Weird World, This

So after yesterday's misery (which is still lingering, natch), I woke up this morning feeling pretty much worthless and pointless and hopeless and also hungover, which didn't help, but at least allowed me to concentrate on my physical pain rather than my angst. And I crawl out of bed in the cold morning hours to shower and dress and gulp coffee and drive through drizzle--the weather is custom-tailored to my mood, thank you, Gods of Cloud and Thunder--and I turn on the news.

And I hear that there's been a train crash and derailment somewhere around Glendale. A commuter train. Headed south. Into Los Angeles. Hundred-plus injured. Several fatalities. All of which would be unpleasant but not really distressing except for the slight fact that my father takes that very train into work every day. So I'm suddenly shocked out of my self-pitying stupor into confronting the fact that I may well have just heard that my father was killed this morning.

I'll leave you to contemplate the emotional quality of the rest of my drive into work.

Long story short, I get into the departmental office, I ask to use the phone, I get a busy signal--F***!!!--then call again and get my mother, who tells me that Dad decided to drive to work today. He wasn't on the train. Huge sighs of relief. And for a moment, the importance of not getting a job this year was suddenly placed in perspective, diminished to its proper proportion of "That sucks, but there are more important things in life, and you might have lost one this morning. And you didn't."

So, that. Life checked my downward spiral a bit, and for that I'm grateful. I'm still mopey, but only mopey. And that's something, isn't it?