We love spelling; it makes us feel normal

Yours truly went to the National Spelling Bee in 1981, representing the fair state of West Virginia, including Putnam County. (The damned word was “fulsome“. I came in at #40 in the national competition.) So it’s only reasonable that I should fall utterly in love with the score from “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” an adorable little musical that celebrates the essence of geek. It speaks to me!

Stop dragging this butt around

Rehearsals are great fun because I can strike up a great deal of trouble without saying a damned word. The key to being truly obnoxious is using the standard actor library of facial expressions. As we’re rehearsing Valerie’s new play, I start a conversation with Allison, who I’ve just met. Allison is a rangy, cordial, easygoing Texas actress who produces her own theater and does occasional stage reads. As I chat her up, she sort of reaches behind my head and tugs on a tuft of my hair.

“What, is something wrong with my hair?” I ask.

“Oh, I think you have stuff in it,” says Allison.

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “That’s, um, hair product. I put in some extra product today.”

“Product?” she asks.

“Product,” I say.

“Actually, it’s not the product,” says Allison. “Your hair is sticking up in back.”

“It’s the product,” I say.

“This look is okay for really young men,” she contemplated, tugging on the back of my head. “But for older men? it’s not…” She trailed off.

At this point, I turned and gave her look #43. Now look #43, for those of you who are not professional actors, is a mix of sadness, offense and surprise.

“Oh? I didn’t mean? that is…” She covered her mouth. “Did I just really say that?”

“I’m not so old as that,” I said, subtly shifting into the #43a sequence, my lips quivering, tears in my eyes. “Not… so… very… old…”

She laughed nervously. “Oh my God. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh, look at my hair! It?s got gray in it, yes? Gray! Can you imagine that?”

I snuffled. Cue #43b. “I think… it looks very nice.”

Allison proceeded to turn a beautiful shade of mauve and remained thus for several minutes at least, until I changed the topic of conversation to balls. Pool balls. It was a plot point in the play. Never mind. So later, the cast is hanging out around the piano and I’m playing every 1980s pop song ever written and Allison comes up. “Wow, you have an astounding hidden ability with the piano,”she says.

“Thanks,” I say.

Conversationally, she asks, ?Do you have any other hidden abilities??

I give her look #76. This is the look that Riff Raff wore around during most of The Rocky Horror Show, kind of a lecherous lustful dangerous evil grimace thing. Allison cackles and gives me a light swat on the butt.

“I’m not even sure what that look means,” I say.

Allison says, “Yeah! Uh, did I just touch your butt?”

I go back to #43a.

Allison says, “I don?t even know you that well and I just touched your butt. Oh my God.”

Seamless transition to #43b. I say, “Not just touched. Grabbed my butt.”

She?s back to mauve again. “I did not grab your butt!”

I break out of #43b long enough to say, “That, right there, was a full-on butt grab you did. Big old handful of my very own personal butt.” Back into #43b. She just starts cackling again, so I go over to Tom, the director, and say, “Do something about Alison!”

“What did she do?” says Tom.

“She grabbed my butt and called me old!” I say.

“What do you want me to do about it?” says Tom.

I collapse into his arms, break into #76 and holler, “I want you to grab my butt and call me old too!” I love rehearsals.

And if I had the choice, yeah, I’d always wanna be there

Thank you for filling out our online questionnaire.
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YOUR RESPONSE:

Class:  1991
First Name:  John
Middle Name (if any):  W
Current Last Name:  Byrd
Home Country:  United States
Occupation:  Vice President of Business Development
Type of Business:  Video games
Spouse:  Amanda Kalikow Byrd
Date of Marriage:  Aug 22, 1998
Spouse's Degree Inst. 1:  Harvard College
Spouse's Degree Year 1:  1991
Spouse's Occupation:  Director of Development
NARRATIVE:  What a great fifteen years it's been!  Shortly after graduation, I gained the
ability to reverse time for up to ten seconds.  After my death, the evil clown Slo'or reconstructed me
from my DNA fossil record.  Now I can only be harmed by lava.  Current personal goals include conquering
all of California and enslaving it unto my dark, indomitable will.  Armed with my dystronic
Stratocaster, my plan cannot possibly fail this time. 
Bwah hah hah hah!
__END OF RESPONSE__

Lord, them Delta women think the world of me

Down three flights of stairs, up two, jump on the subway; dammit it’s the wrong one! An unwanted side trip to seething Shibuya Station, and I can’t cross to the eastbound Hanzomon line without exiting, down three flights of stairs, up one, across the courtyard, down four flights, up two, caught the subway ten stops to a flat escalator snaking up a low hill to the limousine bus (same as a regular bus, still) to Narita Airport, where I flash a passport and hustle through the Red Carpet Club (returning someone’s lost passport on the way) to United 852 (exit row) to SFO to walk through immigration control then twenty percent tip to a taxi home.

Eight thousand, six hundred, thirty-two miles, three days, thousands of dollars. Is what I have to say so damned important?

When it’s time to leave here I hope you’ll understand

Commute today: the wife drives me (in the new Prius) to the airport, and it’s ten minutes in the red-carpet lounge for a mini-bagel and coffee — seat 1C to LAX, a shuttle to the Tom Bradley International Terminal, through customs, into the ANA first-class suite for more coffee, then eleven sunshine-filled hours to Tokyo, then a bus takes us to the main terminal, through immigration, a limousine bus (it’s just a regular bus, only more expensive) to Akasaka, up the hill to Villa Fontaine Roppongi.

To find the truth, I’ve even lied

Kaiser Hospital, South City. The technician behind the desk squints at my paperwork. “What is this?” she said, turning the form on its side. “Bleeding time? I’m not sure we know how to do a bleeding time test here.”

And when the technician said ‘bleeding time’ my heart jumped a little bit into my throat. Now I love the good horror movie from time to time, and I’ve even played and enjoyed Dracula myself. But there’s something about the phrase ‘bleeding time’ that makes my heart quicken. Once blood ceases being corn syrup and food coloring and turns into the real iron-based platelet stuff, I begin to freak out. I donated blood once when I was in high school, before I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I gave a pint of blood and the phlebotomist held the bag to my face and said, “Good job… it’s warm, just like you.” I don’t remember anything after that.

“Oh, you need a bleeding time test,” said the technician. “Let’s get all these other blood tests out of the way first, and then we’ll do a bleeding time test after that.”

“Now wait a minute, are you saying that –”

“Back this way please.” I followed the technician past rows and rows of people being stuck by phlebotomists. The other patients were cool, mellow, indifferent even. I saw rows and rows of big fat needles sticking into people’s arms. I started to pant a little but kept my cool.

The technician opened another door. “Sit down,” she said. This was a private room with one tilted chair, like a dentist’s chair. To the right of the chair was a steel-framed H. She closed the door behind me and I swear that I could have heard a pneumatic hiss as the door slammed shut.

I listened to the voices on the other side of the door. “John Byrd, yes… He needs a bleeding time test… need the blood work before the bleeding time test…” I could have pounded on the door, but I’m sure it would have been no use.

After about five days the door opened and in came this fiftyish Asian woman. Her name tag read ‘Manager — Phlebotomist II.’ “John? Are you here for the special test?”

“Actually, I was kind of hoping for the ordinary test,” I said.

“We’re going to draw some of your blood and then we will do the bleeding time test,” she said.

“I am drastically aware of this fact,” I said.

She pushed a little shelf underneath my elbows. I said, “Other phlebotomists have done this to me before. They always collapse my veins.”

“Mmmm,” said Manager Phlebotomist II, nodding. She pulled out a butterfly needle and half a dozen vials. “Now I want you to make a fist,” she said as she tied a bit of rubber around my upper arm and swabbed it with alcohol. “Here, your vein is right here. Mmm, let me see your right arm. Yes, your vein is better here in your left arm. For the bleeding time test. Now don’t move. AAAARGH!” And she raised the needle over her head and stabbed it into my left eye, and I staggered around the room for a while screaming. Actually, that didn’t happen. She stabbed the needle into my left arm, and wiggled just a teensy bit, and then puuushed…

I grabbed hold of the table and thought of Mozart’s Sonata #11 in A.

Manager Phlebotomist II sighed, sounding annoyed. “This isn’t working,” she said. “Your vein is collapsing too much.”

I picked up the clipboard and brained her with it, I yanked out the needle, and ran for the door. Actually, that didn’t happen. Instead, I said, “Now what?”

Manager Phlebotomist II pulled out the needle and taped a bit of cotton on my arm. “Give me your other arm,” she said. “Are you OK?”

“Um, sure,” I said. Actually, that didn’t happen. Instead, I said, “I really hate needles. I really hate this.”

Manager Phlebotomist II said, “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be very gentle this time.” She pulled out another needle and began prepping my right arm.

“What’s the, um, bleeding test?” I asked.

Manager Phlebotomist II said, “We make two incisions and time the amount of time that it takes for the blood to coagulate.”

I gulped. “Does it hurt?”

Manager Phlebotomist II said, “Oh, it won’t hurt so much. Not as much as some things anyway. It’s just a little…” And she stuck her tongue out at me, making a little moue of distaste.

I blinked.

She stuck the butterfly needle into my right arm and pulled six vials of blood, each one giving a little dart of pain when she pushed it into the needle. She taped up my right arm with a cotton ball.

“Now the bleeding time test,” said Manager Phlebotomist II. She leapt across the shelf and sank her incisors into my throat and, though I beat her with my fists, she hung on until my consciousness slowly drained out of me. Actually, that didn’t happen. Instead, she said, “We make two incisions and clock the amount of time it takes for your blood to coagulate. Left arm again, please.” She opened a drawer and lifted out a little plastic bag labeled Surgicutt.

I want to die. I want to be killed instantly by a meteor. Anything but this. Anything but the Surgicutt.

Manager Phlebotomist II swabbed me again and placed the Surgicutt on my arm and clicked a button, and the blades cut two 1mm deep by 5 mm long scratches in my arm — two teeny little paper cuts.

“Actually, that didn’t hurt so much,” I said.

“Actually, you are a huge pussy,” said Manager Phlebotomist II. Actually, that didn’t happen.