Your eye is scaring me
I hate it when I can't sleep, because when I can't sleep I always get the stupidest ideas. Like an Andy Warhol-esque print with my pomeranian smoking a cigarette as the subject. Or spending 45 minutes describing to our uncomprehending, hungry and quite possibly hateful cats why our microwave with upside down paper plates splattered with tomato gravy in place of the broken glass spinning plate is a good buy, in case QVC calls and wants an audition. Tomorrow. In most instances though, I just lie in my bed worrying about nothing. There are no specific fears, but rather an unhealthy conglomeration of things I have control over (did I write "fuck" in a headline tonight that slipped past everyone? Do I have enough money to pay my utility bill and get plastered on my birthday? Do I look fat or normal?) and things I have no control over (namely, anything and everything that comes creeping into my conscience in the wee hours of morning). Steve has a particularly insightful sense of foresight, meaning, on Friday evening when I suggest we should get up early Saturday morning and go to some yard sales and get breakfast, he groans and returns his attention to the dog, never really acknowledeging me because he knows that, despite my insistance, neither one of us will want to get up early enough to do anything but brush our teeth, mumble something incoherantly about Taco Bell, and go to work. But I press on, so I set my alarm, take a muscle relaxer, which helps with my neuralgia but does nothing for my anxiety, and get in bed to watch a movie. After the movie we talk briefly about our opinions on it, then rolls over and passes out. I can't sleep. So I fire up my booklight and read for 2 hours. He turns to me with a start during this time, because either a dream, a noise, or the sudden realization that I'm not asleep yet startles him, and stares at me for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the world he just woke up in.
"Your eye is scaring me," I said.
"Hm?"
"Your right eye is scaring me."
"Why?"
"Because it's all glassy and opened just a little bit wider than your left eye. It's freaking me out."
"Marumphmmmble."
I go back to my book, and when I'm tired of that I watch whatever is on the TV, because the remote is on his side of the bed and I don't want to reach for it. Have I, or anyone I know, died while wearing a pain patch? God, I don't know. I make a mental list of all the people I know personally who are dead, which doesn't include me, and conclude that they either died before this pain patch existed or most certainly weren't wearing one when they met their demise. Should I buy this pink ped egg and have silky smooth feet while helping in the fight against breast cancer? I don't have ten extra dollars (plus shipping), but they are attacking two of my biggest sensibilities: Guilt and my hideously ugly feet. Nevermind, commercial is over now anyway, and I didn't get the number. Time Life is selling a gospel music collection. I need this. I don't know why. By this time it's 5:51 a.m., and I imagine all the yard salers will be laying out their goods on folding tables and blankets, carefully arranging forgone chotske and hanging clothes on tree branches, waiting for hopefuls like me to find the thing I didn't know existed but couldn't possibly live without. Like that gospel collection, or the pink ped egg. Even that pain patch is sounding pretty good right now.
"Your eye is scaring me," I said.
"Hm?"
"Your right eye is scaring me."
"Why?"
"Because it's all glassy and opened just a little bit wider than your left eye. It's freaking me out."
"Marumphmmmble."
I go back to my book, and when I'm tired of that I watch whatever is on the TV, because the remote is on his side of the bed and I don't want to reach for it. Have I, or anyone I know, died while wearing a pain patch? God, I don't know. I make a mental list of all the people I know personally who are dead, which doesn't include me, and conclude that they either died before this pain patch existed or most certainly weren't wearing one when they met their demise. Should I buy this pink ped egg and have silky smooth feet while helping in the fight against breast cancer? I don't have ten extra dollars (plus shipping), but they are attacking two of my biggest sensibilities: Guilt and my hideously ugly feet. Nevermind, commercial is over now anyway, and I didn't get the number. Time Life is selling a gospel music collection. I need this. I don't know why. By this time it's 5:51 a.m., and I imagine all the yard salers will be laying out their goods on folding tables and blankets, carefully arranging forgone chotske and hanging clothes on tree branches, waiting for hopefuls like me to find the thing I didn't know existed but couldn't possibly live without. Like that gospel collection, or the pink ped egg. Even that pain patch is sounding pretty good right now.