Tuesday, May 4, 2010

As if reading emails were a solution to things I would rather not think about and somehow worth the mundane "pass this along and in ten days" promises that promptly lose my attention, I read every rotten pointless word. Words that have no voice and no thought and here I am ripping through them like treasures because I don't want to think about the morning. Or the afternoon. Or anything.


I want a place to hide. Once for almost 10 months I hid in my bedroom at my parents' house and managed to avoid life until I could no longer avoid myself. Washing away grime -- who would bother showering for a day of nothing and night of nothing and nothing for conversation or company? -- I went rummaging in my mother's closet until I found a skirt and a blouse and I drove off toward the one temp agency that stuck in my mind. I had been picturing it for weeks. Dragging myself in the temp's door I sat down, scribbled the letters of my name in a weird row one after the other. It looked sort of familiar. I handed back the clipboard and accepted the first position the woman described. Was is shoveling manure pouring coffee changing bed pans hosing out the stalls stamping logos on some company's envelopes? I don't know what she said. Start Tuesday, 9 am. So I went home, returned my mother's clothes and went back to my room until Tuesday.


I feel like I am still there. Lily is great but it's really hard. So much attention. So much time. So much to squeeze between work and meetings and work again and the weekend and assignments and who the hell is stuffing so much laundry in the basket? Do 10 people suddenly live here? Tired, stressed, I sit on the couch and lean on Jerry and pass out.


My day starts with Lily overexcited and jumping and I throw a hand out and tug down on her collar. Down! It's 6:50 am and I scurry to the bathroom. Do I get in bed for 10 more minutes? Or do I admit that it's 10 minutes of nagging. You have to go to work you have to get Lily's food ready the cats are hungry Ozzy is snorting and his eyes bug because his food bowl is empty empty empty. GET UP.


I hear a driver's door slam on Jerry's work van. I flop out of bed. With tennis balls sneakers and fingers crossed I hop into the woods with Lily and Hershey. Each chomps her own tennis ball and in turns I pick them up all slick and foaming with saliva and toss them again and again and shuffle around in woods with the trees and leaves filling in.


Without a ball or stick to keep Lily's attention focused she could hear something and run off. Twice in five months a neighbor has brought her home. What a nice dog, they say. She got right in my car! Thank you.

At work in the corner away from phones and people and noise and talking talking talking in a billion directions about a billion things I try to write something and either finish or fall asleep. Up. Coffee. What am I doing? Look at everyone working and happy and some are laughing and no one looks stressed or pressured and I better get out of here by 5 to rush home and rush into the woods again and rush to my meeting later.


Maybe other people and other dogs have their routines concocted into something manageable. How nice. Really. For them.


I get home and take her for a jog. She has begun to lunge and nip at passing cars. Hmmm. Back home with the tennis balls again and now a leash for Bandit, I open the door. One ball into Lily's snapping teeth, and another to Hershey and they run in possessive little circles eyeing each other and waiting for a chance to drop their ball for me. Ozzy snorts off in whatever direction smells best and his black ears flap. Bandit yanks me along on his leash.


What a day. I hope I don't fall on my ass and end up at my meeting with dirt smears and scratches.


Lily dreams. Her feet eyes lips and nostrils twitch.


Stress eases for the day and I listen to the laundry churn around. Jerry changes TV channels upstairs. I breath for a second and check the corners. In the shadows wrapped inside blackness like a cloak, my friend Stress naps. He will leave me alone until about midnight when little reminders in the back of my head burst like popcorn: you're going to be tired go to bed who cares about your book finish your wine and go to bed.


Soon.

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