Accidental Garlic, and Other Stuff
When I was in college, sometimes the theater department would let a senior direct a play on the main stage, so I proposed a production of Samuel Becket's "Waiting For Godot."
"Godot," then and probably now, had a reputation as a bizarre, incomprehensible existential hodgepodge, part Beat poetry and part reefer madness. Go figure.
I saw it differently. In fact, I wanted to direct a naturalistic, representational production, a couple of post-Crash, Hoover-era hobos sitting around a railroad yard. Because, in my mind, it was merely a play about the relentless, deadening, soul-sucking result of foolish consistency. Habit, in other words. So maybe a transcendental hodgepodge.
I didn't get my chance, since (1) the faculty didn't like the play, (2) I had no experience as a director, and (3) I wasn't actually a senior. But I thought about it a lot.
I still do. I even wrote a little about habit this week. I've come to appreciate it, at least the non-foolish kind. The kind that, in a way, has saved my life, or at least made life a lot nicer around here lately.
At any rate, I've been thrown off my stride in the past months, what with surgery and the holidays and the Winter From Hell. I feel like I'm walking on the deck of a ship in a very irritated ocean; I'm constantly grabbing for things to hold onto. Sort of, now that I think of it, an existential hodgepodge.
None of this is necessarily bad. A little same ol, same ol would be nice, is all. Just once in a while.
On the other hand, this is Serenity House these days, in many ways. John, Julie and I do our family dance comfortably. She teaches, I cook, John eats. It works.
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My adventures in baking continue. Friday nights are cinnamon roll specials; I mix the dough, let it rise while I go to a meeting or am otherwise engaged, roll it up and stick it in the fridge overnight. Saturday mornings, the only day Julie can sleep in, she wakes up to freshly baked rolls. Don't you wish you were her? I know I do.
(Liz - STOP DROOLING)
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It's cold here, in the 20s, and it snowed today, giving me a little sensory trip to 1983. Julie and I lived in an A-frame outside of Flagstaff, and it snowed like crazy that year, so just stepping outside takes me back. One night that winter, I remember, Julie called one of her best buds from Texas, Steve, to tell him about me and that we were getting married, etc.
Steve is now my daughter's faculty advisor at UNT. Imagine that.
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I talked to church librarians today, a promise made last summer when January seemed very far away. Not that it was a hassle; it was a joy, in fact, although getting the icing on those cinnamon rolls almost made me late. I was there, I guess, to talk about writing and publishing, although I ended up talking a lot about me, more than I intended to. Still, surrounded by book lovers, and a couple of booksellers with their Christian bookstore wares, relaxed me and sort of turned my head. I love people who love books.
As a matter of fact, I spent the first 10 minutes talking about my friend, Gordon, and his book Real Live Preacher.com (note to Gordon: All of those librarians took notes. You can send me a check), so it wasn't all self centered. I also talked about cinnamon rolls. ANd Liz in Sweden. And punctuation. And my mom. And they didn't have to pay me or anything. Lucky librarians.
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I've started my own AA meeting, sort of by accident. It has to do with group dynamics, like the classic bit when the captain asks for a volunteer and everybody takes a step back except for one schmuck, who then gets to infiltrate enemy lines and get shot at and eventually kisses June Allyson. So I unlock and lock up, make coffee and collect donations, bang an imaginary gavel and try to keep things going, and this is a good thing.
The other night, though, a young woman at the meeting, maybe in her early 20s, was helping clean up and talking to another guy about a friend of hers.
"So, she's, like, got this kid, and now she's living with this guy who's like, fifty..." and this other man laughed and said, "Wow! Fifty?" sort of sarcastically, but in a nice way, and looked at me. I smiled, too, and then she turned and sort of waved her hand and said to me, "No offense," and I thought Hmmm.
See, there was a time, when I was a young man, that I'd think of something fun, or wacky or adventurous, that I wanted to do in my life and I'd always say, "I, like, don't want to wake up one day and be, like, fifty and realize I never even tried."
Dude. Look at your driver's license. The day approaches.
There is something I want to do, then. I'm not sure how to do it, or how it will work out, but it's running around my brain these days, and it seems to me it won't happen by accident. It involves...oh, lots of things. Too many, and too many too fuzzy at the moment, to write about. But it's now on my mind, and I've got a little adrenaline thing going on. I'll keep you posted.
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Oh yeah. Accidental garlic. I was seasoning bread crumbs to dredge some chicken tenderloins in this evening before frying them up for John, and the lid came off and some clumps of garlic powder fell into the bowl, more than I intended. I was too lazy to start over, so I just dredged and fried and they smelled fantastic, and tasted pretty good, too.
Sometimes life hands you a loose lid, in other words, and you end up making...ummm...ALL RIGHT IT'S LATE AND COLD AND I'M TIRED AND YOU CAN JUST MAKE UP YOUR OWN METAPHOR IF YOU THINK YOU'RE SO SMART.
8:15:42 PM 
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