connected forever, whether you liked it or not

Listography: Your Life in Lists (see also the blog, Listography.com) is turning out to be very helpful in getting my mind working. Not necessarily on the prompts themselves, but sometimes in other directions. This one was pretty easy, though.


List People You've Lived With

• C: former postal clerk. Font of knowledge. Genius with gravy or bread. Full of love.
• D: former machinist. Sensitive and self-aware. Both a thinker and a doer. Giving.
• G: machinist. A worker at heart (not ever afraid to try). Observant. Very quiet.
• J: engineer, self-taught. Obsessed with money and things, but bad with people.
• Maureen: funny, quick, and motherly
• Nate: searching, deep, and puppyish
• Emily: Maureen-junior, to a T. Generous.
• Christine: airy, motivating, and exhausting
• Mike: solid, wry, and loyal
• Dickhead: handsome, arrogant, and obnoxious
• H: psychologist. Aesthete. Sweetheart. Book-smart, but sometimes doofy.
• D1: warm, loving. Well-read. Thoughtful. Stubborn. Strong, considerate, and dear.
• D2: kind. Uncoordinated. Voracious, eager, and moody. Hard-working.

There were a few others--J & D from the Maureen year, RA & G from the space between Maureen's and Chris/Mike/Dickhead, and the occasional M from when I was with D1 & D2. They are either too easy or too hard to explain, and some are really not in the spirit of the exercise.

What about you? Living with another person, whether because you "have to" or because you choose to, is a big deal. With whom have you spent that most private part of yourself?


[the title quotation is Tom Perrotta, from The Abstinence Teacher, and reads in its entirety:

“Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.”]