from February 17, 2008
The writing process is a funny thing. Unless we’re talking about my bogs, which are about as painful for you to read as they are for me to write. Why do we do it?
Well, I think you do it because you are a masochist, but I do it because I have to. Usually when I want to write I feel it in my head, like an itch inside my brain. While there are medications I can take for that I feel that it is simpler just to write, especially when my HMO is under indictment and my co-pay is about $500 per med.
When I have something especially “good” to blog, it can be like a rash that I have to scratch or go mad, so I jump on the keyboard and I write and write. Sometimes I even remember to turn on the computer first.
Other times I just try to write a little everyday, even if it is only a couple of lines in my notepad. Doesn’t mean I blog every day, but I get something down somewhere. A writer has to write in much the same way that Hillary Clinton has to shed false tears. It is just the way of things.
Then there are the dry spells. Sometimes I set myself a task during these times, something I have to write. It isn’t always good, but sometimes it gets flowing and I get a nice output. (Now you see how writing is like plumbing too. Except a good plumber gets paid way more than I do, no matter how much butt crack I show around work.) By the way, read this sentence again. “It isn’t always good, but sometimes it gets flowing and I get a nice output.” I have set myself the task of not being profane in this edition so I will not point out how writing is also like masturbation, though many and better writers before me have made the connection.
There are times when nothing gets written and I have no itch to write. Now I am in no way obligated to write, except to myself, but it feels very foreign when I don’t have that itch.
But just sometimes something comes along that just starts the little tingle that no shampoo can get rid of.
It happened today.
We had a photographer at work today of some unknown ethnicity. Was he Lebanese? Was he Brazilian? Did he hail from Madrid, Sydney, or St. Petersberg? I couldn’t tell. But he was a sight. He was a swarthy Lothario with a slanting head. I really looked closely. I examined it. It was totally flat in the back. If he rested his head against the wall it would make a perfect seam. You’d want to caulk it. And the back of his head was higher than the front so starting from his face his whole skull slanted upward coming nearly to a point at the back. He combed his hair little-boy style, parted to the side and it partially covered the mess but also made it look as if he was wearing a wig. It was not a wig. It appeared to be hair that was carefully styled, not to mention dyed, to the point that it looked more phony than real.
But what really made the picture was the way he winked. He had a habit of winking at you. He winked at me and he winked at the other adults but he didn’t wink at the students so he had full control- it was not a tic. And the wink was more than noticeable because he had bulging toad-like eyes.
“Can I have the bathroom key?” Wink.
“Thanks for the coffee.” Wink.
“Who’s next?” Wink.
Was he making a lewd suggestion? Did he hope someone would wink back? Was this a Barney Frank thing? He didn’t tap his foot so I don’t think so. But I do think he would be open to a return wink. He wore a patterned shirt that would not be totally out of place on a foreign national going to a disco for the first time in the 1970s, and you could nearly smell, though not actually see, the gold chains and chest hair.
He looked smarmy and sweaty and exuded the odor of the pick-up artist. He smiled a little too much and acted a little too friendly. Good photographer though.
But all of that was still not quite enough to get me typing. It was the pharmacist.
I needed a refill at Rite-Aid today. I am snubbing a cashier there and try to avoid Rite-Aid at certain times but the pharmacy is always a safe zone. There was a new pharmacist there, a woman anywhere in age from 23-31. But what drew my attention most was her tight t-shirt.
No, she was not especially well-endowed (or “busty”) and I wasn’t looking at her breasts but at the actual shirt. It was day-glow neon yellow and said, in huge letters across the front and repeated on the back “FRANKIE SAYS RELAX.”
You can see why I got to writing.
Who wears a shirt like that anymore? And while working at the pharmacy? At least put on a white coat, try to look a little professional. The other young pharmacist, the one who is busty but also has a moustache wears one. And who still has one of those shirts, not to mention the urge to wear one? Did she buy it recently? Why? Why did she wear it to work knowing that she would be dealing with the public, many of whom are old and have eye problems and might not have been able to see her through the sun-like glare of her shirt? What was her story? And what was with these shirts back in the day anyway? Who was Frankie and why did he want me to relax? What did he care? And why would I care what he cared? This was a t-shirt that really bothered me. I have not seen anyone so bothered by a shirt since my brother wore the scandal shirt to London.
People in Europe take t-shirts a bit more seriously than here in America. They read and discuss them. We did not know that.
Dave and I went to London back in the summer of 2001 and packed a load of t-shirts. Most of them were no big deal except for one. One of the best WWF wrestlers was Mick Foley, who bragged that he had “testicular fortitude.” The phrase caught on and my brother had it on a t-shirt. Here in NYC no one looked twice. But in London everyone looked and looked again, made comments, pointed it out to their friends and a few even did double-takes. When we were walking up a hill to the Greenwich Observatory Dave was about 20 feet ahead of me. I saw dozens and dozens of people walking downhill and saw all of them read his shirt and look shocked or surprised. The low point came when, at the London aquarium, a man in a red outfit from 200 years ago or more came up to my brother, read his shirt, and said “so you’ve got big balls, eh?” This from a guy wearing stockings and a codpiece.
Dave kept his arms crossed for the rest of the day.
So the itch has been scratched for a few hours. But even now I can tell that it isn’t going to last. All it takes is a weird photographer, a t-shirt, or even a picture of the world’s smallest body builder and I’m back to the keyboard.
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