Drivelversary
Today, esteemed reader, is a very special day. It's Drivelversary Day. Of course, the more recent arrivals will have no idea whatever about Drivelversary Day, and it will seem to have sprung up as arbitrarily as many other manufactured Days. And no, you may not take the day off. Drivelversary isn't here to extricate you from honest toil.
Drivelversary is, quite simply, the day when Poppy and self became pals. Today, now that you mention it, marks the 7th Anniversary of the day Poppy and yours truly began drivelling in public, subjecting the denizens of a certain (now rather moribund) Usenet Group to our own, quite inimitable, idiotic banter.
A red letter day if there ever was one.
I'll give the arriviste among you the Cliffs Notes. I had written something (as usual) idiotic in my attempt to elevate the plane of one online discussion or another to a level which I would find amusing...much like I do in every aspect of my life, but I digress. Out of nowhere, Poppy chimes in, not only with praise--which was quite jarring, mind you--but also throwing in a reference that, by an evident flourish of Providence, I not only "got," but reveled in. Who else, except li'l ol' me, would know some semi-obscure silent film comedian? Worse...who else would sling that reference across a public discussion like a refreshing gust from a spring zephyr?
Poppy, 'at's who.
To show you how books oughtn't be judged by their covers, we have become, frankly, ridiculous in our friendship. The added fillip of this is that people who knew us in our respective cubbyholes in the "real world" were astonished and/or bewildered. Other than having been to the Montreal Expo of 1967, we had appallingly little in common--at least to the meanest eye. We share no ethnic component, we have no ties of geography or c.v., we are quite apart in matters of ideology, and we only have the most tenuous links on matters of faith and/or generational memories. But these are deep waters, Watson.
A sudden burst of modesty, now I am axle-deep in (early) middle age, forbids me from focusing too much on my attributes, so I toss the glare of the spotlight Poppywards and answer the question poised upon your lips (or, more likely, your keyboard): "What's the big deal?"
There are, of course, the little things. Her relentlessly half-classicism/half-preppiness, her peerless prose, her tastes in film and knowledge thereof, her fondness for strong drink (provided it is yummy), the design of her social life, her tastes in music and literature (sometimes I wonder about her tastes in architecture, but it is only fair she is likely to be as alarmed by my fondness for postmodernism, as I am by hers for modernism), her being able to discourse sagely on the aspects of single-sex education.
Well, Poppy makes me laugh. Sometimes people will make the semi-derisive comment of "___ is funny, for a girl." Well, Poppy is funny. To my mind, not many people, regardless what type of naughty bits they carry as accessories, fall into that category. Poppy is just damned funny. But she's not funny in a rubber chicken way, but as the top layer on a kind and surprisingly gentle soul (I'll shut up about this before she sends a René Mancini pump up my lower digestive tract). Her sense of friendship and her loyalty, are unspeakably comforting to me.
But even better than that, Poppy is a stellar conversationalist. Talking with her is like swimming in a pool of such a delightful temperature that you don't care how pruned-up your hands get. More than once we have shut down an establishment because we were deeply engrossed in our idiotic banter.
As if further proof were needed, consider the arranged marriage between her daughter and whichever son o' mine she picks, as well as my generous views on the matter of dowry. Consider further that we (that is, our aggregate families) see each other--even though we live 37 states away--more often than people who live a 20 minute drive away. Now that I think about it, I believe I can pay a pal no higher compliment than to say my memory of life before we became pals is pretty blurry, and I cannot believe it's been only 7 years. If we were both cats, and I had two dead rats, I'd give you one.
MWAH!
Drivelversary is, quite simply, the day when Poppy and self became pals. Today, now that you mention it, marks the 7th Anniversary of the day Poppy and yours truly began drivelling in public, subjecting the denizens of a certain (now rather moribund) Usenet Group to our own, quite inimitable, idiotic banter.
A red letter day if there ever was one.
I'll give the arriviste among you the Cliffs Notes. I had written something (as usual) idiotic in my attempt to elevate the plane of one online discussion or another to a level which I would find amusing...much like I do in every aspect of my life, but I digress. Out of nowhere, Poppy chimes in, not only with praise--which was quite jarring, mind you--but also throwing in a reference that, by an evident flourish of Providence, I not only "got," but reveled in. Who else, except li'l ol' me, would know some semi-obscure silent film comedian? Worse...who else would sling that reference across a public discussion like a refreshing gust from a spring zephyr?
Poppy, 'at's who.
To show you how books oughtn't be judged by their covers, we have become, frankly, ridiculous in our friendship. The added fillip of this is that people who knew us in our respective cubbyholes in the "real world" were astonished and/or bewildered. Other than having been to the Montreal Expo of 1967, we had appallingly little in common--at least to the meanest eye. We share no ethnic component, we have no ties of geography or c.v., we are quite apart in matters of ideology, and we only have the most tenuous links on matters of faith and/or generational memories. But these are deep waters, Watson.
A sudden burst of modesty, now I am axle-deep in (early) middle age, forbids me from focusing too much on my attributes, so I toss the glare of the spotlight Poppywards and answer the question poised upon your lips (or, more likely, your keyboard): "What's the big deal?"
There are, of course, the little things. Her relentlessly half-classicism/half-preppiness, her peerless prose, her tastes in film and knowledge thereof, her fondness for strong drink (provided it is yummy), the design of her social life, her tastes in music and literature (sometimes I wonder about her tastes in architecture, but it is only fair she is likely to be as alarmed by my fondness for postmodernism, as I am by hers for modernism), her being able to discourse sagely on the aspects of single-sex education.
Well, Poppy makes me laugh. Sometimes people will make the semi-derisive comment of "___ is funny, for a girl." Well, Poppy is funny. To my mind, not many people, regardless what type of naughty bits they carry as accessories, fall into that category. Poppy is just damned funny. But she's not funny in a rubber chicken way, but as the top layer on a kind and surprisingly gentle soul (I'll shut up about this before she sends a René Mancini pump up my lower digestive tract). Her sense of friendship and her loyalty, are unspeakably comforting to me.
But even better than that, Poppy is a stellar conversationalist. Talking with her is like swimming in a pool of such a delightful temperature that you don't care how pruned-up your hands get. More than once we have shut down an establishment because we were deeply engrossed in our idiotic banter.
As if further proof were needed, consider the arranged marriage between her daughter and whichever son o' mine she picks, as well as my generous views on the matter of dowry. Consider further that we (that is, our aggregate families) see each other--even though we live 37 states away--more often than people who live a 20 minute drive away. Now that I think about it, I believe I can pay a pal no higher compliment than to say my memory of life before we became pals is pretty blurry, and I cannot believe it's been only 7 years. If we were both cats, and I had two dead rats, I'd give you one.
MWAH!
Comments
Hooray to Drivelversary, and may there be many, many more!
Happy D-anniversary.
-J.