Re-Wig

ME: I see that you are once again wearing a wig.

MAN WITH WIG: I don't know what you are talking about.

ME: You have a wig. On your head. There. Above your eyebrows.

MAN WITH WIG: Really, no idea. No idea at all what you mean.

ME: You are wearing a wig. Like you did before. The same wig, I think.

MAN WITH WIG: Hmmm. Whatever you say.

ME: So, you continue to deny that you are wearing a wig, or what?

MAN WITH WIG: Can we talk? Over here? Where other people can't hear us?

ME: Sure.

MAN WITH WIG: Thank you. Okay. So.

ME: Yes?

MAN WITH WIG: I would like to ask you not to do that.

ME: Do what?

MAN WITH WIG: Point out the wig. Please.

ME: So you admit to wearing a wig?

MAN WITH WIG: Here, please. I would like you to not mention it in public. I would like you to stay mum about the subject of wigs in general and my possible wig in particular.

ME: Are you uncomfortable with the fact that you wear a wig?

MAN WITH WIG: That is neither here nor there. This is about something much, much larger and broader. It's about civility.

ME: How so?

MAN WITH WIG: A man—or woman—in a wig (I'm not saying me, mind you, just referring to a hypothetical bewigged person) has entered into a sort of social contract. They have donned a wig for a reason. Like, say, lack of hair. Or an embarrassing haircut. Or a little piece of hair sticking up in a place where it shouldn't.

ME: Oh, yes. I know about that. I had a terrible cowlick when I was a child, and spent long minutes obsessing over it in a mirror before school. I would add lots of water to a comb, and comb and comb and comb to try to get it to stay down. Sometimes I'd use a foaming hair product of some sort, but only on that spot, so that I had one little crisp lock of hair that invariably stuck out anyway, only in a clumped bundle instead of a more natural, loose spray.

MAN WITH WIG: This is not about you and your weird thing. This is about wigs.

ME: I'm sorry. I got distracted. Please continue.

MAN WITH WIG: As I was saying, the bewigged have entered a sort of social contract. They have worn a wig to keep away from embarrassment of some sort. The wig covers the embarrassment. It should also cover the bewigged from having the wig pointed out to them. The wig serves both functions: it covers embarrassment and it says to others: "There is something embarrassing below, so please do not mention me. I am standing—or sitting, or lying—here in place of embarrassment. If you point me out, it defeats the purpose."

ME: But a wig is a wig is a wig. Your are saying that to point out that a wig is a wig is wrong and that a wig is not a wig but sign of something else. I will allow that a wig is both. But I will not allow that a wig is not a wig.

MAN WITH WIG: But don't you understand that you must? What the wig stands for is more important than what the wig is!

ME: We will have to agree to disagree. I don't believe either of those things—that a wig is a wig and that a wig is a sign—trumps the other.

MAN WITH WIG: And this is why you are evil. Good day.

***

Illustration for this post is by my lovely and multi-talented friend Brittain. Thanks, darlin'!

If you are an illustrator, and you would like to collaborate with me, send me an email.

***

Don't forget about the band Tao Lin and I started.

Healing

Can't blog. I am healing and creating melodramatic popular songs.

***

To prepare yourself for the next post, please familiarize yourself with this old post. There will—possibly—be a test:

Wig
ME: Why is it that you are wearing a wig?

MAN WITH WIG: Aren't we all wearing wigs?

ME: No. I'm not wearing a wig. You are, and just you. So, why are you wearing a wig?

MAN WITH WIG: But, aren't clothes a kind of a wig? And you're wearing clothes.

ME: No, clothes are not a kind of a wig. Wigs are, probably, a kind of clothes, maybe. But clothes are not a kind of a wig. So, no, I'm not wearing a wig because I'm wearing clothes. Again, why are you wearing a wig?

MAN WITH WIG: Maybe, in fact, I'm not wearing a wig and you are!

ME: No, because a wig is a wig. And not a wig is not a wig. And that thing on your head is clearly a wig. Why are you wearing it?

MAN WITH WIG: Aren't we all, metaphorically speaking, wearing a wig?

ME: If I allow that we are all, metaphorically speaking, wearing a wig, will you tell me why you are, physically speaking, wearing a wig?

MAN WITH WIG: No.

ME: Then we are not, metaphorically speaking, all wearing wigs.

***

There will not really be a test. This post originally ran on Wednesday, November 2, 2005.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma won't check my blog.

Shut up. I'm serious.

I've never had a visitor from Oklahoma, according to Google Analytics. There are other states, too, from which no one has ever looked at my blog, but Oklahoma! Oklahoma is the one that truly bothers me. It's the one that I'm most frustrated by. It's the one I'm most disappointed in.

I'm disappointed in Oklahoma. Very disappointed. In all this time, they've never once checked my blog.

I'm disappointed.

Because they said they would! They totally said that they would, and I'm quoting here, "check that blog of mine real soon." That's what they told me. That's what they said. They were, according to them, going to come out to the internet at some point soon and check my blog.

To see what I was doing. To see how not being able to blog was going. To maybe check to see if they could figure out what it was that was going wrong, and maybe give me a couple of pointers. They said they were going to help out. But, instead, this:



We talk, is what I'm saying. Oklahoma calls. We talk. Even after all that stuff that went down, we still talk. I've forgiven Oklahoma, Oklahoma has forgiven me. Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

But then, this!

What am I supposed to do with this? Really?

No blogging today. Gotta go call Oklahoma.

UPDATE:




Thank you.

***

You can buy a t-shirt to prove that you read this post. Your friends, who will also read this post, will be impressed.

***

Getting closer.

Happiness

I was walking from a bar to my bicycle. On the way there, I saw a man walking his dogs, crossing at a light. The red hand started to blink, indicating that it would soon be dangerous to be out in the middle of the street. So the guy sped up.

And the dogs sped up. The one on his left bounced to a gallop. A gallop! Suddenly! In the middle of a walk, when all that was promised the dog was a walk. He got to gallop! And he was happy.

And I think maybe that moment there, that dog getting to run for a moment, was the happiest moment on the planet. Just for a couple of seconds, no one anywhere was happier than that dog. It was the planet's moment of greatest joy by any living, thinking, feeling creature.

Like, I imagine the planet from a distance, and the creatures on it as little three dimensional bar graph bars, and the height of each bar represents how happy they are. And I stop time, and I flatten the whole planet out, and hover above, looking for the tallest of all the bars.

(Sad people have bars that dip under the planet's surface.)

And the tallest bar is the bar belonging to that dog who gets to run for just a few seconds.

Staring at my chart, I realize how mad I am at God that the dog gets to be the happy one at that moment. And how mad I am when I realize that if I start time back up, and monitor all the happy bars, a dog will always have the tallest one.

But that's just jealousy. It's an emotional state that comes on before I have a chance to think it away. My jealousy is like that dog's happiness. It bubbles up from a part of my mind without language, without tool-making, without opposable thumbs.

Staring at my happy planet chart after I have shooed away the jealousy, I realize how happy I am with God that God has allowed me to see the chart, and empathize with the dog.

And then I try to remember whether or not God exists, and if he or she or it has called me lately. Or emailed me lately

So I need to go check my voicemail. I don't have time to blog.

***

Your help is appreciated.