"don't hold us back, we're the story you tell."
2002-09-16 5:10 p.m.

lately, when i walk, i consciously look down at my feet.

it started when my dad told me this little joke about.. how can you tell an extroverted engineer from an introverted one? ...the extrovert looks at somebody else's shoes while he walks. i thought it was sweet.

then my dad had to go on to tell me another one about engineers and a stripper. i wish he wouldn't do that. i talk to him a handful of times during the year... and the best things he has to tell his daughter include dirty jokes? sigh. they also include bragging about his salary and his profession (neuroscience). they also include telling me he loves me. and calling me back when he's been too self absorbed in the whole conversation to ask how i've been doing. i love that. i love my dad. even if he's kind helplessly himself.

he's starting a new medication, interferon i think. for hepatitis c. my dad is a player. a 65 year old player. he swears he got the hep from a blood transfusion, but he hasn't had any of those as long as i've been alive. its possible he got it through work, but i secretly think he got it through dirty dad sex.

so he called to tell me that the medication might make him "depressed" and that the nurse told him that it was good to have family check up on you when you're in that state. i didn't tell him that mom calls crying every other day. or that i was just prescribed zoloft. which i don't think i need.

so i'm kind of worried about him. but he has a small harem and a countless number of nra friends. a dog and lots of work.

and i'm kind of worried about micah. who i heard from in an email. who wrote i wouldn't hear from him any more. and that it wouldn't be due to a suicide but a decision. micah's good at making decisions. i should have learned a lot from him in that area.

i'm kind of worried about ben who is home with a cold today, today his day off since he started working saturdays. i made him laugh on the phone. i kept telling him i pooped my pants. and variations of that. i was being sincere.

so i walk looking at my shoes now. just because its something to look at, i don't have to pretend to avert my attention from anything - the homeless man at the bus stop everyday, the overweight girl jogging in spandex, the worm house people and their compost. its just makes things simpler. but its not as easy as you'd think it would be. i'm always surprised at how quickly the same shoe marches back into my vision again. its difficult to keep track. my feet are relentless.

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