As a frequent pedestrian, I often feel like I’m a target for people in cars. The most notable, most aggressive, frequently most distracted are the drivers in Stupid Utility Vehicles. Just a biased observation – on my part. More than one girlfriend has owned one of those things, and yes, they are fun to drive. The SUV’s, not the girlfriends. Well, those were fun to drive, too, but I guess that’s altogether different.
Instead of talking about it, as I’ve settled into my comfortable niche, what happens, time and again, my friendly demeanor gets taken as some sort of overture to something else. It’s not. I am, by nature, either by my stars or by my upbringing, or maybe because I’m genuinely [stupidly> fond of humanity, a gregarious person. I’ve got a touch of shy about me, easily hidden under a quick joke.
I walked down to Barton Creek, took a dip in the cool, teal-colored waters, then dripped my way up to Jo’s for “pulled pork,” coffee and conversation. I was talking with my published, degreed [Michener Fellow, no less> poetess friend. She seemed disturbed that I was disturbed, but my frustration took a little explaining.
“With your site, you invite contact, especially e-mail,” she pointed out.
“And at the top of the e-mail form, it says, ‘questions are free; answers cost money.’ Which is, in fact, at the top of all the e-mail forms.”
With my hair still damp and matted from creek water, reeking faintly of moss, sitting in the shade on June afternoon with the whole world laid wide open for us, we kicked around from topic to topic. New house for her, new job possibilities – all that sort of stuff. The cute Sagittarius working at Jo’s. That nice Aquarius. My barbecue pork sandwich versus her barbecue tofu sandwich. I kept thinking it was the Sex Pistols, only it sounded a little too tame for that – then “London Calling” came up as the next track. I was close, both in genre and historical time of the music.
None of this solves the original problem, but after listening for a while, and being called cranky, and after I explained why I was cranky – okay, I got no sympathy. Maybe a little, but I felt better as apparently poets and other published writers experience the same sense of frustration.
“I open doors – I open minds – telling stories – telling lies.”