Brother says a lot of shit, but his newest pearl of wisdom is this:
“Everything’s a thing.”
It might not make sense to you now, but one day as you’re driving to work, or laying on the davenport (yes, you are hypothetically Canadian), or testing zucchini for firmness at the Farmer’s Market or making wild, passionate love to a swarthy emissary, it will suddenly become Crystal Clear:
Everything’s a thing.
Ah, now I get it! you will think.
But in the meantime, until you reach that Divine A-Ha Moment,* let me spell it out for you:
It’s the significance we attach to our inane little peccadilloes (God, I love that word). It’s our shared sphere of reference with our more intimate compatriots. It’s the influence we have on those not quite in our Inner Circle. It’s the wispy, half-thought recognition we pay to snatches of memory that sort of drift across the uppermost layers of our brains.
But mostly, it’s the hardened-concrete reality of our daily lives.**
Here is an example:
While I visited Brother in his Adopted Homeland, I spent a few lovely evenings at his apartment enjoying cocktails with he and his Lady Friend – who, I must add, makes an absolutely divine Peach Collins. We yakked at each other, and shared stories, but mostly we drank up that Ambrosian peach vodka she so liberally poured into our drinks.
Whence I returned to the Real World, my first thought (other than oh, God, take a fucking shower you’ve been on an airplane for four hours) was that I must find that vodka and invite my friends to partake in its loveliness.
So off to the supermarket I went (Oklahoma friends: I can go to the normal grocery store and pick up a fifth of whatever-the-fuck-I-want! It’s glorious!).
Except, when it comes to buying liquor at the Schnuck’s, I suddenly become blocked.
Everything’s a thing.
Several shelves of vodka awaited my inspection, but the specific Peach flavor I so thirstily sought eluded me. Vanilla? Caramel (ew)? Pomegranate? They even had fucking DRAGONFRUIT. But, at first superficial glance, no Peach.
I suddenly became hyper-aware of my surroundings. A few fellow shoppers were perusing the beer and wine-cooler varieties behind me, and a friendly Stocker-Person-Not-Employed-By-The-Grocery-Store seemed to be eyeing me warily to my peripheral right. Why is she spending so much time looking at vodka? his eyes said Oh, I bet she’s going to go home and drink the bottle herself, in a dark corner, while she listens to Sarah McLachlan’s ‘Adia’ on repeat, singing along drunkenly and…
Heeeeey, did I mention I have an active imagination?
Everything’s a thing.
I can’t just go to the store, take my time to look through all the vodka (and yeah, I did eventually find some Absolut Peach – right in front of me the whole damn time), and walk away unhurriedly as if I wasn’t absconding with my purchase. I have to assume that every-fucking-one is – I don’t know? Judging me? – while I dawdle in the aisle.
If I were to share this story with brother, he’d probably make fun of me… while nodding in solidarity. He’s been there, perhaps not the exact-same scenario, but he’s done it. He’s thought it. He’s experienced it, in vivid Technicolor snippets, same as I.
Because he knows.
Everything’s a fucking thing.
*Credit to a high school teacher that I loathed and of whom I made merciless fun at the time…but whose lessons are the only I can today remember.
**Fucking A, somebody stop me before I’m out of control. I haven’t even been drinking!
the sloppy copy 