“The Last Song” is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote the screenplay. Sparks recently went on record as saying he is a greater novelist than Cormac McCarthy. This is true in the same sense that I am a better novelist than William Shakespeare. Sparks also said his novels are like Greek Tragedies. This may actually be true. I can’t check it out because, tragically, no really bad Greek tragedies have survived. His story here amounts to soft porn for teenage girls, which the acting and the abilities of director Julie Anne Robinson have promoted over its pay scale.

Here is the link to the Nicholas Sparks piece in the USA Today – what an idiot!

But I haven’t seen snow like this in a long time, and it pleases me to see it piled up on the sides of the road. (And how I was covered in a wind-blown cake after I was done clearing the driveway.) I wonder if I just haven’t recovered from an 18.5 hour drive yet. Though I do feel like I’m ready to go back — maybe a little snowboarding first. But I miss New York.

My brother has been having an ongoing issue with Wal~Mart and some Xbox Microsoft Points (it’s been a thoroughly dorky time at home, but it’s good to get that out of one’s system). But I saw the store manager when my brother went back to complain, and he looked the same as when I worked there. He said I looked familiar, but he didn’t recognize me, which is just as well. I haven’t worked there for a decade. But he asked me what I’ve been up to and I told him I lived in New York, my office was on Wall Street. And he made a sort of chipmunk-storing-nuts kind of look before whistling. Like he never thought anyone who could have possibly worked in the electronics department at Wal~Mart could ever end up there.

It made me think of how I brought my photos from my trip to Europe into the break room and let them sit on the table. “From Jake’s You’re-a-Peein’ Vacation”, a zesty burst point-sale bulletin affixed to the front of the album stated. And there were lots of questions like, “So you’re going to work here while you go to college?” and my responses typically lead off with “God no,” or “Are you kidding?” I wasn’t a lifer. And of course it neglected to take into account that often the people asking the question were. It provided their median $26,144/year salary that fed their kids, settled the car payments and mortgages and bought tickets to the new movie on Saturday night after dinner at the new Mexican cafe down on the main drag.

And two people standing in the electronics dept. ferreting questions and confusions from every angle (northern Minnesota Wal~Mart on Christmas Eve Day — yikes). And they were surprised to see me, but had no time for catch-up. People needed their things.

I remember taking my grandmother to Wal-Mart on a Christmas Eve day – the year before she moved out of the 12th St. house, similar snow patterns on the ground then as to what’s out there today. She needed to pick out a gift for my parents, which ended up being a card she stuck a check into. Drifts clogging up the roadways and the driveways and slippery intersections.

Her cursive was always recognizable. Elegant loops with condensed e’s tipped awkwardly forward, rushing on toward the period. And yet yesterday, sitting in the little holiday visiting room of the nursing home she’s in now, I saw that very same writing on an envelope. My first instinct was to be impressed – she still writes like that, despite being nearly comatose? We urged her to open her eyes and talk to us, to engage with us. We put large playing cards (the size of your average trade paperback) in front of her and tried to engage her in the same old games. The card was from her sister – Love, Marion. She had the same writing. We were packing up the card game when I looked into my grandmother’s face and noticed one of her eyes was open, a mole somewhere deep underground taking a peek. And despite the fact that I was only sitting across a table from her, barely two feet, I instinctively raised my hand and waved. She closed her eyes again. My mother asked if she had opened them and immediately the engagement talk recommenced. But she was gone. Off the coast.

Today, after my brother and I got back from Wal-Mart, my dad had gotten a call from the nursing home that told us she wasn’t eating her food or taking her pills. We took to the road and went to visit her. She lay in her bed, smacking her lips, eyes closed. My dad put a stuffed animal from Marion onto his mother’s head, and she brushed it aside after sniffling a little. She itched herself, her legs, her arms, her chest. Quiet, sleeping scratches. We talked to her, and asked her to open her eyes. To grasp hold of our hands. My sister said her grip was negligible but noticeable. She finally opened up her eyes, looking up at us from the bed curiously. My father repeated our names and relation to her like a rank.

And god, if she wasn’t lost in Wal-Mart. We pulled into the parking lot and she reeled with excitement and wonder: “Have you ever seen so many cars?” she asked me as I pulled up to an empty space close. She wouldn’t have to walk far.

On the way out of the nursing home, my brother and sister and father talked about living wills and feeding tubes and I walked along silently, thinking about the rows of cards at Wal-Mart. For all occasions. On the birth of your baby. All the memories. Happy Birthday. Merry Christmas. Happy Anniversary. Over the Hill. The Goodtimes. Condolences.

And the New Yorker cartoon one with the cat talking to the dog, the one where they’re in top hats with button down coats and walking canes and the cat has a glass of chablis and the dog has a monocle and the taxi cab is pulling away from them and the buildings of New York rise above behind them and the caption is: Well. At the very least, my dear: You’re not a lifer.