Finalizing Dates/ Upon Further Review

Yesterday I was informed as to the exact day I will begin the ketamine infusions---6 January. By the point the protocol begins and the tapering of most of my other medication ends, I'll only be on lithium as a mood stabilizer. I hope that's enough to keep me from becoming too depressed. The option of going home for Christmas is available to me but my concern is that by that point I will be feeling in no condition whatsoever to undertake a forty minute metro ride, twenty minute bus ride, two hour wait in the airport, and two hour flight back to Birmingham. Might as well play it by ear.

In this entry, I meant to talk about the wonderment that was today's visit to the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Museum of Art. I also meant to talk about how ridiculous it is that any necklace should be upwards of $200 and more and especially how no artist has absolutely any right to charge over $400 for a creation that, despite the practical application, will end up becoming an overpriced paperweight. I was going to conclude with a brief, snarky diatribe that a fifty year old television, set prominently in a gallery, placed on a wooden petard is NOT art. No matter how much bullshit is provided on the placard proclaiming its merits as a genuine, bonafide precious work--it's still a fifty year old television. Period.

Instead, allow me to enlighten those of you about my crush. Doomed it may be, but it does keep me feeling decidedly and daily invigorated. She who shall remain nameless (the blonde) did not immediately strike my fancy, but a man's ego can easily be stimulated by needlessly in depth conversation and flagrant eye contact. Allow me my fantasy, please, and pray do not tell me I am being delusional or reading too much into the situation.

It took me back. Odd where one's memories will take you against your will.

When I was in seventh grade I remember harboring a crush upon a girl in gym class. Since I was far much shy than I was today I was never quite sure that my feelings for her were reciprocal and I would have never been so bold as to ask directly. After six months of ten minute conversations while seated Indian-style on a rubbery floor, one memorable day we met quite unexpectedly in a computer lab. As you might recall, before the advent of internet, labs were places to create presentations or type madly away into a word processing program. I was doing one or the other that day, engrossed very much in what I was doing.

Working on something, typing away, I was lost in space. I noticed how she walked behind me, facing the monitor in the same direction as I was. Quite unconsciously, it seems, her fingers began to vigorously rub my shoulders. Enjoying the tactile sensation, I wasn't sure what this behavior connoted exactly (friendly or romantic) until I turned around to see a guilty look. She stopped suddenly. The look on her face said it all: I can't do this. I have a boyfriend.

And it was true. She did have a boyfriend, a guy two years older was who attended another school---one whom she saw with regularity every weekend. Our friendship returned with a minimum of awkwardness, but I was always left wondering what might have happened had she not been so faithful to this distant boy. I wonder where she is now. Her name was Blair.