Day 99: Or is it 102?

Somewhere along the way, I must have miscounted the days - it should be Day 102 according to my calculation, yet here I am at Day 99. It is incredible that Robinson Crusoe managed to keep his days straight enough to name his friend Friday.

In college, the only class I got a "C" was for philosophy. I blame this on the professor. The first class I took was so boring, that I never attended any other. The old professor rambled on about random topics (he must have been tenured), but one thing did stick. "No matter what it is, if you do one thing for 10 years, you will become an expert in that one thing." This is true, although there are good experts and mediocre experts after the same 10 years. I had not thought about my previous professional life during the last 99 (or is it 102) days. Today, I have an opportunity to draw upon distant memory and find to my surprise, that I can still think coherently. Similar to how in Tokyo, I was able to recall trivia buried deep in my brain from 20 years ago, my livelihood of the past 15 years is still there. There is an intellectual satisfaction, if not an emotional one.

I don't have time to dwell on this, since I have lunch with a silver fox-like friend. The conversation with her is both intellectually and emotionally satisfying. As I take leave of silver fox and fly north to Costco (for feeding the monster is part of my day job), I think of all the people that I have encountered over the years, and how some relationships have grown while some have faded away, and why this happens. In the end, for me, there is a somewhat spiritual attachment that draws me to certain people. I have to think about how to express this spirit - it is not religous, it is not intellectual. Maybe Louis Armstrong sang it best. "I see friends shaking hands, saying how do you do? They're really saying, I love you."