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Zones of proximal development

Crazy busy at work these last two weeks. Like, can you get this done today kind of busy. In the plus column: the days are moving quickly. In the minus column: January, my favorite month, has flown without me and I never really got to enjoy it as I usually do.

Also in the minus column: either the busy-ness is causing me to sleep poorly or it’s coinciding with my sleeping poorly. Either way I’m physically, emotionally, tenuously hanging on.

I’ve decided, perhaps arbitrarily and perhaps out of survival’s necessity, that the movie with Crush Girl was by far most likely just a friend thing. I will take it. I would so much rather have her as a movie-going just-a-friend than not, even if it breaks my heart from time to time. A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.

This lyric is probably not applicable or relevant, but it seemed like a good place for it.

One of my friends is moving to the East Coast and it’s a little bit of a bummer, even though I suspect we’re both better off not living so close to one another. I liked having a buddy who shares my birthday, even if we never celebrated it together. She’s a twin, so while I have never shared my birthday with anyone, she’s shared hers with someone her entire life. Not a big deal at all.

I think we’re better off because we are either getting along famously or we’re not getting along at all. It’s maybe the most tempestuous friendship I’ve ever had, and I am just not equipped for it. Because I dislike confrontation, I deal with these weird periods of taking up arms by simply withdrawing. It’s depressing. It would make being friends with her completely not worth it if it weren’t so good when we are getting along.

I’m sad to see her go, and she’s sad to be leaving. I really don’t think she’s going to be better off all the way over there, but one does what one must. Still, a long-distance friendship may work best for us. Here’s hoping.

Too tired for the Friday 5. I’ll get to it this weekend.

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We all need some measure of unwarranted grace

I’m still writing my other year-end reflection and my resolutions post, but I’ll get those up later this week.

Man, I don’t know how to write this but I’m going to try I guess.

Crush Girl and I went somewhere together by ourselves. She mentioned a movie she was hoping to see, and I mentioned that I was going to see it too, probably later, after a few other things on my list.

She messaged me later the same day, asking if I wanted to join her and a couple of her friends to see it. Holy moly. Two things went through my brain on endless repeat at a hundred miles per hour: Oh my gosh what is this and what does it mean? and oh geez I can’t afford a movie this week my budget is super tight until payday!

So bad was my cash situation that I was going to have to take my coin jar to a Coinstar (note to self: use that rhyme in a rap someday) just to cover the movie. Crush Girl asked me how much movies cost nowadays (she commented last fall on how expensive they are) and I said this one was going to be $10 at theater A (it was cheap movie night there) and $6 at theater B (it was cheaper movie night there), but $6 only if she signed up for the free club thing.

She tried to convince her friends to change plans and go to theater B, but they were set on theater A, I guess, so they were going there. She asked me if I wanted to go to theater B. I said sure, but I was equally happy to see it at theater A. I was lying of course, lying through my lying teeth.

Lying through my lying messaging fingers, actually, but the point is I very purposely gave her a chance not to be stuck alone with me and she didn’t take it.

I met her at theater B. I’d been sending Jocelyn the play-by-play as these events unfolded, so while I normally might have been a mess, I was pretty calm by the time I was in line at the box office. I wasn’t going to worry about oh my gosh what is this and what does it mean, and I had enough cash to handle $6 (I’m telling you; things were this tight), so I was just going to go along with it and be nice.

I can be nice, contrary to popular opinion.

She asked me if I had a seating preference, which of course I do, but people were already there, so I said, “I do, but someone’s there, so let’s sit wherever you want to sit.” She chose a typical seat, near the middle, not too far back. I slid in next to her and dropped the armrest on my left. She dropped the armrest on her right, and neither of us dropped the armrest in the middle.

This may not sound like a big deal, but the only person I haven’t dropped the middle armrest for is R. I usually don’t even sit next to Penny or Grace if we’re in a movie together.

I have to say I was a leeeeeettle uncomfy being able only to put my left arm on an armrest, so I sat mostly with my arms crossed throughout the film. This may have seemed a little standoffish, but given the circumstances and the friendzoning, I wasn’t taking chances on being misread.

I just realized that sitting with my arms crossed was in fact taking a chance on being misread, but given the many ways I might have been misread, it’s better to err on safety’s side.

Anyway.

She’s not a movie talker (thank you Jesus) but she did lean over and whisper a couple of questions during the film, which I was happy to answer (incorrectly, it turns out), and those are my two favorite moments of 2020. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. You’ve been a great audience; it was a great year. Bring on 2021.

We chatted after the movie for a few minutes and I walked her to her car, which we discovered was parked a few stalls away from mine and as she drove off, I got Jocelyn caught up via Google hangouts. Jocelyn is super super super super super super super busy with super important stuff (like, life-or-death stuff) so I knew she wasn’t going to get back to me. I just needed to type to someone oh my gosh what is this and what does it mean?

Couldn’t just get into my car and drive home after that. I paced the parking garage a few times and watched a few airplanes fly out of HNL.

I kind of knew how they felt.

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2019 Consumption recap: written word

This year, the number of books I read is greater than the number of movies I saw, I’m pretty sure. It’s possibly the first time this has happened since the year I wrote my master’s thesis, although it’s possible the year before getting hired where I work now at least came close. That was a lean year.

Prioritizing sleep and exercise will do this to you, I guess. Especially sleep. Because I dislike crowds, I favor late movies, or matinees on weekdays. The late movies were tougher to attend while being conscious of my sleep hours, and honestly I’ve missed my cinema time.

The other big reason for my film decline is just what it is for most of us: too much media competing for my attention. Shortly after the 2016 election, I resubscribed to the Washington Post, largely out of a sense of responsibility. Most of my daily reading is a balance of the WaPo and Google News, with the Post usually as my breakfast reading.

Of non-fiction, the best thing I read is A History of Heavy Metal by Andrew O’Neil. I still need to go through my notes, which include bands I need to check out and some history I’d like more info on.

For novels, I may remember 2019 as the year of the re-read. I went back to favorites I haven’t read since high school, such as Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy, and books I read for my thesis but didn’t have time to soak up as I’d have liked, such as Patricia MacLachlan’s Sarah, Plain and Tall, Lynne Rae Perkins’s Criss Cross, and Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard.

Also in the old favorites revisted category: Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint and Danny Dunn and the Swamp Monster by Jay Williams and Raymond Abrashkin. The fifteen books in this series were among my favorites in fifth and sixth grade, and when I saw that some had been converted to ebook format, I had to see if they are as good as I remember. They’re not, but they’re still quite good. I expect to buy a few more in the series this year.

Of course, what took up most of my time (mid-January to mid-spring, I think) was my first re-read of the Harry Potter books, and my first read of its final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I don’t understand people who dismiss the series as mere children’s literature, although I don’t understand the dismissal of anything as mere children’s literature. It’s a beautiful story, and while J.K. Rowling is not especially skilled with the language, she’s a heck of a storyteller. I think I’m going to re-read the last book this year.

I’d like to make 2020 the year I finish a bunch of books I started but never completed. I’d like also to read something from the English major canon I never got to, perhaps something Russian or Victorian English.