I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow (13 page)

9:15 P.M.

Against all probability, I find myself heroically peckish. Perhaps there is an upside to eating early, after all: looking forward to your second dinner.

I decide to go out for a sub and, as usual, I order the twelve-incher. My intention is always the same: to eat half and save the other half for tomorrow's lunch. But I always blow it by eating the whole thing. I know that if I can just
wait ten minutes after that first six inches, I can pull it off. But they are a very hard ten minutes.

I attempt to ride them out by looking away from the sandwich and out the window of the restaurant. I ruminate on sandwiches past: the time I bit my tongue while eating a meatball sub; the open-faced tuna salad sandwich I once sat on at a shiva house.

After five minutes of these reminiscences, I look down at the last half, pick it up, and bite into it. I feel that somehow, over the course of my life, I've earned it, and, as always, it proves just as good as the first.

Stuff

(15 weeks)

WEDNESDAY.

After weeks of searching, it's now only a few days until moving day, and I've decided to spend the afternoon packing—though by “packing” I mean deliberating over what to pack and what to leave behind.

Like my parents, my inclination is to save. I've even decided to store an ex-girlfriend's mother's social work master's thesis archived on 5¼-inch floppy disks. The thesis somehow made its way into my possession, and so I continue to feel a responsibility for it.

Likewise, after schlepping around
War and Peace
from apartment to apartment for twenty years without making any headway with it, I still can't bring myself to toss it. No matter how unlikely, it's still possible that one day I might conquer it. As the psychotherapist Irvin Yalom writes, death is the impossibility of possibility. And so holding on
to the book feels like a vote in favour of all that's still possible.

I look out my apartment window and see that the box of books and clothing I left out there with a “free” sign remains untouched. I feel like my erudition and fashion sense have been roundly rejected—albeit by complete strangers.

“I am not my books and I am not my clothes,” I tell myself as I draw the curtains closed, pull the curtains off the wall, and pack them into a box. I place the box on the curb and watch them get passed over by strangers.

“If I'm not my curtains,” I think anxiously, “then what in the world am I?”

A few moments later, the doorbell rings. It's Tucker.

“I literally can't give away my belongings,” I say, staring out the uncurtained window. “No one's even taking my red checkered shirt, the one you said made me look like a picnic table. Just think, if you took it you could lie down on the floor while wearing it and eat a bowl of potato salad off your chest, the whole meal feeling al fresco.”

“What's the sense in moving this?” he asks, pulling out an almost empty bottle of single malt scotch.

“It's got about two shots left,” I say, “and I've been saving it for a special occasion.”

“I got news for you,” he says, uncorking the bottle, “that occasion has come.”

Tucker swigs some scotch, hands it back to me, and offers to run down to the store and pick up some cigars.

In the silence after his exit, I survey my place, taking in all the boxes containing my belongings. It occurs to me that life isn't just about the accumulation and curating of stuff. It's also about letting stuff go.

FRIDAY.

Today at the CBC, I notice they've created a new, well-lit display case for the Oscar an employee won for best animated short in 1982. I recently learned that there's an old Hollywood legend that if you touch an Oscar, you'll never win an Oscar. I wonder if the employee who put it in the case knew this and whether he felt conflicted.

“You're forty-five,” he might have said to himself, “and you've yet to discover any latent cinematic talent; still, to pick up the trophy means relinquishing all childish hope.”

At a certain point, adulthood becomes a numbers game. Odds are you're never going win an Oscar, bowl a perfect game, finish
War and Peace
, or, in most cases, even learn how to drive if you haven't already learned by the age of eighteen. At thirty-nine, I'm beginning to see that middle age might mean having more failures behind you than triumphs ahead. So you might as well just polish the other guy's trophy and put it in the display case.The lucky ones have a scotch bottle with a couple shots left for when they get home.

Inbetweenness

(14 weeks)

SUNDAY.

I've just finished moving all my stuff into the new apartment, and deciding where to put certain personal effects is proving difficult.Where to place the empty box of Reese's Pieces that contains a doodle I'm rather fond of ? In my old apartment, it just sat under the couch. Or what to do with the sunglass lenses that, years earlier, became detached from their frames—frames I'm still hopeful will one day resurface?

But I am enjoying the feeling of inbetweenness—that not-yet-being-settled feeling—and I plan on dragging it out as long as I can, because it's a state of grace where all things are permissible. For instance, this evening I ate takeout pizza off a cardboard box while drinking wine from a soup pot (like a cowboy!), and I watched the TV
on the floor beside me, inches from my face (like being at the drive-in!).

I think I may have stumbled upon a new school of interior design.

TUESDAY.

Marie-Claude and her daughters babysat Howard's pugs, Desmond and Bruce, over the weekend. Marie-Claude calls up to let me know how it went.

“The girls want Bruce to be their godfather,” she says.

“But I'm their godfather,” I say.

“Lucky for you it isn't an electable position.”

“A godfather's job is to supply moral tutelage,” I say, defensively.

“Bruce licks their feet,” she says.

Not to lose the upper hand, I offer to pick up the girls for lunch. What taking a nine- and seven-year-old out for hamburgers lacks in the laughing-at-your-jokes department is more than made up for in the leaving-youplenty-of-leftovers-to-eat department.

After a hardy meal, I drop them back home and, after kissing them goodbye, press a small gift into their hands.

“A sunglass monocle,” I say, “for each of you.”

WEDNESDAY.

Tony knocks on my door, wanting me to join him for souvlaki. I tell him I've too much to get done in my new place. I show him the to-do list.

“You deserve a break,” he says, looking it over. “You've got half your items ticked off.”

“Yes,” I say, “but vacuuming, dusting—I did those things before making the list. I only wrote them down for the pleasure of ticking them off.”

Sometimes I write down “do the dishes” as “wash cups, wash cutlery, wash plates” just for the extra ticks.

“Give me that list,” Tony says. He pulls out his pen, writes something down, and hands it back to me.

Eat souvlaki.

Who can argue with a written commandment? I grab my coat and get ready to eat souvlaki. It will prove the most satisfying tick of the day.

THURSDAY.

I wake up out of a dream in which Tucker makes a cameo as a raisin in my porridge.

“What business is it of yours to dream about me?” he asks when I call up to tell him about it.

“I have no control over what I dream,” I say. “And why would you care anyway?”

“I've had occasion to glimpse the things that go on in your mind,” he says, “so the idea of spending any time there is upsetting.”

I change the subject by asking if he'd like my inflatable Bozo punching bag. It's one of those dolls that, when you hit it, it pops right back up; but since I never got around to filling the base with sand, whenever I punch it, it stays down.

“I had one of those when I was a kid,” Tucker says. “Playing with it helped nurture my budding sense of futility.”

He agrees to take it, believing the defective version that stays down might give him the sense of accomplishment he's always craved. I ask if perhaps coming over and helping unpack my boxes might also afford him a sense of accomplishment, but he declines.

The truth is, I'm pretty happy to keep living out of boxes anyway. The opportunity to live like a hobo in your own home doesn't come along that often, so it might be nice to stretch it out for a couple more days. Maybe a week. A month, tops.

Perfect Imperfection

(13 weeks)

MONDAY.

In the midst of showering, I realize I've been using the same bar of soap for about a month now. From this I conclude that I am either a) in the midst of a Hanukkah-type miracle; or b) simply not scrubbing hard enough. There have been many failures in my life. Now I can add “showering” to the portfolio.

I grind the soap into my flesh with vigour—to try and catch up. I am working towards something far greater than mere cleanliness. I am rubbing out an opponent. This is some serious
Old Man and the Sea
kind of stuff.

“You have been a worthy adversary, but annihilate you I must.”

An hour and fifteen minutes later, I emerge from the shower. I am late for work, shrivelled like a raisin, but feeling triumphant.

TUESDAY.

I buy a new couch for my new place. My mother is insistent that I get arm covers for it.

“Why?” I ask.

“You'd be surprised by how quickly arms can rub out,” she says.

“How quickly?” I ask.

“Well, it takes twenty, thirty years,” she says, “but it happens, and when it does, you'll be sorry.”

“I won't be sorry,” I say.“I'll feel a sense of accomplishment.” By way of explanation, I tell her about the bar of soap from the day before and how grinding it into nothingness through determination and perseverance was very rewarding.

“Who taught me how to shower anyway?” I ask. “Because I don't think I've been doing it right.”

My mother looks at me, glassy-eyed.

Persian rug makers are said to leave in one mistake on purpose. In this way, they can look upon their creation and be reminded that all things made by man are imperfect.Yet this is what makes their work more valuable than if it had been made by machine. Persian rugs bespeak their maker's humanity just as my imperfections bespeak my mother's humanity. Hers is an extreme humanity, for if I were a carpet, I would be possessed of more than one mistake. I would be a knotted, unravelling carpet full of cigarette burns and grape juice stains.

SUNDAY.

It's Mother's Day, my nephew's first, and when I get to the Greek restaurant my family is already at the table.

We focus all our attention on the baby. We constantly worry for his comfort and safety, and so every time he shifts in his baby seat, we clutch our hearts and mop the sweat from our brows with fistfuls of napkin.

“I love him so much it hurts,” my sister says, her hand on her mouth.

“Me too,” my father says. “It physically hurts.”

“It's like someone is beating me with sandbags,” my mother says.

“With me it's more of a stabbing,” my father counters.

“I love him so much,” my aunt says, “it's like having a serrated blade corkscrewed into my side.”

Not one to be outdone, my sister weighs in again: “I love him so much I feel like I'm drowning in love and can't breathe.” She demonstrates the sensation by making gagging and gasping noises while scratching at the air.

As we eat, my father accidentally tips a plate of olive oil onto his lap. Pretty soon afterwards, my aunt somehow manages to drip the wax from the candelabra onto her pants, and when I look over at my mother, she is wearing a bib of smeared tzatziki sauce across the chest of her black turtleneck.

Ironically, the baby proves to be the neatest eater of us all. Truly, it feels like he is the best of us all. I look over at
him and he smiles a little smile at me that fills my heart with so much love … it's as though I have had my eyes sprayed with mace and my heart stabbed with a salad fork. Wincing, I reach across the table for another soothing spoonful of taramasalata, and as I do, I drag my jacket sleeve through a puddle of spilled gravy. It feels like the final brush stroke to a happy family portrait.

Beating God to the Punch

(12 weeks)

SUNDAY.

In celebration of spring, I've shaved my head again.

After work, I meet up with Gregor for a drink.

“Again with the shaved head,” he cries at the sight of me. “You used to have funny hair—hair that a person could laugh at. You might as well kiss your comedy career goodbye.”

“First of all,” I say, “I'm not a comedian. I'm a humorist.”

“What's the difference?”

“A humorist is a comedian who doesn't necessarily make you laugh.”

“Well, anyone who is even adjacent to the comedy biz, be it rodeo clown or wise-cracking waitress, needs to look funny.”

“Come on,” I say. “I've just traded the wild wispy locks of a Larry Fine for the clean-shaven dome of a Curly
Howard.What I'm saying is I'm still a stooge. Plus, this way, I don't have to worry about going bald, because I've beaten God to the punch.”

Gregor shakes his head.

“That's like being a bread that advertises itself as already stale so you don't have to worry about it going bad.”

My balding began in grade eight. I was the only kid in junior high who was already sporting a comb-over by the age of twelve. Now when I see young guys, still teenagers, walking around with thinning hair, I just want to gather them up in my arms like fallen comrades. I'd tell them “it gets better” but that would be a lie as it only gets worse. Except in the case of Bruce Willis. And George Foreman.

On the one hand, losing your hair happens so slowly that it allows you to adjust. That's a kindness on nature's part. (And what with the lions eating gazelles, the tsunamis, and such, nature's not always the nicest.) But in other ways, the slowness is part of the painful absurdity. It's like being gradually ladled in a hot sticky cherry sauce of baldness. You feel it coming down but, like one of those nightmares where you're immobilized, you just stay there, taking it.