Oh, yes, NaNo is off to a delicious start
As I know some of my flist is in on the madness as well, I thought I'd let you know I'm at 13,212 words right now. If you're going to throw tomatoes, please make sure they're ripe. Nothing worse than a squishy tomato.
So here I am. It’s 3:00 in the goddamned morning, and I’m standing in a goddamned gutter in a pair of particularly bitchin’ pair of striped purple galoshes and absolutely nothing else. Goddamnit. I’d pick another adjective, show off my impressive vocabulary, but I’m particularly pissed right now, and my pocket thesaurus was in my raincoat. So I obviously can’t get to that, can I?
Goddamned Children’s Lit Mafia. They can fuck themselves but good.
But, more pressing matters. I’m naked. In a gutter. At three in the morning, and it’s starting to rain again. Grand. I need clothes, a phone, and a chair leg of truth for my revenge. But first, clothes.
Unfortunately, as this isn’t a magical land of fairies and pixie dust, no clothes appear in front of my eyes. As I am also not Cinderella, the chances of a fairy godmother are pretty much borked. I am down in the gay section of town, so there’s a chance of a fairy, but all he’ll do is bitch about my galoshes and tell me I look fat. Or ask who does my hair. Because he will probably be drunk.
Except, wait, it’s Sunday. Oh, fuck. The fundies are probably headed this way right now, ready to picket the bars that don’t close down on Sundays because, well, it’s not as if there’s any church that welcomes the gay population with open arms, so why the hell would they close down the bars on a Sunday? You lose money. It’s bad business.
Naked. Right. Should see to that.
There’s a newspaper nearby. The life section. Oh, that’s just grand. I can have "The Family Circus" wrapped around my cooch. You know, on second thought, I think I’d like to do that. It won’t secure, of course, as it’s soggy and cold as fuck, but at least my tits are covered.
I need tape. I need duct tape. No matter what some guy in a perfect house tries to tell you, duct tape can solve quite a few of life’s big problems. Like wet newspaper that’s giving me headlights and not really staying up. There’s a 24 hour convenience store about half a block up. I wonder if I can make it without the bum in the alley waking up and taking a drunken piss on my leg. I don’t have a choice. Better run for it.
And I’ve put a split in the newspaper. Great. I’ll call it a fashion choice and keep moving.
The guy behind the counter looks about two percent surprised to see me. There’s a goth club two blocks from here, I figure the guy on this shift has seen pretty much everything. And he’s probably got enough duct tape to tape up the Titantic.
Except not.
“Hey, bud, you got duct tape?”
“Sold out.” He doesn’t even look up from his magazine.
“None? At all? Any behind the counter?” He holds up a roll like he’s been waiting for me to ask. So the barter begins. “I’ve got a five in my boot. I’ll give you $4.65. I need the last 35 for a phone call.”
“Ever hear of a cell?” Snide little bastard.
“And where the fucking hell would I keep the fucking thing?”
He tosses me the duct tape, and in my attempts not to flash him, I miss catching it. It rolls around like that goddamned clock I’ve seen advertised as the “ultimate alarm”, and I have to chase the bastard down. I duck into the bathroom and tape myself up from tits to thighs. By the time I’m done I vaguely resemble a particularly bad grunge fashion statement. I go out and hand him my five and he gives me the change for the pay phone across the way.
“That makes you look fat.”
I consider slapping him across the face, but he looks so bored I can’t really fault him the comment. “Yeah, well, it’s the extra-wide duct tape.” I toss him what’s left of the roll and head for the phone.
One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Four rings. Five rings. I am not hanging up the phone until that dickless wonder answers his phone. Fuck three in the morning.
“Do you have any goddmaned idea what fucking time it is?”
“Fuck off, Max. I’m down on 97th, I’m wearing newspaper, and if you don’t get down here and rescue my ass, I will chair leg of truth you right up the ass.”
“Ah, Adeline, the ray of sunshine.”
“Max, I’m fucking serious. Get out of bed, put on some fucking pants and fucking come get me.”
“Where’s Henri?” He pronounces it with the ‘H’, and I grit my teeth.
“Henri,” I pronounce without the ‘H’, “has to be up and out by five, now get down here.”
“Fine. God, you’re a bitch when you get fucked over.”
“Yeah, character flaw. Got it. I’ll be at 97th and Farrow unless some guy in a really nice car offers to pay me for a blowjob.”
“Classy.”
“Shut it.”
“Be there in twenty.”
“Great.” I put the phone in the cradle, and it’s like someone sent a giant “GO!” signal because the rain comes down in buckets, and there is, of course, no awning which I could huddle under while I wait for Max and his junker to get their ass here.
I swear to whatever deity you find most holy, I am going to fuck someone for all this shit.
And I’m getting my goddamned thesaurus back. Fuckers.
I think it’s time to explain what you need to know about me. My name’s Adeline. I’m smart, I’m capable, and I’m writing a children’s book. However, there are folks that find this offensive, as my particularly vile way of speaking and thinking and usually writing gets them terribly pissed off, and so they’ve started making my life a living hell. They’re on a campaign at the moment to humiliate me into not publishing. I think they were hoping the whole nudity thing would be some huge scandal. Someone forgot to tell the soccer mommies that stripping off a straight woman in the gay part of town isn’t going to cause any scandal. Because no one here finds me attractive in the sense that could lead to a massive orgy in the middle of the street. This isn’t Perfum. This is The Emerald City.
No, seriously, that’s what they named it. It used to be something passably boring like, “Snoresburg” or “Horsetown”, but after Judy Garland passed through in her heavy pills and booze days and confused a small child for a munchkin and demanded a song from the Lollipop Guild, the town changed their name with pride.
This town, if you haven’t started to piece it together, is pretty fucking weird.
And secretly? I love it. Okay, maybe not so secretly. If you hadn’t caught me naked in a gutter in purple galoshes I probably would have waxed poetic about architecture and the fantastic coffee place I practically live at, but right now, I’m still on a street corner looking like the world’s cheapest hooker and waiting for Max.
Max. Oh, Max, you of the perfect name for which to scream, “you fucking moron.” No, I’m seirous, try it. Lift up your head, go from your diaphragm, and just scream, “MAX, YOU FUCKING MORON!”. I think it’s the ‘x’. It just lends itself to really making a point of hitting his name hard. I fucking love the bastard. Except, of course, when he sends me out to get some “inspiration” and I end up naked in the street. I would have preferred to be naked in my bed tonight, but oh, no, Max is all gung-ho about the book because he thinks I can’t do it, and so he sent me out to listen to people talk so I can start working on dialogue.
But you’re in the gay district! Yeah, yeah, stop your hankie dropping and chest grabbing. I’m aware. It’s my passive-aggressive way to make Max completely batshit. He said, and I quote:
MAX: “Go out and listen to people talk.”
And then I said, and I quote:
ME: “This is not a college class, and you are not a shitty teacher. Fuck that.”
And he said, and I quote:
MAX: “I’m paying your goddamned salary. Go out and listen to people talk.”
And then I said, and I quote:
ME: “Fine.”
And so I went to the gay district, sat at a bar, got a drink, got another drink, watched people dance, listened to two guys talk about how horny they were, then listened to three women do the same, and then I had another drink and finally just sat and watched people until the bar closed down.
And that’s when the Chilrdren’s Lit Mafia found me.
I want to make this clear: They’re not actually a mafia. They’re just batshit. It can be something of a fine line, but they’re really just soccer mommies and overreactive “Think of the Children!!” types who think that because everything I do is laced with profanity that my writing a book for a young adult audience [ages 12-15] is a terrible, terrible idea. Hence the sudden need to get me naked.
Too bad for them they don’t understand that once the bars close down, the whole damned street closes down, so the only ones lucky enough to see the show were the crazy bitches and the convenience store clerk. I like to think I gave the ladies a little thrill. Or possibly made them go home and throw up continuously for an hour. I’m not really sure which.
Oh, look, Max’s junker. God, but that thing is a piece of shit. He’s had it since the supposed God was a supposed child, and I swear one day someone will look at it wrong and the whole thing will fall apart like something from a Keystone Kops short.
“Adeline, Jesus Fucking Christ, woman, you look like shit.”
“Fuck you very much, Max. Get me out of here.” I’m careful about opening his car door. It fell off in my hand once and missed my toes by about an inch. And oh, how I wish I was making that up. I get in, and he’s got the heater going full blast. Max has just earned my love for the next fifteen seconds. “Home, if you would.”
“They took everything?”
“Except my shoes. I had to kick them to get them to back off.”
“Wallet? Keys? Cell? Thesaurus?” He remembered my thesaurus. That’s another five seconds.
“Everything. I get to spend tomorrow canceling my cards and my phone and finding my spare keys. You’ve got one on your ring, yeah?”
“Yeah. You want it?”
“Nah. You can let me in. I can dig up mine before I come in today.”
“Why the fucking hell were you down here?”
“Because some fucker sent me to get a feel for dialogue.” I watch him cringe, and his five seconds are up, but making him cringe always makes me happy. “Lucky for me, the guy’s an idiot, and he didn’t specify where I should go.”
“Next time, the idiot’s going to send you to the toy store at the mall.”
Nice move, going straight for my weak point. Twenty-five seconds just earned. “Look, can you bitch me out later about gleefully messing with your order and just get me home? I’d like to get yesterday’s comic off my ass before the ink turns into a tattoo.”
“Like anyone’d notice.”
“My god, you go on vacation, come back with one full sleeve on your left arm, and suddenly everyone has an opinion on your tattoos.”
“You could have warned me.”
“You remember the part where it was fake right? A ploy? A joke?”
“A way to try and give me a goddamned heart attack, trying to figure out how we would do publicity with a giant penis inked on your arm.”
“That’s what should have tipped you off to the joke.”
Max sighs and rubs his face, keeping one hand on the wheel. “I swear to fuck, Adeline, if you couldn’t write like the goddamned gods themselves, I would sell you to the Googlies to use as meat in their stews.”
Hey, Silverstein reference. Max just bought himself my good behavior for the rest of the trip to my place. “You’re a prince amongst frogs, Max.”
“Yeah, sure.” He yawns and skims his brakes through a flashing yellow. “And the moon is made of green cheese.”
“Yeah,” I say and laugh, leaning my head against the shredded head rest and watching the rain on the window. “You’re better than most.”
“Tell me that after you’re rich and famous, and maybe I’ll believe you.”
“Tell me I’ll be rich and famous, and maybe I’ll tell you now.”
“You’ll be rich and famous.”
“You’re better than most.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
I take a minute to look at him in the various street lamps flashing by. “You feeling okay, Max?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Famous last words.”
“I’m good, I’m good.” He waves at me like he’s swatting a fly. An analogy he’s never failed to use on me at least once a week.
Half-secret time: I adore Max. He’s a great guy. He looks very much like a polar bear. Every hair I’ve ever seen of his is white as can be. He’s only 42, but he’s been white since he turned 30. I made a joke about him needing to learn old tongue-twister songs, and he missed it. Man lives through the 80s and doesn’t get a “Twin Peaks” reference. Why I don’t hold it against him, I don’t know.
Where was I? Oh, yes, my secret love of Max. He’s a publisher. I’ve been copy editing for him since I was twenty. Sounds boring, I know, and it can be if it’s not your thing. But me? I’ve got a gift. A goddamned gift, and it’s for deconstructing other people’s writing and making it sound better. I fucking love my job. But Max caught me writing during my lunch break one day and snuck a peak. He started shopping around my essays and other shit, and then there I was, a writer. By complete accident. The hell, I ask.
And now I’m writing a children’s book. I’m still not sure that this is the best idea anyone’s had.
We get to my place, a one-bedroom with a balcony that’s actually big enough for people, and I punch Max in the arm as I get out of the car. “See you in a few.”
“I don’t want to see you before noon.” And before I can accuse him of affection, “You’re a cunt when you’re sleepy.”
”Fuck you, too, Max.”
“Night, Adeline.”
And I’m up the stairs and at my door, Max’s car clunking down the street, when I realize that I didn’t get him to open my door.
Fuck. Guess I’ll be waking Henri after all. And Max thinks I’m a bitch.
Lucky for me, Henri sleeps like a cat. The slightest noise, and he’s up and looking around, ears pointed for action. So I knock on the door as lightly as possible and wait for the inevitable sound of Henri forgetting we moved the coffee table.
“FUCK!” Looks like he found it. He swings open the door, glares at me, and turns around to go back inside. He misses the coffee table this time. I don’t bother explaining what happened or what’s going on. Henri does not do conversation when he’s been abruptly jarred awake, and if I started in now, all he’d get would be a lot of profanity and nothing coherent.
I grab the poultry shears in the kitchen and cut myself out of my “dress”. My galoshes get toed off by the garbage can, and I debate a shower for the twenty seconds it takes me to get into the bedroom. Henri’s already asleep again, so I crawl into my side, bundle into the covers, and crash out hard.
God, but tonight has sucked.
So here I am. It’s 3:00 in the goddamned morning, and I’m standing in a goddamned gutter in a pair of particularly bitchin’ pair of striped purple galoshes and absolutely nothing else. Goddamnit. I’d pick another adjective, show off my impressive vocabulary, but I’m particularly pissed right now, and my pocket thesaurus was in my raincoat. So I obviously can’t get to that, can I?
Goddamned Children’s Lit Mafia. They can fuck themselves but good.
But, more pressing matters. I’m naked. In a gutter. At three in the morning, and it’s starting to rain again. Grand. I need clothes, a phone, and a chair leg of truth for my revenge. But first, clothes.
Unfortunately, as this isn’t a magical land of fairies and pixie dust, no clothes appear in front of my eyes. As I am also not Cinderella, the chances of a fairy godmother are pretty much borked. I am down in the gay section of town, so there’s a chance of a fairy, but all he’ll do is bitch about my galoshes and tell me I look fat. Or ask who does my hair. Because he will probably be drunk.
Except, wait, it’s Sunday. Oh, fuck. The fundies are probably headed this way right now, ready to picket the bars that don’t close down on Sundays because, well, it’s not as if there’s any church that welcomes the gay population with open arms, so why the hell would they close down the bars on a Sunday? You lose money. It’s bad business.
Naked. Right. Should see to that.
There’s a newspaper nearby. The life section. Oh, that’s just grand. I can have "The Family Circus" wrapped around my cooch. You know, on second thought, I think I’d like to do that. It won’t secure, of course, as it’s soggy and cold as fuck, but at least my tits are covered.
I need tape. I need duct tape. No matter what some guy in a perfect house tries to tell you, duct tape can solve quite a few of life’s big problems. Like wet newspaper that’s giving me headlights and not really staying up. There’s a 24 hour convenience store about half a block up. I wonder if I can make it without the bum in the alley waking up and taking a drunken piss on my leg. I don’t have a choice. Better run for it.
And I’ve put a split in the newspaper. Great. I’ll call it a fashion choice and keep moving.
The guy behind the counter looks about two percent surprised to see me. There’s a goth club two blocks from here, I figure the guy on this shift has seen pretty much everything. And he’s probably got enough duct tape to tape up the Titantic.
Except not.
“Hey, bud, you got duct tape?”
“Sold out.” He doesn’t even look up from his magazine.
“None? At all? Any behind the counter?” He holds up a roll like he’s been waiting for me to ask. So the barter begins. “I’ve got a five in my boot. I’ll give you $4.65. I need the last 35 for a phone call.”
“Ever hear of a cell?” Snide little bastard.
“And where the fucking hell would I keep the fucking thing?”
He tosses me the duct tape, and in my attempts not to flash him, I miss catching it. It rolls around like that goddamned clock I’ve seen advertised as the “ultimate alarm”, and I have to chase the bastard down. I duck into the bathroom and tape myself up from tits to thighs. By the time I’m done I vaguely resemble a particularly bad grunge fashion statement. I go out and hand him my five and he gives me the change for the pay phone across the way.
“That makes you look fat.”
I consider slapping him across the face, but he looks so bored I can’t really fault him the comment. “Yeah, well, it’s the extra-wide duct tape.” I toss him what’s left of the roll and head for the phone.
One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Four rings. Five rings. I am not hanging up the phone until that dickless wonder answers his phone. Fuck three in the morning.
“Do you have any goddmaned idea what fucking time it is?”
“Fuck off, Max. I’m down on 97th, I’m wearing newspaper, and if you don’t get down here and rescue my ass, I will chair leg of truth you right up the ass.”
“Ah, Adeline, the ray of sunshine.”
“Max, I’m fucking serious. Get out of bed, put on some fucking pants and fucking come get me.”
“Where’s Henri?” He pronounces it with the ‘H’, and I grit my teeth.
“Henri,” I pronounce without the ‘H’, “has to be up and out by five, now get down here.”
“Fine. God, you’re a bitch when you get fucked over.”
“Yeah, character flaw. Got it. I’ll be at 97th and Farrow unless some guy in a really nice car offers to pay me for a blowjob.”
“Classy.”
“Shut it.”
“Be there in twenty.”
“Great.” I put the phone in the cradle, and it’s like someone sent a giant “GO!” signal because the rain comes down in buckets, and there is, of course, no awning which I could huddle under while I wait for Max and his junker to get their ass here.
I swear to whatever deity you find most holy, I am going to fuck someone for all this shit.
And I’m getting my goddamned thesaurus back. Fuckers.
I think it’s time to explain what you need to know about me. My name’s Adeline. I’m smart, I’m capable, and I’m writing a children’s book. However, there are folks that find this offensive, as my particularly vile way of speaking and thinking and usually writing gets them terribly pissed off, and so they’ve started making my life a living hell. They’re on a campaign at the moment to humiliate me into not publishing. I think they were hoping the whole nudity thing would be some huge scandal. Someone forgot to tell the soccer mommies that stripping off a straight woman in the gay part of town isn’t going to cause any scandal. Because no one here finds me attractive in the sense that could lead to a massive orgy in the middle of the street. This isn’t Perfum. This is The Emerald City.
No, seriously, that’s what they named it. It used to be something passably boring like, “Snoresburg” or “Horsetown”, but after Judy Garland passed through in her heavy pills and booze days and confused a small child for a munchkin and demanded a song from the Lollipop Guild, the town changed their name with pride.
This town, if you haven’t started to piece it together, is pretty fucking weird.
And secretly? I love it. Okay, maybe not so secretly. If you hadn’t caught me naked in a gutter in purple galoshes I probably would have waxed poetic about architecture and the fantastic coffee place I practically live at, but right now, I’m still on a street corner looking like the world’s cheapest hooker and waiting for Max.
Max. Oh, Max, you of the perfect name for which to scream, “you fucking moron.” No, I’m seirous, try it. Lift up your head, go from your diaphragm, and just scream, “MAX, YOU FUCKING MORON!”. I think it’s the ‘x’. It just lends itself to really making a point of hitting his name hard. I fucking love the bastard. Except, of course, when he sends me out to get some “inspiration” and I end up naked in the street. I would have preferred to be naked in my bed tonight, but oh, no, Max is all gung-ho about the book because he thinks I can’t do it, and so he sent me out to listen to people talk so I can start working on dialogue.
But you’re in the gay district! Yeah, yeah, stop your hankie dropping and chest grabbing. I’m aware. It’s my passive-aggressive way to make Max completely batshit. He said, and I quote:
MAX: “Go out and listen to people talk.”
And then I said, and I quote:
ME: “This is not a college class, and you are not a shitty teacher. Fuck that.”
And he said, and I quote:
MAX: “I’m paying your goddamned salary. Go out and listen to people talk.”
And then I said, and I quote:
ME: “Fine.”
And so I went to the gay district, sat at a bar, got a drink, got another drink, watched people dance, listened to two guys talk about how horny they were, then listened to three women do the same, and then I had another drink and finally just sat and watched people until the bar closed down.
And that’s when the Chilrdren’s Lit Mafia found me.
I want to make this clear: They’re not actually a mafia. They’re just batshit. It can be something of a fine line, but they’re really just soccer mommies and overreactive “Think of the Children!!” types who think that because everything I do is laced with profanity that my writing a book for a young adult audience [ages 12-15] is a terrible, terrible idea. Hence the sudden need to get me naked.
Too bad for them they don’t understand that once the bars close down, the whole damned street closes down, so the only ones lucky enough to see the show were the crazy bitches and the convenience store clerk. I like to think I gave the ladies a little thrill. Or possibly made them go home and throw up continuously for an hour. I’m not really sure which.
Oh, look, Max’s junker. God, but that thing is a piece of shit. He’s had it since the supposed God was a supposed child, and I swear one day someone will look at it wrong and the whole thing will fall apart like something from a Keystone Kops short.
“Adeline, Jesus Fucking Christ, woman, you look like shit.”
“Fuck you very much, Max. Get me out of here.” I’m careful about opening his car door. It fell off in my hand once and missed my toes by about an inch. And oh, how I wish I was making that up. I get in, and he’s got the heater going full blast. Max has just earned my love for the next fifteen seconds. “Home, if you would.”
“They took everything?”
“Except my shoes. I had to kick them to get them to back off.”
“Wallet? Keys? Cell? Thesaurus?” He remembered my thesaurus. That’s another five seconds.
“Everything. I get to spend tomorrow canceling my cards and my phone and finding my spare keys. You’ve got one on your ring, yeah?”
“Yeah. You want it?”
“Nah. You can let me in. I can dig up mine before I come in today.”
“Why the fucking hell were you down here?”
“Because some fucker sent me to get a feel for dialogue.” I watch him cringe, and his five seconds are up, but making him cringe always makes me happy. “Lucky for me, the guy’s an idiot, and he didn’t specify where I should go.”
“Next time, the idiot’s going to send you to the toy store at the mall.”
Nice move, going straight for my weak point. Twenty-five seconds just earned. “Look, can you bitch me out later about gleefully messing with your order and just get me home? I’d like to get yesterday’s comic off my ass before the ink turns into a tattoo.”
“Like anyone’d notice.”
“My god, you go on vacation, come back with one full sleeve on your left arm, and suddenly everyone has an opinion on your tattoos.”
“You could have warned me.”
“You remember the part where it was fake right? A ploy? A joke?”
“A way to try and give me a goddamned heart attack, trying to figure out how we would do publicity with a giant penis inked on your arm.”
“That’s what should have tipped you off to the joke.”
Max sighs and rubs his face, keeping one hand on the wheel. “I swear to fuck, Adeline, if you couldn’t write like the goddamned gods themselves, I would sell you to the Googlies to use as meat in their stews.”
Hey, Silverstein reference. Max just bought himself my good behavior for the rest of the trip to my place. “You’re a prince amongst frogs, Max.”
“Yeah, sure.” He yawns and skims his brakes through a flashing yellow. “And the moon is made of green cheese.”
“Yeah,” I say and laugh, leaning my head against the shredded head rest and watching the rain on the window. “You’re better than most.”
“Tell me that after you’re rich and famous, and maybe I’ll believe you.”
“Tell me I’ll be rich and famous, and maybe I’ll tell you now.”
“You’ll be rich and famous.”
“You’re better than most.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
I take a minute to look at him in the various street lamps flashing by. “You feeling okay, Max?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Famous last words.”
“I’m good, I’m good.” He waves at me like he’s swatting a fly. An analogy he’s never failed to use on me at least once a week.
Half-secret time: I adore Max. He’s a great guy. He looks very much like a polar bear. Every hair I’ve ever seen of his is white as can be. He’s only 42, but he’s been white since he turned 30. I made a joke about him needing to learn old tongue-twister songs, and he missed it. Man lives through the 80s and doesn’t get a “Twin Peaks” reference. Why I don’t hold it against him, I don’t know.
Where was I? Oh, yes, my secret love of Max. He’s a publisher. I’ve been copy editing for him since I was twenty. Sounds boring, I know, and it can be if it’s not your thing. But me? I’ve got a gift. A goddamned gift, and it’s for deconstructing other people’s writing and making it sound better. I fucking love my job. But Max caught me writing during my lunch break one day and snuck a peak. He started shopping around my essays and other shit, and then there I was, a writer. By complete accident. The hell, I ask.
And now I’m writing a children’s book. I’m still not sure that this is the best idea anyone’s had.
We get to my place, a one-bedroom with a balcony that’s actually big enough for people, and I punch Max in the arm as I get out of the car. “See you in a few.”
“I don’t want to see you before noon.” And before I can accuse him of affection, “You’re a cunt when you’re sleepy.”
”Fuck you, too, Max.”
“Night, Adeline.”
And I’m up the stairs and at my door, Max’s car clunking down the street, when I realize that I didn’t get him to open my door.
Fuck. Guess I’ll be waking Henri after all. And Max thinks I’m a bitch.
Lucky for me, Henri sleeps like a cat. The slightest noise, and he’s up and looking around, ears pointed for action. So I knock on the door as lightly as possible and wait for the inevitable sound of Henri forgetting we moved the coffee table.
“FUCK!” Looks like he found it. He swings open the door, glares at me, and turns around to go back inside. He misses the coffee table this time. I don’t bother explaining what happened or what’s going on. Henri does not do conversation when he’s been abruptly jarred awake, and if I started in now, all he’d get would be a lot of profanity and nothing coherent.
I grab the poultry shears in the kitchen and cut myself out of my “dress”. My galoshes get toed off by the garbage can, and I debate a shower for the twenty seconds it takes me to get into the bedroom. Henri’s already asleep again, so I crawl into my side, bundle into the covers, and crash out hard.
God, but tonight has sucked.