A Lost Weekend

I’ve lost a few weekends in my time. This one was slightly different as they say in Clerks “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!” Or at least, I was supposed to be here now but I wasn’t supposed to be here yesterday. Let me explain all of the strange things that can happen in a weekend where you barely leave your apartment.

See, I was supposed to go home for Easter this weekend. While writing the blog Thursday night I felt a little off but just figured that I was tired. On Friday I figured out that that wasn’t the case as I was completely out of it (apologies to people who dealt with me or received emails from me if they made less sense than normal, a frightening thought). Just tired, congested and not looking forward at all to trying to fly into Chicago where they were getting a half a foot of snow. Called home and my parents and I decided that it would be best for me to stay home and get better as opposed to fly home for 24 hours, catch everyone else’s cold, and not enjoy myself. I’ll be back soon for my nephew’s birthday where my newly acquired free time will come in handy.

Plus, if my medical misadventures over the past six months have taught me anything it is that I have to listen to my body. Otherwise, I will once again find myself lying on the floor wondering (in order) a) who am I, b) where am I, and c) is that my blood? (People wonder why I’m in the midst of completely changing my life. Coming to on the bathroom floor staring at a puddle of your own blood does make you question the current state of your life. True, it was just a fainting spell and a bloody nose but it was scary as hell for a few moments.)

So instead of going to the airport I went home, grabbed a blanket, and passed out on my couch for five hours. I can’t say that I watched the basketball games. More like I was aware that they were going on and would occasionally make the effort to listen if not watch. I somehow spent much of Friday night watching CSPAN listening to Chalmers Johnson discuss the downfall of the American republic. It was a fascinating thing to watch, especially on cold medications, and made me sit down to write an essay called “What Worries Me”. I almost posted it but it is obviously not one of my unicorns and rainbows postings. If you want to see what happens when I peer into the dark corners of my soul (or to see if it as well written as I think it is) let me know and I’ll post it.

(Surprisingly, there are some things about my life that I don’t share. I admire the people who are braver than me in that regard.)

After all of that I go to bed, fall asleep for an hour and am woken up by a) longtime friend of the blog Erik calling me to discuss the current status of my life and b) the couple in the apartment next to mine having, oh how can I explain it, well let’s just say that they were having a lot more fun than I was having at that moment. Remind me that at some point in time I really need to buy a house or get an apartment with thicker walls.

Saturday was more of the same. More time on the couch. Didn’t even have the energy to swear mightily at the television as Duke threw away another season. I’d be more upset except that this is the second straight year where I didn’t like the team. They do seem like arrogant pricks but at least guys like Laettner and Hurley had the talent to back it up. I don’t even like the style of basketball they play anymore. It’s not very smooth. Not as bad as Wisconsin, who are just brutal to watch even when they win, but it doesn’t have the fun of the old teams. Notre Dame went off and got destroyed and my bracket is in ruins (I’m 102 in a 110 person pool last time I checked).

Finally felt like myself when I woke up this morning. Still a little bit of a sore throat but I no longer want to curl under a blanket and hide for the entire day. Not sure what I caught or if it was just all of the late nights and stress catching up to me. This weekend was the first time that it really hit me that after Friday I don’t have a job and I have no idea when I’m going to get another one. That’s starting to scare me. I don’t want to then jump at the first person who waves a paycheck in my face but I don’t know what is going to happen when I have free time. Maybe I’ll be productive, maybe I’ll get into some mischief, who knows. For once, I’m curious to see what happens next in my own life. We’re off the script, people.

Best of 120 Minutes: One of my favorite phrases to use about my life is “I’ve lost the plot.” I’m not sure if this is the original source of that line for me but it is close enough. At least whenever I say it I hear Tanya Donnelly singing it. Here we go, back to the days when Belly was on the cutting edge of music. Sigh. I miss Tanya. She was so cool.



The five random CDs for the week:
1) Drive-By Truckers “The Dirty South”
2) Tori Amos “Under the Pink”
3) Alejandro Escovedo “Thirteen Years”
4) Gram Parsons “GP/Grievous Angel”
5) Laura Cantrell “When the Roses Bloom Again”