Flashbackforward

The snow started falling at 3:21 this afternoon; I noticed it as I was on the phone with a client and spun around in my chair behind my office PC. The office was a noisy, busy, harried cacophony of sounds -- phones ringing and beeping, the fax machine chirping endlessly from the server room, the computer buzzing and spitting back at me as I hammered away at the keyboard...

And leaving the office I walked through it, the steady falling of white chunks of snow, swept along by wind and chill and the darkness of night. We grabbed a taxi (almost literally) and made our way, slowly, across town and then north. I did a quick jump-out at 83ish and walked a block west to my doctor -- a quickie -- and then I was on my way home. I stopped into BestBuy for some blank DVD's and picked up a replacement pair of headphones -- mine are white Sony MDX-71's that came from Japan and are these in-ear things that not only sound great but match the iPod (ie they're white with grey accents) and they have little rubber thingies that help block out all sound around you (eg screaming babies on buses, idiots on trains, traffic, pianos falling out of the sky, etc.) and also make them incredibly comfortable. Alas, the one drawback is their cord is sorta skimpy so stuffing them into a pocket upon nearing a city building (or stepping into the office) kinda destroys them. The last pair came from a company in Massachusetts a friend suggested that specializes in Japanese stuff, so the fact that BestBuy now sells 'em makes me a little less worried about what happens when the original pair finally bites the dust. A replacement pair of 'phones definitely does the trick.

So coming out of BestBuy I stopped into a local market and got some mini-eats for the night, as the snow picked up while I did my part for the American and Japanese economies, and then walked home -- s'only a few blocks this way and a few that way, so I teetered through it slowly but surely and made my way northeast.

In my non-haste I walked by an Italian restaurant and saw a couple eating dinner, like I have a thousand times before -- and then it hit me that I would have loved having dinner somewhere with my other half, she somewhere near Sunnyvale, stressed and tapping her keyboard waiting for materials. I'm not sure what's worse -- wanting her here to spend time with her, or knowing she's so far away. It's a real smack in the happies, this long-distance thing -- feeling this gravitational pull to someone and not having her close by is difficult, to say the least. Coming into an empty apartment, one that was so comfortable and warmed by her presence only two days ago is not ideal. And while I know where we're headed and how happy she makes me, it still doesn't quiet the thing inside me that finds something right when she and I are together. I knew it was there over the last couple days, but when I found myself wishing she was with me out in the snow, going into a candelit restaurant for some random dinner, I realized just how great, how awful it is being this happy :-)

And as if by magic, coming into my place, I switched on the light and another bulb in my apartment blew out, the second in two days. Before I replaced it, I lit a couple of the candles she left for me and just smiled and started for the phone. As the phone rang in my ear, I looked out my back window to watch the snow falling on the courtyard and remembered only three days ago when we were together, watching a very similar picture. Together.

Then I hear her voice and the snow recedes, and the sun starts shining.

And all is right in the world.