. . . made me do it. I mean, screw up Evie Shockley and John Erwin Doerper's "Meme" blogs. I thought I knew what it meant, started writing, realized I didn't know how to do it (a "Meme"), but left a comment just hanging there.

Panicked, I looked in the dictionary but couldn't find the word "Meme." I aplogized for the mess up on John's blog, but still feel guilty. Anyway, I have several good excuses for my behavior—I've been hallucinating. Head cold for one thing.

Then, I was reading John Updike's Seek My Face. Updike started out to be a painter, you know. Anyway, this novel is his take on Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner and that strong American Abstract Expressionist movement in the 1930s and `40s; penetrating stuff, but so much wayward talent and crippled lives, it was also depressing, so, taken with my head cold, added to my sense of being at sea.

So I put down Seek My Face and picked up John Irving's The Imaginary Girlfriend, which is about Irving's time at Phillips Exeter Academy and then college, but mainly about his life as a wrestler, about the character forming in the burgeoning writer-wrestler who would write The World According to Garp and Cider House Rules.

Well, this wasn't much better. I wrestled too, you see, in high school and college, and the same weight classification in high school as Irving (133, though my natural weight then was 155, no idea what Irving's was), and when Irving went into these scenes about making weight— you wrestle your natural weight you better be damn good, because your opponent is going to be bigger than you, bigger frame, taller, that kind of thing, probably larger muscles, but the same weight (odd how that works)—well, I remembered my own experiences—starving myself, spitting, running in place in three sweat suits, ignoring girls who were ignoring me—and began to hallucinate again.

So I put that book down, and checked the computer and got an email chain letter that threatened recipients if they didn't send it on to more people. It also warned darkly no one had better delete the message. Well, you don't talk that way to a wrestler who reads Irving; shortly after that I came across the meme, and, out of sorts by a head cold, Updike and Irving and the chain letter, screwed that up.

And, really, I also blame it on the tooth. Knocked a tooth right out of my head _ bit on a rock in granola (one of nature's gifts), loosened it, was told by my dentist, James, if I was careful the tooth might tighten and be saved, but then a week later bit on a lollipop (a glass of wine made me forget to not bite on anything hard), the tooth pretended to survive that, but when I visited a graveyard the next day because a friend said a famous artist's gravesite needed tending and I wanted to check it out, at that moment the tooth, understandably feeling it was in the appropriate place, fell out. I didn't bury it, feeling it had one more chance, but James, with a souful look, said it was finis for la tuth.

This was more than a week ago and has made me think a lot about another nightmarish novel _ also not recommended reading when you are already hallucinating—Dostoevski's Notes from the Underground. If you'll recall, he writes for a bit about a toothache; how, though it might be painful, one could make a lot of noise about it before having it pulled, moan and all that, and make the listeners suffer, as I am doing to you, thus deriving some pleasure out of a bad situation by making other people wretched, too. Dostoevski understood people.

Anyway, Dostoevski aside, it looks like an implant for me. Bring up implants with people now and then, they are a good conversation starter, a great way to liven up a party. You'd be amazed how many people have them. Sometimes you'll see a little pause before the implanted come clean. And I'm not knocking implants. There are some wonderful stories about kids and beautiful women who have been saved by them after accidents. They're great and we're lucky people have the skill to do them.

Anyway, Updike mentioned in Seek My Face that the Krasner character had had some implants; he didn't say if he had any, but I think it's possible, since he seemed at home with the subject (that's the trouble with being a good writer; we tend to think it's autobiograhpical: "George walked with a pigeon-toed gait." "Hey, honey, Updike's pigeon-toed!"). Don't know about Irving; wrestling doesn't take out nearly as many teeth as football or hockey, but there's always the possibility, and Irving has stayed involved with the sport so it's unlikely he's moved on to "Memes".