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2002-04-26 | 10:25 a.m.

Last night I went to a "meet 'n' greet" event at the offices of the community web site I write for. I went with my friend Lydia, who is one of my favorite people in the world. She is interested in writing for them, too. She doesn't have a strong background as a writer, but she's got a few clips and a lot of enthusiasm, which goes a long way.

We walk in and I know it's going to be hard for me when I see my editor, Dov, whom I haven't seen in person since the day I interviewed with him, down the hallway and he waves at me and disappears into another room. After all, Dov is the ONLY person I know here, and clearly he doesn't intend to make it easy for me to talk to him. Not that I blame him necessarily--he's kind of shy and I'm way past deadline again, and it's even possible he isn't sure it's me--but gee whiz, what do I do now?

So Lydia and I hole up in a corner and start gabbing. With Lydia, you don't need anybody else. She and I could sit in a room and talk for four or five hours straight and not think twice about it. Not that we've ever done that. I wonder why we've never done that? Well, I know why--because we have five kids between us. Lydia is the best kind of friend for me, because I feel absolutely utterly comfortable in her presence. I can't ever imagine her hurting my feelings, or pissing me off, or anything like that. She's just easy to be around.

Another woman sort of marches up and introduces herself, which is fine, and when Lydia asks her if she a writer for the publication, she says no, though she is a poet (note to self: next time anyone says they are a poet within the first 45 seconds, run) she works in the Waysafe bakery and floral department. Okay, fine, fair enough. So Lydia starts talking about how she is working part-time at St*rbucks, and how she's thinking about writing a piece on what it's like to be 40 years old and working with people who are half her age. So this floral department woman, whose eyes, Lydia will later remark, are so close together in her head that they are disconcertingly like ONE EYE, cuts Lydia off just as she is launching into her amusing story and snaps, "Do you have a college degree?" Lydia, thrown off her stride, answers no. Feebly, trying to defend my friend but also stunned into speechlessness, I say, "She might as well." The woman rounds on me and barks, "Do YOU have a college degree?" Her voice is like machine-gun fire. "Yes," I reply, semi-icily.

"Where from?" she parries brusquely.

"Berkeley," I say, dropping the word like a boulder, to put an end to this asinine line of inquiry.

She melts into a Cheshire Cat smile. "Me too," she purrs.

The little voice in the back of my head is not so little now. Freak! it screams. Psycho kitty!

She explains that she has a degree in nutrition (to which my little voice retorts Nutrition?!) and that her boss in the bakery and floral department, "who is only a high-school graduate," does the floral grunt work and lets her, the Berkeley grad, focus on the more creative floral work. (Yeah, says little voice, anything to keep you away from the customers!)

I am still feeling so insulted that she cut Lydia off the way she did that I turn my attention to her friend, who does not seem to have a job but is currently promoting works of el*phant art to a local museum. She thinks of herself as an el*phant rights person, I can tell, but she also admits to owning pieces of carved iv*ry, though she can't quite come up with the word for it at the moment. I help her out: "Scr*mshaw."

"Right!" she squeals, in her unnaturally high voice. I think about telling her that she shouldn't feel guilty about scr*mshaw that was carved before it became illegal to kill el*phants for their tusks, but I hesitate to say it, as if I would rather she feel guilty. She doesn't seem to feel all that guilty anyway. She tells me she keeps feral cats and studied "non-human primates" in college. Little voice is firing off faxes of protest to my department of higher reasoning. What I'm enjoying the most is that any time these two women focus in on what the other is saying, the one who isn't speaking rolls her eyes and expresses impatience. El*phant Lady is sick of hearing College Lady brag her degree in nutrition, while College Lady doesn't have much room left in her heart for the el*phants. It is hysterically funny, but I don't dare laugh.

Finally, on the way out, I tell Lydia that she's too nice and that I was mad about that woman dissing her that way. Lydia says, how can you get mad? It's just funny, because that's her thing. Lydia is still interested in people and their obsessions, and I am too, but maybe I'm not as tolerant as I used to be.

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