When is it rude to just keep on talking?
One time in college a group of students were sharing out and I noticed one girl doing all the talking. She took up more time than her entire group was supposed to use collectively, by herself. The professor let her ramble. And on my anonymous peer assessment feedback form, I wrote, "Why does Julie (I think that was her real name) talk so much? Does she think what she has to say is more important than everyone else?"
Some girls sitting close to me saw what I wrote and snickered with me as our feedback forms were collected by the professor. The following week the professor had typed up the comments, and my comment was edited.
It said, "I wish the other members of (Julie's group) had spoken out more."
To this day I wonder if that professor really saw it that way or wanted to teach whoever wrote that comment a lesson about how to communicate criticism tactfully. Maybe both.
I notice it at AA meetings, too. I've been to 3 meetings so far. There's always a couple people who talk for about 10-15 minutes. And I had visions of telling them off at a future meeting, but decided against it. I'm really there to listen and learn about addiction, and make friends who don't drink, and feel a sense of fellowship. It's a nice group of people and you don't have to talk if you don't want to. I talked my first time but not since. I will though next time. I need to get my 30 day sober coin.
With some people I think it's a nervous thing to talk too much. I talk too fast when I get nervous, and I've been longwinded before (moreso when I used to drink), but I'm pretty good at keeping conversations short most of the time.
There's definitely a grey area. Like a huge grey lake everyone in a shared culture is supposed to go swimming in, but some refuse, and become the bystanders who want to manage the water or run away from it.
My best teacher friend and I talk a few times a day. In fact, I've been going to work early so I can dump a load of my boring life details into her ears every morning before her day even begins. And she graciously listens.
With other friends, I do more listening. Like with Fred, a retired jack of all trades and master of some. Fred is too smart for his own good. He knows he's smart, and he gets frustrated by the shortcomings of our human nature, including his own inability to quit smoking cigarettes after 50 years.
His mind runs on, and sometimes his words do too, so last week I told him he needed to learn the art of small talk.
We were talking on the phone for about 45 minutes or so and he said something really funny and I laughed really hard, and then I kind of thought, perfect time to end it. On a high note.
But he did the opposite. My laughter had encouraged him. He tried to drag the conversation on and on. After another 20 minutes or so I got to thinking, this is too much. My arm's starting to hurt. I have to pee. I hope I don't get brain cancer.
Even when there was nothing left to say, he continued on, the same stories, a few different words. I suddenly got angry.
And that's when I told him he should end it on a high note. He seemed to understand, but probably in the same way he understands cigarettes to be bad for him.
Fred's a musician and he's played with some great bands but at the end of the day he marches to the beat of his own drummer. There are no boundaries. He'd probably say he sees the boundaries but doesn't care. I don't think he sees them though. He doesn't see the big grey lake, either.
Fred isn't even on the same planet as the lake. So that analogy doesn't really work.
Fred is calling me, jeeze. He's been texting me all week about his anxiety over moving in with his girlfriend.
I answer my phone and say hey. He says hi. He sounds sad.
"She started getting on my ass about life and shit. Hah. Unbelievable. It's making my stomach turn. I'm trying to be silent. What a mistake."
"Oh" I said.
"Last night she said she wanted to start a life with me. I wanted to jump out the frickin window."
"You two should take walks together. Get out of the house. Get some fresh air."
"I can't get her out of the house. She doesn't want to walk any further than the house to the car. And that's usually just to go get something to eat and bring it home."
He says some things I probably shouldn't share, and then goes on about the stress of having his belongings spread out between his last residence, a storage unit, a motor-home, and his girlfriend's loft.
Since he lost his home in 2007 this has been his life. I have a song lyric about my life being scattered into bags. Fred's life is scattered into plastic bins and storage units, and people's back yards and friends' and family's basements and garages. Lots of treasures confined to dark, dusty existences. Vintage decor and antique glass bottles and artwork and tools. Poor Fred. Especially the tools. A man needs a place for his tools like a woman needs a closet.
Two things Fred kept close all these years were his keyboards. He's supposed to set them up in my classroom this weekend so he can play for my students Monday. He's going to be a guest presenter to my classes. But he's worried the keyboards are behind a pile of big things in his motorhome.
"They're buried, man. Don't even know if I can find them in that mess. I musta been Hitler. This is my last trip. I've suffered. I've paid, man. And that mattress I was saving for you? I moved it here, thinking it would be good to do that. What a dumbass I am. It got all dusty and dirty on one side when I lugged it in. Everything's a mess. It's over."
(There's a moment of silence. I think I've heard enough. And I really wanted that mattress. And he better find his keyboards. But I don't say anything.)
"Nothing's selling. All I sold this week was the 15'' PA bottoms. And I got nothing. Just about 100 for the pair. What a drag."
(I hope he doesn't hear me typing.)
He says his girlfriend wanted to talk about death metal and pitbulls and fast cars last night.
"Oh my gosh so boring," I said.
He tells me about a fridge and some tools and his motorhome engine he's trying to sell on Craigslist.
"I'll list 'em. Throw some pictures up. Maybe they'll disappear."
"You never know," I say.
Fred winds up the conversation and lets me go. That was better.
I'm spending my Friday night with a spinach cheese croissant, chocolate covered pretzels, and pumpkin pie soda (thank you Wholefoods, right around the corner, for making me fatter than ever).
But I don't care. I'm done dating. I threw away the D and picked up an E. The dark chocolate covered pretzels don't care how I look in a thong. And they taste good.
It's the day before Halloween and I went to work dressed up as a pregnant woman carrying a fetus-eating zombie baby, partially just to let my belly hang out. It was glorious.
I ordered a DNA test online. I spit in a tube and mailed my saliva to a company. I'll find out my ethnic breakdown any day now.
If I'm a certain percentage Native American I may have legal rights to land. Fingers crossed.
It would be cool if I'm part Indian or Chinese.
In other news I'm still broke and living in my one room apartment. I'm playing my keyboard. Writing my blog. Reading my AA book. Calling my mother. Rearranging my room. And sometimes watering my plant when it looks yellow.
