Last night, the collection of various angry hormones in my body got together and kicked my ass thrice. I am responsible for 1.2 packages of consumed Oreos over the last four days. This is not my beautiful diet but rather a recipe for diabetes. I don’t care. Fuck anyone who says anything. Fuck anyone who looks at me cross-eyed. Fuck everyone. Fuck.
Esteban has something wrong with his left eye. He looks like a pirate. He keeps asking me to analyze it, because I am the veteran of more than my share of eye infections. All of you perfect people who never get infections, thank me because I’ve got your back. Two days ago, he asked me how it looked and I advised him to put a hot compress on it. He pshawed that, wondering where the Burning Drops are from my last bout with the dreaded pink eye. I had thrown them out, but his eyeball is not infected, rather the eyelid. He thought about going to the doctor. I told him that he can but he will be told to put a hot compress on it. He sighed. Last night, he asked me how it looked. It now has two whitehead things on the inner lid. Put a hot compress on it, I said, resisting the urge to say ‘Arrrrgh, matey! Swab the deck or walk the plank!’ in my best Captain Hook.
He shocked me by agreeing and went to find a washcloth. The balance of our relationship is very fragile. It is my job to make sense and be nurturing and his job to be stubborn and resist. I do not know what to make of this.
He did a hot compress for 60 minutes, reheating the cloth every ten minutes. I held a heating pad to my abdomen, but no one needed to tell me five times to do that. You know, the Be A Girl recruitment posters never tell you about the 30 years of crampy agony. Maybe in the fine print.
This morning, again, ‘How does my eye look?’
Arrrrrgh matey, want to see my treasure?
All he needs is a parrot. Seriously.
Sometimes my head is a very funny place to be. And the phrase ‘Pain Thumbs’ still cracks me up. As does an email we received several months ago from the receptionist at work, bearing the subject line ‘Suspicious smells’. Good times.
An ice monster swiped through Green Bay last night and turned everything to crystal. All of the blades of grass are standing at regimental perfection. The trees are sponsored by Waterford, the garden gnomes by Swarovski. The street sign directing me to Broadway and Main was adorned with a beaded fringe stolen from a Cher costume, circa 1978. Currently, there are tiny square pellets of ice raining down and when the wind blows the branches have voices of breaking glass. All of the schools have closed. All of the daycares, all of the gyms, all of the everything. Except for my office. Everyone but my office. We never close. Because all life would cease if we didn’t know how much stuff people buy.
My car door was frozen shut. After twenty minutes with the heater running, I rolled down the window on the windward side and a sheet of ice remained independent of the window. The Sbux menu was art glass, blown by a Mexican peddler for tourists in Cancun. It was Mocha by Monet. Inside: Baristas by Degas.
As I drove over the ‘big bridge’ today on the highway, passing no less than four fallen SUVs in the ditch, I mentally prepared myself for sliding through the guardrail and the swan dive into the Fox River which churned like a chocolate Slurpy 150 feet below. Which should I do, open the car door during the fall or should I wait until in the water and break the window out with my feet? Could I break it out with my feet? No, open the window during the fall and swim out Dukes of Hazard style. Note to self: remember to do that.
