It’s Sunday evening. 9:30. I’m supposed to be feeling the Sunday evening blahs, that tension and apprehension I’ve mentioned in this space that’s stuck with me even all these years out of the classroom. But I’m totally chill. Since I killed it on Friday, I’ve been able not to think about work all weekend, a weekend during which I’ve done pretty much nothing but has still been far too short, and I’m actually eager to get back to it Monday morning.
It’s very, very strange.
I slept kind of miserably. Woke up in the middle of the night without having put Darth Vader on my face, and I was in pain. My left knee was killing me. I moved it to straighten it out or something (I can’t remember) and it was so sore it took like a minute, and I was so reluctant to move it again I just lie there stiff, on my back, aching like crazy. I was on the verge of tears, but what scared me was I was shivering cold even though it was warm as heck last night. I kept shuddering, and my teeth chattered some. What the heck?
Eventually, an eternity later or maybe just a few minutes later, I fell back asleep, and when I woke up some time later (I never checked the clock when I woke up the first time because I was too distracted by pain) I wasn’t in nearly as much discomfort. Until I tried to walk to the bathroom.
Holy heck. It wasn’t the kind of pain I may have imagined earlier, but it was something of a struggle to get to the little boys’ room and back.
I crashed again and slept fitfully, like I was ill or something, and at some weird point I felt it break, like a fever. You know that moment when you’re sleeping off a fever and you drift into and out of consciousness and then you kind of wake up and you’re all sweaty but cool, instead of sweaty and hot? And somehow rested? That’s exactly what I felt.
I woke up and although the stupid knee was still sore all day and I’m limping, as the day went by it got more and more normal. Or something close to normal, which is a dull ache all the time and a slight limp. Great.
So that was scary.
I got out of bed around 10:00 and read the news. I had the last slice of POG pie for breakfast, did the Sunday NYT crossword in just shy of 18 minutes, and then got lost in a whole bunch of different reading online. I read about stereo system components and deejaying gear, mostly, despite not planning to get into either. Just interesting stuff to read about.
I made a bowl of instant ramen for a late lunch, with a mountain of kale, choy sum, and bean sprouts, and two eggs, which I ate during the TV news. Then I watched the eighth episode of Halt and Catch Fire and it was fantastic. Rewatched the last five minutes. Great television.
I took care of a few little chores and got things ready to make some bread Monday. I was tempted to go to the supermarket, but I reminded myself I bought enough stuff last time to avoid having to go back for two weeks.
Dinner was a can of cold pork and beans, straight from the can. And some Vienna sausage this time, also from the can. It’s like Boy Scout camping in my living room.
I had dinner while watching Noelle for like the fifteenth time. It just ended and I’m a little bit of a teary mess. Again.
There was quite a bit of texting. JB gave me a progress report on War and Peace. Ali texted me early to ask me if something she’d read about introverts was true, so I gave her my perspective, and then she sent me a link to the story I wrote about that donor, the story that might get picked up by one of the local news broadcasts. She said it was a cute story, so I thanked her. That was nice — my coworkers and former coworkers seldom mention the stories I write unless the stories are directly related to their work.
I got a phone call from Julia, and although I never answer phone calls, I picked this one up because she’d left me a message Friday. She was one of our Bloody Wednesday victims, so I thought maybe something was up. We chatted for a bit; she asked for a little bit of advice on some positions she was applying for. It turns out one of them is with a nonprofit where I’ve interviewed one director, and another director is married to Cindy, my former manager at the engineering firm, one of the three women in the group chat I’m always mentioning.
So I texted Cindy to tell her nice things about Julia. Then emailed the one director and messaged Cindy’s husband via Linkedin, to spread some of the Julia love around.
Emailed Ryan a few times to work out some stuff we have going on. I tried to find someone to do a review of Cathy Song’s new book, for Hawaii Stories, but there were no reliable takers, so I’m doing it myself. I kind of envision my HS role as something of an advisor for less experienced writers, and I really wanted someone else to give the review a try. I reviewed her poetry collection School Figures for our campus paper in Hilo (a pretty double-page spread) and it was a big deal to me. I wanted someone else to get the big deal. Alas.
There was no way I was going to walk with my knee blowing itself up. I’m going to try to hit the beach Monday morning.
Hit me up if you would like someone to connect with in these dark days. I’ll send you some contact info.