Month: June 2008

Let’s Get Lost is enjoying a much deserved theatrical re-release here in jolly ye olde world this week. If you have a chance, it is definitely worth seeing on the big screen. Bruce Weber is in town to talk about the film tonight but that sort of thing makes me twitch so I went to the matinee on Friday instead. Kind of ruined my whole day, but hey! It was still very interesting!

I would also make the observation that fifty-seven is really an amazing age for a junkie to reach; most of the drug addicts I’ve loved were dead by thirty-five, and only one made it to her late forties.

Recently I took a little throwaway quiz that ranked my skills as a 1930’s housewife and was not surprised to get a high score. Why? Because even in my most severe, sarcastic, and extreme incarnations I’ve always been the marrying type.

Much to my dismay, since I do not approve of the formal institution.

I was never the sort of child who dreamed of weddings or babies; I just wanted to be alone reading books. I was never the sort of youngster who sought or desired a relationship; I just wanted my independence, and maybe a built-in source of entertainment (and later, free high quality baby-sitting). So long as the person didn’t annoy me too much.

Why then do people stick to me like barnacles? Why do people perceive that I would be a marvelous wife, even though I lack most of the overtly feminine and nurturing traits? Why have I never dated, though my private life is strewn with marriage proposals and broken hearts?

Maybe because I am by nature a pragmatic bureaucrat with a specific focus on civil rights (translation: civil, fair, rational behavior). I’m very good at designing and implementing policies and procedures that create a greater common good. I do what is right, not what is easy – and I never feel martyred by my ethical code. I am, intrinsically, fair.

In other words, a really good mother – and that, my friends, is something a lot of people are seeking… without even realizing they need that sort of love more than they need a girlfriend.

There is a fundamental, inescapable reason why babies, abused dogs, and broken boys are my biggest fans. Kinda sucks to be me, as far as that goes. I would have been a much more pleasant twenty-two year old if I had been hedonistic instead of honorable.

I’ve been collecting opinions about spending my repudiated so-called birthday in the ski resort where Kafka wrote The Castle.

James replied with a baffled and emphatic No. He suggests, if I must retreat to that land in that season, a spa vacation including long soaks in whatever it is people soak in there. Of course he also, at various times and for long periods, elected to live in Arizona – something I would never consider. Beyond that he developed a sincere devotion to public bathing during his years in Tokyo.

None of which really explains how a friend of twenty-one years has failed to pick up the fact that I am not allowed to participate in shared water activities. Especially since he went to Governors’ School with me in 1988 and therefore knows that the single, solitary time I was exposed to communal showers I picked up a staph infection requiring the partial amputation of a toe. I’m not joking.

There are valid reasons why my doctors have always forcibly advised against hot tubs, swimming pools, dorm washing facilities, and the like. My immune system just can’t take it, not even splendid options like the mineral baths in Glenwood Springs or the saltwater pool in Seattle.

Add to that a chlorine allergy that leaves my entire epidermis a screaming rash after no more than ten minutes exposure: I suspect I am the only person permanently excluded from swimming lessons in a school district requiring certification of mastery to leave the cursed facility.

I’m very sensitive.

I’m also the sort of person who rarely allows such things to intrude on my daily activities; for the most part, I don’t spend time thinking about the rules and restrictions. This in turn means I rarely talk about them, even when acknowledging physical limitations would be a more acceptable answer than my stock I don’t want to, I don’t feel like it, I have better things to do, I don’t care. 

The truly amazing fact is that James could know me so long and so well, yet fail to account for the very real limitations of my life. This is I suppose a credit to my faultless facade of strength, but mostly a reflection of the fact that people who love me just don’t want to know that my health is, at best, precarious.

I can’t blame them: I don’t want to know either.