March 16, 2002
tell me no lies
The Guy consistently complains about the way that I portray him in my journal, as though I were in some way deliberately twisting facts to create an unflattering persona. I'll admit that there is a certain amount of liberty to the conversations that I've transcribed for use in the journal; for instance, I normally don't write conversations word for word, lacking the photographic memory that particular feat would require.
In the common way of things, I remember a conversation or an incident and sketch it as best as I can in my fickle memory. When I get back to the computer, I perform the online journalist's version of reconstruction: without notes, without conscience, without help. Whatever eventually makes it to the Great Web is what lasts in the archive of the ages. That's what's going to be used as ammunition later in the game, should I need it, and he knows it.
Thus, the constant complaints that I misrepresent him. One vaguely misleading journal entry -- two conversations that could be misinterpreted as having taken place as one -- became the fodder for the entirety of his objections. Knowing perfectly well that, on the subject of my depictions of him, most of his arguments have the holding power of a wall of yogurt, he invariably retreats to that single instance and waves it triumphantly.
It serves him right, then, if he starts badgering me in my own room, within easy access to my own computer. My fingers are like the wind across the keyboard, and they take no prisoners.
Tonight...
The Guy was supposed to help me look for several game CDs that I'd suddenly discovered missing this afternoon. I stood by my bed, muttering; he peered at me and knocked me headlong into the bed.
I squawked and poked him -- no smooching until those CDs are found, dammit -- and he bounded off to tear my room apart.
"You pushed me," I accused reproachfully.
"I didn't push you. I caressed you."
"You pushed me. I fell down." I sat up as proof. Down, then up. I fell down. Now I was up. Voila.
"You have bad balance," he said smugly.
I frowned. "No."
The Guy was already giggling. More disturbingly, he started to do a little dance. "I rewrote history," he congratulated himself.
I headed for the keyboard.
The Guy watched over my shoulder as I typed. He made little sputtering noises in my ear, like a tea kettle with a broken spout.
"You're mean," he whimpered.
"I'm not mean." Tippety-tappety tip tap. ("Y-o-u h-a-v-e b-a-d b-a-l-a-n-c-e," h-e s-a-i-d . . .)
"You're mean," he asserted sorrowfully. " Little old women curl up and die because of the things you do."
He eventually found one of my CDs, which he'd inadvertently left in the CD-ROM drive and transferred to another computer without bothering to plug in the drive to the new power source, requiring him to dismantle the computer in order to extract the disk.
He puffed up. "Any other problems you want solved? Small children executed?"
One of the other CDs lost was a disk full of pictures taken in Mauritius. He'd wanted me to send them to his brother in Ireland. No problem. If I knew what his brother's address was.
"You know," he said, methodically wrecking my orderly CD collection, "I asked you to do this many many moons ago. And yet, somehow . . ."
"Bite me." I gently poked him in the ribs.
His eyes brightened. "Where?"
I frowned at him.
He started to chuckle. "And yet, somehow, I'm going to end up responsible."
Not being able to find the pictures, we moved on to other things. The Guy hovered at my elbow while I typed; the case for the game Black & White was in my CD rack. He opened it. "Oh, look," he fluted, showing me the CD inside. "Here it is."
I gave it a cursory glance. "Yeah, because I put it there."
Too late. The Guy was already doing a little dance, voice in squeaky falsetto. Obviously, he was laboring under the delusion that he was executing a satirical impression of the fragile flower of femininity that is yours truly. "'Oooh, I can't find it. I don't know where it is.'"
He sounded like a stomped rat. I sniffed at him.
"I put it there," I repeated, patiently. "I found it earlier and I put it there."
"Yeah, right. You never write about those things. Why don't you write about that?"
He was still doing his little dance. My fingertips on the keyboard were starting to hit the keys a little bit too hard; combined with the speed of my typing, it was beginning to sound like a machine gun was strafing the walls. Presenting the latest musical to hit Broadway: Valentine's Day Massacre.
"Shut up," I squalled.
The Guy wiggled happily. His subsonic voice was starting to attract bats, cats, and dogs all the way from Nevada. "'Oooh, I couldn't find it. Ooooh, there it is.'"
He came back later to watch me type some more. "Are you collecting evidence for your court case?"