A Most Unreliable Narrator Issue #94 Coffee Spoons
This is how I count my days.
Dear Internet,
It turns out my hacking and wheezing was indeed COVID. I was down for five days and TEH followed me soon after. A week after I got sick, the PCR came back positive. Our second PCR test, 10 days after the last one, also came back positive. The home anti-gen test, however, was negative but since the PCRs can apparently catch even the barest feeling of COVID, we’re locking ourselves down for another week. It’s now been three weeks since I’ve been sick. I’m scheduling another PCR test for us this week hoping that it will finally be negative so we can start to do our life. We’ve been extraordinarily lucky and privileged to have Shipt, Grubhub, Chewy, and Amazon at our beck and call. I am grateful for our position. Others don’t have it as well.
Other than my nagging cough, we’re fine.
The weekend ticks by and I get slight anxiety about the upcoming week. It has nothing to do with work but rather the sameness of each day folding into the next. I count my days not by coffee spoons but rather by the laundry pile and TV offerings. Work is work. Facebook memories told me today that three years ago on this date I told the world I got my current job. That time has slowed and sped up so many times my head whirls.
Even though the upcoming week gives me that anxiety, I rather do like Sundays. The day is bookend by TV dates with Kristin and Erika with the middle time free to do whatever I want. Most of the time it’s doing homework, reading, or sitting here writing this. Sundays are also a day of structure which appeals to me. It is also a day I declare that I will do nothing: not shower, clean, laundry, or anything resembling a chore. Homework is not a chore. Homework is fun.
Today I did my taxes. That is not a chore, that is money.
(We must of course give thanks to our long-ago brothers and sisters in the unions for giving us this 40 hour work week (mostly) and weekends off (also mostly).)
I shouldn’t slam the week for its sameness–it’s not its fault. I should fess up there is structure I the week as well: Every other Monday is a date with Steph, once a week therapy session on Tuesday or Wednesday, every other week is a date with Mini-me on Wednesday, and every Thursday is Drag Race night with Kristin. I do shower and my chores during the week to keep the weekend wide open. It wasn’t that long ago where weekends were full of resentment since it was the time where I needed to do things I couldn’t do in the week. Now, things are different. I’ve made them different for my own mental health. I worked 60 hours a week while I worked at GRCC and then had all my household chores and marriage chores to contend with on the weekends. I swore I would never do that ago. There must be a work/life balance and even if it means I get a bit anxious at the start of the week, I’m determined to make sure it happens.
I haven’t been on a proper vacation since 2017 where we museum hopped in Washington DC for a miserable and rainy May week. I get three weeks of vacation, but it’s eaten up by days off to do things or maybe a day here or there when a friend comes to visit. But a proper vacation? Time where I spend doing nothing, not having to worry about work or chores or taking care of the dog? No. Not in nearly five years.
Most of you know we want to retire in Europe. This adopted country of mine (I’m Canadian by birth) has increasingly gone downhill. Trump is proclaiming in his rallies that if he gets elected in 2024, he will undo everything Biden has done which was undo all the wretched things Trump did. Politics has always been a pissing contest, I’m not stupid, but at some point, when do you say enough is enough?
Be for sure we are under no illusion that Europe is any better. Right now, Russia is poised to invade the Ukraine and Italy has elected yet another president while their own infrastructure crumbles. Boris is a British Trump and we must await the final days of Merkel. But even with all of this happening, even with!, Europe appeals and calls to us. Maybe it’s the history, the lifestyle, the living index, or even the hot European guys in red pants (What is with that?), just something wants us there.
I’ve booked us a weeklong cruise in December with Viking where we’re going to country hop the Mediterranean. The trip is Rome > Florence > Monaco > Marseille > Barcelona. I’m over the moon and have started my Italian lessons with Duolingo. (Io sono una donna! (I am a woman.) Tu mangia un mela! (You eat an apple.)) We will travel in comfort and luxury with our basketball shorts and beat up Chucks. I am beyond excited to go back to Rome; the last time was 17 years ago. TEH has to see the Vatican museums and the Borghese Gallery. I’ve seen all the Caravaggios Rome has to offer but I wouldn’t mind seeing them again. I think there is one in Florence. Of course, we have to see the Pitti Palace. (TEH has already been.)
And the hot European guys in red pants.
We joke that since we’re jabbed, boosted, and chock full of COVID, traveling isn’t that big of deal for us right now. But the trip is in eleven months and who knows what the world will be like then?
We’re bookending extra days in Rome and Barcelona. Barcelona is one of the locales we have thought about moving to for its weather, culture, and food. The only hitch in my plans is that travelling across continental Europe would mean a quick flight to France because I don’t think trains run through the Pyrenees. But I could be wrong. I’m just a filthy American with a bad geographical sense. (I have been to Barcelona and it is amazing.)
After a few cluster fucks of paperwork, the bariatric place finally called on Friday with, what I hope, to be is the beginning of the new Lisa. I was on a meeting when they called, and their office closed early so that will be my first call tomorrow.
My dear friend who is on this journey with me and I talk about what it’ll be like to not be big. Neither of us are under any illusion we’ll ever be society version of thin. Just get us down to where we don’t ache our bones or huff and puff hiking up hills (me, not them). The idea of flying in late November and being able to fit into seats excites me. Being able to shop straight sizes also excites me.
A male dear friend is who we look towards for their guidance on this journey. They had the surgery last fall and has been a boon of answers for our questions, even if they are icky. (Constipation is apparently very real.) We three talked the other day about people’s perceptions of us when you’re thin versus how we are now. Male dear friend talked about getting hit on more often which makes them feel uncomfortable while their fiancé stares down the offender. Male dear friend, who is gay, has also said they’ve been getting slammed in DMs on how they no longer fit the bear aesthetic. No one is happy.
Like I said much earlier, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
Things I Recently Wrote
What I’m Reading
The 7/12 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle An Agatha Christie-esque locked room mystery
Time’s Convert The prequel/sequel in the A Discovery of Witches universe
In Youth is Pleasure Written in 1945, the subversive tale of one Orville Pym and his discovery of self during a summer holiday
Changeless Book #2 in the Parasol Protectorate series
Reputation Mean girls with Jane Austen thrown in
Wonderful Thing
M&Ms.
We’ve been on a peanut M&M kick lately and so when I did our Shipt order for the day, put in the order for a bag. Turns out there is a run-on peanut M&Ms! Who knew! So instead, we got peanut butter as well as trusty plain. I like M&Ms because it’s easy to control what you’re eating without eating too much. Helpful since I’m tracking my food.
Interesting Things (or things to buy)
I brag about my three library cards, but it should not be any surprise that I buy as much as I check out. I’ve been in the mood to purge everything and decided that as I finish the print books, I will sell them. There are loads of options to get rid of them (Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Facebook) but instead, I’m going to hawk them to Powell’s Books. They give you a fair price and pay for shipping. What I can’t sell to Powell’s I’ll take to Half-Priced Books and what I cannot sell there I will donate. Stories go back into the world for someone else to enjoy.
Links to Read That Are Not (Terribly) Depressing
Get vaccinated and mask up! There is a pandemic going on.
lisa x