You know you have an awesome family when one of them refers to your dad's radiation treatment place as "that death-ray zapping center", followed by an earnest chuckle, while in the company of said dad.
My (blustery) day at work consisted of: rain, then sun. Then more rain, then some sun... then rain, then – oh, you get it. Also, when i got to work at 8:30 there was a homeless man blowing snot rockets onto the ground in my workspace. It was a thrill. i rudely offered him a pack of tissues and he accepted. Had to give him the boot, eventually, so that i could finally open properly (We share walls with a deli; he was hanging out in the market's old "deli area", which we lease, and where we sell plants and keep the day's deliveries, and where our cooler is). Later i donned a pair of latex gloves and went to recycle the cardboard he'd slept (and pissed) on during the night. Also, it was staff appreciation day and nobody warned me. How ironic.
Look, i have empathy to spare. But mysterious bodily fluids are not a happy workplace discovery. i wish i could just help people take care of themselves. You know – all people? Everywhere? And the world would equal a perfect place, 'n all that? Certainly this is a realistic goal.
i heard a sound, an alien sound, coming from the other room. A slithering, whoomping, fwomping, murflenurfing kind of sound. It sounded exactly like a wormhole had opened up in my living room. Granted, i am hung over to the nth degree, and keep seeing little gnomes scurrying about in my peripheral vision, but this sound was just not quite right.
After a minute or so of wide-eyed paralysis, during which time i carefully monitored my skyrocketing heart rate and tried furiously to comprehend what in blazes the sound could have been, i relaxed. Finally realized that it was just a poster, that's all, yeah: a poster that probably came undone at the top and flopped over on itself to slide down the wall. There was even a prime contender by the front door, the old oversized calendar page that always loses a thumbtack after about fifty openings-and-closings of said door. (it's the wind suction, doncha know.)
So, i gathered myself up gingerly (did i mention i drank too much last night?) and pussy-footed it to the doorway... the living room looked clean. No wormholes, no gnomes. Relief. But when i looked around at all of the posters (we have many), not a single one had fallen. Nope, not a one. This sent me back into Panic Mode and i quickly made the rounds around the room, looking for a stack of papers that had lost a page, or a pile of books that had lost a gravity fight, but there was nothing. No evidence of sound. Even the higgledy-piggledy recycling pile looked exactly the same (i have a photographic memory, but we'll talk about that another time). i found this even more unsettling than the prospect of a wormhole opening up in my living room.
What had happened in there? Had anything? 'When a tree falls in the woods...', etc., only reversed? My otic organs had clearly registered some pretty specific sound waves, but it seemed that the incident itself had never even happened*.
i backed up carefully into the relative safety of the bedroom, where at least the gnomes have the decency to show themselves.
Been feeling a bit better since spending an hour or so winding my way through the annals of Flickr. Always nice to have your happy place. Also, Now Hear This:
*Although, what if a wormhole makes noise when it opens up, but can close again without making a peep? It could happen, no? If i can't find the aural offender, i may have to fall back on this theory.
(and tonic water, and limes, and ginger ale, and ice cubes, and stupid easy-to-fill glass tumblers with your stupid wide mouths that are stupid easy to gulp from),
Please cease and desist with your antics. Quit calling me, and elbowing me into the kitchen, and whispering fun little come-hithers into my ear. Get off my shoulder, get out of my brain, and please render yourselves invisible when my eye lands upon you.
When you make me call my friend Joy "J-Train" more than thirty times in a night, it's a clear sign that you are stifling me. Please– i need some space.
And when i play Boggle? i like to be able to actually read the words i have written–nay, scrawled–on my piece of paper. When 'aye' looks like 'hit', it's because we have been spending too much time together. And while we're on the subject, fuck you for making my entire list consist of 3-letter words. i am better than that. It's obvious that you are just a bad influence for me.
Well, there is more, but i think you get the point. i hope you meet someone new, i really do– and, you know, if we run into each other at a party some time, i'll try and at least say 'hi'. We did have some good times, after all.
Thanks for being so understanding. . . now kindly get out of my bloodstream, it's been nearly 24 hours, for cry-yiy.
