Bitter Greens: Connect

I'm from Vermont, so it shouldn't be too surprising that when I'm here I run into people I know. I am surprised though, delighted, tickled pink, something like that. Is it that I feel so lucky to know so many neat people who will still talk to me?

I connected with Anna via Friendster and we met for a drink. She invited me to a new year's prom party. Talented brilliant gorgeous funny Anna is the kind of friend I brag about having.
At a party I ran into Allison, one of my two best friends in grade school. The last time I saw Ally, I don't think either of us was sure if we were over middle school, but this time I noticed that there was a little hole in my heart where she fit in just so, and we fell all over each other. My heart seems to have lots of those little holes.
This isn't location-specific I suppose, but out of the blue I got an email from Clare, a high school friend from across the lake. Unbeknownst to me she's been living in Austin and hanging around with people I know for years. She said in her LJ, "I have a lurking fear that I did something or said something really tremendously uncool that made her and her sister hate me." Something did happen, but I can't remember what it was, and I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that we were all fucked up high school girls.
At the prom, I ran into Jeremy. He was part of the crew of kids from a few towns away who my crew hung out with. Well, mostly to him I was his friend Ben's ex-girlfriend, and with time he became my friend Cathy's ex-boyfriend.
Apparently invited to the prom by Jeremy was Jason, there with his very-pregnant girlfriend. Jason is not the only person to have been my best friend's boyfriend and my boyfriend's best friend, but now there's exes all around and we're just distant acquaintances.
Also at the prom Alicia introduced me to her best friend-from-high-school, Rachel. Rachel's like Jason and Jeremy, my romantic second-cousin.

Whenever I travel and see people I love, I wish I lived in some Atlantis where my Vermont, Portland, Chicago, Bay Area, and Austin friends all lived happily down the street from one another and everyone raised vegetables. I talk about community all the time, but I'm reluctant to settle down with one. I think it's because I'm so in love with all of my Super Friends and second-cousins and can't bear the possibility of forming a community that doesn't include the largest possible number of them.

the last 10 books I read

David Sedaris: When You Are Engulfed in Flames
I have noticed in the last couple years that reading while eating has become dissatisfying - I enjoy both less, taste less, remember less. I read most of this while eating. I think it was more mature and not as hysterically funny as Me Talk Pretty One Day, but I also think that last burger needed salt.
Charles Palliser: The Quincunx
A thoroughly engrossing and very long victorian legal mystery/adventure. Also quite enjoyable! It did not end the way I expected.
Cormac McCarthy: The Road
Easily one of the best books I've ever read. I'll give you a dollar if you can make it through without crying.
Anais Nin: Little Birds
Not the one in the picture, but a lovely old red hardbound edition given to me by Heather. It reads like the stories were written over a long period of time, but perhaps the progression of tone was intentional?
Haruki Murakami: Norwegian Wood
My only excuse for not having read this before is that it was just perfect for me now. Rocketed to my favorites list straightaway.
Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell To Arms
The progression of language and complexity through the book was most interesting to me. The depiction of the central couple's affair seems disturbingly co-dependent and unhealthy, but that's just age, I guess.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Memories of My Melancholy Whores
Yes, quite good, the right length for a domestic flight. I hate to say "nothing special" but that's how I remember it.
Jerzy Kosinski: Steps
A re-read of a book I thought was too creepy and yucky to ever read again. Densely packed with uncomfortable feelings and moments of brilliance.
Charlie Brooker: Dawn of the Dumb
This is a collection of Charlie Brooker's columns in the Guardian from the last couple of years. If you don't read it, you really ought to start. https://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker He writes about (british) TV and pop culture in a way that's so f'ing funny it makes me forget that I don't get the references. A bit formulaic when you read them all at a stretch.
James Kelman: How Late It Was, How Late: A Novel
A claustrophobic stream-of-consciousness rant, the focus set so tight you feel like you yourself are blind. Review quotes refer to how funny it is, but perhaps I'm too American to find it anything but choking. In a good way.

Comments

"I think it's because I'm so in love with all of my Super Friends and second-cousins and can't bear the possibility of forming a community that doesn't include the largest possible number of them."

i feel the same way. problem is, the more you move around, the more such people you generate. what a catch 22!

Posted by: Randy | 01/05/2004 at 06:06 PM