Anxious in Ann Arbor

Sunday evening, March 2, Ann Arbor.

I flew here from Arizona on Thursday — an absolutely uneventful trip through Dallas that didn't involve any delayed or neglected suitcases, happily. I'm staying at the home of my great friend Aaron, whom I've been close to since high school, in the fall of 1982. Friday morning I got up and out early to find a coffee shop, walking past some wild turkeys in Aaron's neighborhood, and stopping to contemplate the passage of time at the building that was, many decades ago, an Arby's, and where I had my first-ever job as a teenager.

The birds, not the whiskey

They no longer have the meats

Our mutual friend Pete, whose friendship with me precedes Aaron's by about 8 months, drove down from his home outside Detroit to spend the weekend with us as well.

Good stuff. Once Pete arrived Friday night we all went to watch the Michigan tennis match against Western Michigan, then came home to play table tennis in Aaron's basement and catch up. 

Saturday I came out to a coffee shop for breakfast and to watch the Crystal Palace game online (which involved the worst challenge I've ever seen, in which the Palace player was seriously injured), and then Pete came to get me and we drove to campus to walk around a bit and reminisce.  

David on the Diag

Once home, the three of us went out to meet up with a friend of Aaron's to play some doubles tennis at the same Michigan tennis center where we had watched the Michigan varsity team play the night before. The level of tennis we played on this day was ... not the same.

Anyway, after showering (not together) Pete and I napped (not together), then we all played Boggle with Aaron's wife (and I was humiliated) and then Pete and Aaron taught me how to play Settlers of Cataan (and I was humiliated), and then we played some more table tennis (where I was triumphant) before bed.

Today I woke up and got out early again, as is my want, and then went to work out for a bit at a local rec center. Once back at Aaron's we met up with another old high school friend, Chuck, and went to the Michigan basketball game (which the home team unfortunately lost, badly). Home, a couple hours ago, then I came back out to a coffee shop to get a soup-and-sandwich for dinner while Aaron and his wife have some private time together in their own home. I'll go back in a couple hours for some more table-tennis, then call it a night.

David and Pete

David at Crisler

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Anyway, truth is, none of that matters. I mention it for record-keeping and to bring people up to speed, but it's obviously neither interesting nor significant.

What is significant is that I haven't yet received any word about my visa from the Czech Consulate, and I'm increasingly resigned to the likelihood that they're not going to tell me one way or another until they have to, on the 120th day after my application — so about 10 days from now.

This is turning into one of the worst extended experiences of my life, forcing to the front anxieties about who I am (where has my life gone that I can have so few friends that would happily host me for a week-long visit, anywhere in the world outside of Europe?), about my cat (several actual anxiety nightmares in recent nights about the fear I've abandoned her and can't get back to her), about the confusing mish-mash I've made of my life (what kind of person goes through a period of uncertainty like this at this stage in their life, where I don't know what country I'm going to be living in for the next few months — and if that country isn't the Czech Republic, where should I go? Where do I belong?) and so on and so on.

Not all of those fears/anxieties are legitimate, of course, but until I hear from the Czech Consulate about my visa — preferably positive news of course, but ultimately anything — they'll be hard to fend off, and I'll stay rootless, bored, unsure, and not-just-a-little-bit scared. It can be difficult to keep anxieties and doubts at bay in the best of times, as many of us know, but this kind of situation is just ... almost unbearable.

I've made arrangements to drive down to Ohio to visit my mother the day after tomorrow, on Tuesday, and by the time I arrive at 4 pm or so two more days in which the Consulate can contact me with news will have passed. Perhaps, on one of those days, they actually will write me with good news. I sure as hell hope so. This is highly frustrating, and a three-week period of my life I will be happy to consign to the anecdotal file and the rose-colored memory bin.

Wish me luck.

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Oh, one more thing. I haven't even been able to read many of the news stories about Zelensky's visit to the White House a few days ago. I find that among the most painful and distressing stories I've ever ... I mean, I can't even express the depth of my outrage and despair at this turn of events. 

I have no idea where the United States (or the world) is headed, but ... this appears to be incontrovertible proof that it's going somewhere very, very bad ... and that we deserve whatever we get. It's a punch in the stomach every time I think of it. Good God.