Off the Record

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If you’ve made it into my blog, it means you’ve done good, kid. If you were present at the event about which I write, you’re in. If you were responsible for creating the situation about which I write, you’re in. Even THIS GIRL got it. And THIS GUY. Oh, and remember when THIS happened? They are all vital organs in my body of a blog, and today I’d like to share an anecdote from my family dinner last night.

Barbie had some napkins. Many napkins. 6×6inch napkins of all sorts of colors and patterns. She was going on about how she hated them but needed to get rid of them.
“You could always use them as wallpaper,” I said as I sipped my beer and ate my ice cream.
Between her bites of cookie cake she responded, “But that would clog up the septic tank.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Didn’t you say I could use it for toilet paper?”
Silence.
“I said wallpaper.”

Then the typical discussion (which is becoming more and more prevalent these days) ensues where everyone tells me that should go on my blog. Not only do I feel a certain amount of loyalty to my customers, err, ahem, I mean, READERS, to post this anecdonte, but I also feel that this event, while it only lasted seconds, will forever live on the family’s long list of funnies and is totally worth capturing on the page of the BLOG.

Oh and I went to a Bat Mitzvah this weekend for my new GIG. It’s times like those where I wish I were Jewish.

Shamon.

I love my sister as much as anyone could love his sibling. She’s smart, she’s quirky, she’s funny, she’s quick, she’s sly, she’s beautiful, she’s modest. She has not once gotten in trouble or defied the law. In high school she got detentions for chewing gum and not tucking in her shirt. She was good at tennis and scholar bowl. She did not have many friends until college but I blame it on her intelligence, her wit and search for something better than drinking, smoking and copulating on the weekends.

We have not lived together since I was 15–nearly nine years ago. Beacuse of this, we do not know each others’ quirks. We do not understand the other’s habits. We do not know how the other operates on a day-to-day basis. She does not know that I am a hard worker who has moments of social genius juxtaposed with flashes of intense anti-social instability. She does not know that I like to read the paper with a cup of coffee in the morning and play NPR all day on my father’s old radio. She couldn’t imagine the bicycle adventures on which I go or the conversations I overhear at the bars I frequent. She does not know my St. Louis. She does not know my intentions. She does not know me.
And on the same note, I do not know her.
____

I visited her this past weekend on a spontaneous trip to her town to see a friend’s band. Initially she was very affectionate, putting her head on my shoulder and wrapping her arms around my chest the moment she saw me.
How was the drive?
Fine.
Friend at her work place surrounded her and made jokes and laughed and then she pointed me out to some of them, a spark of familial familarity and pride in her eyes.
We went out after she got off work and screamed our updates at each other over the band. Talk of parents, professions, potential pursuits and future endeavors invaded our conversation and we reacted the way the Truckey girls tend to react–exaggerated and intense and genuine. Her friends liked us together and thought us cute. They spoke to me like they spoke to her, finding our similarities endearing.
But when we got back to the house and I inquired about a weapon lying next to her bed, Sister pulled it on me intending to show me how it worked. But I did not know that’s what she was doing–I just asked her to please not get close to me.
It’s off.
I don’t care.
I’m not going to touch you.
But how was I to know that?
Relax.
I am relxed, just please put it away.
I lost my appetite.
We retired to our respected rooms to converse only once more before I left very early the next morning.
Our affections ended suddenly as our egos came head to head: she knew she had control over her weapon, and I was taking precautions. This situation showed our personalities at their finest. She assumes she should be trusted–even by people who love her, and I will take all measures, necessary or unecessary, in order to feel safe.
I went to bed content, sure that I would still love her…even if she HAD tased me.

“Sorry to have scared you with the weapon” my Sister texted me the next day.

I smiled.