Hey joe. =A0Oh man. =A0Here you are, doing this thing that you do so well,=

thing that knocked me off my feet the first time I saw you do it and I nev=

really recovered. =A0This taking a feeling and using your words to make it=

nakedly identifiable, so immediate and real that I can't pretend I don't
know exactly what you are talking about - the way you do this makes it so
there is no space between you and me and this part of being human. =A0This=

what the people who have written books that changed my life do to me.

One night I did something that I've done lots of times before - I went to =

play by August Wilson. =A0August Wilson gets to me on a deep emotional lev=

Tom Stoppard makes me think and laugh, but August Wilson gets stuck inside=
and becomes a part of who I am for the rest of my life. =A0So, I was sitti=

in the theater, waiting for the play to begin, and then two people came an=

sat in the two empty seats in front of me. =A0It was August Wilson and his=
daughter.

He was sitting in front of me, joe. =A0I could hear every word he said, al=

night, every time he turned to his companion and made a comment, every tim=

he laughed. =A0I could have reached out and touched him. =A0He looked
comfortable and easy and happy and I knew that I loved him. =A0He changed =

life and brought richness to it, added colours to my palette, made me care=
about things he cared enough to write about, made me understand a little
more about what it is to be human. =A0And he was right there in front of m=

could have told him. =A0I could have said thank you. I could have caught h=

eye just for a moment, smiled and said "thank you" while glancing at the
stage, and he would have understood.

I never said a word.

This feels like that for some reason.

I think if we knew each other we would be friends.

I'm awake (and using my SAD light). I woke up so that my wife could get
up, and got up in time to see her off to London. She's driving down with
a friend, so I get Xmas to myself, but with the car. I suppose Wynne
will be around some of the time, but his girlfriend's mother is doing
Xmas, and he's never seen one, so I think I'll have the twenty-fifth to
myself. I do not intend to get lonely. I also do not intend to watch the
Queen's mid-day message to the Commonwealth.

On Dec 23, 2:08=A0am, ktrout <kilgoretrou...@yahoo.com> wrote:

x-no-archive: yes

and awake. i was watching "sabado gigante," and then "the brady bunch"
on tv land. some nonsense about a post-pubescent peter and some kid
who looks exactly like him. arthur? i saw all the episodes when i was
a kid but i don't remember that. i didn't watch long enough to see
what it was about. i think there should be a station on tv that is for
insomniacs and features live footage from my own time zone of
despondent- looking people staring out the window or watching tv. it
would make me feel less alone than all these taped refugees from the
daytime.

sweet chocolate covered baby jesus, i'm lonely. i am a lonely person.
i can't even tell you. i don't even care anymore if it is undignified
or unseemly to complain. i am not a stoic. it is a stone drag. if you
read this post, respond to it. tell a story, or some interesting thing
about you, or complain about a problem, or describe what sounds you
hear right now, or what you were doing on the evening of may 12th,
1988. explain this arthur thing. something.

j.

Hi ktrout. =A0I'm really interested in how you came up with that
screenname. =A0I'll tell you a Christmas story from 5 years ago about
our family. =A0We moved here to California from Seattle 5 years ago at
the end of September. =A0Before we moved, my husband had been layed off
his job in January of 2003, just a few months over a year since
anniversary of 9/11. =A0The economy was still pretty bad and the tech
industry was floundering. =A0We had been unemployed for almost a year by
the time we moved here. =A0We had lost our home that we owned there and
suffered a huge loss from it, we were paying off some very big medical
bills which included a month long hosipitalization of our special
needs son, =A0we were in huge debt from paying a high mortgage and
taking care of a family of 5 without enough income.

By the time we got here we were so frazzled and despairing, even
though he had finally found a job (very low paying, but a job
nonetheless). =A0We didn't get a tree that year and our Christmas was
going to be very sparse. =A0Beginning on the 12th day before Christmas,
we had a knock on our door every night and someone, perhaps different
people, left things on our doorstep (we never tried to peek out the
window, we didn't want to ruin their desire to remain anonymous).
Lots of things along with food. =A0Someone even left us a tree with
money tied to it. =A0By Christmas day we had a feast of all this
wonderful food that was left for us and we had an abundance of
presents under our tree. =A0It was a *very* humbling experience....we
would never have asked for anything like that. =A0And the kindness of
strangers, people who didn't know us, was so overwhelming and
amazing. =A0I'll never forget that experience. =A0I try to remember it
when thinking of what I can do for others who are less fortunate,
especially durning the holidays, but at any time of the year.

Take care....

~Rose- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hi ktrout. =A0I'm really interested in how you came up with that
screenname.

On Dec 23, 5:08=A0am, ktrout <kilgoretrou...@yahoo.com> wrote:
=A0 =A0 It can be embaressing for us adults to still like "The Brady
Bunch" and those other shows from childhood... guilty pleasures, I
guess you can call them... On one hand, we want excitement, adventure,
craziness, we want to be intellectual and sophisticated and highbrow
and mature in our tastes, and there really IS a part of us that like
highbrow, arty, intellectual movies and so on... yet, at the same
time, we have aspects of ourselves that are kind of lowbrow, and
childish, parts of us that want safety and security... macaroni and
cheese, speghetti, mashed potatoes, and "The Brady Bunch", "Leave it
to beaver" and so on...

Hi,
I know you're lonely, I get very lonely too, have done for years.
I've spent way too much time alone and getting drunk and crying in the
gutter.. Sad times. =A0Now when I get lonely, I remember there are
somany other lonely people out there. =A0We are united in our
loneliness. =A0I hope that makes sense. =A0And I hope it makes you feel
better.

Peter had a date with Mr. Brady's bosses neice (she was a nerd) that
night and paid a clone to play him while he went out with a hottie
instead. =A0Well the clone's fucking late, which is ***** because
Peter paid him $50 if I remember, and Peter gets cold busted by his
parents and both girls in the end, hell Alice was even there and
visibly disappointed, that was the worst. =A0

Just to add insult to your injury, that same scheming Peter is married
to Adrian Currey now who's on the cover of this month's Playboy... man
I'm as miserable as you ktrout. =A0She's 25 and he's 55 or something, I
want one.

<(((*>at 4:47 i was fighting eeevil red dog for sleeping space. she gets
<(((*>cold and gets snuggly. then she gets bored and gets even more snuggly.
<(((*>i move, she moves. it's so much fun.
<(((*>
<(((*>i hear you on the lonely thing. the only people i know are coworkers
<(((*>and i don't know how to meet other people anymore. that and i don't
<(((*>have the energy, physical or emotional. i don't know how to be that
<(((*>kind of person.
<(((*>
<(((*>i'm afraid i'm going to be alone for the rest of my life.
<(((*>
<(((*>wow. ok. that was depressing. sorry.

at 4:47 i was fighting eeevil red dog for sleeping space. she gets
cold and gets snuggly. then she gets bored and gets even more snuggly.
i move, she moves. it's so much fun.

i hear you on the lonely thing. the only people i know are coworkers
and i don't know how to meet other people anymore. that and i don't
have the energy, physical or emotional. i don't know how to be that
kind of person.

i'm afraid i'm going to be alone for the rest of my life.

wow. ok. that was depressing. sorry.

The episode "Two Petes in a Pod" originally aired 8 February 1974, the
17th episode of the series' 5th season.

According to the Internet Movie Database, "At school, Peter literally
runs into new transfer student Arthur Owens, who looks exactly like him.
The two pull a series of practical jokes on their respective families,
but a wrench is thrown into the whole thing when Arthur--while
masquerading as Peter--makes a date for Saturday night. Peter comes up
with a sure-fire way to avoid breaking either date." As usual, hilarity
ensues.

This was the first "Brady Bunch" episode featuring Robbie Rist as Cousin
Oliver, Carol's eight-year-old nephew. His inclusion on the program is
commonly considered to be the point when the series "jumped the shark."

The episode was nominated for a 2003 TV Land Award for Favorite
Dual-Role Character.

You're probably still lonely after reading this. So am I. And I really
don't know what to do about that for either of us.

You could come down to the place I'm at in Mexico.

I can't believe I have friends. I cried when I left Indiana because I was
going to miss my family. I will be crying on Wednesday when we leave Flori=

because I will miss my friends.

I am thankful and grateful for my life and ashamed that my feelings don't
always match up to my good fortune.

Oh, and speaking of the sweet baby jesus, here's a story:

My favorite kind of 4:47 a.m. thing to watch is a really cheesy
weather-related disaster movie. When, in reality, the sun does rise, the
winds are normal and a glacier hasn't covered the northeast, I kinda
figger that I'm ahead of the game. At least for that day.

The problem I'm facing today is totally self-induced so I only have
myself to blame. I was up at 4:47, too, but no time to check in on my
beloved asd then. Many years ago, rumors got around that I have an open
house on Christmas Eve. I think I started that rumor so I could
gracefully decline any invitations that might come my way. I'm a
gregarious loner so I don't like social events hanging over my head. But
i do enjoy the company of the species, usually, if it happens in a kinda
unscheduled way. Thus, I don't really invite anyone and no one tells me
if they'll be coming by. Some years, maybe 30 people pop in and out.
Some years, 2 or 3.

Which makes the food and beverage thing hard to plan for. Which is my
fault for being such an elusive hostess, I know. So I make a huge pot of
spaghetti sauce with sausage, meatballs, chicken, fresh herbs -- if I do
say so myself, it's fabulous. I get a whole bunch of those plastic
containers and everyone has to take some away. If no one comes, I freeze
the containers and give them away afterwards. At 4:47, I was wrestling
with my pots and pans to get to the 50-friggin'-quart saucepan. Which
will be simmering away by sunset, by the time the Pats take the field.

It's not a cure for this crazy season of forced gaiety and fellowship,
but it does give my too busy little mind something to land on as the
holiday anxiety ramps up. I wish you lived nearby. I could use some help
chopping the garlic while watching football. Etc.

Are you still awake?

Hey Joe,

Sorry you're lonely. =A0I'm sitting here alone right now too. =A0I don't
really have anything interesting to say, but I'll type some stuff just
to give you something to read. =A0It's 10:23pm, I just spent oven an hour
doing my ironing and now I'm about to =A0go to bed. =A0It's a pretty
exciting life I lead :)

I was just watching The Sopranos while I ironed. =A0I'm up to series 2,
over half way through. =A0I'm not totally into it, but it's something to d=

What sounds can I hear? =A0I can hear the TV (some sketch comedy show
which isn't funny) and my housemate's music playing upstairs (Mika, who
I do like) and faintly crickets (or cicadas) outside - we're having a
bit of a plague of them right now and some nights they're really loud.

May 12th 1988, I was 8 years old. =A0It was 3 days before my sisters 10th
birthday, so there was probably some planning for that going on, no
party though, just a family thing.

Anyway, that's my life. There's nothing undignified about saying you're
alone, you don't like it, and maybe then doing something to change it.
Even if you are alone, I hope you have a good day.