Adventures In Other People
Dec. 14th, 2012 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraDefinitely Seasonal Affective Disorder. Justin's still dead, but the sun's been out for the past couple of days. Chill, incredibly clear weather. Button the top button of your coat; walk briskly to get where you're going.
I set the alarm for 2 A.M. so I could go outside and spy on the Geminids.
Heard the alarm. Turned it off. Went back to sleep.
###
Ran into the nutty Israeli neighbor as I was leaving the house yesterday morning. She was in a marching fever, weights in hand, mad glint in her eyes. "I am walking ten times around!" she informed me. "Ten times around the periphery!"
I'm not exactly sure why, but there's something about her I like. I think maybe because she's one of those rare people of approximately my own age in whom I can see oh-so-clearly the girl she once was.
I used to be really good at looking at people and seeing their chronological progressions, kind of like double vision to the nth exponent, a series of doppelgangers that just got smaller and dewier as they devolved back into their childhood selves. I lost that ability when I hit 50 or so. After 50, all I could see when I met dull-eyed wrinkled adults was dull-eyed wrinkled adults.
But with Deborah, it's very, very easy to see the shy, bright eyed, bushy-haired girl she once was when her Yemenite father kidnapped her and her four siblings from their Trinidadian mother and took them all to Israel. He had no money, so they were immediately snatched and locked up in state-run kibbutzim. Whether she's aware of it or not, that was the defining moment of her life. That's the source of the panic that informs just about every move she's made since the wealthy industrialist husband kicked the bucket six years ago.
I see her very clearly. I mean, the real her. Other people, I think, see someone who is incredibly loud, incredibly judgmental and incredibly annoying.
Of course, I see that too. But I'm inclined to cut her a lot of slack.
Later in the afternoon she called me. "I have a Hanukah present for you!"
"Oh, no. Deborah. No."
"Yes! I am thinking all morning after I saw you – 'I like Patricia!' – " Editorial aside: Clearly not enough to learn my actual name – "' I like Patricia! And I will give her something beautiful for Hanukah. So I will come over at eight, yes? You do not have to entertain me!"
Only, of course, I did. So I bought a bottle of wine on the way back from the library where I work most days and cracked it open with Cassandra.
Cassandra had spent the afternoon baking these bonsai muffins flavored with rosemary for a party she was going to that night. She'd saved me three, and for some reason that little gesture just filled me with immense affection for her. Cassandra is very Dutch, which is to say she is blunt, no nonsense and does not suffer fools. She is also the dearest, kindest, most generous human being on the face of the planet. She endured my drunken embrace with good humor, patting me on the shoulder, rolling her eyes.
Two seconds after Cassandra left, Deborah appeared. I think she'd actually been lurking in the shadows, waiting for Cassandra's car to pull out. Deborah is mightily afeared of Cassandra – see "does not suffer fools" above.
Deborah had apparently spent the day stalking some neighbors about their unruly front lawn – pointed reference to our unruly front lawn – and embarrassing the ancient African American guy who delivers one of the many shopping circulars wealthy Lawn Guylanders get in their driveways every morning by trying to force some of the dead industrialist's clothes on him.
At some point in this conversation, she broke into a loud rendition of California Dreaming, and then sat beaming at me.
She has a rather beautiful singing voice, actually.
"You know when I am living in Israel and working in the bank, every month I save up my money and buy one long play. The Mamas and the Papas! The Tijuana Brass! Jose Feliciano!"
Long play? Oh, of course: LP.
"I leave all my long plays in Israel when I marry Joe and come to America. It hurt me to leave them, but of course, I must. Such a dark time in my life. My sonofabitch first husband and then, of course, I had my daughter. I never think about that time."
Reading this over, I am thinking – as you must be thinking – So… exactly why do you like this person again?
I guess I'm just a hopeless pathos junkie.
Then she whips out this box and hands it to me. "Lord and Taylor. I only buy at Lord and Taylor."
It turns out to be this exquisite alpaca wool designer sweater in a gunmetal blue that she persists in calling "teal." Lady, I know teal. This ain't teal.
It is, however, gorgeous and obviously very expensive.
I can't quite decide whether she is re-gifting me or has merely decided to part with one of the many unopened boxes stacked up in her house. I'm quite sure she's a hoarder who shops compulsively and rarely wears anything she buys.
She has really, really good taste. The sweater looks amazing on me, and if I'm going to start dating again, I need to expand my wardrobe beyond ratty black sweaters with holes in them and coffee-stained skinny jeans.
I'm five inches taller than she is but we wear approximately the same size.
In fact, I'd be doing her a favor to somehow convince her to give me all the clothes in those unopened Lord and Taylor boxes cluttering up her home, right?
Right!
I set the alarm for 2 A.M. so I could go outside and spy on the Geminids.
Heard the alarm. Turned it off. Went back to sleep.
Ran into the nutty Israeli neighbor as I was leaving the house yesterday morning. She was in a marching fever, weights in hand, mad glint in her eyes. "I am walking ten times around!" she informed me. "Ten times around the periphery!"
I'm not exactly sure why, but there's something about her I like. I think maybe because she's one of those rare people of approximately my own age in whom I can see oh-so-clearly the girl she once was.
I used to be really good at looking at people and seeing their chronological progressions, kind of like double vision to the nth exponent, a series of doppelgangers that just got smaller and dewier as they devolved back into their childhood selves. I lost that ability when I hit 50 or so. After 50, all I could see when I met dull-eyed wrinkled adults was dull-eyed wrinkled adults.
But with Deborah, it's very, very easy to see the shy, bright eyed, bushy-haired girl she once was when her Yemenite father kidnapped her and her four siblings from their Trinidadian mother and took them all to Israel. He had no money, so they were immediately snatched and locked up in state-run kibbutzim. Whether she's aware of it or not, that was the defining moment of her life. That's the source of the panic that informs just about every move she's made since the wealthy industrialist husband kicked the bucket six years ago.
I see her very clearly. I mean, the real her. Other people, I think, see someone who is incredibly loud, incredibly judgmental and incredibly annoying.
Of course, I see that too. But I'm inclined to cut her a lot of slack.
Later in the afternoon she called me. "I have a Hanukah present for you!"
"Oh, no. Deborah. No."
"Yes! I am thinking all morning after I saw you – 'I like Patricia!' – " Editorial aside: Clearly not enough to learn my actual name – "' I like Patricia! And I will give her something beautiful for Hanukah. So I will come over at eight, yes? You do not have to entertain me!"
Only, of course, I did. So I bought a bottle of wine on the way back from the library where I work most days and cracked it open with Cassandra.
Cassandra had spent the afternoon baking these bonsai muffins flavored with rosemary for a party she was going to that night. She'd saved me three, and for some reason that little gesture just filled me with immense affection for her. Cassandra is very Dutch, which is to say she is blunt, no nonsense and does not suffer fools. She is also the dearest, kindest, most generous human being on the face of the planet. She endured my drunken embrace with good humor, patting me on the shoulder, rolling her eyes.
Two seconds after Cassandra left, Deborah appeared. I think she'd actually been lurking in the shadows, waiting for Cassandra's car to pull out. Deborah is mightily afeared of Cassandra – see "does not suffer fools" above.
Deborah had apparently spent the day stalking some neighbors about their unruly front lawn – pointed reference to our unruly front lawn – and embarrassing the ancient African American guy who delivers one of the many shopping circulars wealthy Lawn Guylanders get in their driveways every morning by trying to force some of the dead industrialist's clothes on him.
At some point in this conversation, she broke into a loud rendition of California Dreaming, and then sat beaming at me.
She has a rather beautiful singing voice, actually.
"You know when I am living in Israel and working in the bank, every month I save up my money and buy one long play. The Mamas and the Papas! The Tijuana Brass! Jose Feliciano!"
Long play? Oh, of course: LP.
"I leave all my long plays in Israel when I marry Joe and come to America. It hurt me to leave them, but of course, I must. Such a dark time in my life. My sonofabitch first husband and then, of course, I had my daughter. I never think about that time."
Reading this over, I am thinking – as you must be thinking – So… exactly why do you like this person again?
I guess I'm just a hopeless pathos junkie.
Then she whips out this box and hands it to me. "Lord and Taylor. I only buy at Lord and Taylor."
It turns out to be this exquisite alpaca wool designer sweater in a gunmetal blue that she persists in calling "teal." Lady, I know teal. This ain't teal.
It is, however, gorgeous and obviously very expensive.
I can't quite decide whether she is re-gifting me or has merely decided to part with one of the many unopened boxes stacked up in her house. I'm quite sure she's a hoarder who shops compulsively and rarely wears anything she buys.
She has really, really good taste. The sweater looks amazing on me, and if I'm going to start dating again, I need to expand my wardrobe beyond ratty black sweaters with holes in them and coffee-stained skinny jeans.
I'm five inches taller than she is but we wear approximately the same size.
In fact, I'd be doing her a favor to somehow convince her to give me all the clothes in those unopened Lord and Taylor boxes cluttering up her home, right?
Right!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 07:25 pm (UTC)I don't loathe Deborah, but I find her to be a bit too loud and too crazy for my taste. She's an okay person -- a nice person, probably. (Of course, the Dutch are also known for our tolerance.)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-14 07:29 pm (UTC)I remember waking up in the middle of the night one December night several years ago, and looking out the window in the bedroom you're in now (the window from which you can see sky as opposed to tree branches) and seeing dozens of meteors within the space of a few minutes. It's worth trying and will be more comfortable than going outside.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-16 04:54 am (UTC)It sounds exquisite. Gunmetal. I like that color very much.
Good word, gunmetal
no subject
Date: 2012-12-16 01:37 pm (UTC)Best thing about it is that it's actually one word. Not "gun metal." But "gunmetal."