You wanna come back home. . .

MAIL USED TO BE so special when I was little. There were actually two deliveries a day. At some point, it was cut to one. But the arrival of the mailman was a big deal in any day (note: they were all men in those days. If I were speaking of current days, I would most certainly describe the job as that of the postal carrier. But if you had told the eight-year-old me that the "postal carrier" has arrived, I wouldn't have known what you were talking about.)

In college, mail was the high point of the day. Even as I approached the rows and columns of mailboxes I'd try to guess whether mine seemed to be slightly bulgier than the rest, thus indicating that it had something inside. My grandmother often wrote to me, always ending her letters with the helpful admonition, "dress accordingly." Over the years, her letters grew somewhat depressing in content, and I wasn't so excited about reading them. But I'd sure like to get one now. (Actually, she was born in 1903 -- same year the Wright Brothers took off from Kitty Hawk -- and she lived well into her 90s, so I've got nothing to kick about on that front.)

I still love the arrival of the mail. There might be magazines, or a check, or that long-awaited letter from the Nobel Committee (I don't know quite what I've done to deserve the Peace Prize, but I live in a state of eternal expectation, and maybe the Nobel people have noticed something about my activities that somehow eluded me, but made me eligible for the Prize.)

And college-related arrivals (fat envelope? thin envelope?) have gotten my kids interested, at least for a while.

But it feels to me that e-mail has taken the wind out of the postal carrier's sails. Most of the really interesting news from friends and colleagues comes to me that way, not in a neatly sealed envelope. And I suspect that for many people -- who get their checks direct deposited, don't love magazines and lack the capacity to fantasize about the Nobel Peace Prize -- the mail has become little more than a bothersome way to get bills and junk.

I feel sorry for them. It's really rather lovely to get a little sealed surprise every day. Doesn't matter whether there's anything worthwhile. It's the surprise that counts. And e-mail just can't take its place, thanks to the frequency of arrival. If I were to get up that little extra churn of stomach acid that signals pleasant anticipation (what? you feel anticipation elsewhere?) every time I checked e-mail, there'd be a little gastrically-induced hole in the cavity that once exhibited my naval (a naval destroyer!).

OK, here's a poem I wrote about a year ago. As I may have mentioned some time ago, getting poetry published isn't something I've ever pursued, particularly. But this venue is pretty satisfying.

UNTITLED

Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock,
Be careful little boy,
Of that thing they call
Unconditional love

For when the clock strikes one (or two or three) down you’ll come
If you’re not good
Enough to deserve
Unconditional love

But the solution is simple; it’s clear as can be
Wash your hands,
Clean your room
Learn your ABCs

And when you’re in the way, anyone’s way
Move along fast
And remember
To put your shoes in your room.

It’s worth it, though, tell yourself that
Because you’re saving love
Like the load of pennies
In your glass piggy bank

You can never open your piggy bank of course
Because it would require
Smashing the glass
Into a million sharp shards

But you could, you could, if ever you should
Need pennies of love
(Even nickels or quarters)
Then it would be OK.

Tell yourself that, as you pray by your bed
That it’s good to be good
And the pennies
Will always be there

Tell yourself that, for better or worse.
Although it’s a lie
Of course.

For those who wait. . .

THE PERFECT is the enemy of the good, they say. And that's why this blog has been unattended for months. I didn't want to knock out a quick little poem ("Roses are redish, violets are bluish, I feel guilty, because I am Jewish."). And I didn't want to aim at short-style prose that makes up in illusory profundity for what it lacks in real meaning ("Time is what you lose when you have too much of it.")

As a result, I wrote nothing. Not nothing, really. I've been writing a lot of stuff about states and cities and Walt Disney, which is much of what I do to make a living. But nothing bloggish.
Apparently, there are two or three readers who actually noticed my absence. This either makes me feel good for myself (in that I must have been writing something that someone would want to read) or bad for them. Either way, I hesitate to say I'm back, because that implies a certain amount of permanence, which I can't promise. I can't even promise that I just spelled permanence properly.

Still, I am chock full of things I've been wanting to write about in this space. And so, without much further clearing of my literary throat, I want to write about how much I need to be defragged.

By this I do not mean that I have shrapnel in my hide (actually, I was eligible for military conscription the very last year of the draft for the Vietnam War. The lottery number that came up for my birthdate was reasonably high, and there was never much of a chance of my being called up. This was, I thought at the time, a good thing. What startles me, on reflection, is how little I thought of it.)

No, by defragged (still with me?) I mean that I want to have all the spaces between my synapses cleared out, in the same way that one does with a computer (which may or may not have synapses, but does have something very much like them, only made out of some kind of non-carbon-based material).

My problem is pretty straightforward. I spend a great part of my day listening to people or reading what people have to say. And I have something over a thousand built-in knee-jerk responses (or, more precisely, mind-jerk, but there's an implication to that newly coined phrase that sounds a trifle harsh). It's probably a little tricky comprehending the forgoing, but examples should help.

Let's say someone uses the word "curiously," in a sentence. A perfectly good English word, right? But I immediately have to think "curiously glancing at his toupee," because that's a line from a Simon and Garfunkle song, the name of which I can't recall. So, you say "curiously," and I think "glancing at his toupee."

Or let's say that somebody asks you if you want to do something, and in my presence you respond by saying, "I'm game." I spontaneously -- and unstoppably-- think "So he shot her."

This is from a not-very-funny joke in which the hunter enters the woods, and spends many hours in search any kind of game. He'll take lions or panthers or cheetahs. As long as it's wild game. He gets increasingly frustrated. And then, he enters a clearing. It's the most beautiful clearing he's ever seen, with streams of sun bathing a cushion of soft grass in a light that imbues the red, yellow and golden flowers with an unbelievable luminiscence, as though the light shone from within. He's struck by the beauty of it all. And then, from the other side of the clearing, strides out the most beautiful young woman he's ever seen. As she approaches the middle of the clearing, she disrobes. In the middle of the clearing, she announces to him. "I'm game. "
So he shot her.

See?

This would be OK, if the little voice within could keep it's mouth shut. But it's seldom quiet. You say "I see," and I think "So, he picked up his hammer and saw." (The end of a little jokelet about a blind man.)

I figure that if I could only stop ("in the name of love") these bits and pieces of language from interrupting my mental processes, I could get a lot more thinking done in a day. Just imagine "there's no heaven") how much more pleasant my life could be.

Not that my life isn't pretty pleasant as is.

I was just about to give an example of how pleasant my life is, when I stopped myself. This is because I really believe there is an evil eye out there which will punish me if I admit to being happy or relax in the notion that something is going well. (The same, by the way, could happen to you, so better watch it if I say "You're looking pretty good," because you may be just a breath away from awful disfigurement).

The roots of this kind of thing lie not just deep in me, but deep within the cultural heritage of much of mankind. This is why we knock on wood. And why many Jewish people (but fewer and fewer as time goes on) say "Kayn Ahora." That's the transliteration, at least. People use it to throw the evil eye off their path, after something positive has been said.

I'll be back.