A Total Haiku fit – Part II

Some of you may recall my description of the Haiku Fit my crowd of friends experienced during the Winter Olympics of 1994.

I have another story from that same time involving haikus. But it’s even crazier.

I let my own Haiku Fit impair my judgment. I let my own Haiku Fit spill forth and affect others. But you know what? It’s a good story.

The collective “haiku fit” was heating up in the winter of 1993. The fact that I remember these dates is mortifying, but I can’t help it. The fall of 1993 was labeled as “the Magic Time“, and therefore I remember almost every second of it. During the Magic Time, haikus were the theme. Or one of the themes.

I was seeing a guy at the time, a guy I was pretty much nuts about. We had a terrific thing going, something that defies description. So I won’t try to describe it. We’re still friends – in a kind of invisible “I know you’re out there, and I wish you well” kind of way. He is one of the triumvirate (not to be totally obnoxious. He doesn’t even know there is a “triumvirate”, and he would have NO IDEA what I was talking about. But that’s neither here nor there. I love the guy. We’ve had a lot of very very funny adventures together.)

And one frosty freezing night in December of 1993 I was hanging out with him, his roommate, and my dear friend Ann Marie. The night was so damn COLD that as we all raced for the car, roomate started shouting about how he was now “Osteo-Density Man” because it was so cold it felt like his bones had thickened. hahahahahahaha SO MUCH laughter that night. “Oh my GOD, I am in agony!” shouted roommate, running in a stiff-legged freezing-night kind of way. “I feel like I am OSTEO-DENSITY MAN!!” Anyway. Through various dramas and plot-devices (which I will not get into), my guy and I had a fight. A ridiculous fight. I ended up walking back to my house from his house through the frigid Chicago night, a furious Osteo-Density Woman myself. But there was something about this guy – something relaxing, and kind – and there was something in our bond, very specific – something which we never lost. We had fights, we had disagreements, but somehow: there was always a comedic feel to the whole thing. We cut each other an ENORMOUS amount of slack. Grudges were not part of our dynamic at all, even though we never specifically said to each other: “Hey, let’s not hold grudges.” We just never did. It was the least bitchy least manipulative relationship I’ve ever had. (Well, except for when I would blatantly ignore him at Lounge Ax, but that’s another story.)

Once I was home, and warmed up – I realized I had left my umbrella in his car. Now I have no idea why I latched onto the umbrella as important. Granted, it was a great umbrella. It had a wooden handle, it was large, it was pretty cool. I still have longing yearning dreams about that lost umbrella. So I wanted it back. I called and left a message the next day: “Hi. I think I left my umbrella in your car. Could you let me know if you have it, and I’ll come by and pick it up?”

I was cool, I was chilled – I had no ulterior motives. I just wanted my cool umbrella.

NO RESPONSE. Oh. My. God. HE’S NOT RESPONDING!!! Like I said before, he and I were not a game-playing duo. Not at all. If he wanted to see me, and it was 10 at night, he’d give me a call and see if I was around. No big deal. If I was already in my pajamas, I’d say: “Hey man, I’m in my pajamas. Not tonight.” He’d say, “Okay. Talk to you soon.” So him not responding to my phone call seemed WEIRD. Especially because I had left a benign non-gamey message about my umbrella. I didn’t call him up and bitch him out about our fight, nothing like that.

So it was him not responding that set loose the lunacy. That set loose the Haiku Fit.

I began to leave a daily haiku on his message machine. Yes, I said: a DAILY HAIKU. I wrote them myself. They all had as their topic: umbrellas. Or rain. And as the days went by, and he still didn’t respond – a weird thing happened. I started totally enjoying my Haiku Fit. I succumbed to it, I embraced it. He wasn’t calling me back, and there was OBVIOUSLY a reason – this was completely out of character for him – so I didn’t worry about it too much, and just started getting a kick out of writing haikus every day and leaving them on his answering machine.

He must have thought I was absolutely batshit. I laugh to think of him dealing wtih that. He was such a laidback weird guy, so so funny.

When I told my friend Alex this story, she asked casually, “So how long did this go on?”

I answered calmly, “For 40 days.” and she spit out her mouthful of tea in a spray of guffawing laughter.

40 haikus in 40 days. Let me repeat that. I left him 40 HAIKUS IN 40 DAYS.

Rain rain go away
Where’s my damn umbrella, dude?
Rain rain go away

I mean, that is the level of haiku-writing we are talking about. I couldn’t stop. I maintained this game with myself for 40 days. I truly think I could have gone on forever, and could still be leaving him a haiku a day in 2005. Sure. No problem. I was NOT GETTING tired of the Haiku Fit. I treated it like just another thing I had to get done on a daily basis:

— Brush teeth
— Pay electric bill
— Wash hair
— Leave haiku on his answering machine
— Feed the cat

So. After 40 days of this (which is actually fitting, when you think of it in Biblical terms … you know. Rain and all that.), I came to my senses and left him my last message, something along the lines of: “Look. I have no idea why you are not calling me back and so I am going to stop the Haiku Onslaught. I know you have my umbrella, and I still want it back, but this is it. You know where to find me if you want to contact me.”

Maybe a week later, he sought me out to tell me what was going on with him. It was serious, it had started on Osteo-Density Night, it had nothing to do with me, but he had to back off from me for a bit and hadn’t known how to tell me. I think he finally realized, by the 38th damn haiku, that I was not wearying of my silly game, and I would not take a hint!! I mean, this wasn’t a guy I had only gone out with a couple of times or anything. We were in each other’s lives! He couldn’t just disappear without me giving him a fight. Or … a Haiku fit.

Later, when his life cleared up again, he did indeed know where to find me, and he sought me out. Shyly. Hoping I would still be around, and not scorn him, or hold a grudge. And there I was, coming towards him, laughing, welcoming, happy to see him. We all need to do what we have to do … Sometimes you have to back off of someone you really like … and sometimes you have to write 40 haikus and leave them on an answering machine. It’s different for everyone.

I remember sitting with him at the bar at the Everleigh Club, after the whole thing blew over, and I said, “So … uhm … what did you think of the haikus?”

The expression on his face made me laugh OUT LOUD. It was this weary bludgeoned look, a beaten-down-by-an-anvil look. He said, with grim humor, “I honestly thought that they would never end.” But then the funniest thing was he started critiquing some of them. He had listened to each and every one.

“I really liked the one where you brought Noah’s Ark into it … that was cool.”

I nodded seriously. “Yeah, I was pretty proud of that one, too.”

Uhm – what??

Oh, and he insists TO THIS DAY that he never had my umbrella. Liar.