Mr. Completely

I sent her with soup and made a litmus-test joke. She had them clean and waiting for me. I'd forgotten them. They're home now.

"Hearts will billow when the dream, dream comes and it comes in to me"

-- Trey Anastasio, 

Kansas City International Airport

Somehow three months have slipped by since my last post.

            A lot has happened since then so it’s not been on account of laziness or disinterest. I mean, it’s mostly business as usual with the regular-life stuff: work is work, the kids are still sweet and good and busy, the house is, well, standing, I suppose. I’ve been editing a manuscript for a writer who plans to self-publish. My rec’-league hockey team is off to maybe its best start ever. The Blues are playing well and the Chiefs have a shot at clinching their fourth-straight division title this weekend. I’ve finally gotten consistent again with swimming a few times a week and while that’s great, I still need to ramp up the discipline to make three lifts a week happen. Baby steps, I guess.

Freewriting: Black Pants

            You came to me in a work setting and we were bound by circumstances. Well, at least I think we were. I know I was. And even though it was a lifetime ago I can still remember those black pants. They were over there. By the copy machine. You rooted through the file folders and they were on you, calling to me in a whisper so loud I scanned the room twice, unsure if others’d heard.

            Across a handful of months we crossed paths from time to time, never without mutual smiles. Seeing your name on the computer always brightened my day and the few live conversations we had I cherished. You were good at your job, I think, but that wasn’t why; our dialogue always turned my motivation on its head.

            After a time I was gone and the same would soon be true for you, too, both of us returning to the grinds from which we came. And the tiniest connection we had evaporated into the skies of our respective lives.

            Trying to quantify everything that has transpired since feels like an attempt to assess your cloud-flanked altitude before the pilot announces it. There’s just…too much of everything.

One Thousand Gratitudes, Part XXVIII: 325-301

The kids have awoken and I've got to get the day rolling, so here's another submission.

Thanks for reading.