A Living Seance

Originally Posted Friday, February 7, 2014

My sickness may have been a simple performance anxiety.  I am that way.  After work yesterday I went out with a group of coworkers who were celebrating something.  We sat outside on a cold and rainy night.  The staff brought Coleman heaters and put them on top of the shaky tables, a real good idea with a bunch of drunks, but no tragedies took place.  All in all it was a successful day.  Earlier in the day, I left for lunch and went to get my tags renewed at a tax collector's office that came highly recommended.  And boy oh boy was it nice.  I was in and out in five minutes, something, I think, of a miracle.  Then I sat inside the largest Chic-fil-A I have ever seen and ate a solitary meal before going back to work.  I was out of my zip code.  It was fun.  All this coming after presentation I had made earlier in the day that I felt went swimingly.  Almost legendary.  There was all of that and me worn out with something inexplicable, then the sitting with good people and drinking pint after pint of some small brewery's Guinness style beer that was very, very tasty, then finishing up with a scotch.  It was not late, so I drove to Fresh Market and got some ribs and went home to eat them and watch some more "Banshee" and then fell into bed happy and satisfied that things were as they should be. 

I woke up at eight o'clock because the morning light never came.  It is a glorious feeling to sleep so long and soundly.  Up to make the coffee and. . . oh, shit!  I'd forgotten to feed the cat the night before. I felt terrible, but when I put the fresh food in her bowl, she ate normally and not so much, so I gave her more love than usual and apologized profusely.  And so the coffee and the news and the decision that I have had enough of work for the week.  I shall stay home this cool, dark, and damp Friday and catch up on things that should have been done long ago.  It feels sooooo good.  The heater blows and the cat purrs and air hangs dim and gloomy.  It is delicious. 

I wish that Aunt Thelma were coming around.  We could play Boggle and she could tell me stories in her wonderful way of telling and not telling at the same time.  The stories emerge from someplace far away, she speaking something like a medium in a seance.  And then, when the story has been told, she'll look at you and smile.  Often the tales end up with everyone in the room clapping. 

It is one of those kinds of days.