I walk into the YMCA and meet with the swimming director Vanessa for a lesson.
She asks me where my swim cap is.
I say, “I don’t have one. Sorry.”
She says, “You have to wear a swim cap unless you’re completely bald.”
I think, I don’t like how she leaned on the word “completely.” I am not even remotely bald. I have four distinct patches of hair that form the Voltron of hair atop my head.
She says, “You can borrow my extra.”
I put on Vanessa’s extra swim cap, and now my head looks like a condom. Vanessa asks me to hop into the instructional lane and show her my “stuff.” Full disclosure, I have no stuff. I hop in and flail around until I feel like I might die, and then I stand up.
The pool is Olympic sized and divided into lanes, but Vanessa has me in the walking lane. This is a pride-swallowing detail. And, to make matters worse, it’s packed. There are three or four hundred water walkers. Only in New York City is there traffic in the pool. As I show Vanessa my flailing version of the crawl, these elderly walkers blow past me. I think one of them tried to dunk my head.
I say, “Vanessa, is it always this crowded?”
She says, “No, it’s spring. Everyone is getting ready for the summer.”
I say, “Oh. I get it.” I point to my pumpkin-shaped frame and say, “They want a body like this!”
It’s a joke.
Not stage-worthy material, but it’s that sort of conversational repartee I use to forge a personal bond between myself and my swim instructor.
She doesn’t hear it.
She says, “WHAT?”
I think, I gotta get the hell out of this conversation.
I say, “Doesn’t matter.”
She says, “Mike, I can’t hear you. You have to shout!”
I say, “VANESSA! THEY WANT A BODY LIKE THIS!”
At this point my joke has lost all nuance and softness of cadence or any quality that could have helped make it humorous at all. A joke without comedic timing is a statement of pure insanity. All forty members of the pool look over at the pumpkin-shaped body attached to this confident voice. They stare at me as if to say, Has this man seen his own body? There are so many mirrors at the YMCA.
To be clear, I don’t have a “swimmer’s body.” I have what I call a “drowner’s body,” where it seems like I’m drowning at all times even when I’m not near water. Even when I’m shirtless and dry, people are concerned.
At the end of my first lesson, I dry off with fifteen or twenty of those YMCA dish towels. I even stick two under my feet because Vanessa explains to me that “there’s fungus in the puddles that can shoot straight into your veins through your feet.”
I think, This place is a death trap. I’m trying to get a little cardio in and now I’m mainlining fungus. It sounds like the only place they don’t dump chlorine is in those puddles.
So I’m at the YMCA wearing Vanessa’s swim cap in the walkers’ lane getting fungus shot into my veins while chlorine is surging up my nostrils. Then afterwards I’m so ravenous from swimming that I hit the snack machines and I’m eating Andy Capp’s pub fries, which I’m pretty sure they haven’t manufactured in the last twenty-five years.
I hop into the shower at the YMCA to get the heaps of chlorine and fungus off me and, embarrassingly, I keep on my bathing suit. There’s something about those communal showers with no partitions that makes you feel like, I’m as close to that other guy as if we were waiting in line at Chipotle except we’re completely naked.
Fifteen dish towels later I walk away from the YMCA, the smell of chlorine now emanating from my own body. At this point people in the street are walking towards me, thinking, Is he the YMCA? It’s only my first swimming lesson, but it’s an acceptance that I have turned the corner into middle age. I will not give up. Someday I will swim as well as my one-year-old, and that someday Jen will let me swim with Oona unsupervised.
From the YMCA we are born and into the YMCA we shall return.
Body, I never knew I could love you.
I never loved my body until she was inside it. I never loved my breasts until they made milk for her.
I never understood why people took naked pictures of themselves until she was inside me—The taut and expanding skin over the relentless womb. The anti-gravitational breasts—They are the only naked photos of myself you will find on my computer. Release them I don’t care—release them for science.
I’ll say it just once and only to myself—I do not want to give up the power to feed my child with my body—
I don’t want to give up the power to be able to feed my child without a bowl or grain or utensil or dollar or bottle or government (this government) or job or faucet or jar—and on airplanes!—We are a smooth operating machine during takeoffs and landings—passengers come up to me and say your baby could solve world peace—she is the face of the ceasefire.
It scares me to depend completely on the world around us to feed my child. What if we get lost and I forget to pack snacks?—what if the economy dives and we have no money for food?—or a natural disaster?—or the dictator comes to power or some kind of attack?—or?—how will I feed her?
And what about these bouncy tits that knock together when I sex—I don’t want to give them up.
SLICE OF LIFE
One day I take Oona to Sal’s Pizzeria on our corner.
I order two slices and we sit at a table and eat.
She’s thrilled.
I say, “Oona, do you like the pizza?”
She says, “Pi pi!” which I’m pretty sure means “pizza” and also “yes.”
When we finish our slices she says, “Pi pi!”
She wants more pizza and also “yes.”
I’m not quite sure what to do. Her mom said one slice but she didn’t say anything about two slices. How much pizza can a one-year-old eat?
The battle cry grows stronger.
“Pi pi!!”
I can see this look in her eye that I recognize. She wants more pizza and she wants it now.
The Now-Clock
The now-clock is the clock of a toddler in which every number is replaced by the word “now” and the hands of the now are always pointed directly at the now or between two nows.
I have a pizza problem—which is to say that when I see a pizza I get excited. I perk up and think, Oh! I’d like to have that inside of me! I don’t know if it’s the circularity or the softness or the warmth, but it’s almost sexual. I wouldn’t have sex with pizza, but if I ate a pizza in private I wouldn’t mention it to my wife.
I’m even excited by the word “pizza” because it looks like a pizza. Which is, of course, a literary device called “onomatopizza.” Two Zs and an A. It’s five slices in one word. I like pizza so much that I get excited when I see the word “plaza.”
Jen has never called me out on looking at other women as we walk down the street, but she has called me out on looking at other pizza while I’m eating pizza.
It’s a problem.
Because not only is it chock-full of sugar and salt and cheese and fat and bread, but I can only view a pizza as a single serving, when in fact, more often than not, it’s designed for three or four people. That division somehow doesn’t compute for me.
My brain thinks, One pizza for one person. Pi pi!
There is no logical way to partition a pizza. A typical configuration is three people sharing an eight-slice pie, which doesn’t divide evenly. This is the subject of a documentary I’m working on called Three People, Eight Slices.
The three-person/eight-slice paradox is something pizza scholars have puzzled over for decades. You have three people and the first move is that everyone eats two slices and then awaits further instructions.
Hopefully there’s a hero in the group who steps forward and says, “I’m not having any more.” The proper etiquette is to genuflect in the direction of this deity. But if no one gives up their third slice, the only way to proceed is to cut
the remaining two slices into thirds, giving each person two-thirds of one slice. You may need a fourth person to do the cutting if you want a fair cut. The pizza slicer is like a card dealer at a casino. Watch the hands.
Also, don’t be fooled by what I call the “pizza racer,” the guy who thinks that whoever races through his two slices first wins the third slice. And beware of the “salad negotiator”—this is someone who says something like, “Well, you had more salad,” to which you must respond, “I will kill you with this salad fork.”
Pizza for me is a sport. A sport for people who aren’t good at sports.
My problem is enabled by my proximity to pizza. I live in Brooklyn, where there’s a pizzeria on every corner. There’s so much great pizza that even bad pizza tries to get in on the action. There’s a Domino’s Pizza right by my subway stop. Sometimes I fantasize about posting up in front of the Domino’s all day and explaining other options to potential customers who could be paying the same amount for much better pizza.
And this is not meant to be judgmental. I don’t believe there is such a thing as winners and losers in life. But I think if you live in Brooklyn and order pizza from Domino’s you are a loser. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but I believe if you order a Brooklyn Domino’s pizza you are going to hell. This is based in scripture. In the Old Testament, there is this passage where the serpent appears to Eve in the Garden of Eden. The serpent offers Eve a bite of his Domino’s pizza. Eve says, “No thanks. God told me it’s the worst pizza created in the last six days.” The serpent says, “Look—it’s 3:00 a.m. Nothing else is open.” Eve takes a bite and that’s why we’re here. It was the original sin.
Beyond the perfection of the food item itself, pizza is a Band-Aid for so many problems:
I forgot to make dinner! Order a pizza.
I’m lonely. Order a pizza.
I have no utensils. Order a pizza.
Pizza is a food that I’ve called on in a jam my whole life. When I’ve been told by an audience that nothing I’ve presented to them is funny or entertaining, pizza has told me, I liked it. And I like you.
Pizza is not just a perfect blend of ingredients but of nostalgia, which can be the richest flavor of all. As a kid I spent countless afternoons with Michael Kavanagh and Matt Beaton playing scrappy backyard football and then eating way too much pizza at one of three Shrewsbury pizzerias within a half-mile radius.
Pizza and movies.
Pizza and friends.
Pizza and Jen.
Pizza at birthdays. Pizza after my wedding.
And now: pizza and Oona.
The combinations of pizza and people and things I love are countless. The memories are vivid and endless.
When I think about changing my diet because of type 2 diabetes it’s the thought of cutting out pizza that crushes me. Then one day I have a realization: I can’t stop eating pizza. But I can eat one slice.
This isn’t based on any doctor recommendation, but it’s a logic that occurs to me that the amount of bread and sauce and cheese in a single slice isn’t the problem. It’s the gluttony of eating eight slices that’s turning my body into the size of eight people.
So I do it. I change my personal pizza policy. Just one slice. Every week. Sometimes every two weeks.
One single, dinky slice.
And I love it. I’m going to risk offending pizza purists and say I love it more. The idea that I can taste greatness but resist gluttony. That I can sip the richest nectar of the gods but not drink everyone’s syrup.
Within six months I lose ten pounds. My cholesterol goes down. My blood sugar as well. Not where I need it to be but enough that I know I’m moving in the right direction.
I start to apply this principle to other parts of my life. I don’t need to tour 112 cities. I can tour 20. Just a slice. I don’t need to work seven days a week. Some weeks I can work three. Just a slice.
This is a part of a larger strategy to become a whole member of my family.
One slice.
That’ll do.
As for Oona, she gets the second slice.
XII.
THE NEW ONE
WE LEARN TO DANCE
One day Jen is breastfeeding Oona and she has to pee so she hands Oona to me. The moment I take her it’s like holding the angriest thing I’ve ever held. It’s like holding my dad.
I’m thinking, How do you think I feel? I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know anything.
At that moment the church bells on our corner start chiming the song “Ave Maria.”
Oona stops crying.
She looks up and starts bobbing her head.
I whisper, “I know. It’s a classic.”
Oona is transfixed. She’s bobbing her head and I’m thinking, Oona’s got great rhythm. Maybe she could be a DJ or a drummer or an agreeable person. Maybe this will help her sleep and she won’t need the Dream Dust or the sleep patch or the Magic Sleepsuit.
Then the song ends.
Oona looks at me and I look at her and we both know it’s about to go down.
I don’t know what to do so I sing, “Ah-vay Mari-i-aaa. Ave… Maria-ah!!”
But I don’t know the words…
So I improvise to the melody, “There will be a Jesus in your womb. It’s actually a pretty big honor. It’s more like an Oscar than an Emmy.”
Eventually I run out of lyrics and we’re looking at each other and I’m bracing myself and Oona looks me in the eye and says, “Dada.” And in that moment…
I’m the pudgy milkless vice president with record-high approval ratings for no reason.
A toast to my husband
To my husband—I think he misses me. I think this because
he told me. I hear him saying this. I hear him saying I said it
wouldn’t be like this. I hear myself saying, sorry, luv, I—
Sometimes we don’t know what we need.
Sometimes we know but we don’t know how to ask.
All the talking we do—and the writing—
especially the writing—
is so far from what we are meant to be doing—
which I am now convinced is dancing—
She learns to dance before she learns to speak—
And when she hears a song she recognizes
she waves hello—
We fan the air in front of our faces to say she took a shit
or to say a certain dictator stinks like maggots—
But right now, my husband is playing guitar and singing
something real stupid—
Itsy-bitsy-peek-a-boo and songs about babies
who won’t sleep—
The three of us twirling like idiots—
We learn to dance before we learn to speak.
THE FLU
Two days after my approval rating surge I get the flu.
And when I get the flu it’s worse than when other people get the flu.
I’d say a majority of my life I’ve felt like I have the flu. Irritable and fuzzy. My personality is sort of flu. I feel like at my funeral someone might say, “It always seemed like he had the flu.” So when I actually get the flu, it’s a problem. I feel like there’s someone else inside my skin who’s dead. And, by the way, that might be the case. I’m not even sure what the flu is. Is it bacterial? Is it viral? Is there a difference? Does anyone really know the difference? Every time someone says, “I think it’s viral,” I feel like saying, “Why don’t you elaborate on that?” They’ll say, “Well, a virus is alive.” I’ll think, That might be true because whatever is in my ass is alive.
I’m doing a string of dates in Detroit, Columbus, and then the Byham Theater in Pittsburgh. I’m backstage when it hits me. The flu is the only illness I’ve ever had that hits me. It’s like being blindsided by a baseball bat and then the thief with the bat grabs your soul. When I walk into my dressing room I’m fine. That was before it hit me.
The moment it hits me I lie down on the floor of the dressing r
oom and push my face up against the cold tile. I’m lying in darkness. The stage manager enters and sees me there.
“You need anything?” he asks.
“You need anything” is perhaps the most unhelpful question one can ask a man lying prostrate on the floor. The truth is I need love, but I don’t say that. I mutter, “I’ll make it work.” I roll off the floor and hobble onto the stage. I don’t know what else to do. Moments later I’m looking out at hundreds of strangers. I think, Should I tell them? What would Springsteen do? Would he shout, “This might take the fun out of ‘I’m On Fire’… but my ass is on fire! Here we go!”
That night I have a sleepwalking incident in my hotel that’s so extreme that, in my dream, and—as it turns out—in my life, it causes me to escape from my fitted-sleep-sheet-straitjacket.
In my dream I’m convinced that there is some kind of government surveillance plot that has taken the shape of birds on my hotel ceiling. I get out of bed to convince the bird cameras to leave, and then realize that they aren’t birds at all. They’re shadows. I go back to bed and have a nearly identical dream except this time I know that the first time was a dream and the second time they are the actual government surveillance birds I had feared. The point is, I don’t sleep.
In the morning I’m exhausted and sweaty. To make matters worse, my stomach is weak. I’m driving home and three hours into the drive I pull over at a Starbucks to—I don’t mean to be crude—use the restroom aggressively. Which I believe is the rudest thing one can do at someone’s place of business.
They say, “Hello, sir. We’ve got muffins. We can make you a latte.”
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