Bleeding Fiction

Went to my folks' house to do my laundry yesterday, which is my typical Sunday-at-lunch activity. It's perhaps a little mercenary of me, but I get to fulfill my familial obligations and get my clothes clean at the same time, which is a pretty efficient way of going about things, you have to admit.

Driving down their street, though, really brought home to me the differences between where they live and where I grew up (which are, in fact, two seperate places) and where I live right now. Trees. Growing up and at their house now, there were trees everywhere. Maples, oaks, dogwoods. Trees. In Autumn, those leaves change to the most brilliant, vibrant colors for a little while and then blanket the ground before someone comes by and sweeps them into piles. And the piles were the best. I haven't jumped in a pile of leaves and I haven't had a leaf fight (except for a brief 30 seconds while visiting Dave and Bekah over Halloween) in years, but something about a pile of leaves, the solid softness of it, maybe, has always been a great comfort to me.

There are almost no trees in front of the houses on the street I live on now. And a good thing, too, since the road is really too narrow to have cars driving on it, cars parked along it and leaf piles, as well. But I miss them all the same. Maybe I'm romanticizing my childhood too much. God knows I would never want to be the person who had to rake his yard free of leaves and actually put them in the pile. But I like leaf piles all the same.

That said, while at my folks' house, I discovered that one of my aunts this week had asked my mother what the odds were of me getting married any time soon. Apparently, she's eager to go to the wedding of someone she knows and loves and figures I'm the next most likely cantidate, now what her children are both married. Yeesh. I told my mum to tell her that if it meant that much to her I'd ask her to be my date at the next wedding I went to. So Rob, Melissa - if either of you see me show up at either of your weddings with a sixty-something woman with greying hair who's under five feet tall, you'll know she decided to take me up on the offer.

Meanwhile my mother was thankfully quite understanding and explained to my aunt (before I had to even hear about this conversation) that she didn't think it was too likely, seeing as I'm not seeing anyone at the moment and am hoping to spend the next two or three years as a broke-ass graduate student. Good response from my mum. Much better than the time, a few years ago, when she was in the hospital and decided that as she had nothing better to do she would try to set me up with every last one of her nurses. (This little meddling of hers was made even worse by the fact that I was actually seeing someone at the time - though I guess that was more my fault than anyone else's, since I didn't see fit to mention to her that I was in a relationship.)

The trouble, of course, is that now the seed's been planted in her mind again. I can tell. So here it comes: I'm next. My mum won't ever pressure me to get married, no, but she'll certainly try to set me up with someone or start to mention how cute babies are or ask me if I'm seeing anyone or something. God help me.