this is the last unQuotable...
...for awhile.
...for awhile.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
A better ending
I never met her, but spent nearly every Sunday morning for a year with her. We played canasta on-line and sometimes I won, but not because she let me. We were both fiercely competitive. The first time we spoke was at work. Peg worked at the main office, in accounting, and would often call me to inquire over some clerical issue or hassle me about getting in the end-of-week transfers. She was a real bug and I wasn't above being short with her. Most of the receiving clerks at other store locations detested her. To me she was just annoying. But gradually she wormed her way into my life.
I don't know how, but we started talking about books. Peg was an avid reader and she picked my brain about stuff I had read. She was more into best sellers and some fantasy fiction. Supernatural stuff. She liked all the popular stuff as well. I turned her on to science fiction, mostly the classics because I figured that's what she would enjoy the most. I didn't want to throw her into the deep end right off the get go. Eventually she got beyond Tolkien and read a Mieville, but it was a bit of a lot a little too late.
Sooner or later we started talking about art and writing. I sent her a diskette in the store mail, Attn: Peg, General Office, containing a bunch of my doodles. She weedled out of me a couple of short stories and poems. Peg was a cat person, she even rescued cats and had a crap load of them in her garage. Sometimes I would save damaged cat food for her and she'd drive out to the store to pick it up. I was never around when she did this. She had an arrangement with a vet that would neuter the suckers. Never really learned what she did with all these cats; I guess I didn't really care, as I am about as far from being a cat person as one can be. Remember 101 Uses For a Dead Cat? I laughed at all of those stupid cartoons back in the 80's. Sorry.
But I did write a cat poem for her. It was called 'Jelly Cat', and I kept losing it and asking her to send it back to me so I could rewrite it, which I did a few times, but never completely to my satisfaction. I don't know what it was with that stupid poem, I just couldn't get it right. And now it's gone forever.
The company spent a little money and upgraded our equipment in the receiving area. I got a computer to review invoices on and a kick-ass printer. Man do I miss that printer. Bubble jet, mamma big ink cartridge, single sheet paper. The computer was your standard Hewlett Packard. It didn't have much loaded on it, but I could stick a disk in and up load pictures or listen to music. Sometimes I would even print stuff off that I wrote. I always had a stack of recycled paper around, and the printer cartridge would go nearly a year before I had to order a replacement. It was a sweet deal. All of the receivers had their own e-mail accounts and we could text back and forth questions we had about this or that. Of course, Peg had all of our addresses and now she could hassle us through e-mails as well as phone calls.
I'll admit, I was always a bit stand offish. Computers had been around for quite awhile now, but the big social networks weren't all that mainstream. We would chitchat on the phone between questions about paperwork, and communicate through e-mail a lot more than we had any reason to. I never considered it much of a friendship, because we were just casual work acquaintances that had never even met, in person. That's the way she wanted it; any requests from me to have lunch or a cup of coffee were always shot down. She was a spinster living in an old farmhouse with her sister, easily ten years or more older than I. I was married with kids. To me it would have been no big deal; I've been friends with a lot of women over the years, almost always work associates, and my wife has never had a problem with it either. Peg would have nothing of it. But I think the reason was different than what I suspected at the time. I figured a friend I'd had from childhood and had known for years on end was a “real friend”, but she thought we were the best of friends, in every meaning of the word. She wouldn't give anything of her self away, but was ceaseless in her attempts to dig every ounce of personal information from me. I resisted and even refused to talk to her at one point when something I said hurt her feelings. She was outraged, it was such a little thing, and I told her where to get off and slammed down the phone. One thing Peg was was persistent. For some weird reason, she wanted to be my friend, and she wiggled her way back into my life. She was sorry, and she didn't want it to end that way.
It took a year, but eventually Peg got to read my book. I didn't want her to. It wasn't polished. It was my baby. Somehow it was too personal – a part of me. To this day I'll bet less than a dozen people have read that stupid thing, but Peg was one of them. Probably the only person who devoured it and maybe she even read it twice. She got to read a few more of my stories, and a bunch of poems. Peg finally even disclosed her love of writing and e-mailed me a couple stories. Her favorite character was some sort of supernatural wraith-like woman. Peg wasn't a bad writer, not at all, and I was trying to talk her into writing about her life growing up on a farm. It would have been a hard story to write, and to read. Peg didn't have one of those happy childhoods; it was miserable and full of nasty creatures called men. Growing up on a farm is about as far from my experience as a suburban kid as you can get. I had a stay at home mom and spent my summers in the neighborhood pool. She spent hers sweating in the kitchen, cooking for the menfolk who worked in the fields and expected the women to do everything else. She got no love from a father who hoarded every penny, and lost a mother who died early, probably fleeing a heartless world to find a better place. Peg had to raise her brothers and sisters herself, scraping pennies from a part time job just to buy them used clothing and pencils. Her brother was so messed up that he shot himself in the head right in front of their father, who just sat there and watched him bleed half to death. Peg rushed home from work to see the carnage, and call an ambulance. Talk about dysfunctional, I have no idea. Peg made her way through college, but I don't know how she managed.
We played canasta, together from across town, sometimes two or three games, until one of us excused ourselves to get something practical done. She had housework, or visiting nieces. I needed to go out for a run, or get ready for church. One workday I got a package from the office, Attn: Tom, receiving. It was thick and turned out to be about thirty pages that Peg had written, sort of a love story told in the world of a popular fantasy novel. I took my time getting around to it, but finally read it. Eh, not really my cup of tea, and I told her so. I qualified that though and told her it was pretty well written, even if I didn't particularly enjoy the subject matter. I did chastise her a little for not being more original. Why steal characters and settings; why not create your own world? She was never going to be a real writer by writing 'fan fiction'.
I guess for her it was more a hobby than anything. Peg wanted to be a writer, but only for the fun of it. She didn't want to embarrass anyone by telling stories from her past, and she wasn't confident enough to delve deeply into unknown characters and places. That's what I thought. I guess I'm full of shit. Peg told me to burn the copy of the story she sent me; didn't want it back, she had her own copy. I stuck it in the closet under a pile of other papers and envelopes. Every once in a while I would uncover it and think about her, and her story.
Peg died. I still have the e-mail.
Hi Tom
> I am Peg's sister and I wanted to let you know
> that she passed away tonight. I wanted to thank you
> for all the joy you gave her with the card games and
> emails. She always spoke very highly of you.
> Tresa
That Sunday morning Peg never met up with me to play canasta. I figured she was busy, but thought it was odd, because normally she would have let me know if she couldn't sit in. Funny isn't it, you sometimes know that someone is sick, but you never know how sick until someone tells you, and it's never the person who is sick. Peg never let on how ill she was. She never wanted to meet me in person. She just wanted to read and write what gave her joy. I finally knew why. She wanted to know everything there was to know about me. Me! That's the weirdest part – I'll probably never understand it.
I walked upstairs and sat beside my wife to tell her what I had just read, then I just cried. I hugged my wife and bawled real tears for a woman I had never even met.
One night this summer I sat out in my backyard in front of a fire that I made. I was drinking a beer and an old buddy of mine had stopped over. I've known this guy for thirty years; I guess that makes him a “real” friend. He's been here and there, all over the country, but now lives back in the town where we both grew up and went to school. Brian is a fine fellow, and I guess I should try to be a better friend to him. He's going through some pretty rough times now. We lounged at the fire, talking. I put my beer in the grass and opened up an envelope that I had brought out earlier. I was taking out sheets of paper and wadding them up, tossing them one by one into the flames.
What's that, he'd asked. I remember. Just some old papers I need to get rid of. I gave him a small stack to toss into the fire. Then I raised my beer to the crackling embers and nodded to Peg, my old friend. I don't know if Brian saw me, and I wasn't going to explain if he did. I wish things had gone differently, but this is the way it all played out. I'll think about her, and her story, and maybe come up with a better ending. I'm pretty sure she would like that.
I don't know how, but we started talking about books. Peg was an avid reader and she picked my brain about stuff I had read. She was more into best sellers and some fantasy fiction. Supernatural stuff. She liked all the popular stuff as well. I turned her on to science fiction, mostly the classics because I figured that's what she would enjoy the most. I didn't want to throw her into the deep end right off the get go. Eventually she got beyond Tolkien and read a Mieville, but it was a bit of a lot a little too late.
Sooner or later we started talking about art and writing. I sent her a diskette in the store mail, Attn: Peg, General Office, containing a bunch of my doodles. She weedled out of me a couple of short stories and poems. Peg was a cat person, she even rescued cats and had a crap load of them in her garage. Sometimes I would save damaged cat food for her and she'd drive out to the store to pick it up. I was never around when she did this. She had an arrangement with a vet that would neuter the suckers. Never really learned what she did with all these cats; I guess I didn't really care, as I am about as far from being a cat person as one can be. Remember 101 Uses For a Dead Cat? I laughed at all of those stupid cartoons back in the 80's. Sorry.
But I did write a cat poem for her. It was called 'Jelly Cat', and I kept losing it and asking her to send it back to me so I could rewrite it, which I did a few times, but never completely to my satisfaction. I don't know what it was with that stupid poem, I just couldn't get it right. And now it's gone forever.
The company spent a little money and upgraded our equipment in the receiving area. I got a computer to review invoices on and a kick-ass printer. Man do I miss that printer. Bubble jet, mamma big ink cartridge, single sheet paper. The computer was your standard Hewlett Packard. It didn't have much loaded on it, but I could stick a disk in and up load pictures or listen to music. Sometimes I would even print stuff off that I wrote. I always had a stack of recycled paper around, and the printer cartridge would go nearly a year before I had to order a replacement. It was a sweet deal. All of the receivers had their own e-mail accounts and we could text back and forth questions we had about this or that. Of course, Peg had all of our addresses and now she could hassle us through e-mails as well as phone calls.
I'll admit, I was always a bit stand offish. Computers had been around for quite awhile now, but the big social networks weren't all that mainstream. We would chitchat on the phone between questions about paperwork, and communicate through e-mail a lot more than we had any reason to. I never considered it much of a friendship, because we were just casual work acquaintances that had never even met, in person. That's the way she wanted it; any requests from me to have lunch or a cup of coffee were always shot down. She was a spinster living in an old farmhouse with her sister, easily ten years or more older than I. I was married with kids. To me it would have been no big deal; I've been friends with a lot of women over the years, almost always work associates, and my wife has never had a problem with it either. Peg would have nothing of it. But I think the reason was different than what I suspected at the time. I figured a friend I'd had from childhood and had known for years on end was a “real friend”, but she thought we were the best of friends, in every meaning of the word. She wouldn't give anything of her self away, but was ceaseless in her attempts to dig every ounce of personal information from me. I resisted and even refused to talk to her at one point when something I said hurt her feelings. She was outraged, it was such a little thing, and I told her where to get off and slammed down the phone. One thing Peg was was persistent. For some weird reason, she wanted to be my friend, and she wiggled her way back into my life. She was sorry, and she didn't want it to end that way.
It took a year, but eventually Peg got to read my book. I didn't want her to. It wasn't polished. It was my baby. Somehow it was too personal – a part of me. To this day I'll bet less than a dozen people have read that stupid thing, but Peg was one of them. Probably the only person who devoured it and maybe she even read it twice. She got to read a few more of my stories, and a bunch of poems. Peg finally even disclosed her love of writing and e-mailed me a couple stories. Her favorite character was some sort of supernatural wraith-like woman. Peg wasn't a bad writer, not at all, and I was trying to talk her into writing about her life growing up on a farm. It would have been a hard story to write, and to read. Peg didn't have one of those happy childhoods; it was miserable and full of nasty creatures called men. Growing up on a farm is about as far from my experience as a suburban kid as you can get. I had a stay at home mom and spent my summers in the neighborhood pool. She spent hers sweating in the kitchen, cooking for the menfolk who worked in the fields and expected the women to do everything else. She got no love from a father who hoarded every penny, and lost a mother who died early, probably fleeing a heartless world to find a better place. Peg had to raise her brothers and sisters herself, scraping pennies from a part time job just to buy them used clothing and pencils. Her brother was so messed up that he shot himself in the head right in front of their father, who just sat there and watched him bleed half to death. Peg rushed home from work to see the carnage, and call an ambulance. Talk about dysfunctional, I have no idea. Peg made her way through college, but I don't know how she managed.
We played canasta, together from across town, sometimes two or three games, until one of us excused ourselves to get something practical done. She had housework, or visiting nieces. I needed to go out for a run, or get ready for church. One workday I got a package from the office, Attn: Tom, receiving. It was thick and turned out to be about thirty pages that Peg had written, sort of a love story told in the world of a popular fantasy novel. I took my time getting around to it, but finally read it. Eh, not really my cup of tea, and I told her so. I qualified that though and told her it was pretty well written, even if I didn't particularly enjoy the subject matter. I did chastise her a little for not being more original. Why steal characters and settings; why not create your own world? She was never going to be a real writer by writing 'fan fiction'.
I guess for her it was more a hobby than anything. Peg wanted to be a writer, but only for the fun of it. She didn't want to embarrass anyone by telling stories from her past, and she wasn't confident enough to delve deeply into unknown characters and places. That's what I thought. I guess I'm full of shit. Peg told me to burn the copy of the story she sent me; didn't want it back, she had her own copy. I stuck it in the closet under a pile of other papers and envelopes. Every once in a while I would uncover it and think about her, and her story.
Peg died. I still have the e-mail.
Hi Tom
> I am Peg's sister and I wanted to let you know
> that she passed away tonight. I wanted to thank you
> for all the joy you gave her with the card games and
> emails. She always spoke very highly of you.
> Tresa
That Sunday morning Peg never met up with me to play canasta. I figured she was busy, but thought it was odd, because normally she would have let me know if she couldn't sit in. Funny isn't it, you sometimes know that someone is sick, but you never know how sick until someone tells you, and it's never the person who is sick. Peg never let on how ill she was. She never wanted to meet me in person. She just wanted to read and write what gave her joy. I finally knew why. She wanted to know everything there was to know about me. Me! That's the weirdest part – I'll probably never understand it.
I walked upstairs and sat beside my wife to tell her what I had just read, then I just cried. I hugged my wife and bawled real tears for a woman I had never even met.
One night this summer I sat out in my backyard in front of a fire that I made. I was drinking a beer and an old buddy of mine had stopped over. I've known this guy for thirty years; I guess that makes him a “real” friend. He's been here and there, all over the country, but now lives back in the town where we both grew up and went to school. Brian is a fine fellow, and I guess I should try to be a better friend to him. He's going through some pretty rough times now. We lounged at the fire, talking. I put my beer in the grass and opened up an envelope that I had brought out earlier. I was taking out sheets of paper and wadding them up, tossing them one by one into the flames.
What's that, he'd asked. I remember. Just some old papers I need to get rid of. I gave him a small stack to toss into the fire. Then I raised my beer to the crackling embers and nodded to Peg, my old friend. I don't know if Brian saw me, and I wasn't going to explain if he did. I wish things had gone differently, but this is the way it all played out. I'll think about her, and her story, and maybe come up with a better ending. I'm pretty sure she would like that.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Summer. It's hot.
For some reason or another I cannot comment on anyone elses blog. I know other people have had this problem from time to time, and it's probably only because some setting on my computer has been changed for no particularly good reason...if anyone has an answer for me, I'd appreciate it...
Anyway, here are some recent pictures from days gone by...
Anyway, here are some recent pictures from days gone by...
a small piece of the mural on the Hyde Brother's Bookstore.
Toby, or should I say, "Mooch"
sidewalk chalk, at the Three River's Festival
night flowers.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Holiday Weekend Funnies.
aLiEnAnTiCs !!!
alright, skipped a week due to vacation stuff, back on track now (sort of):
unQuotables
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