Playing my Favorite MInd Game.

So, you know that "what if" game you play with yourself sometimes? "What if I had another baby?" "What if I dyed my hair blonde?" "What if we went to Pensacoula insted of Destin?" kind of game? Well, this is my very, very favorite game. Except I like to add a twist, to make it more 6 degrees of Separation like. I like to imagine how events completely out of my control change my life. For example, here is my favorite. A friend of mine, Shelley (she gets to keep her name - she has never embarrassed herself in my presence that I can use to lord it over her for decades to come), considered changing schools our sophmore year in college to go to some place in Ohio or somewhere. Anyway, she ultimately didn't, and she and I roomed together our junior and senior years and various other times since. Now, when Shelley was making this decision, we were just "hallmates." Fellow battlers of giant cockroaches. These are MS cockroaches. As long as your middle finger. They make noises when they move. And I think they fly. They are actually waterbugs, but they look like roaches. Shelley killed one in her hair once, and I can't think of anyone braver on the planet. I would have been psychotic. Back to the story. Shelley did not transfer. After college, she went her way, I mine. I honestly thought we might lose touch, but noooo, we both end up in the Hudson River Valley on a temporary basis. So, the rest of my life is summed up this way,in a phone conversation:

Shelley : What are you going to do next?
Me: I don't know. What about you?
Shelley: I am thinking grad school.
Me: Okay, where are you going?
Shelley: Tennessee. Want to come?
Me: Okay.

I put a lot of thought into my life at that point. But, off to TENN we went, where we lived in a bat cave (basement) where we literally had plants growing out of the carpet and your shoes would get covered in some mildewy substance if you closed the closet doors and the light fixture fell out of the ceiling and we had TWO separate neighbors who were very, very vocal in the amorous adventures. One was a screamer, the other was a headboard banger. It was very, very, very loud. Shelley and I used to sit on my bed and mimic them, but they didn't notice. Kind of drowned each other out. Eventually, I got the worst job of all time, a mathematical technical typist (right above dog euthanizer and cremation boiler cleaner), met Stefan, and well, I am just glad that Shelley didn't go to Oberlin.

So, take a moment and think about how someone else's random choice has changed your life. Kind of cool isn't it? Maybe there is something to that Purpose Driven Life guy. But, I don't think so. He wears Hawaiian shirts and he lives not in Hawaii.

That blog Stuff White People LIke? I pretty much liked it all. They say that white people wear New Balance tennis shoes because of our guilt over child labor Nike shoes. Guess what? That is EXACTLY why I wear only New Balance. They have been stalking me.