Dear John

Dear John:

I woke up this morning not having slept enough, yet feeling strangely refreshed. It must have been the invigorating conversation of the prior evening. Nevertheless, I groped around inside of me for the switch to flip but I couldn't find it.

You know the switch inside you, the one you flip and that really amazing person standing before you in life is gone - because you have managed to transport yourself miles away in every way. You have used that switch all too often, I imagine, instantly abandoning all those wonderful people. Well, I couldn't find the switch. The light of the morning didn't help me find it, either. I think I must have thrown it away, down a well, in a cavern someplace. So I determined to carry on, living the day without the switch.

I managed to read two whole paragraphs in the six minutes on the train. It's some progress - but most of the six minutes I spent thinking of silly things I could do to make you laugh. I wasn't coming up with much because I wasn't sufficiently caffeinated. As the train clattered on and the dark tunnels rushed past outside the window, I wondered what Kismet held for our future. In the end, if we could not laugh, the world would be a dark cavern with no light switch.

One of my new colleagues, let's call her Hilda, she could have been a strict Catholic school marm 50 years ago. Hilda was in charge of the Water Club (that's WC for short though I hear that stands for toilet in Europe). She would not allow me to drink until today so she could calculate the prorated expenses of each person who partook of the cooler. Still thinking about making your eyes wrinkle, I got some water and made some hot tea and with the caffeine thus produced threw myself into my work with the abandon of the flipped switch.

And then it seemed a whole other day had passed and it was time to go home in the sudden cold. Where did this cold originate today? I hope my mood didn't bring it on. Talk about bad kismet.

I got online just now and noticed that I had a new email message. I got briefly excited, feeling slightly caffeinated in my imagination, and looked to see who might have written, who might have sent me a little hello.

Some guy was selling a cheap calling plan to Europe, asking me to switch now. Spam: Kismet?