To Recover is to Uncover

So this is summer. I’ve perfected the delicate balance of being busy and active one moment and the next moment being so mind numbingly lazy that I will find great pleasure in staring at couch cushions. My parents just got back from China and their insistence on asking me questions about my life and trying to be involved is already driving me insane. The nerve of them! My dad just peeked his head into my room to offer me a deal where he would wash the outside of my car if I would finally wash the inside of my car. Parents! Am I right, folks?

I’m actually kind of excited to clean out my car. I’m a big fan of exploratory cleaning. The kind of cleaning where you have to clean out something that hasn’t really seen the light of day in a long time, like the corner of a closet or underneath a bed. Not only is it satisfying for me to really hack away at something disgustingly dirty, but also I always find something I forgot I had or forgot I lost.

When I came home for summer I discovered my mom had replaced my old twin sized bed with a Queen and a giant golden bed frame. The idea of having a nice spacious bed was eclipsed by the fact that it took up my entire room and was covered in the gaudiest purple and gold fabric and pillows. Everything else in the room that once was mine or familiar had been replaced as well by a real mahogany dresser, a matching mahogany bedpost, a rocking chair, and my mom’s old secretary that she uses to keep her tax forms and post-its in. I convinced my dad to help me switch out the giant Marie Antoinette bed with my pleasantly quaint twin and while we were moving it I found so many old and dear treasures of mine.

There were six or seven of my favorite Disney puzzles, the blocks I used to make houses for my Barbies with, and best of all I found the tape from 7^th grade of Caitlin, Jenny Staller, and I doing our parody version of Harry Potter books on tape. Don’t be jealous of our creativity.

All in all a good haul for knickknacks underneath a bed. Better than the cesspool of dead spiders I found underneath the old twin bed frame in the garage. I’m still convinced that itch on my leg is spider trying to bite its way into my shinbone. Now I’m off to see what nasty yet poignant lost things I’m to find in my car. Here’s hoping I’ll find those watermelon gummies that went missing a week ago.

Just Add Water

I can feel my brain melting. My brain and too much school has the same exact reaction cornstarch and water have when mixed together. If you dissected me right this very moment and picked my brain up with your hands the material would seem substantial and solid at first. Then, after a moment would pass, the grey substance would start to leak through your fingers. It would slide down your wrist and dribble into the bowl that is hopefully beneath your hands in order to catch the inevitable mess that occurs when one is opening up another human being. My sister would understand. She’s a mortician.

This is my excuse for not writing since…

Anyway, school is not really the problem. It’s a case of what the Frontier Psychiatrist would call Psychosomatic. My brain is tired and therefore my body is tired and therefore therefore therefore. It’s a vicious cycle that everyone is familiar with and everyone has overcome, but the problem always lies in finding something to pry me out of my funk.

Tonight I voluntarily washed the dishes for three hours straight at work because I didn’t want to interact with costumers or coworkers. Mind you I almost always have to wash the dishes for three hours straight when I’m closing, but this time I almost enjoyed myself. There’s a very ashamed part of me that absolutely adores mindless tasks. When I worked for my brother I would always ask if he needed me to put stamps and return addresses on the hundreds of envelopes and pretend it was just because I was an eager worker. The mind can wander when my hands move methodically and automatically, and instead of having to listen to people’s complaints or wants (because it’s never needs) I can listen to my own complaints and wants. It’s a glorious and draining experience, cause geez do I complain a lot. However, no one is more sympathetic to my trials and tribulations than myself, so I just let myself yammer on and on in my head while I clean out the deep fryer.

To be perfectly fair to this life we call life, it has only been the last three days that have been particularly unmotivated on my part. I’ve been spinning a bunch of plates all this year and this week people keep on plucking these plates off of my spinning stick thing and telling me “hey, you don’t need to spin this plate anymore”, or “this plate has been replaced with a much smaller and dumber saucer”. Now I have nothing to spin and it’s driving me insane! Sometimes a girl just needs to spin some damn plates! In other words, I need all these stimulating projects along with my mindless tasks I have to do at Oakes Café or else I will become mindless. A zombie working at Oakes Café would hardly be noticed among the Oakes employees, but I’ve seen enough Will Smith movies to know that zombies never last long before they’re shot 40 times in the chest and burned in a pile of rotting flesh.

I’m starting to lose my metaphor…

Ah yes!

I need to suck it up and get it together.