October 9: Nobody Won, Daughter's Dance Team, Barely Awake

"Nobody won," I said.  Without looking up, though.                       

Holden has caused his school's fencing team to lose their meet.  He lost their foils on the subway.  That means they showed up to compete and found out all of their equipment was A. W. O. L.  Holden can't seem to hold anything together in his life.


My daughter was supposed to dance with her school's dance team at a J.V. football game tonight.  She didn't dance.  This afternoon, she came home from school sick.  She threw up.  She threw up yesterday morning before school, too.  However, she said she was just really hungry, and she went to school.  Today, my daughter couldn't dance at the football game because the school nurse is one of the helpers with dance.  The school nurse said my daughter wasn't allowed to participate.

My daughter was disappointed.  She went to bed before 9 p.m.  The last time she did that was when she was six or seven years old.  She must be really tired.  I haven't heard a single noise from her bedroom since she went in there.  Either she's playing with her iPod, or she really went to sleep.  My money's on the iPod.  Before she went to sleep, she told me that she never would have called to come home if she knew it would interfere with dance.

Worries tend to multiply during the day.  I find that if I wake up with a worry on my mind, at the end of the day, that worry has multiplied into dozens of additional concerns.  I was worried about my daughter this morning because she wasn't feeling well.  Tonight, I'm worried that my daughter won't go to school tomorrow morning, that my son will accidentally cut off someone's thumb with a pair of art scissors, that we're not going to have enough money for our trip to the Wisconsin Dells this weekend, that my daughter will spend the entire three days at the Kalahari Resort throwing up.  And that's only a few of them.

I am falling asleep at the moment.  It's nearly 10 p.m., and I've officially been awake for 18 hours straight.  The good thing is, I get to do the same thing tomorrow, too.  So I'm going to be barely awake on Thursday, too.

Worry never helps things.  Usually, I worry about things I have no control over at all.  Like my daughter's illness or my son's tendency to stick crayons in his ears at school.  No control.  I need to let it all go.  I'm cranky, and my wife is berating me for not washing my daughter's dinner plate.  I need to keep my lips closed, or else I'm going to say something I'll regret.

Saint Marty doesn't recommend alcohol as a coping mechanism, but a cup of spiked hot chocolate would taste pretty damn good about now.

That's what I count on...