check it, I can make you dance
THE TEMPUS, IT SURE DOES FUCKING FUGIT
This diary entry will be like a little kid showing you their stick and rock and bottle cap collection; you have been warned.
Linen sheets are the worst, the end. I bought some linen sheets because they are often on lifestyle clickbait reviews of “the best [whatevers]” and I like to have the best, especially if it is majorly on sale like my (horrible!) linen sheets were. I hate them! They are never going on the bed again, unless we have some improbable situation where all the other sheets are burnt in a fire or something. Would you like to sleep on something hot, rumpled, and…baggy? Would you like to take a nap on top of Nan Pierce? “Emily Dickinson and low-thread-count sheets”? Sorry for the Succession references but it’s the main way I communicate lately. Or alternately regarding sheets:
I DO THINGS ALONE
A while ago I went to The Insect Asylum where I dissected an owl pellet and made a necklace out of all the tiny bones inside. It was meditative and I like my mouse bone necklace (they are embedded in resin, in a decorative way, with some flower petals). MEMENTO MORI MUS.
I just missed a Kimball bus heading home so I walked to the Belmont Blue Line to kill time and get the next bus there. That stop was closed for track maintenance so a lot of people were milling around looking for shuttle buses and alternate ways of getting to their destination. A disheveled guy with a huge backpack approached me and said, “How can I get downtown from here?” My helpful Midwestern ass was giving him transit options when he cut me off and yelled, “FUCK YOU, YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING!” and walked off across the street.
Me, yelling back: “Fuck YOU, I was helping you!”
United flight attendant in full regalia also waiting for the bus: “That was the most Chicago thing ever.”
Welcome home!
I DO THINGS WITH ONE OTHER PERSON, WHO IS PAID TO BE THERE
As I have mentioned before, I sometimes go to acupuncture. My acupuncturist is not treating me for anything in particular, but I like lying in the dark for an hour while someone attends to my health. A different person would probably go for massage or facial treatments, it serves the same purpose for me. I once wondered if this is annoying to acupuncturists: if they resent not having something concrete to work on, like back pain or anxiety or whatever. They get paid either way but is it professionally unsatisfying? I asked an acupuncturist friend and he said hell no, you are more than welcome to take a nap on my table and give my emotions a break from all the broken, in-pain people that come to clinic every week.
At the last appointment, the acupuncturist did her needle thing and then said, “I’m going to put a rock on your chest.” And she did! And she left! Before I could say what the fuck, do not Giles Corey me! Why the rock! And now it’s dark and I’m lying down and I can’t even see what KIND of rock, and I don’t really want to lift up my head or grab it and dislodge anything, so I was like fuck it, MORE WEIGHT. And it turns out I kind of liked having a rock on me, and it is scientifically (??? I think?) true that hugging something to your midline is calming to the nervous system, which is why the right-size stuffed animal or pillow can help when you are freaking out. Go ahead, put rocks on me. Really pile them on.
I DO THINGS WITH ONE OTHER PERSON, MARRIED TO ME, PLUS A LARGE SWATH OF YOUNG HUMANITY
LT and I went to DC for a weekend, because although we had both been there we hadn’t been together, and why not use the airline miles for sightseeing and hotel sex. We did a lot of the usual stuff including walking the Mall, and I think I had forgotten the enormity of the Lincoln Memorial, and I also have to say I don’t know if I approve of it. I don’t know if Lincoln would have either. It’s just so very grand and is kind of more like king shit than democratically elected president shit? I get that he was very important but I don’t know about this marble statue thing.
Pretty much everywhere we went there were many, many children. Late spring, historically the season of Less Effort when it comes to education, means class trips. Judging by the groups with coach buses and name tags and matching t-shirts and exhausted-looking chaperones, every middle school on the East Coast was doing a DC trip that weekend. I did learn what you should wear to zoos and museums if you are a middle school girl in the springtime, which is either (a) a sundress and bright white Nike Air Force Ones (high or low top equally okay) or (b) tiny top, huge pants, and bright white Nike Air Force Ones. The uniform seemed…non-negotiable.
Also we went to the Postal Museum because no one else was (not too popular with the middle school set) and there was an exhibit on the bravery of the United States Postal Inspection Service. Part of this included a list of FILMS that featured the bravery of the United States Postal Inspection Service, including a movie from 1950 called Wyoming Mail. l I have no intention of trying to see it and I have a feeling it is Not Good, but the director’s name caught my eye because it was REGINALD LE BORG. That is the most amazing name! And he named himself Reginald Le Borg on purpose! If I ever get a boat (not likely) or a racehorse (even less likely) I will name it Reginald Le Borg.
I am way over my word count! It is time to go!
—mimi smartypants Le Borg