... with the dog acting strangely by the door. When she was a younger thing, she used to want to get OUT at every opportunity. Even in bad weather, which she hates, OUT was always the place to be, if IN wasn't compelling her outright with exactly the right napping sunbeam. And she naps even more now than then.
This morning, OUT was her dearest devotion. Most mornings for the past few years, she comes in from our walk, glances at me or doesn't, and heads upstairs. She likes to position herself on the bathroom rug. It is soft, it is usually somewhat warm - and it commands the head of the stairs. She can keep her guardian eye on the front door, even napping. She does nap with an eye open, that one.
Today, though, OUT was the place. I didn't find it as hard as when she was closer to puppy-dom, to keep her IN while I went OUT without her. Still, I felt a bit of a pang. Poor old girl - I hate outright thwarting her like that.
I don't know what it was getting her all OUT-ty. Perhaps one of the bunnies I oddly haven't seen around much this winter. Perhaps her fantasies of playing with our handsome next-dog neighbor (he didn't appear to be around, but Siddy is nothing if not Hope Springs Eternal; E once said she defines the concept - like dog-mum, like doggy, I suppose). Whatever it was, she was denied. And I walked away from the back door, saying my usual "bye-bye LOL-lee" to it after it closed, and heading to the (frosty for a change) car.
It was a very strange commute. I don't know whether everyone decided to take Reagan's birthday off or just happened to sleep in due to some incipient full moon madness - but the roads were as near to unencumbered as makes no odds to dissect. Even weirder, every light turned green as I approached - or just was green, coz my luck was like that. It got to the point less than halfway along, I actually felt a little uncomfortable. "What is with all this mighty fine luck?" You probably know, the old I-don't-trust-it instinct.
Got to work and was logged in before 7:15.
And never left until 6:45 p.m.
Lunch? That's for pansies. Strictly amateur hour.
The bad thing about having such a prodigious day is that, other than the timekeeping I was doing in the morning, and a veritable BLUR of Facilities action throughout the day: I could not tell you quite what I accomplished. Only that it was constant, and there was lots and lots of it.
By the end, I was writing *seriously* pathetic notes in my daily wrap-up email to my boss ("I'd come in tomorrow, but ... no, wah, personal baggage, really I just can't stomach it"). And halfway to tears just at the freedom - and imprisonment - of a relatively unencumbered commute back home.
My guess is, with the drive time included, I clocked in at about thirteen and a half hours. It feels like forty. And forty frantic ones.
***
It ought to be a piece of serendipity, then, that I planned tomorrow as a day off. But of course it doesn't feel that way. It feels like a stressor, because everything that came up today is going to have time to lurk and spore and go hog wild tomorrow - and, having left the office with twice the load in my Inbox I usually allow to accumulate, and just *knowing* that half of those messages are unread, my time off is likely to suffer distraction and diminishment.
And it's not exactly a vacation day, at that. Tomorrow is a day not of cool paid-time-off R&R, it's a family day of remembrance, and never one I've felt much joy that wasn't mixed with sorrow. On top of it all, I'm having a lush case, the moon is full, I broke one of the two first hairsticks my brother carved for me when he was still in the islands (and the other one, which I wore all the time and had turned a rich dark, waxy satin with so much use, is hideously *lost*), I miss my daddy. I am all alone. I have not felt E's hands on my back, making life okay, in so far over two years it'll be pushing three all too soon. My next door neighbor is still unemployed. So is Erick, for that matter. People I love are not filled with joy, nor even with peace. And that sucks, because I am powerless to make it any better. Impotent to bring satisfaction and joy - and that is all I pray to give, every time I importune G-d to listen to my wailing at all.
And my dog was all weird this morning, and it made me a little bit sad.
And my youth is such an aching sham by now. People think I look good, but there's no question I'm brittle bones.
And I want to be SOME good to SOMEone and nothing to do to try to make that happen seems to mean anything when it comes to certain problems (see also: unemployed people I care for).
And I am so goddamned fortunate - my home is a place of riches, my life overloaded with blessings - and all I can do is sit here and bleeding complain. And make the idiotic choice to exhaust myself doing it. And doooky and poopoo and blah blah blah BLAH and garbage rotten crap and other manner of infantile vocal paralysis.
Christ (an invocation, not imprecation), can't I please just be a blessing in this world, just a little bit. Why plant this desire in me ... and even (I pray) the potential to fulfill it ... and allow no route for me to do so?
Why is life so bleeding ugly sometimes? I'm sick with fortune, assets, comfort (and hormones) and here I am stinkin' complaining.
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