Writing . Essays
The New York Times
"Celebrity Crazy"
I have this problem with anger. I don't get into fights or anything - it's all painfully self-directed - but my incessant stream of furious unconsciousness was beginning to get me down. I decided to find a shrink, and was lucky enough to find one I liked.
"I'm not doing the couch thing," I said.
"You don't have to do the couch thing," he said.
"Good. Because I'm not."
"That's fine."
"Should I do the couch thing?"
It was all going well until he began mentioning a few celebrity clients of his - not by name, of course, and only by way of clinical example: the train wreck of a rock star as an example of insecurity, the bashful Best Actress as an example of low self-esteem.
Cool, I thought. I'm as crazy as a rock star.
This wasn't just some vulgar depression. Mine weren't Joe Average issues. I was Celebrity Crazy. I was Oscar Insane. I was Hollywood Unhinged. I was dysfunctional enough to be brilliant. I was manic enough to be gifted. I was damaged enough to be profound. I was feeling better already.
It didn't last.
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"Love Child"
War makes us weak! Wage peace! War sucks!
And that was just his rear bumper. Green Subaru was doing twelve in a forty; I had been stuck behind him for fifteen miles and was now, thank you very much, officially late for work.
I hate war! Coexist! Violence is not the answer!
I wanted to kill him.
"Come on," I urged.
I live in Woodstock, New York, a town famous for the peace, love and happiness preached here in the 60's. Of late, though, the VW's have been replaced with BMW's, the pot has been replaced with Pinot, and the free-thinking has been replaced with bumper stickers expressing opinions with which everyone in town already agrees: war bad, peace good. Personally, in matters martial, I am, as I am with the Lord and diet, decidedly undecided - some days against the war, some days for it, some days believing in God, some days doubting, some days counting carbs, some days super-sizing the fries and chocolate shake. In matters of transportation, however, I am a lifelong, non-wavering, dyed-in-the-wool Move-Your-Ass-Ocrat.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered.
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"Pore Me"
The main thing is not to rush. If my pace accelerates past "Leisurely Stroll," I'm done for. So I give myself time. I allow 30 minutes for a 10-minute walk. I head out at 5 o'clock for a 7 o'clock meeting 10 blocks away. Men hurry past. Women tut as they shoulder by. "It's called a sidewalk," mutters an old lady with a cane.
"Easy," I tell myself, "It's not a race." I meander. I saunter. I mosey. And just when the day is ending and I think I've made it -- one day without being covered in sweat, one day without coming home drenched -- they switch my train from Track 6 to Track 11.
"Anyone sitting here?" I ask the unluckiest passenger on the train, pointing to the empty seat beside her. She looks at my shirt -- at the dark patches under my arm, at the other one forming on my chest, at the streams of salt water sheeting down my forehead and stinging my eyes -- and she smiles kindly.
"Yes," she says. "Yes, there is."
I sweat. I am a sweater. I sweat in T-shirts, I sweat in shorts, I sweat in the shower. It is not a certain dampness. It is not a masculine bit of moist. Sweat spurts out the top of my head like I'm a lawn sprinkler. I sit down on the curb at lunchtime and a little girl leaps over my head.
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I live in a world of elderly children, of infantile adults, of Peter Pans with two mortgages and carpal tunnel syndrome. I live in a world of 45-year-olds in baggy shorts, baseball caps and garishly colored sneakers, of 50-year-olds in track suits and oversize white-framed sunglasses. In the mall near my home there is a store called Forever 21, where women long since 21 fill their desperate arms with clothing that would make an actual 21-year-old cringe.
This is my world, and of this world I am a faithful citizen.
I wear ripped jeans and T-shirts. I wear hoodies and Crocs. I wear Chuck Taylors.
"Look, Dad," says my 3-year-old son, pointing to a classmate as we walk across the schoolyard. "Zachary is wearing the same thing as you!"
I wonder what Suit Me is doing right now. Perhaps he is at the opera, understanding Italian and shouting Bravo! as the curtain falls. Perhaps he is at dinner with other Suit People, swirling red wine around a glass as he discusses the past week's lead article in The Economist. "They fundamentally misunderstand China's relationship to the something something something," he says. He mentions Turkey, and they all nod. Perhaps he is, if nothing else, feeling ever-so-slightly less lousy about himself than Jeans Me does in his Zachary knockoff. So when the phone rings later that afternoon and I am offered an assignment to dress like a Suit Person for a day -- a rich Suit Person -- I quickly agree.
"I'll see you Monday," I say.
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