I Joined a Book Club and All I Got Was Drama, Part II

(Be sure to read Part I before continuing to read here.)

Already on the phone, she had hemmed and hawed about my "price" for computer tutoring, to the point where I said, "I don't care, bake me a pie, bartering works for me." Lady, don't say you don't know where to set a price, then make me give you an idea (what I earned as a tutor at school), and then start babbling as if I'd asked for a million bucks.

It was all for naught, anyway, because I realized two things: One, I'd skipped over this version of Office as I went from job to job; two, Jolene's idea of "helping her with her computer" and my idea did not quite match.

Me: So if you want to clean up your mailbox, just go to "Tools" in the menu bar and-
Jolene: [shaking her head and throwing up her hands] Wait, wait, wait!
Me: ?
Jolene: You have to give me more time. I'm not getting it. [sighs, keeps shaking her head and cringing]
Me: ? [to myself: Um, should I not have assumed she has a basic understanding of the program she uses to get her e-mail every single day?]

And that was red flag #2, after she had taken issue with my use of the word "purge" with respect to cleaning up old e-mail. I'll let you guess what got overshared there. (Sometimes, I really wish my embarrassment would make me run rather than stay.)

I think she really had no intention of learning any more about the program, and wanted me to "fix" whatever was bothering her and set things up the way she wanted them. I wish she had spelled that out from the beginning, but then again, I never would have said yes, would I?

Then there was a whole e-mail archiving fiasco because, as I tried to tell her, I was not really familiar with this version of Office. We ran a search for e-mail more than about six months old, her choosing, not mine. I could see from the location labels that the majority were actually in her Deleted Items file, but apparently the file had never been emptied. EVER. Due to some bug in the system, our attempt to move all the old e-mail into a newly created folder wound up placing them all as attachments in a new e-mail. I still have no idea why, but stupid me canceled the e-mail with what I thought were copy attachments. . .

They weren't, according to every forum I searched. Oooops. And while I struggled to get them back, Jolene was making smoothies in a blender and of course offering some to me. When I asked if there was dairy in it, she snorted a laugh. That pissed me off, frankly. Then came the question that always annoys me: "Oh, are you lactose intolerant, too?" "No, I'm actually allergic," I responded. She assures me it's "just strawberries." Still, I politely declined, saying I just had lunch at Mom and Dad's and water is fine. She sets a glass down next to me, anyway. It's pink with flecks of green in it. Again, being polite and going against my better judgment, I took a sip. Between my mixed feelings about strawberries and both the texture and the taste of the green bits, one sip was more than enough.

At that point, I was ready to go home, or at least back to my parents'.  I decided to try the honest route, secretly hoping it would enrage her that I'd lost all those e-mails and she'd show me the door.

"Well, can you call Microsoft?" she demanded, somewhat naively. I did not think so, but I had to make a show of actually doing it while she sat outside eating her lunch. I was starting to get a headache, and I thought it was from stress and frustration. When she came back in, she asked me if I'd tried the smoothie, and I told her I'd taken a sip but it really wasn't for me. That's when she told me she put parsley and protein powder in it. The minute she said "protein powder" my heart sank, because there are a lot of protein powders out there sans lactose but still containing milk. Ugh. My headache sharpened, and I still had no answer Jolene would accept that would make her release me.

Next, I had to call the nice computer guy at the place where I had taken my defunct laptop the day before--he looked up the same answers I did. Then, Jolene put me on the phone with her son, who lives in another part of the state and probably picked up his work phone only because his grandma was in the hospital. Other than a shared laugh at his crack that "those e-mails probably needed to 'go to God' ages ago," we still came up with nothing.

So at last, she accepted that the e-mails were gone, but she still wouldn't let me go. I was feeling awful--in retrospect, I realize it was an allergic reaction--but in the moment all I knew was that I couldn't stop feeling bad and I wanted to cry. And that's when Jolene got under my skin and made some comment about my summer, and I was like, "Everything's wrong, my cat's sick, I've put on grief weight, and I have a million things to do before school starts."

While I might have been mad at myself for letting that slip out, I was even madder when she responded, "You sound depressed." I hate sidewalk psychiatry. It always seems as if people who have been through whatever feel they have ability to see the same things wrong with other people, when in truth a lot of times it's just imposition in the attempt to have something in common and be friends. It's the companion to oversharing.

Somehow, I was able to start the discussion about my departure. I started to tell her that I was willing to waive my fee for the day because I'd made the mistake. . . and then she interrupts me, saying that I really didn't tutor her anyway and that she expected to have some real tutoring next time. At which point I underscored my ineligibility to tutor her, because I did not know enough about the applications, but she just brushed that aside oddly by saying that the only other tutor she had found who could do it was charging $60. (She didn't even want to pay me half that!) With even more frustration making my head boil, I managed to wrap up the conversation by telling her just to call me if she wanted to set anything else up. (I figured that gave her time to get distracted and forget.)

I left the house, but not before helping her push the leaves in her dining room table back in place. As soon as I got back to my parents', I grabbed two aspirin and some iced tea. I spared my mom most of the details, but I said, "Never again." I wound up going home for some antihistamines and sleeping for an hour to shake off the headache and whatever else had hit me.

Friday, an e-mail shows up from her. She wants to drop off a check but doesn't know my address.

First reaction: What!?
Second reaction: No!!!

The remainder of the e-mail is thanking me for being so "open" and she wants to help with my "big D." The only "D" I mentioned was "Diverticulitis" but I'm afraid she means "Depression." There's a doc attached to the e-mail and it's labeled her "story," which I'm guessing she uh, shares in order to sell her supplements.

You hear that sucking noise?


I'm running the other way.


I responded by saying that no payment was necessary. I did not say anything else. I haven't gotten a response yet. I'm almost hoping to keep her at bay via e-mail. But if she shows up at the next book club meeting, I'm trapped.

Or maybe Leona will create a diversion.

I Joined a Book Club and All I Got Was Drama, Part I

Lately I have been questioning the point of book clubs. Do people join them to read more books, to talk about books and reading, to learn about new titles that might be interesting to read, to meet people? All of the above? None of the above?

Since joining this book club, I have read a total of three books (in their entirety, I think) and part of a couple books--not to mention the one title I did not read at all. And no, I have not started the one for this month yet. . . although I was startled to open the local Catholic newspaper this week and find an article featuring a discussion with the author. (Presupposing "an audience that doesn't believe in anything" doesn't do much to up the interest factor for me.)

Aside from getting acquainted with some of the new neighbors in my parents' neighborhood and some of their friends, and re-meeting some people I haven't seen since I delivered their newspaper, the only extended communications I've had with members have been with the strange ones. Honestly, I must be magnet for the drama people.

Like Leona.

And now, "Jolene."

Jolene hosted a couple meetings ago--The Other Wes Moore, a meeting I didn't get the chance to recap here. (I am pretty sure someone tried to call my mom racist during that meeting, too.) And then Jolene was the one pushing people to move the June meeting and attend her event in its originally scheduled place. If you read to the bottom of that post, you'll see that she also was pushing to introduce me to her son but didn't quite know now.

All that stuff going at once makes your head swim, doesn't it? That's what happens when you get involved with Jolene. She sells nutritional supplements. She talks about meditation and going on retreat. Don't get her started about her ex-husband. Oh, and she feels perfectly free to ask you about things she wants you to do for her that sound mutually beneficial but really aren't.

At the beginning of the summer, I was able to fend off the offer of a summer job organizing her business files and papers. It's not really my thing, and I really did not want an intimate view of her business--they say don't mix business with friends, and I was trying to keep her firmly in the "book club friend" category.

But when she called sounding desperate for help with a computer problem, well, those pleas are just too hard to resist. Adding to the allure was the offer to pay me at a time when my little summer job had ended just the week before. (And the air conditioning in the car broke, twice. . . and the cat's special medicine cost twice as much as the other medicine. . . ) I was going away for the weekend, but she pinned me down to the Monday morning after.

Monday morning came, and it took several series of knocks to get her to answer the door. She hid behind it, and I could tell she was half-dressed. Should I have called first? I wondered.

It turned out, she said as she apologized for her forgetfulness, that her elderly mother needed to go to the ER. I understood, I told her, and added that she could just get in touch me with whenever, to set up a new date and time. She already started talking about Wednesday, and I just kind of nodded, figuring it was subject to change.

Well, Tuesday morning, she called. First, we talked about Wednesday. Afternoon, I pleaded, because I had errands to run. (The errands wound up scrapped for a favor to my parents, as the plumber was scheduled to come at a time when both would be out.) However, once we settled that, she started talking about how difficult her mother was but she needed to visit her in the hospital this afternoon. Her brother was tied up but she could really use someone to go with her. I was silent.

Um, me?

Yeah, she asked me to go with her--you know, experience her difficult mother firsthand and act as a support/hand-holder/shield/diversion. Again, BOUNDARIES. "I'm sorry, I already have plans for today," I said. Which I did, but even if I didn't, the plans to save my sanity were in play at the least.

The following day--where of course the plumber showed up three minutes after my dad walked in the door--I ate lunch at my parents' and walked to Jolene's house. I'd be lying if I said the thought didn't cross my mind that things would be canceled again without my knowledge. But she answered the door, and while I can forgive the disorganization that comes with having a family member in the hospital, she had absolutely nothing arranged for me to sit with her or look at her computer or whatever it was that she wanted me to do.

Which I still wasn't clear about.

To be continued. . .

Attack of the Overreaching Book Club Member

Not Leona. Somebody else. Someone who is, well, a little too eager to jump over boundaries, and now the only option is to reestablish them, I guess. I'll say more later, but let me start with this: If I weren't making so little money, I never would have entertained her initial offer of what I thought was giving her a simple computer tutorial.

I wound up coming home with a migraine that day, and now I have an e-mail in my in-box containing an attachment sharing her "story."

YIKES.

Stay tuned. . .

The Book Has Not Moved from the Passenger Seat of My Car

Mom blew through Cutting for Stone in a weekend (650 pages!) because she "wanted to get it over with." Whereupon Monday she handed it back to me.

I have absolutely no desire to crack it open.

Maybe I'm dreading the next meeting; definitely the premise of the book is not speaking to me.

Our previous meeting's hostess just sent around a photo of the new baby, prompting a lot of addressees to hit "Reply All" (ugh) and (1) coo over the baby (all right, but really do we all need to hear 20 people say "Congratulations!" to someone else?) and (2) offer some comment about the book. Most recent was a gushing "loved it, can't put it down, may reread before we meet" reply-all.

I gagged.

Mom said it was the perfect comment because then that person could do all the (more than four or five sentences) talking.


Heh.

My Response --Now UPDATED with response to response

Hi, [Leona],

I appreciate your honesty and I think my mom would, too. She respects you a lot so I think she would be very understanding if you address this concern directly with her. If you prefer to call her, her phone number is [...]. (She's out of town until Wed. though.)

That said, if you think that it might be more of a benefit to the group to ensure that no one person in general would "dominate" a discussion, maybe--and I don't know if it's worth proposing to [friend's name] because she is the book club coordinator?--at the top of the next meeting we could take a few minutes to decide as a group on a few rules that might help everyone be more at ease.

Just my thoughts.


UPDATE (9:27 p.m.): I've been avoiding my e-mail since I sent it, but about an hour after I replied, Leona sent the response below. . . my comments in bold.

Ok. Let's try your idea [I assume she means my brilliant "save it for group" idea]. I don't know her well enough to say anything [uh, TO HER FACE, anyway!] and would not want to hurt her feelings ["at least not directly which was why I was trying to foist it off on her daughter"].

Let's see how it goes. It should be fun [on what planet is creating rules to prevent people talking too much FUN!?]. Thx [she doesn't mean that, either].

She was probably shooting daggers with her eyes at the screen while she was typing that.

Well, then, I am just going to let this marinate among her and whoever constitutes the "we" of her previous ignorant e-mail, and see what happens at the next meeting. (I've got you all on the hook for that, now, don't I?) It's not until the end of AUGUST. And you may recall that my mom (she of the five plus sentences) is hosting.

Oh, can they really keep it contained for that long?

Stay tuned, kiddies.

From the Living Room to the Schoolyard

So, late in the evening on the day after our book club met, an e-mail appeared in my in-box. It was from someone in the book club group, somebody I really do not know well--she came into the group via someone else, and is not a "neighborhood" resident although her home is pretty close to the 'hood--but is a pretty easy character to read, at least in my opinion. I'll call her "Leona" for ease of reference.

Don't get me wrong: Leona is smart, she loves her kids and provides well for them. She must be likeable in some way, because she's friends with someone else in the group.

But OH MY GOSH the attitude.

The "I'm in two other book groups" attitude. The "I work in medicine so I know a lot" attitude. The "I know a lot so no one should debate me" attitude. The "I don't want to hear from you if you don't agree with me" attitude.

The one that made her eyes shoot daggers at my mom when Mom got a little caught up in what Leona was saying and wanted to dialogue but accidentally interrupted her (because she was not done what she was going on about).

Yeah, that one.

Therefore, I knew that the real subject line should have read "Warning! Drama Enclosed" but I read it anyway.

It was too good not to share. My comments in bold.

[...G]ood seeing you last night. Thx for bringing your book ideas [that really don't coincide with anything anybody else wants to read].

I am reaching out to you in confidence [yeah, right--the first rule of book club is that there are no secrets in book club] because we [I'm sorry--where did "we" come from all of a suddent? I saw no cc's on this e-mail, and BTW who died and made you club president?] wanted to ask your help in guiding your mom a bit during the book club. [Say what?] Your mom is so smart [yeah, shockingly so for a homemaker, huh?] and we all love her [again, who is this "we" and why do I sense a "BUT" coming on?] and she has a lot to say, which is important.

But [Aha!] it is hard for all of us to have a discussion because she ends up dominating most conversations [Excuse me--"most"? You weren't even here last time!] and continues to have more [have more what? crackers?] when others are sharing. Last night it became uncomfortable for most. [Again, who? Was there a secret follow-up meeting?] That's why I called on people later. [Yeah, being put on the spot is SO not uncomfortable at all!]

Is there any way that you [ME!?] could advise her to be mindful of this. Usually the first 4-5 sentences are perfect, meaningful, insightful-but she goes on and on after that. [Wait, wait, wait--you are counting her SENTENCES? Is there a limit I don't know about?] Should we give her a 1 minute hour glass [!!! (I have no words)] or can you nudge her [WTF? You mean I have to sit next to her and assault her at every freaking meeting from now on?] after a few sentences?

Please let me know your thoughts and if I am off base. [Oh, absolutely, because you'd take that so well.]

My blood was boiling a bit after I read that. Fortunately, my first reaction was a good one: I closed it and walked away.

I still have not answered it, as I have been mulling over my options.

Option 1: Say nothing. I do not want to dignify this whacko e-mail with a response.

Option 2: Tell her that she's putting me in an awkward position and to leave me out of it.
I mean, how would she like it if I walked up to her daughter and said, "Kid, I don't like the way your mom talks to people; would you tell her to back off? Oh, but that didn't come from me"?

Option 3: Play completely dumb.
"Gee, Leona, if there's a problem with people talking too long, maybe you could talk to [the club coordinator who I think is the friend who brought her in] about establishing a moderator for each meeting, and maybe the group should propose and agree on some rules."

Option 4: Tell her she is "off base" and immature for singling out one person and then not having the huevos to tell that person directly that she has a problem with that person.
After which I would declare, "I quit!" because I don't have time for passing notes in the schoolyard.



Our next meeting is not until the end of August, but here's the most fabulous twist ever:



My mom volunteered to host it.



I guess Leona would just want her to stay in the kitchen where she belongs, then.

June Book Club in Summary

Well, I went to the book club meeting without having finished the book--partly because I was a little too hooked on 13 Little Blue Envelopes, and partly because I really was avoiding a book that talked a lot about cancer (sad about my cat's recent bout with cancer) and described the awful plight of an indigent black family (just sad all over). Some of the questions went over my head, obviously, and some things were revealed that I hadn't read yet. I wouldn't claim "spoilers," just because it's my own fault that I did not finish.

I would note that this is not the first time I went without having finished a selected book. One time, they assigned two books, and I just could not devote any time or interest to the second one (The Thirteenth Tale), so I skimmed it. It was totally "meh" to me, although it turned out to be a favorite among a fair proportion of the group.

The highlights:

--Our hostess' house was really interesting--I mean, it's similar in basic layout to most of the other houses in my parents' neighborhood (my parents' being slightly different because the front door and garage are reversed, so the living room is sideways and not longways)--there was a lot of cool art on the living room walls. Some was photography and some was painting.

--As we were getting our beverages (me: wine) in the dining room, we observed a dry-erase board propped up on a side table with the headings "Boy" and "Girl." There's going to be a new baby in the house next month, so the board contained a bunch of name ideas. They already have a daughter, but they chose not to find out early if the new baby will be a son or a daughter. My mom put in a plug for her name. Happens every time. (Well, she was named after somebody.)

--I got to show off my Kindle a little bit. One thing I did realize as I was discussing the pros and cons with one of the other club members is that it's much easier to leave a paperback on the front seat of your car (guilty, just about 24/7) than a Kindle ("Steal me!" it screams).

--One of our club members who made it that night is a nurse (we actually have two nurses in the group) and another one is a biologist (I think) so it was interesting to get their take on medical rights and privacy.

--The wine was refreshing.


The not-so-highlights:

--This was a rescheduled meeting, and a lot of people could not make it--as they could not make the other date, anyway, as many people's schedules go haywire when summer comes. We had seven people, and usually it runs around ten to twelve (or more).

--Obviously, when there are fewer people, it's a bit more noticeable who are the talkers and who are the listeners. Unless I'm fired up about something or really feel I can contribute, I fall more in the listener category. I don't mind hearing other people talk.
Maybe it's the librarian in me, but I really enjoy listening to other people talk about something they've read, and how it made them think, and what it made them think about.

--However, I could tell that one particular person was getting agitated by the the fact that someone else talked as much as she did. (I guess there's room for only one of those in each group?) I'll get into the fallout in my next post. As a reaction to her own irritation, she took it upon herself to "go around the room" and make- I mean, give each person the opportunity to say something about the book.
Again, maybe this is the teacher-librarian in me, but it feels wrong to force people to talk. Kills the dialogue and spontanaeity. Yeah, that's it.

--I wound up having to go back to retrieve my purse after walking back to my parents' house. I think I had set it on the floor to make more room on the sofa for other people, and then it was out of sight, out of mind for the rest of the night. (I did get an introduction to the hostess' husband at that time, which was a nice thing.)


Our next selection--and when I say "our" I mean the book they chose after rejecting the three titles I suggested--is Cutting for Stone.

Looks like another uplifting read!

And more medical stuff. What is it with all the medical stuff!?