Marty and her jacket

Let me start off by saying, I might have sounded harsh talking about my roommate, Eleanor, who seemed upset with me the night we played darts. With any retelling of a factual event, some bias is bound to cause inaccuracies or unfounded insinuations, and I'm sure if you were to ask for her account of the event, it would have a different spin.

With that being said, here's a story about another roommate, Marty and her coat. I will try to be as objective as possible in telling it, because unlike my story with Eleanor, I actually transcribed much of the following dialogue verbatim as she was spewing it. A lot of times, I'll be next to a couple of roommates while they are engaged in conversation, but not get involved myself. This is partially because I don't find anything they are saying interesting. But then again, if you're not talking about the Rocky movies or scrapple, I probably won't find anything you say interesting. But moreso, I don't get involved because no one really addressed me. I would answer a question if someone asked me it directly, but a lot of the times, people seem to be jus talking to the air in this house until another roommate responds. I've become the Chief of this Cuckoo's Nest, sans height. I sit and listen and people forget I'm around or that I can even hear them.

So here's a transcription of what happened:

Marty walks into the kitchen. I'm sitting in a little nook attached to the kitchen, trying to write. Claire is cooking in the kitchen. She's probably the sanest and most pleasant roommate of all of us. I'd put myself at second or third... her impressive tolerance and willingness to listen to someone ramble ad nauseum far surpasses my own, so she is very deserving of the "Best Roommate Award" in our house.

"Hi, Marty," says Claire. "How are you?"
"Ahhh! I'm so depressed!"
"What's wrong, Marty?" asks Claire. This is why she deserves the award. I no longer ask Marty questions like this.
"I'm upset over my coat." She looks in my direction as I type crappy sonnets on my computer, "Don't feel guilty," she says to me.
"Don't worry. I don't," I smile.
"What happened to your coat, Marty?"
"I don't want to talk about it."

Marty has a green winter coat she wears all the time with a faux fur lined hood, sort of like the drug dealers wear in movies about the 'hood. It's cute. One day, she was in a rush for work and asked me if I would throw her sheets in the dryer for her. No problem. I put everything that was in the washing machine into the dryer. I saw her coat was in there, but I assumed she also wanted that in the dryer because she did not give me specific directions otherwise. The coat did not shrink and fits her fine, but the faux fur is not quite as puffy anymore. Imagine girls in the 80's with poofed up Aquanet bangs. That's what the fur looked like before. Now imagine the hairdo of a militant lesbian wearing Doc Martens... that's what the fur looks like now. We went to a bar the night her coat was ruined and she shared with me how she doesn't blame me, but is sort of upset because all the charm of the jacket was encapsulated by the fur and now that the fur is ruined, it has lost all its worth. But she assured me she didn't blame me. I assured her I wasn't worried about it at all.

Claire, the conscientious roommate that she is, does not pry. She sprinkles some ground pepper into a pan of sizzling, quartered potatoes. Marty groans loudly. "Oh God! I want my jacket!"
"Nothing can be that big of a deal," says Claire with a cheerful "The sun will come out tomorrow"
smile.
"Yes it is! I want my jacket!"
"What happened to your jacket?" she tries a second time.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Claire looks at me, maybe hoping I will explain what the hell is going on. I smile back, then return my attention to a sonnet, thinking "what words rhyme with syphilis?" It's hard to keep my attention on the poem though because I'm also trying to record everything Marty is saying. Much of it, however, is exasperated gasps, groans, and heavy hearted sighs, which do not translate well to print.
Marty continues: "Where am I going to find a jacket? I'm so upset right now!"
"Ooh, this tea bag has interesting trivia. Did you know that in the United States, 70% of pencils are painted yellow?" says Claire, trying to change the subject.
Eleanor comes out of her room and says hi to everyone and asks marty how she is.
"I had the most disappointing Target experience."
"What happened?"
"They didn't have my jacket."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm so upset right now and it's about my material possessions, the dumbest thing in the world to be upset about*."

She spends the next thirty minutes looking online for a duplicate of this jacket, groaning, and shouting, "I'm so fucking depressed!" I don't think she ever explains to Claire what happened to the jacket in the first place.

Two or three days later, marty came home with a brand new jacket, complete with a hood of luxurious faux fur. She was very happy. I was happy for her. But, as you may have guessed, the elation that came with the new jacket was short lived and, as of this last week, she's currently depressed again. "I'm so fucking depressed! I hate winter!" she's screamed on numerous occasions. I'm not one to doubt the physical and mental impact cold and darkness can have on a person. But since she grew up in Alaska, you'd think she'd have some coping mechanisms by now. And I'm not confident that her attitude will change tremendously when the sun comes out, if that ever happens in Portland.

Another thing she likes to complain about is work. Here's another conversation Claire got caught in. Someone please give Claire a Humanitarian award for her patience.

"Okay, let me just tell you about this bitch at work," she starts. Marty works at a residential home for teenage mothers and their infants. Very stressful work... I have all the respect in the world for anyone who works in that field. She started there about a month ago and was very excited when she took the position because it was exactly the kind of job she wanted. She said she loved all the girls who lived there... they were all so sweet.
"Is this a coworker?"
"No, one of the girls. I had just gotten in and she immediately starts screaming at me that we need to call the doctor for her baby. And she was being so mean to me." I'm in the kitchen cooking, but I rush for a pencil to jot some notes down on this conversation. Marty continues, "Now, granted, his penis was bleeding, but I mean, she didn't have to be such a bitch to me. I mean, he wasn't dying of blood loss."

If you are Claire would you say:
A.) Um, if my son's penis was bleeding, I think i'd be a little frazzled, too.
B.) Marty, you did realize when you accepted this job at a residential home for at-risk teenage mothers and their infants that some of the work might involve at-risk teenage mothers and their infants, right?
C.) Nothing and nod sympathetically.

Correct, St. Claire chose C. I stopped jotting down notes after a while because my asparagus and cashews dish burning. It would have been repetitive if I retold it all to you anyway; the gist is that these residential teen moms who have had horrible upbringings and are completely too immature to raise kids on their own are not being nice to her all the time.

Marty isn't always upset. For every ten times I hear her yell, "I'm so fucking pissed off," I've heard her say, "I'm in a fucking great mood." That's not true, actually. The proportion is closer to something like 50 to 1. But it's good to know her crazy-o-meter can tip to the complete other end of the bipolar scale. I need to stop typing this entry now because she keeps saying more interesting things as I blog that deserve to be recorded as well, but when can I finally stop? Her first words coming into the house five minutes ago were "I'm so pissed with the world right now!"
Then, ten minutes later in a more subdued tone, "This is not a good life. I'm bored."

Marty, as long as you're around and there are jackets, work, or boys to give you something to talk about, I'll never say I'm bored.


* I don't want to give you the impression that Marty is this really shallow person. She realizes feeling this emotional about a jacket is rather silly when you consider there are people being tortured and beaten at this very moment. I never got the impression she was really materialistic. It's just interesting me that even though she can rationalize this, she cannot prevent herself from talking about it over and over to roommates she met on Craigslist. But, I've been this way before, too. Many of you may remember a hat I found on the ground at a gas station. It was a black knit hat many sizes too small for me that said "Hottie" in blazing fire colored print. I loved that damn hat. I wept bitterly many nights since I lost it. So don't think I can't commiserate with marty and her jacket.