whatshisname

I spent a lot of yesterday ransacking the dilapidated mansion of my memory, hunting through room after undusted room, turning over bits and pieces, bric and brac, flotsam and jetsam, mental lumber from early childhood all the way to late breaking news -- but I could not come up with the object of my search, the name on the tip of my tongue.

Elvis Costello.

Sure it's easy now. He's right there where I can see him. Elvis Costello. You're probably wondering how I could forget him for a minute, let alone all day. I dunno, but I did. I simply could not come up with the name. I could remember the glasses and the knock-kneed stance and the voice and a bunch of other things but not the name. The closest I came was Mickey Rooney and -- you know -- that's not very close. Come on, I said. You know the guy. Whatshisname.

I did other stuff yesterday too. I do have a life. It wasn't all whatshisname all the time. But I kept coming back to him. In the middle of answering email I'd think: whathisname again? Frowning over a manuscript. Reading. Washing dishes. Driving kids. Whatshisname?

No google. That'd be like looking at your neighbor's test paper when you know the answer yourself. Because I did know the answer. Whatshisname.

A much more interesting question is why? Not why the passing obsession but why Elvis Costello? He's a cool guy all right, but not a giant headliner and not important to me. Maybe that's the answer. If he mattered more I'd remember his name. But there are a whole lot of unimportant (to me) mid-grade newsmakers I can call up at the drop of a fork. Condalisa Rice for instance. There she is, anytime I want her. Tommy Douglas. Pia Zadora. Mark Messier. Hey, there's Mickey Rooney again. I got millions of them. Why not Elvis?

I dunno. Some names get lost. They just do. A while ago I spent the longest time trying to remember Keith Jarrett. I mean, the guy's on my i-pod but I couldn't think of his name. Grrr. When I finally did turn him up (he was behind the couch in my memory's living room) I wanted to make sure I didn't forget him again, and came up with a mnemonic based on a public school with his initials backwards (Jesse Ketchum in Toronto, on whose baseball diamond I cost my team a city championship -- a story for another day). Every now and then I'll think of Keith and nod in satisfaction. Still got it.

You're shaking your head, aren't you? I don't blame you. I really should let this stuff go. After all, I may lose Elvis, but I'll always have Condalisa.

open secret

There's something about an elementary school in June -- an air of barely suppressed excitement that pervades halls and classes, playgrounds and staffrooms. Lot of giggles and yells, hardly any discipline. I visited a junior school the other day and tried to come up with a word for the way everyone looked. The word was HAPPY. Simple as that. Even the teacher bent over her desk with a stack of report cards was happy.

Not happy like they're getting married or having a baby. Not happy like winning the lottery or getting the promotion. They are happy because they are sharing a wonderful secret. And the secret is -- wait for it -- that school will soon be out for the summer. Two long hot beautiful months with no work. Wonderful all right!

Everyone in the school is aware of the secret, but no one seems to be talking about it. And when you think about it, some of the biggest secrets are quite well known. Death is scary. Games matter more to us than world hunger. We don't love our children equally. We cheat -- a lot. Everyone knows these things but we don't talk about them very often. They are (for lack of a better word) unhappy secrets. So isn't it great to share a secret that makes everyone smile.

School's out soon.

poor colin firth

One popular author (and I would tell you who, only I can not for the life of me remember his name. I am pretty sure it was a him and not a her) claims that the secret of his success is always to have two books on the go at once. The idea being that when one of his stories starts to sag he can switch over to the other one. A change is as good as a rest, or something. Sounds like a great plan, doesn't it? I wonder if the guy has two houses to live in, so that when one gets dirty he can move. Two partners (one per house), so that if one gets tiresome he can switch...

I don't know. I have enough trouble hanging onto one plot line at a time. Imagine trying to keep two sets of characters and motivations straight. I'm sure I'd always be getting them mixed up, even if they were two totally different genres. I'd have Piglet (say) showing up in the middle of Gone With The Wind, worrying about Heffalumps. Scarlett would make sure she didn't go hungry that evening, but Pooh and Christopher Robin would be so disappointed. And what a mess the Union army would make of the 100 Acre Wood! Nope, I don't think I could write those two stories at once. (Not that I could write them separately either, but you know what I mean.) Can you imagine juggling Beowolf and Bridget Jones? Me neither. I'd end up with what's his name's arm coming off.

So why -- getting back to the real world -- do I myself have two new projects on the go right now? Why am I adopting the routine of an unremembered popular writer instead of following my own past practice and predilection? I don't know. Except that I am not writing both books, only thinking about them. I have two ideas floating around in the back of my mind, plot points jotted on scraps of paper and the backs of envelopes. If both ideas turn into books, they will be dealt with -- but not together. I don't want to risk looking up from my computer to find Little Orphan Annie struggling up Mount Doom with the Nazgul after her. Leapin' Lizards indeed.

surprise

It's generalization time. I'm all caught up for now, and feeling philosophical. Not, you know, seriously philosophical. Don't go expecting Kierkegaardian metaphysics. I'm not that caught up. But I have emptied my in-basket, and washed the vegetables for dinner tonight, so I've got a moment for depth here.

The way I see it, you start off in life without any preconceptions except maybe that falling is bad and milk is good. You pick up more preconceptions as you go along, believing the authorities in your life: your folks and teachers, the TV set, the friends who don't fart in the car and then deny it (I hate that). As time goes by, preconceptions begin to bump up against each other, and you make choices. Your parents were wrong about this, your old boyfriend was wrong about that, your church was wrong about everything ... whatever, until you end up comfortable in yourself and your tribe and your particular set of preconceptions. Welcome to adulthood. Then you have kids and philosophy goes out the window. Ha ha, actually that's kind of true but, no, seriously, then you have to be careful not to be too comfortable. You don't want to get set in your mindset. You have to be ready to be surprised.

If you are not surprised by life, you aren't paying attention. Driving towards Houston last week I was shocked and impressed, and one of my preconceptions was altered for a moment. It happened like this. I approached the city along Highway 10, brimful of liberal northeastern-ness, pretty sure that there was not going to be much to admire here. I was proved wrong almost immediately. Not that I saw any evidence of sexual tolerance or social justice or universal health care. Even the driving was kind of narrow and veering to the right all the time. But I had thought the place would be as ugly as the politics -- and it wasn't. My view of the roadscape around me -- the net of aboveground arterial highways interweaving and converging towards the downtown -- was, well, breathtaking. That's part of it in the picture up there. Not bad, eh? I leaned forward, staring up and around through the tinted windshield of our rental car, muttering, Oh my, oh my, like the Mole at the start of The Wind In The Willows. It was elegant, majestic, inspiring. For a moment I saw the scene as someone from the dawn of the automobile age (Toad, say). What a hopeful paradigm for The Future.

It was only a moment. Oh my, I said again, and then some dork cut me off and forced me to swerve right, and the guy behind me honked, and I honked back, and then I wondered if maybe I shouldn't have done that because what if he had a gun? All Texans have guns, don't they? Some preconceptions are hard to shake.

And now it's time to cook the vegetables and I'm out of generalizations.

hair today

What does it mean when your kid tells you to get a haircut? Ed wasn't being mean or bossy -- just expressing an opinion. We were eating in front of a movie (the new place does not yet have cable, so our culture comes pre-packaged from last season) and Ed looked over and said, You know, Dad, you should get a haircut.

I was surprised. Not that my hair doesn't need cutting. It always does. But it would never - never - occur to me to tell my dad to get a haircut. All too vividly do I recall his flashing eyes as he ordered my ten-year-old psychedelic self to get a haircut. (In justice to my father, my hair grows awkwardly. When it reaches my collar it flows out, not down, so that I begin to resemble a bird with giant wingspan. At the time of the edict, my hair was wider than my shoulders. I could barely fit through a doorway. Not quite like the guy in the pic, but you get the idea. What I mean is that my dad had - maybe - a tenable aesthetic argument.)

Really, I said to Ed.
He nodded. Get it buzzed, he said, his mouth full of pizza, eyes back on the TV screen. (We were watching The Fantastic Mr Fox -- charming and quirky but not, somehow, riveting.)

I am not thinking of getting a buzz cut. That happened once, by mistake, and my ex laughed so hard I thought she would die. She made me wear a hat for a week just so she would be able to look at me without dissolving. I am thinking instead about fathers and sons and life stages. I am pleased that Ed feels close enough to me that he can offer personal grooming tips. It makes us more like pals, equals, which is really cute because he is also a little boy who still asks me to cut up his apple for him.

So ... should I call my dad? Because, you know, I've been thinking that he'd look really good in a beard.

big easy

The kids and I have returned to New Orleans, having spent a few days here last week, and then a couple of days travelling through Texas -- a vacation with a teeny bit of work involved. I like New Orleans and am glad to be back. It's a walking tolerant friendly city. But, you know, I don't love it here. Maybe because we've spent most of our time downtown, in the areas near French Quarter and Garden District, which are charming but incredibly touristy. There's certainly a vibe, a lazy dirty boogie thing, but it's hard to warm to a place where nothing seems real except the hangovers. Even the seediness is quaint, and the panhandlers all have a romantic soulful decrepitude -- as if, like the rest of Bourbon Street, they are on all the time.

I have never been in a place that parties so relentlessly. At 5:30 this morning the bars in the Quarter were still pumping out last night's beats and cocktails (and if you are wondering what I was doing out at 5:30, well, shut up). That doesn't happen in Paris or Manhattan because, for all their tourism, they are working cities. New Orleans is a party city.

No complaints about the food. It's as good as they say. If you like heavy earthy tasty spicy stuff -- and I do -- this is the place. I am still getting over last night's shrimp and grits. Tonight I'll be back home, and the Kraft Dinner or whatever is going to look pretty darn sad. But it'll be real.

what a drag it is

Such an interesting moment today at the YMCA. I'd finished my squash game, and was strolling towards the locker rooms past all these women, dozens and dozens of them, waiting outside the gym for the popular Zumba program to begin. (Zumba is the latest fitness craze, combining aerobics and martial arts and dance music in a workout that looks -- to me -- very much like every other fitness craze of the last decade.)

It being 9:00 ish on a Wednesday morning, the women were mostly of a certain age. Fit and feisty, chatty and jolly -- and well over forty. Gray hairs and neck wattles were bouncing up and down as their owners jogged in place, warming themselves up. (Does that sound grotesque? Heavens, I have my share of gray hairs. Anyway, as can see from the picture there, I do not mean to make fun of old folks.) There were greetings and catcalls as I walked past in my sweaty shirt. These were confident and friendly women, outgoing and collegial, strong in numbers and shared commitment to a better self. I smiled and joshed back.

And then I saw her. She stood alone by the door of the gym, a much older lady, thin as sticks and fragile as tissue. Her hair was white, her skin so pale the blue veins shone through. Her sneakers and metal water bottle were heartbreakingly stylish. She held her head slightly forward, looking down. She did not smile, but there was a sense of hopeful shyness about her. She was the new kid at school, hanging out by herself on the playground, knowing she doesn't belong and yet hoping against hope that one of the older cooler girls will notice her ... I thought about how we move up and then down the ladder of life, standing on many of the lower rungs for the second time on our way back to ground level. It's a sad business. Ask Samuel Beckett.

I said hello to the old lady. She smiled up at me, but I could tell that she was disappointed. Oh, hello, she said. Meaning, It's only you. And that took me back to my own playground years where I was -- so often -- not as cool as I had hoped to be.
Enjoy the Zumba, I said.
You should change your shirt, she told me.
And I went to the locker room.