I Don’t Know What to Write About
I’m stuck. I don’t know what to write about. My so-called book is being proofread as I write this, after having scrutinized the manuscript from its nostrils to its lungs to its anus, time and time again. I told Misha, my book manager, that I could justifiably tweak the thing for the rest of my life. She didn’t respond but I could tell what she was thinking. She was thinking, here we go again, dude’s giving me another headache. So I drew the line and abandoned any and all future changes. After the book comes out, people are going to say they liked it fine, but secretly think it would have been better if (fill in the blank). Anyway, I will be amazed if the poor proofreader finds one extra space or wayward comma. But, I bet the proofreader will secretly think the thing would be better if (fill in the blank). I can’t read minds. I’ve decided not to write about the book and its many, many imperfections as imagined by current and future evaluators.
I considered writing about my 15 minutes of fame. Here it was: You might have seen me if you were a night owl in the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area in 1960. You see, I became a movie star at eight years of age among Presbyterian congregations in that community. I was chosen somehow to appear in promotional films by a local studio that portrayed a boy (that would be me) whose parents refused to get involved in church.The boy wanted to go, but they didn’t. (Oh, the irony. The very opposite was true in real life.) So, for several Saturday mornings, the movie director picked me up in his red MG convertible and off we would go to different locations where the camera and sound dudes were waiting. It was great fun and I got paid seven dollars an hour. I could never get the hang of falling “accidentally” from a deck railing, but I was pretty good all the same. At the world premier at the Presbyterian Church Multi-Purpose Room, people kept looking at me after seeing my scene-stealing cherubic face plastered across the silver screen.
I must have so impressed the studio people that I was cast in a subsequent project of theirs. I would become the “sign-off boy” for the CBS TV affiliate in Atlanta, WANF. Every night, a few minutes before midnight, before the national anthem played over a waving American flag, and before the test pattern came on for the wee hours, there I was. There I was in my pajamas, going around my bedroom, giving my model airplane a final touch, putting my teddy bear on my pillow, and kneeling by my bed to pray. You would have heard the voiceover, my little boy falsetto, reciting the Lord’s Prayer in my dramatic southern drawl. “Our Father, who art in Heaven…” And then I would crawl into my bunk, pull the covers up to my chin, and in dramatic close-up, my eyes slowly closed to sleep. Fade out. Good night, Atlanta.
With all the dough I made as a movie star, I bought a brand new Schwinn bicycle at Montgomery’s Wards in downtown Atlanta. Another story for another time. But not now.
I thought about writing about Max, the gray and white Shitzu mix who came to live with me in the summer of 2024. Max is 11 and he has a long and storied history, beginning in Connecticut and ending in Traverse City, as the object of a stressful custody dispute. I don’t think I’ll write about that now. Just suffice to say he was passed from the original unknown owner, to dog shelter, to nephew, to second cousin, to sister, to other sister, to niece and her quasi step children, back to other sister, to me. Somewhere in there, people got pissed at each other about who Max should live with. But I’m happy with Max and Max seems happy enough with me. No one’s pissed at me, vis a vis Max, that I know of. If you haven’t quite heard enough about other people’s dogs, know this: (1) Max looks like the end of a dust mop. If you anesthetized him and strapped him to a broomstick, he would become a handy household item. (2) Max scampers. He doesn’t run exactly. No, he scampers in the truest sense of the word. It’s very difficult to describe scampering, but if you saw a video of Max on the move, you would say, “Yep, that’s scampering all right.” And if he’s trying to travel fast across a snow-covered driveway, he, well, he scamper-hops. There’s no other way to say it. I’ll show you a video some time. You’ll see. (3) Max will go off happily with just about anyone. Not long ago, I was walking him off-leash around the Circle of Feces. As its name suggests, the Circle of Feces is an area in my condo development where all the dog owners, shall we say, provide their pets ample business opportunities. Anyway, while my back was turned for a minute, Max decided to follow neighbors Doug and Sara and their schnauzer, Stevie, to begin, apparently, a new life in Unit 32.
“Hey Max, come back here!” I yelled. Doug and Sara just laughed and laughed and thought it was the cutest thing, Max just willy-nilly following some strangers home like that. Personally, I think it stems from unresolved custody trauma from his puppyhood. Well, at least when he came back, he scampered, the little shit, the little disloyal shit.
No, the imperfect manuscript and my fifteen minutes of fame and my little dust mop, Max, are all subjects I could write about at a different time. Today I don’t know what to write about. I’ll hope for better inspiration tomorrow.
