netting odd particles

If I had an expert commenter who popped in every once in a while to explain me to the rest of my audience, I'd wonder how the fuck do they know? Let me tell you something. I don't know myself that well. I cut through the thick summer air of my mind with a billowing net. Most of the time I catch an odd dandelion fluff, a particle, or a shriveled leaf from last fall, but still, I persist with the broad swoops and every once in a while I surprise myself. Or maybe it's more like a baffle system of air filtration. I picture air moving, lazy and uncoordinated, through convoluted metal vents. Which for some reason makes me think of the other day in the supermarket. I could have sworn I overheard someone talking about a "suprise boob job". I would think that would be hard to spring on someone. See? Odd fluff. Particles.

I don't have very many letters left on my mac keyboard. E,I,O,A,S,H,L,C,N, and M. Gone. They must be popular. They wore away and none of my friends want to go near my computer anymore, which is fine with me. Even better. I'm always afraid I'll leave something open that I don't want them to see. The other unintentional perk with this product flaw is that slowly, as one letter after another wore away, I was forced to memorize the keyboard. Now I barely have to look down when I type. And they told me in high school I was stupid for not to take typing class. Typing class!!! Ha! Obsolete.

I've fallen in love with my friend's babies. I see them regularly. I love the time I spend with them, but they trigger my anxiety. I think my concerns are mostly neurotic, fed by my experience working with critically ill children who really had the worst case scenario; you know, the one it could never be.

The other day I nudged my friend's sleeping baby when no one was looking because she was so peaceful, for a second I thought she was dead. One of my girlfriends sent me a photograph of her baby at about a month old. In it there was a white reflection in one of the baby's eyes. There's a rare cancer of the eye in newborns that presents in this very way, and so I scoured through photos until I was 100% convinced there was not one other suspicious shot. My other friends baby has a tendency to only look in one direction; a mild and common muscular problem of newborns, so I told her mom to ask her pediatrician what to do to stretch the muscles and enourage full range of motion. I always play it calm. I almost never give unsolicited opinions and so a gentle nudge to see her baby's health care provider is more than enough. The problem in this case is that I sometimes feel that when I'm holding her, her spine isn't straight. Maybe that's just a cascade effect from the posture of her neck, but I keep worrying it's more. She sees a pediatrician regularly, so it's really not my responsibility to be pointing everything out. Sometimes I find myself running my fingers down her spine when I'm holding her, but it's hard to palpate it properly without turning her over and taking off her clothes and I'm trying not to get involved. I'm a little saturated in these sorts of things.

I guess with all of this I feel like I'm back in the ICU and I'm looking at an ominous ECG. It's a visceral frozen kind of fear. I know it's an over-reaction. I know it's irrational. So I suck it up.

I just talked to this new guy and he seemed really nice, but he said, "fair enough" after everything I said, which was annoying. As I hung up a whole weight lifted from my shoulders. I mean, we've been playing phone tag for days and it was a real burden for me. A chore. A task. It's stupid really. It doesn't make sense, but in dating, before I get to know someone new, I feel threatened or like I'm under seige; like these guys are just out to take something from me, and I find it hard to pretend I'm ok with it.

Fair enough?

The End.