Random things I've thought about today
1. Crazy people. When I was younger, I often had friends who were high-maintenance, overly dramatic, and sometimes downright crazy. I even dated some of them. As I've gotten older, I've tried to limit the crazies to family members. (If you're family, I'll put up with your crazy ass. If you' are not related by blood or marriage, all my crazy slots are full.) There's only so much time and energy I have. And I got tired of wasting that energy on people who always had problems of their own making, who asked for advice and never took it, and who rinsed and repeated the process over and over again. I've been pretty successful with this goal or strategy or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes I miss the good stories that always resulted from the crazy-people antics, but I rarely miss the crazy people themselves.
2. Why have I been so itchy lately? For the past week or so, I have been itching like crazy. The itching gets worse at night, for some reason. I've looked at my skin and I don't have bug bites or a rash. I'm not using new soap or new lotion or anything. My only thought at this point is that maybe I'm dehydrated and my skin is dry. I'm still trying to figure this one out.
3. Sometimes I think I married a man who is my opposite in small, but critical ways. He wants to plan; I want to let things unfold by themselves. He wants to know spoilers before we go see a movie; I want to know as little as possible before walking in the theater. He has a penis; I have a vagina. Stuff like that. For the past week or two, I've been trying to plan a surprise birthday party for Nate in Austin with some of his old friends. As our trip approaches, Nate has been getting on me to make plans with people because he was worried we wouldn't have time to see everyone, and then he started arranging things himself when I seemed to be dragging my feet. Only, these plans were going to interfere with my party! So I had to tell him what I was doing because all of my lame excuses about why we couldn't schedule this or that were starting to annoy him.
"Why do you want to leave everything up in the air?" he wondered.
Well, now he knows.
4. Why do I love coffee so much? Should I drink something else? Is coffee/dehydration why my skin is so itchy?
5. When Nate and I both lived in Austin, we lived south in the Barton Hills neighborhood. We rarely went north of downtown for dinner, drinks, or to friends' houses. For example, we didn't go to Hyde Park, even though I had lived there before and liked the 'hood and some of the restaurants in the area. Even UT/West Campus was a stretch. When friends who lived north of 15th street or so invited us to visit them in north Austin, we'd usually talk them into coming down south. And because almost all of our friends lived south, this was usually easy to do. Whenever people talked about living in north Austin, we always said, “You might as well live in Dallas.” The karmic justice is, of course, that we now live in Dallas.
The impending birthday gathering, which is naturally to be held in north Austin, has made me realize several things. I don’t know any of the restaurants up there because I wouldn’t drive north of downtown if I could help it. I’ve never been to Trudy’s North (I always went to Trudy’s South and Central). Also, I’m going to have to try to convince south Austinites (the majority of our friends) to drive north.
6. Despite my possibly seemingly cranky self, I am trying to be more kind and patient with people. This is, paradoxically, one of the reasons I try not to spend too much time with people who drive me crazy. Because I think its kinder to all of us to let each person follow his or her own strange path, no matter how odd it might seem to other people, with as little interference as possible. And then we can each face karmic justice in our own ways. Like planning a “surprise” birthday party in north Austin while living in Dallas.
Tuesday
Monday
God's Truth
"Our country's fundamentalism is no prettier than anyone else's," she says. "It's really peculiar that the super-fundamentalists in this country talk about fundamentalists in other countries as extremists. They're all alike, whether they're Jewish or Muslim or Christian. God has told them they're right and nobody else is right. It's so laughable, so pitiful."
From a profile of the poet Naomi Shihab Nye.
"Our country's fundamentalism is no prettier than anyone else's," she says. "It's really peculiar that the super-fundamentalists in this country talk about fundamentalists in other countries as extremists. They're all alike, whether they're Jewish or Muslim or Christian. God has told them they're right and nobody else is right. It's so laughable, so pitiful."
From a profile of the poet Naomi Shihab Nye.
Wednesday
Home Improvement
Even though I was hoping to get started on my revision this week, I may have to push that goal back a bit. Last night we started painting Nate's office. After we finish, we'll paint the hall. The schedule this week will be: working from 8:30 - 5, painting until 8 or 9, dinner, and then bed. Not much time or energy for revising.
We'll see. I haven't given up all hope on revising yet, but I'm trying to be realistic and also not kill myself.
Once we finish the room, I'll share some pictures.
Even though I was hoping to get started on my revision this week, I may have to push that goal back a bit. Last night we started painting Nate's office. After we finish, we'll paint the hall. The schedule this week will be: working from 8:30 - 5, painting until 8 or 9, dinner, and then bed. Not much time or energy for revising.
We'll see. I haven't given up all hope on revising yet, but I'm trying to be realistic and also not kill myself.
Once we finish the room, I'll share some pictures.
Tuesday
Coincidence?
Right now I am doing a repetitive, fairly mindless piece of proofreading. Since it is so mindless, I am listening to my iPod while I work. I’m listening to David Gray, and his music always reminds me of Nate.
About five years ago, Nate and I went to a David Gray concert with a mutual friend. We didn’t know each other very well and I think it was the first time we hung out socially. I thought he was funny. We stood and listened to David Gray at La Zona Rosa (I think that was the venue). At the time I had long hair, so I kept pulling it up and holding it away from my neck. He was standing behind me slightly and it felt like he was staring at me. I kept telling myself it was my imagination, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was staring.
Months later when we started dating, Nate told me that he was, in fact, staring at the back of my neck.
When we were picking songs for our wedding, David Gray seemed like the right choice. Our first dance was to “Sail Away.” I’m listening to that song now.
There were so many coincidences that brought about our relationship. Enough that I’ve started thinking there are no coincidences. Nate got hired to replace me at an old job, which is how we met. I moved away from Austin for the job and when I moved back I ended up moving into a house a block up the street from him. A few of our friends invited us to the same events and we gradually got to know each other. One Halloween night in particular (five years ago), I got into an argument with a friend, changed my plans at the last moment, and ended up spending that night on Nate’s lap because the place was packed and there were four of us and three chairs. We became friends after that night. Good friends. We hung out more often, talked on the phone and over IM. Then came the night when Nate asked for my advice. He’d been dating a girl who told him he went out too much with his friends and she couldn’t imagine the father of her children behaving this way. (For the record, they’d been dating a month and he was 26 years old at the time.) My advice: Dump her. Then things really got interesting …
Right now I am doing a repetitive, fairly mindless piece of proofreading. Since it is so mindless, I am listening to my iPod while I work. I’m listening to David Gray, and his music always reminds me of Nate.
About five years ago, Nate and I went to a David Gray concert with a mutual friend. We didn’t know each other very well and I think it was the first time we hung out socially. I thought he was funny. We stood and listened to David Gray at La Zona Rosa (I think that was the venue). At the time I had long hair, so I kept pulling it up and holding it away from my neck. He was standing behind me slightly and it felt like he was staring at me. I kept telling myself it was my imagination, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was staring.
Months later when we started dating, Nate told me that he was, in fact, staring at the back of my neck.
When we were picking songs for our wedding, David Gray seemed like the right choice. Our first dance was to “Sail Away.” I’m listening to that song now.
There were so many coincidences that brought about our relationship. Enough that I’ve started thinking there are no coincidences. Nate got hired to replace me at an old job, which is how we met. I moved away from Austin for the job and when I moved back I ended up moving into a house a block up the street from him. A few of our friends invited us to the same events and we gradually got to know each other. One Halloween night in particular (five years ago), I got into an argument with a friend, changed my plans at the last moment, and ended up spending that night on Nate’s lap because the place was packed and there were four of us and three chairs. We became friends after that night. Good friends. We hung out more often, talked on the phone and over IM. Then came the night when Nate asked for my advice. He’d been dating a girl who told him he went out too much with his friends and she couldn’t imagine the father of her children behaving this way. (For the record, they’d been dating a month and he was 26 years old at the time.) My advice: Dump her. Then things really got interesting …