Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(3)

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On the subject of ice—once we sort out this Donald Trump situation, I would like my social activism to focus solely on the integrity of ice.

Temperature and ice are two of my most learned subject matters.

I feel strongly that everybody needs to get on the same page with ice. It’s an international issue, and there aren’t enough people taking it seriously. Just like there’s an appropriate glass for every libation, there is an appropriate amount of ice as well. It’s called, Whatever you’re thinking—double it. If you’ve ever been to Europe, then you know what I’m talking about. No one wants a warm cocktail, and the only reason Europeans tolerate the ice situation there is because ice is not high on the European Union’s list of priorities.

    Two ice cubes in a mixed-drink glass do not even begin to cool your drink. The fewer the ice cubes, the less consolidation the ice has—therefore, you may as well just add water. If anyone wanted a vodka and soda with a splash of water, it would be its own thing by now. Cocktails should be cold. Cubes. Plural. Not the rapper.

Mary’s ice in her freezer always has corn mixed in it. She says it’s because she has three little girls, but I don’t see how that correlates to corn in her ice maker. Anyway, when I go to Mary’s, I always have a vodka with corn on the rocks. She says that the ice and corn are both frozen and that I should just think of the corn as extra ice.



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I’m not embarrassed by my feelings for Robert Mueller. Surprised, maybe—but not embarrassed. I am legitimately attracted to him and everything he stands for. I respect the shit out of him, and I suspect there will be a lot of people naming their baby boys Bob after this whole shitshow is over. Who would have thought a name like Bob would finally take off?

“Boxers or briefs?” I asked. Mary was aghast.

“Chelsea, Bob Mueller is a Marine. Boxers, obviously, and don’t think for a second he’s not also wearing a Fruit of the Loom undershirt to sleep in as well. Snug and tidy. That’s how Marines like it.”

“A wifebeater? Those ribbed ones? Like what gang members wear?”

    “No, dummy. He’s not rolling his face off on molly in Ibiza. It’s a crew neck Fruit of the Loom undershirt—short-sleeved. Think Hanes for men. Bob Mueller is not wearing a fucking tank top.”

Mary’s father was a Marine and Mary knows more than I do regarding just about everything (unless of course I tell her about something—like a diet—that she dismisses and then finds out about it months later from another friend and tells me about it like I wasn’t the one who told her about it in the first place), so more often than not, I defer to her, and I had to accept these musings as cold, hard facts. The only thing I knew about Marines was that they had a strong relationship with water—which, it turns out, they don’t. That’s the Navy. My thoughts were as follows: marine life = sea life, Marines = water army. I’m a literal thinker—at least that’s what my new psychiatrist tells me…or what I tell him.

“Semper fi is a term that Marines use that means ‘always faithful,’?” I told Mary. “It’s the motto of the United States Marines. How hot is that?”

“Yes, I know that, and please don’t start throwing that term around. One, you’re not Latin, and two, you’re not a Marine.”

“Copy that,” I told her, knowing full well I would be adding semper fi to my rotation of words and phrases that no one has used in fifty years.

“You know he still does push-ups every morning and never eats unless it’s for fuel,” Mary added, twirling her hair. “He’s that guy.”

“It’s all so fucking hot,” I said, scouring her liquor cabinet for some Macallan, eager to see how it would taste with frozen corn.

    Imagining Bob Mueller sitting in his boxers and a little boy’s Hanes undershirt with short sleeves while drinking Macallan on the rock—probably in a leather club chair—made me feel like Bob Mueller and I had a lot more in common than anyone would guess, even me. I imagined us playing Clue together in a cozy cabin in the Catskills, learning entirely new strategies to a game I thought I had already intellectually mastered. I understand Bob Mueller is married and unavailable, so I would like to go on the record and say I respect that—while also remaining deeply attracted to him. It wouldn’t matter if he was interested in me or not; I don’t need people to like me in order for me to like them. That’s a new philosophy I’ve been toying with, and I like it.

Through the months of thick fog and despair after the election, he was the one bright spot. He also represented a seminal moment for me personally; I had finally found the first Republican I could see myself being penetrated by. #MuellerTime.



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Back to my midlife crisis. There is a line I had written down from Viktor Frankl’s memoir about surviving the Holocaust, Man’s Search for Meaning, that stopped me cold when I read it: “it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.” I had never thought about what life expected from me. I had only thought about what I expected from life. That was a book putter-downer. It was a look up at the sky and wonder Where the fuck have I been all my life? moment.