Classmates Who Died

Four people from my high school have died since our graduation that I know of. I went to a small high school, so there were only about thirty or so in each class (my graduating class had thirty-five). One of those who died was one of my best friends, from about age ten through a little after age thirty. Unfortunately, we had a falling out about that time, and the friendship never recovered. A couple of years after our friendship came to an end, my friend's body started to shut down through the auspices of some odd disease, such that the past decade has been one of great pain, a pain I could only read about third-hand through a blog that at the end of April came to an conclusion.

Here is a chart of the way people from my high school have died:

All of the deaths are unique, as I guess in some way all deaths are. The first to go was someone else in my own class; he died within a year, in a motorbike accident. Tragic as it was, somehow, it didn't seem surprising; he had always had something of a wild streak in him. I don't remember the order of the second and third, but suffice it to say that marriage did them both in: one had a wife who left him and his response was to hang himself; the other had a husband who killed her. They were each a couple of years ahead of my own class in high school.

Forty-two seems a young age to die, let alone nineteen or one's twenties. But I suspect that as I grow older now, the deaths will begin to mount up, more and more of them by disease.

Local Spending in April

I hadn't done a survey of my local spending--or an accompanying map--since near the start of this blog two years ago, so I decided to do one in April. Here's where I spent my money locally in April:

If these places were sized on a map relative to how much money I spent, here's what the map would look like:

Etienne--great food, first time I'd eaten there. But it's a bit above my usual price range, so I doubt I'll return anytime soon. Credit an acquaintance with blowing my entertainment budget for the month.

Places Heather Has Been Sited

My friend Heather requested to be part of a chart on my blog, so here it is.

I live in what is in some ways a small town, even though well over one hundred thousand people live here. What I mean by that is that within certain circles, one tends to come across certain people with a degree of regularity. Hence, you'll meet someone who you might well have met many times in the past but never really registered as more than a face.

Back toward the end of March, I met a gal who I didn't recognize at first as someone I already sort of knew. The reason: She was wearing glasses, which I'd never known her to do before. She is someone who skates in similar circles. I'd seen her play in a band a friend of mine was in, and I'd seen her play one or two solo shows when she was playing among a list of other musicians I knew. Finally, I'd seen her a few times--and been introduced to her or vaguely hung out on the edge of shared conversations with her among shared acquaintances--at a bar I frequent. She struck me as an attractive woman I would likely not have much in common with. I don't know exactly how I came to that assessment, since we'd probably exchanged all of two sentences in the years I'd known (of) her. Perhaps, it's that I'm a personally very conservative person, while most of the people I have contact with in town trend pretty liberal (that said, most of my nonchurch friends are fairly liberal and many of them would say I'm liberal too--I guess much just depends on how one assesses these things; I tend to feel like an leftist oddball among religious people and a rightest oddball among the artistic crowd I often mix with).

So in March, I went to see a performance of Indonesian-like music at the college music hall, mostly because a band I like called Electrophoria was among the participants. Heather struck up a conversation with me as I walked into the hall. Should I sit with her? I wondered. Well, why not? Neither of us were with people, a friend of mine having turned me down for the event. I'm glad of that, since it meant I got to spend the evening getting to know her. It was only after she mentioned being a musician that I realized who I was talking with, that I already kind of knew her, and that we had a ton of friends in common. And it was only after talking with her--spending time with her, at a bar after the show--that I realized that we actually had more in common than I'd have imagined and that my assumptions about her had locked me out of what might have been an interesting friendship much earlier (though, fact is, I probably wouldn't have had the guts to talk with her anyway).

Anyway, since that evening in March, I've had several more occasions to run into Heather or hang out with her, and it's been a joy each time. Heather is this incredible combination of sweetness, cuteness, strong-headedness, quirkiness, and, well, funness (is that a word?). I'm glad I've gotten a chance to get to know her and to spend time with her. Below is a map of places at which Heather and I have been present at the same time:

Typical Weekday Meals by Food Group

I've been reading a bit about food habits lately. I need to incorporate more vegetables into my diet, as I've long known. I tend probably to overdo the carbs. Here's a typical breakdown of breakfast, lunch, and dinner:

By contrast, the breakdown should look like this:

That grain side should be even with the fruits and vegetables side, and the meat and dairy should be even with each other (although I do tend to think Americans generally overdo the eating of meat).

Approximate Weight over My Life

Unlike for some people, becoming overweight has not been a problem for me, but I do find that as I'm aging, my weight does increase, such that one day it could be a problem. During my early years, I basically gained ten pounds each year, but I hit a plateau around high school and stayed there until just after high school; after gaining ten pounds in my early adulthood, I lost it when I moved out on my own. One-twenty was way too thin, but I couldn't put weight on. Slowly, over the years, it moved back to 130 and then 135.

I hadn't weighed myself in years and had always been skinny, so when I discovered that, somehow, I'd gotten up to 150 pounds, I was shocked. I actually put myself on a diet for a while, counted calories, got down to about 140. These days, I don't really count; I just try to get enough exercise and to not eat too much sugar. My weight seems to hover around 145, which is about right for my height and body type. I do feel a bit nervous about that, though, knowing I could easily creep up beyond what I should be if I'm not careful enough. All weights below are approximate.

No Beard Comments

I received quite a few comments on my beard. By contrast, after I shaved it off, I had quite a bit fewer comments, most of them all within the first week. The comments being mostly in the first week is somewhat understandable, since a beard takes a while to grow, so some people might just think, early on, that I forgot to shave and don't say anything. Still, I'm surprised how many fewer commented on the nonbeard. As with the last--and only other time--I've had a beard, most people who liked the beard said "Cool" when I had it; most people who didn't reserved there statement of dislike regarding the beard until after I'd shaved it off.

One Month of Dinners

My friend Al claims that I eat spaghetti every night. It's not quite true, but I do have it very often. Here are the dinners (main courses, not including side dishes, like salad) I had from March 16 to April 15. They're skewed a bit because this period included the Days of Unleavened Bread, so I was trying to get rid of bread just before the days and then wasn't eating certain things I usually would have eaten during them. Hence, I'm extending the survey one month further so that I can compare later. The first survey breaks down this way:

Enchiladas were more frequent this period because, as noted above, I couldn't use leaven for a week or more, so they took the place of a couple of other dishes I usually eat. What surprised me was that I ate out five times during this period, three times at restaurants; I don't think of myself as eating out the often--but friends wanted to get together.