Sharon

I had a very long lunch today with my friend, Sharon so that's what this blog will be primarily about. Having said that I will completey change the subject and throw in two non sequiturs. Mount St. Helens erupted again today. It was again a minor eruption but the first lava flow was visible last night. For the other non-sequiter, I will say that the second Illinois Senatorial debate was tonight. It was a radio event and unfortunately my stereo can't pick up the station that carried it well so I didn't get to here it. I am sure that it will show up on the internet so I can listen to it later. I did find a blog of someone who listened to it and it sounds as if Alan Keyes again went off the deep end.

And now on to Sharon... I met her last September at an SASC volunteer event. We were making dinner at Lincoln Park Community Shelter. She was wearing blue jeans and a purple T-shirt that said Algebra is for Lovers. Because of the T-shirt, I had to guess that she was a math teacher. I was very wrong. She said she got the shirt because she thought it was cool and that she worked as a record promoter for EMI. She immediately became the coolest chick ever. I love music and I thought it was really cool that she worked with one of the bands that I really liked, Fountains of Wayne. It seemed, however, that she was seeing someone in the group. That was fine, she was very friendly and I could still be friends with her. In later months, I found out she lived in Rolling Meadows which is relatively close. Up until Christmas, I was only running into her at volunteer events. She did however, invite me a few days after Christmas out to a movie. I was doing a family thing at the time and I couldn't but I thought it a nice gesture. In January, a group of us met to see the Einstein exhibit which was a lot of fun. She also tried to set up a book club within SASC. While it was a good idea, the structure that it had to live under killed it. In February, a group of us met at her house for game night. It was a week after her birthday so I brought her a gift. A gift certificate to Borders (she's a bookworm) and a Year of the Monkey Beanie Baby (she was born in the year of the monkey). I also got her a bottle of wine but that was a host gift and not a birthday gift. The next time I saw her again, I embarrassed myself terribly. I made a left handed compliment to one of her friends and I also kept talking about a subject that I thought rather freaky far longer than I should have. Unfortunately, we sitting in a large group and most of the people in the group only heard part of what I was saying which only made it worse. It was about a month before we saw each other again but in that time, she mentioned that she wanted to start looking for another job and if I saw anything let her know. I took it as a call for assistance and if someone needs help, I will do everything in my power to help them. So I started helping her look for a job. She sent me her resume which I forwarded to a few people that I thought might have more connections and I subscribed to a listserve that might have something. Unfortunately, nothing panned out and she quit her job without another job to go to. She was going to take another job that a friend offered her, but it didn't work out and it put their friendship on the rocks. So that brings us to the present. We talked about life, religion, art, politics, and the fact that she needs a job. She is also writing an inspirational book and I wrote her an email to suggest to her how to go about attacking something booklength. We decided also to go see an inspirational movie about John Kerry's Viet Nam service this weekend and she agreed to accompany me to SOFA the weekend of Nov. 5-7.

Life is good.