Perfume on this Shit

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 28, Verse 23

"In the end, people appreciate frankness more than flattery."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I have a dish soap problem.

My dish soap problem is not altogether calamitous, and it is somewhat easy to explain: I use too much dish soap.

There.  I said it.

The consequence of my dish soap problem is not altogether catastrophic, and it is somewhat easy to explain: my dishes are very clean.

Okay.  Now you know.

There is, of course, another consequence of my dish soap problem, and it is not altogether cataclysmic, and it is somewhat easy to explain: I spend more money on dish soap annually than is necessary.

So.  There it is.

The thing is, though, when the dish soap bottle is full, I get reckless with my squirting and my spurting, as so many immature boys do.  It's very Freudian.  I just spray all over the place.

WAHOO!  WHOOOPEEE!  I DON'T CARE!  LA LA LA!  TAKE THAT, DISHES!  

And, so on.  And, so forth.

It's like a party of some kind, and my sink is the Playboy mansion.  Or the Penthouse, um, penthouse.  

By the time the bottle is half empty, I don't care anymore.  "Oh, it's half empty," I say to myself, "I don't care.  Anymore."  And so I spray and spurt and squirt with aplomb.  Because, what's the fucking difference by that point?  

Then, when it's almost gone, well, hardly time to conserve now, is it?  And so I absolutely coat the dishes with pink or plum-hued oomidigoobiness.  

Clean.  Freak.  

And, as I have mentioned: we use a lot of dish soap.  Hence, my dish soap problem.  Hence, my coffee often tastes like Lemon Joy.  Hence, soap is probably coursing through my veins at this very moment.

Henceforth, new paragraph.

These paragraphs aren't very long, are they?

I didn't realize, until as recently as a couple years ago, that I had a talent for tarting up phrases, for making the not so nice appear quite so nice, on paper that is.  For tidying up phrasing or for dressing up scenarios.  For nipping and tucking, in the written form.  For cleaning things up.  I guess it should come naturally for someone who has liquid detergent for blood.  Sometimes my coworkers would be writing their notes and one would pass along a patient note to me and say, "Can you spray a little perfume on this shit for me?"  And I would suggest a rewrite or two to make something a little more therapeutic, a little tighter, neater, nicer; cleaner.  And, invariably, my colleague would make the suggested edits and trot away happily because, as far as they knew, I was a writer and knew what I was talking about.

And I am only too happy to perpetuate the fantasy.  As fantasies go, it's pretty innocuous.

Anyway, as I was washing dishes tonight, I was thinking about this alleged ability of mine, this facility with the Queen's English and my gaze fell upon the dish soap bottle (now dangerously close to empty) that sat, upright like a penguin, in front of my on the sink, with its back label facing me.

On the off chance that you are over forty (and, if you are, reading this blog will only prolong your sorely extended adolescence, which is probably why you're here) and cannot see that, allow me:

"Inspired by the winding canals of Thailand that are lined with 

dragon fruits, mangoes and papayas."

And then it says the same thing in French.  And then it talks about how it'll burn your face off and turn your eyeballs into Raisinettes if you spray it all over yourself.  

And I was thinking to myself, "Wow.  I missed my calling."  Really.  I could have combined my two great loves: dish soap and spraying perfume on this shit by working for SC Johnson Wax or whoever the fuck makes this dish soap shit, AND I'm sure that, working for them, I could score free dish soap for life and so that would really have killed two birds with one stone and that just would have been a great career move but instead I work at a goddamned psych hospital and do Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and get dish pan hands and play around in the sink like a second grader and everything is going fine.

And then I looked at the new bottle sitting next to that dragon fruit and papaya one.

"Inspired by the lavender fields of the Mediterranean."

And I thought to myself, "That's it?"  

Whoever wrote that couldn't possibly have been the same genius who penned the description for the "Thai Dragon Fruit Scent" Dawn.  Unless it was 5:00, time to go home-- oh, shit, I still have to write for the "Mediterranean Lavender Scent" Dawn, oh whatever kind of thing.  

I can accept that.

I don't appreciate it.  But I can accept it.

Sometimes, though, even when it's the end of the day and your hands are all chapped and there's nothing left in the bottle and your tank has run dry and the babies are screaming and the dog has unzipped your wife's purse and there's Kleenex and coins and glitter all over the floor and it seems like they're going to find out about you and it's time for bed and it's time for morning and it's driving and fueling and farting and crying and meds and meat and drink and sex and puzzles and cable TV-- sometimes you still have to just try.  Try to put some perfume on that shit.  For yourself.  For your mother.  For God and country.  For the Duke boys.

For all of us.

Why?

Because, Goddamnit.  Because this is America.  Because this is your captain speaking.  Because I have a song to sing, O.  Because this I believe.  Because mistakes were made.  Because this is the way we were.

Because I have a dish soap problem.  

Just Another Porpoise

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 25, Verses 21 & 22

"If your enemy is hungry, give him food!

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink!

This will make him ashamed of himself, and God will reward you."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I'm trying an experiment.  

Don't worry-- it doesn't involve spraying Maybeline into Thumper's eyes or replacing Christian babies' blood with Ecto-Cooler.  It's just a teensy little experiment.  

A writing experiment.

Tonight, I am going to see if I can be a little bit more in tune with, or attuned to, my emotions.  Now, I'm obviously off to not such a hot start because, if I was, I wouldn't have done that cutesy little phrasing (in tune with, or attuned to-- God, shut UP) because I would have been paying closer attention to what I'm feeling right now and less attention to being clever.

I'm not, that's why I have to pay attention to it.

What I'm feeling right now, frankly, is cold.  Not emotionally, but physically.  My feet are freezing and my nose is schnuffling, and my shoulders are cold.  I've got a sweater on, and pretty thick socks but this room and this house are both drafty and I don't have the wherewithal or the ambition to go downstairs and turn the heater on.  If I had one of those nifty apps on my smartphone I could turn the heater on using that, but those are for assholes.

I don't need HVAC cellphone apps to be an asshole.  I've got it covered.

I suppose I'm feeling a little lonely tonight.  My wife is at her band rehearsal and the babies are asleep, as is the dog.  I could wake her up to play with her, but that feels a bit selfish.  Plus, she'd probably just get riled up and bark and yelp and wake the babies up, and that would be mightily sad for all involved.  I usually don't mind being alone, but I don't like the way it feels right now.  I feel like I want to call up a friend, but why?  What would I say?  

"Hello in there?"

It's frustrating when you're not sure where to go with a piece.  That nice moment there doesn't mean much if it's not picked up in a thoughtful way, or an energetic paragraph that goes somewhere else.  It sort of just hangs there, doesn't it?  Like some forgotten dream, that we've both seen...

I've been worried recently that I'm not terribly funny anymore.  And I've been thinking about it a lot.  In writing and in life.  That I maybe don't have the knack for it, or the energy for it, or the interest in it.  I looked at the homepage of John Elder Robison's wife's blog for some random reason today, and it made me crack up, just silly captions she put under pictures or the way she phrased things and I was thinking, "I used to do that, didn't I?"

But maybe I'll be funny when I'm supposed to be.  Maybe, right now, when I'm not feeling funny, I'm not supposed to be being funny.  Oftentimes, people are funny because they have to be, or they think they have to be, to cover up what they're really feeling-- to help someone else out, to prove something to themselves or the world.  It's our way of making Ecto Cooler out of lemonade.  It's a neat trick: Hey!  I can do that!  Look at me!  I'm depressed as hell but I can still make you laugh.

It's a neat trick.  Better than a goddamned porpoise bouncing a beach ball on his fucking nose at Sea World.

I saw a headline today, I guess it was on an advice column, and the title read, "Should I Take My Child to Sea World?" and I was thinking "No, you fucking stupid cunt," and I was thinking about how much I wanted to smack the asshole who wrote that, and then do the same thing to the asshole who printed it, and then do the same thing to everyone who clicked on it and read it.  And then I thought, if my children want to go to Sea World, I am going to take them.  And then I will want to slap myself.  Because I am my own worst enemy.  My mortal enemy.  I'm going to be around myself forever.  

No, don't take your lousy lopsided miserable kid to Sea World.  Buy him a Siamese fighting fish instead.  He'll love the fucking thing because it's beautiful, and Sea World isn't beautiful.  I've never seen it; 

but I know. 

The Spandexversary

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 25, Verse 24

"It is better to live in a corner of an attic than in a beautiful home with a 

cranky, quarrelsome woman."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I'm very fortunate.

I know that, if you read back through the fifty-some-odd, quite odd, yes, posts on this blog you might legitimately wonder if I really believe that.  

But, I do.  

One of the things I'm frightfully fortunate about is that I married a woman who thinks that a lot of things related to romantic relationships are stupid.

Like roses'n'chocolates.  

Now, don't get me wrong, she loves flowers and chocolate, just not "roses'n'chocolates".  And I particularly enjoy going to a florist and hand-picking an eclectic, autumnal bouquet for her.  I always say I want to spend "between $35 and $40", and it almost always comes out to "$44.85" or something like that, but who cares?  I love snapdragons and sunflowers.  No, snapdragons'n'sunflowers.

She also thinks Valentine's Day is stupid, and I love that.  Fortunately, we came into each other's lives on February 16th, 2003 so it's a convenient way to dispense with Valentine's Day.  For us, it's unnecessary, superfluous, excessive.  And it's also, you know, stupid.

And, every year, on October 22nd, I am reminded of how lucky I am that she doesn't buy into all this wedding anniversary theme horseshit.  

Wood.

Paper.

Formica.

Neoprene heat-resistant rubber.

Anthracite.

I mean, don't worry, ConsumerWorld-- I got her something, but I don't need you to provide direction as to the requisite raw materials.  I'm not that dumb; it's not that deep.  Her mother, while descending on us last weekend, asked what anniversary this is, meaning the "traditional gift theme".  My wife, absently petting the dog, mumbled, "I don't know-- Spandex?"

And I love that.

I love that things like that, that other people buy into (which, if it works for you, rock on) are pretty much a joke to us.  Because, really?  Life's silly enough without all that silliness, and that pressure, and that prescriptive-ness.  

Tomorrow my wife and I will celebrate being married for seven years.  I don't know what the "traditional gift" is, and, as I'm sure you can figure out by now, I don't care.  I'm not going to Google it, though you can if it makes you feel better, and I'll love you just the same, you inquisitive little scallion-face.  I don't know.  Maybe it's the meds, but I kind of want to run down the street naked screaming because I love my wife so much.  I want to stand on the roof and shout that I love a woman who thinks roses'n'chocolates are dumb.  

And maybe they're not, and maybe they are, but whatever they are; they're just not her.

She's Pippi Longstocking.

She's Stargirl.  

She's Margot Tenenbaum.  

I get to go to sleep and wake up every morning with my favorite person, my buddy, my pal around, knock around, be silly and be sad together buddy.  And that's the coolest fucking thing in the world.  I'd have to be one lousy stupid fuck to not blog about that tonight-- for this is my running down the street naked, this is my standing on the rooftop screaming, this is my P'TANG YANG KIPPERBANG!

I love this.  This crazy fucking marriage.  Yes, there's bizarre inlaws and random shit all over our house and I'm succumbing and resisting all at the same time and there's change and there's sameness and there's a Volvo outside and babies asleep under blankies and the dog is splayed out on the couch like a five dolla handie-handie washie-washie and I'm getting grayer and she just looks better and better with every haircut and every Modcloth dress and it's not always easy but it'd be pretty fucking boring if it was and it's almost two hours to bed and two hours till tomorrow and it'll be seven years and I can't wait to give her her gift.

Me: I just want to say one word to you.

Her: Yes, sir.

Me: Are you listening?

Her: Yes, I am.

Me: Spandex.

Her: Exactly how do you mean?

Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Robinson.

Beware of Strangers with Candy

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 7, Verses 16 & 17

"My bed is spread with lovely, colored sheets of finest linen imported from Egypt, perfumed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.  Come on, let's take our fill of love until morning."

--

CHIPPED WISDOM:

Beware of strangers with candy.

What does chocolate do?  It releases little chocolatey molecules of wondrous rapture inside you.  You seek pleasure, chocolate finds you.  

Mm.

Noice.

It gets on your fingers, unless it's encased within an MNMey colored sugar-shell, but you don't care, because it's chocolate, not dog shit or roofing tar.  You don't like when dog shit or roofing tar get on your fingers, because you can't lustily lick it off.

But you can, and should, do that with chocolate.

Chocolate is what you give to people whom you want to like you, or forgive you, or worse.  So I should have been hearing all kinds of alarm bells going off inside my head when the Volvo saleslady pushed a gold box towards me with two sets of Volvo keys on top of it.  

That should have been the warning.  That should have been the knell.  But instead, I melted in my chair and said read my line like the trained performing artist/monkey I am and said, "Oh, that's sweet."

GET IT?!  CHOCOLATE?!  SWEET?!!!!

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They gave me chocolate, and a thirteen-year-old car.  Granted, this car has 90,000 miles on its odometer.  That's under 7,000 miles a year.  That's amazing.  The car, a V70XC wagon, is beautiful.  On the long, LONG 105.2 mile drive home from the dealership in Mechanicsburg (oh, yes, I will name you if you don't make this right) I almost cried out because the ride was so tank-like, so ferociously smooth, so luxuriously sumptuous.  It was like piloting a Dane Decor furniture showroom down the highway.  

And then, twenty-six hours later: the Check Engine light came on.  

It's at my mechanic's right now.  I'm terrified about what he's going to say.  My mind is reeling and racing and raging.  I was so furious when I stared down that little orange light I just wanted to disappear.  

But, no.  

No.

That's what I do.  That's what I do when I get mad: I disappear.  I crawl and slink away into the shadows, apologizing-- bowing out, exiting stage left.  "It's wrong to yell," I said in therapy, just today-- just an hour before the Check Engine light came on.  I said that.  For real.  Like a third grader, with the most basic black-and-white conceptualization of morality, social constructs and acceptable behavior.  

It's wrong to yell?  

Wow.

And I can hear it, of course, the illogical nature of that statement.  But I try so hard to be nice.  To be nice, good, kind, kind, good nice.  I'm so terrified that someone might think ill of me if I let loose one time, if I say what I'm really thinking or feeling, if I react in a way that my muscle can't back up, if I cry or if my voice shakes or if I raise that voice that makes me so sick to listen to, that halting, stilted, can't find the word for the love of all that's holy voice.  

Holier than thou.

Holier than chocolate.

Holvo Volvo.  

Fix my car, please.  I love that car.  Or, at least, I want to love that car.

And you can keep your fucking chocolate.

  

Celovebrity

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 8, Verse 17

"I love all who love me.

Those who search for me shall surely find me."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I've decided: I could never be a celebrity.  I don't have the talent for it.  And I don't mean the talent necessary to accomplish celebrity, although that's certainly debatable, too; I mean the talent for sustaining it.  For perpetuating it.  For feeding that monster, for oiling that machine, for dressing that Reuben.  

I wouldn't, I don't think, be able to process that idea of having fans.  People who repeat my catchphrases at social gatherings or predict the day I'm going to die as part of their celebrity death watch club.  People who would go, "Oh, man!  Remember that scene in ______________" and have them talk about a movie I was in.  That, to me, just does not compute.  Because I feel like, aside from being thoroughly confused by these people, I feel like I would hate them.  I would detest my fans.  It would be like (OH, MAN! REMEMBER THAT) scene in "Life of Brian" where Graham tells all his disciples to "FUCK OFF!"?  

Well, it'd be like that.  

The anniversary of Graham Chapman's death was a while ago, and I'm embarrassed to admit I only knew about it because of Twitter, which I am on because I maintain the work Twitter account.  Our local radio station does a "On this day in suchandsuchayear" thing every day at around 6:30am, and, yes, I'm already at work, dear, thanks for asking.  He died on October 4th, 1989, with John Cleese and Michael Palin at his bedside, both of whom had to be escorted from the room as they were in, or close to, hysterics when the time came.  I remember watching about Graham's passing on "Entertainment Tonight".  I was all of nine years old, and his death had a significance to me even at that early age.  Two years prior, a British classmate of mine introduced me to Python, far too early, and I was hooked on whatever I understand and infatuated with whatever I didn't.  

I was a fan of Graham Chapman's before I'd hit puberty.  

To me, celebrity is about little more than the passing of time.  Life plods along as it must, until Harvey Korman or Walter Matthau dies.  Or Bea Arthur.  Or Gilda.  Or Graham.  And the voice comes on the radio and announces it or you hear about it on Facebook (and it turns out not to be a hoax) and your world shifts a little.  Tectonically.  It moves.  And you get off-balance.  I mean, look at us: we're a Pacino culture.  

Dog Day Afternoon

Scarecrow

Serpico

The Godfather

And that's just the seventies.  This screaming, apoplectic Italian hurricane has been a cinematic force for forty plus years.  What are we going to do when the voice comes on the radio to tell us that we've lost Al?  We're seriously going to lose it.  

Hoo-ah.  

And when he dies, a page will turn.  Something will have broken.  Something falls apart.  

I feel like a large part of who you are is defined by how you feel when a certain celebrity dies.  When John Cleese and Michael Palin or any of the other remaining Python boys expire, cease to be, and go to meet their maker, I may have to be institutionalized for a little while (hopefully I'll get a discount because of my line of work).  And some days I feel like I'm just marking time until a celebrity in whom I am particularly invested dies.

I don't know really what celebrity is, though I expect it's love if it's anything.  To love is to feel ardently for someone in spite of what you know about them or suspect you know.  Celebrities, I'm pretty sure, are probably mostly all rotten to the core, hollowed by being hallowed if they weren't all shit inside to begin with, and yet we simply don't care.  Because we're fans.  And that's what fans are, people who know or probably know and don't care.  

I'm glad I'm not a celebrity.  I don't have the stomach for it.          

The Mental Health Conspiracy

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 8, Verse 1

"Can't you hear the voice of wisdom?"

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

When you work with people who have serious mental illness, you become paranoid.  No longer is "the walls have ears, my friend" just an avuncular piece of advice from a desk-jockey lifer: it's real.

Or at least, you think it's real.

But, isn't perception reality?

So.  It's.  REAL.

But in addition to a terrifying fear of my superiors, to wincing every time I drive down the long, twisting driveway festooned with Tim Burton-style gonna-get-you barren trees that lead up to the Draconian building I call home for far too many hours each week, I feel, I don't know... conspired against?

Is that the right word?  

Maybe.

So far, no grants that I've written have gotten funded.  Many are still "in the pipeline" as we professional grantwriter assholes call it (I'm sure there's many a vivacious Urban Dictionary definition for "in the pipeline" that do not relate to development and fundraising) but the ones I've heard back on have all been a resounding, "NEIN, FRAULEIN!"  Okay, so maybe I'm not a good grantwriter.  Or maybe nobody's jumping up and down to throw money at forensic mental health.

Then there's the op/ed, commentary pieces I've written to the newspaper.  I did one in August, one in September, and one this month.  None we run by the paper.  Now, granted, there's a lot of competition, but I don't want you to think I'm bragging when I say that I have a 9-out-of-10 success rate when it comes to getting commentaries published in the paper.  At least, that was my success rate before I started writing about mental illness.  Now the tumbleweeds start to dance by.

It's possible that my writing skills have tanked in recent years.  That's possible.  

Other people do seem to get published when writing about mental illness.  I just today read a very interesting piece about Assisted Outpatient Treatment today and, underneath the author's name all the way at the bottom was a picture of a young woman standing outside closing a flannel shirt over her bra and the caption below read "10 SMALLEST CELEB BREASTS" and I was thinking to myself, I'll bet at least a hundred times more people clicked on that link than read the article I just read.  

And I got sad, because as much as I love small breasts, particularly those attached to celebrities, I just shake my head in despair when I think about what mental health competes with on a daily basis.  On Philly.com, for instance, there is a whole page about "HEALTH".  What are some of the "articles"?

The big story is an expose about how Cliff bars and their counterparts aren't really as "healthy" as people think.

Catch me, I might swoon.

"New Method May Improve Face Transplant Methods" which, I'm sure, is relevant to so many people on Philly.com, certainly more pressing and urgent than a story about mental illness, which impacts 1 in 4 Americans, probably more people than who need concern themselves with face transplant methodologies.

And, the question to the answer that nobody asked: "Breast Implants a Boost to Women's Sex Lives?"  Not satisfied with merely one story about silicone slappies (featured twice on the page, mind you) there's also "Breastfeeding After Implants Won't Cause Sagging, Study Finds".  Gee, that's good to know!

Oh, and let's not forget the gem, "Smaller Testicles, Better Dads?"  Well, I guess it's a nice complement to "10 Smallest Celeb Breasts."  I wonder if smaller breasted celeb moms are better moms than big breasted celeb moms.  Stay tuned, I guess.

Now, if you bother to scroll ALL THE WAY DOWN, past the stories about Tom Hanks having Type II Diabetes and "Use By and Sell By -- What Does it all Mean?"  (IT MEANS USE BY THIS DATE, AND SELL BY THAT DATE-- WHAT THE FUCK?!!!) you finally will get to a little section of stories about "Mental Health".

What are they?

There's a piece about a link between gum disease and Alzheimer's.

Oh.  That's... uh... helpful?

An article about autism (always), and two actually interesting pieces about Parkinson's and depression and depression in pregnancy possibly leading to psychiatric issues in those children later on.  But, like I said, you have to really work to find those pieces, and they're the sort of pieces that offer straight information about rather benign subjects.  They're not talking about how the jails are the biggest mental health "treatment" centers in the country, or about how under-trained police officers are gunning down the mentally ill, or about how competently-trained police officers aren't, or about how the stigmatization of individuals with mental illness by the news media and the entertainment industry is actually killing people, or about the public health crisis of 38,000+ suicides every year in this country, or reasons why psych patients don't want to take their meds and, well, you get the fucking idea.

Hey, we're Americans.  We wanna read about small celeb breasts and Tom Hanks taking Glucophage.  

I get it.

It's the Mental Health Conspiracy, hard at work.  Beating you down, every day, reminding you that you are, in fact, its wholesome little bitch, bending to its will, responding to its caprice.  You are not acting of your own volition, you are powerless to stop it.  It comes in waves.  We have them all in jails, so we build mental hospitals.  People don't like the mental hospitals, so we de-institutionalize and put them back out on the streets with inadequate supports, and they get arrested and thrown back in jail because we've gotten rid of the hospitals.  And here we are again.  But, if you talk about it, God help you, because if you say the wrong thing in the wrong room near the wrong person, it's LIGHTS.  OUT.  

It's diplomatic seclusion.  It's political restraints.  

It's time for your non-profit needle.  

I'm terrified of saying the wrong thing, so most of the time, I just say nothing.  But I can say it here, right?

Well.  Probably not.  Maybe for now, only because nobody's listening.  Nobody but you.

Just us chickens.  

No no-- sheep.

Behold, I send you out as sheep amidst the wolves.

Baaa.

Advicesticles

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 8, Verse 6

"Listen to me!  For I have important information for you.

Everything I say is right and true."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

A while ago, I wrote a blog that contained some pearls of wisdom that came before swine and left be bruised and battered like a buffalo from Ikea with shallots and a Bearnaise sauce for tuppence a bag.  And, because some folks said they enjoyed it (they didn't say it in the Comments section, nobody does, NOT THAT I MIND, MY SWEATY LITTLE FORESKIN-GATHERERS, NO, I DON'T!) and because I kind of like giving advice, I figured I would do that again.  These are some things that I want to tell you-- if not advice, then declarations about life that I've picked up from being alive for thirty-three years that I thought you might like to know about.  

Aren't I special?

POCKETS

If you're a man, and you own trousers that have regular pockets that you slip your hands into from a diagonal angle as well as jeans or jean-style corduroys, where the hands descend into the pockets at a directly vertical trajectory, be aware that, the day you change from one style to the other, your brain is going to tell your hands to do the wrong thing-- i.e., you're gonna shoot those hands straight down like you're settling into the pockets of a well-loved pair of Levi's and your hands are going to just smooth out the front of your pants.  And, when you do that, you're gonna look like a fucking idiot.  So, if that's something you're not okay with-- you've been warned.

BREATH MINTS

Hi.  I don't "do" breath mints.

Sorry.

I understand that I drink (decaf) coffee and that I eat garlic-encrusted rhino tongue and that plaque likes to cuddle up inside the little crevices of my knocked-about teeth and I don't brush after every meal or every quarter hour like my 11th grade history teacher did but, do me a favor-- don't offer me a fucking breath mint.  I will always turn it down with a forced little smile that says, "HEY!  I know why you're doing that!  And I don't care!"  You wouldn't offer to rub some rose petals and cinnamon sticks on the underarms of some sweaty intern at a board meeting, would you?  No, you'd sit there and pretend not to notice.  So... try that, and shove your breath mints up your ass-- CUZ YOUR ASS SMELLS LIKE ASS!

GAWKER

I remember once a little while ago we had a speaker come in to our place of business to give a talk about sex addiction.  Unlike most inservices, which are actually designed to make long for death and are, therefore, rather poorly attended, this one was packed.  The guy was a licensed clinical social worker I think, and from what I remember he managed to make sex addiction sound not terribly interesting, which, I guess, is a real knack in and of itself, but he shared some anonymous client stories and that was enjoyable.  One thing that struck me, though, was his tale of a client who came to him for help because, "He was a gawker.  I mean, he had this problem.  He gawked at women."

And I remember sitting there thinking, "Wow.  I didn't know you could bill for that."  

Not that I can remember specifically who was around the table at the time, but I was probably gawking at at least three different women during the course of that presentation.  I certainly wasn't GAWKING at the presenter, who probably needed a BREATH MINT AND CINNAMON DEODORANT.  

Look, I get it.  I realize that we live in a society where every moment you're alive is at the very least a faux pas and at worse a bombastic damnation of the highest order-- but, gawking?  If gawking at women is a symptom of a psychiatric disorder, then fine-- just put me in a fucking straight jacket.  But make sure the buckles are loose enough so that I can still-- you know.

SHORT MEN

I'm six foot tall and, therefore, I own this fucking cheese.  I didn't realize I felt that way about my stature until only recently when I've noticed that, when a particularly short man walks into the room, I furrow my brow and scrunch up my face GAWKING at the guy with a look that says, "Why isn't this Oompa Loompa getting me a danish and waxing my car?"  And it's funny, because I have no muscles other than the essential ones I need to turn my car's power-assisted steering wheel and step into and out of the bathtub-- I'm not particularly overbearing or intimidating, and yet, when the short guy walks out of the room, I shake my head a little and look up to the sky as if to ask, "Why did you bother making that?  He can't pick apples or help Mildred at the market reach the Sun Chips."

YOUR WIFE'S BIRTHDAY

I don't know about your wife (but I'm GAWKING at a mental image of her right now) but my wife's birthday is in two days and I'm so fucking excited I COULD SCREAM!

(Sorry.)

If your wife's birthday isn't your favorite day of the year, there's something wrong, and you should immediately look into that.

That's the end of that bit-- there's no joke.  I'm serious.

CHAIR

With $329 of my Bar Mitzvah money, I bought an enormous blue, crushed velvet La-Z-Boy recliner that could have provided shelter for a family of sixty-seven Mexican illegal immigrant field mice.  I loved that chair like I don't know what.  When you have enough disposable income that you want to shed some of it and don't know what to do it on: buy a nice chair.  Doesn't have to be some white trash recliner, it can be something from Dane Decor or Macy's-- something that fits your life and your lifestyle, but parking your sorry ass down on a nice, comfortable, well-made piece of furniture is always going to be worth the money.  

Particularly if it vibrates. 

And now, some pearllettes...

* If you ever get a chance to talk to a crazy Haitian guy, take it.  If possible and practical, record it.

* Just once, apply for a job with a resume that is 100% fictitious, including your name.  Keep the right phone number, though, just to see if their H.R. bitch calls.  Guarantee you she will.

* Donate a respectable money to a charity you know or care absolutely nothing about.

* Skip down a crowded hallway.  When someone confronts you or makes a comment, stop directly in front of them, grab their head firmly, and lick their eyebrows.

* Get rid of your iPhone.  It makes you look stupid.  It makes me look stupid, too, and I hate looking like you.

* Learn six banjo chords.  I did-- it's a hoot.  I think learning a 7th would completely spoil it.  Don't you?

* Watch documentaries, particularly ones where they interview old men.  Old men know EVERYTHING.

* What old men don't know, 33-year-old bloggers do.  Don't believe me?  Ask my mom.

* STOP GAWKING AT MY MOM, YOU SONOFABITCH!

Okay, I'm done now.  Go get yourself a breath mint; you fucking stink.

Responding

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 10, Verse 29

"God protects the upright but destroys the wicked."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

If you ever needed proof that religion is full of steaming hot shit, you need look no longer than the eight words quoted that begin this post.  

God protects the upright but destroys the wicked.  Sorry-- I just had to write it out fully a second time to see if they were kidding or what.

Apparently, they're not kidding.  

Don't worry, my dear sweet ones.  This isn't going to be a vitriolic post about the two faces, hot feces steaming stench of religion.  No.  I'm not in the mood.  This is going to be a mix of the good and the bad, the same kind of bad as me, things that are on my mind.  This post will probably meander like a gray Camry piloted by a grayhead somewhere along the gray streets of Graysilvania.  

Remember that post about the old Russian nanny?  We hired her.  She was great.  And then she quit.

Hey, it was a good week.  A really good week.  Some parents never even have a good nanny for a good week.  

She gave us some bullshit.  Pain.  Her shoulder.  X-rays.  I don't know.  Maybe she didn't like our kids or our house or the commute or the fact that we can't pay her what she's worth or that we're Jewish or that she found a better gig or I don't know.  Or maybe it really was her old Russian shoulder.  I'm so tired.  I'm so tired of hypothesizing and moralizing and responding.  When I worked on the unit at the psych hospital and someone would go off, someone would push the panic bell, and I'd respond.  A million thoughts raced through my head as I'd run-- toward what, you never knew-- you just responded.  

When felony car Six-Zebra-Four didn't answer the multiple dispatch calls on March 9th, fifty years ago, LAPD officers responded.  From everywhere.  They converged on Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger's Plymouth, abandoned on the side of the road.  The officers were gone.  They were miles away, standing side-by-side in a pitch black onion field, their arms and hands raised high above their heads in supplication-- or was it surrender-- while two career criminals pointed guns at them.  For a second, their hands touched in the moonlight.  Two police officers, both Marines, alone and sweating through their sport coats in the night.

Campbell was shot dead and Hettinger ran through the screaming darkness.  He escaped a bullet wound, but he was forever damaged by losing his partner, haunted and taunted by unceasing thoughts about what he could or should have done differently, labeled a coward by his department.  At Ian Campbell's funeral, Hettinger wandered over to Campbell's mother and murmured, "I loved your boy."

They had been partners for two weeks.

I went to a social media workshop today, and I wanted to throw up the entire time I was there.  From 9:45-11:50 the bile was riling.  Rising.  Writhing.  Former beauty blonde glossy lipstick pageant queens making twice what I make were prattling on about Likes and Tweets and Pings, Clicks, Impressions and Analytics.  And I listened and took notes and crossed my legs and forced it down and everything hurt.  Self-important prats.  Disingenuous.  Inauthentic.  Superficial.  And my mind was sick.  It was thinking about nannies and shoulders, and a white-hot bullet crashing into Ian Campbell's mouth and racing for the bell through a field of onions screaming in the hellfire of darkness.  

And I didn't know what I was going to talk about in therapy.

Don't worry-- I managed to think of something.  I always do.