May 23, 2005

May 23, 2005

     My husband thinks I’m certifiably insane for what I’m about to confess. However, I don’t make him eat brussel sprouts, or watch the Lifetime Channel and I regularly run around our trailer in my birthday suit, so he has absolutely no reason to complain.

    I’m not the type of person who writes notes to herself in lipstick on the bathroom mirror, nor did I have a childhood imaginary friend (although that was probably because I lived in holy terror that Jim Logan would come cast demons out of me if I did).  I do talk to myself occasionally and I most definitely talk to my dog, but I figure everybody does that.

    My besetting sin (or schizophrenic tendency) is assigning gender and personality to inanimate objects. Before you think that’s rather odd (it gets better) I also do the same thing for numbers, months, the alphabet and sounds (like notes on the piano).  Most of the time I’m content to tell “A” (a matronly woman who’s married to “B”) to stop feuding with “M” (the town gossip) about whether or not “T” (imagine the character “Buster” from Arrested Development) should be allowed to attend the letter reunion.  As exhausting as it is to manage all these different worlds (the Notes are an especially rebellious group. In high school I tried to tell my mom they were the reason I couldn’t play that Debussy piece, but somehow a note rebellion didn’t rank very high on her list of reasonable excuses) at least they can’t die, be sold, or move out of your life.  Cars for instance:  Jim owned a Suburban while we were at school.  Lots of different memories memories in that car (truck technically) lots of good ones and a few bad ones. I spent a good couple hours in the suburban crying one time when a friend got sent home. You’d think that in a big hotel there would be one safe corner to hide in and sob, but actually the safest place was in that suburban in a remote corner of the parking lot. When Jim sold it last fall, I felt like a family member had died.  I could grudgingly admit the GTI got better gas mileage, and was a faster, more fun car to drive (unless you count the awesome donuts you could do in the Suburban), but it was awhile before I could extend the offer of friendship to her. Now I dread the day when our family will be too big to fit in the GTI and we’ll have to buy a bigger car (I assuage my guilt by promising the GTI never to replace her with a minivan)

     I had to say goodbye to another friend this weekend; a certain red Acura who carried me safely and stylishly from my wedding to my honeymoon. Unfortunately I was influential in her demise, but I swear I was just following orders.