20 February 1999
 
Make a Little Birdhouse In Your Soul  
 
    This is an excerpt from a note I wrote to a good friend this morning, waiting for a meeting to begin that I get the sneaking feeling has been postponed or called off, and I didn't know it.  Anyway:
I was crying last night.  It was a horrible day yesterday on many fronts for many reasons.  The really big trade show begins tomorrow, so many things I've hosed up, my nerves were terrible.  So many things to find out at the last minute we were not at all ready for.

Last night I woke up to Boober coughing at 2:30, then had to go to the bathroom.  Couldn't get the toilet to flush.  The water is not working, at all, hasn't since the middle of the night.  I tried to lie down and sleep, but all the recent failures and the problem with the water, and everything that still needed doing, oh god how it buzzed around in my head.

I have a closet that was full of clean clothes.  Every time I've needed to straighten the place up in a hurry, whatever clean clothes that were back from the laundry but not put away got tossed into that closet, and it was getting horrible trying to find things to wear.  So last night I sat down with lots of coat hangers and a box for stuff that needed to go to Goodwill, and I hung every thing that needed hanging, folded everything that needed folding, and tossed into the dirty clothes everything Spodie had peed on.  I was angry at Spodie.

I held up a white shirt for the hangar, and saw something in the breast pocket.  Receipt, maybe, or a post-it note.  I reached inside and found a dollar, but it was folded too flat to be a whole dollar.  It was my half dollar from ***.  I'd lost it months ago.  I'm not sure what happened in me, but suddenly I was crying.  Relief?  Lost hope?  What?  I really don't know.  I couldn't even tell whether I was happy or sad.

It had been eating at me.  I'm not superstitious, but it couldn't help but occur to me in irrational moments that the reason for the troubles was that I lost the half dollar.  I was just speaking of him a few hours before, telling El Prez about the word I gave *** to bring him to any location in the US of his choosing, whether I could afford it or not, once he is ready to come to the US to live.

El Presidente was upset because I gave that word in better times, before...  I maintained that my word is my word, regardless who I give it to, it is a matter of integrity to keep it.  That's why we must be careful to whom we give our word, and why it's important not to commit unless you are sure.  He doesn't understand.  He thinks that there are many circumstances that absolve you from keeping your word.  I believe that there are very few.

Anyway, can it be seen as a sign of some kind?  I do not usually think of omens, but this is too coincidental.  All along I've been betting that nothing will come of it, that he won't want to leave ### and she won't want to come along, that he won't ever get his US passport ready, that he won't bother arranging for a job, or accepting anyone's help in finding one.  It's just odd that this turns up now.

It was so startling, after a day full of startling things.

     There were lots of little notes in my head earlier last night that I wanted to commit here, and then forgot.  They will probably come again.  They sometimes do.  
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