This morning :
5:20- Wake and fully exfoliate your face. Assuming it is a non-consensual exfoliation provided by your fattest cat.
5:45- Give up the ruse of going back to sleep because a. cat tongue on eyelids hurts, and b. fat cat on bladder can only be ignored for so long.
5:46 Enter bathroom for shower et al. Broken heated floor and general 55 degree bathroom gives you your first memory/math task of the day…how many days since shower. Can’t come up with answer. Bad sign…still no arguing with icy feet. Toss towel over the glass wall of shower to invite you to shower later. RSVP maybe to that invite. Dress in yesterday’s clothes because a. its the right thing to do if you didn’t shower and b. they are the closest clothes.
5:48 Ignore yowling cats who are, of course, starving to death.
6:00 Let out Chihuahua. Watch him pretend to pee so he can come back inside to take his pill. Anti-anxiety. He shivers while he waits for it. Possibly out of cold, likely out of anxiety, definitely out of being chihuahua. Put pill in tiny meat pocket. Chihuahua spins and sits and hits the button that used to talk but the clever cat (not the skin care expert) has de-programed the button so it just clicks. Feed pill to dog.
6:01 At the last possible moment decide to keep cats from perishing. Why have you never offered them food?
6:02 Try to walk over to the pet food cabinet but get tripped by fat cat. Stumble. Almost fall on cat who is well behaved except when you pet her when she bites the shit out of you. Fill each bowl with half of a third of a cup. More math. Clever cat gets urinary tract food. Dog gets dog food. Fat and well-behaved cat get regular food. (Long read on how ‘diet’ pet foods are bullshit enabled these two to share.) Except cats don’t share! Take a seat on the concrete floor to begin my feline version of whack a mole. Dog wants clever cat’s food. Clever cat wants regular cat food. Well behaved cat sits back and watches. Fat cat wants all the food. “No Alf.” gentle shove “No Molly.” Less gentle shove. “This is your dinner Apollo.” (Yes breakfast is dinner, sort of like a super European version of tea.) Shove pets towards their own bowls. Fat cat vacuums first and exfoliates the bottom of the bowl. Well behaved cat eats at normal cat speed. Clever cat finishes before he has filled himself. Dog tries to sneak back to that bowl. I grab a small handful of urinary cat kibble and put it in dog bowl, careful to shake to distribute. Dog begins careful sorting, spitting dog food on floor. Eating cat food. Fat cat watches with her face very close to the bowl.
6:45 Eat two prunes. Sort out pills. 4 for hair loss (placebo probably except what is it when placebo doesn’t even convince you it is working? Useless) These pills taken one by one with Emergen-C because they taste gross and I don’t want to use dog’s meat pockets…too expensive. Blood pressure pill. Must call MD because weight loss means I don’t need it but much easier to take than make a phone call obviously. Hormone pill to lesson my testosterone. General anti-depressant. Anti-seizure med (used off label to control mania who knew?) More specific anti-depressant. These I take in one handful inspired by a family member who can do this. I choke only 10% of the time and that is not this morning.
6:48 Unload dishwasher. Lie. I didn’t unload the dishwasher but I thought about it and lots of times I do it so lets include it.
6:48 (Cause I really didn’t do it..also a lie..all of these times. Except the first wake up because those must be lamented to the minute.)
6:49 Unable to leave couch. Cat on lap. Hostage. I have no choice but to drink my Emergen-C and scroll through Reddit, Redfin and also Redstagram. I look at so many cats. Including the one who is now lying on my right arm forcing me to scroll left handed.
7:50 Yell to teen to ask about school attendence. Sick yesterday. Probably sick today. Can’t understand answer. Have to climb stairs. Hurculean task. Skip final two stairs in defiance. Hear answer. No school.
7:51 Write email to school attendance line and thing the exact same thing as every other time. a. thank god they allow emails instead of calls b. this would be very very easy for a student to forge.
7:53 A blue moon occurence… well behaved cat on lap. Poor love-sick thing whose person went to college. Absolutely can NOT move cat. Might be here forever. Lucking more red phone things to scroll. Too many. Things I learned: the r/autism subreddit agrees that the most annoying thing neurotypical people can say is “give them a call.” Followed closely by “that was a rhetorical question.” the r/TaylorSwift reddit has a football fan who lost a bet when his team Denver Broncos beat Taylor’s boyfriend’s team, Kansas City Chiefs and now has to write a paragraph one every single one of her songs.He had no idea she had 353 songs. And counting. He better hurry before the eleventh album drops. the r/worldnews reddit was too upsetting so I spent a little time on r/MergeDragons and learned that the Kala trades can be absurd. Don’t bother figuring that one out. Also Denver has no 3br Townhouses, walkable to a coffee shop and brewery with attached garages, modern design, and so much light that you need sunglasses inside. At least in my price range. Perhaps there will be one at 1:00pm or 1:45. The cat and I will check then.
8:30 Gather my things. Which includes, for the first time today,a pill for ADHD. I have 5 posts in my draft folder explaining the highs and lows (ha!) of my thinking that perhaps I don’t have bi-polar disorder but actually uni-polar depression and ADHD but after consulting with a real person instead of just an online quiz I am now diagnosed with both. Yeah! Actually very interested to see how this small pill works. Realize I have left my winter coat (why do I need a winter coat this early? why is Denver colder than Vermont?) at Lighthouse when I volunteered. Think that this might be a sign of ADHD, signs which are now showing EVERYWHERE. I don’t love that what I thought were quirks have now been pathologized but since I am already on the “chemicals that might balance things in my body and brain” train I just added this one in.
9:00 Am pleased to see winter coat right where I left it at the table (Taylor reference if any of you are with me here). Sign in visitor log. Under reason for visit I put “try drugs.” Then climb the stairs and start thinking that maybe the next person on the log would be a perspective member or a DEA agent and go back down stairs to add parenthetically (totally legally) (good think I like parentheses.)
9:05 Unpack my things. Take my pill. Start this post. Consider actually using an older draft that is nuanced and introspective. Decide this is easier. Do this.
9:42 Realize I switched this post from second person to first person and decide not to edit. I guess the pill that would make that effort seem easy hasn’t yet kicked in.
10:13 Realize I added no flair to post. Select only picture of cas eating. Not particularly good picture of cats at bowls is not sending. Tried these things a. selecting on google photos. Won’t load. b. sending from phone photo roll -couldn’t download error. c. taking screen shot of photo and emailing to self - something went wrong please try again later. d- texting screen shot to self The message failed to send. This is all I will do. Imagine three cats. Can’t see any face. No activity or excitement. Will find cuter cat on Unsplash. Maybe it won’t steal food or offer facials. I bet it is really boring.
10:18 Realize cat does not look boring. Check redlist for more cats.
Tell me something about your morning. Or your cats.
I NEED a pic of this chihuahua. Also, I felt that “less aggressive shove” in my soul 🤣
Compared to you, Anna. I lead a boring life. Gave myself a third whack at the snooze button, debated doing a 30-min yoga (a shorty would be all I had time for because of the snoozes), then decided nah. I can do yoga after work today. I'll make a smoothie instead (which basically take a lifetime to make, espesh if you're peeling ginger). Made it to the office five mins early (getting better at making that smoothie), and can't believe it's not yet 11 AM (Pacific Time). Can't believe it's only Wednesday, either. And I FULLY DENY that it's November. WTF? Have a great day, Anna. xo