rwd fwd
notes diaryland
random! older
current

Breathe right, okay

13 August 2021
4:19 am

Some more sleepless whining:

I have things to do and pack, but no. I've been sick all week. A sinus infection, maybe? A video visit with a doc suggested I try some nasal spray for a few days before considering antibiotics. Cool, fine.

It quickly came to my attention that I don't know how that stuff works, when I shot a stream of it into my brain. So. Tuesday: movies and water and ginger ale in the dark.

Yesterday: driving all over creation in 85+ degrees with no real a/c. I avoid major highways. It doesn't take that much longer. There are stop lights and sugar, but speed limits are often similar. Rather than concrete and construction k-rails, I was out in the middle of fields and tree lined county roads, and yes, flags hanging on nearly all of them, but there's still a beauty to an old wooden church painted the exact color of that day's sky..

I was looking for appropriate, desirable clothes for a fancier dinner. Not sure what they were, but I'd know them if I found them.

Let me be the first to tell you that an outlet mall is a fucking lie. In my day an outlet mall meant something. Now, all malls are dying (and let me in them, I beg you, for artistic and spiritual edification) but I'm pretty sure this one was literally dying. No secret deals, just hidden bodies stashed in one of the empty storefronts, concealed by vinyl or mirrored window wrap.

I've smelled dead fish in a hot summer dumpster before, but this was atrocious. It wafted across a street and two full parking lots. For stupid reasons, we'd made this drive two days earlier, you see, and the odor had traveled since then.

It was unbecoming and the stores were frustrating (little did I know I was actually paying MORE for a necessity I thought I couldn't find elsewhere) so I got the fuck out of there. Back on the county roads, back to three stations of classic rock music. Fine, I guess.

It's no exaggeration to say every business is hiring. All of them. Every city. Anything service related, anyway. At one point, I swung into a Burlington on impulse as I drove by. The sign on the door offered immediate interviews. No doubt I could have started working on the spot, no questions asked. I've never seen a major store in such a state. It looked like a no-name thrift store that had been half-robbed, half-joy destroyed. I adjusted my glasses over my mask and hightailed it out of me before they could smell the internalized capitalism and years of retail, wafting from me like dead fish.

The next department store was better staged, but somehow lacking, like, non-pajama adult clothes? Fuck you, 2020; fuck you, Amazon.) There, I became so thoroughly depressed that the only alternative to strangling myself with the same clothes that didn't fit in middle school was to steal a pair of sunglasses.

After competing that task, I realized what I really needed was water and a food, and that cleared up many of my problems.

But, I was still wired and in need of a fucking garment, so I finally gave in and went to the local Target, where I promptly went into a $100 fugue. I'm really making up for all of last year's lack of spending in these last three weeks.

It was a nice drive back though. Bopping, sweating, still getting used to going fast in this behemoth vehicle, going through a part of the city I think I've only been through once.

I have no issue with these streets, but you know how it is. Unless there's a reason for me to go, I'm not going to just go stroll around for funsies or worse, looksies - even if I see more beauty than a church painted like the sky. There are fewer open businesses then there should be. And anyway you can find t-shirts for Black History Month at Target now, so, like, why support a necessary and neglected community, my god

Anyway, it's been a long time since I've driven around by myself for a whole day. It was a long day, and at the end I was rewarded with, you guessed it, more dreams of monsters and the dream hopefully now on its way out. It was nicer this time, but still unnecessary. And I kept throwing one of my dad's old pipes at the ground. It shattered each time, but I'd find it in my hand again. I don't know.

The physical feelings come and go. Nausea, sinus pain, headache. No fever, occasional hints of a sore throat. I have to decide if I'm going to call today and request antibiotics, if it's actually a sinus infection. I don't know.

I was very tired last night, nearly asleep, when I started acting strangely. Dan and I were having weird late night conversations anyway, the kind where --

Ugh, thinking about it is resuming the anxiety, which is why I am still awake. But I wasn't fully awake then, or asleep, but I was seeing dream like things, there was some real sleep disturbance thing happening where he was trying to get me to be fully awake and I was like, talking but not really there for long enough that it freaked him out and he got out of bed and started getting dressed.

By the time he calmed down, I was quietly freaked out, so I've been half laying, half sitting for the last four hours, exhausted and afraid to go to sleep. Afraid I have the confusion (or worse, one of the other medical words I don't permit myself to think about). With this trip upcoming and feeling like I'm the only one watching the numbers, I'm already a little vigilant.

I want the water. I need this massage. I want Joan to have this joy. I will go and be as careful as I can.

But also: goddamn it fuck shit, this is still a problem
should I take a test anyway
can I just go to sleep
I have shit to do, like packing cute, stupid, little backpacks with earrings that don't hang straight and picnic snack bathing suits
and I'm so very tired