"The Only Fan Letter I Ever Wrote"

I had seen her on television.  I had sat in the audience, watching her steal the show as a featured player in I Can Get It For You Wholesale (1962).  I had consumed her first album.  And then, there was Funny Girl (1964), her first starring vehicle.

I was smitten, at seventeen, with Barbra Streisand (who at the time was around twenty.)  

And I sent her the only fan letter I have ever written in my life.

The letter was triggered by an imminent visit to New York City, where I would most certainly get tickets to Funny Girl.  As was usual, I had already purchased the original cast album, and had committed, not all, but all Barbra’s songs, to memory. 

Without question, or legitimate rival, Barbra Streisand was it.

I have always been an appreciator of excellence, and, Billie Holiday being a respectable second, I had never heard a more excellent voice.  A song Barbra sang from The Fantasticks begins with the line, “I’d like to swim in a clear blue stream…”  That’s how her voice sounded to me.  Like a clear, blue stream. 

A clear, blue stream that could act the bejeezus out of a song.

Barbra Streisand didn’t just sing with a crystal, pure voice, she immersed herself in the material, delivering her meticulously chosen selections “from the inside”, often, as with the slowed-down version of “Happy Days Are Here Again”, with fresh and unexpected meaning.

But it was more than an appreciation of her incomparable gifts that impelled me to put pen to paper and write her a fan letter.

I cannot say there was no moony-eyed “crush” component in the equation.  But it was not the predominant one.  What I was excited about was the triumph of talent over looks, conventionality, inexperience and youth.  

A “big nose” with prodigious abilities was making a noise, and I wrote the letter because I wanted her to know her team was out there rooting for her, her “team” being people with as yet undiscovered abilities who looked more like her than like (the icons of the era) Doris Day and Rock Hudson. 

Our team had a winner.  And it gave us comfort, reassurance, inspiration and hope.

My return letter was a typewritten “form letter”, delivered on a quarter of a sheet of paper.  And when I waited at the stage door after attending a matinee performance of Funny Girl, my hero did not come out, opting instead to remain in the theater till after the evening performance.  In both cases, I was disappointed, but hardly turned off.  I continued buying her records, and continued being a fan.

When Barbra got big, and I started doing stuff rather than just dreaming about doing stuff, my enthusiasm inevitably waned.  True, I grew disappointed with her “MOR” song choices – and her pairings with the likes of Neil Diamond and some Disco diva, but, more importantly, it is hard to root for an underdog when they’re not an underdog anymore.  And after a while, neither was I, leaving me less needy of external inspiration. 

Thank you, Barbra.

It was time to move on.

FLASH FORWARD NEARLY HALF A CENTURY

A friend inquired if we’d like to see Barbra Streisand concerting at the Hollywood Bowl.  (I had not seen her perform live since Funny Girl.)  Despite misgivings – Hollywood Bowl is an enormous pain to get to – I heard myself saying I’d like to go. 

Was my enthusiasm rekindled?  I can only say that on the way to the performance, I secretly fantasized myself standing on stage with Barbra, joining her in a duet.  I even imagined the song we would wow them with – "Beauty and the Beast" – after which I would return to my seat, the audience cheering reverberating in my ears. 

Some habits die hard.  Wishful thinking is one of them.

I will not attempt a review of the concert.  I will say only this:

For starters, I found myself in the company of a far different woman than the struggling Ugly Duckling I had once rooted for.  Standing on that stage was arguably – with apologies to Oprah – the most successful woman in show business.  Check out her credits.  Barbra Streisand had racked more awards in more media – theater, movies, television, recording – and in more different categories – singer, actor, director, songwriter – than anyone ever.

Barbra’s voice is no longer the “clear blue stream” of old, but the degree of “drop-off” - Barbra beating the odds again - is astonishingly small.  You could hear it whispering through the sold-out crowd:  “She’s still got it.” The only competing observation being, “She’s had a lot of ‘work’ done.”

Still there was something missing.  Her repertoire, though commendably delivered, felt, to me, like “business as usual.”  Her performance lacked excitement, not because she was fifty years older, but because her song selections seemed generally “ho-hum”, and her persona, though outwardly humble, was detectably self-congratulatory.  

Though I was happy to be there, I was hardly transported.

And then…

For the finale leading to the Intermission, Barbra cut loose, jettisoning the comfortable, and tearing into a (composer) Jule Style medley, two snippets from Gypsy, crescendoing into the tail end of the galvanizing Anthem of my Youth from Funny Girl, “Don’t Rain On My Parade.” 

In that moment, Barbra Streisand caught fire.  Belting out that medley with passion and intensity, the old Barbra was suddenly back, all grit and defiance, spitting out those culminating lyrics that had once meant so much:

“Get ready for me, world, ‘cause I’m a comer

I’ve simply got to march, my heart’s a drummer

Nobody

No, nobody

Is gonna rain on my…

Pa…

BUM BUM BUM BUM-BUM-BUM

raaaade!

…BUM BUM BUM-BUM-BUM

BUM BUM BUM BUM-BUM-BUM

BUM!”

Like an aging boxer who can still “bring it”, if not for the whole bout, for at least one round, as in (country singer) Toby Keith’s song, “I’m Not As Good Once As I Once Was, But I’m As Good Once As I Ever Was”, Barbra Streisand reached deep inside herself, and, obliterating fifty years of comfort and entitlement, reclaimed what it was that made her what she became, and simply blew the audience – including yours truly – into the stratosphere.

As they say in Camelot, for one brief shining moment,

I was, once again, fully and unreservedly,

Goose bumps and shamelessly tearfully,

Hers. 

"Chicken And Cheerios"

It is entirely possible – as I have experienced on the “receiving end” on numerous occasions – that baby stories are delightful only to the immediate family, and a bore to everyone else.  If this is generally, in fact, the case, please let me know, and I will burden you with them no more. 

For now, I shall take the risk, as I pass along this snippet of – for me – deliciousness, destined for enshrinement in the “Pomerantz Memory Bank”, and to be re-told to the now grown up baby’s irritation, for decades to come.

Baby Milo (thirteen months, and still wordless, except, inexplicably, for the word “apple”) is buckled tightly into his high chair, feeding himself from an array of shredded chicken morsels, arrayed on the tray table in front of him. 

Watching from the sidelines, “Pappy Earl”, eager to connect, reaches over, corrals a bite-sized chicken piecelet, stretches his arm toward Milo’s mouthlet, Milo opens his mouthlet, and I slip the food in.

A Classic Tableau – “Grandpa Feeding The Kid.”

There’s more.

After a couple of rounds of me hand-feeding Baby Milo, Baby Milo reaches over to his tray table, picks up a morsel of chicken with his sample-sized fingers, stretches his arm in my direction, I open my mouth, and he slips the food in.  From then on, we take alternating turns – one for him, one for me; one for him, one for me.

Offering an even Classicker Tableau – “Grandpa And Baby Feeding Each Other.”

There’s more.

The very next morning, Cheerios (actually the infant substitute Puffs) now the comestible of choice, Baby Milo modifies the “one for me, one for you” feeding pattern of the day before, inserting a startlingly unexpected wrinkle into the proceedings.  

And with that, I will stop talking, and offer an on-the-spot video, shot on her cellphone by Mama Rachel.

I hope you like it.

"Wednesday Walk - Nasal Observations"

So I’m walking along on my Wednesday morning excursion slash ‘cause there’s a big hill coming back exercise program to get coffee at Groundwork, when I pass a young woman –mid-twenties maybe – walking her dog.   

I take a few steps… you know, like, there’s the speed of light, and the speed of sound? There is apparently also be “the speed of smell”, which, my experience suggests, lags slightly behind. 

I have moved a few feet past the young woman with the dog, when my nasal passages suddenly constrict, and my throat closes up to “one notch below choking.”

The problem? 

Perfume.

I’m talking, really strong perfume. 

Perfume with the piercing pungency of the Air Freshener at the car wash, where I instruct them, “‘Luxury Wash’ – no Air Freshener.”

Here’s what seems to be happening, though I could easily be wrong.  A young woman – wearing sweats, so if she’s not a gym teacher or a fitness instructor is not dressed for work – has apparently immersed herself the most powerful perfume this proboscis has every experienced…

Before going outside to walk her dog!

Why?

The dog wasn’t enjoying it.  The stuff made its eyes water.  Not to mention the dog's look of abject bewilderment:

“I’m fine with my scent.  What’s wrong with her?

I seem to want to relate this to other olfactorial infractions, they may not really go together, but I’m doing it anyway.  The connection, though tangential, may, on further investigation, have overarching implications.  (Whatever that means.)

The global idea here is this:

We in our culture seem to have a serious difficulty with anything that, in any way,

Smells.

That’s the concept.  Agree on disagree?  I agree.  But, of course, I said it.

We want things to smell pleasantly.  Or inoffensively.  Or, in some cases, not smell at all. 

Example:

You open the fridge, and you stick your head in.  How do you determine whether some food item in there is “off”? 

It’s “off” if it smells.

You smell the milk.  If it smells like nothing, it’s okay to drink.  Meat, vegetables, cheeses – except those that were born smelly – the same thing.  The primary indicator for a food’s “eating acceptability” is that its “Basic Odorosity” be zero. 

The signal for, not all food, but for a lot of food’s okayness for consumption is that, when you smell it, the smell you smell when you smell it…is nothing.

Okay, I get that.  A smell in certain foods sends the loud and clear message, “You waited too long.”  This is, in fact, good.  It’s Nature as “Safety Monitor.”  For our health and welfare, Nature “smells up” the bad food.

But consider your facial response when you get a whiff of that cottage cheese that’s gone well past its “Expiration Date.”  It’s not just a calmly objective, “Oh, this has to go.”  It’s disgust, mixed with outrage.  It’s like you’re personally affronted.

How dare anything smell!

Despite the grooming industry’s adopting the same idea, our culture is not, I don’t think, implying that people who emit, what we define as an undesirable odor – or smell – are “going bad.”  But it seems to me these liberally-doused young women walking their dogs – and I’ve encountered a number of them during my Wednesday Walks – seem to be making a not dissimilar assessment about themselves.  To wit:

“You would not want to come near me if I’m not wearing perfume.”  

Now, I know that self-scenting has been around since ancient times.  Until recently, however, I was under the impression that this had to do with people – both male and female – perfuming themselves to cover up the fact that they rarely bathed.  (Fearing that, lacking central heating, they would emerge from the bathtub, contract a chill, and die.  This is not as bizarre an idea as it sounds.  When I lived in England, exiting my bath into an unheated room made me think long and hard about taking any further baths in the future.)

I have only been recently illuminated to the fact that scents and fragrances were primarily employed as a sexual enticement.  It is, in fact, this purpose – seduction through the nose – that makes the perfume industry is so incredibly huge, leading superstars the likes of Brad Pitt to hawk Chanel Number 5 on television.  (Seeing an actor of Brad Pitt’s stature doing TV commercials left me wondering whether the man had a serious gambling problem.  Or a wife who likes diamonds.)

Let me be clear here.  I am not advocating “Stink Nation.”  I am merely offering One Man’s Opinion on the issue of “going overboard.”  It may not even be necessary.  The natural “You” may smell better than you think.

In the end, it’s no big deal.  You do, you don’t, you go subtle, you go for broke – it’s entirely up to you.  I am just planting a modest contrarian seed here, by suggesting that your “come hither” intentions may actually be working the other way.

And by the way – and you can take this for what it’s worth –  

Your dog hates it.

I passed them on my way back.  It was sneezing its head off!

"I Once Went To Paris (Actually, Twice) - Part Two"

Paris has stuff to see in it.  And every day, twenty-two year old Earlo would venture forth, accompanied by the “Paris” chapter he has torn out of his Europe On Five Dollars A Day, and he’d check out the sights.

The Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Champs Elysees, the iconic Eiffel Tower, the Louvre museum, housing world-famous paintings, including Leonardo Da Vinci’s  Mona Lisa.  I recall standing at the back of a crowd gathered around the now-Plexiglas-encased treasure, crossing it off my “Must-See When Visiting Paris” list, and moving on.  Then, I remember stopping myself, and saying, at least partially out loud,

“Earl!  That’s the Mona Lisa.  Go back and look at it!”

So I did. 

I waited for the throng to disperse, and I sat on a bench opposite the painting, giving it my undivided attention.  Hard as it is to believe, and even harder to prove, I can almost swear that the Mona Lisa was looking back at me.  And talking!

“Pretty good, eh?”

“Yeah!”

I won’t presume to explain it from a technique and compositional standpoint, but when you just sit there and give it some time, that 500 year-old portrait can really get under your skin.

I saw Notre Dame Cathedral, minus the Hunchback.  You have to draw him in with your imagination, though when you look at the place, that is not all that hard.  It is unlikely they would have an ogre of that description working on the premises today.  I would think it would be actionably discriminatory in our current times to advertise in the paper: “Bell ringer needed.  Hunchbacks only!”  The best they could hope for is a guy with a mild stoop.

The Palace of Versailles is a little out of town, or at least, an extended subway ride away.  Fortunately, the Paris subways were great.  I recall that there was this wall map that, when you told it your destination, an illuminated trail of tiny bulbs lit up, showing you the exact route to your destination, and which trains you would be required to take, making it virtually impossible to get lost, even for me.  (I get lost in Los Angeles all the time.  Which is one reason I am reluctant to leave the house.)

I did, however, receive a citation on the subway for sitting in a seat specifically allocated to disabled veterans.  It was an innocent mistake.  I took French in High School, but the textbooks involved children named Raymond and Suzette, who in their numerous adventures, never once encountered a disabled veteran, so I did not recognize the words.

The cost of the ticket for this infraction, which the gendarme insisted on collecting on the spot, took a big bite out of my five-dollar-a-day budget.  My travel guide has not factored in “Citations For Erroneously Occupying A Seat Designated For A Person Who Got Hurt In A War.” 

At the risk of sounding defensive, I actually feel this was some kind of premeditated “tourist trap.”  My butt had barely touched the seat before the cop came flying at me, stylo (pen) and Citation Pad at the ready!  It was like he laying in wait for me,

“Ho, ho, hon!  I have caught-ed you!”

Versailles was amazing, even though, it being March, the magnificent gardens were bereft of flowers.  Once again, you had to paint them in with your imagination.  The opulent flowerbeds were a sight to behold.  And I’m a terrible painter!

For me, less memorable than the historic sights of Paris were the everyday occurrences.  Once, around one P.M. or so, I started looking around for a place to eat, only to find that the half a dozen restaurants I tried had signs hanging in their doors saying,

“Closed For Lunch.”

I had never seen that before.  In service-oriented America, the restaurants are open at lunchtime, because…that’s when the customers want to eat.  In Paris, at least to some degree, lunchtime is the designated period for the restaurant employees to eat.  You could see them in there, people in aprons and chef’s hats, sitting around tables, stuffing their faces.  And I’m on the outside going, “Hey!  I’m hungry!”

I ended up, following my guidebook’s direction, lunching at a cafeteria, which somehow found a less inconvenient time to feed its personnel.  I generally associate cafeterias with the culinary atrocities of High School.  Not so, however, in Paris. 

Coq au vin.  Delicate pastries.  And the only available beverage: soda-sized bottles of red wine.  I recall distinctly, after enjoying this bargain-basement banquet, walking out of the place, not entirely steadily, slurring to no one in particular,

“I just got drunk in a cafeteria.”      

Evenings were occupied with the standard Parisian entertainments, Follies Bergere, and so on, with one notable exception.  I bought tickets to see The Odd Couple, in French. 

I was well acquainted with The Odd Couple from having seen productions of the play on Broadway and in London.  Between my familiarity with the material and my High School French, I was easily to decipher a large portion of Neil Simon’s comedy classic.  It was instructive to see the injection of cultural differences in the proceedings.  The French Odd Couple was more physical, with its increased number of exaggerated gestures and ladle brandishing.

You know, reading this over, it occurs to me that, notwithstanding the inevitable dulling of memory induced by the distancing passage of time, my Parisian reminiscences lack the bursting excitement of my chronicles of London, or of Rome, which demonstrably exhibit a greater enthusiasmical spark than the current offering.  My best explanation for this may be simply that, at least comparatively, I am not as equally smitten with Paris.

I’m not sure I get it.  I am aware, because I read a book about it – David McCullough’s recommendable The Greater Journey – that Americans have been traveling to Paris dating back the earliest days of its (America’s) history, believing that, without the Parisian experience under their belts, something was seriously lacking in their educational, and sophisticational, development.

Writers, artists, students of medicine, they absolutely swore by the place.  I like it.  But I must truthfully acknowledge that Paris has never really knocked off my feet.

This March, there are plans afoot for Dr. M and myself (commemorating our March 21^st  anniversary), and Anna and her husband Colby (celebrating Anna’s March 21^st  birthday) to take a two-couple visit to Paris.  Despite my habitual “one-and-out” judgmentalism, I am giving Paree another chance. 

Hopefully, by now, they have worked out that “fermee-at-lunchtime” restaurant foolishness.

By the way, the acting troupe that played internal organs?  I never saw them again. 

"I Once Went To Paris (Actually, Twice)"

The second time I went to Paris, I was older and married and we were returning from a week in the South of France, and we spent two days in Paris before flying home.  But that’s not the story barking at me to tell it today.  It’s the other one. 

Think of this as a recently unearthed blog post written in 1967.  No, that one would be more resonating and specific.  Think of this instead as a blog post about 1967 written forty-five years later.  Because that’s what it is.  Not as good, but as a man I knew named Pedro who had fourteen children used to say when I told him I had two: 

“Better than nothing.”

It’s March 1967.  I am twenty-two years old and living in London.  I am currently unemployed, living on a small inheritance, the result of having turned twenty-one, and my late father having left it to me. 

I take acting classes three times a week at “The Actor’s Workshop”, and I am strongly encouraged to avoid truancy.  Finally, classes break for a week, and I decide to venture on an excursion to what they call in England to “The Continent.”

I feel no trepidation about traveling alone, the same way I am not afraid to fly in a helicopter.  You just do it.  And if you flame out – how utterly romantic.  Also, traveling alone precludes the necessity of negotiation and compromise, the former of which I am poor at, and the latter of which I dislike. 

Traveling alone insures congenial companionship.

Here’s how long ago this was.  The ‘Travel Bible” of the era was Arthur Frommer’s Europe On Five Dollars A Day.  Yes.  Five dollars a day.  For accommodations.  And meals.  Transportation.  Entry into a museum.  Maybe take in a show.  A glass of wine.  An afternoon croissant.  Souvenirs.

Five dollars.  For the entire day.

Which was perfect.  Because that’s about all could afford.  

I tore out the appropriate chapter from the Frommer book, I stuffed it in my pocket, and I went off to Paris.  I have written elsewhere about my perilous boat trip across the English Channel.  Short version:  A man whose acquaintance I had made asked me to take charge of his enormous dog while he went to the Men’s Room.  During the crossing, I became excruciatingly seasick, but could not race to the bathroom to throw my guts up, because the man had not returned to retrieve his enormous dog.   

I arrive in the late evening, and, with Frommer’s assistance, make my way to the “dirt-cheap hotel” area of Paris.  After signing the register, I am handed a key and pointed to a birdcage construction of an elevator, the type I have frequently seen people murdered in in movies.  You know those scenes – a person gets on, and when the elevator gets to the lobby, they’re dead?

Reaching my floor, I step into a pitch-black corridor, save for a tiny, illuminated push button by each door.  I quickly deduce that the little lights are meant to, first, help you make out the numbers on the door so you can find your room in the dark, and second, allow you to more easily fit your key into the keyhole. 

Despite this illuminational assistance, I experience enormous difficulty.  I end up fumbling down the corridor, feeling the room numbers with my hand, and when I finally find my room, I have a devil of a time locating the keyhole.

It is only later I am informed that the illuminating lights were meant to direct hotel guests to buttons, which, when pushed, would turn on the overhead lights in the hallway.

Hey, I had never been to Paris before!

Excited to be there, instead of going straight to bed, I decide to go outside and explore the neighborhood.  I exit my hotel, and with a stranger’s sense of adventure, I let my legs take me where they wanted to go, which was entirely arbitrary, as my legs had never been to Paris before either.

I pass, I don’t know, a bar, a bistro, some brightly-lit establishment with noise coming out of it.  I decide to check it out.

It is not a fancy place – How could it be?  It’s in the same neighborhood as my “dirt- cheap” hotel – but it has a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.  Groups of people are hanging out at tables, at the bar, a small crowd is gathered around a pinball machine.  I hear English spoken, so I amble over there. 

An attractive, dark-haired girl is taking her turn, and doing quite well, deftly flipping the flippers, ringing the bells, and racking up considerably pointage.  I decide to announce my presence with a question:

“Is this a ‘Gottlieb’?” I inquire, referring to the most popular pinball machine manufacturer of the day.

“No, it’s a ‘Williams’”, she replies, mentioning the competitive Pepsi to the “Gottlieb’s” Coke.

My foray into pinball expertise has hit the target, if not quite the bulls-eye.  The attractive dark-haired girl invites me to her table, populated by half a dozen American expatriates, all students of an avant-garde French acting school.  How avant-garde is it?  They are currently rehearsing a play in which each of the actors plays a different internal organ of the human body.  (The dark-haired girl had won the coveted role of "The Spleen.")

I hang out with this crowd, until, figuring there’s nothing more desperate than a clingy stranger, I say, “Nice meeting you all”, and I take off.    

I continue exploring the neighborhood, discovering an item in an antique store window that I immediately covet – a very-old-looking, colorfully adorned deck of oversized, round playing cards.  I have never seen round playing cards before.  I thought how wonderful it would be to have them for my own.

The antique store is closed.  And besides, I feared the asking price for this certain one-of-a-kind treasure would take would take a prohibitive bite out of my five-dollar-a-day spending limit. 

Having had a long day of travel and vomiting (the man finally came back for his dog), I decide to head back to my hotel.  As I pass another lively gathering spot, I hear someone racing out the door, and calling my name.  It is a member of the acting troupe playing the internal organs.  They had seen me pass by, and in a tone nudging towards insistence, I was invited to rejoin them. 

Which I did.  Strangers were being nice to me.  I couldn’t say no.

Finally, however, I was overcome with an uncontrollable fit of yawning.  I got up, saying I had to go to bed.  I sensed a wisp of disappointment from the attractive, dark-haired girl.    

Okay, this is Paris – the City of Romance.  The opportunity…I don’t know, I have no great track record for “reading signals”, but there seemed to be something there.   

Paris was demanding that I make a move.  But you know what I say:  “You are what you are, and you do what you do.”  What do I do?     

Nothing.

I went back to the hotel,

And I felt for my room.

Tomorrow:  Whatever else about the Paris trip I can remember. 

"Legacy"

I was sitting in our living room one afternoon, when my wife walked in the door with a then eight year-old Anna, who, for the first time in her life, was wearing glasses.  Cute glasses – red ones with white polka dots – but glasses nonetheless.  I remember the first thought that rushed to my mind.  It was:

“Phooey (though I didn’t say “phooey”)!  The girl got my eyes!”

(Note:  I was born with cataracts, as a result of my mother’s having rubella – German measles – while she was pregnant with me, thus making my eye condition not genetic in origin but a product of prenatal unfortunateness.  Still, to a man with guilt-leaning proclivities, “Bad eyes is bad eyes.”)

You try to be a good parent, a shining example for your children to emulate.  But then, there’s this DNA mishugas (nonsense) that you have no control over.  And when it rolls “snake-eyes” – no pun intended; it just came out that way – when your kid demonstrates signs of having inherited your bad stuff…

It don’t feel so good.

This flinching flashback came to mind as a result of a recent project Anna initiated, involving the arranging of a “Crafts Fair” to be held in our backyard, devised as a fundraiser for the psychological Institute her mother works at, where they train new therapists and offer low-fee treatment for indigent wackos.  (I know that’s mean, and I apologize; I just liked the sound of it.)

Anna spearheaded the entire “Crafts Fair” operation.  It was her idea, and she took complete responsibility for its execution – setting the date, recruiting the vendors, advertising and promotion (both “Old School” – she had flyers made up and distributed them, and “New Tech” – she procured a prime spot– the first one listed – on a website promoting interesting local activities.)

She was on top of everything, her positive attributes gloriously on display – capable, hardworking, imaginative and energetic.    

But there was one other attribute on display, a condition eerily familiar to her imperfect Daddio.

She was stressed to the max.

“Phooey!  The girl got my temperament!”

“Crafts Fair” or the TV series – you want it to be great.  And there’s no certainty that it will be. 

In such situations, the arrow points directly to “Stress.”

The symptoms are transparent: a shortness of breath, and patience.  A greenish pallor.  Stomach discomfort.  And a mind teeming with anxiety and self-doubt.

Been there, done that. 

And, apparently, passed it along.

Okay, “Dictionary Time.”

Stress – “the physical pressure, pull, or other force exerted on one thing by another.” ­

There are other definitions, but that’s the salient one – the generic original.  “The pressure exerted on one thing by another.”  My sense is that “stress” is a term used, and possibly originated, in, engineering.  “How much stress can that bridge take, before falling down?”  (Though they’d probably say “before collapsing”; I, again, prefer the sound of “falling down.”)

There is traffic on the bridge, and if the collective weight of that traffic goes beyond it capacity to support it, the bridge may be unable to accommodate the “stress”, and it falls down. 

Engineers work hard to avoid such situations, as they are not at all good for business.  “Didn’t you build the bridge that fell down?”  It is hard to get more bridge-building jobs after that.  As a result, engineers try to be super-careful, building bridges in such a way that they do not be inordinately stressed, and fall down.  There’s a trick to doing that, but not being an engineer, I have no idea what it is.  (Though that does not stop me from wondering about it.)

The point I am heading towards is that the bridge has no idea whatsoever about its predicament.  The bridge is entirely neutral in the matter.  It’s just sitting there, spanning the appropriate distance of pre-determined “bridge-length.”  (Please excuse the lack of technical jargon.  I’m ignorant.)

If the bridge has any consciousness at all, such consciousness does not include issues of fear, concern, apprehension or doubt.  It’s a more casual arrangement.  Observational, rather than judgmental.

“Big truck.”  “Another big truck.”  “A lot of big trucks.”  “And an unusually heavy amount of traffic.”  There may possibly be some speculation about the traffic.  “I guess there’s a ballgame somewhere.”

That would be about it for the bridge.  I would call it “easy-going”, but that would be anthropomorphizing.  The bridge, though unquestionably stressed, no judgment or temperament.  It’s just a bridge being a bridge.  Doing its thing, and watching things happen.

Imagine, however, if that bridge had a father, and that father was me.  Then you’d have a horse of a different color when you’re talking about stress:

“No more big TRUCKS!!!”  “That’s too many big TRUCKS!!!”  “I can’t hold any more big TRUCKS!!!”  “Oh, no!!!  Big trucks and traffic?  I know I can support the big trucks – I mean, I’ve done it before – but big trucks, plus a neverending stream of traffic? – there is no way in the world!  You have to stop it!  You have to turn off the traffic!  Oh, God!  I can hear the bolts loosening.  I can feel the girders buckling.  It is only a matter of time now.  Huge cracks in the roadway, and I’m tumbling into the abyss!”

That’s how a bridge would handle stress if its father were me.

I am happy to report that, in the end, Anna’s “Crafts Fair” was an unqualified success – we made a thousand dollars for the Institute.  Anna’s electrified face said, “I am proud and delighted and thrilled and relieved.” 

This is now an experience she can put “in the bank”, an encouraging sample of personal accomplishment.  With this triumph under her belt, she can take on subsequent challenges, working just as hard, but with less accompanying stress.  Lesson learned?  “I can handle it.”  Next time, it’ll be easier.

Nah, she’s my daughter,

It won’t be.

I add only one thing.  I always reveled in my work.  But I dreaded the stress that went with it, and couldn’t wait for it to stop.  The thing is, when it finally did, I created this blog, submitting myself to the pressure of writing five stories a week.

I hate stress.

But I apparently need it.

And, being my daughter,  Anna probably does too.

"Baby In The House - Part Two"

It works both ways.

Yesterday, I mentioned we had houseguests – two adults, a baby and a dog.  I tried my best – and unquestionably failed – to appear loosey-goosey and honkey-dorey with the arrangement.  It’s a tricky adjustment, especially, for people of a certain temperament, that temperament being, “I prefer things the way I prefer things.”

There is a list of adaptations I am required to make as a result of my domicile’s population ballooning from two to six, if you count the dog, and, as I am required to adapt to the dog as well, I do.  To delineate that list, however, would make me seem petty, unreasonable, inhospitable and mean. 

Forget that I said “There is a list of adaptations.”  There’s no list.  In fact, I never really said there was.  Some evil “Anti-Earl” hacked into my blog and inserted “There is a list”, and being techno-ignorant, I am unable to get it out.  Believe me, there is no list.

Okay, one thing from the list:  Blueberries.

Every morning, I eat some form of cereal that has no sugar in it, because I am trying to avoid sugar, the result being that the cereal without sugar that I eat tastes like wheatless cardboard.  (I am also trying to avoid wheat.) 

To make up for the lack of flavor, I sprinkle blueberries on the cereal-that-otherwise- has-no-flavor, and it seems to help.  I don’t know exactly how many blueberries I sprinkle, I am not so anal that I count them, but I do eyeball the number, because I am not so flexible that I don’t.

I would say I sprinkle ten to twelve blueberries onto my otherwise tasteless cereal.

Well, sir, as it turns out, baby Milo also likes blueberries.  The cool thing is, you don’t have to feed them to him.  You place a blueberry in his hand, and he stuffs it right into has mouth.  It’s actually fun watching him do that. 

Until…

the carton of blueberries gets perilously close to having ten to twelve blueberries left in it.  Then, other emotions start to kick in, emotions that impel me to want baby Milo to stop eating blueberries   

Right.  Now!

The boundary is luminously distinct – it’s exactly a dozen blueberries left in the carton.  (“Margin of Error” – two.)  It is at that point that my reaction goes from, “Look at that; he’s feeding himself blueberries” to “Those are my blueberries!  Stop eating them!”

I realize this reaction does not show me in a particularly appealing light.  I freely admit it.  I am highly sensitive to the issue of “Space, Time and Convenience Encroachment.”  What I will only say in my defense, well, not “defense” exactly, but as a mitigating factor before you pass severe judgment on me, is that I am equally or even more sensitive to other people’s “Sense of Encroachment” as well.

Example:

At the age of 23, after returning to Toronto following a rather lengthy sojourn in London, I lived in a number of different places, which maybe, the thought comes to mind, I ought to tell you about sometime.  Yeah, I should do that.  Excuse me, while write myself a reminder.

Okay, I’m back.  So – some of this is hazy – but there came a time when I had no place to live, and I was offered temporary lodging by some very excellent friends.  These friends, a couple – I had known the guy longer, but I love them both equally – had just recently gotten married, and were living with her Dad in her Dad’s house.  I was provided with a comfortable room in their fully finished basement.  With an adjoining bathroom to boot. 

I gratefully accepted, and I moved in.  I no longer recall how long I stayed, but I know it was longer than my current houseguests will be staying with us, at least, such is the hope, and perhaps, the prayer.  My memory is I stayed a number of months.

And it was wonderful.  My hosts could not have been more generous and accommodating.  Lodging, food, laundry, heat – everything I needed was provided for me.  Without complaint or the slightest hint of inconvenience.  Or, if I recall correctly, a bill.

On top of that, the Dad, a natural humorist, and full-time musician, was also a westerns lover.  At those times when I wasn’t hanging out with my friends, I was down in the basement, a gen-u-ine Winchester carbine rifle which the Dad supplied me, cradled “at the ready”, the Dad as my sidekick – or maybe I was his sidekick – sitting on the edge of our seats, as we watched “The Duke” galloping “hell bent for leather” across Monument Valley.  These were some of my happiest times ever.

The entire houseguest experience was, in fact, excellent and wonderful.

And yet…

I’m a houseguest.   Living in somebody else’s house.  For an extended period of time.  How would I feel if the situation were reversed?  I know how I’d feel.  Like I’m feeling right now!

And probably more so. 

They were newlyweds, with newlyweds’ requisite shakedown requirements.  On top of that, the couple too, in a way, were houseguests, adults, living under a parent’s roof.   So there was that stress enhancer as well. 

And on top of all that, there was me!

Despite any signal, subtle or otherwise, that I had overstayed my welcome – this was an entirely self-determined operation – I sensed that it was time for me to go. 

I just had no idea how to say it.

Now check this out.  Although, without question, I had the articulatory ability to sit down with his hyper-hospitable family and say, “I really appreciate what you’ve done for me, but I really think I need to go”, what emerged from my mouth instead was, “I am moving to New York to become a comedian.”

You see how deftly I handled that?  I sidestepped the entire “living arrangements” issue, replacing it with, “I have radically altered my ‘Life Plan’, which involves me moving to another country.”

I mean what could they say to that?  “You can’t move to New York; you have to stay in our basement”?  It was “win-win.”  No drama.  “I’m off to Yokohama!”

It wasn’t like it was entirely implausible –“I am going the join the Space Program” or “I’m going to try out for the Yankees.”  There was a granule of credibility in the idea.  I may have even wanted to be a comedian, although years ago, I wrote a blog post listing the multiple reasons I couldn’t be.

What I really wanted to do was move out.  Because it was time.  But, wanting avoid an uncomfortable conversation, I concocted a subterfuge.

And it worked.  Except for the part about becoming a comedian.  Though there was little chance of that working under any circumstances.  But you see what I mean by “It works both ways.”

It was the same situation I’m in now.  Except the positions were flipped, and I was the baby.

Though the couple was and remains exponentially nicer than I am, still, I wonder if they ever counted the blueberries.