When I shop, I know what I want and I get it and I leave. I have a hard time just being a shopper, with no fixed target in mind. Generally, when I am a shopper, it is at a bookstore. And generally, I will find a book that looks interesting. I will pick it up and carry it around, and if I have carried it around for a certain amount of time, I will put it back, largely because I didn't really want it, the price started to seem excessive for an impulse purchase, or it was heavy. I am beginning to realize that this phenomena isn't limited to purchases, either.
Tonight I was supposed to go to a party. It was a celebration of completing NaNoWriMo. and it couldn't have been more convenient -- in some ways. I was already dropping off my son in San Francisco, and the venue was probably less than a mile away. But I was ambivalent about going. I would be going alone, it was a school night, and when I got there, I realized it was the neighborhood my ex told me never to park in because his car was broken into there. I found free parking on the street, I managed to overcome my disability in the parallel parking vein, and I was, according to my phone, only .2 miles from the club. So I got out and started walking. I got lost. I was painfully aware of the fact that I was alone at night in an unfamiliar part of San Francisco, and I began to doubt my memory of where I had parked. I am not a visual thinker, but the survival instinct part of my brain threw out an image and I used that to find my car. Once inside, I sat and thought. I could use my GPS to find the club and walk there, or I could drive and allow fate to decide for me. It started to rain. I drove.
There was no parking except for pay lots. I rectangled twice. Nothing but disabled spots and I could no sooner overcome my potty training than park in a disabled spot. I took this as a sign that I could go home. I gave it a shot, but I had carried it around too long and now I didn't want it any more.
I believe in ghosts. I believe that my mom, who died in 1968, communicates with me every day -- or almost every day. She frequently communicates with me by throwing up minor, annoying obstacles and making me examine my life. Whether I'm right or not, I accept things as signs and I choose not to do them. Maybe I would have had a great time at the event. I could have schmoozed, commiserated, laughed with other people who suffered through the thirty days of hell, but in the end I went home and made myself dinner. And tomorrow if I'm tired, I won't be facing all those seventh graders feeling guilty that I ignored the signs and paid ten bucks for the privilege.
