Ghosts and Other Oddities

While always looking forward to the future, my present is firmly rooted in the past as well. Husband and I were talking this morning briefly about one of our few differences. He moves forward in life from the people he meets; if they fail to remain contact, he won't persist on repeatedly trying to contact these far flung individuals. On the other hand, I have maintained friendships that have endured for nearly twenty years, despite geographic distance or changing life circumstances. These past people remain phantoms in my life. I recall consistently past experiences and wonder what happened. I'm more likely than husband to send out an e-mail reaching out to a past contact to find out where the person stands in the present time.

The phantom friends of the past became a vivid fixture to me this week. My departed officemate departed several months ago. Despite the fact that he's been replaced by a new person, I still refer to the board on the wall as J-'s cork board, or the files in the desk pedestal as J-'s files. When someone gets hurt, an expression jokingly ejaculated is "oh, that'll leave a mark." Unwittingly, people leave marks too, though less visible. We internally wear these abrasions that help us to recall our past interactions. Our memories are intangible scars. These scars can vary from those suffered from true hurt, or sometimes from a healing, rebuilding or changing. I think about the marks left by others in my life. An insensitive high level manager marks me in dual ways: hurt by her actions and deeds to others, but also personally sensitized to how people treat others and how I should be more cautious in my own interactions to treat people well.

Now onto something completely different.... Today we had a family visit from husband's family and the wild and crazy nieces. B- continues to amaze me. This afternoon while out in the cold of the screen porch, she told me that she could talk to animals. She confessed that she could talk to fish the best and that she was half human and half mermaid (I suppose that makes her 1/4 fish?). At dinner she asked "Aunt K-, do want to have a baby?"

I replied "Not right now [as in right this second]." When she persisted, I gave her a bland, "I don't know," after which she was told by her grandmother that that wasn't really an appropriate question to ask. B- said she just wanted to know if she would have more cousins. After spending an afternoon with her sister who is constantly rambunctious, my answer is probably more so on the "no" side. I don't think I have the patience. I surely don't want to inflict whatever psychosis and latent unhappiness I harbor towards myself on another living being. It's bad enough that my husband and the dog have to deal with me. I can envision my obsessive compulsive nature with a child: checking to make sure the baby was in the car and not sitting on the roof in a child seat several times before I could leave anywhere....

Running is status quo right now. I haven't been pushing the mileage at all. I'll be lucky if I can squeeze out eight miles tomorrow for a total of 24 for the week. At least I've been averaging below 10 minute miles for all of my runs, which is good. My ankle is still a little tweakish as it has been for about, oh, the past five months or so.

Flux

It's such an odd point in life right now. So much has transpired in the past month or so. We closed on our house, spent a couple of weeks toting boxes to the new abode, and finally moved our furniture. Last weekend we relaxed some, but continued to set up our new digs. The closing was largely uneventful, with the exception of the dorky closing attorney. Mr. R-, the man selling his house to us, asked the attorney if his burgundy and yellow striped scarf meant that he was a Boston College alum, to which the lawyer replied, "No, it's Hogwarts."

Later when Mrs. R- asked what the scarf was for, her husband replied that it was for some prep. school (Hogwarts is the bewitched school that Harry Potter attends). The lawyer was dorky not because of his Hogwarts scarf knitted by his wife, but rather because he kept telling stories. We didn't want stories. We wanted to sign the papers and be done with the whole process. He tried to tell a story about bar review preparation that he said "only lawyers would think was funny." At the end of the tale, no one laughed and everyone simply looked perplexed. Husband responded, "It's okay. I'm a lawyer, and I didn't think it was funny either."

Buying a house means spending money. Buying a house means buying the perfect trash can and dish rack. It means buying towels. I despise shopping for clothes, but I can contemplate the purchase of the right towel for twenty minutes. Apparently twenty minutes of careful consideration, towel touching and price comparing was not enough; the towels I purchased are too big and fluffy. When I wrap up my wet hair in the morning, I look as though I've wound a small animal up in my towel on the top of my head.

The driving commute takes me slightly longer than the former mass transit alternative. However, I no longer have to walk the gaunlet of thugs, sidewalk preachers and panhandlers at the train station. I can listen to what I want as I drive rather than overhearing annoying cell phone conversations or someone's music leaking out of his earphones. I heard a disturbing report this morning on NPR about imposing standardized tests on higher education because some powers that be feel colleges aren't being properly measured. The backers of this new testing point to the fact that there are college graduates who can't comprehend short articles or calculate tips. I freely admit that I fear and loathe math and that I took easy math course in college, but even I can figure out a 15% tip. These shortfalls should have been corrected long before these folks went off to college. The idea of this proposal seems like a good way for some testing company to make some money.

Flux is everywhere. One friend recently relocated from San Francisco to San Diego and is struggling with the transition. Another friend's husband is contemplating going to medical school which means turning their lives upside down for the next ten years. People are leaving their current jobs for new opportunities.

One constant through these changes has been running. I've continued running and exploring our new neighborhood. It's hilly. Very hilly.