I spent a huge swath of today working myself into a froth. Almost since I have known him, M. and I have swapped a lot of IMs, emails, phone calls and such like messages across the Internet ether. A huge chunk amount to no more than “Hey.”

Wired as we are, I can also see the little green dot in G’Talk and know that he’s logged in somewhere in the universe.

This morning I got to work. No little green dot. I did some work, thinking huh, must be in a meeting. No worries.

By 2 p.m., still no green dot. I call his office. No answer. I call his cell. Straight to voicemail. Lather, rinse, repeat. Foment.

Worry, worry, worry.

I think it my birthright, the natural state of an island of folks who celebrate with songs and novels called “Finnegan’s Wake” is to assume the worst. Worra, worra, worra, worra. I mean, dead in the ditch does happen.

By 3:30 p.m., I had checked local news websites for car accidents. (His car is a slowly dying.) I’d called his phone many times. I’d rebooted my computer to ensure Google Talk was working. My mood was sour. I imagined myself alone.

I truly spent a hours distraught. I tried to decide what I would do if something was wrong. I thought about whether there was anyone I could call at his work to see if he were there. I thought about how much information I could get at a hospital given that we cohabitate, a hazy legal arrangement.

A good hunk of time had me pondering the late, great Pat. I thought about how the family had moved to Maryland, and maybe we were there for about the same time I’ve been in Cali before tragedy struck.

Pat took the kids and turned around back home to the house that was still on the market in Massachusetts. The way my house is on the market now.

Would I stay here and keep going with the current job? Would I head back? Either way, I both can and cannot imagine what I would do.

More than that, I realized I am too tied to the life we have together, that I would miss him (duh), and I couldn’t possibly know for sure what could possibly happen next.

Then, I got M. on the phone. He was in meetings all day, big doings with HQ back east.

Meetings. And alive.

I do a joke in stand-up about having essentially a happy relationship, and my mind figures that means tragedy looms in a corner if it continues. It rings true when I do it, because it is true.

My brain, the neurotic bits and the imaginative bits, always ends up darkly. I’ll probably die from exhaustion waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In conclusion, I’m a fucking idiot.