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mallorys_cameraSixty-five degrees out Friday. Sunny, but when you closed your eyes you could hear the rain. This turned out to be the sound of ice melting from rooftops. Spring?
I wore a short skirt to go with my new short hair, and my new Capezio Mary Janes. Unfortunately the soles of my new Capezio Mary Janes are made of some kind of weird foam that disintegrates in water, and I stepped in a puddle. It’s hard for me to find shoes that I like. Being Amazon Girl, I had big feet to begin with and they went up an additional size every time I had a baby. Now I wear size 11s. I will pout and sulk and throw the daintiest of temper tantrums if I can’t find a cobbler who can fix my new Capezio Mary Janes.
Yesterday, though, it went right back to being winter. Six inches of snow, whiteout conditions from the 50 mph winds. I was scheduled to work at Boring, Unremunerative But Hey! It’s a Regular Paycheck Central, but the roads were so bad I was literally housebound. Entertained myself by cooking a pot-roast, finishing The Best American Short Stories 2010.
Did very little of any consequence last week.
Slept a lot.
Cooked – a pulled pork dish, a Chicken Cacciatore. Ruined the latter by throwing in broccoli. Broccoli does not go with tomato sauce.
Watched three seasons of Homicide, Life On the Streets.
Read Just Kids. (Patti Smith)
Scribbled some on the literary short stories. Scribbled some on the Steinbeck collaboration.
Did not get the job I interviewed for; continue to believe I was the best possible candidate for the job I interviewed for: their loss, right? Will interview for another job this week.
Had a vision of Origami figures – peacocks, irises, butterflies in bright colors, shellacked and strung as a curtain between the kitchen and my sleeping nook, and wasted about 40 sheets of paper – what is that? one tree branch? – because, you know, I’m too klutzy to make Origami.
Felt oddly content in a way I haven’t felt for months. All that sleep. Or maybe all that broccoli.
There was more B-related mishegass.
Meeting with the Girlfriend, scheduled for Wednesday, had to be canceled due to RTT suspension. Emailed GF: Sorry. Ben will explain.
Excuse me, in your own words please, GF writes back snittily. Why are we not meeting today?
Sent placating email back. (Why am I the one who’s always placating?) Third time’s the charm, I conclude.
This has become inordinately protracted, she writes back. Sometime when you pick up or drop off Robin at Deibler Drive, please feel free to come in and meet me.
I laugh a little at that overstuffed “inordinately protracted.” Plus she's mispelled "Diebler." Sounds like a plan, I write back:
Bust-ted! This gets GF all hot and bothered. E-mail sucks, she writes back immediately. I prefer face to face.
For some reason this little note makes me feel very sorry for her. Sounds like the basis for a mutually respectful relationship so I will look forward to meeting you next time I drop Robin off at Diebler Drive, I write back. End to the emails! In a week or two, I might drop by and introduce myself – though she’ll probably hole up in the bathroom claiming a migraine.
Except that it isn’t the end of the emails! She feels compelled to explain herself. I do agree “the ball was in my court” after I resigned from our proposed first meeting, she writes.
Resigned? I snort to myself. I'm picking on her because Ben tells me she's very proud of her use of language. Try canceled.
Other things I know about her and shouldn’t: She was molested as a little girl. After 16 years of marriage, her husband decided he was gay and left her. She’s petite. She works out obsessively. She has no sense of humor. She’s on the Board of Loaves & Fishes, a local food program. She got pregnant at 17 and had the kid.
God knows what Ben’s told her about me.
Don’t know why this note moved me – but it dide. Did I see ice floes melting? Sight the distant, green shores of the isle of Rapprochement?
No worries. I understand, I wrote back. Truly, I do.
Ten minutes later the phone rings. Ben’s voice: “Thanks a lot! What the fuck did you write in that email? Jayne’s breaking up with me! She keeps texting over and over again: ‘You belong on Johnson Road. You belong on Johnson Road.’ What is it? You want her to kick me out so I can suffer as much as you’ve suffered?”
I hold the phone away from my ear. “That would be nice," I tell him icily. "But frankly I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I’m not sure I want to know.”
“She’s crying, she’s hysterical –“
“And this is my problem because… ?”
“You’re deliberately fucking up my life –“
“Fine, Ben. Let’s just stop being friends. I'm sick of this bullshit.”
“I don’t want to stop being friends. But you can’t –“
“Can't what? I’m sick of you, I’m sick of her, I’m sick of all the drama. If she found something to be offended by in the note I wrote her then she is really stretching. It was an entirely unobjectionable note. A nice note even.”
“She says we’re too involved, too caught up in each other –“
“We are too involved with each other. But you know what, Ben? At this point if we stopped seeing each other, you’d miss me more than I’d miss you.”
“Whatever,” he mumbles
“No, it's true. So let's stop seeing each other, and let's stop writing the book –“
“I don’t want to stop writing the book. It's a good book.“
In fact, we’re scheduled for one of our book meetings later in the day. State Street Gimme Coffee.
“Great haircut,” he says when I walk in. He must have placated the GF somehow, he's all smiles now. “You know, even if I was an Arab and you were an Israeli and we were steeped in ancient, ethnic hatreds, I’d want to write this book.” All right, I’m paraphrasing. But the phrase was clearly meant to charm. It didn't.
“That phone call? Don’t ever pull something like that on me again,” I tell him coldly.
We read each other what we’ve written, update the backstory log – in a collaboration, it’s important to keep up the momentum, keep growing the volume of words. So when we tweak the plot and such, rather than go back and rewrite the first draft, we make note of which chapter the tweak appears in and go on writing as if the tweak was there.
“I wrote her a nice note,” I say at some point. “I don’t really understand how she could have been offended by it.”
“She’s insecure,” Ben says. “She’s very, very jealous of you.”
Well, of course she is. And I’m very, very jealous of her because Ben has set it up that way. Many of our deconstructions of the marriage have centered on the fact that Ben was the emotional caregiver – but now I’m thinking that's just part of his manipulative technique. He picked two ostensibly self-confident women back to back, he pushed their buttons, and he turned them into quivering masses of emotional insecurity. I think this is the way pimps operate too, no?
He is rattling on about why our collaboration "works:" “I like to write and now I’m writing. And we complement each other, you know? As writers. I’m good with plot and dialogue; you’re good with status detail, description –“
“Nobody reads description,” I say.
“True. But it’s got to be included.
BEEEP! Wrong answer.
I'm a better writer than you, shithead, I think, staring at him through slitted eyes. You need me to write. But I don’t need you to write.
We pass on Perquackey.
I wore a short skirt to go with my new short hair, and my new Capezio Mary Janes. Unfortunately the soles of my new Capezio Mary Janes are made of some kind of weird foam that disintegrates in water, and I stepped in a puddle. It’s hard for me to find shoes that I like. Being Amazon Girl, I had big feet to begin with and they went up an additional size every time I had a baby. Now I wear size 11s. I will pout and sulk and throw the daintiest of temper tantrums if I can’t find a cobbler who can fix my new Capezio Mary Janes.
Yesterday, though, it went right back to being winter. Six inches of snow, whiteout conditions from the 50 mph winds. I was scheduled to work at Boring, Unremunerative But Hey! It’s a Regular Paycheck Central, but the roads were so bad I was literally housebound. Entertained myself by cooking a pot-roast, finishing The Best American Short Stories 2010.
Did very little of any consequence last week.
Slept a lot.
Cooked – a pulled pork dish, a Chicken Cacciatore. Ruined the latter by throwing in broccoli. Broccoli does not go with tomato sauce.
Watched three seasons of Homicide, Life On the Streets.
Read Just Kids. (Patti Smith)
Scribbled some on the literary short stories. Scribbled some on the Steinbeck collaboration.
Did not get the job I interviewed for; continue to believe I was the best possible candidate for the job I interviewed for: their loss, right? Will interview for another job this week.
Had a vision of Origami figures – peacocks, irises, butterflies in bright colors, shellacked and strung as a curtain between the kitchen and my sleeping nook, and wasted about 40 sheets of paper – what is that? one tree branch? – because, you know, I’m too klutzy to make Origami.
Felt oddly content in a way I haven’t felt for months. All that sleep. Or maybe all that broccoli.
There was more B-related mishegass.
Meeting with the Girlfriend, scheduled for Wednesday, had to be canceled due to RTT suspension. Emailed GF: Sorry. Ben will explain.
Excuse me, in your own words please, GF writes back snittily. Why are we not meeting today?
Sent placating email back. (Why am I the one who’s always placating?) Third time’s the charm, I conclude.
This has become inordinately protracted, she writes back. Sometime when you pick up or drop off Robin at Deibler Drive, please feel free to come in and meet me.
I laugh a little at that overstuffed “inordinately protracted.” Plus she's mispelled "Diebler." Sounds like a plan, I write back:
But I also need to point out -- gently & respectfully, of course -- that if the process has been "inordinately protracted," that's because the ball was in your court for six weeks and for whatever reason, you chose not to follow up.
I would prefer to assume that this was because you were preoccupied with things going on in your own life, rather than that you were deliberately going out of your way to be disrespectful towards me, but of course one never knows.
Bust-ted! This gets GF all hot and bothered. E-mail sucks, she writes back immediately. I prefer face to face.
Rather than have breakdowns, miscommunications, misunderstanding, “life happens”, let’s put aside the formality and meet in informal setting. That’s all I have “Up my sleeve.’ With me, you will come to find, what you see is what you get. No malice or pretense.
For some reason this little note makes me feel very sorry for her. Sounds like the basis for a mutually respectful relationship so I will look forward to meeting you next time I drop Robin off at Diebler Drive, I write back. End to the emails! In a week or two, I might drop by and introduce myself – though she’ll probably hole up in the bathroom claiming a migraine.
Except that it isn’t the end of the emails! She feels compelled to explain herself. I do agree “the ball was in my court” after I resigned from our proposed first meeting, she writes.
Resigned? I snort to myself. I'm picking on her because Ben tells me she's very proud of her use of language. Try canceled.
Other things I know about her and shouldn’t: She was molested as a little girl. After 16 years of marriage, her husband decided he was gay and left her. She’s petite. She works out obsessively. She has no sense of humor. She’s on the Board of Loaves & Fishes, a local food program. She got pregnant at 17 and had the kid.
God knows what Ben’s told her about me.
I do apologize. It was on my mind to follow up and I just never did. It was not intentional and I do regret that I didn’t make time to follow up with you.
I certainly understand the challenges of raising a teen and the unknowns on any given day. I empathize the angst it causes.
Thank you for your willingness to try for a meeting this past Wednesday. Unfortunately, I was here too late in the day and a volunteer group cornered me when they discovered I was the only person in the building besides the ED. Had I walked out at 4:45, as I had planned to, I wouldn’t have been “stuck”. I have no doubt that it seemed I was being inflexible and I should have explained further.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Don’t know why this note moved me – but it dide. Did I see ice floes melting? Sight the distant, green shores of the isle of Rapprochement?
No worries. I understand, I wrote back. Truly, I do.
Thing is, Jayne, I want to like you. I understand the inherent awkwardness of the situation probably precludes friendship per se, but I want to feel positively disposed towards you. It's the final stage in the healing process.
See, I didn't actually know you existed until October when Robin began going over to Diebler Drive. One might argue that Ben's life is none of my business at this point and I wouldn't disagree. Nonetheless, I felt immensely betrayed that Ben didn't say to me last spring, "Listen, Patrizia, things between us are massively fucked. I've met someone. I have the chance to be happy."
I became very angry and very bitter. I'm ashamed now of how angry & how bitter I became. I want to lay those corrosive, unnecessary emotions to their final rest. Meeting you will let me do that.
Ten minutes later the phone rings. Ben’s voice: “Thanks a lot! What the fuck did you write in that email? Jayne’s breaking up with me! She keeps texting over and over again: ‘You belong on Johnson Road. You belong on Johnson Road.’ What is it? You want her to kick me out so I can suffer as much as you’ve suffered?”
I hold the phone away from my ear. “That would be nice," I tell him icily. "But frankly I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I’m not sure I want to know.”
“She’s crying, she’s hysterical –“
“And this is my problem because… ?”
“You’re deliberately fucking up my life –“
“Fine, Ben. Let’s just stop being friends. I'm sick of this bullshit.”
“I don’t want to stop being friends. But you can’t –“
“Can't what? I’m sick of you, I’m sick of her, I’m sick of all the drama. If she found something to be offended by in the note I wrote her then she is really stretching. It was an entirely unobjectionable note. A nice note even.”
“She says we’re too involved, too caught up in each other –“
“We are too involved with each other. But you know what, Ben? At this point if we stopped seeing each other, you’d miss me more than I’d miss you.”
“Whatever,” he mumbles
“No, it's true. So let's stop seeing each other, and let's stop writing the book –“
“I don’t want to stop writing the book. It's a good book.“
In fact, we’re scheduled for one of our book meetings later in the day. State Street Gimme Coffee.
“Great haircut,” he says when I walk in. He must have placated the GF somehow, he's all smiles now. “You know, even if I was an Arab and you were an Israeli and we were steeped in ancient, ethnic hatreds, I’d want to write this book.” All right, I’m paraphrasing. But the phrase was clearly meant to charm. It didn't.
“That phone call? Don’t ever pull something like that on me again,” I tell him coldly.
We read each other what we’ve written, update the backstory log – in a collaboration, it’s important to keep up the momentum, keep growing the volume of words. So when we tweak the plot and such, rather than go back and rewrite the first draft, we make note of which chapter the tweak appears in and go on writing as if the tweak was there.
“I wrote her a nice note,” I say at some point. “I don’t really understand how she could have been offended by it.”
“She’s insecure,” Ben says. “She’s very, very jealous of you.”
Well, of course she is. And I’m very, very jealous of her because Ben has set it up that way. Many of our deconstructions of the marriage have centered on the fact that Ben was the emotional caregiver – but now I’m thinking that's just part of his manipulative technique. He picked two ostensibly self-confident women back to back, he pushed their buttons, and he turned them into quivering masses of emotional insecurity. I think this is the way pimps operate too, no?
He is rattling on about why our collaboration "works:" “I like to write and now I’m writing. And we complement each other, you know? As writers. I’m good with plot and dialogue; you’re good with status detail, description –“
“Nobody reads description,” I say.
“True. But it’s got to be included.
BEEEP! Wrong answer.
I'm a better writer than you, shithead, I think, staring at him through slitted eyes. You need me to write. But I don’t need you to write.
We pass on Perquackey.
