who wants pudding?

It's been an up-and-down week. There's a lot to figure out, things that I feel are going to end up saying a lot about who I am, and what my life is going to be. And that weight is already sitting atop a weakened structure of will and belief.

The biking helps. Visiting with my friend Julia and her daughter Daniella helped.

This morning felt empty again, though. I woke up a little late, got ready, got on the bike.

A few nights ago, driving home with my friend Amber from a party, I saw a little dog running manically beside Lamar, across the front of a used car dealership. We stopped, and I tried to get the dog to come to me. It hardly stopped to size me up, barked, and continued running. Trying to circle around it, trying to be patient, nothing worked. It just got farther and farther away from me. Something felt vaguely familiar about it all.

This morning, I turned left across the traffic at Lamar, pedaled hard to cross to the far right lane, and to get up to the speed of the traffic. A block down, I was able to let up a little. The wind in my face, though hot and sticky, was good.

There, on the curb of the car dealership, was a little ragged white and brown form. I don't know if someone had dragged him to the side, or if he had crawled there. I don't know how long he had been dead. He still had his collar and tags. I thought about turning back, checking the tags and calling the owners, but it would be obvious to the people at the car lot, which would be opening soon, and I had faith they'd take care of it.

Maybe it was the wrong choice on my part. It's not the one I'd usually make. But today, I couldn't stand the thought of finally catching up to the little dog, when it was far too late.

and i'm here, at work. they turn the HVAC off on Sundays. I rode my bike, after sleeping late, finally, so tired. i saw my friend amber last night, and i reconnected with that year, working at the coffee shop and becoming fed up with my life as an attorney. i went to see amber's friend, hope irish, play at antone's, and i reconnected with

i'm working, and listening to This American Life, about a man that couldn't read - at all. he tried to drive trucks for a while, but couldn't even read street signs, road signs, city limit signs, exit signs, one-way signs. he was always late, and his paychecks were docked, and his wife left him, and he lost that job. at 45, he began a literacy program. he has assignments now, has to do a report on a book, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish...

If I was to show that to people, they would say, 'wow," I don't know, they would really try to embarass you. But at home, by myself, I'm happy, with just reading this. This is better than reading anything at all. Just a simple book.

He says that now when he gets lost, he can read his way back.

tears are a thing again, lately, and the man, so late in his life, his enjoyment of Dr. Seuss, his being limited to it... yeah, that does it.

I rode down to Fagan's going away party. nice people. i met him running, with that bunch, and one of the coaches is there. I hadn't seen her since the day it all came down. she didn't look at me that day. today, she's kind as ever, says "water under the bridge." I tell her I wish it was for everybody. I mean them, but I also mean me. It's not for me. in 39 years, after going to middle school and high school in Westlake, of all God-forsaken places, those were the first people that ever made me just want to leave this town, my town.

i can't get to things. i can't get past things. they can laugh, or shake their heads in amazement at these inabilities, but you can do that when you haven't lost shit. it's easy to judge when you don't lose.

i don't know. i'm tired. tired of them, tired of me. i keep feeling like i rely on cheap lies for hope. my friends are real (more real than some of the ones in the past, clearly). and she's real. her love for me is real. and she's leaving town. what can i be to her when she's gone? what can i be to her when she comes back?

sorry, there's no ending to this. not yet.

I was late to work today, but not for the usual reason, not because I clutched desperately for the shelter of unconsciousness. I came home, had to get things together for work, packed them into my new Ortlieb waterproof bag that fits on the new rack on my newly revived old Specialized Rockhopper mountain bike.

Recently, I've been back on the bike to a significant degree for the first time since I was a teenager, when it was the one sport I ever really showed some real promise at. My girlfriend, Christina, bought a new bike for her summertime triathloning adventures, and I started riding with her.

Gas prices and traffic no doubt played some quiet, subconscious role in the decision to ride my bike to work for the first time in years. The greater influence was my new love affair with Mellow Johnny's, Lance Armstrong's new bike shop downtown, just a few blocks from my office. The nice, clean showers and lockers answer the overriding issue of my ability to sweat profusely at the drop, and bending over and picking up, of a hat.

And then there's the need for peace. I spent some peaceful afternoons and evenings working on the old steel bike, cleaning it, tuning it, stripping off the unnecessary bits and adding new marginally necessary bits.

Now, several mornings a week, I wrangle the laden bike down the stairs, pedal out of the steep hollow of my apartment complex's parking lot, and onto South Lamar. It's two miles of downhill, smooth and fast, and though I'm surrounded by morning traffic, I'm moving in the peace of a reality just slightly out of phase with the people in their cars. I can push a little, and I keep up with the cars. I've started wearing a helmet after suffering the caring ridicule of my girlfriend and several other friends, and after a couple of trucks almost clipped me one morning. But I still feel the wind in my face, the energy moving through the two patches of contact between rubber and asphalt, and it's a very, very good thing. Peace. I look into the cars around me, and see the delayed reflection of my own face driving to work - tired, annoyed, a little angry, already a little defeated.

Taking the bike to work for me is an escape, a rebellion, a postponement of the part of my day that only means a paycheck. And, as exercise, it's the only thing that is more joy than obligation right now. I run at this point because I can't really stop. My feet have hurt for over a year and a half now, advancing to the point where walking a few blocks is just a bit more painful than I'd like. But I fear losing what I've gained as a runner, and as a coach, and I fear losing what I've lost, in terms of weight and sloth.

But the bike is something different. It's all mine. It's a strength, and a love. I pull into Mellow Johnny's, lock it up, come in through its coffeeshop cheekily named "Juan Pelota", "pelota" being Spanish for "ball"). On some mornings, when I ride farther or stop to drown myself for half an hour at Barton Springs, as I did today, I get an iced chai latte, chat a little with the barrista, walk through the shop just stirring, morning chatter and music, and peace, like time and space themselves have been pulled out of the vise we keep them in.

I still have to go to work. I still have to run. There's still lots to do, and I and the people around me will abuse and crush time and space again. But I've won some little part of the day, and of a better, peaceful, smiling me.

I've wanted, and needed, to write about this for a long time. I kept taking the high road, and didn't. But I think it's time.

I waffled, as I have on many mornings, then decided that today, I would ride my bike to work.

The air was unusually cool and fresh for mid-May, mid-rush hour.

My heart was still heavy, as it's been lately, but there was the promise of the two-mile downhill ride on Lamar Boulevard, the feel of speed and wind and release, and I felt it there waiting to comfort me, like my girlfriend had when she hugged me goodbye earlier this morning.

I cranked up the short hill out of the back of my apartment complex, up to the street that would take me to Lamar. As I crested the hill, a silver Toyota pickup swept past. Cones in the bed, and that logo on the back.

You've got to be kidding me. Here? Now?

It was the leader of the group I once coached for. A group I had loved, given almost unblinking loyalty to, and worked hard for, a group that quickly and unceremoniously fired me a year and a month ago, for a mistake I had made. It was a bad mistake, a moment's ethical failure that had consequences for another person. I had done everything I could to lessen that burden, to make up for what I had done. It had consequences and a burden for me, in remorse and a deep need to be better and do far more good than I had tried to do before.

Notably, it was a mistake in my personal life, that didn't impact my role as a coach, except this group, and this woman in the silver Toyota truck, decided it was their business, decided it required that they fire me, in the middle of a training group I coached, days before another group was set to continue with a new class, because the runners had asked to continue training with me, specifically, and in the middle of a group I myself was training with.

There was an appeal. There was a polite refusal. A week later, I was laid off my job. A week after that, I was told that I would not be coaching for a great group that trained cancer patients and survivors.

People turned their backs on me. Notably, people who rallied around one person and his odd little cult of personality. Someone I had stuck up for, tried to be a friend to, who wouldn't ever answer me when I asked if he was the one who had said something, that had set the wheels in motion to get me fired.

Only a couple of people had the respect to ask me for my side. Some may have felt they chose against someone who had made a mistake. But I know that many felt they were faced with a choice between the group they loved so much, that was such a tremendous part of their running and social lives, and me.

There was a slide, and a long, dark time. It was with me every day.

For so much of my life, when I had little other self-esteem to hold on to, I had the comfort of knowing that I tried to be a good person, and essentially was. I knew that other people knew that, and believed in me at least to that extent.

Suddenly, I didn't have that. I had failed, and nothing can ever erase that failure. And there seemed to be nothing I could do to make up for it. I was cast out, and that was it.

It all makes me feel like I'm right back in the days when bullies ruled my world, inflicting wounds inside and out, with no repercussions, no consequences for their themselves. I know, in some larger sense, in a very essential way, they're losing, not winning. I know that now. But then, and now, the worst of it is, I know they think that they're winning.

There were months and months of not being able to run without feeling the hurt and anger. The impact of bottom, the hands of friends, and the drive to coach and run again finally pulled me up. But I could never forget, and it continues to burn in me.

It doesn't help that their running group is huge, and growing, and loud, and everywhere in this town. Good for them. Bad for me. I see them around the races and the streets. Many of the coaches continue to be friends, really good ones, even. I get fake hellos from just a few, if they don't have the option of completely ignoring me.

The rep that helped us get shirts for our new running group even said the other day she can't do it anymore, because she was told I had split off from this other group, and she doesn't want to risk the connection. I don't blame her at all, and I don't know that it's a real action by the other group. But it's just another intrusion.

And now here she is, in my neighborhood, right in front of me on a ride to work that I'd hoped would make me feel a bit better today.

I'm sitting right behind her at the light. There aren't any options, and while I don't have to engage a bully, I'm not going to run from them, either. I know she sees me. Her dog is hanging out the passenger window, I focus on it, and the light. I turn onto Lamar behind her, and all thoughts of a leisurely ride and arriving at work not completely bathed in sweat are overwhelmed by this surge of... everything.

I fall back initially. Then it's quickly 20, 25, 30mph. A succession of lights and traffic slow-downs, and I'm just a couple of cars back again.

They expect me to forget and move on, and they seem befuddled by my failure to do so. But it's easy for them, isn't it? They hadn't lost anything. They got their way, and expect to continue getting their way.

I lost a lot. As a friend, they and some of their followers turned their backs on me. As a person who developed strong relationships and friendships with my runners, they gave me only the option of inexplicably quitting on them in the middle of their training, of a mysterious As a coach, they gave me nowhere to move on to. Two different parties place the blame on each other for it, but whichever of them is telling the truth, the bottom line is, I was prevented from coaching for another group.

When I sent an email to my runners telling them I had to quit "for personal reasons", but encouraging them to continue running with that establishment, they were upset that runners came to them with questions about why and requests that I continue.

When some of my runners who had become and still are my friends rallied around me and didn't want to see me slide into a hole, when they wanted to continue running with me, I first said yes, then decided it wasn't a good thing. I disclosed to the woman in the silver Toyota about it, and was met with anger.

When people came and ran with me anyway, she was infuriated. Attempts to talk, attempts at reconciliation, went unanswered. Finally, the other owner of the running group wanted to talk to me about concerns they had about my coaching a group and for my impact "on the running community in general". He did say some nice things. I want to believe some part of him was genuine and wanted to be helpful. But there was also arrogance, challenge. In the spirit of appeasement, I gave things up. They gave nothing.

They lay claim to workouts that other coaches tell me far predate them. They lay claim to anyone I met as a coach. They lay claim to my ability to coach.

After all this, they expect me to let go. They expect me to go away. They don't understand why I'm still angry. Sometimes, I don't, either. It's 8:10am on an unusually cool, mid-May Friday morning, and I'm pounding away at 35 miles an hour chasing... what? 

I've ended up with some of the best friends and runners I've ever had, all of whom know the truth, and made their own choices. One of them became someone I love. Of the runners that stuck with me, and the friends they brought into the new group, a couple were sidelined by injury. Everyone else made it to the marathon and half marathon, and I'm proud of playing a role in that as their coach. More and more people are coming to me wanting me to coach them to run.

So why do I still feel the sadness and anger?

Trailing her truck down Lamar this morning, out of breathing and the smooth motion of leg pushing bike, reasons began to rise up out of the murkiness in my heart and head, taking on a new sharpness in the grey morning light.

I am sad, I am angry, I am devoid of resolution, because for these people I'm beyond forgiveness or redemption. My mistakes, my flaws, regardless of my willingness to acknowledge them, repent for them, or change them, make me forever less to them. And this means one, or both, of two things: either I'm not worth it to them, and never really was, or they don't have the capacity or general willingness.

It would be easy, me being who I am, with my history of being told I wasn't good enough, that I was something less, to believe that. But I believe in the quality of the friends and the people who have stuck by me, through this and so much else. They're good people, true people, who, when I might have disappointed or failed them or someone else, or even myself, trusted the person they believed me to be. They ask me for the truth. They trust that the person I am wants to be good, and will try to do the right things. They reward faith with faith, the heart of true and meaningful loyalty and friendship. And not only because I need that faith from time, that ability in them is part of what makes them the greatest friends, and the greatest people.

These great people believe I'm worthwhile. They believe I'm worth their faith and their friendship. That's enough for me.

So, I've known it's not that. Zipping downhill on Lamar, trailing my past in the silver Toyota truck, I realized that it is the other thing, that on top of the fact that I failed them, it's the fact that these people failed me, and themselves, and their ideals.

We both failed. We all failed. Unfortunately, having their company on the way down just makes me feel worse. The question at this point, is... what will we do now? Who will we be today, tomorrow? Will we both continue to fail?

She split off to the right at Mary Street. I thought of following. It would be shorter, there'd be less traffic, and yes, I wanted to hang on, I wanted to be there in her rear view mirror, I wanted to see a smile and forgiveness, or I wanted her to see me - I am still here, I am still good. I am still worth a damn. I will not run from you.

I paused, fingers on the shifter. Then I pushed the small lever in, urged my legs on a bit, and stayed to the left. The air was unusually cool and fresh for mid-May and mid-rush hour. The drivers around me were understanding and accomodating. And there was a smooth, fast downhill ahead, waiting.

Despite sustaining sizeable losses in North Carolina and an inconsequentially marginal win in Indiana last night, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is vowing to fight on, extending the campaign for as long as 100 years, if necessary.

Clinton addressed her campaign troops after taking the stick of a Navy A-4 on its final approach to the aircraft carrier "Hubert Humphrey". Clad in a margarine-colored G-pantsuit, Clinton appeared under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished".

Citing the success of the surge she experienced in the Ohio and Texas primaries, a win in Michigan where her opponents did not appear on the ballot, and a double-digit victory in Pennsylvania (if you round up), Clinton claims that victory is still entirely possible, decrying pundits, party officials, and arithmetic as it is commonly understood in this universe.

Early on, Clinton's staffers had predicted that she would secure the nomination in a campaign that would last "several months, max," and that caucus goers would welcome her with open arms. Instead, she has met resistance in some states in a seemingly unending and increasingly unpopular war campaign that many say has destabilized the region party.

OK, so I am not flagging on my commitment to writing, not at all.

Any time I get where I could be writing something new, I'm mostly using to pound and mangle "The View From Above" to get it into better shape, so I can send it out.

I've sought the advice of a handful of friends whose literary opinions I trust. They've been helpful, but I also feel like it's the first time someone else is seeing why I haven't done this before.

For one thing, there is no right answer in the editing process. Three different reviewers, three radically different opinions. The new intro is good... the new intro robs the piece of a lot of it's immediacy and feel. Present tense is weird... changing it to the past tense weakened it.

One even suggested removing what I think is the punch line to the whole thing, the story of the employee whose wife has the brain tumors.

I have no idea how many revisions it's seen now. It's back in the present tense, where it'll stay. The intro bits keep flashing in and out of existence. I may have to lose my line about commercial-grade weevil poison, acoustic ceiling tile and urinal cakes, which pains me.

It's also hard because every iteration becomes a new piece in my mind, and with every change, something is lost. I write largely because since I was a kid, I've always hated the idea that so many moments and thoughts are just lost. So, editing... yeah, kinda sucks.

But however it turns out, it's hitting the mail this week, and others won't be far behind. Time to step up and see if anyone other than the four or five of you (that's optimistic, and I'm counting myself) have any interest in what I have to say...

Mmm... recycled pudding... the date on the cup says "March 23, 2005". It smells OK...

I'm in supercuts. 7:00pm on a Friday night. La vida loca, you know.

I couldn't stand it anymore, the whole hair thing. I let it go, sort of a graphic representation of everything else I've let go in the past month or so. It's gotten long, which, paradoxically (and again, symbolically), only makes the scalp yamulke on my head that much more noticeable.

A week ago, I plugged in the clippers to get them nice and fully charged. I was ready to do it, to just shave it all off. There would be a certain practicality to it, and possibly even a new and intriguing look for me.

Oh, please don't let me get the mean-looking asian lady. She just grabbed that nine or ten year-old kid by the skull and said, "You don't move!" Yikes.

But there's a little bit of fear, and a bit of sadness involved in the whole idea of shaving my head. I could very well look horrendous, my noggin lumpy and misshapen. I remember finding my baby book, and seeing recorded there "Mother's First Words on Seeing Baby: 'Ugly, pointed head.'" Apparently, I was a fat little kid with a citrus juicer for a brainbox.

There's also the issue that over the years, my steadfast declaration that I'd just shave my head once hair loss reached a certain point has lent the act a sort of never-go-back finality. It seems like growing it back later would be a sort of pitiful act of nostalgia-fueled hopeful desperation. Kind of like going back to the ex you just broke up with last week, just because no better options have appeared, and some things were good, like, well, the sex and the briefly shared love of Nutella before I began to find it sort of creepy, and home improvement shows. Never mind the incessant squabbles and her damnedly bizarre hatred of oatmeal, Pearl Jam's later works, and the color red.

Mean-looking asian woman's done with the kid. he looks weirdly pleased with himself. Now his dad is getting his cut. He's swanky late 70's hair model guy with a moustache, hair swept back in layers. He stares at himself in the mirror while she works, his head down, just the slightest hint of a smirk on his lips. I keep expecting him to give himself the point and shoot with a wink - "looking gooood, baby." He's definitely doing it in his head, just refraining from doing it so we all can see. I saw the kid watching his own haircut with the same expression. History will repeat itself. Women will fall. They should know better.

I know I'm more conscious of the spot than other people. I see it in photos and in the mirror, which causes me to see myself as a slightly younger, barely less bitter version of Purdue Coach Gene Keady, whose meticulous, massive, shellaqued comb-over was once named one of the Fifty Ugliest Things in Sports, along with the Cincinatti Bengals' uniforms and Shaq's free throws.

But fortunately, I'm right at six feet tall, despite a coworker's claim that I'm 5'11", made largely because he's uncomfortable with his own height, and was drunk at the time, as he pretty much always is. Anyway, having the bald spot six feet up means that few will ever see it, unless I: bow; drop something; or am sitting, like in a restaurant. This just means I am unlikely to get dates with royalty or waitresses who demand a full head of hair. It does also make eye contact and not dropping things that much more important.

"Lob? Lob?" Crap. Sure enough, I've got the mean-looking Asian lady.

OK, she's not so bad, as long as I'm compliant with her demands to stay perfectly rigor-mortis-still. I don't think she understands a word I'm saying. She keeps asking "2, 3, 4?" I think she's talking about clipper guard lengths. She also seems to know "short" and "not short."

Actually, the mean-looking Asian lady, despite the linguistic impasse, knew what she was doing. My head feels better. The spot is actually less obvious, looking like it's just an area with slightly less foliage, rather than a region of slash-and-burn agriculture in a rainforest.

I get home, and the clippers are waiting, the green light indicating a full charge.

I eye the spot warily in the mirror. I turn, try to catch it by surprise. I give the suave smile and slight bow to the lovely Princess of Propecia, swathed stunningly in scarlet as I pick her up for a dinner of waffles and Nutella before the Pearl Jam concert. Acceptable. I look up charmingly from my plate of imaginary molé enchiladas to smile at the cute waitress. Not bad.

I hunker my shoulders and scowl like Coach Keady. No, not there yet. Not yet.

I unplug the clippers and put them back in the drawer with the unopened box of condoms and the expired hair gel.

So, the other day, My Annoying Coworker was arguing against spending money on injured animals (it started with a mention of doggie wheelchairs), that extended to people providing for the care of their pets in their wills, giving money to animal aid organizations, rescuing animals... her answer to all of the above? "Euthanize them. They're just animals."

The discussion continued. I went to the headphones, loud. This American Life was suddenly an inefficient barrier, like the doors of a HUMVEE. I pulled out the iPod, plugged in, and began looking. I wanted to pick something I wanted to listen to, but there was the added criteria of finding something that really would form a reliable sonic barricade. I got as far as the "C's" in the artist list, and had to just bail out into Crowded House. Loud. Louder. 

Somewhere in the quieter portion of "Private Universe", I did hear her say something about people having pets instead of kids, and that she didn't want kids, that she can't even take care of herself.
 
I reentered the conversation long enough to suggest euthanasia as an option for her...

She sputtered a bit. Said, "Good comeback" with significantly less bravado and fanfare than anything else she ever says. I said, "Thanks. It was easy."

The conversation ended shortly after that, dissipating slowly like the fizz settling on a freshly poured Coke. For the rest of the afternoon, in the slight, unfocused picture I got from the corner of my eye, she looked deflated.

Maybe she feels a bit lonely. Maybe a bit unwanted. Maybe a little bit like a dog abandoned, maybe something like a lost cat, suddenly without a home and friends. Maybe she even feels a bit abused. I'm OK with that, because she has a choice, and, much though I hate to admit it, something of a capacity for higher reasoning. If she's lost, abandoned, abused right now, it's by her own choice. And unlike the animals she doesn't care enough about, she can always choose to go home.

Lots of dreams lately, like dream overload, really. They're full of people. I think Cactus Pryor was even in one last night.

One in particular struck me a couple of days ago.

It was nighttime, and the skies were clear. I was standing outside with someone, and I think we were moving with all these people to some destination. I looked up to the sky, towards the south, and the world was spread out before us, projected against the night sky, the stars burning through across the planet's face. Countries and oceans were distorted. Malawi became an empire, dwarfing China.

I explained why everything looked funny and unfamiliar - because the earth is round, when you try to flatten it out, bits stretch and compact, as if it were never really meant to be mapped and reduced to flat sheets of paper.

Last night was a bit odd. I was walking with my girlfriend through a neighborhood, in Dallas, I think, and as we approached a Whataburger, she announced that she was going to "get her karaoke on," which is not something she would ever be inclined to say, to the best of my knowledge, understanding, and hope.

I woke up to her alarm going off. She awoke, as well, and immediately said, "I dreamed I was singing karaoke. I did 'Hallelujah', and kept forgetting the damned lyrics."

Weird.

I'm going deaf, sort of by choice. I'm sitting here at my job, and I'm testing the volume output of a Dell Dimension desktop computer's built-in sound card over a pair of iPod earbuds. The output I'm testing with is a stream of an old episode of "This American Life". I know music would probably be more effective, but the familiarity of Ira Glass' voice is soothing, and the stories are distracting, even if neither rises loudly enough to drown out the prattling of my new coworker.

I got in at 8:00, the first one here. I'm on the 20th floor, facing east, the river out the window to my right, the freeway ahead of me to the left, and through both windows, enough of the morning sun is coming in that I don't turn on the creepy flourescent lights.

It's quiet. I eat my oatmeal. I've reduced my oatmeal intake from two packets a day to one. Nature's Path, in the "Optimum Power" flavor. Brown sugar. Walnuts. Raisins. A dash of sea salt. Yum.

I start up the episode of This American Life, and set about eating and working. I have a good 30 minutes of peace before the first coworker comes in. She's cool, though. We say hello, she settles in, and I return to work and listening to the story of one woman's battle against MCI Customer Service. I can relate. Sprint.

Then she comes in, a whirlwind of immediate inane jabbering. It's not just talking, either. It's loud. It begs for attention. It's about things that people may care about, but not when they're talked about in the peculiarly self-centered way she talks about them. Through the steadily increasing volume in my headphones, I hear snippets of complaints about eye shadow, the dearth of sausage in whatever she's having for breakfast (I don't dare take my eyes from my screen after the initial "good morning" smile and nod), despite her declaration yesterday that everything in her house is fat-free.

She puts her on headphones on. This doesn't help. She sings, hums, mumbles, dances, rocks manically in her squeaky chair in ways that would make an autistic five year-old want to slap the crap out of her.

To be clear, there are six of us in a 20 by 15-foot room. The annoyance is three feet to my left, and another coworker sits three feet to my right, spending a good deal of time glaring past me. The other three sit facing the wall behind me.

Her phone rings - Queen's "Fat-Bottomed Girls" - and she answers it. She's prone to taking calls from clients at her desk. She turns partially in her chair, drapes an arm across its back, and faces the center of the room, putting herself on display, because she's certain we're all fascinated by the smart-alecky and condescending way she talks to her clients. When she's done with the call, there's the inevitable explosion of exasperated breath, followed by a loud recap of the conversation for everyone in the room.

She's starting to remind me of the character on "Lost" that I couldn't stand from her first appearance. She's neither a trigger-happy angry ex-cop, nor someone I want to see in a bikini. No, she mainly just makes me wish for a similar ending to her story.

Last night, I finally got to the episode from two seasons ago where they killed off the one character in question. I had accidentally seen the death foretold in a Wikipedia entry, I saw the episode was coming up, and I have to admit, I was excited about it. There's a theory the character was killed off because the actress was a problem, and that a drunk driving conviciton was the final straw. Like we need more good reasons to have stiffer drunk driving enforcement. I watched her get summarily shot last night, and went to bed with a warm and satisfied feeling, completely unconflicted and remorseless, knowing that her scowl and inexplicable behavior will no longer plague either the other characters or my future viewing marathons.

I should be clear that it's not that I'm hoping for my coworker's death, at least not all of the time. I don't even want her fired, because maybe she does her job well. But my total immersion into hours and hours of a television series has disconnected me just enough from reality to believe that maybe, just maybe, some writer will get a call from the producers, and just... write her out of this series. Maybe The Others could be encouraged to come abduct her. Maybe she'll build a raft and float out to try to find shipping lanes. Or, maybe she'll wander off into the jungle, get lost(er?) and take up residence with a howler monkey that won't mind her so much. Maybe when she gets really annoying, he'll put a couple of seashells over his ears and wish they could put out just a little more volume.