Have to 'maintain' today...

...maintain sobriety, propriety, piety and form...

...Big Media photog Mark Wilson coming to call to take pictures of notorious novelty item me to complement Lois Shea's upcoming Boston Sunday Globe article about "...NOTES..." I haven't seen it yet so can't comment on content but I worry each and every time I get interviewed that one of these days an interviewer is going to leave my house and say to her/himself, "Now THERE is an asshole!" And then head back to the office and write the article accordingly. So far I've been lucky, the reviews have been favorable all.

...however the most difficult thing I have to do today is try to keep this wobbly tooth - center front bottom - from falling out before the flashbulbs flash. Would that I had listened to Mom and Dad o so long ago as they nurtured me along through my youth trying to tell me that broccoli and green beans were better for me than peanut butter cups and chocolate bars, but o no you could tell me nothing then and not much nowadays but I see so so clearly they were right as I take to the mirror and watch my few remaining teeth wobble around to and fro in my mouth, buffeted by the winds of my blustery pontifications.

I can laugh about it but it really ain't funny, you see,for by nature I am gregarious and love to party and be the life thereof but what with the aging process and teeth falling out along the way, I rarely go out in public, because while in my mind the image I am putting forth is that of say someone with the wit of Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker and Steve Allen all in one and my physical appearance as I see it in my addled head is no less than Newmanesque...as in Paul...

Alas none of the above apply. I'm actually more of a cross between Gabby Hayes and Alfred E. (What Me Worry?) Newman, with all the wit and charm of Cleopatra's asps.