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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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Eating With The Depressed Demon
I turned down the only call I got because it was for a bilingual substitute and I am not fully bilingual. It wouldn't have been fair to the kids. So instead of working I decided to devote the day to being depressed. My favorite way of partying with The Depression Demon is to eat. So that's what I did. I ate depression. I ate depression yesterday in the form of a box of high protein cereal and a jar of soy nut butter. I couldn't hardly leave the house, so I plugged in the television set and watched horrible one-hour dramas on TNT and I ate and ate and ate. I didn't go to the gym or to FedEx like I was supposed to. Frida tapped at the window, and when I looked over, she beckoned and pointed at the perfectly blue sky and the dry roads and at her mileage gauge. I turned back to the television set and my box of cereal and jar of soy nut butter. Raisins and animal crackers waited in the wings. I ate. I caught the end of an episode of Oprah and realized with a guilty start that it was almost five in the afternoon. House, MD would be on at eight. I might as well get some barbeque and make a day of it, right? Max had an appointment with his therapist Lori last night, so he was gone until at least 8:30. That afternoon, I had taken a nap and dreamed of Mitch. I don't remember the details, only that his name had changed yet again--from the original Anthony Michael to Mitch to something that could be just as easily changed again when the time came. I thought, upon waking, he's going to call. You're going to get a call from him soon. Max showed up at 8:15, was scrambled from his appointment. I suggested bbq, and turned away from my imaginary biker boyfriend, Hugh Laurie. "Don't you want to finish watching that?" Max asked. "Please," I replied. "It's teevee." I still have the discipline to turn away from teevee in preference for real life anyway. We ended up not at my favorite bbq place, but at a coffeeshop. We talked about Max's therapy session. "Of course it's okay for you to feel both sad and relieved that I'm leaving," I told him. "It's like when someone dies. You love them, but caring is a responsibility, and even though you feel grief, you also feel a relief when you are done with your responsibilities to care for that person." He was glad to hear me say it. He went to the bathroom, the universal trick for causing food to arrive. Just as it did, Blue Sky walked up. She asked about Mitch. "Have you heard from him?" I did not tell her about erasing him from my life, about throwing out his letters, blocking his email address, giving away the things he gave me. I do not tell her that I love and loved him and that I want for him to be okay and happy but that I also don't want to hear from him or to have any further contact with him. "The last I heard--" I say and then tell her old, old news. She tells me that she had been reminded of him because a man she was dating recently had taken her on a motorcycle ride past the place where Mitch had wrecked his motorcycle. I tell her about how I met Mitch--I ride the same kind of motorcycle he almost killed himself on--and she is amazed. Max returns from the bathroom as I am speaking and Sky excuses herself. We had dinner, then went to see Kung Fu Hustle afterwards. It was diverting. I feel a little better today.
More lies:
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