Deep Shit

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 18, Verse 4

"A wise man's words express deep streams of thought."

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CHIPPED WISDOM:

Sometimes I wear silly socks because, sometimes, I wake up feeling silly.  There are pretty much two ways for men to go as far as socks are concerned: boring and outrageous.  There's very little in between, unless you consider argyle to be a sort of footwear middle ground.  I like argyle, but I still think argyle socks are boring, unless they're pink and green and yellow and then they're really just for Easter or the golf course. 

Or both.

I don't know when I started wearing silly socks.  I know I didn't wear them in high school-- I was way too insecure-- and it wasn't in college either.  In college, earth tones were my close friends, and I didn't deviate from the brown family too much when it came to clothes.  Or food, for that matter.  Have you ever noticed how comforting brown food is?  Look at your Thanksgiving spread tonight and count how many foods are brown.  You'll think to yourself, "Wow-- that guy's into some really deep shit!"

Or not.

I love to wear silly socks because, by and large, when you cross your legs and people see them, they smile.  I don't especially go out of my way to receive attention, in fact, I'd much prefer to hide under a blanket for the rest of my life, provided it was the right blanket and someone brought me a steady stream of brown food to keep me from expiring and losing weight I can't afford to part company with, but I do like it when people smile.  And when they laugh.  Silly socks aren't going to make anyone slap their knee or piss their pants, but a smile's good.  Smiles are good.  I like your smile.  You have a good smile.  Don't believe me?  Go run into the bathroom for a minute and check yourself out in the mirror.

I'll wait till you get back.

.............................................................................................

See?  I'm still here.

My wife's smile is the best.  Her eyes light up and the skin around them creases in all the right ways and she shows her beautiful teeth.  She has lots of different kinds of smiles.  I like the smiles she gives me when I'm being bad.  Deliberately bad.  Obscene or inflammatory, uncouth and ribald.  The smile that says, "I shouldn't be feeding into this behavior, but I can't help it."  

I love those smiles.  And I love to be bad.  Always have, at least, ever since I learned how to be bad.  I don't know where I learned it from.  Probably television.  Kids are always learning shit from television.  And Grand Theft Auto.

She claims that her smile is deformed-- from her brain surgery.  That happened almost ten years ago.  For a while, it was noticeable, one side turned down, but, if it's still that way and I don't think it is, I guess I just don't notice it anymore.  I don't see it.  Maybe because I don't want to see it, or perhaps because I'm not looking for it.  Why would I?  

If anyone's smile is deformed, it's mine.  I have a denticular disability-- I can't show my teeth when I smile.  Or, "won't" is probably more accurate.  My smile is thin-lipped and sad, slightly pained, thoughtful, wistful, almost coming out against itself, in spite of itself.  It's there, but it's rare.  There's a lot going on with it, and behind it.  But the smile is a good cover.  Just like my socks-- they hide feet that are flat as a desk top, nails that are thick, yellowed and cracked, and an odor that, as the day wears on is reminiscent of a hoagie left out in the Arizona sun for about a week.  Silly socks.  They're good to have around.  They're my smile.  And they're more for you than for me.  

Happy Thanksgiving.  I love you.

Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 15, Verse 15

"When a man is gloomy, everything seems to go wrong; when he is cheerful, everything seems right!"

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CHIPPED WISDOM:

I'm a happy-on-the-inside kind of clown, I guess.

Inside, my heart is a rainbow.  My eyes, kaleidoscopes.  My colon's a disco ball.  I fart unicorns.

I am a happy man.  

I'm told, though, that I have dysthymia, which, incidentally, SpellCheck tried to correct to "hysteria".

(I have that, too.)

Dysthymia comes from the ancient Greek word "melancholy" and, even if you don't speak Greek, or DSM, I'm sure you can pretty much guess what it means.  It's not so good.  Of course, it's not a hole in the heart or the brain or an extra one in the nose, so it's not so bad either.  People live with it.  They deal.  The smart ones take meds.  The dumb ones, like me, hand over $50 every other week and slide around aimlessly on a pillowy leather couch in a climate-controlled office and vainly complain, whine, and refuse to take meds.  

"This has been going on for a long, long time," my therapist said, like he knew, "I mean, you were telling your mother you needed to see a therapist when you were, what, eight?  Nine?"

"I don't know.  It's hard to remember dates.  It was the eighties.  We were all high on Tab and Cosby sweaters."

I'm funny in therapy.  You know, for a dysthymic guy.

I meant what I said earlier, though-- inside, I am happy.  I'm desperately in love with my family, I am loved and supported at work.  What few friends I have left are straight and strong and true.  Well, they're not all straight.  I have my (physical) health, aside from asthma, and I can run and jump and prance and mince, and, trust me, that comes in handy when your hobby is Gilbert & Sullivan.  I can even sing a little, too.  I love folk music and the Love Bug and falling down and getting up and the whole stupid thing.  

I love it.

My basset hound has a hundred thousand wrinkles.

I love it.

Life is good and fun and sweet, even when it's terrible and a kick in the balls and a hole in the body and a wreck of a mess of a sham of two mockeries of a sham.

It's good.  I love it and it's good.  

Still, when I see certain people bound enthusiastically into a room grinning like Garfield in a lasagna advertisement, I want to kick them in the teeth and never stop.

Happiness as an outward expression fills me with anger.  

Who the fuck are you to smile so?  What gives you the right?  Don't you know there's a patient in that room strapped to his bed?  Don't you know that the ceiling's falling down?  Don't you know?

Or don't you care.

I mean, look at these assholes.  Teeth.  Crinkled eyes.  Laugh lines.  And, what the fuck-- is she his wife or his daughter or his schtuppenfrau or what?  And what does the caption say?

AUTO ACCIDENT CLIENT

What the hell, exactly, are you so happy about?  Like you're watching "When Harry Met Sally" together.  No.  You wrecked your Kia because you were texting your cat and lolz you got a big settlement because you blamed Nokia because if the @ button on your phone hadn't stuck you wouldn't have had to take your kaleidoscopes off the road and I hope you die.  You're an ad for a shill shyster slapped onto the ass of a bus, I get it.  

Still, die.

I wonder how much shill shyster bus ad models get paid.

In college, when I took Acting II, my professor regarded me silently one day and, when she broke her silence, it was, as usual, a doozy:

"You know, my dear, you'll never be a model or a leading man, but that face of yours was made for character roles."

And I was tempted to spit in her eye, but she was right, of course.  I have never, and will never, play the romantic lead in a show.  You'll never see me grinning like Rock Hudson on the back of a SEPTA bus, because, when I smile, my lips stay closed to hide my teeth, not just because they're misaligned, but because I prefer to keep my happiness, my true pulsating insatiable glow, beneath my olive skin and my unseemly amount of body hair.  Because, for some reason, there's some piece of me, and I don't know what it is, that tells me every moment of every day that that's where it belongs.  

So down it goes.  

I have my grandfather's smile.

I have my mother's smile.  

But I have it.  It's mine.  And, dysthymia be damned; I love it.