The Wall-Eye

Everyone on this blog is familiar with the "shark" technique. Some of us have mastered it.

Now that we are more mature in age, I'd like to introduce you all to a more advanced technique: The Wall-eye.

Imagine a nude woman in a closet. Sneak up behind her and follow these directions:

1. Stick your left index finger in her mouth

2. Stick your right index finger in her "hole"

3. Lift and pose for the picture

Napkins

Napkins are good for liquids, pastes, and smooth spreads. A bit of water on your chin? Some mayo on your cheek? How about some tuna juice on your fingers? A napkin will take care of all that. It'll absorb and hang onto these unwanted leftovers until you dispose or wash that napkin later. A napkin will even do a decent job on that nitty gritty powder leftover from scarfing doritos or cheetos. But what about bread crumbs on your hand after palming a roll? What about salt on your fingers after eating some mixed fancy nuts? What about morsels of KFC extra crispiness stuck to your lip? A napkin's only accomplishment when applied to these tasks is to brush the crumbs from your fingers so they fall to the ground, your lap, or whatever is below your hands at the time. Clean hands, maybe, but not for nothing.
Napkins, it's time to step up your game.

Another Garment Goodbye

In my haste to depart the plane on the first leg of my recent trip, with plugged ears and in a sudafed stupor (let's pretend), I forgot on the plane my blue long sleeved Duofold synthetic shirt that has been my go-to travel garment for years. During the plane ride I remember thinking I should put it in my bag rather than drape it over the arm rest, but as is my custom in these situations, I told myself that there was no need for such precaution since of course I would remember something so simple, especially in this case when they remind you to check for personal belongings before getting off. But as is unfortunately becoming my custom, I did not remember. I have a feeling the shirt was a found item rather than something actually purchased, but I don't actually remember how or when it came into my life. Some would say it's for the best, that one should buy new clothes more than once every ten years. Well, that's a matter of opinion. But the undisputed fact is that shirt was perfect and there will not be another like it.

In memorial, two pictures: the last picture taken of me and my shirt together, late July, 2008; and the oldest photo of us that I could find among the photos I have with me in DC, probably 2001 (I had to scan it in since I didn't have a digital camera then).

Namibia and back

My six day trip to Namibia - three days travel, three days there - leaves me with a pile of bitching about travel logistics. But this is the kibbitz, not the bitch, so I'm pre-editing myself and offering only the following highlights:
Delayed flight
Lost bag
Ears clogged like a mofo
No personal TV screens
Hours swallowing and force-yawning to pop ears due to intense paranoia about ear drums exploding.

With that out of the way, one more story: our office has some cars and drivers, and one of the drivers in one of the cars drove me to the airport on Friday. Halfway there he told me he forgot to get the money to pay for the car fee at the airport. We didn't turn around. I figured the fee couldn't be more than a dollar or two so we'd surely be able to cover it. But when we got to the airport, he turned into a blocked lane and told the attendant that I was a diplomat being dropped off. The attendant asked no further questions and let us through. Further on in that lane there was another gate, but another attendant simply lifted the gate for us without question, such was his faith in his colleague's screening process. Ethical or unethical? And should I in the future make more of an effort to dress less diplomatically?

invitation to a book club

In the tradition of this blog's phenomenally successful series on Harry Potter, next month we will launch a discussion of another genre-busting line of books, (albeit a line now almost always read as one continuous and enormous volume), the bloody and soulful Brothers Karamazov.

We invite all kibbitzers and readers to join us as we read and comment on Dostoevsky's "longest, richest, and most capacious book" (The Washington Post Book World). We'll even have a guest kibbitzer, and we hope you'll join the fun.

We will be reading it slowly, and we will be reading it (at least in part) as a mystery/crime novel: How does heavy D. measure up to Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Doyle or Dennis Lehane or Raymond Chandler? Does the story still fascinate, or is it all just philosophical blah blah blah?

Expect our first posts in early August. In the meantime, pick up a copy of the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation.

mystery cynic

Who is the mystery cynic who wrote the following:

"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken[.]"

Guess before you cheat with Google. Or click on "comments" for the answer.

"Censored"

I'd like to raise a formal K'etsh about the censorship policy. When referring to other people in posts, I think the kibbitzing blogger has the responsibility to provide enough clues for fellow kibbitzers to know whom they are referring to. Example: Mr. O. I can't think of anyone whose last name starts with an "O". I need a little k'nitch to help me out.

I would also like to note two other recent life changing occurances:

1. I shaved my head
2. I RSVP'd to a foiler's wedding

Shtupping

An orthadox couple gets married. The wedding ends and it is time to legitimize the wedding in the bedroom. Since the woman has all the experience in the relationship, the gentleman asks her what he is supposed to do.

She says, "First, take off your tsi tsit".

So, the gentleman takes them off and asks, "What next?"

She responds, "Take off the rest of your clothes and stick it in."

So he does all this and then asks, "What now?"

She answers, "Now it's time to daven"

Coke bottles and love stories

in memory of Patty, 1994-2008

In 1994 I went shopping with my friend A. and his father Mr. O. at an expensive camping store. A. and Mr. O. helped me find a Patagonia pullover sweater. "It's recycled material," Mr. O. said: "it's made of old Coke bottles." I was in love.

The sweater was, in fact, a near replica of A.'s own Patagonia. This was to be my year of copycat purchases: at the Army & Navy surplus store I bought the Whale's burgundy wool sweater, and at a tattoo and leather shop I bought my friend J.'s bumper sticker, SAVE THE PLANET - KILL YOURSELF. The sticker was on my car for exactly one day: my friends saw it and called me a follower, and that night I scrapped it off. The burgundy sweater lasted about a year and then got lost somewhere in Kentucky.

A.'s old Patagonia was brown and had a neck zipper; my new one was green and had snaps. The feel was the same, however, and it was the feel that sold the sweater. It was fuzzy and squishy and thick and light. It was warm but cold, I'd been promised: light enough for spring, heavy enough for winter. It was even supposed to keep you alive when icy wet.

For the next 14 years Patty was my close and constant friend. It would be tempting to say that everyone who's ever met me has seen me in my Patty; it is more accurate, but barely so, to presume that my few readers know the exact sweater I am writing about, without my having to post a picture of it.

Patty was with me on my first big road trip out west, and in it I hiked and rafted and canoed and kayaked. It came with me to Israel, where I lost what little God I had left in me, and then to my childhood summer camp, when I returned to it as a counselor; I was wearing Patty on the night when, for the first time in my life, I went stargazing with a girl at her invitation; I was still wearing it when she said she was disappointed in me.

Patty was with me as I fell in and out of love with a hundred wrong girls, and it was with me when I finally found the right one. It went with me to my first and second colleges, and on more hikes, and on more international travels. I'm wearing Patty in the last photograph taken of me together with my Zadie. And I brought it on almost every trip I made to Michigan throughout my father's dying, and I was still wearing it last month when with my mother and I picked out his gravestone.

Patty was practical and Patty was reliable. The second-to-top button broke, the fabric stretched out and flattened somewhat, but otherwise it held itself together. Light enough for spring, heavy enough for winter. In it I had gotten icy wet, but with it I stayed alive.

There comes a time in every decent man's life when he must surrender his will to his wife's. Some men do this knowingly, but most believe that they never gave in: they claim sovereignty to the end, even as their coffin is sealed and encased and lowered and buried over.

Whichever scenario will play out for me, I don't care much about what I'm wearing, so long as it's comfortable, but my wife-to-be does, and Patty did not suit her tastes; and I know, for all my fetishes and anthropomorphisms, that the few memories I have which haven't been reduced to husks and stock stories and punchlines--the real history resides in me, not in recycled Coke bottles.

And so this week I left Patty at Good Will. The sweater meant something to me, but the wife means more.

t-shirt of the month

It is only July 7, but the t-shirt of the month has already been awarded:

LOVIN COUGARS
IS NOT A CRIME