping we don’t notice their pitiful shortcomings, hoping instead that we notice that really cool pile driver. They have hair in very weird places, and they don’t bother to shave—or wax—those very weird places. For the life of me, I cannot imagine their minds, cannot sympathize with their aspirations to become Pittsburgh’s "World" Heavy Weight Wrestling Champion.

At one point during the night, Alli excused herself to the restroom, and when she came back she told me the sad story of a little girl in there with what seemed to be her mother, and the little girl was weeping, was inconsolable, tears were everywhere, and mommy was rubbing her back saying, No, sweetie, it’s okay…Daddy is only pretending. –Now I wonder which wrestler’s daughter that was. Was it the Latin Assassin’s daughter? "The King" Del Douglas’s daughter? I know it wasn’t Kris Kash’s daughter, who couldn’t be more than sixteen years old—and who, incidentally, weighing in at only 120 pounds, somehow pinned Baracus, who weighs 215.

In some of the pictures on the website, you’ll notice the panels of the ceiling, as though The Moose had been originally intended to be filled with office cubicles, something which really ruins the fantasy of the whole thing—because their presence means that the wrestlers cannot fly across the ring from the top rope. They must instead jump down—and not out and up—as though they were children at a swimming pool, learning to dive. Many a suplex was interrupted by an accidentally kicked ceiling panel, and this was just plain sad.

But, in the end, it was fantastic. During the title bout, Anthony "Double A" Alexander took the fight out into the street, leaving the arena area, and, coming back in, was still punching away and bruising up the champion, "The Enforcer" Shawn Blanchard. They had taken the fight from the ring and into the crowd, jumping off the bar and into each other—chairs were thrown, beer was spilled, and everybody went wild. At one point I stopped laughing and began to cheer, screaming with everyone else, Dou-ble-A! Dou-ble-A! Dou-ble-A! The lady in front of me, old and with her granddaughters, smiled at me with all six of her teeth, and we shared a moment I will never forget. Here we were, together, all of us, our voices lifted like drunken angels, uniting over Double A’s possible assent to the championship, and would he? Could he? Could he muster up the strength, the stamina, the courage—could he?—to beat that big jerk Shawn Blanchard? We looked at each other, Six-Tooth and I, and I smiled back at her, my arms raised to the sky, hoping, believing—Yes! I think he’s going to do it! I think he might, I think that he just might be able to…!

We’re going back next month for the rematch.

It was a night I hope to remember for a very long time.

Happy Thanksgiving. We love and miss you very much.

Carlos

Friends,

By our clock, as of this afternoon at around 2PM, we will have been residents of Pittsburgh for an entire year. This, for us, is strange to think about.

In the past year, to begin sadly, we have missed: four births, Jack, Emerson, Jackson and Samuel, and the beginnings of several other pregnancies, of the children of our close friends; the first birthdays of two others; my sister’s entire pregnancy; the growing up of our nephews and niece, and so on. We are of the age when our generation makes a new one, and we’re stuck all the way out here in Pittsburgh while it’s happening to the ones we love. And this makes us sad. We have missed weddings, engagements, nights with beer and chips and Jager. And, aside from events, we’ve missed our friends, who still breathe life into us, very very much. (Happy birthday, Jim and Bob and James.)

One year ago today, we drove through the Ft. Pitt Tunnel and saw Pittsburgh in all its Midwestern-East Coast -Hybrid glory. And then, passing by all the cool-looking, charming, old brick buildings, we drove into the ghetto, to our new apartment (for which we’d already paid in advance and could not change our minds about) in a little neighborhood called Wilkinsburg (nicknamed, we came to find, with the local pronunciation of the plural ‘yinz’ which means ‘you all,’ We’llkillyinzburg). We cried for a little while. Then we had to go out and buy shower curtains and paper towels and toilet paper and an air mattress really quickly because, due to crime, everything in We’llkillyinzburg closes around sundown.

It was a hard first day.

Within a few months, though, we were homeowners, and far away from We’llkillyinzburg, and we’d made friends with the Morrises, who live around the corner from us and who are a family we love very much.

We became Steelers fans, and watched them underdog their way through the playoffs, and now we say things like "Big Ben" and "The Bus" and "One for the thumb!" (and if we don’t actually say them, we know what they mean, and that’s almost as bad), which makes us alien to you, but local to us. We do not, however—not yet, anyway—wear black and yellow on Fridays.

We experienced winter. We hope that winter does not come but once every few years, like El Niño.

I have made some great friends of several very good writers, Brendan, Adam, Ian, Colin, Michael, Cathy, and so on, who help me to become better at this writing thing. Also, I met Tobias Wolff, who has a terrific mustache.

Once, when we missed our exit on the highway, we ended up in Ohio. That was weird.

I have quit smoking. I have not smoked in over seven months.

We bought a dog named Kenny, a Pennsylvania native, who brings all kinds of laughter into our lives, because, even though we tell him things like, "True love waits," he humps pretty much anything. That little slut.

Our neighbors are our friends. Helen and Dan, on either side of us, say hello every day. Luci down the street brings over her dog, Elsie (who pees everywhere, and I mean everywhere), and we always ‘chat’ for a little while. Ken, married to Barb, are a few houses down and Ken, being a Vet, gave us an American flag to wave on Memorial Day. Richard and Dave across the street sell homemade jewelry and are always gardening and bickering at each other. Down a few blocks are the Smiths, a kind couple from our church, with whom we made fast friends. And, as always, the Morrises are around the corner, and we thank God for them. In this way we have come to feel at home on our block, and in our neighborhood. It is familiar now, and lovely to be in and around.

We barbeque. And, thanks to a writer-friend Derek, I now make a mean burger.

Alli’s friend, Catherine, the girlfriend of my friend, Ian, has helped make Pittsburgh a place like home for her. They talk sometimes like sisters, and laugh like you’ve never heard. They talk for hours over wine and become alternately serious and silly, over and over, and it is beautiful to know that this happens.

I play basketball with some kids from the MFA program every Thursday. I am taller than most of them—because people who study English are usually pale and small and have funny hair on their thighs—so I, ahem, dominate the floor. You never saw an Ecuadorian who was good at basketball, until now (but only when I play against the sickly MFA kids). If I’m playing against real players, I repeat to myself the advice Dave gave me one day, a few years ago: "Carlos, just repeat this to yourself…’I am not an impact player.’" Thanks, Dave. You are always in my heart.

We have a church. We love our church.

School starts up again in a few weeks, and I am the ‘New Student Mentor’ for our program which means I help kids who need help finding stuff, like office buildings and bars and bus stops; this means that there are people here newer than I. I am a kind of older brother now. I helped a new student move into her apartment yesterday, and she was the nervous one. Also, I will begin teaching undergrad composition, showing my kids that there is life beyond the five-paragraph essay.

All this is to say that, one year later, we have made something of a home for ourselves, and, while there is sadness in our having left California—and plenty of that, sure—you should not pity us. We are alive and well in Pittsburgh. Life has taken shape around us, and we have become part of the ‘ecosystem’ here. The only thing we can’t stand is the poison ivy.

We love and miss you very much.

Carlos & Alli

Friends,

When we moved into the house, we met our very old neighbors, Dave and Richard across the street, Helen on the left, and Dan on the right. Dan is the old man who cannot hear very well at all and who did not object when I asked him if it was all right with him whether I practiced drumming (...living near old people has its perks). He has nine sons—YES, NINE SONS—the youngest of whom is in his upper fifties. This makes Dan very very old, or very horny when he was very young, or both. He and his wife, whom I have never seen (--she deserves a good long rest, having popped out and raised nine boys), live in the house to the right of us. Dan and his sons are always out in their front yard, which shares a patch of grass with our front yard. They are in the driveway, looking at cars, or talking about springs and nuts and bolts. It is very King of the Hill meets Golden Girls. Even his sons get their social security checks. Weird.

Anyway, when we moved in, we didn't have the proper supplies to keep everything in our yard looking sharp. We hadn't bought a rake, or a lawnmower, or a hose, or any of that stuff because, when we were in California and renting, other people did that kind of thing for us. And, having just spent every dime we had on a house, we weren't about to buy any of that froo froo stuff. We had enough for food. Sometimes.

Which made life for Dan very hard. Mind you, we bought the house in October, just when autumn really gets going, and we didn't have a rake. So, every now and then, I would see Dan out there (Dan who is in his mid-nineties), wearing a cap and gloves, and, because we share a lawn, he'd be raking, bending over, standing up, carrying leaves, MY LEAVES, to the trash can. Remember, he is in his mid-nineties. When he was born, there had only been one president named Roosevelt. When he was born, women couldn't vote. When he was born, no one had ever said World War, or heard of T.S. Eliot. And he was raking MY lawn. I couldn't bear to watch, nor could I really offer to help--I didn’t want to point out the obvious, to tell him how old he is, to tell him that if you can remember Bob Hope's entire career, or thinking that rock n roll is the devil's music, you shouldn't be raking my leaves. So I hid in the closet until it was over.

Then, on alternating Saturdays, there he was, a man who was middle-aged in the 1950s, who retired in the 1970s--THAT'S THIRTY YEARS AGO!--mowing my lawn.

Sometimes, though, his sons would do it instead, which didn't make me feel much better, because they, too, are old and saggy.

I began to wonder if maybe I was Satan.

Then, finally, when winter came, it stopped (thankfully...I couldn't bear to watch any longer)—because you don't have to mow your lawn when there's snow, plus, there are no more leaves to rake—and I vowed, come spring, never to let it happen again. So, a couple of weeks ago, feeling the weight of Original Sin upon me and the desire to make things right, Alli and I bought several things to take care of our house with: a mower, a hose, a rake, some brooms, and several shovels.

Now, I have mowed my lawn twice (and Dan's lawn, too), and scared the sh*t out of several bushes in our yard. And let me tell you, there is nothing like a hard Saturday out there, pushing, sweating, wiping my forehead; and there is nothing quite like the smell of just-cut grass. But, as I was reminded this morning, we also have dogs. So, I also learned that there is nothing—AND I MEAN NOTHING—quite like the smell of dogsh*t in your just-cut grass, in your mower blades, all over the wheels of the mower, on your T-shirt after you try cleaning it up, cursing all morning and almost puking, puking, puking at that oh-so-unique smell. God, when punishing Adam for eating that fruit, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life," well, He really knew that He was in for a good laugh. It's a joke, I'm sure, that never gets old. That Yahweh is freaking hilarious. Generations go by, and there's always somebody with dogsh*t in their mower, gagging at the smell. If I had an ant farm, I'd try to rig it so they had lawns to mow, and dogs to sh*t on them, just so I could watch it happen, and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Good one, God.

So: School is over for the year. Alli and I are about to settle into our "summer break," which, in this case, is four months long. That feels pretty good to think about. Right now, I am in a coffee shop, being pretentious and writer-y. I am writing this email with a white chocolate mocha next to me. I disgust myself. I am supposed to be starting this novel. Do you know how embarrassing that is to say out loud? "Yes, well," he said, and suddenly, he had a British accent, "ACTUALLY, I have begun work on a NOVEL." And I’m in a coffee shop, "working" on it. Am I totally gross or what?

Alli and I have been hard at work on our yard, in the front of our house. A few weeks ago, we hung a porch swing which, on the first try, I really effed up. We’ll be hiring a handy man soon, to fix the stuff that fell from our porch overhang, after our porch swing fell from it first. I quickly, and the hard way, learned the meaning of the word "stud finder." And Alli has been planting flowers, and I removed a couple of bushes, and we planted a tree, and really we are very agrarian now, in harmony with nature, singing songs of ourselves with Walt Whitman. We have been pulling weeds and planting green things. Nothing has died yet. The dogs keep lifting their legs everywhere in the new garden, which makes us think that they like it, because, in dog culture, when you pee on something it means you want to keep it. We are pros. However, Alli did break out with poison ivy last night. This shows that we are still from California, and we do not know sh*t about sh*t. Apparently, she was pulling it with her bare hands, wiping the sweat from her forehead…then, later, after her shower, she was covered in bumps.

Last week, though, when we began really to get into our yard, I had a lot of deadlines, papers and things that had to be turned in. Last week was a very difficult week, so I couldn’t help as much with the yard. But, every now and then, while I took short breaks away from the computer, I looked out my second-story window, down on the front yard where Alli was working, or playing with the dogs, or watering the plants, or talking to Richard or Helen or Dan, and Alli did not know I was watching. And I will tell you, she is probably the most beautiful of God’s creation, the most lovely, the most perfect. I watch my wife in secret, from my high window looking down, and she is as lovely as the morning, dirt in her hands while she kisses the dog, and she places the flowers just so in their space, and she loves them with water, and she stands over them and she looks proud. This is my wife, this is the woman I married, the one who would have me and love me back, and follow me to Pittsburgh, the one who left an entire world behind in California, the one who loves plants and sunshine and water and watching the dogs wrestle, this woman in our front yard in the sun who is laughing.

We love and miss you very much,

Carlos

Friends,

Here in Pittsburgh, we have something called "spring." Apparently, it is a time when things stop being so cold and ugly and gray and slushy, like a song by Radiohead; instead, things turn cheery and upbeat and colorful, like a song by Menudo. Plus, I hear this "spring" is coming soon, so we have that going for us. Which is nice.

(A sidenote: Alli and I just got done watching that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Man, is that not, like, the best show in the whole eff'n world? I mean--we're sitting there, in the dark of our bedroom, and families are getting houses and hard wood floors and quilts with pictures of passed-on relatives, and I'm cryinig my eyes out, Alli and I are holding on to each other, our faces are wet and we're shivering, in awe, saying, "Oh God! Oh God, thank you! Thank you for giving us this pause, for this time to reflect on charity!" and I'm pleased with the world as it is, in full understanding of what life is about; I am humbled, and vulnerable, and I feel my chest fill with all kinds of mystery, and I am full of the love and virtue that decades of churching should have nurtured. I feel now like I'm the dang Good Samaritan, like I'm some kind of hospital or homeless shelter. And then I realize that I'm watching TV. Isn't that weird? Isn't that a strange sensation? I mean, it's been about twenty minutes since the show has ended, and I still feel like I need to finish a good cry. Pretty much, the point of this paragraph is to say this: Living in America in this age of Reality TV makes my soul very very confused. I don't know if I should feel guilty about my emoitions over this TV show. I feel like I have saved three babies in a well, and like I need a shower.)

So, spring is upon us. And by "us," I mean "not you out in California," but "all of us out here where there are real seasons." And we are going to take full advantage: we're becoming gardeners. There are some planter thing-a-ma-bobs in the front of our house, and there is some dirt in em, and leaves, and some stuff that grows up out of the dirt too. They are called plants, but the plants that are in there now are ugly looking, so we're gonna tackle em, take em out, and put new ones in there, to make it look pretty and colorful and splendid. We're gonna buy gloves and little shovels and watering cans, and we're gonna subscribe to Gardening Today and we're gonna make friends with Dave and Richard, the couple across the street who are in their front yard every dang Saturday, doing their gardening thing. They rake, they dig, they mow their lawn and pull weeds out of the dirt; and, my goodness, their yard is beautiful. And you should see them bicker at each other. Like a couple of bitches.

There are already some tulips growing up out of the grass in the front, which Alli loves to see. She is in love with tulips. I love that she love tulips so much. We're gonna try to grow up some more tulips so Alli will be in a good mood every time she sees them.

Upon exploring Pittsburgh, we have found a park called Highland Park here in the city; it is on a hill (making sense out of that name, Highland Park), and the view from up there is spectacular: you can see one of the rivers to the north, and all kinds of trees are sprinkled down the hill on that side; you can see all the squirrels running around, and there is nice architecture here and there to marvel at, stairs, statues, monuments to Pittsburgh history, and so on. On a sunny day, there is nothing like a trip to Highland Park. Plus, it is the home of the city's reservoir. Now, Alli and I have come to like taking walks around this reservoir, which is pretty enough in itself. It is no Pacific Ocean, mind you, but it is water, and there aren't many things around here like that. But, even though we find that we like it up there, walking up the hill and then around the revervoir and then down the hill to the coffee shop for a sit down and a crossed-leg talk about how we're doing, we notice this about ourselves: we go to the _reservoir_. It's something we do; it's something we _actually_ do. One of us, on a Saturday morning, will say, "Hey, hon, you wanna go take a walk up at the reservoir?" And, when we think about it, it repulses us. We've never had to say that word before. Reservoir. Reservoir. Reservoir. In all honesty, I don't even know how to pronounce it right. Is it "Rezz-v-wire" or "Rezz-v-wore" or "Rezzer-v-wire" or what? It's starting to feel little white-trashy, to keep getting excited about a trip around the reservoir, because taking a walk around the reservoir is something like shopping at the JC Penny Discount Outlet. It's just not quite, you know...it's not the IT thing. So, we're trying to think up new names for it, like "Hey, you wanna head out to the beach?" or "Hey, hon, how about a walk around the lake?" just so we don't feel so ashamed of it, but we're pretty sure that it's useless. It's almost as if, pretty soon, if we keep it up, we might as well buy a wading pool and call it the hot tub; or start referring to our dogs as "the kids." --But, anyway, for now, if you wonder what we like to do on Saturdays in the mid-to-late mornings, we like to take the boat out for a spin around the harbor.

As for our lives, for real: Alli and I are doing pretty well. I have never felt so much hope about actually trying out this "becoming a writer" thing that I've had in my mind for so many years; and Alli seems to be thriving, at work, and among the people here whom we've grown to care about. There are things about Pittsburgh that we really love, and other things that we know we just have to wait out. We still miss home very much. The other day, I rode the bus with someone who had spent a weekend once in Manhattan Beach, and I found myself practically slobbering all over him, trying to tell him how I grew up there, how I grew up surfing in California, how I loved to be on the beach in California, and then I remembered: I live in Pennsylvania. I have Pennsylvania license plates. My zip code starts with a 1. Eww. And I felt strange, and far away. Alli and I feel like this very often, but we're making the best of it out here. Sometimes it hits us that we're the young couple making memories, that in a few years we'll picture our first house in Pittsburgh, or we'll think about Pittsburgh fondly, and we'll probably be far far away from here when we do. We consider that, once we leave this city, we'll probably never return, and when we imagine that, we get a feeling like "missing" Pittsburgh already, which makes us understand that we really do like it here--pretty much.

We want to say that we miss you, and that we love you.

Carlos

Friends,

Now the Delgados are Four. Yesterday (that is, the day before the Pittsburgh Steelers took the AFC Championship away from those lousy Denver Broncos, for the first time in history becoming the sixth seed to go to the Super Bowl), Alli and I bought a new dog. He is very cute. He has dark black eyes, and a golden coat (the colors of the AFC Champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers). There is only one problem--we haven't agreed on a name. Last night, his name was Kenny; then for about five minutes, it was Bruce. This morning his name was Sean. Two hours ago it was Walter. A few minutes ago we were battling between Fernando and Todd. And now, my favorites are Paco, Diego, Hector, and Onofre. All this time, though, I've secretly been rooting for the underdog name: Mom. But, we'll probably end up naming him Ben Roethlisberger, since he's carried the Pittsburgh Steelers, this year's AFC Championship team, to the Super Bowl.

Ray Kevin Delgado, our first and oldest dog, hasn't taken very well to being an older brother yet. He has so far eaten Kenny Sean Todd Mom Fernando's puppy food, and stolen his toys, and ignored the poor little newcomer's advancements at friendship; and all of a sudden I feel like I have an insight into dog psychology. I never imagined dogs having ulterior motives or deep-seeded insecurities--just hunger and sex drives. But Ray is really changed. He left his journal open this morning, and I snuck a peek. He's calling the new dog names like Abel, and Jacob. He wrote some poetry in there. It went like this: "I am Cain, he is Abel./That little pooch is in big big trouble." (Ray's not very good at rhyming, but he's very insightful--for a dog.) However, we hope that, in time, the two will grow close. In fact, this new-dog purchase was partly motivated by the fact that Ray gets so lonely when Alli and I leave this house, to go to work or class or out with friends, and we thought that having a friend would brighten his spirits. (Could we possibly personify these animals any more?) Little Diego Bruce Onofre Hector likes Ray a lot, but so far Ray has been sulking. It's all expected though, I suppose, I mean, even though as parents we should be saying that we love them both the same amount, that we love them differently but not unevenly--if we're going to be honest, we've been calling Ray "The Ugly One," and I think that even though he doesn't understand our words, he understands our body language. We are also convinced that that's how real parents talk about their real kids--so now we also hate our parents and blame them for everything.

So, if you didn't hear, the Pittsburgh Steelers won today's game, making them this year's AFC Champions. In Pittsburgh, there is screaming and dancing all through the streets. Everybody is hugging everybody else. It's one big Black & Gold celebration; there are smiles and laughter in all places. Pretty much, tonight, it's like the entire city has lost its virginity.

Now I make a confession: in case you haven't noticed, I have somehow been dragged into this whole Steelers nonsense. It's almost impossible to avoid, really. I tried, but I was not strong enough. YOU try living in a city where even the newscasters wear black & gold, where last week Jerome "The Bus" Bettis's now-famous fumble resulted in a man going into cardiac arrest (that is a true story, by the way), where the dress codes for FANCY nightclubs are "NO TENNIS SHOES OR STREET CLOTHES. STEELERS' JERSEYS OKAY" (also a true story). Like Turkish Delight, it's impossible to resist. Last week, and again today, I actually set aside time to watch--as they call it--"The Game." With the exception of some of the Super Bowls (games I set aside time to watch, really, because of the snacks), I have never done this. I hate sports. I hate them. In high school, I took ballroom dancing lessons (voluntarily)--I was not a jock. Now, though, something inside of me has been touched, and I believe--oh yes, I believe--in the Steel Curtain. (There are moments when I see what I've become, and I can only ask myself, "What happened?")

Forgive me, Lord. I know not what I do.

Alli and I send all our love. We miss you very much.

Carlos

Friends,

We are doing well, adjusting back to Pittsburgh. For the most part, we are fully adjusted. We had a conversation tonight with a wonderful man named Nimo, a friend we have made recently. He owns two greyhounds, whom he loves very much. He is a social worker who gets immigrants settled into America. He has a very big heart. He goes to our church, and he is very nice. In our conversation, he mentioned that he used to live in California, and that compared to Pittsburgh, the weather in California is tedious and boring. He said that no one really appreciates a sunny day in California, because they get them all the time. Then, as if to let us in on a secret, he leaned forward to us, and he said, "But, yesterday, do you remember yesterday?--now that was a glorious day. The sun was absolutely glorious." Coming out of his mouth, that word 'glorious' means something. It is something special. He is from Sri Lanka, you understand, and his accent makes the word roll up to his lips and then trip out of his mouth like some kind of spontaneous laughter. It was beautiful the way he said it. Glorious. Glorious. Yesterday was glorious. Sun and cold air and, yes, Nimo, yes it was--it was just like you said it was--it was glorious.

But then I got to thinking. I was thinking, "But today in Pittsburgh it snowed. This morning when I went to get the paper, my snot froze inside my nose. It snowed today, and it was cloudy, and the sky was gray and yucky, and when you go outside the wind hits your face like you're a - ed stepchild, and in California it doesn't snow. In Los Angeles it is sunny and perfect. In Los Angeles things are sunny, and, pardon me, Nimo but you are full of poop. I have to shovel my g.d. driveway, and, and, and g.d.,Nimo, g.d.--for six months a year I have to wear socks to bed! I appreciate sun, yes, Nimo, of course I do! And when it comes, it is glorious. Sure. But go without food for a week, Nimo, just go without food and you'll appreciate that turkey sandwich, you bet you will; but heck if I'm gonna starve myslef every g.d. day, just to appreciate it a little more. How stupid. You stupid stupid man, Nimo."

That Nimo is some idiot. What a jerk.

Anyway, we're having a great time out here, and we send you all out there in California both our love and--the middle finger. But also our love, don't forget the love. We miss you and love you (and are very jealous of you).

Love,
Carlos

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