Woozle/Jenny/note/010/3

After Egypt do I still feel that "But when faced with reality we back away, Hiding inward. We then wish the thoughts on the page and the thinker elsewhere."? (Firstly – Gosh, what truth! Did I write that? It's the type of thing Ann Simon would write – gut tearing.) Yes but no. No longer. After Egypt I felt real good except for that block at the end w/ the bike – that hurts still and now I wonder why I acted the way I did.

Ann Simon being, of course, later aka Tigger. I wasn't in touch with her yet, but I had already begun to have an appreciation that she was someone worth knowing.

And then she says she no longer wishes me elsewhere. So now we're okay? <puppy-dog eyes>

What she says about the bike here almost sounds like an apology; she admits she didn't have a good reason for reacting the way she did. This was good enough for me, and I'm pretty sure I avoided using the bike in her presence after that one time in Egypt anyway.

Side note: I was actually rather averse to walking, at that age, because I always hated walking along with my parents when they would walk places. If it was at all possible to ride a bike instead, I would do that – riding alongside, riding ahead, looping back, and so on. I later discovered that if I walked quickly – at my own pace – I could actually start to enjoy it. (This discovery happened during a summer job which involved frequent walks across campus to the medical library, to make photocopies of journal articles.)

Anyway... because of not wanting to walk the quarter-mile or so from my house to the entrance to Egypt (and back again... alone both ways, which was worse than uphill in the snow), I might have still insisted on riding it there to meet her, hiding it somewhere she wouldn't have to see it... but I don't actually remember.

I feel real good about us. I had a dream. They say that dreams sometimes help you deal with things – by easing tension I guess. Let's be friends.

Oh man. YES. (Twist my arm.) Sound effect of my heart singing whatever it is that hearts sing about. (Ode to the Vena Cava?) I'm over here in this puddle that you just melted me into, Jenny...

As for telling you I was "anti-bicycle" that goes against my way of saying things that I don't like to deal with. You forced me to say that I was. (and I did, verbally and I believe literally)

Did I do that? I didn't mean to. I realize that wasn't an accurate statement of your feelings, and I'm sorry I forced you into it. :-/

(Every little thing I might have done to harm her, no matter how insignificant, is now magnified a hundredfold. For each one, I have to work hard not to think that maybe this was part of what ultimately drove her over the edge... or this one, or this one.)

(A) Go look up Kaspar in your Deutsch-wörterbuch. If you can't find it look for Kasper or Kasperle.

This was in response to me asking what she was talking about in Note #6 with regard to the "Kaspar" quote (I've linked from there to a source, thanks to the internets).

(B) What do you mean by "conversation or the attempt thereof can get like that." ?!? What are you referring to? I have no memory for what I have written.

...and this was in response to me making a wild guess as to what she was trying to say by including that quote. Apparently I guessed wrong. Maybe it was just free-association, and not a message? I don't know.

"There is so much to read, so much to write, so much to keep the telephone wire busy."

Writing is so much easier as you pointed out in an earlier note. You can choose words carefully – then erase them. The words are usually catchable, but there is a bit of permanence in it. Is this good or bad. If you write in CAPITAL Letters always you can't write in capital letters. MOST annoying. See what I mean? They don't have impact. It's the same with swearing (cursing) if you do it too much it loses its importance. (Incidentally I found myself swearing potently during sign-up. The pressure? I don't really mind sign-up. In U.S. it's easier than in M.S.)

GUTE Bitte!

In "Logan's Run" the series they took the story from the middle. Logan, a sandman, has run with Jessica to find sanctuary. They are pursued by Francis who has permission to go outside the city in these car-like things. Logan & company have all sorts of adventures. They also have this android who looks like a human who tags along – I forgot his name. Something simple like Rex. No relation to Box or whatever his name was.

Oh ja, another thing that parallels Brave New World in Logan's Run – the most important parallel – is them all being young. In B.N.W. they were genetically fixed (no, not that kind) so that they would die quickly when they were about 30 or so.

Puff – sad.

Oh, on the bus on Wednesday – Ellen didn't come to school – your prophecy came true. "What would happen if Ellen was sick one day!"

Conversations? Last year? More like snappy answers with no questions to go in front of them.

Quaker Lake was the magnet.

Nick, put it in your pantry with your cupcakes!

What do Cindy's and Erika's parents do?

Cindy's dad is a mathematician at Duke. He isn't a full professor though he should be. Cindy's mom is a R.N. (Registered Nurse) at County General.

Erika's dad used to work at Duke but now he works at Durham Tech. He is a computer man – I don't know quite what he does. (I guess Cin's pa teaches and stuff.) Erika's mom teaches kindergarten at their house. Haven't you heard her go on about the kindy-creeps?

Mom sits on her butt and plays bridge. (You wanted to know what she "DO".) But seriously, she's a housewife. In the full sense of the term. My family is the oldest in our group. Remember Peter is 25, they've been married for 26 years now. So they married in 1954. Mom had kids and kept house. "She do th' laundry ya' know, real helpf'l like."

You know what my dad does. Dinner-time conversation: "My patient short-circuited." And he really did.

Nick, I always feel as though I have more to say. It frustrates me greatly that I can never pin down all my thoughts. "How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?" But it's not good to pin down all your thoughts. Dreams turn yellow and crack when they've been pinned down too long. If you pin down the clouds, you have none to float free. Let your dreams rule you, touch your fancy, delight you, tingle your imagination.

This concern about pinning down thoughts/ideas/dreams is another theme that came up several times. I think on some level I tended to take it as a bit of an attack, because she often tended to cast me in the role of the logical Vulcan-type person – though in my family, I was actually kind of the emotional one who would say things like "dogs have feelings too".

I think what she was worried about is when people oversimplify a problem by mapping it out in entirely discrete or black-and-white terms, leaving no room for intuitive judgment based on undocumented (possibly undocumentable) personal experience, ignoring anything uncertain as "unproven" and therefore irrelevant, and dismissing the importance of feelings in how people work and what makes life worth living in the first damn place... but I could be wrong about that.