The End

The mission has been aborted.  Eight months of preparation and it's just over.  I don't know what's going on here anymore.  The Kind Faced Man is not answering questions.  It's been over a month and I have no new assignments.  I've started my own project.  More later...

Delays, delays!

The kids are suspecting something, though.  It's good that I'm taking a break from work.  Maybe they'll forget or get distracted.

Lots of projects to do around here.  It's not easy being cheesy.

Got a great new assignment from the Kind Faced Man.  If he'd walked into the room and asked what I wanted to do, this job is what I would have asked for.

I can't believe it!

1) It's important and I even get to know why it's important.

2) I get secure messages from Langley throughout the mission telling me what to do next.  No worrying about the entire operation.  I get to focus on one step at a time.

3) Pay raise!

4) My partner is the best man here.  We trust each other.  We protect each other instinctively.

I keep thinking it's a dream, but then I see our aliases together in the files.  Wow.

I wrote this a long time ago:

We sit at the table, the three of us. I am playing cards. Zach is nervous that I will want them to play cards with me, but I tell them I am playing solitaire. So it's fine. We tell each other stories and jokes and I miss a play and MEgan clears her throat and she knows that annoys me, that's why she does it, and I play faster to try to keep her from doing that.

We are telling stories about pinatas and I tell about BEcky and her donkey pinata and how she carried it around with her everywhere she went when she was little and how ragged it got and dirty and still she cried if we told her to leave it at home. I'm telling that story and I'm laughing so hard remembering it that it makes me cry. And I haven't laughed that hard in literally years and it feels so good.

Then Zach tells a story about a pinata from his fourteenth birthday and how he still has the head of it. And then I tell about the party we had at our house and how nobody ever told me that you have to put the candy in there yourself, so we had this very disappointing pinata. "You mean you thought they came pre-filled?" says Zach. And I say "pre-filled" at the same time he does and that gets me laughing again. Then Megan tells a pinata story and I'm playing cards again, and it's been four times and I still havent won, and she takes the deck and deals them out for herself. And this is what I want.

I want stories and laughter and sitting around the table and it overwhelms me and I put my head down on the table. I hear them whsipering (so in love) and they say, "Now's our chance!" and they escape to the deck to be alone with each other and I look at the cards and deal them out again as if to say, "It's okay. I know I am alone, really and three is a crowd." I play another game and pretend it is all right. And I hear them laughing and talking outside and it's good! It's happy and good! The murmuring of voices, low and quiet, together, two. It is a glimpse of something and I am propelled into it even as I sit and deal the cards one more time.

Bro. Todd had some funny slides on power point yesterday morning.  When the really funny one came up we all laughed.  I heard Ed laughing next to me and I turned and caught his eye.  Everyone does that, you hear something funny and you turn and look at someone so you can share it.  It doesn't really matter who it is.  You say with your eyes, isn't that funny, and the other person says, yes, isn't it nice to laugh?

But I don't think we do the same thing with sad moments or things that touch us in a deep place.  We keep those moments to ourselves, eyes straight ahead, no turning to look for understanding in another person's eyes.  It's as if we're ashamed or embarrassed to feel sadness or loss or empathy.  We endure it - alone.