I met Columbine today. He'd come to Denver
to see other friends, but when he mentioned the visit in Scherzi
e Sospiri, I threw myself at him, electronically speaking. He said
His hostess gave me directions to the house, but I didn't translate a house number of 106XX has being that far west. And it's not that far, but we're 7200 east so I guess I should have allowed more than the 25 minutes Deb suggested to drive. But I was probably only a few minutes late. I had suggested going to Red Rocks, which Columbine declined, but as I neared the house, I saw them anyway. Not just the park Red Rocks but the actual two big red rocks that tower over and flank the amphitheatre. Certainly farther than I assumed. When I hear "Littleton" I assume Englewood but this was the Lakewood side.
I knocked and glanced around at families raking leaves and playing catch. The door opened. I looked back and up and then up some more. I knew he was tall, but I hadn't thought that tall. And I didn't notice in the house but outside how remarkably blue his eyes are. Perhaps not their color but their vividness is startling (plus turquoise earrings set them off). Also I hadn't imagined his gait and gestures, hadn't put into motion the few photographs I've seen or the scant physical cues in his journal. I didn't notice his hands, come to think of it as I tic down the list--an oversight. He has a good handshake.
After Red Rocks, I suggested the Tattered Cover. With books and a café, we should be able to occupy ourselves. When Deb asked him what we were doing, he said, "We're going to a bookstore," and she asked, "The Tattered Cover?" and he gave her a Look. Here, the look meant "Yes, there is but one big independent bookstore in this whole region and everyone knows what it is." I should have given myself a Look as well: "Why drive from Lakewood to downtown? Is there nothing to do here?"
Later, I wanted to give downtown a Look. Since when do meters charge on Sundays? Holidays and Sunday used to be excepted, whine whine whine. It did mean we could spend only an hour at the TC, during which time Columbine picked up magazines I've never heard of. In the check-out line, he asked in surprise, "You're not getting anything?"
No, not after we bought the week's groceries Saturday night at La Casa Sena. Not the book of Ambrose Bierce short stories I was reading upstairs, even though I've been meaning to read "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" since CXJ told me about it oh, eight years ago. Not the several titles I want from A Common Reader. Not even the Margaret George who gave me such a fine "autobiography" of Henry VIII and now writes about Mary Queen of Scots (I can wait, can't I? It was just a year ago I read Antonia Fraser's actual biography of her).
Which is something we talked about. After the TC, in search of Yet More Books and also drink, we nipped down Broadway to Ichabod's (an appropriate name for the time of year) and didn't look at the used books but sat drinking (for him) iced tea and water (not mixed) and (for me) apple juice. On a table was the Washington Post Book Review, whose front page sported a review of Dutch. Can a biography or even an autobiography ever be factual, or does the form inherently pose more problems even than nonfiction? In the bar of the Hotel St. Francis, RPG gave this as a reason to mistrust biography as a whole. Everything, nonfiction as well as fiction, must have a bias, though, as long as the author is human; I think biography is only a matter of degree. And what about biographies of the dead? What were Fraser's motivations and biases in writing Mary, Queen of Scots? (Speaking of which, remind me to mention A.S. Byatt and Jane Austen's youthful sympathies for Tudor vs. Stuart.) I was aching to bring up escribitionists as an example of fiction or selective(ly presented) truth, but as a rule I don't mention the existence of on-line journals--what are those? why would anyone do that?--in front of anyone I know in the flesh.
Meeting Columbine was my first time meeting an escribitionist (sorry, Anita--that you weren't was my very own very stupid fault)(and Shelley should have been my second (after Anita) but the Long Beach conference didn't pan out) and the jibing of written self and present self made, on my part, for awkward moments as what I had read, read and forgotten, or never read, fitted into the person I was talking to who was, in practice, a total stranger.
We talked mostly about gender issues, and he told me that Nancy Drew has not only been reillustrated but rewritten, and I told him about the chronological renumbering of the Chronicles of Narnia. Also he told me that Harry Potter was USAnized for the U.S. printing. Grrrrr and ask me how stupid I felt for not noticing the spelling and truck/lorry thing.
We didn't get into OLJ gossip until much later. He told me one thing that surprised me: people were discussing on journals-l individual habits of speech and he mentioned me as "almost obsessively with the little green links everywhere" and he said several people said they had noticed that about me. Oh? When I did belong to journals-l, two of the four OLJers who read me also belonged; one was Columbine. That leaves one person (hi again, Anita!) to make up the several--who're the rest? I always assumed my readership was piddling--HAO, Shelley, Beth, Anita, Columbine, Lynnette (not a journaler but go read her weblog), and maybe two other non-OLJers. Now that we have our own domain, I might figure out how to access my stats. I can just picture the excesses of hitsluttery I shall wallow in if I do, especially if the stats reveal what very few have emailed me to tell me.
(Leaving, I found the bag of M&Ms in the center console, all crushed from drink bottles in the week since Santa Fe.)
Go to previous or next, the Journal Index, Words, or the Lisa Index
Last modified 26 October 1999
Speak your mind: lisa[at]penguindust[dot]com
Copyright © 1999 LJH