TRUE STORY
An Education in Emotional Literacy
You never want to be called dull so you hold your tongue. Keep secrets. One afternoon one summer I saw a drunk girl in bed. In my bed, and she was talking to me.
“I like you but you’re kind of dumb honey.”
I stared off at my baseball cleats for a while. It was a hot day, I remember. Outside people were celebrating the end of an international sport’s tournament: they were Greek. There was really a lot going on and it had been a full day.
It was getting dark and I think she woke up.
“What time is it?”
“Shhh, don’t talk now, not now.
"What?"
The next day I was resolved maybe to act differently around this person; but it was raining, I needed a haircut, and I wasn’t feeling good about myself. I got lost later in the afternoon walking around the alleyways. Bought a record. Found a tape I thought to present as a token. Lookey what I found.
But I don’t think she understood the Pixies are a good band. The offer was rescinded, or rejected outright. Later it cheered me listening to ‘Here Comes Your Man,’ leaving town, in August, and all of my things packed in the trunk.
* * *
“Is it really possible to be unhappy at 22?”
When? Yes?
“???”
Stuart J. MINT
'Keep up the pace, keep out the quality.' -Eds.
"And there I was, turning twenty-three, with all kinds of capacity, a college graduate, a European traveller and man of the world, and with no end of personal charm. But I didn't have a job; I didn't have any money; I didn't have a girl. What ought one to do in a melancholy situation like that? Something was demanded.
I decided to become a Bohemian."
- Harold Stearns, Confessions of a Harvard Man.
You never want to be called dull so you hold your tongue. Keep secrets. One afternoon one summer I saw a drunk girl in bed. In my bed, and she was talking to me.
“I like you but you’re kind of dumb honey.”
I stared off at my baseball cleats for a while. It was a hot day, I remember. Outside people were celebrating the end of an international sport’s tournament: they were Greek. There was really a lot going on and it had been a full day.
It was getting dark and I think she woke up.
“What time is it?”
“Shhh, don’t talk now, not now.
"What?"
The next day I was resolved maybe to act differently around this person; but it was raining, I needed a haircut, and I wasn’t feeling good about myself. I got lost later in the afternoon walking around the alleyways. Bought a record. Found a tape I thought to present as a token. Lookey what I found.
But I don’t think she understood the Pixies are a good band. The offer was rescinded, or rejected outright. Later it cheered me listening to ‘Here Comes Your Man,’ leaving town, in August, and all of my things packed in the trunk.
* * *
“Is it really possible to be unhappy at 22?”
When? Yes?
“???”
Stuart J. MINT
'Keep up the pace, keep out the quality.' -Eds.
"And there I was, turning twenty-three, with all kinds of capacity, a college graduate, a European traveller and man of the world, and with no end of personal charm. But I didn't have a job; I didn't have any money; I didn't have a girl. What ought one to do in a melancholy situation like that? Something was demanded.
I decided to become a Bohemian."
- Harold Stearns, Confessions of a Harvard Man.
posted by Esoteric Clique at 2:10 AM
6 Comments:
Sometimes I think that Robert is right and that we are all the same person.
This afternoon I was over at a sweet girl's house and she made me some chicken noodle soup and a cheese sandwich. Afterwards, she tried to play me "Here Comes Your Man" by the Pixies and I said to her: "No silly, there aren't any chords there. It's like this."
Then we did the Manta Ray.
Obiter Dictum – I am beginning to feel some remorse about my comments on Paul’s piece after my story about Leah. Only in the rarest of cases should any encouragement be given to such, t’is not a topic to dwell on nor develop. I depicted what some might consider a careless little lark, a snip in the night. Blood, as only Blood can, trumps with his denouement. Where does this path lead? To horrors until now not even imagined.
Reflection upon Rose’s piece finds the Eds. once more so true. I missed the references to death but then that is because I’m so far from ready. Death lurks everywhere, one only need look. If we consider Rose’s piece in a Waiting for Godot whey/way/weigh, then yes we find her bare, waiting in a dressing room, being asked to leave. Into this world we come and into the void we go, bare and innocent.
I really enjoyed Mint’s piece on the inversion of what I call the bovine/mallard duck syndrome. I agree with the Eds., it had a wonderful pace to it. I will have to check out The Pixies.
It’s spring and I have been stirring the caldron a bit, getting things ready, for she comes. I was mixing up some lawn booster and the ingredients were: lime, gypsum, sugar, and a handful of human hair. Who knew,new,gnu?
Snapped in,
D
That's the selfsame tape honey. You were in the car, you were driving I think.
Robert,
There's no death in Rose's story. It's about entrapment and claustrophobia, skeletons in the closet. I think the ed's comment refers to the morbid strain of February posts, all death-threat, eulogy, autopsy. Things are looking up (but it's snowing in Halifax.)
Thanks for reading though. What's the bovine/mallard duck syndrome? I can't begin to imagine.
Do the Manta Ray,
Fire Agate.
Stone I disagree. There is death in every story, one only needs to look, regardless of the references of the Eds., to this that and whatever.
Bovine/mallard duck - Most women are cows and have you ever seen a pair of mallards?
How I have often wished to be swept away, only to find myself still standing on the planet as it whips around the sun.
All this and heaven too and I love it!
Snapping out,
D
Stone I disagree. There is death in every story, one only needs to look, regardless of the references of the Eds., to this that and whatever.
Bovine/mallard duck - Most women are cows and have you ever seen a pair of mallards?
How I have often wished to be swept away, only to find myself still standing on the planet as it whips around the sun.
All this and heaven too and I love it!
Snapping out,
D
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