Grrrr.
Then we went to Macaroni Grill and had a glass of wine. I felt wonderful yesterday. Mark put me off on call--"I figured you were still feeling under the weather, even though you hadn't called in"--so I stayed home and recuperated all day--drank nothing but fresh vegetable juices and spring water--did yoga in the afternoon and, finally, when the sun went down, had a little bit of scrambled egg and some organic bread from our local bakery. I felt so good. I even felt happy and in a good mood. My best frame of mind usually is this: "I'm not screwing up. I've done everything I was supposed to do today." And that's about as good as it ever gets. I rarely get beyond that. But yesterday, I really did. For about an hour.
When I was so sick at work on Friday, Wiz said, "One good thing about being sick is that you stop caring about what everyone thinks about you. You're just like..so what. Screw it."
I thought about that for a moment. I was sitting at the unit clerk's desk waiting for a physician to return my page. "I'm never like that, Wiz. I never stop being self conscious. Only one time in high school, when a mirror fell off the wall in the bathroom and gashed my arm--I was actually spurting blood--that's the only time in my life when I can remember not being self conscious. Isn't that awful?"
"Not at all. I wish I had that kind of self discipline and self awareness. You must have worked hard for it, don't curse it."
In my life, I had never looked at it that way. But it's true.
I asked for it. I got it.
I really did...ask for it.
I used to go to this religious summer camp in North Carolina when I was a kid, and the priest who ran it taught us one summer about breath prayers and meditation. You picked a mantra, one specific request, in 7 words or less, and you were to sit silently and repeat it for 5-30 minutes a day for the rest of the year. Mine was: "Oh lord make me aware." I guess it was granted. Until that minute with Wiz after throwing up in the trash can, I had always seen my discomfort as coming from me, something I needed to fix, but it's really just the pricking up of my ears to what's going on around me--and that's almost never comfortable.
So Jay and I had our glass of wine. I had Riesling. It was fresh and sweet and we broke apart the delicious hot bread they serve there. That's a good chain. I never eat at chain restaurants, but Macaroni Grill is a good thing to spread around the universe, I think.
"So, " he asks me casually, "what do you think precipated your little emotional upheaval yesterday?"
Hmmmm....I think....what could I say? Possible (I just forgot how to spell this word, I think.) answers...
- You spend all your free time with your married, cuckholding, narcissistic personality disordered bra-less, hairy arm-pitted ex girlfriend's child--who is, admittedly, very winsome, but who nonetheless is being used by her mother to keep you in thrall and away from real intimacy you might create with someone else..i.e. me.
- I'm 41 and my children are growing up and pretty much ignoring me
- I've got an ivy league education that seems to only have informed my taste in the novels I choose to read on my days off from my blue-collar job
- You don't have any photos of me anywhere in the house
- You never say I love you except accidentally and then you always change it..as in "I love you....uh....when you're naked!"
- you bought me a fleece for my birthday
But I say instead, "I don't know....just blue...November....you know..."
"Isn't it about time for your...um....I know you hate it when I think this...you know your...special time?"
"Oh, yeah--you're right. I forgot."
"I thought that might be it."
That's my 1/2 hour.
