Twenty-Seven

At night I listen to the howling winds while refreshing the weather forecast for the morning. Some days, I don't want to be spoiled for what the dawn will bring me, but often I feel the need to be prepared.

My new rule is that days which I fail to arrive on time are not allowed to be erased from my calendar; the little numbers written on a corner of my whiteboard must remain, more or less indefinitely, as a haunting reminder of my bad morning habits. Somehow, there is no negative reinforcement strong enough to motivate me to arrive at the time I plan when I have no actual obligations beyond keeping my word to myself.

The snores of the downstairs neighborhood reverberate impressively into my room; once, he knocked on my door at 11:30 because the basement laundry machine I started had woken him up.

The world is a layer of slush ponding rainwater and snowmelt, and I manipulate the flow of traffic around me to minimize the amount of splashback I get from cars that pass inappropriately. Subtle shifts in lane position and velocity, and a well-timed peek over my shoulder keeps the cars in their place, and I am the shepherd dog racing through stampeding sheep.

Today is a good day to be. Today is a good day to look up and see the occasional patch of blue, to get coated from the waist down with salt and sand. Today is good.

18 February 2014 11:56