Eagle Powers, baby! (and ape powers) (Oh, and black cat powers)

Yesterday I was soooooo tired. Soooooo tired that when I took Lulu for a walk around the duck pond I actually closed my eyes and let her pull me along with her leash.

The sun was bright and warm and I tilted my head back and pretended I was on the ocean . . . drifting slowly out to sea . . . slowly . . . slowly . . . slowly . . .

When I opened my eyes there was a man in an ape suit in front of me on the path.

FER REALS! He jumped out, growled and waved his arms in the air. Like he just didn't care. That there were perfectly sane people sleep walking on the path behind him.

What are the chances?

At first I thought it was a sign from the Universe telling me that I need to stop going through life with my eyes wide shut, or that I need to stop letting Lulu lead me and guide me, rather than walk beside me, or that I need to stop pretending I'm drifting slowly out to sea when I'm actually hurdling headlong through middle age.

But then I saw the camera rolling and realized that I was just another sane person sleep walking through someone else's reality show.

Bummer.

Maybe it was the timing that threw me off. If I had been walking down the streets of New York City with my eyes wide open I wouldn't have thought twice about seeing a man dressed up in an ape suit growling at me. But I was walking through the mountains in Utah. Alone. With my eyes closed. Why would I cross paths with an ape man at that exact intersect of time and place?

You get me?

A few months ago I was sitting at my computer writing a research paper sample about Edgar Allen Poe for my grad school application when suddenly I heard a noise behind me. It sounded like someone was tapping on the sliding glass doors in my kitchen. I turned to find a pitch black cat perched on my back porch, peering at me through the glass. I have seen this cat before because it belongs to my neighbor and frequently crosses my path as I round the corner, but it has NEVER entered my property, let alone made eye contact with me from my back porch. WHILE I'm writing about the mysterious EDGAR ALLEN POE!

The next day I was sitting at the computer again, finishing up the SAME paper on EDGAR ALLEN POE, when the SAME black cat strolled into my front yard and peered at me again through my front window.

I haven't seen this cat since.

You still get me?

There's something fishy about life. It's random. Suspiciously random.

And yet . . .

After I got rejected from grad school, my friend Dana gave me an inspirational fridge magnet which says, EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON.

Do you think that American proverb applies to little things, like men in ape suits and stalker cats, or just to big things, like rejection and moving to Utah?

Inquiring minds want to know.

For the record, even though I've done my share of grieving shmieving over moving to Utah, it definitely happened for a reason--many reasons--and I'm so happy to be here. The timing was impeccable. For one, it forced me to stop taking flight and hiding from the past and start fighting for and facing the future.

It was the only way.

Over the past 18 months I've had to take the advice of The Eagles and GET. OVER. IT!

EAGLE POWERS, baby! I've gotten over everything from my stereotypes about green jello to my prejudices about country music to my abandonment issues about . . . abandonment.

All without prozac.

You know you're over it when March 1st doesn't make you tremble. It doesn't even make you blink twice.

Ides of March, I am NOT afraid of you!

You also know you're over it when you spend the whole day making magic blankets with your friend Dana, and you don't shed a single tear when she tells you how she recently called her dad and told him she needed him so he hopped on a plane and came running the very next day.

Those kinds of things used to cause me to break the 10th commandment. Fiercely. In fact, when I was in college, I once burst into tears at the sight of my math teacher rushing across the floor at a basketball game after his cheerleader daughter fell off a pyramid and broke her ankle.

I too can call my dad and tell him I need him. Only difference is he doesn't have to hop a plane to come running.