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There's Something Odd About Us 9/20/2010 6:00:01 AM
I have exciting news and a great story! Let me start with the story, it makes the news that much more interesting. This is an unlikely tale about a Yankee from carpetbagger country and a Southern girl. As history goes, it’s probably not incredibly noteworthy that a girl from Atlanta would attend the University of Georgia—it’s all but a God-given right that one should bleed red and black. It is somewhat more curious that a girl from Long Island would end up on the fourth floor of UGA’s Reed Hall, twenty-odd years ago. They’re not roommates but hall-mates, finding they live across from each another. A curiosity ensues, kind of like when you see a color for the first time. You might describe it, try to categorize it, think what you own that goes with it. However, you instantly decide whether or not you like it. For as much as the Yankee and Southern girl have in common, which is namely a sense of humor and an inexplicable kinship, they are different. The Southern girl is ridiculously brilliant, like a multifaceted diamond. In fact, she has so many edges that the Northern girl worries she may accidentally take an eye out while sleeping. Her interests are vast with a college curriculum that centers on art, though she also takes challenging science classes because… well, at this point even the Southern girl is unsure why she’s taking the science courses. She explains it to the Yankee girl as something she feels compelled to do. While the Northerner is only apt to use the word compelled as inspiration to skip an eight a.m. class this is fine with her. Now the Yankee girl is not without her talents, she simply does not require the Dewy Decimal system to catalog them. In fact, it could be said that the Yankee is more focused than the Southern girl, and knows that she will be a writer. It’s unclear whether this is divine intuition or simply a limited talent pool. Mercifully, our story does not necessitate a need to scratch below that surface. Anyway, the Yankee knows what she’s good at, and while she admires the Southern girl’s endless talents, it’s just never about that.
Eventually they become roommates, sharing living space and pizzas, secrets about boys and boyfriends. They partake in odd rituals that have no earthly value other than to see who, after a night of college libation, can whistle the theme to the Andy Griffith Show without bolting for a trash receptacle—or shower bucket if the need is imminent. Fine. It was the Southern girl’s shower bucket, the Northerner girl’s weaker stomach. But the Southern girl is not without her foibles, doing things like taking every pair of shoes the Yankee girl owns, tossing them onto a pile, and dubbing it still life for an art project. (Note: While folklore perpetuates carefree images of happy, barefoot Southerners, it does not bode well on Northerners, who only end up with calluses and dirty feet.) In the midst of intense sketching, the Southern girl glances up and says, “I think I’ll go to medical school.” With a glance back, bare toes wiggling, the Northern girl replies, “Good for you. Does this mean I can have my shoes back?”
And so it goes. Art is relegated to a hobby as the Southern girl heads off to medical school and the Yankee graduates, returning to the North. Venturing in that direction, the Southern girl attends her friend’s wedding shower, toting a basket of ham and biscuits on the airplane. Long Island shower guests, bearing blenders and steak knife sets, are baffled by the gesture, which the Southern girl only perceives as good manners. But it is exactly this kind of innate balance that has so genuinely captured the other’s attention.
Few things in life are sure things; among them the movement of time, inexplicable kinships, and the theme to the Andy Griffith show. Everything else is a guess. And most people would guess that eventually this friendship runs its course. For a time, it appears to go that way, more likely than not one will end up cutting the other from their Christmas card list. Instead, it’s an improbable Christmas phone call that reignites a path that is destined to bring them full circle. The Southern girl calls to the Yankee girl to tell her that she’s written a book. While she’s been quite busy being an excellent doctor, delivering babies right and left, she feels compelled to do something more. The Yankee girl laughs, knowing where she’s heard that before. Funnier still, the Northern girl informs the Southern girl that she, too, is writing a book.
And so it goes from there… Add author to a connected, if not quirky, sense of humor and an inexplicable kinship. Oh, the Northern girl will struggle for a time as unknown novelists tend to walk a more crowded, briar filled path than well-known docs with a unique niche, aptly named Girlology. The Southern girl, Melisa Holmes, M.D., has teamed up with outstanding pediatrician, Trish Hutchison, merging their respective specialties by bringing information and how-to conversations to moms and their daughters. Their first book, GIRLOLOGY—A Girl’s Guide to Stuff that Matters, is a smashing success. It’s followed by HANG-UPS, HOOK-UPS AND HOLDING OUT, a conversational, informational book for high school girls. This week their third novel hit bookstore shelves, THERE’S SOMETHING NEW ABOUT YOU. It’s aimed for those on the brink of puberty, helping moms with the answers and girls with the transition. Not surprisingly, the book is rapidly climbing the Amazon sales chart, sure to be another hit in the Girlology series.
So I don’t know, what are the odds? Two girls, who can count on one hand their similarities, end up on the same pin-size spot of a large university and twenty-odd years later on bookstore shelves. Providence, coincidence, kismet… I haven’t a clue, but most days I’m sure there’s a book in it.
