...and sixty-nine to go.

Seems like such a long time. An eternity. An eternal time and an infinite distance separate us. I wish with all my heart that those were the only things standing between us. Because the time will lessen and, in sixty-nine days, so will the distance. Both will eventually dwindle to zero, but we'll still be apart.

Anyway.

I don't think I did anything Wednesday or Thursday or Friday. Nothing except work and sleep and go to this one place called Boston's right up the road from my hotel. They have good beer, and great food. I could almost see myself hanging out there all the time, except it's a little too bright, and the people are just a little too focused on the sports constantly playing on the televisions. I could never completely fit in there, but it'll do in a pinch.

Wait, maybe it was Friday night that I went to this Slo Pitch bar. It was kind of a dive, but the weirdoes there were more like my kind of weirdoes.

And Saturday morning it was nice outside so I drove to Mt. Baker. At least I attempted to. It was cloudy, and I never did see that mountain. Still haven't, actually. And I wasn't going to climb to the top anyway, being dressed as I was and old as I am. But I did drive up a few thousand feet, well above the snowline. It was very pretty up there.

When I got back to Bellingham Saturday afternoon, it was raining again. So I just dicked around and checked out a couple of bars and a brewpub. Nothing special.

Then Sunday morning I drove to the water. The Northern end of Puget Sound. Once again, everything was all very pretty. It was very tempting, both Saturday and Sunday, to stop my car every few feet and take a picture. But I didn't do that. I just took a few pictures. Nothing obsessive.

Then Sunday afternoon I went to this Archer's Ale House place. They had a pretty good beer selection, and I talked to a fellow beer snob for an hour or so. He recommended about a dozen more places for me to visit while I'm in Western Washington.

And nobody cares. And I barely care myself.

Sixty-nine days to go...

...to my sister Dina!

Wish I could have been there for it.

Back when I started this thing - call it a blog or a journal, I don't really care - the purpose was very different than it's been lately. Back then, it was just something I did so that people (my sisters, mainly) would know that I had a life; that I didn't spend my life sitting in a dark closet, sucking my thumb and rocking fore and aft.

More recently, of course, this thing has been used primarily to whine about my life and the lack thereof.

Well, I'm not going to say that I'm not going to whine anymore. That would be a lie. I guarantee that I'll whine again, and probably sooner than later. But not tonight.

For the next 10 weeks, I'll be gone from that thing that I've been using instead of a life. I'm out of touch, despite the occasional email or text message, and I'm also out of sync. The three-hour difference in time zones sucks. It means that, for example, it's 10:00 PST as I type this in Bellingham, but back home all of the people I care about are already asleep.

I miss my friends and family, and I suppose that's to be expected.

Okay, a lot of people already know this. I'm leaving. I'm going to Bellingham, Washington, off all places, for ten weeks.

It's a work thing. I wish I knew more about it than that, but I really don't have any details. They looked at my resume, and asked me to get my ass up there.

I leave Tuesday morning, and I come back on the 30th of January. Maybe that doesn't seem like that long to some of you, but for me it's going to be an eternity.

Here are the things that I'm going to miss:

My sister Dina's birthday.
LaptopGirl's birthday.
Thanksgiving.
My Nephew Gehrid's birthday.
The Saturnalia beer festival at Rich O's.
OddlyFamiliarGirl's birthday.
HatGirl's 30th birthday. (This makes me saddest of all.)
Christmas Eve and Christmas.
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
And probably some other stuff that I can't think of right now.

Oooooh, but I'll be home for Groundhog Day, so that makes it all better. Not.

Today I'm just sad. I've been trying to get over it. I've been trying to conjure up even the tiniest smidgen of excitement about this. I've been unsuccessful. Maybe when it's inevitable, like when I'm on the plane Tuesday morning, I'll at least be able to accept it.

I hope it's a fun job. And I hope I have a good time, despite my misgivings.

Since I didn't do jack shit today to get ready, tomorrow I've got a bazillion things to do.

Right now I'm getting ready to go have dinner, with a girl I'm going to miss much more than I'm allowed. I hope I can snap out of this funk for a few hours. She needs cheer in her life.

Okay, I guess I'll type something while I wait for my heartbeat to return to normal.

If it ever does.

I was just in bed, replaying the events and conversations of the day. It was 3:20 AM.

My doorbell rang.

I stayed where I was. Trying to fool myself into thinking that I'd imagined it.

My doorbell rang again.

At first, I thought that perhaps it was one of my friends in trouble, or maybe some motorist with car trouble.

But, because my mind works the way it works, as I got out of bed and groped for some clothes, my thoughts raced back to a night over two years ago. I thought about how police had appeared at my sister's house in the middle of the night, and how they'd given her the worst news possible.

My doorbell rang again.

My heart rate doubled.

I went to the door and looked out the window.

A policeman, of course.

My heart rate redoubled.

The space between two rapid heartbeats saw the death of everyone I cared about, one after another.

"Police," the cop said to me when he saw me in the window.

"Duh," I thought.

"Hello?" I asked.

"I'm afraid..." he began.

My heart rate somehow managed to double again.

"...that you have a loose horse," he finished.

It took me a second.

I mean, what did a horse have to do with someone I loved being dead? Why was he wasting my time telling me about a horse? Was he trying to soften the blow? Or had this horse somehow killed HatGirl, or LaptopGirl, or one of my sisters?

Also, if my heart beat its way out of my chest and started hopping around on the floor, would I be able to catch it before one of my cats did?

Like I said, it took me a second. But I eventually figured it out. Because I'm smart and stuff.

"Oh," I said. "That's not my horse. It belongs to my neighbor. His driveway is right next to mine."

"I see," said the cop. "The house behind yours? Okay, sorry to have bothered you, sir."

"No problem," I replied. "It could have been a lot worse."

I feel like I should write something before I go, so I guess I will. I'm doing this under duress, though.

I don't want to go. I have unfinished business here.

I'll feel better when I get there. I always do. Except when I don't.

This should work. I can do this. I can get my shit done, and still have some time for a reasonable Saturday night, should such an opportunity arise. And my flight doesn't leave until 11:35 tomorrow morning, so I can do the last-minute packing and stuff right before I leave.

Today, I've been doing laundry and dishes. I'm actually almost done with those things. Then I'll probably run a vacuum over my floors, and just make sure that everything is semi-tidy. I don't like coming home to a messy house.

Oh yeah, I've got to go to the store. I need cigarettes and batteries and deodorant. And maybe some cat food, I need to see how much is left in the current bag. Oh, and maybe some shaving cream.

Or maybe I won't bother to shave while I'm there. It's supposed to be a vacation, after all.

By this time tomorrow, I'll be at the airport, maybe even on the plane.