These are the thoughts of a Texas transplant in West Michigan who makes his living as a newspaper reporter by evening, and a struggling novelist by day.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

black friday

i got up friday and didn't feel right. not right at all. i don't know the words to describe it in english, maybe restless, but in spanish i can say, estaba desesperado. as soon as i opened my eyes, i felt it.

i knew it was one of those days where it'd be best if i stayed in bed all day until night and then kept right on sleeping.

i started with the phone rining. it sort of woke me up, but not really. i knew someone left a message. when i made my way downstairs and played it it was discover. there was some confusion.

then i continued to shamble around thehouse. my lunch didn't taste good. i felt a bit nauseous.

i went to the lib. to pick up something and on the way back picked up the mail. i knew something was up. well it was 53. a thin envelope. i won't get into it.

later, the cats, trina and petunia, are fighting. it's getting old. i yell at them. i swear that if people hear me, they must think a madmanlives at our place. the yelling is to no avail.

then i go to the living room to start readying for saturday. i notice something. well, it's cat pee. not much but still. it's on a blanket. it further infuriates me. now i'm full on pissed off.

later the phone rings. it's discover. pisses me off even more. i knew my blood pressure was high. i could feel my face hot and my brain going nuts.

i have no one to vent with . dawnie was at work. i'm losing it. finally i call a friend and i vent. it helped somewhat.

so i left to my work assignment. came home and dawnie was there. we talked and i settled down.

i headed to work. i had two stories to complete. i did them. and luckily i did the second one when i did.

because despite all the shit that went on during the day, it paled to what happened at 9:15 p.m.

a call came over the scanner of a priority one pi pin-in. it was just down the way from the paper.

in hindsight, it felt wrong. it was too quick. so many of these crashes take time to determine any serious situation. not this one.

we headed out. it was at an intersection. two cars. as we get there. the cops are putting a bag over a body lying on the street next to a car. the person may have been pinned in but only briefly.

we needed something. jim extended our return time from 10 to 10:30. luckily at a few minutes past that, a cop came by and i got what i could from him and we headed back. i had to leave the office by 11:15, so it was quick typing. it got done.

i just found out that the dead person, who is male, was a holland high graduate and his passenger, a female, a current student.

it was quick a day. it felt so wrong. so wrong all day. it wasn't as if i were depressed or anything like that, nothing internally that was driving me to feel a certain way. it was simply something in the air. i didn't like it.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

don't ask the weathermen

perhaps this will be a lame blog entry, but it's something that erks me. plus, it gets me one closer to the magical 300 entry. why is it magical? i relly don't know.

to business at hand...

some weeks ago one of our esteemed weathermen (it wasn't a woman, so don't worry about this one, hoss) who said we were all done with the 80s. his exact words were, "we won't see temperatures like this until next year."

my hairy brows furrowed. i doubted it. and 'm not a freaking meteorologist. i may have used a few curse words. but what i really thought in good ole pg or even g rating was, "no way, please don't say that."

the weather folks around here have a tendency to freak out when it comes to threatening weather or make predictions that are outlandish, like mr. weatherman did a few weeks back.

why was i skeptical?

perhaps because after the wonderfully cool temps of mid-september, things went awry. notice that earlier this week the temps went back up to the upper 80s with extreme humidity (for us, anyway) and we even set some records yesterday or monday.

i know of indian summer and so forth, but it is ridiculous for these morons to make those kinds of temperature predictions when they don't really know, do they? i think they can maybe be safe saying it won't reach the 80s when we've hit december -- but you never know. a recall a few years back, temps rose quite a bit.

i guess i'm bitching because yesterday i rushed out for a 4 p.m. assignment. i walked from home to work, then off to my assignment, which usually is not a problem if the weather is kind. not so yesterday. it was a walk to the maas center. i arrived right before the speaker took the stage. but i was sweaty and out of breath. i felt peole were looking at me and perhaps even edging away from me (it was a packed room). yes, i'm being pissy (ask krista as she heard me curse several times when i dropped off my stuff at work).

ok, i'm done with that. today is much better. after a short walk to the library, i didn't break a sweat.

good times.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

the library receipt

we're doing fine. we continue to love each other, hug and kiss, joke and gernally have a good time.

i think the miscarriage did bring dawnie and me closer. i can't explain it and it's not really any thing we do outwardly, it's just us now.

while looking through a book friday (i neededit as art for an article i wrote), i came across one of the receipts we get after we check out books or videos at the library. it says the check out date, title of book or material and due date. the receipt was being used as a bookmark, i think.

i sually don't glance at them. i knew what it was and should have crumpled it up and thrown it away, as i do with most of them. this time, though, i made it a point to look at it.

there were two books checked out. they were books on pregnancy and pregnancy after 35. i stared at the titles for awhile, remembering, just remembering. and it made me sad to think of the miscarriage and what was and what could have been and the excitement.

i know from what the doctor has said that the likeliest reason for the miscarriage was something wrong with the embryo. it was not to be carried to full term. i have accepted it. no problem.

still, coming across the slip of paper caused me to pause and think of the week and some days when we knew we were pregnant. it did make me smile, though, as i am now. i guess it's ok.

oh well, what can yo do? move on, remember, reflect, but move on.