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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1986)
Mall In Mllwaukoo, Wisconsin (the east side) Living with three other adults means that all the mail protruding from the mail box that you see while walking down the street is not necessarily yours. Living on the fashionable East side in a house that has been rented for many years by a fairly transient population means that all the mail protruding from the mail box that you see walking down the street is not necessarily yours. WINTER SOLACE I kept both of these facts (along with the general rule no mail is better than bills) uppermost in m y mind as I walked toward the house. I took the mail from the box, refusing to look until I got in the kitchen and poured myself a Cherry Koolaid. Th e n I sorted. Pati Allen. Gimbels. Howard Kaufman. National Federation of the Blind. (All of his envelopes are thick.) Pati. Insurance. A thick envelope for Robert Anders. Personal mail from M om in Philadelphia. Gerald Balzentis. He doesn't live here. Actually, I understand he never lived here. Je f Schulz. I took his place. Me. A bank by mail envelope. Pati. Speech and Language Association. Howard. Fro m the Indian Health Service. He’s Jewish. Howard. Som ething about ham radios. Ellen Warrends. She defected to Barbados and left no forwarding address. R obert Howard. Pati. Nancy Smits. She lives next door. Rosalie Samalia. A Midwest W om en’s Music Catalogue. A n d another one for Anna somebody. By the mail code and the chart inside I found they both got their names on the mailing list by attending a w om en’s event I read the catalogue in m y room with Baxter on m y lap (every good lesbian has a ca t Darla once told m e) and m y feet on the sill and I thought feminists maybe lesbians even had lived here. In m y room? Were they lovers? Did Rosalie and Anna live here at the same time? T h e separatist in me said maybe there were no men in the household at all for awhile. (I briefly contemplated not living with Howard or Robert O r anyone.) Sitting there in the sun with m y cat on m y lap and Carole King on the tape recorder and the sun in the window I felt strong. • Sharon Matuszeski ft • . •. *?• •••.»•*►.» • • I Í ‘ ' • • •• • *,*.*• * . • . • • •*« . * . • #•0 A 1 • • t ' * • * • _ • . * • > ! ' ' « •. * W . * " * • ■ ■JL..— ■ ■■ ......... . •*. • . ' % I Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but we’re already In love I am at the stage where I see you in parking lots of 24 hour diners and libraries on old orange busses, in silver Datsuns (and since I’m not always too clear on what a Datsun looks like) in foreign cars in general dow n the aisle by the granola and around the com er — just around the comer. I take a step closer your names resting on the edge of m y lip ready. . . it is not you. Th is or that stranger will not greet me “Hi, Love,” like you do, will not take me home, make me herbal tea, will not hold me. You said on the phone, waves of long distance crashing between your words “I’m not saying forever — well, maybe I am." I have thought it for awhile myself, waiting. It is good you want it now too, because I am tired of this half continent between us. Me having to describe the cat in m y lap tell of the Christmas light on (still up a month and a half later) and the grape purple robe (I mean purple! it looks like it should be poured out of a bottle labeled T J . Swan) m y mother bought me (My mother never buys me clothes but she thought maybe she could pull it off because it was just a robe and not something I would wear in public, so I told her everything, explicitly, but that I hated deep purple and especially in the m orning) the purple robe falling open the baby-oiled curves — I am tired of whispering of things from m y heart into the phone in m y hand which is somehow connected to your hand, your ear, your heart I am glad this will be over soon, and we will get on to the living of our togetherlives. I cannot wait but I will wait but I cannot wait • ■ .«* Sharon Matuszeski ■ ......■■■ I Just Out. January