A Very Special Lore and Ipsum

Dear Readers, 

I met a man who sparkles and shines.  We met through online dating and went on two dates.  And then I saw this.

He will call me when we get back into town.  Here's the question:  do I tell him why I don't want to see him again? 

One of my godfathers died last night. He had been admitted to the hospital during a weekend trip because he had fallen during the night and woken up in pain. X-rays revealed a massive tumor on one of his lungs, and he died - we think of pneumonia - a day or two later.

Two weeks ago, he and his wife and my parents and their friend Doug met in Boston to spend a few days together (I joined them for dinner one night). Talking to my parents this evening, each of us voiced some variation of "and we just saw him so recently!" My dad thinks this is because when someone dies, we imagine that there are corresponding physical signs which we would have noticed (and what, warned him of?). But it would be a similar shock if he had been killed in a car accident on the way home from the dinner. We just saw him. This leads me to believe that either we have some idea of iminent death as noticeable, or we imagine that there is something talismanic about being with our loved ones. Validity aside, I find it comforting that this is how we feel, for reasons I can't quite identify.

ncc

"not carbon copying." The opposite of bcc-ing, it looks like you're cc-ing someone, but you're not. I think this is every bit as useful as bcc, if not more so.

good news!

1. No more workplace crushes. Too pervasive and creepy (me).

2. Did I mention that I have a place to live in Sept? I'll be sharing a just-renovated top-to-bottom single-family house 3 minutes from the Davis Square T with 3 folks who are moving here for grad school (nuclear science, urban planning & design, and statistics). I love them over email, and I'm really looking forward to having housemates again.

Boyfriends

Our work is not interesting, so A. and I have “boyfriends” who sit on the other side of the floor with whom we have never spoken. A’s boyfriend slouches at meetings and has the surly facial expression of a male model. My boyfriend looks like one of those illustrations of the word “hipster” but also kind and intelligent.

So this is sometimes mildly entertaining. Except I met my boyfriend the other day, and now we’re emailing continuously and he’s not only handsome, kind and intelligent, but really funny and eccentric. And now I am distracted and forget how to talk every time I see him and try to look cute at work despite sweltering humidity.

When you stop and think about it, it’s hard to see how this constitutes an improvement in the state of affairs.

Public Service Announcement II

Friends, if you drink and comment, do so responsibly.

a bunch of asterisks

Some architects believe that buildings should be designed to minimize the extent to which scenic views might be taken for granted: soaring vista of the Pacific on the stairway landing, not in the living room. I think this view has a lot of merit*, and I think it also applies to choosing art to hang on your wall.

I find this print, for example, tremendously both aesthetically and intellectually appealing. I love to get lost in it, and I love to think hard about it. But if it were hanging on my wall, would my pleasure in either diminish?

If I were to see it every day in the context of the room that it was in, I would almost certainly start to find it less arresting. And maybe I would stop looking at it, and instead begin to passively see it, and finally see it without seeing it and have my visual cortex process: “there’s that Ole Kortzau** print I loved*** and bought."

*It shouldn’t be applied indiscriminately, of course: ocean views, for me, are less thrilling (and thus rewarding when glimpsed) than meditative. I’m contemplative enough; I don’t need to be detained on my staircase due to prolonged gazing.

** These asterisks link to his website. More of these kinds of prints under “Serigrafi.”

***Just after I typed that “d” I reflexively deleted it, and felt disingenuous and added it back - and now it seems that this could be the crux of the matter. What’s the difference between:

“there’s that print I loved and bought.”

“there’s that print I love and bought.”

I think “loved” may be used more often to echo “bought.” The mere act of saying something increases our belief in it - is this grammar affecting our feelings? Does the fact that English doesn’t have a verb form that corresponds exactly to the imperfect tense make us, on any level, think we’re done with something we’re not?

And sorry about the formatting. Word.