Confessions of a Grande Diva (Chapter Ten, Part One)

The good news was, I landed with an inch to spare on the good side of Sylvia Mastadore’s balcony. I was safe, I hadn’t plunged to my death. I would live to jump another day.

The bad news: I had nicked my heavy ball sack on her railing as I made my landing. It’s a family curse, D’Agrande men are notoriously low hangers. Just ask my dad, or his before him.

Scrotums are such funny things, really. I remember, as a child, seeing my dad’s ball sack for the first time. We were taking a shower together at the local Y during a Cub Scout outing. At the time, I thought it looked like a lady’s pink handbag, all matted with wiry hair. Alas, now I possess my father’s handbag. Only, trimmer.

The worst part was, I couldn’t scream out in agony! If I said a word, it was a sure thing that the hot cop on the other side of my front door would hear something and get suspicious. As it was, he may have heard the heavy thud of my bear-like body collapsing onto Sylvia’s balcony.

So I lay there, curled into a ball, clutching my privates for dear life and gritting my teeth. Thank God I was half the actor I was. Possessed of the breath and body control I had honed from years on the floorboards, I was surely better equipped than your average low hanger to handle this sordid sort of situation.

At least I made it across, I could be thankful for that. Too bad I didn’t have much time to congratulate myself on my ingenuity, though. For as I lay there, writhing in pain, I heard the shuffle of slippers from inside Sylvia Mastadore’s apartment and realized I WAS NOT ALONE.

Before I could do anything to protect myself, like place one of her medical marijuana plants up against my privates, I heard the clearing of her cigarette-ravaged throat. I looked up to see the old hag standing by her screen door, gazing down upon my naked form with lust in her wrinkled eyes.

“My my my,” she said, and I could just hear the stench of ancient passion in her voice. “What do we have here?”

( More stories of my battered sack... )

Aim. Higher!

Sometimes I think my biggest problem in life is that while I am a very good tactician, when it comes to strategy, I am absolutely hopeless.

I mean, of course it is. Why else am I still unpublished? I can see and accomplish the task: write that book. However,  when it comes to the strategy: get published, I get lost. Life gets in the way. I focus on work stuff. Personal things come up. I direct a play, I start working on another story. I do not do the things that will allow me to achieve my goals. And that is frustrating.

I don't know. Maybe the part of my brain where strategic thinking rests atrophied when I was younger. Or, maybe it's possible that one can develop this skill. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between.

I'm having this conversation with myself because I'm wrestling with this sort of thing at work right now, and finding myself dissatisfied with what I'm accomplishing...or suspecting that my boss is dissatisfied with, but maybe the truth is even deeper than that: working at this job for the rest of my life was never the goal. It wasn't even really the overall strategy. It was a means to an end: get a steady stream of income coming in. Then, fulfill your dreams.

I once had a one night stand who was an Eskimo. He was kind of deep, in some ways, and said that we could never be together because I spent too much time looking at the ground, and he was more interested in looking at the sky. I thought he was full of crap at the time, but maybe that's an elegant way of saying what I'm trying to put into words here. Aim. Higher!  

I just have to figure out how to do that, first. Give me a second...