Lazy, Crazy Day

Exhausted, not enough sleep. The cat wakes me up and I give her some food and by then it's too late to go back to sleep again.

So I go downstairs and lie on the couch and stare out the window. It's snowing terribly, a solid sheet of white that's falling and covering everything. I pull up the afghan and the cat comes to lie beside me. When I finally feel like getting up I don't want to because it would wake her.

The snow keeps falling, it's amazing, beautiful. The cat snores, cuddled against my hip. I've begun sinking into a sugar-low; an imaginary man on a tricycle is circling around in my head, yelling at me, peeling back the layers of conceit and society to reveal the base reality of the brain damaged diabetic. I sink down, further and further. The cat snores. I eventually realize what is happening and I get up and eat an early lunch.

Back to the couch, searching for something to distract me from that tricycle demon, I start to read Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher." It is the perfect cure for my early morning plague. I've forgotten what it's like to read a mass-market paperback, a well-written and straight-forward story whose only purpose is to pull you in and keep you reading.

After a hundred pages I feel a burst of energy: I will do something! I take a shower and wash the curls out of my hair, and then my energy is gone and I return to the couch. The snow has stopped but the wind is intense, picking up entire banks of snow and shoving them into the air. It's like the tricycle demon has gone outside to stir up things there instead. There are two inches of snow heaped upon the power line, and I watch as one long section of snow peels off, falls down. The cat is snoring, paws out, uncomfortably warm.

After two hundred pages another section of snow is gone from the power line. I've lost track of time. I'm enjoying the book.

After three hundred pages the cat wakes from a dream, meows, turns around, and falls asleep again. Small tractors are moving up and down the street, clearing the snow. The tricycle demon is almost gone from my brain. It's a strange, lazy, crazy day. It has a suspended beauty, it's like living in a snowglobe, just me and a cat and the book that I'm reading.