9:40 am. i’m drinking coffee from a wine glass, and waiting for the laundry room to open in twenty minutes so i can wash the mysterious chocolate stains from my sheets. the day is coming in cool and blue through my window, and it will be easy to lose a few hours before i head to the mountain on my bike.

i had a very good weekend, the kind that involved shutting the ringer off the phone and barely turning on the computer; when i went to the store to buy eggs, i wore my wig.
on friday, i cleaned my apartment from top to bottom, made dinner for two, and did my part to rid the world of rosee. yesterday, we got serious about the doctor who marathon we’ve been meaning to have – i’m very behind, considering i last watched it in 1986.

*

12:12 pm. this is going to be one of those disjointed posts. my last load is going through, the dishes are done, i’m debating the merits of one more shot of espresso before actually starting on my day. this is what i love about sundays – the dreaminess of it all, the self-reflection. i always tend on using them as emotional check-ins.

is my body finally starting to calm down? i hope so. last night i slept well again. the mysterious hives on my arms might be going away – or that might just be wishful thinking on my part. (rather than taking some strange steroid, i’m following my sister’s prescription of oatstraw tea, lots and lots of tea tree oil, and her salve). my body is a constant reminder of how i internalize stress without letting it go.
letting go – i know what i need to do, but there’s something i’m missing, still.

*

1:10 pm. about half an hour ago, checked my email and there it is, sitting there like a bomb waiting to go off.
[real name] subject: Dad.
i’m too scared to open it.
i’m too scared to open it.

i’m scared that my aunt and uncle broke my confidence and talked to him about my fears. this man screwed me up in so many ways i sometimes feel like i’m running around sticking sand bags up against a tsunami.
i’m WAY too scared to read the email, though. i feel like i’m going to be sick.

*

1:23 pm. okay, coffee to fortify. then i’m going to pretend that the email doesn’t exist and go OUTSIDE. far, far away from it all. i’m going to walk to a park and find my friends and pretend that a soccer ball is someone’s head. i’ll update this later…

*

1:36 pm. i’m such a baby! it was just an update email.

*

7:10 pm. i just poured a gin and tonic that was a little heavy on the gin, even for me. not sure how i feel about trying to shave after this – but it’ll be a fun story for the grandkids, if it doesn’t work out.

i learned a few things today.

first, don’t trust google maps’ directions because they don’t account for people being pedestrians. there were a few times where the “sidewalk” literally melted away and left me clinging to a chainlink fence while cars went by at a lot faster than the posted speed limit.

second, no matter how much of a champion walker i am, it’s still going to take me an hour and a bit to get downtown from where i live.

third, i need to learn the directions on a compass. before someone else schedules something for “the south-east corner of the park at five past seven on the third tuesday of a month”. i mean, fucksnatch, people.

*

7:23 pm. if i get hungry, i’ll cook, but i’m not really. i’m going to try and read ethan frome – don’t ask me why i’m wrestling with edith wharton when i don’t have to be. (well, i actually like her. it’s weird that i do, i recognize that, but i do. and for some reason i’ve never been able to FINISH ethan frome, though i’ve started it like a million times. i hate not finishing books.)

i’m also going to try and write, shave, do my physio exercises for once, maybe some sit-ups. my yoga mat is sitting forlornly in the corner, too, even though i just used it yesterday.

*

11:07 pm. i tried to sleep – curled up in clean sheets with some chai and my book – but i couldn’t. i was too worried, and when i get worried it eats concentric circles through my stomach. so i got up and pulled a clean journal from my book shelf and started to write.

this is the first time in a while i’ve even started a journal entry other than a blog, and the results were enlightening.

i pulled the same book off the shelf yesterday, when met was over, and felt a pang as i did. my ex’s mother gave it to me for my birthday, and it’s waited patiently in a queue to be written in since. his mother also gave me my only surviving teapot. his sister gave me the collected works of lewis carroll.

to me, it never felt like i was super-close with my ex’s family, but i know that they felt close to me. it’s not like we ever talked regularly on the phone, but i was given the secret book of recipes to copy from.

i think that’s part of the reason, a large part, why i feel twitchy now.

i feel really, really, really alone.

most of the time i can cope with this feeling. i like being alone, a lot of the time, but all of my friends who live in montreal aren’t actually in montreal right now. my friends in my hometown all have lives of their own. my family doesn’t bother much with me; my sister lives far away.

i guess that, paired with the stuff i’m dealing with (no job, no matter how hard i look; starting physio again; therapy) makes me feel like i don’t have a life of my own right now.

i feel like i’m in stasis.

i feel shut out of the bigger picture.

i’m going to figure out how to fix this.

this is my blog. it smells good, and reads good too.