Jun 14

Jun 14 The Wilderness Chick

Author’s Note: This is an edited version of a blog post I had on my old site, and on the Huffington Post. This is a story of a friendship with someone I have never met, but who was a very strong influence and supporter of my writing and, as you will read, the true driving force behind how my website came into being. Enjoy the read and I’ll meet you again at the bottom of the page…

Back in the early to mid-‘90s when I was writing and submitting serious short fiction, or what I would categorize now as ‘sh*t no one wanted to read‘ I found a champion of my work on the Internet. I submitted a short story called ‘sale‘ about a man who finds the meaning of his life while rummaging through the house and making the acquaintance of an old woman who put everything in her home up for sale (Get it? Clever title). I submitted the story to a website called Aspiring Writer and found a kindred spirit in the form of the creator/editor of the website whose name was Annie (don’t get used to the name, it changes later).

It was nice to find someone that appreciated my work although why couldn’t that person be an editor at the New Yorker magazine? I know, I sound ungrateful considering how Annie had always encouraged me. In fact ‘sale‘ was named Best Short Story of the year on Aspiring Writer and I received a check for $25. Being paid for my writing was a new and happy experience for me.

Over time I not only submitted stories to Aspiring Writer, but cartoons as well that were all writing-related. After awhile, when other obligations came into play, the website shut down, but our friendship continued. Annie lived in Oregon, or as I would say with my Jersey accent ‘Or-E-gone’ which she repeatedly admonished me on.

“It’s Or-gan,” she pronounced it slowly for my untrained east coast ears to comprehend. “Emphasis on the ‘OR’”.

Annie’s first husband Eric built computers and when I told them I was looking, he actually built one for me. It was this oddly-shaped silver box that didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen but damn if it wasn’t faster than anything on the market. Sadly, that was 10 or more years ago. I still use it while the rest of the computer world has passed us by. The thing sounds like a coffee maker when it runs, but not like the new Keurig machines — more like an old Mr. Coffee with a picture of Joe DiMaggio on the box. It’s a hand-cranked phone in a cellular world.

It was at this same time that I had watched the new Star Wars movie The Phantom Menace and Annie and I talked about how Darth Maul may have been the best character and could not believe they killed him off so quickly (oh, spoiler alert). This conversation led to two things, the first being when I received my new computer, the screen saver was a montage of pictures of Darth Maul which, by the way, is still my screen saver.

The other being how our salutations on emails and conversations had changed forever.

Every email I received from Annie would start, “Hey, Darth” and end with her signature of “Darth.” Phone calls were the same way, for whatever reason we had adopted new names for ourselves (in Annie’s case it wouldn’t be the last time she changed her name). Once in a while I would get a late night call, “Aye, Darth how ya doin’?” To me, she sounded like a character from the movie Fargo (“so you were with the little fella then?”, “Yah”). She would always ask me what I was working on and I would always make excuses as to why I wasn’t writing. There is only so much rejection a person could take in life and I decided to focus most of my energy on the rejections that incurred in my love life.

Then on one of those late night calls when she asked me what I was working on I told her my idea of starting a blog.

“Do ya’ have a name for it?” she asked and I replied, “Conflict and Scotch.”

“Hold on,” she said. There was silence on the other end for a few minutes and when she returned to the line she said, “OK, just bought the URL name — now you have no excuse.”

And she was right. Shortly after that ‘Conflict and Scotch‘ was born.

Over the years a few things happened. For reasons unknown to me Annie became Marea (that screwed up my cell phone contact list). She also divorced her first husband, Eric, the man who built the fastest hand-cranked computer in the world, and then she met and married Larry, who would be the love of her life.

Over the years we always talked about meeting — that I should come out to Oregon and as much as I wanted to meet her I’m not much of a traveler. Finally, she was bold enough to take the first step and actually planned to come to New Jersey (who leaves Oregon to visit New Jersey?). Sadly, once again, things changed and that trip was never going to happen…

Author’s Note (continued): I’ll end it there and you can read more about Marea at her website Wilderness Chick - enjoy the climb…