NEWS of the RIALTO...

Here I am, listening to Mercedes Sosa and not getting much done. I bailed out of another night out at the Hideway because I hate the thought of being stuck there until the Goat decides it's time to head back to his Salt-Mine, which is where I hang my hat, or a hell of a lot closer to it than the Hideaway...

A friend from my former life, with whom I had tried to connect on a previous visit back to the Old Homestead, turns out to be living Out West [which starts around Albany] and was going to make a stop close to the Big Woods on his way back for Thanksgiving with his mother. So I decided to bail out of the trip back to the Hideaway, to get some time out from the Goat's current construction project, and simultaneously get within easy reach of the highway in case my Old Chum showed up. No phone call, no contact, and I have wasted the day, or most of it, doing things that did not need doing. No offense meant, but do I need to blog?

I did update a print job I am running for my mother, in celebration of her 83rd birthday, and sent her a proof of the state of the job before I go spending her birthday present points on getting it printed. Having told all the members of my family that I am no longer giving Big Presents at Christmas, I find this is going to be one hell of a holiday season after all. There is the print job for Mom, which runs well over $100, a trip to meet the Goat and me for New Year's on the West Coast for my West Coast son which is going to set me back about as much, and the impulse purchases I seem to keep making for the Goat... He'll look cute in his major present, and it may even make up for the fact that, like my poor children, he is otherwise getting a bunch of books he's not really interested in... And I can't seem to stop myself from buying silly little Christmas presents for Isis, who I'm sure wants nothing to do with them, as she certainly wants nothing to do with me... Anyway, it's all costing a bundle of money.

My hands have pretty much healed in the past week. Oh, I guess you need to know what happened... Over a couple of days earlier in the month, I managed to burn my hand on my morning coffee mug [without the turntable, the microwave heats containers more than the contents], close my left hand in my own front door [which is heavy as hell and won't shut unless you slam it good and hard] scraping some substantial holes in the knuckles of my left hand, and open my one piece of mail in such a stupid way that I gave myself a paper cut on my right thumb and index finger. Of course they all opened up again and started hurting like hell again every time I washed up. Well, that is over for now, thank God. Until the next stupid thing I do, which should be coming along any time now...

I have said before that I don't really feel that I have the right equipment to be a Faculty Wife. I am dreadfully uncomfortable in large groups; my smile muscles seem to freeze, and I am driven to do something safe like browse the hosts' bookcases for titles that look familiar or interesting. We were invited to a "soirée" at the Headmaster's House the other night, and I wound up hugging the bookcases and haunting the Goat's side. It's not that I haven't met any of the other faculty [most of whose spouses also have various jobs attached to the school], but I haven't spent enough time talking with any of them to feel comfortable in chit-chat mode--with one or two exceptions. With my hearing problem, it is also a teeny bit of a problem when the bulk of the floor is taken up by careening kiddies, none of whose parents seem to think that noise is a problem.

Now that the school has another gay male employee [or at least, another "out" gay male employee], there is also some concern that I not hang out with "my crowd" the way the black and Asian students do, but do my best to mingle. I suppose now that there is "another one of us," I should be able to lighten up and not feel that I am always under the microscope. The bottom line is that I tense up when the noise becomes a wall of undifferentiated sound, and that stretches my social skills to the max. It also seems to happen everywhere in the school; hasn't anybody heard about designing to cut down on rather than increase noise and sound bounce? You'd think that in an environment with several hundred teen-agers, it might have occurred to somebody... Oh, well.

Now I have a bad conscience about one of my outbursts at the soirée, which came when the Goat started pursuing our schedule over Thanksgiving break, and expressing concern that we shouldn't do it in my little car. I did rather over-react, but I am so tired of being told that only Great Big Men in Great Big Trucks can deal with winter weather. I have been driving in snow, ice, and even freezing rain all over northern New England since I was twenty, and have never had an accident [the only accidents I have had, wouldn't you know, have been in fits of panic about my schedule, when I stop looking and back into things in parking lots -- and none of them have been in the winter]. It was the kind of thing I probably could have said to the Goat in private, but should have kept to myself in front of the assembled Eminences. Himself is rather sensitive in that department--well, who isn't?

What's love without a bump or two in the road?
What's a rose without a thorn?
What's a boyfriend without deficiencies?

Oh, well. Off to get the winter tires put on.
We have faced and survived our first major turkey orgy of the week.
Hang in there, guys.
There's more turkey coming...
C