Associations

My toaster oven broke this week. So did my phone.

The toaster oven reminded me of GF3. When I was in grad school I had an old used toaster oven. She used to make fun of me because it was so disgusting. After we broke up and I started my first professional job, I bought a new one. Soon it became as disgusting as the old one, and I realized that, regardless of how often you clean it, being disgusting is simply a feature of a toaster oven. They always look old and beat up.

I bought that toaster oven in 2003. I also bought my phone in 2003. It was right after SnarkEx and I started dating. My old one had just died so I bought a new one. Because SnarkEx was out of town so much doing research, I spent hours on the new phone with her. That sleek black cordless will always remind me of that exciting new time when we were falling in love.

And this week it died. (The ringer stopped working, so people would call me but I wouldn't hear it. The only way I knew they called was that I would see the voice mail light blinking.) It's eery timing, considering last week I decided that I was over SnarkEx completely. It's like the phone sensed this and decided it was time to die.

So now I have a new phone and a new toaster oven. Both of them are upgrades, so I'm excited about using them. As time goes on, less and less things in my house remind me of my marriage.

But here's a weird parallel. I just had my first phone conversation with K two weeks ago. We have another phone date this weekend. I'm looking forward to breaking in my new phone with my new whatever-she-is. Is this a pattern in my life? New phone = new significant relationship? I could also make a comment here about the phone being an upgrade, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The parallels get even weirder. After a month of emailing and phoning, I first met SnarkEx in person on October 30, 2003, the day before Halloween. K and I already knew each other from grad school seven years ago, but we've only been in Facebook and email contact the past few months. The night we met again in person after seven years? October 30, the day before Halloween. That was also the night I realized that she is my Holy Grail of Hotness tm.

So much of the things in my life have associations with people. My last post was about my association with a game that reminds me of SnarkEx's obnoxious new boyfriend. That's a negative association.

Name a movie, and I can usually tell you who I was with when I saw it. Books, events, objects, so many of these things remind me of people in my life. Music probably brings out the strongest associations. I can listen to an album I bought in 1995 and it brings me back to that time in my life: where I was living, what my routine was, how I was feeling, who was important to me. Sometimes it even brings me back to an exact moment. For example, Nancy Griffith's "This Heart" will always remind me of the first night I spent with GF1.

K and I have been talking a lot about music lately, and I've discovered some new favorites of hers that I really like. I'm always excited to get into new music, but I'm also a little wary. If things don't work out between us, this music that I'm enjoying so much could turn into a negative association. But that's a risk I'm willing to take.