The cute, short-haired girl behind the table at my local farmer’s market shot me a quizzical look as I perused her samples. She pointed at my shirt and sheepishly asked, “What does that mean? Lie-ko-what?”
Lycopersicum esculentum.
“Huh? What’s that?”
It’s the, um, scientific name for the tomato.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s cool. Where did you… where’d you get that shirt?”
I work at the Field Museum, and I guess we kind of get these for free, every now and then.
“Wow, that’s pretty cool.”
This would be a neat story, perhaps an illustrative moment that marked the tentative, awkward start of a lasting friendship, that she was charmed by my quirky nerdiness and I was taken by her inquisitiveness, except that as I paid for my goods and walked away I couldn’t help but be a bit unsure as to how somebody who worked for an organic tomato farm and salsa cannery could be in the slightest way confused by my shirt.
Remember how you used to tell me how riding your bike was your favorite way to clear your head?
“Yeah.”
Well, I tried that a bunch of times, these last couple months. It never works.
“What do mean?”
Makes it worse. Think more. End up thinking so much, sometimes I argue with myself on the ride. Me, the crazy guy on an orange bike, talking to myself.
“That’s pretty funny, Dave.”
Yeah, the opposite of clearing my head.
“Well, I kind of meant—it gave me a lot of time to think things through. You can just ride and ride and its just you and your thoughts for a while. I mean, you can concentrate, think and then it’s done, and you can stop thinking.”
Huh. Never thought of it that way. Didn’t seem to work like that for me. I’d just end up thinking some more, afterwards.
[...]
“You and me, we’re just both thinkers.”
Huh?
“We both really need to understand the reasons why things are, and we both think things over thoroughly until we know for sure.”
You know, you’re right, but—but it was pretty much a huge source of trouble for me with her, though. It would’ve been a lot easier to not think, ever.
“Yeah, but that’s just who you are. You can’t help being who you are.”
A year ago, deeply unsettled by both my personal and professional lives, I promised myself I’d buy a new camera if I got the job at the Field Museum.
A year ago, I accepted their offer.
A year ago, I put buying the camera off until I felt more settled in my situation(s).
A year later, I still don’t feel settled, but since that doesn’t seem like it’s going to change anytime soon, I figured what the hell, now’s a good a time as any to finally pull the trigger. It arrives Friday.
