Why Batman is My Favorite Superhero

Because he's a regular guy.  He doesn't have any superpowers.  He's just a regular guy (well, other than the fact that Bruce Wayne is a billionaire . . . I guess he's not exactly a regular guy) wanting to do the right thing for Gotham City.  No superpowers, no superhuman strength, nothing that makes him exceptional other than his own will.

Life Happens. Unexpectedly.

I went home this past weekend. 1. To see my friend, her family and her (my) little cinnamon bun babies for their first birthday. 2. To see my family.  3. To go to my home church's Fall Festival and see all the church folk.

While it was great to see friends and family, the weekend ended on a very tragic note.  A young lady associated with the church that I watched grow up was killed in a car wreck.  She was only 16.

I shed a lot of tears that day.  So many of us did.  Life is so fragile and things in this life often unfold unexpectedly.  In an instant.  How was I ever to know that the words I spoke to her the day before her passing would be my last?

Things can change.  Quickly.  One minute here, gone the next.  He gives and takes away.  His ways are higher than our ways.  All things work together for good.  True, it doesn't erase the pain.

I shed tears today, too.  The alignment of a combination of things which created the perfect conditions for a cathartic cry.  My logical mind knows that it's okay.  It's a season.  I'll come out on the other side very soon.  But sometimes a little rock of despair lodges itself inside and I feel the hurt until it passes.

This is my hope: Just as tragic life-altering things happen unexpectedly, exciting life-altering things can happen just as unexpectedly, too.

Resolutions (?) to Mind Rattlings

Saturday I wrote that I had several things rattling around in my mind.  So  . . .

Atheist friend debates
No more.  Say whatever you want to say however you want to say it, feel free to express yourself and share your opinion, but I'm not getting into it anymore.  I love you with all the love my loving heart has and always will have for you, but I will not talk about my faith in a defensive way anymore.

Bring Your Colleagues to Church Day
One colleague bowed out.  She was just getting back from a conference and was wiped.  She is still interested in coming.  The other, having been raised with no religious background whatsoever came and was enveloped in the eager friendliness of church folk.  "Why do you call each other brother and sister?"  "Why do people raise their hands?"  "Does that overwhelming worship thing only happen to women?" "Is there like a channeling thing going on when people touch other people while they're praying?"  It was so refreshing to hear these questions.  It's important for believers to consider things from the perspective of someone who is not church conditioned. It's so easy for us to remain in our bubble of church culture while forgetting that our whole purpose is to be accessible to people outside of that culture.

Intra-departmental coffee chats
To be honest, I was surprised by the invitation (I didn't tell him that), but it was a nice gesture, so I took him up on it.  We went to a spot I'd never been to before, right in front of my face, and I've been here going on three years.  After ordering, the dreaded question: "Is this together or separate?"  If there's one question I could obliterate from the world, it would be that one.  It's so loaded with societal pressure and awkwardness. As a woman, I do not want a man to think I automatically expect him to pick up the tab because he's a man (because I don't.  Especially since we're all grad students here), but I always hesitate a second before saying "it's separate" because I don't want to communicate brusqueness.  I take out my wallet to show that I am poised to pay, and if more than a second goes by after the dreaded question is asked, I'll speak up.  In this case, traditional gender roles won out.  How sweet (?)  Anyway, we had a nice chat and it was totally fine.  I was feeling like a weirdo about it at first.

Comps deadline
Ah.  There will be no resolution until I reach the end.  Gotta keep on keepin' on.  That's what I've resolved.  Gotta keep on keepin' on.

90s Music or Staying Out of the Hole

Listening to 90s Christian music while working on my professor's manuscript.  One of those Saturdays.  Filled with doing work I should have done during the week and domestic tasks like washing clothes and cleaning my bathroom.  I know, totally livin' the dream.

There's something about 90s music that makes me feel hopeful about the world.  It came from a time when I felt less jaded about things and everything was somehow better.  I guess everyone feels that way about the music of their teenagehood.

A couple of things rattling around in my mind: philosophical debates with an atheist friend I adore but who gets under my skin, the prospect of my own Bring Your Colleagues to Church Day tomorrow, the prospect of a guy in the department wanting to know if I'd "be interested in getting coffee or lunch sometime," the ever-approaching comps deadline that I still feel woefully underprepared for.

Part of me wants to write letters to all of these things that are rattling around in my mind, as I am wont to do, but maybe it's just better to pray about them/chill out about them.

I will make an admission: It's hard to be consistent.  I constantly struggle with my tendency to be all over the map.  My little froggy legs want to make leaps to where I feel more comfortable, to where I'm doing nothing other that what I want to do simply because I feel like doing it.  But then I have to remind myself of something really important: Being consistent and sticking to my guns is the only thing that has kept me out of the hole.

So, what am I doing wasting time by blogging when there's so much to be done?  Manos a la obra, honey.

Is It Just Me?

1. Message last Sunday morning: "The Proposal."

2. Rigsby and Van Pelt get married on The Mentalist.  (Why am I so addicted to such a formulaic show?  That's why.  Yezzir.)

3. At the top of my Facebook feed this morning was a former classmate in an absolutely gorgeous white wedding dress.

4. My office mate has an epiphany when our former professor suggests that she and her boyfriend "just get married."  It turns out her boyfriend had been considering it for a while.  They're getting married this coming summer.

5. My mom called me up giggling with a church friend at Starbucks and put me on speaker phone.  The church friend told me she had changed her name.  Completely puzzled, I asked why.  And she revealed she had gotten married to someone I never imagined she would be with.  At first I flipped out because I was so shocked.  But then I started crying, because I realized it was so right.

God, Friends and My Inner Weirdo

I'm not pushy.

I don't ever want to be perceived as pushy, particularly when it comes to my faith.

If I'm ever in a situation where the topic of faith comes up, I'm more than happy to talk about where I'm coming from.  If anyone ever wants to know more, I'm more than happy to share.

But I'm not the Apostle Paul.  

Sometimes I'm paralyzed by my inner weirdo.  The prospect of the anomaly that I am.  The person who is devoted to her faith and cannot deny the very realness of the power of God but who questions and critiques church culture and mentality.  The person who has devoted a sizable chunk of her life to academia and plans to pursue a career in that world, but whose belief system chafes against its very fabric.  The lone unmarried 30-something engaging in what must seem like some aberrant, liberal exercise in husband-repelling futility in the Southern corner of a conservative church culture.  The churchgoing, skirt-wearing, mild-mannered Pollyanna who must seem like a quaint anachronism in a largely godless profession teeming with competition and cynicism.

But guess where those characterizations of myself and what other people "must" think of me and what I'm involved in come from?  My own head.  

There is a reason why some people seem to be attracted to me and want to get to know other facets of what makes me who I am.  I realize that it's not really me at all.  It's the power of God in me.

I have to learn to trust God more and I have to learn to trust people more.  What I mean is, trust God that He knows what He's doing and that He's giving me the right words to say when I talk to my colleagues about my faith.  And trust people to judge me for who they know I am and how they see me live my life and not based on a reductionist characterization of my particular church's culture.  I should give God as well as the people in my life who I've made genuine connections with more credit.

This coming Sunday is "Friend Day" at my church.  One friend enthusiastically accepted my invitation and another reminded me she'd like to come to church with me sometime and I told her that it happens to be Friend Day this Sunday, so it was as good a time as any.

What I've Been Doing the Past Couple of Weeks Instead of Blogging

1. Baking pumpkin spice muffins.  I've given a couple of dozen away.  One dozen given just because, and another as a belated birthday present.  And you bet your sweet self I kept some for moi, gourmande.

2. Pitching my dissertation topic idea to my major professor.  She was excited about it.  Which made me excited about it.  Which made me feel like God is good.  I came into this program not having the foggiest.  And now I know.

3. Grading midterms.  Ay, caramba.  How can I love teaching with the same passion that I hate grading?

4. Reading, reading, reading.

5. Editing my former professor's manuscript.  And getting a check in the mail from a famous Ivy League (now her place of employment) as the fruit of my labor.  The money's nice, but getting an envelope in the mail  with anything in it from that place is kind of awesome.

6. Writing an article soon to be featured in a Pentecostal publication near you.

7. Eating all kinds of Caribbean delights at this new Puerto Rican restaurant that at opened up downtown.  Tostones, maduros, arroz con habichuelas, yuca frita . . . yezzir.  Or rather, sí, señor.

8. Rocking my boots.  When I start rocking my boots . . . see, y'all don't know nothin' 'bout that.

9. Volunteering once a week at my church's preschool to teach the little ones Spanish mini-lessons.

10. Remembering how much Anointed used to be my jam.  I've been humming this one all day today:

Post-Text Sending Stress Disorder (PTSSD)

Post-text sending stress disorder (PTSSD) is an anxiety disorder.  It can occur after one has sent a (usu. impulsive) text message which is then followed by a prolonged wait for a (possible) response.

Symptoms include excessive self-berating for not being "strong enough" to not have sent the text, even if the content of the text in question is utterly innocuous, restlessness, fidgetiness, heightened adrenaline flow, elevated heart rate, and hypersensitivity to text message receipt-like sounds in the subject's vicinity.

Successful treatment varies, but most symptoms abate if a satisfactory text response is received within minutes of initial onset.  Pavlovian thumb training has also been known to decrease incidence.

Conversations with God

Me: Hey, what's up?

God: As an omnipresent being, I've never quite figured out the correct way to respond to that one.

Me: Oh.  I didn't think about that.  I usually say "nothing much," but . . . yeah, totally doesn't apply to You.

God: So, what's on your mind?

Me: Ha.  Like You don't already know.  I know, I know, You want to hear it from me.  Well . . . You know, I'm just kind of wondering about this whole comps thing.  At first I was determined to take them in November and now it looks more like January . . . I just feel like I'm not disciplined enough.  I'm not taking the initiative.  I have to constantly fight this feeling that I'm not capable, like I'm not cut out for this.

God: I wouldn't have brought you here if you weren't capable of doing it.  And you are cut out for it, you just haven't realized it yet.

Me: Is that so?  How many other things haven't I realized yet?

God: Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to.

Me: True.  Very true.  Okay, so . . . about this other thing . . . 

God: Really?  I thought we agreed that you were going to leave it to Me.

Me: I am leaving it to You.  It's just that I'd like to have a sign or something, you know?  So that I could know for sure one way or the other so that I could—

God: Again, I thought we agreed that you were going to leave it to Me.

Me: I am!  I just want to know one way or the other.

God: Um, that's not leaving it to Me.

Me: (exasperated sigh) God, this is so frustrating.

God: Tell Me about it.  Look, you already have all the answer you need.  Just keep doing what you're already doing.  I'll let you know if you get off track.   You need to relax.  For real.  How many ways can I communicate "I got this" to you before you'll believe Me?

Me: I guess you're right.

God: (laughs) You guess? Girl, you better know.  Just know this.  It's already handled.  If I could ever get you to see that, it would make your life so much easier.  You don't need a "sign," and you don't need to beg Me to take care of it.  I already have.  Just sit tight.

A Reminder

Just as there are times when I'm feeling badly "right now," I have to remember that there are also times I feel great right now.  Which is now.

It's not that anything spectacular has gone down, but for the past few days I've felt good about connecting with and reaching out to other people.  There's such a rewarding feeling that comes when you see that somehow, some small thing you do can make a positive impact upon someone else.

My Brain's Account of Time Spent

One of the Cuban coordinators I worked with when I went to Cuba came to my institution here to give a talk about collaboration between the US and Cuba regarding research and higher education.  It was weird to see him outside of a Cuban context, but it was great.  A lot of the kids who were also in the program as well as the Cuba program director and I got to spend time with him this week.  It felt like a family reunion.  The coordinator told me that I was the most popular girl at the research center we were paired with in Havana and everyone asked about me and if he were going to see me.  I couldn't send him back to Cuba empty-handed. Before I left for Cuba this summer, a friend of mine who had previously studied there gave me a little package to give to one of his friends in Havana.  And now I'm sending stuff to friends in Cuba via another friend, too.  It's the Cuban way.  Yolanda, la nieta de Yolanda, Daysi, Rogelio, Héctor y Rodrigo, tengo regalitos para Uds. que Henry les trae.

One of my colleagues created this FB group for everyone in the Romance Languages program.  It's useful and hilarious, because sometimes you want to post something that is only relevant to people in the program or something that would only make sense or be funny to people in the program.  We had a departmental potluck last night, but beforehand, I was trying to decide which one of my tried and trues I should bring—quiche or zucchini bread—when the solution suddenly came to me.  So, like a dork I posted: "I was having an existential crisis over whether to bring a quiche or zucchini bread to the potluck tomorrow when the solution flashed into my mind like a lightning bolt: A zucchini quiche!"  Thank God it turned out okay because then at the potluck people were like, "I read about your zucchini quiche, so I wanted to make sure to try some.  It was great!"  What if it had been revolting?  Then everyone would have known who made the nasty zucchini quiche.

Sometimes I do quiet, weird little things for my own entertainment.  I'm reading for comps and one of the things I was reading I know is related to what a colleague is interested in as well.  So, I made another copy of a related article I found and just put it in his box with no note or explanation.  An anonymous benefactor.  I wasn't going to give myself away, either.  No coyly asking, "Hey, did you get something in your box?"  I wanted him to wonder.  I mean, I knew he would probably suspect me, but the fact is, he didn't know for sure.  And for some reason, that idea was so amusing to me.  I ran into him yesterday and he finally brought it up.  When I finally admitted it was me, and he was like, "Of course it was you!  Who else?"  it made me smile even more because it was obvious to me that he really wasn't sure.  I'd like to think that maybe he thought it was me, or maybe even wanted it to be me, but was afraid to be wrong.

So, I've found myself as a part of a group christened Saturday Ladies.  I don't know why or how, exactly, but sometimes personalities sort of seek each other out and something clicks.  Our inaugural meeting was at a new French bakery in town.  I actually don't have a whole lot in common with the other Saturday Ladies, but I guess we jibe as a group because we're accepting and are interested by the fact that each of us are interested in specific, interesting things.  Our second unofficial meeting is today at a popular vegetarian spot.

I'm following God down this path that can be pretty lonely, but it doesn't have to be.  He's always there, and He's leading me somewhere.

Three-Year Wanderer

I realized something about my life recently: Ever since I graduated from undergrad, I have not been in the same place doing the same thing for longer than 3 years.

1. I worked at my first job for three years.  The third year, I started a Master's program part-time while I still worked.

2. I resigned and moved to another city for a year to finish my Master's full-time.

3. I graduated and moved back home for six months while I worked as an instructor at the same institution I had just graduated from.

4. I moved to France for six months.

5. I moved back home and worked for a year.  I started at a public high school and ended up at a learning center.

6. I moved to where I am now to pursue a PhD.

So, three years doing the same thing in the same place has been the closest thing to stability I've had since 2005.  Wow.

I have just entered the third year of my most recent sojourn.  And I'm starting to get antsy.  Don't get me wrong, not finishing is not an option.  I've never considered quitting this program.  But I am starting to crave a change of scene.

Whether I'll be able to consider that possibility is entirely predicated on whether I do everything I'm supposed to do this year, which is 1. Successfully taking and defending comps. 2. Submitting my prospectus and getting it approved.

If I can do those two things by May, I'll be right on track, an official PhD candidate by the end of my 3rd year.  ABD.  All But Dissertation, baby.  All I'll have left to do is write that monster.  Something that facilitates writing the monster is being awarded a dissertation fellowship.  What that means is that I'll get money to support myself for a year so that I can totally focus on writing and not have to worry about teaching.  The department here offers one, but I'm also going to apply for a couple of  other dissertation fellowship programs whose host institutions are in the Northeast.

They're super competitive, so it may be a long shot.  But I'm kind of feeling the idea of moving to get a change of scene to wrap this puppy up.

I won't be in a position to consider something like that for next year if I don't do what I need to do this year, though.  I must get myself together.

Interlibrary Loan or Whose Type Am I?

Interlibrary Loan is a wonderful thing for grad students.  Does your university library not have some obscure book that you need to read for your comprehensive exams?  Never fear.  Some other university library will send it to you.  For free.  As long as you give it back by the due date.  Oh, and by the way, there are no renewals.  So let's say you're halfway done with an Interlibrary Loan book.  Let's say today is September 10.  Let's say the due date is September 11.  Better read like the dickens!  Fie! The conundrums I createth for mineself.

Anyway, I've been musing over the fact that I've been surprised a couple of times about the idea of who's my "type," or rather, whose "type" I would be.  I'm coming to realize that maybe the whole idea of "type" is made up.

I believe that my type is someone tall (need this be elaborated upon?), someone with dark features (not necessarily black, but at least some kind of ethnic flavor in the mix), bespectacled (because I think it makes guys look mild-mannered and smart, which, to me, strikes just the right balance between adorable and hot), a Colgate smile (messed up grills need not apply), and you know the rest: funny, godly, intelligent, linguistically and/or artistically talented, etc. 

However, I have nevertheless found myself attracted to a fair share of short and/or pasty and/or otherwise-not-who-I-imagined-myself-being-attracted-to guys. 

Interestingly, the very few who have made an appearance who actually fit the contours of the physical bill (but not the spiritual) have weighed in on a scale of slightly inappropriate to potentially disastrous.  So, tall exotic men with perfect teeth need to stay home if they don't have the Holy Ghost for real.  Actually, any man who doesn't have the Holy Ghost for real needs to stay home, honestly.  But especially the tall exotic ones with perfect teeth.  Ahem.

Anyway, what I'm puzzled by is the opposite.  Like, the kind of guy I think would be attracted to me.  Not that I think only tall, ethnic guys with nice smiles should notice me. (I mean, not that I would terribly mind.) But I'm saying, people I didn't think would think I was attractive have come out of the blue.  Like, really?  Why would he be interested in me?

I guess that goes to show me that as much as I despise people trying to put me in a box or what have you, I do the same thing to other people.  And maybe it's also a nice reminder that perhaps people you don't know are thinking about you actually are.

Patience

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. (Hebrews 10:35-37, KJV)

So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. “For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay." (Hebrews 10:35-37, NLT)

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (James 1:2-4, KJV)

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. (James 1:2-4, NLT)

On the Bus

Me: (Sitting with two empty seats between me and some other guy, wondering whether I should bring anything to dinner at a friend's house tonight even though she said not to worry about it.)

Guy gets on. He has large, light brown eyes.  Equal parts Nutella and honey. Framed with smoky lashes.

Me: Wow, that guy has beautiful eyes.

Guy decides to sit by me.  I feign uninterest.

Guy: (After a few moments of silence) Hey, how's it going today?

Me: (Looking into those gorgeous eyes) I'm fine, and you?

Guy: Doing all right.  Look, I know you're probably thinking, Oh, my God, this guy doesn't smell too good. I know I don't smell great right now, I was--

Me: (Not noticing any smelliness) No, actually, I was thinking you had beautiful eyes.

Guy: (Obviously not expecting that response.  He smiles.) Oh, thank you very much.  I appreciate that.  And you have a beautiful smile.  You get that a lot, don't you?

Me: (Smiling even more, nervously laughing)

Guy: Oh, I know, you don't want to be conceited about it, but I know you get that a lot.  So, is this your first year in Athens?

Me: No, it's my third.

Guy: (Proceeds to tell me how he just moved here, he's started a Master's program in Counseling, hoping to eventually get into a PhD program) What about you?

Me: I'm in a PhD program in Hispanic Studies.

Guy: Oh, that's what's up.  Definitely out of my league, but that's great.

Me: No . . . it can be done.  (Nearing my stop)  What's your name?

Guy: I'm (same name as particular guy who's been the cause of emotional stress lately).

Me: (Shakes his hand) I'm Chantell.

Guy: Ooh, and you've got soft hands, too?

Me: (Laughs)

Bus pulls up to my stop. I get up to go.

Guy: Yeah, you've got to get away from me.

Me: (Laughs)

Guy: Okay, have a good one.

Me: You, too.

The Me I (Don't) Want to Be

Sometimes I'm the me I want to be, and sometimes I'm just not.

Ugh.  I am so not right now.  Right now I am sluggish.  I want to cry.  I want to sleep.  I do not want to do my hair.  I want to watch back-to-back episodes of Chopped online and I don't want to do anything else.  I want to eat more and more Haagen-Dazs pineapple coconut ice cream.  I want to sit on my couch, wrapped up in my fluffy pink robe and eat spoonful after spoonful of straight up Nutella.

I just want to go to bed and hope that I'll feel better when I wake up.

I do not like myself right now.  I feel silly and powerless and hurt and afraid.  I do not want to admit these things because admitting that I'm not in a good spot makes me feel vulnerable, but there it is, being typed from the fingers of the me I don't want to be but am right now.

On the other hand, note that I am tagging my negative feelings with the phrase "right now."  Because it's just right now.  I am quite open to the possibility of things changing for the better.  They often do.

But things are just sucky sometimes, and sometimes you want to cry and go live in a hole for a little while.  Sometimes you just have to feel the pain and the icky yucky feelings, and just slog through it for a little while.

I feel inadequate and like I'm not going to be ready to take my comps in November and heartbroken and like I'm not doing enough.  Yes, this is how I feel right now.

It's just right now, though.

Time and Tide Wait for No Woman

Back home is always bittersweet.

I went home to spend the long Labor Day weekend with the fam.  Being back home, or the closest thing to it, simultaneously reminds me of how things never change and how they never stay the same.

My mom and I were having breakfast at that same Chick-fil-a on the Boulevard when in walks a gaggle of girls in volleyball uniforms emblazoned with the logo of the school where I used to teach.  My first job.  Undoubtedly, those girls were my former students.

"Weren't you our Spanish teacher?"

"We still sing the song you taught us!"

When I first started teaching, those girls were in 3rd grade.  Now, they're in 10th.  You never forget a face.  And you never forget songs taught to you in Spanish in 3rd grade, apparently.

A parent chaperoning the girls' volleyball team who remembered me came up as well.  She said her daughter has continued with Spanish and is doing very well in it.  "And it's all because of you.  You're the reason she fell in love with Spanish.  I can't wait to tell everyone I saw you!"

It made me cry.  For several reasons.  That I made an impact on someone's life.  That they still sing that silly Spanish song.  That I'm old enough to have taught kids who used to be in 3rd grade but are now in 10th.  That I'm still in school myself.

Then, church.  The very same.  A child whose ultrasound video I bawled my eyes out to is now taller than me.  As in, I saw her when she was a fetus and I was old enough to have birthed her myself, I remember when she couldn't walk or talk and then when she was able to do those things, I remember when she would throw herself face down on the floor during her temper tantrums.  This same child is taller than me.  And not only that, she now attends the same middle school I attended.  "Who gave you permission to grow up?" I always jokingly ask her.  But part of me isn't joking.  It's such a sobering, bittersweet thing to consider.

My parents might be moving into a new house soon.  We took a little tour this weekend.  Of course, they deserve it.  They've worked hard and they're now in a position to have a nicer place.  I'm happy for them.  But there's a part of me that fears what that's going to mean.  The house I spent my adolescence in will no longer be "home."  It will no longer be my "permanent address."  And the panic:  Why don't I have my own "permanent address" yet?  I imagine the halls of my parents' future new home haunted by the souls of unconceived grandchildren.

I'm one of the lucky ones whose parents are not so old-fashioned that they would dare let any semblance of pressure to get married pass their lips.  Not once.  Not a single solitary time have they let such a thing slip. (I don't believe my father would terribly mind if I never found anyone "good enough.")  But I can see it in my mother's eyes every time she sees or holds a baby.  I want one.

There's something about going home that makes me see my relationship failures (okay, let's put a positive spin on it and say "lessons learned" instead) stacked up like a tower of multicolored Legos.  I dunno, it just didn't work out. Block.  Yeah, you should have known that wasn't going to work out. Block on top of block.  I thought this one might have worked out, but . . . Block on top of block on top of block.

What's maddening is that though being home gives me this feeling of nostalgic ambivalence, the prospect of returning to my present life is no comfort, either.  Once I get back into the swing, I'm okay, but it's the psyching myself up for the return trip, knowing that reminders of more recent "failures" linger that pulls at me.  Knowing that deadlines and responsibilities await and must be reckoned with.  Time and tide wait for no woman.

What if there were no hypothetical situations?

This is a question mi mejor amiga would pose back in the day and we'd both crack up laughing.  Partly because it's just funny, and partly because the question itself is a hypothetical situation.  I'm a sucker for meta humor.

My brain needs a reading break, so I need to stretch it by sussing out some things that may have been originally based on a hypothetical conversation, but now may be based on the aftermath of an actual one.

1. We're moving on, right?  That's what we agreed.  So, why does it seem to bother you that I'm doing what I need to do to carry that out?

2. I opened myself up to you.  That's not something I do often or easily.  Now that I've been put into the position of having to do a bit of scaling back, as it were, you're essentially asking me to open myself up to you again.  And I'm not eager to do that.

3. Why are you so concerned with "how I'm doing"?  I'm doing what I need to do to get my work done and to also stay connected to people during a more "isolating" part of the program.  I'm auditing a class (seeing/interacting with people, gaining useful knowledge of theory), I'm teaching (seeing/interacting with people), I go to the Spanish and French table (seeing/interacting with people, keeping my language skills sharp).  Don't worry about me.  I can and will take care of myself.

4. So, if you recently "met someone" (thanks for telling me), I'm even more perplexed as to why you're so worried about my not wanting to spend one-on-one time with you.

5. Before you told me about "meeting someone" because you wanted me to "hear it from you," you said you were "still trying to get past the situation" as well.  So . . . let's just say I wouldn't want to be her right now.

6. You're not a "stranger" to me.  We were, are, and to some extent probably always will be friends.  But there's no reset button, so stop expecting things to go back to the way they were.  It's not going to happen.

7. You feel like you've "lost something"?  Well, in a way, you have.

My Texting Thumbs

My texting thumbs are like little eager, panting puppies.

They get all excited and worked up.  They want to text because they have to know.  They want the gratification of an immediate response.

But I have to say, "No, no, no!  Down, girls!"  because what the texting thumbs don't always consider is that sending out that text does not guarantee an immediate response.  In fact, it can inaugurate an awkward, soul-crushing wait.  Or worse yet, no response at all!  Or, on the same level of unpleasantness, initiate something I really didn't intend to start.  Or imply something that I wasn't trying to insinuate.

See, my texting thumbs don't think about all of that.  Because they don't have to deal with the fallout.  They just impulsively text and then go on about their business and then leave me holding the bag.

So, I decided to train them.  I was tired of empty feelings, tired of wishing I had more will power to just keep my texting thumb-puppies at bay.  I just had to will them to stay.  Rather, sit.

I'm happy to report I've met with some success in my texting thumb training.  Positive reinforcement comes in the form of unsolicited received texts.  They're the doggie treat of texting thumbs.

Nursing Home Rock Star

I wanna be a rock star 
But, I ain't got what it takes 
The drive and the determination
And the lucky breaks 
I wanna be a rock star 
But, I ain't got the face 
I wanna be a rock star 
But, I ain't got what it takes 

 —Third Day

Nursing home residents are the most grateful audience members there are.  They don't care what you look like, they don't care what you sound like, they don't care that you're nervous, they don't care that your guitar strumming could use a little work, they don't care if your voice wavers or is maybe a tad off pitch.  All they know and care about is that you're there for them.

I may never be that awesome, finger picking, barre chord shredding guitar maestro.  Maybe I was simply meant to strum out a few humble chords for a few eager, grateful old ears (that may or may not even be able to hear very well).  And that's all right with me.