Home from Work

The last few months when I get home from work at the end of a day, I feel like it has been ages since I was home.  It feels so wonderful to walk in the door, but I can’t remember what it felt like the last time I was there or when it was, even though I realize it was just that morning.

I guess I get so engrossed in getting through the day (school, home visits, meetings, paperwork, etc.) that by the time I’m home it’s like I’m getting back from the other side of the world.

Two Nerdy Things

I did two nerdy things the other day.

1) I made a chart of all the things I wanted to remember from the book The UltraMind Solution.

2) I made a chart of all the books (that I could think of) that I have read, am reading, and want to read in the future.

My inner life felt so organized by my doing those two things.

Renaissance Man

Such-A-One is a Renaissance Man.  I told him so and he denied it, so I listed for him all the things he does well.  They are as follows (and probably a bunch I couldn’t even think of at the time):

~ Write

~ Law

~ Paint

~ Philosophy

~ Woodworking

~ Photography

~ Baseball

~ Personal training

~ Physical fitness

~ Hiking

~ Rock climbing

~ Ultimate Disc

~ Guitar

~ Teach

Sonder

Sonder – n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own – populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries, and inherited craziness – an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Winter

“Winter is the time for comfort,

for good food and warmth,

for the touch of a friendly hand

and for a talk beside the fire:

it is the time for home.”

~Edith Sitwell

Silver Vs. Gold

New Friends Vs. Old Friends

I was telling my favorite 30 year-old man yesterday that I feel myself at a place in my life that I only crave to be with people who already love me. At this point, I said, I just feel even less interested in making new friends.  Perhaps this is me getting older.  I just want to be with people who I know will love me no matter what.

On another note, lately I have been sick.  That same 30-year-old man I mentioned above, has a habit of affectionately calling me a sick-denyer.  By that he means when I’m sick I won’t admit it, i.e. I deny that I’m sick.  Yesterday we were in his living room with his two dogs, Ramona and Karen, talking about my sick-denying.  I said to him, “I just don’t want to be a wuss.”

He looked at Ramona and Karen, laying there asleep, and quipped, “Girls, do you care if Eva’s a wuss?”  He then turned to me and shared the verdict, “Eva, none of us care if you’re a wuss.”

I thought that was super.

How Did I Know?

I gave a little boy a Christmas present today of a pair of camouflage gloves.  He LOVES camouflage, so he put them on right away.  When he realized they fit him perfectly, he was totally amazed.  Immediately he began inspecting the package and when he saw they were a youth size, he looked at me dumbfounded and said, “HOW DID YOU KNOW I WEAR A YOUTH SIZE??”

Believing in Santa

In my elementary school today, the kids were watching The Polar Express while they had an ice cream party for getting their multiplication tables.  During the course of this party, there was a lot of talk about Santa Claus, including honest-to-goodness elementary-style POLLS of believers to non-believers.

Later on, one of my favorite kids (who has Asberger’s, or so it is called for the time being) is sitting there munching on his ice cream and says to me…

Boy:  ”Miss Eva, do you believe in Santa Claus?”

Me:  ”Yes!  Of course!”

Boy:  ”Me too.  I think [Bobby] does too…”

He paused for a moment, looking at his ice cream, and then said with conviction…

“Me, you, and Bobby… we just never stop believing.”

 

 

Advice for a Writer and Everyone Too

“The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

The Big Event

I got hurt playing soccer last night — happily, only a sprained ankle, though I’m on crutches for the time being.

But getting crutches was not the big event of last night.

It was Such A One, who:

- literally, carried me to his truck from the soccer field

- took me to the hospital

- carried me into the ER

- sat with me in my hospital room

- held my hand

- took me home

- bought me pain-killers (cause I didn’t want to use the pain-killer prescribed by the Doc)

- got a cab to go back to the soccer field and drive my car home

- took out my trash and picked up my apartment for me, cause I had left it in a hurry and in disarray

- was just the best friend and help ever