Something I thought of over the summer

I think I can identify pretty well with Zach Braff's character in SCRUBS. Today, the brain movies were particularly good, and the moments of self-narration were absolutely profound.

For instance, right before entering the gym, I was imagining my life as a world famous literary raconteur who entertained all the great courts and salons of Europe. I'd finally come to New York City where floods of reporters would come by and ask in a very 19th century way: "Whadya think of America?" I think it would be hilarious for an American to be asked this question and be forced to answer as though he was a cultured European who was visiting America for the first time.

I was smirking at this point as I handed my LA Fitness card over to be scanned. It's always embarrassing to suddenly burst out in seemingly-unprovoked laughter.

"How about American women?" would be the next question. At this point I was in the men's locker room where I had to self-consciously remind myself not to make overt direct stares. The trouble is that I have a tendency to stare at every single person that I walk past. It must have to do with some form of obsessive compulsiveness--a project my brain gives me.

When I was much younger, I had even more mini-projects. One was stealing other students' pencils and pens. They'd have asked for them back, except that it was a well-known fact that my teeth marks would be all over the pens and pencils. My chewing didn't just involve nervous nibbling, either, but I'd actually devour my writing implements. This was especially embarrassing when I would bite into a pen and the ink would suddenly explode and ooze over my face, generally right in the middle of a timed exam. Kids laughed and the teachers thought I was doing this deliberately to disrupt the lesson (Especially my fourth grade teacher, Sister Noreen. She was a horrible old hag. She made us clean our desks with rags she made out of men's underwear). Sometimes, this was the case, but it was unfair for them to think I was always trying to play the roll of class clown. When I wanted attention, I'd be more overt and blow my nose like a foghorn or chirp like a bird. But chewing pens was actually a way to calm myself so I could concentrate. Another thing I did was walk around the classroom. When puberty came, blackheads would become a new obsession. Double-checking everything is still a problem, which is one of the reasons I'm always late. On the other hand, when I don't double-check, I end up forgetting something, which only reinforces the compulsion. I should make checklists like my former roommate and my sister do, but I think that's just anal-retentive.

Yet, I'm still sloppy. Go figure. Well, not entirely sloppy. I actually keep things in individual piles. I try to be artistic about these piles, too, if I can help it, arranging things around the way museum curators might arrange the workspace of an important historical figure like Thomas Edison or Henry Ford. My mess has to look distinguished, in other words. I figure if Shirley MacLaine believes she had important past lives, then why can't I also dream big?

So, staring must just be one of those things that lasted. At any rate, it doesn't pay to have a staring compulsion, be gay, and stand around in an all-male locker room, so I keep my head steadfastly on the floor at all times.

I was still trying to come up with an old-timey response to the reporter who asked what I thought of American women and I actually took the time to write a few of them down in my notebook while guys in the locker room excused themselves to get around me to their lockers (The excuse I came up with if one of the guys asked what I was writing was: "Just trackin' my workout progress, bro." Saying "bro" in a gym-like environment helps, I think.). The first response: "I must compliment American women for providing such a ready compliment of American men." And the second response was: "I can assuredly tell you that there'd scarcely be a virgin remaining in your country if American women were more like American men."

Neither of these responses are particularly hilarious to our 21st century ears, but I'm convinced that people in the 19th century would be howling and saying things like: "Oh, there's a fellow for you!"

Driving back home, it occurred to me that I've remained essentially the same person I've always been. Somehow, I had always hoped that after visiting the therapist, or beginning a new workout regimen, or graduating traffic school for the billionth speeding ticket, or starting a new project, or ending an old one, that an epiphany would occur and I'd have unconsciously reinvented myself.

So, I'm not exactly sure where reform or redemption or even progress fits in. None of these seem possible, which I had begun to realize as I neared my house, imagining myself in the back of a Maybach, leaning over the front seat to tell the chauffeur: "Home, Other James" (that'll be his name, "Other James." It's probably sounds insulting, but really, he shouldn't take it personally since its not every chauffeur who gets to drive a Maybach).

In the daydream, I was also imagining myself daydreaming, trying to distract myself from the inevitable moment I'll have to tell my fabulously wealthy lover that I somehow managed to max out his supposedly limitless Centurion Card.

But, the reverie wasn't about trying to distract myself from the fact that I don't have any money, but the fact that eventually I'd have to engage in a real-life conversation with somebody. In this case it was my family, whose conversations I always fear for their tedium. Today's visit was no better: instructions were given on how to care for the pets while they're gone on vacation.

I'm really hoping that the pet instructions are written down somewhere, because during that time I was supposed to be listening, I was actually trying to imagine what it would be like to be Abelard and have my balls chopped off by my lover's uncle.