tidbits

• Trish calls people Smacky. That's better than Citizen or Comrade or Brother and no one could possibly object to it as they do to Ma'am, Miss, and Sir. Smacky. It's both derogatory and affectionate. It's Trish's and I cannot steal it, but I haven't wanted to appropriate anything as much since RudeBoy's "damb."

• I dreamed a Russian Rabbithound (the "breed" of dog 3SK's Igor was) showed up at my house. His tags told me his name was Uro (?) but despite tags he had no owners. Igor had markings like a German Shepard, but long-haired and droopy-eared, whose paws were attached at the knee, while Uro had the same chassis but even shorter legs and short-hair erect fox-ears. He had an odd little waddle and an odder squat. But he was sweet and gentle with Blake and adopted himself at me, even though one of my dog-rules is that Ears Should be Droopy and Large. He wouldn't be happy in my house even if he did arrive: too many stairs.

• Whyever the fuck, I had "Last Dance" in my head, specifically the line "A woman now standing where once there was only a girl." Perhaps because I move in such tedious circles that until Gaiman's reading last night I hadn't seen that many goths drooping about together since the 1989 Disintegration tour. That and Staring at the Sea are the only Cure albums I own, not that the latter counts as an album. I heard that one of their albums of the last few years (I would have assumed they'd've broken up long ago) approaches Disintegration. Hmm.

• I am taking advantage of departmental absences to use two whole headphones. Disintegration and now Leonard Cohen.

• Despite my musical choices I'm perfectly fine. Craving for breakfast for lunch replaced last night's ravenous desire, but when Minne and Lou and I got to the restaurant (the sort that has breakfast all day), I got a bacon guacamole burger instead of blueberry pancakes. I primarily wanted the bacon, so that was okay, but bacon and guacamole and two servings of red meat in less than 24 hours? Yum. I got through the afternoon without raiding anyone's chocolate, though I skipped the gym.

• My sister had never heard of "eleventy-first," poor little non-Tolkien-reader. She liked it enough to use it but couldn't remember it well enough to say anything but "eleventy-tenth."
  

crippled by nostalgia

Maybe I don't want to be, anymore.

When I happened to be going home for Nisou's wedding in 1996, I looked up someone from my class whom I knew lived in town and asked whether the class of 1986 was going to have a reunion. She said, "Good idea," and took it from there. I created a page listing our names and some things I thought anyone from Lyme or Old Lyme might google if noodling about for their school.

Now we're drawing near a 20th and my contribution to the reunion is the page and googling contact information. I found one fellow's fundraising page for a marathon he's running. What makes me sad is how many of his sponsors are our classmates--people he is still close enough to, 20 years on, to ask to donate, while in contrast, I am friendly with 1.5 persons. One graduated with me after being new in 10th grade and another I grew up alongside from nursery school onward until she went to private school and we had had, as Egg said, a fight over a lunchbox anyway.

Eh, Smacky (is that better than O My Friends and Brothers, O My Future Biographers?), I'm not the worst off. We had four people who were new in 12th grade, and at least one moved away the summer before. Spending your 12th year among strangers must suck, as must growing up among the same core group of 60 or so people yet being able to call none of them friends, which I know also happened. If I didn't walk away with lifelong buddies, at least I left with a few shared smiles.

I'm so healthy I shock myself. And mostly don't wonder if I'm being disloyal to my high school self for being so. A little regret in a reminiscent kind of way, but not a paralytic crippling. Wheee.