I'm sure many of you are aware of that delicious ability granted to us in this internet age: the ability to track shipments from the point of origin to your doorstep. It's possible to track packages sent via UPS, Federal Express, or even the US Postal Service.
How wonderful to note that first line on the shipping page: "billing information received"! How fun to see the "origin scan". How remarkable to note the path from New York, to Kentucky, and then to Oregon, all in less than twenty-four hours! (The hop from Lousiville to Portland itself takes less than two hours, which boggles my mind.)
How keen the excitement when I wake at 5:30 and see that a package is already flagged "out for delivery".
Out for delivery!
To me!
And how giddy I become when the UPS truck pulls into the driveway at 9 a.m. I stand in my office and pace back-and-forth, back-and-forth. How I laugh — ha ha ha — as I listen to the UPS man out in his truck, rattling and rummaging, searching for my package.
But oh, how deep is my despair when the UPS man, having failed to find my package, hops back into his seat, and then zooms away in a cloud of dust.
No!!!!
The world is a terrible, terrible place.
On this day at foldedspace.org
2004 — On the Malleability of Time In which I meditate -- at length -- about the nature of time, and about my perceptions of it.
And now, as I sit in my office waiting waiting waiting for the UPS man to return, every rumble on the road makes me perk in expectation, like a dog waiting for his master's arrival. Yet none of the rumbles are the UPS truck. Woe!