Quiet heart, it's a quiet heart; it's a quiet heart; it's a quiet heart like a car alarm...

 Hoo, boy. 

My skull is full to sloshing. I have neither the time nor the energy to unplug my ear and drain everything out. This is simply a reminder that I owe myself relief tomorrow...either that, or this is a teaser-trailer to anyone whom I imagine might be reading...kidding myself that folks still DO...to stay tuned!

Consider yourselves teased. 

I guess that I'm just some kind of malcontent who gets paid for having nothing good to say.

I miss you, Nate. Today, you have been gone ten years...exactly. Now, I know I seem only to write when I am reflecting either about sad moments or about the people in them (or both). I write to my father on his birthday and on the anniversary of his death, and I write to you on those same moments of yours. Today, at least, I have something that is, if not positive, at least amusing in my head, and it makes me wish you were here so we could be catty bitches about it (yes, I am aware of the oxymoronic nature of the phrase "catty bitch", but I won't get into that here). 

I was at work on a Saturday (!!!) to administer the entrance exam for students hoping to go to one of the various private schools in the area. Think: microcosmic college admissions process. They apply, they visit the school and shadow a student, they interview...they take the exam. That's not the point. The point is, I was at work on a Saturday, so it would be fair to say that I was tired. It would be fairer to say that I was feeling grumpily cynical (cynically grumpy?) as I zombie-walked through the faculty lounge to make myself a coffee. Side note: how lucky am I to work in a place that provides not only a space to make coffee, but also the espresso-maker, the various coffee types, and even delectable accoutrements of flavor to zhuzh it up? Answer? VERY. That being said, I reached for my cat-shaped Christmas mug (yes, I have cat mugs in various shapes for various holidays, all of them glib references to my old spinster cat lady status with lingua in maxillam). We have no "assigned" spots for our individual mugs, but there is a collective unconscious about whose mug goes where. This unspoken rule allows me to connect to mugs to people. A-'s is his mug from his alma mater, L-'s sports a collection of movie quotes, J-'s has a goofy quote about "no coffee, no work-y", and so on. 

Waiting for my drink to brew, I thought about what steps, if any, went into the selection of each mug. Did they get the mugs as souvenirs from a trip? Were they presents from friends? Did they just blindly grab the one about which they worried least? I know that, at least in public schools, when parents buy "teacher appreciation" gifts (when, ironically, the best gift would be simply raising their kids to be respectful yet curious learners), they almost unilaterally default to "the coffee mug". It's almost as if they know that this job is exhausting enough to require legally-approved stimulants. Maybe some of these mugs are that. What if the mugs were the tiny ways in which we are allowed to express our interest? Our passions? Our histories? Our humor?

Now, here's my question: When did we as a species decide that our interests, more than simply reflecting our personalities, actually usurped them? This is the point I wish I could discuss with you. I have so few connections in my life who are both intellectual enough to have an academic discussion about this "stuff" and goofy enough to want to. I spoke to a "potential" friend about this recently. How does "Ohio State fan" or "lover of all things Disney" become who people are? And what does it say about them to have their identities be such a horrid combination of reductivism and commercialism? 

So...

You have been gone ten years...to the DAY. To you, I raise my kitty Christmas mug that reads "Meowy Christmas" (no...seriously), and my hope is that someday, we sit across one another at a cafe, you looking flawless in man-capri pants and espadrilles, me in a simple-yet-chic dress, and we sip our coffees and discuss these things. If Heaven exists, that has to be it.