If life is a "just a series of moments" like Matt Damon's character proclaimed in the Kevin Smith-directed movie "Dogma," then I've had my fair share of moments in airports (MJ confused the top layer of LAX, departures, with the downstairs level- arrivals and made me circle around in devastating traffic picking her up from the airport the other day), one of which was earlier this year in February when my friend pronounced it "not a great choice" to play Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" at an airport.....I agreed because airplanes and airports shouldn't be talking about free falling, but the song may have been a premonition of the stock market, which has been in a free fall for the last month, and other than a few bear-market rallys that sucked me back in and kept my money in the market, in free fall since the beginning of this year. I feel like a drug addict when it comes to stocks: I've been down at the bottom a couple times before and sworn that if I ever made a lot of profit that I'd not be greedy and sell some to preserve profit so I'd never end up at the bottom again.........but of course when I got back on top at the peak I felt invincible, prideful, and that I had plenty of room to buy the dip and keep my money in the market......and lo and behold I'm now at the bottom again. Lesson not learned.
I really enjoy meeting old friends and chatting with people whom I haven't seen for quite a while and catching up on everything, and often it seems like the hour or so flies by so quickly and I just have so much to say that I have to force myself to pause in order not to sound too desperate or cut off the other person, but one thing that I felt awkward about before the pandemic and now even after the pandemic: the hugging: the hello hugs, the goodbye hugs, the "I love you man" hugs, the congratulatory hugs, the obligatory hugs, the comforting hugs, the side hugs.... I fail at all hugs. I guess I just have a strong perception of how other people will judge me or think of me, and I don't necessarily want to hug and do it wrong, or in case I smell bad, or I'm not hugging too hard or not hugging hard enough, if I accidentally make contact with somewhere I shouldn't on the other person's body, it's all very difficult for me, and I often cringe at the thought of adhering to the social custom. One good thing in a sea of bad things about the pandemic.....I can make the excuse of not hugging anymore and fist bumping.
"I used to feel something!" Anytime you enjoy an activity for the first time, it's likely the best time. But there's definitely times when you can ALMOST get that initial thrill back, it's when you haven't played dodgeball for a long long time (over a year), and you get that adrenaline pumping again and the competitive juices flowing. And by "you" I mean "me." It's like I tell MJ (MJ disagrees), sometimes we need to be apart from each other for just a little bit in order to miss each other, and then meeting again will become sweeter. Same thing for dodgeball, same thing for reading Chinese newspapers (oh hey, four-word idioms in traditional characters that I haven't seen for the longest time, how have you been!) and same thing for revisiting fun trivia facts......the first time is the "cool Marsha P. Johnson was one of the leading figures of the 1969 Stonewall uprising...." (a year passes) oh that fact came up again! Those type of minor facts can be really satisfying to re-learn and get that jolt of recognition again that I've seen this before, rather than going over the same clues daily, just expressed in a different type of clue like Lake Titicaca (one of the most used, next to Lake Baikal, Lake Superior, the Dead Sea, etc.) and yes, OK I get it Simon Bolivar and Che Guevarra were important historical figures in Latin America, OK yes fine I've hammered home by now that femur is the largest bone in your body. Tom Petty's backing band was the Heartbreakers; it still doesn't change the fact Free Fallin' shouldn't be played in an airport waiting area for passengers about to board a plane.
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