No emails. How very sad.
I’ve rewritten this entry twice. Two long paragraphs—deleted. Two bulletpoint lists—deleted. My mood is rather wintry, which is appropriate considering the weather is turning. The leaves are pretty much done falling now, instead they dance and swirl and spiral and scuttle. One startled me today by moving exactly like a crab across the road. scuttle, scuttle I had to look twice to make sure we weren’t suddenly at the beach. Another startled me by behaving like a mouse—zip, stop, scurry! The leaves are possessed, it seems.
Another couple of paragraphs deleted. I’m such a critic.
It seems that time, like the leaves, is blowing away. It’s already the middle of November! Where did this year go?? One of my friends who is turning 40 in a year or so told me recently that she keeps stopping in the middle of tasks and conversations and wondering out loud, “where did my life go? how did I get this old?” I remember going through that before my 40th, too, but the problem is, it hasn’t really stopped. I’m not wondering what I’ll be when I grow up, at least, I’ve never really done that. I really don’t want to spend the next 40 years boggling at how fast time flies, though. It’s getting…old.
HAHAHAH! I crack myself up.
Things I Didn’t Ask My Husband to Bring Home From the States But Wish I Had: Chocolate & Peanut Butter M&Ms, 3Musketeers Bars, Campbell’s Chicken & Stars soup, Campbell’s Chicken & Rice soup, Campbell’s Scotch Broth soup, Thomas’ English Muffins
For my first Christmas in Sweden, one of my cousins sent a huge box of presents, mostly baby presents for Martin who was 3 weeks old at that point, but some stuff for me. She knew I loved Thomas’ English Muffins and she sent me a double pack of them. The only problem was that she sent them by boat. SIX WEEKS on a boat. It was a rectangular bag of green mold by the time I opened the box. Very festive!
I didn’t ask him to book shop or music shop or clothes shop for me. He can’t do it like I would. He wouldn’t go into a bookstore, sniff the air, stop in the middle of the floor and close his eyes and breathe deeply, and then move into the current and let it flow him through the store…past the magazines, into the science fiction section, around the young adult shelves, back over to literature, over the course of an hour or more. A short trip into biographies and back out again. A meandering path weighted down by the slowly growing pile of books on one arm. Down, down, down into the travel books, a quick kick and swim into the children’s department turns into another half hour. A browse past the bargain tables, slowly floating past the coffee table books: photography, art, interior design. The pile of books gets so heavy he’d be forced to set them down and go find a basket. Standing in front of shelves, and moving slowly from left to right, scanning, scanning from top to bottom, one finger gently brushing the shiny spines so as not to miss something. An occasional dip down to check the booklist which was printed out in advance. The pile to buy isn’t all from the list, though. There are always pleasant surprises and also the kind of surprises that light up the air around your head. That favorite author has a new book you didn’t even know about and there it is! In paperback, no less!
sigh
Good Things: Slept well; favorite colleague back from vacation; delicious homemade sushi dinner (with chocolate cake for dessert!) with 7 of my best friends in the world; not the last time I’ll see Kathey & Russell before they leave.
Bad Things: Anders left this morning while I was in the shower, so we could only kiss goodbye—no hug ’cause I was all wet…2 weeks—wah!; missed the first session of a nutritional counseling course I signed up for due to timing conflict with previous engagement; found out Anders will be spending the weekend in Chicago. The green-eyed monster has bitten my head off and eaten it with one gulp. 🙁