Irony with a Capital G-O-D (1/23/09 Friday)

It was good to sleep a little longer, without anticipation of the alarm. Surprising, too, given my elevated stress level this week. Twice yesterday I looked directly into Julie's face, and it was the second one that made me feel ridiculous over what I've been doing. There was nothing in the look or the return, no reading of expression that flashed an epiphany. A switch simply flicked, and I wanted to laugh. At myself. I say "ridiculous," but my vocabulary is short of the word that truly describes my attitude toward Julie lately. I was still laughing this morning as I walked up to Starbucks for breakfast. A month into winter, and the variety and volume of birdsong was more that of early spring. The robins have been out of the woods for two weeks, right on schedule. Today will reach nearly sixty. Highs were below freezing most of last week. But my laughter fades almost to derision when I consider how to pull myself out of this morass. "Derision" is perhaps too strong a word. The smirk is well-cemented, so the glee, if ironic, is undeniable. There seems a masochism in this glee, but it's really an acknowledgement, a nod to those implacable forces of irony that seem to rule my life. What do I do? Have I already done the first thing in facing Julie? Let's say so--now what? Will it even do me any good to plan? Has it ever? Yeah, somewhere, at some time, I'm sure, but that's not really the point of planning, is it? The point of planning is to give irony something on which to act--a host.