CONNIE in Postcards 4

It feels as if it is end of the year time here. Close up shop, put things away time. I have the Holiday cards and letters here next to my computer, and Staples has actually sent us the printers ink. I’m going to settle down today and answer them.

Every day actions are falling in place too. Dear G brings me coffee and a slice of bread to take with my pills. I sit with one of those morning program news and good cheer things on TV while reading a book and sipping my coffee till way late in the morning. Lately the book is Obama’s latest. When his brilliant writing begins to bore me, I read something less intellectual. Right now, I am rereading the Longmire books.

Important among the Holiday letters is a note from L. Tracy Paz telling me that her sister Constance died. I might have known this, but my memory didn’t store that information. I remember Connie Anderson clearly though. She was Janey’s roommate and friend. Janey was a graphic artist full of creativity on all fronts including gold medal level roller skating. Over the years, Janey lived with George and I several times as our roommate in the 1980’s.

When I first met the highly sexual Connie, I didn’t’ like her at all. Perhaps all her highly visible sex was too much for the Victorian in me. Eventually her creativity reached me, and I succumbed to her energy, charm and vitality. She lived with a camera in her hand. For years she was one of the few friends I had. She was often at my cottage or I was at her apartment, and she was always taking pictures. If you needed help in any way, she was there.

She moved to Seattle, and we grew apart. She finally sobered up, and we saw her last in 2000 at the Minneapolis World Convention. She had no time for us, and I thought it sad. Now I read that this March she died. I’ve been dreaming of Connie ever since.

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Himself: Yesterday took the lights down, and helped me take the tree down.
Myself: Letter writing. I followed the instructions that said “drink 8 glasses of water a day,” and I was up every hour on the hour all night to go to the head.
Reading: Obama and Longmire.
Watching: Antiques Roadshow.
Photo: (I don’t know who took them.) Mage and Connie near Dog Beach. Bottom: Connie marries B at The old WWII barracks on Abbott. L to R: Mage, Dick Bliss, B, Connie, and Janey.