Better Than it Gets

Friday

Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence we are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.

Few things please me more than when weather forecasters are wrong. It gives me hope we’ll never predict everything. I think I’ll lose all my optimism if everything turns out to be mathematically calculable, if computer programs can determine the condition of the weather to the daily traffic. For someone like myself, who holds on to the idea that nature still has lessons to teach and will always have mysteries, I refuse to believe the daily weather can be predicted with nothing more than an electronic machine.

The rain has been coming down in buckets all morning. So much for the jog Julie and I planned. While one side of me thinks a run is exactly what this hangover could have used, the other is thankful we took it easy. Instead of running, Julie made waffles and we sat of the porch, watching and listening to the rain.

As much as I enjoy our conversations, even the mundane stuff Julie and I sometimes talk about, I take pleasure in the silence even more. We said no more than two sentences to each other this morning, all that was necessary. David used to think if someone wasn’t talking, something was wrong. Our silences became pregnant. Julie and I can sit wordlessly for hours and a glance or a smile says more than speech ever could.

I turn off the engine, sit for a moment. I love the sound of the rain from inside my car.

I guess I should get into the office. God, I don’t feel like being here today. I glance at the umbrella lying behind the passenger’s seat. Nah, don’t need it. I open the car door, slam it shut, run into the building. I show my badge, walk up the stairs, and over to my desk. A fly next to my keyboard flies away as I sit down, turn on my computer.

There are more people than usual here this morning. Maybe my co-workers think the layoffs will work like a line in a bakery. The first people in are sure to get what they want. Those that come later will have to settle for the sad looking cupcake, maybe nothing.

The phone rings. Jeez Louise, why does it have to start so early?

“Networking support,” I answer.

“Awesome, you’re there. I just have a quick question.”

Great, what a way to start my day. A quick question.

Whenever someone says they have a quick question, I can count on being on the phone for the next thirty minutes or longer. And even then I’m sometimes unable to answer the “quick question,” so I’ll have to spend half the day tracking down the answer to the oh-so-simple query.

Actually, it was a simple question. But usually they’re not.