home alone

after bath

monday morning:
i feel like dying. i can't breathe, my heart is tight, and all of my muscles ache. i went to the doctor and they wanted to test my O2 levels because of my long days of travel this weekend. the test is called a blood gas and that bitch from the lab stabs your arm with an ice pick so all of the nerves light up like electric shock treatments and your bicep cramps. then she comes back and says i'm within normal range. the test, i think, made my adrenaline spike, so i recovered. the doctor thinks it was mild altitude sickness from the airplane.

monday afternoon:
i've slept for four hours since 10 a.m. my muscles still ache. the dog is looking at me with sad eyes. he needs a walk. i can't walk. it's too hot.

monday evening:
i have enough energy to get on my bike and take the dog around the two-mile loop so he can stop putting his nasty, soggy stuffed rat toy on my leg in protest of his confinement. i get the leash, and around halfway through my journey, my front tire goes completely flat. the bike is in protest of my extra 20 pounds. stupid bike. the dog has success in his mission of pooping. these tiny gnats are swirling all around me and it's pitch black. i only have one mile to go.

3 minutes later:
AHRGAAAHAHAHGRH!!! A fucking gnat flew right into my eye. It feels like acid. I almost crash my bike into the grass. An oncoming car flashes its  brights in my good eye. Tears are streaming down my face as I claw at the invisible gnat corpse burning my cornea. I am out of water and can't flush it out. I'm not sure I'm going to make it home.

10 minutes later:
i am home. i never want to leave again.

tuesday, via an email i sent to dan:

subject: crushing my will to live
I wish I was joking, but I'm not. The yard is crushing my will to live. I need to fire the maids and get a gardener. I know how to clean toilets, I don't know how to get this invasive grass to stop growing throughout the landscaping or how to demolish the growing infestation of carpenter ants that thrive in our forest. I think mulch isn't just for looks, it's for weed prevention. We made a mistake by not heavy mulching this spring, and now it looks so white trash. We will now need chemicals, fire and then to mulch heavy next spring. It's awful. The bushes are overgrown. The mosquitoes are eating me alive. The hanging baskets are almost dead. The dove eggs died. Henry ran away and I had to poo, so I left him outside. I have no clue where he is. Come home. I'm getting desperate.

30 minutes later:
the neighbor kids return henry. he's happy to have  seen his three friends again. i want to kick him.

wednesday morning:
the upstairs toilet won't flush all the way. if i ignore it, it will probably fix itself.

wednesday afternoon:
i feel so much better than monday. little baby is stabbing me with her extra sharp heel every chance she gets, but it's nice to have company. time for a midday walk with henry, and he's happy, too. so happy, in fact that he ran to the back yard after our walk to celebrate by shoulder-dropping into a pile of fetid, rotting mystery goo that smelled worse than anything i've smelled on the last 10 dairy farms i've visited. it wasn't recognizable as a corpse, maybe the result of high-temperature, high-humidity decomposition of the afterbirth of a small mammal after three days in the sun. i resisted the gag reflex. i. can't. puke. now. i ushered him into the shower and tried to bend over with my huge belly in the way to scrub him as he resists water and soap. it's awkward, baby is unhappy. i am winded and covered in dog hair, but after lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, henry's back to normal. i wish he would run away again.

dan returns in six days.