ladies and gentlemen, Mr. E has been taken ill. Tonight, the roll of book will be played by ...

[Ann]

I had no posts or blogs and being a verbal person, I felt that I ought to. Unfortunately, my writerly voice is that of a snide adolescent. You know that guy who sat at the back of the class and made comments under his breath? Him.

I remember that guy very well. I was the geek at the front of the class who drooled on the teacher's shoes in rapt wonder and answered all of the questions. He slung his comments at the back of my head for four years. Now I have his voice embedded in my skull like pebbles.

He stayed alive in there somehow.

He grew older, somehow managing to slide through the cracks and get a H.S. degree. He went to work for his brother/uncle/father's partner. He married the girl he was dating in High School. He had a couple of kids and gained ten pounds of beer fat around his waist. He loves hockey and football and spends at least one night a week at the local pub with his buddies watching 'Da Game'.

He thinks a lot about everything, but rarely tells anyone about it. He figures, nobody wants to know.

I used to dread this guy. I used to avoid him in the hallway. He used to yell things at my retreating back designed to make me blush. And they did make me blush.

But sometimes, when I'm a little tired or distracted (drunk), he types something on my keyboard.

I wonder if, sometimes, when he's sitting there at the bar and his buddies are arguing about Kerry Frazen and that last play, and the Ford truck commercial is claiming, "this is our country", and he's counting his change before he slides off the stool and goes home, I wonder if he hears the voice of a geeky frizzy haired girl in his head who knows the capitals of ALL the United States of America?

There. Now I have something in my blog.