my world is split into several tracks: work, the now, and the past that runs silently underneath everything else.
i'm still up at 1.30 in the morning because of work; i'm trying to finish up a project an intern (of sorts) was doing for us for a presentation tomorrow and i feel like i'm pulling an all-nighter for school.
in the now, i'm feeling a little jangly. because work is increasingly becoming important to me and i'm being asked to be more responsible for things, i'm feeling the pressure; and, when i feel pressure, i tend to shut other things down so that i can concentrate. like - friends.
(to the gals, here's an apology. i'm sorry i've been distracted and not totally 'there.' i haven't been Making the Effort! i'm sorry!)
and keeping the work-pressure company is that guy, B* (to distinguish him from B-, he gets an asterisk!). he sent me an email tonight (he's working late, too); it was bowie's 'rock and roll suicide'. i've tried to decipher why he sent it, but i am too jangly.
and from the past there's S-. (and since he's probably reading, i'll be discrete. or is it discreet? i can never remember what the difference is.) S- is from my past and when we unexpectedly got back in touch early this week, it made me go back and trawl through my journals from 2001. (yes, it was that long ago.) i read about our first date and it made me giggle; it also made me wistful for that girl i was. i was so...ignorant.
so, beneath all the other stressors of this week, there are the side trips i've been taking to Nostalgiaville. on the bus, i think about the first time he and i kissed (on the roof of my building); the time he asked me to go with him to find a computer desk and he dithered about it for so long i wanted to chew my fingers off and run all the way home (and then i repeated the ordeal when he needed to buy a sweater and i waited patiently with the nordstrom salesman while S- doggedly looked for the right color white); then there's the time he sat with me and my girl friends and we made him blush at my dining room table and he was shocked (shocked, i tell you!) at our conversation but later...
and then i find myself in the naughty part of town, in Nostalgiaville. that's where i find the things i remember in the dark. those details.
and secretly, thinking about those things on public transportation, i smile.
and the work and the now disappear for just a bit.
6 comments:
"Discreet" means leaving out details in the name of propriety; "discrete" means separate or apart from other things. So the first is proper, but you could have some word fun with the second as well.
I take similar trips to Nostalgiaville during hard times; I've been known to google-stalk an old lover or two, so I have an excuse to remember what they were like, and what it was like for me to be that young.
Google is the bane of every lover.
a good portion of the guys i've gone out with have suddenly revealed, 'hey, i checked out your dad's website! he's...interesting!' or they've revealed, 'so...now i know why you won't date church guys. fascinating.' or they'll find the thing i wrote a long time ago about online dating and then they'll get all curious. or freaked out that their name was used. (whoops)
nothing dies with google. everything remains. to haunt you. forever.
Sweet memories...
Discreet is the one for the soul of discretion. See the two little e's huddled together, keeping secrets from the other letters? They're the soul of discreet.
that's a brilliant way to keep them, uh, discrete. heh.
if only i could remember the difference between affect/effect...
Although affect can be a noun and effect can be a verb, usually it's the other way around. Affect and action (as in "what does a verb indicate?") both start with an A, so affect is usually a verb of action.
as in 'the crushing loss to florida affected ding so badly she began to drink in bed'?
and 'such was the effect of the basketball game that ding became an alcoholic.'
like that?
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