I am dying. Actually, that would be a relief. I am conspicuously not dying but if there were any justice in this world anyone who felt this way would be halfway between the mortician's and the cemetery. In fact, I bet you can get some quality rest on that cold marble slab. (A friend tried to sell me on the idea of a healing Mass involving being slain by the spirit, and I found myself wondering wistfully if you can rest up while lying on the floor. At the moment I am awakened in the middle of the night by an intense feeling of exhaustion.)
I really don't know why I feel this way, which is frustrating. As Viktor Frankl says, for suffering to be bearable it must have meaning, and this has none. The most basic of tasks takes just a wee bit more than would be required to climb the northern face of the Matterhorn, but the result looks like something blown out of one's nose while mostly asleep (possibly not even bothering with a tissue, not that I would do something so foul). For example, my boss sent me to get color photocopies of a mailing we're sending out. It was my day off, but I can't write so what the freakin' hell else should I do but run errands. She and the bookkeeper (incidentally the word in English that has the most double letters in a row) had said something about 15 times 5 making $75, which initially translated in my mind to 75 color copies. I was pleased that the copies had only cost $36, but as I was loading the 2000 envelopes and 75 copies into the van, a feeling of numerical discrepancy came over me. So I called my boss, asked how many copies she wanted, was told 1700, and went back for another 1625 (making me late for an appointment with my boss' daughter, which then made her late for a potential wedding reception site, though she was very sweet about it). The total for the second batch was about $630, but as the clerk cheerfully pointed out, we'd made an easy $60 on our rewards card. My boss halfway coughed up her skull when I told her the total. On the bright side, she doesn't yet know (and I don't have to tell her) that we forgot to get the parish priest to sign the original, so we now have 1700 papers waiting to be signed in colorful blue ink.
No cloud is so dark but lurks a silver lining.
