An experience with tears

I know it's a bit lame to blog about personal experience unless they are extremely interesting and revolve around a particularly developed social groups' interest...
And I know that the polls are in and the vote on the next blog is "Stupid Things We Heard People Saying at the Huntington Library" and not something about crying.... but I can't find the notebook where I wrote all the dumb things people free to romp on Thursdays have to say.

With that being said (and while I wait for my new password on morphthing.com to take) I thought I'd write on a very fresh experience I just had.

Matt and I recently returned from a trip to Vroman's. We've been avoiding places you buy things at because of the ridiculously dire straights we've found ourselves in. Not to worry, we will buy things later. But we decided to have a cup of delicious coffee in the book store's cafe anyway. Instead of talking about plans, which seems to be what we usually do in coffee shops, we reminisced. The closer we got to the the present, the more solemn our language got. We started to talk about mistakes and "what-ifs" that would've made this time in alternate universe a little easier, a little less fraught with the unknown.

I suppose it really got me down without my realizing it. By the time we got home, I had already forgotten the walk we had just taken, my steps only existing to get from the last to the next. Usually I take in everything - fresh air, what color car is parked by our house, and the "our" zip-tie I put on the overpass to remind us of the many trips over 210 we've taken to Vromans. It unsettled me to have been so deep in such depressing thoughts.

I sat down on one of the three pieces of furniture left in our home and started to cry. I knew it would only last a few minutes and I didn't really want Matt to see me with puffy eyes or streams down my face; so I leaned forward to keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks.

While I waited for the wave of frustration and sadness to pass, I thought about how clever I was to lean forward and keep my tears in place. I thought about the hyperbola the salty water was making on my downcast eyes. One tear dropped, hit the fabric of the sofa and splatter into a shape similar to the blood splotch on the Watchman logo. While I continued to cry, another tear from my other eye fell and hit the couch, making a similar shape. I took note of the distance between the tear drops and thought about measuring them to see if they were the same distance between my pupils (mind you, I was still very very sad while all this was going through my mind). I was still waiting for the waterworks to end. But then, in a startlingly lucid thought, it occured to me that my very clever position was providing me with a rare opportunity to see through the tear-drop hyperbola as it formed. I closed one eye and watched the tear gather, and stretch, get brighter as it picked up light in the room, and finally fall on top of the Watchmen teardrop that had come before it (all this time I am also doing the math to figure out how much we need beyond my paycheck to eat). I watched a few more tears fall and took notice of the very distinct thudding sound they made. The 3rd or 4th layer of tears was begining to sound more squish-y than thudd-y. I was still so sad and I wondered, if I cry enough, will I have enough tears to go all the way through the couch?

But by the time I had resolved to crying enough to create a column of wetness penetrating the couch, I was already too busy thinking of what words I would use to write this blog and I had nothing to cry about... in fact, I was so quick to jump on the writing, I forgot to wipe my eyes and blinked some risidule tears on my eyelashes onto the keyboard!

Oops. Such is life!

(PS Morphthing worked. One I told Patrick of Vroman's I thought he looked like Liam Neeson. I didn't think I was totally wrong upon meeting him today, but I think my image of him in my head looked more like this.)
(PPS "Stupid Things We Heard People Say at the Huntington Library" will be up tonight!)