My Towel Smells Like Doritos (and Other Domestic Profundities)

I was recently taken to task (in a nice way, of course) for not revealing enough about my so-called "personal life" on this blog.

This comment struck me as strange, unexpected, paradoxical, and boasting other emetic properties.

I was, I don't mind admitting, confused.

See, I thought that I oftentimes revealed far too much on this blog. Sure, I keep my name hidden (from all except a super-lucky few!) and my physical identity is represented by an acerbic little drawing penned by (who else but) W. S. Gilbert maybe 140 years or so ago, but, aside from that, I think, in 453 posts that you've learned an appreciable amount about my personal life.

Whatever that is.

I'm not quite sure how much more there is left to tell, actually. Our generalized age group is a TMI culture. Hell, we invented the term, for fuck's sake, and Lilu gave it a day of the week-- God bless her. We love talking about blowjobs and urine on the ceiling and the "weirdest place we've done it" and how we used to practice kissing with the basement radiator.

Um....

I'm not quite sure how this obsessively revelatory culture got its start-- but, if anything, it's certainly cured us of any latent repressive tendencies, and it's totally bumfucked the tight-lipped prudes in our midst.

You know who you are, Prudie McTudie.

Of course, I don't know that current-generation Americans can ever really claim to be very repressed, as a whole. Maybe Americans were in the fifties. There was something about skinny ties, crew-cuts, and Mamie Eisenhower that probably didn't exactly encourage people to dance about en masse, revealing their sexcapades on the town square in a veritable snowshower of crusty tissues and Modess pads.

See what I mean? We're disgusting and should all be shot. I blame Sarah Silverman and her fundelicious breasts.

She (and they) was/were almost reason enough to watch "The Marriage Ref" on Thursday night.

Almost.

The thing about me is that, while there are certain tiddiebitties about my life that may seem passingly interesting or possibly relevant to people in Denton, Texas (really?), I tend more often than not to find the petty details of my own personal life to be rather, well, petty. As in, not even barely worth my own time, and decidedly not worth yours.

More than that, I find the goingsons in the outside world (current and historical) to be far more engaging, juicy, and bite-into-able. I mean, that oil spill? Fanfuckingtastic. My towel smelling like Doritos? Probably less-so.

During my senior year of college, I took an independent study in playwriting with the chair of the theatre department. This is only something you can do at a small liberal arts college where they treat you like you're something special and worthy of bronzing. I met with him in his office for an hour-and-a-half, once a week, for ten weeks. I had a new 10-minute play ready for him each week. Never in my life have I ever been so productive.

Well, except for this blog, if you count that.

Far more often than we'd talk about playwriting, we would talk about the Middle East, my family, his family, gossip about fellow students-- who was fucking whom, who was gay, who had absolutely no talent, etc, etc. It's hard to believe that I actually got a grade and credit for this. An "A," and three credits, in case you were wondering.

Anyway, I wrote plays about a variety of subjects, all of them having to do with events happening in the outside world.

"Let me tell you something," my professor said to me, "nobody gives a shit what you think about all this stuff-- except maybe me and your mother. What I love hearing about is your family-- your personal life-- the fucked up way you think and talk about things. Why don't you write a play about that?"

I looked at him like he was a fucking idiot.

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," I said, "and I took Conflict Resolutions & Peace Studies last semester-- and I heard a lot of stupid goddamn things in there. Who the hell wants to hear about me and my family?"

He looked at me and smiled.

"Everyone."

To prove him wrong, I wrote a trilogy of short plays about my family. Three weeks later, on a Friday afternoon, I went into his office, threw them on his desk and said, "Enjoy. Hopefully you'll resist the urge to papercut your eyes out with them."

He emailed me back on Sunday night.

"beatiful."

He's dyslexic, so you can't really say anything about his spelling but, as always, the sentiment was there. A big cyber-bearhug from one of the loopiest, emotionally-stunted, socially-bizarre men I've ever known.

After graduation, I sent the plays to a bunch of small theatres. Nobody put them on, and practically none of my stage-writing has seen the light of day. But I don't blame my theatre professor, or my family, or myself, really. Well, I blame myself a little. If it was a little funnier, a little edgier, a little more pathos, if I wrote a slightly grippier pitch-letter. If I had the address on the envelope printed and not hand-written.

If.

Life's funny, you know? I don't know what's personal anymore and what isn't. I think a lot of us are that way these days. Our blogs are diaries with the lock busted wide open. We've got webcams on us 24 hours a day, we're G-chatting and Facebooking and cyberfucking our lives away. For all to see.

Hello, you beautiful, crazy fucking world. I'm going to wash my towel today.