A Girl...

Simon Says - "Off to J.O.E."

I know I haven't posted here in a while, so you've all had to hear the wonderful and often puke-worthy details of our life together from the actual girl. Well, it's all true. We do nothing but stare deeply into each others' eyes all day and all night.

So here's the problem. We will be apart. APART!!!! For about 10 days. TEN DAYS!!!!!

I'm off to Jolly Old England with my mom. We'll be visiting my dear sister who lives in Oxford. I am really looking forward to it - it's been since January since I've seen her. She was here for my birthday, and we spent the entire time driving around the bay area, discussing the strife and misery that was the dominant force in my life at that time. And since then, I've been through so much, gone through complete life revolutions, I'm in an entire different world than the last time we saw each other. We've talked on the phone exactly twice since then, and exchanged a few emails. But mostly, we're pretty out of touch.

This is bizarre to me. My sister and I have traditionally been very close (at least since she was a sophomore in HS and was no longer big enough to beat me up). It's weird to know that we actually have catching up to do, rather than the usual seeing each other and having it be plain old chatting.

She is worried that I am upset with her. She has told my mom that she thinks I am pissed off, or else I would be making more of an effort. You see, she said a few things a while back that she thinks really offended me. They were poorly timed words, but it was no big deal. Sadly, I make her feel guilty about it, and now she thinks that there is a huge rift between us.

It's funny how those things work, isn't it? There doesn't have to be a real rift for a rift to exist. Does that make sense? Two people can just be weird about each other, and in their minds, they both think, "I have no problem with him, he's just acting weird towards me." And suddenly, there's bidirectional weirdness.

(Two of my ex-girlfriends were like this. Neither really had a problem with the other, and each would say, "she just acts so weird towards me... I have no problem with her." What a couple of dorks.)

So anyway, I am looking forward to seeing her again after so long, and catching up, and getting ourselves back on track. Hit the reset button, as it were. And when she sees me as I am today, rather than how I was in January, then we will be right back where we were. I sure hope so.

But travelling with mom... that is another story. She hates to fly, and it's a loooooong trip from LAX to Heathrow. Ugh. And I know that instead of just having a nice, relaxing flight, she is going to want to talk. And these days, talking is always about heavy stuff. My heavy stuff, her heavy stuff.... I would like to just forget about it for a few days, and relax, and have a good time. A trip like this should be nice and pleasant. But it's the holidays, and that means that the spectre of my deceased father will hang over the city of Oxford, heavy as a wet wool blanket, thick as the accent of a drunk mine worker from Barnsley (sorry, I felt compelled to make a topical simile (or is that a metaphor...?)).

I'll have family drama to deal with. That and the very fact of travelling will distract me from the ten days of absentia. Leah, on the other hand, with no such distractions, will be lying (laying?) fetally in a corner, sucking her thumb the whole time. Ha ha, nothing better than distraction!

So I hope everyone out there has a happy holiday season (yes, I am part of the war on Christmas, thanks Bill O'Reiley). See you all next year. Drive safely.