I am at
home on a friday night. The sad part is that this is usually where i
am on EVERY night of the week. I spent much of today driving around
in the heat (my car has no A/C), so by the time i got home, i was exhausted...
and restless.
Why restless?
I'm on vacation this week. Well, now it's the weekend, so i guess i
should say, "I was on vacation." And as usual, i'm
dateless, bored, thinking too hard about things i shouldn't, feeling
dread and guilt at the thought that i really don't want to practice
on my saxophone. I'm somewhat disgruntled that the LAN is down and my
roommate is gone to houston and since the hardware is his, i'm reticent
to tamper with it too much. I've already bounced the router and cable
modem, to no avail.
So i clean.
Any why
not? I enjoy throwing away crap i've outgrown. I like chunking memories
i have no use for anymore and cleaning allows me to do that. It also
allows me to bring some order into my life.
But a few
minutes ago, i reached down to a stack of letters that i had all but
forgotten about. They're in the trash now, though i've half a mind to
pull them out and send them to the person who wrote them.
Some time
ago, i made a vague reference to forgetting people. It's something that
happens to me now with more frequency than i care to mention. Last year
sometime, i can't remember when, i was still doing the show
[ on austin access, for those who aren't from
around here ]. I got a call from a woman who asked me
where she could write me. I said to wait for my e-mail address, which
would be on the screen shortly. "Sorry, i dont do e-mail",
she said. Whatever. In Austin, saying you don't do e-mail is like saying
you don't talk to people on the telephone, or maybe more appropriately,
it's like saying you only correspond by telegraph.
Like i
said, "Whatever."
But i thought
about it. It kind of irritated me but interested me at the same time.
What the hell? The next week i went back on the air and asked for the
woman who had called and asked me where to write me. And she called.
And we
wrote. Good grief... we wrote lots and lots. Designer paper, nice penmanship,
10 or so pages at a time. Real letter writing, mind you. Eventually
we met. She looked kind of like Jodi Foster, she had a mind as sharp
as a whip, some stories to tell about a sickness her mother had endured
[ and died of, as a result ] and truth
be told, she did the most grueling job that anyone could possibly do:
Child Protective Services. I used to date a woman who did the same job
and let me tell you, if you don't believe that there are monsters in
this world... if you think there's no such thing as evil incarnate,
then go spend some quality time with a case worker with Child Protective
Services and pull your head out of the sand in the process.
Oh. One
thing before i go further. Sometimes humor and sarcasm don't transmit
via e-mail or letters very well. Compound that with not knowing someone
very well and you have the makings of an awkward misunderstanding. We
had one such misunderstanding. Basically she made a jab about wanting
to stalk me. Because of the nature of doing live Tee Vee, because ocassionally
people DO stalk, i wrote her back a very firm and unambiguous
response.
We eventually
met. I enjoyed talking to her, but there really wasn't any chemistry
there. I wanted there to be, but it just wasn't happening. And that's
okay, 'cause i seriously doubt it was happening for her either. There
was also my inner voice telling me to stay away... VERY far away from
her. See... she liked to hold grudges. Even after clarifying the misunderstanding,
i found myself digging my heels in against her barrage of, "You're
such a mean person." And if you know my past, you know that 1)
it's bullshit and 2) being accused of being someone i'm not nor ever
have been really pisses me off. Then there was the additional fact that
in normal conversation, she'd comment about so-and-so and how much anger
she had towards them.
I
think it's pretty goddamned safe to say that i've had enough of angry
women in my life.
I quit
calling. I quit writing. I quit feeling guilty about both very
fast. And in less than two weeks, i had forgotten her name. The letters
kept coming and i just piled them with the others. I had no intention
of opening them but i couldn't throw them away either. I guess i'm a
pussy like that.
One day
i was about to walk out the door and my fone rang. Grrrr... i don't
get many fone calls, so i stopped what i was doing.
"Hello"
"Hi
Shelly, it's me, ****. "
I just
stared for a while while drawing a blank. "Who?"
"****
! "
I thought
about the name for about 4 or 5 seconds and i finally remembered who
she was. "Oh.. you! Yea, well, this isn't a good time to talk."
I made it a point of not saying "I'll call you back."
or "Why don't you call me back in a few hours?" I had managed
to forget who she was and i really had no intention of staying in touch
with her. Like i said, it's pretty goddamned safe to say that i've had
enough angry women in my life.
I sent
a book that she had lent me back to her a few week later and her letters
kept arriving. They kept being left unopened and put into the stack
with all the others. They've been there since last year or at the latest,
this last winter. I can't remember nor do i care to.
So tonight
i'm cleaning. I find this pile of dust covered letters from her. I think
about it for a moment and make my mind. Though i'm momentarily curious
about what kind of snipes and shots she takes at me in her notes, i
put the thoughts aside as i give them a new home in the trashcan.
And now
i'm deliberating. Do i pull them out and send them back to her? On the
one hand, i think that's the honorable thing to do. On the other hand,
she might write me back and i'd have to start a new pile of unopened
mail.
Between
her, my ex and a few others, i am SO sick and
tired of angry women.
