The Dark Cloud Over My Head

There's a black cloud hovering over me that drizzles on my head wherever I go.

I'm not sure how I came to acquire it.  It just started following me around a few weeks ago, dishing out a steady stream of moderate misfortune.

It could be worse. I could have gotten a storm cloud assigned to me, the kind where everyday a new tragedy unfolds.  My little hovering cloud is more humble, trickling out a steady-but-constant stream of mild melancholy. 

I'm flattered that the Cosmos considers me important enough to assign me my own personal weather pattern.  Of course, I would have preferred my own personal rainbow or wish-granting leprechaun, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers.

I still don't think I'm important enough for this kind of personal attention, though. I could understand the universe assigning a personal black cloud to Dick Cheney, or Nancy Pelosi, but I'm just a guy with a blog, typing away in relative anonymity.

In fact, I keep telling the cloud above me that it can do better, but it argues with me and tells me that I'm all it ever wanted.  Frankly, it seems a little desperate. Although I guess it sounds about like the kind of dark cloud I'd get. 

As with Pig-Pen from the Peanuts, my little cloud follows me everywhere I go.  And I'm not just talking about today, when it was warm sunny when I left home (without an umbrella), only for a downpour to start on my 10-minute uphill walk to my office.  Although that did actually happen. 

And the situation repeated itself when I was halfway to Starbucks for my mid-morning coffee.

But it isn't just the literal weather that's getting me down.  I've had the opposite of the Midas touch lately: instead of everything I touch turning to gold, it turns to camel dung.

Two weeks ago my job vanished in a sudden office reorganization.  I got shifted to a lateral position where I do mostly the same thing, but the change meant a new boss, and a whole bunch of bureaucratic headaches to endure while the changes take place.

For the last year or so, I've used running as my escape from the burdens of life.  I've spent the last two months training for my first half-marathon, which I had circled on the calendar for next Saturday. Inspired by my brother's fight against cancer, I was doing it to symbolize my ability to overcome, through hard work and perseverance, any obstacle that I too might face in life. 

But I when I tried to sign up yesterday, fresh after finishing the 10-mile run that was the last step of my preparation, the race was already full. I apparently missed being able to register by about 30 minutes.

In other words, I not only failed to finish the race I'd spent two months training for, I couldn't even manage to get started. 

In other developments, my sink started leaking and my toilet broke.  Two sets of close friends are moving away.  My favorite shows have inexplicably failed to tape all week.  I somehow screwed up my favorite recipe, and I made an extra-large batch.

My neighbors keep having loud parties late at night that keep me awake. My favorite basketball teams stink, and the 10-day forecast that once was full of sun, now looks cold and rainy, especially in the area directly over my head. 

Last week, my Spanish teacher gave out CDs for everyone to listen for homework. Mine didn't work. I suppose that's just as well, because I've already lost it anyway. I would ask for another one, but without having the benefit of the CD, I'm not quite sure how to formulate the question with the proper grammar. 

To cap it all off, my new boss yelled at me today, for something that wasn't my fault. 

I just can't catch a break, and I'm even infecting people around me. 

One of my friends lost his cell phone and the guy who found it started using it for the purpose of sexting his whole phonebook with graphic pictures.  (Apparently the guy who found the phone was white, and rather, um, insignificant). 

Another one of my friends had a pipe burst while on vacation and came home to a completely flooded house.  Even my wife texted me just seconds ago to say she left her lights on and her car won't start.

We know one couple who lost a pet and a parent last week, and a million others in the midst of medical drama, relational crisis, or toxic jobs.  Basically, almost everyone I know is starring in their own Shakespearean tragedy. 

I know my problems are small compared to those of many of my friends.

It's not that any one development has been overwhelming, it's just that living in a pool of non-stop drizzle gets depressing after awhile. 

Still, I'm hoping that my recent little cloud of never-ending petty annoyances means the big storms of life will go elsewhere this year, kind of like how a cold front can push away a hurricane. 

I'll take my misfortune in moderate, bite-sized doses, if it means I can get all of out of the way in time for those lab results to come back favorably, and if exchange for living with perpetual annoyances, nothing debilitating happens. 

I know in a theoretical sense I'll never have that little, personal rainbow (much less the wish-granting leprechaun) that I wished for at the start of this column, unless I endure the rain first. 

But right now, I'd just settle for a sunny day.