tuckova

what are we going to do without

Jackhammers from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. outside the building next door. I don't know what they're doing it for, but it looks like a long project.

I went to a birthday party on Saturday and danced and danced and only stepped on a few feet with enough force to actually hurt anybody. Whoops. How the room swirled. I left at 2 a.m. with the music still blaring behind me for at least a half a block.

On Sunday the cold I had been fighting came and took up residence inside my sleepiness. I sneezed so hard I threw my back out. I highly recommend having a teenager at such times. Doubly so if they can cook. It is hard not to pretend to feel worse than I do, just to extend the loveliness of being tended to, treated like a fragile thing. I think he's on to me, though.

When I was little and I couldn't sleep I would match my breathing to my parents' down the hall. Not really snoring, but I could hear them, heavy and slow breaths through the night. And the first time I lived with someone other than my parents, I found myself also matching my breath to his, this breath lighter and faster than I was used to, but I learned. Putting myself to sleep by promising myself that everyone else was asleep; that if they thought it was safe it probably was. In, out, in, out. I did that any time I was with someone long enough to trust them; put my trust in their hands; put their breath in my lungs. When I was single I tried counting between breaths to prime numbers, sometimes even getting as far as 11 before realizing that I wasn't putting myself to sleep so much as suffocating, though that also works. Anyway last night I was counting on number five and I realized that I would probably not breathe with anybody again, and for a minute that seemed kind of sad, but five works pretty well and I breathed in for five and when I exhaled I blew that little puff of sadness away, because it IS safe enough to fall asleep, at least until the jackhammers start up again.

skimming

Something better is percolating, but I had to skim this stuff off the top first to give it room. 

I have days of exhaustion where I will sleep 10 hours through the night, take 2 hour naps from which I struggle to wake myself, then back to bed as early as 8 or 9, feeling like I've plowed fields all day, absolute physical exhaustion, although sometimes the most exciting thing I've done is get the mail. Then I have days with bursts of energy approximately equal to my early 20s. Like, hours of varnishing the floor or clearing out all the cabinets or something weekendy, but after a full day of working. 

I am thisclose to caftans. I'm not kidding this time.

The AMA is still refusing to accept plural pronouns as gender-neutral singulars, or however I should say it, but anyway it makes me mad. I spent a good chunk of the day writing around sentences with "he or she" because I hate it too much to let it stay. It's the 21st century. There is a perfectly simple solution. It's not traditional, but the problem is not traditional and so the solution has to be whatever works, which is: Everyone raised their hand. I'm over it, and I am not the most modern of militant grammarians.

If you are trying to find out how Whitney Houston died, I think we were never friends.

Oh, Squire went to camp for a week. His absence was like a cut thumb. He seems to have fun, although it took him 15 hours of sleep to return to his normal upright position. Now he's back to normal, and made me dinner so I could wrestle all the pronouns to the ground and put another checkmark next to another task on the list.

Why yes as a matter a fact I did cut my own hair using paper scissors and a hand-held mirror. You wanna make something of it? I mean: please. I expect it's a big ol' mess back there, and it only doesn't bother me because I can't see it all at once. 

words are full of holes

Stumbled in a sidewalk hole next to a bus stop last night and pitched forward, accidental planking on the sidewalk, arms in front like Superman. This was on the way TO the pub, mind. Probably would have been pretty if I hadn't screamed as I went, which is what my grandmother said when I fell off the back of a horse: it would have looked good if you hadn't been yelling all the way down. Sorry about the noise folks. Some men came running all "ma'am, ma'am, what happened?" and as usual I had to laugh so that nobody would think I was hurt. The bus driver paused I assume to be sure I was okay and not so that everybody on the bus could stare at me in bewilderment, although I was not feeling particularly okay (hahaha, no worries, I just fell! Don't forget to tip your waiter!) and they did all stare. Thank goodness I managed to keep my head up is the only good thing, because I really don't want to mess up my beautiful, beautiful face. Well, and that I was wearing thick pants that didn't rip, so my knee is bruised but not all bloody. I have a bruised rib this morning, and my hands are still sore, and also my head a bit, although that could be because I was, as I said, on the way to the pub. On the way home I walked on the other side of the street for luck, and it was snowing, and I watched the flakes swirling in the halos of the street lamps even though I really should learn to watch where I'm going.