Two Stories About Nothing Important
Just before new years eve I got together with my college friends, people who studied physics with me, as we helped each other through statistical mechanics. Of my college friends, I am the only one who is still single. The rest are all married. They are all great guys and gals, and I love them but I can’t help but feel out of place. They always tell me I shouldn’t feel that way, but it life has a funny way of not working like that.
When we all get together, I don’t have to do much. All of my friends are smart, they’re all funny, so when we get together I mostly sit back, and listen to the show. I really enjoy myself when we’re out, it gives me a chance to listen about really unimportant stuff. It is perhaps the single greatest release I can think of.
I really do enjoy myself, even though I guess it doesn’t look that way. I sit back and don’t normally say much. There’s never usually much for me to say, really. Everyone asks me at some point if I’m having a good time. We were sitting at a really nice restaurant and while everyone else was talking about jobs, families, and the usual holiday chatter, I was picking at some bread, with my mind three thousand miles away.
They ask questions about how work is going for me, how my family is doing and the usual stuff. We never stay on topic very long, because for some reason everyone else has a story relating to, but more extraordinary than what we were just talking about. For instance, when everyone asks how my brother is doing, we talk about that for two minutes before everyone remembers they have more siblings than I do, so they pass around stories of their nine brothers and sisters, etc.
There was one point during the dinner when I kind of felt like I had won, at least a little bit. It must be because we’re getting older, but my friends started talking about the different ways they were starting to go bald.
Sean, my old college roommate, is going horse-shoe bald. His entire hairline is in full retreat. Chad is slowly growing a larger widow’s peak, and is developing a tuft of hair in the front of his forehead. Rana, who along with being a physics major played the trumpet in a latin jazz band through most of college, is getting a case of the Friar Tuck, where the patch on the top of his head is rapidly getting bigger.
I really had nothing to add to the conversation at this point. I didn’t think that was a bad thing necessarily, but it did make me look somewhat smug when I sat back, and quietly started running my fingers through my long beautiful locks.
A few days after new years I got a visit from a friend, rather unexpectedly. The call went something like this:
Her: Hey, are you doing anything on Wednesday?
Me: Nothing comes to mind, what’s up?
Her: Can you pick me up from the airport? I want to come and stay with you for a few days before I have to look for a new job.
The short version - My friend has been having some marital problems along with a mild crisis of identity and she wanted to come and visit me during Thanksgiving. She came by for a visit, it was cool to have some company. The problems she had been having with her husband sent her back to live with her father. During the month of December the restaurant where she works was sold, and she soon found herself unemployed when the first of the year was going to roll around. All things considered, she was feeling pretty crappy.
She had some general plans of things she wanted to do, like go back to college, but there was nothing concrete in place. Now, she found herself forced into action and a little bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. She elected to take a break from real life, and come visit me again in January.
She has a couple other friends in the area, and we met up to goof around one day. We played some pool, and between games, she and her friends would step outside for a cigarette, then come back in, and have another beer. Not drinking and not smoking, I mostly just stayed inside and waited. We talked a lot, but it was never about anything important, she didn’t seem very willing to talk about anything serious, and did her best to avoid any direct questions that I tried to foolishly ask.
The whole dynamic is still very confusing to me. The two of us have very little in common. We both like Kevin Smith movies, I think the similarities end there. I never thought my couch was that comfortable, but apparently she would rather sleep on my sofa than at her father’s place.
The whole vacation from school has put me out of synch. I spent a few days wondering if I was the thing that was really out of place, and all the other stuff around me made sense. That didn't get me very far. Hopefully it won’t take too long for things to settle down. I'm looking forward to getting back to work, it will give me something to do to take my mind off of this nonsense.
When we all get together, I don’t have to do much. All of my friends are smart, they’re all funny, so when we get together I mostly sit back, and listen to the show. I really enjoy myself when we’re out, it gives me a chance to listen about really unimportant stuff. It is perhaps the single greatest release I can think of.
I really do enjoy myself, even though I guess it doesn’t look that way. I sit back and don’t normally say much. There’s never usually much for me to say, really. Everyone asks me at some point if I’m having a good time. We were sitting at a really nice restaurant and while everyone else was talking about jobs, families, and the usual holiday chatter, I was picking at some bread, with my mind three thousand miles away.
They ask questions about how work is going for me, how my family is doing and the usual stuff. We never stay on topic very long, because for some reason everyone else has a story relating to, but more extraordinary than what we were just talking about. For instance, when everyone asks how my brother is doing, we talk about that for two minutes before everyone remembers they have more siblings than I do, so they pass around stories of their nine brothers and sisters, etc.
There was one point during the dinner when I kind of felt like I had won, at least a little bit. It must be because we’re getting older, but my friends started talking about the different ways they were starting to go bald.
Sean, my old college roommate, is going horse-shoe bald. His entire hairline is in full retreat. Chad is slowly growing a larger widow’s peak, and is developing a tuft of hair in the front of his forehead. Rana, who along with being a physics major played the trumpet in a latin jazz band through most of college, is getting a case of the Friar Tuck, where the patch on the top of his head is rapidly getting bigger.
I really had nothing to add to the conversation at this point. I didn’t think that was a bad thing necessarily, but it did make me look somewhat smug when I sat back, and quietly started running my fingers through my long beautiful locks.
A few days after new years I got a visit from a friend, rather unexpectedly. The call went something like this:
Her: Hey, are you doing anything on Wednesday?
Me: Nothing comes to mind, what’s up?
Her: Can you pick me up from the airport? I want to come and stay with you for a few days before I have to look for a new job.
The short version - My friend has been having some marital problems along with a mild crisis of identity and she wanted to come and visit me during Thanksgiving. She came by for a visit, it was cool to have some company. The problems she had been having with her husband sent her back to live with her father. During the month of December the restaurant where she works was sold, and she soon found herself unemployed when the first of the year was going to roll around. All things considered, she was feeling pretty crappy.
She had some general plans of things she wanted to do, like go back to college, but there was nothing concrete in place. Now, she found herself forced into action and a little bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. She elected to take a break from real life, and come visit me again in January.
She has a couple other friends in the area, and we met up to goof around one day. We played some pool, and between games, she and her friends would step outside for a cigarette, then come back in, and have another beer. Not drinking and not smoking, I mostly just stayed inside and waited. We talked a lot, but it was never about anything important, she didn’t seem very willing to talk about anything serious, and did her best to avoid any direct questions that I tried to foolishly ask.
The whole dynamic is still very confusing to me. The two of us have very little in common. We both like Kevin Smith movies, I think the similarities end there. I never thought my couch was that comfortable, but apparently she would rather sleep on my sofa than at her father’s place.
The whole vacation from school has put me out of synch. I spent a few days wondering if I was the thing that was really out of place, and all the other stuff around me made sense. That didn't get me very far. Hopefully it won’t take too long for things to settle down. I'm looking forward to getting back to work, it will give me something to do to take my mind off of this nonsense.