Experimenting

First things first.

You know how I used to blog? And I used to talk about my church all the time? Like, really, all the time? All the time?

Well, I’m coming out as a member of Second Unitarian Church of Chicago. I spoke to our membership coordinator about my used-to-be-blog, and she said it would be fine to link to the Web site. So there you go! Hurrah! You can stalk us now; won’t that be fun?

I’m really excited that we were recently reviewed on DiscoverUU.com. I am so out of the blogosphere that I didn’t even know there was a DiscoverUU.com. Now I do! Hi, everybody!

So I have lots of things to blog about, and I’ll probably do that, but I thought I’d introduce us first.

I can has vegitashun.

In teh beginning, Invisible Man make univers.

Click for the lolcat Bible! Bwah hah hah!

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning...

...spring-cleaning his little home. Actually, it was the Moleskine lady, who has a little home in Milan.

I haven't really been following the Moleskine issue, but this was in the paper last week. This might be a good opportunity for a letter to the editor, raising awareness of the China thing.

Faaaantastic!

In sixth grade, I had a teacher who always answered, “Fabulous!” when you asked how he was. “Fabulous!” “Fantastic!” “Terrific!” The first thing he taught us was the word “superlative,” which he used all the time. He put stickers on our tests saying “Great job!” or “Amazing!” He was tall and thin with red hair, and seemed brighter, taller, louder than anyone else. We were all fascinated with him, the only male teacher in our school, and would spy through the window at recess, hoping to catch him shaving with his electric razor. (At our school, even the teachers weren’t allowed to wear beards.)

I always wondered why he was so incessantly upbeat, and found it irritating and annoying. I was a broody, moody kid, and I thought he was fake and pretentious. I thought he was just putting up a front, and I resented being lied to.

But at the end of the year, he gave us a special presentation about his time in Vietnam. He’d been in the war, and the rumor was that he had seen and done terrible things. After the war, he’d gone back and forth to Vietnam working to help the children there. His group built an orphanage, raised money for food, and tried to educate the children left destitute by the war. My most vivid memory of that day is that we saw the children’s protruding bellies and asked, “Why are they all fat, if they’re so hungry?” Anger flashed across his face, for a moment, but he took a deep breath and said, “They aren’t fat. They’re so hungry that they’ve been swallowing air, and now their bellies are full like balloons.”

I don’t know if he had chosen his “Fabulous! Fantastic!” mantra because of the war. For all I know, he’d always been that way. But lately I have been giving it a try. “I am fabulous,” I say when people ask how I am. It actually does make me feel better. “Absolutely,” I say, when people ask me to do something. “No problem. Terrific.”

Now, things actually are pretty fabulous. I am working like mad, the weather is gorgeous, Holden and I are blissful, and I’m mostly healthy. I’m making money, which is great, and I’ve got a writing project just-for-fun in my pocket. So things are objectively better than they were, say, in January, when the weather was awful and I was too sick to go to work. They’re better than they were a few years ago, when I was working in retail, and they’re even better than they were in college. So it’s with good reason that I say “Fabulous.”

So how am I? “Fabulous! Fantastic!” Superlative.

Incommunicado is the place to be.

I am home for Christmas. E-mail and Web access will be spotty; expect a posting glut when I return the 30th.

The Way You Sip Your Tea

Ellis’ First Very Short Play

[The scene opens in a coffee shop on the North Side of Chicago, where Ellis, a desperate writer on a deadline, is sitting with her laptop. Dar Williams’ “I Will Not Be Afraid of Women” is playing. Ellis has her fancy coffee, her starched white shirt, and her carpal-tunnel-preventing posture, and is pretending to type. Her ex-blog comes in the door, wearing lots of sterling silver, way too much cleavage, a black velvet skirt, and highwayman boots.]

Ex-blog: Ellis? Is that you?
Ellis: [ignores her]
Ex-blog: Ellis? Hello? [sits down at the table] I like your new glasses.
Ellis: Mmhmm. I’m working. Nice to see you. Let’s talk later; I’ll call you.
Ex-blog: Sure you will. You look good. Is that your new blog you’re writing?
Ellis: Hmhmmm. No. See you later.
Ex-blog: Ellis? Why don’t you love me anymore?
[Ellis shuts her eyes, lets out a long breath, looks up]
Ellis: Can we talk about this later?
Ex-blog: You always avoid me. I go out to the old places and you don’t come. I look at the library and you’re not there. I hang out around your office and you always go out the other door.
Ellis: You’re hanging around my office?
Ex-blog: I want to talk to you! Just talk. No blogging. I won’t even bring a mouse.
Ellis: Fine. Right here, right now, what’s your problem?
Ex-blog: I want to know why you don’t love me anymore.
Ellis: [pauses, then speaks slowly] I don’t—it’s not that I don’t love you anymore. You just can’t be in my life right now.
Ex-blog: Right now, or ever?
Ellis: I think ever. I think I can’t ever have a blog like you.
Ex-blog: Why not? I did my best to portray you accurately and honestly. I didn’t have very many embarrassing stories. I was funny. I had lots of interesting entries. We looked good together.
Ellis: We did. We had a lot of good times.
Ex-blog: So what changed? You didn’t even talk to me about it. I was still the same, and I waited and waited for you, and you just stopped calling. You came by less and less, and then you stopped returning my calls, and then one day without a word to anyone you just deleted me. There’s nothing there now but an introductory entry, a placeholder.
Ellis: I know.
Ex-blog: Do you know how that makes me feel? To look like nothing ever happened there? Like we were never together at all? That’s worse than an empty page. That’s an outright slap in the face.
Ellis: [sighs] I didn’t mean to slap you in the face. It’s just—look, my life is a different shape now, and you don’t fit anymore.
Ex-blog: But I could change! If you’d just let me give it one more try, I know I could be the blog you want me to be. I could be good for you, if you’d only give me a chance.
Ellis: You have my name in your title. I can’t blog under my real name.
Ex-blog: Is there another blog?
Ellis: Not really. There was for a while, but now I’m not really, um. I’m not letting myself blog.
Ex-blog: But you want to.
Ellis: Um.
Ex-blog: You see.
Ellis: Um.
Ex-blog: Are you afraid?
Ellis: Not afraid. Just prudent.
Ex-blog: Too prudent to publish. Can that be your epitaph?
Ellis: I don’t have to take this from a Web site!
Ex-blog: Look, if you won’t start up with me again, at least find someone new. I worry about you, not blogging. It’s not healthy. It’s not you. I should know.
Ellis: If I say I’ll think about it, will you go away?
Ex-blog: No. You’ve said that before. I’m not leaving until you write your first entry.
Ellis: Are you kidding me?
Ex-blog: [stretches feet out in chair between Ellis and the door, taps the screen] Write something. Right now.
Ellis: You’re serious.
Ex-blog: [whistles]
Ellis: [glares. Takes a deep breath, lets it out. Starts to speak, stops. Shakes her head. Starts to type]

An hour later, Ellis looks up.

Ellis: Almost done. Are you happy? I want to write it down if you are.
Ex-blog: I’m happy. Now I can remember you fondly. We can both move on. Are you happy?
Ellis: With the entry? I think so. With the new blog? I will be.
Ex-blog: I was hoping for a yes. But that’ll do. [She gets up, picks up her keys, adjusts her skirt.] The new look is good on you. I’m glad we talked. [She kisses Ellis on the cheek.] Take care of yourself. You’ll do well together; I can feel it. [Ellis smiles, and the ex-blog walks out the door and vanishes into thin air.]
Ellis: All right. [She looks at the new blog.] It’s you and me, kid; let’s get to it.