Vignettes

Ringtones and old people

For comedic purposes, old people will be everyone over 50. When I'm sitting in a meeting and an adult white male cleanly in the yearly colonoscopy category has "Apologize" by Timbaland as his ringtone, I laugh, I cringe, I philosophize on the universal nature of music. But mostly I laugh. It just cracks me up. What you want to hear in the car and what you want to have ringing during a meeting are usually different. Not as funny as an old white guy with hip hop ringtones but probably just as potentially embarrassing was a David Guetta/Akon's "Sexy Bitch" as the ringtone a peer had which, of course went off during a meeting. Club music during the staff meeting with lyrics? Yeah! Let's do this thing!

Ava's unfortunate event

Because it makes me feel better about my overall stability, I'm going to blame a new medication I started taking last week for the strange and slightly worrisome affect and thoughts that crowded my brain for a few days. I had next to no interest in seeing how the story ended and thought it might be a good time to end it on my own. Not in a tearful terribly emotional way, just kind of matter-of-fact. Like one considers discarding a worn out pair of underwear-it's just time. I'm no stranger to introspection and depression but this was different in a way that had me feeling quite outside myself and curious about how much further I could continue without being tempted to just do it. I felt my parents would be disappointed but didn't even consider my friends-it was really weird. I talked to my wake-up buddy Sunday morning and she was horrified and requested I stop taking the new stuff immediately. There's some kind of warning about suicide risk or something on the medication but I really didn't take it seriously, after all, it's allergy medication. I really can't imagine taking my own life so a part of me wants to experiment, somehow do a double-blind study to see if it really did have me thinking crazy or if I'm more suggestible than I'd like to admit.

Ava and the meaning of life

I'd like to be able to have a shitty day at work without carrying it home with me and using it as a reason to retreat into a place where I'm only stockpiling my dread for the next day instead of blowing off some steam, exercising or accomplishing something real in my life outside of work. I get paid pretty well to be unhappy sometimes. A smart version of me would have more fun with it.

Ava doesn't get it when you talk around having a crush on her

A friend I've mentioned before who makes me feel like the most optimistic, well-adjusted person in any room we share came over the other night. I'm not sure, but I think he likes me. And he might have been trying to tell me but I really have a blind spot for stuff like that. Until after. Then I wonder how in the world could I miss all the signs. If he made me close my eyes and then rubbed my cheek with a scarf he bought me, does that mean he likes me? If he joked about how my hips were killing him too when I complained about my hip actually hurting, does that mean he likes me? When he blurted out that I would be a wonderful mother (seriously were not talking about anything remotely related to kids), did that mean he likes me? When he talked about not being able to figure out what to do about a girl he knew here, was that me? Well friend, I don't know. But I do know if a guy likes me, he has to actually make a move or I am not going to know what is going on.

Advice on giving advice

Maybe called yesterday. He and the girlfriend are having the big moving in discussion. He's a bit freaked out about losing the sanctuary of his home to her to the point he wants to designate a room just for him. That's not terribly unusual and some might even say it's healthy. The issue is after considering all 4 bedrooms, two stories, rambling basement, and deck, he chose the master bedroom. He wanted her to move into her own bedroom. I know. W.T.F.

After a couple of hours of talking this through, I advised him to propose they both move into one of the other bedrooms and make it 'their' space. The master suite would still be his retreat (on this point he would not budge) but he would not sleep there so it would cease to be a bedroom in the inflammatory sense it had become when he didn't want her moving in it. He liked the idea so we'll have to see what she thinks. I'm sure anyone reading this is thinking, if you aren't ready to share the bedroom, should you even be living together but this is Maybe we're talking about. He thrives on being unconventional and does wonder why this girl wants to date him sometimes. I wonder too. That would be a deal breaker for me. We might end up in separate bedrooms when we're 90 but to start there-just not something I think I'd be into. So what do you think? What advice would you have given?