The vicious circle leading back to "me"

Have you ever been asked a question and never been able to answer it?  Not because you didn't know the answer, and not because you were somehow incapacitated, but simply because the person who asked you the question apparently loses interest in the answer as soon as the question escapes their lips.

I've often experienced this in casual chit chat.  The person in the grocery store line ahead of you who has 3 carts full of their next month's food intake piled onto the counter to be swiped one at a time by a woman who can't seem to figure out why her scanning laser isn't reading any of the UPC bar codes, which means she has to manually enter each item on at a time.  "Are you going to get outside and enjoy the weather this weekend?" the customer asks me, a bit uncomfortably, having interrupted my attempts at seeming aloof and examining the details of the candy rack.  

I read this as an attempt by her to ease any impatience I might have due to her large purchase impeding my satisfaction of getting home with the three items I needed to complete my dinner recipe for the evening.

"I guess I don't really have anything......" is about the extent of the thought I am able to verbalize before I hear my voice overlapping with hers.  I stop talking and hear her in mid sentence detailing the exciting time she is hoping to have with her friends camping and cooking out and drinking themselves into oblivion.

I try to not let my facial expression match my thoughts, and continue to smile and nod politely.  She ends the whole explanation of her "awesome weekend" by saying something about fishing.  "Do you like to fish?" I catch her tossing the query in my direction just as I was about to let my thoughts drift back to the candy shelf.  This time it only take my eyes meeting hers and the subtle lifting of my brows, gentle intake of breath, before she has already launched into her next sentence about how her ex-husband never took her fishing and she found out that he eventually cheated on her with another girl while he was out on a boat on some lake somewhere.  

Now, I've realized for many years that I am not, by nature, a social person.  I will keep my head down and read my grocery list of 5 items, fifteen times before making eye contact with fellow shoppers for fear of inducing a conversation like the one just mentioned.  But, it is not beyond my capabilities to have a polite remark or smile ready for any familiar face that crosses my path.  These types of people - those that are caught in the never-ending circle of "me" - do not do well with a polite remark or a smile.  They use other human beings as excuses to talk about themselves.

Them:  "Are you going anywhere for Christmas this year?"

Me:  "Well I might decide to see if my family....."

Them:  "My family is flying to Colorado for a ski-trip.  We're staying in a private cottage in Aspen for a week.  The flights were paid for by my great aunt who has been giving her money away by the bagful since she went senile.  I hope she dies soon because no one in the family really wants to be responsible for her.  Not that we don't like her, it's just that she's crazy and none of us has experience with crazy people.  Do you have any crazy relatives?"

I cringe at the second question twice as much as I cringed at the first.  Really what I'd like to do is start walking away mid-sentence and see if they would follow me just to finish talking about themselves.  

I'm not a social convention expert, but I know it's very rude to appear too interested in oneself.  So here's my little bit of advice:  Stop and think if you really care about the answers to the questions that you ask other people in conversation.  And if you're ever caught with another person in the vicious circle leading back to "me"......try a few different techniques to amuse yourself.  Try out talking them.  Try reciting the alphabet in another language.  Try a spontaneous break-dance.  Try rolling your eyes back in your head but carrying on like normal.  Try picking your nose.  And if all else fails, just laugh to yourself and then go home and write a blog about it.

It's Tuesday, September 11, 2012....

On Tuesdays I usually don't go to work until 9:00.  So it's my morning to be a little lazy, enjoy my coffee a little more slowly, and look out my back patio doors to see the progress of the seasons affecting my garden and its surroundings.

This particular Tuesday we were out of cream for my coffee.  My husband, being the devoted man that he is, ran out to the store to get some.  He doesn't drink coffee.  Sometimes I think I really don't deserve him.  He bought me the laptop from which I am typing this blog.  It's a new thing for me - typing my thoughts out into the cyber universe.  I'd much rather sit down and pour out a good conversation face to face.  But apparently I'm going to be the author of a book or a screenplay someday.  That is the dream my husband and I share just before drifting off to sleep at night.  A large sum of money and we'd pay off our debts, secure our families, and dust off our traveling shoes for a few months....years even maybe.  Who knows?

Autumn is a tough time for me emotionally.  I think it must be for many people.  Parents are sending kids back to school, or to school for the first time, or to college for the first time.  Farmers are watching their crops dry up and get cut down.  Early risers don't get to see the sun at 5:00am anymore and those late night summer outdoor parties are just another thing of the past.  Autumn seems full of goodbyes.  Friends parting ways, and taking steps in different directions, never sure whether they might cross paths again.

This is the time of yea when we hearty people of the Midwest start to rake leaves, till under gardens, burn dead branches, pack away the patio furniture and make a path to the snow-blower.  We know what awaits us in a few short months.

Autumn always seems to conjure memories of the fall days at college.  Moving in, meeting my fellow residents, tacking up my photos from last year on the cork board above my desk, reuniting with old friends, and knowing that some friends were off studying overseas, or even back at home no longer pursuing a degree.

This day, this Tuesday 11 years ago, at nearly this exact hour, we had already been in classes for a week.  I had just started my sophomore year.  I was a Resident Assistant in an all-girls dormitory on the third floor.  I was up and preparing to leave for my first class of the morning.  At that point I wouldn't say I had as much appreciation for the morning as I do now.  I would give anything to be heading to class every morning now instead of heading to work.  (A subject for another blog no doubt)  That morning I can't remember whether or not I had coffee, or even breakfast, but I do remember watching the morning news and seeing the World Trade Center Tower billowing smoke from one of the upper floors.

Many people over the years have given their accounts of that morning and how they felt.  In fact, my Facebook newsfeed right now is full of September 11 references.  For we lucky individuals fortunate enough to not know someone who was directly affected by those attacks, we are collectively thankful and humble in our remembrance of what others had to endure that day.

I can remember for certain that I watched live as the second plane slammed into the second tower (not knowing at the time if it was the North or South tower).  I can remember for certain watching, again live, as the towers crumbled into dust and fell to the ground.  I remember watching the plane hit the tower on my TV in my dorm.  I watched the towers hit the ground on the TV that the college had placed in the campus cafeteria building.  I was in a crowd of on-lookers who made a collective gasp as they watched the pieces come to the earth, knowing that people were still inside.  Knowing what it meant was happening to those people.  And knowing that they were here, in Wisconsin, far away from it all.

Eleven years later and you would think those collective emotions from that morning might still have healing power.  Power to unite.  Eleven years later and we are in the middle of one of the most brutal (and in my opinion embarrassing) presidential elections this country has seen.  Eleven years later and the phrase "September 11th" when said aloud brings a very sharp image to most people's minds.  It's no longer just a date, it's an historic event.  Eleven years later and politicians still use the date to ignite a crowd.  I wonder if that happened much with Pearl Harbor still in 1952?  For some reason I don't think so.

How trying it must be on a nation to not be able to let go.  The most common slogan attached to September 11, 2001 is "Never Forget."  Personally I don't see how that would ever be possible.  But I wonder sometimes if that phrase doesn't make it just a little challenging for us to let go.