Little Things

1.

I stepped out into Lewisham, and there I was: Los Angeles. Bright and sunny, hot and dry: 77 degrees Fahrenheit and 39 percent humidity, to be precise, with a warm breeze. The usual city smells: exhaust, industrial chemicals, dust. A distant smokiness that might be actual smoke, or it might be hot dogs. A sudden shudder of sense-memory space-time, brought on by the subtlest of stimuli.

2.

Our first trip to Japan with the kids. Tig, age seven, sensitive and curious, with a keen interest in food and art. Felix, age three, motor vehicle enthusiast, allergic to milk and eggs and nuts, full to bursting with joy and frustration.

The fourteen-hour flight, the eight-hour jet lag, the crowds and chaos of some of the world’s most populous and most visited cities: we got through them all, and had a wonderful time. Well done, team. Sometimes, even when it was a great trip, I am relieved to be going home at the end of it. Not this time.

I came back and I was bereft. You can’t get a bottle of tea at the vending machine at the airport. You can’t get a bottle of tea anywhere. I don’t mean Lipton or any other brand of brown, peach-flavored sugar water. I mean green tea, cold and bracing, grassy, invigorating, astringent. Tea for grown-ups.

People often ask me: why Japan? They want the backstory, the story of my life that now bores me to death, and might not even be true. It’s not about the backstory. It’s about the crosswalk songs. The stink of tonkotsu ramen shops as you walk past. The clever kitchen utensils. Ekiben. Onigiri. Cold, bracing, grown-up green tea, from a vending machine.

3.

Within ten minutes, we were looking at the X-ray, glowing on the surface of the lightbox. “Just as I suspected,” Dr. Nagura said, “it’s almost definitely gout. There’s nothing wrong with your bones or cartilage. Nothing wrong with your tendons.”

“When we see a man your age,” he explained, “we assume gout. When it’s a woman, we assume pregnant.”

So what do I do?

“Lose some weight. Reduce your overall calorie intake. And drink water, lots of water. You should start to feel better in a few days.”

In and out of the clinic in one hour, with painkillers in hand. I feel better. My knee still hurts pretty bad. But I feel better.

How does a person get gout? Lots of ways – bad genes and bad food, mainly. But ultimately, a person gets gout from purines. What are purines? I don’t know. Little things. Sub-microscopic things. Things your cells need, on a molecular level, to function. But if you have too many of them, they drive up the uric acid in your bloodstream, which accumulate as little pointy crystals, like shards of glass, stuck between your bones.

A few weeks later, I run into Gurd at a party, and I tell him about the gout. “Gout!” he says, eyes wide. “That’s very chic!” And now, every day, I think of how Gurd called my gout “chic.” And every day I laugh, even though I really shouldn’t.

4.

Signatures: a few hundred to keep the lollipop lady on Manor Lane; a few hundred thousand to try and stop Israel from murdering children in Gaza. Do something. Please, help. Every signature cries out. How many will it take to be heard? When will they listen? Will they ever listen?

5.

Tig asks: what’s your favorite thing to do? I get an email from a podcast producer – they want to know the same thing. I don’t know how to reply. What is my favorite thing to do?

I think, and I answer: I like to sit outside, in the sun, with a drink that has ice in it. It doesn’t matter what the drink is. It just has to have ice.

I doubt myself. Surely, I am not this boring. I’m too young to be this boring. I give the podcast producer a different answer. Because who wants to listen to an old man talking about how much they enjoy beverages with ice?

I don’t remember what I told the producer instead. But they didn’t email me back anyway.

6.

“You know, it’s funny,” Laura says, “but the new glasses really do bring me joy.”

“Me too,” I say. “They’re nice!” And we smile at each other, as we both take a drink.

This post was partly inspired by this one by Amy Key, which I loved.