Sunday, October 27, 2024

Stuck

I haven't written—anything—in a while.

In the middle of October, I traveled for a week and a half. I visited Debbie at her home with her family (Mattie and her husband and their two boys, Debbie's grandsons); then I flew on to a city in another state, where Marie was attending a conference. I got back home a week ago.

My last post for this blog was something I wrote on my phone, during the outbound flight. My last post for the Patio was back in July, when Joe Biden was still a candidate for re-election to the Presidency. You may remember that I have a blog about professional topics, under my real-life name, but I wrote that ahead through the end of October so that it would still post while I was out of town. Consequently I have written nothing since that post introducing Fawn. Nothing in the last 18 days. Nothing.

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Dinner with Fawn

This dinner (Monday, two nights ago) may mean nothing in the long run, or it might be a chance for me to introduce Fawn. What's not clear to me is whether I need to. But I spend so much time alone these days that I may have forgotten how to distinguish people I'll see again from those I won't.

Fawn belongs to the professional association I do, and a few years ago (when I hosted a few pizza get-togethers in the wake of COVID-19) she attended one of them. I didn't remember much about her except that she was extroverted and friendly. A couple times since then, I'd gotten emails from her about future events (of which there have been pathetically few), and finally one or two saying explicitly that she'd like to see me again ... in a social way, presumably.

I did wonder a bit about this. Was she just being friendly? It didn't seem possible that there could be anything more behind it. (And now that the dinner has happened, I can confirm there was no hint of romantic intention from either of us.) In the meantime, I have been trying to find people who are willing to help with the Section leadership next year. So I told her, Yes, let's have dinner; we can catch up on news (if any) provided I can try to talk you into a leadership position. She picked a very nice restaurant.

The short version is that she spent much of the time talking about her unorthodox health conditions, why she can't lose weight, her troubles with doctors over the years, and the cancerous tumor they pulled out of her brain last year. (Except for that last, it could have been a conversation with Wife from the old days.) We both talked about our divorces (or separation, in my case), and our kids. She explained some things about herself that she doesn't understand but wishes she did. I even got a few minutes to talk about our professional association. 

Mostly I don't expect Fawn to have any relevance to the topics of this blog. But she seems like the kind of person I sometimes befriend in spite of myself. So let's see. Right now I've mentioned her like a bookmark.