Dr Irritant

I've been to see the dermatologist again. This is a yearly thing, you know, unless something on my skin requires surgery. Actually, I'm waiting to hear the results of the three biopsies he performed yesterday.

Two on my face, one on the base of my neck. You probably don't want to know that part. But I have to say that you don't want some guy named Brian to numb your nose. It requires a needle, you know. Brian is new. I don't know what happened to the other guy, the Asian.

Before the biopsies, Dr Irritant shot my face with the freezing stuff. Nitrogen, I guess. He said, "Do you want these brown spots gone?"

Duh.

So he said he would freeze them off "as a courtesy."

I assume that means no charge.

He is a nice guy, no matter what I call him. A very nice guy. I think (hope) he is also a good doctor.

Now. As to his demeanor. He hugged me again. I could live without it, but it's just the way he is. He said, again, that I have such a beautiful face and he hates to mess it up. (That, I am sure, he says to all women patients.)

But here's the news. He did not call me kid. That was VERY noticeable. Believe me.

This time he addressed me as lady. I hardly knew what to think.

And I wonder, is that some kind of graduation? I've moved to an upper level in his affections? Maybe. Or maybe he looked at my chart and saw my age.

His nurse did call me Hon.

My brother

Today is my brother's birthday, Anthony Wilford (or, as we know him, Bill). He is 76. I have thought of him all day, all of last week, actually. Don't know how to contact him--long story, don't ask.

But I love to see him, and that happens less and less. I don't watch daytime TV and so I miss those Liberty commercials where he talks about getting your diabetes testing materials delivered right to your door.

Once in a while I'll see that a movie he was in is on TV, and I own The Firm and Absence of Malice. So I could watch them again if I wanted to. I think those are the best, although China Syndrome and Cocoon (the first one) are also good. There are many others--The Thing, High Road to China, In and Out, Stone Boy, Electric Horseman, etc., etc., etc.

I have wondered if his TV show, "Our House" shows in syndication anywhere. I'd watch it. At least occasionally.

The Firm is hard to watch, actually, because he gets kicked to death by Tom Cruise at the end, but he's good in it.

This is the brother who took me to high school one day, let me off near a group of about 15 black students, shouted "Long live Governor Faubus," and drove off fast. Did he think what I might face? What those students might say or do to me? Obviously not.

They did say something as they approached me en masse. They were not pleased by what he had shouted, and they wore a threatening look--down to the last one of them. And I had to talk my way to peace and safety. Good thing I was known by some of them. Good thing I'm a good talker.

Anyway, that was more than fifty years ago (can I believe it? fifty years!), and I love my brother Bill. Today I wish him well and a happy birthday.

A Poem I wrote and still like

The Wall

Bobby holds your wrists tight

to keep you next to him, wrenching free

you run but know he'll catch you. You like it,

though you're afraid. Father stands

just inside the back screen door

rubbing his hand over his bald head,

watching for you, wondering

why you're so long coming home from school.

What will you tell him? It can't be smiling—

Bobby held my hands, his eyes are blue,

he likes me, Daddy. It can't be that.

There's some kind of shame in love at age eleven.

You tell it this way, never saying Bobby’s name.

A boy held me hard against a wall, Daddy,

he grabbed my arms, wouldn’t let me go.

It isn’t all a lie. You wish Bobby wouldn't

follow you home. You know Father will yell at him,

frighten him away. You can only hope

Bobby will come back and love you after that, love you

three more years and kiss you by the wall.

Philosophy, Mine, For now

My friend, school nurse just now retired, called today. Her last daughter to marry did marry two weeks ago. I went to the wedding in Utah, although they live in Middleton, Idaho.

While there I asked the groom why they chose to marry in Bountiful, Utah. "We just wanted to." Good enough reason. I was glad they didn't "just want to" get married in, say, the Philippines.

Beautiful bride, handsome groom. Truly. And so on. We spoke of their bright future.

Then we spoke of her last unmarried child, the boy who just last month broke off his engagement to "an absolutely perfect girl." I have no reason to doubt that the girl was perfect. My retired nurse friend knows stuff--and people--and she told me many things this girl had done that helped her son, made him a better person. And so on.

Me: Well, why did he break up with her?

Retired Nurse: Because he's an idiot. And he says she doesn't make his heart pound.

Me: Oh. Too bad.

RN: But I think it has to do with the fact that she wouldn't let him paw her and, you know, climb all over her.

Me: Oh, yeah.

RN: I told him a girl who has dated lots of guys gets to feeling like a piece of meat.

Me: Well, maybe he'll find someone who makes his heart pound, and maybe she'll find some really good guy.

RN: She has gone with some good guys, but when it comes time for marriage, they don't want to marry her.

Me: Why? Is she ugly?

RN: No. She's adorable.

So then I gave RN part 2 of my philosophy about beauty and ugliness. I know it's out of order; part 1 should come before part 2. But part 2 seemed to fit here.

Me: I believe there are very few ugly people in this world.

RN: Maybe, but there is a really ugly man who would come to the school, bring his kids to drop off, and he was so ugly that my gag reflex kicked in when I saw him. I couldn't help it.

Me: Wow.

RN: And his voice and his smell. I didn't want to be in the same room with him. His wife is nice looking, volunteers often. I could not understand it. Thinking about being married to him made me gag all over again. He was so ugly. In every way.

I was getting the picture. The man is ugly.
So then I gave her part 1 of my philosophy.

Me: An ugly man can do all right in this world, but no one loves an ugly woman.

RN: Ain't it the truth. Oh yes, that is so true.

Me: But I may have to make adjustments to this philosophy because I had not entertained the thought that someone might gag at the sight of an ugly man. I'm not sure that we can say an ugly man is "doing all right" if the sight of him elicits gagging.

RN: (Laughter)

Of course, we spoke of many other things, but this is the part that stays in my mind because it made me wonder if I will have to change my philosophy. I just don't know.

About My Very Own Face

When I was 13 and feeling pretty good about myself, Bob Carroll, who was also 13, "liked" me. You know.

We went a few places together, or he would latch on to me at a school dance, or he would walk me home from school and just stay a while. You know.

He didn't know that while I would always be polite and friendly to him, he had no chance with me. You know?

One afternoon, as we sat on my porch swing, he began to declare his feelings for me, as only a 13-year-old can do, I suppose. And I suppose you know.

He said, and I quote, "You're not the best looking girl I've ever known, but there is something about you . . . " and, frankly, I don't remember anything else he said.

The first part--and I'm quite sure he meant my face--was no doubt true, but he did not need to say it. Think about it. Did he need to say it?

I will not here go into the impact of such a thing on a girl. But probably you can figure it out.

The second part is also no doubt true, and I guess it was a compliment. I tried to see it that way.

Difficult, though, coming after the first part as it did.

Antidisestablishmentarianism

Czechoslovakia. The first long word I learned to spell. I had to learn it because Lance said something like, "I bet you can't spell _________." And there it was. He was right. I couldn't spell it.

But here's the thing. All I had to do was ask him to spell it again, and I had it. This was in first grade, when Lance was in love with me. His father owned the five and ten-cent store down in Ocean Park on Main Street. I'd been inside it once or twice, but don't think I ever bought anything, likely never had quite enough money. One day Lance brought me a box of Crayola crayons from his dad's store--this was after the spelling incident.

The last time I saw Lance--50-year high school reunion--he said, again, that he was still in love with me. I might have believed it in first grade if he'd had enough nerve to tell me then. I think the crayons were supposed to say it for him. But now? Of course not. Now it's just a nice thing to say.

Back to Czechoslovakia. Probably I went home and said to my brother Sterling--four years older and my favorite person in the world--"Can you spell _________?" I don't know what he said, but I spelled it for him. And I believe it was then that he came right back with something like, "Big deal. Can you spell antidisestablishmentarianism? It's the longest word in the dictionary." (No, the longest word is not smiles, with its mile between each s.)

Wow. I think it knocked my socks off. Of course I couldn't spell it. Was it really a word? I asked Sterling to spell it again more slowly, which he may or may not have done. I decided to look it up.

We had a huge, fat dictionary. Webster's. It was used often in our home, sometimes for looking up words, more often as a booster seat on a dining room chair so you could reach the table. I was once that small.

Sure enough, antidisestablishmentarianism was in there. I learned it, of course. Didn't take long, but as soon as I showed Sterling I could spell his big word, he began adding endings, like istic and istical. I never found those, not even in the huge Webster's, but they certainly weren't hard to spell.

I think Brimleys are competitive.

Who knew in those mid-1940s that the day would come when it didn't matter if you could spell Czechoslovakia, and who knew that there would be a kind of connection between my two big words? Wow again. Czechoslovakia eventually became disestablished. Those Czechs and Slovaks split up. It was an artificial political joining in the first place.

Obviously a person who could spell Czechoslovakia would have no trouble spelling The Czech Republic. I wonder how the Slovaks feel about The Czech Republic getting to keep Prague as its Capital city. But no matter, because now we get to the purpose of this randomish post.

My son Paul's Ultimate Frisbee team went to Prague for the World Tournament of that sport, a sport not known to many people but one I have watched and can bear witness of that it is real and that those who play it are in earnest and sort of give their lives and their bodies during a game and which sport is known and important enough somewhere to have a World Tournament in Prague, The Czech Republic.

Two games a day all week. Single elimination, I'm guessing. Plenty of sight-seeing forays in between, I'll bet, and wouldn't I love to go to that very old city. Oh yes.

Anyways . . . as Paul might say, drawing it out to make you think about it, I'll get to the point, and I think I have to put this in all caps.

THEY WON.

Paul's team won. They won the world. They are the Ultimate Frisbee Champions of the World. Do you get that? I certainly hope so.

The Face, Part 12 and Final

Face terms, but let’s face it, I will not be able to think of all of them:

Visage, countenance, kisser, mug, pan, dead pan.

We also have other phrases or expressions where face appears in one or the other of its uses. That is, as noun or verb. Let’s get Facebook out of the way early. That term/entity became part of our face vocabulary in 2004.

Then there are

• in your face
• blue in the face, as in "You can talk until you're blue in the face, but he'll never budge."
• lose face
• about face
• face the music, which has little to do with music and much to do with being strong enough to take responsibility for something you've done.
• save face
• pull a face, as in "You'd better not pull that kind of a face, young lady."
• face up to it
• face the facts
• right to his face
• on the face of it
• a straight face, as in "How could you tell such a lie and keep a straight face?"
• face cards
• face to face
  
• face value
• why the long face? as in what the bar tender said to the horse that came into the bar; and other more legitimate uses.
• faceless
  
• a face in the crowd
  
• get out of my face, as in "Get out of my face."

Go ahead. Use them in sentences. Or if I left some out, you send them to me.

Oh. Yeah. I forgot to mention the lines and wrinkles a face is susceptible to. As in my face. Here’s what they say about the soul. It’s old.