Shhhhhh-owa

Shhhhhh-owa

          One of the funniest comedy bits ever produced was the 2,000-Year-Old Man by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner.  I can repeat a number o the lines from that riff that always make me laugh.  None makes me laugh louder that the one where Reiner (the interviewer) ask Brooks (the 2,000-year-old man) if they had language 2,000 years ago.  He says they certainly did, so Reiner follows-up by asking how language came about.  Brooks says, “it was mostly onamonapoetica.”  Of course, he meant that it was about onomatopoeia, the formation of words from the sounds associated with that word. Reiner asks for clarification.  Brooks goes on to say, “well, take the word shower, first there was running water, which went Shhhhhh, then there was hot water, so you had Shhhhhh….Ow!  Shhhhhh-owa!”

          Now that I’ve stopped laughing from having to figure out how to write that bit, ask yourself how they came up with that.  Obviously, Brooks (or maybe it was Reiner) was in the shower one morning and his mind wandered the way an over-active mind can, and he thought about how the word shower came about.  He could hear the Shhhhhh overhead and it was a quick jump to the big issue of showers, which is balancing the hot and the cold water.  Easy, if you have the mind of a creative genius like Mel Brooks or Carl Reiner…and a touchy shower handle.

          Well, I get into the perfect shower in my New York rental apartment every morning at about 7am.  I say it is perfect because I’ve had a lot of showers and this one is damn close to perfect.  New York rental apartments have taken a decidedly impressive turn for the better in the past decade.  They are all made with condo-quality fittings and fixtures.  So my shower is easy to enter (no tub), easy to fit in (it is roomy but not gigantic), has no door, but just a glass wall that sufficiently contains the water spray.  So far, it is physically perfect for entry and exit.  Then it has one simple handle that I can quickly push to the exact point where I know the temperature is just right for me (my wife I’m sure pushes it more to the left since she likes a hotter shower than I do).  The head is high enough for my 6’5” (and shrinking) frame, and the flow is strong and consistent.  I get into my shower and say “ahhh” to myself.  Then, when I am done, I can towel off in the shower, thus keeping the floor more or less dry.  That is pretty much my definition of shower perfection.

          So now that you are fully informed about my showering habits, why is that good to know?  For as long as there have been showers, people have reveled in them and been inspired during them.  People who want to sing, have the added benefit of good acoustics in the shower.  But I bet most people do some of their best, if brief, thinking in the shower.  You are at ease, you feel that you are doing something good for yourself.  You are washing away all that troubles or ails you.  You feel good and open to suggestion.  I know that is how I feel, and it is human nature for me to either think I am better than you all or that you are all just like me.  I prefer the latter when it comes to showering.  I want your best shower thoughts.

          For me, lately, my shower time is my time to think about and turn over ideas for writing stories.  It is somewhat convenient since I try every morning to write one story after I shower and while I listen to Morning Joe on MSNBC.  If I don’t get an idea for a story while I am showering, I must sit at the keyboard and ponder.  Those days when you see a story that sounds familiar to the day’s current events, you can assume I did not find an idea in the shower and I got an idea from Joe or Mika.  Usually I get three or four ideas in the shower, so between the shower and the desk (interrupted only by putting on my socks), I triage the ideas and start to write by picking a title, and off I go. I try to retain the other ideas for use later in the day if I get time to write a few more stories.  Very rarely will I retain all the ideas and if I don’t use them that day, they go back into the deep recesses of my brain and may or may not come back to the surface at another time or during another shower.  You now know about both my showering habits and how ideation in this nutty mind of mine works.

          This morning was a good shower morning.  It was fertile.  My body was not sore and achy when I got into the shower.  That is important since my attention in the shower can easily be diverted to having the hot water soothe my aching bones.  I felt good going under the Shhhhhh, so I got perhaps four ideas (I can maybe hold five in my head, but that’s pushing it, three being the ideal number).  So, this morning I thought about the very issue of ideas coming out of the shower, and voila!

          The problem with getting a strong idea bias, which this was, is that it minimizes the mindshare for those other three ideas and I will struggle later in the day to recall what the other fine ideas I had were all about.  Once I write my story and reread it once or twice, I move on. I like that about short story and blog writing.  It suits my attention span.  In some ways, its just like my showering habits.  I get in, do my business, maybe relish the Shhhhhh for an extra second or two, and then get out and towel off.  I do not languish in the shower or languish and wallow in my writing.

          I feel a good sense of accomplishment after I shower, and I feel a good sense of accomplishment after I write and post a story.  Feeling good at the start of the day is important to me and probably most people.  Getting off on a good foot is valuable.  Lazy non-showering days are fine once in a while, but they have a very different, less-productive feel about them.  I guess I feel the same way about writing.  I need to cleanse my mind of random thoughts and get a sense that I am off on a good foot for the day by writing a story.  I think the discipline is as important as anything to good writing.  I consider it my job to shower and to write as many mornings as I can.

          When Carl Reiner asks the 2,000-year-old man if he had a job 2,000 years ago, Brooks says, “Oh….back then jobs were hard to find.  Hitting a tree with a stick was a good job.”  Look how far we have evolved in 2,000 years. Now, showering and writing a story are a good job.