Two Brief Anecdotes

These are two anecdotes, one of which happened to me yesterday and the other I only realized was notable when I told it yesterday at a friend’s birthday party. Figure out the connection between the two and win a special prize*!

1

On my first day of summer after eighth grade I went to the library with my mom, who was trying to get me on a summer reading kick. Walking by the comic section, I saw a girl from my class who I liked, but I didn’t go up to her because the surest way to kill a middle school relationship is to introduce a parent into the equation. I was at an odd intermediary stage where I was too shy to actually ask a girl out but confident enough to do some decent flirting, so I decided to go back the next day at the same time. She wasn’t there, so I went back the next day. On the third day I got bored and started reading the comics.

I kept on going every day for the next two months. I found out later that she stopped by pretty often too, but I never saw her. A week in I was too deep in the Scott Pilgrim series to ever look around, and over the course of the summer I devoured the rest of the selection.

2

Yesterday I was running by myself through the sprawl alongside the highway, that part of Grinnell where most of what you see is just strip malls and chain hotels, but if you look in the space between the buildings there are hills rolling out into the horizon, dotted with blooming trees. Like most days on that route I had a faceful of wind heading out, so much so that I had to put a little extra effort into every step and close my eyes when waves of dirt blew towards me. But when I reached the designated point to turn around, the air went still. Not still like when you run on a calm day, then you at least feel a little breeze. But absolute stillness, hot and  stagnant. At first I though I just had bad luck, that the wind had died down just as soon as it was at my back, but when I stopped I felt it again, harsher than ever. It took me a few minutes of stopping and starting and wondering if nature was playing a trick on me to realize that I was going at the exact same speed as the wind. So I ran the rest of the route in air that felt motionless as around me tree branches swayed and plastic shopping bags tore through the air.

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* According to French philosopher Jacques Derrida, an author’s commentary is entirely separate from the text, so it shouldn’t be a problem that I’ve got no clue how these two are connected other than that they both have something to do with yesterday.