Manfred: Can't you just ask people the time or where they got their tie? (No, life's too short for that)

So I had to go to this place where a bunch of colicky infants in business suits men sucked on vodka with anchovy olives instead of baby bottles.  I got the feeling they thought there was some kind of rugged individualism going on.  There was not.  There also was nearly no reason or plain speaking, though there was plenty of arrogant speaking.  Multiculturalism was mostly limited to discussions about recent take-out.  They were all very good about not defying my lowest expectations. Uh, thanks. 

I let everyone know I was a multiple cat owner & the urge to recite radical feminist poetry was great, but combat boots & a camo hoodie wouldn't have gone very well with my Naven cocktail dress.  And when I am not being ironic or sarcastic(yes, it does happen), I don't much care for radical feminists.  Because I am  shallow about my clothes & sometimes I like to get laid.

The whole room was all looming white fat generously proportioned guy social expectation prison gates, except for the one thin black man who radiated above the horror.  My eyes & brain were pleading with this guy to be the brother version of W. Somerset Maugham because I was scheduled to stay present(at least physically) for the next few hours.  He wasn't Maughamish, like I had the right to special liberation, but he does share my political views which probably gets him into even more trouble than it does me.

So I dragged Not Maugham around as I convinced him to help me trace back circumstance into motive from the whiny fat white guy conversations. 

There in the middle of pretension, demented rampages tantrums, the stepping on each others lines, & the nailed on expressions ~ was some tired guilt & diametrically opposed needs.  Me & Not Maugham could only match the sanity counterfeiters technique for days with our instinct for hours.  They spent each others feelings with wild abandon, putting to use the glowering adjectives of faultfinding like the worst mean girls.  Not M & I were a little guilty of verbally picking the lock on the vault of their anxieties, not to send anyone headlong down the shaft, but to work off the mental mask of what we all think we want the other person to think we believe.  We weren't rooting around for nice, but for real...like when a sudden reversal is actually a foot kicking your core out of its statue. 

Because who wouldn't make space for that?(apparently the 2 who wandered out saying we belonged in a nuthouse).

Evolving away from angry noise, some fragile truthful communications were reinstated & attempts to stanch the flow of deeper feelings lessened. Faces were slightly less flushed. Nails stopped biting palms. 

It worked because they weren't conscious of what we were doing when we asked:

When did anything with a hint of fragile settle into vague unpleasantness for you?

What is the most tender memory you have of your mother?

Yeah, those took a while.  No one was deprived of the savoring.

And in the end we all helped pat down the dirt over each others long-ago blasted up roots.  Sometimes what you assume might make you feel exposed actually leaves you feeling protected.