Maybe a Bad Idea

Picture a theater full of middle-aged, white NPR freaks swaying back and forth and howling...
NEWS RELEASE                                                                                                   
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COME SING ALONG WITH GARRISON KEILLOR, MERYL STREEP, LINDSAY LOHAN AND THE REST OF THE CAST OF ROBERT ALTMAN’S A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION   
Theaters across the country hosting “Sing Along” screenings as the Soundtrack climbs the Billboard Charts
 
NEW YORK, June 27, 2006 – Theater chains across the country are hosting “Sing Along” screenings of Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion, where audience members receive a book containing lyrics from the songs in the film and are encouraged to sing along with the cast.

I can think of other movies with popular soundtracks but no one was ever encouraged to sing along with Footloose or Moulin Rouge.   

Planting Bushes

Home Depot is one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse.  It's cavernous, it's full of poison and the 'help' are like apparitions that appear only when you don't need them.  But like a child molester with a bag of candy the Home Despot lures me with its low prices.  The same potentilla bush that sells for 30 dollars at the local greenhouse (c'mon people, it's practically a weed!  You don't see me pimping dandelions for dollars!)  is only 5.95 at the Despot.  So the wife and I loaded up on privets and lilacs and other things that looked good but we're not sure what they are called.  We were so cavalier in our planting that hours after we were done Sarah announced, "hey, this one is supposed to grow edible berries!"  Sure preparation and research are par for the course for many but those who plan don't get the neat surprises that we do.  Like I had no idea the pumpkin seeds I planted would have leaves the size of circus tents.  By Halloween the vines will be three houses down and the neighbor kids will claim my gourds. 

We overcome our lack of foresight with good teamwork.  Sarah started to dig but is much unlike her mucho-male husband in that she admitted she was not built for burrowing.  I, on the other hand, don't like to admit anything.  Even if the direction I'm going is rife with boiling lava and cancer I'm not one to announce I'd made a wrong turn.  However I am very good at digging holes.  So much so that I don't even need a shovel or dirt, just some small talk and beer.  But with my focus firmly planted on embedding our 'natural fence' of random bushes and hedges, I had no time to  complain about the pains of physical labor.  Despite some waves of naseau (read hungover from Bike Crawl) I kept plowing into the ground.  Sitting behind a computer all day gets me giddy for getting my hands dirty.   I was relishing my Jeffersonian duties until Sarah mentioned that "maybe the holes are a bit too deep?"  She offered that suggestion in the most gentle possible way.  Perhaps not to discourage me.   But she was right.  Only a few of the plants were even tall enough to peer out of their hole.  The others were lowered into what looked like their final resting place.   With our luck in planting bushes that may not be so inaccurate. 

Bike Crawl 2006

I wish I had a better story for you but at this point all I can recall is my wife waking me up in the back yard.   I'd passed out under our willow tree.  This after a day of riding bikes from bar to bar with three hundred other people who must have much more stamina than myself.  The day started most inconspicuously.  We had breakfast at the Breakfast King.   We read the paper.  And then I was drunk and riding my bike.  Some angel, likely poorly behaved in a past life, was punished with the task of following me in the four lanes of traffic on University Blvd.  After a few miles we found the truck.  Thankfully Sarah--another angel apparently serving a wife sentence--was able to drive home. 

The Bike Crawl is the most interesting event.  Well, not really, but it's growth from a few folks pedaling about for booze to the mass drunken exodus it is today is something to behold.  Riders dress in costume and  most of the girls choose to go skimpy.  Whatever.  It's their prerogative to prance around like playful sex kittens.  All I can do is stand by and watch.  Some of the bars we went to started as most do on a Saturday morning, quiet, with a few regulars holding up the counter.  And then hundreds of stinky drunk bicyclists would pour in and wreak havoc.  Some places were ready and some very nearly fled and turned their supplies over to the stumbling invaders.  Or maybe.  I don't know for sure because I wasn't aware until my wife woke me from under the willow.  It dumped rain shortly after that.  Tonight?  I think there's something quiet and informative on PBS. 

I'm Not Gay or an Illegal Alien

But I'm really getting into World Cup Soccer. 

PhD in Waiting

It probably won't come as news to many of you that in the time you wait for a doctor you could get your own PhD and treat yourself.  Yesterday I read two People magazines and a newspaper called Women's Edition. 

Endimitriosis sounds like something I'm glad I can't get.   Thankfully there's Danazol.  See, already I have gyno-knowledge that far surpasses the average male.  (Not to say that's difficult.)

 I think that before any medical student can graduate and call themselves a physician they must attend a Psychology of Waiting seminar.  It is here where they learn with Yoda-like mastery the skill to keep you endlessly waiting without getting bludgeoned by a tongue depressor. 

DOCTORS RULES TO TEST YOUR PATIENTS' PATIENCE

Rule # 1:  No matter how many times they've filled out the health history give them the clipboard and complimentary Zoloft pen to fill it out again.

Rule # 2:  Actual interesting reading will just attract loiterers.  Same goes for the music.  Every doctor's office should hire a man to sit in the corner and gurgle mucous.

Rule # 3:  When the patient asks how long til he or she will be seen always tell them 'five minutes.'

Rule # 4:  Twenty minutes later announce that "the doctor will see you now!"

Rule # 5:  Place patient in treatment room.  Tell them nothing.  Leave them with nothing to read but informational drug pamphlets.  In thirty  more minutes they'll be sure to ask their doctor about any number of mood-altering medications. 

Rule # 6:  Over an hour past the actual appointment time we must appease the aggravated patient by deploying super hot assistant.  She will ask the same questions already answered three times on the little clipboard thingy.

Rule # 7:  Give the patient ten to fifteen more minutes to poke around and contaminate everything in the room.  

Rule # 8:  Doctor should then stop in and apologize for the wait.  Then let patient know it will just be a few more minutes.

Rule # 9:  After enjoying a laugh with other doctors in the break room go back to the patient.  Feel his belly and shine a light in his ear.   Remind the patient that he's fat and unhealthy.   His blood pressure should be high enough at this point to recommend a follow-up appointment.

Repeat.

Dermatologist Disclaimer

I have to go see Dr. Chiang today.  She's going to look at this 'thing' on my back, and even thought she's a doctor who's had to deal with some pretty awful disfiguration, I'm still going to warn her about my healthy man-plumage.  Going to see the doctor, especially female physicians, strikes in me the same self-consciousness brought on by the ladies at Supercuts.  Cutting away the wisps of hair I still have left on my head is the easy part.  It's when they trim my neck that they realize that there is no stopping point.  If they were to keep going I'd have a strip down my back.  Corner me and I might spray.  It's at that point where they either mumble something like "sweet Jesus" or start pointing and mouthing the words to the neighboring stylist, "what do I do?  Do we have bigger clippers?"  One time one lady actually said something to me.  I liked that.  There was no awkward silence while the scared beauty school graduate gawked in horror, just simple honesty.  "Your one hairy dude," she said to me.   Yes.  I am.  And the tragedy is that very little of it is on my head.  It's all fleeing to warmer climes.  Take off my shirt and it looks like a herd of Al Pacas migrating south.  Take off my pants and it looks like I'm wearing a grass skirt.  Why this punishment?  I don't know.  Soon I'll be completely hairless sans my fuzzy wookie feet. 

So today I will do my chivalrous duty and warn the good doctor of her impending adventure.  "Beware of my dander and good luck.  Machete?"  And I know even though she'll be as professional as possible and go about her business of discovering exactly what the 'thing' is, as soon as the appointments over she'll scurry to the break room and share with her peers the frightening details of a very hairy situation. 

Huge Project includes Scraping Putty, Push-ups

In four hours I need to artfully present to a classroom of masters students the different theories of how second language teachers might improve their teaching styles and lesson plans.  At that same time a paper is due on the necessity of second language education in American elementary schools.   In eight hours I'm recording a comedy radio show for a Boulder radio station.  In twenty-one hours I need to have a template ready for a start-up website.  In 48 hours I'll be providing the ceremonial music and reception entertainment for a young couple's wedding day.

For some reason I'm compelled to do push-ups.  I've even done some of those little sit-ups called crunchers,  innovating a new style where I lift my butt to instead of my head.   It seems to help my back.

I've done the dishes, watered the garden and recorded a podcast.  None of any of that has anything to do with preparing me for my impending writing, presenting or entertaining.  Unless I go the Peter Sellers "Being There" route and use nothing but garden metaphors.   "The second language student needs sun and manure or he will die."

And but five minutes ago I found a razor and set forth to cut away some excess caulking in our bathroom.  It was there, standing in the tub, unshorn, shirtless and clutching a linoleum knife, when I realized how ridiculous my efforts to avoid my work had become.

If someone were to walk in they'd subdue and medicate me.  Which is maybe what I want.  Have you ever wished you could end up in the hospital?  Maybe a bump on the head or a twisted ankle, nothing serious, but just enough to get you out of an obligation.  

I just saw on the news that someone rolled their car on I-70.  I think I actually felt a twinge of jealousy.