not unbreakable, but nearly
December 12, 2000 02:08 PM

As if it wasn't strange enough. As if I weren't content with the surreality of walking around and working and thinking with a head cold. As if.

I think someone has stolen the portable CD player I kept in my car. Because my sweet but absent-minded friend left the passenger door of said vehicle unlocked last time we left it. Which was days ago. Me inside in his huge unionsuit pyjamas sleeping off the swelling in my head. Meanwhile...

I don't usually even take the trouble to hide it, but this time I did. As if I knew. As if. And now it has disappeared.

Now it occurs to me that, despite years of driving myself to school in the wrong part of town, years of living in small but not that small cities, even of walking alone young and female down dark streets I shouldn't have walked down, I have never been touched by any sort of crime. Picture me in a bubble. Picture me puzzled by the absurdity of it all.

I am not untouched by this. No.

Also missing was my (slightly less hidden) fuzzy CD case. Containing a couple of albums I will now have to replace for him. And some of mine. I feel irresponsible for not having taken care of his things. I'll miss that fuzzy thing. I have another portaCDplayer. Conveniently, a large purchase from Amazon turns out to be unavailable, so I have a nice little budget for these replacements. A crime could hardly have hurt me less. I feel a little stupid, a little miffed. Mostly just surprised to realise how successfully I've protected myself up to this point. You know, I used to go to Manhattan every Thanksgiving and have never once been mugged, swindled, or any other clever slang termed.

It's really quite surprising.

Such a tiny thing. Considering that I know my job is safe and I won't have to be farmed out to a client, that all around me are safe, that I finally feel financially mostly safe. A tiny thing, really. And a strange one.

To think that I am, in some way, blessed. That all those cute little Wiccans saying "blessed be" might be on to something.

I thought yesterday. That I wish I could separate off some of the near-perfection of my own life (it really is better than I deserve, better than I need) and give it in chunks to those of you who might need it. Maybe in some karmic way, my minor brush with crime will improve your lives or strengthen you in some way. Would that were so.