I was just having a cup of tea on my little terrace (as you do) and spilled it (as I do). I spilled it on the table which is wire and designed to let liquids flow through it (which this one did, nicely). My knee, my pants, my sneaker are now splashed with sticky tea. I won’t be changing, though. Too much like hard work at this hour.
What that spill did was remind me that I spill, a lot. I am a gesticulator. I flap my arms when I talk. Sometimes the windmill effect causes casualties: Coke cans, wine glasses (preferably red for maximum stainage), entire bowls and plates. Sometimes I hit people in the face or the arm or their up-raised glass of red wine. I have knocked so many salt shakers over there is a salt lick under my dining chair. I have had to thrown so many pinches of it over my shoulder that there can’t be a sailor in danger of drowning within a hundred miles.
When I am describing an activity I have to mime it. I drive (both hands up on imaginary steering wheel, crossover turn left), I write (pen scribbling across paper in mid-air), I call (both dialing–defunct but such a satisfying movement–and talking, hand to ear), I type (fingers flying always accompanied by the tippy-tap sound). You get the picture. David pushes his chair back from the table when I start a story. Worse still, I bring my feet into the action. If I say I’m walking, they thump, thump along with the description. Forget about running. Clear the decks if you hear my say “I ran into so-and-so yesterday.” I have several friends who are similar, although far more graceful than I. One, Kelly, uses the expression “the kicker was…” and throws her foot forward. Believe me, I have snagged that expression and move to messy effect.
I fall, too. For someone who once made a hefty financial contribution to her college fund as a ballet dancer, I am a complete spazz. I can fall off a flat surface, and frequently do. You’ve heard of a standing start? I can do a standing fall. Still, upright, minding my own business, splat. I regularly walked out of my clogs until I got the message that I shouldn’t wear them for that reason alone. And, I don’t recover well, either. I crack up. There is nothing so funny as people falling (as long as they don’t get hurt, natch). I sat at the biggest window of the college dining hall in the winter so I could watch people skid out on the ice in front of the entrance. Mean, I know, but a meanness I earned by hitting that ice with my ass at least every other day. Once, I fell down a fairly steep hill–in Budapest of all places–and slid in my flippy, summery sundress until a tree stopped me. David and half the Hungarian population ran to my rescue only to find me helpless with laughter, not injury. When I was working in New York I slipped on some ice in the middle of 81st Street. With the crosstown bus bearing down on me I picked my change out of the ice and laughed until I had to scuttle, crab-like, back to my apartment to change underpants. Yesterday I had coffee with two friends and managed–in the course of a story about a drinks party where I threw a hummus-topped pita slice across the room during a conversation about Estonian hot-smoked salmon (huh?)–to edge my chair leg right off the raised outdoor platform. Both women lunged, saving me from certain hysteria. I was almost sorry.
My best friend from college fell now and then, too. But, somehow, she was more graceful, less “Look at me, how funny is this?” and more figure skater back on her feet before the East German judge can say 4.0, in her recoveries. Once (this isn’t exactly a falling story), she walked out of her own skirt. It was one of those 1970s Danskin, slippy, silky things that tied at the front. She was strolling across the quad and it untied and she walked right out of it, leaving a puddle of black fabric about five feet behind her before she noticed. She was with a boy at the time, A BOY. He said, “I think you, uh, your, uh…” He pointed to the puddle. “So I did,” my friend said and returned to the skirt, shimmied it back on and rejoined the boy, never once blushing or barfing. Now, if that was me I would have laughed and rolled around until I was late for class.
So, now you know that I am a blur of pinwheeling limbs and waving arms, frequently on my way down to or up from the ground. Before you join me for a meal or a walk or a chat, you should probably put one of those padded, can resist even an attack dog attack suits. You might want to add some kind of face mask, not Hannibal Lecter-level, but maybe a lacrosse helmet-like thing. And, just to be safe, push your chair back until it is level with David’s.
My personal brand of idiocy guarantees me a good laugh daily, really. Which, if you ask me, is very healthy. It’s kind of like an apple a day only much, much funnier.