TGIFish

Today is my last day working down in the Financial District and my work buddy and I are taking ourselves down to the P.J. Clarke's for a late dinner on our break.

I'm looking forward to it as my mood is well matched to the weather here today. Heavy gray rain. Cold and bloodless.

I think a tasty, super high quality steak dinner will be just the thing to set me on track.

Don't ask why I'm in this mood. I just am. Sometimes I get this way. Its likely mid-life crisis stuff so I'm just riding it for now and doing my bit to make sure I don't take my mood out on the innocent bystanders in my life. This hasn't been entirely successful, only in the sense that my mood is dark enough that people around me are worried that it's their fault. I assure them that its not and try to lighten myself because I hate the idea of anyone blaming themselves for something that they really have nothing to do with but for the fact that they care about me.

I wonder why this in and of itself isn't enough to make me feel better today. That there are those that care enough that my moods hit them personally and deeply means a great deal to me. To be loved...it is a beautiful thing and to be cared for like that. Beyond beautiful. I think it ought to make me feel better and to be sure it does ameliorate things. Especially one particular gesture today that both eased the darkness and made me aware of just how raw I seem to feel today. A blessing from a blessing. And still....here I sit.

I had a great uncle who was a painter by hobby and used to exhibit his stuff in the annual Art Show in Greenwhich Village in the 60s and 70s. He was the husband of a great aunt on my mother's side.

One year he had a painting of Emmet Kelly he had done on display and my father's uncle who was visiting us that particular year liked it so much that he bought it and hung it on the living room wall. About 13 years ago, my Aunt sent that painting to me through my father because I had mentioned on her last visit back to NY that I remembered and loved how the painting linked the two families.

But the painting itself right now fits my mood. Sad, grumpy and in a weird way, patiently resolved to it. Unlike Emmet Kelly's perpetually sad clown face though, I know I'll be out of it eventually.



With any luck, well before that good steak dinner. But definitely afterward.