Don't Touch Me, Touch Me

Sometimes my daughters would bring boys of interest as guests to the beach club.  They would head to the surf and frolic in the water. My daughters would say to the boy with a giggle Don’t throw me! And the boy of interest would then hoist them in the air and toss them into the crashing waves. My girls called this aqua-flirting.

My grandmother called it something else—Non toccarmi, toccami. The English translation from Italian is—Don’t touch me, touch me.

And from talk shows and pop culture magazines I have become aware that the biggest tipsters to TMZ and the paparazzi are the celebrities themselves. High profile people create an arena of publicity just so they can complain about the ensuing circus. Stars solicit photographers to take photos while saying don’t take them.

I recently had the occasion to be in a room of acquaintances, friends, and good friends. Many complimented me on my writing. And to that end some said please do not write about me—which is a request I am more than happy to honor. Not everyone enjoys the spotlight. But curiously five minutes from some people expressing the don’t write about me request, they then turned to me after an engaging story or two to say you should definitely blog about this—this is too funny not to write about.

And so I guess I have given some of the people who requested that I not write about them exactly what they wanted—I wrote about them. I did not speak of them while speaking of them. I protected their story as I exposed them. I gave them their cake, with a taste or two missing.

I call it secr-recounting.