A Well-Dressed Penis

Not long ago I noticed an entry in my money book for “penis dressing,” about $8. “What the hell was that?” I asked myself, and finally remembered going to Slim’s one fine evening to assist a friend of mine in performing, at a benefit for MoveOn.org, her ribald political poem which has as its main prop a homemade penis (pink sock plus red papier-mâché head) which is inserted between a willing participant’s legs from behind so it appears the person has a large, quite animated penis that wears, by turns, a gold crown, a cowboy hat, a tie, a nurse’s hat, etc., and makes witty pronouncements.

Someone had to sit behind the black backdrop, keep the costumes organized and outfit the penis as needed; that was me. I must have taken a cab to or from Slim’s, hence the notation in my money book.

I got to reprise my role over this past weekend when we videotaped a performance of the poem. My friend had pressed her sister into service as the legs, and afterwards we went over and had dinner with their mother. The whole thing was a lot of fun. The videographer was a man who lives up north.

Besides that, I saw my acupuncturist on Friday night and did some cooking on Sunday. I made red lentils and buckwheat, and I washed tomatoes and nectarines and apples, and I chopped broccoli and baked sliced sweet potatoes. I talked to my friend Carol Joy on the phone and we made plans for a visit.

Tom was off at the Death Ride. He completed four passes (out of five) and stopped, as it happened, just before a huge thunderstorm started.

Thelonious started gulping again, alas. I’ve been so extra nice to her lately that she can’t make it through the night without petting and compliments on her beauty and general charm, so she is lately clambering onto my stomach in the wee hours and standing with her face a few inches from mine to see if it’s time for Cat Appreciation Hour yet.

I try to keep her apprised of anything cat-related in what I’m reading. “This poor man had to get rid of his cat,” I tell her. “No cat! How sad.”

I didn’t turn the computer on all weekend, which is always a pleasure, though I did find myself thinking about the script I’m writing at work. Usually I put off working on it until late afternoon—sometimes I put off working on it for weeks—but this morning practically the first thing I did was to start on it. That is to say, I went to Google and posted a really stupid question to the Perl beginners group.

My mother approves. She said recently, in her most tactful manner, that she’s not entirely sure I’ve put my brain to as much use over the years as I might have. I am lazy, to be sure. My mother always has tons of potential projects in mind. I think she feels bad because she doesn’t do all of them, but I think it’s amazing that she even wants to do this, that and the other, and in so many different realms: art, sewing, horticulture, home improvements, bird-watching, computers, languages, on and on. I like to think of things not to do, thus affording me more time for reading, sleeping and going to the movies.

I’m almost finished with Walden, which I confess has taken more effort than I might have hoped—partly because he’s fond of very long paragraphs: big, dense blocks of text—but lately I’m finding it more interesting and getting through more at a time. Certainly I agree with virtually everything he says. It’s also packed with pithy quotes. I was surprised to find out how much he was influenced by Eastern religions. Hmm, was Thoreau cute? According to Google, looks like not, though he looks smart! And, of course, being smart is the better part of being cute, so he probably was cute.