FT: Irma Perkins - Entry for 29 February 2008

Mar 12, 2008 17:29


If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.
Haven't the foggiest as to what they want from me. (Neither does Plath.) According to the letter, they had belief that their relationship might not last through Bloomington and that the executive job at Lilly would fall through, but it didn't and they regretted giving the one monument to their union to an old woman from West Baden with gnarled fingers and a lover in Jesus. They are still childless (except for me, evidently), proven to be well-to-do workaholics on the coast of Geist Resevoir. They shop from Keystone Crossing and Carmel, have nieces and nephews that go exclusively to DePauw, Earlham, Butler, Rose-Hulman, and Notre Dame, and find Starbucks to be so necessary a staple as to leave a neat little caramel macchiato ring on the right hand corner of the stationery. Hobbies, according to this, include "polo, boating at Monroe and Geist, tennis, squash, and entertaining." Find it prudent to perfume the paper. Heavy weight, too, with a rough tooth that could be mistaken for watercolor if you really closed your eyes hard enough and just felt. Might consider themselves just bohemian enough to flirt with moderate politics, or they might've worn green and shrieked "My Man Mitch!" all the way to the Governor's Mansion. Use fountain ink, yet have handwriting that is distinctly only a generation away from my own.

After a week of consulting on this at the desk with some good gin and three packs, I have reason to believe they've both run across something of a mid-life crisis. According to the paperwork, they were nineteen and twenty-one, respectively, when they conceived me, which means both are currently in their early forties. One too many "Over The Hill" parties for comfort, perhaps? Maybe a close family relative died? (Oh God, my "grandmother" has kicked the bucket? How fucking rich is this.) Mortality is staring them in the face, it seems, all bald and making them realize that they won't be here forever. Progeny must be in short supply, the two are realizing that their cute little dogs (my vote is golden retriever if they have a palatial estate, pug if it is a trendy townhouse) will not be available for eulogies. Make amends, make sure that money does not go to the state, make some semblance of a pass at looking like everything is cute and okay and great. They've got a big case of the Picket Fence Syndrome, and guess who's the recipient?

[enclosed is a ragged tear of said stationery, where it says "Dear Irma, You don't know us but--"]

I just can't believe I told Paddy. I was smashed, I was so fucking smashed. Only way he could've managed. Jesus fucking Christ, though, I feel awful that he felt the need to have to drive up here to fucking Manhattan just to see if I was okay. More than a bit rough, that, and stupid, but-- I don't even know. This is worse than the one time when Maggie and "Mister Harry Dreyfus" (who the fuck chooses that as a nickname?!) from RISD managed to get me to strip tease on one of the campus bridges, albeit for different reasons. Still, the blatent exposure and awkward aftermath is about the same.

Oh, speaking of exposure: might as fucking well.

Officially better than a shipment of Rowan Kidsilk, although just barely behind a carton of Jack Daniels: Bach's Six Suites for Cello Solo and Vivaldi's Cello Sonata no 3. That shit's mean to learn, sure, but baroque means there's enough spunk that you're not trudging through it for the sake of trudging. Feel awful practicing it in front of the customers sometimes, because it's not something I have down pat, but early votes have been encouraging enough. (That is to say: no one's jumped off the ladders yet to their untimely demise.)

Oh, and in case anybody's a fucking foodie out there: anybody heard good or bad things about a restaurant named Aja?

irma perkins, sample journal, fairly tales

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