With Esteban gone, the house stays in this weird sort of stasis. Everything is still where I left it. There are no new little evidences of mini hurricanes in the living room, no detritus left on the counter, no still life titled Cheese Wrappers with Dirty Spoon sitting on the stove. It’s times like this that I could easily see the allure of a monastic life. But then the cat hunts me through the halls and demands that I attend to her. She has rediscovered the old fur coat sitting on the love seat in the bedroom, therefore the business of winter has officially begun.
I managed to limp through the grocery store last night, although without a list or a plan or anything. They built another location of my upscale grocery store about two miles further into the suburbs and now I worry about the one that’s seven blocks from my house. Especially since when I drove up at 5:30 pm on a Monday night, I was able to park two spots from the door. The parking lot was barren. This is very unusual. I hobbled around the store, clueless, only knowing that I needed bread and fruit and milk. I should shop clueless more often because I only spent $50. I balked on getting some more bottled water because it meant having to walk to the opposite end of the store. By the time I got home, my knee was throbbing, so I collapsed onto the sofa, upside down, and shivered against the bag of ice quelling the storm in my beleaguered left leg. If I have a very full bag of ice and leave it on too long, my foot falls asleep, but I didn’t care, only sat there staring into some episodes of Joe Schmo that The Unit deigned to record earlier this weekend. It still won’t record ‘Starting Over’ which is my personal crack television (Dude, Nyanza needs to be smacked across the face, and now I love Andy more than words can say, even though I suspect she’s a bit of a train wreck.) and I missed a whole week of the show. In fact, there was one day when I saw it record and then it was there and then it was gone. I think it’s toying with me. I’ve been forced to set up a Season Pass on the Tivo and I’m now certain that Ricky Fitts thinks less of me. Or will start recommending Touched By An Angel or maybe Passions. Look at me, raving about missing my stories.
With Esteban gone, I realized that I tend to instinctively revert to vegetarianism. And also breakfast. Apparently, if I lived alone, I’d live mostly on cereal, toast, and peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I put my Chococat coffee mug in the freezer last night so that I could eschew Sbux and drink ice cold milk with my morning pb&b sandwich and decided that impossibly cold skim milk is one of those things that makes me ridiculously happy.
I have my writing workshop tonight and am plagued by complete and utter apathy. We have a story due tonight. I’m too lazy to finish my car salesman story, even though I’m excited by the premise and love the imagery and have the last three paragraphs written in my head. I think the problem is that I’ve just written a ton of establishing plot line and bored my own self with it. It’s muddy and the narrator has a boring voice and I can’t find the cadence of his speech pattern. And I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet, but I’m certain that my reader will be in a coma before they ever get to the actual plot. Writing is hard. I’m extremely tempted to cheat again and hand in something I’ve already written. Maybe the Baby Story that I posted once here and then deleted (after five comments appeared on the comments section) but and sent out instead to the notify. Because it would be as easy and safe as sinking into a warm down comforter. But then I’d have to think of a name for the thing, other than ‘The Baby Story’. Writing is hard, thinking up titles is damned impossible.
It occurs to me that I’ve just written more here than I have in a week in my car salesman story. And with that, have a great day, I have to set my sights elsewhere.
