A LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION

LIBRA HOROSCOPE (from astrology.com): You’re seeing details everyone else is missing. That could mean that you’re able to take initiative and move ahead, or it could mean that you’re starting to crack! The odds are on the former, though.

Laura’s Log:
I hate having a family secret. Somehow I’d managed to talk Mom down from the insane idea that Dad was having an affair, but she’d soon have a new theory on why Dad’s being particularly distant of late. Dad and I hadn’t gone for Saturday coffee at Café Calabria in awhile, but I made sure to stop by today. He greeted me with an ultimatum: “No talking about your mother, my job or life after my job.” Seemed like our coffee talk would be all about the Canucks.

And, really, it was—Samuelsson finding himself, Demitra reliving the Olympics, O’Brien being an idiot. My mission failed. I’d wanted to better gauge how Dad was coping with forced retirement and perhaps even coax him into making some plans for Life after Work. I suppose his ultimatum proved he wasn’t coping at all. Was he in the denial stage? Or maybe he was too angry to even broach the subject? What if he was planning to go postal on his boss? Did he have a machine gun somewhere in the garage?

See, that’s the thing about my father. He FORCES us to make wild guesses about his thoughts and feelings. The personal revelations come so rarely.

KEN’S JOURNAL:
MARTY’S LITTLE CONFESSION THAT HE WAS CONSIDERING A DEEPER RELATIONSHIP W/A WOMAN MAY HAVE BEEN A MOMENTARY MUSING. HAD HE PASSED BY THE NEW BIOGRAPHY OF OPRAH IN A STORE WINDOW AND FELT HER STARING HIM DOWN? “CAD! HEEL! BASTARD!”

WHEN HE SHOWED UP THIRTY MINUTES LATE AT OUR NEW OFFICE, HE EXPLAINED HIS TARDINESS WITH “COULDN’T GET MARY—OR WAS IT MARIE?—TO GET OUT OF MY PLACE FAST ENOUGH. SHE STARTED CLEANING MY COUNTERS AND THEN ASKED FOR A MOP. FIGURED I MIGHT AS WELL LET HER DO WHAT MAKES HER HAPPY BEFORE BLOCKING HER NUMBER.”

THIS TIME I WAS WITH OPRAH.

CARL(A)’S WORK WAS LOOKING GOOD. THE SPACE WAS STARTING TO TAKE SHAPE. BUT THE LIGHTING WAS TOO BRIGHT. MADE PEOPLE LOOK TOO PALE. MARTY CONSIDERED MY STATEMENT AND RESPONDED, “WHAT ARE YOU, A GIRL?” I HELD MY GROUND AND HE SHRUGGED AN ASSENT TO CHANGE. HE’D TELL CARL(A) (SINCE SHE STILL THOUGHT I WAS A LESBIAN HATER) AND I’D SCOPE OUT SOME ALTERNATIVES.

WE HEADED TO NEW WESTMINSTER TO CHECK OUT A HALF DOZEN CONDOS. I SHOT EACH ONE DOWN.

TOO MUSTY.

TOO KITSCHY.

TOO RETRO.

TOO MODERN.

TOO SMALL.

TOO NOISY.

BY THE TIME WE WERE DONE, MARTY WAS DISGUSTED. “TOO MUCH, MAN. YOU’RE TOO MUCH.” HE CANCELED OUR GAME OF SQUASH, SAYING MARY (MARIE?) HAD SHORTCHANGED HIM ON SLEEP.

NEEDN’T OVERANALYZE THINGS. I’LL GO WITH THAT.