Lost

Tonight was the season premiere of "Lost" - my favorite television show. It was great and now I must insist that the writer's strike end and everyone go back to work. There are only 8 new episodes of "Lost" currently written and filmed. There are supposed to be 16 episodes this season and they are supposed to air uninterrupted and without repeats. By my estimation the writers can continue to work out a deal for another week or two. They will still have plenty of time to write and film the other 8 episodes they lack and stay on schedule if they hurry up. But, they need to get cracking on making this deal and get back to the business of entertaining me.

Furry Alarm Clock

I stay at KC's house when I'm in Raleigh and for the past couple weeks we've rarely seen each other. She's been traveling when I've been in Raleigh and I've been in Charlotte when she's been at home. I truly love staying at her house. I know I need to not impose on her - I feel guilty about it often - but I really do love being there. It's nice to come home to someone else every now and then. It's like when I had a room mate in college. It's just nice to have someone else around from time to time. And then, of course there's KC's dog, George. (He's okay with using his real name, I asked him.)

I've had to travel so much in the past few years that my parents took my dog, Roebling, to their house. Then when my travel schedule started to settle down they didn't want to give him back. I could see all the reasons why they wanted to keep him and they were right so I let him stay there. But I miss him so much, and so often, it's hard to explain. George seems to understand my need for pet companionship. He is always there to greet me when I come in and he is very big on giving me lots of attention. I like playing with him after a long, stressful, and overwhelming day. Time with George is a nice treat for me.

As I was saying, KC has been traveling when I've been in Raleigh. George, on the other hand, has been at home. There was no reason for him to go to the kennel if I was going to be there. We've had a pretty grand time. There's been a lot of fetch, bone chewing, and petting. He also decided he'd rather sleep with me in the guest room than stay downstairs in the master by himself. The only real problem is I think the street light that shines into that room confuses him. More than once in the past two weeks I've been awakened at four thirty am by a furry alarm clock frantically licking my face and begging me to get up and let him out. It seems he thinks that with the lighting in the room that it is about six thirty. Next time KC goes out of town George and I will have to get his timing straight, especially on Saturday.

Sense of Smell

I stepped across a doorway today and transported myself fourteen years into the past. I had to drop off some plans to be copied. It was a smaller set, 12 sheets of 18"x24" paper. I only needed two copies of the set. I had meant to only hand them to the man I'd only met once before and come back for them later. I had meant to stay but a minute on the drop off and a mere two or three on the pickup. Or better yet to have someone else pick them up for me. But it was a smaller set and this nice man said he'd have both copies ready in ten minutes or so if I'd just wait. I couldn't even make it back to the office in ten minutes so I agreed to patiently browse.

I was in Southern Photo in Durham, NC. It's been in the same location for fifty years, I know because I asked today. But I didn't need to ask to have an estimate of how long the store had been the same. It has a feel of days gone by and yet a sense of timelessness. At Southern Photo they make plan copies in a back room but up front they sell a variety of items. They have surveying supplies such as stakes, paint, ribbon, wheels, and equipment. As well as engineering items like scales and other measuring devices. There are also multiple shelves of paint, board, paper, colored pencils, charcoal, and other assorted art and architecture supplies. All of these items, along with the wood shelves, walls and flooring that have seen fifty years of weathering, all emit their own scent. Those scents then flow together in the air to form an intoxicating perfume all it's own.

As I browsed, patiently waiting as the first ninety seconds ticked by in my ten minute wait, I was overwhelmed with feeling. First I felt powerful feelings of love, of both being in love, and all the joy that brings, and feeling loved. I also felt a rush of hope and inspiration as if anything in the world was possible and all the best was yet to come. Finally, I was crushed with an unbearable weight of hopelessness and despair. I had tears well up in my eyes as stood there glancing at colored pencils and I was perplexed, slightly embarrassed - even though I was completely alone and unobserved - and curious as to where this all came from. Until it dawned on me that it was the smell, it was triggering these emotions.

This concoction, this indescribable scent of it's own, is from another time in my life. I fell in love for the first time in college, with an architecture major, and we spent many hours in places such as this one. He'd be picking out supplies he needed to complete a project and I'd be browsing behind him wishing I had classes that used such interesting and creative things. I'd be soaking in the smells and colors and waiting patiently. He'd still be looking at something but make a point to touch my hair or grab my hand. It was also a smell I couldn't escape because a corner of our home where his old wooden desk and supplies were kept also smelled the same way. We lived in an older building and the same co-mingling of old and new scents would create the smell. I would often drift over to his desk and just stand there and breathe in the scent when he was not home. It was in so many ways the smell of unconditional love and possibilities for the future. It was a time in my life when I struggled day to day for the bare necessities, like food and rent, but was still unbelievably happy in my everyday life. I felt very loved and believed that anything was possible. I was certain the best days of my life lay ahead of, and not behind, me. But things went awry, as life often does, and this smell became not only the trigger of those positive emotions but also of the negative.

The brain is a funny thing, it seems to have a music player in it that can be triggered by smells. As if the smell would flip a CD in my mind and the first track would be "falling in love for the first time." Followed by "unconditional acceptance", "love and feel loved", "anything is possible", and "the best is yet to come". Then the CD flips to another genre and the very next song is "life doesn't work out how you planned." Followed by, "why bother to believe", "people leave you", and "life is sad." This was the soundtrack my brain was playing all because of my nose. How interesting that my brain took information received from my nose and turned it into a powerful emotional playlist. I was able to observe my emotional response and delve deeper into what I might learn from it. I've been practicing Buddhist meditation lately and it's made this duality easier. I considered how much I used to love this smell and how I seemed to avoid it. I also realized that I wanted to dash in and dash out of Southern Photo because the first time I was in there last week I was uncomfortable. I now knew why. I also knew I have avoided places such as this over the years even though I enjoy wandering around and looking at the different things.

Why? Why had I done this? Because I believed more strongly in the negative emotions that this smell made me feel than I did in the positive emotions it made me feel. I thought about this for a while and realized that this assumption on my part, the one I've apparently held in my subconscious for the past fourteen years, is not true. What has happened, or has not happened to me, in the past fourteen years has been a direct result of my holding on to that negative belief system. It's a self fulfilling prophesy. I've rarely glimpsed the happiness I had back then because I believed it was lost to me. I've also been unable to sustain those rare glimpses because I thought them to be fleeting. I was certain they would end and thus they did. As I waited for my copies I drank in the smell with a purpose of trying to recapture the positive and leaving out the negative. Could I truly believe with such nakedly naive optimism again? I'm optimistic but am I too hardened by life to truly believe anything is possible?

My rational mind started to tell me things such as "fourteen years is a long time", "but if I live as long as the average woman I have far more than fourteen years to go." Plus, the past fourteen seem to have passed with the speed of crossing the threshold into this store. Why shouldn't anything be possible? Why should I limit what my life will hold? Why should I assume that the greatest love of my life has already passed me by? Just then my plans were ready. I took them, thanking the kind man for his help. He had no idea that he'd given me more than plan copies, but I did. Then I stepped out of the store and into the next, greater, chapter in my life where anything is possible.

Are Russians Right?

I heard a story on NPR a while back that told of how Russians look for a mate. It appears they seek someone to share the miseries of life. Someone that feels pain and the depth of life's hardships in the same way. A partner who will commiserate and be there during mournful times. One that knows the soul wrenching darkness that life can sometimes offer. Sounds dire, doesn't it? They see Americans as frivolous children living a fairy tale dream in their desire to find someone that makes them laugh. The Russian view of American romance is that we are always looking for someone to laugh with - what is that but movie magic, not real life.

I had an epiphany recently where I realized my search for laughter maybe the wrong way to go. I recognized a relationship pattern; the men that have made me laugh the most, that I have shared the greatest joys and warmest surprises - from soft giggles to hearty guffaws, have also been the ones to make me cry the most. By this I do not mean that they were there to share the miseries of life with me, granted sometimes they were, but mostly my tears were caused by my normally charming partner. Makes me wonder if the Russians share laughs at times and if they have greater depth. Maybe they are better off than Americans for maybe they accidentally make each other laugh in the same way we accidentally cause each other pain.

NYE, the flu, and neighbors

My New Year's Eve was supposed to be incredibly festive. Various groups of friends were doing things and I'd been invited to all of them. But we'd figured out what we were going to do and I got sick. I'd had a sore throat since around Christmas but thought it was just a cold. By Saturday I was running a fever, had the chills, lots of congestion, and felt like I'd run a marathon. So, to everyone I've infected with my germs I apologize but I didn't think I had the flu until this weekend. Needless to say, I spent NYE home, drugged up, and asleep on the couch.

That is until I was awakened by the drunken shouts of my neighbor's girlfriend. She is an interesting young woman, white, thick Southern accent, mid-twenties, chain smoker, with long hair styled like an 80's Metal band video star, and the mother of two small girls she lets run around by themselves often. She is similar to the women found on the Jerry Springer Show. She thought it best to tell the whole neighborhood how her boyfriend, a gentleman originally from Mexico, had hit her this evening. She proceeded to tell all of us this by screaming at the top of her lungs outside our townhouses. Many of us, yours truly included, went out to make sure she was not in any danger. She was mostly just intoxicated and suffering from a case of very loud potty mouth. Mind you she is not the only one in the neighborhood with small children. While she does not seem to care so much when, or if, her children sleep my other neighbors seem to have ideas about bed times and other child rearing practices.

Well, Jerry Springer Neighbor Girl proceeded to protest loudly that she wasn't getting enough attention. At which point one of the other men that lives with her boyfriend came out of their place and suggested someone sober (or mostly sober, I'm guessing) take her home. She agreed after much arguing and they left. I then went back to sleep. An hour and a half later, JSNG returned having convinced one of her friends to drive her back. I personally would not have called this other woman a friend. What kind of friend drives you back to the guy that hit you? Anyway, I know that JSNG would call this woman a friend because she did so loudly so all of us could hear. The friend then made the boyfriend promise he wouldn't hit JSNG anymore. Which he did. I think he really just wanted to go inside and not put on a show for all of us to watch. JSNG then proceeded to go on and on about how he may have hit her this one time but he really did do a lot for her. I found out, whether I wanted to know or not, that he paid for her kids clothes and shoes and other items while "their Daddy does nothing." I also found out that JSNG "f-ing loves him, even if he is a Mexican." This was apparently the first time either of them had used the word love and it appeared to make my neighbor, her boyfriend, uncomfortable. He didn't seem to mind paying for her kids but he didn't seem to want to be in love with her. She, of course, was too drunk to catch this but it didn't get by her friend. The friend asked if he loved her and he said, "yeah, sure." He then suggested that the friend go home so they could go in and stop disturbing the neighborhood. (Amen!) The friend was skeptical but she agreed and left and everyone went inside.

Update 1/15/08: The next morning was the last time I saw JSNG. She really should have left him when he hit her. He was trying to tell her all along that he didn't really love her.