Past and Present

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When the pavement is wet, people leave behind fleeting footprints, which I like to follow. I catch up to someone and walk behind them a ways, getting a feel for the spacing of their steps, their pace and stride, trying to step exactly where they stepped on the sidewalk. Sort of like walking in their shoes. I don't know why I do it, and I never am able to do it for very long; I always catch up to the person due to my inability to slow down my pace to match up with their's. I wonder now if I've ever followed someone and someone followed me and so on and so on- I picture a long parade of puddle-jumping people forming something akin to a really strange conga line, or the lines at DisneyWorld, or if you've ever been to the DMV. It'd be like that, only with slick pavement involved.
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It's weird to consider the paths that your life might have taken but haven't. It's not really worth considering, just weird and a bit interesting at times. I asked people at work if they could go back and change something in history what would it be? Would they change a huge historical event, or something that only applied to them personally, from their own history? Now, there are a lot of consequences when it comes to altering the past. Stopping a world war or an assassination could have really horrible consequences, even if you only meant for good things to happen as a result of your decision. I asked three people, and this is what they said:

S: I would go back and start rumors, foretelling my birth, so when I was born people would worship me.And I'd be given birth to by a chinese lady, but still have myself be like I am now, so I'd be some sort of anomaly.

D: I would have studied and learned more in high school. It would have helped me a lot when it came to getting into college.

N: I wouldn't change anything. If you change one thing it affects everything else.

I couldn't quite decide what I would change (if anything), but these things are fun to think about. What if Lincoln hadn't been assassinated, and Andrew Johnson had never become president, thus altering the economic status of the United States forever? What if I had become best friends with the girl who was in three of my classes last year but I never spoke to because I'm anti-social? What if the Beatles had never existed?
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After seeing Memento on Wednesday I wondered about getting tattoos done in white so they only showed up when you were sunburned, kind of like invisible ink.
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I decided today that I am an emotional glacier - big and white and cold, but slightly melting. I do not come from a hugging family - it's just not something we do, except for when people leave on a trip or go away to college, etc. When my sister A left home we all gathered in the front yard before she drove off and she cried and hugged everyone in turn, and when it was my turn I put a really big piece of ice down her back, which for some reason she did not appreciate.

When I moved to Provo I had very huggy roommates, all touchy-feely which scared me to no end. I couldn't get to my food shelf without being embraced. All very foreign to me; there didn't seem to be any reasoning behind it, hugging people that I didn't really know. However, I've started hugging people of my own free will lately, and I rather like it, because it's on my own terms - these are people I've actually gotten to know over the past year. My glacier is melting- so all hail global warming I say.
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