How on earth do you wash a Fedora? [and other random thoughts]…

I have been intensely busy, lately. Not just by hand, either.

It's a cabal all right. Against me.

My mind…it often goes into Mach 7 when I attempt to procrastinate (by the way, the word “procrastinate,” itself, is ironic – I mean, by the time you write the word out, you could have done something already – it’s not a word for the lazy), and the only thing I can physically do to make it stop is to sleep (even though my dreams are usually full of anger when I do that – last night, for instance…ouch!), but if I don’t stop it, from time to time, it just runs all days with thought after thought after thought, and so what I’m about to do is a little experiment I engage in, every now and again: I’m going to pause, take a deep breath, and type out every single thought I have in my head right at this moment in an attempt to empty my brain.

Because I really want to take a nap…without feeling guilty about it.

Ok? So, here I go:

How on earth do you wash a Fedora…pancakes…the way Max sleeps with one open, staring…the other day when the tornado siren went off some student in the hall asked if North Korea was attacking and I was impressed because he didn’t seem the type to be that aware of the world around him, his clothes made that suggestion…why a city has the name of Scooba…Old Man Frank came by the house yesterday to tell me I’d left the water hose on and flooded his driveway, he’s an old man with scoliosis but my god he can knock loudly…that time I brushed my teeth with Cortizone-10…my glasses are broken – well the leg fell off but still it’s going to cost money to fix it better than I did with hot glue…apple juice gives me heartburn and so do onions and so do Tums which is ironic since they’re supposed to fix heartburn…I really like sweet potato pie…why can’t I start back working on my new script, I think it has potential, and I sometimes feel guilty doing other types of writing but Gary tells me just write everyday so I do, this blog if nothing else…why won’t I finish this other script I have because I know the deadline is looming…I’ve only once seen an actual loom and the word loom makes me think of a loon…Smoking Loon is a type of red wine…I’m allergic to red wine…how is too much water bad for you…I’ve switched mayonnaise brands, U.L. is shocked…I wish I’d planted those irises deeper in the dirt…where would I put a bicycle if I had one…I hate my cell phone…at some point I’m going to need new tennis shoes…my ankle still hurts…I am still angry because this morning I was almost finished with a new blog and then I hit some button and the whole damn thing was erased…what it would be like if I could magically freeze people and take off their clothes and then move them somewhere else and then unfreeze them and laugh at how embarrassed they’d be…how people can eat warm mayonnaise is beyond me…why I don’t have any pet fish, they’d be so much easier to handle until the cats found them…why some doctors don’t use anesthesia…I’m very glad my dentist did even if now I have a new health concern called synethesia and it feels like ice-cold water is running down my chin and neck several times a day…if people could float indefinitely…what would constitute a magic umbrella…would having sex with a centaur be bestial and illegal…why John Mark Karr would lie about JonBenet Ramsey…how to love through pain, and mean it…how do I manage to memorize all my lines each play I’m in…what would happen if I could disappear…how many people would come to my funeral…why I drink so much…if we’re all hiding something, what then are we all compensating for…why trust is so hard to get and so easy to lose, and doesn’t that imply a serious flaw in the nature of trust…what does God do when he rests…do I have cancer, or West Nile, or Swine Flu, or diabetes, or RLS…why can’t I focus on losing weight…how upset I get when the media overlooks the devastation of Katrina in Mississippi, even now four years later..should I give Olive Garden another chance…why does gorgonzola taste so bad when you melt it…I cannot abide any more of the heat…I cannot stand it when I sweat without purpose…should we build a bigger fence for Max…why can’t I find a handwriting that I approve of…when did I develop this paranoia…will I ever write a good play…how much of your identity is in your name…how many people did I upset this week…what would happen if I always told the truth…why are there so many bad spellers…why don’t people read anymore…what happened to conjugating verbs…how did Latin die…why do I have to have a favorite color, or food, or anything at all really…what will my next car be…why am attached to the name Cutter…I’m still mourning Bea Arthur’s death, but I’m glad we still have Angela Landsbury for now…how can one face death…what is a timing belt and how do I find it…who was the first person to stain glass…why do I have a desire to be famous…I’m not sure there’s such a thing as compromise, one will always retain the power…does anyone ever really forgive…is my first cat, Aristophanes, mad at me for leaving her at U.L.’s…I hate doing laundry…I can’t believe I’m almost 33…I’m afraid I’m losing words…what happens if I go crazy…I don’t like orange Powerade…why don’t I speak better French…why do I always pretend everything…I take back what I thought a minute ago, I think I may be partial to blue and deep reds…I hate the word “cubicles”…a young boy yelled at me one day from across Main Street and said, “It’s raining gayness today!” and I yelled back, “Well, we needed the rain, didn’t we?”…I need to buy more nose strips, for my apnea…what is it about men in uniform…why don’t I approve of steel top roofs, especially green ones…some days are so beautiful I think to myself, if I have to die, let it be on a day like this…I do not want to be put in the ground, though; I want to be in a crypt above it…I’m glad that even in my darkest days, I still believe in God…why can’t I bathe all day…I’d like to thank everyone that I’ve ever met…I can’t stand it when I go to the hair salon and they spritz my hair instead of shampooing it, that is a pet peeve of mine…sometimes I use room spray as cologne…was Jean Harlowe a more tragic case than Jayne Mansfield…

Whew…and just think, I didn’t even get to the part where I’ve invented a new form of poetry that I call a “tri-ku.” It’s a re-constituted, inverted version of a haiku, in three stanzas, each one goes 7-5-7.  I’ll leave you an example of one.  We’ll talk about it later, don’t worry. Each one is based on my belief that there are nine universal truths.

The Ancient Art of the Written Word.

Universal Truth #1: Berth

Other people would have left.
They might have laughed.
No, no they would have, I’m sure.

And not because of your face,
or indifference,
they didn’t care how you were,

All they would care about was
that your smile had flaws
and that your bite had no teeth.

Speaking of teeth…I can’t wait to tell you about Rasputin. The Kitten Who Lived and Had Teeth.

That’ll have to be after my nap, though.

The monsters in my mouth.

I’m no prude, but violence in any form shocks me. (I’m rather hoping that’s a universal statement).

But, and here’s where we may differ, my response to it is to laugh. Maybe it’s a nervous habit, maybe I think it’s a deflection on my part to make it less real. I don’t know why I do it, but I laugh. And loudly.

See, what you might not know about me is that I am the world’s most foremost expert at inappropriate laughter.  It just seems easier to laugh at everything, for me.  I get tired of crying. (Though, I’ve done my share of that, too).  Let’s not dwell on that, yet…that’s not today’s focus.

This man is thoroughly enjoying his laugh.

This is: what I’ve been noticing lately is that my conversations, and by this I mean those that I happen into, like around the dinner table, out with friends, after rehearsals, etc., not ones I instigate, necessarily, I’ve noticed that they have become almost exponentially more violent in content.

That amuses me.

I wonder if we think that’s entertaining. Sure, sure, in a movie, like Die Hard or Scream or that dreadful imposition of a film called Forrest Gump, ok, that’s one thing, but in the every day? When we’re face-to-face, are we so worried that silence is too disconcerting that simply enjoying another’s presence isn’t enough, anymore? 

Either way, it makes for good conversation, I guess.

Before rehearsal, yesterday, I met a couple of friends at Old Venice, an Italian restaurant within walking distance from my house, as is the theatre. It’s terribly convenient to have them both so close, and I worry that at any moment someone will come and tell me I’ve had it made for too long, to please move.

I was a bit late, and they were already there, drinks in one hand, menus in the other, and as I sat down, Jene turned to me, in that wonderfully comic way of his (everything’s a big, fat joke to him and I like that), and announced that he’d hurt his ear. Burst the drum. He’d poked a Q-tip too far into the canal. I reminded him that the box, of course, carries a warning to the effect of: Don’t stick this Q-tip in your ear canal.

That wasn’t the point, he said.  It never is with Jene. That’s what makes him delightful company. That story, however, led us immediately down a long, winding path of physical incidents in Jene’s life. Like the time that he got hit in the left eye with a stick and for the next eight days had to go to the emergency room, before school, and meet his doctor there to have his eye scraped.

I found this irresistably funny. So, I laughed.

Jene paused. Assured me that it really was quite painful. Then, he laughed. So did, Chris. (Another one).

As is the way in the Deep South, Jene expected equal disclosure. The whole gambit of “I tell a story, you tell a story.”  We are a culture of story-telling people.  Also, we are called liars. But, we’re good ones. As Mark Twain has famously written, There’s an art to lying, as anything else. Forgive the paraphrase.

I was prepared, naturally. So, I regaled them with my most recent horror: wisdom teeth extraction. I waited late in life to have it done. For one thing, I didn’t really, really know I had any. Secondly, when I couldn’t eat for three days because my back teeth hurt, I realized then, that Yes, indeed, I had wisdom teeth, and they’d shown up just in time to be taken out. Much like an evangelist…they spoke with a vengeance.

The dentist was, how can I say it?, frankly appalled.  He took one look at my X-rays and loudly sighed. How could I not know that these monsters were in my mouth. I liked that phrase, though…don’t you.  I told him they’d never bothered me until that weekend.  He held no restraint in telling me that I was almost too old for a safe surgery.

But, that he’d try. (Of course, he would. It cost $1200.  Heck, in this recession, I’d try to take your wisdom teeth out for $20).

I signed waivers saying that I wanted to be “put under,” and that if I died, I wouldn’t sue, etc. etc.  (They didn’t ask me to include family members though. If something happened, I felt I’d be avenged.  Hell hath no fury like my Mother).

The day of the surgery came, bless Erin and Amanda for the week of torture they’d have to endure on my behalf, and I took the Valium. The nurse asked me if I had any last questions. In retrospect, this is not necessarily what you want to hear on your way “down.” I asked her if anyone had gone on to meet God from the chair I was in.

She said, “No. Not that one.”

I was out in under ten seconds.  That part is not Hollywood fiction; it’s very real. When I came to, I was drowsy and packed: cotton, gauze, my mouth was free of monsters and full of Proctor & Gamble.  The dentist said that despite my age (again with this age business) it was a textbook operation.

I asked him which edition.

He laughed, as was his social responsibility. And two days later, I had a massive nerve infection. Not a dry socket, a nerve infection. So painful that I almost committed a crime: vandalism. I didn’t though. I wasn’t able to drive to his office without assistance, and I just wasn’t willing to incriminate anyone else.

These are happy teeth. They are also fake.

I had to go, for a solid week, at the hands of mercy belonging to Erin and Amanda, God bless them, every morning back to the dentist’s office to have my “holes packed.” It is as painful as it sounds. They would stretch my jaws as widely as they could, no anesthetic, no being “put down” for this, no, no…I watched the atrocity with every last ounce of awareness one is offered by being fully awake.

The nurse took, what I imagine were Guiness Book of World Records award-winning tweezers – they were a foot long if they were an inch – and while another nurse, unseen, held my jaws open (and anytime your jaws are held open, it is always against your will), drying out my throat, the first nurse took two awful-smelling strips of yellow gauze, soaked in kerosene and castor oil and also Ipecac, I think it was, and proceeded to force them into the space previously occupied by God-given teeth.

Every morning for a week I endured this.

I could hardly speak, the taste of those stips was like having two creosote poles (crisoak, as we say down south) jammed into your gums because any foreign object put in your mouth shames it instantly; your mouth becomes offended – it begins to feel inadequate, as if it’s not doing its job. Your mouth knows what should and shouldn’t be there. I’m pretty sure that’s one of Newton’s laws, oh, and that taste, ick….nothing could get rid of it. Nothing.

I finished my story, and turned back to Jene, who stared at me. That was nowhere near as painful as having your eyeball scraped. I had to agree.  No matter how I twisted the facts around to make them more violently presentable, just merely saying the words “eyeball,” and “scraped,” in the same sentence trumps everything else.

He then rounded out the evening, at least for me – I had to get to rehearsal – by telling the embarrassingly tragic story of his 12th birthday. Having grown up with horses, in the stables not the house, he’d invited all his friends to the ranch to show off his precious, tame horse named Cantalope.

He’d been practicing and practicing pulling off a Trigger routine, which as you may recall, I believe, involved Roy Rogers jumping over the back of the horse to mount him. I think. At any rate, I’m sure it wasn’t Dale. Jene had reheared this routine a thousand times, he said, and was eager to show his friends what he could do with a horse.

And I mean, come on, the horse’s name was Cantalope. What harm could that cause.

I wouldn't trust this face, at all.

A lot, apparently. The horse panicked and kicked Jene in the genitals four quick and nearly lethal times. His mother, desperate to save him, should a fifth and sixth kick be imminent, immediately jumped the fence, grabbed her son, and tore his trousers off to inspect the damage, much to the wild-eyed amusement of all of his friends, who stood there, a mute audience.  At least until school started back, at which time they introduced to the student body a new nickname for Jene which was…

…and, that, I’m afraid is where the story ended.  He didn’t say another word, and wouldn’t.

Don’t you just hate when people do that?

I’m sure it had something to do with blue jeans, that’d be a first and obvious choice, and of course, balls.

It’s crass, I know, but then, so are most twelve-year-olds.