Nonsense Verse

Stroll, interrupted. A play in 18 lines.

An evening stroll to the wine bar. At the corner of 55th and 9th, as two people are about to cross the street -- with the "walk" light -- a yellow cab hits the gas and speeds around the corner in front of them, a treacherous turn, though thankfully at enough distance that no damage was done.

"Well!"

"I know. Jeesh. Go right ahead."

"I have this thing where I like to provide loud commentary when drivers do stupid things in front of me and they have their windows down."

"Like, 'It's your world!'"

"Exactly. For instance, the other day, just as I was about to step off the curb, this guy zoomed up to the sidewalk and parallel-parked right in front of me. Way close. So I said, 'NICE PARKING JOB.'"

"And?"

"And he did a 'what?!' sort of thing." (Gesturing with hands, shrugging shoulders.)

"Dick."

"I know."

"You totally should have faked an injury. Like this." (Grabbing foot, hopping up and down with pained expression on face.) "And sued the bastard for all sorts of money."

"Um, I'm fairly sure the guy's insurers would have demanded some sort of proof. Like X-rays."

"You could have used mine! My feet are all fucked up."

"I don't think bad bunions count."

"But they look impressive."

"Of course they do."

"They've got lots of calcium deposits. They're white and splotchy and large."

"White and splotchy and large?"

"Yeah. You know. Like many Americans."

The goose is greedy*

I'm conducting an experiment: Will the prospect of earning a few extra dollars a month be enough incentive to keep me writing here, on the interweb?

"Pshaw! Don't tell me you're in this for the MONEY?"

Well, no, of course not. It's just that I'm lazy, you see. And I live in New York City, where there are so many other ways to spend one's time than playing on, and writing for, the interweb. And many of those things require the distressing handing over of many, many dollars. Without some sort of incentive here, I'm worried that the fresh enamoration engendered by my sassy new logo and nifty TypePad tools will soon fizzle, as I seek out other ways to spend my time and other ways in which to earn those dollars -- like working more, or teaching dance lessons, or running off to join a burlesque cabaret.

Speaking of random, I have to say: Do you not LOVE the redesign of Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com? So pretty. I visited them just now to look up "engendered," to make sure I was using it right, and a synonym for "dim," which I typed first instead of "fizzle," but which I knew ought to change because a "dimming" of "enamoration" just didn't seem right to me. Right? But yes, I could spend hours just clicking back and forth through those easy-to-reach dictionary/thesaurus/encycopedia tabs. Swoon.

And the encyclopedia tab! "Not much use for that," you may be thinking. "Looking up the meaning of a word or searching for a tastier synonym is one thing, but looking up, what, every use of that word known to man?" Not quite. The encyclopedia, you see, offers great juicy spasms of randomness. For instance, an encyclopedic look-up of "fizzle" yielded this amazing morsel: Doggy Fizzle Televizzle. (!!!) Do you know what this is? I am completely out of it, so my guess was that it was a children's show, most likely featuring rotund, primary-colored creatures with squeaky voices and scary I'm-high-on-E eyes who did a lot of bouncing. But no. If only I weren't lacking in the all-important MTV gene (whose first cousins once removed include the VH1 gene and the BET gene), I would have been signaled by the root, "izzle," that this was an extension of the "fo' shizzle my nizzle" ... thing. And from that I might have deduced that Doggy Fizzle Televizzle was not, in fact, a children's show, but an all-Snoop-Dogg-all-the-time show.

But wait! The wondrousnous does not end there. After this discovery I of course had to know, once and for all, what in god's name "fo' shizzle" really means, and so I turned to the Urban Dictionary, whose first explanation was this:

"fo shizzle ma nizzle" is a bastardization of "fo' sheezy mah neezy" which is a bastardization of "for sure mah nigga" which is a bastdardization of "I concur with you whole heartedly my African american brother"

(See there how I also got it wrong the first time? I said "my nizzle," when really the cool kids know it's "ma nizzle." There I go betraying my East-West-Coast-sushi-eating-latte-sipping half-whiteness.)

The Urban Dictionary being a free-for-all in its own right, "fo' shizzle"  is also explained to be, among many other things, an antiseptic-looking Vietnamese noodle house (is there any other kind?) and a term originating in medieval England whose meaning was "Alas! An advasary has come upon us! To the catupults!"

In a perfect world, the Urban Dictionary would also be a tab on Dictionary.com/Thesaurus.com. I am more than willing to help broker this deal. For my cut of the proceeds, of course.

* Thank you Marc Bell, "Shrimpy and Paul and Friends"

The line that made my day

Probably not as hilarious out of context, but still, I had to share...

"Howard was 57 years old. He had been married for thirty years to a difficult woman. Entering waiting orifices was about as much as he felt he could handle now, in the arena of personal relations." -- On Beauty

Just so we understand each other

To all friends, acquaintances and strangers who've ever written me an e-mail and appended a message to the effect of, "Please forgive all my hideous typos/grammatical flubs/embarrassing word choices, I was writing fast/didn't spell-check/had one too many bourbons before sitting down to write," I give you this -- so that you may never fear writing again.

Dregs

It bothers me, finding the hindquarters of what used to be a large bug sitting flattened in my bathroom. The hindquarters plus some random piece of what used to be the skin off another part of its back.

I don't think the bug molted. There was too much heft and darkness to the bum. It was less tissue-thin than just plain smushed. Which can mean only one thing: the cat got to it.

Upon this charming discovery I baby-stepped a circle around myself, to make sure I wasn't surrounded by, or standing on, other bug parts. There was nothing in the bathroom, so I tried to pick up the trail in the kitchen, the living room. And lo, I found another ragged piece of torso. Then the trail ran cold. I walked the length of the apartment and back -- alas, no legs, no top half, no head. I say alas because it also bothers me, finding pieces of bug about the apartment but not knowing where the rest of it has gone to. It could have been pushed beneath a piece of furniture, or into a dark corner where I would never have to see it again. But it could also have been placed into a shoe, or a bag, or underneath the covers.

I tried calling the cat to see if he would lead me to anything. I cooed and meowed and snapped my fingers and made kissy sounds. But now he's hiding, too -- no rustle of curtains, no crinkle of dry-cleaner plastic in the closet, no pitter-patter of little cat feet.

He's sitting in the apartment somewhere, being veeewy, veeewy quiet. Guilty behavior. And now I'm afraid to stick my hand into my purse.

Insomniac Sketches #1

Two days in a row, tired at 1 in the morning, I haven't been able to sleep until 4 or 5 a.m. Both those bleary nights I have set an alarm for 10 a.m. because I've had a telephone date with a friend on the West Coast, for 11 a.m. his time.

Let's recap: I have set my alarm for 10 a.m. to give myself plenty of time to wake up before calling him. At 11 a.m. HIS time. As in 2 p.m. my time. I am a genius.

Yesterday I woke up and found I couldn't make the phone call anyway because of a last-minute conflict in scheduling. Today I woke up and actually started to call the poor dude before realizing it was 11 a.m. my time, 8 a.m. his time. I remember him as being the kind of guy who's probably up at 8 anyway, but there was the potential that I would be his wakeup call, and that being an unspeakably hideous prospect, I promptly slammed shut my cell phone.

And that was just the last two days.

A few days ago, after another late-late night followed by a too-early waking, I was doing my daily breakfast ritual -- OJ, Americano, oatmeal -- which is usually an example of stunningly choreographed efficiency. To wit:

I flip on the espresso machine to allow it to heat up.

I put an espresso pod in its espresso-pod holder and shimmy it into the machine.

While that sits, I pour water into my kettle and set it on the stove to boil.

I take out my glass, my mug, my bowl.

I empty a packet of oatmeal into my bowl.

I open the fridge, take out the OJ, pour it into my glass.

I replace the OJ in the fridge, take out the creamer, pour a glug's worth into the bottom of my mug, replace it in the fridge and close the fridge door.

If the water hasn't boiled by now, I empty whatever dishes are in the dish drier and may even do a few dishes while I wait.

Once the water has boiled, I flip the espresso switch and watch my caffeine gurgle into the little espresso cup below.

As that water gurgles, I pour my hot kettle water over my oatmeal. Then, I grab the finished espresso, pour it into the mug, and top it off with the hot water.

With the same spoon I'm going to use for my coffee and my oatmeal, I stir -- the coffee drink first, so as not to get any floaty oatmeal bits into my drink -- and then I transport my various breakfast receptacles to either the coffee table or my desk, depending on whether I want to check e-mail and read news or watch an episode of Weeds (or Entourage or Sex and the City or whatever) while I eat.

This usually works out great for everyone.

But as I was saying, the other day, after another late night, I woke up to begin this ritual. As you can imagine, I can practically do it in my sleep. In fact, the other day it probably would have gone more smoothly had I done it in my sleep. Because this time, half awake and eyes three-quarters closed, I did my usual flipping on of things and heating up of things and taking out of things. But then I reached for the creamer and poured -- and realized I'd drowned my dry oatmeal in cinnamon-hazelnut International Delight®.

So I had creamier oatmeal that day. With a bit more artificial flavoring.

I suppose things could have been worse. I could have been holding the orange juice.

Danger: Unconventional dialoguing ahead

Last night I started reading On Beauty, having finally worked my way down to it on the "to read" pile. I'm only 16 pages in, but something's tripping me up that I hope I can get used to.

All the dialogue ends with "said so-and-so," rather than "so-and-so said," which to normal mortals probably isn't that big a deal, but in my case, well, it's making my brain do flip-flops.

I'm used to the news convention of putting the speaker first, followed by "said." (Some sentences require exceptions, but that's the general rule.) But in On Beauty the lines go like this:

1. "You can't phone him," said Howard quietly.

2. "Thanks so much," said Howard and began his return journey up the stairs to his study.

3. "Is this for real?" asked Kiki, but got no reply.

I try really, really hard not to edit while I'm reading books on my own time, for pleasure. But those last two in particular made me twitch.

I read a line like No. 3 and go, "Gack! Why? Why not 'Kiki asked, getting no reply'?" Because it also doesn't sound right to me to use "Kiki asked, but got no reply." Nor does "said Howard and began." Huh? Is it just a cadence thing? An American grammar versus British grammar thing? Whatever it is, the inside of my noggin was so tangled up after I closed the book that I lay in bed for at least two hours, unable to asleep, unable to stop transposing in my head: "said she, she said, said she, she said," until the sun came up.

"If you were gay, it'd be okay…"

More and more, I'm hearing straight male friends use "gay" as a synonym for "dumb" or "pathetic," or use it as a form of friendly ribbing, without giving it a second thought.

"That's so gay," they'll say. And every time, I find myself doing an involuntary eye-roll, to which they respond, "What?" Sometimes it's a defensive "what," a meek "what," because even if deep inside they know there's probably something off about using "gay" this way, they can't quite put their fingers on why, or if they can, then they're not quite willing to admit it.

One friend even said, by means of excuse, something very specific, to the effect of, "I don't mean 'gay' as in homosexual, I just mean 'gay' as in stupid."

They don't get it. "But I don't mean it in a derogatory way," they say. But that's just the thing, guys -- yeah, you do.

They don't see that by applying the word to negatives, they in turn make the word itself a negative. They don't pause to ask, "Why, of all the words that would fit this situation here, have I chosen to use 'gay'?" Hm. I wonder.

I don't hear straight women using it in these contexts. And I don't hear gay men or women using it. I only hear it being used by straight men, the group most likely to feel threatened if labeled "gay." And even though these straight men swear they're not using it "in that way," it nonetheless betrays their sensitivity and slight (or great) revulsion to the word: for them, being called "gay" would be a bad thing (a minor teasing or a major insult, depending on the situation), and so "gay" is simply flipped around to describe bad things.

I get the same sick feeling when I hear a guy being berated for "throwing like a girl" or a man saying something like "women's basketball doesn't really count." Maybe these dudes mean it jokingly, but in saying such things, they're betraying a hint of their deep-down-true selves -- the chauvinistic, homophobic side of themselves (some to greater degrees than others, granted).

"Gay" offers a one-two punch: it doubles for "wimpy" and "lame" and their ilk, but it also replaces all words overtly feminine that used to stand in for "weak," at a time when men have learned that it's not cool to belittle things by equating them with female traits.

"But it's just a harmless word," the men might complain. Okay, if that's the case, why "gay"? Why not just "sad" or "weak" or "pathetic," words that more precisely get at what they mean? Or why can't these guys steal from their own thesaurus entries of negative gender connotations and say something like "brutish" or "caddish" or "loutish"? Or why not keep it gender neutral with something like "wack" or "tired" or "wrong"?

Or hey, if it's color they're after, a slightly more original coinage, why not try something that evokes a less-than-macho straight male -- say, "Niles," from the TV show Fraser. Imagine it:

The pitcher's on the mound, he throws the ball, it's waaay outside. The fan's instinct is to yell, "Stop pitching like a girl!" (the phrase he used as a kid). Except his wonderful and amazing girlfriend is sitting right there, and if he uses that, he knows he'll get a good solid thwap to the nuts as soon as she stands up to go to the restroom. Then he thinks of shouting, "That's so gay!" But he can't do that because these two leather-clad biker guys sitting to his left may or may not be gay, you never can tell, but in any case, he's not going to take any chances, because gay or straight, those guys could definitely kick his ass. So instead he yells, "God, you're so Niles!"

Perfect, right? Everyone can see how Niles probably hasn't handled a baseball since he was about six years old. And the fan keeps it in the club -- using a straight man to insult a straight man.

That's the ticket. "Niles" it is. Soon, everyone will be saying it. And you heard it here first.

To celebrate, why dontcha sing along...

Wednesday night. A play in 13 lines.

A living room. The sloppy remnants of takeout Thai food -- and random papers, magazines and computer parts -- are spread over a dark wooden coffee table. The end credits to Raising Arizona are rolling on the TV screen. Two people are splayed on the couch, half-comatose, full bellies. One of them lifts the remote and clicks off the TV. A cat meows.

"So. What's your plan for the rest of the evening?"

"I don't know, what's your plan?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I could play on the computer. Or we could watch another movie. Or read."

"We could do all those things. I could watch a movie. Or read."

"We could make it a Holly Hunter film festival and watch The Piano."

"No."

"Okay, then."

"We could make it a funny movie festival and watch The Big Lebowski. Or Old School."

"Or both!"

"Eeehhh, I think both may be a little ambitious."

Looking around at the telltale signs of sloth.

"I am nothing if not ambitious."