Echoes and aftermath

This'll be the four year mark of Jasper' s passing. I took today off, and tomorrow as well. Work is way more dysfunctional than even I could ever have imagined, and maybe the antipathy exists just to take my mind off the emptiness. Nothing like psychopathic co-workers all up in your face to put things in perspective. Last night took the cake. There's always ONE GUY who just doesn't like your stuff, except at Qwest my whole GROUP is that one guy. Well, not completely fair but close. Hatred takes a LOT of energy, and breeds its own critical mass. Eh, I'll leave that for another post. It would take an Updike to effectively deconstruct our little group's sheer chaos. Think equal parts Lord of the Flies meets Animal Farm, throw in a bit of Michael Douglas's "Falling Down" and a picture emerges. This is my work life at this time. I have a VERY thick skin, but I do bleed.

The last four years I really haven't give too much a damn about anything. There's been a few bright spots, sure. My own ennui, which blinds me to the obvious, has derailed me a few times. Wild optimism, and I am a CHRONIC optimist, doesn't always save the day either. Its been a challenge to reel in my inner cynic. I've had a few good guides along the way, and know just how corrosive cynicism can be, how quickly it eats away the foundation of personality, so I don't DO it. As a habit anyway.

I can't say what tomorrow will bring, but the kicker is I feel HOPE, and I haven't felt that for four years now. Hope drags along with it a whole raft of other characters, and I guess that's the biggest news today, April 13th, mere hours away from my little Shoah, when the world I knew went up and away. Its easy to wax philosophic about how it all ends up, but the knife that sinks its hilt into your son changes all that. My dark angel lurks way too close, and I, master of putting my box of hurt up and to the left, just beyond my vision, know its all too easy to get sucked into the pain vortex.

Best I got this 11th hour. Tomorrow, the word goes out: its PET DAY! We all go out, find an animal, and ambush it with happiness. In my son Jasper's name. Woof!

I was surprised it was so warm. April anywhere is a bit dodgy, and Denver's is always life's curveball, weather's 7th inning slider, but baby tonight was glorious. C'or! I even tore off a layer on the way out the door from work, at 10p, teased a bit of a breeze up the sleeves of my creaky old leather jacket easing the bike up Broadway. Its very strange, Broadway is always crawling with cops and I never seem to generate so much as a glance. I should never, ever say this much, much less nail it in print but I *think* I'm bullet-proof. I've been pulled over dozens of times from McDermott Nevada to Denver's I-25 exit ramp that peels west to I-70, where I CUT OFF a Colorado State Trooper in my WRX at 65 mph (no LEO likes this car), I just can't get a ticket.
Traffic cameras? Dismissed. Nevada State Trooper? "..... I don't know what to say, officer, you got me. I don't know WHAT the hell I was thinking. 96 in a 75 mph zone? I'm bleeding SORRY". Keep your hands on the wheel, sit up straight, pony up the license and insurance, just be HONEST. Really, isn't these folks job HARD ENOUGH??
--My night-shift trolls wandered in around 9:00. Got out somewhere between 9:30 and 9:45. It was a mercifully quiet night. This is a touchy week. Jasper died 4 years ago from this coming Tuesday. I want to like spring, as in the SEASON, *SO BAD* but I just rue it. FSK!
I used to tell Jasper, the rare times he'd deign to talk RISK with me, and it was always a hockey thing, "Jasper, you get hurt doing this stuff, and *somebody* is gonna get hurt RIGHT AFTER". Cancer is a fsking thief in the night, nobody to blame, nobody to strangle and believe me if I could but finger something, somebody, the Dark Angel in me would track them down like a GOD DAMN DOG.

I am stymied.

" ..... come to your house and he won't stay long
Look 'round the room one of your family will be gone
Death don't have no mercy in this land".
-Hot Tuna