December 16: Mustard Gas and Roses, Christmas To-Dos, Bailey's Cheesecake

When I was somewhat younger, working on my famous Dresden book, I asked an old war buddy named Bernard V. O'Hare if I could come to see him.  He was a district attorney in Pennsylvania.  I was a writer on Cape Cod.  We had been privates in the war, infantry scouts.  We had never expected to make any money after the war, but we were doing quite well.

I had the Bell Telephone Company find him for me.  They are wonderful that way.  I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.  I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses.  And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.

I got O'Hare on the line in this way.  He is short and I am tall.  We were Mutt and Jeff in the war.  We were captured together in the war.  I told him who I was on the telephone.  He had no trouble believing it.  He was up.  He was reading.  Everybody else in his house was asleep.

"Listen--" I said, "I'm writing this book about Dresden.  I'd like some help remembering stuff.  I wonder if I could come down and see you, and we could drink and talk and remember."

He was unenthusiastic.  He said he couldn't remember much.  He told me, though, to come ahead.

"I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby," I said.  "The irony is so great.  A whole city gets burned down, and thousands and thousands of people are killed.  And then this one American foot soldier is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot.  And he's given a regular trial, and then he's shot by a firing squad."

"Um," said O'Hare.

"Don't you think that's really where the climax should come?"

"I don't know anything about it," he said.  "That's your trade, not mine."

Welcome to my Saturday morning.  I didn't sleep well last night, much like Vonnegut.  I didn't get drunk and call old friends.  I think the Internet has sort of made that little habit a bit outdated.  Now, I suppose, Vonnegut would get drunk and find old friends on Facebook.

Me?  I was up and down all night, going to the bathroom, lying down thinking about the papers I still need to grade, Christmas shopping I need to do, the radio program I'm going to be on next Friday evening.  I thought about how to record MP3 files on my computer, because the radio show people want me to send them files with the poems and essays I will be reading.  And I thought about music I need to learn, a poem and Christmas letter I need to write, and Christmas cards I need to mail.

Yes, we all put a lot of undue stress on ourselves this time of year.  I don't know if I'm going to make any Christmas cookies this year.  I'm going to be pretty busy preparing for Christmas dinner at my house.  Turkey and mashed potatoes and all the fixings.  Already ordering a Bailey's cheesecake from a baker friend.  Know what I need to buy and cook.  It's just another thing on my list of Christmas to-dos.

I think I will feel less stressed when all of my grading is done.  That's sort of hanging over me like blizzard clouds over the Rockies.  Once I get past that, I should be in pretty good shape.  Except for the MP3 computer thing.  I don't know how I'm going to do that.   That is really bothering me, as well.

Of course, everybody is in the same boat around this time of the year.  So much to do, and the days keep marching on toward December 25.  Soon, I will have reached the it's-too-late-to-get-that-done phase of Christmas.  That's where you throw up your hands and sort of give up.  Not quite there yet.

So, join Saint Marty in my sleepless nights and work-filled days.

After all, isn't that what Christmas is all about?