— छह हजार एक सौ बीस —
What can I tell you about yesterday? Not much! It was my one evening all week with no plans, and I walked home, Shobhit made pizza for dinner, and I made chai. The rest of the evening was spent with him working on the "World of Dracula" puzzle Alexia brought over while Shobhit continued listening to MSNOW coverage of the historic midterm election on Tuesday, which turned out far better than I even dared to hope.
It's great to feel hope and all, but climate change is always in the back of my mind. We're all fucked no matter what. At least now we can get back to the business of mitigation, I guess. I'm still glad I never produced any children.
On that uplifting note, I'll say that I also spent some time looking through my "Gabe" folder, which I clearly had not done in many years. I should relabel it "Gabriel," which he has been going as since well before I even met Shobhit, and which I have been calling him for at least, I don't know, 15 years now? I finally switched once he revealed it bothered him. In my defense, it
was what he was introduced to me as in 1995 and what he went by for several years after; and what his mother still sometimes calls him, though she does try to call him Gabriel. The fact that she has to try does seem kind of odd, come to think of it, given that she was the one who gave him the name.
Anyway! During a conversation maybe a month or two ago with Gabriel, his friends from high school who were all having affairs with each other during the first year I knew him came up, I don't remember why. I told him I once drew a diagram of all five of them, and he said it would be funny to see that. When we spoke briefly last night, he didn't remember this at all. But, I had found the diagram and texted him a photo.
Now, I looked through my 1995 and 1996 journals first, as I was sure that was where I had drawn it. But, it was nowhere to be found. So then I thought to look in my "Gabe" folder—I have long had folders of keepsakes for several people in my life, something my mom used to have for both Christopher and me so that's where I got the idea—and, there it was.
Also, it was way more full of stuff than I remembered. The marriage certificate for when I officiated his second wedding, to Kornelija, in 2012 was on top of the stack, and it was a bit jarring to see, as I hadn't even thought about that in ages. It's entirely possible I didn't even look in that folder since putting the marriage certificate in there, now 14 years ago.
I found a couple of other things I had to text him, including
the program for
Lysistrata, the play he performed in while we were still in college together, in the spring of 1998. The program has no date but I must admit I got some use out of Google's Gemini AI because I asked it when
Lysistrata was performed by the listed stage production company in Pullman, and it found a source showing it ran through April 18, 1998. I even found photos of Janine visiting that very weekend, and now I know why: she would have gone to see the play too. The flyer that Gemini directed me to also noted it was Mom's Weekend that weekend. Oh, and I was struck to discover I still had the play ticket stub tucked inside the program.
Gabriel noted on the phone that he and other men had fake erections during that play. I was amazed I had no memory of that, but I
did have a memory of him singing—which he insists he did not do. I think maybe I need to provide him more context, though: his character was drunk and sang along for only one line of a song a bunch of characters in a bar or something were singing. I remember him saying that was the only way he'd do any kind of singing onstage at all. I'm not sure he'll believe it until I find any reference to it in my journal at the time, and I have no idea if I mentioned it. I couldn't hurt to look.
Anyway! Another thing I texted him was
this pamphlet and map of Provincetown from our 2001 trip there. This was another jarring thing to find, near the top of the stack, as Shobhit and I plan to go there for our anniversary next year, and that trip with Gabriel in 2001 was the last and only other time I have been there. There's a ton of stuff in that folder, a lot of it sort of craft papers or notes for projects or stories I made or wrote for him over the years (back when he was the only friend to speak of that I had in my life). One thing I took another photo of, but did not text him, was
this fake pencil drawing created at what must have been a type of photo booth at the Space Needle, in August 1998. That would have been only two months after I moved from Pullman to Seattle, and would have been on their way back from
their 1998 trip to San Francisco. It also would have been one of the first time I went up the Space Needle after moving to Seattle (after two months, I'd be shocked if it were the very first, but I have no other photos from earlier). Even though it only amounted to three photos, this with two photos of Gabriel and Suzy while they were in Seattle, but I gathered those shots into a "
Gabe & Suzy Visit Seattle 1998" (I used "Gabe" there only because that's what he was still being called then) photo album, which was then added to several different collections, including the "
Space Needle Vists" photo album collection, now a record of no fewer than 20—the visit with Auntie Rose in 1992 being the only one older than this that I currently have record of. I would have definitely been up other times, though, so I can safely say I have been up the Space Needle probably somewhere between 20 and 30 times in my life. You might start to get the idea that I love the Space Needle.
— छह हजार एक सौ बीस —
— छह हजार एक सौ बीस —
Oh, one other thing to mention: I woke up at like 1 a.m. last night with horrible heartburn. It was bad enough that I got up like three different times. First, to take an Omeprizole pill, which hardly made any noticeable difference. Then, I googled home remedies for heartburn on my phone, and saw the suggestion to drink a small amount of milk. So I got up and did that. And third, another home remedy, I got up and chewed a piece of sugar free gum for a while. I did this while sitting up on the couch in the living room, and honestly I think just sitting up made the biggest difference—it was always worst while laying down in bed. But, after chewing the gum for a while, I went back to bed and was finally able to get back to sleep.
I'm trying to think of what might have triggered it, and I'm thinking it was the pizza, perhaps specifically the tomato sauce Shobhit used as the sauce base on it. I eat lots of cheese in other contexts with no problem, so my best guess is it's the tomatoes. I also eat sandwiches with tomatoes on them regularly with no problem, so it must be specifically the tomatoes in the tomato sauce.
I had a similar problem in the middle of the night not that long ago, and I wish I had made a note of what I'd had for dinner. I'm pretty sure it was either pizza or pasta though. Whatever it is, I need to figure out what it was and straight up stop eating it. Because this was horrible.
Getting old is so much fun!
— छह हजार एक सौ बीस —
I had my biweekly lunch with Karen today, rescheduled from tomorrow due to a conflict on her end. Then, I forgot to update my work calendar with this change, and I had a meeting with Gabby set up for 12:30, when my noon lunches with Karen are usually an hour.
The Merchandising Enablement Team meeting is usually in the afternoons but was this week switched to 11 a.m. These are scheduled for 45 minutes, so I asked Karen if she could start at 11:45. She said yes, but then she wound up on the phone with Dave's doctor without realizing the call would take half an hour; she was unable to get on the Zoom call until about 12:02. So, my Zoom lunch with her this week was still only half an hour.
We still managed to cover a lot. We talked about our respective vaccinations we've both had to get this fall—"It's like we're pincushions!" she said. It sounds like I still have more than she does this fall: I have already had my first shingles shot, my covid shot, and my flu shot, all on different dates; I have a pneumonia vaccine shot scheduled for Sunday November 15. And then I'm taking December off! My second and final shingles shot is scheduled for Friday, January 15.
Speaking of pincushions, though, after I told Karen in our last lunch that I had taken to sewing shut small holes in my clothes but that I have the damnedest time threading needles, she said she would send me a needle threader. I'm not experienced enough to know that was even a common thing. But then, I got an email from her last week if I had gotten any Amazon packages, having totally forgotten this conversation, and I sent a screenshot of the message to her asking if her email had been hacked. Ha! She assured me it was really her. So while I was at work on Monday, I had Shobhit go check the package room. I did indeed have
two packages from her, even though it all could have fit in one box; she still went way above and beyond, sending me not just a needle threader, but a whole box of different color threads, a pink pouch for holding sewing stuff, and a couple of other little tools for which I don't yet even understand their use. Anyway I took the opportunity yet again, even though I already had over text, to thank her.
We also talked about travel plans, particularly Tracy's and my trip planned for Las Vegas in January. We didn't have time to talk a ton about her life besides all the medical calls she's had to do for both Dave and herself (including a reminder for a mammogram and such, which led to our discussion of vaccines). Anyway it was too bad our lunch could only be half an hour today but we packed a lot into it. Very efficient!
— छह हजार एक सौ बीस —
[posted 1:01pm]
