Today, instead of awaking at Ungodly Six in the Morning and living-dead-ing it down to S**th St*t**n to sell coffee to commuters, I snuffled and grumbled in bed. When the day thrust with a loud alarum (Prokofiev, at top volume, at six in the morning, and a cheery announcer trying to foist a good day on me all unawares), I parried with unplugging my bedside clock-radio. When the sun rose fleeringly, I took refuge under the duvet (which still smells of latex and ex-fiancé). When, finally, I crawled out of my bed-womb to meet my ded-doom, it was one in the afternoon. At this point, was it worse to call or not to call? Worse to show up tomorrow morning as if nothing had happened or to pretend that I had just vanished off the face of the earth?
SLB is the kind of friend who helps you move bodies, but isn't so good helping you move. Well, no, she helped me move. But I would have been considerably more composed this morning at six a.m. if I hadn't stayed up with her to finish the magnum of cabernet sauvignon from the party and gossip. So she says to lie to LS about why I wasn't at work today. "Oh, I woke up sick, feverish and sweaty" (which is true except for the part about waking up). "Oh, I'm in New York. I'll try to be back for work tomorrow." No dice. And since I still haven't amassed the king's ransom which will allow me to use my phone again, I'd rather just sit and teach myself to fart O mio babbino caro in F-sharp. And let tomorrow be a worse day so that today can be safe, light-grey and pointless.
I just noticed the gentle orff-instrument ploinks in the last verse of Going to Marrakesh. Have they always been there, or has my soul-wringing day brought out new ears?
* * * * *
So I suppose I should just buck up and become responsible in the usual way, grabbing the preening mallard of adulthood by the testicles, and carrying it home to feed my family of three point five. But really, mummy, I don't want to. I AM NOT READY TO EAT THAT DUCK. I DO NOT LIKE THE LOOK OF THE SAUCE ON IT. Immo verissimo, I didn't have a satisfactory wasted youth, and I plan to take it out on my friends, co-musici and employers for the better part of a decade.
Current music: Die schöne Müllerin, with Andreas Staier and Christoph Prégardien. "Und Blümlein liegen / in meinem Grab / die Blümlein alle / die sie mir gab. / ... / Und die Blümlein die sie sagte / dass sie mir gegeben hätt, / Sie worden alle trocknen / Und ich heb' mich nicht vom Bett." Yes, Schubert is a bad sign. But I was born under a bad sign.
Current food: Trader Joe's chocolate-covered pretzels. Even though la Castigada thinks pretzelophagy lame.
Current touchy subject: Money. And the fact that I'm like a week away from medical benefits, so if I get fired based on today, I'm nice and screwed.
Book update: Finished Great Apes, which peters out at the end in so many senses but is still probably worth the ink it's printed in. Started Austerlitz, seasick, since I'd read the first chapter in the New Yorker and got a dangerous case of d?j?-lu.
Current proof of virility: A dollar-bin copy, flawless, of The Curious Digit's Bombay Aloo. Who's your used-record-shop daddy?
and I'd like to think that this will pass, this will pass.
I know it's not the case.
of all the highs and lows and middle-endings (O, my!) you brought me to,
this is the worst place. --Somebody else's parking lot in Sebastopolsantacruzosaurus.