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.

Beeeeeeee-day

It's almost my birthday.

May 12th. Buy me things.

I'll be 29 years old. I wonder if 20 Something Bloggers will take back my membership card a year from Tuesday. I won't give it up without a fight.

I don't know quite how I feel about my birthday these days. It's funny. See, on the one hand, I'm an attention whore. I am coming to terms with this. I mean, if you examine the things I like to do in my life (principally-- act and blog) my attention whoredom is pretty obvious. I'm only now just coming to terms with it, and I thank you for your assistance-- although that seems kind of ass-backwards, but that's okay. I don't thank you guys nearly enough.

So, being a self-proclaimed attention-whore, you'd think that I would eat my birthday up with a red plastic spoon and wash it down with some sugary cake. But the attention-whore in me is in competition with the influence of 28 years of my father poo-poohing his own birthday.

Dad: "Why do I give a fuck about my birthday?"

Me: "Um, because it's nice?"

Dad: "Nice? Please. Fuck that!"

When my father was growing up in Israel, they didn't used to have birthdays. They imported them from America back in the mid-seventies, after he'd come and gone. He doesn't understand his birthday-- the point, the purpose. He doesn't like being fawned over and, if we ever bought him a tie, he'd strangle us with it. A "World's Best Dad" coffee mug? He'd break it over our heads. He thinks all that shit is gay, and it is. The funny thing is, he understands the concept of the birthday perfectly well when it's my birthday, or my mother's birthday, or my sisters'. He just doesn't get his. And it's not just him, either. His sister doesn't even know her's, so they picked a day in early April-- you know, for the hell of it.

Dad: "I don't want a fuckin' birthday. Do you tell me that you love me every time we talk?"

Me: "Um, yes."

Dad: "Good. Then every day is my fuckin' birthday."

So there are these two parts of me working against each other. Part of me wants loving cards and pressies and, yes, attention-- and part of me kind of is sort of non-committally rather ambivalent. Well, it wants to be.

29 is going to be an interesting year. It's the first year where I'm starting to really notice changes in my body. As I look in the mirror, a cluster of ten or so white hairs is clearly visible near the front of my hairline. Mrs. Apron used to pull them for me, four or five years ago, in those heady days of youth when there were only two or three-- when we thought we could beat them. I've since asked her to stop. No matter how early you wake up, you can't beat the clock.

I was standing in the airplane-sized bathroom on our first floor a couple days ago and, in the tragic lighting situation I noticed horizontal lines going across my forehead. What does Joan Rivers call those things? Wrinkles? Yeah. I guess they're wrinkles.

I'm very fortunate, I realize, to have gone through almost the entirety of my twenties without my physical appearance changing very much. I was 134 pounds and 6'0" when I graduated high school, and I'm 136 pounds and 6'0" now. Thick head of brown hair then, thick head of (98%) brown hair now. Skin basically smooth. Penis goes up and down as specified in manual. Time has not ravaged me yet, but I do feel like it's picking my pocket.

Since it's my birthday soon, that means I get wishes, right? I guess my father gets wishes every day of his life. I hope he uses those abundant opportunities wisely. I know the big wish, the sacred wish, the one that just absolutely has to come true has to be uttered in silence before the blazing birthday cake, or else it won't come true. Don't worry, I know the rules.

Here, though, are my other birthday wishes. Are you listening, Santa Claus & Jesus?

* I want my athlete's foot and toenail fungus both to go away this year. I've tried Lamisil and baby powder and tough-actin' Tinactin and prayer and seances and nothing seems to work, so I think I'm going to try birthday wishing it away. I'll keep you updated.

* I want to go hot, one last time.

* I want to kick this bitch, right in the pussy.

* I want to still be writing this blog a year from now.

* I want to gain some weight. This is a tricky one, see, because Mohandas & Pete, the Birthday Gods, to go overboard with this particular request. So, I'll be specific: seven pounds or fewer please, thanks.

* I want reality television to be uninvented.

* I want Barack Obama to ditch the limo and start riding around in a car that is more befitting the first African-American president.

* I want to learn at least ten chords for the banjo, and I want to learn how to pick.

* I want happiness, health, safety, love and laughter for Mrs. Apron.

* I want more white hairs. Bring 'em on, motherfuckers.

Bring it.