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 XXXII: 225-201

Managed to squeeze another one in before July was in the rear-view.

Eight more of these and you never have to hear me talk about gratitude again.

Or...not that often anyway.

Actually, I'll probably reference this series a lot over the next few years.

So, yeah: Cancel all of that. No promises anywhere.

Thanks for reading, though.

Happy weekend...if you have that sort of thing in your life.

My Mom Sold Her House and I Took Some Crappy Pictures While My Kids Slept in the Car

photo courtesy of Lauren Rodriguez

These are my kids. I don't say this because I deserve a parenting trophy, but on Mondays Wednesdays, and Fridays I pick them up from school. I say it because the thing is an ordeal and the ordeal is a thing. It goes like this: Retrieve the boy from the infant room and lug his heavy ass and all of his gear to the car. Drive to his toddler sister’s school where she and her sass get loaded.

Between the loading and the arriving (and subsequent unloading), we each have a need. My son's is simple, envious: Keep it down so that I may squeeze in a nap that lasts from the start of the car ride 'til you unbuckle me later with three seconds to spare before you load my mouth full of hot, dry dinner, then a pre-bedtime bottle. His sister's need involves telling me multiple times (and in no certain order) that she a) doesn't want to go home, and b) wants her mama. The distance between my admiration for my son's need and the shitty feeling I get from listening to my daughter offer her reminders is much longer than the drive from school to home. My need is frequently hopeless: Keep the fussing and crying to a minimum.

Last Thursday, as we loaded, my daughter began her anti-home proclamation and I announced a surprise: We were going to NanaJuj's house for one last time.