Poop deck—where you walk about on the boat. The classic rude boating term.
Head—the toilet on a boat, and also a term for oral sex that Lou Reed thought rhymes with “head” (I know, it’s the same word!).
Abreast—when two boats lay together in a way the Bible probably frowns upon; a boob.
Dear Armpit Picker,
Ignoring the “ick” factor, I am astounded, if not awed, by your devotion to personal grooming: shared so generously with everyone in the compartment (bar those glued to their iPhones). Let me applaud you. While your three female companions, shrieking gleefully like starving coyotes over a kill, chose to disregard the no eating or drinking signs posted above them, by cramming their faces with burgers, fries and noisy slurps of bucket-size soda, you remained the outsider, the iconoclast, quietly picking away at your armpit, save for the occasional “shit,” “fuck,” and intensive “motherfucker.” Eyes straining, nay, bulging, tongue hanging out in deep concentration like a thirsty bloodhound. Yours was a very long tongue! I mean, for God’s sake, woman, have you no shame, taking it out in public? Anyway, I jest—and forgive the canine comparison. Undoubtedly, like a bloodhound (and under more auspicious circumstances), you are kind, patient, noble, mild-mannered and lovable. You are certainly persistent!
Farts are underrated. There! Somebody had to say it out loud and I, for one, have decided that I want to hold it in no more. I don’t know about you, but modern day farting has left me fairly dissatisfied and as a fellow fartsman, roughly discriminated too—the guilt, the secrecy, the cover ups and the denial! Ugh, denial’s the worst… it’s all very exhausting, to say the least. Like everything else in this world, I bet things weren’t this complicated back in the day. Yeah, I’m pretty sure they celebrated farts just as everything else but we don’t hear the history books talk about those, now do we? See? Discrimination.
Shiraz, Iran: November 1, 1978. The day I was born. I’d like to say it was a Wednesday, but who the hell knows, I’m not Rainman. And even if I did have a talent for counting errant toothpicks, wrapping one’s mind around temporal exactitude once the International Date Line has been crossed is nearly impossible.
I was a child born into a time of revolution and flux. Iran had only recently deposed their Shah and the first day of the hostage crisis was almost exactly one year away. The world watched with concern as Iran’s 2500 year old monarchal tradition dissolved in a fantastic heap of religious fundamentalism.
He could not remember that he ever had been well, completely well. But he had faith. Always ready to try something new, he reached for the bottle of “Dopymilstonal, 85MG, Take one or two tablets a day as needed, with or without food”. Those labels are so helpful, so encouraging. One feels better right away because one has hope again. Till next day when the side effects kick in. For some inscrutable reason he tended to be one of those “in rare cases” patients. Sure enough, next morning he felt dizzy and passed a bucket full of pink urine, just as it said in the accompanying little brochure printed on very thin paper in a microscopically small type size. Well, what else is new, he thought, and went to get himself a snack. At night he took another tablet because he felt that it was needed.