Ah, thanksgiving. When we tell our family members we really love them despite their passive aggressive behaviour and their level of stupidity which surpasses the stupidity of my toaster oven. DOB had diarrhea, which I know because I was grooving to my iPod and working on my doll house when she wandered in asking if I had any Keopectate. No wait, Immodium. Whatever.
The next day was thanksgiving, but she didn’t want to join us for dinner. Here’s how that went.
UCC: We’ll be eating about 4 o’clock. Will you be able to join us?
DOB: Actually, no. I can’t get up, or else I just go like (moving both hands down and away to the righ quickly). It just comes out like water whenever I even stand up.
UCC: Thanks for the detailed report. Maybe if you stood up, it would all come out and be over rather than rolling around inside your gut. Would you like me to bring you in a plate of food?
DOB: No, because whenever I stand up, I…(hand motion, but this time down and to the left) and I haven’t eaten anything all day, except I’m drinking water.
UCC: Hmmm. Nothing going in but liquid, and nothing coming out but liquid. I wonder how you could go about remedying that? You say you haven’t eaten all day? You should at least drink some juice so your blood sugar level doesn’t get too low. Remember how the doctor said diabetics shouldn’t skip meals?
WISIMH: Remember any good knock-knock jokes? Ahh, yes, the one about what happens whenever you stand up. Reasoning with you is like trying to explain the second law of thermodynamics to my cat. Reasoning with you when you have low blood sugar is like trying to explain the second law of thermodynamics to a dead cat.
So, I reported this to TCG, but he took no action despite my concern about how when her blood sugar gets too low she tends to fall over and foul her diaper. Later, he took her a plate with some butternut soup and a gob of mashed potatoes smothered in gravy. Later:
TCG: She took her blood sugar and it was 64. So she took a sugar pill. Wasn’t that smart?
WISIMH: And then you did another blood test to see if she’s still in the stupid zone and encouraged her to eat and/or drink? Told her not to take insulin which would bring the number down ever more? Told her to eat something solid, like, say, fiber? No, of course you didn’t you moron. Much better if we wait to see how this all comes out.
TCG: Well, isn’t that good? We can’t do anything right?
UCC: Don’t go there.
WISIMH: Do something right? Do you really want me to answer that honestly? Ok. I wanted her son to take charge and implement some common-sense measures that will prevent the need for me to wipe shit off her fat ass later, and consequently, the need to increase my prophylactic dose of alcohol.
TCG: Seriously. You’re mad when she doesn’t take your advice to eat, and then when she eats a bit of food and takes measures to raise her blood sugar, you’re still mad. What do you want from her? What do you want us to do?
UCC: You need to drop this subject now. You don’t want to be asking me what I think we should do with your mother.
WISIMH: Breathe. Breathe and keep your mouth shut. And visualize a Spring meadow covered with yellow flowers, a starry night sky, a deep dish of apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream, anything but that hand motion about what happens when DOB stands up. And whatever you do, don’t waste your breath trying to explain how whenever DOB does something stupid, TCG frequently makes it worse. Breathe. Happy Thanxgiving, everybody!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Here's to Good Times
Tonight is Kinda Special.
We're all about supporting small local businesses. Passionate. We're at the Greasy Chinese food buffet next to the Days Inn Adjacent to Route 8, with rows upon rows of tables with steam trays filled with three kinds of pudding next to the macaroni salads, or anorexic crab legs next to grey dough balls labeled dim sum and six kinds of fried rice. Our fellow diners look like they shop at Wal*Mart and/or live at homeless shelters. We fit right in, even though English as a First Language is hella optional here and we're not wearing beer paraphernalia or sleepwear or anything marking us as cowboys.
DOB: This food is good, they have everything I like.
TCG: And it’s cheap too, about $25 per person, including this amusing little $20 bottle of cooking wine labeled Pis Du Chat '02.
DOB: Yeah, I don’t know why people go to more expensive restaurants when you can get this kind of good food so cheap. And you can get as much as you like. We could spend the whole day here.
WISIMH: (Contemplating the prospect )And that’s not even taking into consideration the scintillating conversational topics which include such old favorites as how good your mangy dog is, how you were up all night, and how we “need to go to the store” for you (which we "need" like we need an ice pick in the ear. As much as I like the crab legs, I also enjoy chicken wings coated in dark red 30-weight sweet grease, and fresh spring rolls that you could also use as chocks to level your motor home on your front yard. And plus, I like to eat at restaurants where they have tablecloths).
UCC: How’s J? (your daughter in Florida who calls every day) Has she called today?
DOB: Well, she’s tired at the end of the day, so she usually just comes home from work and gets into bed before she calls me. Sometimes she’ll go out with one of the other girls for a sandwich.
WISIMH: (To myself) This is conversation #4. You already know the script, why do you do this?
WISIMH: (Back to myself) Well, because the other options are equally disappointing. We could have had conversations:
#1 - Sandy is a good boy…
#2 - I just tell him I’m going to the store and he lays down by the window to wait for me…
#3 – this food is good. They have everything I like…
WISIMH: Yeah, but there’s always the chance you can spark The (always entertaining) Mystery Conversation. The one where she tries to talk about some news story she saw on TV but which ends up as a game of 20 questions as you try to figure what the fuck she’s talking about.
(Begin dream sequence in Vaseline focus with scary music like a disco Star Wars medley or barely recognizable cover of Cindi Lauper’s Time After Time in a minor key by Alvin and the Chipmunks)
Rod Serling Voiceover (RSV): The mystery conversation usually begins something like this…
DOB: J said we’re wrong about shootings in Florida. Fort Hood is in Texas…
Or
He was trapped on an ice flow with three polar bears and a condom. In the day room eating prunes. If I had a knife, I’d cut you...
Or
Garlic mashed potato recipes from the Civil War have always been a matter of great curiosity to me, which I can trace back to the food I enjoyed so much as a child at the dawn of the Age of Fast Food: the best nouvelle cuisine fusion of What Mexicans Who Have Scurvy Eat and Pan-Asian-Thai smug things with too much msg, on vegatibles and fruits in suspiciously tropical varieties, with a sprinkling of roasted garlic. And why, accordingly, today, many patriotic citizens see gay marriage as a threat to the institution of monogamous marriage between a hypothetically straight man and a (ditto) woman as exemplified by some of the best fallen christian preachers. Salt to taste of your own tears and top with a sprinkling of majnoon (crazy) …
Or
As Antigone said, to Electra, on Oprah, you can bend over and kiss your ass goodbye, Bitch, or was that what Oprah said to You? I’ve put up with your smartass crap with as much patience as I can muster between diaper changes, and what do I get? More smarmy ironical bullshit, pardon the execrably bad pun. I’m old and senile. I get it. Let’s move on…
Or
If our intertwined lives together had a subtitle, I nominate:
An Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times with Some Wackjobs
Look Who’s Fallen and Can’t Get Up And I don’t mean Lily
You Need to Do Something for Me. Can you guess what? Me neither.
We put the fuck you into dysfunction
The Story of the Founding of Duchebagonomics by the Family that Personified the Term
Who ARE These People Anyway?
You get the idea.
RSV: But mystery unravelling isn’t the only fun. Try to cover up the smell of piss with too much cheap perfume, have dinner where this fragrance marries with the odors of a saltwater tank of Garabaldies, seafood just beginning to go off, and burnt trans-fat-laden oil byproduct and corn syrup. Hilarity follows as the sea follows the moon above. Well, not quite so steadily, you understand.
(End Dream Sequence effects)
Insert standard ‘Goodnight-John-Boy’ scene and fade out to happy ending. Get your mind out of the gutter.
We're all about supporting small local businesses. Passionate. We're at the Greasy Chinese food buffet next to the Days Inn Adjacent to Route 8, with rows upon rows of tables with steam trays filled with three kinds of pudding next to the macaroni salads, or anorexic crab legs next to grey dough balls labeled dim sum and six kinds of fried rice. Our fellow diners look like they shop at Wal*Mart and/or live at homeless shelters. We fit right in, even though English as a First Language is hella optional here and we're not wearing beer paraphernalia or sleepwear or anything marking us as cowboys.
DOB: This food is good, they have everything I like.
TCG: And it’s cheap too, about $25 per person, including this amusing little $20 bottle of cooking wine labeled Pis Du Chat '02.
DOB: Yeah, I don’t know why people go to more expensive restaurants when you can get this kind of good food so cheap. And you can get as much as you like. We could spend the whole day here.
WISIMH: (Contemplating the prospect )And that’s not even taking into consideration the scintillating conversational topics which include such old favorites as how good your mangy dog is, how you were up all night, and how we “need to go to the store” for you (which we "need" like we need an ice pick in the ear. As much as I like the crab legs, I also enjoy chicken wings coated in dark red 30-weight sweet grease, and fresh spring rolls that you could also use as chocks to level your motor home on your front yard. And plus, I like to eat at restaurants where they have tablecloths).
UCC: How’s J? (your daughter in Florida who calls every day) Has she called today?
DOB: Well, she’s tired at the end of the day, so she usually just comes home from work and gets into bed before she calls me. Sometimes she’ll go out with one of the other girls for a sandwich.
WISIMH: (To myself) This is conversation #4. You already know the script, why do you do this?
WISIMH: (Back to myself) Well, because the other options are equally disappointing. We could have had conversations:
#1 - Sandy is a good boy…
#2 - I just tell him I’m going to the store and he lays down by the window to wait for me…
#3 – this food is good. They have everything I like…
WISIMH: Yeah, but there’s always the chance you can spark The (always entertaining) Mystery Conversation. The one where she tries to talk about some news story she saw on TV but which ends up as a game of 20 questions as you try to figure what the fuck she’s talking about.
(Begin dream sequence in Vaseline focus with scary music like a disco Star Wars medley or barely recognizable cover of Cindi Lauper’s Time After Time in a minor key by Alvin and the Chipmunks)
Rod Serling Voiceover (RSV): The mystery conversation usually begins something like this…
DOB: J said we’re wrong about shootings in Florida. Fort Hood is in Texas…
Or
He was trapped on an ice flow with three polar bears and a condom. In the day room eating prunes. If I had a knife, I’d cut you...
Or
Garlic mashed potato recipes from the Civil War have always been a matter of great curiosity to me, which I can trace back to the food I enjoyed so much as a child at the dawn of the Age of Fast Food: the best nouvelle cuisine fusion of What Mexicans Who Have Scurvy Eat and Pan-Asian-Thai smug things with too much msg, on vegatibles and fruits in suspiciously tropical varieties, with a sprinkling of roasted garlic. And why, accordingly, today, many patriotic citizens see gay marriage as a threat to the institution of monogamous marriage between a hypothetically straight man and a (ditto) woman as exemplified by some of the best fallen christian preachers. Salt to taste of your own tears and top with a sprinkling of majnoon (crazy) …
Or
As Antigone said, to Electra, on Oprah, you can bend over and kiss your ass goodbye, Bitch, or was that what Oprah said to You? I’ve put up with your smartass crap with as much patience as I can muster between diaper changes, and what do I get? More smarmy ironical bullshit, pardon the execrably bad pun. I’m old and senile. I get it. Let’s move on…
Or
If our intertwined lives together had a subtitle, I nominate:
An Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times with Some Wackjobs
Look Who’s Fallen and Can’t Get Up And I don’t mean Lily
You Need to Do Something for Me. Can you guess what? Me neither.
We put the fuck you into dysfunction
The Story of the Founding of Duchebagonomics by the Family that Personified the Term
Who ARE These People Anyway?
You get the idea.
RSV: But mystery unravelling isn’t the only fun. Try to cover up the smell of piss with too much cheap perfume, have dinner where this fragrance marries with the odors of a saltwater tank of Garabaldies, seafood just beginning to go off, and burnt trans-fat-laden oil byproduct and corn syrup. Hilarity follows as the sea follows the moon above. Well, not quite so steadily, you understand.
(End Dream Sequence effects)
Insert standard ‘Goodnight-John-Boy’ scene and fade out to happy ending. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Name That TV Show
TCG: (Walking in from the TV room) Thought I’d visit you.
UCC: (At computer) Well, hi.
TCG: There was a commercial.
UCC: In what?
TCG: In what I was listening to.
UCC: What were you listening to?
TCG: So I didn’t have to listen to it.
UCC: What TV show were you listening to before the commercial?
TCG: Oh. Heavy metal something like.
WISIMH: Duck! Here comes Abe Simpson’s gathering darkness. Such diminished conversational capacity that it could probably rise to the level of a successful defense against a charge of acting with premeditated passive aggression. We still make each other laugh, but that doesn’t make up for provision of mutual solace and support as we approach the scary door. I wish that that which will not kill us will make us both stronger.
UCC: (At computer) Well, hi.
TCG: There was a commercial.
UCC: In what?
TCG: In what I was listening to.
UCC: What were you listening to?
TCG: So I didn’t have to listen to it.
UCC: What TV show were you listening to before the commercial?
TCG: Oh. Heavy metal something like.
WISIMH: Duck! Here comes Abe Simpson’s gathering darkness. Such diminished conversational capacity that it could probably rise to the level of a successful defense against a charge of acting with premeditated passive aggression. We still make each other laugh, but that doesn’t make up for provision of mutual solace and support as we approach the scary door. I wish that that which will not kill us will make us both stronger.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
“My Whaa?” A Scary Tale in Two Acts
(Dinner at Iraqi restaurant named for a Quintessentially Southern American city in Georgia, with upscale Current Gen Martinis with sweet liquor added for the little ladies. A handicapped parking space steps from the door, dinner for 2.5 people.)
TCG: Did Mother tell you about her memory?
DOB: My whaaa…?
TCGL Your memory. How it’s been improving.
DOB: Oh yeah? Oh, yeah! I’m making more sense than I was, before, you know, after, when I fell and hit my head? Much better memory oh yeah.
WISIMH: Hyperbole is such an overused word these days. It’s a shame, really because then, when a situation comes along that seems to advance the very postmodern definition of “memory” as including the brain as some epheremal sprite, which tends to desert us in old age and whatnot. And such as. Query: Is another overused word passion? As in, “I’m passionate about my new French manicure,” or “About my new diet that starves your shrinking oxygen-starved brain into a tiny walnut-shaped shell of its former self?" Amid such existential musings:
TCG: … It could be the vitamins your taking too, right?
DOB: My whaa?
TCG: The supplements from Life Extension?
DOB: Oh yes! My Vitamin 12
TCG: Right! Your Vitamin B 12
WISIMH: Seriously? That’s the best ya got? My vision is blacking out at the edges, narrowing into a hallucinatingly alternative universe where there was liberty, and justice, and Vitamin 12 For All. Under frickin’ god. And I’m an atheist.
Query: They say there are no atheists in foxholes. Which, of course, they’re wrong. But notwithstanding the foregoing however, staring insanity in it’s cold and trembling watery eye before the first martini kicks in? Would that make an atheist pray for god, for death, for those Japanese knives on QVC? Personally, I’ve found my own god. I’m a Frisbeetarianism. I believe that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
TCG: Did Mother tell you about her memory?
DOB: My whaaa…?
TCGL Your memory. How it’s been improving.
DOB: Oh yeah? Oh, yeah! I’m making more sense than I was, before, you know, after, when I fell and hit my head? Much better memory oh yeah.
WISIMH: Hyperbole is such an overused word these days. It’s a shame, really because then, when a situation comes along that seems to advance the very postmodern definition of “memory” as including the brain as some epheremal sprite, which tends to desert us in old age and whatnot. And such as. Query: Is another overused word passion? As in, “I’m passionate about my new French manicure,” or “About my new diet that starves your shrinking oxygen-starved brain into a tiny walnut-shaped shell of its former self?" Amid such existential musings:
TCG: … It could be the vitamins your taking too, right?
DOB: My whaa?
TCG: The supplements from Life Extension?
DOB: Oh yes! My Vitamin 12
TCG: Right! Your Vitamin B 12
WISIMH: Seriously? That’s the best ya got? My vision is blacking out at the edges, narrowing into a hallucinatingly alternative universe where there was liberty, and justice, and Vitamin 12 For All. Under frickin’ god. And I’m an atheist.
Query: They say there are no atheists in foxholes. Which, of course, they’re wrong. But notwithstanding the foregoing however, staring insanity in it’s cold and trembling watery eye before the first martini kicks in? Would that make an atheist pray for god, for death, for those Japanese knives on QVC? Personally, I’ve found my own god. I’m a Frisbeetarianism. I believe that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
Monday, October 5, 2009
A (not so) Cynical Look
“In conversations I more and more often catch a puzzled expression on the other person’s face, an eyebrow raised questioningly, a slight frown on the brow. I am increasingly obliged to stop and add a footnote. “I was joking. Sorry…”
There are two possible causes of these misunderstandings:
a) I have changed, alas, and I am slowly moving towards the pathetic prospect of an old age spent making boorish and foolish social gaffes;
b) I have not changed, but the world around me has, so my message increasingly misses its target, or at least so it seems to me.
Both possibilities equally threaten my relation to the world. And if that relation is not improved, my position may soon become completely isolated.”
- Dubravka Ugresic, Thank You for Not Reading, “Come Back, Cynics, All is Forgiven!” (1997)
Neither possibility frightens me. I have stared into the abyss and it has stared back and spit in my face. My relationship to the world is deteriorating. Look World, I need some alone time. It’s not you, it’s me. Isolation is not unwelcome most of the time – Mommy likes her alone time. But sometimes it gets lonely in here, mainly when my roommates are in particularly challenging manic and/or depressive states.
But what the hell. It’s only life, and mine isn’t so bad here with the L’Stranges. At least they’re not robbing liquor stores, conspiring with terrorists, kicking dogs, babbling ominously, writing screenplays, appearing in police-chase videos, or setting fire to their hair. And if some might say that is cynical, I prefer to say po-TOT-o.
There are two possible causes of these misunderstandings:
a) I have changed, alas, and I am slowly moving towards the pathetic prospect of an old age spent making boorish and foolish social gaffes;
b) I have not changed, but the world around me has, so my message increasingly misses its target, or at least so it seems to me.
Both possibilities equally threaten my relation to the world. And if that relation is not improved, my position may soon become completely isolated.”
- Dubravka Ugresic, Thank You for Not Reading, “Come Back, Cynics, All is Forgiven!” (1997)
Neither possibility frightens me. I have stared into the abyss and it has stared back and spit in my face. My relationship to the world is deteriorating. Look World, I need some alone time. It’s not you, it’s me. Isolation is not unwelcome most of the time – Mommy likes her alone time. But sometimes it gets lonely in here, mainly when my roommates are in particularly challenging manic and/or depressive states.
But what the hell. It’s only life, and mine isn’t so bad here with the L’Stranges. At least they’re not robbing liquor stores, conspiring with terrorists, kicking dogs, babbling ominously, writing screenplays, appearing in police-chase videos, or setting fire to their hair. And if some might say that is cynical, I prefer to say po-TOT-o.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Trash Crusade
TCG: I’m going to take a couple of trash cans down to the curb. I wanted you to know, in case I didn’t make it back by Tuesday.
UCC: Don’t worry. These days, the trash is picked up early Tueaday afternoons. There will be plenty of daylight for them to spot your body.
WISIMH: Ooops. I said that out loud.
UCC: Don’t worry. These days, the trash is picked up early Tueaday afternoons. There will be plenty of daylight for them to spot your body.
WISIMH: Ooops. I said that out loud.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Moby Dick and Lemon Drop Martinis
Dinner w/DOB and TCG at fancy sci-fi place decorated like the bridge of the Enterprise, lots of gauze curtains with gold thread. Wine, who wants wine with dinner? Give me a raspberry lemon drop vodka martini, and give me some bread and butter, and make it fast.
DOB: mutter mutter, mutter.
TCG: We can’t hear you. You’ll have to speak up.
DOB: MUTTER MUTTER. MUTTER.
UCC: That’s better. Thanks.
WISIMH: Hurry up with the martini, Brittney.
TCG: (To Brittney, as she hands UCC her martini) I could take you away from this: dinner, a movie, a weekend in Acapulco.
Brittney: (To UCC) Does he always do this? Hit on the waitress?
UCC: Yeah. Why do you think I wanted the martini so urgently? I’ll take another martini, please. (To TCG) Best waitress reply, ever.
WISIMH: Have I ever mentioned I hate when you hit on women when I’m sitting next to you? Oh yeah, only about a zillion times. You dick.
DOB: What do I want for dinner? I’m not really that hungry. I want spaghetti and meatballs.
TCG: They have macaroni and cheese.
DOB: I’m not really that hungry, mutter mutter….
UCC: (Reading menu) How about chicken parmigian? You can get a side of macaroni and cheese.
DOB: Ok, but as you probably know, I will have completely forgotten this by the time Brittney comes back with the bread and butter, so you’ll have to remember, and when she asks me what I want, I’ll look at you completely mystified and that will be your signal to order for me.
OK, she didn’t really say that. What she actually said was lost in the spittle and dribble, as she daintily sipped her pink wine, and stared in hella surprise at the bread and butter that had magically appeared out of nowhere. Let’s see now, whose diarrhea shall we talk about first….
TCG: How’s Sandy?
DOB: He’s a good boy. I just tell him I’m going to the store, and he goes to his bed and lays down to wait for me to come home.
WISIMH: Ahhhh, THE scintillating dinner conversational topic. It’s not like we haven’t covered this ground a million times either. Why does my life totally feel like Groundhog Day?
UCC: What do you think about the symbolism for homosexuality in Moby Dick? Does the very book’s title suggest a phallic preoccupation, do you think?
Brittney: Here’s you (second) martini. And no, I don’t think the title foreshadows the many men-on-men relationships. I think it refers more to Ahab’s fatal obsession, and how there’s a tipping point where the classic heroic flaw, e.g. Achilles’ heel, overtakes a man’s soul and he goes over to the dark side.
Busboy: (removing my first empty martini glass) Actually, I think it’s an allegory about the conflict between good and evil, with a bit of an oral fixation involving Ahab’s pipe that might suggest either fellatio, or a dependence on tobacco to face the ugly reality of a one-legged whaling ship captain’s life. In my Master’s thesis, I focused on Melville’s treatment of race and class, and concluded that the author wasn’t a fan of racism.
TCG: (To Brittney) You’re working very hard. Here’s my 25% off coupon, but be assured, your tip will be based on the pre-discount value of the meal.
Brittney: Oh, be still my beating heart. What a good man you are. Your wife must be so lucky to have you.
Ok, I made up most of the above conversation. I maintain that the world inside my head is often more interesting, lively, stimulating, and funny than the stuff that happens in the actual world, even after two raspberry lemon drop martinis and a glass of pinot noir. I also admit I haven’t read Moby Dick since high school, although I’ve been halfway through re-reading it since, approximately 2002, but I can’t seem to overcome the inertia to get back to it.
DOB: mutter mutter, mutter.
TCG: We can’t hear you. You’ll have to speak up.
DOB: MUTTER MUTTER. MUTTER.
UCC: That’s better. Thanks.
WISIMH: Hurry up with the martini, Brittney.
TCG: (To Brittney, as she hands UCC her martini) I could take you away from this: dinner, a movie, a weekend in Acapulco.
Brittney: (To UCC) Does he always do this? Hit on the waitress?
UCC: Yeah. Why do you think I wanted the martini so urgently? I’ll take another martini, please. (To TCG) Best waitress reply, ever.
WISIMH: Have I ever mentioned I hate when you hit on women when I’m sitting next to you? Oh yeah, only about a zillion times. You dick.
DOB: What do I want for dinner? I’m not really that hungry. I want spaghetti and meatballs.
TCG: They have macaroni and cheese.
DOB: I’m not really that hungry, mutter mutter….
UCC: (Reading menu) How about chicken parmigian? You can get a side of macaroni and cheese.
DOB: Ok, but as you probably know, I will have completely forgotten this by the time Brittney comes back with the bread and butter, so you’ll have to remember, and when she asks me what I want, I’ll look at you completely mystified and that will be your signal to order for me.
OK, she didn’t really say that. What she actually said was lost in the spittle and dribble, as she daintily sipped her pink wine, and stared in hella surprise at the bread and butter that had magically appeared out of nowhere. Let’s see now, whose diarrhea shall we talk about first….
TCG: How’s Sandy?
DOB: He’s a good boy. I just tell him I’m going to the store, and he goes to his bed and lays down to wait for me to come home.
WISIMH: Ahhhh, THE scintillating dinner conversational topic. It’s not like we haven’t covered this ground a million times either. Why does my life totally feel like Groundhog Day?
UCC: What do you think about the symbolism for homosexuality in Moby Dick? Does the very book’s title suggest a phallic preoccupation, do you think?
Brittney: Here’s you (second) martini. And no, I don’t think the title foreshadows the many men-on-men relationships. I think it refers more to Ahab’s fatal obsession, and how there’s a tipping point where the classic heroic flaw, e.g. Achilles’ heel, overtakes a man’s soul and he goes over to the dark side.
Busboy: (removing my first empty martini glass) Actually, I think it’s an allegory about the conflict between good and evil, with a bit of an oral fixation involving Ahab’s pipe that might suggest either fellatio, or a dependence on tobacco to face the ugly reality of a one-legged whaling ship captain’s life. In my Master’s thesis, I focused on Melville’s treatment of race and class, and concluded that the author wasn’t a fan of racism.
TCG: (To Brittney) You’re working very hard. Here’s my 25% off coupon, but be assured, your tip will be based on the pre-discount value of the meal.
Brittney: Oh, be still my beating heart. What a good man you are. Your wife must be so lucky to have you.
Ok, I made up most of the above conversation. I maintain that the world inside my head is often more interesting, lively, stimulating, and funny than the stuff that happens in the actual world, even after two raspberry lemon drop martinis and a glass of pinot noir. I also admit I haven’t read Moby Dick since high school, although I’ve been halfway through re-reading it since, approximately 2002, but I can’t seem to overcome the inertia to get back to it.
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