You think to cook a meal for lunch, which burns, but lacks discernible taste. Each sneezing fit sets off a ripple of chills; you pause and debate the merits of sofa or bed as the next landing strip. You lose track of the debate, but find you are already somewhere anyway, with a blanket, though you alternately resent and feel fondness for the blanket. You watch vampires and shady people getting lost/good people getting mixed up with shady people getting kidnapped and knifed or being returned to their parents. Everyone has hidden motives. You try on your junior prom dress and think, "well, this might work after all." Your new boyfriend breaks up with you and then doesn't understand why you're upset, acts like nothing happened in the first place. You are told, adamantly and self righteously, that you "have NO ANSWERS," though it would seem more accurate to say that you have numerous displeasing answers. The dog says you have issues and the clementines have grown mealy. So perhaps the week has been a little more seamless than it should have been, but time is carrying you along.
{Reminds me, too, of one of my oldest friends who has always had a lush, prolific imagination. It was only natural that she was especially prone to hallucinating while feverish. One evening, her parents only noticed she was ill after she began quarrelling with her peas at the dinner table. They felt her forehead and sent her to bed.}
Javier* reads your list. "wonton soup"
"Yes, if you don't mind."
"I'm going to Arbor Farms for you anyway--"
"Wait, why?"
"I don't trust those zinc lozenges you have. It says they have zinc IN them, but doesn't say how much--"
"oh, sure" we peer at the label, which does seem noncommittal.
"I don't know this zinc's history! I don't know its background, I don't know his parents!" Javier, he riffs. He looks further down. "...and 'a few nice oranges.' But only if they're nice." Is he confirming, or mocking?
"Yes."
{*previously referenced as partner in crime, a label with a short shelf life. During a pause in a recent skype with Word Collector, she asked, "So how's Javier?" So odd, the memory. This name has no connection with him whatsoever, doesn't speak to his personality. We both laughed and wondered over it. So, he with the irrelevant nickname, versus cardboardy veering to saccharine nickname.}
The organizing is done, and then he's off and then he's back, swooping in with a few bags and then off to the rest of his packed day. He's in almost constant motion. The rare person for whom pacing does not indicate being distraught. He is merely working things through, puzzling them out, and his active, restless body is indicative of his active, restless mind. But now he is gone and you return to sleep and then to sofa/bed. How could you have forgotten how wonderful Bob Ross is? So hypnotic, with his happy trees: "And maybe in our world, let's have a little rock here. And maybe there will be a smaller rock, right next to him, so he doesn't get lonely." Yes, you murmur. Yes, this seems to be a good way to make a world. Flecking the paint thinner, watching a waterfall brushed into being, better than watching a fire. Which would be too hot to watch anyway. Everything is hot or cold, with little warning beforehand.
The minute you fully lay down, the cough returns in full force and hangs around in its juddering way for minutes or hours. Even so, bed and sofa have the greatest appeal.
The cough drops have grown more talky since the last time you have sucked them down. The first one read "Tough is your middle name," which was kind of nice if not false and a bit gung-ho, but the more you look, the more corporate can-doey they feel. "Don't try harder, do harder"? When you're sick?
"Let's hear your battle cry?" Seriously, who wants that? "Don't give up on yourself" seems an odd one -- as if being sick were an indicator of weakness and would naturally lead one into despairing of one's ability to succeed at all? Reading too closely, possibly. But the Bob Ross painting world seems a bit more conducive to healing than the manufactured gumption of the wrappers. ***
And so it goes. The weekend features YoYo Ma, a nice meal which I may or may not be able to taste; Javier, hopefully lots more sleep and a lot less coughing and ear/sinus pain. Dancing to a live band? Sound lovely, but very energy-intensive. I hope to return to more printmaking soon and hope to pop onto the blog in an increasingly reliable fashion. I did number the first version of Cake Maelstrom, which you can see here; and a few other small editions on different colored papers are waiting patiently to be numbered and signed. Hope Everyone is doing well and is fighting off the cabin fever of latter day Winter. Take heart, Spring is almost upon us!
No comments:
Post a Comment