I’m coming down with something, which explains my general malaise of the past two days. I skipped lunch yesterday and went home early, planning on doing all of my various housely things, such as dealing with the mass of unwashed clothes from my trip (and Esteban’s socks’ there are a buttload of dirty socks in the house. It’s a mystery, as I had everything done before I left, and I was only gone for five days but there is almost an entire load of just his dirty socks all scattered on the floor in front of his dresser in the bedroom. Was he changing his socks three times a day? Was there a different more nefarious purpose for their dirty status? The world may never know.), but I could do nothing more than make myself something for dinner and then stare blankly at my latest Netflix (Max, by the way, staring the most edible John Cusack in sort of prequel to World War II. I think it should have been renamed Trying too hard to be Schindler’s List, but that’s just me) until I kept blinking my eyes and feeling my head get heavier and heavier. Through sheer willpower alone, I managed to stay awake until 7:00 pm and then walked guiltily into the bedroom and fell immediately into a deep drooling coma.
Ten hours later when my alarm when off, I still felt as though I had been run over by a truck, so I used a sick day and continued to sleep, clocking a lovely 15 horizontal hours between the sheets. My mother would be so proud. In my dreams, I apparently threw a party that was graced by Bill and Hillary Clinton and I was flustered by the options of how to properly introduce them. Mr and Mrs. Bill and Hillary Clinton? Or win points with Hillary and introduce her as Hillary Rodham-Clinton? Then would I say Mr. and Mrs. Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham-Clinton? But that sounds like I am saying Mrs. Bill Clinton, which alternately makes me laugh or pisses me off. Just Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham-Clinton. Sounds good. ‘Grandma, I’d like to introduce you to Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham-Clinton. Bill and Hillary, this is my Mafia Grandma.’ And I had a little social coup when Hillary did the pleasure eyebrow raise when I said ‘Rodham’. Hillary mentioned that she knew who I was and was acquainted with my work, cross-referencing another dream in which I was the opening reader for Margaret Atwood. And then as we walked away, Mafia Grandma sneered and said ‘Hrrmph’ they’re not so special’ fully within earshot of the Clinton/Rodham-Clintons. So close and yet so far.
I had planned to at very least deal with doing the vacation pictures today, but as is usually the case when I am off my normal rhythm, it is now early evening and I only have a watched DVD to show for the day. Esteban keeps telling me that I look cute, which is completely ridiculous, as I am wearing my cargo shorts that are so large that they sort of balloon out, giving me a more dumpy ass than normal and a kangaroo pouch even when I sit down, along with one of my retro t-shirts, also too baggy but possibly in a good way, no makeup and messy bed head hair. He always does that though, thinks I am cute au naturale. It makes me doubt his sanity.
I keep having these weird life moments when things get really crystalline and then fade again into the background. I needed iced tea earlier, my fingers itching for some of the icy Diet Coke that would enjoy sweating happily in my greedy little hand, so I hopped in the car and drove up the way to the Starbucks, deciding that I must be dehydrated. Then I stopped at the local mass merchandiser to pick up Harry Potter and some vitamins for Esteban, who has finally come to the conclusion that his are not the best habits of healthy living. Got the Potter, forgot the vitamins, but impulsively grabbed the Nora Jones CD. I wanted to go for a drive down to the Bay, but felt exhausted already, so I settled for a glimpse of it on the highway. Then with the windows rolled down, the aural cream of Jones liquefying my brain down to my toes, a hot gust of wind blew into both open car windows and up flew every single bit of car effluvia in my backseat, until the interior was a maelstrom of airborne receipts and straw wrappers and ATM slips. And just as quickly, the gust was gone, but it had whistled around my ears as it left and I felt as though two lips had lighted there, just for a second. And I looked out to the Bay and thought about conversations I had independently with friends last week, about how I am afraid to succeed and how I am afraid of what it might mean. And it was as though I had received an answer, just then. It was as though suddenly the sin wasn’t in trying and failing but rather in not trying hard enough. Instead of being not good enough, it is worse to not respect the good there is. And it was a release, saying ‘Go, go, go, go, go, do it all, it is time, it is time.’ And then I shook my head and drove down the hill to my house, sipping the iced tea that made all the difference and thinking about how the center of the tempest never moves.
Strangely, I no longer feel fat.
