Oh, but I will say this —
It’s all in the delivery.
Here’s my proof to Jake. Earlier, I took a break from my Word Twist duel with Lyvvie to put my forehead down on my keyboard’s wrist-rest. Jake said — well, you’ll see.
Tonight’s exchange, transcribed, lacks humor:
Jake: You look tired.
Me: You think so?
Jake: Yes. I can tell.
. . . but trust me, he was funny. Funny as his old man. It’s all in the delivery.
In Sophomore English, we broke up into groups and each group took on a different Shakespeare play. My group had Hamlet. At the end of four weeks (or something like that), each group chose a spokesperson to explain their chosen play to the rest of the class. That’s how I was placed in the enviable position of summarizing the Dopey Dane to a roomful of 10th graders.
By the time Ophelia killed herself, everyone was laughing.
It’s all in the delivery.
D.
With friends like these . . .
This came from Corn Dog, who writes
I took the bags out from under your eyes and added hair which is a distorted copy of your beard . . . The only thing missing is a big dangly earring.
I look like a malpractice case from Hair Club For Men.
D.
P.S. What BAGS under my eyes?
P.P.S. More from Corn Dog: “You with John Edwards hair. I am a master.”
Anonymity? What anonymity?
I’m starting to think that linking doctorhoffman.com to Balls and Walnuts wasn’t such a hot idea.
My boss has seen this blog, and the woman who has his ear reads me regularly and leaves comments. I met with the local hospital’s Chief of Staff this morning, and he recognized me thanks to that most recent pic I posted. (He didn’t like the pic, either. “You need a livelier background.”)
I didn’t mind when my patients began reading my blog; they gave me positive reviews, most of them, and in any case there’s a limit to how much grief one patient can dish out. Actually, now that I think about it, NONE of them ever gave me any grief. I did get one pan on the magnum opus video, though. One of the maintenance guys back at St. Mammon Community Hospital saw it and, well, let’s just say I suspect he thinks Walt Disney’s animated movies went too far. He’s still giving poor Leann and Catrina dirty looks.
I miss my anonymity. I miss not being able to let it all hang out in this blog. I haven’t lost the desire to blog — far from it. It’s just that I have the urge to . . . well, you know how in movies when a driver is trying to lose the car that’s following him, and he pulls a really dangerous 180 tying up all the traffic and maybe causing a few cars to crash but ultimately losing the person who’s following him? Yeah. That’s what I’m after.
I would need a new blog name, of course.
I’m thinking “Nads and Almonds.”
D.
He has a wife, you know.
If this Palin runs with McCain, I might even vote Republican.
The wife and I consider this one of the best comic scenes ever. It has it all, the writing, the acting, but above all else the timing. We find it vewwy . . . wisible. And it never stops being wisible, no matter how many times we watch it.
The move and the new job has killed my drive to write. Used to be that if I wasn’t writing, I was at least thinking about writing. I would be thinking about a particular story or looking for new stories. But not now. The muse is in stasis.
Meanwhile, I’ve taken on more critting assignments than I can probably handle . . . but I really really want to read Summer‘s new book (which isn’t on that page — whuddup widdat?) And Paul Meloy’s collection, Islington Crocodiles, is finally out, and Meloy is a stupendous writer . . . and Jackie’s gonna send the Furies after me if I don’t review her new book . . .
Oy.
D.
Personality v. Experience
No, not a post about Palin v. Biden. What were you thinking? We’re talking about me. That’s what this blog is about, after all. Me me me.
Here’s the issue. The getting-to-know-me page over at doctorhoffman.com looks like this. Karen wants to nix the photo and replace it with, say, something like this.
“No one wants to think their doctor is a seventeen-year-old boy,” Karen says. Even Doogie Howser was in his twenties, right? But I like that old photo. As I was telling our audiologist today, that’s my mind’s picture of me, not the dude you see above.
Not only that, but I think the photo of the little pisher is amusing. It has personality. It’s fun. And as I told one of my patients last week, “I’d rather be a bit unprofessional and have fun than be professional and boring.” I had been joking around with her about something or another, and she seemed to be enjoying The Wonder of Me, so I wasn’t too surprised when she agreed with me.
I can be irrepressible at times. This isn’t always a desirable quality for someone in such a grimly serious profession.
True story: many years ago, a woman came to see me for a wart inside her nostril. When I told her it was a wart, she said, “A WART? How the hell did I get a WART up my NOSE?”
I didn’t even think before answering.
“Oh, I don’t know . . . where have you been putting it?”
Fortunately for me, she laughed, and the State Medical Board was none the wiser.
D.
Live blogging tonight
If I can snag the laptop from Karen, I’ll try to go live at around 8 Pacific. If you don’t see me by 8:30, some new disaster has befallen me.
***
Jake’s playing Spore right now. Not exactly a huge run on the game locally; I arrived at Circuit City just past their opening, realized I had forgotten my wallet, and got back at around 10:25 AM. They still had plenty of games. I even saved $30 on the purchase. How, you ask? By not buying the deluxe $79.99 version, of course!
***
Made a run to the mall today for socks. One new thing about this area is anonymity. In Crescent City and Brookings, I couldn’t go anywhere without running into people who knew me (patients and hospital staff, mostly). Here? No one knows me.
It’s not good, it’s not bad. Just different.
D.
Karen has a computer geek question.
She wants to turn the audio from this Invader Zim clip into a ringtone for her cell phone. I gather she has already searched for downloadable ringtones and this particular one isn’t available.
Any suggestions?
Anyone gonna buy Spore tomorrow?
D.
I’m looking at this house’s last remaining nest of chaos.
It’s nearly done. Three weeks after moving to Santa Rosa, it’s nearly done. I can walk through the house without seeing a single box or orange packing label, all the pets are happy, everything is in its place (well, except for the flatware which never materialized. And the toaster oven. And the blender. And Karen’s super-duper-expensive paring knife), and there’s a minimum of clutter overall.
I’m in the computer room, which is a bit vague because nearly every room up here is a computer room. (more…)