palace of winds

I’d wanted, once I caught my breath a little, to write about the long-weekend-long cooking adventure (complete with cheese-making) and Capote and Transamerica and the pleasures of real Oreo ice cream, but just at 8 this morning I got a call at work from my mom. I could tell instantly that something was wrong, that she was waffling and working up to telling me something, and for a moment I was convinced that my cat was sick — that perhaps he had died, even, and I was just on the outside edge of devastation, fending it off.

Instead she told me that my dad’s truck has been stolen. Someone came into his networking meeting and took his coat (one he loved that he got from my grandma last Christmas) and then took his truck, which he loved and which was full of his cds and all his best tools and all the special extras he’d bought for it. He’s devastated, of course, and I’m sure he blames himself for leaving his keys in his coat pocket.

And I’m just shocked and sad and angry and I hurt for him. I want to cry. Go home and cry and then find who did this and slap them, and tell them that they should have picked someone else. My dad is the best man I know. He is good and kind and patient and giving. He never demands anything, never keeps anything for himself, never thinks of himself before others and is happiest that way. He takes joy in joy. He is tireless, never-complaining. And I know it’s just some senseless crime, probably just some fuckup drug addict I should feel sorry for, should pity, but I can’t. I’m furious, hateful. I hate myself a little for it but I think of this person beneath the bootheel of society and right now I just want to see them ground well and truly into the dirt.