Oh, Marvelous Illusion. Oh, Terrible Surprise.

For ardent G&S schdorks who got here by Googling the title of this post (yes, it is a line from the Act I Finale of "The Sorcerer") keep your proverbial Gilbertian dick in your pants. This isn't an Anglophiliac, Victorian operetta appreciation post. This is a post about how my family is falling apart, and how its pieces are descending slowly but methodically to Hell.

Sorry about that.

On Saturday night, while my wife and I were cleaning up after making fresh lemon bread (really, it's more like cake-- I'll give you the recipe, if you want it. It culminates in drizzling lemon juice and sugar all over the top of the loaf, if that's any indicator of its awesomeness) my cellphone rang. It was my father. I was to call him, "you know, Mummy-- later. Whenever. When you are... relaxed."

When I'm relaxed, I thought. What a strange thing to say. I am never relaxed, except post coitally, or post poo, and neither of those situations seemed like an entirely appropriate time to be phoning my father. So I said to my wife, "Let's get whatever bullshit this is over with so we can go watch COPS," and I dialed his number. It was 7:40pm. I let the phone drop on the floor at 8:45.

"Mummy, I just wanted to let you know," he said at the beginning, "that your sister put an offer in on a house across the street from you, and the offer was accepted, and so she is going to live there, with her son and her husband, and her husband's other son. Together. Across the street from you."

What followed was one of the longest silences I've ever endured in my life. A silence fraught with tension, where I could actually feel my blood pressure rising. My back began to sweat. My eyes darted over to my wife, who was busying herself wiping down the gold-flecked Formica countertop. He said nothing, and neither did I-- because that's what a silence is.

(Just ask Pinter.)

Finally, he broke it by saying my name with that "Are you still there/breathing" inquisitiveness. I responded with such a timeworn cliche, such a patently ridiculous, sitcom response-- but it was absolutely the only single thing I could even think of to say, the only thing I could possibly say to that unbelievably painful, awkward, unfortunate, searingly terrible statement of my father's. I said the only words that would trickle down the synapses from my brain along my nerves down to my lips.

"Is this a joke?"

It was not. And while I'm usually pretty good at sniffing out humor, or attempts at levity, or horrendously misguided jokes about severed babies or drunk-driving crashes or old ladies having sex with voles, I have to admit that the possibility that my father was serious about my sister moving quite literally across the street from me and my wife was really a very distant possibility in my mind when compared to the likelihood that this was some sort of inept Israeli attempt at a joke.

But it was no joke.

My sister, who routinely discusses openly her utter contempt for her husband, or talks of divorcing him "as soon as our kid's five-- I'm just using him for childcare," my sister-- who has never lifted a finger in her life to help someone else, my sister-- who uses my father and my mother for childcare, who uses our oldest sister as some kind of mix between a personal assistant and a slave, my sister, who text-messages me complicated coffee orders that I am to order and pay for and bring to her hand when I come visit her, my sister is going to be my neighbor.

"Everybody Loves Raymond" without the laugh-track.

What ensued, after the distinct dearth of humor was realized on the phone, was the most painful hour I have ever spent talking to anybody in my life. My father, who has created an insulated fantasy world for himself, where his sole mission in his life is to save my self-centered, misanthropic sister, and the innocent child she created with this unfortunate lummox, spent an hour listening to nothing that I said.

And I said a lot. And I said it loudly. And passionately.

But it didn't matter.

Today, there's a house inspection. Yesterday, there were papers signed. One step closer. Howdy-doodly, Neighbor.

I am absolutely crushed. It's not that I don't want the absolute best for my nephew. Of course I do-- but that would start with different parents for him, which I cannot arrange. It's just that I don't want the absolute best for my sister. Why? Because she doesn't deserve it. She isn't nice. She isn't a good person. And it kills me to say that, it makes me want to spew hot vomit across the room and throw myself down the stairs for thinking and believing that about my own flesh and blood-- but it's true. Since she had this child that my parents take care of more than she does, they have aged exponentially. My mother is falling apart. My father is driving himself insane trying to dump water out of the boat that contains his daughter's marriage-- the boat that bears a gaping hole. Everyone is scrambling to save it-- everybody but my sister and her husband.

They kind of just don't seem to give a damn.

And, on a hot, selfish, dastardly level: I'm disgusted at the mere thought that they get to have a child-- a miracle-- that they don't appreciate, while we remain childless-- and on top of that, they're going to get a house in the suburbs that they won't appreciate either, and that poor man is marked for divorce in T-minus a couple years, and he doesn't even know it. And now I get a front-row seat to our family's own personal, private Hindenburg. The whole thing is just one marvelous illusion and, for me, a very terrible surprise.

Though I guess it shouldn't be. It's just what it always was with her-- the world kowtowing to her every whim and order-- only the stakes are so much higher now.

Ready... Cassette... Go!

According to the New York Times, which is never wrong except when its reporters just kind of make crazy shit up, no 2011 model-year vehicle is offers a cassette option. Humorously enough, the absolute last vehicle to ever offer a tape deck was the 2010 Lexus SC-430, a two-door convertible that retailed new for $68,405. I don't know how your brain operates, but mine finds it extremely difficult to fathom an image of a Lexus SC-430 buyer sitting in the dealership ticking over the options (18-inch Machined Tourmaline Wheel/Tire upgrade, for example) with the tip of his gold-plated Parker pen and saying,

"Oh, yeah, and, by the way-- throw in that tape-deck, too. I've got some great Weird Al tapes left over in the glovebox of my mistresses' Audi R8."

Be that as it may, reading this article made me rather nostalgic for my first car which, of course, had a tape-deck, and I was actually fortunate that it did. My 1990 Ford Crown Victoria was a retired police car. As such, many police cars are manufactured with a radio-delete option which, as you might suspect, deletes the radio, leaving a very unfortunate space where the car's radio would have been. The reason being is that police commanders could then be sure that their officers weren't cruising the streets of America listening to Stevie Wonder or, maybe worse, Stevie Nicks when they should be listening to, you know, their police radio. Plus, the temptation to play Ray Charles's "Busted" whilst driving criminals to the local lockup would just be too tempting for some badge-jockeys.

Fortunately for me, my car was ordered from the factory for use by a commander, and so it was crammed with options-- plush velour seats all around, instead of the standard cloth in front for cops, vinyl in back for shitheads motif, power windows, locks, mirrors, and, yes, a radio AND a tape-deck.

It was a beautiful four months. Until the engine exploded.

Anyway, to celebrate my new car's arrival, I did what most 16-year-olds did in my neighborhood in 1996 when they got their first cars. I went to an awesometots music store (remember those?) called-- are you ready?-- Plastic Fantastic. It was dark. There was always Led Zeppelin music playing, or so it seemed. The clerks behind the counter always looked like Garth, or so it seemed. The floors were littered with huge boxes of records. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with tapes. There was a mysterious second floor that I didn't ever venture towards. This was a store, I was stone-cold convinced, in which high school dropouts got laid.

What did I find in this vast musical maze that would be my inaugural purchase of music to grace the inside of my ex-police car? What tunes did I score? What musical mayhem would ensue in my enclosed little world of velour, metal, rubber and glass?

The soundtrack to the original cast recording of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."

I know. I am gay. My wife knows, too. She doesn't seem to mind.

You never know in life how happy you were at any given point until it's years later, I suppose. Those first few months, in my first car, with my first audio cassette tape (that I still have) were some of the happiest of my life. Barreling down the roads of my youth, commanding this absurdly gargantuan ton of steel, using its hood ornament to keep it straight on the road, being absolutely enveloped by the astounding voice of Laurie Beechman, well, it's hard think it's going to get that much better than that.

Look at me-- 30 years old and getting all schmoopie over the end of the tape-deck. God. What a wussy old pussy.

Triggers, Coping Skills, and Registraion, Please

I talk a real good game.

Really, I do.

That's why you're still here, you know. You haven't figured out what an immense fraud I am, in spite of the fact that I've provided you with untold amounts of factual evidence to support that contention. In spite of the fact that I just told you I'm an immense fraud. You haven't quite gotten the message yet, because you like my shenanigans. You freak.

Or, maybe you already know I'm an immense fraud, and you just don't care. I don't know which makes you a bigger freak. Either way: you're a fraud and I'm a freak. No, no-- wait. Strike that. Reverse it.

Or not.

Day in and day out, I sit across the table from people whose arms look like a freshly filleted hibachi steak, people who are labile or homicidal or disogranized or disheveled or depressed, or detoxing-- and I talk to these people about things like triggers. What is it that sets you off? What makes you descend into either a passing or a momentous sadness?

Is it a song on the radio? Is it loud noises? Is it physical or environmental? Is it pay-day, or Christmas, or a certain person? A certain street-corner? Is it getting the flu? Is it me, or is it you?

I talk to them about how anything can be a trigger, anything for anyone. I talk about the big things, like September 11th, and the little things, like February 14th, and everything in between. I talk about how triggers are going to happen because life happens around us-- we cannot control that. All we can control are our reactions to these triggers.

And, while on the subject of those reactions, I talk to these people, and believe me, they talk back, about coping skills. What do we have in our personal arsenal (actually, perhaps "toolbox" is a better word to use around people with weapons charges and some with a penchant for a little good ol' fashioned pyromania) to assist us in dealing with situations where we are triggered? Can we go to a "safe place," either a literal one or a figurative one, in our mind? Can we summon up a soothing melody, or journal, or call a supportive friend or loved one? Can we take a walk? Can we immerse ourselves in a good book? Can we use a stress ball?

Can we talk to someone?

For so many of the patients with whom I work, the answer is, sadly, "no." Either family have disowned them or distanced themselves, friends are users and shitheads, therapists are unavailable or non-existent-- many of these people are alone in their heads. And, for some of these folks, that can be as scary as being a four-year-old at bed-time who's petrified of the dark.

For all of my good-talker, talks-a-good-game talk about triggers and coping skills and the like; I lost it yesterday. I got triggered. Coping skills where like, wha wha what? And I just fell apart.

Nobody died. Nobody got sick. There was no jarring phone call at 3:00am to let you know that a loved one's pelvis had exploded or a friend had wrapped his Durango around a 7-Eleven. I just... couldn't find my registration card for my car.

Yeah. And I wasn't even stopped by the police. I needed it so Soly, my cantankerous, 67-year-old Israeli mechanic, could inspect my car.

I had brought him my insurance card, and the title to my car, which I own outright. I thought that would be enough. He was talking on the phone when I walked into his garage-- which, somehow, you're allowed to do. Take that, OSHA. As soon as he saw the title in my hand, he held out his hand to me, in the "No," format, and said to the person on the other end of the phone,

"Look, if the car has a problem here, it will have a bigger problem out on I-95, so, either you want my help, or you don't. So, think about that, and let me know. Shabbat Shalom." And he hung up. It was my turn.

"What the fuck is that?" he said to me, staring at me icily, as if I had just walked into his garage with my dick hanging out of my fly, still slimey after impregnating his daughter.

"What?" I asked innocently.

"I don't want that. I don't want the title. I need the registration card. With the barcode."

I stared at him. And then he started yelling at me.

I'm used to Israelis yelling at me. It's happened all throughout my life, at some of its finer and some of its lower points. My father has let me have it with his explosive, broken-English tirades more times than I can count. I've been getting my car fixed at Soly's since I was sixteen, and I know that walking into his garage is about as emotionally safe as walking into a snake-pit. There is always a chance that you're going to get venomized by an Israeli slitherer.

I had been operating under the impression that, when you owned your car outright, that your title was your proof of ownership, that you no longer got that registration card with the barcode. It's not true. I got the car in April of last year, and so I just didn't remember getting the registration card. I searched with maddening frustration through my wallet, and I threw some things around haphazardly in my glovebox. Nothing.

Defeated, my wife drove me home. Soly would fix my hazard light switch on Saturday, I told myself, and the inspection and emission test would just have to wait until I ordered another fucking registration card from the state.

When we got home, I searched everywhere I could think of for that fucking card. In the pile of clutter and disorder of old cellphone holsters and bumper-stickers and gloves and cards and watches (pocket and wrist) on top of my dresser. I looked in a wallet I had abandoned earlier in the year. Just expired gasoline credit cards.

"I'm going back to Soly's," I said to Mrs. Apron, "I just have to search through my glovebox again."

"You do whatever you need to do," my wife said, clicking away at the computer.

I can't even tell you what was in my glovebox. No, I can. Because it hurts, so, therefore, I must do it.

About 8 fliers from the production of "Iolanthe" that I was in in... ready? November.

Approximately 25 raffle tickets from a 50/50 from work for the patient fund that was held in, ready? October. That I lost.

6 CDs without cases.

4 CD cases.

5 audio tapes, including Beethoven, Leon Redbone, and lots of mixes I made for my wife when we were courting long distance.

Vehicle service receipts.

The original window sticker for my car (it was expensive in 2002!)

A pair of brown, tortoise shell glasses in a ziploc bag (to keep them fresh?)

A ribbon that my wife uses to tie her hair back because her hair blows around in my car.

Oh, and my registration card.

I marched into Soly's garage with it clutched in my hand and I slammed it down on his scheduling book. He looked at me.

"It was in my glovebox the whole time, and I am a fucking disgusting mess," I said, by way of further explanation, and I turned around and walked out. On my way out, I turned to the new black guy Soly brought on recently to help out.

"I hope he doesn't yell at you like he does to me." The black guy smiled.

"I yell at everybody!" Soly yelled after me as the door swung shut behind me.

When I got home, I sat on the floor of our office, and I cried.

"I'm disorganized," I told my wife, "and that's something I usually ride you for."

She held me tight.

"Oh, buddy-- do you have any idea how much I love you? You give me things I never even knew I needed. Someone to talk to. Someone who listens to me. Someone to hold my hand when things are scary. You save my life every day."

Someone to talk to. When triggered. To cope.

"You're doing the scariest thing of all with me," I said to her, as the tears welled up in my eyes again. "Life."

And she hugged me again.

Well, Take Hosni Out of Power and Scrub Me In the Shower; It's... DEAR APRON!

Ever eat five beef Taquitos for dinner and, not twenty minutes later, let out farts that smell like sour dead elderly ladies?

Me neither.

DEAR APRON:

My husband has been talking about many married couples who take showers together. In fact, he claims that most couples do. Our relationship in the bedroom has been great so far, and I'd like to keep it there. I don't want a twosome in the bathroom. Am I wrong to enjoy my privacy in the shower? -- SQUEAKY CLEAN IN NORTH CAROLINA

DEAR SQUEAKY CLEAN:

I don't think the question is "Am I wrong to enjoy my privacy in the shower?" (Of course you're wrong, dumbdick-- everybody who writes to me is.) I think the real question is; how the hell does your husband know what "most couples do" in the shower?

I'm worried about that fucking guy. And, if I were married and lived in North Carolina, I'd make sure the shade in front of my bathroom window is drawn.

Tight.

DEAR APRON:

My younger sister, "Janet," and I are very close. We live near each other and have many of the same friends. My problem is, Janet likes to share stories about our childhood, and our childhood was horrible. We were poor and homeless more than once. Both our parents were on drugs, and our father was abusive to our mother.

I have tried telling my sister that when she shares these stories, I not only find it humiliating, but also find myself reliving the awful experiences. Her response is to remind me that we're not those kids anymore. She doesn't think it's anything to be ashamed of. Is she wrong to tell these horror stories that involve both of us, or do I need to stop trying to forget? -- NOT LOOKING IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR

DEAR FORMER CRACK-BABY:

Dude-- you should thank your lucky blow that Janet is just sharing stories about your charming and festive childhood to your friends. If I were Janet, (and, aside from the high probability that both of you were born with AIDS I'm kind of bummed I'm not) I wouldn't just be telling our friends war stories from the back of Mom and Dad's rusted out Chevette with bud between the seat cushions, I'd write a fucking crazy-ass book about all that shit and send it to Augusten Burrough's agent.

And I'd dedicate it to you, just to hot-piss you off.

DEAR APRON:

When my daughter was 14 months old, she had a serious accident while under my parents' supervision. They were not negligent. What happened could have occurred if I had been there. I rushed to the hospital, where we stayed for five days and, thankfully, my daughter recovered.

I was shocked and hurt that my mother never once apologized. When I brought it up, she said it's obvious she feels terribly guilty, that I know how devoted she is to my daughter and, therefore, an apology is ridiculous.

I know it wasn't her "fault," but I still feel the right thing to do in that situation would have been for her to say, "I'm sorry this happened. I wish I had been more observant." Is this superfluous? Are my feelings reasonable? -- EXPATRIATE NEW YORKER IN SAXONY, GERMANY

DEAR EXPATRIATE NEW YORKER IN SAXONY, GERMANY:

You know, I am SO GLAD that you mentioned, through your clever and not-at-all clunky and unwieldy pseudonym that you are an EXPATRIATE NEW YORKER IN SAXONY, GERMANY.

Why?

Because it's just so darn PERTINENT!

I can totally see how your being an EXPATRIATE NEW YORKER IN SAXONY, GERMANY has everything to do with your parents inserting your daughter head-first into a makeshift canon and then firing her directly into the mid-century modern glass table in the living room and then dousing her with feline urine and hairspray and lighting her on fire.

Your letter reminded me of a woman who wrote to "Savage Love" a couple of weeks ago, complaining that her boyfriend only wants to do her doggie style and does not partake in any form of foreplay to moisten the point-of-entry or generally make her feel like something other than, well, you know-- a dog. This woman also mentioned that her boyfriend has one hand missing, I guess, in some bizarre belief that Dan Savage would somehow ascertain that Stan Stump was a rough-entry kinda guy because of some psychologically unresolved trauma surrounding the loss of one of his hands.

No such luck. He saw right through that shit.

DEAR APRON:

One of my sisters-in-law has a recipe for pancakes and puts in a secret ingredient. She got the recipe from a relative who asked that the mystery never be revealed.

Well, the relative died recently, and I'd like to know what the ingredient is because those pancakes are out of this world! Would my sister-in-law be betraying his request by sharing the secret? She says she made a promise and is going to keep it. What do you think? -- CRAVING THE CAKES IN FLORIDA

DEAR CRAVING THE CAKES:

The secret ingredient, obviously, was hemlock.

Bon appetit!

On Not Being Rewarded

My wife's no sitcom character, but she does have theme music, a character wardrobe, and catchphrases.

My wife's theme music is the soundtrack to "Amelie." It's pixie-like, precious, precocious, and it's the soundtrack to the first film she ever suggested I watch. And, come to think of it, it may very well have been the only film she ever suggested I watch. My sweet wife tromps through life with a charming air about her, an Audrey Tautou-esque air about her. Bright, lovely, at times blithely unaware of her surroundings-- you almost expect a garden gnome to send her a postcard from Denmark.

Her wardrobe is from Anthropologie. Color-dappled skirts, bright red overcoats with huge buttons, embellished tops in kind hues-- she is always dressed for delightful adventure, wherever she goes, and I am always interested in seeing what she chose to wear on a given morning-- because, damnit, it's fun.

And she has her catchphrases. Some of them are old standbys, but one has developed recently, and I think it's a funny one, because, on its face-- it's quite absurd. Whenever my dear Mrs. Apron gets fucked over by Life, as all of us do, she likes to say, "I feel like I'm not being rewarded right now."

This is going to sound awfully condescending, and I apologize, to you and to my wife, in advance, but I find this catchphrase of my wife's terribly funny, as I mentioned earlier, and charming at the same time. The catchphrase is used whenever my wife does what she perceives to be "the right thing" and then ends up getting the proverbial pie in the face. Perhaps being proactive and taking the dogs out for a walk and then having Molly poop on the floor not five minutes after retuning from the walk. Maybe taking a shortcut only to have the misfortune of driving behind a Toyota Camry with a leather-faced codge-ass behind, his wool Fedora barely poking up from view behind the headrest.

Of course you're not being rewarded, silly. Nobody gets rewarded. Only pathetic, untalented, tow-headed children on local township soccer teams get trophies. The rest of us get a punch in the schnuts.

On Monday, I had off from work. I awoke semi-erect and with an intense craving for a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich from a local bagelry establishment. And coffee that I didn't have to make myself. So I dressed, walked the dogs quickly, got in my car, and drove off.

It was a little after 9:00am by the time I hit the road-- prime time for all the elementary school buses to fuck up everybody's commute/bagel sandwich run. It took me twenty minutes to get to the the bagel place, (should have taken ten) but I didn't care, because I had a coupon!!!!

AND I REMEMBERED IT!!!!!!!!

I even remembered my super-cool, keeps-hot-beverages-hot-for-nine-hours coffee mug!

What I forgot, I realized as I pulled into the parking space at the bagel store, was my wallet.

See, this is what happens when you change trousers. We should just wear the same pair all week, then this wouldn't happen. It's not like we, most of us, dookie ourselves. How are our trousers somehow unacceptably dirty after one day? Come on. Give me a break.

I had remembered, during my quick dressing session, to remove my belt and put it on the new pair of trousers, put my cellphone and clip on the new pair, too. But the wallet, well, that didn't make it in.

I wanted to give up. But I couldn't. So I drove all the way home, stormed upstairs, got the wallet, and drove back to the fucking store.

I placed my order and presented my coupon.

"Oh," the topographically pimpled clerk behind the counter frowned as he pointed to my coffee travel mug, "if you're using that, I can't accept the coupon."

I feel like I'm not being rewarded right now, Tom, I wanted to say to him. Instead, I just looked at him. And I blinked three times.

"You know what-- forget it. That's stupid. Nevermind," he said. I wanted to kiss the angry, red bumps on his cheeks. Reason had prevailed. Logic had won the day at this crummy little establishment, at which, I might add, I was the only patron.

I could have gone on a torrential rant about how I'm not being rewarded for doing the environmentally friendly thing, by bringing my own mug and not using another insidious paper cup.

I could have done it.

But my wife would be the first one to tell you that I hate the environment. It's one of her catchphrases.

Almost Sane

I like to joke that, when I’m bored, I either masturbate or try to get something published.

“The two, of course,” I said to my wife a few nights ago, “are very similar pursuits.”

Clearly, I don’t just masturbate or try to get something published when I’m bored. I also do dishes and blog. Aren’t you bummed you can’t take this winner home?

A few days ago, I sat down at the computer and (after I’d masturbated, of course) sifted through the vast collection of my unpublished work, this time, I reviewed my work for the stage, and I surveyed it, for the most part, disapprovingly. A slap-dash collection of obscene, off-my-nut, angst-ridden one-acts filled with characters who are thinly-and-not-so-even-thinly representations of yours truly, engaging in a variety of farcical acts, meant to send the audience into spasms of laughter. Meant to mask spasms of pain.

Clearly, nobody needs that.

Then, one peculiar play caught my eye again. A play I started in (EEP!) 2006, the year I (SNART!) got married!!!! A play that I have picked up at least once every year since then to do major facelifts on. I play I have sent to playwriting festivals and directors and playhouses, a play that has gotten little but lukewarm praise and a kind rebuff (“not right for us at this time”) such business. What’s it about? The international investigation into a major airline crash.

What. Is wrong. With me?

? ? ?

Seriously, I need a very ambitious therapist and super-strength, gold-plated insurance card.

So, because I’ve been obsessing over this thing (when I get tired of masturbating and the dishes are all done and I’ve blogged for tomorrow) I dusted this tired old motherfucker off and re-read the most recent draft.

I liked it.

And maybe that’s the first sign of trouble.

It’s funny. At my job, I work with delusional people every hour of every day. One of them thinks I am personally responsible for bringing the slaves back from Africa (“WHY DO YOU PUT CHAINS AROUND THEIR NECKS AND BRING THEM BACK HERE TO DO THE WHITE MAN’S WORK?!”), another one thinks there is a baby trying to slice open her belly so it can get out and kill cops. Another patient is convinced that we put poison in the water cooler and we’re trying to kill everyone in the hospital. A surprising number of them believe there are microchips or radios implanted in their bodies. Delusions like that are pretty easy to identify (though I really did bring back slaves from Africa—but it was only a couple, and my hedges really do need frequent attention) and we laugh about it in the chart room.

“Don’t feel bad, dude,” one of the nurses said to me yesterday about a particularly delusional patient who has negatively fixated on me of late, “she thinks I’m bombing the Vietnamese and so she refuses to take the yellow pill from me.”

But, as I sat there, re-reading my airplane accident investigation play for the manyth time, I suddenly got the shivers a little bit. Am I delusional? Continuing to work on this absurd little probable non-drama, sending it to legitimate, though small and indie-ish theatres in the hopes that they will take kindly to an ambitious, fledgling Philadelphia-area playwright?

Ambitious. Or delusional?

And then it hit me: Oh. Right. It’s all about the perceptions of others.

If some Artistic Director opening up my email with that query letter and that attachment and reads it saying, “Man, this guy’s nucking futs,” well, then, I guess, to him, I am. If another one reads it and says, “Hmpf, this thing isn’t half bad,” then, to her, I’m not. As far as my own self-perception: I’m not sure. I suppose we’re all a little ambitious and we’re all a little delusional, or teetering on the edge, until we’re given a pink slip or an award or a kiss on the forehead or a kick in the balls.

That’s what the rest of the world is for: to let us know where we stand.

Touch My Sarcophagus

You know how, sometimes in life, we want irrational things, for no other reason than the inescapable fact that… we want them?

We may very well not understand why we want them, but that motivator, that itch, well, the need to understand what it is or where it came, or how to scratch it, from really quite pales in comparison to the desire—however inane or unfortunate it might be.

If you’ve ever driven past a Honda dealership on your way to purchase an American car, then you know what I’m talking about.

I’m filled to the overgrown eyebrows with unexplainable, frivolous desires. Right now, I’m resisting the urge to go downstairs and wash dishes instead of penning this blog post. Do the dishes absolutely need to be washed right at this moment? No. But that’s why it is an irrational urge. Of course, this blog post doesn’t need to be written right now, either, so there we are.

My latest, most overwhelming desire, my most recent, illogical, frankly disturbing desire, though, has nothing to do with dirty dishes, or blogging, or cars or women. Writhing on goose-down comforters. Touching each other’s butts. Licking… stuff.

No, my latest dubious desire has to do with my readership. A specific subsection of my readership, actually. And, don’t worry; it’s probably not you that I’m talking about. Or, to, as it were.

I’m talking to my Egyptian readership, or, specifically, my lack thereof.

See, according to Blog Tracker stats, which I check, um, (every so) often, here’s how it breaks down, M.C. Hammers:

United States rings in with 60.89% of My Masonic Apron visits. I’m sure most of those are me.
The U.K., with my frequent posts about Gilbert & Sullivan and Monty Python no doubt pushing Englishers up to Second place with 16.63% of visits for the year.
Next, we’ve got my hot female Canadian readers picking up steam on the Brits with 12.40%.
Behind them are readers from a mysterious place known as “Unknown,” which proves all along that I have a steady, if small, following of alien readers.
There’s Australia, Germany, Ireland (that’s you, Harley!), Philippines, India, and Indonesia, no doubt thankful for all those tourism Rupiah my wife and I sank in Bali back in ’06.

Obvs, you will notice that there are no Egyptian readers. Now, being a closeted megalomaniac, I was sitting here in the dark thinking to myself, “Gee, wouldn’t it be awesome if a couple Egyptians, while their country is undergoing some of the worst strife, unrest, and rapid change in hundreds of years, wouldn’t it be just the height of cool if a few Egyptians took time out of all of this momentousness to check out my blog?

I mean, that way, I’d almost be a part of what’s going on over there. I mean, Egyptians would be checking ME OUT! And I like to be checked out. Maybe they’d even be hot Egyptian chicks taking time out of bed writhing and butt touching to slide a goop-covered finger on their laptop keyboards to read my blog.

God, sometimes I even disgust myself. You must be sick to your fucking stomach.

So, I kind of decided to make it my mission to get myself read my some Egyptians today. How would I go about this, though, I wondered. And then I thought about Andy Breckman’s pathetic antifolk folksong, “A Desperate Attempt to Make the Critic’s List of the Ten Best Records They’d Bring to a Desert Island.” All it is are a couple of chords (like all his songs!) and advice about how to make survival gear out of nature’s bounty.

And I thought, well, shit—all I have to do to get read by Egyptians is throw in a bunch of culturally relevant Egyptian terms or words or phrases and, when Egyptians Google shit that’s important to them, I’ll be all up ons their Googs!

Brilliant, right? I did go to college and, *ahem* graduate school.

Okay. Ready? Here we goskee!

So, anyway, this one time, I was all like eating falafel and I ran into my old friend Hosni Mubarak. He and I went and skinny dipping in the Nile and we washed each other with brushed Egyptian cotton towels and then Egyptian girls were writhing around on this bed touching each other’s butts but that’s not important right now because Tutankhamen that boy prince or whatever went all mummy cray-cray on us and he kicked me in the face and Hosni was like, “Yo—you mess with the fire, you get the Hose!” and he pulled the mummy’s head off. And then a war between some of the Egyptian gods broke out. I mean, like, it was Throw-Down Time between Sekhemt, who has the head of a lion or something. And he threw his lion head at Anubis, the God of Embalming. I mean, can you believe there’s a God of Embalming anyway? So, Anubis was arm-wrastling with Bastet, the God of Cats, but Bastet started clawing Anubis and was hissing at him and coughing up furballs at him and it was nasty and then those girls showed up again, all rollin’ around and shit, touchin’ on each other or whatever. And Anubis was like, “Chicks, if you don’t get out of here, I’m gonna spray all my hot embalming fluid in yo faces!” And, at that very instant, the fucking Pyramids exploded and the Sphinx flew away on a goddamn broomstick, dropping huge sand-turds out its ass all over the friggin’ place. By this point, all I could do was consume some Eish Masri, which is a delectable form of glutenous pita bread and, on it, I placed a little Koshari, which is rice-stuffed pigeon. And, if you’re done throwing up after reading that, you could always wash down the extraneous vom with a little bit of qamar ad-din, which I can’t drink because I’m allergic to apricots. But you could drink it and tell me all about how nummy wummy it is. Whilst engaged in a polite discussion of Hellenism, we could leaf through the pages of any decent history of this fine land and learn about some of Egypt’s six thousand years of recorded history. We could draw hieroglyphics on each other’s butts and have them touched by the rolling around hot girls while we say the word, “Coptic,” which is my third favorite word—after “Kom Ombo” and “Amenemhat,” of course. Did you know there are actually some ignoramuses who think that Ptolemy was Greek? Well, he wasn’t. He was Egyptian. And if you’d been to college and, *ahem* graduate school, you’d probably have known that and wouldn’t have lost your virginity at 28! Jesus! It sounds to me like what you need is a little dose of football, Egypt style—featuring the world-renowned soccer clubs El Ahly and El Zamalek. GOOOOAAAAL! After a good game, what’s say we settle back and listen to some decent tunes on either or both of Egypt’s most notable indigenous instruments, the Ney and the Oud. Ah, play me a Mahammed Abdel Wahab song and we’ll just call it a day, gently falling asleep to the melodic tones as we drift lazily to sleep thinking of what’s on top of those goose-down comforters. That’s right: Imhotep, famed engineer, architect and physician. Rollin’ around on there. Um… touchin’ his… butt.

I’ll, uh… let you know how many Egyptians…. check in…. if, you know... they don't shut down the, um, the internet there again.

Damnit.