March 19, 2003

  • I shouldn't be online, Ellie and I having been on the road since the crack of dawn, but I'm being accused of being antisocial.  As soon as I arrived home to good ol' San Francisco with a fucking killer headache (after filling me in on whatever happened to you-know-who from h.s., Ellie spent most of the trip speeding onlong on I-5 talking to her father on her cell phone until I fell asleep and got a stiff neck, not waking up til we hit the rush-hour traffic), I wanted nothing more than to say my hello's,  relax, and get acclimed to the change in atmosphere.  But my parents had to greet me with the smell of fresh coffee and  surprise guests:  the Ferguson's and their darling daughter and only child, Kevvie.  Dad met Mr. Ferguson on the boat home from Nam.   Tom's an okay dude but technically never left the military and is very conservative and rah-rah.   He and his wife Maude, a big-boned servicewoman he met overseas, still shop at the commissary in the Presidio and use the medical center there.  Naturally they're all for war against the Middle East and full of the American spirit. 


    Luckily Kevvie was in the john when I got there so I snuck right past her, flew upstairs, and locked myself in my room.   Sorry folks, but I'm just not in the mood for the whole motivational self-esteem check thing or whatever it is they're into.  Ever since Maude heard we girls were the same age, a fierce competition started as to who had the best daughter academically, socially, athletically, and occupationally.  All she and her husband do is brag, brag, brag.  It seems I can't hold a candle to Kevvie except maybe in physical appearance, and Maude's working hard on that one, trying to say my voluptuous 110-lb frame is fat, while Kevvie, lanky and flat-chested, not a bad-looking face but long  and angular like a guy's, is a late bloomer and still has some filling out to do.  Thank God she will never have the problem of being "too short" like me: "You know they like women taller, now."   At this time the girl's got too much on the ball to worry about her femininity anyway; she's too busy getting straight A's in journalism, being sports editor of her campus newspaper, and looking forward to the trainee position she's already got lined up with The Sacramento Bee for after graduation.  She's also V.P. of her sorority, head of the debate team, and could easily go for the Olympics in track.  I can't stand her.  Oh, I'm not jealous; I'm just as accomplished scholastically and could be the e-girl if I applied myself, but I simply can't tolerate the arrogance and one-upmanship, even when it comes to cooking.  The last time we had the Ferguson's over for dinner, Kevvie asked me sarcastically "what mix" I used for the cake.   She can't even boil water and it's a dark secret.  (That and her never having sex with her boyfriend.  Kevvie, I've met a few girls like you.  You always deliver this big virginity spiel, then we walk by your room and your diaphragm's sitting right on the dresser, or there's all this noise coming from the shower in the morning and we know you ain't a ventriloquist.) 


    Mom keeps knocking on the door but I'm pleading illness.  Let Kevvie chew it out with the "aa-dults" since I'm such fluff to her.