Ten Regrets

The list of "things I'd never done but wished I had" was so pedestrian I couldn't get through it without sounding like a contestant on Queen for a Day.

But the list of "things I did but wished I hadn't" was more fun, in a masochistic way, and more revealing, in a blog-appropriate manner, so let's go with that.

TEN REGRETS (in no particular order)

1. Furnishing my Brooklyn apartment with a mattress taken off the street (the bodily infestations came fast and furious)
2. Jobs I stuck with where I worked for really mean-spirited people
3. Marrying an actress (hereinafter referred to as "practice wife")
4. Plunged my fork into a whole, roast suckling pig. Apple in its mouth, eyes shut in a permanent wince, the whole deal. At a restaurant in Manhattan. Practice wife ran to the Ladies' Room and -- well, did what the rest of us wished we could have done.
5. While terribly drunk, threatened my mother with bodily harm. The next day my father said, "You know, you've got a great set of teeth. And if you don't watch it, you're gonna wake up one morning and half of them will be missing."
6. Let my brother convince me, at age 4, to go downstairs to my teenage sister's party -- buck naked.
7. Moved too far from True Ann-Sister to see her and her husband every day.
8. Yelled so loud at my oldest daughter that my lungs practically bled.
9. Played Banquo in "The Scottish Play," and let myself be convinced to play the ghost at a student matinee as I had done it at normal performances: in a G-string, covered in white body paint and chocolate sauce (which looks just like blood under the lights. Unfortunately, it smells just like chocolate sauce).
10. And -- this one will really kill Danny Miller -- in 1979, decided to not incur the additional cost of changing my itinerary while on a college singing tour. This decision meant that I had three days of sight-seeing in Rome, instead of spending extra time in Monte Carlo and attending an invitation-only dinner, for a few lucky friends of Prince Al, hosted by Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. I suppose I thought I was being cool, casually dissing royalty so I could see the world. I wound up sick in bed in Rome for half the time I was there.

I beg forgiveness -- for what I've done, for what I haven't done, and for these lists.

--T.A.

Comments

[Danny]

Love reading lists like this! They seem to invite judgment from others so here goes:

Regarding #1, what were you thinking?! That is not the action of the neurotic Jew I believe you are. I feel a rash coming on myself just reading about it.

I bet you learned an awful lot from your #3 experience that helped you later in life. Do you REALLY regret this (i.e., wish it had never taken place)?

Loved your father's reaction in #5. What a guy!

#7 is very moving. I'm sure your sister is verklempt.

Are there any pictures of #9 floating around the Internet? (There will be if you ever decide to run for public office.)

Oy, #10. You're right, who am I to say, but...YOU ARE INSANE!! I don't believe in a vengeful God but He rightfully struck you down in Rome for your youthful folly. Diss Queen Elizabeth if you must but never Princess Grace! Oh well, at least it made your Top Ten list of regrets, that's something anyway.

Hey, it's fun providing unasked-for commentary on someone else's life. It helps me avoid looking at my own encyclopedia of regret.

[Ally]

I'd never heard that Dad said that. It's so much more effective than "you don't handle your liquor so well, fella."

Your forgot a few regrets: going out to the Gulf Stream in a small fishing boat; hitting golf balls off the roof of 5825 S. Dorchester with a baseball bat (or was that only me?); having your best friend instead of your brother be your best man at your first wedding (karma is real).

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

#3: can also be called "the first draft"

#4: God was punishing you

#6: permit yourself to get over it

#8: the equivalent is my #1

Love the list -- and the comments. You're in so deep you'll have to create a metalist: Ten Lists I Megret Making.

[david]

Danny: Oy, I knew that #10 was going to get you. As for #1, seeing as I was living with Practice Wife, I really wasn't embracing my neurotic Jewishness at that point. As for #3, it's part of a whole phase of life where I made a series of profoundly misguided decisions. But ... that's life!

Ally: Aside from the Gulf Stream, those regrets are yours, not mine (yes, I hit golf balls off the roof of our building, but no, I don't regret it).

And if someone had told me that your brother was **supposed** to be your best man, I'd have had no problem. I thought that was a choice that losers with no friends made -- oops, sorry.

Richard: I'd get over #6 if only my sister Martha didn't mention it every time she sees a particular friend who was at that party and still mentions it when they get together -- or is that rationalizing. I deeply recognize your #1, and still practically retch at the thought of #4.

Thanks, all, for the interest. I've now listed 30 things about me. Only 70 to go.
--T.A.

[amba]

I could never post my regrets. They're huge and not funny.

[Tamar]

I was thinking that too, Amba!