Web Design (11/01/08 Sunday)

I started off yesterday morning (an hour-and-a-half after my alarm) with the realization that I was going about this letter backwards: I was too concerned with structure--following one paragraph with the logical next paragraph. I have been passing over ideas because I couldn't foresee their paragraph potential; a sentence is a good start, I'd think, but what's after that? The better idea is to get all the ideas--sentences, scraps, words--onto paper, then cut and paste and embellish. That's a strength I've overlooked, my ability to construct a concrete whole from bits of chipped stone. Forget whatever attitude might imbue the words or what ulterior meaning they may be fraught with. It'll all come clean and nice in the wash. Easily said. Do I scrap what I've written? The title reflects an attitude that the letter doesn't deliver. The letter has said much of what I need to say, but seems to be holding back, a kind of dishonesty by omission. Can I have fun with this and still have my say? I have to have fun, or I'll come off pathetic or righteous.

For fun, I took the picture Gay-Lynn sent me to the drug store and had some quick prints done--two 4 x6, three wallets. One wallet is, well, in my wallet, another hiding behind the picture of Gillian on my over-desk storage cabinet, and the other I plan to tape to the front of my front fender, like a flat, rear-facing maidenhead. Yesterday, when Bethany and I were the only two in the workroom, I bade her take a peek behind Gillian. She did and gasped, "I knew it! I wanted to ask you, but I didn't think you wanted me to." "Are you kidding? I was dying for you to ask me!"

Hinckley saw on the schedule that he and I had been separated from the desk hour we usually get together on the weekend and was unhappy, to say the least. What concerned me was the portent it kicked into my mind: Would I be separated from Julie, as well? My thudding heart was preparing for outrage. My name was on the bottom. I had a desk hour with Sofiya at ten. I took a deep breath and scanned across my line. I stopped at a second "D" at two o'clock and started climbing up the column to find my partner. I breathed again: Julie.

True to my word, I did not badger Julie. I asked her about her web-design class and let her talk about it, trying to follow with cogent questions, not expecting (but still hoping for, though not getting) any questions from her. It was a good hour, if not in the way I'd have preferred--but those hours will never be. I finally see that I am no more than Mike to Julie--someone she has little or nothing to say to. I'm still jealous of the ease at which she'll pick a conversation with Hinckley--or anyone else not an introvert (except Jennifer). Would it help to know why I'm jealous? (I'm not helping my attitude at all. I feel miles away from writing that letter.)

How seriously have I considered that there really isn't more to Julie than she presents? Of course, my feelings for her have both imbued her character with a rich depth and virtually obliterated my objectivity. So the answer is, hardly at all. The way is beginning to look clearer, though. Not seeing these depths is a better reason for not believing in their existence than for making them real and discoverable. But why am I talking reason? Face it, I'm not over her. Is the letter going to help me make that break, or do I have to make the break before I can write the letter? Neither is anywhere near completion.