ones and zeros

Comforting someone who has suffered a loss is the hardest thing to do. They've come to you seeking some sense of understanding, but all you can give is a sympathetic nod while you search around inside trying to remember the last loss you suffered and if anything could have helped you then. When it comes down to it, the closest you can come to helping is just listening, since what words of encouragement you may speak ring hollow even to yourself.

It's even harder over the wire. A message popped up on my screen two nights ago that put me into that kind of situation. Just a frowning emoticon sat there, prompting my inquiry, probing to discover if anyone was actually there on my side to listen. Snagged by the hook and somewhat bored, I responded with the awaited inquiry. His friend of 18 years had passed on the night before, bowing out quietly and without complaint .

The internet widens the gulf that is already so daunting between human beings. For all the connections available, sometimes it only barely suffices the minimum conditions of interaction. The range of options is just a false front.

I read his messages, which came broken with large silences in-between. The chat window prompted responses, some way to know that his words didn't just pass through unseen, so I did what I could to be there.

a cartoon character's fiery demise

A new year snuck in this week.

Without cable or any sort of reception for local channels, we just waited until the neighbors cheered to ring in another 365 day trip around the sun. There was champagne (or just sparkling wine because it was not manufactured in Champagne) and we stood on the porch while I smoked three cigarettes first thing on New Year's. I don't make those quitting kinds of resolutions.

Inside we reflected on the past several years, eating the kind of potato chips that have a rippled surface with French onion dip - exceptional when your tastebuds are being affected by just enough sparkling wine and beers. What a fantastic thing for us to be able to sit there at the table, drinking and talking and eating. What a marvel in the first place that we ever all met and still know each other. Out of all the billions of people in the world, there we all were, people all over the city and state and timezone celebrating with their own groups.

When we were done and everyone had left, I went to bed to stare at the ceiling and allowed my mind to wander.

reckoning

At 4:30 this morning, I couldn't breathe. I sat up in bed, mind foggy with the tail end of a dream, and coughed for what seemed like an hour. Then I struggled to find myself in the comfort of sleep again, trying to ignore whatever was wrong. It didn't work. In my restlessness, I ended up on the couch. I laid there the rest of the night, listening to crickets and cars driving past in the world outside the window. The trash collector came by at some point, breaking the relative city quiet with the subdued thunder of the large metal garbage bin. My cat sang a song to something I couldn't see, clicking and chirping with the intensity that only a crepuscular animal can have that early in the morning. Richard came downstairs ready for work and left the house. I just stayed on the couch.

Today a friend sent me a song about loneliness and working on and on until you're old and wasted and used up and your body just stops. Almost everyone I know is hashing out this problem right now - I guess we're just that age. Why does the future seem so bleak when our lives are really just beginning? The longer I'm alive the more I feel trapped, the more it seems like the most enjoyable times are already behind me, the more restless I get. I think growing up is unfortunately sad.

I've been on the couch all day. The cats have been sleeping, curled up, lazily stretching and purring. If they can find happiness within the tight confines of this apartment, then it can't be too much of a stretch for us to find it in the confines of a job, a few nights at the bar, and a few good friends, can it? I try to take the comforts where I find them and remind myself that I'm only as trapped as I'm willing to be.

grey and grey and grey

For the last two days, everything has been grey. The fog closed in around our building yesterday, truncating the world and containing it within a half-mile dome. I imagined the block an island, cars below me on the highway disappearing into unknown waters, our building the only beacon of a small civilization. When it got dark, UFOs hovered next to the roadways, orange otherworldly light illuminating the fog around them. It was almost eerie how still the fog made everything. When day gave way to evening (much earlier than it felt it should), the world felt even smaller. Driving home I could hardly see the usually bright neon signs on building tops and brake lights in front of me appeared disembodied.

mix CD

On Tuesday, a song found me. The melody crept in on the periphery of my mind, the profound and soaring horns caught me unaware and carried me off from my work. When a song finds me, it often happens like this.

It followed me this week, chasing after my car in traffic early in the morning, haunting me as I tried to focus on writing documents and e-mails. When I went home, it was there from dinner until it echoed through the slumberous halls of my mind as I tried to sleep. Every now and then, a song comes along like this and stirs you.

Last night I got in the car at 11, sitting in the emptiness of the parking lot with a CD in hand. With the keys in the ignition, I sat for a while in the inadequate fluorescent light and still air inside the car. Everything seemed to anticipate the sound of the engine, some dynamic event, the start of some grand adventure. I never turned it over. I took the CD I had made and trudged back inside the apartment. I put it down on the counter with the spam mail and went to bed.

picnic

Every day I take the highway home. Four lanes of inconsistent speed and frustrated drivers just trying to get home to appreciate the few hours they've got left in the day. It's slow every day unless I'm driving home late at night.

Today something was different. Everything was slow, people were honking at each other, and even I grew tired of my air conditioner deciding to turn itself off. This is all the usual. What was new was the cause of the today's slowdown. Usually, it's a wreck. Sometimes it's just the natural confusion of hundreds of cars all with their own plan trying to be the fastest instead of making way and cooperating. Today, it was bears.

Some loud and careless truck had managed to lose a plain cardboard box right in the middle of the highway. In what I can only guess was the chaos of the impact, bouncing off a windshield as a car swerved, the tape could no longer hold in the contents, and stuffed teddy bears all in different vivid colors exploded onto the highway. When I drove by the incident had already passed, and what remained were bears - blue, yellow, purple, red, all sorts of colors, laying motionless on the packed road.

awake on a plane

Night is just a big shadow. I rolled the idea around in my head. Planes are little boxes full of forced meditation for me. I can't sleep on them, no matter how long the flight, no matter how drowsy I try and make myself. All of us strangers flew from day into night somewhere over the East coast, a physical transaction leaving the sun behind for dark and quiet.

When you're moving through nighttime, flying hundreds of miles an hour over the cold miles of Atlantic, time takes far too long to pass. I got to know the passengers around me even though they were asleep, devising stories in my head about where they were from or what they'd had for breakfast. The guy to my right was heading home after a short business trip to Dallas (why else would you go there anyway?), where he hadn't even had time to have a decent meal. An old couple nearby were traveling the world, trying to fit it all in while they still had the time. A little girl near me had as much trouble trying to sleep as I did, and she leaned over to see what I was playing on my DS, never saying a word but watching intently.

And then the sky lightened. We hurtled toward the sun while the light turned the clouds below us into a landscape that I could have walked on. The tiny world inside the capsule of the cabin woke up, stretched, yawned, and drank complimentary orange juice off of a cart pushed by an aging flight attendant who had circled the world hundreds of times.

When we were about to land, a special announcement was made amidst the usual instructions to buckle and place our tray tables in the upright position. Today was Linda's last flight. After thirty years of service, thirty years of flying around the world serving small cups of orange juice and pre-packaged dinners, this very flight was Linda's last. A smattering of applause sounded out, just a few people clapping after thirty years of what I know must be one of the toughest jobs in the world. I felt special then, to see this lady cry and thank the passengers nearby.