It's 1989 and things are lookin' up... side-down.

The final year of junior high was heavy for my 8^th grade class at Live Oak Waldorf School.

We’d bonded unusually deep; our eccentric education, overseen by the same, stern woman annually and paid for by unconventional, often dysfunctional parents, made us peers not just of age and fads, but in isolation: we weren’t represented in popular culture – there weren’t Cosby kids too poor to afford clothes or dental work; INXS wasn’t singing about the world of antiquity, accompanied by recorder ensemble; the cast on Facts of Life never gathered in a bi-monthly circle to share from their hearts until everyone wept and atoned and affirmed admiration for each other – then broke for their next class on American folk dancing.

"I'm afraid being raised without an understanding of more mainstream, cultural norms
is going to handicap my trajectory in life, Tootie."

The final months of that semester were strange; our lessons became devoted to one, final project: a run of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, barely edited, performed for the public by either of two casts, each featuring the same students in alternate roles.

It was our teacher’s idea this would avoid certain students having all the glory of lead parts. While well-intended, it instead ensured that shier kids who’d have preferred to skip the spotlight, couldn’t; it meant everyone had two characters to memorize – quite a task, considering this was most pupils’ introduction to iambic pentameter – and made what would have been the natural, unfriendly phenomena of critical comparison between kids’ acting skills even more impossible to avoid.

(Look close – I'm the guy in the green shirt next to the building.)

I recently returned from a week-long stay in San Francisco.

Now, before you jump to conclusions that’ll confuse matters as I continue on with my story about San Fran, (yes, there’s even more to the story!) it’s important to clarify I was in San Francisco, California – not, I repeat not, San Francisco, Córdoba.

Okay? I just saved you from asking a bunch of inappropriate questions about whether I heard any good cuarteto while away, plus making embarrassingly irrelevant jokes about “getting a dolor de la panza from eating too much Cabsha Alfajores de Dulce de Leche Cubierto con Chocolate.” I know you too well, dear reader! You and your assumptions.

San Francisco, California is located roughly 3,670 miles south-west of Prince Edward Island, but don’t confuse the two – only one of these locations was watered with the many tears of the Mi’kmaq people and named after a British royal who was no fun at drinking-games.

Hint: This couple never went to a Giants game.

Bollocks.

I hope you won’t think less of me, dear reader, but I’ve started going to the gym regularly. But wait – it gets worse – I’ve been going there to exercise.

I realize this sort of behavior doesn’t gracefully jive with my established persona; I live my life and make choices guided by the principle: What would Mrs. Dalloway do if Laurie Anderson was scripting her fate? If someone’s going to cast an actor to play me in a film, I aspire for the obvious choice to be Liv Ullman, or – if the film’s merely going to focus on my nervous breakdown, circa 1996 – Mink Stole, please.

"I can neither live with this crushing depression, nor tolerate anymore cheap, turquoise jewelry."
- Mink Stole as the author in his early 20s

None of these women would be caught dead wearing the sweatpants and V-neck undershirt I don for my workout routine, nor subject themselves to my Sisyphean Stairmaster set – though the look on my face when I approach the scale in the men’s locker-room does, I think, parallel certain expressions Ms. Ullman crafted in some of the darker scenes of Ansikte mot Ansikte.

Was (Not Was?): Elvis Presley, Hitler's brain, Jimmy Hoffa, the author

You guys, I’m not dead. I know – like I’d ever get that lucky!

It’s been around 8,888 years since my last post here on the Amoeblog (give or take 8,888 years), which begs the question: What have I been doing?

Well, maybe it doesn’t beg the question. Maybe it just prompts you to politely inquire so I don’t feel unwanted and insecure. I’ll take it! Beggars can’t be choosers.

Actually, that’s not factual. Beggars can be choosers. In fact, it’s in a beggar’s best interest to consciously prioritize a great many things the rest of us FANTASTICALLY WEALTHY people take for granted.

For example: I’m often faced with a choice between whether I want to buy organic cilantro, versus non-organic cilantro. While I normally prefer organic produce, cilantro raised without chemical black magic is, in my experience, always filthy – and not “Oh, this potato needs to be rinsed first” dirty; organic cilantro requires a scrubbing akin to a Karen Silkwood workplace shower, which the culinary herb’s delicate leaves do not endure well.