Today is my late sister’s birthday. She was the eldest of two sisters; the third of six children. Time is a bitter beast that smothers hope; no matter how long or short, in the end time is capricious. Everyone expects the promise of a lifetime; it is never long enough. I’ve said it all before.
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Mi novia and I wondered aloud the other day about the origin of the word Glazypeau, a name given to a local road, a nearby church, a creek, and perhaps other things. We’ve seen it printed as Glazier Peau, as well. I think I searched for the word in the last year or two, with no luck. But this morning I came across this, extracted from Wikipedia:
Glazypeau Creek is a stream in Garland County, in the U.S. state of Arkansas. Glazypeau is derived from the French “glaise à Paul“, referring to a nearby salt lick.
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I distinctly remember the day, when I was about 22 or 23 years old, that a 30+ year old psychologist with whom I worked insisted to me privately that I had entirely missed signs that a young woman was flirting with me. The three of us, along with several other people from work, were having after-work drinks at a bar across the street from our Houston office. I argued with the guy, who held his ground. “Ask her over to your apartment when we leave here; I guarantee she’ll go,” he said. I did as he suggested. He was right. I should have known. As usual, either I missed flirtatious behavior entirely or I awkwardly misread behavior as flirtatious when it was not. A few days ago, I stumbled on a Facebook feed claiming something to the effect that “here are the X-number of signs that a woman over 50 is flirting.” In all the years since the episode in Houston, I have never been able to tell with any degree of certainty whether someone was flirting with me—quite possibly because it was such an extreme rarity. The Facebook feed caught my attention, though I knew it probably was invalid, just click-bait. Just in case it had some validity, I read the piece. Several of the “signs” seemed like they could, indeed, be flirtatious. But they were some of the same signs I embarrassingly misread in the past. Perhaps they might be reliable indicators of flirtatious interest if ALL of them took place at the same time. Even then, though—with my history of being so dead wrong on those few occasions when I thought I was the target of flirtation—I would need that psychologist to assess the situation. But at my age, the importance of flirtation is miniscule. The fact that badly-written click-bait even nudged my attention is an absurdity.
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Upon mi novia’s recommendation, I watched a documentary last night, The Menendez Brothers. I found it interesting, but I was not as thoroughly convinced as she that the brothers’ motives were entirely as they claim…though I believe they experienced horrendous abuse. Justice is an incredibly complex concept; far too involved and intricate to be fully understood by the human mind. Some acts—even horrible, unconscionable acts—justify forgiveness. Simultaneously, though, justice asks whether different people would be forgiven for the same acts. Like situational morality, situational justice asks us to judge the extent to which consistency is “just” or whether consistency can be cruel and unusual.
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Back to the old ways. I got a call from my oncologist’s office yesterday afternoon, asking me to come in Monday for a infusion of magnesium and an IV fluid drip. Because of another doctor appointment on Monday, I could not commit, so I am scheduled for the procedure on Wednesday. The week is full of medical “stuff.” If I have any hope of completing these interminable processes within a reasonable timeframe, they are worth the demands. If they are are perpetual, I have to wonder.
