Drive In, Drive Out
My eyes popped open this morning at 5:30 a.m., much to my horror and chagrin. Every time I’m under any sort of stress – self-inflicted or otherwise – I go to bed late, sleep hard for a few hours, and pop up like a toasted bagel the second I see the faintest glimmer of sunlight. This wouldn’t be a big deal, and I might be able to eke out a few more minutes of rest, if not for the ever-vigilant cat, who senses movement like a heat-seeking missile, and tumbles into the bedroom screaming his crusty-eyed head off. When I don’t respond appropriately – I don’t know, by whipping cans of food out of my armpits – he starts knocking things off of the nightstand in order of size, staring at me between items. And when that doesn’t work, he tries ripping down the mini-blinds, which result in a clattering train-like sound that makes me want to peel my ears off of my head like a banana. He stares at me after every clank – I’m telling you it’s calculated, like living with a feline Stewie.
I’ve been agonizing over a single project all week – obsessing, really, like my life depends on it, which it totally doesn’t – and it’s made for some pretty shitty work/life balance, albeit almost entirely self-inflicted. I’ve been rolling out of bed before dawn after going to bed past midnight, and moving through my days zombie-like and unhappy. (All day today, I kept asking everyone, “Does this day seem weird to you? Like, really weird and foggy?” They didn’t think so.)
Anyway, after I get up, if the dog hasn’t gotten up with a heavily bladdered whimper after the cat starts screaming with the screams of a thousand angry banshees, I’ve been taking my laptop into the bathroom and either working on the floor while I wait for my shower to heat up or (oh my God), I’ve been taking the laptop into the stall, doing whatever it is I need to do, and sitting on the toilet (lid down! lid down!) to finish working. Um, at 6:15 a.m. Honestly, I haven’t sunk to such depths in a long time, and I hope never to be there again.
In the middle of a wild toilet-bound editing session this morning, I fell asleep and dropped my laptop into the magazine basket (thank Jesus it was there instead of the tile floor), which tumbled over and came crashing down, and obviously, it woke me up. I came rip-tearing out of the bathroom, mumbling, “What’s that NOISE?” because, of course, I’d completely forgotten where I was, or what I was doing, and all I really knew was that there was a loud noise! Somewhere! NOISE! In my frenzy, I bumped into the television and knocked over a stack of DVDs, which also, conveniently, came crashing to the floor making more! NOISE!
A. slept through the whole damn thing. Did not move. Which of course, led me to the only possible conclusion:
He was dead.
He was totally dead. He wasn’t even breathing, oh my God. I just freaked out and started sticking things under his nose: a spoon and a pair of scissors, to be specific. I saw fog, and noticed the bed swelling with his breath, which would have been a helpful observation pre-scissors, for I almost poked his eyes out. Anyway, he was breathing, but still not awake, no matter how many times I jammed things in his nostrils. Which meant he was comatose, and might be that way for many months, or maybe forever, and I almost started crying again, imagining myself visiting him in the hospital like Terri Schiavo or Mike Delfino and oh, it was just so awful and stupid. And yet: I didn’t try to wake him. I just stood over him like a funeral director, waiting for him to give me some sort of sign of his early morning demise, until he finally peeped one eye open and grumbled, “The hell you looking at?” and rolled over. Not exactly romantic, but he was alive.
Anyway, this is a long way of saying it’s finally over, my projects have all been turned in, deadlines met and the wonder of delight and freedom that is Friday lies before me like an open road. Now all that’s left to do is sit and wait for the familiar panic to set in that I’ve accidentally hidden a massive “Go fuck yourself!” in the documents, or someone else took hold of my body and wrote hilariously erroneous facts that are so obviously wrong and libelous, and I’m going to be indicted by some grand jury somewhere, but I’m used to that, as I’ve said before. But holy crap, I need to get some sleep, because thinking my husband was dead totally sucked.
Also, apropos of nothing, I wrote yesterday’s post a while ago, and had forgotten about it. I threw it up yesterday because I thought if I didn’t put something up then, I never would again, because I’d be too busy editing on the toilet for the rest of my life (I could not see the forest for the trees, clearly, for I really believed that statement. It would go on forever, I was sure, and you’d be stuck with an oboe forevah). Hence, no continuation today on anything oboe or sorority-related (and oh yes, it was, uh, sororal), and I’ll get to that another day. I’m sure you’re beside yourselves with anticipation. Delta! Delta! DELTA!
Have a great weekend.
*Dave Matthews. Told you I loved him. Lay off.
8 comments November 9th, 2006