Fishing For Anything

Last week at the dentist, I had to endure a full ninety minutes of drilling, pinching, poking, clamping, and lip-stretching, plus an additional ten minutes of biting into gooey and gross substances, and -- to make matters worse-- I wasn't in the good hands my normal dentist, a family friend who's been doing my teeth since I was six and still calls me "Davey" . . . or "Marc," if he mixes me up with my brother . . . but he was swamped and so I was given to the other dentist in the office . . . a young Asian lady who works with her own assistant . . . but this didn't faze me because I had adopted a new dental persona for this visit (though I nearly chickened-out and skipped the appointment entirely . . . I almost drove by the Milltown exit and started towards the beach . . . I really didn't want to waste a day-off at the dentist's office) but once I got it into my head that I was actually going to this appointment, despite some serious white-coat anxiety, then I decided to conquer my cowardice and become a new patient, a bad-ass patient, and so I kept saying to myself: Behave as if you are a bad-ass . . . a veteran of the war in Afghanistan . . . a member of a motorcycle gang . . . a guy who wrestles alligators . . . a  not a guy who likes to play soccer and tennis and reads poetry out loud for a living . . . and I pulled it off, I did a damn good job of it, I didn't complain, I only required one break (when I had to cough) and I didn't require any laughing gas or extra novocaine . . . and this was despite the fact that my dental team offered no encouragement whatsoever during the procedure -- these two were all business, they gave me no time frame -- unlike my dentist, who is constantly bantering, saying things like "Halfway done, Davey, just two more roots in there" -- but these two never said "boo," except when they chastised me for not raising my left hand high enough when I had to cough because I was drowning from my own phlegm . . . and so I endured ninety minutes of drilling without complaint, and when it was finally over, I expected a little something for the effort . . . maybe not total consciousness on my deathbed, maybe not a lollipop, but something . . . some acknowledgement that what I went through was painful, tedious, and uncomfortable, and that I handled it like a seriously bad-ass dude (but I guess a real bad-ass doesn't need confirmation that he's a bad-ass) but I got no such praise -- no compliment on my stoic attitude and uncomplaining mien -- and so I tried to fish for a little bit of appreciation . . . I said, "I hope I can talk tomorrow, or I won't be able to teach class," but this didn't work -- the mean assistant said, "You can talk now, you'll be fine," and then she left, and I realized that these two had no appreciation for my work, and probably expected people to behave the way I did . . . and so I will never behave that way again; next time I'm going to rinse every three minutes, take bathroom breaks, hit the gas, request a radio station, and generally bitch and gripe to my heart's content.

The Lamest Advice Ever

I am loath to admit that my dental hygienist was right. Years and years ago, she told me I should invest in an electric toothbrush. A Sonicare. Each visit I would pretend to entertain this notion (because she's very attractive). We'd chat about the merits of the device. She'd admonish me about my gum-line-- and then she'd set to work on my filthy plaque-covered teeth. I'd cringe and bleed and try not to cry (because, as I mentioned earlier, she's very attractive). She'd finish up, remind me again that an electric toothbrush might solve some of these issues, and we'd part ways.

Once I'd left the office-- slightly traumatized and a little sore-- I'd ponder her advice for a moment and then summarily dismiss it.

I'm a man! A strong man. I don't need assistance to brush my teeth. And once I started flossing regularly . . . watch out! Then my teeth and gums would be fine. And it didn't hurt THAT much.

A couple months ago my wife came home from Costco with a pair of Sonicare electric toothbrushes. They take some getting used to. If you open your mouth while brushing, there's going to be a big mess. It feels likes you've released a buzzing insect loose on your teeth. But I kept with it.

My last visit to the dentist, my normal (and very attractive) hygienist was out sick. It's too bad, because she could have gloated and said, "I told you so." The other hygienist-- who is very nice-- said my teeth looked great. All my gums grew back! There was barely any plaque! A couple scrapes and she was done. Easy-peasy. The dentist came in, took a quick look and said, "A+!"

I was like: what the fuck?

So the best advice is often the lamest: get enough sleep, drink in moderation, don't eat fried food, a yellow light doesn't mean step on it, lift heavy objects with your legs, women like flowers . . .

and get an electric toothbrush.

The (Slightly Insane) Case of the Missing Teeth

My nine year old son Ian had a rough time at the dentist on Monday; he had two teeth pulled-- or, as his pediatric dentist euphemistically put it, "wiggled out"--  and though he was brave during the procedure, by the time he got home he was crying from the pain, clutching the little orange container which held his two extracted teeth . . . but once he recovered, he realized that he was definitely going to receive some sympathy in the form of pecuniary renumeration . . . i.e. the tooth fairy, and he asked his brother for some advice on whether he should put one tooth under his pillow per night, or stick them both under at the same time, but Alex didn't know what to tell him, and so he asked me . . . though he knows full well that I know that he knows that mom is the tooth-fairy and that teeth aren't fungible currency, and so I told him he'd have to make that decision on his own, and he was laboring over it, because he has an acquisitive nature and couldn't help speculating on which strategy would net him the greater gain . . . but then when it finally came time for bed, it turned out that he misplaced his little orange container full of teeth-- the container he desperately needed in order to get in the money-- and so I helped him look for a few minutes because I wanted to get him to get to bed so that I could watch The Guild, but we couldn't find it, and so I told him not to worry about it and go to bed, that the tooth fairy would still come-- but now he was concerned that he needed to leave something else under his pillow (once he drew a tooth on a sheet of paper and exchanged that for cash, because he wanted to keep his tooth) and then my wife got involved in the search-- she started stomping around the house, angrily looking for Ian's teeth, complaining that he couldn't be trusted with anything of value-- and I was smart enough not to remind her that the teeth actually had no value on any modern commodity or currency market, because she was in some kind of mood and she was using the teeth as a metaphor for all the things that my kids lose on a daily basis (and I don't think that my wife reads this blog very often, so I'll be frank here . . . the whole incident seemed kind of insane to me, especially when she told me that it was "nice to be you, since you don't give a shit" which was totally true, I was fine with giving Ian some coin, even if he didn't have the teeth, as there was plenty of evidence that he lost them: there were two holes in his gums, I saw the teeth earlier in the day, and there were several credible witnesses to the dental procedure) and by the time Catherine finally gave up on the search for the teeth, she was so annoyed that she didn't even want to watch The Guild because she said she "wouldn't enjoy it" and so she just went to bed (and part of this had to do with me not cleaning up any of my mess from dinner, which I meant to do, but I got really engrossed in my book about U.S. interventions in Latin America, so I may have been part of the reason that my wife was annoyed about irresponsible men in our household) and then early the next morning, I found the orange container of teeth amidst some Lego vehicles on the counter in the basement, leading to a paradoxical ending to this mystery; Ian received cash money for the teeth, or for the idea of the teeth, without actually exchanging the teeth, but now the teeth are back in play-- though they have no value in our household-- so Ian's best bet to parlay this into an even greater financial windfall is to sell them to a friend on the black market.

Sometimes You Need to Lie to the People in White Coats

The main reason I hate going to the dentist is because I am forced to lie: for the past few months (as usual) I've forgotten to floss on a daily basis, and-- judging by past behavior-- I'm never ever ever going to remember to floss on a daily basis, but they're so earnest about flossing over there at my dentist's office that I can't stand the disappointment in their eyes, so, once again, I swore to them, that NOW, FROM HERE ON IN, I AM GOING TO FLOSS, but I know in another six months it will be the same pathetic ritual.

They Maced Me! I Cried! And You'd Cry Too!

Someday, I will tell the story of Pip and the Mace (it's set in Daytona, circa 1991 . . . a classic) but while today's post is about tears, it's not about Pip's tears in a portable cell at the tail end of a wild night in a sleazy spring break beach town, it's about my tears and how I had to stop reading a book at the dentist to avoid looking like a fool; the book is W. Bruce Cameron's A Dog's Purpose, which my son Ian chose for our family-book-club, and he finished it weeks ago . . . on the beach . . . this is the only book my son has ever read while at the beach, my wife said it was bizarre-- he actually couldn't put it down (my wife loved it as well) but when I started reading, it seemed to me like a creative writing assignment gone bad: it's the story of a unique canine consciousness searching for its purpose-- but the dog lives through multiple lives, reincarnating after each death . . . the synopsis is utterly ridiculous and childish and silly, and the book feels that way for the first five pages but then -- especially if you're a dog owner-- the story becomes riveting and also makes you contemplate the philosophy of the whole animal consciousness thing (which apparently is far more sophisticated than people once believed, read this book for the latest research) and then there's the crying . . . I cried multiple times while powering through the book yesterday, our new dog Lola napping at my feet, the ghost of my old dog Sirius roaming through my house and my memory and I only had twenty pages left when I took my son to the dentist today, and so I brought the book-- but I also brought a back-up book, something dry (Mark Kurlanky's Salt: A World History . . . pun intended) in case I started blubbering in the waiting room . . . and when I started reading, I could feel the tears coming (my son Ian, a tough kid, said, "If you don't cry at the end of this book, you have no soul") and so I switched over to Kurlansky's take on the divinity and wonder and significance of sodium chloride, and avoided clouding up my own eyes with brine and finished the book in the privacy of my home, my trusty dog nearby.

This IS Going to Hurt

You know it's trouble when the dentist actually tells you something is going to hurt-- but I did learn something: a pus-filled abscess infection can reverse the polarity of anesthetic, rendering it useless, unless the infection is irrigated and-- and this is the part that hurt-- the dentist gives you a shot of Novacaine in the roof of your mouth.

Two Reasons Why I Will Never Get a Vasectomy

I will never get a vasectomy.

My rationale is based on two very solid reasons. They’re not the two reasons you are thinking, although I do value those two things as well.

I acquired one reason from a TV show and the other from a movie.

That’s where you learn stuff, right?

Reason #1 is obvious.

I don’t want anyone — advanced medical degree or not — going near my testicles with a pair of surgical shears. Michael Scott expresses this better than I ever could during “The Dinner Party.” If you haven’t seen it, you need to (especially if you are thinking about getting a vasectomy).

This is what he tells his girlfriend/condo-mate/ex-boss Jan Levinson (in front of an audience of co-workers).

When I said that I wanted to have kids, and you said that you wanted me to have a vasectomy, what did I do? And then when you said that you might want to have kids and I wasn’t so sure, who had the vasectomy reversed? And then when you said you definitely didn’t want to have kids, who had it reversed back? Snip snap! Snip snap! Snip snap! I did. You have no idea the physical toll, that three vasectomies have on a person.

My second reason for refusing to get a vasectomy is much more profound.

I should point out that I’m certainly a vasectomy candidate. I’m fifty. I’m happily married with two children. My wife and I are done procreating. Once in a while, when I see a cute little infant I turn to my wife and say, “We should have a baby!”

My wife wisely says back to me: “That store is closed.”

She’s right. We’re done with that stage in our life.

Or she is . . .

My wife uses some kind of hormonal IUD that I should know more about. I do know that birth control is often left up to women, and it’s often a pain in the neck (a pain in the vagina?) There are plenty of side-effects. Headaches, weight gain, nausea, pelvic pain, irregular bleeding, acne, breast tenderness, etc.

The United States is not particularly good at subsidizing sex education and birth control, which is ironic, because a huge swath of our country is violently opposed to abortions. Male sterilization should be another tool in the box to prevent unwanted pregnancies. A better understanding of birth control of all types will decrease abortions, allow more women to finish school, and prevent infants from entering the world in a state of poverty. Men should understand this. Birth control should not be solely left up to women.

So I get it. Undergoing a vasectomy is not a big deal. I don’t want an old man poking around in my mouth with a drill, but I still go to the dentist. One in ten American males has been voluntarily sterilized. 500,000 men a year. I have friends that have done it. It’s not supposed to be that bad. I’m all for vasectomies. In fact, I urge YOU to get one.

If I really wanted to, I could get over Reason #1.

The MAIN reason I’m not getting a vasectomy is inspired by the ending of the classic Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb.

Reason #2

I might be called upon to repopulate the planet.

My friend Ann finds this portion of my argument silly, and it’s not. It’s deadly serious. So let me explain.

Dr. Strangelove was made in the 1960s. The world was worried about the madness of MAD. Gigantic nuclear arsenals were supposed to deter nuclear war, but in the film, an Air Force high alert mission goes awry — with the help of the homicidal General Ripper — and his breach of authority sets off a cascading chain of events that results in an impending nuclear disaster.

If you haven’t seen this movie, you need to.

Dr. Stranglelove — an ex-Nazi in charge of U.S. military weapons R&D — suggests that the survivors of the initial nuclear blast could hide out in “some of our deeper mineshafts.” Radioactivity wouldn’t penetrate down there and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in the dwelling space could be provided.

In the plan that he proposes to President Merkin Muffley, several hundred thousand citizens would need to remain in the mineshafts until the radiation subsides: one hundred years.

Peter Sellers plays both roles.

PRESIDENT MUFFLEY: You mean, people could actually stay down there for a hundred years?

DR. STRANGELOVE: It would not be difficult Mein Fuhrer! Nuclear reactors could, heh… I’m sorry. Mr. President. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and slaughtered.

The plan then takes a more eugenic slant.

Dr. Strangelove suggests a computer program should be used to determine who gets selected go down into the mine shaft (besides present company in the War Room . . . they get a free pass, of course).

And then we get to the real mission. The population in the mineshafts would have a “ratio of ten females to each male” and the women would be selected for “highly stimulating sexual characteristics,” Dr. Strangelove estimates that within twenty years the U.S. will be back to its present gross national product.

Even the highly distractible General Buck Turgidson finds this plan interesting. As does the Russian liaison.

GENERAL TURGIDSON Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

DR. STRANGELOVE Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious service along these lines . . .

Since the Cold War ended, we haven’t been as concerned about all-out nuclear war. But COVID-19 has given us a sneak preview of another kind of apocalypse. And this one kills men at a higher rate than women (though it’s negligible).

But what if it wasn’t negligible?

What if there were a highly contagious virus that targets the Y chromosome and kills all the men? Or nearly all of them. This COULD happen. I read about it in a comic book.

What if this hypothetical virus kills all the men except me?

Or me and a couple of guys who have had their tubes snipped?

Then it will be up to me to repopulate the planet!

Regrettably, this will “necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship.”

I’m willing to make that sacrifice and do “prodigious service” for the human race.

Here’s how I envision it. I’m lounging on a beautiful white sand beach of some lush tropical island, being tended to by a cadre of incredibly beautiful women from around the globe. Occasionally — perhaps once a week or so — a boat sails into the harbor.

A number of bikini-clad attendants lower one especially beautiful specimen into the water. Then they all stride through the surf, beads of saltwater on their bronze or brown or black or white skin.

I beckon them to come forward.

They present some delicacy from wherever they hail: Iceland, France, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Goa, the Sudan. I taste the food. I admire the women. The queen bee smiles coyly at me. She rubs my tan feet. Then we head into my candlelit bamboo hut and get to down to business.

Perhaps — if I’m feeling up to it — I bonus impregnate a few of the attendants as well. Why not? This is my job. I embrace it. Then they sail off, my future progeny lodged in their uteruses.

Though my friend Ann found my description of this scenario ludicrous, she was still willing to play along. “If you’re pretending this could happen, couldn’t you pretend that you were fertile? Even if you had a vasectomy?”

For a little while. But in nine months, the gig would be up. That’s too soon for such a sweet post.

Plus, who would be a better Adam for the planet than me? I want to do this. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. So though it’s highly unlikely, I’m playing this lottery. Not having a vasectomy is the golden ticket.

I haven’t run this by my wife yet, but I’m sure she’ll be on board. If she trusted me to be the father of her offspring — if need be — why shouldn’t I father of the entire human race?

Stamina of Cat

I went to the dentist this morning, then caught the express train the the city with my wife . . . 29,000 steps later, I'm home and she's still out-- impressive for her, lame for me.

Not For Those With Two Weeks of Vacation Time

All you folks with full time jobs probably don't want to hear this, nor will you believe it, but nothing is worse than the end-of-the-summer-holy-shit-I've-got-to-go-back-to-work anxiety stomachache . . . it's an awful feeling (but not so awful that I would choose to work in the summer . . . God bless the agrarian calendar) and my stomachache was compounded by the fact that a tooth of mine cracked off at the crown, and so on the same day that I return to work, I will also visit the dentist for some kind of procedure which I can only imagine to be horrific . . . and the worst part is I can't even whinge about all this because it falls on deaf ears, since most people have been working all summer long and have no sympathy.

Summer!

Summer is here and it's already been fairly epic;

-- me, the boys, and my brother attended my cousin's father-in-law's massive 25$ a head random draw cornhole tourney and while my kids and brother-- all good players-- got knocked out early, my partner and I almost went the distance . . . my partner was decent but had an odd throw, especially since he was a young athletic 6-foot five-inch black dude-- you'd think he'd be muscling it in, but instead he gripped the beanbag delicately by pinching a tiny scrap of fabric at the corner and then flicking it up high-- sometimes it swooshed right into the hole, but it was also buffeted by the wind . . . we were beaten by my cousin Keith and his partner in the finals-- I held Keith's partner at bay but my "little" cousin Keith, who's now in his mid-thirties, came up big-- but still, my partner and I won 100$ each . . . Keith and his partner won 250$, quite a pot for chucking a beanbag;

-- I made all my appointments: dentist, physical, knee, and even got one out of the way-- the eye lady had a cancellation so I went and my eyes are fine . . . I'm also a new patient now, apparently I haven't been to the doctor since 2016

-- I finished mastering a song, called "Asymmetrical Warfare" and it sort of sounds like I want it to sound, but mixing and mastering music will always be a mystery to me;

-- Monday night, I did the 12:30 - 4:30 AM shift for our town's project graduation event, it was at the Woodbridge Community Center and I was impressed at how a mentalist guessed three times in a row what number I chose on a die (but perhaps the die was Bluetooth or something?) and I learned that if I play basketball at 2 AM then my knee really starts to hurt and I also learned that a school bus full of teenagers that have stayed up all night smells really really ripe at 4:30 AM . . . yuck).

(Ooh) That Smell

I lent my car to my seventeen year old son Sunday night, so he could drive some friends to get Halloween costumes-- but instead they got pho and I think someone spilled some (or they were very sweaty and were rubbing their stinky feet all over my van's upholstery) because Monday morning, there was a heinous odor emanating from the interior of the car, like vomit and chlorine and footstink all mixed together-- I've been driving with the windows open since then and the smell is finally dissipating but then today at the dentist I was punished with an even worse odor/flavor-- the cement that they used to affix my bridge made me gag over and over and over . . . I'm glad I didn't puke on the hygienist because she was very nice (not that I would punish a rude hygienist by puking on her) but I hope that the rest of my week is odor free.

 

Everyone Should Be Talking About This Book!

Patricia Lockwood's new novel No One Is Talking About This is fragmented and poetic, it's hard to describe but easy to read; I would call it a more lyrical, more poignant Mark Leyner-like stream-of-internet data dump . . . the portal has taken over the narrator's mind-- the narrator who wrote the perfect tweet "can a dog be twins" and who makes her way in and out of meatspace and digital space with anxious disturbed ease . . . and then-- in the second half of the story-- reality intrudes-- the event is based on something that happened to Patricia Lockwood and her family-- and I won't spoil the way reality intrudes, but it rips her from the absurdity and obsession of the internet into a beautiful, profound, tragic everpresent now . . . but more important than the theme is the writing, it's wild, profane, funny and mesmerizing:

The things she wanted the baby to know seemed small, so small . . . How it felt to go to a grocery store on vacation; to wake up at three a.m. and run your whole life through your fingertips; first library card; new lipstick; a toe getting numb for two months because you borrowed shoes to a friend's wedding; Thursday; October; "She's Like the Wind" in a dentist's office; driver's license picture where you look like a killer; getting your bathing suit back on after you go to the bathroom, touching a cymbal for sound and then touching it again for silence . . .

so check it out-- I read it in a weekend-- it's certainly something different, and pretty much the opposite of the last book I read, Tana French's The Searcher, which is grounded in a rural setting, the internet mainly absent except as a villain to corrupt the youth . . . Lockwood's book is something completely different.

Mine Shaft

I highly recommend a visit to The Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, NJ . . . it is the self-proclaimed "Fluorescent Mineral Capital of the World" and you will not be disappointed in this regard . . . the museum (Zobel Exhibit Hall) contains a startling array of valuable minerals, fossils, and mining equipment-- in fact, it was recently burgled-- and the pièce de résistance is a giant wooden periodic table with cubbyholes containing samples, ore and examples of every element (there should be one of these in every science class . . . but the guy who built it said it contains 25,000 dollars worth of stuff) and when you do journey down into the historical Sterling Hill Zinc Mine, perhaps you'll be lucky enough to have an older gentleman named Bob as your guide . . . he calls the men "Ace" and the women "Sweets" and speaks in staccato sentences that begin with information about the mine but end with anecdotal non sequiturs about twenty dollar bills and driver's licenses, motel rooms and electrical outlets, and the importance of a good dentist . . . he's also not afraid to tell a joke or two (e.g. what side of a cow has the most hair? the outside) and every time someone sneezed he high-fived their snot coated hand and said, "God bless you and God bless me," and, if you are still not understanding the value of having a guide with dementia, remember that it's a two hour tour deep into the bowels of the earth, so having Bob as a guide only adds to the excitement, as you're not sure if you will ever return to the surface again.

I'm Having Trouble With Step Two

To derive the hygienic benefits of a WaterPik Cordless Oral Flosser, you not only have to purchase it (at the dentist's recommendation) but you also have to fill it with water and use it.

Got the Podcast Done Just in Time

First of all, I managed to finish another episode of my podcast We Defy Augury . . . this one is about Steven Johnson's new book and it's called "Revising Our Notion About Pirates" and I got it done just in time-- because I'm going to sound like I have marbles in my mouth for a day or two-- this afternoon, I underwent two hours of clanking and poking and pulling and drilling, and casting and impressing-- and now my old bridge is gone, as is all the decay under my old bridge-- and my dentist, Dr. David, is "cautiously optimistic" that I won't have to endure a root canal before they can put in my permanent bridge (and there's going to be a bit of gold on my permanent bridge! not quite a grill, but it's something) and right now I'm sipping some Olmeca Altos tequila, waiting for the lidocaine to wear off, which it most certainly will-- and then, apparently, my mouth is going to hurt some (I should also point out that the hygienist was pretty weird and nerdy in a fun way, we were talking about how long a day it had been and she started postulating about the possibilities of time dilation . . . and I couldn't really chime in much because I was biting down on some weird goopy stuff in order to make a mold for my temporary bridge).

Ballsy Bootlegger

When we got home from soccer practice last night, Catherine greeted Ian with the statement: "I found something in your bookbag" and Ian immediately went with the classic contraband trope-- he threw his friend under the bus and said, "I was just holding it for X so he didn't get in trouble with his parents" and I said, "Okay, no problem, we'll just call X's parents and straighten it all out" and after a moment of reflection, he walked over to my wife and told her the two giant bags of gummy candy were his-- he had bought them at Rite-Aid-- and, after the usual web of lies, he finally admitted they were just for his own gluttonous consumption-- so we confiscated the bag, gave him the perfunctory lecture about sugar-- we had just been to the dentist the day before!-- and then I advised him that if he had just bought a little bag of candy, consumed it, and threw away the evidence, no one would have been the wiser, but three pounds of candy was rather excessive-- dealer level weight-- and then we thought we were in the clear with parenting dilemmas, as the long weekend was almost upon us, but today Ian used his green hair paint to spray a giant pair of green genitals in the boy's locker room (the frank and the beans) and he not only had to clean the school locker rooms but he also did a bunch of manual labor around the house to atone for his profane vandalism . . . I guess I shouldn't have let him watch Superbad last weekend (although he did nice job weeding and mulching . . . not that I want him to get in trouble, but it is a big help with the chores when he does).

On the Rarity of Switch-Hitting Authors

Someone smart and well-read could develop this idea into a full-fledged essay, but I don't have the time or the mental stamina for that, so I'll just offer my thesis and maybe someone will run with it: I just finished the new David Sedaris book Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays Etc. and while I loved the essays -- typical Sedaris . . . forays to the dentist, the taxidermist, the British countryside the airport, and the bar car of a train -- I did not love (and mainly skipped) the "etc." which are short fictional pieces in which he wrote in the voices of a woman, a father, and a sixteen year old girl with a fake British accent; this brings me to my thesis: there are certain writers who I will only read their non-fiction, though they may have written novels and fiction; David Sedaris is one of these writers -- I only want him to be himself -- and it is the same with Chuck Klosterman -- I read his non-fiction fanatically but I haven't read any of his novels, not one word . . . I just want him to be Chuck Klosterman . . . it's the same with another favorite of mine, Geoff Dyer -- I'd love to read more by him, but I won't even open his four novels . . . and then there are authors who I will only read their fiction and could care less about their life and actual voice: Elmore Leonard, James Michener, Umberto Eco, etc. and then there are those rare authors who are masters of both forms: George Orwell, Mark Twain, and James Ellroy immediately come to mind . . . and though I often contemplate writing a great sci-fi novel, I think that I am a member of the first category, and probably can only muster the Voice of Dave with any consistency and energy.

Dave Can Text!

I had to call my father's secretary to tell her my e-mail address so she could send me a document to edit for him, but when I called she said, "I'm at the dentist, could you text it to me" and I was able to say, proudly, YES I CAN.

So Funny?

Many people have written about the difficulty in expressing tone in electronic communication, and I will add an example to the list; a few weeks ago my son Ian had to go to the dentist to have an infected tooth extracted and I was too squeamish to accompany him, and so I sent my my wife . . . later that day, while I was eating lunch, I had a moment to check my cell phone and read the text my wife sent: "Ian was really brave but it was pretty bad and there was a lot of blood and he cried some . . . I grayed out from migraine effect and had to lie down . . . so funny" . . . so funny? I didn't think this sounded funny at all, in fact, it sounded horrible-- horrible enough to trigger this absurdity-- but, in retrospect, I guess it could have been worse-- my wife might have blacked out (or, if you are a fan of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, she could have "browned out") and in the end, Ian was quite proud of himself and the gaping hole in his mouth and his extracted tooth . . . in fact, he was so proud of his extracted tooth-- which he placed in a little plastic box for safekeeping--that he didn't want the tooth fairy to take it from him-- but he did want some money-- so I suggested that he draw a picture of the tooth and put that under his pillow and see of the tooth fairy accepted the drawing as fair currency, and wonder of wonders!-- the tooth fairy did accept the drawing, which raises some serious questions about fungibility in the fairy world.

A Sentence in Which I Make Too Many Comparisons

John O'Hara's novel Appointment in Samarra is a classic that is actually fun to read -- it contains the dry humor and tragic inevitability of Madmen . . . Julian English especially reminds me of Pete Campbell; it has the drinking and parties and class commentary of The Great Gatsby, but without Fitzgerald's flowery and pretentious prose; it has drunken and picaresque adventures reminiscent of Jerome "Corky" Corcoran from Joyce Carol Oates' excellent novel What I Lived For . . . and while most of these folks need to follow Robert Littell's advice for young men and learn how to drink, that would remove the plot and conflict from all of these works of fiction . . . and while you can run from your appointment in Samarra, you can't hide -- like the dentist, the Grim Reaper will have his due . . . and like I am due for a cleaning, and that receptionist just keeps calling and calling, so too will Death, and just when you think you have avoided him, he shows up at your door, whether you live in Manhattan or West Egg or Gibbsville.