Garlic in My Soul

 

By Amy Lane

 

 

Okay—I shall admit, I’m writing on fumes here, which really bites when you’re trying to say something fantastic and witty and interesting in command.  And I was wondering (read: surfing) what to write this afternoon when I came upon a Tweet talking about the theme song from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

 

And I had a moment of unadulterated longing.

 

Because the metaphors in that song have always turned my key.

 

Yes, I’m a fan of profanity—I am.  I just wrote an entire blog post on why I think the F-word is eFFin’ awesome, and I meant it.  But something about using sex words to swear sort of takes away their power from, you know, sex, right?

 

I mean, it’s one thing to call an asshole a “c***whacking c***sucker” when you don’t know any better, but after you write a little ménage, you start thinking that a “c***whacking c***sucker” not only doesn’t sound like an asshole, but you’d sort of like to see somebody start playing with his asshole, and then you’d really want to write that scene.

 

So, if that option is off the table, what do you say to the lowest of the low, the nastiest of the nasty, the sheer stinking eeebillllest of sheer stinking eeebilllll…

 

You say, “Your heart is full of unwashed socks, you have garlic in your soul.”

 

And anybody who has done laundry or let their non-refrigerated produce go bad will immediately know that this is a bad bad person.  The ultimate bad.

 

Grinchly bad.

 

And oh!  How I yearn to write those metaphors.

 

I do have to remind myself that Dr. Seuss was actually the king of the rewrite.  He spent months on a child’s book, the seemingly effortless doggerel that was his hallmark was actually labored, sweated, and ached over, buffed, polished, made perfect and ready for love.  His charming, apparently simple little pictures were sketched, erased, sketched again, inked, re-drawn.  Theodore Geisel’s work remains beloved because every brightly typed letter was a typeset, inked-over piece of Mr. Geisel’s soul, and it would behoove me to remember it.

 

Theodore Geisel never, to my knowledge, woke up from a semi-daze over his computer and screamed, “Oh my fuckin’ God, I have a deadline! LET THE BRILLIANCE COMMENCE!”

 

(Of course, I’m not sure if Theodore Geisel ever actually said the F-word.  I’m thinking he probably had some very original, very G-rated profanity at his disposal.  Thus is the life of a children’s book icon, I would imagine.)

 

And I, as you have probably figured out, am not Theodore Geisel.

 

I am just your friendly neighborhood romance writer, who can swear like a sailor but who longs to paint with words.  Someday soon, after the loopiness of sleep deprivation goes away, when I’m in the middle of knitting, reading, and watching television, I may possibly spin together a phrase of such utter diamond brilliance that the sky trembles and our understanding of language changes shape.

 

In the meantime, I shall doze off in front of my computer, fending off the kids, the cats, the dog, and the spouse, muttering to myself in my sleep.

 

“Don’t bother me, Whos. I’ve got garlic in my soul.”