Faggitude

It is very important to note that I look extremely hot today.

Like, we’re talking clichéd frying-eggs-on-scorching-asphalt hot, all right?

The now-twenty-seven-inch-waist, toned and lean legs, and small, tight ass that would rival that of any of the most talented bottoms in any of the best über-kinked-out gay Japanese internet porn are working the entirely black wardrobe punctuated only with a chunky silver Armani Exchange belt buckle, and my Feria Super Ultra Hydrating Multi-Faceted Shimmer Enhancing Mega Color Boosting Conditioner has singed my Brazilian Brown Number Fifty-One to the most fabulously dark of henna hues. I am venturing out to an A-List Liquid Lunch this afternoon at an A-List Downtown Eatery, and I will be pure sizzle, baby, all the way.

Let’s face it, people: today, I am fabulous.

Now, I am not writing this in order to boost my own waning self-confidence (although, hey, that is certainly in order right now), nor to toot my own proverbial horn and attract other homos on the internet to my hot body, my stylish fashion sense, and / or my witty and facetious use of the English language (because, clearly, I am currently in one of my trademarked “I Hate All Men And Want Them All Dead” moods of late). I am merely writing this to provide context for (and justification of) the topic of today’s selected Atherton Bartelby Hate Rant.

Back hair.

Or, more specifically, faggots who have back hair.

(And let me just say right here that I will not be engaging in any trendy “Grey’s Anatomy”-actor-oriented debate regarding my use of the expletive “faggot.” I employ it to describe a specific type of bitchy homosexual who delights in giving other homosexuals “faggitude.” I myself do not deny my own moments of bitchy faggotry and giving of “faggitude” to other homosexuals, and am therefore justified in using this term, so shut it.)

Anyway, I have been known to accept a host of indiscretions regarding the male physique, and male grooming (or lack thereof) during my nigh-on thirty-four years as a homosexual in contemporary American gay male society. I have taken dicks up my ass that were too small for even my tight ass to feel, dicks that were curved at just the right (wrong?) angle to ensure punching my bladder no matter which position I was in, thereby virtually ensuring that I would not achieve orgasm at all and only wince in pain with every thrust, and I have dived into The Jungle Abyss that is an Ungardened Male Pubic Area, as long as at some point along the way I was rewarded with a big dick rising from the untrimmed shrubbery.

However, if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is back hair.

And I have it. And I hate it. And, fortunately, aside from a small patch on my coccyx (which I wax; one ex-boyfriend, Tristan, convinced me not to wax it, once he discovered that I had it, because he found it endearing, a desire that I obliged; once he dumped my fabulous ass, however, that fucker was waxed again), it is thankfully sparse. Several past lovers have been known to comment, “Wait, Love, let me get the tweezers. You have an errant hair on your back shoulder.” And they’ve plucked it, and it’s been gone. And of all the gestures of past lovers I have appreciated most, it is that gesture. Because I hate back hair with an unending passion.

Since I have been single, I have done this myself, diligently self-surveying in the bathroom mirror every morning, and, because I am thankfully slender and limber, have always been able to perform the extraction without assistance. (Not that anyone would ever see my errant back hairs anymore, of course, but that is a matter to be discussed in an entirely different Hate Rant. And besides, it’s the principle of good male grooming that I am attempting to uphold when I do this.)

But you know what else I hate? Perhaps even more than I hate back hair?

Faggots who give faggitude.

And faggots who give it and have back hair.

No. Sorry. Strike that. Not back hair. Back carpets.

I entered the elevator in my condo building last evening to retrieve the mail for My Fabulous Roommate and myself, and greeted the quite attractive clearly homosexual male in a standard white wife-beater strappy top who was already in the elevator with a smile and a friendly, “Good evening.” Because, you know, I am A Good Neighbor.

And I was greeted, in turn, with a sneeringly derisive up-and-down glance and a stunningly dismissive, “Hmph.”

Only to find, two floors later, as he exited the elevator before me, a veritable 1970s shag rug carpet of fur escaping every single side of the back of his strappy white wife-beater!

And I just shook my head, mouth open, in shock.

Because.

Um.

If you’re going to have faggitude with me?

You need to be, at the very least, as flawless as am I.

Which means.

Get thee to an electrolysist post-haste, motherfucker.

Because no one who has that much back hair deserves to be giving that much faggitude.

Filed under: Fashion, Writing , being a gay, epic rage, linkage, omgwtfbbq

Awake And Unafraid

On one of my first evenings back in this, my old, favorite neighborhood of this Island City, in which I had lived exactly three years ago to the day, I ventured, once again, to the neighborhood Liquorette Mart, to pick up five dollar Australian Shiraz and overpriced cans of soup. Earlier during that day, I had met The Very Kind Colleague who had picked me up to help me move my possessions to my new place, in front of the very same store. Due to the new Honolulu smoking laws, we happened to come across the owner of the cafe adjacent to said Liquorette Mart (also an old haunt of mine), enjoying a cigarette at DaBus stop, further than the requisite twenty feet away from her own main entrance.

“Hey,” she acknowledged me, with a head shrug, ashing her cigarette. “Back again?” she smirked, in welcome.

“Yes,” I replied, smiling. “Back. Again.”

“Welcome home, Atherton,” she said, winking at me and killing her cigarette under her shoe on the sidewalk.

I was not afforded the time at that moment to properly ruminate on her words, “Welcome home,” being required instead to focus on moving all of my possessions.

But I have had ample opportunities to reflect on them since that day.

When I realized that I really am living, once again, in my favorite of all Honolulu neighborhoods, which reminds me of my favorite of New York neighborhoods, as it did when I lived here, three years ago.

When I reached that point in migrating my old blog posts to my new site, at which I arrived at those entries that I wrote three years ago, during my last break-up, my last huge emotional upheaval, and discovered that I am in exactly the same emotional, as well as physical, spaces, that I inhabited three years ago.

When I read those words, that I wrote so many years ago, and returned to them again, not with any sense of regret, nor remorse, for all that (and whom) I have experienced, gained, and lost, but with a sense of…wonderment…that I have come this far…and am still here.

When I noticed that the view I have right now (or, again), from my current lanai, of my city, is somehow not so dissimilar from that view I enjoyed from that other lanai three years ago, yet oh, oh so different, now, being informed by the experiences I have enjoyed (and, sometimes, suffered) in the interim.

And, when I heard the voice of one of my favorite female cashiers at the neighborhood Liquorette Mart say to me, on one of my first evenings back in this, my old, favorite neighborhood of this Island City, in which I had lived exactly three years ago to the day, i.e., my first evening “Home,” in exclamation, “Atherton! Brah! You back, or what?! You dye your hair?!”

And I couldn’t help but smile over the fact that, of all of those who had come and gone during these three past years, this woman, this stranger, still remembered my name. And my real hair color. This woman, if only because I was in exactly the same emotional space as I was in three years ago, and therefore once again happy that I was going to imminently boost her short-term cheap liquor sales, was happy to see me again. And remembered my name. And my real hair color. Three years after I had left “Home.”

I placed my two five dollar bottles of Australian Shiraz and three overpriced cans of soup on the counter, overly firmly, looked up at her, and smiled, almost triumphantly.

“Yes,” I smiled, widely. “I’m Home.”

“Can I get a pack of Marlboros in the box after you’re through with him?” I heard, to my left, and looked, and saw the owner of the cafe next door wink and, rather uncharacteristically, twitch a brief, knowing smile at me.

I smirked a smile in response.

“Latte and pesto cream cheese bagel with tomato tomorrow morning?” she inquired of me, right eyebrow raised, mentioning my standard early morning order of exactly three years ago, when I sneaked cigarette breaks away from my very-close-to-being-ex-boyfriend.

I nearly cried that she remembered.

“Yes,” I said, managing a real smile. “That would be way wicked…” I stopped, correcting myself, “…that would be fucking fabulous.”

She smiled at me. Nodded affirmatively.

I paid for my purchases, bid adieu to the two women, and made my way, smiling, awake and unafraid, into the heavy downpour of the dark Makiki evening.

Filed under: Writing , defining moments, emotional landscapes, home, honolulu, memories, urban appreciation

The Birth Of Atherton Bartelby

Before my best friend Bartholomew stopped speaking to me, we shared an alarming number of private jokes and references, and could often, because of this, communicate without words, using, if necessary, only glances, arched eyebrows, or wry smiles. The private jokes and references ranged from the random (tambourines; I still forget how tambourines became one of “Our Things”), to the painfully specific (“All right, we must find Vladimir Ashkenazy’s version of Alexander Scriabin’s “Preparation for the Final Mystery”; it is supposed to be the piece of music that will bring about the end of the world!”). Not surprisingly, probably, these references sometimes worked themselves into my subconscious, and, of course, into my dreams, as did the two items referenced above.

It was around Halloween that I had the dream that would give me the name “Atherton Bartelby”; I was going through one of my self-imposed periods of sobriety, during which I was not drinking and, therefore, as am wont to do during such periods, experiencing hour-long dreams involving very specific storylines and startlingly vivid imagery. This particular dream featured me and Bartholomew, and was very much a “Honolulu Whodunnit?”, with us traveling all over the island of Oahu (and once even hopping a plane for the Big Island), in pursuit of a mysterious and faceless man who was running around the archipelago and stealing ancient Hawaiian artifacts. Why we became the self-proclaimed investigators of said man and his nefarious activities, I’ve no idea. But I hadn’t had a mysterious dream like this in quite some time, so I didn’t question the narrative and just went with it to have fun.

The man in question knew we were following him, and eventually became so bold as to taunt us with postcards sent to our home addresses, each with a photograph of a specific Bavarian castle on the front, and something cryptic and ominous scribbled in German on the back (my German is rusty, at best, so I do not recall exactly what the words were; I just knew that they were cryptic and ominous). The man’s illegal activities also became increasingly violent, as he graduated from simple thievery to the act of homicide, engaging in the act of human sacrifice at several Oahu heiaus. Each time, some form of portable electronic equipment had been used during the killing rituals, and Alexander Scriabin’s “Preparation for the Final Mystery” had been playing on said equipment every time.

Bartholomew and I were frustrated beyond belief; we felt as if we were already in possession of all of the knowledge and clues necessary to find and apprehend this man, but he was always one step ahead of us. So we took a break from our sleuthing and headed to Gordon Biersch for two Blonde Bocks. Driving through Downtown Honolulu, we reached a yellow light at Bishop and King, and stopped. I turned to Bartholomew to say something, and instead heard my real name being yelled from outside the car. I turned to look out the passenger window, and saw my dearest friend, A.V. Flox, her torso hanging out of a taxi cab’s back window, arms flailing toward my window. “Anaiis!” I exclaimed, “what the hell are you doing here?!”

She was breathless as she explained quickly, “My sister telephoned me with news of all of the robberies and murders and how you and Bartholomew were trying to solve the case, so I flew here as quickly as I could! Here!” she said, as the light turned green, “take these tambourines! They’ll tell you who is doing all of these horrible things!” And, just as my hands closed around the two tambourines, her cab accelerated and she was off, a cheerful “Ciao!” trailing behind her. I turned to look at Bartholomew, then turned to look down at the two tambourines. Written on one, in big bold block letters, was “ATHERTON,” and on the other, in fluid script, was “BARTHOLOMEW.”

And then I woke up.

It should be noted that, in my dream, I was well aware of the fact that the second name was pronounced with its seventeenth century British pronunciation, as in Ben Jonson’s play, “Bartholomew Fair,” i.e., “Bartelby.” So I changed the spelling for my moniker’s surname, and gave my best friend the alternative spelling for his alias. I had intended to turn the dream into a murder mystery for National Novel Writing Month, but as November was a busy month for me both professionally and emotionally, that project never took flight. So I decided to use it as an online writing project instead, and therefore, this blog was born.

Funny, those two little private jokes also made return appearances once more, around Christmas. I had ordered Bartholomew a copy of the Scriabin CD that was on back order. He had taken me into a music shop near his home to have me select a tambourine for my Christmas gift, but the shop was sold out of tambourines until their order arrived in two weeks. The Scriabin finally arrived in my office…the Tuesday after Bartholomew had stopped speaking to me.

I delivered it to his office.

Obviously, I never did get my tambourine.

Filed under: Blogging, Music, Writing , a-list, alucina, analyze this, ghost town, honolulu, humor, linkage, memories, oahu, theatre

Blessed Be, Sister Shannen Doherty

I very nearly celebrated the first evening of 2007 by opening my veins on the floor of a bathtub in a room at the Pagoda Hotel in Honolulu.

I shall be uncharacteristically uncreative here and select the easy, predictable, and far-too-simplistic follow-up line to a whopper of a lead sentence like that one: you see, 2006 was not an…easy…year for me.

Professionally, 2006 treated me well. I will tender that the first eight months of the year were a bit more trying, for me, to put it lightly, than in the past. But I believe it was around August when things actually began looking way up for me and for my position in the office, so much so that I even fell back into the old, overachieving habit I once had of showing up for work early. I’ve even joined the ranks of the office’s “Breakfast Club,” the handful of colleagues who show up around 06:00 a.m. HST, pick up breakfasts and lattes, and just kind of hang out in the lunch room, trading sections of the office copy of the morning Honolulu Advertiser, not really bothering to actually begin work until around seven. (The other members of The Breakfast Club also “Talk Story”; as previously mentioned in this space, I do not. I play The Dangerous Listener. I gather intel.)

And anyway, the last thing I would kill myself over would be a job; what a boring, pathetic, and unpoetic reason to do away with one’s own life. You’ve let The Corporation take you down. Lame. And besides, I am really very skillful at dealing with my shit and being completely professional and collected during the day (most of the time), and calming any rage I have accumulated throughout the days in the evenings, by writing hate rants at home involving the violent meeting of the skull of a particularly rude or demanding colleague and, say, my flatbed scanner. But during the day, I am The Shit. Work makes me drink; it does not make me suicidal.

Instead, what drove me to the point of acting as my own Grim Reaper was my personal life.

No less than ten people in my life chose to cease speaking to me in 2006, and to end their friendships with me. Each case was radically different; no friend’s reasons for doing so were the same as another’s. There were two ex-boyfriends, who probably shouldn’t count, but do count in that they still involved significant emotional investments. And, for me, when relationships of that caliber end, for whatever reason, no matter whose decision it is to end it (even my own), it is emotionally devastating. There was the ex-boyfriend of one of the ex-boyfriends, who was also my own ex-boyfriend. (This sounds complicated and incestuous but it actually…well, all right, actually it is complicated and incestuous, but that’s what you get, I suppose, when you are a homosexual and you live on an island that is this fucking tiny.) And then there were the close female friendships I had cultivated over the years, both long-term (i.e., my best friend from college) and short-term (i.e., within the past three years). Granted, two of the women still speak to me; they simply relocated back to the Mainland. But, for me, it’s the physical immediacy of those friendships that I miss; when you’re half an ocean and a continent away from each other, the friendships become, understandably, less close.

It was around March, a month after my first close female friend cut me out of her life, and another left the island, that Bartholomew (an acquaintance whom I had known for several years) and I began spending more time together. This was a quick, intense, even passionate friendship, the like of which I had never before experienced, except, perhaps, the one that I had shared with my only long-term boyfriend of nearly ten years. But even that relationship did not even come close to how happy my friendship, no, relationship, with Bartholomew came to make me. By May, we were spending nearly every evening together (not sexually speaking; just hanging out), calling each other often enough that I switched cellular providers so that we would each stop going over our allotted minutes every month, and colleagues of mine began to inquire just who it was who was making me so uncharacteristically happy, beaming with smiles, and actually acting, gasp!, cheerful throughout each day.

He was my best friend.

The brother I never had.

But he was much, much more than that, to me.

And it was entirely my fault, really, that he was Friend Number Ten to end his friendship with me in 2006.

Just in time for the New Year.

I had developed feelings for him that were far deeper than any friendship. And I told him so. And although it appeared to me that this was not an issue for him, and although I tried, with an Herculean effort, not to say nor do anything that would make him uncomfortable, neither were, I guess, the case. (However, to my credit, I think, it is rather difficult for one not to think that there is something more to the friendship when one is seriously contemplating relocating back to the Mainland to live with another person, sharing rather intimate and meaningful experiences with the other, and generally opening themselves up to and trusting that other person the way I thought we were.)

But perhaps that’s just me.

(And I am sure those four emotionally-charged e-mails sent in response to his “I need time away from you” e-mail didn’t help matters much, either. Whoops. Probably should not have clicked “Send” on those missives. Oh, well. At least I was honest. And. No regrets.)

Anyway, losing him eviscerated me emotionally.

And so that is why, when the first day of the New Year rolled around, and I was faced with vacating my old house before five o’clock, with no friends, no solutions, no recourses, and no ways to move, I checked into the Pagoda Hotel.

Initially my plan was, simply, to regroup with myself there and come up with “Plan B.” I ate some lunch, made some calls, took some notes, watched some lame late-afternoon television programming, and eventually realized that I had left all of my toiletries at my old house. With no thought as to what would happen later, I checked the hotel’s stash of toiletry goodies in my room’s bathroom and realized that my only requirement was a razor with which to shave for work the next morning. I purchased one in the gift shop (for an exorbitant amount), returned to my room, unwrapped it, placed it on the edge of the white bathtub, and promptly forgot about it. Several hours later, exhausted and emotionally drained, I decided to take a shower.

And ended up an hysterical mess, crying as I’ve never cried before, huddled in the fetal position under the too-hot, too-strong water of the shower spray on the floor of the too-white bathtub. I must have stayed that way for at least a half hour, shaking with sobbing, until I looked up and saw the razor out of the corner of one eye.

I grabbed it, brought it to my arm, pressed slightly, and thought to myself: “This is perfect.” I pressed harder. “It is fucking perfect!” I pressed harder. “Far too fabulous of a story for any writer or romantic to pass up.” I pressed harder. “A blinding white bathroom. An hysterical homosexual with no home and no one. I am fucking doing it.” I pressed harder. “I am pressing down on that white skin with the blue hue running beneath it and I am dragging that blade vertically and not horizontally and I will suddenly see a river of red and I am so sorry little Filipina housekeeping lady who will find me all white and stiff and frigid here tomorrow morning and I am not even going to bother with a note because my words mean nothing to anyone anymore but God fucking damn it I am going to do it and I am going to make him regret what he has done to me for the rest of his life!”

Which is funny. Because I have always said that I would never kill myself.

Nor even come close.

But I did that night. I did come that close.

And then, suddenly, through the bathroom door that I had left ajar, I heard a promo spot from the television in the other room that I had left at full volume. “And now!” The Promo Voice intoned loudly, seriously, like Promo Voices do, “stay tuned for TNT’s New Year’s Day Marathon of…’CHARMED!’”

Immediately, I stopped bearing down on my flesh with the razor, watched the first few tiny drops of red that the pressure I had already brought down on my flesh had drawn wash quickly down the drain, and looked up, letting the water of the shower hit my face. I thought to myself, “This is A Sign, you idiot,” and violently turned the hot water off, forcing myself to sit, face upward, in the freezing cold blast that followed, for several minutes. I waited until I heard the abysmal cover of The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now?” that is the show’s theme song from the other room, and thought again to myself, “All right. If this episode is a Prue episode, it’s even more of A Sign. If it’s one of the post-Prue Paige episodes, you’re doing it. Deal?”

“Deal,” I heard my self say back to me.

(And vaguely wondered if I should be prescribed Lithium.)

I shut the water off. Placed the razor back on the bathtub rim. Dried myself off. Lit a cigarette. Walked, naked, into the other room.

And saw Shannen Doherty, a.k.a. Prudence Halliwell, a.k.a. “You were always The Tough One,” strutting across the screen in a black dress and black stack heels.

And, albeit weakly, I smiled.

I quickly dressed and bought a bottle of Pinot Noir (again, for an exorbitant amount) at the gift shop, returned to my room, uncorked the bottle, and didn’t even bother with a glass.

But I was alive.

Right there, in the dark, entirely alone, on my Pagoda Hotel room floor, hugging my knees and rocking back and forth and quietly whispering to myself, “You were always The Tough One. You were always The Tough One. You were always The Tough One,” over and over and over, to myself.

For the entirety of the four-hour TNT New Year’s Day “Charmed” marathon.

But I was alive.

It reads silly. It reads like, “There is no fucking way that happened. There is no fucking way that you were that close to offing yourself and a fucking Aaron Spelling Production kept you from doing it. You are totally lying and this is totally fiction.”

But those few who are still near and dear to my heart know otherwise.

Shannen Doherty (or, rather, Prudence Halliwell) saved my life.

Along with what is left of my own strength. And will. And perseverance.

And I am still here.

And it is a New Year.

And it is a New Beginning.

And if I have come this far.

I might as well go All The Way.

Oh. And another thing?

You know that whole joke about calling the Suicide Crisis Line and not getting an answer / reaching voicemail / etc.? Yeah. That’s actually true. Because I did call both the National Hotline and a local one.

And no one fucking answered either of them!

Perhaps it was just my own bad luck, or perhaps it was The Cosmos telling me that I should, actually, off myself, but I am just saying: better to put your faith in Shannen Doherty, or Prudence Halliwell, or your favorite Aaron Spelling Production in syndication, or, better yet, your own strength, and will, and power, and love of life, no matter how bad it gets, to pull you sharply back from The Abyss, than to place it in anyone else who might be on the other end of that line.

Because sometimes, that’s all you have.

So. Blessed Be, Sister Shannen Doherty.

You will never read this.

But Prudence Halliwell saved someone’s life.

And for that alone, you should be infinitely proud.

Filed under: Relationships, Writing , a-list, celebrities, death, emotional landscapes, ghost town, television

Talk Story

“Talk Story” (`olelo Kama`ilio) is defined by the `Ukulele Guild of Hawai`i (“Dedicated to the preservation, perpetuation and promotion of the `ukulele as a significant musical instrument worldwide”) on their website as “sharing ideas, stories, history and opinions. It is two or more people taking the time out of the day to slow down and talk. In Hawai`i it is just the normal way of interacting with our neighbors.”

A more accurate term for this activity might be “gossip.”

Now I am certainly not deriding this phrase, nor am I deriding Hawai`i in general (as a “haole” who migrated to Honolulu from Manhattan many years ago, I’ve no right to, actually). I am merely quibbling with the aforementioned definition of the phrase. Because it sounds too nice, too friendly, too…”aloha!” I’ll allow that this definition may have been accurate many years ago, on Oahu, or may be accurate, even now, on the outer islands, from what little of them I have experienced.

However, in the office lunch rooms of Downtown Honolulu?

It’s “gossip.” Pure and simple. And often nefarious and malicious.

It’s kind of what started my entire emotional turmoil of late, several months ago, when some confidential personal information of mine was passed from one office colleague to another and then another and then suddenly an entire downtown industry knew about it before the close of business. In one day. And this prompted me to write something that, in hindsight, I probably should not have written, to my best friend.

Who no longer speaks to me because of what I wrote to him.

But that is not my point here, and besides is a story worthy of another entry entirely.

I do not “Talk Story” anymore. With anyone. Mostly because, well, I’ve very few trustworthy souls around me lately with whom I feel that I can safely engage in the practice. But also because I’ve realized that I don’t really want all of my personal shit spread, without my knowledge or permission, all over my office, all over Downtown Honolulu, and even across the Pacific.

(Unless, you know, I post it on the world wide web. But that is another matter entirely.)

Yesterday, a colleague from our Los Angeles office, whom I’ve known for years but haven’t seen in at least two, walked by my office and broke into a huge smile when she saw that I was in.

“Atherton!” she exclaimed, rushing over to hug me.

“Joan!” I exclaimed in return, rising to return her hug. “You’re so thin! You look fabulous! And I love that you went brunette like me! It looks amazing on you!”

“It looks amazing on you, too!” Joan exclaimed. (I love how with colleagues who work in other offices casual communication is always articulated in exclamations and italics.) “We’ll have to do lunch this week! Let me take you to Palomino; I’ve heard you’ve…” she paused, looking at me in such a way that you could tell was meant to be sympathetic but actually came across as pathetic “…been ‘Going Through Things.’”

I raised an eyebrow. “‘Going Through Things?’” I repeated derisively. “Wait. When did you get into Town, again?”

“Just now,” she said, confused. “I mean I just got into the office just now.”

I rolled my eyes. “So you’re telling me that you’ve been here like five minutes and already you’ve heard that I’ve been ‘Going Through Things?’”

“Well,” she hesitated, clearly flustered. “Yes.”

Again with the eye roll. “I’d love to have lunch with you, Joan. But don’t expect any Grand Reveal regarding the ‘Things’ that I am ‘Going Through’; I don’t do that with colleagues anymore.” I sat down again and consulted my calendar. “How about twelve on Friday? I’ll make the reservations. And let’s do Indigo. I do not do Palomino anymore.”

(Well, come on. I’m not going to turn down a free hour-and-a-half lunch. With cocktails. Are you crazy?)

I am not the only one in my office “Going Through Things.” A woman who shares my suite of offices is also “Going Through Things” of late, and between the two of us the rest of the entire office is afraid to approach our group of offices (which we’ve dubbed, only half-jokingly, “Depression Corner”). Invariably we’ll both be sniffling and crying quietly at our desks, or we’ll both be huge cunts to anyone who approaches and asks us to do anything. She doesn’t smoke, but she’ll join me on the cigarette breaks that I’ve started taking again.

And although I do not “Talk Story” even with her (we share a certain “simpatico” understanding that when we’re on these breaks we know about the “Things” that we’re both “Going Through” but we don’t talk about them, like, at all), it is, like the `Ukulele Guild of Hawai`i professes, “two or more people taking the time out of the day to slow down and talk.”

We just don’t “gossip.”

We’ll talk about the latest episode of “Miami Ink,” or the weather in the Pacific Northwest, or the possibility of me moving back to New York, or interpersonal relationships and the concept or experience of painful loss in general, but we never get specific. Because we “get” each other like that. We’ve also developed a list of fellow colleagues to whom neither of us divulges any personal information we may know about the other. (A list that is pretty fucking long.) And she now shares my derision of the concept of “Talk Story” in our office, even though she was born and raised in Hawai`i and used to engage in it herself.

“Where’s Lil’ Sistah?” she’ll inquire, around two every afternoon, referring to our twenty-something mail clerk colleague who handles mail, deliveries, files, and relieving the receptionist at two o’clock.

“I just delivered a project to a client on seven,” I’ll say, referring to one of the other floors of our office. “I saw her ‘Talking Story’ while she was picking up the mail.”

“With who?” my simpatico colleague will ask suspiciously. “With Laura?”

“Mmmmhmmm,” I’ll hum, meaningfully, not looking up from my color proofs.

“‘Talk Story,’” she’ll mumble derisively.

“Pfft!”

And I’ll always smile to myself, head down, and depressed, yet somehow comforted to know that there is someone else, right there with me, daily “Going Through” almost exactly the same “Things” as am I.

Filed under: Relationships, Writing , emotional landscapes, hawaii, honolulu, linkage, office love, rumormongering