My head feels a little fuzzy right now and it's disconcerting. It's been a weird week, and one that seemed to stretch on endlessly. This is a strange season in the adult world. I've been watching Facebook statuses and Twitter streams about final exams and feeling very, very far away from that. I'm gradually sending out my long-distance Christmas packages, although I may hold off on the rest of them until after the holiday to avoid the endless lines at the post office. But getting text messages from recipients makes me ache to be there with them as they open the boxes and each individual package. Actually, a lot of text messages in general are making me ache to speak face-to-face with their senders. It's so beautifully devastating to have a feeling like that.
Speaking of beautifully devastating, I'm eating breakfast alone right now, on a gorgeous Sunday morning, listening to Straight No Chaser's Christmas album. Current track: Christmas Wish. I'll spare you the eye-rolling gushiness of any real lyrics, but the gist of the song is "I want somebody to love this Christmas." Watching the "12 Days of Christmas" video on the lyrics website makes me miss the Limestones. And missing the Limestones makes me miss Face and Homecoming and shivering our way down to Huggs to watch The Bachelor on Monday nights after dinner, sometimes battling snowdrifts and whiteouts. (And so on and so forth.)
Looks like a white Christmas this year will be nothing more than a dream, if that.
So what's been weird about this week? Plunged into it on Monday in crisis mode, which is a difficult way to start a week. Everyone at the restaurant seems perpetually wired lately, which is not really surprising given the season and the particular circumstances. On Friday everyone in the office dressed up, dashing and beautiful, and rode up to Philadelphia in a limo for lunch at an exclusive city club. I had to look up online what "business elegant" is, and didn't find a clear answer--but I'm starting to realize that it's important (at least for me) to synthesize my own personal sense of style with the Rules of Professional Dress. I work more effectively that way, and I feel more confident and communicate a little more successfully. (How successfully I really communicate these days, with anyone, is up for debate.)
Speaking of communicating, I feel like I haven't really talked to anyone in ages. I did get a heartwarming message last night from a really important person, someone I haven't heard from in years. He is a person I knew for 2 months, maybe, but I do not hesitate to say that he taught me a lot about love. Not in the way you might think, not fiery, passionate love, but how crucial it is to believe that no matter what happens, someone will take my hand and never let go, not until the cows come home, if that's how long it takes, even if we know virtually nothing about each other. Because this is what he did for me, and has done, and neither of us will ever forget that moment in time. I think I can still feel his hand in mine. It's like the phantom limb effect. It really sticks with you.
I miss those conversations. The ones where you don't have to say anything at all and it says more than you could ever say if you kept trying to say the important things forever.
Anyway, the club was gorgeous and FULL of history and portraits of important Americans and Philadelphians since Independence. (Strange that for some people "Independence" brings to mind much more powerful and mixed memories than for me. This is just occurring to me, that "Independence" was so long ago that I have largely taken it for granted throughout my life. Meanwhile, Time magazine named "The Protester" as its Person of the Year, because many groups around the world have been battling for this very thing this year: Independence.)
On my way home my mouth felt parched with a thirst that water could never satisfy, so I stopped to get a smoothie from Coffeeshopcrush. Seriously, this boy must read constantly. It's inspiring, and it's caused me to carry Tuck Everlasting around with me almost everywhere. This book may well end up blowing my mind. Anyway, he told me "not to worry about" the smoothie, and that he's been trying to come up with a book to lend me now. I really cannot wait to see what he'll come up with.
I tried to write this post last night, but my brain was even less attached then. I was sitting with my brother and sister in the living room, watching SNL and reading DamnYouAutoCorrect.com while Thom surfed 9GAG and Maria fell asleep mummified by her blanket. Everyone was saying SNL was especially good last night, and every single trending topic on Twitter was SNL-related, and I definitely was laughing pretty hard, but I don't think I've ever actually watched it before. I've also never been to Philly before. Checking things off my very mundane bucket list.
I guess it's OK to have nothing to say. It's just nice to have somebody to say nothing to.
Speaking of beautifully devastating, I'm eating breakfast alone right now, on a gorgeous Sunday morning, listening to Straight No Chaser's Christmas album. Current track: Christmas Wish. I'll spare you the eye-rolling gushiness of any real lyrics, but the gist of the song is "I want somebody to love this Christmas." Watching the "12 Days of Christmas" video on the lyrics website makes me miss the Limestones. And missing the Limestones makes me miss Face and Homecoming and shivering our way down to Huggs to watch The Bachelor on Monday nights after dinner, sometimes battling snowdrifts and whiteouts. (And so on and so forth.)
Looks like a white Christmas this year will be nothing more than a dream, if that.
So what's been weird about this week? Plunged into it on Monday in crisis mode, which is a difficult way to start a week. Everyone at the restaurant seems perpetually wired lately, which is not really surprising given the season and the particular circumstances. On Friday everyone in the office dressed up, dashing and beautiful, and rode up to Philadelphia in a limo for lunch at an exclusive city club. I had to look up online what "business elegant" is, and didn't find a clear answer--but I'm starting to realize that it's important (at least for me) to synthesize my own personal sense of style with the Rules of Professional Dress. I work more effectively that way, and I feel more confident and communicate a little more successfully. (How successfully I really communicate these days, with anyone, is up for debate.)
Speaking of communicating, I feel like I haven't really talked to anyone in ages. I did get a heartwarming message last night from a really important person, someone I haven't heard from in years. He is a person I knew for 2 months, maybe, but I do not hesitate to say that he taught me a lot about love. Not in the way you might think, not fiery, passionate love, but how crucial it is to believe that no matter what happens, someone will take my hand and never let go, not until the cows come home, if that's how long it takes, even if we know virtually nothing about each other. Because this is what he did for me, and has done, and neither of us will ever forget that moment in time. I think I can still feel his hand in mine. It's like the phantom limb effect. It really sticks with you.
I miss those conversations. The ones where you don't have to say anything at all and it says more than you could ever say if you kept trying to say the important things forever.
Anyway, the club was gorgeous and FULL of history and portraits of important Americans and Philadelphians since Independence. (Strange that for some people "Independence" brings to mind much more powerful and mixed memories than for me. This is just occurring to me, that "Independence" was so long ago that I have largely taken it for granted throughout my life. Meanwhile, Time magazine named "The Protester" as its Person of the Year, because many groups around the world have been battling for this very thing this year: Independence.)
On my way home my mouth felt parched with a thirst that water could never satisfy, so I stopped to get a smoothie from Coffeeshopcrush. Seriously, this boy must read constantly. It's inspiring, and it's caused me to carry Tuck Everlasting around with me almost everywhere. This book may well end up blowing my mind. Anyway, he told me "not to worry about" the smoothie, and that he's been trying to come up with a book to lend me now. I really cannot wait to see what he'll come up with.
I tried to write this post last night, but my brain was even less attached then. I was sitting with my brother and sister in the living room, watching SNL and reading DamnYouAutoCorrect.com while Thom surfed 9GAG and Maria fell asleep mummified by her blanket. Everyone was saying SNL was especially good last night, and every single trending topic on Twitter was SNL-related, and I definitely was laughing pretty hard, but I don't think I've ever actually watched it before. I've also never been to Philly before. Checking things off my very mundane bucket list.
I guess it's OK to have nothing to say. It's just nice to have somebody to say nothing to.
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