Letter to M: The Darker Time

Social: It was a hard slog after my mother died. My dad turned with full, religious conviction to scotch and mallomars to survive. I drove home every weekend to make sure he didn’t pickle himself. A lot of men get married within a year of losing a spouse, but my dad just seemed to take it harder as every day went by, so I spent a lot of time driving back and forth. I had a boyfriend I will describe as “inexplicable” – everything about the relationship was wrong. I don’t know why we got together; I don’t know how we stayed together; I don’t know how any of it happened, but it did. We loved each other, but we fought and we seemed to be constantly hurting each other in one way or another.

Sports: I ran with religious fervor. I completed 4 marathons before I turned 30 – again, with the sole ambition of finishing and not getting hurt. My last marathon was New York in 2000. After the race, I met my brother, went back to his place and took a cold shower. Then I went to the airport, got a flight home and was at work, pain-free the next morning. I don’t even know my time.

Career: It was pretty much in the bag that I would change careers after the requisite grieving period had passed. I tried, and failed, to tell myself that disaster banking was my fate, but I never believed it. What finally pushed me over the edge was something that had nothing to do with work at all.

That boyfriend I always fought with? He didn’t want me in banking either, and he was always after me to try to change jobs somehow. We were always at odds with each other, always arguing. I broke up with after a year, and it was a dark and stormy break up. Lots of rage and recriminations. A certain amount of stalking and scary highway interceptions. In other words, my basic nightmare.

I put up with this for a few months before I encountered him in my front yard at 7am and yelled at him so loud that my neighbors called the police. He fled before so as not to get arrested.

A few months after the yard incident, he hanged himself. His family blamed me, and to this day, they will not acknowledge me even though I have tried to reach out to them a number of ways. I have sent cards, letters. I didn’t dare go to the funeral.

I don’t blame them. It was my fault, when you consider how unhappy I made him. I made him feel bad about himself. I made him feel as if he were not good enough for me. I made him feel like a loser. Then he died. No wonder they blamed me. Whatever the meaning of his death, I have paid for it over and over again on the wheel of karma.

One result of all this was that Kerry (that was his name) left me money to go to graduate school. I gave it back to his family, of course, but I did apply to graduate school to get an MA in English. I had no clear idea at the time whether I would be able to get teaching work; I just knew I couldn’t do the banking thing anymore. I spent two years getting my MA and instantly got a job – really good luck there – except not, which I will explain next time I sit down to write.

Letter to M: The Dark Time

Letter to M: The Dark Time

My plans to move to NYC forestalled, I moved back in with my parents. I lived with them while my mother completed treatment for the recurring cancer, and I got menial temp work so the main focus stayed at home. Then one of my menial jobs offered me a promotion – a whole $24,000 a year. The catch was I had to move to Raleigh, NC, and that meant separation from my mother. I reluctantly took this job and moved. But not before I had a really not so nice boyfriend who taught me many lessons about lying and how unseriously people take that particular sin. I still want to egg his car.

On $24,000 a year, I could afford a two bedroom apartment overlooking a lake, a car, a cat and as many “Carolina Blue” cups as they would sell me at “He’s not Here” – a bar in Chapel Hill where I did most of my socializing. As luck would have it, a few of my sorority sisters had gone to graduate school there, so I had a social life waiting for me when I arrived.

Career: If my career has one unifying principle, it is “if you are unhappy, quit.” I quit about one job a year for a while there – all while I was doing b-c lending. I am sure you know what this is. It has its moments, but it is generally depressing work, and I did it for both retail and business customers for many years. Work out loans. More work out loans with absurd balloon payments secured by tracts of swamp land and abandoned yacht slips – the yachts already being gutted and disposed of. Depressing restructuring jobs that included sucking all the equity out of real estate holdings for people in their 50s. Good times. The problem with the work was more that I was bored than anything. And with years of underwriting experience and a loan authority of 2,000,000 and NO education in the field, you have to set your sights low. I got into the business by accident. I got out on purpose – but that comes later.

Family: We knew in early October 2005 that my mother was dying, so we all came home. For a few weeks we took shifts. I wish I could say we handled it with more grace, but we drank scotch and cried. The night before she died was my shift. I sat up with her, trying to think for ten hours what to say. In the end I said nothing, and when my brother came in the morning to take his shift, I thought to myself, “if she goes after this, I am ok with it.” She died two hours later. She was 52; I was 25.

They tell you not to make any major decisions for a year after a major life event – death, birth, divorce, relocation – so I didn’t. I worked the depressing job and I waited. But not for long.

Social: I had two really, really nice boyfriends. One was (literally) a rocket scientist. We broke up because I didn’t want to move to Houston and he wanted to get married – and that was just way too much maturity for me. The other was an engineer and we broke up because of something silly – I can’t remember what. But they were both excellent and I had all my Chapel Hill friends.

Sports: I ran and ran and ran and ran. There were farms around my parents’ house and I ran past so many cows. Those cows all looked at me as if they had no idea what I was running from. I never thought of running in actual races but I ran all the damn time.

Consider yourself up to date through 1995.

Letter to M: College

We were still in touch between 1988 and 1992, but I don’t think we talked much, or at least not enough for me to remember much about what you were doing. All I remember hearing from you is the word “Wharton.” I am writing under the assumption that you remember one word or fewer about me during those years. So, college.

I have my own students now, most of whom are living at home and paying their own way through college. Looking at their lives, it is easy to see that we were privileged. We got to go away to college with our parents’ money in our pockets, and we - or at least I – got to spend four years partying and earning credit in subjects such as “witchcraft and folklore” and “performance art” and “beginning ballet.”

Academic: St. Lawrence allowed me to fill a transcript with excellent grades in the above subjects while forgiving (somehow) the fact that I earned an F micro-economics and got a C in research methods. Somewhere between the flag in economics (go ahead and have a nice long giggle – I am pretty sure you majored in economics) and the suffering inflicted by statistics and the misery connected with any subject requiring me to be logical or think in logical way – much less apply logic to my behavior – I found my true home in the English department, where I earned excellent grades and was a darling in the department for writing moody, dark fiction that suggested I had something to hide, which I most assuredly did not. I also did really well in any class that had anything to do with the oppression of anyone – especially women, black people, gay people, exotic animal lovers – fill in all the blanks – I was great in sociology and graduated just one class short of a minor in that department. I didn’t bother to get the minor because my schedule was cluttered up with writing classes and I didn’t want to miss a second semester of ballet.

Social: I met some great people, and I pledged a sorority, which is a subject so painfully boring that I will spare you. Summary: girls, giggling, punch that tastes like pineapple and looks like Windex, boys, flirtation, extreme silliness. Sigh. Oh and one semester I spent fall break at Harvard with JB. All I remember about it was that we went to a party, drank too much, made out, and fell asleep. But it was great to see him.

The loss of virginity anecdote is inevitable so… I met him sophomore year, but I believe it was Junior year before I had stress tested him enough to consider him worthy. Basically we had a few beers and it wasn’t a big plan or anything but it happened and then we went to sleep, him thinking, probably ___________, and me thinking “that was the most boring thing ever” –.

What’s more interesting is that he lived in a fraternity and one of the odd things about his place was that he had built a loft for the bed so as to have room for a desk, dresser, and sofa in his room. The next morning, I woke up, remembered the event, and felt scummy. So I ambled out of the loft, gathered up my stuff and prepared to flee while the boyfriend and now and forever holder of my V card* slept. To my horror, I discovered that the corner of the loft was blocking the door. I am not good with engineering, but I am pretty sure the reason was that when he built his loft, it did not block the door, but that said loft shifted this way or that when you put a person into it. So there I was, recently de-virginized at 6am with my nylons falling out of my handbag, crawling, in a dress and high heels, out the window of a fraternity house so I could be back at the sorority house by 7am for what’s known as “bed check”. It’s exactly what it sounds like, and I missed it. All that said, no regrets. Social, otherwise: I met a lot of great people and in addition to the above mentioned boyfriend, had another boyfriend who was also excellent – and one who was not so great but I got rid of him after a date or two. I still have several girlfriends from college and despite my jokes about SLU basically being a silly feel goodery, I got a decent education – as long as you don’t count math or economics.

Sports: I swam. SLU is a division three school, which meant it was more like a club and the main goal was more to swim off beer pong weight and have something to do between 4 and 6 pm than to actually achieve anything terms of wins and losses at meets. That said, I was never much good at it and looking back at the experience now, I wonder why I did that to my hair, all things considered, because I ran a lot and the running was what really kept me sane. All this and the brief stint as a beginning ballerina - and there you have it.

Family: My brother was majoring in Fine Art at Syracuse and my sister was a punk rocker who dyed her hair black and upset my parents a great deal by using fountain pen ink to give herself a tattoo. My junior year they moved to Dallas. I spent a summer there (fell in love with a guy who I sort of wanted to marry until I realized that I still had a whole lot left to learn) and then spring break of my senior year, my dad showed up at school to tell me a) the family was moving to North Carolina and b) my mother’s cancer was back and c) would I mind putting off moving to New York so I could spend time at home with mom? After graduation I moved to North Carolina and began a sort of half life working temp jobs and taking care of mom as much as that was possible to do. Thus ended college. (Until I went to graduate school).

* I talked to him on Facebook last week. Neither of us mentioned any of this.

Your turn.

What did I think would happen?

When I was 14 I made a BFF pact with a guy who went to a neighboring all boy school (I was in the all girl school; this all made so much sense at the time). We were very close - told each other everything, talked all night on the phone, went to each others proms, etc. Or did we? We can't remember, but there are pictures of us together all decked out for something.

Anyway some people have a friend like this one in high school and some don't. I have to say that I was the better for it.

Enter Facebook.

Yes, we are reconnected after 20 years and we are like OMG how fast can you tell me everything? We agreed that instead of trying to wade through it on chat we are going to summarize different bits of our lives and email them back and fourth until we get caught up.

Then I started trying to summarize college, and I realized these snippets would make good blog posts. Good news for us all, I guess. Check back tomorrow for installment one.

(hint: drinking, failing micro-economics, losing my virginity, sucking at sports, and majoring (finally) in English).

Are we getting anywhere?

Is this any better? I think it looks pretty awful, but I am used to the dark and storminess. Is the red doing anything for anyone?? The white background?

Also: I believe that novels, like all essays, should have thesis statements. My current working thesis:

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.


The quotation comes from the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. If Jesus really said this, and I hope he did say it... uh, Jesus you are absolutely correct. If you don't give what you have, all that havingness will come back and bite you square in the ass. Destruction is certain.

Another note: thinking about writing the book has been fun because WOW have I done great work in the area of being angry and blaming others for everything. Since I take comedy any way I can get it, I have been getting lots and lots of laughs making notes for this book. Let me know if you want special tips in the area of blaming others or feeling viciously and sadistically persecuted. I have special skills in these areas.

I love you just because you are you, but also because you are beautiful, and I can't help myself (and because you show up here and read about my badness).

Love,

Nina

Request for Advice

I started this blog a few years ago, and when I started, the blog had no purpose at all. AT. ALL.

Then it developed a purpose. It got me through the death of my father and all manner of other related crapulence. I have maintained the blog - though it had no clear purpose - and since those events (see: crapulence), I have tried to write.

I think we all agree that the better posts are in the archives.

The advice I request has not to do with whether I should keep blogging. I shall. Really. (Please don't look at me like that).

What I want to know is this: as I embark on the book project unrelated to this blog (but not without overlap)... can I, should I, shall I... write about the book?

And what is the book...?

It is a novel. It is not the Whole Story of Why I Sharpen My Knives.

It is just a story.

(In which perhaps one character will maintain a shocking collections of very sharp knives).

Can I blog about it... ?

List progress

Of yesterday's list, I accomplished 1, 4, and 5. I suppose I could get off my butt and return those pants that don't even fit me, but it has been a crazy, uh, day so far. More family drama, of the unanticipated sort. I am not going to blog about it because every time I do describe the FUBARness associated with my dad's illness and death, I always regret it later. Suffice it to say we just got smacked upside the wallet again. Life... it just isn't kind to my people. At all.

But day isn't over yet. I could return those ugly pants that don't even fit me, but instead I am doing the good thing I should have done days ago, which is laundry and working on a project for excellent blogger and good guy Avitable. I also have important work to do by request from P.

Note to anyone who wants to join me: when writing a haiku for the children of Afghanistan, note that the word itself takes up a lot of haiku space. Four syllables. Note also that if you abbreviate to "Afghan," your readers might interpret your poem to be a call to compassion for your basic polyester couch blankee - you know, the ones your grandmother made for you to snuggle under while you were watching Wizard of Oz. This haiku writing... it's a tricky business, and I want to do mine right.

I'll post that as soon as I can solve my syllable problems.

Wednesday, to you, is hump day (at least some of you call it that). To me, it's just a day, but congratulations to you if you feel like your work week is now all downhill from here.

(Still appreciating you. More than ever).

Lick the Cheeto ***updated***

Whiteout Meetings are held one Sunday afternoon per month. Two or three people submit stories via email, and the group offers everything from line comments to more global evaluations such as, "Mitt, you are a genius," or "Jolie, I am humbled to be in your presence," or "Nina, this doesn't suck as much as the story about fruit flies breeding with giraffes -or the one where your character set fire to the mall so he could see exactly which products were flame retardant and it turned out to be an elaborate metaphor for homophobia that was completely not funny, but we suppose we'll let you live. Oh, and no more haiku submissions. Thank you."

No official business takes place until everyone arrives (or until we decide that we no longer expect Alana to show up). We fill the time until then talking about movies, reviewing each other's wardrobe selections, commenting on each other's hair, and perhaps discussing what we have read lately. Someone always brings snacks. Someone else always brings drinks. Jolie's husband often bakes us a cake.

Then Alana arrives, and after she has been fed and had a few drinks, we review stories. Some jackass (named Nina) will demonstrate a way of re-punctuating a whole paragraph such that it means something completely different from what the writer intended, and then someone else will remind her that it's impolite and pointless to screw with someone else's punctuation just because you can, and then we all say what a genius the writer is and move on to the next story.

This is all great fun.

Moistly torso corduroy spunk, one day Luca had one of my stories in her hand and she looked anxious and displeased.

"Nina," said Luca, "I demand that the word 'torso' be removed from this story." Just to say the word made her flinch.

"Why?" said I.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Luca. I looked around the room. Jolie and Alana clearly knew what Luca was talking about. Mitt and Jerry did not, or would not, register a facial expression imbued with... never mind.

"No, I don't get it. Why no torsos?"

Jolie shrieked, and Luca shrank to the floor. Mitt looked up from his beer and said, "Did you just pluralize 'torso'?"

I was stunned. "Yeah, I did. So what?"

Alana then plucked a Cheeto from the snack bowl and said, while licking the Cheeto, "Saying torso is about as gross (lick lick) as what I am doing right now." Then she held the Cheeto denuded of cheesy powder out for all to see. Then she said "Pluralizing torso is about as gross as doing this"- and then she tossed the Cheeto back into the bowl.

Jerry dove into the bowl and retrieved the spitty Cheeto.

Jerry said, "How you feel right now? It's how other people feel about the word 'torso' - not me, mind you, but other people, clearly.

"Ok," I said. "I give up. Somebody splain it to me."

Jerry said, "Jolie, tell it like it is. I'll draw her a picture."

Jolie, straightened her skirt and crossed her cowgirl boots at the ankles. Then she began.

"When you use the word torso, you are specifying by default the absence of a head, arms, and legs. In other words you are mentioning a slab of organ filled flesh that is automatically dead and has no agency or intentions - "

"Well, damn, I hope not - " I interrupted. Luca tossed a hunk of brie at me.

" - and even worse is the word itself. The word implies the violence. The first syllable, tor sounds rather like the past tense of the verb 'to tear,' doesn't it? Yes! It does! So the word not only specifies a slab of organ-filled pointless deadness - but it also suggests the manner in which the slab was denuded of its constituent parts. Consider, also, whether this non-being, this rectangle of "thud" is male or female. Consider that at least on one side of it, there is a legless butt. And don't even get me started about entrails. Do not do it."

By this time, Jerry had finished his illustration. He handed it to me.

******* IMAGE ADDED AS REQUESTED BY H-B ********





I stared at it for a suitable interval before saying, "That's terrifying." Then I passed the drawing around.


I considered - and then said, "Let's shift our focus to the word "leg." Does saying "leg" automatically imply the absence of the rest of the person? "

Alana crunched down a few cheetos. "Nope," she said.

"Comparison not applicable," said Luca.

"Torso might be my most unfavorite word in the entire English language," said Mitt.

I opened a beer and sat back to think. No. It couldn't be.

"Are you all just completely fucking with me? You can't all unanimously agree that the word - "

"DON"T SAY IT AGAIN!" shrieked Jolie.

"Ok," said I. "Let's go around the room and all say our least favorite word. Let's all agree to ban the number one most hated word in the English language from our reviewed work for the remainder of the life of this group. All ready?"

People needed a few moments to think, so we argued for a few minutes over whether Jennifer Aniston has bigger boobs than Sarah Jessica Parker. I did not mention that to even THINK of a boob unattached to its owner was violent and malicious because I had clearly already lost that argument.

Finally, all agreed to reveal their own personal word-ban.

Mitt: Spunk

Jerry: Entrail(s)

Jolie: Moist

Alana: Sinew

Luca: Torso (obviously)

Nina: Corduroy.

That's right: my banned forever from Whiteout Writers' Group word is "Corduroy."


Anyone care to guess why I banned corduroy? If not, comment regarding whether "Cheeto" is a proper noun, meriting a capital letter. (I am conflicted about this). (About Cheeto). (Not about corduroy).

Smug and Famous, at least to each other

I suppose it is time to explain my obsession with spunk moist torso corduroy.*

Weekends are slow around here, so before I corduroy spunktificate on the poll, I ask you to read this, the preface to the first anthology that ever published my "work." It is written by Jolie "kicks ass" O'Reilly and four years later, it sums up how I feel about my literary coterie.

******************************

We're leading a coup, and you're invited

Over a year ago, I answered an ad on craigslist for a Writers' Group that was applications for a new member. The group was formed and run by a man named Cyril. And from what would turn out to be my first and last meeting, he and another member, Mitt, got into a disagreement about whether to italicize or underline a particular phrase in one of Mitt's stories. The disagreement escalated, Cyril believing that proper format should always be respected, and Mitt believing that meaning superceded format. People were yelling over, I am not making this up, italiticization.

The next day I received a covert email from Mitt with the whispery subject line, "We're leading a coup, and your invited." Did I want to, along with all the other nice members I had met the night before, secede from Cyril and form a group in which writing championed over rules?

Here is what I know a year later about the member of Whiteout Writers' Group" Nina refuses to write in third person and I refuse to write in first person. Jerry doesn't think anyone is interesting enough to write a memoir, and also believes we should all work on semi-identical versions of the song "My name is Luca." Mitt's characters are all brilliant artists walking around pontificating to each other. Luca insists that everything we write is actually a young adult novel. Alana's favorite word is "head-hopping," and she does not consider her work erotic. Yazmeen and I would be the first memeber to challenge another Writer's Group to a street fight. And we all hate the Microsoft Paperclip man.

The title ofthis collection comes from a line in one of Luca's stories about two people not falling in love with each other: "It was important to smug and famous, at least to each other."

Here is what I know about Whiteout Writers' Group: We are named after a state of emergency. Because sometimes, as in the case of our coup, writing is an emergency.

This collection and our first year is dedicated to Cyril.

In First Person,
Jolie "kicks ass" O'Reilly

******************************

If you made it this far, reader, you know that I love my writer friends a whole, real, lot.

And you must also know that the coup, now five years old, is still in power.

And you must know that the controversy over the emotional coloration of words like torso is one that arises at Whiteout meetings.

Tomorrow, I'll elaborate and then you will understand how it is possible for seven reasonably intelligent and reportedly sane adults to converse for hours about how a particular word makes people feel.

*sorry you stopped by? I'll bet. This is, at any rate, a bonus post - unrelated to Blog365 - so you can go ahead and be grossed out and feel rooked. It's my second post of the day and as you know, my standards are low. Really low. Torso low? Oh no.

Larry, WPITW, Part Five

Read Larry, WPITW, parts one, two and three, here... here... and here. Part four is right next to part five so just look down for that one. I am posting next week's installment of Larry, WPITW for LAS and Woodrow because they are two of my favorite people and neither wants to wait until next week to hear what happens next. So here is part five:

Years ago, I took a Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator test.

I am an INFP.*

We are introverted but not shy, meticulous but easy going. We love other people, but we don't need them. We're sad that both teams can't win the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament because gosh those kids all worked so hard.

One thing my "kind" of people does effortlessly is assess a room full of people and choose the person who is least comfortable to talk to. INFPs like to make people feel wanted and welcome. We do this without even realizing we are doing it.

Larry banked big time on my doing this for him. He knew if he wanted a plan a trip somewhere he could call me and I could find ten people who wanted to go - mostly because I'd drawn people into the group and made them feel welcome, even if they didn't know how to play cricket or softball or whatever it was. I was once one of those people, so I knew. This was part of the reason Larry was scared of losing me - if he lost me, he lost the constant stream of new women to pick out and stick his dick into.

I apologize. That was rather indelicate. I know better than to end a sentence in a preposition.

After I got off the phone with Sri, Lola and Merry asked me to verify that no one was dead.

I verified.

Lola decided we should get on the train and ride it all the way to Coney Island so we'd have time to hash it all out. We figured once we were there, at the beach, we could sit and stare at the ocean and try to regulate the weather in our heads before heading back into the city.

I talked all the way there. I talked for two hours on the beach. Then I talked all the way home. More than once, the three of us were crying, which just proves that Lola was perfectly right to suggest we all go to the beach. No one notices there.

I gave them the summary version, which I will now give you. Be assured, however, that you really need the detailed version to get a full panoramic view of why Larry is the Worst Person in the World.

What I knew right then was that he had been dating both Bibi and Sri, and that horrible as that was, he had been lying to the both systematically about where he was and when - that he had been sending them identical text messages, that he had been doing shit like meeting A for lunch, lying about where he was going to dinner and asking A to help him pick out a shirt to wear to meet B. So Bibi would pick out what Larry would be wearing for his date with Sri. And that ain't the half of it.

I met Bibi and Sri later that night for drinks. (Many). We surmised that because we realized that Bibi and Sri look an awful lot a alike, there might be others. Both are under 5'2" and have straight dark hair. Both are muscular and thin and both have sweet, non-confrontational dispositions. We flipped through all those pictures in our minds and started calling anyone else who met the profile - and we were right every time.

Larry had been conducting nine "secret" relationships, overlapping at least two at a time, and at most, four at a time. The one of longest duration had been going on for 36 months; the one of shortest duration had lasted for three and a half months. All these relationships were LONG TERM and were more than merely sexual. All the women KNEW each other, and it was not uncommon for them to spend entire weekends together. I have pictures of all of them - all nine - together, with me, taken by Larry, with my camera.

All were steadfast in their belief that talking to other people about the relationship would negatively affect the focus of the group. Three of them were close friends. Of the nine, four were in love with Larry and wanted to marry him. Of that four, two were (and are, six months later) so distraught that they have yet to even speak to Bibi, Sri, me or any of the other women involved by anything other than email. One of them alluded to suicide. She is better now, thank you.

The Great Larry Debacle of 2007 began, as you may have surmised, because of Sri, the girl who had been dating him for the shortest duration. It turns out that Larry had simply miscalculated with her. He had been trying to get into her pants for year, and that day on the airplane, he had decided to go for it. Nine hours next to her on the flight ought to convince her, right? I mean, he had screwed Bibi twice that morning in Casablanca, but no matter. Plenty to go around. He texted Sri from the baggage claim and their romance was underway within the hour. Bibi never thought twice because hey, we all just got of an international flight. Of course Larry needs to get home and sleep. Of course he does.

The way Sri figured it out was this: after the camping trip, Sri noticed that Bibi and I were doing a hell of a lot of talking - whispering, texting and dashing off together to discuss. She began to wonder what it was all about. She also noticed that when were all out together, she seemed to get texts from Larry at exactly the same time as Bibi did. She did not dare think yet that Larry could possibly be multitexting, but it seemed odd to her that the two of them were always texting someone at the same time. Then she decided to try an experiment. Instead of having Larry drop her off at her apartment one night after a "date," she decided she'd ask him to drop her off at Bibi's apartment. She said she needed to borrow a sweater, and Bibi was expecting her.

In reality, Bibi was expecting Larry. Larry knew this. Larry promptly entered full panic mode, but there was little he could do. So he agreed to drop her off at Bibi's. Then he texted Bibi and said he'd be late. Sri knocked on Bibi's door to find Bibi ready for a date with Larry. The two of them looked at each other and... click.

They just knew.

They spent fifteen minutes crying and saying oh holy shit and then Bibi texted Larry: "why are you so late?"

Larry texted back: "be right there."

But he never showed. Eventually, Bibi texted him: "She's gone. Come over."

What happened next will go down in New York City sidewalk screaming hissy fit crazy history as the Great Larry Debacle of 2007. It is legendary. I am told it was un-fucking-believable.

I only wish I had been there.


* If you take then ten minutes to read that, you will know me about 97% better than you do now, and you may have a better understanding of why I behaved the way I did towards Larry during the Great Debacle.

Larry, WPITW, Part Four

Read Larry, WPITW, parts one, two and three, here... here... and here.

I sent Larry an email, revealing nothing of what had transpired between me and Bibi. I simply told him I'd be stepping back for a while. Larry took this fine, but I know it bothered him. For a guy who was decidedly NOT interested in me, he had been all over me for the better part of six months. The sucking up was constant, and while it was flattering, it was a mystery. I didn't know that he was watching me get closer and closer to everyone he was sleeping with. I did not kow the extent to which me bringing other people into the group was providing him with fresh opportunities, either. I just didn't think that way. So I backed off a bit to clear my head. I spent some time with Bibi and Sri outside "the group" and spent a good deal of time chewing over my break up with Yoyo, trying to recalibrate. During this spate of down time, I recalled a few things that, had I been prepared to find what I was not looking for, would have been Grade A warning signs.

Grade A Warning One: One the way back from Africa, Sri and I were sitting in a row of three seats. She was on one end and I was on the other. About twenty minutes after take off, Larry came ambling back and asked if he could sit between us. Of course, we said he could. It was a nine hour flight, and we slept off and on and talked. I should have noticed something strange about a man over 6'3" would voluntarily sit in a center aisle, center seat for nine hours, in a half empty plane. I should have noticed that he did that to be near Sri.

Grade A Warning Two: Several times, Sri had mentioned to me that she was seeing someone but it was no one I knew. In fact, an overwhelming number of attractive women we hung out with claimed to be "taking a break from dating" - or to be involved with someone no one had ever met.

Grade A Warning Three: That ridiculous text message.


I was scheduled to climb with Larry and about ten other people, including Bibi and Sri, on June 2nd. I backed out due to all of the above.

On the morning of June 3rd, I got a voice mail from Sri. Here is the exact transcript of the message:

Nini, it's Sri, please call me back. Right now, please. You need to know. (sob). Something (sob). Please call me back. (sob).

Well, fuck.

I tried calling her back three or four times and got a busy signal. People, this is 2007. I'll just leave you to interpret how much activity a person's phone line requires before it spits out a busy signal.

Before I go on, I should explain something.

I had been glad Ethan had dragged me out to that first volleyball game. It had given me a social life that was not fraught with intrigue and drama. Relationships were based on doing things - action, adventure, and success. We caved, we scrambled, we volleyed, we lined, we dove, we paddled, we rafted, we summited - but we did not sit around and talk about our feelings. We were cool with tying into a grigri and trusting the others to save our lives. We were cool with carrying each other's gear when someone was having a tough day. We were cool enough that we'd wait for God and ever before we cut the rope.

But we didn't do each other's hair and paint each other's nails and air kiss each other. I already had a pod for that purpose, and I didn't necessarily need it to increase.

For this reason, I had a lot to think about after that now infamous all nighter in the bathroom of the campground. The moment Bibi said, "I have been dating him for over a year," we went from partners in crime to real friends. It was instantaneous. I was not sorry that it happened, but it gave me pause.

And now, six weeks later, I had a phone call from Sri that left me pretty sure someone was dead. That was how scary her voice sounded.

So assiduously did I cling to the comfort and safety of not seeing what I was not looking for that it never occured to me, even then, that the issue might involve something personal, something to do with the girls. Even then, my biggest fear that it was Larry and that he was badly injured or dead - because otherwise it would be him calling to tell me. I thought of all those times I had seem him free solo and scare me knocked kneed.

I freaked the fuck out. I couldn't get Sri on the phone. So I texted Larry.


Nina is everything ok?

Larry:no.

Nina:are you ok?

Larry:no. all hell has broken loose.

Nina:Larry, wtf? tell me.

Larry:Call me. Call me right now.

So I called Larry. He was in a parking lot somewhere upstate. I asked him if he or anyone else was injured, and he said no, but that he had "really fucked up."

So I said, "let me be clear: you are in one piece. So is Tess. So is ____, _____, _____, and _____. No blood, and no broken bones. Is that correct?"

He said, "Everyone is... fine. No one is... hurt. But I fucked up. I need your help."

I said, "Honey, what the hell is going on?"

Larry said, "I can't tell you. Too many people here."

I, exasperated, said, "What do you need me to do? Is it Bibi? Are you trying to save your relationship with Bee?"

Larry said, "Oh, hell no. That's totalled. Plesae just help them. Calm everybody down. Try to contain it."

I said, "Contain it?"

Larry said, "Yeah. Try to keep people from talking about it."

I said, "Larry, are you ok?"

Larry said, "No, but I have to go. Text me after to you talk to Sri."

So we got of the phone. I was thinking, "Oh, hell. What an ass hole."

Then I caught a cab to UES and met Lola and Merry for brunch, thinking Sri would call me back when she was ready to tell me what all had happened the day before.

Lola and Merry and I had heuvos rancheros and coffee and grits for breakfast. You know how I remember? Because usually, when your whole world is about to get whipped up in a whirl-i-gig blender, you remember mundane what-not like what was one your fork when you got that phone call.

Sri called at 11:09am, about three minutes before we got the check. We did not leave the table for I have no idea how long. I heard about three sentences of what Sri had to say, flipped the check over and wrote "I have to stay on phone until she is done, sorry."

Once I picked up the phone and Sri started talking, nay, shrieking, she did not come up for air for over an hour. When she was done talking, I was, reportedly, blanched white and slumped against table with my head in my hands saying, "Oh my God, Oh my God," over and over and over.

Lest you infer from all this that Larry was merely screwing a few of my friends, um, no. He was screwing damned near all of them, and if screwing had been the worst thing he'd been doing, we would probably have been over it in less than a day. People are ass holes. This is not a breaking news item.

Tune in next week (if you wish) to learn the what-all-else we had in that whirl-i-blender.

Thank you for reading.

I'll be right with you

Yeah, it's late. I know.

I have a few half finished posts that are just not cooked yet. So for now I leave with you this haiku, written by me, while sitting next to MohaDoha in our Asian Literature class eight years ago.


Threads hang from her hem,
the widow bends to pick up
heavy newspaper.


I found it in an envelope with this piece of counterfeit Viet Namese money:



I'll post again later. (I think).

Rather a lot, actually

Most people have heard by now about a the "writer's strike" and many wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, isn't "writing" a dream job, one that most creative people would love to have?

Yeah. Sort of. Maybe.

It's hard work, people. Most of those comedians and actors were not funny right out of the womb. Either they - or a talented writer - is writing those jokes. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after exhausting year, forever, amen. ON A DEADLINE. I know, because my sister in law Leta is one of them.

Writing is a great job and in some ways, it is a priviledge. Being hired to create is a gratifying validation of our talents, absolutely. But creative people - ahem - creative people who make boatloads of money for business people deserve to get paid WELL for what they do. It is not ok that most of those writers - the ones that make Seinfeld and Saturday Night Live and Will and Grace and the fuck-all else can't afford to live in New York - you know, the same city they work in. The one they are forced to commute over an hour each way to work in because they can only afford a roach infested apartment in North Nowhere'sburg.

I am sorry. Where was I?

The current fuss is over roylaties for internet content. For more information, and also to laugh your ass off because these people are funny all by their sweet selves, click here:



Thanks to Rick for posting it first.

Breast Delay. Sincerest Regrets, etc.

I promised a post about breasts. I am not going to deliver. I don't feel good due to the proliferation of badness interfering with my immune system. I have a fever. I am nipping into the cognac. I am hanging out with Joel Skimpole. (See Great Eagle Rescues of Middle Earch, chapters 1 and 2).

I will post the great boob challenge of 2007 tomorrow.

Goognight, etc.

Six Places

Today, I visited the offices of Awesome U, and for five hours, I graded papers for other professors. For this service, I will be paid $30 an hour. While I was there, people brought me food and coffee and patted my hair and told me how much they love me and how sorry they are that they cannot pay me $1000 an hour for my judicious grading and thoughtful commenting.

Ahem. Panic Hire University still has not put me on the payroll, although they did write a check out of petty cash for $500, which basically covers the first half of September. Then they said "go away already there are donuts in the break room and if you don't stop talking about your issue by the time I get back there all the ones with frosting will be gone."

Sweet Little College still gives me an absurd amount of money for what I do for them, which is basically.... nothing. I live in fear of someone at SLC actually figuring out that I can do a full time tenured professor's job in about five hours a week.

Ahem. Merciful University has, to my shock, chosen NOT to kick me out of their PhD program. I am all "I am tired and I need to teach for money and my dad is sick and my rent went up and I have papers to grade and I never read Beowulf" and they are all "get ur asz in heer and do yer werk, stoopid beyatch." At least, I think that is what they said.

Hoops University has... oh my... how do I... oh dear... published my Master's thesis online. This means that anyone who knows my real name and happens to google me will find out that I did a creative thesis - all short stories. This is reason #127 that I am confident that using a psuedonym for blogging was... a good decision.

Prestigious U has asked me to return as an ACT Reader. It turns out that this summer, when I was reading ACTs for them - due to their desperate staffing issues - I was a "no hitter". What this means is that I, as a first round grader, could consistently assign scores that would match the scores later assigned by what is known as a Master Reader. Hiring "no hitters" makes their job ever so much easier. I haven't called them back. Nor have I emailed the man. I am, emotionally speaking, very busy.

I am finding that during NaBloPoMo, the stress of knowing that I MUST POST ONCE A DAY has caused me to post two or three times a day. I post something and then I am displeased with it, and so I post something else to "cover it up". This post is meant to push Great Eagle Rescues of Middle Earth, Chapter Two, further down the page. That other writing project? NaNoWriMo? Kicking my ass. But not in the way you might think. The daunting word count does not frighten me. What frightens me is that sometime between batch one and two of grading this afternoon, Joel U. Q. T. Skimpole popped into my head and mentioned, ever so politely, that he didn't mind that I had given him a mother that did not love him, but... really... was it necessary to make her a whore as well?

What this means, reader, is that J.S. is in no danger of going unheard. I might not be up to my assigned wordcount, but J.S. will not let me be until I solve his housing problem and his romantic difficulties and supply him with good liquor and cigars.

And I have no one to blame but myself.

Great Eagle Rescues of Middle Earth, Chapter One, Bits 1-3

Below, an excerpt from my incipient novel. Be merciful. Or not. As you wish.

The letter taped to my door was pale pink, the paper of good heavy cotton stock. A faint smell of gardenias lingered about the seal. As I unfolded the letter, my heart quivered with anticipation, for the missive was from my landlady, Mrs. Annasheika Ward.

Mrs. Annasheika Ward is my goddess, my tender, pure goddess. She is tall, reed thin, buxom, and brown as a berry. Her hair falls in silky black waves; her white-gloved hands and shapely calves and dainty ankles enthrall me. Her sequined hats and fur trimmed shawls, her seamed stockings and her perfectly bowed lips - her eyebrows, permanently poised in a perfect arch - these dazzle me. To enter Mrs. Annasheika Ward's rooms is to watch a ribbon of heavenly womanhood unfurl herself across a plush chaise lounge, - to enter Mrs, Annasheika Ward's rooms is to have tea with in the presence of angels - in short, she is my heroine, my angel. I love Mrs. Annasheika Ward to distraction; from the moment I tapped on her door and rented my room at 505 2nd St, New York, NY, I was besotted with her.

Her letter was not, as I had dared to hope, an invitation to dinner. I have been living on the second floor of her brownstone on 2nd St for twelve years, but alas, we have not been the best of friends. Her living is composed of the rent checks she collects from her tenants - me, two strumpets pretending to go to college at NYU, and a bumbling law clerk who never bathes and who pulls his pants half way up to his chin. Our charity is her only means of support, and if she does not receive it in due time, she becomes the obliteration of my equanimity. In short, she is a shrew. My goddess, yes. But a shrew.

Her letter informed me, in perfect schoolteacher script, that rent for my room was now $1000 per month, beginning sixty days hence, on October the 1st.

To a seasoned New Yorker, this may seem a modest sum. And it would be - if I could produce it. I am a man of many interests and delights, but regrettably, a man of few saleable skills. My most recent foray into the world of modern commerce terminated in me being, well, terminated. No matter. It was not an engagement befitting my gentlemanly comportment, nor was the society pleasing. I neither enjoyed making the sandwiches, nor making conversation with my compatriots. The patrons of the establishment were not worth my notice – most refused even a simple greeting, and some openly bristled if I asked for clarification. “Would you like whole wheat or white, six or twelve inch?” These questions were often answered only with a ravenous jerk of the head – or a one word: six or twelve or wheat or white. I toiled amongst these smug adolescents for only a month before I (or they, I don’t remember) determined as I have already disclosed: the foray was not for me. And certainly not for them.

When I was employed, my salary was nearly $7.20 an hour; in fact, it was $7.15. After working twenty-five and a half hours a week (for who can work forty and still consider himself a gentleman?) my weekly pittance was $138.57 – hardly enough to keep a personage such as myself in cognac and cigars – let alone rent. How was I to pay it?

Mrs. Annasheika Ward knows as well as I that I cannot, will not, pay $1000 per month. My room at 505 2nd St is my birthright, my legacy from my late father, H. E. S. Skimpole. He rented this very room from the late husband of Mrs. Annasheika Ward for over twenty five years before the rent controlled lease was bequeathed to me. I had to live in a one room apartment with my progenitor for five years to earn rights to the easy terms of his lease: a mere $170 per month. Mrs. Annasheika Ward is my goddess. Do not, reader, misunderstand me. But to demand for her maintentance a charge so exorbitant as this? Of Joel U.Q.T. Skimpole? It must be illegal. It does not need saying that the charge is immoral. I, Joel U.Q.T. Skimpole declare it so. Any man of sense and education would, I am sure, readily agree.

And yet, I fold the note and place it in my breast pocket, next to my heart. Annasheika. Calves, lips, voluminous feathered headdresses of feminine glory. Anna. May I call you Anna? In the mildest language, I adore you.

On the morrow, I will beg of you not to turn me out on account of my love of cigars – and the city’s most inconvenient revision of the rent control provision. My angel. My poppet. How might I, Joel U.Q.T. Skimpole serve thee?

NaNoWriMo Progress

Nada. But once I actually get started, I will post excerpts so that y'all can see how talented* I am (and how well I work under pressure). Until then, I offer the following information about the 50,000 word novel that I am (supposedly) writing before the month is out:


Protagonist: Joel** Skimpole***, tennant of 505 East 2nd St., NY, NY.

Antagonist: Mrs. Annasheika Ward, resident and landlady of 505 East 2nd St., NY, NY.


Conflict: Rent.


Crisis: I don't know but someone will have sex down by the river.


Resolution: unknown.

What is known is that Protagonist Joel and Antagonist Anna are going to go to war over rent, and in my imagination, they are fighting so big that weaponry and civic authorities will be involved. Also, one or both of them will definitely be buying a lottery ticket. I have committed myself to at least one sword fight, some pink rose petals, a broken umbrella and the death of at least one pigeon.

We'll talk more about this later.

*I am totally kidding. Really good writers don't use adverbs - and they definitely do NOT use the words "actually get started" - ever.

**In honor of a recent commenter who enlightened my entire five person readership on a subject we shall no longer be discussing, but which you, reader, may peruse here.

***A really good description of the original Skimpole - and also a stunning article, if you get that far, about the authority of the Church. If you are Catholic and you read the whole article, you will get all itchy and uncomfortable and you will make yourself a little post-it note that says 'Church, important, soon' and stick it somewhere you won't see it again until it's way too late to try to go to church on Sunday and then you'll tape it somewhere else thinking maybe next week, and then you won't and yeah, lather, rinse, repeat...

Perhaps I've said enough for today.

Thank you for reading. (And have a great weekend).