and even I can't imagine that my life would be improved by becoming a bedridden vegetable tended by a non-English speaking healthcare aid in a state-run facility.
I wake up from a dream that it's not even worth recounting: something where I couldn't manage to say a four-digit number no matter how hard I tried. That's all I'll say about it.
Except that it also had something to do with Maine.
Where I've never been, by the way.
It's not even five a.m. yet but I know I'm not getting back to sleep. I've already begun the day whether I like it or not.
I reach over to the nightstand and grab my iPad.
I check my email. Deals. Last chances. 75% off. Viagra. Porn.
There's an email from Satan. I scan it. The usual. Lost soul. Anal sex. Burnt offering. I hit the "keep new" button and save for a more careful perusal later.
Nothing going on at my blog.
Or on Twitter.
I check my online horoscope and it says, "Wake up and smell the coffee, you stupid cunt! He doesn't love you anymore! What does he need to do to prove that to you? Hit you across the teeth with a shovel?"
I wonder if that means what it seems to mean?
I make another of the vows I find myself making lately. This one goes: I refuse to humiliate myself anymore in any way that doesn't give some guy somewhere a hard-on.
How old do you have to be before you can finally let yourself acknowledge that you're never going to be what you once planned on becoming because even if by some miracle you did become it now, it's already too late; you wouldn't enjoy it; in fact, come to think of it, you don't even want whatever it was anymore.
What was it, anyway?
I'm thinking of getting a "Best if Used By" tattoo and dating it about five years ago.
Later, in the bathroom, I have to remember to check my ass in the mirror to make sure I didn't actually already get that tattoo last night.
Last night.
The sum total of what I can remember of it: well, I'll have to get back to you on that later.
Or later than that. If I ever remember.
I make two lists:
Bad things about Alzheimer disease
1. You can't remember shit.
Good things about Alzheimer disease
1. You can't remember shit.
Why do I always want to say Alzheimer's disease. Like it belongs to someone named Alzheimer? Guy Alzheimer.
My mother died of Alzheimer disease last month. The last six months of her life she'd totally forgotten who I was. She recognized me, but it was as some other person entirely. I never figured out who, maybe someone from her distant past, someone she knew before I was born. Whoever it was, she sure seemed happy to see her. Her face would light up whenever I walked into her hospice room. Not one flicker of disapproval. Not one word of reproach. This case of mistaken identity was one of the best things she ever did for me. Forgetting who I was, thinking I was someone else. Someone she really liked. It was a real gift. For once she was a good mother and I was a good daughter and I knew what it was like to be loved. Thanks, mom.
Because I make up shit like this does that make me an evil person?
I draft a suicide note:
What did you miserable bastards want from me anyway? Fuck off! Good bye.
P.S. Please take care of Sashimi. He likes the chicken and tuna from Friskies. I think there's five or six cans left under the kitchen sink.
The pinkies on both my hands feel a little numb and weird right now. They keep hitting the wrong keys on the keyboard and I have to keep going back to correct typos as I write this. I keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Does this mean I'm having a stroke or something?
I once read somewhere that people having a stroke can't smile with both sides of their face. So I stretch my face into a big skin-splitting shit-eating grin. I can see myself in
the mirror on the bureau. I look ghastly. I sit there grimacing, quietly having my stroke if that's what I'm having, forcing myself to stay calm throughout. I imagine dying and being found in bed with this big horrible toothy-doofus smile on my face. At my wake people will say, "Well she did die peacefully in bed. That's a blessing. They say she was found with a smile on her face."
Idiots.
Sashimi comes slinking into the room, tail up, head slung low beneath sharp shoulder bones. Like a tiger hunting dust bunnies.
He sits by the side of the bed and stares up at me, yellow-green eyes unblinking.
His small head is triangular, like a snake's. He opens his white-whiskered, alien-small mouth, but doesn't even bother using his voice. He makes a silent meow instead. He has a mouthful of delicate, thin, needle-like teeth. Like a mackerel.
This is what he's saying: You don't have time for a stroke. I need to be fed. I need to be petted. This isn't all about you. It's not about you at all. Now get the hell out of bed.
He sits there, until I do, using feline mind-control.
Like a ventriloquist, he gets me to say what I don't feel like saying.
Meeow, I say. Meeow.
I get out of bed.
This, in case you didn't know, is why people own cats.
I wake up from a dream that it's not even worth recounting: something where I couldn't manage to say a four-digit number no matter how hard I tried. That's all I'll say about it.
Except that it also had something to do with Maine.
Where I've never been, by the way.
It's not even five a.m. yet but I know I'm not getting back to sleep. I've already begun the day whether I like it or not.
I reach over to the nightstand and grab my iPad.
I check my email. Deals. Last chances. 75% off. Viagra. Porn.
There's an email from Satan. I scan it. The usual. Lost soul. Anal sex. Burnt offering. I hit the "keep new" button and save for a more careful perusal later.
Nothing going on at my blog.
Or on Twitter.
I check my online horoscope and it says, "Wake up and smell the coffee, you stupid cunt! He doesn't love you anymore! What does he need to do to prove that to you? Hit you across the teeth with a shovel?"
I wonder if that means what it seems to mean?
I make another of the vows I find myself making lately. This one goes: I refuse to humiliate myself anymore in any way that doesn't give some guy somewhere a hard-on.
How old do you have to be before you can finally let yourself acknowledge that you're never going to be what you once planned on becoming because even if by some miracle you did become it now, it's already too late; you wouldn't enjoy it; in fact, come to think of it, you don't even want whatever it was anymore.
What was it, anyway?
I'm thinking of getting a "Best if Used By" tattoo and dating it about five years ago.
Later, in the bathroom, I have to remember to check my ass in the mirror to make sure I didn't actually already get that tattoo last night.
Last night.
The sum total of what I can remember of it: well, I'll have to get back to you on that later.
Or later than that. If I ever remember.
I make two lists:
Bad things about Alzheimer disease
1. You can't remember shit.
Good things about Alzheimer disease
1. You can't remember shit.
Why do I always want to say Alzheimer's disease. Like it belongs to someone named Alzheimer? Guy Alzheimer.
My mother died of Alzheimer disease last month. The last six months of her life she'd totally forgotten who I was. She recognized me, but it was as some other person entirely. I never figured out who, maybe someone from her distant past, someone she knew before I was born. Whoever it was, she sure seemed happy to see her. Her face would light up whenever I walked into her hospice room. Not one flicker of disapproval. Not one word of reproach. This case of mistaken identity was one of the best things she ever did for me. Forgetting who I was, thinking I was someone else. Someone she really liked. It was a real gift. For once she was a good mother and I was a good daughter and I knew what it was like to be loved. Thanks, mom.
Because I make up shit like this does that make me an evil person?
I draft a suicide note:
What did you miserable bastards want from me anyway? Fuck off! Good bye.
P.S. Please take care of Sashimi. He likes the chicken and tuna from Friskies. I think there's five or six cans left under the kitchen sink.
The pinkies on both my hands feel a little numb and weird right now. They keep hitting the wrong keys on the keyboard and I have to keep going back to correct typos as I write this. I keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Does this mean I'm having a stroke or something?
I once read somewhere that people having a stroke can't smile with both sides of their face. So I stretch my face into a big skin-splitting shit-eating grin. I can see myself in
the mirror on the bureau. I look ghastly. I sit there grimacing, quietly having my stroke if that's what I'm having, forcing myself to stay calm throughout. I imagine dying and being found in bed with this big horrible toothy-doofus smile on my face. At my wake people will say, "Well she did die peacefully in bed. That's a blessing. They say she was found with a smile on her face."
Idiots.
Sashimi comes slinking into the room, tail up, head slung low beneath sharp shoulder bones. Like a tiger hunting dust bunnies.
He sits by the side of the bed and stares up at me, yellow-green eyes unblinking.
His small head is triangular, like a snake's. He opens his white-whiskered, alien-small mouth, but doesn't even bother using his voice. He makes a silent meow instead. He has a mouthful of delicate, thin, needle-like teeth. Like a mackerel.
This is what he's saying: You don't have time for a stroke. I need to be fed. I need to be petted. This isn't all about you. It's not about you at all. Now get the hell out of bed.
He sits there, until I do, using feline mind-control.
Like a ventriloquist, he gets me to say what I don't feel like saying.
Meeow, I say. Meeow.
I get out of bed.
This, in case you didn't know, is why people own cats.
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