This was today’s quote from the Daily Guru:  “All of us are always self-absorbed. The question is, with what self do we identify?”  Of course I might have read into it my line of thinking that I have a shift going on in my identity.  I drove that car home with the sun roof open and the radio blaring — He’s a professional cellist and the radio was set to classical — and I felt different.  Kind of like I did wearing dress-up clothes to the weddings.  It had been a while since I’d worn pearls, and dress-up clothes suit me.

I know from being bald how unnerving it is to have a noticeable shift in our image.  And I put a lot of stock into image.  Not that that’s good.  It’s probably bad.  But I take great care in dressing for each day.  I choose my shoes and jewelry to go with my clothes, whether I’m going to the river or the hospital.

I’ve thought about it and it’s not about appearance it’s about …I don’t know what it’s about.  All I know is that things are changing.

I’ve always suspected I had mental problems and lately they are surfacing.  There is a new car in my driveway, new to me, anyway, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.  My brother came to look at it; he asked to go for a ride.  What he meant was he wanted to drive it.  I said, “No.” I didn’t want him racing around in it.  He acted like I was crazy, saying “I don’t want to get a ticket or anything.” 

So we went for a ride and he drove.  He insinuated I’d paid too much.  He acted like it was too nice of a car for me.  And all he could say about the way it drove was that it seemed “rough.”  I asked what that meant and he said when we went over the speed bump it landed with a thud. 

I think he must be jealous.  But that’s not what I’m concerned about.  I want to know why I’m not more excited.  Why am I not standing in the dining room looking at it?  Even though I know the woman I bought it from — Remember the woman who hosts the recorder playing every Mon? — I still feel nervous about it.  It must have to do with the fact that Saabs are expensive to maintain.  But this car has had no problems and it only has 62,000 miles on it.  It’s a 2001 and I paid $9,000 for it.  It will last me a very long time so I don’t mind the fact that I have to put the good kind of gas in it and the synthetic oil.  So what’s my problem? 

I think it has to do with my brother’s basic reaction, and that is that it’s a nice car.  I act like I don’t know what he’s talking about; that it’s a station wagon.  We grew up in a family that drove station wagons.  There were four of us kids so my mother drove whatever station wagon my dad was done with.  My dad owned a lumber yard and half the time I rode to flute lessons in the delivery truck.  They spent money on the country club (both were big golfers), music lessons and clothes but acted like the neighbor’s Tbird was nouveau riche. 

I certainly wouldn’t have picked a Saab, though I think they are cool cars, and when she said her husband was selling his car I got very excited because I had remembered pulling up behind him once, admiring it, though I couldn’t  remember what it was.  There are VERY few cars I admire.  But mostly I bought it because my dog crate fit in the back.  All the records were in the glove box and I see these people every Monday.  What could be better?  I just can’t figure out what’s wrong with me that I’m not thrilled.

The rain came and washed my mood away.  I woke up early and went to my favorite new coffee shop, Cooks Illustrated in hand, to plan what I was taking to the three potlucks I have this week.  Then I hit two grocery stores for all the ingredients.  For the choir I am taking mac-n-cheese.  For my breast cancer support group — After all these years I think we need a new name — I am taking Cobb salad.  And for the recorder party I am making corn bread and taking it in the cast iron skillet. 

I’ve been working on my high school reunion and when the phone rang I thought it was my friend S…. because her last name came up on the caller ID.  But it was the gal I met at the coffee shop, who works for my high school friend’s husband, calling to remind me about the Thurs night for wine thing they do every week.  I thought small world and said, ”Yes, I am coming.”  Those bizarre coincidences always give me pause.  This new woman seems kind of zany but any friend of the barista’s I guess is okay.

I’m glad to be home after all.  I have lots of fun things going on and this new back-to-school weather always makes me excited about fall.  As much as I love spring and summer, fall always jumpstarts me.  Fall is full of possibility.

I’m back.  Obviously.  Feeling a little flat.  More about that later when I can give a shit enough to write something.

The barrista seems difficult to me.  I think what happened is that he is not being polite anymore and when he doesn’t like something he doesn’t hide it.  I always sit outside and now he brings his little cup out and joins me when he can.  He tells me about the people sitting inside.

The last three times I’ve been in there the subject of communication has come up.  The first time in reference to his failing marriage. The second was when I told him about the wonderfully amazing conversation I overheard between two of his patrons, one of the men relating a discussion he’d had with his wife.  And the third was this morning.

The last time I’d seen him he told me about how he was closing the store one day in September and holding a three-hour seminar on communication.  I said I was interested.  But right before that he said something startling.  After I told him about the remarkable conversation I’d overheard he said, “That’s right, you don’t know much about men.” 

This was the second time he’s left me confused and speechless.  I am trying to make a good impression, as he is in a position to help me meet a man.  Plus, I like him.  I feel a certain simpatico with him.  So I didn’t say anything about my experience with men.  In fact, I decided his statement was true.  The kinds of men who hang out there are worlds apart from the kind of man I’ve been dealing with.

So today when he sat down, plaintively, I missed the cue.  I was rambling on about how good it was to get out and soak up new stuff.  I was telling him about going to the very restaurant who makes his pastries.  I was relaying another conversation I’d overheard.  The man was a writer from Manhattan.  He had left his cushy job to come to Oregon, and, as he told his coworker about the college gig he used to have and how he traded it all in for the kind of weekend he was describing, I hung onto every, eloquent word. 

We were sitting on a patio with perennials, just one mile from the fast-food and car lots which predominate my landscape, but it might as well have been Martha’s Vineyard.  I was explaining this to the barrista.  The part that pissed him off was when I described the writer.  He was small with bad skin, weird hair, and ugly shoes.  The barrista is short, which I had forgotten.  And he is a little overweight, which, who cares.  So he cut me off with an annoyed tone and launched into his schpeel about the seminar.

It’s starting to sound not free.  And like “The Secret.”  And that’s cool but I felt like I was talking to someone selling a pyramid thing.  And what I wanted to talk about was what men hear when women talk.  Or what he heard when I talked.

Because we had an issue.  A woman went into the coffee shop, just to use the bathroom.  He explained when I wondered why he wasn’t getting up.  He used it as an example of how he’s evolved, saying before he’d be all judgmental about how she wasn’t really going to buy coffee next Saturday “when she gets paid.”  He used a line, no doubt from some brochure, the gist being everything is okay just as it is, because that’s how it’s supposed to be. 

I was thinking good for him because I would be more uptight.  I said my style of parenting was to make a rule so that I didn’t have to arbitrarily decide case by case.  This came up because we were speculating about other people wanting to use his restroom.  That’s when I saw him get defensive. 

He pretended he didn’t hear me when I said, “What about when she tells the others and they start showing up.”  She looked down on her luck and ‘the others’ I referred to were the homeless.  I saw him stiffen, ignore it, and then say, “What?” 

That’s when I went into the part about my parenting style.  Really, I was portraying myself as chicken, saying I took the easy way out, having blanket rules so that I didn’t have to have the conversation.  He didn’t like what he was hearing. 

It was a perfect example of poor communication between men and women.  He said, in a defensive voice, that he was thinking about getting a lock and key for the bathroom.  I didn’t get a chance to explain, as a customer came and he had to go.  I love that he lets people use his bathroom.

I’m glad he’s married.