xtcian

7/14/03 Brooklyn, NY (26 days

7/14/03 Brooklyn, NY (26 days until wedding)

We are all blessed and cursed by the company we keep, and while we might think a change of environment is easy enough, mostly we're just stuck in our little situations until the pain of leaving them is greater than the fear of what comes next. I mention this because my sister Michelle is going through a particularly rough patch in her life, brought on specifically by some chick she works with. Seems that this girl thought it wise to dress Michelle down by listing her faults in rapturous candor, leaving my sister, who is already so distraught with her present circumstances that she is willing to join the Peace Corps to build thatched shit huts in Madagascar, in a state of further depression.

First off, if this chick is so fucking smart, why is she working in a restaurant? There's only one smart restaurant in this world, and that's the Jasper Family Steakhouse in Jasper, Georgia. Second, if Michelle's so fucking smart, why is she working in a restaurant? Fact is, living in (or around) New York City is expensive enough to warrant a life-consuming job like the one she has. Her restaurant is arguably the best eatery in Manhattan, but there are scores of other things she could be doing. Working at a magazine, doing something freelance, personal assisting, putting together her own small business - anything. But her resum glows with four-star restaurants all over the country, which makes her job rut so easy to fall back on; she wears handcuffs made of mayonnaise.

She deserves better, and she deserves better friends. Michelle found her way to her 4-star restaurant through a design flaw in God's plan; she is Rembrandt painting fences. Her co-workers found their way there through natural selection; that's exactly where they are supposed to be.

As for the hurtful things she had to hear the other day, I have definitely been there. On two occasions I received a laundry list of my faults by two different fonts of mean-spirited invective, and those words have stuck with me for the better part of 12 years. I lived my life since then understanding that at least 15% of what they had to say was true, and worked to rectify them. As for the other 85%, they can eat me.

Perhaps 15% of what this girl had to say to Michelle might be true, perhaps by dint of monkeys typing Shakespeare in space that sage advice is delivered in nasty packages - but there is a time and place for everything, and this wasn't it. This one goes out to Michelle, so that her family knows she is an amazing person and it will only be a matter of time before the right people, and the right person, gets it.

Michelle and me in 1974