WEBVTT

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Hi, Mom.

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[LAUGHS] The reason we're
in Tucson this year is that,

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primarily we're doing
something that we

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planned on doing for years.

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And that is spending
a year living

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in the same place with our
best friends, Mark and Bobbie

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Halperin and some new
friends we've made.

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And especially Steve and Gail
Orlen who live next door to us.

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Steve and I have been friends
for about 10 years now.

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We lived in the
same rooming house

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at opposite ends of
the upstairs when

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we were students
in Iowa City and we

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share many of the same neuroses,
so we hit it off right away.

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We wouldn't get up
until the mail came.

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There was no reason for getting
up, otherwise life is trouble.

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And we both slept naked
in our individual rooms

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and this is my first
remembrance of Steve,

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is why I'm telling you this.

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We hear that, though, but well,
he'd hear a screen door slam,

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it meant the mailman had come.

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And the mailboxes were set up
in a row in this rooming house

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downstairs, so Steve and I
would get up, bounce around

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on the walls or
whatever, meet each other

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at the top of the stairs,
walk down, watch the mailman

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while he put the mail in.

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And it wasn't until years
later that we realized

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what a strange experience it
must have been because here's

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this guy--

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Oh!

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The little girl, a
little girl next door.

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Not in years, in size.

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Had a crush on
Steve and she used

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to steal flowers
every night and put

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big sprays of bouquets
in Steve's mailbox,

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sticking out of the mailbox.

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So every day, here's this
mailman come in and he comes in

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and there's a mailbox full
of flowers and two naked guys

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watching him put the
mail in those slots.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I'm going to start with
a bad poem, all right.

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Then things can only get better.

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It's not a poem that I'll
probably even publish,

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but it's a poem that has
some sentimental value to me.

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It's for Steve.

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I've written a number
of poems for Steve.

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This one for all
its badness comes

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close to the sentimental truth,
I guess, in certain ways.

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It's based on an
odd circumstance,

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as I said Steve and I go
through the same crazinesses

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together very often.

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Part of our friendship
is based on the fact

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that we put up with each other
when our wives won't, things,

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you know, things like that.

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And we were off one afternoon
doing our basketball therapy,

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which is going out and
standing there and shooting

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the ball at a
basket and deciding

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that we're going to lose
weight that way or whatever.

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And I was telling Steve
about morning fears

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because when you teach, when you
don't get up to an alarm clock,

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you don't have to
get right out of bed.

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What you do is you lie
in bed for as long as

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possible and after a while
you start getting the crazies.

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You start getting the crazy
fears, or at least we do.

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So I was telling
Steve about this

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and that I was going
through it again,

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and he gave me a
piece of advice.

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He said, as soon as you
wake up, start crawling.

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He said, crawl into the bathroom
and just lie there for a while.

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[LAUGHTER] Not only is
the advice crazy, I think.

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But I'm so neurotic,
I can't even do it.

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I can't even draw it.

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Here's a little poem
called Insomnia.

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For my old pal, Steve Orlen.

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Pal, we live alone.

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It shouldn't be so with
such as us and ours.

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How come?

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How come you said crawl
away from the bed,

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lie on the cold
bathroom tile a while?

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Get up when you're
ready, you said.

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How not to think.

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My pal, ready to praise
the poem I didn't write.

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I praise your lovely face
as awkward as my praise.

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You are the moon by which I fall
at night, the sun by which I

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sleep, if sleep is my reward.

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I keep your arm
across my shoulder.

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We'd probably die
for each other.

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Sleep.

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