Today I Looked Death in the Face and Laughed

When I stepped outside today it was cold--colder than it should have been. Although it is really hard to guesstimate just how it's going to feel outside by looking out the window, past history and weather.com suggested mild with a touch of Autumnal crispness. Which made the shroud of debilitating chill that descended upon me bend so sinister it fronted the ominous side.

More ominous still, were the cackling crows streaming in and out of the large tree down the street. They were furious, or scared, or just having a good time, but noisily so and they caught my attention.

Then, in a sequence that could have been lifted from a Peter Jackson epic, my eyes fell from the crows circling above and glanced down the row of trees lining the sidewalk like a colonnade and there, at the very end of a long tunnel like space, in a black cloak which from this distance obscured any recognizable features, was a figure that frightened me to my core, walking swiftly away from me, or was it toward me? It was impossible to tell. The world around me appeared to go dim. The crows went even more nuts, and it felt as if my blood were slowing down in my veins.

Now I'm not exactly a spiritual man, I consider myself a moral and ethical man, but that is not the same and as far as Faith goes I'm a pauper. But I can't shake the feeling that what I encountered this morning somehow transcends normal 'real world' classification. As in i wasn't supposed to see it. I'm not sure what or who the black-cloaked figure was or what they were doing, but whatever it was it was deeply unsettling. And as much as I'd like to forget it, I can't seem to.

Well I Wouldn't Say I've Been Missing it, Bob.

The past week, coming on the heels of a whirlwind vacation/wedding planning extravangapalooza, has been a blessing in that my average work day has basically consisted of the following rough outline:

8:00am, eat breakfast while reading my comicbook websites (newsarama, IGN, comicbookresources, etc). They are like my soap-operas. I needs my stories!

8:30am, as the store opens, i try to improve my sluggishly underperforming fantasy baseball squadrons. wtf CC sabathia!?

9:45am, visit and loiter in the Onion's AV Club.

10:30am, check my work email, yep, still empty of everything not containing the improper phrases "take her to seven heavens," "Make God in the bedroom," "I'm bored/tired and am using my friend's email address and would like to show you some pictures." All spam dead giveaways, except for that one time a professor assigned that classic University of Chicago Press work: Making God in the Bedroom: From Aquinas to Pope Benedict the 16th, or, How Religion Took Her to Seven Heavens While America Was Bored/Tired and Using His Friend's Email Account, by Arthur Bangability, 2005

11:15am, refresh "Oline In the City" for the 1,113th time.

11:30am, leave to 'go buy lunch' even though i clearly brought one with me that morning. Hey, it's like paradise on earth outside, well, minus the hurricane winds and schlumping U of C coeds moaning under overstuffed backpacks like 18th century child mining-slaves.

12:00pm, take lunch, play online card-game Hearts. lose horribly. Damn you BitchQueen of Spades!

1:15pm, ardently defend the goddam Cleveland Indians on the ESPN MLB Forum from upstart Royals fans claiming that with 150 games left, the season is over. (but on a more serious note, wake the fuck up, Tribe! This Fall was supposed to be a delirious trifecta of getting to marry the only woman silly enough to say yes to me, the election of a Democratic President (I just don't care anymore Dems, just pick a candidate already!) and the obligate Tribe World Series Championship (over, let's say... the Phillies).

2:00pm, stare vacantly into space.

2:30pm, yep, still staring.

2:55pm, read a strip or two of my favorite web-comic, 8bit theater by brian clevinger. so funny.

3:13pm, decide that I don't deserve to bleed any more money from my employers, leave early, fill up the gas-tank for $85.30 and reconsider leaving early ever again and working for 60 hours a week instead, just to fuel the Jeep.

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what's that? it's only 10:40am still? hmm... wonder what Oline's doing over on her blog...

the sky is falling?

Unknown Precip 6°F Feels Like -10°F Updated Jan 19 01:45 p.m. CT Watch the Chicago Forecast	UV Index: 1 Low Wind: From W at 14 mph gusting to 19 mph Humidity: 47% Pressure: 30.35 in. Dew Point: -7°F Visibility: 7.0 miles FREE weather on your desktop

So what exactly is precipitating that we can't qualitatively decide on what it is?