July 10, 2008
Bob
We have a thirsty ghost and his name is Bob.
I knew Bob in life. He lived on the top floor of our building. He had a hard time getting up the stairs and used to rest in the lobby before making the climb; sometimes I'd be passing through and I'd carry his laundry up to his door or just sit and chat with him. I quite liked him.
Shortly before he died, Bob asked us to switch apartments with him. He wasn't going to be able to manage the stairs any more. We said no for a variety of selfish reasons, but it turned out not to matter as he died in the care facility where he was staying at the time.
Since he died, Bob's been keeping me company. And the poor guy wants a drink. Every so often, he pushes something off a shelf where it is firmly lodged; the first time it was a beer bottle, today it was a water glass. I am always in another room when this happens. It's a lot of shards to sweep up, but I don't mind. I'd leave a beer for him on the counter (in a plastic cup), except I think Gene might object to sharing his hard-bought beer with my invisible friend. Bob's also been screwing around with our refrigerator, I believe, covering the things inside with a thin layer of frost but still not really chilling things. Maybe he lives in there. I might, if I were a ghost who missed food.
Of course, it's possible that working alone all day I've simply invented a friend, because I am a sad, pathetic person. But self-interest compels me to believe I am not sad and pathetic. I'm just hanging out with Bob.
This one's for you, friend.
Posted by didofoot at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2008
The Wart
My jaw joint (located just in front of the ear) is inflamed. You can't tell from looking at it but I sure can feel it. Apparently, I've been grinding my teeth in my sleep. The inflamed joint was diagnosed a week ago, and since then it's spread to the other side of my face and part of my throat. So, I don't know. I might just collapse into a heap of pieces. My days are clearly numbered.
It's funny that I am a tooth-grinder. I'm also a shoulder-tenser, a nail-biter, a back-huncher and a brow-furrower. Where is all this tension coming from, though? Used to be, I could blame it on school or work. Now I've stripped all sources of stress away from my life and I am left with the simple truth: I am a very worried person.
I worry about global warming. I worry that Gene might never want to have kids and I might someday want to. I worry that a guy might whistle at me on the street, that all my books might burn down in an apartment fire, that a friend will tell me what she REALLY thinks of me. Should I be cleaning the house more, writing more fiction, wearing a more attractive shade of nail polish? Should I be more outgoing? I worry that a doorway might open into another world and I won't have any money when I get there and will starve before I have any magical adventures. (I used to keep a small cloth pouch of loose change in my bedroom for just this emergency.) I worry that the flight attendant on the plane might ask me a question I wasn't expecting. I worry that someone I love will die, as a judgment on me because I didn't spend enough time worrying about it and trying to picture it.
I think I worry to stave off trouble. I live in a beautiful apartment, in the city I love best in the world, with the person I most want to live with, doing a job I love, and looking the way I want to look. I have never done anything to deserve this and I worry that I am at the beginning of my particular bildungsroman, not the end, and there are trials by fire ahead of me. I worry so that the gods and cosmic narrators will know that I am not really enjoying myself. Even though I'm eating this banana in the store, I fully intend to pay for it. I will pay for it. Look, I'm paying for it now.
And so I pay a little every day, and waste half the pleasure of having the banana in the first place.
Posted by didofoot at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2008
Help!
Now that I'm trying to write short stories, I think I need to read more of them as well. I've read Nabokov, Wodehouse, McKillip, Thurber, Gaiman, Saki and Salinger: who else should I read? Your help will be highly prized.
Posted by didofoot at 09:28 AM | Comments (5)
