Thursday early afternoon and I simply had to get productive on my ass - in a slump today after waking with a mother load of a migraine, my right eye ball on the brink of exploding out of its socket. What better way than laundry to make it feel like the big hand on my watch is moving in a direction that isn’t in vain…

[scouts flat for erroneous pants and the equally elusive solitary sock]

With a full [and heavy] bag of stinkers I headed to the laundromat. It’s about 4pm and I know that the 24 hour place on the corner of Fulton and Cambridge Place is going to be empty - utter bliss - as on Saturdays, it’s like a freaking linen zoo.

[onto the point of this entry]

After throwing my clothes in the tumble dryer, I took a seat and switched on the trusty nano for some aural opulence. Two or three tunes into it I decided that some sporadicity was in order, so I chose “shuffle” and away we went. Ray Charles and Unchain My Heart got me through the first 5 minutes, then came “The Luther” - Luther Vandross. I hadn’t spent much time listening to Luther on the subway commutes, instead deciding that something a little higher on the BPMs would be more conducive to waking me up for a day’s slog at the office. Luther started and I realized which song the “shuffle” option had picked… “Dance With My Father Again’. My heart fucking stopped. Time fucking stopped. The tumble dryers, yes, stopped. Everything frozen around me - I felt a phantom fist grip tightly around my chest, preventing me from taking a breath.

[history lesson]

I was about 3 and a half years old when my father left my mother and I - she was also pregnant with my younger brother at the time - I know, what a shit. Anyway, typical story, young marriage, kids and stress - he cheated, she found out - [cobra] you’re fired!

[fast forward]

So I never really knew my Dad, and to be honest, never made an effort to reach out to him, contact him. As he’d never been a huge part of my life I seldom think about him, but there was something about this bloody song that just broke the dam and did me in, like a freight train to the chest. The song gripped me in its vice and wouldn’t let go - I kept listening, remembering my dad, listening, remembering my dad… for one second I thought I was going to lose it, right there in the laundromat - I ripped the ear plugs out of my lugs and took a walk outside… one very quick cigarette later and a pocketed iPod, I returned to finish cleaning my “Y’s”.

I got home shortly thereafter and threw my bag of clean clothes on the floor, collapsed on my bed and was drawn into one of the deepest and thought provoking questions in my life thus far…do I miss my dad after all these years? Thought upon thought raced through my head, like a V12 engine and all cylinders firing. All thoughts led to one conculsion - I did miss him.

How is he? Is he married? Does he have any kids? Is he still alive? That question crippled me - what, after all this time, finally growing a sack and moving forward in an effort to actually entertain the idea of tracking him down, I find he’s passed away.

[typing this gives me a lump in my throat]

I need to get in touch with him. I just need to know he’s ok.