Nothing Much?

Dearest Rachel –

There’s a story that’s made the rounds online that, back before the turn of the century, when automobiles were little more than a rare and expensive novelty, there was a state in which the only two automobiles within it collided. I want to say this happened in Ohio, which, considering its size (at least, in comparison to others further east) makes it that much more impressive a feat; with all that wide open space, and only one other vehicle throughout all that area, you manage to find and crash into each other? That’s almost breathtaking in its idiocy – and, in fact, I’ve since discovered that the story may very well be apocryphal, which makes a certain sense, seeing as it’s too good (or too ridiculous) to be true.

Still, whether true or not, it makes for a pretty good metaphor for my schedule these days. I tend to think of my days like the wide-open Ohio… well, not frontier; this isn’t 1895, after all. But you recall the drive along I-90 to the island, and the hours of empty space we would pass through. That’s what I think of my day-after-day life being like, with nothing going on throughout each of them… until things crash into each other.

I was reminded of this – and I had to be reminded, since it didn’t cross my mind at the time – Friday afternoon, after we’d picked Kerstin up and were headed out to eat (after doing a little shopping together). Somewhere along the way, she asked if we were doing anything over the long Independence Day weekend, and I simply responded, “Oh, nothing much.” I wonder if it was a reflex on my part, much the same way how, when one is asked “how are you?” it’s customary to respond with a variation of “fine, thank you” without going into details about how you may or may not really be fine at all, to the point where you don’t really even think about whether you’re ‘fine’ or not.

Clearly, I wasn’t giving any thought to my actual schedule, as Daniel called me out on it almost immediately. After all, we’d been invited to a cookout Saturday afternoon by Jeff and Julie, which I’d accepted despite the fact that – and here’s where the cars collide – I was scheduled to work in the booth this weekend, and thus, wouldn’t be able to make it there until nearly three hours into the festivities.

Of course, they were planning on shooting off fireworks, so it’s not like I would miss any of that by being late; the sun would be staying up hours after that yet. So the conflict wasn’t all that consequential. Still, the fact that it existed at all – and here I was telling Kerstin that I had ‘nothing much’ planned for the long weekend – well, you can understand why Daniel called me out on that statement so quickly.

But I’m so used to there being nothing going on that I do tend to forget when I have something to do. Keeping track of social events I always left for you to remember; not only did you have the better memory, but these were the sort of thing that you were interested in, whereas I could – and, to be honest, still can – take or leave them, although leaving is guaranteed to keep me from ever finding Megumi. Not that ‘finding Megumi’ had anything to do with accepting Jeff’s invitation; sometimes, you just have to get out and do stuff, if only to practice socializing. I spend enough time at home doing nothing (especially with my schedule as free as it usually is).

***

For what it’s worth, it wasn’t as if I was the only one who was arriving late; there were several members of the pastoral staff who came over as soon as they finished their teaching duties at one campus or another. Jeff had apparently planned for this, keeping a reserve of both burgers and brats to not put on the grill until our later cohort showed up. For whatever reason, Daniel (who had gotten there while I was at church, at least an hour earlier) made a point of waiting for me; according to Julie, he had even made himself comfortable enough as to fall asleep at some point. Well, when he’s up most of the night, I guess this is to be expected.

As for further details, I’m not sure what to tell you. To say the food was standard cookout fare doesn’t seem to do it justice, but after joining them for various parties on at least a semi-annual basis, it seemed very much like ones we’d been to before (and a little less, as I tried to restrain myself from overindulging). Neither of us did a lot of socializing, if only because we found ourselves inveigled in a conversation with someone who was arguing strenuously on a point that, for the most part, Daniel and I already mostly agreed with (although phrasing his thesis as ‘good leads to evil,’ rather than re-framing what he was referring to as ‘good’ could be better described as ‘self-righteousness,’ did make it difficult to grasp at times); he really didn’t need to make his case so strenuously.

And as for the fireworks (which our token Canadian Luke expressed appreciation for Jeff’s apparent willingness to celebrate Canada even more enthusiastically than the average Canadian – “we leave that up to professionals”), well… several burst directly over our heads, and one in particular spiraled into their neighbors’ yard, causing them to threaten to call 9-1-1 because of the “s#!t in their yard.” One of our pastors’ children called back that they shouldn’t cuss, which was true enough, but it’s never a good idea to reprove someone you’ve already upset. And thus, exercising discretion over valor, the festivities basically came to an end at that point. Still, we’d had a good enough time, and we’re looking forward to a next time; presumably, whatever pyrotechnics Jeff has in mind for future event will be shot off in the front yard going forward.

There’s one more story to tell about last night, but I think I’ll put that together under separate cover. Suffice to say, it certainly did not deserve to be called “nothing much.”