At the lunch table today, one of the guys I worked with mentioned he
was on steroids for some health issues. “Just what I need,” he said.
“Big biceps, small testicles.” Another person at the table said no,
he would get a “Moon Face” from them.
It was a term I’d never heard before in that context and it caught my
attention because it’s an obscure nickname for Buster Keaton.
A couple of hours later, I’m listening to Paul Auster reading “I
Thought my Father was God” and he says this line: “Her face is big
and round, a moon face because of the steroids.”
I stop for a moment to write this down. It’s odd enough to notice,
one of those little events that eclipses everything else for a moment
or two. The convergence of the two episodes, that strange phrase
popping up in intervals so close together . . . it gets my attention.
And what makes it even more strange is this: Earlier in the day, for
reasons I can’t explain, I changed the desktop icon for my computer.
It had been an elegant little snow lantern for a very long time.
But for some reason this morning I changed it to a moon, round and full.