Baby Talk

It is 8:30 in the evening at our household, the Cuddle Hour. It's the time when Ben, loathe to go to sleep, will actually acquiesce to having a conversation with us, as long as we stay in the room by his bed. This is the time when he sets his charm on stun, the better to get his back rubbed or his leg massaged ("And the heel— don't forget the heel.") Sometimes we read books, but more often these days we just chat. On this particular night, he initiates the questions, which surprises and delights me. This delight, along with general sleepiness (on my part), renders me oblivious to the ambush about to come.

"Your sisters--what did you do with them?"

"Do with them?"

"You know, like, did you play games or what did you do with them?"

"Oh." I think. "Well, my older sisters, I didn't do too much with them. They mostly just tormented me, or endured me."

Ben's brow crinkles. It doesn't seem to be the answer he wants. "Rub my ankle," he commands gently. Then: "What about your younger sisters?"

"Oh, well, I did a LOT with them. In fact, they always asked for massages, just like you." That was true. My sister Michelle, with her migraines, and Allison, with her growing pain legs, gave me plenty of practice, years before I became an actual certified massage therapist. "And I played a bunch with them. We put on shows, and ran around, and I read to them..."

"Exactly!" his emphatic tone surprises me. Wasn't he about to fall asleep? "That's why I want to have a sister or brother. So I could do that. I would read to them and play with them... so can we?"

"W-w-what?" I am so taken aback by this shift that I can only sputter. This request has been tendered, and denied, so many times before I'm surprised it's coming up again. 

Ben presses onward, sensing opportunity. "If I had a brother or sister, then when I wake up in the morning, I won't have to be so alone." 

Aaaaaaghh. How long has he been saving that one up for? With one exquisitely aimed stab at the heart he has rendered me paralyzed, much like how a pepsis wasp stings a tarantula before laying an egg into its abdomen. "Oh Ben..."

He sits up. "Please? Please?" His plaintive request makes it sound so simple, as if I could simply type "Baby" into the Amazon search box and one would be sent, easily, two-day shipping, along with our Go Lean cereal and Clif Builder protein bars. I am not ambivalent at all about my desire to not have another child, but he has played it so well I almost hesitate.

I assume an air of light jocularity. "Don't you think I'm too old to take care of a little baby?" I ask. 

"No! You're just fifty! Fifty!" he shouts. "That's only halfway!"

"Yeah, but I'd be too tired to take care of another kid." 

"I'll take care of him! I swear!"

I gain foothold on the sturdier grounds of logistics. "Benj, you'll be in school all day, sweetie. How could you?"

"On the weekends! And at night! I'll put him to bed and read to him and take care of him..." He is becoming more animated, and adorable, the more he imagines the scenario. "All you'd have to do is cook us a delicious meal."

Ooh! A hit! A palpable hit! One must admire his wiliness. "Benj, I think if we had another kid, I would be much more yell-y. A LOT more yell-y. You wouldn't want that."

He looks at me earnestly. "That's okay. It wouldn't matter. I would protect him."

"Yeah, but, I don't want a kid to be frightened of me—" and then I realize the ingenuity, the utter genius, of the trap I have been advancing on. He has slowly drawn me in further and further, speculating about a theoretical child, and, by imagining scenarios and drawing parameters, has given it form, a dotted-line silhouette of an infant with an arrow pointed at it: Baby Goes Here. 

I try to go on the offensive: "Hey, you already have a dog."

Benj looks at me pityingly. "It's not the same."

Desperate, I fall back on an age-old tactic, muttering "Well, let's just see if you can take of yourself. You can barely get yourself ready in the mornings—"

He springs. "Okay, and if I do get myself ready, then...?"

I have to backpedal immediately, so blind to the precipice I hadn't seen until I was practically flinging myself into it.  "No. No, no, I... I don't want to lie to you. That doesn't matter. It's just... no." I have to go back to simple truths. "I know you would be a really really good big brother, Benj. I know that. You would."

There is nothing to push back against. My resigned tone tells him that it's over, for now. He hunkers down under his sheets and I give his forehead a kiss and beat a hasty retreat. I've escaped, but barely. Another round and who knows? I might have been wheeling in a bassinet. 

A Giant Wave Goodbye to 2012

Looking back, perhaps it wasn’t so great an idea to visit Tulum, Mexico, a place replete with Maya ruins and relics, during the exact time when said Mayans were allegedly predicting apocalyptic disaster. 

Nevertheless, thence we hithered at the end of December. What was my favorite moment of the end of 2012? Oh, could it be rattling down the bumpy Mexican roads, my broken clavicle trying its best to poke out of my skin, as we searched for a hospital? Or was it that hilarious New Year’s Eve post-surgical ride to pick up our sick kid, which culminated in me peeing in a jug in Doug’s new Volt? God, it’s so hard to choose! 
And to think— the Mayans predicted it all!

Let me just start by saying: Tulum, Mexico is a beautiful place to vacation. We stayed in a cabaña just steps away from the beach, yet far enough back to feel private. The beach was one of the most beautiful I have ever visited, with pristine, fine white sand and clear azure water. Good friends came with us, there was a kitchen, I got a chance to practice my Pimsleur Spanish, Benj found a friend— it was the perfect place to be for a birthday vacation. 

Doug pointed this out to me, and I said,
"Yeah, good luck with that." 

Did you know rats LOVE thatching?

Well, except for the rats. And the Montezuma’s Revenge the day after my birthday. And the lack of internet service. And the giant spider. (This reminds me— need to write my review for TripAdvisor). 

Other than that, it was idyllic.

Until the day before we left. 

Perfect for kids... perhaps not so much for middle-aged men.

We were on the beach. My sister Allison and her husband, who had surprised us by coming down for my birthday a few days before, had just departed. We spent our last moments on the beach with them, talking about how perfect the water was, how warm and shallow, how regular the waves—perfect for kids. And then they left, oblivious to the ironic horror about to transpire. 

I turned to Ben. “Come on, let’s go in the water!”

He looked hesitant. “Nah, not now… I don’t want to go out without the group.”

“But it’s our last full day! And I’ve got to return these boogie boards this afternoon.”

“But… the sailor’s not here to tell us stuff.” (He has so dubbed my brother-in-law Orin, who is of a nautical bent, and has instructed Ben on riptides and jellyfish and such.)

I get a little impatient.“Ben, don’t be silly. We’ve been in the water by ourselves before. We’ll be fine. Come on! It’ll be fun! (When, oh when will adults learn to heed the uneasy premonitions of innocent children? Haven’t we seen enough of those movies?)

"James isn't coming in from the water,
Mrs. Torrance. Not in one piece."

I cajole him into the water, and we have wonderful time catching waves and taking pictures with Ben’s underwater camera. Insert Boogie Board montage. 

Then, picture me standing in thigh-deep water, boogie board strapped on to one wrist, camera strapped to the other, looking at my adorable son hooting in the surf. Then, imagine a wave, tawny with sand, rising close behind me. I turn. Normally, this would be no problem. I would dive into the wave and emerge unscathed on the other side. But I wasn’t used to being so encumbered, and I hesitated.

"Uh, Dad, you might want to turn around...?"

I thought of turning and riding the wave with my board. I thought of driving the board right through the wave. I thought of maybe slapping the board down onto the crest and and plowing through.

It was one thought too many. The wave plowed into me, whisking the boogie board away like a kite in a stiff wind and jerking me off balance. The wave behind (Benj was sure he saw a second wave) slammed me into the ocean floor, and my shoulder made the acquaintance of the hard, packed sand. Being as there was very little water to buffer my descent, the meeting was quick, sharp and injurious. I remember feeling my shoulder hit the bottom and thinking, “Oh that’s going to hurt tomorrow.”

I rose from the surf and found that I could not corral the boogie board with my right arm without a searing pain shooting near my shoulder. “That’s not good,” I thought. My right elbow reflexively clamped tight against my ribs, my left hand felt for the pain near my shoulder. It encountered a large protrusion at the collarbone. “Oh,” I thought, “that’s really not good.” 

Hmm.. maybe taking that tiki statue
was  not such a great idea.

Did I mention this was December 21st, the day the Maya calendar ended?

I must have looked bad as I staggered out of the surf, because even Benjamin noticed something was amiss. “Are you all right?” I grimaced and shook my head, eyes clamped shut. “Get out of the water! Get out of the water!” he yelled, then ran screaming up the beach. “Dad! Dad! Call 911! Call 911!” Doug was eventually roused from his dozing in the lounge chair and came to my aid. 

“Grab the boogie board,” I mumbled, “they’re due back today.”

And so we made our haphazard way by car to find the hospital in the center of town. The drive was enhanced every quarter mile by the jarring presence of topes, large concrete speed bumps that were impossible to avoid. What fun! We got lost twice. 

The hospital itself was an oasis of quiet and calm. I was seen immediately by a doctor who spoke perfect English, and got my x-rays taken within minutes of arriving (granted, the x-ray technician was later seen sweeping the floors, but still, he did a fine job— at both!). It was discovered that I had broken my right clavicle in two places, one small fracture and a more serious break that compressed and made the pieces overlap like a good Boy Scout campfire setup. 

No, it's not supposed to look like that.

Ninety minutes later we left with my x-rays, three prescriptions, a butterfly brace which gave me the posture of a superhero, and instructions to ice. An amazing ER visit, and, I might add,  incredibly inexpensive. The next day, we left for the States, me in a lovely drugged state, rolling along Benjamin’s small carry-on.

We spent a quiet Christmas together in Los Angeles (getting to Denver for the family get-together was contemplated but wisely rejected; I could barely get on a button-down shirt, the thought of layers and outerwear was unbearable) and, on a rocking New Year’s Eve morning, I checked into Cedar Sinai for surgery. My clavicle was to be aligned the right way and a titanium plate laid on top for support during healing. A simple procedure: the surgery would last less than an hour. I was so sure it was going to be nothing that I arranged for Ben to have his usual New Year’s Eve sleepover with a friend at our house (I had already deprived him of Christmas!) and perhaps we didn’t need to cancel our plans for New Year’s with friends?

Said friend Meryl: “Are you crazy? You’re having surgery. SURGERY.”

I have to say: she was right.

The surgery itself was no problem. Wheeled into the operating room at 10:30, woke up in post-op at 12:30. 

In pre-op. I may have called
the anesthesiologist "Hey you!"

Didn’t remember a thing, and I was on pain-blockers. Good to go! The final thing before checkout: I had to pee before they would release me. 100 ml. No problem! I drank Big Gulp-fuls of water and iced tea, and sat back, waiting for nature to call.

Only, she didn’t. Or, she did, but my body didn’t answer. I’d feel the urge, trundle over to the bathroom, take a deep breath… and nothing. The liquid was right there at the edge, ready to surge into action, but that little… something that kicks it over, starts the flow going, that little synaptical messenger was apparently still narcotized and would not wake up. 

Over the next few hours, there ensued a movie montage very similar to ones you’d see on “Sex and the City,” except instead of coital positions there are scenes of me trying every peeing posture known to urinating man. Leaning, jutting, squatting, running water, hand in warm running water, simulating the sounds of pissing through clenched teeth, imagining Niagara Falls… nothing worked. 

Finally, at 5:30, my nurse, who wanted to end her shift and go home to celebrate, informed me that she has a standing order for an “in-and-out catheter” to be installed in me. I wasn’t quite sure what an “in-and-out catheter” was, but I knew that I didn't want that to be my final memory of 2012. So I locked myself in the bathroom, thought of England, and willed myself to eke out just enough pee to secure my release. 

We weren’t home yet.  It was much later than we anticipated on New Year’s Eve, pharmacies all over were closing, so we had to fill my prescription in the hospital dispensary, which was currently experiencing computer difficulties. We spent another hour waiting for the blessed drugs to be delivered, and it was there in the lobby of the hospital that I discovered another delightful side effect of the anesthesia which no one talks about. Having spent so long desperately trying to pee, now I was unable to stop. Talk about feast or famine. Apparently, my bladder was so distended from the liquid that I pumped into it, that I was now in a constant state of needing to pee. I would stand by the urinal, dribble out a tablespoon of liquid, zip up, wash my hands and immediately have an excruciating need to pee again. Again, and again, and again. This would last the entire night into early morning, where I would have to get up every half an hour. Why wasn’t this in the post-op pamphlet?

I spent the last hour at the hospital in the bathroom while Doug got the prescription filled. It was 6:30, and I was exhausted. We drove to pick up Benjamin (who had a fever; we had to cancel his sleepover, mercifully) and it was the longest forty-minute drive of my life. The fact that I was in Doug’s brand-new electric car did not dissuade my bladder from jamming on the “eject” button. Luckily, I had one of those pee receptacles the hospital so thoughtfully sent home with me.

So, I bade adieu to 2012 struggling with surgical padding and an arm sling trying to get my pants unzipped in a small Chevy Volt so that I could insert myself into a plastic jug and pee, praying for no topes as we made the slow drive up Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Happy New Year!

Note: I am now recovering quite nicely, with a gnarly seven-inch scar. My clavicle should be good to go by the second week of February, which, coincidentally, is is the start of the Lunar New Year. I think I'm going to go with that calendar.

Midterms

Approaching my half-century mark (am I admitting to that? I guess I am) in a couple of  days, I, like so many before me, preoccupy myself by looking backwards as I hurtle forwards. I'm especially fascinated by those remote college years (can "Rock Lobster" be really that old?). It's not that I regard those days with any particularly burnished glow, nor do I have any remote desire to revisit that time. But still, I look back.

The following is an excerpt from a project I've been working on called "Midterms." I conducted a series of interviews with  a group of college friends who ran together as a sort of tribe Freshman year. I interwove those interviews together to explore who were were then and how we relate to each other now. It was quite revealing, and more than a little nostalgic. I had hoped to get it formatted and sent off to my cohorts before my birthday, but, alas, life intruded. So, until I can get it completed (soon! soon!) I offer the introduction:

In the fall of 1980, just shy of my eighteenth birthday, I arrived on the blustery shores of Evanston, Illinois, leaving behind my moped, my job at Daisy's Chinese Kitchen, my Dungeons & Dragons friends and my New Jersey family to embark on a new life as a freshman at Northwestern University. I had little idea of what I would find there, and no real expectations; all I knew was that it was "away," and that was a good thing. In truth, I felt half-formed, opaque. Searching, but not knowing what for. I was passionately Christian (thought not in an institutional way— I preferred to communicate directly with God); ostensibly straight; devout to sci-fi and fantasy; and in love with wandering Times Square (in its previous seedier incarnation), letting its streetlights guide me where they would. I had secrets, but they were hidden, even from me. 

What I got from my four years of Northwestern, more than a desultory education and the degree, was an identity. I fell in with a group of diverse, gay, and, I must say, fascinating people who were unlike anyone I had ever known. Denis O’Hare. Frank DeCaro. Harry Althaus. Timothy Engle. Darren Perkins. This cluster of friends formed the nucleus of what was known variously as "The Army," "The Group" or “That Loud Group Over There.” Through them, little by little, the shell that was me was filled. They shepherded my coming out with wit and understanding, and under their tutelage I learned much— about music, about film, about the Art of Being Gay. So many discoveries: with Denis I made the switch from Jesus to Sartre, finding that existentialism suited me much better. Frank informed my music library, and showed me the joys of dancing alone in one's room. Harry, well Harry introduced me to so many things: my first gay bar, my first sushi... Tim taught me about the power of tenacity and the genius that was Sondheim. Darren was the only one I could not even approach; he flitted in like a rarified species, dazzling and inexplicable, and flitted out almost as quickly. But really, all of them had that effect on me. I would mostly sit and listen, not daring to compete; I always remember feeling like Armistead Maupin’s Mary Ann in a room of Anna Madrigals.

Since graduating, we have of course all moved away and moved on. We’ve weaved in and out of each others’ lives, lost touch, and found each other again. The connection, though, is always there. Recently, rooting through the jumbled and faded photos from that time in college, I reencountered many other friends, important to me at the time, who are long lost now. So many people drift out of our lives, or are jettisoned. So why have these particular friends remained? I have a theory, of course, personal to me: I think that during these college years I was shaped into who I am today, and that these friends, so vital in that shaping, has left bits of their DNA ingrained in me forever. They can never be strange, or truly absent; they are, in the best sense of the word, Family.

And now, with my encroaching birthday in December, we will all have crossed that half-century mark. Better yet, we are all here, and all healthy, which is nothing to sneeze at. There's not a lot I remember about college (my memories seem to be archived on a disk with an antiquated format) so I wanted to gather recollections and stories of that time before they were lost for good, and to commemorate this half-century mark. Through individual Skype chats I’ve found that I’m not alone in my faulty recall, but when pieced together a pretty energetic narrative emerges...

Happy Birthday to all of us! Have a wonderful, and safe, end of the year!

A Thanksgiving Rescue Story: a Sweet Ending to a Tale of Abandonment...

You hear about it every holiday season--Someone thinks it's a good idea to bring a sweet little thing into a home, only to find it being neglected, shut away, just not wanted. Then, tragically, it ends up being cast away like so much garbage. You always hear it happening to those other irresponsible people out there, but this Thanksgiving, it almost happened to me.

I had too many damned desserts.

Every year I write in my little faux-leather menu log book: "Made too many desserts, two next time!" but this year, it reached epic proportions. Part of it was that I had overestimated the appetite of my guests. We had ten people at our Thanksgiving feast, but when three of them are pre-teen boys with limited appetite-attention spans, and three of them are I-will-keep-my-diet-I-will-not-succumb! types, well, you're really cooking for a handful. 

Did I mention the pistachios?

I don't blame the desserts— only, perhaps, their dimensions. A towering spiced peach pie, made with the last of the fall peaches from the Farmer's Market and a cream cheese crust; a pear-cranberry ginger crisp with toasted pepitas, straight from the recipe books of Border Grill; and Caramel crunch chocolate bars. Plus a guest brought the always-necessary pumpkin pie. Each dessert delicious; each dessert gargantuan. Add to that a healthy mug of sweet mulled apple cider before the meal, deviled eggs, the Turkey feast itself and rapidly diminishing appetites: it was the Perfect Confectionary Storm.

May I blame the deviled eggs?

Great headway was made in the pumpkin pie and Caramel Bars on Thursday. Not coincidentally, these were the only desserts the boys wanted to eat. The other two, showier desserts languished on the sideboard, cut into/spooned up, yes, and appreciated, definitely, but by evening's end they seemed to have miraculously healed themselves and were practically whole.  The truly bizarre thing, however, was that though guests ate on them over an ENTIRE WEEKEND, hardly a dent was made in either one. Let me reiterate: these were truly tasty, not some dried/bland/gummy sweets fit only for obligatory nibbles. And yet they would not move. The crisp was apparently self-replenishing; the pie was able to sustain an infinite number of slices and yet not diminish. By Sunday evening, after all the guests had left, Doug and I were staring down at two desserts barely half-way eaten. 

(Really, they were good. I swear. Doug himself, a person not known for his culinary tact, declared them to be keepers. "But you can only eat so much pie and feel good about yourself" was his explanation. Damn these eaters of moderation!)

The pie that would not die.

I would usually have gorged myself over the next few days until I had scraped up every crumb, but I knew a trip to Mexico was only weeks away, and the thought of my squeezable Thanksgiving mid-section going with me on vacation was too frightening to contemplate. Doug was of similar mind. Benj was useless. We felt like the time to share with neighbors had passed. There was no other choice: the desserts had to go. The trash can beckoned. I couldn't bear to watch. Doug, the more remorseless of the two of us—waited for me to give the word. I squeezed my eyes shut, nodded.

And that's when Providence entered the picture, in a manner worthy of the most treacly of Hallmark feature films. The doorbell rang. It was my friend Renée, someone I had not seen in, literally, years. Being, among other things, an accomplished accordionist, Renée was instrumental (no pun intended) in the writing of my novel This is How It Begins, in which a red accordion figures prominently. When I finished the manuscript (then called Liberace Under Venetian Skies) I gave her a copy to read. This weekend she happened to be out on a hike in my neighborhood with her friend Shelley, and stopped by to return the manuscript.

I wasted no time with hello's or how'd ya do's. "You want some dessert?" I blurted out. Her eyes widened but she took it in stride. "Sure!" she said. "Pie or crisp? or both?" I demanded, a little crazed. We went to the car to confer with Shelley. Turns out (handkerchiefs ready?) that Shelley had been ill on Thanksgiving, and had to leave a turkey dinner at her friend's house with only a drumstick wrapped in foil for a souvenir. On the drive home she saw a homeless person on the side of the road and gave him her only Thanksgiving leftover. Did I mention that she also has a sweet tooth? WE WERE PAYING IT FORWARD, BABY!

Shelley and Renée gladly welcomed two deserving desserts into their lives, my crisp and my pie found a new home, and my gut receded back from its semi-gelatinous state. It's a Thanksgiving Miracle, and, knowing my compulsive baking habits... it may even become a tradition.

A Vocal Harvest

Had a couple of days of voice-over work that I would love to replicate the whole year round. You know, the kind of days where you get a call in the early afternoon to send in an audition from home, then you get called by your agent at 5 telling you you've got the job and have to go in at 6 to record, then the producers call you in to their studio the next day to have you do some more. And I thought it was just a myth. More, please!

The best part was that  I was hired to be a sound-alike for none other than the uber-cool actor Ken Watanabe. Me! This validation's come at a good time— at all my Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness sessions I sit and marvel at the other actors: the amazing suppleness of their voices, their mercurial wit, their fast-and-furious banter, and I can't help, sometimes, but feel a bit... arthritic in comparison. So to nail an actor who's voice is far from mine is a great boost.

Let's see, all I need to do is Chow-Yun-Fat and Jet Li, and I'll have covered practically the entire pantheon of male Asian superstars!

Check...

Check...

Check...

And check.
Just wait 'til they hear my Katharine Hepburn!

Studying Mr. Watanabe's voice (mostly using The Last Samurai as a guide) yielded a lot of quiet pleasure. Jackie Chan (my patron saint in voice-overs) and Ken Watanabe come from the same lower register of my voice, but the differences in their speaking are quite distinct, even taking into account their different ethnicities. Mr. Chan, like the characters he plays, has a certain broadness to his speech; he's quite animated (no pun intended) and charming, but simple in his delivery—he saves his flexibility for his movement.


Mr. Watanabe, on the other hand, is first and foremost an actor, and it shows in his delivery. Listen to the colors of his voice, how he employs tone and nuance quite fluidly, and remember that this is not even in a language he was comfortable with at that time. It's quite impressive.

This gig comes on top of continuing Kung Fu Panda work (only five more episodes to record!) and a voice on the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Plus (speaking of pandas), I've got a good role in the new World of Warcraft game: Mists of Pandaria which has just come out. I still can't believe that I'm in this job that I love so very, very much, working (playing, really) with people of the highest caliber of talent, humor and kindness, making funny voices and getting paid for it.

Something to be thankful for, indeed.

Happy Turkey Day!