the smoke hangs low in the living room as i install various images along the walls, some pathological need to conceal and distract from the cardboard-beige. i want a power drill for many complicated reasons. i want the mystical hum of electricity transformed into a practical buzz, a functional and cyclical motion. and i want to hang musical instruments from the walls to display my intentions like artwork. they deserve that much at least. jess and i discuss upcoming albums like christmas day, but still the familiar adult irony taints our thrill. and while we can't afford the luxury of alcohol, our small dogs play with rubber mock beer cans that squeak plaintiffly between their aimless growls. we still don't have any toilet paper.
this morning i cleaned the entire house. i bleached the countertops and tables and the entire goddamn washroom. i scrubbed every pot, pan and dish that we own. i organized the garbage and swept every square foot. i made my bed, loosely, and polished the stove top and mildly rearranged furniture. then i mopped and folded the dish rags neatly. then jess and i made lunch and i pathologically washed everything between and after use. i did this and thought of my grandmother. i am not a spiritual person. i do believe in ghosts, though, and i think she may be there somewhere, in the smell of clean countertops and folded cardboard, in the shape of reused glass and plastic containers in the science light of the refrigerator. her sifting spirit moves through rooms like sunbeams, but colder. i know now that i will always miss what i have never known of her.
then i asked jess for a workout routine. jess is good at those things. jess' arm muscles look like the hilltops small children draw. i wrote down their suggestions in my notebook, including recommended number of repetitions and rest times. though we have worked out together before, i was in a more emotionally sturdy place, and less prone to debilitating embarrassment. i'll have to wait until jess is out tonight to start the day one routine. triceps. abdominals. pectorals. muscle names sound like lost language. strange grunting, hissing noises from a time before sentence structure.
now i'm at the centre. there are a million things i should be doing. i should be writing up staff manuals and e-mailing people about training schedules and filling out calendar events. i should be running laps around my politics, checking them from every angle with a fine-tipped pen, rinsing them down with good intention. but i am in a more morose kind of reflective mood with these bleach-dry hands and i want to rewrite my emotional turmoil. i want to microwave a lukewarm plate of yesterday's anxieties and eat them scalding. because i'm not done feeling like drowning in all of these to-do's and should-have's. and i've yelled at my dog's misbehaviour to the point that he is still and submissive, a rare treat that, unfortunately, coddling doesn't reward.
so my grandfather is reading this blog now, as well as my father and a few friends. there was an argument on google buzz over the last post. this kind of breying, hoof-like interaction is comforting, like buffeting heat from an open oven after making morning toast. there are people watching me, people waiting for words from me. there are people who would like to have a say in my future. because they care one way or another. and they want me close.
no, i don't know why they would want this right now. i'm still fairly certain i'm an interruption and a disappointment, like a zit or a splinter. but i'm sure if they keep showing me this in little ways, i'll figure it out soon enough.
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