I wrote this blog four times today. I knew for certain what I wanted to write and then I knew for certain that something else was more important / interesting / blog-worthy. Then I started filing blogs – save those for another day when I *should* blog but have nothing useful to say. How wrong is that? Like, how “worthy” are the blogs you read regularly? How “useful” are they? Aren’t blogs just supposed to be random, stream of conscious joy rides with a person you find mildly intriguing and/or bizarre?
So, instead of squirreling away my musings, here are four blogs summarized and condensed into fifty words or less and then a fifth blog, full length and blotted, about Marcia (hi, M!) my college roommate. Can’t wait to see what’s up with the M-Girl? Oh, baby, have I got a chip for you ;)
Holy Moly, Batgrrl! We’ve Got Prepped Decks
My publisher emailed. She wheeled and dealed. She threatened and charmed. She landed us a printer that will prep the decks. Watch out MTG. Here comes Mardi Gras!
Why Doesn’t “Gay Gamer” Mean Happy?
Why is it that when I post on a glbt forum I get pornographic PMs when all the glbt people I know are so freaking NOT like that? Why can’t one of my straight-laced, level-headed glbt friends run a glbt forum?
Flowers from Julie and Diane
“I don’t know how you feel, E.J., because I only have my mom and she’s never died. But I guess you’re feeling really bad and flowers won’t help. But my mom says we should send them anyway. I’m sorry your dad died.” Thank you, Julie.
Coffee with You
You drove twenty miles and pretended to need creamer. What I needed was your arms around me. To stand in silence. Rest my cheek against your hair. Thank you for always being exactly what you seem.
And now for the main attraction….
When Your College Roommate Comes Calling
Word is getting out. Friends of friends of friends are calling to offer their condolences. This is wearing on my mom. She says, “This is a never ending cycle. I am walking in to find him, still, again and again, over and over.” She cries silently, tears on her face unacknowledged, and unplugs the phone. She walks out of the kitchen and I know where she is going.
My father’s voice in my ear, “Take care of her.”
God, I love my mom.
She is so fierce. She is so lost. Her whole life was imagined in her mind before she was a teen ager. And then it went in a completely different direction. Sometimes, in the very early morning, I see her and she is still that girl. Not even quite a teen. Wondering. Wondering what happened.
My father said once to me, “I was your mother’s consolation prize.” I never knew what he meant really and I never asked. He loved her with every ounce of who he was. He never spoke a word against her. “She tries so hard,” he told me more than once when she and I butted heads.
I plugged the phone back in. I decided to take all the calls.
And they came.
And I said the same things, and told the same story, and it became me who walked in that morning with my father’s coffee. It was me who knew just by looking. It was me who set down the mug. Sat on the bed. And cried silently, endlessly. An hour going by. The silence thick in the room even as the house woke up with the sounds of breakfast and guests and family.
The mug sits on the dresser. The coffee is cold. I can’t take it away.
“I know what you’re feeling, E. I really do. Wow. I mean, my parents are still alive. Both of them. My dad is the one who called and told me. But I totally know what you must be going through right now.”
No, you don’t. You’re not even trying.
“So, are you still acting?”
Only right now. On the phone with you.
“It’s been so long. I can’t remember the last time we spoke.”
The day I found out you were ******* our drama professor.
“I always felt like you were so controlled. Like you had a secret. I wondered if maybe… you know?”
I don’t have any secrets, Marcia, because I’d be afraid some college roommate would blab them all over her pink MySpace blog.
“I’ve been following your blog when you write it. ‘Girl Geek.’ It’s really punky. You must have fun just going on like that.”
No comment. No, wait, I have one: When we were on the phone, I wish I’d had the presence of mind to tell you you’re an idiot.
“You must feel so betrayed. That’s what it’s like. But just because your dad died, he didn’t betray you, E.”
I know betrayal and I know Psychology 101. I took the same classes, Marcia. I wrote your damn paper on the stages of grief, which you seem to have forgotten. I know betrayal—intimately, socially, recently—and my father has nothing to do with it.
“And you’re angry. Of course. I mean, you’re hiding it, but you have anger in there.”
You’re right. I am angry. How’s this for showing it?
Do me a favor? Lose my number.
Grrr.
E.J.
