Letter Never Sent

Jody, Phillip, Courtney, and I all saw Return of the King last night at Lakeline Mall for the midnight premiere. It was awesome. It is near perfect, and anyone who has read the books can breathe a sigh of relief that everything was done with care. Go see it!

James Stewart, a good friend of mine from college is moving to upstate New York to be with the love of his life who is studying at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America). She moved away this summer to go to school and now he is following her up there. Score one for true love.

We went to Opal Divine’s to hang out last night. He talked about starting at SUNY in January for the master’s program in computer science and about producing old-school, 8-bit style Java games. He also mentioned a fantasy novel he’s working on for which he studied a lot about castles. He was busy using the lemons from his Bourbon and Cokes to make a spiral staircase on the table. He mentioned something about how they would wind the stones clockwise so that attackers would be forced to fight with their left hands which put them at a disadvantage. Sometimes it gets really quiet when it’s just he and I and I start to talk a lot about myself and my problems to fill the space. Quiet is something I have a problem with sometimes. I was watching myself unravel and blab, so I grabbed a chess board from one of the other tables so we could play and talk and smoke. James, of course, annihilated me.

We decided to go back to my place to meet up with J and play some Risk back at the house. Before we left he said I should read the Tao Te Ching. After we got back to my house I started a fire in the fireplace while James checked in with his girlfriend. Then I baked some cookies (for some reason the last few times James has been over I’ve made cookies so now he expects them and makes cookie comments) and when J got there we started the Risk action going. James, of course, annihilated me. This despite the overatures at making some sort of alliance to counter the black horde sweeping across the eastern hemisphere (J). He was on the verge of steamrolling Jody too, who he gave a chance to surrender, but because she stayed in the game he had to surrender since it was nearing midnight and everyone but me had work in the morning. Of course, I wanted to play another round since I had gotten killed so early in the game. I really suck at strategy.

James had to leave, so we took this picture and hugged. I wondered if I’d ever see him again since he was leaving town Friday for New York. Now I’ll have an excuse to go to New York again.

We had a party for Phillip last night. I was charged with getting him to Sab’s so he could be surprised. Phillip said he thought something was weird about the fact that I actually gave him a time to come over since he had never experienced such a thing. Once he got over to the house to pick me up he forgot all about it since I was all slobbed out. Then we went to Sab’s and Sab opened the door and says ‘Surprise!’ and blows one of those unrolly party horns as he snaps a hat on Phillip’s head then everyone else jumped out of nowhere. The look on Phillip’s face was priceless.

After the food and stuff we played Scattegories then Sab started going through his old clothes and giving them out. He also showed us his collection of ‘Williwear’ which apparently was this big deal in the early 80’s. It looked a lot like the kind of clothes in Weird Science and The Breakfast Club. Phillip, Michael, and I made out like bandits. We all left Sab’s apartment with Banana Republic bags stuff with clothes things. Sab even gave me a black wool suit he had never worn which I will put to good use at the company Christmas party and a pair of Kenneth Cole shoes. It was almost like my birthday too.

I often wonder how much a person’s ability to see has to do with how introspective they are. I think if your vision is deficient you might be more inclined to look inward as your surroundings would appear blurred or would require squinting to fully appreciate. Even if you were just slightly near-sighted to where your vision weakened outside 20-30 feet could it have some effect on the way you think? A weakened sense of vision could simulate a more isolated environment like a bubble surrounding you. I just know that when my eyes get tired, it is harder for me to even look around myself and that this makes me get really lost inside my own head. A lot of the more introspective people I know have really bad eyesight but maybe it is a stretch to suggest a link between the two things.

The Connection had a nice program about quality of life and how having things does not make you happy. Clearly, poverty and lack will make you unhappy, but abundance and materialism does not result in happiness and satisfaction with life. I often wonder if people normally feel happy, if it is a natural state. I also wonder what is it that can make people feel more satisfied and happy. My gut feeling is that social communion, health, autonomy, and work (purpose or meaning) are the basic requirements of happiness.