Post number thirty-five, Goodbye, books.

As part of the ongoing process of growing up, I've decided to simplify. Over the years since college, I've been accumulating piles of possessions that mean too much to me to throw away, but not enough to me to keep forever. My apartment, like my self, is slowly shedding the last signs of college life. The overstuffed leather chair and the beat-up hipster sofa are going away in a week, replaced by sleeker, simpler objects that better represent who I have become. The walls are getting repainted, the paintings and drawings hanging on them all taken down, to be rearranged, put away, or replaced.

One of the most difficult tasks of simplifying my life by shedding the totems of adolescence is my somewhat embarrassingly large and back-breaking-to-move collection of books. Today was the day to wrestle the library down to a more manageable size. I've spent the day pulling books off of shelves, considering each one's importance to my past or future life, stacking them in genre piles, weeding out everything but the essentials.

Books from high school, schlepped 1500 miles to college in the back of an '81 Honda Civic with no air conditioning.

Books with inscriptions from Papa, my beloved grandfather alive again in literary memories.

Books from college, the reading assignments of great and important novels mostly skipped for afternoons of drinking beer, tucked away on a shelf for years with the guilty promise that I'd read them someday.

Books about herbal cures and the meaning of life, given to me by well-meaning friends when I was very ill.

Books about books.

Books of magic tricks.

Books of quotations.

Books about the holocaust.

Pulp novels.

Movie biographies.

The complete poems of Bukowski and Auden.

My beloved Borges, and a pile of Argentinean writers I discovered through him.

Books that I read and forgot about.

Books that I read and will never forget.

Books that I borrowed and still need to return.

A handful of books that I'd forgotten I have that I really want to read and haven't yet, the books of my immediate future.

As I sorted the books, I realized how completely they define me, like the rings inside a tree.

I kept more than I probably should have, but still managed to shed a few large stacks.

Now I'm going to go read.

Post number thirty-four, Marx Brothers.

On a lighter note. . .

Last Monday night, I saw this double feature. These two movies aren't among my favorite Marx Brothers pictures, but they still contain some pretty funny stuff. A little ascerbic. More than a little absurd. My kind of comedy. Some of my favorite bits (that are short enough to recount here)...



From A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (In which the Brothers Marx scam an opera company on a trasnatlantic boat trip):

Groucho: Do they allow tipping on this boat?
Steward: Yes sir.
Groucho: Do you have two fives?
Steward: Yes sir.
Groucho: Good, then you won't need the dime I was going to give you.

From A DAY AT THE RACES (In which Groucho the veterinarian masquerades as a real doctor, and the Brothers buy a race horse):

Groucho: Either he's dead or my watch has stopped.

Chico: Have you got a woman in here?
Groucho: If I haven't, I've wasted thirty minutes of valuable time.

Post number thirty-three, Do I look fat in this skin?

Today I went to a mentor for advice about my career. He’s not just a mentor, he also happens to be my previous boss, as well as the guy for whom my current boss works.

He said, “I’ve been meaning to call you. I drove past you walking across the lot the other day, and could see that something isn’t right with you.”

I smiled, a little surprised that he’d noticed. I am pretty transparent---a terrible poker player---but still, I was surprised because he’s usually firm authoritarian type. Feeling vaguely warm inside that this most unlikely of people had noticed my malaise, I chuckled nervously.

“Is it that obvious?”

“No,” he replied. “I just noticed you’re packing on the pounds, and since I know you, I immediately recognized it as a sign of long-term stress.”

I was dumbfounded. My mentor had just called me fat.

What the fuck?

In a caring way, but still…

What the fuck?

The rest of the conversation was very productive and helpful. He gave me sage advice, as usual, and I was glad for it. I laughed off the fat comment, which he reiterated twice more during our conversation, but it stuck with me all day.

Am I fat?

Why do I care so much?

Have I drank too much of the fucked up Los Angeles culture kool-aid?

Truth is, I’m not fat, in the strictest sense of the word. In fact, I am heavier than I’ve ever been, but I have also packed on quite a visible amount of muscle. Why do I care so much? Am I that shallow? Even worse, why I am so susceptible to the offhanded comments of others?

Part of me wanted to find the nearest box of doughnuts and eat them all.

Part of me wanted to get loaded at lunch.

Part of me wondered if I’d ever shake the fat kid lurking inside me…buried deep since a helpful middle-school gym teacher consoled me after I lost a race by saying “Don’t worry about it. The pear is not God’s most aerodynamic shape.”

Instead, I went to the gym. Ran as hard as I’ve ever run. Worked out my chest and triceps until I couldn’t lift my arms. Then abs. Maybe if I worked out my brain as hard as I work out my body. . .

Damn you, fat kid, I still love ya.

Post number thirty-two, Connections.

I woke up this morning feeling vaguely ill at ease, like trillions of barely cohesive cells united to make up a still largely undetermined whole. Like a quivering mass of pale sweaty flesh grotesquely occupying space and selfishly consuming oxygen without purpose. Like a loser.

I languished in bed for an hour or so, literally wallowing in self pity. No reason in particular for the feeling, I just woke up with it, like a flu.

Finally forced myself out of bed. Brushed and flossed. Washed my face. Went to the gym to sweat out the bad feeling, hoping that a nice endorphin release would put me back in optimistic mode.

As I bounded up the stairs to the gym, I saw this dude I’ve nicknamed Angry O.J...Incredibly attractive, and extremely focused at the gym, he always wears a determined scowl on his chiseled features that screams out wife-killer. Today was no exception---he was intense as usual---but for the first time ever, before I even knew I’d done it, I made eye contact. Just as I was about to avert my gaze, lest he whip out the hunting knife and filet off a few billion cells of Optimist, the damnedest thing happened.

His scowl melted and he smiled.

At me.

Happy OJ, so much more attractive than Angry OJ.

I smiled back.

He picked up his keys and left. I dropped my keys off and hit the cardio.

Just a moment. A meaningless moment. A meaningless moment that melted away my malaise.

After a painful but productive workout with Geoff, I headed back down to my car, happy, thinking about how we’re all just animals and a smile is a smile and somehow we’re all connected on some basic level and the love you get is equal to the love you make and . . .anyway, I was daydreaming.

In front of me, two people jockeyed for the same parking space. A woman in an SUV and a man in an Audi.

Screaming at each other.

“Fuck you, I’m gonna flatten your tires.”

“Fuck you bitch, I dare you to touch my car.”

She got out.

Keyed the side of his car from bumper to bumper.

He got out.

Slapped her.

One time.

Hard.

Knocked her sunglasses off.

I stood there dumbstruck.

They both looked at me.

Time stopped for a second.

I swear I could see her sunglasses suspended in mid-air, waiting to for the world to start spinning again.

I got in my car and drove away, freeing up a parking space just a minute too late to make a difference for them.

For better or worse, we’re all connected.

Sometimes literally.