anxiety about the wrong things

My son was a little bit late for dinner last night – no big deal, really – and he told me what he'd done to make up some time. The nearest westbound bus stop to the Devil Girl House, the one you'd use if you were coming from the light rail, just got moved to my street.

The problem? There's no crosswalk there, at least not yet; there may be one soon because the city has been working on that intersection and vicinity since last spring. The street one would have to cross is a four-lane arterial with no median, at the top of a slope, the downward side of which has an on ramp to State Road 99. The speed limit on SR 99 is 40 MPH (~65 km/h).

My son walked across the arterial. In the dark.

The Wendling suffers from anxiety, which means he hates taking the bus, or trying to get a job that isn't a waste of his considerable talents. And yet his squiggy little anxy brain doesn't stop him from doing something that gets a whole lot of people messily, painfully killed around the world every day. And I was completely unaware of it at the time because technically, he's an adult.

Face. Palm. Smoosh.

Edited to add: Yes, the city is adding a crosswalk. The intersection that the Wendling crossed will be pedestrian heaven in about six months. But until then, it's a death trap.

Fuck cancer.

When I met Taller Woman years ago (2016? I don't feel like digging in my journal.) she had no hair on her head because she'd just finished chemo. The hair grew back quickly. But the cancer, too, has come back now.

I did try to date her a few times, but between her living out in the 'burbs and her psycho ex messing with her social life, I kind of gave up in frustration. There's a lot that I admire about her: she's an amazing parent, and she's much readier to see the good in people than I am.

And now she's postponed for the second time, this time indefinitely for after her impending surgery, the birthday dinner that she wanted to have with me. This is horribly unfair, and I don't mean the dinner.

Her son, who's basically her life, is about as cool as early teen boys get. If anything happens to Taller Woman, does he go back to the psycho dad? Psycho dad is bad, and I better leave it at that. It doesn't bear thinking about.