In Which I Giggle

Yesterday I went up to Manchester.  It's England's second city, fact fans!  I didn't go there for 

that, though; I went to visit a friend. Nonetheless, let me take a moment to say that Manchester has some stupendous Victorian buildings.  Of which you can see one there on the left.

Anyhoo, I went up to see my friend.  And we got into a conversation, as you do, about the general state of our lives.  I said to him that I'm

 pretty happy, "except for being single.  I didn't envision myself being single at this point in my life."  And he said, "Yes, but that's remediable. You can fix that.  It's not like you're missing a leg."  Which struck me as extremely funny.  On the train home, laughing over it made me think of something M. said to me in Paris, when I told him how sad and worried I was about losing the person with whom I've just had a definitive break.  He interrupted me and said (imagine this in a French accent),  "No offence, Emily, but this guy doesn't sound like so much.  He's tense; he's tired all the time; he doesn't have a good job; he's always worried:  if you asked me, did I want to meet this guy? I'd say no." This also made me laugh.  And they both made me laugh for the same reason.  When you're in something, or when you have friends who have watched you go through it, that something always seems so important, so heavy.  Both these remarks took such a practical view, and such a correct one, that the situation suddenly looked completely different.  I had my eyes opened. After all, it's not like I'm missing a leg, and what I am missing doesn't really sound so great, after all.

Incidentally, isn't it sad about Paul Newman?  Now there was a through-and-through Stand-Up Guy.  The world is emptier for the loss of him.