Dearest Rachel –
I don’t know if it’s annoying or depressing to have – or need – a filter on what I say, but such is life sometimes. There was a conversation yesterday that got me thinking about how the three of us would spend rather a lot of time in companionable silence, apart from the noise coming from the television (whether in its original capacity as such, or as a monitor to a computer playing one downloaded series or another). It sometimes worried me that we weren’t interacting with each other as we could be, but this conversation reminded me that there are some people with which a mutual devotion to one piece of otherwise vapid and ephemeral pop culture is the one bond between us in an otherwise divisive climate. As a result, it’s necessary to consume such stuff for the sake of peace and harmony – not ours, to be sure (we watched this stuff because one or all of us just liked the show or channel, as we should), but on a wider scale.
The thing is, if I went into more detail than that about the specifics of this conversation, it would be obvious who I was talking about, and somebody reading over your shoulder would recognize who it was I was essentially calling out – and I would be calling them out, as the pop cultural connection sometimes feels like the only thing we still have anymore. To be sure, we both cling to it in order to maintain that connection – I’m not sure about whether it’s deliberate on her part – so we’re trying to keep the peace between us, but it’s getting more tenuous all the time. So I have to make these oblique references, and avoid any specifics when talking about it all; you might be able to make the connections as to who and what I’m talking about (although given how much things have changed since you had to leave, there’s no guarantee), but I’m rather hoping no one else does.
I suppose at some point, I should try to go into more general detail (if that’s not an oxymoron) to try and offer advice to others how to deal with such a relationship, where depth has to be sacrificed for the sake of amity, and one must absorb a certain sliver of pop culture in order to remain on speaking terms with each other. However, that would be best set aside until this situation resolves itself in our lives. I’m not qualified to offer solutions to a problem that hasn’t been resolved in my own life.
It may be a little recursive to change the subject about how I have to avoid certain subjects with certain people, but that’s how things go these days. Even more so here on the internet, where everybody’s at everyone else’s throat; hey, rage gets the clicks. But as I’m no fan of rage, I need to move on to some other topic, if at all possible. I hope you don’t mind the whiplash too much. Considering that I’m starting this letter in the gloaming darkness before five in the morning (which is weird, because I actually managed to stay up until nearly eleven last night – most of which time, ironically enough, was spent watching videos with Daniel after Logan hit the sack for the night), and I’m debating about how soon to head off to the gym, I think that might as well be what I talk with you about for the rest of this page.
One of the things that’s been a bit of a struggle at the moment has been the fact that I’ve been waking up to find myself on the wrong side of two-fifteen, let alone two-ten. Oh, it’s not a distance that can’t be resolved with a standard workout of the usual reps on this or that weight machine, followed by a five mile uphill walk, but between my foot issues (which are basically cleared up, thanks – I even gave up on the medication after Friday evening, for reasons which should become clear in a moment) and scheduling conflicts, I was only able to accomplish once this past week – and even then, I shorted myself by half a mile, due to time constraints (not so much mine as the treadmill’s, as it won’t allow you to put in more than sixty-five minutes for any given session; sixty minutes of walking, followed by a five-minute cooldown period, as it slows the pace and decreases the incline. You can manually override both, but you’re not going to get any more time on it without starting a new session).
I don’t know if you’d find yourself cocking your head quizzically at the mention of “scheduling conflicts”; while it seems a little out of place, given my overall lifestyle, you know full well about my assignments in the audio/visual booth at church on weekends, so you could conclude – correctly – that this is what I’m referring to. By the time my foot was healthy enough to get back into my routine – and given the fact that I’d put on enough to make it more than necessary to do so – I couldn’t spend that kind of time at the gym.
Of course, there was the possibility that I could use that busy time to do one of those intermittent fasts that I’ve mentioned in previous letters. And, in fact, I did manage to accomplish that for a twenty-four hour period between Saturday and Sunday. However, this being Fathers’ Day weekend, that was as far as I could manage, as the family gets together for holidays like this after church, like we used to do back in the day. Only these days, rather than showing up at one of those Greek-owned diners like Eros or Ritzy’s – neither of which exist anymore – we actually assembled at an actual Greek restaurant that’s only recently opened up downtown. Nice place, if a little pricey; then again, it’s nothing we can’t manage. Certainly, you get your money’s worth in terms of getting filled up.
While leads again to the fact that whatever fasting I did over the weekend wound up getting completely negated (or, if you wanted to look at it more positively, imagine how much heavier I’d be if I hadn’t fasted beforehand!). Once again, I was well over the two-fifteen line when I got up, just like I have been every morning since dinner at the folks’ on Thursday. At least this time, though, I was able to get to the gym and cover a full five miles for the first time in over a week (the walk with Lars, while longer, doesn’t count, since it was on an overall flat surface, with only a couple of bridges to break up the topographical monotony, so it didn’t burn calories at nearly the same rate), but it wasn’t until I stepped out of the shower that I was back under the line I wanted to be.
And I know I’m not going to stay there, either; while I’m going to just head off to the ‘office’ today without bothering with breakfast, Daniel and I have made arrangements to meet Kris at yet another new hot-pot place that’s just opened up on the south side of town (and yeah, this is the third such place within a five to ten mile radius of home that’s opened up since you left – as much as I know whatever you’re enjoying up there has to be better than anything on earth, I wonder if you feel like you’ve missed out on a thing or two by being called home like you were). As with the others, it’s all you can eat – another reason to skip breakfast – but it makes me wonder what kind of effect it’s going to have on this up-and-down, dancing-on-the-line-I-was-supposed-to-have-left-behind-ages-ago situation I’m currently stuck in.
I suppose I’ll let you know a little more about that tomorrow, once I check in upon waking up. But until then, I’d appreciate you keeping an eye on me, and wishing me luck. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 