One Day We Will Laugh About All This (A Love Letter to Tee Dub)

Dearest Tom Wolferman,

Oh Tee Dub. That’s what I call you as you deserve a catchy nickname befitting your rock star status. Let me remind you that these letters were your idea. Sure, I showed up at our writing group with a letter to Stephen King explaining to him why I hadn’t been writing, but it was you that suggested we collaborate on more with the hopes of compiling them into a book. You pitched the project as “a freefall philosophy of no rules. Our opportunity to bust out of the solitary confinement of spoken word Alcatraz”.  We agreed from the start that the recipients were immaterial, the format was just a device to express ourselves outside the standard storytelling model. Of course I said yes when you asked, because we had a rich history of saying yes to one another, like our relationship was some sort of interpersonal improv class.

I’d been meaning to check in with you and tell you that I submitted my latest letter to the Modern Love column of the New York Times and in the 1 in 100 chance that editor Daniel Jones should publish the piece, you should prepare to write letters like you were ghostwriting for Dear Abby on crack cocaine trying to make a deadline. I wrote you that email 100 times in my head, but I didn’t send it as I’ve been uncommunicative with the world of late. I haven’t been feeling well the past few months and when given the choice between faking that things are fine and being a bummer, I usually check none of the above and shut myself off from everything. I should have sent that email, I should have told you that despite Google diagnosing myself with Parkinson’s, I’m still saying yes to enough mezcal to kill a rhino and getting tattoos. I’m sure you’d appreciate that I go to my neurology appointments wearing purple velvet Converse kicks and a shirt that says “BE YOURSELF; EVERYONE ELSE IS ALREADY TAKEN.” You would reassure me that drab medical facilities could use a pop of color and a splash of Oscar Wilde realness. You always made me feel like my quirkiness was not only tolerable, it was exceptional. I believed in myself when I breathed your air, because you were pure of heart and genuine with me from day one.

Our mutual friend Jill talked you up for months before we actually met. We were both booked to tell 1970’s era stories at a show at the Hideout and I was instantly smitten with you and your recount of getting a man perm in Skokie. We seemed to be aligned from then on, mostly at the behest of our story yenta, Jill. When she and Rachael produced Story Sessions, we did the first show together. You were always a reluctant live lit star, insisting you wanted to go on first to get it over with, leaving the rest of us groaning and threatening to go home. Telling a story after you was like singing after Otis Redding, it just seemed pointless. Your work brought clarity to the most difficult of subjects, weaving your darkest concerns with wit and wordplay. You never shied away from emotional heavy lifting, which magically eased our load. Your super power was making hard topics not only easy to digest, but delicious, like you were hiding crucial medicine in a vat of chocolate pudding.

Viva la man perm!

I was always down for any word nerd adventure if you were involved, because I knew we would share a moment of “What have we gotten ourselves into now?”  I’m sure you recall we once found ourselves in rural Michigan the night before a show at the home of a fellow storyteller. The host asked you to fetch a Sprite from the garage, a garage that also housed a dog that was half wolf and was billed to us as a man hater. You asked me to accompany you on this errand as you said if you were to meet your demise to the jaws and claws of a misandrist beast on a story road trip, you’d appreciate me being a witness. As we stood in the glow of the refrigerator, wolf dog howling in his cage, we both cried laughing at the fact that for two people dead set on flying under the radar, we often found ourselves knee deep in some serious crazy.

Pre-show in Michigan, both of us considering making a run for it. We discussed hitchhiking to Gary, Indiana to sell Michael Jackson memorabilia. 

Post show at Journeyman Distillery. Clearly we survived.

We joked about writing a sitcom called “Totally Tom” where you would play the neurotic landlord to a community of writers, ala “Melrose Place”. I asked you to put me down for the Heather Locklear character; you suggested she should be a former Rockette who owned a dance studio while trying to break into erotic fiction. We both tried our hands at writing fiction for real when we were commissioned to write for “Pleasuretown”, a podcast chronicling the residents of a fictional turn of the century Oklahoma town that believed in pursuing hedonism as a lifestyle. I sent you a draft to review, telling you I thought it read like it was written by a 9 year old with ADD after an overload of Count Chocula and Wonder Woman cartoons. You told me your draft was trying to strike a balance between thoughtful, wise, sage, geezerly and beloved advisor to the kinky. “Story of my life”, you told me. We agonized over these drafts until we threw up our hands and said, “One day we will laugh about all this. AND THAT DAY IS TODAY.”

 Taxidermy tomfoolery with Sheri. Photo credit and total blame: Jill Howe

Publicity photo for "Totally Tom", this fall on NBC.

We both stopped doing story shows for the most part a few years back, but we kept writing. You said you needed to move on from storytelling to pursue your dream of working up a chimp act, you’d just need to change your green room contract to include bananas and diapers. You signed your emails “Tom and Mister Bobo”. I’d always send up a flare before going to our writing group or the occasional social outing in hopes I would see you there. Birthdays and holidays were always occasions to check in; your birthday email entitled “Your Hair Has More Fullness Than That Slow Cooker Chili Recipe I Saw On Facebook” is one of the strangest and most treasured pieces of correspondence I’ve ever received.

Birthday shenanigans

The last time I saw you read at a show was in the basement of a tattoo parlor in the spring of 2016. You threatened to take your last Valium to deal with your nerves, a condition we all lovingly referred to as “Tomming out.” You were brilliant, as always, fighting your onstage cotton mouth with your trusty water bottle. We caught up after the show, you polishing off your Aquafina and me slugging Manhattans from a flask. You always made sure I got safely into an Uber, that night I recall us waiting quietly. I’m sure neither of us thought that our third act would involve standing on a deserted street corner in Westtown far too late on a school night trying to identify the license plate of a stranger’s Toyota Prius, but we were most content. As my ride share chariot approached, you hugged me and said “I love you, E”. I said “I love you too, Tee Dub.” We shared such sentiments more often in writing than in person, not because we were fearful of emotion, but because it went without saying. Although we were brought together by our love of language, there was such joy in feeling seen and heard with no words required.

I learned so much from you, becoming a better writer and a better human through your examples. You moved through this world with such grace and humility and as E.B. White told us in “Charlotte’s Web”, “it’s not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”  When I heard you were gone, I drank all the brown liquor in my house and cried my eyes out. The next day I sobbed on the Ashland bus to the grocery store and then in line at the store buying a case of La Croix to replace all my tears. I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of the initials “T.W.” written in the sidewalk on Ashland, a reminder that your spirit is always inside of me and I should be on the lookout for your greetings and salutations. This is all more manageable if I consider you to be Charlotte to my Wilbur. You were such a wonderful friend to so many, and that in itself is a tremendous thing. I regret not hiring a skywriter to proclaim that during all of our reluctant grumblings and synchronized side eyes we were most certainly having the some of the best times of our lives. But much like declarations of affection, I trust it was a known quantity, an unspoken understanding.

I’m sure Daniel Jones of the New York Times will soon send me a rejection letter, but it will be fine. The letter project was never about recognition or publishing for me. It was just an extension of saying yes to anything that involved working with you. Saying yes to the stories, to the podcast, to the wolfdog, was always a given. I would have said yes to shoveling shit on the road with Mister Bobo, for the record. The letters kept us attached creatively, our voices in chorus. In an arena full of navel gazing narcissists, the letters were our cries to be heard from the cheap seats. This is the only letter where the recipient truly does matter, because it is my attempt to honor what you mean to me. It’s also my last letter as I have no interest in continuing this project without you. The letters were a collaboration and I refuse to try to make jelly work without peanut butter.

Godspeed, you gallant creature. I haven’t spent much time ruminating on the afterlife as I’m having enough trouble navigating this current assignment, but I pray your next adventure is worthy of you. I also hope Mister Bobo made the trek as well. Because that chimp knows that in the face of absurdity, just below your “Totally Tom” sitcom star twinkle, there’s an “Oh, what fresh hell is THIS?” face in search of an ally. That’s my Tee Dub. One day we will laugh about all this, Wolferman, and that day is today.

Love always from your friend and fan,

Eileen

Self Medicating

Recently assigned to write on the topic of “self medicating”, I immediately thought of my most obvious go tos: food and booze. As I was pondering this theme in February, otherwise known as mile 22 of the marathon that is the Chicago winter, I was probably actively shovelling potatoes in my face with one hand while guzzling bourbon with the other. But as I generally only use carbs and liquor to cope with my cold weather blues and winter is allegedly over, I decided to discuss some self medicating I do every day of the year. I wake up doing it, I do it throughout the day, I go to sleep doing it. I’m talking about my electronic pacifier, my iPhone 7. My phone is the first thing I look at when I wake up, which I’d say falls under the category of “normal”. I mean, it is an alarm clock, so that’s legit. But even when I don’t have the alarm feature in play, I rarely get out of bed before reviewing my texts, my emails, my virtual communities. I then proceed to consult with the phone ALL DAY LONG...when I’m in line at the grocery store, when I’m at work, when I’m on the train, when I get in bed at night. I sleep with the phone either next to me on a nightstand or sometimes in the bed with me. When I can’t sleep I look to the interwebs to keep me company. When I’ve been in relationships where there are sleepovers, I’ve had to tell myself repeatedly “DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR PHONE” when I wake up in the middle of the night, as I fear not only the light waking the other person up, but the concept that perhaps looking at one’s phone during the sleeping hours is wading dangerously close to deal breakingly weird behavior.

I have no shame in discussing my phone habits as it appears most of us have some degree of addiction as well. I don’t feel like a freak admitting these details, but I recognize I use the phone as an escape all too often. The device offers me a sort of dual citizenship; a loose commitment to the people I’m interacting with electronically combined with being blissfully unaware of what’s happening right in front of me. My brain seems to be most comfortable having one foot in these two worlds, because this straddle prevents from being fully conscious of the boring, irritating and truly awful parts of being alive these days. I’m convinced there’s always a possibility of a dopamine hit if I look at the phone enough times...an amusing text, an email with good news, a compelling post, or being the first to know something particularly juicy. In tandem with bill paying, news alerts, shopping, sexting, selfies, counting steps, mapping directions, and reminders about my obligations, I’m not sure when the phone became the pocket headquarters for my every waking move. What happened to the days when I’d just use it for basic shit like “Hey, I’m almost there” and “Great, I’m on my way”?

I decide to commit to a 100% phone free experience for a limited amount of time. I’d already booked a 35 hour train ride on the Coast Starlight from Seattle to Los Angeles and I vow I will not use the phone at all during the ride.

To get an idea of how much I was agreeing to part with, I download Moment, an app that tracks your phone use. I get a blaring “BOOP BOOP BOOP’ in the mid afternoon indicating I’ve been on it for 3 hours that day. More BOOP at 4 hours, and again at 5 hours of use. I stop 3 minutes short of 6 hours, mostly as I can’t handle any more alarm shaming. My usage is above average, with most people falling in the 3 to 5 hours a day range. Moment tells me I’ve checked my phone 50 times that day, which strikes me as a lot, but teens and millennials on average check their phones between 75 and 200 times a day. I suddenly regret I didn’t choose to write this piece about alcohol.

While I wait to board the train in Seattle, I madly look at every website known to man, I pay every bill, I text everyone goodbye, I consume data as if I’m going off to war and I may never communicate with the outside world ever again. I find my sleeper car cabin and dramatically slide the iPhone power screen to OFF. Let the head games begin.

My roommette onboard is 3 and a half feet wide by 6 and a half feet high with two seats that face each other that recline into a bed as well as a bed that folds down from the ceiling. It’s snug but totally serviceable. I settle in as the train pulls away from Seattle and I take in the scenery. There’s a certain gloomy charm to this part of the Pacific Northwest...the landscape mostly comprised of farmland, abandoned trucks, dead trees, cemeteries, bridges, and shabby seaside motels. Although I appreciate the grey quiet of the rural sprawl, I’m still hungry for mental static. I stare until my eyes are tired, maybe 25 minutes, but my brain remains restless. It wants more action. It wants CNN and Instagram and maps and that perfect song on YouTube and texting about what’s up. I fold down the top bunk and crawl in, convinced I maybe just need darkness and a nap. I lay there stressed out that I shouldn’t just cop out and sleep through this experience. I shift to stressing out that I’m not strapped into the safety net they advise while sleeping on this upper bunk, but then I think what a dramatic turn this story would take if I inadvertently rolled off and crashed from a six foot drop. I then get up and frantically rearrange my personal effects to make the tiny space more optimally efficient. I pause to take in the fact that my brain is being a hyperactive asshole, like a 4 year old throwing a temper tantrum that it’s been denied a cookie. Sorry, brain. No electronic cookies for you. You can read, you can write, you can sleep, you can wander the train, you can look out the window. It’s only 2 days. That’s the deal.

Reading, sleeping, and wandering are usually some of my favorite activities, but my head still is anxious and cranky for more stimulation. When you give the 4 year old that runs your mind permission to look in the cookie jar 50 times a day, it doesn’t go quietly when it gets cut off. I have a hundred patient pep talks with myself over the next handful of hours, and as we pass through Eugene, Oregon, I’m finally able to look out the window and have my mind go blank for considerable chunks of time. This void feels like a zen flavored miracle.

I head to the dining car at my designated mealtime, dreading Amtrak’s communal seating policy. My inner 4 year old and I do not want to meet new people right now. I’m seated with a tired looking but pleasant suburban mom named Cathy and her 14 year old son Dylan. Cathy tells me they’re headed to Los Angeles to visit her father who she hasn’t talked to in over 20 years. Cathy hasn’t told her father they’re coming, she thinks it will be fun to surprise him in hopes he’ll want to meet his grandson for the first time and accompany them to Disneyland. This strikes me as a terrible plan, but I tell her it sounds great, because I’m not going. Cathy then tells me she has confiscated all of Dylan’s devices for the trip, because she wants him to enjoy and remember the experience. “I’m a mean mom.” she tells me. “Right, Dylan?” Dylan is all dark bangs and surly pouts as he replies, “It totally sucks, man.” He finds a jelly jar filled with colored pencils and begins to sketch an elaborate outer space depiction complete with dancing robots on our paper table cloth. Dylan instantly becomes my technology detox spirit guide.

After dinner I am sure I will miss my phone the most as it’s too dark to see outside. I’m surprised when I crawl in bed and immediately fall asleep, perhaps because my brain isn’t all hopped up from blue light exposure and it’s exhausted from being a whiny petulant bitch all day.

I wake up with the sunrise around 6 am as we pull into Sacramento. This is typically when I’d use the phone to read the news, check in with friends, and tinker with my work schedule. Without that ritual, I fall back asleep until we reach San Francisco. After some coffee, I commit to taking a few notes for this story and I end up writing for hours. I write ideas for this story, for other stories, for writing prompts...copious pages of notes, mostly hot garbage, but who cares?  I cannot write fast enough to keep up with my thought process. It’s as if that blank space I usually fill with mindless phone jabber was repopulated with freshly minted possibility. It’s an eye opening victory for my creative side, which has been pretty dormant these days.

I celebrate with a stroll to the bar car for a beer. I end up conversing a Charles Manson look alike who tries to tell me all women are “high maintenance and predictable” and I probably take up two parking spaces when I drive my Lexus to Whole Foods. I reply, “Dude, I don’t even own a car. I certainly have some time to kill, but not with this bullshit.” Who needs the trolls of Twitter when you can slay misogynist dragons in real life?

As the day winds down, the train makes its way through California’s central coast region, through Salinas, Pasos Robles, San Luis Obispo.  As we make our way south towards Santa Barbara and the view for hundreds of miles is unspoiled beach and the steel grey blue of the Pacific, I cannot stop staring at it all. Combined with the Santa Ynez mountains and the oak, lilac and manzanita trees, I am glued to the window by its postcard worthy perfection. I’m so glad I’m not missing a minute of this crafting a witty Facebook post, or trying to take a photo that wouldn’t do it justice, or scouring the web for latest about Stormy Daniels. I just absorb without question and note my brain is officially in time out, content to be at rest.

About 20 minutes from the end of the line, I turn my phone back on. I have a handful of emails, texts, and notifications, all of which are not urgent and can be returned another time. I send a text to an old friend who lives near Los Angeles’ Union Station, a friend who is waiting to pick me up.  “Hey, I’m almost there”, I tell him. “Great”, he texts back. “I’m on my way.”