When I was a kid, everyone I knew, loved and respected suffered from panic attacks. My mother got them, both of my sisters got them, and Thela, my aunt, had them almost 24 hours a day during the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. On July 21, 1969, when Neil Armstrong took his small powdery step from the LEM to the pristine surface of the moon, she was absolutely inconsolable. Secretly, I think my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Thompson, got them too, although, to be honest, I think hers were fake -- brought on by too much hair dye that had soaked through her skull and into the brain. Periodically, she would talk in a southern accent (she was from Connecticut) and lift her skirt over her head, skipping around the classroom and calling herself Mary Lou (her first name was Viola). She would then come to a complete stop, look us squarely in the eyes like she was trying to hypnotize us and say, as seriously as possible, that "the college bound student should take as much 'rah-ting' and 'lit-a-ture' as possible." As you might imagine, the result of this behavior was that all of us paid rapt attention to her for fear we would miss something. Every single student in Mrs. Thompson's class that year got an A -- even Dwayne Waterger who used to eat glue and was as stupid as dirt; he got an A- even though he had never managed anything higher than a C- in any class, gym included. Mrs. Thompson's panic attacks helped all of us learn absolutely everything that a 4th grader should know --teaching us concentration, memorization and focus. We were afraid to pass notes or daydream because we could miss the next show. Bottom line -- I don't know if Mrs. Thompson's hysterical antics were actually panic attacks or something more sinister like menopause, but I do think her teaching methods prove she was a genius. There's nothing like the sight and first hand knowledge of a middle aged woman's foundation garments to make a 10 year old learn and remember things like the theories of planetary evolution.
Wikipedia, from which all useful knowledge is gleaned, defines panic attacks as "episodes of intense fear or apprehension that are of sudden onset and of relatively brief duration." This is scientific code for "you go frigging nuts and often crap on yourself." Seriously, my panic attacks were awful. I never crapped on myself but I often vomited. I thought I couldn't breathe. I thought I was losing control of myself. I thought I was dying. I couldn't catch my breath -- there was something I call the "trigger." If I could just get a deep enough breath past a place in my throat near the epiglottis -- this is the place I think of as the trigger -- I would be fine. But, during a full blown panic attack, I am hyperventilating so badly that deep breaths, even shallow breaths, are almost impossible; I can not achieve the trigger that signals my life will continue. So, for me, the inability to achieve the trigger breath signals that the end is near. My mind races. I run around, trying to take my mind off the problem. I swallow and try to burp repeatedly. My forehead beads with sweat.
Usually, when feeling the beginnings of a panic attack, I would ask my mom to take me to Minerva's, our cousin's, house. Minerva was funny and thought provoking and I defy anybody to have a panic attack in her presence. She had her own car and actually had a drivers license. She had such a powerful presence that the simple act of getting into the car to go over to Minerva's house would often bring me down. She also had the coolest kitchen in the world with matching cabinets and burners that were built into the countertop. No big white old fashioned stove for Minerva -- this built-in cooktop thingie was a relatively new-fangled development in 1969 and it was fascinating to me. Anyway, suffice it to say that going to Minerva's was always therapeutic. I can estimate that, when I was in the 4th grade, my mom and I were at Minerva's house more often than we were at church which is saying something because we were Greek and never missed a Sunday and often went during the week at holiday times. Minerva was a life saver.
I know the cause of my panic attacks. My yiayia died in 1968 and that started a series of events that left me shaking, breathless and close to following her to the grave. Nothing bad had happened in our family until then. Life was great. But, when yiayia died, things changed. OMG, Mary, I saw my father cry for the first time. Ever. At yiayia's funeral, I saw Mrs. Demitrulias grab my yiayia's hand -- in the coffin -- and hold it in her own. Mrs. Demitrulias was rubbing yiayia's hand, crying and lamenting her loss. But she was also talking directly to yiayia like they were having coffee and gossipping about Lillian Bitsoff. "Oh, Cherry-mou" (my "Cherry"), she said. Yiayia's American name was Cherry for some unfortunate reason -- Kerasho in Greek. "You better take a sweater, it's going to be cold where you're going." That freaked me out. Yiayia was dead for God's sake. Sweater? Cold? Wasn't she going into the ground??? And, why was she talking to her -- she can't answer. She can't even open her eyes or make baklava anymore. What was this adult doing?
That got me going. Where was Yiayia now? Where was she going? What happened to the life that was in her body? Why were her boobies so big? And why couldn't she speak English? But, really, what did death mean? What did the universe mean? Was I going to die? Were my parents going to die? Was Walter Cronkite going to die? For some reason, all of this sent me into a tailspin for the next several years. Bottom line -- panic attacks.
Let's explore the first panic attack I ever had. We were all sitting around the back room. To most families, this would have been called the family room but we weren't rich enough. To me, "family room" brought up images of color television sets, dark wood paneling covered with posed family pictures, artfully prepared plastic flower arrangements on cool modern side tables and fireplaces. Our back room was covered in linoleum (black with pink and aqua flecks), had one brick wall that used to be the outside of our house and it had a real window between it and the kitchen with a concrete sill and an aluminum frame still in it! Our side tables were tall, multi-layered, scrolled and carved pieces of antique wood -- they embarrassed me. The real reason we called it the back room, though, was quite simple -- it was at the back of the house. Anyway, we were sitting in the back room watching TV. I of course was secretly having the beginnings of this bad-ass panic attack. I was fighting it but losting the battle. My breath was short. There was no damn trigger breath. I was sweating. I was nauseous. My belly was swollen. I had gas. My mind was racing, my heart was pounding in my chest. I could not breath. I thought, in short, that I was dying. At first, I tried to keep this to myself but it was an impossibility. After awhile, I lost control -- plus wouldn't my parents want to know if I was dying? I told my parents that I felt sick. They rejected that. I told them I did not feel good, that I had something stuck in my throat, that I had cramps and at any moment would lose consciousness. I was shaking, bouncing and spinning my head back and forth and up and down. First my father tried the stern "watch TV and forget about it." But I kept pacing in front of his view. He finally told me to sit on the couch and be quiet. I tried but was still shaking and twitching like a crazy person on a crowded bus -- my head in a constant search for help from someone, anyone, a doctor would be good. I was babbling a mile a minute. Just when I thought I could no longer stand it, death being imminent and the panic attack at its zenith, I screamed like a little girl, jumped up from the couch from a full seated position and hit my head on the light fixture that was on the ceiling -- serioiusly, flush on the weird fuzzy fabric-covered ceiling tiles (honestly, never in my life have I ever seen ceiling tiles like this -- they must have been extras from one of the restaurants my father owned. "Waste not, want not" he liked to say). Where I got this energy and strength --no -- where I got that sort of superhuman ability -- I will never know -- I am not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination. So, I jumped from a seated position, hit my head on the light fixture and vomited on the floor.
My father ran over. Even my sister ran over. My mother? Well, she was in the kitchen. Laughing. I couldn't believe it. Laughing? Not huge, mouth open guffawing but more quiet laughing that only an all powerful and blessed mother can have during a crisis. Laughing that meant "I know what you're going through, I know you think it's awful but it's really okay now get over it." She was, however, laughing enough -- and, at the same time, leaning over into the bottom kitchen cabinet drawer -- that she had to put her hands on the countertop to steady herself. Here, her only son was lying on the floor, a puddled mess of sweat and vomit, gasping for breath and probably dying -- and she had 2 hands on the counter to steady herself while she was laughing. In my mind's eye, the laughing went on for a long time, hours even. She was laughing, the sweet gentle laughter I still can hear in my mind -- laughter that sounded like the tinkling of a crystal chandelier pushed by someone's hand. She herself was out of breath. And then it happened, she had laughed for so long while she was reaching into the bottom drawer for a piece of bread for a sandwich for me (food will solve all problems even a panic attack), that she wet herself a little bit.
And in the one moment, where she laughed and peed and made me a sandwich, my panic attack was over. Gone in a flash because of Mom. I will never know whether she did that on purpose to take my mind off my panic attack but she was the sole solution to the problem because: (1) she was a sufferer herself and would of course know how to end a full-blown panic attack; and (2) she automatically triaged the situation and sprang into action, resolving the emergency in the best way she knew as a Greek mother -- food preparation. Looking back, she had begun making a sandwich for me even before I was unable to achieve the trigger and before all of my symptoms were clear to the rest of the family. Before my father told me to get out of the way so he could see the TV, she was already in the kitchen. While I was jumping, hitting my head on the ceiling light fixture, landing and puking, she was getting the roast beef, mayo and cheese out of the old Kenmore in the kitchen. She knew and she did what she had to do, with a calmness I have rarely witnessed.
She, the most loving force of nature I have ever known, had laughed at me and willed herself to pee on command to save the life of her only son and youngest child. She recognized my lack of the trigger because she herself had experienced every kind of panic attack known to modern man. To me, the laughing was not the act of a callous or abusive parent -- furthest from the truth. She loved me more than life itself. This I knew for a fact and my sisters will attest to her love of me. On the day of my mom's funeral, one of her best friends, Christina Pagos -- as she was leaving our house -- said to me amidst her own tears -- that I was always my mom's favorite. Christina was right of course. My mom had lost 2 boys before me to some unknown, unspeakable and never diagnosed problem. I was the one she got to keep. She loved me so much that she performed a miracle that day in the back room -- she healed me and saved my life all in one fell swoop -- using a roast beef sandwich, the sound of tinkling crystals and the tinkling of her own falling waters as the tools of her saintly trade. And if that is not a miracle, nothing is and nothing ever will be.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The summer heat is coming
Today is the 26th of April and someone told me it was 95 degrees outside. Of course, it wasn't -- but that is how this person felt. Of course, this bouncing ball of radioactive heat is about 200 pounds overweight and was sweating like a whore in church. Nice. So, it wasn't really 95 but that really isn't the point. It was hotter today than it was yesterday -- which was itself hotter than the day before. We have not yet adjusted -- we need some transition time. The fact is, we can put up with just about anything given enough time to get used to it. And time must be filled with something other than just complaining, eating, looking at pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal and pooping. This human oven, even 200 pounds overweight, was just trying to make conversation, make a connection, person to person and, to be honest, once I got over my own shit about what he looked like and how his pink shirt was sticking to his ample and supple skin, I really appreciated his trying. Frankly, I appreciated talking to him. It is so easy to ignore those around us. We interact with so many people in impersonal ways -- telephone, computer, text, facebook, twitter -- whatever -- but the good old fashion face to face encounter is quite refreshing. It can be, in its own way, altering, not in a big, I-just-graduated-from-law-school-and-will-soon-make-a-lot-of-money way. But, in a smaller yet no less important way. If I let my own inhibitions and biases go, this guy was no more or less a person than those dear people around me whom I love. I just did not know him so it was easy to objectify him as a fatso. He could, if I allowed it to happen, be a positive influence on the definition of who I am -- not just a binary equation that pulses its way over the ethernet and is then forgotten. But, really, as a person, he made me smile, made me forget the stack of checks on my desk and lightened my day in a small way. Sometimes that is all it takes. So, today, on what is now the 12th day of the rest of my life, in the hot summer heat of late April, I remembered that people are people and that I should at the very least not fill the moat around my heart to keep them away. I should let people get as close as circumstances permit. I should smile. I should enjoy them and let them enjoy me. Because, when I am dead and gone, they will not remember the short, fat, dark haired Greek-American who was self-centered and self-absorbed and who has a big belly and a little bit of cheese above my left front tooth. But they will remember a really nice person who smiled. And, you know, that alone is a nice reason to survive the heat and enjoy something -- anything. Do you really need anything more than that?
So, I will try to lose my insane obsession at trying to make fun of something, of anything, of PEOPLE -- just to get a laugh out of my friends. Because all this does is isolate me and keep me from having real relationships with people who could be . . . nice. Because, looking back, his brief but bright commentary actually was very sweet and light and made the hot day seem just a little bit cooler. To him and to me both I suppose.
So, I will try to lose my insane obsession at trying to make fun of something, of anything, of PEOPLE -- just to get a laugh out of my friends. Because all this does is isolate me and keep me from having real relationships with people who could be . . . nice. Because, looking back, his brief but bright commentary actually was very sweet and light and made the hot day seem just a little bit cooler. To him and to me both I suppose.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Damn -- my legs look good
About 20 years ago, I lived in this gorgeous condominium building called the Waterford. The building itself was not actually beautiful -- it was built in the 1960's and had that funky angled architecture that is so common throughout the capital of Brazil. What was gorgeous about this building was living there, being inside it. Because the building was so old, the rooms were big and there were lots of them. I lived in a 3 bedroom apartment that had 2 bathrooms and 4 walk-in closets. It was luxurious. One of the best things about the Waterford was that there were no outside walls -- it was completely glass -- floor to ceiling and wall to wall. And each room opened up onto a huge frigging balcony that ran around the entire outside of the building. It was fabu. Between each apartment, there was a little lacy filigree divider so your neighbor could not easily pass from their balcony to your balcony. Many people had hung bamboo shades or other wall coverings on the dividers so that the neighbors could not see into your balcony or your apartment. Why they did this, I do not know because the average age in the Waterford Condominium at the time was about 85. They weren't doing anything secretive or embarrassing except the occasional changing of medical catheters. Whatever. I was easily the youngest person in that building then by at least 25 years -- if anyone was doing anything embarrassing, it was me and I am tame and mild-mannered by most standards.
Anyway, one night -- around 10 pm or so -- I was lying on my bed talking to my dear friend Barb. If I have not mentioned her before, let me do that now. She is my guardian angel. She is a delight, she is smart, funny, clever, and has just about the most lovely eyes I have ever seen on a human being. She was once asked to model eyeglasses by some dirty old man who recognized how beautiful her eyes were but was, I am quite sure, focusing on something decidedly south of the facial area. To this day, it is a supreme disappointment to me that she never took him up on the offer to model those eyeglasses. Barb also has great hair which has gone through many different looks, lengths, heights, colors and architectural formations. My favorite is the "Barb V" so called because, when you looked at the back of her head from behind, her hair-do looked like an inverted pyramid. It was stunning and very flattering to her Italo-Germanic bone structure. She has never recreated the Barb V because you can never really re-visit perfection. It's just a rule of life, isn't it?
So, Barb and I were talking about many things while I lay on my bed -- how she hated her job, how I hated my job, how she adored me, how I adored her, how Bill Clinton's nose was big and bulbous and stippled like a cauliflower -- you know, just the usual. We talked for hours back then. We were young and needed less maintenance. At some point, I was lying on my back with my legs up in the air (unconsciously mimicking, I suspect, the Barb V). Anyway, suddenly there was a flash of light -- lightening, a light bulb, no, a camera bulb going off. I quickly turned over and turned around to look out the floor-to-ceiling window in my bedroom -- but there was nothing and nobody there. "What happened" Barb asked. "I think Mr. Yu just took a picture of my legs!" Well, how the hell could he do that?" she gasped. "He shimmied around the filigree divider and took a picture of my legs, the sick bastard." It was the only answer. After all, my legs were stunning at the time. I had a stair machine in my apartment then and was regularly working out on it for 45 minutes or longer each day. Anyone who saw me in shorts during the late 1980's and early 1990's would agree -- damn! Lew's legs look good. Surely, my neighbor, Mr. Yu, had seen me in shorts on my way to the trash chute and he simply couldn't get the vision of those muscular stalks of hairy man legs out of his mind. Pop, pop, pop went my leg muscles with each confident stride toward the trash chute, my garbage bag swaying to and fro with wild abandon. Often, on the way down, I would run so that the trash would not leak onto the fleur de lis carpet. This would draw even more attention to me. There was no doubt in my mind that Mr. Yu had plotted some way to get a good photo of my legs for some sick little Taiwanese reason. I can only imagine why he wanted that photo -- neighbor porn has no boundaries, you know -- but the fact is that he wanted it, he planned it, and I fell easily, voluntarily and almost deliciously into his little trap. I bet he couldn't even have imagined how successful he would be -- to see me, on my bed, on my back, legs spread wide and pointing my toes. I tell you, it must have looked like a pose right out the Vargas Girl playbook -- only different. I bet Mr. Yu was proud of himself.
In fact, Mr. Yu was proud of himself -- and for good reason. He was an elegant man in his late 70's, young by Waterford standards. In good shape. Articulate but with a heavy Taiwanese accent. He was exotic in a short, slow moving, shuffling, scary kind of way. He frequently wore what can only be described as an adult diaper -- and nothing else. I think that this was some sort of Taiwanese lounge wear because he did not seem the least bit disturbed by it. Once, he invited me over for tea which I gladly accepted (the wardrobe alone was reason enough). His house was like a museum. I felt like I had walked back into time -- Taiwan style. I expected Lady Chiang Kai-Shek to walk around the corner and start a boxer rebellion. I also expected to catch him sneaking glances at my legs, now safely concealed inside trousers (I'm no dummy). But, instead, he was very interested in only 1 thing -- telling me that he had been crowned as Mr. Taiwan in 1949. He brought out picture books with lots of photos of him on the winner's stand, I saw medals and awards, I saw some lycra man panties that I was so glad he didn't wear anymore. On the whole, I had a delightful afternoon.
We traded little gifts of food back and forth after that but never again shared an afternoon tea or another photo session. I think it had something to do with the unfortunate dildo incident.
Let me describe the dildo incident to you. One of my exes had left a dildo at my house for some reason. Please don't ask. Anyway, as I was cleaning one of my walk-in closets, I came across the said dildo. It disgusted me. It reminded me of my ex. It reminded me of agreeing to do something that I never ever wanted to think of again and had ultimately and thankfully, decided NOT EVER TO DO. It was, for God's sake, a dildo. Still shrink wrapped in plastic, I would like to add, for the obvious reasons. Anyway, I wanted it out of my apartment and out of my life.
Unfortunately, it was after 11 pm -- after trash chute hours -- so I could not, according to Waterford Condominium rules, throw my dildo down the trash chute at that time. Rules are rules. I placed it on my kitchen counter near the front door where I was sure to see it the next morning on my way to work. I could then discreetly take it down the hall and dump it into the trash chute. Well, things being what they usually are in the morning, I woke up late and -- yadda, yadda, yadda -- I made a mad dash to work and forgot the dildo on my kitchen counter. Sitting there balls to the countertop. Well, isn't that just special? I could just get rid of it when I got home from work.
Until I remembered that today was the day my cleaning lady was coming. YIKES!!! I panicked, I was apoplectic. I left work immediately without an explanation. You know, it's awfully hard to tell your boss that you need to go home and throw away your dildo before your cleaning lady finds it. I made a frightful drive at supersonic speeds home. Alas, she was gone -- but so was my dildo! What the fuck had happened to my dildo??? It was not on the countertop in my kitchen where I left it. The cleaning lady was a bit freaky but let's be real here! Maybe I was dreaming? Maybe I was out of my mind? Maybe I had flouted Waterford Condominium rules and thrown it down the trash chute after legal trash chute hours? Not likely. Well, that god damn dildo did not just get up off its balls and walk out of my kitchen on its own. What the hell happened to it?
I had to let it go. I had a drink. I had 2 drinks. I had dinner. Then it was time to go to sleep. I walked down the hall, feeling a little buzz and quite tired. I couldn't wait for this stressful day to be over and get some rest. I took my clothes off and put my pajamas on. I scratched myself for several minutes then went into the bathroom. And there, much to my horror and dread, was, oh yes, the dildo. Sitting all alone, by itself, in the bathtub -- the clean bathtub. Cleaned just that day to be exact. Balls to the porcelain. Right underneath the faucet. Like a monument to my stupidity and . . . what else? My dignity. Or lack thereof.
Well, I was not going to let this sort of thing happen to me again. No way. In my pajamas, way after the 11 pm trash chute prohibition time (screw the Waterford Condominium rules), I walked right out of my apartment and down the hall with that dildo clasped in my right hand. Shaking it all the way down the long hallway -- past Mr. Yu's apartment door -- and talking to it, NO, yelling at it, all the way. Of course, I meant the dildo no harm and I was not really mad at the dildo. I was actually mad at me. Stupid dildo! Stupid me! No, stupid dildo! But it's so much easier to yell at a dildo than at yourself. I only wish that Mr. Yu's understanding of the English language was better than it appeared.
I moved out of the Waterford Condominium shortly after that. I said good bye to my wonderful apartment and the intriguing Mr. Yu who thought my legs looked good. He was right about many things -- including my legs -- but I was so, so wrong.
Anyway, one night -- around 10 pm or so -- I was lying on my bed talking to my dear friend Barb. If I have not mentioned her before, let me do that now. She is my guardian angel. She is a delight, she is smart, funny, clever, and has just about the most lovely eyes I have ever seen on a human being. She was once asked to model eyeglasses by some dirty old man who recognized how beautiful her eyes were but was, I am quite sure, focusing on something decidedly south of the facial area. To this day, it is a supreme disappointment to me that she never took him up on the offer to model those eyeglasses. Barb also has great hair which has gone through many different looks, lengths, heights, colors and architectural formations. My favorite is the "Barb V" so called because, when you looked at the back of her head from behind, her hair-do looked like an inverted pyramid. It was stunning and very flattering to her Italo-Germanic bone structure. She has never recreated the Barb V because you can never really re-visit perfection. It's just a rule of life, isn't it?
So, Barb and I were talking about many things while I lay on my bed -- how she hated her job, how I hated my job, how she adored me, how I adored her, how Bill Clinton's nose was big and bulbous and stippled like a cauliflower -- you know, just the usual. We talked for hours back then. We were young and needed less maintenance. At some point, I was lying on my back with my legs up in the air (unconsciously mimicking, I suspect, the Barb V). Anyway, suddenly there was a flash of light -- lightening, a light bulb, no, a camera bulb going off. I quickly turned over and turned around to look out the floor-to-ceiling window in my bedroom -- but there was nothing and nobody there. "What happened" Barb asked. "I think Mr. Yu just took a picture of my legs!" Well, how the hell could he do that?" she gasped. "He shimmied around the filigree divider and took a picture of my legs, the sick bastard." It was the only answer. After all, my legs were stunning at the time. I had a stair machine in my apartment then and was regularly working out on it for 45 minutes or longer each day. Anyone who saw me in shorts during the late 1980's and early 1990's would agree -- damn! Lew's legs look good. Surely, my neighbor, Mr. Yu, had seen me in shorts on my way to the trash chute and he simply couldn't get the vision of those muscular stalks of hairy man legs out of his mind. Pop, pop, pop went my leg muscles with each confident stride toward the trash chute, my garbage bag swaying to and fro with wild abandon. Often, on the way down, I would run so that the trash would not leak onto the fleur de lis carpet. This would draw even more attention to me. There was no doubt in my mind that Mr. Yu had plotted some way to get a good photo of my legs for some sick little Taiwanese reason. I can only imagine why he wanted that photo -- neighbor porn has no boundaries, you know -- but the fact is that he wanted it, he planned it, and I fell easily, voluntarily and almost deliciously into his little trap. I bet he couldn't even have imagined how successful he would be -- to see me, on my bed, on my back, legs spread wide and pointing my toes. I tell you, it must have looked like a pose right out the Vargas Girl playbook -- only different. I bet Mr. Yu was proud of himself.
In fact, Mr. Yu was proud of himself -- and for good reason. He was an elegant man in his late 70's, young by Waterford standards. In good shape. Articulate but with a heavy Taiwanese accent. He was exotic in a short, slow moving, shuffling, scary kind of way. He frequently wore what can only be described as an adult diaper -- and nothing else. I think that this was some sort of Taiwanese lounge wear because he did not seem the least bit disturbed by it. Once, he invited me over for tea which I gladly accepted (the wardrobe alone was reason enough). His house was like a museum. I felt like I had walked back into time -- Taiwan style. I expected Lady Chiang Kai-Shek to walk around the corner and start a boxer rebellion. I also expected to catch him sneaking glances at my legs, now safely concealed inside trousers (I'm no dummy). But, instead, he was very interested in only 1 thing -- telling me that he had been crowned as Mr. Taiwan in 1949. He brought out picture books with lots of photos of him on the winner's stand, I saw medals and awards, I saw some lycra man panties that I was so glad he didn't wear anymore. On the whole, I had a delightful afternoon.
We traded little gifts of food back and forth after that but never again shared an afternoon tea or another photo session. I think it had something to do with the unfortunate dildo incident.
Let me describe the dildo incident to you. One of my exes had left a dildo at my house for some reason. Please don't ask. Anyway, as I was cleaning one of my walk-in closets, I came across the said dildo. It disgusted me. It reminded me of my ex. It reminded me of agreeing to do something that I never ever wanted to think of again and had ultimately and thankfully, decided NOT EVER TO DO. It was, for God's sake, a dildo. Still shrink wrapped in plastic, I would like to add, for the obvious reasons. Anyway, I wanted it out of my apartment and out of my life.
Unfortunately, it was after 11 pm -- after trash chute hours -- so I could not, according to Waterford Condominium rules, throw my dildo down the trash chute at that time. Rules are rules. I placed it on my kitchen counter near the front door where I was sure to see it the next morning on my way to work. I could then discreetly take it down the hall and dump it into the trash chute. Well, things being what they usually are in the morning, I woke up late and -- yadda, yadda, yadda -- I made a mad dash to work and forgot the dildo on my kitchen counter. Sitting there balls to the countertop. Well, isn't that just special? I could just get rid of it when I got home from work.
Until I remembered that today was the day my cleaning lady was coming. YIKES!!! I panicked, I was apoplectic. I left work immediately without an explanation. You know, it's awfully hard to tell your boss that you need to go home and throw away your dildo before your cleaning lady finds it. I made a frightful drive at supersonic speeds home. Alas, she was gone -- but so was my dildo! What the fuck had happened to my dildo??? It was not on the countertop in my kitchen where I left it. The cleaning lady was a bit freaky but let's be real here! Maybe I was dreaming? Maybe I was out of my mind? Maybe I had flouted Waterford Condominium rules and thrown it down the trash chute after legal trash chute hours? Not likely. Well, that god damn dildo did not just get up off its balls and walk out of my kitchen on its own. What the hell happened to it?
I had to let it go. I had a drink. I had 2 drinks. I had dinner. Then it was time to go to sleep. I walked down the hall, feeling a little buzz and quite tired. I couldn't wait for this stressful day to be over and get some rest. I took my clothes off and put my pajamas on. I scratched myself for several minutes then went into the bathroom. And there, much to my horror and dread, was, oh yes, the dildo. Sitting all alone, by itself, in the bathtub -- the clean bathtub. Cleaned just that day to be exact. Balls to the porcelain. Right underneath the faucet. Like a monument to my stupidity and . . . what else? My dignity. Or lack thereof.
Well, I was not going to let this sort of thing happen to me again. No way. In my pajamas, way after the 11 pm trash chute prohibition time (screw the Waterford Condominium rules), I walked right out of my apartment and down the hall with that dildo clasped in my right hand. Shaking it all the way down the long hallway -- past Mr. Yu's apartment door -- and talking to it, NO, yelling at it, all the way. Of course, I meant the dildo no harm and I was not really mad at the dildo. I was actually mad at me. Stupid dildo! Stupid me! No, stupid dildo! But it's so much easier to yell at a dildo than at yourself. I only wish that Mr. Yu's understanding of the English language was better than it appeared.
I moved out of the Waterford Condominium shortly after that. I said good bye to my wonderful apartment and the intriguing Mr. Yu who thought my legs looked good. He was right about many things -- including my legs -- but I was so, so wrong.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The next Jude Law
What the fuck is all the big deal about Robert Pattinson? If I was Ellen Degeneres and Robert Pattinson was on my show, after I danced and gave some nice people from Iowa a vacation to Panama City Florida, I would look him right in that pasty little girly face and say "what the fuck is all the big deal about you, Robert Pattinson?" Seriously, I want to know. I know he's young and British and has good cheekbones -- but, honestly, do you know that Forbes fucking magazine named him of of the most powerful celebrities in the world? A "Celebrity 100" like he's gonna squat and drop a golden fucking egg right in front of you on command. If Robert Pattinson isn't the luckiest fucking recipient of the "I was in the fucking right place at the fucking right time" award, I don't know who is. I want a celebrity hunk to have some impressive church bells, you know what I'm saying (there's a good friend of mine out there who certainly knows exactly what I'm saying)? This guy can't even bring himself to comb his fucking hair -- if I can call that his hair. I mean, really, who undoes your hair, Robert Pattinson???
Looks like somebody rubbed their balls all over your head and pushed you out in front of the camera.
Get a mirror, Robert Pattinson. And a brush. Reese Witherspoon sure has his number -- she says that he can't dance, can't kiss, can't stop touching himself in his warm places and has the breath of a dead animal. Seriously, she told me that she thought she was kissing the wrong end of him at first. So, what the fuck Time Magazine -- you have to name him one of the 100 most influential people in the whole fucking world for 2010? What carrot did he pull out of your fucking garden to make that list? I guess there's nobody better since Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa bit the big one? Let's see, Abraham Lincoln is dead and Liz Taylor finally croaked. Next in line? A little girly man with pencil thin arms who hasn't combed his hair or shaved himself yet.
Was that harsh? Sorry.I don't mean to be harsh about Robert Pattinson. I actually feel a bit sorry for him. Did you know that in May 2010, Madame Tussaud's premiered a wax statue of him? When he showed up for the unveiling. all the paparazzi confused the real Robert Pattinson with the wax figure. It must have been terribly embarrassing for poor Robert Pattinson. Apparently, he turned to a photographer taking a picture using one of those big long lenses and said "pull down your britches and I'll give you a better shot." Only then did they figure out the confusion.
Here's another story about Robert Pattinson that comes under the title of "Get a Mirror, pal." He started modeling at age 12. Apparently, according to Robert Pattinson, he was moderately successful for about 4 years because he was "quite tall and looked like a girl." He says that he was a sought after model during that time because the androgynous look was very popular. This both confuses and titillates me. However, around 16 years of age, he became too masculine and too much of a "guy," so Robert Pattinson never got any more jobs.
Really? I think the wig-hat is on too tight and, again I say, "Get a Mirror, pal."
Now, we all know that Robert Pattinson is mostly known for those vampire movies where he gazes plaintively into people's eyes -- lips seductively parted ever so slightly (refer to note from Reese Witherspoon), kisses them (again, refer to note from Reese Witherspoon) and then sucks on this and that (Reese Witherspoon has nothing for us on this one). I am not sure if this qualifies him as a real vampire or some guy named Britt from an old porno I have entitled "Logjammer." Anyway, this vampire stuff has brought him some notoriety. Yes, some. Just enough to name him as one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood according to 2009 earnings.
So what this tells me is -- if I really was Ellen Degeneres and Robert Pattinson was on my show, after I dressed myself in a Velcro suit and threw myself up on a wall of that funky hook material, I would certainly ask him about his messy hair and when the fuck he was going to get cast as Larry in the new Three Stooges movie. And then I'd ask him if he could give me some money.
And that, my friends, is really what this entire rant comes down to. Not his pencil thin arms, not his girly androgynous look that was popular when he was 12, and certainly not his breath which stinks like butt. It all comes down to the money. At all of 25 years of age, Robert Pattinson could fucking buy and sell me. And you and apparently Mother Teresa too. In this age of celebrity, this mal-coifed little slip of a thing has more fucking money than he knows what do to with. While I do not particularly envy his age, his celebrity, his hair, his cheekbones, his assbreath or his starpower, I certainly do envy his money. And I don't really like what that says about me.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Week 2 -- also known as Holy Week
Just when I thought life couldn't get any better -- boom -- Holy Week. As a Greek Orthodox person, I like to follow the rules. In the Greek Orthodox church, religious tenets have 2 main corollaries: (1) the rules must be convenient; and (2) someone must be watching me or otherwise able to find out that I am following the rules. That second corollary of Greek Orthodoxism is extremely important to us. Our yiayia's taught them to us, our mothers emphasized them and now, as a Greek Orthodox big boy, I follow these corollaries quite strictly. Let's talk about the rigors we go through.
Holy Week means fasting and the story usually goes something like this:
OMG -- it's Holy Monday and all I have to eat is a stick of butter and a 3 pound package of thick sliced bacon. Well, we all know that you can't eat butter or meat during Holy Week. So, let's see what the Convenience Corollary tells us. That's right, it's time to eat out. Restaurants always have things we can eat during Holy Week like potatoes, side salads, unleavened bread and table napkins. So, Convenience Corollary solved rather easily.
But let's not forget the 2nd corollary. That's right -- you never want to go to a restaurant alone. But, not to worry, invite a friend. Bravo! DO NOT under any circumstances invite a relative because they too will be fasting. You don't want your sister, thea or nouno to use up their corollary 2 on you. So, pick a friend -- someone who's Jewish, or Lutheran or, better yet, an atheist. Then pick up the menu and just stare. Stare for a long time -- keep staring at that menu long after your friend has eaten all the bread (which you can't eat anyway because you can't put butter on it and without butter why bother) and started on the Sweet'N'Low packages. Finally, say something like "hmmmm" or "well, I just don't know" or "no, that won't work." Your friend will, of course, ask what the hell you are talking about and then you can tell them that you are fasting and it's quite important and that they are not fasting and that you can't eat meat, fish (with backbones), animal products, olive oil or alcohol. Therefore, in the Greek Orthodox equation of religion and hierarchy, you are a better person than them, very devout and impressive and -- the best part -- better than them. Repeat this 3 times just for good luck. We Greeks do everything 3 times just in case nobody saw us doing it the first 2 times. That is why we cross ourselves 3 times at church -- that is why we kiss our friends' cheeks 3 times when we greet them -- that is why we repeat ourselves 3 times if we are saying something clever (which as you might imagine happens quite frequently). We could just save a lot of time and effort if others would simply pay more attention to us and, after all, why wouldn't they want to pay more attention to us because we're Greek and therefore better than them.
My mother was so sly back in the day. Holy Week would come along and suddenly, after years of saying that I must eat a hot lunch every day at school, she was packing me crap that would normally be thrown out with the garbage. Old dried out oranges, bananas with the peels already removed and cut into disgusting brown discs, special peanut butter with no oil in it, green beans in zip loc bags, 5 pounds of fasolakia (bean stew without anything good like meat) in a washed out Harvard beet jar. With one of the nice silver spoons from the top drawer in the dining room! My mother always sent me to school with hundreds of little packages of different sorts of shit and a remote and vague hope that one of the things would taste vaguely good. But they didn't. They were disgusting. Disgusting? Yes but also skillfully crafted to garner maximum attention and, most importantly, loud reactions from those around me at the lunch table. Zero, bang, bulls eye, ka-pow, hit the target -- and you, little Nick or George or Alex -- or, in my case, Lew -- are going to Greek Disney World where everybody wears black head to foot and pinches your cheeks because you're so darn cute! Mom couldn't have been a better teacher if she had written it out and illustrated it in color with a red Sharpie. Learning by watching the master.
I was no dummy either. At Christmas time when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, I asked her why Santa came to our house on Christmas eve when everyone else at school said that he came only after they went to sleep so they could find their presents when they woke up on Christmas day morning. Well," she said, clearly prepared for this moment, "the answer is very simple. Santa comes to Greek people's houses 1st -- while he still has all the expensive good presents and, only after all those are gone, does he go to the other lesser and smelly Christian homes." Jews? Forget it. "Sure they get 7 days of presents but have you seen how small they are?" Stella may have never gone to college and inexplicably did not know how to drive a car but nobody, not even Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking, could out-do her in a game of logic.
Her wiles knew no bounds. On birthdays in elementary school, when other mothers were making cute little pastel cupcakes or brownies -- from a boxed package she always surmised-- my mother was sending huge trays of baklava complete with the special diamond cut into small pieces that is always sure to impress. I tell you that I could not lift even 1 tray they were so big! But my mother, fearing that someone else might get the same idea, always sent 2 trays -- 1 for the kids and 1 for the teachers. Each little diamond piece placed delicately and perfectly into something hauntingly dirty called a nut cup. A nut cup? Bright shiny foil, crimped around the outside -- about the right size too. Whatever. Anyway, when my teacher, Mrs. Thompson, said my mother could no longer send baklava because little Mindy Jo Shea had a severe nut allergy, my mother did not stop. She sent them at birthdays, holidays, Fridays, anytime she could think up a reason or if a test was coming up. "There's no nuts in there," she said, "it's pecans." Later, my mother told me that this was just the Greek way of weeding out the sick ones. I understand that Alexander the Great did the same thing to the Spartans.
Brilliant.
So, here I am, older but no wiser than the venerable Stella, and I am still grappling with the strategy of how to survive a whole Holy Week on nothing more McDonald's french fries, potato chips and my own fasolakia, while also trying to invite as many friends over for the same stinking dinner that I am eating. It is not easy but, after all, I am Greek.
Holy Week means fasting and the story usually goes something like this:
OMG -- it's Holy Monday and all I have to eat is a stick of butter and a 3 pound package of thick sliced bacon. Well, we all know that you can't eat butter or meat during Holy Week. So, let's see what the Convenience Corollary tells us. That's right, it's time to eat out. Restaurants always have things we can eat during Holy Week like potatoes, side salads, unleavened bread and table napkins. So, Convenience Corollary solved rather easily.
But let's not forget the 2nd corollary. That's right -- you never want to go to a restaurant alone. But, not to worry, invite a friend. Bravo! DO NOT under any circumstances invite a relative because they too will be fasting. You don't want your sister, thea or nouno to use up their corollary 2 on you. So, pick a friend -- someone who's Jewish, or Lutheran or, better yet, an atheist. Then pick up the menu and just stare. Stare for a long time -- keep staring at that menu long after your friend has eaten all the bread (which you can't eat anyway because you can't put butter on it and without butter why bother) and started on the Sweet'N'Low packages. Finally, say something like "hmmmm" or "well, I just don't know" or "no, that won't work." Your friend will, of course, ask what the hell you are talking about and then you can tell them that you are fasting and it's quite important and that they are not fasting and that you can't eat meat, fish (with backbones), animal products, olive oil or alcohol. Therefore, in the Greek Orthodox equation of religion and hierarchy, you are a better person than them, very devout and impressive and -- the best part -- better than them. Repeat this 3 times just for good luck. We Greeks do everything 3 times just in case nobody saw us doing it the first 2 times. That is why we cross ourselves 3 times at church -- that is why we kiss our friends' cheeks 3 times when we greet them -- that is why we repeat ourselves 3 times if we are saying something clever (which as you might imagine happens quite frequently). We could just save a lot of time and effort if others would simply pay more attention to us and, after all, why wouldn't they want to pay more attention to us because we're Greek and therefore better than them.
My mother was so sly back in the day. Holy Week would come along and suddenly, after years of saying that I must eat a hot lunch every day at school, she was packing me crap that would normally be thrown out with the garbage. Old dried out oranges, bananas with the peels already removed and cut into disgusting brown discs, special peanut butter with no oil in it, green beans in zip loc bags, 5 pounds of fasolakia (bean stew without anything good like meat) in a washed out Harvard beet jar. With one of the nice silver spoons from the top drawer in the dining room! My mother always sent me to school with hundreds of little packages of different sorts of shit and a remote and vague hope that one of the things would taste vaguely good. But they didn't. They were disgusting. Disgusting? Yes but also skillfully crafted to garner maximum attention and, most importantly, loud reactions from those around me at the lunch table. Zero, bang, bulls eye, ka-pow, hit the target -- and you, little Nick or George or Alex -- or, in my case, Lew -- are going to Greek Disney World where everybody wears black head to foot and pinches your cheeks because you're so darn cute! Mom couldn't have been a better teacher if she had written it out and illustrated it in color with a red Sharpie. Learning by watching the master.
I was no dummy either. At Christmas time when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, I asked her why Santa came to our house on Christmas eve when everyone else at school said that he came only after they went to sleep so they could find their presents when they woke up on Christmas day morning. Well," she said, clearly prepared for this moment, "the answer is very simple. Santa comes to Greek people's houses 1st -- while he still has all the expensive good presents and, only after all those are gone, does he go to the other lesser and smelly Christian homes." Jews? Forget it. "Sure they get 7 days of presents but have you seen how small they are?" Stella may have never gone to college and inexplicably did not know how to drive a car but nobody, not even Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking, could out-do her in a game of logic.
Her wiles knew no bounds. On birthdays in elementary school, when other mothers were making cute little pastel cupcakes or brownies -- from a boxed package she always surmised-- my mother was sending huge trays of baklava complete with the special diamond cut into small pieces that is always sure to impress. I tell you that I could not lift even 1 tray they were so big! But my mother, fearing that someone else might get the same idea, always sent 2 trays -- 1 for the kids and 1 for the teachers. Each little diamond piece placed delicately and perfectly into something hauntingly dirty called a nut cup. A nut cup? Bright shiny foil, crimped around the outside -- about the right size too. Whatever. Anyway, when my teacher, Mrs. Thompson, said my mother could no longer send baklava because little Mindy Jo Shea had a severe nut allergy, my mother did not stop. She sent them at birthdays, holidays, Fridays, anytime she could think up a reason or if a test was coming up. "There's no nuts in there," she said, "it's pecans." Later, my mother told me that this was just the Greek way of weeding out the sick ones. I understand that Alexander the Great did the same thing to the Spartans.
Brilliant.
So, here I am, older but no wiser than the venerable Stella, and I am still grappling with the strategy of how to survive a whole Holy Week on nothing more McDonald's french fries, potato chips and my own fasolakia, while also trying to invite as many friends over for the same stinking dinner that I am eating. It is not easy but, after all, I am Greek.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
On Getting Older
I eat way too much. If I really did what all those suck-ass experts told us we should do and wrote down everything I ate on a daily basis, I would kill more trees than all the junk mail in America. I am sure that the listing itself would shock even me. A handfull of crackers -- hell, several handfulls of crackers -- a few plates of cheese, a banana thrown for potassium, 1 piece of lunchmeat, little forkfulls of leftover dinner, some cottage cheese, pretzels with mustard, a frozen microwave shrimp tom tom soup, some pasta I made on Sunday that had asparagus and onion in it. It's all good and all in 1 day. I wouldn't be proud of this if someone was watching me and was listing the edible phone book listing of my day. But since nobody is there, fuck it. Given the genetics with which I have been grappling since high school, the real difference I can make in my body shape is minimal (really, please believe me). So, what the heck -- eat up, Lew.
I know this is a blog about getting older and not eating but there is a connection. I should eat less because my metabolism has been slowing down more than Sarah Palin's rotation in the political world. I know I should eat less -- nobody has to tell me that. I exercise every day -- almost every day. Okay, at least 4 out of 7 days a week.
My goal is to work out 6 days a week ever since Jerry read some hideous book entitled "Younger Than Last Year." In that trash laden piece of dog doo, the authors told us that, if we wanted to remain movable into old age, we needed to work out a minimum of 6 days per week (really, what's left after that? Do they not know there are only 7 days in a week). This way, our body keeps shedding the old, nasty cells and replaces them with new, hairy good cells that don't smell so bad. The result? We can walk up and down stairs without stopping to . . . admire the butts of the young people ahead of us . . . I mean, without having to stop and catch our breaths or rub our knees. Maybe it's true, I don't know.
This is a long way of saying I work out lots. As I tell anyone who will slow down near me, I work out more than other 51 year olds. Of course, this is probably because many of my compatriots are either in states of abject denial or are dead. Those few of us who remain are just trying to maintain. Maintain what I don't know.
Let's take sex. My new theory on sex is that it is good. So good in fact that I think about it pretty often. Not as often as I used to -- not as often as I think of food which is really depressing. But I think about it. On to my theory. When born, God imbues us with a maximum number of times DURING OUR LIFETIME that we can have sex. So, when Ponce de Leon was born, God might have given him 43 times to have sex during his lifetime. Once he hit that magic number, he was on his own which, by saying that, I do not mean he had to masturbate. I just mean he could no longer have sex. Another person, say poor Lady Bird Johnson, was only given 6 (imagine how Lyndon felt). I think normal people are given between 100 and 200 just as a thought. But of course I am not certain. My point is that I have probably hit my maximum number and I have not realized it yet. Try as I may, it just isn't in the cards. It's not my fault. To be honest, I think I peaked early which is a shame but I did not develop this theory until I was old. I might have paced myself better had I known. But you can't turn back time and you can't turn back the number of times you have had sex. Now, I also recognize that I am 51 and a half years old so the possibility remains that at my age one would rather just sit and contemplate his 401k balance than have sex. What do you think? Maybe it's just old age. The real shame here is that I do think about sex and, at my age, I do not worry about what is jiggling or shaking anymore so that is not the impediment that it once was. Sometimes when the urge hits me, I think, well, I really have to get up early, or I should get up and brush my teeth first and by the time that's over I will be too tired. Or have I just hit my maximum? It's a good question.
There are other indignities of getting older but let me shortcut all of them by saying that they all have to do with really embarrassing things that doctors do to you. At a younger age, when a doctor needed to see the things he now has to see on me, I would have to change doctors. But, let's face it, the number of embarrassing places on my body outnumber the available physicians so I am out of luck.
I could go on and on about how awful and heart-wrenching it is to get old. How bowel movements suddenly become exciting accomplishments. How getting up to fill your glass of bourbon is actually exercise. But I think, at this point, that it would just be repetitive. What's the point? Suffice it to say that getting old sucks but I would rather be old and boring and tired all the time and fat and have a bunion and take medication than . . . be dead.
I know this is a blog about getting older and not eating but there is a connection. I should eat less because my metabolism has been slowing down more than Sarah Palin's rotation in the political world. I know I should eat less -- nobody has to tell me that. I exercise every day -- almost every day. Okay, at least 4 out of 7 days a week.
My goal is to work out 6 days a week ever since Jerry read some hideous book entitled "Younger Than Last Year." In that trash laden piece of dog doo, the authors told us that, if we wanted to remain movable into old age, we needed to work out a minimum of 6 days per week (really, what's left after that? Do they not know there are only 7 days in a week). This way, our body keeps shedding the old, nasty cells and replaces them with new, hairy good cells that don't smell so bad. The result? We can walk up and down stairs without stopping to . . . admire the butts of the young people ahead of us . . . I mean, without having to stop and catch our breaths or rub our knees. Maybe it's true, I don't know.
This is a long way of saying I work out lots. As I tell anyone who will slow down near me, I work out more than other 51 year olds. Of course, this is probably because many of my compatriots are either in states of abject denial or are dead. Those few of us who remain are just trying to maintain. Maintain what I don't know.
Let's take sex. My new theory on sex is that it is good. So good in fact that I think about it pretty often. Not as often as I used to -- not as often as I think of food which is really depressing. But I think about it. On to my theory. When born, God imbues us with a maximum number of times DURING OUR LIFETIME that we can have sex. So, when Ponce de Leon was born, God might have given him 43 times to have sex during his lifetime. Once he hit that magic number, he was on his own which, by saying that, I do not mean he had to masturbate. I just mean he could no longer have sex. Another person, say poor Lady Bird Johnson, was only given 6 (imagine how Lyndon felt). I think normal people are given between 100 and 200 just as a thought. But of course I am not certain. My point is that I have probably hit my maximum number and I have not realized it yet. Try as I may, it just isn't in the cards. It's not my fault. To be honest, I think I peaked early which is a shame but I did not develop this theory until I was old. I might have paced myself better had I known. But you can't turn back time and you can't turn back the number of times you have had sex. Now, I also recognize that I am 51 and a half years old so the possibility remains that at my age one would rather just sit and contemplate his 401k balance than have sex. What do you think? Maybe it's just old age. The real shame here is that I do think about sex and, at my age, I do not worry about what is jiggling or shaking anymore so that is not the impediment that it once was. Sometimes when the urge hits me, I think, well, I really have to get up early, or I should get up and brush my teeth first and by the time that's over I will be too tired. Or have I just hit my maximum? It's a good question.
There are other indignities of getting older but let me shortcut all of them by saying that they all have to do with really embarrassing things that doctors do to you. At a younger age, when a doctor needed to see the things he now has to see on me, I would have to change doctors. But, let's face it, the number of embarrassing places on my body outnumber the available physicians so I am out of luck.
I could go on and on about how awful and heart-wrenching it is to get old. How bowel movements suddenly become exciting accomplishments. How getting up to fill your glass of bourbon is actually exercise. But I think, at this point, that it would just be repetitive. What's the point? Suffice it to say that getting old sucks but I would rather be old and boring and tired all the time and fat and have a bunion and take medication than . . . be dead.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Late in the evening and a cold breeze has chilled me
It is truly amazing that we human beings are able to survive the harshness and anger and lack of fairness in this world. I don't really know if there is a plan for us out there, but if there is one, I really hope the denoument will make it all better for us. So many times, the best and smartest things in life are the simplest. A good recipe with only 2 or 3 really good ingredients -- jeans that zip up easily on a "fat" day. One of the simplest and truest statements is -- life is hard. So hard. I know there are heroes like Pat Tilman, the Japanese nuclear plant workers who stayed in the danger zone to try and save their countrymen, the first responders on 9/11. But the real heroes in my book are those normal, everyday people who just keep going. My nephew who loves everyone he meets and is the very definition of unconditional love and joy. My friend, a true gentle spirit with the kindest heart I know, getting divorced and keeping it together for her children and because there really is no other good choice. Keep calm and carry on. My sister who gets up every morning at 4 am to go to a back breaking job that she does better than anyone else. There are many many others I know and I am in awe of them. Just when I think the world is full of dirty so & so's, I think of the other beautiful people who make up 99.9% of life. They are the salt of the earth, they are the chocolate chip in the cookie of life, they are the 1/4 moisturizing cream in my Dove Soap. And yes, dammit, they are the ones who make me the proudest.
Thursday April 14, 2011
Today is the 4th day of the rest of my life. This is the 4th day I have been without a job. I am in the middle of changing my life. This is a good thing. My life was great before, don't get me wrong. But for 25 years, I was gliding by on the conveyor belt of life. In the grocery store that is this world, I was somewhere in the middle between the corn chips and the chicken breasts. I went to college, then to law school, then got a job at a big high powered law firm and then I went in-house where I stayed for 20 years. Success, success, success -- by other people's measures. Mine too, I suppose. Don't get me wrong, I was a willing and happy participant in this conveyor belt of mine. I loved the money, I loved the challenges, I loved many of the people I met along the way. I even loved the recognition that came with the trappings of these things. But, I always felt out of it. I always thought I was the "worst of the best" or the "best of the worst" -- depending on the day. Almost but not quite in the "in" crowd. I never really identified with the general population around me.
So, for the last year, my partner and I have been putting our financial house in order. We have been saving money, refinancing mortgages, being smart with our investments and, most importantly, planning for the next stage of our metamorphesis. We have now left the adult bug stage of development and are moving on to the next stage -- which could be the drag queen stage, we're not sure. But, the point is, it will be fun because we are fully in charge. We call the shots, we make the decisions.
When I was a little boy, my mom and dad wiped my butt until I was way too old. I cannot remember exactly what age I was when that stopped but, to be honest, while it was going on, I knew no other way of life. I would finish my business and sing out a little song -- "somebody come and wipe my butt!" Dutifully, gladly, even joyfully, one of my parents would come into the bathroom to groom their young. It was the outward expression of the inner love I knew was there. It was life and, really, I just never questioned it. However, at one age, and again I cannot remember when but I was certainly big enough to see out the window so I must have been quite a boy, I saw my parents in the backyard talking to the neighbors. It was summer and warm and the window was open which was convenient. So, I just belted out my song like always, confident with the knowledge that life would continue like this until -- until -- well, I thought it would continue forever. Anyway, this time, my father came in to tend to me. He spoke: "This is the last time I or anyone else will do this." And then he did it. And, oh yes, it was the last time. At first, I was disgusted, horrified, angry. How could I be expected to touch "down there" after having done . . . "that!" It was not for me to do. Plus, did this mean that my parents no longer loved me? Had I done something wrong? Well, the answer came slowly but strongly. I could touch "down there" after having done "that" and they still loved me. AND, I soon realized, it was okay. I focused a lot when I was doing that and then, once it was over, I pretended like it had never happened (so much of life is like this -- sex comes to mind). You know something -- the end of my butt wiping stage was really the moment that I changed from a child to an adult. I was in charge. If I wanted to use 6 sheets of toilet paper, I would. If I wanted to use 1 and call it a day (probably because there was something good on the television), I could do that too. Hell, I could even not do it at all although, to be frank, that never crossed my mind. The point is that I was in charge, I was calling the shots. I knew at that moment in my development that I wanted my own car, I wanted to live on my own, I wanted to have my own money, pay my own bills and, yes, Virginia, I also wanted to be gay. That's a lot of shit (literally) to pile onto a little child and his development but it is true. And I think I am the better person for having to wipe my own butt. Thanks, Dad.
So, I am taking some time now to get my shit together (notice the theme) and think through what it is I want to do. Here, on the 4th day of the rest of my life, I have made a spinach pie, changed some light bulbs, talked to my sister and found how to create a blog. Pretty good for a kid who didn't even "you know what" until he was at least 5 feet tall.
Let's talk food. I know, given the above story, that this entry is not particularly chronologic. But, hey, deal with it. Anyway, food. I love food -- all kinds of food except for Ethiopian. My favorite is Greek because I am Greek but that is not to the exclusion of other sorts of food. Vietnamese is good -- Italian too. Really any sorts of food except Ethiopian. I am going to let you in on a little secret -- food is not food. Well, food is of course food but it is so much else too. Food is nourishment, food is tasty, food is love, food is sex, impressive, desire and so much more. People are jealous of other people's food -- they compare themselves to others based upon how good or bad their food is, how big their food is. For me, food is like a clock, the passage of time. I live my life based upon what I will eat next. Often, when I am lying in bed, I will say to my partner, what do you want to eat tomorrow. That is not a joke -- I am really thinking of what to eat next. There is no double entendre there. In the morning, I think of lunch. At midday, I think of dinner. And on and on. I suppose it is why I cannot lose weight and why I refuse to wear a swimming suit anymore. Whatever.
Okay -- so today is Thursday and I am on the 4th day of the rest of my life. I know that I will NOT want to do nothing for the rest of my life. One can clean, eat, pleasure oneself and talk to one's sister only so often. I will need some sort of job at some point. But, the rub is, what sort of job and, really, will I be loved there? Let's see what happens.
It is probably time to eat so I better post this now. I am not sure of what people will think of me and what I have written above (and will write in the future). But, you know what? That's really not my problem. I poop and need to wipe myself. Get over it.
So, for the last year, my partner and I have been putting our financial house in order. We have been saving money, refinancing mortgages, being smart with our investments and, most importantly, planning for the next stage of our metamorphesis. We have now left the adult bug stage of development and are moving on to the next stage -- which could be the drag queen stage, we're not sure. But, the point is, it will be fun because we are fully in charge. We call the shots, we make the decisions.
When I was a little boy, my mom and dad wiped my butt until I was way too old. I cannot remember exactly what age I was when that stopped but, to be honest, while it was going on, I knew no other way of life. I would finish my business and sing out a little song -- "somebody come and wipe my butt!" Dutifully, gladly, even joyfully, one of my parents would come into the bathroom to groom their young. It was the outward expression of the inner love I knew was there. It was life and, really, I just never questioned it. However, at one age, and again I cannot remember when but I was certainly big enough to see out the window so I must have been quite a boy, I saw my parents in the backyard talking to the neighbors. It was summer and warm and the window was open which was convenient. So, I just belted out my song like always, confident with the knowledge that life would continue like this until -- until -- well, I thought it would continue forever. Anyway, this time, my father came in to tend to me. He spoke: "This is the last time I or anyone else will do this." And then he did it. And, oh yes, it was the last time. At first, I was disgusted, horrified, angry. How could I be expected to touch "down there" after having done . . . "that!" It was not for me to do. Plus, did this mean that my parents no longer loved me? Had I done something wrong? Well, the answer came slowly but strongly. I could touch "down there" after having done "that" and they still loved me. AND, I soon realized, it was okay. I focused a lot when I was doing that and then, once it was over, I pretended like it had never happened (so much of life is like this -- sex comes to mind). You know something -- the end of my butt wiping stage was really the moment that I changed from a child to an adult. I was in charge. If I wanted to use 6 sheets of toilet paper, I would. If I wanted to use 1 and call it a day (probably because there was something good on the television), I could do that too. Hell, I could even not do it at all although, to be frank, that never crossed my mind. The point is that I was in charge, I was calling the shots. I knew at that moment in my development that I wanted my own car, I wanted to live on my own, I wanted to have my own money, pay my own bills and, yes, Virginia, I also wanted to be gay. That's a lot of shit (literally) to pile onto a little child and his development but it is true. And I think I am the better person for having to wipe my own butt. Thanks, Dad.
So, I am taking some time now to get my shit together (notice the theme) and think through what it is I want to do. Here, on the 4th day of the rest of my life, I have made a spinach pie, changed some light bulbs, talked to my sister and found how to create a blog. Pretty good for a kid who didn't even "you know what" until he was at least 5 feet tall.
Let's talk food. I know, given the above story, that this entry is not particularly chronologic. But, hey, deal with it. Anyway, food. I love food -- all kinds of food except for Ethiopian. My favorite is Greek because I am Greek but that is not to the exclusion of other sorts of food. Vietnamese is good -- Italian too. Really any sorts of food except Ethiopian. I am going to let you in on a little secret -- food is not food. Well, food is of course food but it is so much else too. Food is nourishment, food is tasty, food is love, food is sex, impressive, desire and so much more. People are jealous of other people's food -- they compare themselves to others based upon how good or bad their food is, how big their food is. For me, food is like a clock, the passage of time. I live my life based upon what I will eat next. Often, when I am lying in bed, I will say to my partner, what do you want to eat tomorrow. That is not a joke -- I am really thinking of what to eat next. There is no double entendre there. In the morning, I think of lunch. At midday, I think of dinner. And on and on. I suppose it is why I cannot lose weight and why I refuse to wear a swimming suit anymore. Whatever.
Okay -- so today is Thursday and I am on the 4th day of the rest of my life. I know that I will NOT want to do nothing for the rest of my life. One can clean, eat, pleasure oneself and talk to one's sister only so often. I will need some sort of job at some point. But, the rub is, what sort of job and, really, will I be loved there? Let's see what happens.
It is probably time to eat so I better post this now. I am not sure of what people will think of me and what I have written above (and will write in the future). But, you know what? That's really not my problem. I poop and need to wipe myself. Get over it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)