"It Wouldn't Be Me"

Okay...that was the big line emanating from my sister's electronic lips (she always does both her dirty work and her making up over the 'phone or the e-mail) on the night that I finally had had enough of her BS and hung up on her. What a feeling!

This was before the big birthday blowup and final parting. In fact, this was the incident that gave me the two-plus years of peace and quiet before her "you're the only sister I have" speech. I really enjoyed those two-plus years. Why don't I ever remember these things in a timely fashion when she wants to reconnect and "bond"??

At this point in time, I was still in possession of the green dress. It was wadded up and shoved in a trunk, having been last used as a costume for a solo that I set on a particularly gifted student. This girl could really dance, and she was intellectually interesting as well, and a thoughtful choreographer. I set this short work, an introspective solo to Philip Glass' "Freezing", for an annual college event called "Rising Stars". We, as faculty, nominated these students and showcased their talents at a really decent dinner held at a hotel ballroom every May. I went for the food, and I was always sure that the nominated student or students would show up for the same reason. I remember that the dinner was one of those clever, molded turkey breast slices that was formed around a mound of stuffing and framed in festoons of french-cut green beans. Okay, it was predictable, but the dessert was frosted with real ganache and had chocolate-covered strawberries on the side. This was the lure. The student, who will remain nameless for her own sake and my legal safety, showed up, danced, and chowed down on the dinner. This is the selfsame student that I once saw devour five slices of a very dense pizza and then go out and perform. All this to say that I did, indeed, have the green dress.

On to the hang-up incident. I have already mentioned that I live in a warehouse space. What I have not yet mentioned is that the entire warehouse is owned by probably the "stupidest" and cheapest man in the world....at least, in my world. After I had lived in the space for a year, I came home one day to find a notice to vacate posted on my door by the City of Houston. The notice gave me one week to get out. You see, Mr. stupid-and-cheap didn't feel that he had to be up to code because he rented us the spaces on fake rental agreements. This is the same man who once admonished me to "talk to me in words I can understand". You get the drift.

What I am trying to say is that the warehouse leaked like a sieve and had PVC pipes that were totally inadequate for the amount of water that flowed through them. Recipe for disaster, and disaster came more often than I would like to remember. On this occasion, a particularly heavy rain came in a matter of minutes, and fell on ground that was very dry and not ready to absorb. I ended up with more than three feet of water in my place. I lost almost everything, including art, clothing, furniture, books papers....the list goes on and on. It was so bad that one of my friends at work gave me a few items of clothing so that I could go to school and teach my classes. Naturally, Mr. stupid-and-cheap never paid a cent to any of us poor slobs who were his tenants.

As I was still digging out from the three feet of silt, water, and happy frogs, Siss called me, wanting to chat. For whatever reason, she wanted the conversation to be all about her, and I wasn't in the mood for her petty bitching. I told her nicely that I was having a difficult time, just having lost everything. I hadn't asked her for a thing, and didn't intend to. I just didn't need to be an ear for her just then.

She turned on me, not in anger, but in cold moralistic tones, which I find much worse. She delivered her line, "It wouldn't be me living that way"....this, just after she was braying on about how she always wanted to live in a warehouse.

In a moment of weakness (or strength),I said "get out of my life, and stay out", and hung up.

There. Now I have connected the dots to the "you're the only sister I have" speech. Siss let more than two years go by after I hung up in her ear, probably hoping that I would forget all about her bad timing and moralistic attitude, and then she contacted me by e-mail. I took her back in without a word about the past. What an idiot. Somewhere between that 'phone call, that e-mail, and the birthday debacle, I let the green dress out of my grasp...I think. It's all really cloudy these days.

Suffice it to say that I had the green dress, then I didn't, and now I have it again.

More later.