I'll Grant You the "New" Part

I’ve been using Lubriderm lotion on my hands and forearms when I go to sleep for many years, the fragrance-free edition, and was startled lately to find a noxious smell wafting toward me after my nightly ritual. Can Lubriderm lotion spoil?, I wondered. A dark suspicion grew in my mind. I turned on the light, fearing the worst, and sure enough, there on the container were the highly unwelcome words “new and improved.” Those scoundrels.

I had to dump it all down the drain (and recycle the container, of course) and start a search for a new emollient. Eucerin’s Original Moisturizing Lotion actually seems a bit drying, and has a slightly animal smell, but their Original Moisturizing Creme might be a winner. For starters, it’s the most unscented skin care product I’ve ever encountered—it smells like nothing. It’s a thick white paste that rubs in and becomes transparent nearly instantly, and while it can be felt on my skin for some time, it doesn’t seem to get on the sheets. Those people at Eucerin are geniuses, like Heidi Julavits (more on her later). By morning, the Eucerin has absorbed completely.

The global flow of information is so swift these days, I got to break the news about Michael Jackson dying to only two people, my parents. What a day that was: Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson gone within hours of each other.

I said to Tom later, “Poor Farrah Fawcett—what bad luck to die the same day as Michael Jackson. She was completely overshadowed.” Tom said, “Farrah Fawcett is dead?”

When I called my mother after seeing the news on TMZ (they knew it before anyone else; from now on, that’s my main news source), I asked, “Guess who died?”
“Farrah Fawcett.”
“Michael Jackson.”
“No kidding!”

She turned to my father and asked him in turn, “Guess who died?”
“Who?”
“Michael Jackson.”
“No kidding!”
“Did you know Farrah Fawcett had died?”
“No; when did Farrah Fawcett die?”
“Today.”

I added that I was waiting for a reputable news source to confirm that Michael Jackson was dead. To my mother, this meant he was alive and well; my father joked, “I hope Linda knows she’s putting me on an emotional roller coaster.”

After that my mother and I discussed a subject that is classified, as so many are; lest I was having a lapse of good judgment, she added, “If this goes in your blog, I’m going to pound you to a jelly.”

I told my mother I was still waiting for The New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle to confirm that Michael Jackson was dead. My mother said, “It’s too late: Your father has already run down the street in his socks to tell everyone.” (There’s nothing on earth my father would be less likely to do.)

Then, as if talking to herself, she added, “I hate all this misinformation.”

Then, to me, “You got it from TMZ, I got it from LWA [that’s me], which is known for being early out of the box, but there might be a correction later.”

That’s a polite way of saying I’ve developed a reputation for incessant exaggeration.

In the evening, I listened to Triumph—that is a great album—and to my favorite songs on Thriller, nice and loud. My favorite song from Thriller is “P. Y. T. (Pretty Young Thing),” so I turned it up extra loud for that, and then the phone rang. It was the crank who lives upstairs, Tom something or other, asking if I could turn the freaking music down so he could get some freaking sleep.

I called him back and said, “I can’t believe you interrupted the Michael Jackson Tribute with that petty complaint.” Tom does hate what he calls “disco,” which to him means pretty much everything other than the Grateful Dead and Tom Petty, so he probably had had enough by that point, to be sure.

It was kind of refreshing to be the annoying neighbor instead of the annoyed neighbor for once.