One good lie

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blurry crowd
What’s not to believe?

I got an email inviting me to audition for a show filled with lies. For the audition, I have to tell a three-minute lie, as outrageous as I like. How hard can that be? So I accepted and figured something would come to me. But now the audition is just days away and I’m starting to panic.

I’ve come up with two so far, one about a friend’s strange restaurant behavior and one about accidentally killing my piano teacher. Both sound good in my head, but when I start telling them out loud, I trail off. I lose my sense of purpose, which at least tells me something about why I like true stories, even when they’re not outrageous. They’re true, so they reveal something about something, even if I don’t always know exactly what the something is. But what does lying reveal? So far, I’ve lied only to hide things. But then again, a lie is just a fictional story and I’ve written those, so this shouldn’t be any different. But it is. I’m thinking about cancelling my audition, but I don’t want to chicken out.

Last night my brother Rolando came over. His friends have opened a hardware store, Matty K’s, and we were going there for a sort of gardening pep rally. Rolando came early to bring us gifts of dog food. Their dear old family dog passed away last month, so they had boxes of treats and bags of food which I coveted. My plan was to pass it on to Zoe’s new owner, because the Katharine Hepburn of Horner Park has also passed on, and Zoe was now living with one of the B’s.

There are two B’s, B-e and B-y. For months we’ve emailed each other to schedule Zoe’s walks. We’ve also tried to plan a dinner together, because the Hepburn sisters gave us checks to dine at Blackbird, as a Zoe thank you. We’ve tossed dates around and B-e even made reservations twice, but something always comes up. Yet when Miss Hepburn died, we found ourselves suddenly able to wrangle ourselves and husbands and bottles of beer and whisky for pizza at a local BYOB. It was soon enough after Miss Hepburn’s death that it didn’t feel real, and we had a boisterous time.

I planned to email B-e and tell her I had food to pass on for Zoe – it’s even her brand – but B-e had already emailed to say she’d brought Zoe back to live with Miss Hepburn’s sister. She convinced her that we didn’t mind continuing the walks, and Zoe is good company and good protection. So in a little while I’ll go over and pick her up for a walk. But first, I need my lie.

Last night, after Rolando parked the car and we had dinner, we walked over to Matty K’s. We passed a man dressed in a plumed page’s costume. He looked exactly like a royal chicken, with a plumed headpiece and puffy satin middle and tights. I wished I had my phone out, but he didn’t look like he would appreciate a picture. He was smoking a cigarette and adjusting his headpiece. We continued on to the store, where we had cookies and root beer and got fired up about gardening.

When we left, the royal chicken was still standing on Western, greeting people going into an event. If this were a lie, something outrageous would happen right here. But because it’s true, all I have is a blurry picture, because I grabbed my phone in time but didn’t stop to focus because I was afraid of getting yelled at. I don’t know if I’m cut out for lying, if I don’t even have the nerve to get a decent picture of an outrageous apparition placed right in my path like a golden egg.

Acts of faith

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sign on a parking meter
Faith in glue.

Seeing Judy’s show last night reminded me of Fred’s ‘Fuck cancer’ tee-shirt. A few months before he died, he emailed a picture of himself wearing it. I remember the look in his eyes – that typical Fred look of combined amusement, affection, and a sense of having seen this all before, perhaps a hundred years ago. In the photo he had that same look but it was intensified. Perhaps a thousand years ago.

In Judy’s show, ‘Fuck cancer’ was on a hat. There were photos of hats and tee-shirts you can expect to receive if you get cancer. “Of course they’re fake. My real ones tried to kill me.”

I went to her show after watching another show at Second City, a solo class showcase a friend was in. My friend did a hilarious monolog and song about the exquisite tortures of auditioning. Another guy did a piece about recovering from a stroke. His cane, which he’d been given at the nursing home, was feeling a bit unwanted now that he no longer leaned on it every day. His piano was also feeling left out. Occasionally he still played with his right hand, but he seemed to get too frustrated about his unworking left hand, so there were no more duets with the man’s wife, no more music making long into the night.

Most other pieces were about breakups. One guy’s girlfriend cheated. One woman’s husband strayed permanently. One guy’s boyfriend dumped him in a text. Illness and breakups, those were the themes last night. It was odd how the breakup stories seemed to begin and end with the fact of the breakup, how much it hurt, how sweet revenge could feel, how lonely it was. Whereas the illness stories began with the illness and went on to explore the new reality, new values, new discoveries. On the whole, illness seemed like a more useful experience than breaking up, though of course most of us would choose a breakup over cancer any day.

It’s easy to make fun of solo shows and people do it all the time, but standing on stage alone is an act of faith in more than yourself. It’s an act of faith in human experience, to believe that your slice of it is worthy of a stranger’s time. It’s a sign of faith in community, bringing together a group of people who will be changed simply by being together, facing the stage. When Judy said good night, a woman called out, “My teacher!” and some of us cheered. I thought of my teacher, Fred, and his tee-shirt, and his smile.

During Judy’s show I worried at first that my friends would think it was too depressing, too personal, too detailed. But I heard Johnnie and Paul laugh when Judy brought out her hated cancer socks, which they lived through when Paul had to wear stroke socks. Toots and I exchanged awed looks when Judy sang about the uncanny string of holidays that hosted every one of her cancer and recovery milestones. Afterward, we went out and celebrated our very first evening of all going out together. We made multiple toasts. We were giddy.

Lawrence Avenue Valentine

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It’s the thought that counts.

I was crossing Lawrence Avenue today and saw a pal. He was crossing not quite at the corner. I was not quite at the corner too, in fact even farther from it than he. Lawrence and Western is a difficult corner. The place where you should cross is far from any place you’d want to get to, especially if like me you want to get to Walgreens.

I recognized his hat first, and then the rest of him fell into place. He was picking his way through the stopped cars. If I hurried I could catch him on the other side and say hello. I passed behind one stopped car and stared at a slowing car until it stopped. I watched my friend’s hat as he reached the curb ahead of me.

I was almost close enough to call, but on Lawrence Avenue distances feel farther apart. This is not a friendly street. A friend who moved to LA and hated it used to explain his distaste by saying, “It feels like the corner of Lawrence and Kedzie in the middle of summer, every single day.” You’re always behind the wrong car and no one will let you change lanes.

I got across the street and my pal was looking around. He looked north up the block, and west across Western. I was about to call, but suddenly he looked like a complete stranger. Just a tall man in an odd hat, choosing his next move. To wait for the bus or hail a cab? To stop at the bank or make a detour for groceries?

This is the intersection where the pigeon man used to hang out. He’d sit on a fire hydrant and pigeons would roost on his shoulders, his knees, his head. Sometimes he’d hold his arms out wide and they’d perch all the way to his hands. I didn’t think much about him when he was there; he was just part of Lawrence Avenue, staunch and grimy. Then he was hit by a van and killed, and the pigeons lost their defender. I wonder what they thought the first day he didn’t come with bread and shoulders, and then the second and third day. Now they stay mostly under the el platform, half a block south.

My pal turned toward Western and paused. I suddenly didn’t want to call him. He might be in a hurry, and I only had a few minutes on my meter. I went into Walgreens to find toothpaste and toothbrushes and read through Valentines Day cards for the least worst one. I wondered if I’d have time to stop at The Chopping Block and find a new saucepan. When I came out my pal was gone—or I suppose he was. I had forgotten all about him, like I was never there.

Theatre vs. Drama

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Django in a wig
Historical reenactment.

I went to a play last night. It was at a very fine theatre. It was a famous play by a renowned playwright. The theatre was in a wealthy suburb. I couldn’t believe how much parking there was.

The play was about a middle-aged man who lets an old homeless man stay with him for a while. The audience was mostly senior citizens, in pairs. The play is set in one room, with piles of junk all around. The audience is placed within the room, in rows on all four sides.

It can be hard to stay awake sometimes. But by my count, three people were already sleeping when the play began: one guy in the left section, second row; one woman in the far section, second row; and one man in the right section, first row. Next to him, his wife had her eyes open, but she wouldn’t look at the actors. Whenever they were near her, she faced away from them. She was sitting right next to a pile of junk. During scene one, a character removed the junk to reveal a bed.

The acting was excellent. The conflicts between the kind middle-aged man, the alternately ingratiating and arrogant old man, and the unpredictable third man who owns the room were well-drawn. But for real drama, it’s hard to beat watching a gray-haired woman refusing to look at a gray-haired actor playing a stinking old man who is pretending to sleep right next to her.

Longing for normal

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a sign hanging on a tree
Always and everywhere.

I keep longing for normal, like I’m saving up rewards points. Dave says, “Why waste time on normal, what I want is extraordinary.”

He’s probably right, but the normal I long for will feel extraordinary. I know it. I can’t articulate the feeling, but I know it will be tangible and complete.

Maybe it’s what my mom meant when she’d say, “I got nothing to do today, and that’s exactly how I like it.” I used to get angry at her, willfully wasting her life. But maybe she was just looking for normal. Maybe she thought if she got all the actual living stuff out of the way, normal would seep in, like fog across a bridge.

In my mind, here’s what a normal weekend looks like: Friday night is a movie at the neighborhood cinema. Perhaps a bite afterward. Saturday is errands and small home repairs – cute ones, perhaps requiring dungarees or a bandanna. Then it’s a leisurely dinner with friends. Sunday is a walk to the park, reading on the couch, and cooking a big pot of soup for the week. Don’t tell me how Saturdays are the worst traffic days to run errands, and all the pit bulls are loose on Sundays. This is my ideal. Week after week, when I’m in the middle of doing something I absolutely did not plan for, I think, okay, scrap this. Next time will be normal. Must purchase dungarees.

This weekend was going to be It. Our huge freelance project just wrapped, so we didn’t need to work through Saturday to catch up. No house emergencies, no big plans. We were set. Friday I figured we’d either see “The Descendents” or “The Artist” at the Davis. I warned Dave to be ready. But first I had to go to the hospital because the Katharine Hepburn of Horner Park is ill. So I went there and had my heart broken by the new set of indignities life is hoisting on this most fragile of survivors. Then I stopped at Harvestime for groceries—the clock was ticking but the store was right on the way.

I got home just in time to meet Louella and give her a quick lesson on how to work the Roku and not lock herself out. She’d come to town on Thursday with her ailing dog Lancelot. The downstate vet said this handsome and debonair creature could go at any minute, he has unspecified heart problems and probable cancer in addition to the stomach ailment that had brought him in. “Be prepared, he doesn’t have much time.” Another friend had invited her to come and stay so Lancelot could say goodbye to all his Chicago friends and so they didn’t have to deal with all the stairs at Lancelot’s castle.

But when I stopped there on Thursday Louella was panicking because Lancelot had peed on the rug and her host was upset. She was steam-cleaning an already clean spot for the fifth time, like Mrs. Macbeth, while Lancelot lay very quiet, with that absent look dogs have when they’re close to the end or just temporarily sick. You never know. When I got home Dave said, “They should come here.” We already had Miss Hepburn’s dog Zoe, but she’s not the bullying type, and Django loves Lancelot, so here they were, setting up on a big waterproof sheet covered by blankets and pillows. Lancelot was looking a little better, and Zoe and Django were gentle with him.

We didn’t get to the Davis in time for the early movie, so we had dinner instead, and gelato at Paciugo. Saturday we ran errands, taking Zoe to the groomer, returning a Christmas present, and letting a Vitamix rep at Merz tell us why we might need a five hundred-dollar blender. We don’t, but I got a free mini-smoothie. Dinner was appropriately leisurely with Xeena and Buck at Fin. Then we all headed back and had drinks with Louella and Lancelot, who was now walking a bit, wagging his tail, and eating small morsels.

After Xeena and Buck went home, I did what I always do at the end of the night: gathered up any random cups and glasses to load in the dishwasher before Dave ran it. I pointed to a small blue glass on the coffee table and asked Louella, “Is that yours?”

“Oh yes,” she quickly grabbed it, “I was just going to put it in the dishwasher like you said.”

“No, no, I didn’t know if you were still using it, or if it was Buck’s…” Too late, she’d already rushed it to the kitchen. I suddenly felt like some maniacal hausfrau who must have everything perfect at all times. I tried to mitigate. “Did you want a new glass?” I offered.

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“That glass is so small for water,” I said lamely. I whispered to Dave, “Do you think she thought I was trying to take her glass away?”

He shrugged, like “Why worry about it?”

“I don’t want her to think…” that I’m abnormal. But I am. Because I have this picture of normal, and it includes everything being back in place at the end of the day, as if the humans were never here. Normal means absent, I realize. Fitting so well into the groove that you can’t be seen or heard. Longing for normal is like starving myself to fit into a fabulous dress I have no occasion to wear. I still long for it, but I’m trying to recover.

All the world’s a set

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And all the men and women merely crew.

Some observers would think this film shoot was completely under control. The set is perfect: pageant stage with balloons and sparkly ribbons, awards table with assorted trophies and crowns, an oversized check.

In the ballroom next door, a makeup artist is stationed at her battalion of paints, powders, mascara wands, curling irons, straightening irons, brushes, hairpins. At another table, little girls’ dresses are laid out, very pretty. A script lies on the next table, my part highlighted in bright orange.

I’m sitting at the table, but I’m not working on my lines. My co-star has never seen the script. She’s never seen a script. She’s seven years old.

“I thought this was a play,” she says, which explains why she kept asking where the audience was when the director took us on set a minute ago. I thought she meant the fake audience, the parents and kids who normally would be in the audience, watching the girls dance and pose onstage. The director explained that they’d be shooting her scene from the audience’s point of view so we really didn’t need more than two or three people in the seats.

But now, sitting with her at the table, in the early months of this year of a day when I still think the lines matter, it’s hard to know exactly what she meant. She sounds out the words of my dialog, maybe because they’re glowing with orange.

“That’s a spelling word,” she says, pointing to the word know. I hate to tell her that’s one of my lines, because it’s taken so long just to get to the point of sitting here, which is what I think we need to be doing. Actors review their lines together, right? You run the stuff you’re going to shoot that day, and build some kind of rapport, especially if you’re going to be playing mother and daughter. I’ve already warned her that I’ll be saying some mean things because the mommy in the story is a little crazy. “No way you can make me cry,” she informed me when we met.

“Okay,” I said, “I hope not, but I’m going to try.”

“No, you can’t do it,” she laughed, and I thought we were off to a good start.

She loves looking at all the dresses, and loves getting up and running around the ballroom, and taking a cookie from the buffet table, and trying on lipstick. She stands next to me at the table, drinking soda out of a wineglass she found at the bar. “The… car…”

“No, we don’t have to read that part,” I say.

“Why not?”

“That’s the action.”

“Huh?”

“It’s the part the camera guys use to see where we are.” But actually it isn’t. The action says we’re in a car, but the director has changed it because my co-star arrived three hours late so we don’t have time for the car setup, so we’ll be in a dressing room. “We don’t care about that part because we’ll just be wherever they put us. All we care about is saying the words and telling the story.”

“Can I have this dress?” She’s wearing an adorable black and white dress she calls her Lady Gaga. It’s trimmed with faux fur.

“I don’t know, it’s not mine. You’ll have to ask the director.”

She sounds out a slug line. “INT…?”

“We don’t care about that part.”

“Well then, which are mine?”

“Just the skinny part in the middle. But not the orange ones. See, all it is, is the mom is telling you what to do, how to do your dance.”

“I know how to dance. I’m good at dancing. Want to see?” She starts dancing, and I get up. I decide I don’t need to worry about the script.

“Yeah, I know you’re good, you’re amazing, but the girl in the story, she keeps forgetting.”

“I don’t forget.”

“No, you don’t. But the girl. That’s the whole scene. The mom keeps telling her the steps, and she forgets, because when she does the dance on stage she dances really amazingly, but she misses one step.”

“I didn’t miss a step!”

“No, I know, but you’ll just pick one place to miss one. Because then Mommy gets mad.”

“Who’s my Mommy?”

“I am.”

She raises her eyebrows at me, like she did when the director first introduced us, and like she did a minute ago when she asked and I told her. But this time, instead of just raising her eyebrows, she stops. “You’re white.”

“Yep.”

“Then how can you be my mommy?”

“I… maybe your dad is black?”

“My mom is, my dad is, I don’t like that word ‘black,’ he’s darker than me.”

“I mean, in the story. Maybe your pretend daddy is dark and your pretend mommy is…light. I don’t like that word ‘white.’”

“Caucasian.”

“Ew, I hate that word even worse,” I say. “How ‘bout Italian?”

“What’s that?”

“From Italy.”

“From what?”

The director interrupts, “Hey, want to meet your dad? Your pretend dad? He just got here.” A handsome, incredibly well-dressed man walks up. He’s wearing a three-piece suit, a cravat, a matching pocket handkerchief, and a pair of Dolce & Gabbana glasses. “Darling,” I say, “where have you been?”

He laughs, “It’s been a long time.” Our co-star laughs at us but lets us hug her for a minute. The director says, “This is your daddy in the story.”

“He’s my daddy?” She raises her eyebrows again. So maybe it’s not my color that she’s questioning, it’s just the possibility that anyone other than her dad could be her dad.

“Yep. But he’s not at the pageant. You want to do your dance?”

“Yes!” She runs up onstage and the director follows. “Now remember what we talked about, you do your dance real perfectly, but then there’s just one place where you trip.”

“Nuh-uh, I never trip.”

“Just at the very end.”

“No, I do it perfect. I want the prize.”

“Oh. Well…” I begin to see why this guy is a good director. He adjusts on the fly.”Okay, maybe you’ll do this one perfectly, how ‘bout that?”

“Yes!” I’ve followed them to my spot just in front of the stage, where crazy mommy is watching from, and she whispers to me, “Where’s the director?”

“That’s him. He’s the director.” He comes downstage and squats down. “Yep, I’m the director.”

“It’s his story, that’s why we’re doing these things,” I say.

“You’re the director?”

“Yep.”

“Oh. Can I have this dress?”

Comes tomorrow we’re tomato soup

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My favorite so far is the window.

“Stick shifts and safety belts
bucket seats have all got to go”
Too literal?

“If you respect me at all
please don’t call” Too pathetic?

I’m choosing a lyric for my weekly submission in Christina’s photography contest.

“You’ll never be what you’ll never be
But you can always be the one for me baby”

Maybe? On the page it looks cute and romantic, but the first time I heard it I had to stop my car, I was crying so hard. My uncle George had just died, and I could feel the family falling apart. Polite disagreements over who got which rosary and who deserved keys to his apartment and what it meant that this cousin came to town while that one only called.

A cell phone held to Uncle George’s ear as he lay dying, yes William Faulkner I’m sorry I didn’t pay better attention in American Lit, unconscious in the ICU bed. It’s awkward being the one holding the phone to his ear. My brother is saying his goodbye from Colorado. I’m not sure when to pull the phone away. Uncle George doesn’t respond, can’t respond. He lies still with his eyes closed, his normally lean and leathery face looking puffy and unfamiliar. After a few minutes I hold the phone up to my ear. “…softball games, and that time you came to visit with my dad, man Uncle George, every time I go to that ridge we hiked to…” I put the phone back to his ear.

“This is the way that life is supposed to be
And there’s a reason that you just can’t see
You’ll never be what you’ll never be,” but there never was the one for Uncle George. He was single all his life. My mom thought he might have gone on a date once.

“I went off in the cruel world
Like a gun in a crowded room.” Did I send that one last week? It’s hard to keep track.

I’ve been meaning to talk to Christina about that. I want a dumbed down version of the rules posted right on her page. I know you can send one lyric a week, but when does each week start and end? I know she takes pictures inspired by the lyrics. But either she decides, or visitors to the page vote…Somehow a winning photograph is chosen each month. And the submitter of the winning photo’s lyric gets a print. I want everyone to enter, because I love seeing the photos she’s come up with so far.

And I love the nostalgia factor, the callback to days when songs were front and center in my identity, when I posted lyrics on my dorm room door, to make a point. “You may ask yourself well, how did I get here?”

Another thing I like about running is the excuse to listen to music. Old random mixes on an iPod I’ve got hooked up to a speaker next to the treadmill. I haven’t synched it to iTunes since about 2009, so usually I just pick one of the on-the-go playlists I made years ago and just run to that. Yesterday it was a scramble of Cake and David Wilcox and Blossom Dearie that must have made sense at the time. In retrospect it’s too bad there wasn’t something from Etta James. She’d have done a great “Napoleon.”

Most aren’t fast enough to be workout songs, but also I like to sing as I run. I figure if I can sing, then I’ll be able to chat with a running partner when I start running outside. But also, singing makes my heart feel good. It makes me happy.

As I was running and singing along to “Jesus wrote a blank check” I thought about how singers, good singers, seem to give equal treatment to both intricately constructed lyrics and those that seem like just the easiest next rhyme.

“I don’t want to be number four
But I can hear a knock at the door.” Does number four mean something? Is number four the only one who hears the knock?I don’t want to be number four either. Or is it a joke? Great songs travel with the lyric as if it’s the only truth, the only world.

My mom used to worry about Uncle George driving home from the suburbs to his apartment in the city. “Wait ‘til rush hour’s over, “George,” she would say when he came to visit.

“No Phyl, I’ll be fine.”

“But they’re crazy this time of day. They drive so fast.”

“That’s okay. I put my tapes in and turn up the sound. They can honk or pass me, I don’t care.”

My mom would fume after he left. “He’s the only one going 30 on the Eisenhower. Someone’s gonna rear-end him and then he’ll care.” But he always made it home okay. I like to think of him cruising down 290, singing along to whatever he listened to, probably Perry Como or Bing Crosby. I’m glad I was never behind him on the road, because I would have been swearing my head off. But in his world, singing along, he was content.

“Napoleon’s a pastry
Get this under your brow
What once used be a rooster
Is just a duster now”

Clouds in my coffee

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One I, but many teas.

It was late and I was heating water. I said to the friend who was over, “Do you have a tea thought?” She came to look at her choice of flavors and laughed. “I always have a tea thought,” she said.

I was confused. “You mean you’re always in the mood for tea?”

“You know, a tea thought, an I thought.”

I should not have had that second beer at the bar. “An I thought?”

“In Buddhism,” she explained. “The I thought is the false concept of an ‘I,’ of a self separate from other selves. So when you said a tea thought…”

“Ah, and the J thought, and the K thought.” We laughed, though I wasn’t exactly sure what joke I was trying to make. But clearly I was trying, and she’s easy-going.

As she chose her tea (Snow Leopard), I mentally kicked myself for not knowing about the ‘I’ thought. I mean, I read that one Thich Naht Han book, most of it. And I meditate, or at least I did last year, though come to think of it there was an ‘I’ in my mantra. Damnit.

But as I drank my tea (Well Rested), I let myself off the hook, because if the self is simply a mental construct, which did sound more familiar the more I thought about it, there was no I to be more or less enlightened than the person next to me.

 

It’s like this

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Like boots.

I went to pick up Zoe. I put Django’s boots on first, because of the salt. We walked over there. It was cold. We went up and Marianne was just coming in from shoveling. Her face was rosy, like a storybook child’s. Katharine Hepburn and her sister were at the kitchen table. I said hi and Marianne leashed up Zoe. Elaine said, “Look at Django’s boots. They’re so cute!” “You should see her with her coat on,” I boasted extra loudly, like an intrusive home help lady from a British mystery novel.

Back outside, I felt bullied by the cold. I walked the dogs up north, aiming for a mailbox so I could mail my letter. But my hands were starting to ache, like the last gasp of water in the tray before it freezes into ice. I was so cold I started to whimper, so quietly that passersby didn’t notice, so quietly that even the dogs didn’t turn around. I decided to stop home and warm up.

My hands were so numb I could barely unlock the back door. The dogs bounded in. Django stopped on the rug and waited for me to take her boots off. Zoe jumped up on a counter, looking for snacks. I whimpered more loudly now, “Ow. Ow. Ow,” as I pulled off Django’s disposable balloon boots.

I rubbed my hands together briskly, like a Buddhism teacher on Lawrence Avenue once taught, reminding them what circulation feels like. As they thawed, Dave came in the back door from rehearsal. He offered to walk Zoe back with me, noting that Django didn’t need to go out again.

He was right, and certainly I didn’t want to wrestle Django’s boots back on, but when she followed us to the back door I said, “I think she wants to come.”

“No, she just doesn’t want to be left behind.” Dave opened the back door and both dogs pushed out past us. “See?” I said, “She wants to come.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Django immediately ran back up and inside, but I ignored that. “Let’s just take her.”

“She’ll get cold,” said Dave.

“It’s only three blocks,” I said. I figured we wouldn’t have to carry her until we were on the way back.

Dave leashed her up and we started walking. When we got to the first salty stretch of sidewalk, I tried to walk fast, like that kid from the Bazooka cartoon who paints the fence quickly because he’s running out of paint.

Django stopped and held up a paw. “Come on, Django,” I said annoyed, “There’s hardly any salt.” Zoe and I were already at the end of it. But Django held up two paws, switching among them to keep herself upright. “Django, come on!” She started shivering, like an old lady.

Dave picked her up and shook his head without shaking his head, like a statue of a person who is about to shake his head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Go on back. I’ll be home in a minute.” I continued on with Zoe, who plowed happily through snow, salt and ice like a draught horse. When I got to Katharine Hepburn’s, the kitchen was as dark as night. I let Zoe in and wondered if it would be rude to just leave. Then Miss Hepburn’s sister came in from the hall. “My boots are snowy so I won’t come in,” I explained from the back door.

Miss Hepburn’s sister told me briefly about Miss Hepburn’s upcoming surgery and effusively complimented Marianne’s shoveling and asked politely about Dave’s playing and my projects. She is the most civilized person I have ever known, like Maggie Smith in Tea with Mussolini. She gives me hope for 92, or 93, or whatever she may be.

I walked home without whimpering, just like a person with their hands in their pockets.

 

Our lip is sealed

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not my headshot
I’m definitely not using this shot.

I have too many secrets. My upper lip is disappearing. I can’t write about my funny adventure today because I can’t reveal a certain surprise for a certain person’s husband. I don’t know if he reads this but I can’t take any chances.

I would have used an exclamation point up there but due to a New Year’s resolution I can’t use exclamation points. I keep falling down on the thankses. ‘Thank you so much.’ looks bitchy, but ‘Thank you so much!’ I can believe. So to keep my resolution, I have to be much more specific in my language. “Thank you for taking your evening to download and fix our Photoshop brochure so I can get it to the printer you recommended. If we land a good distributor it will be due in part to your final Photoshop tweaks and your expertise about print shops, and in any case I truly appreciate the help.” That’s too much to say on my phone so Vandamm just got a “Thanks!!!”

Actually, it’s not a lot to say on my phone but it is a lot to type. I wouldn’t say it because Vandamm and I don’t talk on the phone. We talk in person. On the phone we text. That’s just how the tent poles were set in this particular friendship.

Tent poles are another thing I can’t talk about. I alluded to them with Sunflower when we met for brunch the other day. We hadn’t seen each other for years, and it was uncanny all the parallels we discovered—names, scarves, parents, interpersonal dramas—but I can’t talk about those because while I’m not particularly private about my personal life I don’t want to expose someone else’s. See? I can’t talk about anything.

Maybe it is okay to talk about tent poles. They were just a metaphor used by an improv teacher we had when we first met, and surely it’s okay to talk about improvisation. When you make your opening declaration in a scene, you’re setting your tent poles—that is, you’re defining the space of this scene, the world, the rules. You and your scene partners want to set the poles far enough apart so that there’s room to play.

Or maybe it’s that you need to make sure you don’t step out of the tent during the scene. Or was it that you need to make strong declarations that drive firmly into the turf, so the scene doesn’t fold in on itself? That teacher and I ended up getting involved, so maybe I didn’t listen well enough. Heck, maybe Sunflower got involved with him too. I never asked. But it’s probably somewhat the same whether you sleep with your teacher or not, if you’re passionate about the artform. Either way, they can deliver you or take you for granted or make you feel totally amazing, until you learn that only you can really make yourself feel totally amazing, but I can’t talk about that because it sounds like something I’m not even talking about.

One safe topic from my Sunflower lunch is that it is so weird that we both have the same scarf! I mean, that we both have the same scarf. Purchased separately, during the years where we never ran into each other once, from a store miles away from both of us. When I complimented Sunflower’s scarf and told her I had the same one she scoffed, “I got it at Marshalls!” (exclamation point hers)

“So did I,” I said, “unless it was TJ Maxx.” They’re both on the same stretch of 75th Street in the suburb where both our mothers lived, so Mom and I shopped at both interchangeably, until she got detained at the TJ Maxx.

It was a scandal, resulting in a stern letter from my father to the president of TJX, which incidentally is the parent company of both TJ’s and Marshalls. Dad reprimanded them for dragging a loyal customer into the tiny, scary security office and threatening her with police action, just because she was looking through purses for a price tag because there was no tag on the one she wanted to buy. Ultimately they apologized and eventually Mom started shopping there again, though she often cautioned me, “If you don’t see a price, ask a clerk. Don’t give them any excuses.” But I can’t talk about that because I promised I’d never tell.

About the only thing I feel safe talking about is how my upper lip is disappearing. Is it age? Has it always been mostly not here? I only noticed its absence when I looked at hundreds of headshot photos my friend Chris took the other day. In most of them, my upper lip appears to be missing. The only reason I can talk about this is that I’ll only use the half-dozen shots where it’s beautifully if tentatively in attendance. It’s a visual secret: I’ll tell, but I’ll never show.