All Adither: June 2010

Wherein I get all crazy fangirl and write a post about a concert.

But it wasn't just any concert. It was Imogen Heap.

Tickets on sale a couple months ago. Row GA! I was excited. Until someone told me GA means General Admission. Dumb Ass.

I don't make it to shows much anymore. The late, the standing, the hot.

Imogen was worth it.

I hadn't looked forward to a concert that much since I saw Michael Jackson in the Pontiac Silverdome when I was 15.

This was better. Watching, stupified. Inspired. Crushing. Happy.

Close enough to see the tiny microphones taped to the insides of her wrists and individual strands of her insane hair.

To catch the virus of wanting to create. To become so sick with it for a few days I have a hard time focusing on kids and work. Hallucinating that I possess an eighth of the gumption someone like Imogen does.

Drifting, veering, trying.

You are trying to sleep. A dog barks from far away. It is not a direct hindrance to your drifting off, but the yelps punctuate your thoughts. Unhappy! With! The! Day! Marriage! Is! Crazyhard! You press the pillow more tightly over your head. You think of the demure peach pills in your bathroom that could send you down sleepy river in fifteen minutes flat. But you don't want to rely on them. They're fine for sometimes. But this. This is just run of the mill anxiety. Hormonal blues. You will resist the peach pills.

Saturday there was sun. Everyone seemed happy. Too happy? Shinyhappy, their faces tilted up to the bright sky, as they made comments like, Enjoy it, this is our summer. Your neighbor clipped mint from the backyard for mojitos. The kids played and played in the creek, which is really a drainage ditch, but they don't know the difference.

Sunday was a sharp contrast. Nonweather. You all went to Home Depot so your husband could buy a giant post on which to hook a zipline for Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat. A good dad. You made playdoh, which kept the kids busy for about an hour. You tried not to read into your husbands every footfall, every snap of the cupboard door, each time he wouldn't look at you when you wanted him to.

Only! Two! More! Weeks! Of! School! Holy! Shit! You feel sorry for whoever lives next door to the house with the dog. You wonder about summer. How will you entertain the children? How will you work? And, more importantly, write? How will their constant presence not drive you insane? How can you enjoy the days with them so you can look back on the summer of '10 fondly?

You contemplate starting an anonymous blog so you can say what you really want. You dismiss the idea. If you did, the words and the bad energy would still be out there in the universe. You try to imagine to what extent you bug the crap out of your husband. You know you must. With your silences and then your talking too much and your constant desire for "free" time. He's too nice to tell you, though. Just as well, because you don't really want to know.

Slipping from bed, you pad across the floor in time to the staccato barks. You find the bottle of peach pills and dump a few into your hand. You break one in half and swallow it, bitter remnants lingering on your tongue.

Back between the sheets, your mind quiets almost instantly. The same thoughts hang around, but they're mellower, less insistent. You fall asleep and dream that your teeth fall out into your hand. You used to have that dream a lot when you worked for two controlling publishers at a magazine. Back then, you looked up the meaning of the dream (something you're not wont to do, but did because the dream recurred so many times), the description explained that losing your teeth signifies powerlessness. Or fear of change.

You think about the dream several times the next day, but can't reckon what it has to do with your daily life. As far as you know, you don't feel especially powerless. Nor do you fear change. So you let it go. You get on with things, relieved the dog is silent.