Is "Obsessive Compulsive" Hyphenated?

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm a little bit on the compulsive side. O.K....a lot on the compulsive side. The manufacturers of label makers can rest easy knowing they'll always have a job because of people like me.

When I edge my front lawn, I also edge my neighbors' lawns. I'd edge everyone's lawn on both sides of the street if I didn't think the men in the white jackets would haul me away in a straight jacket. Speaking of jackets, all the shirts in my closet are facing in the same direction. The short sleeve shirts are at one end, and the long sleeve shirts are at the other. I have a drawer for white socks and a drawer for socks of color.

My garage floor is clean enough to eat off of. When you enter my house, you are never more than 10 feet from a box of Kleenex. If I eat dinner in front of the T.V., I'm compelled to clear away the dirty dishes before I finish chewing the last bite, or I can't enjoy the rest of the movie. And all of my dirty dishes are surgically clean BEFORE I put them in the dishwasher.

Once upon a time I bought an area rug for my living room (after trying out several and returning them), only to discover that I really wasn't going to be happy with it unless one edge was under the two front legs of the armoire that houses my T.V. set and stereo. It is approximately the same weight as a Ford F350 pickup truck. A team of long shoremen couldn't lift that thing.

Not to be deterred, I bought a 12 foot long piece of lumber, borrowed my neighbor's car jack, which I used in conjunction with my car jack, and by placing the piece of lumber under the front of the armoire and darting back and forth between the two jacks, was able to raise the front legs enough to slide the edge of the carpet underneath. No small chore...and I was quite proud of my ingenuity and tenacity.

After lowering the armoire and returning my neighbor's car jack, I noticed that the edge of the carpet didn't line up perfectly with the floor boards in my living room. By that I mean there was a deviation of about 1/4". I figured I could live with it...but I was mistaken. After a week of lying awake at night staring at the ceiling fan, I decided that my mental health hinged on fixing the problem. I sheepishly asked my neighbor if I could borrow her car jack again, and repeated the entire process until the edge of the carpet lined up EXACTLY with the floor boards. Mason and Dixon would have been envious.

Yesterday I was hanging some photographs in a long hallway at Charlie Tango, where they will be exhibited along with the work of three other photographers. The hallway is 25 feet long with 10 foot ceilings, and I decided to suspend my photographs from fishing line so that they would give the illusion of "floating" in mid-air against the white wall.

I measured everything three times, making careful note of the thermostat mounted at the far end, which would have to be taken into consideration to maintain the proper spacing. Here's the 3 1/2" x 5" index card I brought with me to map everything out. Is it just me, or does it look like the schematic for the Apollo 13 lunar module? All of this in order to hang five photographs. Five.

Three hours later, the task was complete. I took my final measurements and discovered that the photograph on the right was 3/4 of an inch closer to the end of the wall than the one on the far left. Keep in mind, we're talking about a 25 foot wall. So I decided to let it go. But not really. I figure if the Egyptians could build the pyramids without the aid of cranes and laser levels and walkie talkies, I should be more precise than that. But I decided to leave it alone, and to channel the discomfort I'm still feeling 24 hours later into this blog entry.

No sooner had I finished my handiwork than my fellow photographer Lance Rosenfield arrived with 20 photographs to hang. Eager to help, I loaned him my pencil and index card. I stayed there 'til 9:30 p.m. "helping" him, and to make sure that everything lined up just right. Here's his diagram. Clean and simple. I added the arrow at the top, because I just couldn't help myself:

Before we left, I scrubbed all the dirty dishes and put them in the dishwasher, made sure that there were four chairs at each of the tables in the lobby and that they were equidistant from one another. I've read and re-read this blog entry 17 times and have made a total of 43 changes and corrections. So far.

Breakfast of Champions

Every Thursday evening, I get together with my buddy and fellow photographer Faustinus Deraet von Regemorter for some camaraderie, spicy tamales and a few frosty adult beverages. Next to my brother Paul, he is one of the funniest humans I've ever met.

Tomorrow, however, he's going home to Belgium for a visit, and we realized we'd have to miss our weekly ritual. So we decided to meet for breakfast at 8 o'clock this morning at Aranda's, a little taqueria in the neighborhood. Since my birthday is next week, and Faustinus will be out of town, a celebration was in order.

Imagine our waitress' look of concern when we each ordered a beer just as the other customers were sitting down for breakfast. Nothing washes down a couple of potato, egg and cheese breakfast tacos like a cold Tecate.

Just then the notorious curmudgeon, raconteur and candidate for Texas Agriculture Commissioner Kinky Friedman walked in, looking like the morning after the night before. Glancing over at our table, he sat down nearby and ordered heuvos rancheros and a beer.

Working From Home

I forwarded the following ad from craigslist to a friend of mine who is considering a career move. It sounds like a great job, except that neither of us understood a single word of the job description besides the phrase "working from home", which she is more than happy to do:

From: john langford

Subject: i think you'd be perfect for this....

Date: Friday, February 19, 2010, 3:45 PM

WPF/XAML Designer (Downtown Austin)

We are looking for a WPF/XAML Designer (on contract basis) to implement Photoshop mockups of User Interface for WPF application. The user interface has been laid out using Telerik controls and the basic WPF controls. We have a graphics guy who has built screen shots of the entire user interface and now need a WPF guru to take the mockups and skin the existing controls and user interface. If you are interested, please have some sample work to show us (in WPF or Silverlight). We are flexible with you working from home or here at our downtown office. There is potential for a lot more work after this project if you turn out to be a great fit.

That last sentence should read "There is potential for a lot more work if you are one of the three people on the planet who can decipher this ad and who knows WTF WPF is."

Bon Voyage

It was freezing cold, and I was standing high up on the windy deck of a passenger ship overlooking San Francisco harbor and the Golden Gate bridge. I was four years old, and along with my baby brother and my parents had left our home in New Orleans to cross the Pacific Ocean to begin a new life in the Far East.

The U.S.S. General W.P. Richardson was commissioned in 1944 as a navy transport ship, carrying troops to and from France, Italy, England and Morrocco. Subsequently converted to a luxury liner and renamed the S.S. Roosevelt, she carried a different kind of passenger.

During her colorful career, she was sold several times, and was called Atlantis, Sapphire Seas, Emerald Seas and Ocean Explorer I, like the names of lovers tattooed on a sailor's arms.

After exploring the the Mediterranean for many years, the old gal was finally scrapped in India in 1990, a seasoned world traveler with a lifetime of incredible adventures in exotic destinations.

For some reason, I thought we would be making the long voyage by paddle boat! I suppose this was because I had seen paddle boats on the Mississippi River near where we lived. Former riverboat captain-turned-writer Samuel Clemens took his pen name, Mark Twain, from the slang for "two fathoms", the depth of water needed for a steamboat to pass safely.

As I shivered in the cold wind, a grown-up handed me a tightly wound roll of crepe paper....a colorful streamer given to all passengers to throw to those on the pier below who had come to bid them farewell. I flung mine as far as a four year old could, watching it unfurl in slow motion as I grasped tightly to the end. Far below I saw a beautiful woman in a fur coat and a pill box hat catch the other end. For a long moment, we smiled at each other...a total stranger beaming up at me. I felt a mixture of excitement and shyness and confusion as she waved goodbye to me.

The three week crossing included typhoons, fine dining on crisp white tablecloths (which on days when the seas were rough were dampened so that the plates and glasses wouldn't crash to the floor), a screening of 101 Dalmations, and my first experience sleeping in a bunk bed.

Since then I've scuba dived with sharks in Tahiti, watched in amazement as a herd of elephants strode silently across the Serengeti, marveled at the majestic waterfalls in Brazil, run through the ruins of Florence before dawn, hiked through the jungles of Costa Rica as howler monkeys prowled overhead, gazed at the constellations from a thatched hut in Thailand, skied across snow covered rice paddies in Japan and plunged over white water rapids on a raging river in Honduras.

Many years have passed, but I still have the vivid memory of gazing into a stranger's kind eyes, joined to her by an umbilical cord of bright red paper, until it drew taut and tore apart, leaving her behind and launching me into a future that even Mark Twain could never have imagined.

The Emperor's New Clothes

This evening, after a long day of work, I stopped by Sarah's Mediterranean Grill, which is where I go when I'm really, really hungry. Nothing satisfies quite like a mountain of chicken shawerma with a side of hummus and pita, topped off with a piece of flaky baklava for dessert.

As I was finishing my meal, the owner, whose name is Maethem, joined me at my table. He's a charming guy with a winning smile and an easy going manner, and we struck up a conversation about this and that.

I asked him about his family back in Baghdad, and he told me about an incident he witnessed when he was 13 years old and working in his father's clothing business.

One day, as he and his father were returning to their shop, they happened to be passing by as the Crown Prince of Kuwait, who was visiting Iraq, stepped out of his limousine. His dutiful chauffeur closed the door behind him, accidentally slamming it on the sheik's robe, worth thousands of denarii.

As the sheik shouted at the driver, threatening to fire him for ruining his priceless garment, Maethem's father intervened, offering to repair the Prince's clothing at no charge if he promised not to terminate the unfortunate and humiliated chauffeur.

After much persuasion concerning his abilities as a tailor, Maethem's father escorted the Prince to his clothing shop and told him his robe would be ready in half an hour. With skilled hands, he deftly repaired the intricate needlework on the opulent garment and presented it to the Prince, who could not believe his eyes.

As promised, the humble tailor refused to accept payment for his handiwork. A true prince is not always recognized by the clothing he wears.

Third Eye Blind

Everyone has spotted a "tilaka" or "bindi"...a mark worn on the forehead by Hindu men and women. It marks the location of the sixth chakra, the seat of concealed wisdom, and symbolizes the Third Eye of introspection and spiritual enlightenment. It is also said to protect against demons or bad luck.

I now have one my very own tilaka as the result of slamming my car door against my forehead last night while talking on my cell phone with a customer service representative in....wait for it....India!

As a result of my self-inflicted injury, a couple of choice words sprang spontaneously from my mouth, one of which began with the word "God", and the other of which signifies the sacred union of two people. The customer service rep on the other end of the line did not find me enlightened in the least.

With any luck at all, my tilaka will form a permanent scar as a reminder to be conscious and aware...and what happens when I'm not.

A Grave Situation

As we descended the stairs in the chilly January air, I realized that only 3 of the 6 pall-bearers were under the age of 70. The other 3 were using the brass rail as an arm rest.

The architect who designed the First Baptist Church of Backwater, Mississippi hadn't taken into account the possibility of having to carry a solid mahogany casket with a 250lb. man inside it down 50 steps at a 45º incline.

We managed to get him into the back of the hearse with minor damage to the bumper, and as the funeral procession pulled away from the curb, a driver approaching the intersection from our right plowed into one of the vehicles in our convoy. If you’re going to be grieving anyway, you might as well throw in the fact that your automobile is a total loss.

When we arrived at the cemetery, the previous night’s rainhad left the ground soggy and muddy. I struggled to keep my composure as I sloshed through ankle deep water in my dressshoes, scraping my shins as I stepped over the tombstones of neighboring gravesites, trying desperately to maintain a facial expression of solemnity and respect for the dearly departed while lifting 1/3 of a casket that weighed more than a grand piano.

Whoever set up the apparatus which is used to lower the casket into the open grave had neglected to engage the brake, so when we set the it down there was creaking sound followed by the ghastly sight of the coffin descending prematurely into the open grave.

We rushed forward to grab hold of it as the soft dirt at the edge of the grave crumbled beneath our feet. The gravediggers in cowboy hats and jeans waiting like vultures for the mourners to leave so they could finish their ghoulish task sprang into action and got everything locked down.

The entire family and assembled guests looked on in horror as the casket came to rest at an absurd angle...partially in and partially out of the grave. Just then I heard one of the nephews shout “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!” Something told me that a redneck high school dropout from a town with two traffic lights didn’t keep an attorney on retainer.

The service was well-attended, and in true Southern Baptist tradition the funeral was an excuse to have a huge meal. When we arrived at the family’s home there was an enormous spread laid out which covered all of the kitchen counters and the dining table, and included a mountain of potato salad, the obligatory green Jello™ with shredded carrots in suspended animation and the house wine of the south...sweetened ice tea.

Everyone had changed into more comfortable clothing, so I headed to the master bedroom to do the same. I knocked on the door, and a voice inside said “Come in!” As I entered, I was greeted by a friend who had just come out of the closet…and I don’t mean the place where you hang your clothes. If there's one thing folks love more than food, it's dishing out dirt, so the gossip had already been passed around the circle, with second helpings for some.

He and I began to get undressed, and precisely at the moment when we both bent over with our pants around our ankles, in walked the widow of the man whose funeral we had just attended. She recoiled in horror as if he had stumbled into the communal shower of a Turkish prison.

We emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later wearing different clothes than when we had entered, and I was sure I saw a few disapproving looks as we sat down together, our plates piled with food.

As we ate our fried chicken and potato salad and green Jello™ and fruit salad with marshmallows and lemon meringue pie made from scratch, we exchanged stories about a man who had lived a life well-spent. We all agreed on one thing…that this husband, father, son, brother, uncle and friend to many would be sorely missed.