I've had the opportunity over the last few days to renew my love for my brother Clay.  That's him on Mama's lap. (Yes, there's The Demon Seed on Daddy's lap.)  Look at him!  How hard could it be to love a boy that happy?

The year that Clay's first child was born he lost his job.  He decided he didn't like work that much anyway.  He would rather write a novel.  So he took care of the baby and spent her sleeping hours drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and writing a novel long hand.  The result was dreadful.  The writing was high school level, at best.  But the plot was an intricately woven tale of political intrigue during a revolution on a Caribbean island in the 1960s, "a roller coaster of a novel."

Listening to Clay talk is a lot like reading his novel.  There are wild tales and long tangents, especially if he is able to steer the conversation toward politics, and when isn't he able?  Clay is a yellow dog Democrat who would love to tell you about Lyndon Johnson, the savior of the free world.

During a conversation with Clay you will struggle hard to maintain focus. You will be tempted to discount him entirely, even when you agree with him.  In fact, if you do agree with him, you will start questioning your own stance because Clay believes it, too!  When you begin to lose your focus, you will stare at his face and swear you can see a stream of shit pouring out of his mouth.  And then a pearl will appear in the flume.

One such occasion occured just after I had gotten married.  Jimmy and I were two young, agnostic, scientists with no particular philosophy and not many coping skills for life.  During one of Clay's long riffs on life in general he said, "You know what I do?  It's simple. If some thing or someone is having a negative impact on me, or bringing me down, I just remove it from my life!"  He had described himself to a tee and we saw it. Clay is astoundingly capable of just walking away from a bad situation.  No ill feelings.  No heavy analysis.  Just goodbye.

And thus was born The Way of Clay.  We used it as our sole guiding principle for a number of years and with pretty good results.  Eventually we had to admit that some irritants just could not be removed and we started adding on to the philosophy.  But The Way of Clay is still our founding principle.