surprise

in my life so far, certain moment stand out as weird, or inspirational, or portentious, or just plain fun.

thursday morning i stayed home waiting for the cable guy. after he left, i had to call the cableco and negotiate my rate: i dont like to pay 60$/mo for internet when i really don't have to. and guess what? i don't have to! anyhow, i struggled with my rate all morning long, and finally moseyed on in to work. before moseying, though, i cleaned off my vanity: scrubbing and re-arranging and tidying and so on, in preparation for the saturday afternoon arrival of 203.

see that bold part? read it again.

my tasks at home finished, i arrived at the office, sat down at my desk, and got to work. i wasn't expecting to get much done, i hadn't gotten in until just before lunchtime.

my lunch mate came by, which was rather quite unusual: he rarely (never?) comes by before lunchtime. he said that he was in the mood, that day, for an especially "meaty" lunch. i said that would not be a problem with me. just then, 203 called me on my cell to tell me about... something. i don't remember what. i signalled to the lunchmate that it was 203; he waved and left. she hung up and i returned my concentration to the Very Important Work Related Email that i was a-typing. type, type, type, i typed.

then, there were hands over my eyes. smallish, feminine hands. strong hands, i discovered, as i tried to remove them. one hand, i was later told, though i remember two. as i struggled to remove them i said something witty like "hey!" and my mind began to move quickly, attempting -- vainly -- to figure out just who in the office had smallish, storng, feminine hands, and would be standing behind me covering my eyes with them. i was drawing a total blank on that one. total. blank.

while i was drawing a total blank on that one (total. blank. (as mentioned)) the hands (hand, really, i've been told) withdrew and i sensed that the owner of the hand had leapt over to my right, which is the direction in which i swiveled my chair in order to see who it was that had snuck up on me while i was so involved in my email composition that i had failed to take advantage of the reflective properties of my monitor.

and then, dear readers, i had a most fascinating experience.

standing there, smiling and me, and looking very, very pleased with herself, was none other than 203. this was thursday morning. if necessary, dear reader, you may scroll back and read the bold texted part of this posting. 203 was not supposed to arrive until saturday afternoon. 203 was supposed to have a final each afternoon on thursday and friday. 203 was supposed to be in arizona at that very moment. i had spoken on the phone to 203 not more than 10 minutes prior, and i was darned sure that she had been in arizona at the time.

and yet, there she was, standing there, all pleased with herself, as previously mentioned. my mind was still paralyzed as i tried to come to grips with the obvious impossibility of the situation.

i failed, but i'm the sort that tries things at least twice before giving up. i tried again. i'm sure i said something insightful, like "wha??" or "whoooo?". this wasn't just a moment of surprise. this was total paralysis of the mind. it wasn't something i'd experienced before, and it's only been a couple of days so it's also not something i've experienced since. the surprise itself, and the month's planning that went into it are blogworthy, i reckon, but even more incredible, to me, was that simple moment when my understanding of the universe was so clearly and fundamentally broken that my mind broke with it, and as i stared at the woman i'm soon to marry, i simply didn't recognize her, because, although the person in front of me damn sure looked like 203, 203 just couldn't possibly have been there.

i had nothing to say to her. i had no hug for her. i had no smile, no welcome, no laughter, all because i really, truly, didn't know who the blistering buggering fuck she was!

the stunned feeling didn't really wear off until sometime yesterday, when i had planned to be with her. as all my little surprises (clean house, bowtie on the door key, new beer, etc.) one by one trembled and shrank before the awesome might of her superior surprise, the reality of the situation set in. i changed the singularity counter -- i had expected a singularity, which, indeed, was why i had chosen the name. i just hadn't expected a mind-paralysis. i hadn't expected the word to be so apt.

another thing i'd expected was for things after the singularity to become clear. i reckoned that once i'd passed the event horizon, i'd see where i was going. that has not been the case.

there have been moments -- when i went to get some beer from the closet and caught sight of a napping 203, f'rinstance -- when i realized deeply in what passes for my soul that things were going to turn out well. but beyond that, i still just don't know.

things they are a-changing, and the singularity counter does not deserve to be removed. it's not a thing for me to pass through, evidently. i'm still in it.