Carrying the Weight of the Word (Redux)

Sportswriter Red Smith is alleged to have said something to the effect of, “There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” Good writers spill their souls carefully and deliberately. They weave words to link their minds and hearts to those of their readers. Many of those who do it best are the ones who quite possibly feel or think too much. Scientific research suggests that poets and writers are more likely to suffer from mental illness and substance abuse. In fact, one study notes, “compared to the general population, bipolar mood disorder is highly overrepresented among writers and artists.” Many with bipolar disorder produce their best work during manic periods. (I know I do.)

After some cursory internet research (no, I don’t capitalize “internet” even though most do. I don’t think it deserves proper noun status, seeing as there is only one internet, but I digress), I compiled a short list of writers who are known to have suffered from mental illness. I have taken the liberty of listing them in order of my least to most favorite (more or less) along with necessary notes about each: Graham Greene (Never read anything he wrote, so he gets to head up this list.), Eugene O'Neill (Never read any of his plays, but I have at least heard of some of them.), Charles Dickens (Had to read a fair amount of his dreary, wordy works in college. Not a fan.), Patricia Cornwell (Haven’t read anything she has written, either, but I’m sure if I did, she would garner a more favorable spot on this list.), Joseph Conrad (I had a horrible lit professor who made us read Lord Jim. Dreadful experience.), Henrik Ibsen (From what I remember, the plays of his that I was forced to read were eye-glazing at best.), Isak Dinesen (I listed her here because I get her name mixed up with Henrik Ibsen’s. I used to think she was a man. I never read Out of Africa, but the movie put me to sleep.), Sidney Sheldon (He was big in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I think. As far as I’m concerned, his best work was I Dream of Jeannie.), Emile Zola (Never read anything he wrote, either, but he was French, so he gets extra points for that.), Herman Melville (I know I should say that I read Moby Dick and liked it, but I would be lying on both counts.), William Faulkner (Of course he was depressed. I know it depressed me just trying to read some of his stuff.), Ivan Turgenev (Also never read anything of his, but it could not have been as good as Dostoevsky.), Hermann Hesse (I read his little book Siddhartha when I was in college. I seem to remember thinking that it would be cool if I liked it, but I honestly just didn’t get it.), Tennessee Williams (I remember reading The Glass Menagerie and wishing I could shatter all those stupid knick-knacks.), Henry James (Don’t think I ever read any of his writing either. I get his name mixed up with Henry Miller, who was much more interesting, and surely had demons of his own.), Ralph Waldo Emerson (I confuse him with Henry David Thoreau, who was even more boring.), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (On my favorite refrigerator magnet: “Nothing is worth more than this day.”), Dylan Thomas (“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”), Mary Shelley (I love it that a woman dreamed up Frankenstein’s monster. You know she had some mental issues.), Allen Ginsberg (I would have loved to party with that guy.), Jonathan Swift (Anyone who created a place like Lilliput and made up words like “Glubbdubdrib” and “Houyhnhnms” had to be a bit off.), Leo Tolstoy (I am glad to say I never read War and Peace, but I regret that I never read Anna Karenina, which has one of the best lines in literature: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”), Hans Christian Andersen (He was Danish, so I may be related to him. I am one-quarter Danish. Not sure which fourth of me it is, but I think it’s my skeleton. He wrote some of the best fairy tales ever. My parents used to refer to me as The Princess and the Pea because apparently, I was a little high-maintenance as a kid. I think his masterpiece was The Emperor’s New Clothes.), Robert Louis Stevenson (I remember him mainly because I used to play this card game called “Authors.” He was one of them, along with Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and Louisa May Alcott. Why she got picked to hang out with those men is a mystery. Maybe she was a groupie, or maybe they thought she would bring her Little Women with her.), Jack Kerouac (Another one I would love to have partied with. Still haven’t read On the Road, but it’s been on my list for years.), Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions is on my list, too.), Franz Kafka (No doubt he was crazy. The Metamorphosis is proof.), F. Scott Fitzgerald (I always wanted to be Daisy in The Great Gatsby because she got to have the 1974 version of Robert Redford fall in love with her. In the new movie, it’s Leonardo DiCaprio, so I still want to be Daisy.), Emily Dickinson (A recluse who was said to have always dressed in white. Something I would never do. White is just a spill magnet. When I wear white pants, no matter what time of the month it is, you can bet that my period will start. Anyway, in her poem that begins My life closed twice before its close, she wrote: “Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.” Not completely sure what it means, but that’s what makes great poetry, I guess.), J.M. Barrie (Love him not just because he wrote Peter Pan, but because Johnny Depp played him in Finding Neverland.), Edgar Allan Poe (Gee, which of his writings might make one think he had some mental problems?), Honoré de Balzac (I loved Père Goriot, which was like a French version of King Lear, but the real reason he is so high on this list is because there was a hideous statue of him in Paris near where I lived back in 1988. It was a replica of the one at the Rodin museum there. I am told the replica was even more hideous than the original.), Truman Capote (In Cold Blood is one of my favorite books. I guess that makes me a little crazy, too. He was friends with Harper Lee, who wrote the Best American Novel Ever, To Kill a Mockingbird. Some say Capote actually wrote it, but I don’t believe that.), Mark Twain (He supposedly said, “Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” Amen to that. Plus, Huckleberry Finn was probably the Second Best American Novel Ever.), and Dorothy Parker (She was an alcoholic who survived several suicide attempts. One of my idols. I like to think I was her in a past life, but she died after I was born, so I guess that’s impossible. Her poem, Résumé, sets out my philosophy of life quite well: “Razors pain you, Rivers are damp, Acids stain you, And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful, Nooses give, Gas smells awful. You might as well live.”)

In spite of Ms. Parker’s wise advice, a good handful of writers with mental illness have been known let this life take the best of them. One of those was David Foster Wallace, whose death inspired this essay. In September of 2008, at the age of 46, he apparently found it necessary to hang himself. I admired his insight and ability to express his view of the world, even though his writing could be somewhat verbose and dense. While I would read his work and mentally edit some of his paragraph-length sentences, I still savored each word--until the weight of the words (and of the book itself) would tip out of my sleepy hands. He was one of those writers I read not necessarily for the pleasure of reading but for the pleasure of his writing. I think he was often drunk on his own swirling thoughts and swam self-indulgently in his philosophical musings. I can certainly identify with that, but it's really too deep for me. I prefer shallow. Less chance of drowning.

The news media called his death “an apparent suicide.” Usually hangings are, I guess. Unless he was strangled, then someone hoisted his limp, heavy corpse up into a noose. It could happen. I could see it in a dark comedy. Maybe I have. Funny stuff. And “apparent suicide” hangings also bring to mind the Most Embarrassing Way To Die: autoerotic asphyxiation, which, by the way, is not the way David Foster Wallace died. According to reports, he was just seriously depressed and off his meds. It has been rumored that that is the way lead singer of INXS Michael Hutchence died. Even if it isn’t true, that’s what people like to think. Sex sells. Especially when it comes to that guy. He was hot. But seriously, people would rather believe a death was accidental (albeit embarrassing) rather than intentional. And poor David Carradine, if he accidentally died while trying to achieve orgasm, he went to a hell of a lot of trouble to get off. Bless his heart. But I digress.

Creative types have been known to take themselves out of their own misery with dramatic exits. Kurt Vonnegut described suicide as “the punctuation mark at the end of many artistic careers.” Ernest Hemingway blew his brains out with his favorite shotgun. Hunter S. Thompson shot himself, too. His suicide note supposedly read, “No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your (old) age. Relax — This won't hurt.” I was glad he left a note. (I think his could have been a little more “Gonzo” but he was depressed, so I'll cut him some slack.) Writers should leave notes. In fact, anyone who has the balls to kill themselves should have the courtesy to explain why. Another “apparent” shooter was Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. He left a rather rambling note. Not his best work. At the end, he wrote, “I'm too much of a neurotic moody person and I don't have the passion anymore, so remember, it's better to burn out, than to fade away.” That’s it, Kurt, steal a line from Neil Young. I wonder how Neil felt about that. Honored, somehow, I bet. I would if someone quoted me right before blowing themselves away. Vincent van Gogh is rumored to have shot himself as well. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t the gunshot that did him in so much as the infection he contracted right after it. That would suck to fail at a suicide attempt—at least if you really, really wanted to die. You think he was depressed before, how depressed was he to know that he fucked up his own suicide? How embarrassing.

In This is Water, a commencement address David Foster Wallace gave in 2005, he said, “It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.”

Speaking of water, Spalding Gray (apparently) drowned himself. I remember wondering if he thought he was Swimming to Cambodia, but that was in poor taste. Virginia Woolf was a drowner, too. She filled her skirt’s pockets with rocks and strolled into a river after writing a lovely note to her unfortunate husband. It included these words, “If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.” Yep, I bet he was really pleased to get those compliments and I’m sure he felt like the happiest man in the world that day. (Maybe he did, if she was such a Debbie Downer.) I think it takes an extra measure of courage to drown yourself. I imagine it’s a lot of work, fighting your breathing instincts and all. Like trying to tickle yourself to death, or win a staring contest without blinking. Or sneeze with your eyes open. Hard work, that.

Sylvia Plath, who was only 30, went to a lot of trouble to die. She made sure her kids were asleep (which was thoughtful), then sealed off the rooms before turning on the gas and sticking her head in the oven. I’m not a very good cook, so I might not choose that option. I would probably singe my hair and burn my neck before realizing that I just needed the gas and not the heat. Poet Anne Sexton pulled a sort of copycat suicide a little over ten years later. She did the old car-running-in-the-garage trick. I guess the standard combination of alcohol and pills just isn’t dramatic enough for the more creative types. Simply going to sleep is far too subtle and smooth. It doesn’t make a statement. I think the statement must be at least as loud as the noises in their heads. They want their inner pain to scream on the outside. Or maybe they are numb and need to drop a bomb in order to feel something. How better to show how dead you are (or want to be) on the inside than to act it out? With as much drama as a miserable artist can muster.

Why do so many writers and artists kill themselves? Is it creativity overload that drives them to death? Some sort of tortured genius that the body can't sustain? I think most writers struggle with a sense of apartness. A heightened self-consciousness. Trying to answer Why am I me? Good writers are observers who can choose words well, even effortlessly, and put them in a certain order such that readers respond with emotion, thought, adrenalin, comfort, or connection. Creative people can take in too much. More than the mind can manage. A sensory burden. They carry so many sights and sounds that simmer and stew until they boil over onto scraps of paper, or a computer screen, and into a book or poem if they make the cut. Or the opposite happens and the words just won’t come anymore. And the emptiness becomes the burden. How can artists who have such skill at relating life let life kill them? They carry the weight of the world in their heavy hearts and troubled minds, but it’s the unwritten words that weigh them down. The very things that connect them to the world can also disconnect them from it. Just like a noose.

Celebrity Deaths of 2009 (New & Improved Version)

The year 2009 was a huge success when it came to the number of famous people dying. Two biggies happened on the same day in June. After Farrah Fawcett ruined my morning and Michael Jackson put a damper on my afternoon, I started wondering who would be the third, or if Ed McMahon was the first of that trio. Then I thought what if Farrah was actually the third and Michael was starting up a new one? Then I wondered how big a celebrity they need to be to have the dubious honor of being included in this little pop culture superstition game. (For the most part, I am relying on my voice-activated software. If it knows who I'm talking about, then they're in.)

According to my few minutes of exhaustive research, a lot of so-called celebrities bought the farm that year. But I'm only counting the ones I'm familiar with or interested in. I intend no offense to the memory of any B, C, or D-list "stars" nor do I mean to show disrespect toward any 100-year-old silent film actors or any sports figures from the 1940s to the 1960s. So here are my unofficial results (in threes, of course):

1. Ricardo Montalban, Clint Ritchie (Clint Buchanan on One Life to Live), and Phil Carey (Asa Buchanan on One Life to Live)—I include these last two because I was addicted to that soap opera from 1984 to 1991 and again from 1996 to 1999. The other interesting thing I found was that Phil Carey was only 13 years older than the man who played his son. These three died within 23 days of each other. Ricardo Montalban always reminds me of Fantasy Island, which then immediately reminds me of that “little person” (also known as a “dwarf” or, in some circles, a “midget”) Hervé Villechaize who played Tattoo. He killed himself in 1993. (Can you blame him?) Incidentally, my research reveals that John Updike, who certainly merits mention, died along with this trio, making it a death foursome. I could re-order the list, but then it would separate the two One Life to Live guys, thus defeating the entire purpose of listing them together. Thanks a lot, Updike.

2. James Whitmore, Paul Harvey, and Ron Silver. Now this is an odd mix. Their deaths cover a 37-day time span, so if we are going for a one-month window, I may need to relegate Whitmore and totally revamp the list for the next edition of this book, which is sure to be a blockbuster. Whitmore was in a lot of old black-and-white movies. I generally hate black-and-white movies, so I am not really familiar with his work. But I did like him in The Shawshank Redemption where he played a pivotal role as the librarian. Paul Harvey always sort of got on my nerves, what with his “now you know…the rest of the story” crap. Sure, some of the stories were interesting or charming or whatever, but I really didn’t like how he kept you in suspense just so you could find out that some crippled, consumptive, poverty-stricken kid became an Olympic gold medal winner or something. Actor Ron Silver died of cancer. Coincidentally, that was his astrological sign. That is kind of like a Pisces getting killed by a fish.

3. Natasha Richardson, porn star Marilyn Chambers, and Bea Arthur. While they are spread (so to speak) over 38 days, I think I'll carve out an exception simply because I like to see the name of a porn star next to Bea Arthur's. Sorry you have the misfortune of their company, Natasha. As if dying from a bump on the head wasn't bad enough. Marilyn was in this famous porn movie called Behind the Green Door. When I was about 14, I made the mistake of popping the VHS tape of it into a VCR while I was babysitting. Luckily the kids were asleep. Not so luckily, I got caught watching it when the unfortunate parents came home. Was I going to get in trouble for watching their porn? I think not, because they were the real porn-watchers. Speaking of porn, one way to really kill a boner is the thought of Bea Arthur. I grew up watching her as Maude. Later she was in The Golden Girls, which I guarantee they show reruns of in hell. Along with bad Kevin Costner movies.

4. Jack Kemp, Dom DeLuise, and David Carradine. Here we have 34-day coverage. I'm starting to think the 30-day goal is a little too tight. Speaking of too tight, they find Grasshopper mysteriously bound and hanged in a Bangkok hotel room. Trust me folks, there's a Thai hooker out there who knows exactly what happened and how much he paid for it. Jack Kemp, even though he was a politician (and a Republican at that) was a little bit more cool because he had played professional football. And I like football. Dom DeLuise was amazing in his role as the flamboyant director of a musical in one of the Best Movies Ever, Blazing Saddles. “Watch me, faggots!” he yells. Beautiful.

5. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. Yes, it was those three within three days just as I suspected. If Farrah had started a new set, she and MJ would have been in the Billy Mays group, and I'm sorry, the OxiClean guy's "celebrity" status would only add insult to injury. Or in this case, insult to death. I met Ed McMahon in an airport one time. I went up to him and said, “You look exactly like Ed McMahon.” He laughed and gave me his autograph on my boarding pass. Even though I didn’t ask for it. I think he was probably drunk. Come to think of it, I probably was, too. With regard to Farrah, I am glad the media downplayed the kind of cancer she had. No one wanted associate a sex symbol with anal cancer. Anal? What a pain in the ass that must have been. Really shitty way to go. I always identified with her because her character on Charlie’s Angels was named Jill. The similarity pretty much ends right there. At least I hope so, what with the anal cancer and all. When Michael Jackson died, my friend Kathy (who didn’t have a TV at the time) found out about it after hearing the rumor from a neighborhood kid. She Googled “Michael Jackson death” and the first thing that popped up was a spoof article in The Onion titled “Neverland Ranch Investigators Discover Corpse of Real Michael Jackson.” She really thought he had been buried there 20 years earlier and that the one we thought was Michael Jackson was a fake. She’s normally a very smart woman, but that day, she was an idiot.

6. Billy Mays, Karl Malden, and Walter Cronkite. How's that for a trio? First, I thought Karl Malden was already dead. When I found out he wasn't, I couldn't believe he was 97. Ninety fucking seven? No wonder I thought he was dead. When "The Most Trusted Man in America" died within 20 days of Karl Malden and the OxiClean Guy, this was quite an honor for OxiClean Guy. On the other hand, were Walter or Karl to hear that the third member of their death cluster was a guy named Billy Mays who was a modern day snake oil salesman, they may feel a little slighted. Sorry Walter and Karl, I can't just go back and edit my whole list now. Too much thought and effort and math went into it. As an aside, I'm not sure why I cried as I watched the news of Cronkite’s death and saw clips of his broadcasts. I think it was his announcement of President Kennedy's death that really hit me. (Then I thought of Kennedy’s own death trio compadres whose deaths were totally upstaged by that assassination: Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis. Not bad company, as death trios go.)

7. Frank McCourt, the Taco Bell dog, and John Hughes. Sorry Frank and John, for organizational purposes (and because you died within 18 days of each other), you have to share your space with a talking Chihuahua. Frank McCourt wrote this famous book called Angela’s Ashes. I heard it was good, but because it sounded really depressing, I never read it. Plus I don’t like to read big books. The dog, Gidget was her name, became famous for saying "¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!" I only mention this animal because I love Taco Bell and because a talking dog is pretty cool. Especially one that speaks Spanish. Unless that was her native language, which, come to think of it, probably was, seeing as how she was a damn Chihuahua (a breed I generally do not care for--not because I am racist, which I’m not, mind you--but because they are too small and wiry and somewhat big for their little doggie britches). I must discuss John Hughes and list my favorite movies he wrote and directed. Here they are along with my favorite lines from each (many thanks to IMDb.com): Uncle Buck (“I'm Buck Melanoma. Moley Russell's wart. Not her wart. Not her wart! I'm...I'm the wart. She's my tumor. My...my growth. My...uh, my pimple. I'm Uncle Wart. Just old Buck ‘Wart’ Russell. That's what they call me, or Melanoma Head. They'll call me that. ‘Melanoma Head's coming.’ I'm...Maisy Russell's uncle!”), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (“You're Abe Froman? That's right, I'm Abe Froman. The Sausage King of Chicago? Uh yeah, that's me.”), Planes, Trains & Automobiles (“Where's your other hand? Between two pillows. Those aren't pillows!”), Weird Science (“How 'bout a nice greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?”), The Breakfast Club (“What was that ruckus? Uh, what ruckus? I was just in my office and I heard a ruckus. Could you describe the ruckus, sir?”), Sixteen Candles (“God, I hope whoever got that note doesn't know it was me who wrote it. I'd shit twice and die.”)

8. Les Paul, Ted Kennedy, and Dominick Dunne. The guitar genius, the senator with questionable morals (isn’t that redundant?), and the bespectacled writer died within only 13 days of one another. (By the way, I am both surprised and pleased that I was able to use the word “bespectacled.”) Kennedy was lucky to die the way he did, being a Kennedy and all, it was fairly anticlimactic. Dominick Dunne made the cut because he wrote for Vanity Fair which is a magazine I like to say I read because, like The New Yorker, it is for classy people. Plus, he wrote about a lot of the big criminal trials like O.J. Simpson’s and the trial of the Menendez brothers--those rich little sweater-vest-wearing fucks who decided to gun their parents down when they wanted more money. I remember thinking one of them was kind of cute. He never responded to any of my fan letters.

9. Patrick Swayze, William Safire, and Captain Lou Albano. They died within exactly 30 days. I can’t discuss Patrick Swayze without choking up, so bear with me. When I hear the word “ditto” I always think about him in Ghost, and then sigh. Then I think about him in Dirty Dancing and remember “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” Then I sigh again because I vividly remember seeing that movie on a date and being disappointed that my life was so boring compared to that of Jennifer Grey’s character. I first fell in love with him when I saw The Outsiders. He said, “You just don't stop living because you lose somebody.” Good advice from writer S.E. Hinton (who was a female, by the way). She also wrote Rumble Fish, which was made into the movie starring Matt Dillon, but I digress. I included William Safire because he wrote a lot about proper and precise use of the English language. Something I hold dear to my heart. Like the way I love my kids, only somewhat more unconditional. I only allowed Lou Albano on the list because the image of this wrestler with the rubber bands hanging from his face next to someone like William Safire (who would never have pierced his face and hung rubber bands on it that I know of) made for an interesting and unexpected juxtaposition. (I am also glad I was able to employ the word “juxtaposition” here.) Another reason I added Lou to the list is because I remember him from Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun video. How she could take him seriously as her father is beyond me.

10. Soupy Sales, Oral Roberts, and Brittany Murphy. This so-called trio is an aberration because these famous people died within a 59-day span. This is because no notables (at least as far as I am concerned) died in November of 2009. Like maybe God was taking a break from all the paparazzi hubbub that was surely taking place up there. Soupy is one of those who I thought had already died. He was like 83, so that’s understandable. Apparently, he did a lot of stupid slapstick-type comedy. I hate that shit. Except for the Three Stooges. Now they were funny. Oral Roberts made the list because anyone named “Oral,” especially a televangelist, must be mentioned in my book. What kind of parents would name their kid “Oral?” Apparently, that was the kind of birth control they wished they had used. Brittany Murphy’s death was a shock. She did the voice of Luanne Platter on Mike Judge’s King of the Hill. We have these cafeterias in Texas called Luby’s. That’s where you can get what they call a Lu Ann platter. If you are on a diet. Or elderly.

I hope I didn’t exclude any famous or semi-famous dead people from this list. I welcome suggestions, but will probably not honor them. Please add them to the comment card at the end of this book.

Burning Daylight

I have a confession that may cause me to lose friends or at least miss out on some social invitations. There’s a condition called “social anxiety disorder.” There are prescription drugs for it. (I’m not a pharmacist, but I play one at home.) I clearly don’t have a full-blown case of it because I’m comfortable speaking in front of large groups, I’ve been known to be the life of the occasional party, and I would tell my deepest secrets to the old crack whore in line next to me at a convenience store. However, when it comes to certain events (not only attending them but simply contemplating attending them), I can empathize with the unfortunate victims of this disorder. Here’s why:

I would prefer never to attend the following: daytime receptions, tea parties, banquets, buffet dinners, office parties, baby showers, wedding showers, children’s birthday parties, and parties where you feel obligated to buy jewelry, candles, or kitchen paraphernalia. Each type of gathering gives me a somewhat different yet equally uncomfortable level of social anxiety. Mostly because they make me feel like I’m burning daylight. Like I could be doing something more productive with my time such as cleaning out a closet or organizing a junk drawer or alphabetizing my spices again.

When my kids were younger, I dreaded play dates for the same reason. I would take my kid to the cluttered house of some homely woman (often a neighbor or acquaintance) with whom I had nothing in common except for the fact that our kids were the same age and perhaps attended the same Mother’s Day Out program. The idea was that the kids would get a chance to play off some energy while the burned-out moms could sit and commiserate as they chat over coffee about what brand of diapers they use, their harrowing labor and delivery experiences, or how to manage to take a shower before their husband got home. So there I would be, sitting at some sticky kitchen table, drinking bad coffee with someone I didn’t click with, and trying to shift the conversation toward something funny or interesting while her kid is shitting his pants, eating boogers, and drooling all over my kid’s sippy cup. I would surreptitiously glance at my watch and think that time must have stopped. My stomach would churn and burn as I thought about all the things I needed to be doing at that very moment and throughout those few precious hours, such as laundry, or dishes, or napping, or the rest of the laundry. I would tune out the dronings of this bedraggled mother as I imagined her sharing her boring anecdotes and bratty gripes with prison inmates or psychiatric patients. Just as I would think I was going to implode with the anxious ennui closing in on me, my toddler would start crying or otherwise need tending to. I would then use the child’s alleged “nap schedule” as my excuse to run screaming to the solace of my car. I would no doubt then heave a sigh and perhaps utter some obscenities as I peeled out of her driveway.

Sure, they say we should stop and smell the roses and that it’s good for the soul to take time out of your busy day to just relax and enjoy a cup of tea or read a book or perhaps engage in some sort of useless craft activity. I’m sorry, but I’ve got shit to DO. I don’t sleep well; I work 40 hours a week (more or less) except when I’m driving kids to and from their appointments or events. I go to the grocery store, the gas station, the carwash, the cleaners, and the post office. I drop crap off at Goodwill; I pick up prescriptions at the drug store; I get the car’s oil changed; I think about going to the gym. I visit my chiropractor, my dentist, my hair salon, and my psychiatrist. When I do have free time, I like to spend it making lists of what I need to do the next day. I don’t have time to dilly-dally or lollygag at some social gathering. Does this make me anti-social? I don’t think so. There are plenty of other settings that do not make me want to have diarrhea. Such as my office, my bathtub, sushi restaurants, shoe stores, and most bars.

I’m not sure what makes me think the details of my daily life are more important than spending time with a few friends and several strangers at celebratory gatherings. I don’t know why I start shaking at the sight of a punch bowl or why seeing an order form at a “party” makes me want to shoot someone in the face. I can’t fathom what it is that compels me to avoid interaction at these events by taking leisurely strolls to the bathroom and then lingering in there until someone bangs on the door to check on me two hours later. And I know it’s rude to ignore perfect opportunities for small talk by pretending I have important business going on in my phone. I guess I just can’t fake enthusiasm as well as everyone else.

When I get an invitation to any of the aforementioned events, the first wave of anxiety is all about the RSVP. Great, I think. The person who has been kind enough to include and invite me has also been so cruel as to impose an impossible deadline upon me. I used to be great with RSVPs. It never bothered me at all to look at a calendar and call or e-mail my regrets. Now, probably because of my children, I usually lose the invitation somewhere between the mailbox and the house. And e-mailed invitations get even less attention.

If I must actually attend one of these soul-sucking time wasters, and if a gift is required, then my next wave of stress comes from the gift selection process. I have been known to spend a good hour and a half agonizing about choosing the perfect toy for a kid in my daughter’s class whose name I have forgotten and whose parents I don’t even know and who is probably a spoiled little asshole. When it comes to baby or wedding shower gifts, one might think that the registry lists are helpful. And they are; don’t get me wrong—at least they give me some guidance. But the problem then becomes finding something on the list that is within your budget. If I want to spend $50 on a wedding gift, it’s inevitable that the registry will only offer up items well above that price or a plethora of suggestions so far below it that I end up buying the happy couple a $20 knife, a $15 saucer, a $10 set of dish towels, and a $5 pot holder. If I want to spend $30 on a baby gift and run into a similar dilemma, I opt for a gift card and hope that the new mother is able to go shopping either before or after she finds herself housebound with a screaming infant, leaking breasts, and a torn up vagina.

When it comes to the contrived parties that are actually shopping-by-peer-pressure, I get a whole nother form of angst. I feel like I owe it to the hostess to buy something to compensate her for all the trouble she went to, what with the veggie tray and fancy napkins and box wine and all. I see all the other women oohhing and aahhing over this necklace or that gadget or this baking stone or that potpourri. I scan the catalog for something affordable that I also might not mind having. Of course, the things that are affordable are useless and would end up in my next garage sale. The things I wouldn’t mind having cost much more than I wanted to spend, seeing as how I didn’t really intend to go shopping that night. I usually end up spending too much on something I would never buy under any other circumstance, even with a gun to my head. As I turn in the order form, I feel instant remorse and regret. Along with an urgent need to empty my bowels. When I see the charge on my credit card bill a couple of weeks later, I suffer a flashback of that same remorse, regret, and urgency. Then, when the dreaded item arrives about six weeks later, there I go running with my angst to the bathroom again.

The bottom line is: If given the choice between attending one of these events and staying home, I would always prefer to stay home. And eat shards of broken glass. I might even rather sit through another Lord of the Rings movie or endure some opera or Broadway musical than subject myself to this slow torture. Will this diatribe decrease the number of invitations I find in my mailbox? I doubt it. I may spend two hours in their bathroom, but people still want me at their parties. Mostly because when I go, I buy something.

The 11th Annual Boring Mitchell Holiday Letter

When the rapture didn’t happen back in May, I began to dread gathering material for this annual update. Unfortunately, no major illness, injury, or humiliation befell any of us this year, so this letter will no doubt leave a gaping hole in your otherwise joyous holiday season. Feel free to send it back for a full refund. First, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the late Amy Winehouse for making a mockery of her blood-heroin content in my 2008 letter and to express my regret to those who were offended by last year’s inclusion of the words douche and testicles. Won’t happen again.

As a nation, we witnessed the last space shuttle mission, the death of Bin Laden, and Oprah’s final show (only to have her turn up on an entire network). Our country endured disasters like earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and heat waves, not to mention Weinergate and the Kardashians. As a family, we survived a road trip to Colorado where the age-old mayonnaise/Miracle Whip debate threatened to cut the vacation short. (The only casualty occurred when a slingshot-wielding Luke accidentally killed a bird. Then our dog, in a dazzling display of the circle of life, ate it.) For us, 2011 would have been embarrassingly uneventful if our dishwasher hadn’t broken and forced us to hand-wash and dry dishes for a harrowing three weeks. This low point left us feeling uncomfortably Amish. Rather than make the best of the tragedy and enjoy the extra family togetherness while teaching the kids about responsibility, we simply engaged in a bulk purchase of Solo cups and Chinet. The high point of our year occurred when the government shutdown was averted the same day the IRS cashed our tax payment check. You’re welcome, America.

In terms of providing me with useful material, the kids have been a colossal disappointment. Frankly, they’re getting older, less cute, and (in spite or because of my usually good-natured insults) more sensitive to what I say about them. (The public school system’s anti-bullying campaigns have really worked to my disadvantage around the house.) They have allowed me to tell you that their race to puberty continues to heat up. In fact, Luke laments: “Katy has more armpit hair than I do.” For a spring break trip to Dallas, they took their first flight without parents. For them, a Southwest Airlines ticket was just as effective as (and much cheaper than) a trip to Disney World. They spent the summer suffering sporadic bouts of catastrophic boredom between attending as many camps as we could afford to send them to. After a week at a Christian camp, Katy couldn’t wait to play some AC/DC on her iPod for the drive home, and Luke’s first movie choice when he hit his room was Blazing Saddles. Could be worse.

Luke started high school this year and recently turned 15. He had a wisdom tooth pulled and was disappointed the tooth fairy didn’t leave him a big payoff. He’s over six feet tall and weighs all of 120 pounds. Kind of like a supermodel. His grocery consumption has forced us to petition the government for a bailout, and what little spare time I have is spent replenishing his school lunch account. He can put away a large deep-dish four-meat pizza on his own in under half an hour. Then have a tureen of ice cream for dessert. After a group of girls started sitting with him in the cafeteria, he complained, “Now it takes me forever to eat lunch because I have to focus on using manners.” He helped his track team win district again this year after spending six weeks in physical therapy for Osgood-Schlatter disease (a scary term for growing pains). He has managed to stay out of trouble except for the time he and some other track team members went for a run off campus down the highway to a nearby taco stand. He’s still active in Boy Scouts and was surprised to be elected patrol leader even though he ran unopposed. After scout camp this summer, he said, “Dude, forestry class made me feel like such a hippie. I was like, one with the trees.” He spends his free time working on the 1971 Chevy truck he got last year. One highlight was finding almost two dollars in change when he pulled the seat out. His advanced creative writing skills are only matched by his sharp wit. He suggested that I color my hair blonde so I’ll have a good excuse when I do dumb stuff. When Mike told Katy not to be friends with adults on Facebook because they might say inappropriate things, Luke said, “Then she probably shouldn’t be friends with Mom.”

Katy started middle school and turned 12 last month. Her tweens have hit us even harder than her toddlerhood did. My heart swelled with pride when the first week of school brought a dress code violation and necessitated a marathon fitting room session the likes of which I had not seen since The Exorcist. We wear the same shoe size, and she wonders why I won’t let her borrow my high heels. She wants to wear make-up, and hasn’t yet learned to apply it after she gets on the morning bus like I did at her age. We made the mistake of getting her an iPhone. In less than three days, she maxed out her data plan, and within a month, let the phone get stolen. Her recent birthday gave her another chance, and we are pleased to report that phone probation has not yet led to any bloodshed. In the spring, she played basketball and was glad she was finally old enough for a league that keeps score. She was named school district student of the month and received a bumper sticker to advertise it. She didn’t even seem to mind that I refused to put the sticker on the car. She dabbled in Girl Scouts and has continued to sing with the band at church. At scout camp this summer, she got her wish for air-conditioning when she had to move to safety after her cabin was attacked by wild hogs. She’s a first chair trumpet player and can already play Taps, the Star Wars theme, and Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. Growing up has not been without its disillusionments for Katy. She discovered that her American Girl dolls were made in China. I told her it doesn’t get more American than that. And at seeing Elton John on a magazine cover with his partner, she said (loud enough for everyone in the checkout line to hear): “Wait…Elton John is gay?” Her quote of the year: “The word jugular isn’t really about boobs.”

Mike’s year included trips to Knoxville, Tucson, Seattle, and Nashville as well as Dover for another NASCAR fly-by. He also spent yet another spring break weekend of drudgery at the coast for the Confederate Air Force airshow. He started playing guitar with the church band and at his debut performance, entertained the congregation with some Stairway to Heaven. His high point was a promotion to 149th Fighter Wing Operations Group Commander. Advancement to Colonel is pending congressional approval. (Maybe they’ll do something right for a change.) Mike managed to destroy his truck’s grille when he met up with one of our neighborhood’s more suicidal deer. Such a waste of good meat. Speaking of killing animals, Mike took Luke out of school for opening day of dove season. Skipping school to hunt? It just doesn’t get any better than that for a teenage Texas boy. While Mike will be celebrating another birthday later this month, he still shows no signs of slowing down. His only speed bumps occur when he has to stop and look for his reading glasses. This is why he went to Costco for a multi-pack and has them scattered within arm’s reach in places like his tool box, barn, RV, motorcycle, vehicles, desk, living room, kitchen, and of course, bathroom. Mike and I spent a week in the Dominican Republic for our 20th anniversary. I made him proud when I won a poker tournament, and he impressed me by not snoring too loudly during our couples massage. In an amazing show of restraint, he only commented once on the number of pairs of shoes I packed. In return, I agreed to try to keep my closet from looking like an episode of Hoarders.

I was nearly electrocuted in January when we painted the kids’ rooms. Turns out, those switch plates are there for a good reason. For my birthday, I carelessly invested in a lighted magnifying mirror that Bed, Bath & Beyond wouldn’t let me return without a better excuse than I just didn’t like what I saw. Mike was kind enough to tell me, “You’re not a spring chicken anymore.” I told him neither are people who use the term “spring chicken.” Not to be outdone, Luke asked if he could take me to school for show and tell on 80s day and Katy quoted something from what she referred to as, “this old show called Friends.” Business took me to Dallas, Indianapolis, Austin, and New Orleans, as well as St. Pete Beach, Florida, where I was re-elected (without resorting to bribery that anyone can prove) to another three-year term on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Veterans’ Advocates. After speaking at a few seminars, I found out that a good handful of tasteless references goes a long way to entertain a crowd and disguise a lack of knowledge. (Perhaps Rick Perry should try that at his next debate.) In other news, because one road kill per year for this family isn’t enough, I ran over another one of the stupid deer that wander our streets like drunken overgrown squirrels. The only damage was some blood on my license plate, but I did almost spill my drink and drop my phone. The rest of my year was wasted trying to figure out what the big deal was about that royal wedding.

For next year, we have high hopes that Luke will learn to turn lights off when he leaves a room and that Katy will stop leaving wet towels on the floor. We plan to teach them better bathing and deodorant-application techniques so they don’t smell like Occupy Wall Street protesters when they get home from school. I will try to finish writing my book before I get too old to take it on tour, and stop buying Groupons that expire before I get around to using them. And Mike vows to improve his relationship with Siri on his new iPhone. Luke will spend the holidays shooting his new rifle while Katy busies herself with music downloads and friend requests. Mike and I look forward to taking full advantage of the new water heater we were forced to get each other for Christmas.

May you all spend the holidays and 2012 happy, healthy, safe, and strong. And if the Mayan calendar is right, you won’t have to sit through a letter like this again. Life is short, so don’t let it be shallow.

Love, Jill, Mike, Luke, Katy & Buzz

The View From 45

I’ll never forget (for as long as I’m young enough to remember) a conversation I had with some girlfriends over 10 years ago. Most of them were about five to seven years younger than I was. One was lamenting her upcoming 29th birthday. In all of my sage wisdom, I replied, “Try 34.” Oh to be a nubile 34 again.

Last summer, at an overpriced concert concession stand, a 50-ish guy at the register was giving me my change. He counted it out: “five, six, seven, eight . . . .” Then he goes, “Schlemiel, shlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated . . . .” I laughed as I had not heard that song since probably 1983. The guy nodded at me with a wink and said, “Yeah, you know that song, don’t you?” I smiled knowingly and sang back, “Give us any chance, we’ll take it. Give us any rule, we’ll break it . . . .” Then we shared a good laugh like old folks do when they get all nostalgic. As I walked away, I thought, What an Asshole.

One dark day not long ago, Margaritaville came on the radio and I mindlessly told my kids, “I had the 45 of this song.” Both, in unison, asked, “What’s a 45?” (Now it happens to be my age.) Soon after the Margaritaville incident, I watched my daughter open an envelope of disposable camera pictures. I told her to be careful with the negatives. I knew before the words had left my mouth that I would hear her ask, “What are negatives?” I then realized what my grandmother must have felt like when I asked her what a milkman was, or why she called the refrigerator an ice box. While I wasn’t looking, a whole shitload of time had been passing and leaving a dead vocabulary in its wake.

Why are we so afraid of aging? Because, as a friend once told me on my birthday, “I hope you enjoy it. You don’t have that many left.” Now I’m beginning to understand those “middle-age crazies” I heard about when I was a kid. I wouldn’t necessarily refer to this “midlife” feeling as a “crisis,” but it is a sort of second adolescence. Again, I feel uncomfortable in my body. Not so much awkward as unwieldy. When I was awkward, I knew I would eventually catch up with myself and get it. Now (in this body that is out of sync with its brain), when I try to turn flips on a trampoline or roller skate too fast, for example, my body tells me that I’ve lost it (and not just mentally). My chiropractor says, “Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should.” For those who are unfortunate enough to examine their advancing lives, there is a sort of cognitive dissonance that hits at around age 40. According to the results of my one-minute Internet search, the Swiss psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget (not sure if he's related to the watchmaker, but if he were, that would be somewhat ironic) coined the term cognitive disequilibrium to describe the experience of feeling a discrepancy between something new and something already believed or known. I think that applies to people in their 40s. We believe we can still hula hoop, for example, but our new (older) bodies rebel. I remember when my parents were my age. I thought they were so mature. Now that I'm there, unless I am an aberration (which is a distinct possibility) I realize that most 40-year-olds are just “extreme” teenagers. There’s nothing like having the ability to make a sophomoric sexual reference against a backdrop of a post-graduate education and a little extra life experience. There’s nothing more satisfying than being old enough to have the money to buy something completely impractical and frivolous. What sucks is wholeheartedly thinking you are still capable of that round-off/back handspring, and then your body betrays you when your bones don’t cooperate. What sucks is having an advanced case of hypochondria. Now the conditions I used to dream up could really happen. What sucks is treading that fine line between cougar and pedophile. Now that I’m old enough to use my age as birth control, I see that it’s a good thing I never became a high school teacher. Otherwise, I might have ended up in prison and pregnant. They (whoever “they” are—average pathetic people my age, I imagine) say 40 is the new 30. Does that make gray the new blonde?

At various points in our lives, we take steps from wondering to forgetting. In college, we wonder who we are. After college, marriage and children make us wonder where the hell we (and our keys) are. In our 40s, we’re afraid we have forgotten (or will soon forget) who we are (or were). What do we have to look forward to? Diets, arthritis, prescriptions, mammograms, colonoscopies, college expenses, grandchildren? Not to mention tending to aging parents (who will no doubt be difficult and noncompliant with their medications). At a certain age, do we realize that it’s too late to live the dream we gladly set aside 20 years earlier for kids and family? Sometimes I feel a mix of guilt and envy when I look at those I saw as selfish back then. The ones who went their own way and ignored the plan society expected of them. Are they happier? Probably not. I imagine they regret some things they didn’t do as much as others regret some things they did. This is not to say by any means that I think a person’s 40s are filled with misery and regret. I don’t know anyone who would trade their family for a chance at a do-over. Maybe the midlife crisis is a myth and most 40-year-olds never experience a fleeting, disconcerting, who-is-that-person-in-the-mirror? feeling. I submit that those who never wonder what happened to them while they were going about their lives are lucky, blissfully ignorant bastards.

They (whoever “they” are—people who have never had an STD, I guess) say it’s better to regret things you’ve done than things you didn’t do. I generally agree (except when it comes to things that could give you an STD) but when the opportunity to do what you didn’t do has passed you by, somehow, the fact that you can’t do it now hurts much worse than the fact that you could have chosen not to. I could do that round-off/back handspring. I just choose not to. Because my bladder might fall out.

If 50 is the new 40, does that mean another decade of looking at a stranger in the mirror? Or does some form of acceptance come in our 50s? Does something shift from “where are my dreams?” to “where are my glasses?” The disequilibrium of the 40s must subside after it scars our psyches and gives us early dementia. Do we really need those 10 years to prepare for the second half of an average lifespan? I think so. Otherwise we would see more 50- and 60-year-olds trying to hula hoop. And that is just dangerous.