Marks

Our yoga class is on vacation this week because it's between terms. G came over Monday night to do yoga ad hoc, and to paint my head. She's been in the park district class for two years and I, about six--several times a week with the same instructor, the incomparable J, who's amazingly consistent with her language as she leads us through the poses. So you'd think G and I would have remembered a whole class to replicate. Well. We took turns leading and saying things like, Put your hands here. Go like this. Move over here. This way. It was quite humbling and I don't know how J manages to breathe, do the poses and guide us at the same time.

G freshened up my jagua juice designs. The juice is a gray-black ink I've been using instead of the henna. She also painted eyes in the back of my head, under the US out of Iraq. I wonder if this will give me 20/20 hindsight.

Later I talked on the phone to J, my actor friend in Madison, Wisconsin, who reported on her performance at a benefit to raise money for a Gilda's Club in town. She used me for source material, as well as the purveyor of my henna, head stencil, and eyebrow makeup: chemochicks.com. She had one of her personas tell the crowd that she had a friend who'd hennaed her head to say Obama in '08. She explained to me that Out of Iraq would be too political. You'd think that all of Madison would be against the war, but J knows her audience. It's a sign of progress that a liberal black man for president is considered non-controversial. But what does it say about the chances for this war to end?

J also told me that she met a woman who did Joan Rivers' makeup who reported that Rivers uses permanent marker for eyeliner. I can't imagine the fumes. Why doesn't she get the liner tattooed on her? J's mother just got tattooed eyebrows and loves them. I'm tempted to put marker on my head, but it doesn't seem healthy. And I can't imagine getting a real tattoo. All those needles!

I was standing in line at the little cafe up the street a while ago when one of the other denizens, a cop, asked me why my message didn't say, Support Your Local Police. I demurred: Too many words. He has thick gray hair with a receding hairline. He said that his scalp has a tattoo that says, US Marine Corps. He was young and drunk at the time. How odd to think that his history will be revealed, slowly, if he goes bald, his own personal archeology.