These are things I have forgotten:
A flash drive at my office that had all of the things I was going to work on tonight.
I forgot the childhood address of my place in Duluth – but not Virginia.
I forgot friends and all of their numbers.
I forgot the name of the girlfriend who played tennis.
I forgot the name of Deb Burgess’ high school.
To tell my wife how happy I am to have her in my life, and how happy I am that I am not alone, and how happy I am to know that we are there to support each other.
The Forgotten Things
Elsie’s grandmother forgot to unplug the space heater before she went to bed. She was lucky that the fire started in the living room at the far end of the hall and that her bedroom was close to the door. The neighbor broke the door down when he smelled smoke and was able to carry her away, but the East Boston triple-decker was a total write off. Maddy lived on the first floor – actually just having moved there the year before (stairs!). It was the whole front of the building that was destroyed. The back part – on all three floors -- almost looked normal. Some of the things not destroyed by smoke could be salvaged from this back part. There was, of course, terrible water damage and because the fire happened in the winter, the house looked like a magical icicle place. (Really quite beautiful in its own way if one could separate the tragedy out of it all.) No one died. A bird did and I think a mouse or hamster on the second floor was gone – but the people all survived.
Elsie was religious after that about unplugging things, coffee makers, space heaters, toasters. She once scolded me for not unplugging my phone charger. I understand that we all take electricity for granted and can really appreciate Elsie’s concern.
"Or Else" is not hard to understand once you get to know her. She is really, really passionate about certain things and on the surface doesn’t seem to care about too many others. But I know that it isn’t at all true. She cares deeply about a lot of things. But the people at her work don’t really take the time to get to know her. She runs the office – not in the supervisory way, but in the way that it you need a form or need to order something or need something for your space she is the one you need to call. As you might imagine the obsession about unplugging things quickly become a point of discussion and all of the new employees are prepped to Elsie’s quirks. But quirky doesn’t mean unpleasant or anything, so when Doug decides that he going to try to make her “lighten up” the stage was set for things not to go so well.
In this case things didn’t go well for Doug. Probably was inevitable. Doug was probably also a dick. Probably was on the football team but never played. Was insecure about it and tried to be the cut-up in the locker room – except he wasn’t funny. Lacking any wit, he had to reply on the shocking or the obscene to get a reaction. He did the ass tape thing, he hazed, and he shat on towels. That guy. And then tried to get out of it all by saying, “Jeez, learn to take a joke!” or “Hey, it was a joke. Lighten up!” Crap like that. Doug equals this guy Dale in my universe.
Let me say that I love Else more than anything else in the world. She cares about the world, gets upset at any sort of injustice, and wants EVERYONE to live in a better place. When I have a tough day trying to decide why square widgets are so bad and why round ones are suppose to be better, I come home to her and she smiles and laughs and wants to make plans that will make our life more interesting. So I’m going to defend her; I guess that my point here.
A flash drive at my office that had all of the things I was going to work on tonight.
I forgot the childhood address of my place in Duluth – but not Virginia.
I forgot friends and all of their numbers.
I forgot the name of the girlfriend who played tennis.
I forgot the name of Deb Burgess’ high school.
To tell my wife how happy I am to have her in my life, and how happy I am that I am not alone, and how happy I am to know that we are there to support each other.
The Forgotten Things
Elsie’s grandmother forgot to unplug the space heater before she went to bed. She was lucky that the fire started in the living room at the far end of the hall and that her bedroom was close to the door. The neighbor broke the door down when he smelled smoke and was able to carry her away, but the East Boston triple-decker was a total write off. Maddy lived on the first floor – actually just having moved there the year before (stairs!). It was the whole front of the building that was destroyed. The back part – on all three floors -- almost looked normal. Some of the things not destroyed by smoke could be salvaged from this back part. There was, of course, terrible water damage and because the fire happened in the winter, the house looked like a magical icicle place. (Really quite beautiful in its own way if one could separate the tragedy out of it all.) No one died. A bird did and I think a mouse or hamster on the second floor was gone – but the people all survived.
Elsie was religious after that about unplugging things, coffee makers, space heaters, toasters. She once scolded me for not unplugging my phone charger. I understand that we all take electricity for granted and can really appreciate Elsie’s concern.
"Or Else" is not hard to understand once you get to know her. She is really, really passionate about certain things and on the surface doesn’t seem to care about too many others. But I know that it isn’t at all true. She cares deeply about a lot of things. But the people at her work don’t really take the time to get to know her. She runs the office – not in the supervisory way, but in the way that it you need a form or need to order something or need something for your space she is the one you need to call. As you might imagine the obsession about unplugging things quickly become a point of discussion and all of the new employees are prepped to Elsie’s quirks. But quirky doesn’t mean unpleasant or anything, so when Doug decides that he going to try to make her “lighten up” the stage was set for things not to go so well.
In this case things didn’t go well for Doug. Probably was inevitable. Doug was probably also a dick. Probably was on the football team but never played. Was insecure about it and tried to be the cut-up in the locker room – except he wasn’t funny. Lacking any wit, he had to reply on the shocking or the obscene to get a reaction. He did the ass tape thing, he hazed, and he shat on towels. That guy. And then tried to get out of it all by saying, “Jeez, learn to take a joke!” or “Hey, it was a joke. Lighten up!” Crap like that. Doug equals this guy Dale in my universe.
Let me say that I love Else more than anything else in the world. She cares about the world, gets upset at any sort of injustice, and wants EVERYONE to live in a better place. When I have a tough day trying to decide why square widgets are so bad and why round ones are suppose to be better, I come home to her and she smiles and laughs and wants to make plans that will make our life more interesting. So I’m going to defend her; I guess that my point here.