The Missing Point

My brain, she does not rest. All weekend long I vacillated between manic and catatonic. Lists were made, discarded, and appended. Lists became loops and loops were lists. So many things to do and say and see and write and call and make. So many verbs, so little will. Saturday night, I sat on the couch, staring, worrying, caught up in it. I saw folly in beginning, just knowing I'd fail. I heard a song on the radio, briefly, and the chorus stuck like flypaper.

Bye bye beautiful
Don't bother to write
Disturbed by your words and they're calling all cars
Face step, let down.
Face step, step down.
Coheed and Cambria -- A Favor House Atlantic

I determined to redeem Sunday. When the cat woke me for breakfast at 6:30, I stayed awake. I went grocery shopping, refilled the water bottles, washed the sheets, paid the electric bill, entered books into the BookCollection database. I made a cake and cooked dinner. I watched the first two episodes of Farscape. I took a nap.

I didn't: call my parents, get a tuneup for the car, finish entering books, write, do any of the work I'd brought home, finish "The Longest Journey," visit friends, see the kitten we hope to get, fill prescriptions, read any of the seventy-seven books I bought cheap -- I think this is what set me off. Seventy-seven books? I said to BF, "I'll never be able to read that many. I'm doomed." Or something like it. He laughed and said, "Riiight. If anybody can read 'em, it's you." Okay, so maybe I exaggerated. Maybe I read pretty fast. Maybe I picked something stupid to obsess about. It wouldn't be the first time. And that's what I appreciate about BF. He doesn't let me get away with being a dumbass.

This reminds me, I once knew a girl who bragged about being an English major. She reveled in her quirkiness, peppered her speech with French phrases, expressed herself in non-sequiturs, and wore funky clothes. She was my kind of people, so I attempted to get to know her better. One day, she threw a party. She cooked a vat of spaghetti and we sat around decidedly not spilling sauce on the white carpet. There may have been a minor tragedy when someone spilled red wine, but that's another story for another time. After dinner, we found ourselves in this young woman's bedroom. She proudly explained the uniqueness of her possessions. She showed us her toys, and her art, and the chalk board where she wrote French phrases to herself. I realized then, something's wrong here, very wrong. The girl had no books. Not a one. This English major was living a lie. I learned two things that day: first, never trust an English major who doesn't keep books. And second, crazy is not the same as fun. I also learned -- but am not including it officially -- that red wine and white carpet make pink mess.