[<< | Prev | Index | Next | >>]

Friday, December 27, 2002

P is for Pain

There's nothing more excruciating for a P-type personality than being forced to plan ahead with insufficient information.

The good March fares to New Zealand expire today, but I don't know where I'll be in March -- nearer San Diego (LAX), Santa Cruz (SJC), Tahoe (RNO), or Maui (OGG). So I've been breaking a sweat trying to predict the logistic in advance, but unfortunately much of it depends on other people's schedules--people who've been largely unreachable over the holiday. I also don't know whether I'll have a car or no, which is yet another permutation affecting schedules and locations.

So, after procrastinating 'til the last minute to book my flight, March 1st filled up and I had to push back a day. Fortunately just a day--when I first tried to book it, it told me nearly the first week of March was gone, but I attacked it from another angle and found a more appealing view onto the mysteriously subjective universe of airline booking.

And in true P form, I booked it from LAX, which is the least appealing scenario (horrors--imagine being car-less in LA on April 1st with no plans) but the most flexible since I can hopefully book a connecting flight later on from most anywhere. Except if I need to check baggage (sleeping bag, pocket knife) I'm going to have to exhume it in LAX and re-check it. And with my luck... Shudder.

Anyway, it is done.

Now I can go back to sorting my stuff into keep/store/sell/chuck piles, under the constraint that the first fits in a backpack, and the second in two file boxes or so.

In my sorting, I unearthed this letter from my father to me when I was six:

Dear Brandy, [yeah yeah]

THAT WAS A VERY NICE CARD YOU SENT ME. I REALLY LIKED THE PICTURE TOO.

I CAN'T TELL YOU WHEN I'LL BE BACK, I DON'T KNOW FOR SURE. I'M GOING TO TRY REAL HARD TO BE BACK BY YOUR BIRTHDAY. WOULD YOU LIKE THAT FOR A BIRTHDAY PRESENT?

I MISS YOU VERY MUCH! TELL MOMMY THAT IF SHE WANTS TO SEE ME IN THE BEFORE YOUR BIRTHDAY SHE WILL HAVE TO COME UP BEFORE MAY. I AM GOING TO ANOTHER PLACE LIKE THIS ONE AND I WON'T SEE ANYONE FOR AWHILE. THEN MAYBE I WILL GET BACK TO YOU. WE WILL SEE, BUT DON'T YOU WORRY, WE WILL HAVE GOOD TIMES TOGETHER BEFORE TOO LONG, AND YOU ARE DOING GOOD NOW. YOU JUST BE HAPPY AND ENJOY EVERYTHING YOU DO, DO WHAT SEEMS GOOD FOR YOU AND THOSE AROUND YOU AND HAVE FUN WITH YOUR LIFE AND TIME AND THE WORLD, AND DON'T WORRY ABOUT WHAT YOU DON'T HAVE, CAN'T SEE, DON'T KNOW. EVERYTHING WILL BE GREAT! I LOVE YOU VERY VERY MUCH,

Daddy

There are also a number of notably longer and more eloquent letters bearing Soledad postmarks from a couple of years earlier, clearly intended for some future, older me. I have never read them--they've been hiding in my archives all these years--these thoughts of a twenty-four year old maximum-security prison inmate who is my father, and who is like me in so many ways.

[<< | Prev | Index | Next | >>]