JUST TO LET YOU KNOW...

In the pantheon of adult maladies, both physical and mental, the one that I am most recently afflicted with and the one which is, arguably, the least unpleasant one to have past the age of 13 is conjunctivitis. Yes, I got the old stink pink eye. I know not from whence it came; could've been on the money at the theater where I volunteer, could've been a germ inside a library book, could've been living on the fur of my cats. Whatever the source, I found myself waking up last Sunday morning with a convincing case of "stabby eye". That is to say, it felt as though, as I slept a very deep sleep, my left eye had stolen my credit card, went online and paid for express shipping of spiked snow chains, wrapped itself, cocoon style in the chains and spent the wee hours of the morning grinding, turning itself over and over in my head until I awoke, unable to fully open my lids and moaning one really long curse word. You are old enough to know which.

But that was the extent of whatever unpleasantness comes as part of the prepackaged conjunctivitis deal. I knew immediately what I had and prepared myself accordingly. And by "prepared myself" I really just mean I complained and tried to form a force field around my body when having Father's Day brunch with my family. Oh and also I had a permanent squint, making me look like I was suspicious of everything I heard. Either that or that I was preparing to say something really bitchy. Other than those minor discomforts, pink eye requires you to drop small amounts of liquid into your eyes, four times a day and to stay as far away as possible from other humans. I could lie and say that I mourn the loss of two productive days of work but I'm not a liar. Or at least not a liar about something dumb like that. I found the two unexpected days off from work, bereft of the freedom to go out and DO anything to be a welcome change from my normal restlessness. Physically I felt fine (apart from one oozing eye), making sleeping in, drinking coffee over a few novels and saving gas money really quite pleasant. I'm contemplating buying a bumper sticker that says "I Brake for Pink Eye".

Other than that, the past week has been pretty uneventful. I had a nice time during Father's Day. I finished a couple of really good books.I reupped my yoga studio classes and have been doing that on a fairly regular basis when I can. I still cannot manage a dang headstand, though I imagine that has more to do with fear than any lack of ability. One lesson I learn after most yoga classes is how much I let fear get in the way of things I want to do. I suppose we all do that to an extent but it is never as obvious to me as when I'm kicking my legs up, one at a time and they come right back down again, gravity pulling them back where they belong. Well, gravity and my scaredy cat brain.

Last night, in preparation for a viewing of Before Midnight tomorrow afternoon, I finally opened the seal on my copies of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. I have seen these before, though not until I was well into my 20s (a fact which makes me sad) but I had not yet opened the copies I bought off amazon about two years ago when I did some midnight depression shopping. These movies do something to me. They make me so happy and optimistic and so sad and bitter all at the same time. That this is my reaction to two romantic films does not surprise me since that is exactly the reaction I have to romantic love in reality. Every time I see these I start with a smile which eventually morphs into tears. Strangely enough, I have only ever happened to watch these films when I've crossed over the line from being single to being Single. Which is not as bad as being SINGLE (not that there's anything wrong with being SINGLE if that's what you want to be). But something about it being the Friday night of the first day of summer, something about watching two people crash into each other so smoothly and fall in love so seamlessly, something about I don't really know what made these hurt.

I suspect it did not help matters when I checked my email later and saw a message from the volunteer coordinator at the theater where I occasionally help out. I am scheduled to help out tonight. The email had a subject line that read: THIS SATURDAY NIGHT. In the body of the message it read, in all caps of course:

JUST TO LET YOU KNOW YOU WILL BE ALONE ON THIS SAT. NIGHT.

Naturally she just meant that the other volunteer had cancelled but, like I said, I was feeling SINGLE. These bouts are usually few and far between so I'm already back to enjoying being single. Nothing more to see here.

Anyway, I'm struggling to find a point to this blog post. I can't seem to and you are I am just going to have to deal with that.