MyFace

I wake up fearful. As usual.

I decide to walk it off. I take my trash picker-upper device with me. I want to access my inner Catholic and rid the world of evil in the form of cigarette butts.

Down the hill, out of the rain forest toward the ocean. I’m headed through the heart of Roberts Creek toward the Georgia Strait. An eight minute walk.

Green explodes everywhere. The early morning slanting sun against huge cumulus thunderclouds is almost garish.

I need to soak up beauty. And pick up the cigarette butts. In front of the post office, in front of the Gumboot Café, and at the bus stop across from the Roberts Creek General Store. I exult in the knowledge that I am a fountain of tidiness. I exult in the feeling of moral superiority.

At age 13, I was told by the Holy Cross Fathers that I was too disfigured to be a priest. So I have never been given the power to forgive sins Too bad for me. But I’ve found something better as a substitute. I pick up cigarette butts.

Instead of looking for beauty, I scan the ground for trash and butts.

OK, to be clear, I only do this every few weeks. But I am not anal retentive! I keep my obsessions under control. Isn’t that natural for someone obsessed with control?

I get to the Gumboot. It turns out that someone has been there before me. A couple of weeks’ accumulation of butts is mostly gone. What a boost for my dim faith in human nature.

Onward to the bus stop. I think that this is penance for the 23 years I smoked incessantly and threw my cigarette butts all over Chicago and Bloomington and San Francisco. Like Robert deNiro in The Mission, who lashed his armor to his back in permanent penance for his sins. I have another 22 years of this to make up for the littering of my youth. Better than going to hell and spending eternity in the smoker’s bowge.

Down to Roberts Creek Pier and I can almost see people in the houses in Nanaimo, 22 miles across the Strait on Vancouver Island. High tide and heavy seas beat stray logs against the beach. The ocean is gray-green, not dull but vibrant.

OK, there is dog shit. I fantasize for the hundredth time about my plan to make little index card signs attached to popsicle sticks that will say, “Another gift from the dog owners of Roberts Creek.” I will stick one into each pile of dog poop. I fine tune the fantasy a bit by planning to laminate the signs so that they will be legible on rainy days.

Oh my god, I have forgotten about the beauty. I endeavor to self-exorcise. Begone, fantasy! And it works. At least until the next time.

Later I confess my fantasy to Laurie during our writing session. She suggests that instead of my ironic, passive aggressive approach, I do a “culture jam” by putting positive messages in the dog poop. Like “Be sure to take advantage of opportunities that come your way.” “Engage in random acts of kindness.” “Good fortune is yours.” “True love will come your way today.”

The end

Sponge Speak

You might wonder how I know so much. An inanimate object. But, hey, I deserve some respect. I’ve been used as a metaphor for so damned long, same hackneyed metaphor, that is all people know about me. It’s never “as charming as a sponge,” “as durable as a sponge,” “as sexy as a sponge,” “as brilliant as a sponge”! No. It’s always: “he soaked it up like a sponge.” Passive! “Absorbent” is the most exciting thing ever said about me. Let’s not even mention “He was sponging off his parents.” And I get so tired of hearing, “Did you know a sponge is actually a living thing?” Well, what do you know?!

It’s not my fault I have a boring life. That jerk, David, with his obsessive compulsive disorder—would he ever let me visit the living room? Visit my family in the bathroom? NO. Not only am I stuck here at the kitchen sink, I am always—always!—on the same side of the faucet. My God, even when I go to the stove—aagh, the stove, don’t get me started—shoved up against a hot burner, wiping up unbelievable scuzz and gudge. I hate the stove. It’s like, like, going to Bosnia for a vacation.

Yes, I know about Bosnia. That’s my point! Listen to me. Sponges are absorbent. We…pick…things…up. Get it? Do you think we are stupid? Do you think when you squeeze us that it is our brains that drip out? That is water, stupid. Or soup or whatever scum you’ve pushed me into.

Thank god I am a kitchen sponge. Even if I have to sit in the same goddamned spot 24-7. God forbid that someone would move me to the other side of the sink. Or onto the counter. No. I have to stay here. I clean up everything else but my spot never gets wiped up.

I’ve seen it come and go, come and go.

It is not easy being a sponge. You know it itches a lot, all through me. Oh yeah. Bacteria. Billions. Billions of them. Whoa, I love a good bath in hot water. It relieves the itching for a while but it doesn’t cure it, the bacteria come back. Oh, what helps is to go into the microwave. Two minutes, that’s all, it fries the little buggers inside me. Feels so good. I come out a new sponge.

What? No, I don’t have e. coli. Never have. Proud of it. You must be thinking of the bathroom sponges. Go ask them.

No, it’s not hard work, you’re right. The metal thing, I don’t know its name, brillo, whatever, it does the hard work. No, don’t worry, it doesn’t understand what we are saying. No, you see, it’s not absorbent and intelligent like a sponge. It’s not a living thing. Touch it. It’s metal.

So, I just do what comes my way. They use biodegradable detergent, it’s a little milder, scent is not so bad, could be worse.

It’s not a bad life. Just lonely, pretty lonely. I’m glad you talked to me, good meeting you. Hmm? No, I don’t know what a sponge’s life span is. I think we live forever. Come back anytime.

Fudge and Forgiveness

On Sunday, Marlena and I arrived at Naramata Retreat Centre, where we were to lead a weeklong storytelling class. We brought our bags into Maple Court Residence Hall. After unpacking, I went to the common kitchen to stick a leftover sandwich in the refrigerator.

I happened to open the freezer, where I saw a white paper bag in the door shelf. It struck my interest because it was the kind of bag that candy comes in. It was sort of crumpled.

Aside from two ice cube trays, it was the only object in the freezer. I picked the bag up and hefted it. It held one object, weighing maybe half a pound.

Of course I was curious. Of course I opened the bag. Inside I found a piece of chocolate fudge in plastic wrap, with a label indicating it came from a candy store in Alberta.

We were in British Columbia, which meant that the fudge had made an arduous journey from another province.

The plastic wrapping was slightly clouded, perhaps with some condensation underneath, the kind of condensation that would form only after a period of time had passed.

Of course I did not open the package. I returned the fudge to the bag and to the freezer door.

*

On Monday, I didn’t think much about the fudge. I was busy with the storytelling class all morning. I did wonder why it had been in the freezer. Who keeps fudge in the freezer? Perhaps it stays fresher in there. But degree of freshness is not the main attraction when it comes to fudge. Plus, in the freezer, it gets frozen. Which means you have to thaw it out before you eat it. Who wants to wait to eat fudge? It was all very puzzling.

*

On Tuesday, during a free moment, I realized the white bag had camouflaged the fudge because it blended in with the white interior of the freezer. Which was probably no doubt why the person who put it there had forgotten it. Whenever that was possibly long ago.

*

On Wednesday, a funny thing happened. It turned out that I had been thinking about the fudge. I realized that, if it belonged to someone, that person would have taken it by then. A person who purchased fudge presumably liked fudge and would eat the fudge. Imagine my surprise when I happened to open the freezer door and saw that it was still languishing there. Whoever left it there possibly was not a serious fudge lover—like I am. This person did not have strong fudge needs. It came to me that I might probably need the fudge.

*

On Thursday, when the freezer door opened, the fudge was in the same place. There was no evidence that somebody cared enough about the fudge to be sure it was ok. I saw that the edges of the fudge were rounded, as if it had been handled carelessly before being discarded in the freezer.

I realized that not only did I deserve the fudge, but more importantly, the fudge deserved me—a person who cared about fudge, a man who could give that fudge what it needed.

The fudge spoke to me.

“Hello, big boy. Do you come here often? Listen, is it chilly in here or is it just me? Are you going to stick your hand in my bag? Oh, that’s nice and warm! Do you like to eat fudge? I’ll just bet you do. What do you say we go someplace where it’s a little more comfortable?”

I took the fudge to my room and set it on the dresser to let it warm up. Marlena spotted it an hour or so later.

“What’s this? Fudge! Where did this come from?”

“Umm, from the freezer. It had been left there some time ago.”

“Honey, this is nothing but chocolate flavored saturated fats and sugar,” said Marlena, viciously.

“Or one could simply call it fudge,” I responded, calmly.

“Hon? You’re not going to eat this, are you?”

“Perhaps not.”

“I’m going to throw it out.”

I said nothing for a few seconds while I wondered why God had led me to marry a fudge-hater. I sighed with dignity. “OK.”

“And I am going to unwrap it before I throw it out. So don’t bother looking for it.”

I was appalled by what seemed like a possible lack of trust.

*

On Friday afternoon I was making tea in the kitchen when Corinne walked in. She is a young, lovely, energetic woman who had been at the centre all week teaching world dance. She walked right to the freezer, opened the door and spoke.

“Hey, what happened to my fudge?”

My first thought was that I should tell the honest truth and say, “I didn’t eat it.” But I knew that would be similar to an untruth. I knew that I had to take a higher road.

“Maybe somebody cleaned out the fridge?”

“Oh, no! I was saving it for today.” Corinne frowned.

I decided I had to do the right thing.

“Tell you what, Corinne. Marlena and I are just about to walk to the bakery in town. Come on along and I will buy you a brownie?”

“Oh, you are so kind!”

I acknowledged her compliment with a nod and a smile.

At the bakery I bought her a piece of lemon cheesecake. She cleaned the crumbs up with her finger. We walked back.

“Well, that was very generous of you.”

“Well, thank you, Corinne.”

The way she enjoyed the cheesecake crumbs was troubling to me. Corinne had been working hard all week teaching world dance. At the end of the week she had come to get her fudge. Oh, well. She got cheesecake instead. There is a way in which it was doubtless God’s will.

At dinner I saw Corinne walking by. She was sweating after rehearsing for the evening’s performance. I was reminded of how hard she had worked all week

I jumped up and walked over to her.

“Corinne, you know that fudge? I stole it. Or, I mean, I took it.”

“What? My fudge?”

“Yes, but Marlena wouldn’t let me eat it and she threw it out.”

“You took my fudge?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I apologize. That is why I bought you the cheesecake. I was too embarrassed…”

She laughed. “It’s just fudge, David.”

She hugged me. “You’re forgiven.”

As she walked back to rehearsal, she turned and said, “You know, I’ve done the same thing myself.”

I knew that we were kindred spirits. Fudge lovers.

On Saturday, on the plane home, Marlena told me she had returned the fudge to the freezer. I was surprised by her duplicity. Maybe it will still be there next summer.

*

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE
By David Roche

Many baby boomers nearing the cusp of geezerdom are confused and concerned about what happens after death.

I can be of help. I have been studying the afterlife since being under the tutelage of the good sisters at Our Lady of Grace School in the 1950s.

Death itself may be a source of concern for you. Get over it. It is not so bad. It is what happens just before death (e.g., cardiac arrest, poisoning, removal of ventilator) that is often rather unpleasant. And according to Sister Mary Wenceslaus, the aftermath of death can be pretty distressing, too.

DEAD ON ARRIVAL: MANGIA, MANGIA.

The nuns were very clear that the first thing that happens when you die is that you have to finish all the food you wasted in your life. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

So let’s review the postdeath consumer choices you have after you are done eating.

RETRO VERSION

HELL: The most likely eventuality.

You probably chose hell long ago. Yes, you did. You’ve known it all along.

But it is no longer called Hell! Due to the influx of a better class of people who are interested in maintaining property values, it is now known as Lower Paradise Estates. You will find exclusive areas such as “Demon Oaks” and “Festering Ridge.” They are not gated communities, as Lower Paradise Estates itself is a form of gated community. It’s a buyer’s market right now, with lots of creative financing opportunities.

You’ll be pleased to know that a section of Hell has been preserved. It’s called “Old Hell,” and retains the quaint charm portrayed so well by Dante and Hieronymus Bosch. Be sure to schedule some time there (actually, it will be scheduled for you). The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse lead a parade through Old Hell every evening. They drive Hummers, dragging newly arrived CEOs behind them. At the new bowge for anal retentives, you can watch them clutch at postits dangling just out of reach.

Give up on trying to avoid hell. That is a lot of wasted effort. Instead, I advise you to spend time and energy developing as much endurance, stoicism and self-discipline as you can muster. Yes, you still will be covered with flaming boils for all eternity, but you will be a little more able to scream “one day at a time,” and other positive affirmations.

PURGATORY: Hell with a shelf life.

Purgatory is where you go if you die with relatively minor sins on your soul. Of course this is impossible, so purgatory is pretty much only a concept.

After all this time, there are only 34 people in purgatory. Those are the ones who dropped dead as they left the confessional, with no time to even think about committing new and exciting mortal sins. The bad news is that the suffering in purgatory is just as bad as in hell. Eternal flame, red hot pokers up your butt, the whole bit. The good news is that when you have suffered enough, you go up to heaven. However—you are not the one who gets to say, “I have suffered enough.” Somebody else does that, either God or someone he has appointed. I think it is probably one of the nuns from grade school. They had a pretty good sense of how much suffering one deserved.

Well, actually, you could say, “I have suffered enough.” You probably would be saying that constantly in purgatory. Or screaming it, rather.

Also, purgatory ends on Judgment Day. After Judgment Day there is only heaven or hell. So the luckiest people are the ones who die and go to purgatory the night before Judgment Day.

LIMBO: cancelled due to lack of interest.

Limbo used to be up there in the sky somewhere a little east of purgatory. It was a nondescript place where unbaptized babies went to wait until Judgment Day. They just waited there. Not happy, not sad. They were “in limbo.” That’s where the expression comes from. Think of a dog kennel for souls. Recently, the Catholic Church announced that there had been a misunderstanding and there was no Limbo. I don’t know what happens to the souls of the unbaptized babies now.

HEAVEN: the desired outcome.

The best thing about heaven, according to the nuns, was that you got to be in the presence of God for all eternity. Which seemed a little boring to me. The Mickey Mouse Club had an “Anything Can Happen Day” on Wednesdays—surely God could muster up something similar. Anyway, my vision of God at that point was of a cranky old bipolar alcoholic with a club behind his back and a forced smile on his face. Who wanted to be in his presence?

The other thing about heaven: people there get to look down upon the people in hell. Which is the most enjoyable thing about heaven. If you go out on the deck in heaven and look down, there they are. Covered with boils, skin blistering, body parts bursting into flame. Just what they deserve. They are all screaming for mercy. They look up at the people in heaven. They beg for a drop of water to ease their pain. They beg you to go pee on them. Really. They would love that. They think it would be much better than burning up. Don’t bother, though, because the pee evaporates on the way down.

NEW OPTIONS

REINCARNATION: Please leave my Blackberry in the coffin.

Catholics don’t believe in reincarnation. Instead, we have confession, where sins are forgiven immediately. Why wait until another lifetime? You don’t carry the guilt forward as if they were minutes on your cell phone plan. Another disadvantage to selecting reincarnation: your to do list adheres to your soul no matter what.

THE BARDO: Hell for type A personalities.

My understanding is that Buddhists believe that immediately after death, everything is the same except you have no body. You are wandering around in the air, same feelings, same desires. You are hungry but you can’t eat. You are horny but your sex organs are kind of misty and transparent.

That’s the definitive thumbnail guide to the afterlife. Clean your plate thoroughly.

End

Free Market Faces

Face transplants are in the news again.

Remember the woman in France who had the first face transplant a couple of years ago? I saw the photo of what she looked like presurgery. The whole lower part of her face had been torn off by a pit bull. She looked like one of the cadavers in that recent Chinese exhibit. I was skeptical, too, when I read that she started smoking not long after the transplant. That didn’t seem like a good thing for a new face. But the transplant worked!

The technique for a face transplant is developed but there is a new problem—people don’t want to be face donors.

“The liver, yes, the heart yes, the lungs, yes, but no, no, not
my face. I want to bring my face into the afterlife.”

Seems to me that the free market needs to take hold! Here are some of my musings about that prospect.

First of all, the upscale market needs to be emphasized. The rich will be first on board. Not as donors, but as donees. Wannabe CEOs will want a rugged executive face. “You can’t get ahead without one.”

Trophy wives will be a great niche market. Some Russian or Saudi billionaire, some hedge fund manager with an eight figure salary will get tired of his wife and want her to look like Angelina Jolie. He could pay to get Jolie’s face when she dies. As a gift for his wife’s 40th birthday! If Angelina dies within two years, her estate would receive, say, ten million dollars. If she died at age 65, the value of her face would be vastly reduced to, what, $20? It will only be useful as a memento or souvenir. Of course any hedge fund manager would also want to make a down payment on other attractive faces, perhaps in a cancer ward.

Many jobs will be created, for example in Homeland Security. Passport photos will no longer suffice as proof of identity; dental xrays will have to be analyzed at airport security checkpoints.

There will be opportunities for face recruiters. “Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, I’m so sorry to have to tell you that we lost Debbie on the operating table. But there is a way that you can keep her memory alive forever. Just sign here.”

As companies like WalMart get into the act, a market will be created for “budget” or “value” faces, which will be the only ones that the less well off can afford. Such as old ladies’ faces that still have powder deep in the wrinkles. Old men’s faces with hair coming out of the nostrils. Or faces where a bit of rigor mortis has set in.

The mass market (the faceless masses) will start seeing XS, S, M, L and XL sizes. Then “one size fits all”. When it’s too large, it bunches up around the edges. When it’s too small, it will gets stretched over your face. Those cheap faces will be itchy. People will have to wear a cone around your necks post op, like dogs get when neutered.

Other problems will have to be solved. For example, it appears that unwanted DNA is part of any transplant.

I read about the woman who got a heart and lung transplant from a 19 year old male. Not long afterwards, she was walking down the street and saw a young man she had never met. She recognized him and knew his name; it turns out he was a friend of the donor. I imagine she also found herself hungering for pizza and beer. Along with other unaccustomed desires: “I don’t know, doctor. I have this overpowering desire to have sex with myself.”

With a new face, you might find you can’t help picking your nose. If you got a younger person’s face, you’d get a libido boost, too. At least for oral sex.

A whole underground market will grow. People will start auctioning their faces on Ebay. Eface, it will be called.

That’s what I am waiting for. I figure I will get top dollar because my face comes with a ready made career as a performer and public speaker. Plus a web site. And a blog.

end

Welcome to my new blog! I promise to have the first entry, “Face Transplants in the Free Market Economy” by this weekend. It will be funny, yes it will.