Some days drive over you and then back up. This one isn’t as bad as all that but it’s got the stink of something on it. Probably having a four year old shoving me off my pillow all night got it off to a rocky start. I can’t handle anyone fucking with my sleep anymore. I don’t know, I’m probably dehydrated too. When was the last time I had a glass of water? 1972?
I went to bed last night thinking today would be a breeze. One kid had the day off school (no 1.5 hours of preschool commute!) and the other would be away all day with his own thing going on. I had visions of tackling laundry and laying on the floor in a sunbeam next to the dog. He and I never lay around together anymore. We hardly ever talk. I can’t remember the last time he scratched my belly.
Well one thing after another, you know how it goes, and today was just like the others. Busy, running around, no one had any clean socks and the dog - well - he didn’t have to share his sunbeam, did he? He got to sprawl out all over the place and you know he wasn’t missing me. Living the life, he is. It’s me who’s got issues.
I think the cummulative effect of the draining days are what is really draining. Because okay, today was this thing, that thing, an hour at the hospital, no time to get the car cleaned, talk a friend off the ledge for two hours before bed, load the dishwasher and fold some dirty socks to pass for clean because nope, didn’t get to it. That was today and that’s okay. I liked today. Thing is, look at tomorrow. Not any slower. Faster even. Maybe I can cram it all in Sunday. Until voila, Sunday pulls the plug on clean socks too.
What is it that conspires to keep us in dirty socks forever?
I should have already gone to bed because my eyeballs are doing that thing they do when they’ve already gone to sleep. But I’m not going with. Where they won’t see anything properly in definance of my definace. We’re in a roundabout. Neither one of us wants to give in. Very mature.
I am never more inclined to sit down and get to work than when I am sick or tired. Fever of a hundred and seventeen? Excellent! Time to bang out that novel! Haven’t slept in days? Well, saddle up, we’ve got some words to get down on paper.
And they will be brilliant! These words penned in times of mental deficiency. Oh how they will impress.
I can’t think of anything I did today that I feel really good about. I mean, I feel good about my day and the person that I am in the general sense of it. I did not drive over anyone’s dog, I did not shout at the Contact Lens people despite their need for a good sound shouting at. But I never did find a minute to really accomplish anything. It’s more that the day got accomplished while I was in attendance. Which is the way most days go and maybe they’re supposed to. But I can’t help thinking I should have more of an impact on it. I should be more of a participant than the residue of a day gone well. Or not well, as the case may be. This day, this draining day, happened more in spite of me than because of. Or it feels like.
This is not me complaining. I am far more direct when I complain. I say things like ‘fuck’ in ALL CAPS forty four thousand times when I am complaining. There is no mistaking my dissatisfaction.
This is me prattling on to you the way I do to Dan every second of his life. I think he enjoys it. Or he is skilled at pretending to. Either way, I am content.
I’m not sure where this has got off to - which is apropos of the prattle - and will now come to an abrupt and unsatisfying end. Best to finish on the same note with which we began, I say. No sense leaving you will a sense of satisfaction this late in the game.
Adieu.