Random Thoughts

1. My older nephew, R., has been sounding like Shel Silverstein recently. We were playing on the "Yellow Submarine" that he had built in the basement. The time came for a space walk to the cardboard rocket across the room. I wanted to stay behind, sit on the trampoline portion of the submarine, maybe do some staring.

R. would have none of it.

"Come with me."

"But I don't feel like it." I said

He sat beside me. "But I want you to come with me."

"But I don't want to. I can see you from here. You don't need me over there."

He sighed and got very serious.

"But if I go over there and you stay here, you will have to say goodbye to me. And I will be lonely."

Jesus.

I got up and walked the four goddamn steps to the rocket.

And the tree was happy.



2. Why are Blue Line cars set up differently than the other trains, with that middle divider right by those queer fold away doors? On my way home last night, I made my way to the entrance to wait for my stop, and leaned on one of the hand rails. The train stalled and jerked back. My muscle memory for the other trains (the Brown or Red lines) proved totally useless as I bashed my head on one of the poles of that middle divider.

And it was no clumsy but adorable bash either. It was a full on, "Wow, she's tanked."

I think I attempted a nonchalant chuckle, like "Yes everyone, I know what I did...I'm cool, I'm cool." But there was no recovery. Just a hyper focused stare out the window, two stops too early, feeling everyone's judgment trickle down the back of my neck.

I had only one glass of wine.

Yet another reason to rage at the CTA machine.


3. I wonder if I absorbed my twin in the womb.

I have heard stories of this happening, the Vanishing Twin - at first there are two fetuses and then there is one, the second being absorbed in utero by the first. Apparently, according to the painstakingly fact-checked articles on the Internet, this is not an uncommon occurrence...something along the lines of 1 in 8 babies start out a pair.

In that watery darkness, I looked into the eyes of my twin and said, "It's you or me buddy."

I am both fascinated and repulsed by this concept.

There is unsubstantiated speculation that those who were a part of a vanished twin pregnancy suffer a great loneliness associated with the primordial memory of womb. They spend their lives searching for the other one, hoping to cure that sense of loss and separateness.

Of course, these people are fools. They need look no further than the whispering tuft of hair that emerged on their thigh last year.


4. I have read what I just wrote and want to barf.


5. Can someone please explain John Mayer to me? There appears to be some big marketing push to offer him as god's gift to music, but every song I hear from him is like the soundtrack to my next dentist visit.