Sunday, March 4, 2012

(Nothing)

Nothing to say today. Nothing to write.

The piles of books today. The racks upon racks of CDs and DVDs and vinyl records, and so on and so on. An entire internet at my fingertips, chock full of tragedy and outrage, of suffering and hot lesbian sex. I sit dead center in the middle of my room and I am not the least bit interested in any of it.

I am not even bored today.

This is a bit worrisome to me, frankly, but not worrisome enough to raise my blood pressure. Not enough to be a thing. Worrisome, but just a smidgen. A smidgette, even. Or for all the Latinos out there, un smidgito. Smij-ee-toh.

I walk over to the window. Open it. The air outside is precisely the same temperature as the air inside.

Close it.

Next, I stare at the cat for a little while. The cat stares back at me. She thinks this is a trick somehow, I suppose, this uncharacteristic purposeless staring. It is not a trick. Not at all. I simply want to know what one does when faced with the horror of having nothing to do.

I decide to head downstairs. I do so mostly because there is almost always something downstairs that I am supposed to be doing, and now seems like as good a time as any to do it. I move some clothes from out of the washing machine and into the dryer.

Then I sigh. I have just performed a household chore. But nothing has changed, really.

One of my daughters is sitting in the living room, staring at a program on the television. I am not even sure which daughter it is. Today, she shall be known as “The One Who Watches Television.”

“Hey!”  I say to this girl sitting in my house whom I assume to be one of my daughters.  “Want to go play in the mud?”  I say. I attempt to sound enthusiastic. I fail.  “That always gets Mom nice and angry!”

The girl just shrugs, does not even look up from her television program. “There is no mud!”  she says. She is likely correct.

I wander outside. Out, out into the street, no destination in mind at all.

An old friend – someone I have not seen in ten years or more – is crossing the street outside of my house. She is a very tiny person, this old friend, carrying a dog of cartoonishly enormous proportions.

Her voice shoots at me out from behind the dog. “Katy Anders?! Is that you?”

It is me, although at that moment, I sort of wish it wasn’t.

My old friend sets the dog, which looks to be a mutant cross between a pit bull and a greyhound bus, onto the ground. She begins asking me whether I remember a variety of events which took place back in the Nineties. That took place back when we knew each other.

I do remember. I tell her as much.

This goes on for some time. Finally, out of pure frustration, I ask her whether she has accepted Jesus Christ as her Personal Savior. At the next opportunity, she picks the dog back up and wanders away.

I retreat back inside the house and stare at the cat some more. I am not bored. I am not anxious or depressed or angry or stressed out, horny or hungry or sleepy or grumpy.

When this has gone on for an hour more, I start to panic. What if I have gone stupid? What if that last sip of wine last night killed an important cluster of brain cells, dropping me below some critical I.Q. threshold at long last?

I phone my husband, more out of curiosity than anything else. My husband, who is also the husband of my brother, who in turn is also the husband of my wife.

I tell him my dilemma, hoping he can diagnose me. He is a physician’s assistant by trade.

“I am not a doctor,” my husband says to me. I know this already, as demonstrated by that last short paragraph I just typed.

“Well, are you in any pain?” he finally asks. “Have you been feeling down lately? Are you on any new medications? Are you having trouble sleeping?”

No, no, no, and no. Nothing like that at all. That is my whole point, or at least a part of my whole point.

He is almost making me irritable now, which is a big step forward for me today.

“Congratulations, Katy,” my husband says. “You are feeling comfortable. I diagnose you with having the kind of pleasant day the rest of us are always aiming for but rarely actually achieve. Enjoy!”

Then the bastard hangs up on me.

“Comfortable?!” I shout. The cat runs from the room, her worst suspicions now confirmed.

Comfortable.

About this, I want to say something that proves my husband wrong. I want to write something. Something. Something. Anything.

Maybe I have been inside of houses for too long again.

Nothing to say today. Too comfortable to write.

26 comments:

  1. I have those days alllll the time.. They throw me off too.. I usually just go to bed and let it pass.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I NEVER have those days. I'm always stressed out or angry or trying to achieve enlightenment through music...

      Someone should have warned me!

      I will try your advice next time - if it happens again - and just go to bed.

      Delete
  2. Not bad for a Seinfeld episode...

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    1. Haha... Thank you, BadDog.

      I usually take a couple days to figure out a weekly topic for the blog. (Really, I take LONG time!)

      This week, I found myself walking around the house telling people, "My head is completely empty!" This came together in a couple minutes.

      It is a blog about nuthin'...

      Delete
  3. Congratulations. You have a 1st World Problem.

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    1. Absolutely. "I'm too comfortable" is a complaint that any wiser person might keep to herself, huh?

      Delete
  4. jervaise brooke hamsterMarch 5, 2012 at 5:27 AM

    Katy, do you know the definition of a perfect life ?: To sit quietly in a nice cosy little cottage out in the countryside, literally just staring into space every day and doing absolutely nothing for 100 years with absolutely no contact of any kind with other people for the entire 100 year period, and then snuffing it painlessly and peacefully in your sleep on the morning of your 105th birthday, just imagine what a joyous and perfect world we would have if everybody in the world was able to live their lives in that "ultra-perfect" way. Unfortunately in the hell-on-earth that we`ve created for ourselves that "ultra-perfect" life just isn`t possible for 99.999% of the worlds population.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That sounds about right, I think.

      Yesterday proves to me that I am not a Buddhist. The idea of making my mind like "a reflection that a trail of geese makes across the sky" is not as great as it sounds when Alan Watts writes about it.

      Next time, I am going to go punch a cop.

      Delete
  5. My mother used to call me "The One Who Watches Television." This made me uncomfortable.

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    1. Haha... Yes, that is probably something that is generally funnier to the adult than the kid.

      We have quite a few pets here - plus the kids have named the house plants - so when someone talks about what So-and-So just did, I can always crack jokes like "Now, which one is So-and-so? Is that the spider or the kid?"

      Delete
  6. Looks this post could use alternative title on how to kill the time when you are bored and how to avoid awkward conversations. For a post with title nothing, this had lot to say. And loved the accepted Jesus as your lord tip. May come in handy.

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    1. Thanks. You have to be careful about who you use the "Jesus as your Personal Savior" bit with, though.

      Make sure the the person is not a born-again evangelical or anyone you want to talk to again ever.

      Delete
  7. Here in Suburbia, everyone has a terminal case of 'comfortableness.' Except they like to look down upon the lower class and the ethnics while being comfortable (I dare say it brings them part of their comfort).

    Also, as a guy who is .25% Hispanic, I can appreciate your catering to me with 'smidgito'.

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    1. I would end up drowning in my own drool if I lived like that for very long!

      But yes, I am always trying to reach out to new demographics. Based on my Stats page, I'm only having an impact in the U.SA. and Ukraine. Those Ukrainians must love this page!

      Delete
  8. How about running amok with the bread knife? That should make things interesting.

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    1. Yeah, but you kind of need to be INSPIRED to do that. I was going to crush up some Predisone and snort it, which would have probably put me in the mood for mischief and mayhem. Alas, it never happened...

      Delete
  9. Holy shit Katy, what happened? There is nothing worse than being comfortable, or satisfied. NOW WHAT??? To the bat cave, err, tunnel?

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    1. I can only hope it's just a passing phase.

      I'll be back to mentally unbalanced, inebriated, and dreaming at any moment!

      Delete
    2. Careful, the next thing you know happiness might creep in your life. Boy will you be screwed then!

      Delete
    3. What you have to keep in mind, though, is that I always manage to hijack my own happiness.

      It's my not-so-secret fatal flaw, my Achilles heel: If I see things going in one positive direction, I will always manage to blow up the path. I always look a gift horse in the mouth and start extracting teeth.

      Delete
    4. The good thing about suburban "Comfortableness" is it breeds curious behavior. You're either gonna turn into a serial killer, or a "Furry". Either way, that'll be something new.....

      Delete
    5. Every time I hear the term "Furry", I think of "The Shining." There's a scene where things are really falling apart, where one one of the characters looks into a room and there's a person doing something with a person in an animal suit.

      Thus completed my entire knowledge base on furries.

      I tend to get bored easily if things are too stable. I will move outdoors or get into a bar fight. I don't think i consciously MEAN to throw a wrench into my life, but I do. Like clockwork.

      Delete
  10. You are trying to start the mud dances?
    You'd better keep doing the laundry if that's your strategy!

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    1. I can always use a good excuse to play in mud. If it requires a child to provide cover for me, I'll accept that.

      Delete
  11. You should start doing drugs. That is what I do when I have nothing to do.

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    1. I tried that for many years.

      They don't do good things to my head anymore. Whatever the drugs possessed, they etched it into my brain and moved on. I'm done with them, and they are done with me.

      Delete

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