Hi.
Coffee: Cafe Pajaro Extra Dark, Trader Joe’s Brand; the last of the batch. Which is a good thing; I’ve been draining on these beans for too long. I’m a little mosquito that keeps nicking you at the pool. Our blood romance should have died in October.
I get paid $30 a month to not smoke cigarettes. It’s part of a wellness program at work, an insurance credit. My first year I didn’t sign up for it. The second year I did. I haven’t smoked since that night we held each other on the deck chairs in the apartment commons. I can’t think why I’d smoke again. Still, there’s this self image of myself in a plaid shirt with the buttons half done smoking out an open window. It’s the kind of sickness that gets in any self reported writer, like a rabid dog seeing everything as water.
But at least no-one’s paying me not to have a drink.
I read an article on whole grains. Typical stuff – health benefits, etc. Then I read an article linking fiber intake to longevity, and another that says gum disease may be the leading cause of alzheimer’s. Well, that’s probably true. A lot of people are getting paid to research it. But what can anyone do with that kind of information? You wake up and spit a little blood in your toothpaste – does that doom you? Probably, but it’s got to get in line behind a long list of other mundane travesties that laid claim on you first.
I remember this one morning a couple years ago where I got up and downed a shot of whiskey first thing. I was messed up, soul lost and heartbroken. I’m not an alcoholic and wouldn’t claim to be, but I’ve always known it runs in my family. So I think that morning I was trying to let something simple take me under. I was too scared to spend a long forever watching the blood come out of my gums. I wanted control. It’s what everyone wants.
Two things saved me from a second, or third, or lifetime of morning shots: the acceptance that people need me, for my tax dollars and cast vote if nothing else; and a deep, lovely cynicism – that all of us are Sisyphus, and the only way out is to accept the boulder as it crushes you, a tiny paper plane to pilot your spirit.
Novel Count: 18,933
Currently Reading: Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami
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One always finds one’s burden again.
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
Livesay Writing 