Robert Manners

Have You Ever Been to Me?

I know I've never been there. I haven't been to Maine, either (which, according to the US Post Office, is ME). I've been to HI and WA and BC and TX and MT and NJ and DC and Disneyland, but that's about it. I haven't been to any of the glamorous places Charlene sings about in her bizarre little One-Hit-Wonder ballad that was brought back to life in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert... I've never been to Nice, nor the isles of Greece (or even the mainland, for that matter), nor have I sipped champagne on a yacht; not to put too fine a point on it, I've never even moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo, nor shown them what I've got. Well, she does sing about having been to California (not to mention Georgia, how glamorous is that?) ... but since I was born and raised and have always lived in California, I can't really be said to have been there. "Been" implies the opposite end of a round trip... been there and back. I am still being in California, and can therefore only leave or return.



"What has that got to do with anything, much less the price of tea in China?" you may be asking yourself. I know I am. What has this got to do with anything?



Nothing. Nothing at all. I reserve the right to be perfectly insensible and bizarre whenever I so choose. And today I choose to be insensible... though I have not yet taken entire advantage of the 'bizarre' clause of my contract. That will come later on, when I dress myself like a Berber rug-merchant's wife and dance the Watusi in the Embarcadero fountain on my way home.



Really, I'm just very tired, so I don't have much to say... yet I hate to go too long without saying anything. My flu is ended, but the malady lingers on; my teeth still hurt and must remain hurtful until next Tuesday when I visit the endodontist, at which point the pain will be transferred to my gums and whichever bones manage to get bruised during the inevitable novocaine/lidocaine mining operation; I'm feeling massively depressed, weepy and frustrated to the point where opening a vein in my throat sounds like a pleasant and amusing pastime (but so messy, so I don't think I shall); and my shirt is too warm for today's weather, which started off frigid but turned warm later on. But on the other hand, I got a really cute pair of pants and two shirts on sale at the GAP, and I just ordered another lovely Suzanne Somers necklace from eBay (my ordained Payday Luxury), and I can leave the office now... so things are getting better.



In the meantime, what color veil do you think a Berber rug-merchant's wife would wear for Summer? And I wonder how deep the water around the Embarcadero fountain really is?