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too tired for coherency
Jul. 6th, 2009 11:47 pmBonzo peed in the potty this morning. We have perhaps reached a new frontier in more-than-once-daily potty use. Or perhaps we just caught him in a good moment.
Some dear blog readers are likely recoiling at my starting out an entry with potty training. However, I've found a new power for it, as the bulletproof conversational opener with other parents who have children of three, four, or five years old. Besides, if you had changed this many diapers, you'd be excited too. (Perhaps that's why it works so well as a small-talk topic with colleagues.)
Today I had to clean out the desk of one of my colleagues who got laid off last week. I wasn't precisely instructed to do it today, but it became too weird to walk by and see his water bottle on the shelf, his news clippings on the cube wall, and his random unintelligible notes scattered across the desk top. It's been seven days, which is apparently a pretty standard mourning period--I also removed a bunch of name plates from other desks and offices and was met with somber nods from their neighbors, instead of gnashing of teeth (or complaints about why they were up so long). I found a chocolate bar in my neighbor's desk that I had given him a few weeks ago, in hopes of lifting his spirits. It was uneaten and melting in a sunbeam. For whatever reason, this blew a little switch in my brain and suddenly I felt compelled to clean all of my desk after finishing his, and then cleaning the break room kitchen besides. Why yes, I'm feeling a little disorganized this week, why do you ask?
This week's novel was basically high-gloss YA fiction, with the main character struggling for four years to realize that people aren't necessarily who you want them to be just because you wish it so. When I explain it that way, it sounds pretty basic. But the book was compelling, and also tough to read. This week's interactions have really hit home for me how much that is true.
The timer is beeping to tell me I have to go to bed, so this is ending as a much different blog post than I intended. Next time: my Dad's visit, what I love about the ancestral homeland, yarn I have known, and multitasking. Tune in next time.
Some dear blog readers are likely recoiling at my starting out an entry with potty training. However, I've found a new power for it, as the bulletproof conversational opener with other parents who have children of three, four, or five years old. Besides, if you had changed this many diapers, you'd be excited too. (Perhaps that's why it works so well as a small-talk topic with colleagues.)
Today I had to clean out the desk of one of my colleagues who got laid off last week. I wasn't precisely instructed to do it today, but it became too weird to walk by and see his water bottle on the shelf, his news clippings on the cube wall, and his random unintelligible notes scattered across the desk top. It's been seven days, which is apparently a pretty standard mourning period--I also removed a bunch of name plates from other desks and offices and was met with somber nods from their neighbors, instead of gnashing of teeth (or complaints about why they were up so long). I found a chocolate bar in my neighbor's desk that I had given him a few weeks ago, in hopes of lifting his spirits. It was uneaten and melting in a sunbeam. For whatever reason, this blew a little switch in my brain and suddenly I felt compelled to clean all of my desk after finishing his, and then cleaning the break room kitchen besides. Why yes, I'm feeling a little disorganized this week, why do you ask?
This week's novel was basically high-gloss YA fiction, with the main character struggling for four years to realize that people aren't necessarily who you want them to be just because you wish it so. When I explain it that way, it sounds pretty basic. But the book was compelling, and also tough to read. This week's interactions have really hit home for me how much that is true.
The timer is beeping to tell me I have to go to bed, so this is ending as a much different blog post than I intended. Next time: my Dad's visit, what I love about the ancestral homeland, yarn I have known, and multitasking. Tune in next time.
