april snow

It's April 5th and it's snowing in New York City. Big, thick, pillow-fight flakes against a piss-yellow sky that would have sent me scurrying into the storm cellar if I were back in Kansas City.

This morning has been an ass-backward morning on several fronts. While shaving, I cut the mole next to my nostril, which did not stop bleeding for about 20 minutes. On the way to the subway I stopped in Starbucks and the girl did not put the lid on my coffee cup correctly. I didn't realize this until I was halfway down the side walk, coffee stains dotting my pant leg from the knee down. Then, as I hurried down the subway station steps, I discovered a train with its doors open waiting at the platform, and I dashed through the turnstile and onto the train as its doors closed, only to find I was on the wrong train.

Nothing is quite working right, stopping me in the middle of normal daily functions and forcing me to pay attention to things that I otherwise wouldn't even think about.

When the snow started to fall, instinctively I reached for the phone to call my Dad to tell him about it. But I caught myself before I picked up the receiver, suddenly aware of one more thing I would usually take for granted.

fly swatter

I want a fly swatter today. My boss is buzzing around my desk with stupid questions about printing PDF files, emailing TIFFs and a whole bunch of other shit that has nothing to do with my job or the state of my soul. More than once I've wanted to pick up a book or a newspaper and bean her.

Projects come across my desk. Lists of courses. Deadlines. Text changes that are important to the administration.

I accept them with a smile and a "no problem." But inside I'm weary. My heart takes short halting breaths and I think to myself, "I don't care. I can't care at all."

This is all to be expected. I'm very willing to cut myself a break. Just wondering why my buzzing boss doesn't get it.

P.S. Thanks to everyone, both in Blogger and LiveJournal, for your kind words to yesterday's post. They all mean more than you might realize.

in memoriam - my dad

In loving memory of my Dad
April 25, 1916 to March 24, 2006

Thanks to many who wrote with concern after my previous post at the time of my father's congestive heart failure a few weeks ago.

My sweat old Dad died in his sleep in the wee hours of Friday, March 24th (typical of my father who wouldn't want anyone to fuss over him or have to hurry across town to his bedside).

I gave the eulogy at his wake, which was an incredible honor that I am grateful to have been entrusted with and yet I am heart broken to have made it all. There are stories that I will post about the wake and the prunish priest that I came head to head with at the church and my Dad's sense of humor and the touching ride to the cemetery... but these will have to wait.

I'm back in the surreal world of work and responsibilities and useless tasks and people biting their nails over web lists and meeting dates and traffic and contractors and my heart is back in Kansas City looking for where it might find the one it lost.

I will stumble back into posting here in my blog as the days roll forward.