Of Bears and Penguins

The Flaming Lips said, “happiness makes you cry,” and I say that life is a series of adaptations.

Tonight is a night in which I will turn out my light and stare sleeplessly at my ceiling and rather than find satisfaction in the silence feel only the vapid sucking of time past my window.

I’m working up to a good cry – I can sense it like animals sense the atmospheric changes preceding a tornado.

Not a sad cry, or a mad cry – just a long-over-due-completely-irrational-making-sure-my-tear-ducts-are-working cry.

Ch-Ch-Changes…are coming my way in the form of a couple of plane tickets and a key to a flat. And all London really means to me tonight is a place on the far side of familiar.

Worry has been my struggle lately. Worry in the form of a rather nasal voice that belongs to the skinny, middle-aged librarian that works in the archives in the back of my mind and wears orthopedic shoes everyday.

She points her finger and says, “Everything bad that can happen, will happen, to the people you love while you are away across the ocean.”

“Shut up you old bag, your shoes are ugly, your face is pinched and you smell of moth balls and dust and stale cellar air,” I say.

Then she gets huffy and bustles off to reorganize a file cabinet. She’ll be back, I owe her a paycheck. Still. By that time, I may be on my way.

People say time flies, and I agree that happiness makes your face awfully wet.