Phone Call from L.

Tuesday started with a crisp and beautiful autumn morning - temp's in the low 60s - clear and sunny. The leaves are not changing color yet, but seem to be dropping onto my patio faster than they have been in the past (at least when hurricanes aren't blowing through).

Maybe it was the bliss of the morning, but I went off to work without my cell phone. Many people call me on my cell during the day - co-workers, clients and friends, but also L. - although it has been a while since she called. I'm past the stage of grief where every time the phone rings, I still think "It might be her," but I was still sufficiently motivated to get the phone that during lunch I drove the 10 miles back to the house to retrieve it.

In the afternoon, B., one of my co-workers, was in my office talking about taking his professional registration exam, when the newly-retrieved cell phone started ringing. I didn't want to interrupt our conversation, so I silenced the ringer while casually looking at the caller I.D. screen. It was L.

Whatever B. was saying after that sounded to me like the muted trombone used in the old Charlie Brown cartoons when adults were speaking - "wha, wha, wha, wha, whaaaaaa." I had totally tuned out of the conversation, and was wondering what L. might have wanted. It was late in the afternoon (4:30-ish) - maybe she was calling to get together for dinner tonight? Maybe she wanted to make plans for the weekend? I also wasn't sure how much longer she was still going to be available to take a return call - maybe she was heading to some meeting somewhere - and I felt a great sense of urgency to call her back. So I cut B. off at the first pause in his conversation, saying, "I need to return this call," holding the phone in my hand like it was a very important client trying to reach me.

L. hadn't left a message - the screen only indicated that I had missed one call. Undetered, I dialed her number, and after the usual "Hi's" and "How you doing's," I told her that I saw that she had tried to reach me, and, well, what's up?

"Well," she said, "I was looking at your blog . . . "

Uh, oh. This sounded like trouble. Was she upset that I was posting her emails on line? Was she going to take issue with the way she's been depicted? I couldn't think of anything good that this was going to lead to.

" . . . and it sounds like I've caused you a lot of distress," she continued, "and I honestly haven't meant to." She was particularly concerned over my comments about her lunch with G. She reminded me that she had told me weeks ago that she had run into G. at Starbucks one afternoon, and that he suggested having lunch. She wasn't thrilled with the prospect, and was actually quite stressed out because she had missed an office meeting to have lunch with him, but at the same time didn't want to be rude to him. I told her I understood that - in fact, I thought that I had acknowledged that much in the blog.

"We didn't talk about you at all," she assured me. "Frankly, it's none of his business, and he was polite enough to not ask any personal questions, nothing about you and I, but even if he did, I wouldn't have told him anything."

"He mostly just talked about his career," she said, "and some of his thoughts about Zen."

I told her that I understood, and had only written it in my blog to show how, in my grief over our break up, I torture myself with fantasies and delusions. But as the conversation went on - she trying to console me, and me constantly insisting that I knew, it's no big deal, etc. - it became apparent that this conversation was the extent of her consolation - she had no intention of getting together to talk. That realization, set against my unrealistic expectation that perhaps she had called to have dinner, resulted in anger starting to rise up in me. At first, I wanted to use the anger against her.

"I'm on my way over to Emory to teach my class tonight," she said, confirming that even if I were to suggest dinner, she wasn't going to be available that evening anyway. So in my anger, I tried to belittle the course, implying that she was teaching some sort of glorified adult education, Learning Annex course, and not a fully accredited, college-level class. "No, this is my Marketing class, my third semester teaching," she said, "don't you remember - I taught it this time last year?" Of course, I remembered, but I wasn't going to let her know that.

But it was obvious to me that my anger was not only peevish and small, but also self-defeating. Did I really want to make her mad at me? What good could come of that? So my anger turned inward from its initial, outward focus, and I started using each of her comments as weapons to beat myself up with. Of course, she and G. didn't even talk about me - see how unimportant I am to her life?, I began thinking. She had even said that she only looked at this blog "once in a blue moon" - if that wasn't an indication of how insignificant I was to her, I don't know what was.

"Oh, and I'm getting a promotion at work," she said. "They're making me a vice-president, maybe even a senior vice-president." My mental self-victimization continued - she's succeeding fine without me, thriving even, flourishing, while I'm miserable, caught in a unfullfilling job, with little hope of significant promotion. I wanted to lash out again, and say something like vice-presidencies are a dime-a-dozen in a field like marketing, where even the lowest personnel get lofty titles in order to impress potential clients. But, fortunately, I acted wiser, and just grunted out a perfunctory "congratulations."

So she was sunny, upbeat, and obviously trying to be compassionate, while I was turning morose, self-pitying and bitter. We wished each other well, and hung up without even a hint of seeing each another any time soon.

It was now past 5:00 and time to go home, so I needed to pull myself together and cheer up. The Buddha said we cause our own suffering, and I needed to let go of my anger and my self-pity. Or at least, stop clinging to them. So what do the tough do when the going gets tough?, I asked myself. They go shopping!

Since I'm heading to the Gulf this weekend, I figured I'd get some new clothes specifically for the trip (something I rarely do). But first, I stopped by the unsellable condo in Vinings to see how the UCV had fared the hurricane season. Everything looked fine, and I was even starting to feel cocky enough by then to leave a business card with a "call me" written on the back on the door of the pretty young girl who lived in the next-door unit. I got back into my Jeep and from there drove over to Buckhead and the Patagonia store and bought a Capilene zip-front long-sleeved t-shirt, a windbreaker, expedition shorts and a fleece jacket (ka-ching!). From the Patagonia store, I drove to Eatzi's and bought more pre-cooked food than I could possibly eat between now and the trip, including a mixed-green salad (with cucumbers, mushrooms, feta cheese, cajun chicken and Greek dressing), meat lasagna, vegetable lasagna, pork scallopini and herb-roasted turkey (ka-ching!). On the way home, I stopped at Office Max for blank CDs and slim-case covers (ka-ching!) and then at Publix for general grocery shopping (ka-ching!).

And, oh yes!, the baseball playoffs began today, and the Red Sox won and the Yankees lost! Separate games, to be sure, but still the best of all possible outcomes. The Braves start their series against Roger Clemens and the Astros tomorrow.

Once home, I put away the groceries and clothes, and eating the salad, watched the Vice-Presidential debate on t.v. I even made myself a cup of my favorite Good Earth tea, as I savored the notion of Friday's second Presidential debate.

Cool clothes for the weekend, good food for the week, baseball and presidential playoffs on t.v. all week . . . See? Life ain't so bad.