Road to hell

Quite often I'll think of something I want to write about, and think about it and think about it, and then sit down to write about it, and I get distracted, or interrupted, and I don't finish the thought. That's what happened the other day when I was writing about music, specifically the music at Misty's wedding. And the music in Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. I listened to the audio book version and don't have the print version, so I can't look up a quote, but Gaiman postulates that the world was created by singing, that things (and people) can be healed by songs, and sometimes I believe that's true.

When I was thinking about music, and the emotional effect it has on me, I was thinking about Christmas carols, and hyms sung in church, and the music played at funerals. I remember sitting next to my sister at my uncle's funeral, and both of us were holding it together very well until they played Oh Danny Boy, and we just looked at each other and though, "Uh oh." We clutched each others' hands and just gave in to the tears. Some songs just tug directly on your heart and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Amazing Grace is another one.

Things haven't been going very well the last couple of days. Last night I got lost going home. I've been taking the highway a few times a week rather than going home through town. I'm leaving late enough most nights that rush hour is basically over, and it's quicker than taking surface streets. But I guess I haven't quite got it down yet, because last night I missed the highway onramp entrance and ended up on the wrong highway, heading for who knows where? Not me. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been daylight. It would still have been bad, just not so bad.

I was sort of afraid to just get off anywhere, since it's not that great a part of town, particularly at night. And, also, it's not like I'm just driving aimlessly around regular streets, I'm going 65 miles an hour down the highway to hell, basically. I couldn't exactly pull over and leisurely consult a roadmap.

And I honestly, truthfully, had no idea where the heck I was, or where I would end up. I had some ideas, and they weren't exactly thrilling. I figured if I got off the highway I would end up in The Bottoms, or someplace in Kansas City, Kansas, neither of which were very good places to be if you don't know where you are.

So I'm driving and driving and cursing under my breath, and I eventually saw a sign that said I was getting close to the Kansas Turnpike, which I'm not exactly sure what that means, but which made me fearful that I would get on it and not be able to get off, and perhaps also have to pay a toll, and maybe eventually end up in Topeka. So I got off onto another highway and drove for awhile, trying to figure out where I was, or at least what direction I was going in, and then I saw a sign for 635, and I thought, well, I've driven on that highway before going to the airport, maybe if I get on that I'll start to see something that I recognize, and wonder of wonders, I did, and I got on the right highway, and I made it home.

Oh, well, not home, but to the gym, where I couldn't get a treadmill except for the ones that I can't figure out how to work. So I just did the weightlifting part of my workout, and went home and played with my new computer for awhile instead of doing the work that I should have been doing, because I just didn't feel like it.

And then this morning my closet collapsed on me.

Bob's been warning me it's going to happen for months, if not years, and I knew it was inevitable, but I just kept putting off cleaning it out. This morning I was bending over to pull a t-shirt out of the lower shelf, and everything that was on the upper shelf fell onto the top of my head. Pyewacket ran in to see what had happened, but I made her leave in case the fallout wasn't over. I guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend . . .

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