I like to think I’m savvy and a smooth operator, most of the time, but I had a bit of a bitter pill to swallow yesterday, when, on my way back from Scooba (perish the thought!), I had to stop and get gas.

This is hardly a new thing for me, but unlike my usual stop-and-gos at the Scooba Junction gas station, I had neglected to look at my gas gauge until I was in Brooksville, about twenty minutes north. I had no choice but to pull in at the only other gas station on Highway 45 between Starkville and Scooba.

I can’t remember the feebly-attempted witty name it had (Kountry Korner, or some other god-awful collective rape of the alphabet), so I shall refer to it as a vortex of evil. But, that’s as far as I’ll go because, oddly enough, I’m not here to talk about the gas station itself, other than this last thing: they overprice Every Thing.

No, what I’m here to talk about is the elderly black man with his walker pumping his own gas, which he somehow did by propping the pump itself in between the upper and lower handles of his walker. He left it there, and got back in his car. 

I swear I need to get a digital camera.

I had finished pumping my gas, at this point, and as I drove away, he looked up at me.

So, I smiled the same smile I’ve been giving all people-I-don’t-know-but-I-want-to-appear-like-a-decent-human-being for years. He returned my smile with a look that was, if I do say so myself, dismissive and impolite.

I need to frame the rest of the story first, though.

No snake eyes for me.

I have a tendency to turn the rearview mirror onto myself when I drive. It’s silly and a bit narcissistic, but it also makes me feel less alone when I’m on the road. I’m not much in the way of this world, but I can be a fun traveling companion.

Also, I like looking at myself.

And, I’m not one bit ashamed to admit it.

I’m not gorgeous, it’s not that, I just like to see someone I respect looking back at me on my sojourns.

I say that to say this (a lovely phrase for so many cliched reasons), when I offered my smile to this man, I was actually able to catch my own reflection of said smile, in the process.

I’d never noticed this before, but as I drove past him, mulling over his look of disapproval, I, for the first time in my entire life, actually saw the smile that I gave him. The same smile I have given to thousands.

And boy was I in for a shock.

What I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles (but only the King James’ ones) was a sweet, how-do-you-do smile was in fact, a smirk.

I saw it, myself. A bona fide, certified smirk.

To be honest, the big one on the bottom scares me.

All this time, all these years, I thought I was giving a kind, acceptable and welcoming smile and instead, what was coming across my face was a holier-than-thou-even-if-there-could-be-a-week-of-Easter-Sundays grimace of sorts.

I looked as if I were a snooty man whose sole purpose was to drive through evil gas stations and through nothing but the sheer force of my facial expression alone moderate comeuppance to others.

I couldn’t believe it. I hated that look on my face, and above all, certainly because I wasn’t snooty.

Or, was I?

Because the little niggling doubt in the back of my mind is that I have a somewhat solid foothold in the belief that there’s a direct line of truthful communication between your subconscious and your face…even your head.

The Japanese hold to a belief that the head will always tell the truth, no matter what the voice is saying, that’s what Makoto told me.

So, I tried it, and it worked. Try it, yourself. Next time you ask someone a question, like, Do you think I look fat in this? Watch their heads. They may say No, but their heads will nod yes. Afterwards, jump down their throats for not telling you the truth.

Time and again, U.L. has said, Be mindful of your face. It’ll often say what you won’t. Head, face, it doesn’t matter. I need to get better acquainted with them both.

The horror is I think I was doing just what U.L. said, yesterday. God knows, I don’t mean half the things I must subconsciously think, but it’s hard to escape an upbringing. It’s hard to get away from your “home culture.” And part of our “home culture” in the Deep South is thinking, to some degree, that we’re a little bit better than other people. At least, those people at the end of the street, right?

And, who knows, maybe I was thinking that yesterday, without realizing it. Offering what I believed was a smile, saying, in effect, Hey, sir, we both get gas at the same place; we’re not so different, after all. But, my mind was apparently saying, I don’t have to use a walker to pump my gas. Ha, ha.

Thus, the smirk.

Would you trust this man?

I’m a bit upset by this. But, my only alternative would be to show my pearly-whites from now ’til kingdom come, and that just won’t do.

I’d look like an idiot.

That’s what I said to Siciliana.

She came back with, ”Yeah, but at least you’d be an honest one.”

Can’t argue with that.

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It's a cabal all right. Against me.

My mind…it often goes into Mach 7 when I attempt to procrastinate (by the way, the word “procrastinate,” itself, is ironic – I mean, by the time you write the word out, you could have done something already – it’s not a word for the lazy), and the only thing I can physically do to make it stop is to sleep (even though my dreams are usually full of anger when I do that – last night, for instance…ouch!), but if I don’t stop it, from time to time, it just runs all days with thought after thought after thought, and so what I’m about to do is a little experiment I engage in, every now and again: I’m going to pause, take a deep breath, and type out every single thought I have in my head right at this moment in an attempt to empty my brain.

Because I really want to take a nap…without feeling guilty about it.

Ok? So, here I go:

How on earth do you wash a Fedora…pancakes…the way Max sleeps with one open, staring…the other day when the tornado siren went off some student in the hall asked if North Korea was attacking and I was impressed because he didn’t seem the type to be that aware of the world around him, his clothes made that suggestion…why a city has the name of Scooba…Old Man Frank came by the house yesterday to tell me I’d left the water hose on and flooded his driveway, he’s an old man with scoliosis but my god he can knock loudly…that time I brushed my teeth with Cortizone-10…my glasses are broken – well the leg fell off but still it’s going to cost money to fix it better than I did with hot glue…apple juice gives me heartburn and so do onions and so do Tums which is ironic since they’re supposed to fix heartburn…I really like sweet potato pie…why can’t I start back working on my new script, I think it has potential, and I sometimes feel guilty doing other types of writing but Gary tells me just write everyday so I do, this blog if nothing else…why won’t I finish this other script I have because I know the deadline is looming…I’ve only once seen an actual loom and the word loom makes me think of a loon…Smoking Loon is a type of red wine…I’m allergic to red wine…how is too much water bad for you…I’ve switched mayonnaise brands, U.L. is shocked…I wish I’d planted those irises deeper in the dirt…where would I put a bicycle if I had one…I hate my cell phone…at some point I’m going to need new tennis shoes…my ankle still hurts…I am still angry because this morning I was almost finished with a new blog and then I hit some button and the whole damn thing was erased…what it would be like if I could magically freeze people and take off their clothes and then move them somewhere else and then unfreeze them and laugh at how embarrassed they’d be…how people can eat warm mayonnaise is beyond me…why I don’t have any pet fish, they’d be so much easier to handle until the cats found them…why some doctors don’t use anesthesia…I’m very glad my dentist did even if now I have a new health concern called synethesia and it feels like ice-cold water is running down my chin and neck several times a day…if people could float indefinitely…what would constitute a magic umbrella…would having sex with a centaur be bestial and illegal…why John Mark Karr would lie about JonBenet Ramsey…how to love through pain, and mean it…how do I manage to memorize all my lines each play I’m in…what would happen if I could disappear…how many people would come to my funeral…why I drink so much…if we’re all hiding something, what then are we all compensating for…why trust is so hard to get and so easy to lose, and doesn’t that imply a serious flaw in the nature of trust…what does God do when he rests…do I have cancer, or West Nile, or Swine Flu, or diabetes, or RLS…why can’t I focus on losing weight…how upset I get when the media overlooks the devastation of Katrina in Mississippi, even now four years later..should I give Olive Garden another chance…why does gorgonzola taste so bad when you melt it…I cannot abide any more of the heat…I cannot stand it when I sweat without purpose…should we build a bigger fence for Max…why can’t I find a handwriting that I approve of…when did I develop this paranoia…will I ever write a good play…how much of your identity is in your name…how many people did I upset this week…what would happen if I always told the truth…why are there so many bad spellers…why don’t people read anymore…what happened to conjugating verbs…how did Latin die…why do I have to have a favorite color, or food, or anything at all really…what will my next car be…why am attached to the name Cutter…I’m still mourning Bea Arthur’s death, but I’m glad we still have Angela Landsbury for now…how can one face death…what is a timing belt and how do I find it…who was the first person to stain glass…why do I have a desire to be famous…I’m not sure there’s such a thing as compromise, one will always retain the power…does anyone ever really forgive…is my first cat, Aristophanes, mad at me for leaving her at U.L.’s…I hate doing laundry…I can’t believe I’m almost 33…I’m afraid I’m losing words…what happens if I go crazy…I don’t like orange Powerade…why don’t I speak better French…why do I always pretend everything…I take back what I thought a minute ago, I think I may be partial to blue and deep reds…I hate the word “cubicles”…a young boy yelled at me one day from across Main Street and said, “It’s raining gayness today!” and I yelled back, “Well, we needed the rain, didn’t we?”…I need to buy more nose strips, for my apnea…what is it about men in uniform…why don’t I approve of steel top roofs, especially green ones…some days are so beautiful I think to myself, if I have to die, let it be on a day like this…I do not want to be put in the ground, though; I want to be in a crypt above it…I’m glad that even in my darkest days, I still believe in God…why can’t I bathe all day…I’d like to thank everyone that I’ve ever met…I can’t stand it when I go to the hair salon and they spritz my hair instead of shampooing it, that is a pet peeve of mine…sometimes I use room spray as cologne…was Jean Harlowe a more tragic case than Jayne Mansfield…

Whew…and just think, I didn’t even get to the part where I’ve invented a new form of poetry that I call a “tri-ku.” It’s a re-constituted, inverted version of a haiku, in three stanzas, each one goes 7-5-7.  I’ll leave you an example of one.  We’ll talk about it later, don’t worry. Each one is based on my belief that there are nine universal truths.

The Ancient Art of the Written Word.

Universal Truth #1: Berth

Other people would have left.
They might have laughed.
No, no they would have, I’m sure.

And not because of your face,
or indifference,
they didn’t care how you were,

All they would care about was
that your smile had flaws
and that your bite had no teeth.

Speaking of teeth…I can’t wait to tell you about Rasputin. The Kitten Who Lived and Had Teeth.

That’ll have to be after my nap, though.

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Everyone should have a Nana. I’ll just get that out, right upfront.

Ten dollars. Please. Thanks. Bye.

And everyone should go with their Nana to the doctor and spend the whole day eating ice cream sundaes, getting lost on the way to the doctor’s office, and making a sidebar trip to an outlet store for a new pair of Sunday shoes. This is but one important thing that makes a Nana so wonderful. To name another would seem like bragging.  And that’s just not necessary.

Chinese take-out, I think, stands alone. It’s rather self-explanatory. Even if it comes from the bad Chinese take-out place, out by Wal-Mart; somehow, it’s still good, I mean, come on, it’s Chinese take-out, for crying out loud.

But, good friends?

Oh, they could be a blog in and of themselves.

Take, for instance, the other night. I was sharing a bucket of beer with a couple of good friends: Thomas and Nathan. Despite the fact that I don’t care for beer, at all…when you’re with good friends, it doesn’t really matter, does it. Because it’s never about the drinking.

It’s about the conversation.

And the many myriad places that conversation goes.  I mean, it’s the real and sheer pleasure of having good friends, especially those who don’t always agree with you. That’s the kind of challenge I live for.  Nanas are great as Nanas, but aside from routine gossip and a few new tricks about your hand at Bridge, the conversation stays fairly down the straight and narrow.

And, of course, Chinese take-out doesn’t really talk…per se. Though, for me, if I get the spicy broccoli, and that’s always an accident when it happens, it’s bound to repeat on me, one way or the other.

That’s never the case at a table with my peers because there’s rarely a straight and narrow of any kind, and few things, if any, ever repeat…but if and when they do, it’s always the good kind of spice, so it’s ok.

Golly, I love me some good company.

Anyway, a couple of nights ago – I strayed off topic, sorry – as I said, I was sharing a bucket of beer with a couple of good friends, and naturally, we were talking about Shakespeare.  We’d just finished the run of The Complete Works [...], and as tends to happen when discussing Shakespeare, the idea of language reared its poignant head.

I’m a lingophile, hands down. I confess it. I’m not quite to the point of irritation, yet…but nonetheless, it is a trait noted by all who know me. I mean why not love the language you’re in; hell, why not love any language? (And, let’s skip the obvious reference to the Sandi Patty song, shall we?)

It’s not just language I love, but the words themselves. The idea that I can arrange them, at will, and create new meaning is a hugely intoxicating concept for me.  I can describe, name, define, delineate, categorize…whatever I want, and whenever I want. I can even make up my own words, which I do, though only a handful humor me by letting me do it.

Still, as you might expect, I take Writing very seriously, as well as, Conversation. Think about it: when you measure points and purpose out word by word, you begin to realize that, technically, every waking moment of our lives is a form of art. The craft of cultivating dialogue, in passing or in plays, in creating sentences with which to discover the world around us, in devising a lesson plan, in responding to a question…my gosh, it’s amazing how much art we “draw” everyday.

This means nothing unless you can't read it.

Following this line of logic through, you should be able to guess that I’d also be highly interested in the idea of using lauguage defensively, as in an attack on another person.

It baffles me to no end, really, because we’re all guilty of it. 

That’s what “charms” me about it. First, that it would even be done (though I suppose, given enough time, all things will sour), and secondly, that it would be perceived so easily as an insulting act, and that those persons under attack would give in so quickly and weakly to what is, really, a simple construction of letters.

I don’t wish to misspeak, but the very thought that there are words I feel intimidated by, to the point that I don’t feel entirely comfortable writing them down in my own, personal blog, should stand as testament to the folly (and incidentally, the strength of such folly) that we’ve allowed words to amass, over time.  Why should a word intimidate me? I’m a writer, for godsake.

When I was in high school, I got called a lot of names. And why not? I was effete, still in the labor pains of self-awareness, and with a high tenor and curly hair, it should be no shock that one word I heard quite often was faggot.

Faggot: a cigarette to some in Britain; a bundle of sticks; a gay boy, specifically weaker by appearance than traditional masculinity allows, someone “obvious,” etc.

It never really hurt my feelings, to be honest.

Other than, I just felt that people were missing out on not knowing me. U.L. brought me up to have a kind heart, and it was hard to offer that to those who made fun of you. I had no knowledge then of language in all its glory and gore. I just wasn’t that affected by being called a faggot. I can’t say ignorance is bliss; I knew it didn’t make me feel good when they called me that, but I was terribly naive – for instance, I just always had something else to do. There wasn’t time to be depressed about name-calling.

Now, however, I stop and think: Wow! People called me faggot. How rude, and yet Who would ever let six little letters (5, if you accept that the “g” is repeated) dictate what their potential is worth? It isn’t nice to call people names, but ultimately, aren’t I the one who decides to what effect it will take over me?

I see now that it’s going to take a lot more than six letters, one so useless on its own it has to be repeated, to upset my balance.

But that isn’t even the basis of this blog, so let me stop before I go off on that tangent…no, it was something else entirely that I got hung up on, the other night, something even more tantalizing…at least, in the Deep South.

The idea of “cussing.” 

The Curse Word. The Bad Word. The Dirty Word.

I’m fascinated by the fact that such short, often one-syllable words, can inspire and maintain so profound an impact on our collective consciousness.

Cursing was one of the first life lessons I ever learned, how about you: “Don’t say that, that’s dirty.” Remember?

When I was very little, one of my sisters, much older than I am, had a tape recorder and she would follow me around all the time, begging me to say “bull-doodoo.” Why this was the dirty word of choice is beyond me, but I have it all on tape. And in the background, you can hear Nana say, “Now, stop that. Stop making him say that!”

I get a kick out of that tape, but in today’s terms, we’ve come a long way from “bull-doodoo.”

And the path we took to get this far away was the topic we eventually happened upon, the other night: me, Thomas, and Nathan, and that bucket of beer.

I said to them that I wanted to bring up in class, to my students, the nature of curse words, or swear words.  The history of this dirty part of language enthralls me to the core. It was taboo in my house to speak “filth,” and so, it is so beyond my ability to comprehend the pleasure some seek in using it…even though I myself was known to say a few choice words, from time to time…in secret, of course. It was a love/hate relationship. Sort of a real-life version of “If Loving You is Wrong, I Don’t Want to Be Right,” but a la Barbara Mandrell, not Millie Jackson.

Once, when I was upset about something, I can’t remember now what it was, but I was 10, and I was so angry I wanted to swear. I knew that’d get me in trouble, so I sneaked off to the bathroom and shut the door and stared in the mirror and said, “Damn! Damn! Damn!” over and over until I blushed.

How weird is that?

But, isn’t that the allure of the curse word?  That it, like Voldemort, is that “which will not be named?”

My students were appalled at my frankness. But, why? That’s what I posed to Thomas and Nathan, as I did to my classes. What’s really wrong with the word shit, or fuck, or crap, or asshole? There’s nothing inherently wrong in the linguistic makeup of the words, themselves.

So, it must either be a cultural thing (Yes!), a learned behavior (Absolutely!), or could it really be simply reduced to the collective sound the letters make in the order with which they’re spelled? (Huh?)

Where dirty words come from.

Is fuck a bad word, because it’s just a bad word: as in, it’s poorly spelled, poorly constructed? It’s not written to be euphonic, but cacaphonic? Had we spelled it fuch, or phuhkk, or some other deviation would it then become a good word, and by so becoming, be “ok” to say?

My students remained appalled. Granny So-and-So and the preacher just said Don’t ever say those words.

My grandmother, too, may she rest in peace until I get there, always chided us for using negative language, she called it. She didn’t necessarily hold some grudge against the word shit, but she felt that by using it, we were taking the easy way out. We weren’t using our minds to fully describe our feelings; instead, we were using a small-minded word to “sum” it all up in one breath.

That was a waste of imagination and creativity, she said. And, you know what, I concur.

That’s why it’s been my guiding rule, all these years. Well, that, and the fact that U.L. would have whipped me but good had I ever used such language in his presence, or anyone else’s. If nothing else, it just makes you sound uneducated, doesn’t it?  It makes you look bad.  Maybe, dirty language is dirty because of nothing else but aesthetics. Perhaps, it’s all cosmetic.  All predicated on the basis of appearance. (One of my friends has commented that sometimes a “cuss word” says all you need it to say. Can’t aruge with that). Or maybe it’s that good, old American right to Free Speech, to saying what you want when you want it. Like choosing, for instance to say cacophonic as opposed to cacaphonous for no other reason than “just because.”

Whatever the reason, though: I rarely cursed. And I never did it in front of people. In fact, I rarely do now…

I just developed a timid kidney instead, and began to spend a lot of time in the bathroom.

Which I do, even to this day.

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