Entry date: 7-20-2023 – Random Thoughts (and The Bet) – Letters to My Friends

Dear Friends,

I haven’t done a random thought dump in a while. This is the first of five full days I have left in Maine and I don’t know how to really feel about it. On the one hand, it’s not enough time. On another, it’s time to get busy and start a new school year which means going home and getting back to work. Either way, I’ll be 2800+ miles away from my wife for two months or so.

I don’t encourage anyone to try this type of lifestyle.

The first year we did this, I think it brought us closer. The time apart actually improved our communication because when we talked each day, we really talked. That might sound crazy, but it’s true. I am not the best at communicating sometimes and am often lost in my own brain. Being a long way away from the person you love helps you realize that you need to share more and, at least for me, it did.

Last year I got to spend about seven weeks in Maine, so even though it was hard, we had a lot of time together in the forest to just be and do and see things…you know, we got to do all that good jazz. Plus, I started off the school year working from Maine as I was still an online teacher at that point. We had a little dose of regular life up here and that made it a little different.

This year doesn’t seem the same. Not in a bad way, but it just is getting harder and harder to be so far apart. There is nothing dire in those words or a veiled threat to my wife at all. It’s just me saying what’s on my mind today.

*****

On the agenda for today:

A trip to the dump. I love the dump. I find good stuff in the little building where people donate stuff they don’t want anymore. I’ve scored so many books there this summer that I will have plenty to read on my next five visits here. I will also be bringing back a good selection of books for my classroom in October when I come get the dog and car.

After the dump, we are going to the shooting range a bit later this afternoon. It is always fun to shoot some guns in a safe environment and this time we will remember the target. Last year, we didn’t have much to shoot at and it wasn’t as fun as usual.

After that, who knows? We got in the lake yesterday and the water was amazing. I think the water was warmer in the middle of the lake than I’ve felt it to be previously. The boys were having so much fun, too. We rented a little floating thing to pull behind the boat and they had a blast. We can’t go too fast as it is a pontoon boat, but still. Good times!

*****

I’ve been watching Platonic on Apple and Castle Rock on Hulu. I finished Platonic and it was a lot of fun. I laughed at each episode and found it, like most of the Apple shows I have watched, to be very well done. I like Castle Rock so far, too, although I’m only five episodes into the first season (of the two that exist). I think we started watching it because of the Stephen King tour we went on Monday.

*****

I don’t know what the Suns are doing and I kind of love it. I read the news, but that’s about it. Basketball might be awesome this year or it might suck. I suppose I will be exposed to more of what’s going on when I get back home to Phoenix, but I don’t see myself taking up sports talk radio again. At very least, not in the way I used to consume it.

*****

Q and I were talking yesterday about how I am going to decorate my classroom and I’m excited, once again, to be able to really put my own stamp on a room. I have some ideas and I look forward to implementing them. I also look forward to having my class from day one and teaching them how to be a great community.

*****

As Marcy drove to work, her mind was going way faster than her car. The ability to make things happen by just saying, “I bet” at the beginning of a sentence was daunting. What could she do with this new power and for how long, she wondered.

There was something gnawing at her, too.

For as long as she could remember, she was a believer in Newton’s Third Law, which in a way, was also basically karma. She often argued this with anyone who would listen. In fact, it had come up on the very first date she and Paul had when they were in college.

“It’s fucking karma,” she had said.

“That’s crazy. It’s science,” he had said.

“Why can’t karma be scientifically proven? Newton was basically talking about karma the whole time,” she had countered.

This caused Paul to be silent for a bit. The look on his face while he tried to work out what she had laid on his lap at that moment was the spark of her love for him. Paul always did his best to figure things out.

Could he figure this shit out, she wondered?

What was the equal and opposite reaction to each of her bets? Winny seemed to be okay, although there was something a little off in the way she just shrugged off her interaction with Jimmy when they had talked before she left for work.

Had she set anything disastrous in motion by messing with Jonathan or ‘giving’ Billy an ‘awesome’ day? In her gut, she knew she had, but what was it? Billy had Aidan Mann visit in his classroom, which was really weird. As much as Winny might think it was Aidan, Marcy was sure it was really Jimmy.

Would Jimmy visit Aidan/Jonathan? Did he already? She’d have to wait to later to find out, but she thought she had better warn Paul that Jonathan might confront him about the bottles, but how would she explain it?

Marcy pulled into the staff lot at the hospital and decided to just focus on work. People needed her to be present and that’s what she would be.

*****

See you tomorrow.

I don't play with filters very often, but when I do they come up with weird shots like this.