you're kidding me, right?

So naturally after I composed my nice blog post about how well everything is going, everything got worse.

After catching a few screw-ups at work, when I've been trying so hard to do well and be cheerfully present, I was already feeling a bit discouraged; and then I had aspersions cast on my writing abilities and was told that my scholarly ambitions would end in homelessness. That's all a crock of crap, of course, but I was having a hard time holding my head up by the time I got home.

One of my favorite remedies for a rotten day is to talk to my sister, so she and I were chatting about everything under the sun when my phone beeped.

"Hang on," I said, "I'm getting a call from a number I don't recognize."

When I answered, a vaguely familiar male voice warmly inquired as to my wellbeing.

"Fine..." I said.

"Do you know who this is?"

(Why do people do this? Isn't it setting yourself up to feel wretched and insignificant?)

"No idea," I said.

"Does Dave Marcus ring a bell?"

"Nope."

"I came into the office once last year..."

"Oh, Dave," I said. "Yes, of course!"

Yes, of course. The creepy middle-aged man in the process of his fourth or fifth divorce who was too cheap to hire a lawyer but came back to tell me about his great job and his kids, the oldest of whom is my sister's age, and to ask me to dinner. Getting rid of him was easy; I told him I don't date married men, knowing his divorce would be in process awhile.

He had just learned that I'd moved into The State of Denmark, and enthusiastically informed me that we're neighbors. With his characteristic creepiness, he phrased it by saying, "If you look out your back window you can see my house."

He told me he had planned just to stop by, but that it was getting dark and he didn't want to freak me out.

"Good idea," I said. "I have a shotgun. And anyway, I'm moving in a couple of weeks."

Undeterred, he went on to inform me that all of his papers have been filed, though the divorce won't be finalized until January.

"My old strictures still stand," I said.

"No, no, I respect that," he said. "But we could be friends. You could come over sometime and hang out."

I was too tired, suddenly, to be frank.

"Yeah, maybe," I said. "Hey, I have to go, my sister's on the other line."

He apologized profusely. I got back to my sister.

"Oh-ho-ho myyyy Gawwwwd," I said.

"You're having a nervous breakdown," she said.

"No. But you won't believe this."

I sketched the conversation. She sounded murderous. We laughed, and joked around about my strange predicaments while I paced the porch and watched the early bats curl and dip through the grainy evening light. I grinned at her sarcasm, we said good night, I took a deep breath.

Then for some reason I went inside and burst into tears.