Callings

Without too much fanfare, I am trying my hooves at les blog lettres. I reject better judgment, and I know some family members who would like to fry me for this indulgence, but I have been down that ugly road of familial insinuation too many times to let it squat on my courage. My intent is to offer a schlep through the arbitrary pathways of the porcine mind. I do not pretend to be carrying an epistolary possey to the world of online ogling. Mine is more of a Schlog, n’est ce pas? That said, expect nothing, Dear Leader, and know that, as my great grandmama would say, from nothing comes nothing. (For a pig with a high school education, she was nonetheless quick to judge being and nothingness.)

PHOTO: I use a Mac because it's my favorite apple, and the hoof pad is particularly sensitive. You suck, Windows!

Thinking of skimming through to the end? Consider this alternative to human reproduction and observe the costly dependencies that it creates. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu-XUSFiuuQ. I think you'll agree that at the very least, we have a choice to make.

By way of introduction, my formal American name is Peter Cornichon. My formal French name is a family name, Pierre du Cochon Flou, and when I am in England, my name is "Pete Pickle". You can see that's the way these various people think. When I am in Boston, where I have many friends, I am called DB, which stands for a lot of things that are to held in pectore ('scuse the italianne). I don’t want to explore this side of my life this early in my Schlog. Turning to Texas, where I have a winter home, I am called “Brandon” for some unknown reason. I hope that goes away soon as I don't ever use it.

An aside, s'il tu plais. You know, I have found truth in the almost cliche that what people call you has no relationship to who you are on any particular day or in any particular place (shut up, Lewis!). This was one of my early discoveries and it has ever since been at the nib end of my relationship to the world: to aspire to be a constantly evolving series of alternate forms of name association. These “Callings,” if you will allow, are not just a flippity-flop, slam dang doodle sort of Alice in Wonderland word play. I’m not that literary, for chrissake. I think, rather, they are “persona of reference” to the world, what the French would call les caractères de reconnaissance, had they thought of it first. And this, Dear Reader, is one of them.

Look, my schlogging has tapped into two main facts of my life that I want to get off my nippled chest right away.

First of all, I am a pig. For a long while, I didn’t even know this. My first “real” girlfriend told me this abruptly and pretty early in our relationship, which coincidentally ended pretty early on -- not unusual for a first. There was more than enough embarrassment on that first go-around. It was about then that I first acquired a taste for Irish whiskey.

I digress. Since that revelation -- that "naming" or what I now see was my "Calling" -- I have had to adjust. When I was a pre-pubescent, my siblings and friends called me “Piggy,” but even then, I thought: "Hello! I'm not the only one who looks like their funny name!" Everyone was eponymous in those days -- although in fairness, we thought of them as endearments, not species identifiers. Let me see, there was Little Peapod, China Boy, Edward “Dog Berry” Salaway, Spastic BoyGirl (a cousin), Killer Bee, Lilly Pad, the Studebaker, Chanikka (wha?), and Hughgonot to name a few.

Did I think my friends were actually and really a bunch of freaking fauna and flora and members of an Old World religious fringe? Don't take me for a pointy-eared Fat Head. Finding out that I was actually a Pig was a cruel bit of shock to them, I suppose. I had fully accepting them for what they were: generally ugly people with matching names. Game.

Then I realized the big lie: Being accepted and loved for what lies behind the surface of your ugly face is what life is all about. Still, I have remembered the words of my Great Grandmama: Live and fucking learn. As the saying goes. "Tell that to the lost girlfriend."

Thank you, Dear Leader, for staying with me as I don't get to my point.

The second fact you need to know about me is that I have one hoof in les choses francaise and one hoof in les merde francaise. Let go of it and get used to it, Dear Reader. One sign of this spiritual ménage is that I will slip into the numerous French terms and usages that I think I know en temps des temps. Don’t get your sous-vêtements all twisted in a wad over it. The French expressions come to me in streams of consciousness -- like I can't help being a pig with panache. In fairness, there are other explanations. One friend of mine tells me that most of my conversational claptrap resembles that of a patient who has successfully overcome Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome through corrective surgery. She then points out the scar she imagines was left behind when they attached a Nutball to my frontal lobe. That explanation struck me as a remarkable insight into both my piggy-ness, and a graceful way of acknowledging my attitude on matters psychological: ça ne fait rien, bébé.

You're wondering: do I know and respect boundaries? When was the last time you heard me calling somebody a “Self-absorbed Charcuterie”? You haven’t and you won’t because, guess what? I know and inspect boundaries.

One more thing to be clear about: I am not a “French Pig.” I find that usage racist, rude, and just plain rong. I’ve been profiled before on account of my forked feet, my loutish Gallic snout, and my scarey, hairy back. I have a curly tail. I'm a glutton. Big deal.

Once, I was in a deli line at the corner of St. James and Stuart streets in Bay Village and this black lady asked me if I was “Kosher.” “Ha, ha,” I said with a stone face that made it appear that I was not affected in the slightest. Later, I cried and grunted my way across Boston Common. I remember what went through my late adolescent mind: “The sorry fact is that I am not a Jewish pig, nor a French Pig, nor even a Fucking Pig. I am just an American Pig.” As I enter post-adolescence, I re-consider all of these endless discussions with friends and family, so many of which seemed to end with, “what the hell are you talking about, anyway?” tedious and mind numbingly boring. I am what I am: an even-toed ungulate. What matters and lasts in life are the memories we make.

That’s what I hope to share with you, Dear Reader.

Alors, the Callings that I value most are those of family and friends, and even some of les arrivistes who hope to capitalize on associating with my special circle of pain and pleasure. They come and go, some hardened to my wit and wisdom, some permanently flaccid but willing to flop it on the table for the sake of showing the colors. No matter, it all gets chopped up and rendered by the notorious “Knife of Life” – a highly reliable and personally meaningful standard measure of Overall Human Worth Measured by at This Particular Moment in Time.

I can say this about my family and friends: they give one pause. Really long pauses actually. Sometimes I don't hear from them for weeks on end. Occasionally, they satisfy.

Together we have created something special – a veritable and mercifully unending soup du jour. Being a swine, I am inclined to think that I add to that soup a touch of earthy sophistication: la joie de l'animal. You know, a little truffle-sniffing at the trough of trial and tribulation – the famous "Four Ts" that help prepare you for the ride by the rough and ready – which are the now cliched "Three Rs" of the “bottom line” advice that my great grandpa essayed no matter what the social occasion: “Peter: Shit or get off the pot.” (You can imaging the damage this has done to me as a Pig. I mean it isn't even physically possible. TMI for a first Schlog entry? Think?)

Saddle up your loins, Porker Mates, we’re heading to foraging grounds. Soups on!