Old friends

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who I met in the 70's, when we were both working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. R was the research assistant to the Chairman of the Organizational Psychology department at the Sloan School of Management and a very respected professor, the only woman in the department. I was their administrative assistant. It was my first job out of college and R and I used to sit in each other's offices for hours and talk. (When we weren't working. We talked a lot.) She's coming into Manhattan on Monday (she lives in Connecticut) to see an old family friend of hers, her friend's husband, brother and his wife -- and then she and I will meet afterward for coffee to dissect the lunch.

What I love most about R is her stories. She is a great storyteller and I got to know all her friends through their stories and eventually, over the years, I met most of them. She got married when she was in her mid 30's, and then I did too, and then she had her son and then a year later, I had my daughter. Over the years we've been in and out of touch, but whenever we speak or get together, it's like we never were apart.

I was supposed to have tea with one of my old boyfriends D a few weeks ago. He flew up from Florida because he manages someone who was going to be performing at Carnegie Hall, but the client was arrested (something about driving without license plates and having a gun in the car.) We missed tea because he was busy bailing his client out. But today, I'm meeting another old boyfriend for lunch in the Village. He teaches at the University of Delaware and he's in town to do some consulting for a college here. He was my second serious boyfriend, he dumped me right before my senior prom because he was having "an identity crisis" - (we all had them in the 70's) and then we got back together when I was a sophomore in college and he was a junior, but then I felt I could never trust him, so I dumped him.

Strangely, one of the nights I did my monologue performance, a woman I am slightly acquainted with came over to me and said, "I am from Plainview, L.I. too." (I mention that at the beginning of the piece.) She said she had just missed her high school reunion. I told her that my old boyfriend L.C. just went to his reunion this past summer and that he sent me photos of it. And she said, "Wait, L.C. was my boyfriend too!" And then she promptly took out her BlackBerry and called him on the phone. This was 10 pm on a Friday night. He was a little stunned, I think. Anyway, we're having lunch today.

So...is it true that Sarah Palin may be getting a book deal for something like 6 million dollars? No way! Can she write? I mean, I know that I could use a good editor myself (I've always written dialogue) - but she is a moron. Now granted, she did run for Vice President. (She did, right? I didn't hallucinate that, did I? But how is that possible?) Two months ago I never even heard of Sarah Palin and now I find myself in Tina Fey/Saturday Night Live withdrawal.

Anyway, it looks like my B job will be coming to an end soon and I can concentrate on finding something else. In the meantime, I'm reading "Secrets of Six Figure Women" (Barbara Stanny), "A New Earth" (Eckhart Tolle), "Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the 20th Century (Edited by Jo Bonney) and "When Things Fall Apart" by Pema Chodron.

And Obama is busy putting together his cabinet. Two more months! From tomorrow! Something like four million people are supposed to be going to Washington D.C. for the inauguration. That will be amazing.