Perks

So I started reading a book last weekend that has me madly in love with storytelling again. The thing is this: I'm in three book clubs, actively. One is with a strange group of ambitious women (when I say strange, I just mean an eclectic mix), one is with a co-ed blend of literati, and the third is a club focused on YA literature. I believe strongly in YA lit. It's the only thing that kept me sane (somewhat) through the teen years, those years where scratching your eyes out seems an awesome alternative to trudging through the high school halls bemoaning existence. But for whatever reason, this particular YA lit club perpetually assigns selections that have me wondering where did all the good YA lit go? Remember Judy Blume? Remember Francesca Lia Block, Chaim Potok? I could list and list all day but my point is this: when we met last week to discuss a book that I found to be completely pointless and poorly written, a new book assignment was announced after dinner and wine and I figured it would be more of the same: YA lit for today's youth, which frankly, I'm glad I'm not.

Another component to this is that recently at work I was given an iPad to tote the Architectural drawings (et al) around and be able to actually function as a Project Engineer in the field. Nice, right? Right. Well, Craig was joking with me about it that all I was going to do was run home and use it for personal use. I was like, GTFO. Ha. Get the fuck out. That looks nice as an acronym. Anyway, I never saw myself owning an iPad much less wanting to download Angry Birds or iBook or anything - but! Well, what did I do...? Due to the fact that I've been continuing to purchase print books for these book clubs that inevitably just collect dust on my shelves and are beginning to taint my otherwise immaculate collection of books, last weekend I was like...hmph. Instead of purchasing this next YA book from the store, I will DOWNLOAD it to the iPad! (There is a first time for everything, as they say.)

Little did I realize how very much in love I'd wind up falling with this book. So now I must go purchase it a second time (download was not free) because carrying it around with me (as I currently carry around Her by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, for sentiment's sake) in its paperback bound glory is pretty much mandatory for the time being. I don't know. Carrying around books I love makes me feel nice.

It's simple. The book is epistolary and begins in the year 1991 as the narrator is entering high school. Hey! I entered high school in 1991! Relatable item one of many. He is a depressed teenager, but it's never fully exposed as to the level of his depression (in the 90's as teenagers, a whole pool of us suffered varying degrees of angst not to be confused with real diagnosis of depression but I'm not yet sure where this narrator lies in that gray area) and his pop culture and even subversive pop references all fall within my experience embrace. The Smiths, Catcher in the Rye, The Stranger, The Fountainhead, Nirvana...so many more, but I just keep recalling similar experiences as he narrates his life in this work. The book is called The Perks of Being a Wallflower and evidently is being made into a movie now. Paul Rudd is in it. That's about the extent of what I know of the film but I am just completely ecstatic to be loving a book this much right now.

In other news, I recently somewhat reconciled a friendship which I thought I'd lost forever. How can lost friendships happen in this day? What could be so horrible to cause a friendship meltdown? Who knows, but it happened...and I won't rehash the whole sordid mess (I did so in my journal last night over copious amounts of wine) (pen to paper! that's right) but I will say that the way things shook down in an elevator bay/elevator/basement of office/walk to the Q train played itself out somewhat like a film sequence...and an excellent composer would marry to these scenes a perfect score that would further illustrate the pure bitter sweetness of this scenario:

He left a note in my chair that morning, handwritten. It wasn't an apology but he mentioned feeling sorry for losing me and that he doubted we could ever get to be that close again, the way we were, but ball was in my court.

I didn't have time or energy or emotional levels of durability to read the entire thing that morning upon receipt, so I scanned it with the recognition that I'd need to make forward progress with him somehow but thinking, I'll need to figure this out later when I have time.

Flash forward to the evening. Our office has a long corridor with 2 glass encased conference rooms and at the end of it, a glass door leading to the elevator bay (although, I'd hardly call it a "bay" as there is but one elevator to service the 6 floors of our office building, and it's a slow buggy.) I had just packed up my things and started the trek down the corridor leading to the elevator lobby and as I neared it, I saw his profile facing the wall of sliding glass doors that faces the reception area (wall opposite the elevator.) At this point I was faced with 2 options: sink or swim. Flee or fight. Laugh or cry.

So what I did was this: I pushed through that glass door and I walked up to his back and I grabbed his two arms and hugged him from behind. And then stepped back. And turned toward the elevator. And he said, "Is that all I get?" I said, "--, I'm tired. You'll get more. An actual response. But for now, yes, that's all."

The elevator doors opened and I stepped in and he turned to look at me in that small square of a "lobby" and said, "You realize I'm riding the elevator, too, right?" and then he stepped into the car next to me. The doors closed, and he pushed the "B" call button for basement. And I turned to him, and said, "Ever since we 'broke up' I've been getting off at the 1st floor because you know how much I hate the basement." Then the elevator cab began its descent and I turned to him and punched his arm and said with much vehemence, "--, I MISS YOU!" And he said, small, "I miss you, too." And I said, "I don't like people in general but I like YOU," and he said, "I don't like people either, people are mean."

That carried us to the basement which is unfinished concrete floor, dust, chain link fenced off material storage areas, low lighting and terror (always reminds me of a scary movie) and we walked to the exit and emerged into daytime, and the parking lot leads to Carlton Avenue which heads me to the Q at 7 Av. That was always our walk. He and his wife live very near there so he and I would walk that handful of blocks and he'd "drop me off" at the Manhattan-bound Q.

Our conversation was terse. We didn't address the the elephant in the room, rather we discussed the fact that our job is difficult and life sucks and things move on and so forth.

We got to the Q, and he gestured with his hand and he said, "Well this was awkward," then bid me farewell.

Yesterday, I did some things.

I went to his cubicle and leaned on it and stared at him and he said, "Hi."

Later in the day, I had to print something so as I was waiting for the paper to come out of the printer, I tossed a spicy mustard packet from the Chinese delivery place over his cube at him. By the time I made it back to my cube (he sits across from me) he had pitched it over the high wall back at me. Before I left the office, I collected all the spicy mustard packets I had and pooled them in his chair.

Are these reconciliations?

I hope so.

Friends. Love. Hardships. Hate. Pumpkins. Babies. Bruises.

All of it somehow happens.

xo