Yesterday was a subjectively shitty day. Objectively, it wasn’t – the temperatures continue exceedingly mild for the time of year (70-73ºF), it was sunny, I didn’t have too many chores plaguing me. But I felt sick about my finger and my head kept spinning with what I initially misidentified as a Queen song, but which is actually Roger Hodgson’s (of Supertramp) famous “The Logical Song.” “Won’t you tell me who I am? Who I am?” he wails in a still-remarkable tenor whose notes I can barely hit.
I stayed in when I should have gotten myself outside, into the fresh air, and cleared my lungs. I wallowed in my injury, which continued to hurt like crazy, especially if I accidentally tapped it – easy enough to do when it’s a finger tip. Then, by the time I finally realized the day was well and truly shot and that I should get outside (it was five o’clock by now), a lot of helicopter noise overhead. Turns out B. Hospital was on lock-down and a manhunt was underway for a 32-year old, probably armed, domestic abuser. The hospital was locked because police thought he was coming to shoot his girlfriend, I think. The helicopters (four in total, I read, including at least one police chopper – not sure if that’s the same as a police Air Wing, also described …and of course three news choppers) continued till about 7:30 / 8:00p.m., when the search was called off. They hadn’t found him, despite going, with K-9 and drawn weapons, house to house in the residential neighborhood around the hospital. By 6:30p.m., I started to get concerned about going outside myself. Allegedly, the guy not only assaulted his pregnant girlfriend, he was also wanted in connection with the death of another girlfriend in Boston. Crazy. It’s funny how this sort of news affects a person who’s actually reasonably removed from it.