The title is an inside joke for every church musician ever. Grace and peace to you live from my office, where I am wet, cold, and want to go home. There, I can work with my electric blanket set to hell, and I won’t look like Gerald Ford every time I want to go somewhere. On the flip side, I had a meeting with myself. We got a lot done.
This project is consuming my life, but not in a bad way… although I did not have enough spoons for choir practice because of my epic fail in getting to the bus. Today was one epic fail after another as I tromped through the snow to get to the office from the Metro station. I finally gave up and decided to walk on the street, and that was another fall, trying to get down from the snow drift. Luckily, there were no cars coming when I landed in the right-hand lane. The snow was shin-deep and trying to get down caused me to really fuck up my hand. It’s covered in road rash and the right side of my left palm is swollen and sore, as if I slammed a raw nerve right into the concrete, which I probably did. It will probably bruise, so at least I got that goin’ for me. They’re so attractive……
At least I had my Docs on, so my feet stayed dry. Everything else, pretty much soggy. it’s supposed to get up into the high 60’s later in the week, with rain, but at least the rain will be warm. I hope. It’s time for the snow to melt, even if it doesn’t completely clear. Ankle deep would be fine. But do I miss Houston weather in the winter? Noooooo. I’d rather be knee-deep in snow, because even when it’s snowing in DC, it’s SNOWING IN DC. DC is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, even during Sept. 11th and the confusion it caused (395 was locked up for weeks with people stopping their cars in the middle of the freeway to gawk at the Pentagon. For the first few days, they stopped their ignitions and got out.). That being said, they don’t have DC in Houston. I checked.
Before I moved here, I decided that I didn’t want to be a Houston-based writer. I wanted to be a DC-based writer. My parents gave me that chance and I leaped at it. DC is my Paris, and I’ll never leave if I can help it. There’s just too much here to be explored, and I could wander DC until the day I died and still not see everything. I’ve been in love with DC since the first time I visited, when I was eight years old and we went to the White House. And, if I’m honest, it’s all Aaron Sorkin’s fault that the yearn to actually live in DC became a thing.
I was the one that convinced Kathleen we needed to move here. I do not regret that decision in the slightest. It was a wild ride, and I needed it. It was the first time I’d lived so far away from home and had the ability to find myself outside of everything I knew.
What I know for sure is that this is where I belong, and if that’s not pure peace, I just won’t find it. Landing in DC after the breakup with Dana was a huge dose of Fuckitol™ in that I could let go of my past to make room for an unencumbered future. I need to stop loving her, stop caring about her, stop worrying about her because that’s what she wants. It’s not what I want, but it’s what I need, and I will survive it. Grief is an amazing thing, but only if you make it so. It changes you in ways you didn’t think possible. It breaks everything in you and rearranges the furniture.
I still trip over the couch, but I just keep setting up the chairs.
Amen.
Stories That Are All True 