August 30: Smell Your Socks, Cleaning My House, Fairy Tale Friday

"This room stinks," I said.  "I can smell your socks from way over here.  Don'tcha ever send them to the laundry?"

Holden is not too kind to his suite mate, Ackley, at the beginning of Catcher.  Of course, Ackle y gives him plenty of ammunition for his attacks.  Ackley's personal hygiene leaves a great deal to be desired, and Ackley's dorm room reflects this fact.  As Holden says, the room "stinks."

Fridays are my cleaning days.  I vacuum.  I sweep.  I mop.  I clean the bathroom.  I empty the garbage.  I dust everything.  By the time I'm done, the whole house smells, for a few hours, at least, like lemon and Lysol.  I love sitting on my couch after I'm done, seeing everything in its place.  Having a twelve-year-old daughter and four-year-old son, I know this moment of order will be brief.  However, I revel in it while it lasts.

My wife thinks I'm a little bit of a fanatic about my Friday routine.  She may be right.  I cannot really relax on a Friday night unless the cleaning is done.  After a week of chaos and running, I need a few quiet minutes when I can believe that the universe is running properly, all the planets aligned and singing.  Only a few minutes.  That's all I ask.

Well, that and a fairy tale.

Once upon a time, a man named Hearst lived in a castle by the ocean.  Hearst insisted his castle be cleaned, top to bottom, every day by his servants.  He drove everyone crazy, screaming at the top of his lungs if he found one single water spot on his crystal wine glasses.  His bed linens were washed every morning.  His socks and underwear were hand laundered in the ocean tides every night.

Hearst believed he could control the universe by keeping it dusted, mopped, and washed.  "If I don't do this," he often said to his butler, Yancy, "fall won't follow summer, and winter won't come after fall."

Yancy merely nodded his head.

One morning, Hearst found a mouse in his bathroom.  He jumped onto the toilet and began screaming.  He screamed and screamed.  None of his servants came to check on him.  They were too busy cleaning.  Yancy was in the village, replenishing the castle's supply of lemon Pledge.

Hearst had a heart attack in the bathroom.  Yancy found his body later that morning.  Yancy couldn't believe his eyes.  Hearst had soiled himself before he died.

Moral of the tale:  shit happens.

And Saint Marty lived happily every after.

I Pledge allegiance...

March 29: Good Friday, Ackely, Church

"Only around!"  Ackley said.  "Listen, I gotta get up and go to Mass in the morning, for Chrissake.  You guys start hollering and fighting in the middle of the goddam--What the hell was the fight about, anyhow?"

If you can't tell from this little piece of dialogue, Ackley isn't a model Christian.  There's a lot of irony in what he says.  He has to go to Mass in the morning, followed up with "for Chrissake."  Then he starts complaining about Holden fighting with his dorm room mate in the middle of "goddam..."  Don't get me wrong.  I like Ackley, and I think Holden does, too.  As Holden says at one point, Ackley's a prince.

I have to go to church this weekend.  A lot of church.  It started last night, with a Maunday Thursday service.  At one o'clock this afternoon, I have to play for a Good Friday service at a Catholic church.  Tonight, I'm going to be singing with an ecumenical choir at an Episcopal church.  Tomorrow night is the main event--the Easter Vigil Mass.  It starts at 9 p.m. and lasts about two-and-a-half hours.  Lots of candles and chimes and reading and singing.  Probably smoke and water, as well.  Then, on Easter Sunday morning, it's the Easter Sunrise service at 8 a.m., followed by an 11 a.m. Easter worship service.

No wonder the Easter Bunny brings chocolate on Sunday.  He has to give everybody energy to make it through the last church services.  I'm feeling pretty good right now, but I have a feeling that, when the alarm goes off on Sunday morning, I'm going to feel more like Ackely, muttering something like, "I just go to sleep a little while ago, for Chrissake."

Today is one of the holiest days of the year.  It's also P.O.E.T.S. Day.  I still have a lot to get done before the sun sets.  Cleaning and writing and reading.  Maybe I'll watch a movie tonight with my wife.  Something light and easy.  Perhaps The Passion of the Christ.

Saint Marty is up for a few laughs.

Have you heard the one about the rabbi and the priest?

March 22: Ackley, Need a Friend, P.O.E.T.S. Day Friend

All of a sudden, Ackley barged in again through the damn shower curtains, as usual.  For once in my stupid life, I was really glad to see him.  He took my mind off the other stuff.

Holden has love/hate relationships with a lot of the people.  His roommate Stradlater, who goes on a date with Jane.  His mother and father, who can't seem to see how Holden is struggling after his younger brother's death.  His brother D.B., who sells out to Hollywood.  And Ackley, the guy who keeps barging into his dorm room uninvited.

I think most relationships are like this.  Love.  Hate.  Sometimes, you want to spend the whole day with a person, from breakfast to lunch to dinner to sauna where you whip each other's asses with birch branches.  Okay, maybe not the sauna thing.  Other times, the way that person chews a banana can make you want to commit ritual seppuku.  It's the normal ebb and flow of interpersonal interaction.  (I learned that in therapy.)

This morning, as I was driving into work, I passed a bank with a flashing sign.  It flashed the time and temperature and date.  It flashed "Happy Saint Patrick's Day," even though Saint Patrick's Day was last weekend.  Then it flashed this message:  "Need a friend?"  Now, I know that it was some kind of sales gimmick to generate business for the friends at Scru-U Savings and Loan.  Need a friend?  Come in and talk to our loan officer.  She'll give you enough money to buy the entire cast of Glee as friends.  However, that simple question made me reflect on the people who make me feel good about myself.

Last night, I gave a poetry reading.  There were three people in the audience.  Two good friends and my wife (who is my best friend).  I had two other friends playing music and singing, as well.  I was surrounded by love, and it was great.  For an hour, I read poems, told stories, and listened to some really great songs that I got to pick out.

My phone rang about an hour after I got home from the reading.  It was my friend, Linda, who sang and played guitar during the reading.  "I just want to thank you," she said.  "I want to let you know how good that was."  I said something about how her music really made the difference.  "Oh, no," she said.  "You really are great.  Thank you for letting me be a part of that."

That's what friends are for.  Even though the number of people in the audience wouldn't even make up a bowling team, Linda made me feel like I'd just delivered my Nobel Prize lecture.  I was blessed and grateful.

Need a friend?  This P.O.E.T.S. Day, Saint Marty knows he has the best friends in the world.

You've got a friend in me