Friday, October 24, 2003
Repetitive Notion Disorder
You know how sometimes you keep trying to think of something but you can’t quite get it in your head? Yes, like that, but try to get your mind out of the gutter. I’m trying to elevate the tone here. I’ve been trying to think of something for a month or so, something that just wasn’t quite resolving into clarity for me. Last Saturday night I went to a dinner party and that last little item got jostled from the muck of my subconscious and bubbled up to the surface. I’m in a sharing mood here, so you’re going to hear all about it.
The dinner party was a lot of fun. I ate well and laughed plentifully. (Parenthetically, my personal triumph for the evening was my description of a christmas ornament that Kel’s sketchy distant cousin by marriage hung on the family christmas tree a few years back: meeting the family for the very first time, he immediately went to the tree, which had been lovingly decorated, after delicate negotiations, by four generations of careful hands with delicate and cherished ornaments - and he stuck a Mr. Hanky on it. We all thought it was pretty gauche. Someone at the party asked if it was one of the talking Mr. Hanky toys. “No,” I replied, “it was a mute poo.” Good times.)
It was at this party that I was reminded of that thing I’d been trying to remember for a while: an instance in which I was spontaneously cheered. For a few weeks, for some reason, I’ve been able to recall four such events but I felt sure that there was one more. Well, Chris and Mo reminded me of the missing incident at the dinner table when they asked me, laughingly, for the gravy. Since my mind is finally at peace after spending the better part of a month thrashing this controversy into a thin gruelly pulp, I figured I’d better just get it all into words and have done with it, thus making it your problem and not mine.
WHEN DAN GOT CHEERED SPONTANEOUSLY (in chronological order):
* 10th grade, first day of English class (that would make it 1979, incredibly): The teacher was a really uptight logophilic pedagogue with a napoleon complex. He was assigning seats and sent Mark G to the next-to-lat seat in the next-to-last row. “Does anyone here know the WORD for next-to-last?” he asked with unctious superiority. I raised my hand as I spoke the answer, not waiting to be called on for fear that he wouldn’t see me and thus might not fully appreciate whom he was to teach. My voice was 2-1/2 octaves deeper than his as I intoned, “PENULTIMATE.” Mr. A’s mouth dropped and his infinitely tiresome and seemingly endless nattering dried up for a moment. My classmates cheered. I wound up as a teacher’s pet, again, of course, but wrote a lot of silly poetry to entertain myself and a few select friends over the course of the semester.
* Grad night at Disneyland, end of senior year of high school (1982): I was with the cute 11th grade girl whom I couldn’t believe was my friend (she was way too pretty and popular to hang out with the likes of me). There were thousands upon thousands of giddy high school grads and their giddy dates, from hundreds of high schools all over southern california, milling about and acting smart everywhere. My friend and I wanted to ride the Big Thunder Mountain Railway, so we made our way to the back of an enormous line that wove in and out of artificial gullies and ravines. Several people from my school were ahead of me in line, near the front. One of them noticed us at the back of the line and called out to me, urging us to cut in with him. His friends joined in. Soon, the entire line was chanting my name, thousands of kids shouting themselves hoarse for me and ushering us up to a position of favored privilege with my classmates. I was like unto a god, though not quite so comfortably dressed.
* Around 1989, summertime, in Santa Barbara: I was with Kel and a friend of hers from work at the bookstore. It was a windy day and we were walking. A gust blew my big straw hat off my head. Responding instantly, I wheeled, kicked up my knee nice and high, and sprinted after the hat as it rolled on its brim down the street. It took me about ten paces to catch up, snatching it by the brim as I overtook it. I slowed to a trot and wedged it back onto my head as a car rolled past, a large well-travelled domestic sedan of some sort. Inside were several young people, probably college kids, waving and cheering. I waved to them in triumph. I had caught my hat. I had bested nature, had refused to be the butt of an aeolian joke. I’d like to think, maybe, I inspired them a little. But really, probably not.
* Around 1995, summertime, at the corner of Park Presidio and Fulton: this is just three blocks from my flat and was on my favorite bike route through the park. I was riding with Jon and one other person - Andy? Lisa? Dave? Whoever it was, I knew the trail really well, was in good shape, and was the first to emerge at our exit point for the park. I stood on the bike in my stretch shorts, hands on hips, breathing hard and deep, a sheen of perspiration and dust on my face and arms and legs. A little sporty pickup cruised past us, coming down the boulevard into the park. A young woman drove, another passenged. The truck was in the far right lane, so the passenger was quite near to me as they drove by while I waited for my friends, one of whom (Jon) was just emerging from the groves of the park. The passenger in the truck was leaned far back in her seat, wearing shades and riotously permed hair. As the truck passed me she hooted a howl in my direction. Jon pulled up on his bike next to me just as it happened. “Dude,” he observed, “that was totally for you.” She shoulda took a picture. They last longer. And sometimes I pose.
* The one I just remembered last saturday night: It was just after thanksgiving, around 1998. Some of Kel’s colleagues from work were having a second thanksgiving, for all the poor saps who had to endure a tedious familial version of that most cupiditous of celebrations. I didn’t know but a very few of the many guests. I’d asked what I could do or bring; the hosts (Chris and Mo) asked how I was with gravy. I said I could make gravy just fine, so they suggested I bring some and make some more once I was there out of their pan drippings. I agreed and gave it no further thought, except to cook down a nice big pot of tangy onion gravy before we piled into the car and drove to cowtown for the party. We (Kel, me and the gravy) arrived after things had already gotten into a pretty well-lubricated gear. I walked into this house I’d barely ever visited before, full of staggering strangers and abandoned plastic cups of wine. One such stranger looked me over drunkenly in the entry foyer and asked me, “Are you Dan?” I said, “yes;” he then set up a call: THE GRAVY MAN IS HERE! People started coming out of the woodwork, crowding around, brimming with gravy-related questions and enthusiasm. Soon the general hubbub resolved into a cheer: “Dan, Dan, the gravy man,” repeated over and again till I drank a big shot of whisky. My onion gravy was well-received; the one I cooked with the pan drippings was actually a big challenge, but one which I overcame with aplomb, earning me widespread adulation.
To some who were there that night, I remain the gravy man, and they cheer me still for no reason other than that. They don’t even know that I know the word “penultimate,” have friends up ahead near the front of the line, can catch up with my own hat, and look hot on my bike. Maybe I should have t-shirts made, listing my manifold accomplishments. Maybe I’ll just keep them to myself and smile that secret special smile. Yeah, that’s the one. Like I know something worth knowing. As if.
