Letters to My Agent

We all know the dangers of gossip. It causes damage that can never be. . .disassembled, or whatever that verb is. The point is, gossip neither builds bridges for peace nor raises awareness of fibromyalgia. Gossip is an evil up with which I will not put, and neither should you.

The following info is not gossip, but that other thing.

I don’t know about you, but my head is full of yammering weasels who exist to offer 24/7 critiques. Dr. Albert Ellis — the famous nutbag who invented cognitive behavioral therapy — advises using piercing logic to debate the weasels, but Atticus Finch-of-brain-chemistry I will never be. The only thing that shuts up the weasels is gossip. Or that other thing.

So here’s what I do: pretend to be busy in the driveway and pay attention the stuff going on in the neighborhood. Sources within my own household are often able to corroborate and/or expand.

Item: Odysseus Kermsey, age 12, continues to spend his non-academic hours traveling to the convenience store. He never goes alone. You can hear the assorted wheels of his various posses (possi?) from several blocks away. Skateboard by bike by scooter they come — those two 13-year-old girls with the streaks in their hair, the first-grade boy who tried to build a fort out of an old Christmas tree over on Bluecrest Drive. It’s hard to gauge the relationship between Odysseus and these assorted people, and the day those cousins, or whoever they were, came running after him, each wearing one enormous black shoe, was particularly confusing. But not uninteresting. In the spring of 2010 Odysseus rolled by and said “what up.” His voice had become low and gravelly. Hormones were in the house.

A bandit broke into a woman’s car — well, it wasn’t locked — and hung a nice pair of women’s underwear over her rearview mirror. They were clean. A debate erupted on the neighborhood listserv. If you can imagine, some people thought this “assault” was funny! Well, it wasn’t. It was menacing, with definite sexist overtones. Someone may have asked whether the underpants were Hanky Pankies. That person may have been told it was none of her beeswax! Even if Hanky Pankies are the only underwear that fit every set of haunches, in perfect comfort, with no VPL!

The bag worms are back. They live in houses they built themselves — and you can do this too, according to the latest issue of Mother Earth News — and those houses look like bags. They must be destroyed by Francisco — who recently got a giant new pickup truck with duallies — or they will, in turn, destroy the pecan trees. Francisco takes time out from this job to survey my yard and cry too much! Too much plants! Too much weeds! Too much morning Gloria! This is how I found out the morning glories I planted three years ago have finally sprouted.

Today I expect breaking developments concerning the three guys who hurl medicine balls at each other on the tennis court. It’s worth noting that the tennis court, along with everyone and everything else of importance, is located in my zip code, not in my head.