(no subject)

[sanpaku_backup]

I feel bad for scowling and sighing my way through what was really a perfectly decent day. We went to a diner and for a drive to the northwest corner of the state (proving yet again that there really is not much to see here except the bay). I didn't care for being squashed in the back next to the car seat, and my knee hurt. Mrs. eventually got ticked off at me and I had to admit that I was not unhappy. I like drives. I mostly don't like going back home to a big pile of work afterward.

------------------

My long-lost brother called me from Belgrade tonight, which was quite a shock. Probably the first time I've talked to him since my grandmother's funeral two and a half years ago. I suppose he was calling to wish me well with the baby, but it was kind of a funny conversation. Our conversations are strange enough as it is. If he respected me we could have a real Niles-Frasier thing going on, because he's very fond of effete little bon mots, and you know, I aspire to them. In some ways we do have similar mannerisms, mostly because I am a little toady who can't help but find his drolleries extremely amusing. (Like the fact that he refers to Lufthansa as "Luftwaffe.")

But in anything else we're very different -- he's a Thatcherite, a world sophisticate, a rigorously logical economist, and a complete snob. His natural tendency, even when trying to be nice, is to treat me as a bit of a retard. And of course I know that he really, really hates children. So I am not entirely sure why he called other than the fact that he has a very well developed sense of protocol, and knows that one is expected to call one's brother at some point upon the birth of one's neice, much as one would be sure not to make a joke about the Soviets while hosting the ambassador from Belarus at an elegant dinner party.

Anyway, it was the usual scramble to think of something witty to say that would interest him. I have conversations with certain people sometimes, even my friends, when I realize afterward that they did not really ask me any questions. This, of course, provokes in me a spasm of meaningless smalltalk about my life in the desperate hope that they will find something in it interesting. My brother doesn't try hard to hide when he finds what I'm saying really dull, which is most of the time. Impromptu cleverness isn't my strong suit.

I think I am really learning to hate the sound of my voice while talking on the telephone. That is what working at home is doing to me.

I think I am on the verge of some sort of inspirational moment, but it has not quite arrived yet.

Comments

[satori1970.livejournal.com]

i'm sorry that it's been bad lately.

hope this week will be better for you & the sanpakus.

your brother sounds scary. eeeeeek!

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Thanks -- things are looking up already.

As for my brother -- that's the response of most of my friends!

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

The last time I saw my sister, about 18 months ago, she got really very drunk and picked a fight with me because I don't talk to my mother. I think this is probably a fine topic of conversation, but not after my 104-lb sister has had 9 cocktails. So yeah, can't wait for that holiday reunion thing.

Jay's brother is completely different from him in every way as well. Kind of makes you wonder about the wisdom of having more than one kid. I mean, if the first one is good, maybe you ought to quit while you're ahead...

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I was rereading your journal and saw you recommend In the Bedroom, so I don't have to fully explain the real reason behind having more than one kid... don't put all those genetic/emotional eggs in one basket.

As for my brother, to quote Woody Allen, I love him like a brother... just not one of mine. But after years of him torturing me and turning me into a cowering mess, we have a good arrangement worked out, wherein he lives on the other side of the planet most of the time. Sounds like you could try it.

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

Rereading my journal? Wow. I guess I should write more frequently to save you from such grief...

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Oh, I guess I should mention why -- I was trying to recall when Carolyn's wedding was, and whether "Frank" had been there. Is she your "oldest friend"? I had seen that reference in Sept. and the mind slowly made a possible connection.

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

Frank was there, but I was not. I was traveling for work. I think it was June 2001. I have been pretty lame about keeping in touch with her but we used to be pretty good at it.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks. I knew I remembered it somewhere. (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=flw&itemid=34238) Driving me crazy.

Now, I can sleep. In fact, I must sleep.

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, whatever. Cyberstalker. I got your number now...

Moi?

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

To impress you with my stalking skills I just ran a Google search on your name. Lots of predictable Internet jetsam, but found a group photo with you at your old gig. I doubt that you care for that photo (digital cameras and all) but it is still pretty nifty. You look very much like a librarian. And different from how I pictured what you'd look like today. So that was fun. I have a similar photo arising from my work with the Board. We can't avoid leaving trails through the ether.

But, yeah, you know. I really do hang on your every word. It is a funny medium, this journal thing. I don't really remember why I started reading your back issues except that I clicked back to Carolyn's site again to see the baby pictures and that inadvertently started me on a morbid train of thought about high school and how in some strange way I am convinced that there are whole reams of secrets about the world locked in things I barely understood happening around me at the time... I mean, I almost feel as though I didn't join the human race until I left Mount Lebanon, in the sense that I was this extreme introvert who had very few "friendships" or "relationships" in the way that I feel everyone else did back then, or of the sort that I had once I left home. Some people were just born part of the human race in that way.

You didn't ask for all this solipsism in a reply, but there are times when having a kid, or its prospect, induces all sorts of metaphysical ponderings about one's own childhood and the tremendous strangeness of it. Ya know?

Re: Moi?

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

OK, first of all, I had never even seen that picture before, but I remember the day it was taken, everyone said, "at least Julie looks like a librarian today." Looks like I was trying to grow my hair back out too. Gave up on that a while ago. But no, I don't care for that picture. And based on how little my former colleagues look like themselves, I suspect I'm not the only one... There was a time about 3 years ago, before the other person who has my name was a big dancer with the San Francisco ballet got successful when a search on my name yielded only stuff about me. Which was pretty cool. But no more...

I don't know what to say about mt lebanon. I had some good friends but I didn't play the same reindeer games so I was not included in a lot of the fun. I spent a lot of time at home which was a good deal since I had the house to myself most of the time. I missed a lot of inside jokes and all, and my girlfriends loved to taunt me with it. I found it so much easier to hang out with guys because they didn't have all these expectations which was really nice. But then I'd find out later that they all wanted to have sex with me so there was that to contend with. Really it is such a relief to be a grown up.