Diary Friday

This is another repeat (sorry) – I am printing it in honor of one of the co-stars of the entry, my dear friend Ann Marie. It was just her birthday (and I missed it – sorry!!!) – so here, for her, is one of the MANY favorite memories I share with her. Honestly, it is difficult to choose. I met Ann Marie in 1992, and we pretty much became soul-sisters almost immediately. We HAD to be friends. The insanity she and I reached is mythical to this day. The stories are many. Maybe someday, just for amusement, I will list some of them. Analyzing the light through a window (“Hm, that looks like it was accidentally left on after he went to sleep …”) is just one example.

And speaking of memories I would like to take with me when I die, the entirety of one specific autumn would have to be on that list. Specifically, October and November. AS it was happening, Ann and I knew it was amazing, and we referred to it as “the magic time”. NOT in retrospect, I want to make that clear. In the middle of those two months, we kept saying, “This is the Magic Time”. One of those weird times in life when you are fully aware of how amazing and exciting life is. She and I were on an enormous adventure.

She’s a dear friend, one of the funniest and warmest people I know … and so here, for your enjoyment (and probably bafflement … because if there is one word to describe “the magic time”, besides “magic” that is, it is “manic”.) But in a good way, not a self-destructive or bad way.

Our friendship exploded, we had romances going on (mine with a guy I call Max in this entry – he was a really important person in my life), and everything was humorous, fun, and unexpected.

We begin on a snowy evening in November. We begin with “Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack.” Follow us, if you dare.

November

Ann Marie and I had an adventure. Casey (one of Ann’s friends from work) won a party at the Beaumont. Ann was invited and so was I, by association. We both felt out of it but we decided to go.

There was a major snowfall. We drove around looking for parking for 45 MINUTES.

The bar was jam-packed for the first Bulls game. Everyone was shrieking, “4-PEAT! 4-PEAT!” People, it’s the first game! Stop re-hashing the future! Can you let the season happen, please?

Ann’s British friend Trevor stood at the bar, the whole place erupting into insanity over some play or other, and Trevor yelled at the top of his lungs in his British accent, “GOD BLESS AMERICA!” This made Ann and I laugh very hard.

Ann Marie and I were so into each other that we found it difficult to be social with others. We were pretending to be gorillas, picking bugs off of each other and then eating them. We began discussing patty cake games, and of course we had to try them out and see what we remembered.

And that was that. We patty caked FOREVER. Ann Marie literally had bruises on her hands the next day.

We lost the words in the middle of Miss Mary Mack – at the same time – a big blank overcame the both of us at the same time. But we got Coke and a Smile down to perfection. We couldn’t stop. People kept craning their necks over to look, because it sounded like some kind of fight was going on with all that slapping.

Ann Marie said, totally business-like, “I’ll call my sister tonight for those Miss Mary Mack words.” Then she had to stop herself and say, “Ann Marie, what are you talking about?”

Finally we left, having made a spectacle of ourselves as always.

Big beautiful snowstorm.

Then came a once-in-a-lifetime event: There was a bouncer at the door. Very chunky, no neck, flat top, He-Man Action Figure. He spoke to us and Ann and I were both immediately aloof.

“Hey, what was that hand thing you girls was doin’?”

Hand thing? Believe it or not, we didn’t know what he was talking about. We looked at each other, confused, and he went on, imitating our patty-caking, “You know!”

Light dawned on us. “Oh! That!”

Ann confessed to this person, this stranger, “We can’t remember the words to Miss Mary Mack though.”

He said, “I do!”

So … he sang the words for us (with gusto too) and Ann and I patty-caked to his accompaniment. We made him do it 6 times.

It was so wonderful, so hilarious, so joyful: the snow coming down, our hands stinging, tears of laughter in our eyes, patty-caking on the sidewalk with his tough-guy voice singing:

“Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack
All dressed in black black black
With silver buttons buttons buttons
All down her back back back”

He kind of bounced up and down as he sang, too. I will never forget it! Totally classic!

“I hate to ask you this,” Ann or I would say to him, breathless, “but could you do that one more time?”

All of his friends walked by during this insane time, and made fun of him mercilessly, but we couldn’t stop. I felt that if we didn’t keep going the spell would be broken, and Ann and I would be dressed in rags, and the bouncer would turn into a pumpkin or a mouse.

Finally we left, calling good-bye to our momentary soulmate joyously. It made us both so HIGH. We raved about it the whole way home.

And Jim arrived from London yesterday. He’s staying with me and Mitchell.

Ann, Mitchell and I dragged Jim and his jet lag along to go see Pat. Ann and I are getting so juvenile and it’s got to stop. We decided to “go glam”, so she came over to primp with me. She had on this navy blue flowing thing with brass buttons (just like my eggplant flowing thing). I had on this long green blazer and flowing pants.

We were scurrying about like lunatics.

Jim and Mitchell were down the hall in Mitchell’s room talking, but also listening to our girly blither from the bathroom. Mitchell informed Jim bluntly, “They’re 7.”

And at that moment, as if on cue, came the sounds of Miss Mary Mack from the living room.

We headed to Lounge Ax.

Jim was in some kind of Zen state. He said later that sitting in that bar, watching Pat and the cultish audience was unbelievable. “It was like Pat McCurdy was some kind of god.”

Now, let me just tell two separate things that Pat said last night (I am so insane):

1. He began work on the new CD which will be called “Show Tunes”. He announced to the audience in this monolithic voice, “There WILL be a duet on my new CD.”

2. He also said, during the show, “Hey, you wanna hear a song I wrote last week? It’s not finished yet.” He began it and – for some reason – I thought: I wonder if this is the duet I’ll be singing with him on his new CD. I took this HUGE LEAP in my brain that – the “duet” he mentioned was obviously gonna be with me – So suddenly I assumed that I would be singing on the CD and then I assumed that it would be this particular song. I know it sounds crazy – but actually, as it turns out, I’m not crazy at all. I have frighteningly good instincts, that’s all.

Here’s the latest: I WILL be appearing on Pat’s new CD, and it WILL be that “song he wrote last week”. So … maybe I’m not crazy.

Speaking of crazy, Ann and I basically stormed the stage to perform Coke and a Smile for all. Pat said, as we got up there, “These two met at one of my shows … and will soon be wed.” He loves us.

Later on, Mitchell came back from the bathroom and said, “Max is here.” He showed! I did not think he would! I was very happy.

The new thing Ann Marie and I say all the time is, “My heart cracks with love.” So I heard that Max had showed up looking for me, and my heart cracked with love.

I’m a lunatic.

I went out to find Max and we hugged hello (a new development). Within two seconds, we were talking about his new apartment, his first apartment. I asked him how things were going. He conferred with me about how he cleaned out his coffee pot with vinegar: “You know how they tell you you’re supposed to do that?” (Another heart-crack moment). He said the coffee still tasted like vinegar. “Is that supposed to happen? Will it go away?”

Me: How is your utensil situation?
Max: We have one pan.
Me: Really. No pots? I would need at least one pot to cook my pasta.
Max: We have one pan. The other day I fried an egg.

He kills me.

He makes fun of how I insist of finding coincidences all about me. I’ll say to him, “God, isn’t that so weird?? What do you think it MEANS??” and he responds flatly, “Sheer coincidence.”

I told this to Ann Marie, and she said, “Thanks for the magic, Max.”

So I said something to him, at Lounge Ax, about this “weird coincidence”, and I started blithering in his face, wondering what it all meant – and he launched into this monologue about our mass-media instant-information society and how we are all bombarded with identical images, so that the chances for global “coincidences” skyrocket.

He really shot me down. Laughing in my face.

The night ended in a whirl of chaos. People swirled by and around us. Jim and Mitchell went home. There were group plans to hit the Emerald Queen.

(Ed: A bit of background: There was a nearby bar called “The Everleigh Club”. The tradition was this: we would all go “to Pat”, and then go over to The Everleigh Club. I had told Max this, when he started joining me “at Pat”, “So after the show, what we all do is, we go over to The Everleigh Club.” One night, wondering what was going to happen next, Max said to me, totally seriously, “So … now we go over to The Emerald Queen?” The EMERALD QUEEN. It immediately became folklore.)

Everyone calls it The Emerald Queen now. Rick goes to me, casually, as he passed by, “Meet us at The Emerald Queen, okay?”

Max wanted to finish his beer, so we decided to hang out for a bit and meet everyone over there. We sat at the bar talking about frying pans and velociraptors.

Pat came up from downstairs and came over to me. Said to me, “I have to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“I have something to show you.”

“Show me now.”

“I can’t. I don’t have my guitar. Next week. Remind me, cause I might forget, but I really have to talk to you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Then he was gone, and the second he was gone, I blithered in poor Max’s bemused face. “Did you hear that?? I think he wrote me a song!! I really think he did! I wouldn’t be surprised if I were gonna be on his new CD!!”

“You are not gonna be on his CD.” Total scorn from Max.

“I am too. I can feel it, Max. I can just feel it.”

“You are NOT gonna be on his new CD.”

“I am TOO.”

(Ed: I was right. On all counts. Pat needed to talk to me about a new song he had written, which he wanted to record with me. I appear on the Show Tunes CD, in a duet with Pat McCurdy, entitled: “You and I Are Just About to Fall in Love“.)

Max finally said, to shut me up, “I’m gonna be on Pat’s new CD.” This made me laugh, so he kept going. “I am all over Pat’s new CD.”

When Max is with me, his goal in life is to make me laugh. Whatever it takes.

Like Pat was nearby, talking to someone else, and Max would pretend to respond to a wave from Pat, ultra blasé, and say, “Hey, Pat, how’s it goin’, man…” – Meanwhile, Pat is totally not paying attention, so Max ended up looking like a pathetic loser, waving at someone who had no idea he existed. I was crying with laughter.

Max and I emerged onto empty Lincoln Avenue, and then walked over to The Emerald Queen. When we entered, the throngs hailed us. The JFK Jr. look-alike was working. He loves me. He loves Max (they used to bartend together.)

Max and I were ensconced in a corner at the bar, talking about the things we talk about.

I kept calling him a dirigible. I couldn’t stop myself.

“Well, just think of yourself as a dirigible, Max … That is who you are to me. A total and complete dirigible.”

The man should get a medal for dealing with me. But he loves it.

He said to me, “You’re a different girl from the one I met a year ago.”

“I am?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“The girl back then was much shyer than the girl now.”

Max played pinball and as Ann left, she swarmed about him, teasing him, “I am in your life! I am in your life!” Max always responds to this by yelling, “You are not in my life!” He resists permanence.

Max had to get up early because his mother was coming over with a coffee table, that he raved about to me. He explained the coffee table to me in intimate detail. It was literally a 30-minute monologue (I am not exaggerating) about the new coffee table.

My heart cracks, repeatedly, with love.