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Be Selective About Finishing What You Start

 Did you ever wake from a dream and think "aww, we were having a good conversation?"

I'm chatting with a stranger in his own house. I'm there to visit a housemate who I haven't yet seen, apparently one of a dozen. This stranger has asked me "'Something Something' or 'The Prodigy of blah blah', which would you read?"

"I've never heard of either, so I'd just be choosing based on the title".

"Ok."

"'The Prodigy of blah blah' then."

"No, it's not 'The Prodigy of blah blah', it's 'The Pehidety of blah blah'." I have no idea what he's saying.

"Could you write them both down? That'd make this easier."

He picks up a Britta pitcher and a Sharpie and begins writing. There's already marker smeared across the sides. He stops, looks at what he's written a moment, then rubs it with the side of his hand, smearing whatever he'd written to illegibility.

"Do you ever stare at your options so long that you miss out on doing any of them?"

"You know, you could just start both, and if one grabs you, put down the other until you finish the first. When you're done you can go back to the one you put down and decide whether you want to finish it or not."

He doesn't respond. Is he listening?

"You don't even need to pay to do this. Just get them both from the library."

He's staring at his gray smeared water pitcher, deep in thought, like some idea is gathering on the tip of his tongue when I wake up. I think, "We were having a good conversation. Shame to interrupt it." But there's no we, of course. Just my sleep addled mind babbling to itself.


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