Tag Archives: friendship

April 2, 2011

the days ahead on f2fb!

By arlynnpresser

am starting to think about the eastern seaboard adventure for f2fb! i have to send out missives to friends lon kieffer, rita bowman, bob garrity, gail marlow, todd stiles, laura resnick, gwen patton, jeff barnes, vince p., and ken kaissar that i’ll be showing up between april 26 and may 4! also, have booked a flight into raleigh for the weekend of april 15 to see facebook friends julie, susan and mike.

but a question: there are plenty of friends i have who are new friends–made since january 1. if i made arrangements to meet them if they are in the same city, would it work? if you’re a facebook friend, particularly a new one, give me a heads up!

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April 1, 2011

f2fb #86 the warrior shopper

By arlynnpresser

there are things my f2fb friend #86 fran fruit can do that i just can’t–one of them being to grocery shop. but that’s because i have a horrible, disgusting, debilitating, shameful secret. i haven’t even read about this in any woman’s magazine.

i sleep eat.

some people snore, walk, talk and mumble in their sleep. i probably do all that but i also go downstairs to the kitchen and eat food. with no memory of having done so. last night i ate a banana, half a package of baby swiss cheese, two hamburger buns, potato chips, spinach dip and an entire solid milk chocolate easter bunny. the only evidence i have of doing this is the crumbs on the bed, the empty packages and peels on the floor around the bed, and that i stepped on cheese when i got out of bed this morning. it’s a wonder i don’t weigh four hundred pounds. so i hope that eastman will not think me a bad parent when i write that i look forward to him going back to school after spring break but only because it will allow me to return the refrigerator to its intended use: to store perfume, nail polish, no more tangles spray, and diet coke.

my friend fran fruit–and her name really is fran fruit–is talented in so many different directions. she’s a photographer and computer genius (although she’s going to email me a correction saying she is opposed to the word genius in this context). she is also a professional taste tester. who better with whom to shop at a grocery store?

fran took me on a very limited portion of her friday schedule. we started at a grocery store in niles. not only does fran bring her own shopping bags, but she also brings her own produce bags. this was not a grocery store for kraft macaroni & cheese, wonder bread, and kellogg’s cornflakes upon which i raised my children. no, this was the united nations of grocery store. and i wanted so much to buy dragon fruit, yamas, cactus, burnt octopus, and burdock. but i wasn’t sure what i would do with them. i don’t speak any other language than english and for this alone i might have stood out. on the other hand, i noticed a gentleman ambling behind me for several aisles. he finally spoke and told me i looked very beautiful. i thanked him and then he said something to another man in a language i didn’t recognize and i think he might have been laughing at me. ah, well, i bought replacement milk chocolate easter bunnies (which i will give away before i sleep) and two prayer candles.

fran had a cartful of stuff but she was quick to say that some things were better purchased elsewhere. we went to two other grocery stores–at one of them i could have bought a live octopus AND gotten eyelash extensions! i wanted pink so bad. she has been married an astonishing forty years and she is the shopper in the family, as well she should be–she is a warrior. i know i can’t ask her to come make me dinner at two o’clock in the morning!

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March 30, 2011

f2fb #85 and 85 and a half!

By arlynnpresser

taylor jordan (f2fb #85) is a senior at wayland academy and her friend marshall is now f2fb #85 and a half. the two gals went out to dinner with me after track practice. i wanted to ask taylor about married life.

taylor and marshall are both seniors with a lot of plans. marshall wants to become a lawyer and will start at university of wisconsin in milwaukee in the fall. taylor has already been accepted at columbia college in chicago and is going to be an artist.

taylor’s not really married. it’s just something she’s put on her facebook profile. i’ve noticed lots of girls who are not married are married on facebook. particularly to other girls. i think it’s a way of saying “i’m not going out with anybody right now”. this is the exact opposite of married guys putting “single” or “it’s complicated” as their status.

wayland is incredibly strict and has a points system for getting yourself suspended or kicked out entirely. taylor and marshall didn’t want to risk a single point–and i wouldn’t want to be responsible for any mishap. so we scurried over to campus, while marshall tried to teach both me and taylor the wayland song of triumph–

taylor and marshall, yep, i want to come to graduation!

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March 29, 2011

i’m in beaver dam and i can’t stop crying and i don’t know why. . .

By arlynnpresser

this evening, i will take f2fb friend #85 taylor jordan out to dinner. that’s not why i’m crying. then i have to drive back to madison, wisconsin to pick up eastman from his two nights of debauchery with friends. but that’s not why i’m crying.

i cried in the parking lot of beaver dam’s macdonald’s. then i moved operations to the payless where i bought a pair of espadrilles that i thought would make me feel better but that didn’t work. because i started crying in that parking lot. so i checked in early at the super 8 motel and cried in their parking lot for a while. i’m a pretty equal opportunity sobster.

i’m not even sure why i’m so upset.

last night, i was in madison, wisconsin visiting f2fb friend #84 cory russ rickerson. i met cory at her mother’s memorial service. cory’s mother was married to one of my facebook friends, was a stepmother to three of my facebook friends, and was the mother to two other facebook friends.

cory’s mother terri russ had a troubled life and wanted to end it with a bottle of tylenol. she went into liver failure and was rushed to the hospital. her children and mother were with her. terri was conscious and given the option of having a liver transplant and kidney dialysis to continue her life. but she declined.–although there’s some ambiguity about whether she understood the consequences of what she was refusing. she seemed later to change her mind–she wanted to get better. when she was told by her daughters that there was nothing more that could be done–that the window period within which to save her liver and kidney had slammed shut–she closed her eyes for several minutes before accepting her circumstances. and then she went about the business of being good to her children. she hung in–the human spirit is very strong–for several days and then died. i never met terri.

cory’s parents were divorced when cory was just a very little kid and there was a flurry of marriages and remarriages, custody arrangements and rearrangements, stepsiblings and halfsiblings. cory related to me what i can describe most delicately as “inappropriate situations” which arose from when she was ten years old until she was able to strike out on her own. i was horrified. but she has come to forgive. and there have some who have come to her for forgiveness. she is a very strong gal.

she is a teacher in the public school system in madison, wisconsin and i thought we would spend our time together at the capitol building with the protesters. instead, we talked until it was this little traveler’s time to go to bed! what a nice guest room!!!

this morning, cory went to work before i woke up–i drove to beaver dam and for some reason felt very weepy as i considered cory’s story. i’m not quite sure why it resonates so much with me but i have to get this pulled together before i pick up taylor jordan for dinner. game face, baby! that’s what it’s all about!

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March 25, 2011

two things a man should never do with his penis

By arlynnpresser

sometimes it doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you sat down with a friend because you’re so simpatico that it’s as if you were talking yesterday. and that’s how it was with f2fb #82 janet mccauley. we’ve known each other for fifteen years. she grew up in winnetka and northfield and raised her children here, including her daughter who is just a year younger than my older son joseph. i hadn’t seen janet around town for most of the fall but had heard she had moved in with a boyfriend in chicago. he was the jealous type.


talk about password protection! in any event, i had wondered why janet was messaging some strange stuff. now i knew:

who i would do if i switched teams? well, that’s always an interesting “what if?” game. robbie thapa, f2fb #33, has always said i’d be tops on his list.

later, janet told me the most egregious things this boyfriend did. but a funny thing was this, which i’ve decided is one of two things a man should never do with his penis . . . . and a camera.

janet has known great love. and it was with a man we both know. he lives in new orleans now and i wonder if he has been one of the great loves of her life and if there’s hope for them to get back together. on the other hand, he too has done something a man should never ever do with his penis.

ouch!

catching up with janet was funny, tearful, poignant, awe-inspiring, gossipy, and we’re repeating the process again when i get back from my trip to ohio (which starts in six hours), my trip to madison wisconsin where facebook friend cory russ rickerson has snagged us an invite to a meeting with the peripatetic jesse jackson and then to beaver dam to have a culver burger with taylor jordan. janet, you’ve gone through a lot in the last several months, but you’re back! welcome home!

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March 22, 2011

once in mexico city, it proves impossible to leave. . . . and not for lack of trying!

By arlynnpresser

i felt kind of bad for reggie. most of the trip he was worried i’d get kidnapped or murdered or robbed.

and remember that horrible margarita?? his horrible encounter with a margarita weighed upon me.

i figured a guy who’s flown out from savannah georgia should at least get a good margarita and dance with a pretty girl. but reggie being the captain of the operation said that seven a.m. we were clearing out.

at four o’clock in the morning, he woke me up to tell me that he couldn’t sleep and was going out for a bit. i remember telling him the business center was on the second floor in case he wanted to catch up with his facebook buddies and play farmville.

i woke up in a panic at seven twenty. his backpack was on the floor. his flip flops. his watch was on the nightstand. but there was no reggie. i called him and said “exactly where are you?”

“i’m at a salsa club,” he shouted.

okay, he got his margarita. and he broke some hearts in mexico city–we heard the cries as we cabbed it to the airport: “reggie, reggie, you’ ¡re tan hermoso, te quiero, quiero a sus niños!” i figured okay, i have to enjoy the flexibility of travel. that was quite an adventure. but there was much more to come. the cab driver dropped us at the wrong terminal and we had to double back in a train. at the boarding gate, i was told i didn’t have a necessary customs form. as the plane was boarding, i was sprinting across the terminal to the mexican immigration department so i could get the form. i ran back to the gate. suddenly, the boarding gate official was disdainful: the form was of no interest to him. i downed three ativans to quel an anxiety attack.

touching down in houston, i was picked up at the airport by f2fb friend #80 george yates who drove me into pearland where he and his wife (f2fb #81) derrellyn live with her mother, their son, their son’s best friend, their son’s best friend’s brother, and a few four legged species members. the yates family has been through some difficult times. but they have a strong faith system. i put the one souvenir from mexico city next to some of their icons. i figure the play-doh virgin mary in a bottle had found its home.

derrellyn and george really didn’t want their pictures taken but when we went out to dinner with andy (their son will’s friend who lives with them) and nikka (andy’s girlfriend) i got an age old question answered

i wanted to get will on camera. he wasn’t able to come to dinner with us because he was at work. unfortunately, the flip camera was giving me trouble. the yates have weathered some tough times and it’s not completely clear sailing for them, but they surround themselves with a lot of positive energy and they open their home and give that positive energy back to the world.

i flew home through memphis airport. i was and am exhausted. today is definitely a stay under the covers day. but my son eastman says i’m a warrior. i think that’s a compliment.

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March 21, 2011

if you want to invade mexico city. ..

By arlynnpresser

mexico city is a low lying valley, a crater really, surrounded by mountains. it holds smog and pollution and i felt the heaviness in my chest from the moment i left the airport. i sucked on my inhaler like dennis hopper in blue velvet and considered that if aliens from mars wanted to take over, the city was pretty much indefensible. and if the dudes from mars prefer carbon emissions to oxygen, it’s a natural. . . .

at the hotel, after a morning walk of well over three hours, reggie and i had a drink while we waited for yoshi. we had both heard that in mexico, everyone’s a little relaxed about time. while we waited, reggie explained that the whole time we had been walking around, he had been very aware of who was looking at us, who was a potential problem. he said i should be doing the same thing. and never look at something for more than three seconds. count to three. look at something else. count to three.

then yoshi arrived. it was awkward and funny and reggie got the whole thing:

yoshi is an actor who has worked primarily in performing plays for schools. he is working as a director of “life is a dream” (la vida es suena) first published by pedro caldron de la barca in the early seventeenth century. yoshi hopes to have the play touring by april. he is a fan of science fiction and most particularly of my grandfather fritz leiber. he found me on facebook because of being fritz’s fan. it was our first time meeting in person although we have corresponded for several years. yoshi had worked in the area of town where we were and he wanted to take us in the opposite direction from where we had been in the morning. we passed a protest march but yoshi’s explanation of what their beef was confused me. So we just figured it was a shout out to the madison, wisconsin protesters who, by the way, i hope to see next monday thanks to my facebook friend cory!

we also had a meal at a very famous café:

so us revolutionaries had a meal together. reggie ordered a margarita and it was hideous, which was a decisive factor in what happened later. . . .

after lunch we wandered around the park across from the palace of the arts. there were hundreds of booths and vendors. homemade ice cream in flavors like rose, burnt milk, cactus. handmade jewelry (alas, no rosaries). embroidered smocks. we saw a lesbian rights parade. we saw kids crunking in a gazebo. a police officer came into the gazebo and i wondered if i was going to end up in a mexican jail with these kids–but he had brought bottles of water for the kids.

reggie bought roasted corn mixed with chilis, chopped onions, mayonaise–all in a styrofoam cup.

i said in the previous post that i thought there were three mexicos. the night before, i had glimpsed the very wealthy mexico–blessed with jewels and fine clothing. in the morning, i was lucky enough to have reggie with me to watch over me–so i could see the mexico that was the most poor, the mexico that rises early to scrape out a living. but this mexico in the park was the families out walking and enjoying themselves–the vibe was one of celebration and the people were more comfortable with themselves. they had nice clothes and i suspect some money in their pockets. but my feet hurt and my inhaler had been getting a workout. as the sun started to dip behind the mountains, it was time to let this cinderella and her blister inducing slippers go home. i asked this dude for a ride to the hotel. he said no.

but it was a fun day with yoshi maeshiro, facebook friend number #79! but, alas, we discovered that we both had tried to track down enrique celis, my other facebook friend in mexico city. he was yoshi’s acting teacher and had once facebook friended me in order to invite me to a play he was directing. enrique is now officially invited to chicago for the f2fb new years resolution, but yoshi has an invitation whenever he wants!

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March 20, 2011

Viva Ciudad de Mexico!!!

By arlynnpresser

mexico city is quite dangerous, what with kidnapping and murders by drug entrepreneurs and the police. reggie was told ixnay, that u.s. army personnel were most definitely not to go to mexico city and especially not to escort fifty year old matrons to international travel. I am glad he didn’t tell me that until the last night. how he changed the mind of his commanding officer is his own business but I believe that my breathtaking stupidity and the possibility of my causing grave embarrassment to the government was a factor.

reggie sent me a text the morning of the flight to houston, where we were scheduled to meet. No jewelry, no nice clothes, no heels, and could I visit a tanning salon? i was cool with everything but the last one. I get claustrophobic in those booths. we made the trip from houston to ciudad de mexico with no trouble at all. well, except for figuring out how to get out of the airport.


mexico city is built on the inside of a crater, surrounded by mountains. It holds within the bowl all the smog and pollution imaginable, as well as the hopes and aspirations of twenty million mexicans. I saw the first of three types of mexicans when we arrived at the hotel melieta. women were dressed in evening gowns and wrapped themselves in furs though it couldn’t have been more than sixty degrees. men wore tuxedos or dark black suits. i thought “mexico is a pretty wealthy country” and felt pretty silly in my black running suit from target. then reggie told me we were at the wrong hotel. a short taxi cab ride and we were at our hotel. reggie fell asleep immediately. i stared at the moon and could just make out the mountains in the distance.
i woke up and i thought it was ten o’clock. after all, that’s what the clock on the building across the street said. so i forced reggie to get up. he told me the first rule: that since my passport stuck out of my fanny pack just a little, i was to let him carry my passport.
we went to a second mexico city. In this mexico city, blue tarp tents lined the streets. families cooked tortillas, sausages, waffles, chickens. mothers with toddlers on their laps sold candy and cigarettes. old men sold sunglasses, cellphone covers, bootleg cd’s (I nearly bought the entire last season of Glee) . I saw an old man laying out a blanket and offering for sale a pair of red shoes with the heels ground down and a selection of car parts. boys in nascar-like jumpsuits sold newspapers to the cars stopped at the intersections—pink for excelsior paper, green for the guardian. women washed windows of stopped cars. the police were everywhere. the smell of urine, feces, overcooked meet and sweat–sometimes the smell of food was good and sometimes i thought i would throw up. reggie told me the second rule: i was not allowed to point at something, i was not allowed to look at something or someone for more than three seconds unless I was wearing my sunglasses. there were not many people who would outright say “can you spare some change?” but everybody had a business.
we stopped to have breakfast at macdonald’s. because reggie said I wasn’t going to eat out of a truck until we were ready to leave because he didn’t want to be around when there were consequences. in the ladies’ room, the toilet paper dispenser was held together with scotch tape. I broke it apart without meaning to. i went to wash my hands and i took apart the faucet. i decided the safest thing to do was sit down to ask reggie about his strategies. . .

we found a beautiful church dedicated to the carmelite nuns. i wanted to find a rosary to wear on my neck, it was the one thing I hoped to find in mexico city but i spent so much time marveling at people, at buildings, at strange things that i didn’t have time to shop. but i did have time to ask the blessing of st. teresita of the nina jesus.

and then it was time to meet yoshi maeshiro and enrique celis, the whole point of this operation . . . .

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March 17, 2011

f2fb friend #77 might have to kill me!

By arlynnpresser

ton kambich is a tough guy, served in world war 2 and jumped out of planes into dangerous places. later, he let his softy side flourish. he and his wife carolyn opened a montessori school in northfield just outside of winnetka (not to say winnetka is a dangerous place). the couple was instrumental in the opening of the victoria montessori school in entebbe, uganda.

so i had to ask him about my trip to mexico city. about which i have been stressing. and about skydiving which is what captain reggie wants to do later in the month.

i don’t know. i’d love to have a rumor that i’m part of the c.i.a.

i pack and leave tomorrow. viva ciudad de mexico!!!! and from there, to facebook friends in houston. then memphis. then home. . . for a day and a half and then cleveland, ohio. i’m getting some wear on these treads.

tony says it’s fine about if the two releases don’t work. the third thing you do is clutch yourself in a particular manner and kiss your ass goodbye. please don’t tell me this is how the adventure will end!

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