Day: January 25, 2021

It was about 6 AM when I started to question my reality.

The puppies were barking. Usually that meant my only daughter was up and wandering about the house. Only, she wasn’t. There was no familiar thump, thump of footsteps, the click of the bathroom door, the snap and whir of the fan as she set up her space for examining her face, a strangely feminine morning ritual. I stirred painfully, shifting into my partner, the love of my life. Her skin was warm and compelled me to come closer, I did, touching her gently, probing for a response. She stirred. I knew then that she was already awake, thinking. This was her morning ritual, as familiar to me and opposite to her as my own habit of rolling over a few times, reaching for her, reaching for a gaming console, reaching for anything that wasn’t internal; any reminder that I was not alone in the dark.

I felt her move into my arms and I felt her warmth spreading across my skin like sunrise. I held her in my arms until the single bark grew into a chorus and that chorus threatened to shake the foundation of the house. How could seven tiny creatures make such a ruckus? I separated from her warmth, rejoined the cold of this world, sliding on pants and a hoodie. I left the comfort of our special space to enter a home that belonged to the rest of the world. The sounds of that world flooded in, but the smells did not tickle my nose. No taste flickered across my tongue. It was as if I was watching my reality on film and not entirely a part of it.

What then is reality? Is it the full sensory experience? Is it the idea of what is happening and how we react to that? Is it our choices? Our thoughts? Our imagination splayed out in front of us and crashing into what is happening like waves pounding the sands of a beach? My morning reality is scraping up puppy shit with a squeegee and a blue plastic dust pan. I load the not-quite-dogs into pen in the garage where the brick walls dim their thunder. I open the sliding glass door in the space where they are kept, expecting fresh air to fill my nostrils. Nothing.

I can feel the cold of the air but I cannot smell it. I cannot taste the rain falling lightly into the pool, but I can feel the cold of it on the back of my hands. I am here, but I am not entirely here.

So where is the rest of me?

Still sick.

The sick has extended to problems with vision–especially in relation to screens. I think the real issue there is I have been in bed for over a day and doing little else than watching screens. My therapy will be to stare at the rain for as long as I am willing, hoping the fresh air and cool view helps the body work its way back into relevancy.

I gotta get out of bed. This is not a good look for me. I have not been productive in two days and that is two days longer than I could afford time off. In the meanwhile I did catch up on the Expanse (as I explained yesterday), so there’s that. Te series is going to conclude with season 6, skipping the 30 year time jump between books 6 and 7. This makes me think about my own future series and how I intend to write it. I don’t know. More importantly, I have a novel I need to deal with today before I worry about tomorrow.

Some Thoughts:

1. Tried to get all the boys to watch the fight last night on ESPN+. I figured it was something we have never done and something new to do and get excited about. Little to no excitement, and that is a good thing, because ESPN+ is a fraud. I still was required to pay $70 to watch the fight. I did not pay. McGregor was knocked out in the 3rd, btw. Just the result I wanted to happen. Now maybe he will go fight one of those YouTube stars, so we can all laugh about it.