I'm not unfaithful but I'll stray

E-word,

Hello. It's been a weird couple of days for me lately. A friend and co-worker of mine had a stroke yesterday morning, and I heard from someone I hadn't talked to in maybe 10 years. I know that these things are unrelated, but the fact that two kind of extraordinary things happened in such quick succession makes for I guess more thinking about things or something?

My friend Pat (and I figure I can use his name as God knows how many Pats are out there after all, and Pat is a verb and noun and so forth) had a stroke yesterday, as I was saying. The last few years have not been kind to him at all. Just as it seems that he was recovering well from back surgery he had last year (that actually relegated him to using a cane and on a steady diet of pain killers), he has a stroke that has paralyzed his left arm and leg, and left him a speech impediment. I actually wanted to start crying, but Pat made jokes ('Let me tell you, having a stroke is a life-changing experience') and told me that humor was really the only think that made the situation endurable. I talked to his kids a little bit, and I'm not sure how they're handling all of this. They are so young to be in a situation where they might have to be caretakers.

I also heard from a friend that I kind of had a falling out with years ago. Let's say his name is Orin. It turns out I'm not that hard to find on the internet. He googled me, found out what company I worked for, and called my work phone. He told me he called because he was thinking about buying a sailboat, and was staring at one online for an hour, and remembered that back in the old days after a long bike ride he would stare at his bicycle for hours at a time, and that I appreciated him doing that. Weird reason to get in touch, but nonetheless, it was nice to hear from him. We talked for about an hour, kind of about what we were doing and what we've been up to. It was good, but it was also kind of funny. In many ways I realize that I haven't changed that much in ten years. His voice was exactly the same, and he still liked to tell me what to do, which now seems less like a character flaw than just a quirk in his personality. He still remembers me as being extremely sarcastic and cynical, though I think I've toned that down a lot over the years.

Well, let me continue this thought later.

Talk to you soon,

Toe