GeekForce

She’s come all the way and graduates from Kansas University next week!  This whole thing, all along, has been an amazing accomplishment on many levels.  I couldn’t have done what she’s done back when I was perhaps 5 years older, even, than she is.

She’s due in September (the first one’s due date is always a bit iffy) and then will launch into motherhood. 

 A rather nasty screaming torpedo scored a ‘hit’ in her world recently, but this is where she’s also capable of accomplishing what I certainly didn’t do a good  job with, back when it was my time to endure this sort of stuff.  Pain is indiscriminate, and often seeks the innocent and unwary.   Romantics are never wary; they incorrectly think they don’t need to be. I’m all over this fact with decades of punishing experience. I pray Bianca’s got some of the practicality that comes from her mom; the diametric opposite of my (lethal) romanticism is practicality. I’d crush it and throw it on the street (to quote Bruce Cockburn) if I had my way with it.

As I think of it, Bianca may be all right, then.

I’d call her, well, as a matter of fact I tried to a few times in the last week or so.  I have a ‘mothers instinct’ for trouble with one of my kids, and that’s a fact.   Somebody with REAL talent at the other end, though, is deleting my voice mail messaages, and this appears to be a coordinated effort of two or more foes.  In past years when this’d happen, I’d simply leave work during mid-afternoon on a weekday, drive the 4 1/2 hours or so, get past the ‘guard(s)’ at her front door to hook up with her, spend an hour or two visiting and talking and straightening out whatever needs straightening out, get back on the road…

 …and get back to StL in time for work the next day, albiet a bit drowsy.  The best and most effective dads are the determined and fearless ones. While I won’t come remotely close to breaking the human life expectancy barrier, I am equal parts determined and fearless (add: marksman in deployment of ‘exit strategy’, but this has nothing to do with my little girl).  

I better not travel to Overland Park or Lawrence now, though I contemplated doing it the other night and came mighty close.  I’m at a new job that’s shaping up quite well, and I’d rather not be too drowsy to pick up any of the new stuff that I pretty much need to immerse myself in. I just gotta’ hope she’s ok for the time being and hope even more that somehow, some way, I’ll find out.

Good luck, sweetie!  I miss you, and I can’t wait to see you graduate!