A LIGHTER NOTE

You know how people are always letting you down? How they are always dull and unappreciative and generally come up short in every conceivable way?

Well, I could be the poster-person for people.

I am always letting everyone down.

I let my ex-husband down: "It's not you, it's me."

And my ex-girlfriend: "It's not me, it's you."

And my best friend: "We could go do something fun, but that would cut in to my sulking time."

And my students: "We could talk about your grade, but that's not really what my office hours are for; they're for blogging."

And my dogs: "We could go to the dog park and sniff some new ass, but wouldn't you rather just sniff my old ass right here at home?"

And my neighbors: "I don't know why that refrigerator is still on my porch. The guy said he was coming to get it."

I could make a two-page list of people I've let down just this week. It would run the gamut from my boss to the grocery sacker at Dillons. It would include the janitor who empties the trash in my office: "You know, there's a recycling bin for white office paper." She may just as well have said, "Trees are dying for you people with desk jobs and you can't even walk 20 feet to the recycling bin."

Small let-downs. Big let-downs. A disappointed look in someone's eye is a disappointed look in someone's eye, whether it lasts a millisecond or decades. It's all the same. Experience, In my experience, is just a spectrum of disappointment.

The other day I let my mom down. And I didn't just let her down. I let her down in exactly the same way I did 25 years ago. It's amazing how you think you've grown up and become your own person and in the blink of an eye — blink! — a quarter of a century disappears. And you are a kid again, emotionally naked, at your mother's mercy, locked in her gaze — letting her down.

It all started with a simple question: What happened to your hair?

What do you mean? I say, hardly looking up from the People magazine I'm reading at her kitchen table.

It's shorter here, she says, pulling at my front locks.

I don't know, I say.

And I really don't know. Why would my hair be shorter? I didn't cut it. I didn't get it caught in the car door. I didn't lose a fight with the dogs. I run my fingers through it. Oh, she's right; it is shorter. What the heck? Then I realize, with a clammy, trapped feeling: I must have singed it with a cigarette lighter while I was smoking — the other day on my porch, when I was all wound up about work and puffing away like Bette Davis in "Now, Voyager."

I remember singeing my hair a few times in junior high and high school. Damn adjustable flames. Staring down at a picture of Tom Cruise, I have a speed-of-light flashback to a certain incident in eighth grade. It involved one other girl, two boys, a pint of Southern Comfort, a couple cans of Pepsi and a pack of Kools. Do the math and you get a hangover, a hickey and charred bangs.

I look up from the magazine and see that my mom is having the exact same flashback. We eye each other furtively but say nothing. I bask in silent guilt for a minute; she basks in silent judgment. I am 39 years old and my mom has caught me smoking. Where do we go from here?

What to say?

She certainly didn't say much 25 years ago. She didn't have to. She could just rely on a liquid, wounded stare and an implication that I was breaking her heart. No amount of accusations or recriminations could make me feel worse than that look. She gives it to me now. And it's just as effective. I want to fall to her feet and say, "Please don't hate me. I'll never do it again. Please, Mommy."

But of course I don't. I didn't then and I don't now. This is one of those situations where acknowledging a wrongdoing would only make it worse; it would make the wrongdoing more real, more out in the open, more to be reckoned with. No, this is strictly a don't-ask-don't-tell situation. My childhood was rife with those.

She won't ask what evil I've been up to. And I won't tell. We'll just dance around it clumsily until we achieve an awkward understanding: I won't be a bad girl anymore.

But if I could tell, I'd say this: I am not a smoker. Smoking is for losers. But sometimes I'm a loser, Mom. I smoke when I am incredibly stressed out or sad — when life seems unbearably long — or when I am incredibly happy — when life seems unbearably short. When life seems just right — when it's lifelike — I feel no need to be in control of my own demise, either to hasten or forestall it. Would that make sense to a mom? It's hard for me to judge, because if my kid smoked I'd just beat the living crap out of her.

LARGE WOMAN WITH PEARLS

I blogged about my teacher Mrs. Cyr a few posts ago, but I didn't have a picture of her. My mom's hope chest has come to the rescue, offering up a yellowing, cedar-scented photo of my second-grade class. Mrs. Cyr is the large woman with pearls.

The others are, back row, from left:

1. Sheryl: My on-and-off best friend through junior high, until she stole my boyfriend with a lewd act. She was famous for her boobs — which were not involved in the lewd act, unless it was lewder than I thought. She has a brood of kids now.

2. Me: In a green polyester outfit made by my mom. I have a brood of neuroses now.

3. Tim: The best athlete in school. He gave me a sixth-grade kiss behind Mrs. Chilton's garage that made my spine tingle. I had kissed other boys before, but this is when I understood what all the fuss was about. Later that year he called me a whore because I wouldn't go to second base. (I still think second base is overrated.) Don't know what became of him. Went to college for a few years. Married some girl.

4. Rod: Special Ed kid who was mean to girls. No idea where he is.

5. Scott: I kissed him in junior high; still remember the pizza in his braces. Went out with him a few times in high school. Nicest guy in the world, but big drinking problem. One night he drank seven shots of tequila and I had to drive him home. First I had to go get my 21-year-old brother, whom I found in my dad's basement having sex with a married house-guest of my parents. My brother threw on some pants and helped me drive Scott home. Scott called me at 4 a.m., crying, and asked if I would marry him. He joined the army and died in a drunken car wreck at 22.

6. Kevin: Math dork. Went to KU. That's all I know.

7. Robert: Quiet, never bothered anyone, last person you'd expect. Lost track of him after seventh grade.

8. Chris: She was my neighbor. Lived in a giant Victorian house on the corner and was utterly unsupervised. Her parents lived together but never spoke. They would communicate through Chris when absolutely necessary. Her sister had Playgirl centerfolds taped all over her bedroom walls; first time I saw a naked man. We played Foreigner and Journey at top volume in her living room after school. She's a very successful realtor now.

9. Curtis: Smart aleck. No idea where he is.

Front row, from left:

1. Develan: Squeaky voice. Whole family looked Scandinavian. Mysterious parents. No apparent interest in girls. No clue where he is.

2. Mike: My boyfriend from fourth grade all through junior high. Listened to KISS records together. Went to second base, but not third — NO WAY. Talked for hours on the phone. Lost him after Sheryl performed her lewd act and he discovered how boring I was by comparison. He's an accountant now or some sort of finance guy. Married a girl named Carmen.

3. Charlee: Popular with the fellas, if you catch my drift. Dropped out of school. Married young. Kids.

4. Debbie: Kind of bossy. Spilled a pot of coffee on her arm and had a huge scar. When I was talking, perhaps a little too exuberantly, about a favorite teacher, she reminded me in harsh, judgmental tones that it was a woman I was talking about. I hushed — and learned a very valuable lesson. No idea where she is.

5. Denise: Fundamentalist Christian. Moved away the next year.

6. Mike: Dumped me mid-date because I wouldn't go to second base. Said Brenda would. (Turned out Brenda wanted to go to second base with me, not Mike). My sister lost her virginity to his brother. He's a blue-collar guy, divorced, with kids.

7. Shawn: Pathological liar. Said stuff like he had giraffes in the woods behind his house and his grandma weighed 770 pounds (I suppose the latter could have been true). Moved away before high school.

8. Gary: Bright red hair. Told my mom on a field trip once that I was "mean," but offered no supporting evidence. Called me out of the blue in college to see whether I wanted to go out. Told him I was living with my boyfriend of three years (who later became my husband). No clue where he is.

9. Patty: Girl with bowel-control problem. Whom all the kids terrorized and Mrs. Cyr lovingly protected. No idea what happened to her after sixth grade.

10. Willy: Very, very silly. Now owns a dairy that makes the best chocolate milk on Earth.

FRUIT-IN-MOUTH DISEASE

In addition to overhearing the marvelous conversation about surrealism (detailed below), this wondrous thing also befell me today:


Note from my student:  Kim, this sounds strange, but early Sunday morning my throat was almost completely swollen shut. It wasn't strep throat. Somehow my uvula was swollen to the size of a grape. I went to the hospital and was pumped full of anti-infammatories and other drugs. My throat is still extremely soar and I'm pretty nautious. The doctor recommended, not by me mind you, that I take two days off. I have her note with me and will give it to you on Wednesday. Sorry for the inconvenience."

Having a uvula the size of a grape is the best excuse I've ever heard for missing class, and, believe me, I've heard a few. My students, who are otherwise scarily conservative, are very liberal in their interpretation of my No-Absences-Unless-You-Have-A-Really-Good-Excuse policy. As you can imagine, their definition of "really good" differs a tad from mine. I have threatened a Stalinist type crackdown, but they just stare at me blankly and ask what I mean by "purge" and "gulag" — are those words going to be on the quiz?; additionally, my perverse desire to see how they will abuse me next has kept me from dropping the hammer — and sickle.

The uvula kid, I'm pretty sure, is telling the truth. In any event, his story is so good — imagine your uvula as a plump pinot noir full to bursting in your throat — that I'm not going to call his bluff and actually ask to see the doctor's note.

But for all those students who said they couldn't come to class this morning because last night's hail storm (at 10 p.m., mind you) knocked out their power, rendering their alarm clocks impotent, take heed: I shall begin my Friday lecture by pounding my shoe on the podium and shouting "We will bury you," until all the veins on my forehead bulge like grapes.

And if a single one of them gets the Nikita Khrushchev reference, I will be so overjoyed that all will be instantly forgiven.

GET (SUR)REAL

One of the great things about academia is that you get to hear a lot of smart people having stupid conversations. Here’s something I overheard this morning while nibbling on a stale doughnut outside a campus cafeteria.

Scene: Boy and girl in trendy glasses sitting at covered café table, smoking; rain falling gently.

Girl: The great thing about surrealism is that it doesn’t have to make sense.

Boy: Yeah, I know. It’s like punk. I’m in this Punk Lit class. It’s so awesome. It’s just whatever.

Girl: Oh, I had that class last year. It WAS whatever. It was awesome.

Boy: Yeah, it’s SO awesome.

Girl: So I’m in this surrealism class, and I wrote a paper about Andre Breton, but I wrote it in a surrealist style. Like it was a surrealist report on surrealism. Like it didn’t necessarily make sense, but cleverly so, you know?

Boy: That sounds awesome.

Girl: I thought so too. But I got a D on it.

Boy: Did your teacher not like your methodology?

Girl: I think my methodology was OK. She just didn’t like me.

HILDRED SAINT CYR

Lili St. Cyr was a notorious stripper. And Hildred Cyr was my second-grade teacher. When I think of one, I think of the other. And not just because of the name.

They are complete opposites, at least on the surface.

My first exposure to Lili St. Cyr was through watching "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." The movie is full of great names from mid-century, like Charles Atlas, Janette Scott, Claude Rains, Fay Wray — and Lili St. Cyr. Susan Sarandon's character, Janet, mentions Lili in a song: "God bless Lili St. Cyr." So I looked up that name — circa 1984 — and found out she was a world-famous stripper. Hildred would HATE her, I thought.

And here's why: Hildred was a women's libber.

That's not a fact I fully appreciated in second-grade, of course. I had a burgeoning sense — circa 1973 — that girls got a raw deal, but I didn't know just how raw. And, of course, I had no women-libber role models. The women in my life — relatives, other teachers — were mainly about keeping their men happy and knowing their place. It wasn't ladylike to complain that for every dollar a man made you made 27 cents. Heck, it wasn't entirely ladylike to even be working at all. My mom (whom I have always loved more than anyone on the planet) didn't work outside the house while I was growing up. She worked her ass off inside the house — cooking and cleaning and keeping order — and every day at 4 o'clock or so she would throw on some makeup and fix her hair and have a cocktail waiting for my stepdad when he got home from work.

But Hildred, like Ani Di Franco, was not a pretty girl. That's not what she did. My first inkling that she was "different" was when I noticed the red, white and blue E.R.A. pin she wore on her blouse. I asked my mom what it meant. She didn't tell me it stood for Equal Rights Amendment. She said it was a "women's-libber thing," and I could tell by her tone of voice that it was not a good thing. I had also heard my parents describe Mrs. Cyr as an outspoken divorcee. So I naturally concluded that women's libbers were just a bunch of outspoken divorcees — ladies who couldn't keep a man because of their big mouths.

Nevertheless I always liked Mrs. Cyr. I felt an implicit kinship with her. She took care of me. She stimulated my 8-year-old mind. One time while I was reading aloud in class I came to the word "Egypt" and didn't know how to say it. There were a dizzying number of consonants. She told me to calm down and sound it out, but I was too flustered. After several inept tries, she reminded me that "y" was sometimes a vowel, and I finally understood how to say the word, as the other kids snickered. The next day she brought me a book about Egyptian mummies and told me it was in appreciation of my being such a "good little reader." I loved it.

Some other things about Mrs. Cyr: She was very tall and hefty. My mom described her as a "large woman," which is how polite people said a "big broad." She also had a large hairdo, one of those you get at the beauty shop once a week that requires a couple of cans of Aquanet to stay in place. Her hair was iron gray with a skunk-like streak of silver. She seemed old to me at the time, but I realize now that she was probably only in her 40s and just refused to dye her hair. She had funny glasses and a quirky smile where she'd raise one eyebrow in mock judgment, a characteristic I didn't appreciate until much later. She was Jewish; instead of a class Christmas party we celebrated Hanukkah, even though there wasn't a single Jewish kid in the whole school. We loved it. "Jews are fun!" We made Hanukkah candles using our little milk cartons and some gold tinsel, and we made pretzels that she had the crusty school cooks bake in the cafeteria. She had two brilliant sons: One went to Harvard and the other went to Oxford.

She was always involved in some vague feud with school administrators — a set of antediluvian misogynists who were no doubt oppressing her. There was this girl Patty in our class who had a bowel-control problem. She was always pooping her pants, and the other kids made merciless fun of her. Mrs. Cyr took Patty under her wing and made her feel like a million dollars. It was the first time I understood how unspeakably horrible it was to torment someone for something they couldn't help. I never did it after that. I befriended Patty because I wanted to be like Mrs. Cyr.

And there was a first-grade teacher, Mrs. Justice, who was in a wheelchair, and Mrs. Cyr would help her get around and run errands for her. I remember my parents saying things about Mrs. Cyr and Mrs. Justice, and I got the impression that running around town with your handicapped spinster friend was something you might do if you didn't have a man at home to take care of. One day some A-hole parked in Mrs. Justice's handicapped space, and Mrs. Cyr went ballistic and told the class that when we got old enough to drive we should NEVER EVER do such a thing —she made us all swear on it, in fact — and I bet not a single one of us ever, ever did.

My best Hildred moment, however, came when I was in junior high. I was leaving track practice, all sweaty and disheveled, when the calm and elegantly dressed Mrs. Cyr called to me across the elementary school parking lot. It seems she was having car trouble. She couldn't get her tiny, fuel-efficient Japanese ride to start. This was before tiny foreign cars were everywhere. This was when gas was like 49 cents a gallon and everyone drove enormous Buicks and station wagons. She was way ahead of the times. She thought if I could help her push the car out of the parking space and get it moving down the lot that it would start. So she got in the driver's seat and I got in front of the car and pushed with all my might. I couldn't budge the car. Mrs. Cyr looked perplexed. "I don't understand," she said. "It's such a light-weight car." We kept trying. I sat behind the wheel and she pushed. No go. Then I spotted Mr. Deterding at the other end of the parking lot. He was the boys track coach. I said to Mrs. Cyr, "Hey, there's Mr. Deterding. Want me to ask him to help?" And Mrs. Cyr pinned me up against the car and whispered, "I wouldn't ask that sexist pig to help me if he were the last person on Earth. I'd sit here all night before I'd lower myself to that." Now I didn't like Mr. Deterding either, but I didn't realize until just then that the reason I didn't like him was because he was sexist. I just knew I didn't feel comfortable around him, and now I sort of knew why: He treated girls differently. I thought, yeah, right on, let's not ask him. But what to do?

Finally, Mrs. Hilton came out of the building. I don't remember what grade she taught — it was first or fourth — but she was an outspoken divorcee, too, only in a more reserved and less humorous way. Unlike Mrs. Cyr, she seemed unhappy all the time. She asked what we were doing. Hildred explained that we were trying to push the car. And Mrs. Hilton looked perplexed, like "Well, how hard is that?" Hildred said we couldn't get it to budge. And I chimed in that we didn't want to ask that sexist pig to help. Mrs. Hilton frowned at Hildred, and Hildred gave a look like "Kids! They say the damnedest things." So Mrs. Hilton kind of rolled her eyes and said, "Let me try." She got in the driver's seat and about half a second later said, with perfect exasperation, "Oh Hildred! It's still in gear." And Hildred said, "I know. I put it in reverse because we're trying to move it backward." And Mrs. Hilton, all flustered, said, "You don't put it in reverse! You put it in neutral." At that, Hildred looked pleasantly surprised, like she just learned a very curious and useful fact. She smiled at me and arched her brow. And Mrs. Hilton looked even more distressed, as if to say, "How can we smash the patriarchy if you can't even understand how to drive?"

I have no memories of Mrs. Cyr after that. I don't think I saw her again. But I thought of her again — and again. My goofy high school friends and I would go to midnight showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the mall. We learned all the lines that the audience would substitute for the film's real lines, like "Damn it, Janet, go get screwed," in lieu of "Damn it, Janet, I love you." You know the drill. Anyway, when Susan Sarandon's character would croon "God bless Lili St. Cyr," I — almost subconsciously — started substituting "God bless Hildred Saint Cyr."

And, even later, I realized that Hildred wouldn't have hated Lili at all. She would have loved her. She would have seen in her striptease and six marriages and sassy ways a kindred spirit who lived her own life, who refused to settle for just looking after a man, who ably supported herself financially and looked after her friends, and who, above all, did — and thoroughly enjoyed — a whole bunch of things that ladies weren't supposed to.

BONE CHINA BEN, PART TWO

My friend Ben is always babbling about music. Notes and octaves. Range and harmony. Tempo and tenors. Stuff like that. Most of the time I have no idea what he's saying.

Most of the time my car radio is tuned to soft rock, which I'm told isn't really music at all. Nevertheless, I do love that syndicated Delilah show, the one where people call in and confide to millions about some relationship issue, then request a pop song that perfectly captures their feelings. Like some dude will sob for three minutes about how he had this awesome girlfriend but failed to appreciate her and now she's with his best friend and he would like to hear Lionel Richie's "Three Times a Lady" in her honor. And he hopes she's listening and knows that he's sorry, wherever she is. The other night some lady was talking about how she lost a bunch of weight and how her boyfriend likes her better and she'd like to dedicate "Natural Woman" to him because that's how he makes her feel now.

To me, that's an evening of musical entertainment.

But Ben has other ideas. To him, a musical evening means dressing up exactly like three other dudes and singing songs together. This is called a barbershop quartet. Each dude takes a part: tenor, lead, baritone and bass. I think Ben is the lead, which is the best part, judging by the name. He has the best part and also the best hair.
The songs are mainly in praise of women — like you're as pretty as a rose, and you're really nifty, and I get a thrill holding your hand, wear my fraternity pin and drive around in my roadster, etc. Old-school stuff. Not contemporary stuff like I'm in love with a stripper, show me yo booty and rub my muthafuckin' d***.

Not that those songs couldn't be beautifully adapted to four-part harmony. I was just thinking yesterday how Ben could do a lovely arrangement of Wu-Tang Clan's "Shame on a Nigga." It would be a win-win situation: He'd bring a new aesthetic to rap AND bring barbershop — kickin' and cussin' — into the modern era.

And he could change the name of his quartet from Kansas Express to Three Wus and a Tang. Ben would be the Tang.

Speaking of, I was just reading on NPR's Web site about the real origins of barbershop. Its roots aren't English like everyone thinks; they're black. The poor blacks started it up and then white people began recording it and commercializing it. Crazy, huh? Have you ever heard of such a thing? This guy in the article said he didn't know of any black quartets who sang barbershop now. But surely there must be some.

Ben's quartet — comprised of a white lawyer, a white home inspector, a white nurse and a white ladies' shoe salesman — sang a black song last weekend: "Swing Low Sweet Chariot," the remix. Ben broke out in the middle with some awesome chain-gang type R&B. If he were in the quartet at left, he'd totally be the dude whose jacket doesn't fit.

They sang this song Saturday at the Topeka Performing Arts Center. It was part of an annual gig. It was my first barbershop show, and it was fun. I can't say anything about the music — I wouldn't know a C-sharp from a D-flat — but here are some minor observations:

• Barbershop singers make funny faces. Look at Ben's mouth above. They contort their muscles to make the words come out right. I suppose all singers do this, but it seems especially exaggerated — and entertaining — with barbershoppers.

• The best quartets to watch are the ones where the members have distinct personalities and characteristics.
Like one will have giant ears and another will be short and rotund and another will be huge and goofy or wear glasses, like the quartet at right, called 3 Men and a Melody. The disharmony in their physical appearance really underscores the harmony in their sound.

• The other barbershoppers are jealous of Ben's hair. I heard a couple of people say, rather vehemently, that he should cut it. One was the wife of a guy from another — lesser — quartet. This guy's hair was nothing more than an oily film of razor stubble coating his scalp. Apparently, she thought that was a swell look and Ben should give it a try. She was badgering Erin about how on earth she "managed" Ben's hair, as if looking after your husband's coiffure were chief among a wife's duties. Another one who recommended a haircut was this old barbershopper who seemed to think anything longer than half an inch meant you were a gay homosexual. As noted, they are jealous. Ben is the Samson of his quartet, and they are trying to rob it of its strength.

• I was in the company of barbershoppers for only a few hours and I picked up right away what a cutthroat bunch they are. Underneath the quaint bowler hats and spats, underneath the wives' sweet smiles and adoring looks is a world of fierce competition and intrigue. Only recently I was made privvy to a coup plot in a certain south-central Kansas ensemble. Beneath the honey chords, discord reigns.

• Barbershoppers are fond of silly jokes, ones with a long lead-in and a rimshot punchline. And barbershop groupies don't mind hearing the same jokes about 1,000 times. The familiarity is part of the enjoyment. Standard humor and standard songs. Content takes a backseat to delivery. Ben said some really funny things on stage, but they weren't jokes. They were just Ben's Ben-like observations, and they complemented his hair really well.

He'll be performing again at the end of this month. If he is not too busy conditioning his hair or aerobicizing to D's hip-hop dance party, he can give you the details here.

A WARM WELCOME


"You know, I was thinking about who I would like completely out of my life."

Ever since I read that in my friend Erin's sixth-grade diary I have been thinking of Who I Would Like Completely Out Of My Life. And I have to say the WIWLCOOML list — or Welcome, for ease of pronunciation — has gotten rather unwieldy. I mean, I've turned into Joe Pesci from "Goodfellas," whacking people left and right for minor offenses and imagined insults. The least faux pas can get someone on my list. I'm glad it's not a hit list per se, because, as much as I'd enjoy it, I really don't have time to plan and carry out a bunch of mob-style executions. I barely have time to even fantasize about them.

Erin's list, if you read her diary, was relatively short: "I've decided on Susan, Cheri, Matt, Melissa and Steve."

I'm sure she has added a few names in the 14 years since she started it. My own name has probably made an appearance there a time or two. It may be there now. Those biscuits I made Sunday were kind of tough.

The Welcome list — as in you are welcome to leave my life at any time now — is a handy title, not just because it's a substitute for an awkward acronym, but also because, as you might imagine, the contents of such a list are delicate and potentially dangerous. If it has a congenial name, like Welcome, people who find it — for example, your mother while she's cleaning your already-clean house with a toothbrush — will just think it's a fun guest list. "Look, there's my name!" she'd smile. Then your only worry would be if she secreted it away to use while planning your surprise birthday party.

Which reminds me. If my mom invites any of you to a surprise party of any kind, tell her no. If you say yes, you will immediately get on the list, provided you aren't already. I loathe surprise parties. No exceptions. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Bon voyages. Proposals. Especially proposals. Good God, if anyone got on bended knee and popped — I loathe that word — the question to me in a public place, I'd have to say "No!" followed closely by "Surprise!" I'd have to turn the tables, even if in another context I would have gladly said "Yes!" Even if, as Miss Jean Brodie says, it were the Lord Lyon, King at Arms. I would have to refuse because I am devoted to candor in my prime.

Obviously I can't tell you who exactly is on my list. That could have all sorts of unpleasant consequences. But we can talk in broad strokes, as it were — by reference to types rather than individuals. For example, bossy people. They are welcome to leave my life at any time. And judgmental people. And willfully stupid people. And insensitive people. And people who don't know how to pass others on the sidewalk. And people who are too literal. And people who lie all the time. And phonies. And people who use excessive product in their hair. And people who say things like "the next level" and "kick it up a notch." People like that.

Today one of my students came very close to getting on the list. He gave me excuse No. 43 why he missed class: "I have developed a urinary problem that makes me have to go to the bathroom if I drink a lot, and I didn't want to be getting up and down during class." Apparently this is a rare condition. Some other excuses, not necessarily from him: "It was raining this morning and I left my umbrella in a friend's car"; "My alarm clock was set for p.m., not a.m."; "My girlfriend's mom was visiting"; "I needed a day off"; "I had to go to a tanning appointment for this wedding I'm in"; "I had to study for another class."

Out! Out of my life! If these excuses are lies, get out of my life! And if they are true, get out even faster!

The only reason this kid did not make my list in the end was because I saw him later at the student union. He was wearing a blue KU basketball T-shirt, and on the back it said in giant white letters: "WIN OR LOSE, WE'LL STILL BOOZE."

Now that warmed my heart. I never would have expected such a lofty sentiment from him — something so stoic and Epicurean all at once. His sophisticated worldview, alas, redeemed him from the list.

From time to time, of course, everyone is on my list. Yes, occasionally I Would Like Everyone Completely Out of My Life. The only ones left would be me and my dogs.

And sometimes it would be just the dogs.

WE WILL GET FOOLED AGAIN

As I was walking across campus today, I saw this yucky kid approaching. His hair was matted and greasy and all different lengths. His clothes looked filthy and were too loose in some places and too tight in others.
His T-shirt looked like it was straight out of the 70s and four sizes too small. His jeans were filthy, unevenly faded and full of holes; the hems were tattered and ripped. I don't remember the shoes. My eyes were just getting there, as he passed within a foot of me, when something hit me: He smelled great.

And not just regular great, but really great.

Like he had been soaking in a warm bath of savon de Provence, then had splashed himself with some delicate, rare fragrance.

His scent lingered after him, hanging in the warm air. I wanted to walk circles inside it.

I actually turned around, took a second whiff and watched his yucky person walk away. That's when I saw that he had no shoes. And that's when the shock really hit me.

The shock, of course, was the combination of the look and the scent. He looked like he should have six days worth of B.O. and three kinds of VD, but he smelled like a pampered Parisian socialite.

Then I realized: Oh yes, that's the look. I know that's the look. And yet every time I see a particularly pronounced form of the look I forget that it's the look. I get tricked into thinking it's genuine neglect rather than studied neglect. I almost feel sorry for the little urchins before me, but then I register that their filthy, skimpy T-shirts probably cost twice as much as all the clothes on my back. Or more.

I am always getting tricked by the look, just like I always get tricked by Christian radio. Some song will be playing that I think is kind of catchy and smart, not knowing what station I'm on, and then will come a lyric about God's judgment or saving yourself for Jesus. Damn it! Tricked again!

I don't get it. I don't get the dissonance between the look and the reality. Is the dissonance part of the appeal? Are you supposed to see the look at face value or are you supposed to deconstruct it?

Some of those things — parts of the look — have a democratizing effect. I sort of like how you have to look at someone twice to tell what they're about. Is this a homeless person coming at me or an upscale college student? Like you do a doubletake and you realize that those thick, black-framed glasses — the epitome of ugly 20 years ago — are hiding a set of beautiful brown eyes. This person could wear contacts and show off their eyes but they opt instead for the clunky, plastic goggles. Or those dirty hip huggers that are making an ass look big and out-of-whack are actually clinging to a well-proportioned hind-end. And despite their appearance, they're not really dirty; they're Downy fresh. I like when beauty is not obvious, when it's played down, not up. But there's a fine line between not obvious and pretentious.

I admit I have no fashion sense. I start liking things years after they have become stylish. Usually they're things I hate, that I rant against, and then by the time they're no longer in fashion they have grown on me. Like flip-flops and bell bottoms and messy haircuts. I berated all those things as stupid and pretentious and unoriginal and unattractive. But now I sort of like them. I am always understanding things belatedly: fashions, jokes, movies, relationships. I get used to what they're about. But the aesthetic of the look still eludes me. And tricks me on a regular basis.

LOVE FOR SEVEN ORANGES

Wow. I just ate my first Pixie Mandarin. My first seven, rather. I couldn't stop; they were so magnificent. Tiny, bright, beautiful oranges that taste like sunshine with sugar on top.

I am a sucker for all the exotic fruits at The Merc. I buy stuff based on cute names — like Pixie — or exotic appearance. Anything shiny and bright will tempt me, even if my better judgment tells me it's out of season, that it's going to be all flash and no substance. Like the bing cherries in the middle of winter. How many times have those tricked me? I pay $6 or more a pound and get them home and they taste like nothing. Worse than nothing — because you NEED them to be SOMETHING so badly! Or the expensive, romantic sounding blood oranges whose flavor, alas, lacks all romance. Or the sour figs. Or the tiny red bananas that tasted like cardboard (to be fair, I think I ate those too soon. I knew nothing about them. Only that they were tiny and red and reminded me of that island Captain Cook visited that had bananas with red flesh that made the natives' mouths look like they were bleeding, which scared the bejesus out of European sailors nourished on tales of South Sea cannibalism.)

Recently, after I had been burned again by the cherries, I stole one and tasted it. I figured it was due me if I was going to blow $10 on them. It was glorious. But the other 250 of them I got stuck with were like contemporary fiction: all texture and no sweetness.

But Pixie Mandarins. My God. They're like those midget oranges your mom puts in fruit salads and Jell-O. Only they're FRESH and BURSTING with splendor. It's the kind of deal where you say to yourself: I can't believe something this good is in my mouth. I really can't believe it.

We've all had that kind of deal.

Some other fruit moments:

Eating kumquats, my first, with the Last Feminista and his artist friend Nick in Nick's blackened, illegal apartment (some zoning deal), which is where the coffee shop Henry's is now. (LF, what happened to that huge painting he gave you, by the way? It had all sorts of objects — nails, glass, Christmas lights — sticking out of it. It had some deep meaning.)

Eating pomegranates, my first, with my old roommate Linda and her boyfriend Richard. I really hated that guy. He was ridiculous and petty and didn't appreciate Linda, but he knew how to pick a good pomegranate.

Eating exotic Asian fruits with Steve at Lanna Thai in Tulsa — after the divorce. I still don't know what they were. Or why I remember them.

As a kid, breaking open my first real coconut with my sister. We pooled our quarters to buy it and used a sledgehammer and sat on the sidewalk and drank the weird milk and picked out the startling white flesh and pretended we were guest stars on "Gilligan's Island." "After we're done eating we can make a bikini top out of these shells, or a radio."

Presenting the biggest, yellowest banana I've ever seen to Erin, a banana lover, in random appreciation of her friendship. And hearing her say, happily, as she peeled it, "This makes me feel dirty."

Eating a bowl of bing cherries, my first, with my first cousin Kevin at my aunt and uncle's cabin in the Rockies. We ate the cherries — I was stunned by their flavor; I had only eaten maraschino cherries before or canned pie cherries — and we competed to see how far we could spit the pits. And we waded in the mountain stream until our feet turned blue — June is too soon!— and listened to John Denver and gave each other adolescent kisses with cherry-stained mouths.

Eating strawberries in France with Kim, my first.

Eating kiwi fruit, my first, with Steve and Steve Kozak and his wife, Cindy. We had some huge grilled meat fest and consumed tons of beer and cigarettes. Kozak drank vodka out of plastic pint bottles. Then he peeled about 20 kiwi fruit and cut them up for dessert. It was a revelation.

Picking apples with Beth in autumn, in New York, her favorite time and place.

Buying peaches in the Ozarks and watching my 8-year-old niece devour the whole bag, with an ear-to-ear smile and juice running down both arms.

Watching my grandma peel apples to make pie. She made the whole peel come off in one long, skinny strip, cigarette dangling from her lips. I would monitor the progress of the giant strip. If it broke, we'd both act real sad. And she'd try again. I'd remind her to ash her cigarette.

Feeding watermelon — her favorite — to my dog Regina the summer she died.

Making banana ice cream with my mom as a kid, having to turn that damn crank.

Drinking icy cold strawberry shakes with Brenda Kendall at the lake and having to share mine when a huge horsefly landed in hers and she started to cry.

The ever-present Cezanne-like bowl of pears in Erin and Ben's kitchen.

Peach pie in bed on a winter night.

Fruit.

THE MELANCHOLY METHOD MAN

Lest this turn into a mutual admiration society — a hall of mirrors, if you will — I should write about something besides a friend.

So how about a great Dane? Not Marmaduke. But Soren Kierkegaard (right).

I think all Danes are great, by the way, not just the great ones. I love Denmark's situation in the world, its geography, its aesthetic. It's the stepping stone between prissy Europe and earthy Scandinavia. I always think of Danes as being a little bit European and a little bit Viking, like the Osmonds are a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. Shakespeare, without benefit of the Donny and Marie example, spotted this characteristic all on his own and — perfectly — made Hamlet Danish. The Dane is a very precise mixture of doubt and resolve, of paganism and Christianity, of melancholy and ecstasy. Hence all his problems.

My favorite Dane, by far, is the Baroness Blixen. Not just because she wrote the most elegant opening line in the English language — "I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills" — but because she understood the food-sex connection in literature. Maybe she even invented that connection, as we know it, in "Babbette's Feast." She herself lived on champagne and grapes and eventually died of malnutrition.

I have a lot of superficial thoughts on Kierkegaard before I get down to the deep ones:

1. The lasting achievement from my career as a philosophy major is that I can spell Kierkegaard without looking it up. I can also spell Nietzsche, although I can't use it correctly in a sentence.

By contrast, I bet you $6 that Driftwood, the Last Feminista, had to look up "Kierkegaard" when he mentioned him in the comments section of my last entry. He looked it up, then carefully pecked it out with one finger on his keyboard. (The Last Feminista is way smarter and better looking and more athletic and kinder than I am, so the only way I have to keep him in his place is continual reference to his spelling disability.)

2. Kierkegaard — with his frail looks and his unrequited love — reminds me of Washington Irving's Ichabod Crane. I wonder whether Norman Rockwell had the same impression when he painted Crane (left).

3. Kierkegaard wrote killer love letters. Here's a sample: " ... it seems to me that I should have to possess the beauty of all girls in order to draw out a beauty equal to yours; that I should have to circumnavigate the world in order to find the place I lack and which the deepest mystery of my whole being points towards, and at the next moment you are so near to me, filling my spirit so powerfully that I am transfigured for myself, and feel that it's good to be here."

Wow. He didn't mess around. Is it even possible to write a love letter like that these days? Would your loved one even get it, or would she just glance at it and say something like "Hmmm. Obsess much? Let's watch 'American Idol.'"

4. He loved a woman and gave her up. It's one of the most famous breakups — sacrifices — in Western thought. Everyone who talks about Kierkegaard's philosophy mentions Regina at some point. I named my dog after her. Once, long after she was out of his life, he asked her husband for permission to talk with her briefly. The husband said no. No.

5. Kierkegaard was critical of the church. He felt it robbed religion of its soul. It reduced something magical and grand to a set of petty rules and empty forms and ugly, uninformed judgments, just like the Christian right has done today.

6. In my study of philosophers, Kierkegaard was the first one who struck me as a real person. He impressed a lot of people that way, I imagine, which maybe has something to do with his being regarded as the first existentialist. You can picture him walking down the street, deciding where to go.

7. He came up with the "Leap of Faith," which strikes me as the most elegant understanding of religious feeling ever articulated. It's beautiful because it's a death knell for and celebration of God all at once. The idea is that faith is meaningless without doubt. If you don't doubt your religious convictions, you are incapable of ever truly believing them. Doubt makes the miracle, like exception makes the rule. It should keep atheists and believers alike happy. But it doesn't.

(Note to self: Invent a cocktail called "Leap of Faith" — one part doubt, two parts conviction. Serve at room temperature with a Hegelian twist.)

Gosh, look at the time. I forgot to spring my clocks forward. And I haven't even gotten to my deep thoughts on Kierkegaard. Words, words everywhere, and not a thought to think.

Oh well. You didn't get to see my profound wisdom on the great Dane, but you did get to see how — with smoke and mirrors — I bullshitted my way through a philosophy degree.