Dopey-ass kid done bent up my bumper and put a dent in my back hatch. Tore **UP** the front of his little '91Toyota pickup, though, including busted radiator peeing everyfrigginwhere. And I wasn't even slowing that hard when he hit me. Just pulling up to the light behind someone else all normal-like and BANG! People who stopped to give their phone numbers said he'd been weaving in & out beforehand & driving like a dickhead. Was evidently in a hurry. Then he got to wait for the cop, during which time he was speculating whether they'd know about the speeding ticket from Grand Junction that he'd never paid. Yahoos 1 & 3 were along for the ride and hopefully learned something about behaving like a dummy. I've been that dummy before, though,at least as regards rear-ending somebody, so I couldn't be mean about it. And he had insurance, somewhat surprisingly from the look of the car & the kid. Hey, Zanaru, I have a really, really good deal for you on an only slightly used car. It's proved its resilience,...

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My cousin & her husband had to stand there for 2 solid hours or more as all the people from the church lined up to pay respects, one at a time. I've never seen a receiving line at a funeral, and I hope I never do again. Seems an awful obligation to impose on the bereaved, for one thing. For another, I really hate the reduction of mourning to such a formula. That's a problem I have with funerals in general, but the weird line just brought attention to that aspect. . . .

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So I sent an email to this woman I've dated a few times. She's someone I met online, and we share an appreciation for smart-assed humor, music, and live theater. We've attended a play together, the opera, and an evening of entirely forgettable improv comedy. The last item was our first night out -- my choice -- and yet she was willing to try a second time. Either she has a true appreciation for a good joke, essential to put up with me for any length of time, or she's just stubborn. Or some combination.

Anyhow, my email was an invitation to hear some jazz this evening at the most benign of the local places for that, and I expected a favorable response. I got bupkis. She's more of a phone person than an email person, but she's figured out by now that I'm very much the opposite, so she usually replies in short order. (And yes, I reciprocate by dialing the phone on occasion.)

Why the no-answer, I've been asking myself? Did she get pissed off or decide this thin soup of a relationship isn't worth the bother, but she didn't want the angst of the dismissal interview? Or what? I knew she had to travel for work this week, so maybe she just wasn't in touch? Thus my mind did run, concocting and evaluating explanations, until I broke down & called.

...

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My cousin's college-age son has died. He was found dead on the floor of his girlfriend's bathroom, due to either acute alcohol poisoning or aspirating vomit. The coroner will say which eventually. . . .

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So Wells Fargo calls to ask me if a $3.20 debit charge at a bowling alley in Pennsylvania is legit. Um, no. . . .

Fucking winter and its dead grey sky. I have a tough enough time caring enough to get going, and that featureless blur just seems to suck the last traces of that out of the pores in my face and up into the atmosphere.

The summer weather ain't always pleasing, but at least it presents some sort of features for your consideration. Roilly tumultuous thunder clouds are no picnic, but they at least show you something of what they're about. Winter just gathers this soft grey box around you and then leaves you there.

Ugh.

At least one shows some charring around the edges, with unknown damage to the understructure. But apparently it wasn't really as important a bridge as it seemed.

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. . . this is about important communications intended to address serious situations. To disregard something like that is to wish the sender away -- not just to wish they would die but that they had done so before troubling you with the message. . . .

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My application went in at about 11am, and by 4 that afternoon, I had an invitation to a phone interview. I waited until this morning to accept so as not to seem overly eager. And I think in part, it was to manage my own expectations. I've had a couple of really positive-sounding opportunities over the last several months, and nothing got quite to the finish line. I'm hoping this one works out

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