Proverbs 12, Verse 25
"Anxious hearts are very heavy,
but a word of encouragement does wonders!"
---
CHIPPED WISDOM:
Scott Stossel, already the editor of "The Atlantic", and the nephew of the mustachioed TV journalist John Stossel (not sure which of those two distinctions is more meretricious, depending upon the quality of John's uncle-tude) is on the road to getting appreciably more famous. He just wrote a book about his anxiety, his innumerable therapeutic and psychopharmacological interventions, and his significant phobias, the most severe, according to Stossel, is emetophobia: a fear of vomiting.
Stossel hasn't vomited since 1977 (he knows the exact month, day, date, and time-- I don't) and he also knows that he hasn't vomited since then, and he also knows that the fear of this thing he hasn't done since Gerry Ford was in office is irrational. He knows all that. He's a pretty smart guy. Funny, that the editor of "The Atlantic" is a smart guy.
Isn't it?
My former best friend was, and, I'm assuming still is, an emetophobe. I lived with him for a few years and, as far as I can recall, it didn't impact our friendship too much. It's interesting, looking back on it, that, for someone with a deathly fear of rauwlfing, he sure ate Papa John's pizza a lot which, just thinking about it, makes me want to throw up every inch of my intestines.
As I was listening to the interview with Stossel on "Fresh Air" today, I, of course, thought about my former best friend. My ex. Whatever he is. And I was intensely annoyed that I couldn't enjoy a simple radio interview with this intelligent, very talented, not altogether funny freak without that enjoyment being intruded upon by memories of my former best friend. I can picture him, standing in our dorm room, grinning, the same way he used to when he was in fourth grade, when we first met. He has big teeth, and big, black hair. I wonder if any of it's gray now. I can see him in his black jeans, white t-shirt and white socks. He wasn't exactly a fashion plate. Black sneakers. Black Tague watch.
I remember.
I guess he won't ever get his chance to write his book about emetophobia. Of course, I'll never get to write my book about anxiety, about obsessive compulsive bullshit, about dysthymia, about worrying I'll be found out as a fraud and a phony and a bastard and a mean, yucky meanie man.
Stinky butt.
I don't want you to know the truth about me, and yet, it seems like all I do is graffiti it all over your face. And mine. There's graffiti over the map of Israel and it's telling my terrible story and I hope it diminishes my glory so you will finally know and stop reading this blog and leave me alone and think to yourself, "Jesus, he really was right."
Maybe that's the only thing that would make me truly happy: for you to go away.
Please, don't go.
I wasn't just annoyed, of course, about being forced to think about my old best friend, but because Scott Stossel's bankrolling his mental illness, and, gee: I'd like to do that. That'd be swell! Sign me up. I want. He's smarter than me, but I'm funnier. I'll even pull down my pants to prove the point.
Christ, he's not even really Jewish. Where does he get off anyway, pretending to be anxious? Come on, man.
I want to show him. I want to teach him a lesson. I want to go to his book signing in my neighborhood. I'll sit in my car in the Barnes & Noble parking lot with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (dark meat) and eat that shit in under two minutes flat, wait in line with his book clutched to my chest and then, when I get up to him, I'll fucking throw the hell up all over him. Then we will see what's what.
Then I'll have something to write about. You know, for money.
A grand adventure. A good vomit. A tall tale. That's what my life's missing. It has all the typical stuff, the peaks and the valleys, but there's nothing there that's really ZING-KA-ZOING, you know what I mean? Nothing that really grabs you by the lapels or the taint and pulls you closer and says, "Now, listen here, my darling; this is a tale that ought be told for approximately a $250,000 advance."
And maybe that moment will come and maybe it won't. Maybe I won't need a Colonel's Original Recipe bucket to make it all come true for me and for my family, and, if it doesn't happen to me, for me, for us, well, I will have to be okay with that, like I've had to be okay with so much. Like we all do. We can't all have John Stossel for an uncle, and we can't all hide our stinky butts from the world or hang onto our best friends like our childhood dollies forever. All we can do is what we can do, and that will just have to be enough. It will have to be enough for you, and, I guess, for me, too. I suppose, as long as I have you, I'm good.
Anxious, but good.
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