I Wish (More Than Anything)

There's a beautiful play called "Mother Hicks." You should read it-- or see it. Or both.

In the play, one of the characters says, "You can wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one gets full first."

A co-worker's husband, apparently, advises her to "wish in one hand and shit in the other," to see which one fills up before the other. Fortunately, I don't ever shake her hand.

I'm not big on wishing myself, probably because I've found that it just leaves one hand empty and the other one not fit to present itself in social settings. On my birthday, when I find myself seated behind some magical, sugary confection with its top ablaze in my honor and I close my eyes, truth be told, I typically fake it.

At least my orgasms are real.

Mrs. Apron taught me that, when you find a fallen eyelash on your lover's cheek, that you are supposed to gather it up on your fingertip, present it to your chosen one, ask them to make a wish, and blow the eyelash away. We have been doing this for years, but, usually, when it's time for me to make my wish, nothing comes. I typically close my eyes, furrow my brow, gently if I'm feeling content, forcefully if I'm not, and I'll blow the lash away. More often than not, if a cogent thought pops into my head, I'll think, "Please... please..... please....."

But, most of the time, I don't know what I'm "please"ing for.

When I was a little boy, seated at my birthday cake, I would usually wish for my parents to not die this year. Someone with OCD might say, "Well, I wished for it every year, and it didn't happen, therefore, what I did made that possible." But I haven't wished that for years and it hasn't happened. I'm not quite sure if, at the confections of my youth, I was wishing, or praying. Or both.

It's easy to confuse prayer with wishing, especially when you're not particularly well-versed at doing either. When I used to go to synagogue, one of the things that frustrated me the most about the experience is that I spent so much time phonetically sounding out Hebrew words and trying to keep pace with the rabbi and the cantor and reading some seriously irrelevant shit about Abraham and Sarah and somebody's fucking ram or some old biblical biddy's dried up tits that, when the service was over and I'd be walking out the door, I would frequently find myself thinking, "Wait a minute-- wasn't I supposed to have... prayed... for something in there?" I mean, it's great to go in there saying, "Blessed is the Lord Our God, Ruler of the Universe," forty-seven times, but where was the part where I was supposed to look deep into my own soul and heart to communicate one-on-one with God?

Communicate-- not kiss the guy's holy ass.

I assumed, as a child, that I had somehow missed that part but, as I grew older I realized that this was not, perhaps, what synagogue was about. If I figure out what it is about, I'll tweet you or something.

This is not to say that there aren't things about life that I wish were... I don't know-- different, but I'm not sure that I actively wish for them. I mean, yeah, I wish I wasn't the kind of guy who fancies buffalo chicken and bacon pizza-- but I am the kind of guy who fancies buffalo chicken and bacon pizza. I just... am. And I could stop eating it, because it's not good for me, and, frankly, it's nasty, but it's just delicious. So I'm not sure that I wish that part of me were different.

I'd like it if celebrities were going to insist on running for President, that they were celebrities that I liked and respected, and not people like Donald Trump. Truthfully, I'd vote for Sam Shepard. But he's too smart to run for President, so, there you go.

There is just something about the idea of wishing, of casting the net out there blindly and blithely that doesn't appeal to me. Maybe I'm just too damned rational, or curmudgeonly. Or maybe, like I've been told many times before, I just think too much.

Maybe I need to wish in one hand and think in the other.