tiny stripey piglet
I make myself, and only myself, laugh when on my way to work in the rainy January slush I walk by a totally flattened and squashed pigeon in the street, blood and feathers and even a discernible foot, and lean over to shout at the ground “ARE YOU OKAY?” It’s the little things, people. The little, flat, visceral (literally) things. These things will keep us from suicide.
That last sentence was dramatic but I have been alternating between bleak (another word that cheers me up. Bleak. Bleeeeeeeeeak) bitterness (IT’S ALL SHIT) and a corny over-appreciation of nice people and nice things (SO LET US LOVE EACH OTHER WHILE WE CAN) (BLANKETS AND KINDNESS AND DELICIOUS FOODS AND LOVELY PEOPLE MAKING LOVELY ART). I’m like a walking Tumblr feed.
I got pretty sick the day after my birthday and it seemed way worse than a normal severe hacking chest cold. My skin hurt, even water tasted gross, I couldn’t stop coughing, and I cried all the time. The Crying Virus. I had a physical scheduled already so I decided to turn my “well visit” into a DYING VISIT and see the doctor regardless. She prescribed a narcotic cough syrup, and CVS was being a say-no-to-drugs little bitch about filling it so I had to go to a random Walgreen’s. The funny part is that Walgreen’s had my address wrong, did not require any form of identification, and printed the label with refills indicated although clearly that is a bad idea. Me and Lil Wayne, waiting in line to refill our sizzurp ‘scrips. The first night I was all carefully measuring it out, checking the clock when I woke up to see if another dose was advisable, etc. The third night I was pretty much swigging it from the bottle like the laudanum addict in the attic. Now I no longer have a cough, but I still have a severe sore throat with no other symptoms, does that mean strep or DeathCancer? I forget.
So I was in bed, after kissing no one, by 9 pm on New Year’s Eve. Made up for it later with a delayed, joint birthday party with LT (also a holiday-time birthday sufferer) at my house. Where I kissed everyone. Hosting parties is way better than going to parties, you get to use your own bathroom and play your own music and control the vibe—ie, no one will do anything dumb like try to force people to play board games or put on a movie. (The worst. Hi, we are ADULTS, we have ALCOHOL and INTERESTING STORIES, no need to plan activities like it’s a preschool). Maybe my friends are just easy to please, but I feel like if you light some candles and provide plenty of free booze and snacks everyone will be like WOW WHAT A LOVELY PARTY and there’s no judgment. And even if there is silent judgment, I guess I don’t want to know and I really don’t care. Drink your free drink and shut up.
Because my office is so close to Trump Tower, I decided to work from home today. I do not find protests or large crowds cheering, and because it’s the last day of optimism before America is Made Great Again I really needed to spend some time in my pajamas. Working from home is a bit of a slog because our IT department is insane and apparently I was supposed to have turned in a “form” to get VPN access. Why would you give someone a laptop, an intensely portable device, and then be surprised when they wish to port it around and access files from different physical locations? It is a mystery. So I’m on Citrix like a sucker, where everything behaves weirdly and slowly despite my excellent home internet. LT is working from home too, at the kitchen island rocking out to his Super White 1930s Jazz. Often there are ukuleles involved and the whole thing is very Grown Men Are Talking. Meanwhile I’m holed up in the office creating manuscript data spreadsheets and a Public Enemy-heavy playlist. Bring the noise. No, not that noise.
In conclusion: many things suck, including this entry, but until the Republicans make online diaries illegal, I’ll try to keep doing it.
—mimi smartypants, enemy of the state.