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It really did sound like a great idea at the time. In 1975 I was living in an upstairs apartment at 425 West Avenue along with 3 other women… although it may have been 4 or 5 as they came and went… at times finding a new one sleeping on the couch in the morning. Anyway, having very little money I needed a plan. An idea came into my head so I grabbed the phone book and looked up numbers connected with the U of R Medical Center. I found a phone number for their Research Department and called it. It may have been a technician who answered but I didn’t ask him who he was. I just went ahead and asked if there might be an opportunity for me to sell my body to them. I would fill out an affidavit to guarantee that they would  receive my body immediately upon my death… but I would get paid for it (ME!) NOW! After a short pause, he chuckled and said he was sorry but “we don’t offer any such purchases of body parts.”

“Hey! What time is it?” came a voice from the couch. “Time for a Plan B,” I shouted back to another sleepy friend of a friend.

My search to locate KATH should have started sooner and been far more diligent. Over the past 20+ years, I randomly googled her name a number of times but never found any information to indicate that any of the persons popping up were actually her.

KATH was my best friend when I was a sophomore in college. She was a senior. Our relationship was never sexual but was definitely very emotionally intimate and intense. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to find her; to talk about what our relationship was, or meant, to HER. The other reason I wanted to know where to find her was to return “Tiger”, the stuffed animal KATH had given me one day when I was laying down on the rug in her room while suffering really awful menstrual cramps. She had placed “Tiger” in my arms saying that he would comfort me as he had comforted her over the years. This gift of “Tiger” further reinforced our commitment to each other.

Back in 1956, my family lived in an apartment in Rochester. Our next door neighbors were the Andersons: Jaime-Lyn was my age and her brother, who we called John-John, was several years younger but we all played together frequently. We were neighbors until 1958 when the Andersons decided to move to Syracuse. When Jaime-Lyn and John-John came over to say goodbye on moving day, John-John found “Timmy” in my room and was holding him tightly. “Timmy” is my teddy bear given to me by my grandmother when I was six months old. When Mrs. Anderson came by to tell her children it was time to get in their car and leave, John-John didn’t want to give “Timmy” up. I looked at Mrs. Anderson and nodded that it was okay for “Timmy” to go with John-John to Syracuse.

My parents stayed in touch with the Andersons and we went to Syracuse to visit them in 1960. During our visit, I started to “come down with something” as I had a 104 degree fever. Of course, my parents decided to cut our visit short and return home. As I was getting into our car, John-John came up to me, put “Timmy” in my arms and said “You need him now”. I slept next to “Timmy” in the back seat of our car all the way home!

One morning several years ago, my final Google search located KATH… well, located her 2018 obituary. No spouse, no partner was noted… not even a cherished pet.

That evening I was so grateful, as I continue to be today, to have both “Timmy” and “Tiger” to comfort me.

I see many TV ads during the day. Most are for injury attorneys or prescription medicine. When I was a little kid, most TV commercials were for sugary breakfast cereals or cigarettes! One commercial I will always remember was for Lestoil, a multi-purpose cleaner. The reason that I remember this ad in particular is because I seem to be the only one who ever saw it! It begins with a birthday party being celebrated by a group of children around a table with balloons and a cake. The family’s dog comes into the kitchen from outside, squats and poops on the tile floor! The announcer says “Even at the nicest party.”  When I told Mom about the ad: “the dog goes poop right on their floor!” she responded “No! I’m sure that couldn’t happen on television. The dog probably had muddy paws & brought mud into the kitchen.”  But I kept  insisting, “He pooped! I saw him! The dog pooped!”

To this very day, I haven’t been able to find any evidence that this Lestoil commercial ever existed.. or if it did,  was it mud?… or POOP?!

One hot summer day, my sister Sharyn and I were invited by Debbie, a neighbor girl, to come over and splash in her wading pool. I was four and Sharyn was six, the same age as Debbie. Since Mom knew her mother and the family lived just two doors down, Mom gave us permission to put on our sunsuits and join Debbie in her backyard pool. The three of us splashed and laughed for some time when, for no apparent reason, Debbie pushed my head down and held me under water! Sharyn saw this, gave Debbie a shove, pulled me up and we ran back home. I don’t know why we didn’t say anything to Mom… but Sharyn and I knew enough… to never play with Debbie again!

Unloading my clothes from the dryer, I stood in a Monmouth Illinois laundromat on August 9, 1974. The two loudspeakers hanging on adjacent walls blasted the local radio station to all us patrons. When the news hour eventually came on, the lead story began: “Today Richard M. Nixon resigned as 38th President of the United States and departed with his family on a helicopter.”

I looked all around me at middle-aged women… wearing vacant stares… folding their husbands’ shorts and socks. Absolutely no one was, even modestly, applauding… except ME!

So I quickly scooped up my basket of clothes and hurried out the door… cheering softly… to myself!

My girlfriend’s mother, Mrs. B, put a curse on me! Not any old curse but, directing her words and gestures toward me, cast MULUKHIYAH!

Joanne and I were in the kitchen cleaning out the cupboards when Mrs. B arrived at Joanne’s house quite unexpectantly. Joanne’s husband had gone golfing and her 2 young children were taking a nap upstairs. For whatever reason, her mother had extreme animus toward me, although we had never spent much time together. Mrs. B entered the kitchen, saw me, said something snide to Joanne and then…called the police! No kidding! A police car showed up in the driveway and a pair of officers knocked at the door. They asked Joanne if she was “separated” from her husband. “No, he went golfing so I invited my friend over to help me clean the house”, she responded. They looked at her, at me, and then shrugged their shoulders at her mother. They left the house and drove away. Feeling as if her concerns had not been addressed, Mrs. B began to chant and pantomime ,who knows what, right AT ME! She then started to swear at Joanne who calmly told her “Goodbye Ma” and gently ushered her out of the house and shut the door. At this point, I think we both laughed and kept rearranging cups and glasses in the cupboard.

The next day at work, I told my office buddy Jim what had happened. He thought for a minute, then dialed up Marge, his wife. He explained to her what I had told him and handed me the phone. Marge asked me a few questions, swore me to secrecy, and verbally REMOVED my curse! She also told me what to get and wear as extra measures of protection. I thanked Marge and Jim profusely and felt relieved to be myself again!

My Mom liked most of my girlfriends. My girlfriends’ moms never much liked ME!

A.M. (one performance on 05/07/94 at Pyramid Art Center/LIQUID THEATRE)

Yo! What? Huh? jeeze… feels like I been up all night… nothin on my mind… nothin keepin me up… nothin I can think of… is there? I don’t know… I guess not…

Now, where was I? or, more to the point, where AM I? Am I where I wanted to be by now? But where did I want to be? I never had a “plan”… Oh, I started… and quit… plenty of stuff. I just never wanted anything badly enough to stick with it. “Finish what you start!” (even if I don’t like it?!) lack of discipline?… Hey! I go to work! I pay my bills! I brush my teeth after every meal, dammit!

Alright… alright… Leave me alone! (you’re telling yourself to leave you alone?!) I know… I know… I hear me… ranting… raving… unraveling!

If I have no material goals, it shouldn’t mean my goals are immaterial… they’re just intangible. But is that inaccessible? ethereal? grasping at thin air?

NO! the air around me is thick and lush… a GARDEN… full of every imaginable… seed of thought?  waiting to grow?

Or am I spreading the fertilizer as I speak… and it’s only words… full of CRAP… to cover the reality that my dreams… are only dreams… unattainable… thus immaterial…

Does it matter? and it MUST… because I must… because I DO… DO matter… and that mattering IS my material goal!    HUH?

Proclamation: I am a dropout! (Well, that’s not accurate. Just as I cannot be a “has been” without first being an “is”, thus I cannot drop out from that which I have never been a member in nor a part of).  Am I a dangling participant? there on the fringes… around the edge… waiting… getting ready for membership… then, deciding NEVERMIND!

Maybe I think too much… OK, so now start thinking about thinking so you can think how NOT to… think?!

But it isn’t really self-indulgence, is it?  When did I actually BECOME AWARE of ME… AS A SELF?

Mrs. Hersch, the neighbor lady, came out onto her front porch. It was a gorgeous summer morning. She watched the child playing alone there in front of her… the child oblivious to the housewife… the housewife who swept the steps leading up to her apartment. The little girl, this solitary tomboy, wore a holster and was firing a toy gun at some imaginary bad-guy there across the yard. A plastic orange bullet dropped from her belt. Did Mrs. Hersch feel some kind of obligation to snidely remark, “Dropped a bullet Wyatt!”

The little girl, suddenly acutely aware of my own existence, ran home crying… didn’t first pick up the bullet… nor ever returned to pick it up.

Maybe THAT’S what’s keeping me awake… maybe somehow, some way, I am awake because I didn’t simply pick my bullet up!

But what has “triggered” this memory… and why does it BUG me?

Standing at the sink, I spotted a very large beetle-type insect behind the faucet. It startled me. My college dormitory in Illinois was built in 1900. There I stood… 72 years later… staring. There were probably all kinds of icky things living behind and under fixtures. I went door-to-door to locate a can of Raid. I clutched it tightly as I stood as far from the sink as I could… stretching my arm as close to it as I could… looking from the corner of one eye while turning my head away. PSSST…PSSST…PSSST… bug spray coated the faucet… actually saturating the adjacent wall. The deed done, I returned the unused portion to my equally repulsed neighbor and thought no more about it. The next afternoon, I decided to rest a few hours in preparation for a long night of studying ahead. My mattress was on the floor of my room. I laid down, closed my eyes, and slept for nearly two hours. I was awakened by a strange sensation of being watched. I distinctly remember that I was aware of being awake well before opening my eyes. When I did open them, I found myself literally face-to-face with “sink beetle” less than six inches away. A reflex action quickly rolled me over, off the mattress, and out the door of my room… so quickly it couldn’t be divided into three distinct motions… just a continuous awkward ballet movement… Plee-ay, plee-ay, Please get me outta here! My heart was pounding, adrenaline pumping, I was in a midwestern state of panic! I made a vow right then and there, barefoot in the hall: That bug had probably lived in the dorm for years before I arrived… and it had every right to remain (“squatters rights?”). It had done absolutely nothing to infringe upon MY college career… so why was it attacked by my “aerosol arsenal”?! “Live and let live” I proclaimed, returning to my room. Nearly half an hour had elapsed. Upon re-entering, I lifted blanket and pillow, scanned the floor, the baseboards… the only place left for my vision to invade was that old sink on the wall… in the corner near the window. I walked over, looked in, under, and behind. I didn’t see Gramma Bug then, or ever again… I hope she’s OK!

What’s crawling through MY brain? digging craters? Maybe there’s a full moon… Howling!  Howling! Howling!  I am feeling LUNATICKLISH!.. lathered… foaming at the mouth?!

Walking home from a bar, late into a 1981 night, the DOG ran out from behind a building and jumped up and bit me… on the ASS… on Park Avenue… (on Park Avenue on the ass?!) I kicked at the canine… it ran away.  I got back to my apartment… the skin was broken (and the paint was peeling),,, but NO BACTINE! But I did have a pint of Dewar’s so I splashed some scotch on the bite, downed a couple of gulps internally for good measure and went to bed. The next day I went to the library and looked up “RABIES” in a medical reference book: “symptoms take from six months to a year to appear in humans. The brain is examined after death occurs to confirm the disease”. Forget it! I haven’t the patience to worry about this for “six months to a year”! I simply went on with my life. I DO remember telling my sister very specifically “If I should suddenly die in the next year, SAVE MY HEAD! It’s needed for medical verification!”

Verification…

Excuse me, but may I see at least two forms of ID? A current driver’s license? Your birth certificate? Some proof you exist? COLD HARD FACTS?!

I exist… Honest I do! I witness as well as LIVE my identity… a hapless voyeur peeking in my OWN window. I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… but are my recollections hazy… in retrospect? Melting colors blending together?

I got the blues, I got the greens, I got those aqua in-betweens.

I got a fever, I got a chill, porcupine without a quill.

I got the highs, I got the lows, I got those… I just don’t knows!

 

Maybe it’s these pillows! They’re new… not “broken in” yet…

I was in Sears Marketplace last weekend and noticed pillows were on sale so decided to buy a few. I saw the various bins which had pillows divided not only by size (standard, queen, king) but also by firmness (gentle for those who sleep on their stomach/firm-support for those who sleep on their side/extra firm for those who sleep on their back)

TRUE CONFESSION TIME! I bought two gentle standards because I sleep on my stomach! But I also bought two extra firm queen size because when I watch TV in bed, I lie on my back.

LYING ON YOUR BACK… is that the same as FAKING AN ORGASM?!

Wish I could get some sleep… but it’s okay. I have today off from work. I had to fill out a “vacation request form”. There are lines on the form which ask for “name”, “date”, “position”, etc. On the “position” line, instead of writing my job title which is senior dispatcher, I wrote the words “ON TOP”. Karen, my supervisor, upon reading this told me: “You know this request is kept on file in your permanent record folder!” Well, I better be more creative then. I’ll pick up a copy of the Kama Sutra so I can alter the “position” on each request… possibly draw little diagrams in the margins!

What a kidder!… Who am I kidding?

Kids today! Everyone wants immediate gratification! unable, unwilling to wait… all that “something for nothing” mentality. You know the root of THEIR problem? PRE-WASHED JEANS! It’s true! It was never like this when I was 15… when I bought my very FIRST pair of blue jeans (we even used the proper noun: BLUE JEANS!) They didn’t come already torn, already faded… I had to EARN that! I marched on Washington D.C. in those denims, I sat in sit-ins, I rallied, I protested. It took years of honest effort (outdoor concerts and passing joints) to get my blue jeans “lived-in”. I paid MY DUES! Damn it!  I grew up! I grew up… ???

Growing up, I always wanted to be… Maynard G. Krebs… a beatnik, playing bongos in a coffeehouse. But it was no longer the 50’s, so I chose other options.

During a college break in 1974, I rode the train to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I took my camera and wandered through the city opening and closing the aperture at everything… hundreds of sights seen through that lens. People everywhere stopped and waved and posed. They were having at least as much fun as I was… probably more! How could I afford to waste all that film? I wasn’t wasting it. I intentionally didn’t put any film in my camera! Smile! Say “cheese”! well, not anymore. Too much cholesterol!

Growing up… growing up…

10×1 having fun… at least I guess I could be… at least I guess I should be!

What did I want to be? MYSELF! myself? What kind of an answer was that? You can’t major in that! It’s not a career! Who would hire me?

10×2 loving you… at least I guess I could be… at least I guess I should be!

NEED a husband? I had no use for a husband! Get married? Have a couple of kids?

Oh, so I’d be too busy for all this introspection nonsense? I suppose I could have just settled down… just settled… settle?!

10×3 I’m still me… at least I guess I could be… at least I guess I should be!

Didn’t I have EVERY opportunity? EVERY advantage? Did I NOT FIT IN because I was unwilling to “give a little”? Why WASN’T I MORE LIKE.. everyone else?!

10×4 wanting more… at least I guess I could be… at least I guess I should be!

What do I want? What would make me happy? MAKE me happy? Rather flippant… as if it were as simple as… putting together the right ingredients? Does such a recipe exist? Would it be too sweet? and rot my teeth?

I sat in the dentist’s waiting room with my sister… looking in the magazine pile for an issue of “Highlights For Children” which she & I would read together. Our favorite cartoon was “Goofus and Gallant” and we sort of likened ourselves after those two characters. Sharyn, being the oldest, was “Gallant”: the parent-pleaser, good grades, quiet, always reading. I was much more like “Goofus”: not intentionally bad but rather clumsy and oblivious. I also remember composing a scenario based on that cartoon in response to an actual family conversation when we both were teens. My grandmother had remarked to Sharyn and me on several occasions, “Isn’t it interesting how you’re sisters but one of you has dark brown hair and the other has light brown hair.” Rather than merely acknowledging Gramma’s observation, “Gallant Sharyn” replies’ “Oh my! Grand-ma-ma, you are SO perceptive!” whereas “Goofus Lainne” leaps to her feet, drops her pants, and shouts, “Yeah, but our pubes are exactly the SAME color!” I’m sure childhood scenarios might have ensued if Dr. Sanders receptionist hadn’t startled me with, “NEXT! Lainne, you’re next!” I rose from the hard backed chair, entered the hygienic office and sank into the adjustable fully electronic model, complete with headrest. Now I know it as nitrous-oxide but Dr. Sanders always offered me painless drilling by unreeling the ELEPHANT NOSE which would fit snugly over my face and, by simply counting backward…10…9…8…8… take me away! And later, waiting for Sharyn’s checkup to finish, I attempted the “Highlights For Children” magazine’s monthly challenge to Find the hidden faces in the tree! It was more than ten years later before I actually realized (with the help of a hit of blotter acid), “I’ll be damned! There really ARE hidden faces in the trees!”

Whoa! I could sure use a drag on that elephant nose now! 10…9…8…8… Eight o’clock is still hours away! It remains dark outside but inside… what the hell is happening inside? INSIGHT! That’s what’s needed… some internal insight… mind implosion!

I’m leading the mind excavation… through the inner ear… looking for some explanation… of why I am here… Whoa! It’s the convolution roller coaster! You get to ride… for free!

Up & down

Up & down

Makes me dizzy… try to FOCUS!

“Look into my eyes Renfield… What do you see?”

“Yes Master… I am under your control!”

“Eees bloomin’ cryzee, gov’nor!”

And Sharyn and I drove to the open-all-night Wegman’s on Hudson Avenue to buy Pillsbury slice & bake cookies. It’s 11 o’clock on a Friday night… Not a school night… so we could stay up late and watch Chiller Theatre on TV… hosted by Jerry Carr… before he became Station Manager… before he was (probably forced?) to act dignified and professional.

Some of those quarter-circles of cookie dough would never make it to our cookie sheet. Sharyn and I nibbled it…RAW!

A pornographic thought now crosses my mind concerning the “tee-hee” Pillsbury Dough Boy: “Nothin’ says lovin’ like his raw dough in her oven… TEE-HEE!”

And the oven timer goes off and the hot splotches (probably not quite thoroughly baked) are scraped onto a plate and we return to the movie… “Yes Master… I am coming for you!”… and the film jumps and the sound skips and we stuff our mouths with piping hot dough… “A stake through the heart… kills him… for all eternity”… and the credits role: for Bela Lugosi and the nameless faceless, now bloodless others…

Fade to black? not MY mental projector… and the thoughts continue to ROLL…

Trying to turn it off… trying to sleep… I am trying, aren’t I? These are trying times! At least for ME!

I’m tired. Well, I feel tired… most of the time… maybe it’s my diet?

I take vitamins! Shit! I take a handful every day! I have a vitamin B COMPLEX for gods- sake!

Gotta snap outta this funk!

Okay! Okay! Grab the Guide to Women’s Health. Let’s see: Fallopian tubes… fat… fat comma body… fat comma dietary… fatigue– page 64… chronic fatigue syndrome…

Geeze! I hope I’m not chronic! I never aspired to be a syndrome either!  No! No! That’s not what I have. I don’t really have anything… nothing with a name… maybe not even anything I can put my finger on… WHERE does it hurt? NO where… EVERY where! It’s my BRAIN that hurts… well, not hurts exactly… more like starving. My brain in growling because it’s so hungry!… treading water in a sensory deprivation tank… I’m UNDERwhelmed! Help! I’m drowning! Ooooh!

Forget the diagrams! Forget the anatomical charts! Forget THIS reference book! Maybe I should put a call in to my doctor. Well, “physician assistant”… I don’t even have a real doctor… or an imaginary doctor… although that would be a terrific HMO: Health Mirage Organization? Hallucinated Medical Order? HA!

Okay, get down to this phone call thing! Gail Bench at Family Medicine. Shit! Which group am I in? It’s been so long. Oh Yeah, they’re divided into COLORS! BLUE! am I in the BLUE group? Shit! Like third grade reading.  Bluebirds. Are you one of the Bluebirds? or the TURKEYS? in the SLOOOW group? No! I’m accelerated thank you very much! I’m well beyond “See Spot run”!

She sprayed the fabric with (pre-laundry) Miracle Mist… and saw the spot run… down the shirt and into the sink… rub… rinse… re-apply as necessary! On sale today! So fill your cart! And get MOVING!

There were only a few days left before the end of the month… March 1983 and I really needed to get my stuff moved out of my old apartment on S Goodman St. and into my new apartment on Park Ave. near Culver Rd. I didn’t have a car… so around midnight I walked down to the Bell’s supermarket because I knew they were closed and their parking lot would be virtually empty. I located an “abandoned” grocery cart near the building and wheeled it back to my old apartment.  REET…REET…REET… always a bum wheel on these damn things!

Back on S Goodman, I loaded up the cart with as many of my belongings as it would hold… then wheeled it back down the avenue to my new place to unload.  This went on, back and forth… REET… REET…REET… until about a dozen trips had been made and most of my stuff relocated. I then took the shopping cart back to Bell’s parking lot, around 4am, and “re-abandoned” it.

Walking back to my old, nearly emptied apartment, a smug sense of accomplishment began to filter in… while a waning sense of helplessness slowly dissipated.

“AM I A MOVER… and a shaker… or WHAT?!” I exclaimed to no one in particular, now very aware of my sustained smile!

WIPE THAT SMILE OFF YOUR FACE YOUNG LADY! This isn’t funny!

It’s not my attitude… really! It’s my “perspective”! I just don’t… I just can’t SEE things the way I’m SUPPOSED to! It’s a “CONDITION”! A congenital DEFECT! REALLY!

The diagnosis was made at age three when it was determined that I had the “condition”, the visual impairment, that in the early 1950’s was referred to as: THE LAZY EYE . It sounded more like the name of a Western ranch!

I’m a young cowhand… from Amblyopialand!

Weak muscle, oh my!

Called THE LAZY EYE!

It strays out this way… way out!

Yippee ki-yo ki-yay… YEE HA!

Exercises were recommended to attempt to correct the problem. One required Mom to hold a tiny flashlight about an arm’s length in front of my face… and as she slowly brought it in to touch my nose, my eyes would FOLLOW the light… getting them to mutually focus upon it. Later on in my life, these corrective exercises became more elaborate… HIGH TECH!

Now in grade school, I was allowed to leave class an hour early once a week. Dad picked me up in front of the school and drove me to an old brick building on Alexander St. I met with a middle-aged woman who spoke with a “foreign accent”. Her teeth were crooked and stained and she smelled like butterscotch. I would watch her unwrap the amber cellophane encasing her Brach’s hard candy before each of our sessions. She sat me on a stool and placed my chin on a metal bar. The bar was adjusted until my eyes aligned with the viewing lenses. The lights in the room were then shut and the lenses lit. Into one lens she placed a photographic slide of an empty fish bowl; into the other, a slide of a goldfish. I was instructed to move each side, using hand levers, until I created ONE 3-dimensional picture in the center.

“PUT ZEE VISH IN ZEE BOWL” SHE DEMANDED… “ZIMPLY PUT ZEE VISH IN ZEE BOWL!”

 

Put zee covers over your head, I beseeched myself, zimply put zee covers over your head! But I think… don’t think! Just close your eyes! But maybe it… Relax! Let go! Don’t think!

But I think about EVERYTHING… Think about EVERYTHING… yet BELIEVE IN NOTHING?! Am I the protagonist? Not really. Am I the antagonist? Not really. Actually, I’m the PLAY TAG-onist! 1…2…3…NOT IT! am too! are not! am too! are not! … The game began DECADES ago…

Decade… decayed… rotted compost heap of what-might-have-beens… What might have been… what might YET to be… POTENTIAL! Isn’t that the very essence of existence after all? It’s there before birth and continues until death… sometimes subtle and dignified… other times it accuses and blames… but it’s ALWAYS there… LURKING!

The comment on my report card read, “needs to work up to her potential”… and the first grader zones out of “twelve minus seven” to contemplate life… and of what stuff IS this reflection comprised?  Grades and test scores? Looks and personality? Oh Dear God… Is it a PAGEANT?! If only to be first runner-up… really… that would be fine. I could settle for that… “SETTLE”?! There’s that word again, in its usual benign context… if that’s the BEST you can do… IS that the BEST you can do?! I had such high expectations… expectorations! cough cough! choke choke!  I don’t WANT to swallow my pride! I don’t WANT to submit… to accept LESS than I deserve. It’s not fair!… fair… fairy tail… but I’m an ADULT now!… fair… AFFAIR!… A very different tale!

But I’m too proud to beg! Though I’ve long forgotten WHY. Too proud to beg!

 

CUL-DE-SAC … How BOURGEOIS! Slightly better, more refined than A DEAD end… You can turn around… you don’t have to BACK out… but a DEAD ENDing all the same!

I turned onto that road for the first time nearly two years ago… My car headlights revealed the sign “No Outlet”. How prophetic. Even at the time I knew… I sensed that if I didn’t turn back now, there would be NO turning back… I was compelled to enter… drawn into an experience from which there was NO escape… the words immediately echoed within… “No Outlet”… and so it both began and ended driving to that house.

I am grateful I was Not there THIS year to witness the “For Sale” sign being pounded into the front lawn… the lawn where I played baseball with your children. I am grateful I was never there to witness those perspective buyers pulling into the driveway… the driveway we shoveled during the blizzard… as we joked and laughed and NEVER even felt the biting… COLD. I woke up with you… and shared a cup of coffee… and I don’t even drink coffee… but THAT morning it tasted GOOD… so GOOD… for the first time… last time?… only time? And standing outside, snow falling, wind blowing, I did not want to leave… not THAT morning… not EVER!   But I did… and knew there was no way back… the path filled behind me… flakes of guilt… drifted doubts… No plow has been constructed to clear THOSE mounds… of questions turned to frozen anger… but… BEFORE…

We did embrace in the kitchen, my eyes fixed on… the fish tank there on the counter… I once read an article which postulates “fish-watching” as a soothing form of meditation… Why am I NOT soothed?!    Up the stairs… into the master bedroom… we sat at the computer, shared the only desk chair, and collaborated on a short story… and the typing on the keyboard was transformed… as letters became notes… and I actually HEARD the music of our union…

HARD DRIVE?… or just soft drivel?

 

****(STAGE DIRECTION: looking into the audience… squinting… recognition… then shock… horror?… on my face)**** 

 

Yo! What? Huh? Jeeze! What the hell? What the hell are YOU doing here?!There is no possible way that you could have heard about this! about my being here now… tonight! Well, at least you’re alone… you are alone? Are you alone?… never mind!  I don’t even need to know! This showing up… It’s like your phone calls to me… every ONCE in a while… just “checking up” to make sure I’m… MISERABLE, right?!   Well, guess what? I’m NOT! I can live with WHO I AM… with or without YOU! YOU! You don’t even KNOW who you are! SO AFRAID to listen to yourself… and find out! Better to go through the motions!… Follow the script!… Do what’s expected! NOT ME! At least I’m comfortable with myself… even if… maybe… I don’t always know my lines…

LINES! MY LINES! Goddam it! This is my show! MY show! a ONE woman show!

So, if you’ll excuse me…

I have a conclusion… the solution… a REVELATION!

WHY am I UP all night???    I’m thinking about THIS SHOW!      MY show!       MY LIFE!

 

 

 

****( FYI addendum: City Paper reviewed all the Fringe Theatre performances. MY review was 7 words: “Thankfully it will not be seen again”)****

 

My 6th grade teacher Miss Nucchi told our class a story… a true story… a reminiscence… every so often. I vividly remember one such tale: “Children” she always began, “I once knew a man who hiccupped himself to death!” There was an element to this that it COULD happen… but to ME?! Her story… which stifled any possibility of laughter and replaced it with a bit of terror… although I doubt that she intended to frighten us… continued… oblivious to our wide-eyed reaction: “He just couldn’t stop! He didn’t sleep at night and it went on for several days. His doctor couldn’t even help him!… and he DIED!”

I don’t think there was too much more to the story as far as description is concerned, but I had a picture in my head of how he looked; coming home from work… and his wife there to greet him… and he took off his hat… and called the doctor on the telephone… while his wife stood by his side, distraught! I don’t remember imagining him as having any children, and not as an old man but maybe in his 30’s. I had so many questions for Miss Nucchi: Did he go to the hospital? Was there an autopsy? Did his wife ever remarry? But, ALAS, no one in the class raised our hands to question her account of this “tragedy”… We just went back to our studies…. possibly traumatized?!

After all this time… let’s see… I heard this story in 1964… and it still comes to mind… not every time I hiccup… but often! I only get hiccups about twice a year… frequently they accompany a full moon! They last about ten minutes… then disappear. Fortunately, MY hiccups are NEVER fatal!

In the early 1980’s, I worked at a Midtown Plaza department store as a sales clerk ( they actually called us sales associates… so we’d feel better about ourselves… while making $3 an hour!). A number of us would get together after work and go out drinking and talk and unwind. Invariably, the topic of “Ken” would come up… the store owner’s son and heir-apparent to the chain of stores. “Must be tough, born rich, knowing that eventually it will ALL be YOURS” my co-workers would say sarcastically. I got a bit sad when they said this and once responded: “Yeah, but suppose Ken always wanted to be… a veterinarian…ever since he was little… yet he knows he CAN NEVER BE ONE?!”

Everyone just sort of went silent… looked at me… started laughing… and said, “Yeah! Sure! Right!”….. as if… they all felt sorry… for ME!