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adjectives adverbs prepositions Tuesday night slipped away from me at around six in the evening, but I didn't care about the day ending so soon. With three day weekends a standard for me, a nine hour bout of sleep the first day isn't that big of an issue. Now I can afford that kind of a luxury. Of course this comes from someone with a habit of trying to make it through the day on a mere four hours of sleep. Once again the Leonids were hidden from me. Between the haze left after an evening of rain and a ring of light pollution, all that I could see in the sky before dawn was Orion just above the tree line. I think that Nicole got a kick out of watching me wander around the parking lot with my neck craned upwards. ... Having an exam at four thirty in the afternoon made for a slightly tense day. It was almost as though I had a second shift job which was something that I loathed years ago. I'd look at the clock and say to myself that I had nine hours left to go. Then it'd be seven, five, four, three and so on. Once the exam was over I could relax and get back to enjoying my weekend. The exam itself was the fourth in a series of five and I walked out of the room feeling confident enough. Even though I felt calm about the experience I could tell that that feeling was not universal. As I was walking out the door, I made eye contact with Kate sitting at the back of class. She gave me the most confused and helpless look that I had seen in a long time. All that I could do was smile and hope that the answers magically came to her before time ran out. I might have to talk with her next Monday about what she was thinking when I was leaving. ... On Sunday a voice from my past left a message on my answering machine. It belonged to a friend of mine from high school who dropped out of my life probably nine to ten years ago. I had returned his call Sunday night, but no one was home so I tried again tonight. This time he was there and we did some catching up on those intervening years. Not too surprisingly his current situation in life is a real contrast to mine. The last time that we had spoken he was living with his girlfriend and struggling to stay in school. Basically he was looking for a direction in life. Now that girlfriend has become his wife and the mother of his two daughters. All of them live in a three bedroom house and he has worked at the same job for the past six years. It would seem that he is living the American dream or some version of it. He sounded happy enough and was very much the person that I knew fifteen years ago. As to whether or not we'll get together sometime soon remains to be seen. It would be nice to talk some more, but time and distance make fairly good barriers. Neither of us has the freedom of being eighteen anymore. |