perspective

I don't feel like I have perspective just now.

For example: I went to the bagel shop, and stood in line for what seemed like a very long time. People jostled and bustled. The couple in front of me was one of those Happy Stupid Couples who kept touching each other and looking in each others' eyes and smiling that happy stupid smile lovers smile when they don't know any better.

Normally this kind of behavior doesn't bother me. Normally, it makes me happy to think there's just a little more happiness in this crazy ass world, like a couple of days ago, when I was out driving somewhere at school-bus-drop-off-time, and saw two teenagers, walking hand-in-hand.

But just today, it bothered me. And it bothered me when someone cut in front of me to get to the cooler, because why couldn't they have put that stupid cooler somewhere else, or why couldn't that person cut in front of someone else to get to the cooler?!

Then it bothered me that I stood there waiting for my lox bagel, and some bitchy, harrassed woman asked me snappishly if I "was in line" because she had "called in ahead of time" for her bagels.

I asked for capers on my bagel, and the clerk told me, also snappishly, that there were capers on my bagel.

I couldn't see any capers. When I finally sat down, I found there were maybe a dozen capers.

It just seemed ridiculous.

The whole damn scene.

It didn't make any sense to me.

None of it.

Not the Happy Stupid Couple stroking each other's arms and gazing into one another's eyes all agog with wonder at Love. Or the cutting in line to get to the cooler. Or the bitchy harrassed woman.

But especially, the fact that I had asked for more capers, and didn't get any.

That really didn't make any sense.

Just like it didn't make any sense that I had worked over sixty hours in five days, sent five people to the unit in five shifts, and watched a daughter cradle her mother in her arms, weeping softly, as she died.

So much death and misery happened this week it doesn't seem like a holiday ever happened. I just feel so tired and drained. Last night I dreamt I was flying around over a H. Bosch scene of death and destruction.

I wonder why.