It was my phone. Only, it doesn't make a ringing sound. It wails like the ghosts of Mars.
I pushed the glowing green button for 'talk'. In the near future, I'll probably wiggle my ears, or maybe do a Palin style wink to answer the phone. For now, I had to satisfy myself with savage button mashing.
"Hello?"
"What the hell are you doing?" a raspy voice asked. It was my old friend M, America's most meddlesome lesbian.
"I'm reading to my daughter from Faust" I said.
"Ha. You pretentious bastard!"
She was right. The kid didn't have a clue. I was as bad as the ancient 'cool parents' who dressed their kids in Misfits t-shirts. I felt bad for several picoseconds and then got over it.
"I didn't call to put down your obviously terrible parenting skills. I'm calling about the L Word. Have you watched it?"
I enjoy women, and kissing, and women kissing...each other. So yes, of course I'd seen a few eps. I was in a precious mood however, and lied with the confidence of a pharaoh.
"No. I can't say that I have. I was probably too busy reading Faust to a giggling toddler. Or maybe looking at a nearby spiderweb, marveling at nature's indescribable beauty."
"You ass clown. You hate spiders. I know you've watched the show; your voice gives you away."
Note to self: old friends make the keenest adversaries.
"I don't 'hate spiders' but I am busted indeed. So what about the show? What's your riff?"
She sighed, a sound which, over the cell network, resembled a herd of gazelle rushing across a broad savannah. Actually, it didn't. But it was pretty to think so.
"It sucks." M said. "When it started, I was right there with all the other starry eyed lezzies who went on and on about how groundbreaking it was and whatnot. But then, I woke up one morning and realized it was about a bunch of LA nitwits who just happen to love ladies. Plus, the class biases are grating."
"Like in the episode about the adoption?" I said. "Apparently, people outside of the club/coffee house/art gallery gilded ghetto are either well-meaning simpletons or super bigots from the big book of stereotypes."
"Exactly! And how odd a non-viewer knows all about it." With my mind's I could see her arched eyebrow.
"And then there's the theme song of recent seasons -- the tune by Betty. It's like a wet laundry list of Things to Celebrate About Wimmin. Laughing, crying, loving, lusting winning losing, etc. Holy crap I want to shoot something when I hear it!"
Not an idle threat. M is very handy with a firearm. She keeps a Beretta Cx4 Storm in her home. Officially for 'home defense' but more likely because it's just a sexy looking weapon and when she holds it, pants drop.
"Well, I could spend all day talking about men's fashions, bullet assisted therapy and LA basin lesbians but I have a child to raise and a world to win."
M laughed. I imagined buildings on fire, Mikoyan-Gurevichs destroying Georgian tanks and ant hills subjected to magnifying glass based anti-personnel attacks.
"Yeah, roger that. I have to sell my Subaru you know."
She loved that car. Things must be dire.
But that's another story.
.d.