32 years of total uniqueness...
...over.
last night, for the first time in my life, I met an Arwen. It was so strange. Yet surprisingly cooler than expected… She had also never met another Arwen.
So there we were at Nirvana Noodle sitting right next to one another... and nobody died. no bombs went off. no one spontaneously combusted. And she even looked like an Arwen (well, I mean, what I perceive of as an Arwen since I am the only one I know). She was tall, thin, blonde-ish, light eyes, fair skinned, delicate facial features on a small head. But it was still like a twilight zone special. This Arwen is not a vegetarian. This Arwen has a sister, who we also met, who is younger and also has a really neat name: Meara. This Arwen has a super-cool, smart boyfriend from Australia who told me all about wombats, platypii and dugongs. This Arwen is from Northern California (Sebastopol). She was fun, outgoing, interesting and instantly likeable. She was really an excellent representation of an Arwen. It was pleasing. Surreal as all hell, but pleasing….
We shared lots of stories about growing up as an Arwen, being an Arwen, always being the only Arwen, identifying as an Arwen…. talked about the books that created us, the movies (we both HATE Liv Tyler – a distinctly BAD representation of an Arwen!), how people incorrectly say our name…and lots of other good stuff.
I’m still processing.
This whole thing came to pass because Kristin (Burgess/Physics Kristin) and her boyfriend Jim are in town and they are staying with Jim’s friend Saul who is the boyfriend of said Arwen who only had this one evening free to meet up. It was all arranged very spur of the moment and yet all came together seamlessly. Who knew?
The weirdest part was when someone else was talking about her. I’m sitting at the table listening to someone say, “Oh, yeah, and you know, Arwen’s sister is in town and we had to go run an errand before Arwen had to go back to her Dad's house.” And they weren’t talking about me! My brain was having a hard time. The other Arwen felt the exact same way when someone was talking about me. Our Arwen sensors have never had to work to distinguish such information before… whew. So odd. So nifty. like, i said... so surreal...
posted by arweena @ 3:34 PM
5 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Well. First for everything, eh? Glad it was auspicious, not sinister.
Speaking of hearing your name, one thing that trips me up all the time at work is that we have a development server where we test the new features before pushing them live. The development server is referred to by everyone as "dev" and who says it more than the developers who sit right around me? Needless to say, everytime someone discusses "dev," I perk up and say, "What? Someone say my name?"
How exciting for you! I sort of know how you feel about the hearing your name thing. While I am not the only Beth in the world, obviously, there are really not that many of us running around so when I meet another one we are both always very excited. It also trips me out when I hear someone talking about another Beth, I always catch myself wanting to say, wait, what did I do?
Hee hee hee! Trippy :-)
There was an Arwen in the Master's program in our English dep't at Univ. of Oregon, but I never met her. She was really into science fiction and was kind of dorky (I mean that in a good way), but that's all I can remember being told about her. I think maybe Mark met her.
i thank you all for understanding. :) i am so glad it has only happened once in 32 years....i don't know how much pressure on my sense of identity i can take....
Post a Comment
<< Home