04.08.04 - 8:17 a.m.

I shouldn't write anything, right now. I should be getting my work done. It's a holiday weekend: I have Friday off, and I've been working on one of my problem cases, and, well, looking for houses, and the rest of my work has started to slip-slide, foundation undone, worldfall. I have more to get finished today than ever, and a stupid boring meeting to get through, to boot, and I managed, finally, to spring forward this morning and picked up my cappuccino on my way to work.

But I also had the hardest not crying, while standing on the corner waiting for the bus. Morning's all around, a clouded sky, the suggestion of the sun seeping through the edges of the clouds like lace, cars are zipping by and the back-wind from the passage is making the skirt of my dress ripple like a flag, and I'm breathing all the little would-be sobs back in, like oxygen.

I didn't cry yesterday. I haven't really cried today.

I just want to bawl.

This is just so wretched. It's so wretched it's surreal, and I have a hard time believing it, and I wish I could do something about it and I can't and even just saying that sounds utterly wretched: it's something some asshole idiot writer would say in some sap-tastic hallmark hall of shame movie, a five-hanky tearjerker about the perky mother of two struck down before her time.

Movies have beginnings and endings, and they give us these arcs of meaning that - no matter how variable and shadowed and nuanced and echoing - are discrete in a way that comes to seem utterly pat. I have conversations I can no longer believe I'm having, these days: a report about Jerry Mezzatesta, a surreal conversation about how awful it'll be if it rains on Easter, all the little girls, after all, love their pretty dresses.

Mom doesn't tell me everything, of course. I spoke with her early this morning, before I started working. Life starts early in the hospital, so I figured I wouldn't be waking her up. Anyway, we just talked, and that's good, I think, but of course she tells Dad more, and he relays such things to me: she had a bad night. She's on bed rest. She can't use a bedpan and was very uncomfortable. She's not allowed to get up even to go to the bathroom. (!) The oncologist is going to consult with another doctor about putting in a filter, and if the other doctor thinks it's a good idea, he'll come see mom. If not, he won't. Ca sera tout. Wait, right here.

They sent her over to CAMC - Memorial for an ultrasound to see if she has DVT in her legs, too, and suspect that she will. Apparently, the clots are related to her cancer. Some people just develop them, and it's bizarre to think of her having deep clots like this when her platelet count is so low that it's hard to stop her bleeding when she's stuck to have blood drawn.

But I got my work done, at least. :) Or a good bit of it. Getting up this morning and coming in early may have been the best thing I did all week.

Also, the seller accepted my offer. Heh. On the latest house: I'm considerably more sanguine, now. I mean, about house-hunting. Why was this such a big barrier? I have no idea. It actually makes so much damn sense. If this doesn't work out, I'll find something else.

And so on.

(This one will work out, though. I can't afford to keep paying for home inspections.)