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01/18/2004: "Brother's Keeper"
I don't hear from my brother very often these days. (I never hear from my brother, either, but that's another story.) But it was him on the phone today. I should have known it was him; he has immpeccably bad timing when it comes to phone calls. I'm never doing anything important when he calls, I'm just watching TV, but today is a perfect example. It's almost the end of French Kiss, I'm committed to French Kiss, and the phone rings. It's stupid not to pick up, it's a movie I've seen before, but the call might be important. And it is important, I guess, but not in the way I'm expecting. Like most calls from him, it is long and has lots of awkward bits. We don't talk enough any more to have any conntinuity from conversation to conversation, and we don't have the interests in common we used to. So, we need "topics". Our topics for today: Christmas and gifts, the other brother, other family, music, Rainbow Bridge, One from the Heart, the Patriots game, the weather. As time spent, It was probably better than the end of French Kiss, and I am an utter failure as a call-screener. If the phone rings, and the machine gets it, I am too curious about it to concentrate on whatever it was that prompted me to let the machine pick up in the first place. Then, if it's a person, I feel so guilty I cal right back anyway, inconveniencing myself further, and openly revealing myself as a call-screener.
