Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Monday, October 24, 2005

Bob Dylan's song title seems to accurately describe my weekend.

Friday afternoon I went up to see my new parole officer. I was feeling pretty negative about this as my feelings of an unfair process were reinforced by my wife's getting a $93 fine and nothing else in a series of tickets she received two days before I got mine from a State Patrol officer up in Cobb County. I was frustrated that the justice system could produce such varied results. Anyway, I had had to reschedule my appointment due to a conflict with a class and the lady who would be overseeing my probation had told me to come in "anytime Friday afternoon". Given that I would be traveling on bike I told her I'd be there around 3:30. I arrived within minutes of that time and entered the room to find no one at the desk. I politely called back and received no answer. I waited until I saw someone more behind the mirrored window and called back again. Still no answer. There were several signs posted about not yelling back or knocking on the various doors so I oblidged and waited, growing frustrated in the process. At one point another person came in and, being less patient than I, banged on the doors quite loudly. This brought the lady out into the lobby where she yelled at the other person and then me. I had enough. I explained in that voice I use for the most offensively clueless students I have that I had made this appointment at this time by her request. She looked at me and immediately backpedaled into her "space". She was used to pushing around poor, black folks and here was an obviously articulate white guy who she had treated very, very poorly. She tried to cover it up by acting all efficient and professional but I wasn't having any of it. In my interaction with her I let it be known that she was in the wrong and had acted poorly. We concluded our business and I left to ride home. The hour trip back gave me time to cool off and get a bit of perspective back.

Friday night I had plans for my wife and I but those were postponed because she was bone tired. Due to the frustration that caused and my attempts to deal with all the other frustrations I've had over the last month I was unable to sleep for most of the night. Saturday I tried to get a few things done and take a nap but even that was a trial due to unclear schedules. When we tried to spend time together Saturday night, my wife and I ran into a communication problem that just brought everythign to a halt. I spent another frustrating night tossing and turning, growing both angrier at the injustice of things and more dispondent with it all.

Sunday morning we went to church at an old congragation in a city nearby. The worship time was good, especially communion but I was saddened in the space. Designed to hold 300, there were maybe 60 people in attendance. The building was beginning to show signs of deterioration that the congregatioin wouldn't have the money or peopel to fix. They had a young pastor but few younger parishoners. It was a difficult thing to see that this beautiful church had been left behind in the rush to the "contemporary" church when it had so much to offer. Churches build these soulless buildings now that look more like office spaces than churches when this church could offer so much.

We had a good lunch with a friend and then we went to a mountain bike course in the town. I used to train on this course weekly a few years back but I had heard that it had been allowed to fall into disrepair whent he ATV community had decided to use the trails without permission. Word was out that they had been run off and that the trails were back in better shape. The course is a challenging one with lots of up and down and some technical challenges. What I found out was that the trail was back in operation but it wasn't in very good shape. Many of the trail markers were gone leaving confusion in their wake, the trails were badly rutted and there was more sand than at Daytona Beach. All of this made for a frustrating and challenging experience. When my wife asked my how my ride went, I relied, "The trail sucks and I wish I could learn to ride the damn bike." The good thing is that it pushed my abilities which I need to work on if I'm going to compete on the MTB next year after taking this year off.

Finally, on Sunday evening, things got better. My wife and I got some of our communication issues worked out and learned about ourselves in the process. Maybe I'll write more aout that in a later post. We also watched Batman begins with the same friend the we had lunch with. Excellent movie, though the theme of brokenness runs through that as well, especially with respect to Gotham. The one thing that doesn't seem broken right now is my marriage though I spent a goodly portion of the weekend wondering about that. I'd like to catch a bit of a break here if I can. I'm hoping that we've passed through the nadir of our trials and that things will begin to look up. My belief though is that there's a lot more work to do before we see much improvement on some fronts.

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