May. 19, 2003 - 23:35:11
Dear Vincent,
There's a couple a know 'of', we'll call them Bethany and Tim. Bethany and Tim, as the singular noun form of 'a couple' are friends of Rob and Meg, the couple I'm friends with. Around Christmas time I was at a get together with Rob, Meg, Beth and Tim. Beth and Tim were being particularly gooey. Meg informed me, "It's because Beth bought Tim his own star for Christmas and had it named after him. There was a certificate with its coordinates and everything." "How does she know they don't just sell the same star to everyone?" I asked. Meg shrugged and suggested, "Probably not a question to ask Beth."
The recital was this weekend. It came and went with nominal amounts of rioting and unadulterated wrath and so I'm inclined to say it went well. Nevertheless, life very abruptly became calm today. It is so calm in fact, that the calmness is almost slightly wild, and a little harsh. This morning I felt it was necessary to bolt from bed. But when I got up, I realized that the tasks awaiting me were trifling at best. I still feel on edge, as though I was not really clear of the blast yet. Must be inertia.
Lately, I've started filling in conversations I don't hear the ends of. A youngish man walked behind me speaking with his friend in heavily accented, careful English. They were both in business suits with their jackets flapping open. As I stopped to turn in somewhere, I listened to the man with an accent speak for a few seconds. "...Here," he said with emphasis suggesting comparison, "you smile at people to greet them and..." The conversation faded tantalizingly as the speaker propelled his friend down the sidewalk. For the next hour or so I finished their conversation in my head, starting with that sentence a few times. "Here, you smile at people to greet them..." and they turn around to see who you're smiling at. "Here, you smile at people to greet them..." and they pretend they don't see you. "Here, you smile at people to greet them..." and they shake your hand so hard that it feels like all the bones in your hand are going to crack and when they let go your hand is a useless mangled mass of bone and tissue. Not likely how the conversations ended, but it's habit forming.
The too-hard-handshake is a pet peeve of mine. A slight pressure is really all that's necessary. It's characteristic of any white collar worker. It's all because when little Jim when for his first job interview Pop told him to have a firm handshake. Sometimes I watch men shake hands... and they keep shaking... and keep shaking, until one of them winces and lets go. It's like watching a game of mercy. I have a firm handshake of my own that I keep under file. I have to be very careful about using it though. It you use the firm handshake on the wrong guy, he thinks you want to see who has the better firm handshake. In which case, you then end up shaking hands for an unprecedented amount of time and likely, I can feel my bones splintering by the time they decide they win.
Arthur is the only person I know who is aware when I'm not paying attention. We were walking out of the movies about a week ago and I was half listening to the people behind us. "You're listening to the people behind us Meghan, stop it, and focus." I could feel myself blush but I suppose that there are certain things you can't really hide from your close friends.
When I settled myself on the picnic table the other evening the first think I thought of was being cold so I went to go get a sweater. The cloud cover blew over for about 45 minutes, just long enough for me to see most of the eclipse. For a while I tried to list the people I knew who would be watching the eclipse. But there were very few because it's not the sort of thing many of my friends would know about. Since moons are the stuff of romance, I tried to recall some of the romantic things that have happened to me, this list was also rather small and I kept coming back to one story, which is not at all romantic, though I suppose I thought it to be at the time. And here we go Vincent, another story...
When I was in grade school I had my first 'boyfriend.' His name was Matt. He was shorter than I, quieter than I and consequently, quieter than everyone I knew. Everyday, he said hi to me on the playground, reinforced of course, by the kickball guys. And I would return enthusiastically, "Hi!" punctuated by a bunch of giggling girls. Valentine's day rolled around, and the day of, rumors were flying that Matt was going to give me candy. (Equivocate this to getting married in grade school Vincent.) That evening I waited, and waited and waited and when he didn't come, my grade school heart was broken and I sat in the bathtub with a book before I put on my pink feet-in pajamas with little bows on the front and purple lettering that said, "Megan (they never had any name stuff with my name spelled correctly) is a Super Kid." As I came down the steps the doorbell rang. I jumped the rest of the flight and remain amazed to this day that I didn't break something because I jumped from the 9th step. When I answered the door Matt was standing there, boldly half hiding behind the porch chair. When he stepped forward, he grinned and said, "here" while handing me the candy. Suddenly he noticed my bright pink pajamas and blushed furiously. But he covered it nicely, offering, (hey this story has a cliché, I'd forgotten) "You look pretty in pink." And so I glared reproachfully at the diminishing moon, that he could only inspire such inadequate memories of 'romance.' But Vincent, I do think I look rather nice in pink.
I used to read in the bathtub quite a bit. I remember the once I dropped a book. It was "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy and it is a hulk of a book. I can remember the definitive splash as it hit the water. The woman on the front, who was supposed to be Anna herself watched me accusingly as she sank beneath the suds. Six hundred pages soaked up an unprecedented amount of water. I am certain the bath was at least an inch shallower when I got back in. As I stood letting 'Anna' drip above the tub for at least an half an hour the only consolation I could offer myself was that Tolstoy was wordy and maybe he deserved it. But I was just being spiteful. Though I dried it beneath the heaviest books I could gather from around the house (and mind you "David Copperfield" "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "Crime and Punishment" and an old year book for good measure are heavy books) the book still dried with pages splayed frantically.
But nothing beat the look on the librarian's face as I woefully pushed it across the counter towards her. After I grievously explained what had happened she screeched sanctimoniously, "Tolstoy would not approve! Books are not for bathtubs!" As I paid for the book she continued to lecture me... "Tolstoy is like to be turning over in his grave!" Oh how tempted I was to say, "Oh, did you know him?" Having mutilated the copy of 'Anna' I considered it best to bite my tongue. "In Tolstoy's time..." she continued, "books were a rarity and treated with some respect. And if a girl were caught with a book in those days, well I don't think you know how lucky you are. Girls weren't allowed to read, if they caught girls with books they burned the book or..." "Dropped it into a bathtub?" I leapt in. She stared at me hostilely. Perhaps it was for that last remark that I didn't get to keep the copy of 'Anna' I'd ruined and paid for. The librarian made a great show of dropping the book into a garbage can and remarking, "It's ruined now." "Can't I have it?" I asked. "NO," she snapped, "its ruined." Oddly enough, the 'ruined' copy of 'Anna' showed up on the shelf by my next visit to the library, right next to an insultingly new copy with an as yet unbroken spine. So I took out my 'ruined' copy and finished the book. Every time I passed by my 'Anna' for a few years I would gleefully think, 'Oops.' They took it our of circulation about a year back and I was no less than distraught Vincent.
Cataclysmically,
Meghan
what they said - what they will say
