rm ([personal profile] rm) wrote2004-02-16 09:35 am

mundane stuff and a dilemma

My face is finally unswollen. Regrettably, I have to go to work in a few, and the post office isn't open today despite the stack of stuff I have to mail (gift, ebay, half.com and headshots).

It's gotten cold here again, which is no fun at all, and I am hoping that by this evening I will have been productive enough and feel rested enough to go to the damn movies.

Am also filling out volunteer forms for the Tribeca Film Festival today, because I'd so rather network while being useful as opposed to networking while taking the social whirl far too seriously. I've spent big chunks of my life immersed in both bar and club culture, in pretty specific contexts, and it's not always been easy for me to shift the context in terms of how I come at it -- I'm easily a quiet people watcher sort, so I do tons better when I've got work to energize me. At any rate, having learned my lesson from checking the "will do anything" box for Broadway Under the Stars, I'm only checking the "filmmaker check-in" and "special events" boxes this go around.

Also, if you had a tempestuous and ungraceful childhood, and your mother had given you the number of someone you were friends with then but hadn't spoken to in over 15 years, and she got the number through that person's mom who she had run into at her job, and it's unclear whether the person in question even knows about this or wants to speak to you, although one version of the story does in fact go that way -- would you call them? And what the fuck would you say? And no, email is not an option. There are other complications to the situation, but these are the ones causing me the greatest stress. (And while there's the "call while she's at work" theory, she just returned stateside and I'm not sure that she's currently employed).

[identity profile] tinywarrior.livejournal.com 2004-02-16 07:30 am (UTC)(link)
I think you should make a very casual call just to say hello and let her know you're around. Best case scenario is that you're going to be someone she really needs in her life right now on some level, even if it's just to hear your voice (there may be a really cosmically important reason why you were given her number at this particular time--but that's just the way I think sometimes). Worst case scenario is that you feel a little awkward and embarrassed, and have to deal with some unpleasant emotional baggage from your past (which may not be a bad thing either, really). The potential for you doing something good by calling is much greater than it being something bad. Sometimes the simplest gesture can have such great impact on people. So I say make the call, if nothing more than as a graceful and kind act on your part.

Hope that all made sense.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2004-02-16 08:47 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, and there are a number of scenarios that are plausible where we might be useful to each other in some way, although I hate to think of things in such bald terms.

Re:

[identity profile] tinywarrior.livejournal.com 2004-02-16 08:52 am (UTC)(link)
Well, when you really think about it, the whole of human connection is based upon our usefulness to one another.

[identity profile] rufus.livejournal.com 2004-02-16 08:09 am (UTC)(link)
I think I'd call her, and be like, hey, mom said you might want to talk to me? or words to that effect.

Probably also this would depend on why I hadn't spoken to the person in 15 years -- if it was a gradual drift away or a catclysmic falling-out, and if I had gotten over it yet.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2004-02-16 08:46 am (UTC)(link)
I switched schools, and that was really it -- it wasn't about anything other than he age we all were and private and public school people don't socialize.

[identity profile] labellerose.livejournal.com 2004-02-16 08:15 am (UTC)(link)
If she was indeed a friend when you were at school, I'd go ahead and contact her, either via phone or a friendly written note via snail mail. Maybe you could invite her to something fun and low key- coffee, piano bar? Worse case scenario, you can just say 'Oh, our moms are so cute, they think we're nine years old and they have to arrange play dates, don't they?' You may turn out to have more in common than you think, and she may have had feelers out to contact you for a reason. If not, you can just tell Mom!rm that you surely wish this woman the best, but people change a lot in these years and not always in compatible directions. Good luck with whatever you decide.

[identity profile] tsarina.livejournal.com 2004-02-16 05:48 pm (UTC)(link)
My morbid sense of curiosity would drive me to call. If for no other reason than to know how her life has been. But I'm weird like that.

[identity profile] lilchiva.livejournal.com 2004-02-17 07:10 am (UTC)(link)
Well, if all else fails, you could tell her your mommy made ya do it.
lol