Jairus' Daughter

Encounters on Thoroughfares

To all my male friends:

Please don't become the eighty-year-old guy who gets his giggles by honking and waving at young girls crossing the street.

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I seriously had to stop my car for, like, 2 minutes in the middle of a two-lane street because a gaggle of Canadian geese were crossing.  A gaggle.  And they weren't quick about it.  But I didn't mind; how often do you get to stop what you're doing and give your undivided attention to 20 Canadian geese crossing the road?

I Am the Lobster

I need a remedial lesson in sunscreen application.  My face now has a semi-permanent mottled look to it, as if I've been crying, with a big white stripe down part of my nose.  Lovely.

It was worth the 8-hour drive and the frying of the eyelids, though, to see my dear friends from college and hang out with them on the Outer Banks.  We only get to see each other maybe three times a year.  Thankfully, the other two are in fall and winter.

Chapter 6

There are some who maintain that Phil never drank before he and Christy started dating.  Maybe it was just something else he hid from the rest of us.  Whatever their individual habits were before, the amount of alcohol they consumed respectively appeared to increase when they were together.

Phil began to stay over at Christy's more and more.  It started out of necessity--Christy would get trashed when they went out, so he had to stay and take care of her.  After a while, he stopped going home altogether, only stopping by when the apartment was empty to pick up clothes and whatnot.  He didn't want to face the problems there.  His avoiding them only made them worse.

Chapter 5

She didn't want anyone to know they were dating.  Stacy called it from the very beginning, but no one really paid that much attention to her.  She was always premature in her predictions about other people's love lives.  Just to be safe, Christy spread her own counter-rumor:  "If you hear anything about me and Phil dating, just quash it.  It's not true."  For months, the more astute of us suspected something, while the more naïve acted as Christy's information ministers, reporting facts that belied what was right in front of our eyes.

The Adventures of "Salad Boy"

Ok, technically he's "Premade Food Boy."  However, Derek read my earlier post and got a little mixed up, dubbing him "Salad Boy" ever after.

I found out yesterday that he moved here from Miami, but grew up in Cleveland.  And he used to be a kindergarten teacher.  (I hope he didn't notice my momentary drop in height when he told me that, as my knees got a little wobbly.)  It came up that I was moving in a few weeks, and he looked genuinely saddened.

That's when he asked for my number.  ;)

Chapter 4

No one quite knew what to do with Marie.  Much of our shared knowledge of her came in the form of rumors and stories from not exactly reliable sources.  One such anecdote involved Blake and a strip poker game.  Was she naked?  Was he naked?  Was there alcohol involved?  Who knows.  It was enough to make Stacy break up with him, though.  For a whole week.  That was early on in their relationship.  Ever since, Stacy suspected Marie of having designs on her boyfriend.  It didn't help that Marie lived in the same building as Blake and Phil.  One floor down.

It seemed obvious that Marie just needed friends.  We tried to be nice to her, but we just couldn't ever find much in common with her.  Her expression was so hard to read; you never knew what she was thinking.  The only person who seemed to have any success was Christy.  She took Marie under her wing and they became nearly inseparable for a while.

A Letter to the Guy Who Ruined Lunch

Dear Mr. Militant Vegetarian,

I am writing this to aid you in future social interactions, so that you will know what is appropriate mealtime conversation, and what is not.  Here are a few general guidelines:

1)  Don't tell me what my food is going to do once in my stomach, drawing comparisons from elementary school science projects.

2)  Don't tell me what happens to baby cows if they are fed pasteurized milk.

3)  Don't tell me the detrimental effects of protein.  Some people happen to like protein.

4)  And most importantly, DON'T SAY ANY OF IT WHILE I'M EATING!!!!  Timing, man, timing.

I don't criticize your dietary preferences; I would appreciate it if you didn't criticize mine, especially in the presence of my friends, Chicken, White Bread, and Potato Chip.  Thank you.

Your nauseated friend,
Meredith

Chapter 3

Blake loved Stacy.  But he couldn't say it.  He especially couldn't say it in front of other people, with Stacy nagging, "Blaaake, tell them!  Tell them how much you love me!"  He was whipped, but he wouldn't acknowledge defeat openly.  He still had his pride.  He needed her, but he hated that he needed her.  She was the needy one, not him.  Everyone could see that.  What everyone couldn't see was how she took care of him emotionally, the depth and character of their relationship when they were alone together.  No one could see that.

A typical guy, he still had it in the back of his mind that he was holding out for the perfect girl.  That's why he took forever to say those three words for the first time, and why he kept balking at the idea of marriage.  But eventually he realized that he couldn't live without Stacy.  They were each other's support, their balance.  If Stacy would have just quit asking him when he was going to propose, he might have been able to propose.

How Not to Get Famous in Washington

An intern in Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's office was sacked because of an email he wrote.  It's always sad when an elitist upbringing rears its ugly head.  Click here to read the Washington Post account of the scandal, and see below for the original message.  I censored one word and removed line breaks for the sake of space, but other than that, it is exactly how I received it.  In the Post, the author of the email is quoted as saying that he "wrote that letter in under 15 minutes."  I'm surprised he admitted it took that long.

Steve.  Steeeeeve...

I made a friend at Sutton Place.  So now I check my hair before I go over there.  Yep, that kind of friend.

On Monday, he told me to come back when I had more time and we'd "play."  Today, I went over there and he gave me samples of just about everything at the premade food counter.  It was yummy.  I was almost full before I ordered anything.  I had to cut our little rendez-vous short, though.  I figured my "It was really busy!" excuse back at the office would only cover so much time, since all I was supposed to get was a little container of tuna salad.

Does he make friends with all the girls?  Probably.  Is it a clever ploy to sell more food?  Most definitely.  I give.  Uncle.

Chapter 2

Blake and Phil were best friends all through college.  They had roomed together since then.  They looked a little like the Odd Couple, but we never thought anything would come between them.  It was only later that we found out Phil was having money troubles.  Or, more accurately, money troubles were having him.  The cable was disconnected because he hadn't paid the bills.  He was late with the rent.  His name wasn't even on the lease because his credit rating was so poor.  He'd been living beyond his means for a long time.  He hid it well.

Being polite just cost me two nights' sleep.

Well, just about anyway.  My roommate's mother and mother's friend were visiting from Pennsylvania for the weekend.  Which is wonderful--I'm more than happy to have houseguests, especially family.  However, one of these houseguests was rather picky, and instead of taking the fold-out couch, she insisted on sleeping in my roommate's bed.  Which is in my room.  Again, I was fine with this, once I was made aware.  (I came home and opened the door to my room to find that my roommate had aged 30 years.)  After all, I'm flexible.  But I am not flexible enough to be able to fall asleep amidst such snoring that could rival an airport runway for decibel level.

The first night, I just endured it.  I knew they were leaving early in the morning and I could sleep in after that.  The second night, however, my situation was desperate.  I got in at 2:00, and I had to get up at 7:00.  I couldn't afford to spend those five hours trying to get to sleep.  The last thing I wanted to do was to make our guest feel bad for keeping me up, but I had no choice.  I grabbed my sleeping bag and fled to the couch.  It was the most glorious 4.5 hours of sleep I've ever had.  The most appreciated, at least.

Chapter 1

Christy didn't like Stacy from the start.  We don't know why.  Maybe it was because of all the attention Stacy got.  All the attention she called to herself.  She was always having some crisis of health:  severe asthma, severe allergies, severe UTI's... Was it that Christy resented her oft-repeated litany of ailments, or the fact that Blake always humored her?  He dutifully carried her to and from the emergency room, took care of her at home, administered her meds, vacuumed and scrubbed every inch of her apartment--and his--so that not a single allergen would have a chance of touching her.  He did it all without hesitation; he was her boyfriend.

Haiku

Hurts for no reason
This funny cramp in my leg
Ow ow ow ow ow

Would you call this a good business practice?

Our office has a heating/AC guy who came out and fixed our heat pump this past April.  Well, it's broken again.  We looked on the past invoice and it says, "90 day parts and labor warranty."  So we call him up.  His phone number is one of those where you leave a message and it pages him.  This was on the 25th of June.  My boss and I called everyday, sometimes twice a day, since then, trying to get him to respond.  Today my other boss offered to call from his cell phone.  He left his name and his cell phone number and only said that he had some AC trouble.  The guy called back in 15 min.  Part of me doesn't want him to show up because I'm so embarrassed for him, I don't want to be in the room.

4th of July

Man, was it cool.  Well, actually it was 92°, but that's not what I meant.  While some of my friends chose to join the "sweaty throng" (Jake's term) on the Mall to watch the fireworks from directly underneath, I went for the more subdued environment of my friend Jake's apartment.  The five of us had ourselves a little barbecue.  Nothing could have prepared me for what we saw at 9:00, though.  From Jake's balcony (on a corner of the building), we had a panoramic view of no less than 10--count 'em, 10--fireworks displays going off simultaneously.  From Arlington to Maryland, all we could see was a horizon of fireworks in three directions.  It was as if we had transcended time and space and could see the 4th of July everywhere all at once.

The friends who were down at the Mall came and joined us when they had fought their way back from the District.  They were sunburned, exhausted, and covered in ash like in Armageddon.  To each his own, I guess.

The Lag

Why do I always find myself asking guys to be more mature than they are capable of being?  (Yes, I realize the answer is obvious; it's a rhetorical question.)  Let me share with you an episode from my youth, which I had forgotten about until recently...

It was the summer after my senior year of high school.  Scott and I had started dating the week before graduation, and everything was going fine.  I was going away for the month of July to work at a Christian camp in upstate New York, and there was no talk of breaking up or cooling off or anything like that.  He even told me to call him collect from camp.  So off I went thinking everything's ok.

Camp turned out to be REALLY hard work, and telephone breaks were infrequent if you could get one at all.  When I did try to call Scott, I called collect like he said, and his mom didn't remember who I was.  This is the woman who told Scott he should "hang on to this one," meaning me.  I thought it was odd that she all of a sudden wouldn't accept the charges.  I tried again later when I had 5 min before cabin time and got Scott himself on the phone.  He sounded weird, and finally he came out with a "We need to talk."  Funny how that phrase pretty much says it all.

When I got back home, I called him up to make arrangements for us to meet somewhere and "talk," for closure if nothing else.  We talked for a minute and he said he would call me back.  The next call I got was from Scott's best friend, Shawn.  He said that Scott was in a car accident on 17 (the main road through our area), and that he was in the hospital.  This didn't surprise me at all.  Scott was never that great a driver; he had been pulled over twice while I was in the car.  So I sighed exasperatedly and asked Shawn which hospital he was in.  He said he would find out and call me back.  THEN I got a call from Scott's other best friend, Amanda--a girl--asking if Shawn had just called me saying that Scott had been in an accident.  I confirmed it and she said, "I just want you to know... it's not true."  I thanked her and hung up, realizing at this point that any effort to have a grownup conversation with Scott would be futile.  He never did call back.