|
Sunday, Aug. 22, 2004 / 12:10 p.m. ~In the Vein of 'Catching Up', and a Cross Post on the Big HS Reunion~ I've been awfully ill. I know it's 'just a cold', or 'just a chest cold', but it's felt like the 'Cold of Death', and I called in sick to work Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, after being sick through my entire vacation and only working Tuesday. The vacation sickness was the 'pre-Cold of Death', the 'coming down with it' portion of that particular program, and now it's the final phase. I'm almost there, I can see that finish line up ahead, but I'm crawling toward it. So it is I've missed things, I've bypassed things, I've prolonged and I've postponed, and no, it doesn't feel good, and there is so much that needs doing, that needs attending to, and we have cockroaches now, it's official, they must be breeding in a mad crazy cockroach frenzy, as I kill the babies regularly, and occasionally see a mama or papa and kill them too. Brown and long, slow moving I think. I do what must be done, and I wish I had help, often, and I wish I had close friends (my coworker did bring me soup, two different kinds, and flowers and juice too, one day), but I make do, I'm strong, life is not that hard for me. It could all be so much worse. All of that said, in the vein of 'catching up', I've just written the following elsewhere and shall share it with my Diaryland diary now, another 'cross-post' (on the attending, whilst ill, of my HS Reunion last night, year 25), and herewith, no more quotes, single or double, for now: I wanted someone to advise me, to give me the answer, but having to decide on my own I thought about the money. I'd already paid, I wanted whatever that money afforded me. So, I picked myself up by my proverbial bootstraps and I got in the shower and washed my hair (as we all know, washing one's hair can change everything), put on my little black cotton/lycra 'going clubbing' shirt and my black Levi's 501s, and my plaid flannel Converse hi-tops (my Chucks), and I did it. I was hopped up on the Dayquil and about to need more, which I took with me, but being outside felt like being alive. I floated, but the car started fine after sitting again for so long, and I bought gas, and I was competent, able, floating, drugged, dextromathorphaned out and up and hyper aware. I parked a couple of blocks away, wanting free street parking, and walking felt familiar and good, something so simple as walking down a broad sidewalk on a Midtown city street felt freeing, life affirming, and the hotel/conference center is new and shiny, clean, owned and operated by a local University. Nice. I got a sticker with my name on it, firmly affixed it to my black 'clubbing' shirt, and pored through a yearbook to find our hostess, said yes, that's you, but you look nothing like that now, rather apologetically. I made friends with the bartender, told her I was sick, took more Dayquil with the water with lemon she poured for me, and her sympathy seemed so genuine and sincere. I made friends with an odd man out, a rather sociable gent I'd been told (via email with the hostess) would be attending alone as well, told him this was my first foray out of bed since Tuesday, to which he backed up, jokingly, afraid to contract my disease. It was strange, no other way to put it, people walking up to me saying hello, saying they remembered me, and I remembering their faces in my yearbooks. Their names on the sides of the pages there. But these people, all of them my age, all of them with this shared experience, but I knew none of them really, I never had. People I knew, people I would remember, really remember, weren't there. It was a small crowd, 53 RSVP-ing, but cancellations reducing that number even more drastically. I couldn't see those old pictures in the faces of the men, but several women I recognized, and one, late in the evening, approached me and introduced herself, and I could only remember her for going out with the boy I liked, after he was through with me. "You went out with Gary Albert!"... "What? No, you're thinking of someone else."... "No, that was you, don't you remember him? Gary Albert? Remember? Boy, I sound like I'm holding a grudge, don't I?"... "You're thinking of someone else"... "You wore big glasses, didn't you?"... "Yes". Why didn't she want to remember? He was going out with me, we went to that party where I got so drunk I threw up outside in the bushes, and he held my hair, he fucking held my hair! Then, how much longer after?, he was going out with her, and she wasn't even pretty, she was too tall, and had these big ugly glasses... The food wasn't complementary, too much starch, Dr. Atkins would SO not approve, but there was steak with mushrooms, portobellos, and it was good, ribeye I think. I left a lot of food on my plate, had such a small appetite. I sat with the odd man out, the lonely man, who wears a hearing aid I finally noticed, and a girl who'd been in my homeroom, a woman now, and her husband who was quite friendly and involved. Later another joined us at our table, a woman whose face was exactly the same as her photos, as if preserved somehow, and her husband had white hair, looked so OLD I was taken aback, wanted to ask questions. We looked at yearbooks, and they talked about their children, and the woman from my homeroom told me she found her calling, 43 years old, she's doing what she loves, working with kindergarten children, and the lonely man with the hearing aid said he liked one of my arm tattoos so I showed him the other and he said he wants one, and didn't it hurt... right... there?, and yes, I said, and the woman from my homeroom and her husband just smiled, awkwardly it seemed. I felt so young comparatively, so childless, so marriageless, and I'd pointed out photos of people whom I'd wanted to be there, thinking I must surely be offending these who were there in fact, next to me, but it was disappointing nonetheless. We posed for a group photo, available for a $25 fee (no, but thanks), and the DJs had a karaoke machine, our hostess sang a song I'd never heard, and she sang it well, couples flocked to the dance floor when someone started on "Unforgettable", and I told lonely man I had to go. "You are sick, I understand"... he'd asked me to dance. Walking to my car I felt that if I'd been healthy anything would have been possible, I looked good, the weather was nice, I would go out, I wouldn't stop there, I'd find attention, or at the least someone with whom I could share conversation about something meaningful, anything, but I felt only half of myself physically, so I drove home, anxious to get back. It was all I could think about, reconciling myself with it being over, with having done it, with what it was, with who I saw, and what we said, and how I didn't drink any alcohol, and how the food gave me indigestion, and I thought of five years from now, and where will we be then, and who will show up then, and what will my life be like?, and I watched "Donnie Darko", for the second time, and pondered its meaning, and found tremendous irony in the almost immediately following showing of "Harvey" on TCM. Now? I feel the same. Less coughing, but logy and worn. I sensed Gladys asking me for fluids yesterday, looking at me with pleading eyes, so we got that out of the way, and it's early yet, but I wanted to get this down. Food Network airs a tribute to Julia Child tonight starting at 7:00, and Larry King does his version at 9:00. Big Band music from the '40s is on the radio, and there's a cockroach in my kitchen garbage bag. I tried to shake it to the bottom. Cost of the War in Iraq
(JavaScript Error)
Recent Entries: It Was 40 Years Ago Today - 9:44 a.m. , Friday, Oct. 12, 2012 Dead Black Cat - 9:07 a.m. , Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 As Seen From Outer Space - 1:07 a.m. , Saturday, Dec. 05, 2009 I Survived to Tell the Tale - 7:29 a.m. , Friday, Sept. 18, 2009 Reading My Life - 12:55 p.m. , Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009 
  |