I've already been maintaining this thing for the past 3 days on my hard drive, so the first post is jumping in midstory...on many things. Too much to go into, even here. You'll get an idea pretty quickly of how I operate. Always pressed for time because I've goofed off too much.
So, right now I'll apologize to anyone who needs more of a backstory on any point. I'll either get around to it, or you can contact me to help spur me to get around to it. I think you'll be able to contact me....I'm very new to this whole blog thing.
August 11, 2003
11:56 A.M.
I just got back from the gym. I did 20 minutes on the bike and another 25 minutes of walking (20 minutes holding a moderate-quick pace, 5 minutes of cool down.) My legs don’t feel nearly as stiff or sore as they did the first day I worked on them.
My friend D would have been very proud of me, if only for the 45 minutes of exercise I did. But, I also had enough nerve to talk to a really attractive woman who I almost ran into on the track. I was trying to keep my pace up, and she was getting ready to cross the track. We saw each other, and knew that if we were to keep the same pace, we would run into each other.
So I slowed down. So did she. We looked at each other with little smiles on our faces. Then I sped up. So did she. Our smiles got a little bigger. I knew this pattern would keep up, so I broke my pace. I sped up to a jog. I was laughing as I went past her, and I said, “Sorry, I’ll just scoot past you here.” And she laughed, too.
Now, I normally don’t go for the blonde haired-blue eyed women, but the ease at which this lady laughed and smiled really warmed my heart.
After I got done with my walking, I headed over to the water fountain and got a cup of water. I downed it quickly, and was getting ready to refill it, when I noticed her coming toward the fountain with a ¼ full Dasani bottle ( ¼ full? I must REALLY be an optimist!) So, instead of making her wait while I get a second cup of water (which I know she saw me drink the first one…I noticed her from well across the room coming my way) I step back and let her fill her bottle up.
And while she did, I talked to her. I said, “Normally I have a bottle, too, but I have no idea where any of mine are today.”
She said, “Yeah, I have to buy new ones sometimes. I like re-using them.” (Or something like that. Point is, I talked to her…..but how do you get past the small talk? I assume you don’t try to get past that on your first meeting with someone. I’ve never really tried.)
Actually, I did once. Her name was Heather, and she was 23 years old when I was 19. It was a couple of weeks after Amy died, and I suppose that had something to do with how well I warmed up to her.
She was involved with an organization called, I think, the National Alliance of Christians and Jews (I would include a link to this organization, but I haven't had any luck finding one myself). She was involved in a chapter through the Universtiy of Kentucky, and was at Bryan Station spreading information about it. There was going to be some sort of meeting at a church around the corner from where I lived. I got involved with this organization for a while and found it much to my liking. I don’t know why I stopped going…but back to the main story, which is timid me talking to a super attractive older woman. (She was a couple of inches shorter than me, darker blonde shoulder length hair, and had the most warm, friendly eyes I had ever seen. Alas, she didn’t wear glasses, but I forgave that. One thing I definitely have to add here is that she had an absolutely wonderful body (I'm blushing here....I almost never speak aloud about how hot a body is. I'm a hair/eyes/smile guy, anything else is an afterthought). I had never seen one like it off of a movie screen….the best way I can describe her from the neck down is…Charlize Theron!) Heather was the first woman I met where I thought, “WOW she’s HOT,” and went up to her to meet the human being I knew was there.
The small talk flowed wonderfully easy with her. I asked her where she was from. She told me a small town near enough to Covington that you can see Cincinnati’s skyline. So I asked her, “When you're at home, then, and you go across the bridge to Cincinnati, do you ever catch yourself singing the WKRP song?” She laughed and said yes, and we sang a part of the song together:
Town to town
Up and down the dial.
I think that really broke the ice there.
I told her something about how I had expected to have had a date for my senior prom. Heather told me that she had no boyfriend, but had expected to have been engaged by 23. And here I was suffering through Amy, thinking seriously about asking Heather out one day. I sometimes wonder if I, a high school senior, would have had a chance with her, a college senior. Even though I had lost a very dear person to me (I had asked Amy to my Senior Prom, and she had said yes, then died a few weeks later in a car wreck), I could stand around and laugh with Heather. I could make her laugh. I saw her three or four more times after that. I never had the nerve to ask her out. Besides, I think it would have been too soon after…well, it would have been too soon for me, and I don’t think I would’ve been all that good for Heather if I was hurting so badly….
Heather was one of the first people to come right out and tell me that life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan it. She told me that she was still enjoying herself, and she was keeping her plans flexible. She influenced me --- I’ve been doing the same since I met her. But, it’s still tough when things don’t work out the way you would have wanted them to.
But, I’m still working on that.
August 12, 2003
10:40 A.M.
Well, I’ve done it again this week. I’ve managed to have gone through all the clothes I would wear to work before the second day of the workweek. I seriously have to either get more weekend clothes or more work clothes. Maybe I should do both? I will if I can afford to.
I must apologize for such a short post. Anyone who knows me knows that it has been a challenge for me to write ANYTHING if I’m pressed for time. And I am now. Pressed for time. That is…
2 loads of laundry
1 brunch
1 shower
….and a partridge in a pear tree
all need to get done before 1:30. And it’s taken me five minutes to write this!!!!
So, see you again tomorrow (and thank you, D, for teaching me how to spell that!)
August 13, 2003
9:35 A.M.
Once again, here I am pressed for time. And I just got up. Once in a great while I would love to be able to wake up in time to NOT be pressed for anything.
I had designs on being asleep by 12:30 last night, so I could get up by 8:30 this morning (by the way, I understand that 12:30 last night is the same day as 8:30 this morning. I just wrote it like that because that’s the way I was raised to think about the time immediately after midnight.) That bedtime didn’t happen, though. I had to rearrange my computer arrangement!
You see, I had my computer set up on the bar that separates my kitchen from my living room. I had it there because that’s the nearest place to a phone jack. I hadn’t had a phone plugged into that jack in well over 6 months, and I had forgotten the problem that it developed. Any time I plug a line into that jack, it immediately ties up my line…whether the thing I’ve plugged into it was in use or not.
So, yesterday from about the time I posted to the time I got home (at about 10 ‘til 12) I had forgotten and left the modem plugged into the wall.
Who knows who tried to call me. Maybe a lawyer for a rich, recently deceased relative tried to call to tell me I inherited a small (yet still substantial) piece of their estate. Perhaps it was Ed McMahon. It could have been that old high school flame calling to tell me she wasn’t going to marry the other guy after all. One I know for sure is that my best friend D tried to call before I went to work.
I would like to have talked to her. I didn’t write about it, but she had a laparoscopy surgery on Monday (you can read a little about that on her blog, if you click the link). She always sounds like she’s in such good spirits. But, I know that this is her 5th such surgery. Most often, though, doctors will do a laparotomy as the fifth surgery, but that’s a lot more involved…with a great deal more recovery time.
D has been a best friend to me since shortly after we met in Junior year of high school. Since about that time, I have known a great deal about her hopes, wishes, and dreams…I have even known her fears since then. It has always been a dream of hers to be a mother. I know she’ll be a fantastic one, too. But, she has stage IV endometriosis. And polycystic ovarian syndrome. Anything that could possibly get in the way of that dream has. So, it’s turned more into a hope. She doesn’t show it very well, if you’re not in tune with her, but I know it really brings her down that she may not be able to have her own genetic children.
So, as you can tell, I would like to have been able to have talked to her before work last night. But, since I forgot to unplug my computer, she didn’t even know I wasn’t home. She has the phone number to where I was doing laundry yesterday, and she would have called me there had she not heard a busy signal at my place. Ack.
posted by David Aaron at 11:04 AM
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