Isle of Remote

Had a long talk with Dad today. It was nice but kind of weird. He seems different and I stayed on the course of our regular safe topics - weather, computers, the housing market, etc. We don’t go too deep. Usually he says he has to run and the conversation ends. About 45 minutes in I was wondering just how long we were going to talk. Finally I said I had to go (I was sitting in the grocery store parking lot and it was starting to get warm) and I think he said, “love you”. I didn’t know what to say. He may have even said it twice, but you know how the phone is halfway from your ear to disconnect and you hear the person still talking so you move the phone to catch what they’re saying, but they’re done? So I’m not sure. Normally I would say that I didn’t hear them but this time I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear him for real. I was worried I would have to respond. Selfish? Maybe. But I like to think I’m erring on the side of caution. I mean, he’s never said he loved me before. Not that I remember anyway. I believe he does, but he’s just never been demonstrative about it. My mom doesn’t say it frequently, but she does say it. What’s funny is my grandmother and I said it all the time. I even say it to my friends. I guess my family dynamic is a little conservative in ’saying it’ corner.

Wow. That was some paragraph….

I haven’t written in so long because I really just didn’t have anything to say. I would open up the blog and get ready to post and realize I’m living the boring time of my life (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) and there was nothing to write about. Now I’m coming into the summer of my life and things are picking up.

The weather is beautiful. I love June days before it gets really hot and icky but the sun is nice and bright and it doesn’t get dark until 8pm.

Today I have been fiddling around on the computer - spring cleaning of a sort. Plowing through olf files, updating my resume and making phone calls to friends I haven’t talked to in a long time.

Simplify is my motto for this year and I’m actually doing it. Dropping some old friends and embracing some new ones. Of course, once I made that decision I started hearing from my best friend. Her mother died recently and when she emailed me I called her right away and, because I couldn’t attend the funeral, I had my mother go in my stead. My friend called and apologized for not calling me and checking in on my when my grandmother died. Although it wasn’t necessary - I just accepted it for what it was and that she had moved on to a new phase of life without me - it was nice to hear her apology. Still, I think our friendship is going to be different from here on in.

On another front, I have made a whole new group of friends whom I love and really enjoy spending time with. We get together every couple of weeks and I laugh so hard I usually hurt afterward. I’m also meeting some of my old friends from work once a week for coffee talk. It’s like buttah. My friends are taking such dear and gentle care with me it makes me feel really loved. I don’t have to work hard to impress anyone or be cheery for their benefit - they just accept me as I am and respect what I am currently going through even though sometimes it means I don’t say much. I’m learning listening is a skill and sometimes you lift and other times you need to be lifted. It’s okay.

In college I had a professor with a wonderfully sexy South American accent. Listening to him talk about art was sometimes like listening to a romantic fairy tale. But we were supposed to be learning stuff and taking notes. We were going to be tested on said stuff.

So he’s talking one day about how expressions convey emotions in art and he says, “severe eyebrows with sharp points say dibble” to some people.

You know how you’re sitting in class and you get some information you just plain don’t understand? So you look around to see if anyone else is as confused as you. Nope. Looks like everyone else knows what he’s talking about. Dibble? What’s dibble? You hope it isn’t on the exam and you keep taking notes. Two weeks later he says “dibble” again in a different context and you realize he means “devil.”

Yesterday I was sitting on the common patio of my complex reading a book and enjoying the sunshine when a cute little doggy bounded up to me. He was on a leash so he couldn’t get too close. As he got closer to me I noticed he had these funky eyes - really huge like a cats and startlingly blue. Like a flourescent blue. Scary. His papers may say Lhasa Apso but his eyes were screaming CUJO!

His owner comes closer and little Cujo gets a courtesy pat on the head while I concentrate on looking at his paws, his tail, his collar…anything but those eyes. Seconds later they disappear into the house.

I come back to my place and not five minutes later I smack my hand against my arm and smush a flea! Cujo indeed! A Cujo of the worst sort - he sends fleas to do his evil bidding - sucking the very soul from his victims one flea bite at a time! So beware of dibble-eyed dogs - they’re out to get us all!