Straight No Chaser

Duty Calls, Destiny Whispers

have turned this into my own personal friday, more or less. as in, i awoke to an empty house, half an hour later than normal, dressed in jeans, drove like i didn't care if i ever showed up, sauntered in around nine-twenty. my boss is out till tomorrow, i only have like one full week left before this little ordeal is over...senioritis, more or less. no longer motivated to enter numbers into spreadsheets, nor to smile pleasantly at everyone who teases me about the way i sit curled up in my chair.

someone is whistling "summer breeze." must find out who.

anyway, so, further plans include leaving very early, maybe going to the movies (i found this free movie ticket thing i got at some restaurant a while ago, gold-trimmed, which can only mean one thing), then going home early, sacking out, catching up on sleep, nodding off with a dvd on in the background. director's commentary: brilliant innovation. more bang for your buck and such.

gotta stop babbling. i read the journals of lots of people who went to convention. still battling a bit of residual jealousy, i'm going to dedicate this lazy friday entry to a related theme--what i'd do with each of the following readers if we ever had a day to spend together. they'd have to come here, to silver spring, because i can't remember offhand where everyone is from. you're all free to reciprocate, if you want.

leahjoy: i really want her to hear that song, "four women" by nina simone. i'd pick her up and we'd do the poetry circuit; find a place downtown that was doing readings or open mic night or something, and i'd try to get her to recite one of hers. i have no idea whether she'd do it, but i hope she would. and then afterward we'd eat at a jazz lounge somewhere, and i'd have arranged it so that the lead vocalist would give her rendition of "four women" (sound familiar?) and leah would see what i mean, about how it reminds me of her poem. and then i'd show her the black notebook in which i first handwrote "Invalid Item" , and she'd see how weird it was, because i wrote the entire thing in pen, which because i am a perfectionist meant no mistakes, ever. i just plowed straight through and didn't change anything, not even with wite-out. so i'd show her that and then a picture of marcus, my alan incarnate, and then hopefully she'd show me pictures of her kids, and tell me about her life as i drove her back to the train station.

katrina: katrina likes to fly. hopefully this is universal, and not linked entirely to her husband. anyway, i'd get us booked on one of those little plane tours, and she'd get to see the city from above, and i'd bring notebooks for us both, and quite possibly she'd be so inspired that she'd write something, and i'd insist that she post it the second we got back to the house. then we'd look at pictures of megan, and i'd let her prank call marcus and threaten dents in his skull if he didn't remain as consistently perfect as he was over the weekend, and we'd giggle a lot as we hung up. then we'd go out for dessert, she'd tell me about her brothers, we'd talk about writing and writing.com and gossip endlessly about a couple of people in particular. and before seeing her off at the airport, i'd thank her again for last summer. a late anniversary thing, huh?

highly evolved: we would rent "the virgin suicides" and tear it apart. similar things with poetry, open mic night and such, but the best part would be the book discussions. i'd take her to bookstores and we'd compare stuff we'd already read, stuff we wanted to read, stuff we wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. OH GOD and then we'd rent "flowers in the attic," the horrible bastardized movie version, and lament over what a horrible job they did of adapting it, and she'd be the only person ever to appreciate that, possibly, besides tina. we would spend a lot of time talking about that book, i think. that filthy, incestuous, absolutely riveting book. and yes, we'd gossip. a little.

christina: two words: x-files marathon. tapes everywhere in my bedroom and all over the house, books full of production bloopers and continuity nitpicks; we'd tear the house apart gathering them all up and then really only have time to watch a handful before she had to leave. i'd insist on "triangle," and then we'd look at whichever one she likes best, and we'd ooh and aah over david duchovny, over the marvels of brilliant acting and character development and the value of a good head writer. and maybe i'd finally have an incentive to sit through a few ninth season episodes, something i've never done before, and we'd help each other feel better about the crashing disappointment that was the series finale, and then i'd beg to see pictures of the kids, and probably she'd show me. and i'd show her pictures of stuff from the school year, from that period when she and i would email back and forth all week, those long emails about everything that was going on, and i'd miss her after she went back to california.

prob: similarly, star wars. i'd get a day to be a dork, unabashed. not that that's a reflection on him or anything, just, i think that's the side that would come out, the scientifically oriented, detail-obsessed side that wants to veg out to familiar trilogies. i'd get chad to let me borrow his xbox, and we'd rent that pod-racing game, just to finish off. AND THEN, AS I'D BE DRIVING, I WOULD TAKE US TO SEE "CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY." there would be little or nothing he could do about it, short of manhandling me, which he wouldn't, because he's a gentleman. so there we'd be, and he'd be utterly shocked at what a hard time he gave a masterpiece for no reason, and he might think he owed me dinner or something afterward. he might. i'm just saying.

jodi: i would call her beforehand and beg her to bring luke, and she would, because she loves him to pieces, and i'd recognize them instantly in the airport because i've seen several of luke's pictures, and because jodi is impossibly, adorably tiny. the baby would limit us a little bit, but that would be okay, because i'd want to keep it low-key anyway. we'd go to this restaurant i think she'd like (i drew that conclusion because the decor matches the clothes she's wearing in all the pictures she's posted, and because her size suggests we have similar food preferences), and we'd talk. among other things, we'd talk about her career (because i have lots of questions), about the other stuff that comes up in her journal, the stuff she doesn't always get into in great detail, about luke, about the site, about writing in general, and about how she developed into such a warm, caring and enjoyable person, because i want to be like her someday. luke would gurgle in the background.

grim: i would pick him up and do whatever it took to inspire him to write something about me afterward. i don't even know what that would be. something. i guess it would depend on whether or not we'd been to the island already. i kind of have a feeling we'd never run out of things to talk about, because we both analyze the hell out of everything. something funny would happen and it would give us hours of material. and then we'd get back on the site and speak in code, and people would get irritated. anticlimactic, but true. i don't know what we'd do. whatever it took, like i said.

them others: the ones whose journals i read but who don't necessarily read mine, mods mostly, and other folks from the group, people like love and mia and melissa and cappucine--i'd bring them over and sit mutely while they chatted and laughed, absorbing it, trying desperately not to make a fool of myself. once i got my confidence up i'd ask mia to do my hair the way hers is done in that picture. love and i would edit "Invalid Item"  together. i'd play with ethan. and just sit next to cappucine, basking in her lyrical poignancy, praying for some of it to soak through by osmosis.