a boy can dream

Wilford Brimley mocks me. Every single day.

Not just because an average meal for me lately has been pizza and crullers, but also because that’s what I think he was put on this earth to do. Mock. Not just me. But you. And him. And her. And that dog over there. And maybe even the fish swimming in the ocean.

Speaking of the ocean, the waves are blasting tonight. It’s almost like I have a microphone down there and it’s pumping the sound of crashing waves into my living room. It’s most magical. In fact, this may be the coolest night that I’ve experienced since being here. So much so, I get up from this typing machine and open my front door to listen in Doubly as Nigel so nicely put it.

I hung up a picture of the diabetes man in my cubicle a few months ago. It was a funny lark back then. But since I moved him to a more prominent position, above me and too the right, he has taken on a whole other meaning.

People stop and laugh at his picture. Some just look at him, then look at me. After which, they may shake their head in disbelief or shrug in that defeated way so many of us do every day.

I put him as the front wallpaper of my phone last week. It’s almost like he’s the alien from The Thing, taking over parts of my life one by one. I suppose if I ask for Cocoon on DVD for Christmas, I might be in trouble. I’ve already pondered making a Wilford Christmas decoration for my new tree. It’s a fake one, which is troubling in its own way. However, it is also the first tree I have ever purchased for myself.

Over the years I’ve bought a pink tree for a friend. A couple of fake ones for girlfriends and I think that is it. I’ve picked out the one for my family many times.

But, every year I’ve been alone, even when I was dating someone, I never bought a tree for myself. And I think that was dumb. Which is why I’m fixing it this year.

I think it’s been a gradual process. At first it was finding a copy of Santee in a thrift store in Petersburg about 8 years ago. Then the year after Emily, I bought a strand of lights to hang over my window. And now this, a four foot fake tree, with lights.

Next thing you know I’ll be carrolling the night away.

Not decorating without someone to help decorate was kind of my tradition. A constant so to speak. Like Wilford Brimley. He’ll always be around. At least that’s how one feels. But, like everything, Mr. Brimley will die one day. A lot more people will just say Di-ah-bee-tus that day than feel bad. Which, I guess isn’t completely unexpected in this day and age.

I’ll say a little prayer for him when it comes. But hell, he may outlive me by a decade. Who knows? That freight train of diabetes could hit me tomorrow and take me out, no health insurance and all. Can I get a free glucose monitor without insurance Mr. Brimley? Mr. Obama? Mr. Cheney?

Oh, hell. I gave up on politics too long ago. It seems like another life when I used to debate such things with Sharon. Taking the side of Richard Nixon just to get under her skin. It worked. She liked me. I liked her. We dated. I was too chicken to try to take it somewhere further. Bad decision in the short term, not long term. How reversed is that one compared to the rest of this life?

Anyways, I wonder if Wilford Brimley would sit on my porch, eat leftover pizza from last night’s Monday Night Football game and listen to the ocean with me? Anyone got his phone number? Seems like a perfectly plausible thing. How about a movie, like Andy Kaufman’s “Breakfast with Blassie” but instead, it’s “Leftover pizza with Wilford.”

We could talk about the proper diet for us kinds. Maybe even discuss prostate issues.

I’m sure he’d love to chat about “The China Syndrome” or my all-time favorite of his “Brubaker”. He could remind me he was in “Remo Williams” and kicked ass in “The Natural” -- one of my favorite books and a book I actually own.

I wouldn’t want to shoot it in a Sambo’s, however, as that would be too redundant and plagiaristic. Instead, a Bojangles maybe? Or an In-and-Out burger. Maybe have Steve Buscemi stop by?

It gets a little bit more interesting, at least for me, with every added layer.

We could even get Wesley Snipes to come over and re-enact the “always bet on black,” scene -- with musical cues -- from “Passenger 57.”

Sounds plausible.