From: "Shelly Roberts" Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 16:09:37 +0000 Subject: Roberts' Rules: Long Time Passing ROBERTS' RULES by Shelly Roberts LONG TIME PASSING She had her head in her hands, and would have had to stand on a ladder to see an ant's underwear. I'd gotten there as soon as I could, because, on the phone, I could take coffee breaks between her intake and exhale. Some discussions demand face to face, and you usually don't have to listen all that hard to hear a silent wail. So I narrowed the distance and made eye contact. "Yeah? So? How bad could it be?" This time the intake and the out were consecutive, but so deep and long, they'd have done a veteran camel smoker proud. "What's the point?" she asked. And I poised. Waited to find out if the political was personal. Or vice versa. "I mean," she said, shedding no light whatsoever. "What IS the point?" "You've broken up with, uh, whatsername?" We hadn't keep in all that close touch for the past year. We had different agendas to attend in the political wars. We became fund-raiser friends. Not that we hadn't slathered bumperstickers together, crayon'd battle signs to decorate pickets and protests. We'd just fallen victim to the bane of the 90's increased-productivity-or-die craze: too much more to do. But we were still emergency friends. "Could I buy a vowel, here? " "Well, what did we get out of all this? I've spent, let's see, how long has it been since 1971? I've spent that long at this. And the net result is that the status, is quite well quo. "The people who stand by the sidelines till the turn before the finish line still jump in at the last second, break the tape, and get the credit and the applause. Woman's nation is an angry little farm surrounded by hostile, intolerant neighbors in Mississippi. I have three kids who all grew up to be everything I've fought and worked against, perfect little traditional mommy&daddy couples, whose kids think of ME as a grandmother, and in the same way I used to think about Katherine Hepburn,. Old. Eccentric. Admirable. And a little shaky." "Got it bad today, huh?" "Do you know that in the past two weeks I've spoken to four groups, including a gold earring lesbian bunch that butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. Never been to a march. Spend Pride Day at home celebrating with each other. Still can't understand by we keep `disturbing' them by asking them, if they can't actually come out in the open, to go behind closed curtains, and at least vote their own best interest. I don't know when I've been `tolerated' better. Now I know how that bum Nick Nolte played, how he felt when he stumbled into that Beverly Hills house." They just don't get it. And they think I'm the one whose a little strange. "Then I spent twenty minutes on the phone with a gay republican. Talk about your contradiction in terms. Who wanted me to vote for Bob Dull. I tried to explain the term `beholden' to him, and he, in turn, tried to tell me that Ralph Reed was just a harmless little organizer. And I asked him how tall he thought Hitler was? He accused me of changing the subject. You want some tea?" "Hey I haven't been to a good pity party in a long time. Might as well have tea at this party. I_" "And nobody ever says `Thank you.' J'you notice that? They just expect it like it's our damn job or something, While they have brunches and can afford dry cleaning any more. She wasn't listening, so I just tuned in to hearing her talk. "Not that I was ever in it for the `Thanks. But, you know, it woulda been nice. Once maybe. So I ask you one more time, what exactly was the friggin' point? Maybe your memory's still working. "Yesterday I was talking at the center to a bunch of newbies, and when I left, I heard a couple behind me saying, `Wow, she must have been something in her time." "Oh, I get it now, it's the aging activist's mid-life crisis." "I d' know, "she shouted over the teacup. "How many hundred and six year old activists have you met? Maybe I shoulda been a stewardess and married a doctor." Before I could stop laughing, the doorbell rang. It was a fatally timed florist delivering a full box of daisies. She read the card, stared at the ceiling a long time, handed me the card, and let one tear roll slowly down her right cheek. "Damn." She muttered "I was just beginning to enjoy this." The card said: "I didn't think I could live through coming out. You made me laugh last night, so I could think. Maybe I won't jump just yet. Thanks." We sipped the tea silently and both remembered what the point was. ________________________ (C) 1996. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved. May be reprinted only in its entirety with written permission. Shelly Roberts is a nationally syndicated columnist, speaker, and author of Roberts' Rules of Lesbian Living. Spinsters Ink.