Saturday, September 17, 2005

Bless Me

Bless me, Blogger, for I have sinned. It has been about one month since my last posting.

During that month, my entire life has been turned upside down and left me hanging, with a twist, in the wind. Those of you who know me personally (of the roughly one person that reads my blog, that is) know what it is that happened and how I am personally dealing with it, i.e. not that well some of the time. Suffice it to say that I have good days and bad days, indeed good moments and bad moments sometimes in rapid succession.

The triathlon became a biathlon due to various stress-related reasons that I don't care to go into, and as the professionally taken photos, available off the internet for obscene amounts of money, demonstrate, I was, despite my efforts to disguise it in every way possible via Good Thoughts, expensive running shoes, and nifty spray-on sunscreen, very similar to a well-dressed, sporty rhinoceros riding a bicycle and/or "running."

May I add that the sunscreen is a total boon to the fair-skinned lotion-haters of the world.

I run slower than most people walk. Probably slower than even I walk. And I walk real, real slow.

Now, were I not very preoccupied with the Crisis du Jour, I would be plotting my training schedule for the next year so as to return to Seattle next August a lean, mean, triathlete machine. But the sad truth is that I am pretty well bruised up by this latest skirmish with the Random Brutality of Life (ask anyone from New Orleans about that, not that I'm dealing with the loss of all my worldly goods, but rather of some of my otherworldly ones, you could say) and not giving a fiddler's fart about triathlons in general at this time.

I spend a few minutes a day in blissful forgetfulness of my predicament, the majority of the remains of the day in a state of mild anxiety over same, and a few minutes in hopeless, helpless disillusionment, shock and horror. Over same.

Anybody comments that this is the Human Predicament and aren't we all in the same boat really will be slapped good and hard. This ain't about no humans, it's about me and my family, and I'm starting to get a bit angry as well as devastated. I don't think it's a good combination. So watch your step.

I'm trying to use this whole shitty experience as a way to understand people even more deeply, without sinking to the depths of cynicism, bad behavior, or self-destructiveness that is often the reaction to life-altering bad news. Ask me in a year how that's working out for me. So far it's too close to call.

In other news, the baby is adorable and perfect in every way as always. Completely weaned (oh thank you Lordy) and in every way the light of my life. And tall and thin. Not even 22 pounds and she's at least 32 inches tall. And has some hair!

So life goes on, and I dwell in the house of Uncertainty, for always I suspect.