07.04.05 - 1:12 a.m.

I don't know what to do w/today. It's late and I'm still awake. I should sleep. I have a long way to drive tomorrow and no good things at the end of the drive. Then I'm going to turn around and drive even farther. There will be even worse things at the end of that drive. I enjoyed the baseball game quite a bit - why does everyone think I hate them? Mostly, I don't care to follow teams, since I like to keep that headspace for other things, like the varietals of hydrangeas available in my area and which ones work best in my yard. I like my head space free and clear for such things, and find it difficult to pay too much attention to who is doing what in sports - but attending a game is a different thing. I like the atmosphere, the open-ended possibilities, and the beer. Hmmm. And the coming-and-going. And the snack foods. I only had a pretzel, but there were other possibilities. I like the free hat too, and the chance to live a bit further outside the boundaries of my head, where I tend to spend too much of my time otherwise.

The game ended well before dark - in my imagination, we stayed for fireworks, but not in reality. In reality, we merged into the human river and crossed the non-metaphorical variety to find the cars. I didn't quite look at the two homeless men begging on the sidewalk and sort of hated myself for it. I didn't give them money, either. I never know what to do. I can't give everyone something/I give not generously, but more generously than most via the UW and other charities/I volunteer/ and there is no solution. I can justify not giving money, but I can't justify the dehumanizing look-away invisible non-look look, the refusal to acknowledge another person's existance. I don't know if the guys begging cared, but I hedged my bets with a quick, tight smile. I suspect I should be more generous with my smile.

Then: back, and bad news from my parents, who were supposed to be packing for Salt Lake City and a week's worth of barbershop singing. Apparently, they had a message on the machine when they got home that Susie was in the hospital, and had been since Saturday. I spoke with them while they were changing planes in Charlotte. Susie went to the hospital Saturday because she wasn't feeling well. She had a stroke Saturday night, and hasn't regained consciousness. Tomorrow, I'm either driving home and then to Philly, or just straight to Philly. Susie's dying. She has been dying for a while, I suppose, but it sounded like something manageable all along - years rather than months or days. And it turns out that maybe it was months or days. I hate this.

I don't pray for things. God - whatever you call the absolute, if you call it anything - doesn't sit around waiting for the day's prayers before cherrypicking a few favors to send down for the most devout, but before I gave up the ghost of trying to sleep, I was praying for something - another year, another six months, anything. That's what I prayed six months ago when she was in the hospital with the pleural effusion from her recurrence, and I was relieved that it was breast cancer, back again, rather than lung cancer. Now my six months is up, and I want another and another, and maybe - maybe - another after that.

Six months? How about six minutes? Right now, I'll take anything.