Mangled Bunnies & Galecians or Confessing To A Banker

My friend Me-Me just gave me the lemonade stand award. Me-Me has two blogs: Mad Mad Margo and The Turquoise Moon.

I've known Me-Me in my non-virtual life for at least 10 years. We didn't pal around like terrorists or anything (well...), but I always enjoyed her company whenever I had the opportunity to hang with her. Now that she's joined the Blog-uh-sphere, I feel like we live right around the corner, even though she's encamped in the Arizona desert and I'm hiding in my apartment in Paris. We meet up on Yahoo chat sometimes, when she's sleepless and listening to the coyotes mangle a bunny, and it's the next day here, and I'm listening to church bells across the street (why do they ring for a full ten minutes? why?) or the revelry of the Galecians, who have a little social club on the first floor of my building, and like to sing songs outside on the sidewalk on special occasions.

I've never told Me-Me this, but I had one conversation with her years ago, that I've never forgotten and that helped me enormously. It was during a really difficult time for me, after being fired from my job in the family business, and disowned by my family. It was like I'd been kicked in the stomach, and just couldn't find a way to stand up straight. I certainly couldn't go out on corporate job interviews. They prefer that you arrive somewhat upright for the interview. Then they ask you stupid questions like, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" I could only imagine me stuttering, trying to keep myself from saying, "Still kissing your ass for the sake of health insurance?" Instead, I went underground and cobbled together waitressing and hostessing jobs, drove a van for a trail riding company and babysat an art gallery.

During this time, Me-Me was working in corporate banking. So, I confided in her about my precarious financial situation: an overhead of about $3500 a month and if I was lucky, an income of about $800 a month. I lived in a great apartment, but it was in the ghetto. I only paid $500 a month, and split that with a roommate. I always made sure I paid my rent. I just couldn't pay all the rest of my bills. So, I became paralized. I never went to the mailbox. Too many threatening letters. I didn't answer the phone. When I did tie myself to the kitchen chair and force myself to pay bills, I called it "in-basket bingo" (a term stolen from my corporate buddy Steve). I just closed my eyes and grabbed one of the bills in the pile, and wrote a check for $25 to them. Everybody else would have to wait.

To this day, I still avoid the mailbox.

I guess, when I told Me-Me all this, I was confessing my financial avoidance behavior to a banker. At that point in my life, I projected a lot of validity on the corporate world, and worried too much about what the people in that world thought of me. But Me-Me told me the story of her own "fall from grace" at an earlier time in her life, and how she too became paralized and avoided her finances. It was very kind of her, to reveal her own humanity. And it made me realize that underneath the suits and ties, the practical pumps and professional briefcases, we are all human.

Me-Me knows a lot about making lemonade out of lemons. So her little blog gift of the lemonade stand is more poignant for me than she imagines.

Recently, when I was having a tough time, Me-Me wrote to me in an email, "I'm a fan of Lisa Wines." That statement inspired me to become a fan of Lisa Wines too.

And right now, as much or maybe even more than before when she was still wearing her banking suit, I'm a fan of Me-Me King.