I Have Not Finished

It looks like somebody put a hand grenade in a cloud. Piles of white fluff all over the living room floor. See, my dog isn't a dog but another avatar of Shiva. She destroys. Her non-toy tastes tend toward the pricey with fifty dollars being the common minimum value of things that she'll test the durability of, however, she isn't immune from slumming it up on occasion. For things that she is supposed to chew on she prefers soft and fluffy because hard plastic toys simply don't offer the same aftermath portrait.

This time she got ahold of Santa, the topper for a stocking full of chew toys that Virginia bought her for Christmas. The death depicted on my floor is surely enough to place me on the naughty list for the next several years. It didn't help that Santa had a squeaker in his head which gave her a reason to explore. Marine biologists say that sharks don't mean to bite so many people, they simply investigate new things with their teeth. I believe them. After removing the plastic disc with the precision of Dr. Roger Rabbit she felt the need to ensure that no other noise-making tumors were threatening Saint Nicholas. Now the sad, eyeless, bearded carcass is staring at me from the floor asking me how a benevolent God could allow such atrocities. I have no answer for it for because I haven't finished The Shack yet, but I resolve to at least donate to the relief fund. The money doesn't buy me relief though because I know that I should get on a plane because the airport is still intact. While I have no special skills to offer I have two strong hands and endless resolve. I can move rocks and honor the dead. The twisted threads that held the eyes judge me from the floor and I cannot meet their gaze.

Despite Our Day Jobs

I took a journey from Omaha to Wichita today and discovered humanity on the road. Let me explain. I left during a ridiculous blizzard. The roads weren't slick but there were some incredibly strong sustained winds and it was snowing fairly heavily. Nebraska being the flat tundra that it is meant that visibility was never more than a couple hundred feet at best and at worst I had to drive using my GPS to make sure the road didn't curve. It was the first time that I can honestly say that I couldn't even see the end of my hood. After getting out of the Lincoln and Omaha metro areas traffic significantly thinned and when I turned south nearly disappeared all together. Occasionally an ethereal car would appear some distance in front of me and be gone in a whiff of white smoke in my rearview just as quickly.

The blowing snow was unrelenting and ubiquitous. Even when I drove down in a valley I could still see the maelstrom above, blurring the sun into a hazy orange sphere that Rothko's round cousin would have liked. I felt alien and knew that I don't belong here. None of us do. Glancing up at that sun made me realize how much energy we have to spend and how much manpower it takes to simply live on the planet. Farming, energy generation, all of the physical sciences are simply studies of how to maintain our foothold. And when we're gone the planet will wipe most of what we've done away pretty quickly. Despite our day jobs of account manager and installation technician and marketing intern we're nothing more than Lewis and Clark, plodding over the next hill to see what's there.

I feel a connection that has never been there before. A common purpose that we all share. We all came from the same ancestors, who were nothing short of badasses. They survived the frigid temperatures in nothing more than pelts of ferocious animals that they had taken with fearlessness and handmade weapons. I had packed a blanket, gloves, and water in case I went off of the road. I would have been afraid. But I had started to formulate backup plans. I figured out a way that I could have made a small fire inside my car to keep me warm through the night. Or I could have struck out to make a shelter outside. A snow cave to protect me from the wind and snow. In the morning I could have hunted food, sacrificing my car for parts to aid in my survival. And I would have looked up at the sun, and the moon that still hangs in the winter sky, and I would have known that I am not the last explorer of humankind.

Appetite

Until Monday I had no appetite. I haven't been doing a lot which is likely a contributing factor. Aside from the twentyish pull-ups I'm doing a day I mainly trek back and forth from the couch to the computer with occasional sorties to the kitchen and bathroom. For the first two or three days I had no sense to eat at all, I simply did because I knew that I should. On Monday I called a couple of friends to see if they wanted to go to taco night at the Crescent Moon. Jeff was game so we met at around seven. By the time I got there I was famished. I had my usual ten tacos (they are tiny little things with maybe a tablespoon of meat, a dashing of cheese, and a couple pieces of lettuce) but felt that I hadn't eaten anything. Jeff and I split an order of fried cheese curds. He had to take off but I stayed and kept the bartender company still starving. I ordered a meat and cheese tray, which consists of two pretzels, summer sausage, hard salami, and two cheeses to combine and dip in delicious mustard. It was as if I were eating for the first time. An amnesiac that had forgotten how things tasted. It continued into today. I'm expecting Stephen Hawking to show up at any minute to explore the black hole in my belly.

The First

The sinking feeling that I get when I come home and open the garage door and her car isn't there. That summarizes it. I've spent the last two years building my life on a foundation of memory foam and the weight is now crushing the viscoelastic memory cells. Fortunately the wine won't spill as the energy doesn't transfer, it just sits on the couch and tries to convey through the cosmos how badly I want you back. I have to believe in telepathy now.

It would be easier if I had done something specific. One isolated evil is something that I can tackle with sword and shield. Nebulous insufficiency is something that even Quixote wouldn't ride against.

Periodically Dot sits and stares at nothing in particular and whines and I understand.