Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Routine--Like Ritual, but Without the Praying

When my alarm went off at 5:30, I was already awake, listening to the dog snore and trying to understand why the tiny cat would feel the need to poke me repeatedly with one claw. I thought about staying home and how much I just wanted to never move from my bed. I mean, I feel sorry for myself with the best of them. I give myself over to despair like a pro. And I was totally feeling like this would be another fine day to let slip by. But I got up, like usual, and I went to the bathroom, like I always do, and I came downstairs and put on the big orange jacket and hooked the dog's collar and opened the door and stepped outside, like I do every weekday morning. Don't get me wrong. I still felt like shit about the whole thing. But I was thinking of funerals (yes, still) and how nice it is that they're very similar. Once you know the funeral service, it never changes. You just go into the church and kind of turn the autopilot on. It's kind of a respite from the newness of your grief, because it gives you something old and familiar to do. And that's what my normal day is--old and familiar. So, I put one foot in front of the other and I walked around my neighborhood and I came home and I ate breakfast and that's the plan, to just do some normal shit. If I still feel bad after work, then I can go to bed. Meanwhile, I was going to tell you guys that the whole weekend was not all fat people talking bad about how fat other fat people had gotten. There was actually a lot of really nice stuff, like watching the littlest nephew dance at the wedding and realizing that his "dancing" was just doing baseball slides with fancy hand movements. Or like coming back to the hotel and looking in the whirlpool and seeing the Butcher and the littlest nephew--just their heads, bobbing right at the surface of the water. Or like watching the littlest nephew walking right up to people, sticking out his hand and saying "Hello, my name is [littlest nephew]." The bride was beautiful. She had a strapless off-white gown with a kind of corset tie doohicky up the back. The food was good, the weather was nice, and it was really good to see everyone and spend time with them, even if I'm not yet sure how to assimilate everything.

9 Comments:

Blogger Kat Coble said...

the whole weekend was not all fat people talking bad about how fat other fat people had gotten.

I'm sorry...did you end up at my parents' house by mistake?

10/11/2005 09:28:00 AM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

Shoot, maybe. Do your parents have a framed autographed picture of George and Laura Bush hanging right in the entry way of their house?

10/11/2005 09:44:00 AM  
Blogger Kat Coble said...

No. But my father has an autographed picture of Nixon from his days in CREeP. The rest of the house is taken over by my mom's collection of snowmen and women. (Since they're made of snow are they organic? Fluid?)

She has, at last count, over 500. Tim thinks she likes them solely because they advance fat acceptance. ("It's the only place where it is culturally approved to be round.")

10/11/2005 09:48:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My parents have the auto-penned photos of the First Couple every damn where in the house. Most of them are in the guest room, where I sleep. Mom likes to give the illusion that George and Laura stay with them on holidays. Evidently, the Bushes like staring at pictures of themselves.

10/11/2005 10:07:00 AM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

My god, I totally neglected to tell you guys how much the wedding was clearly the Michigan branch of the Republican Party.

Not only were there the prominently placed photos of the Bushes and the "ironic" Clinton bumperstickers placed right where they could point and laugh, and the "well, as a business man, I'd be stupid to vote Democratic" speech my cousin gave, when my nephew banged his face into that girl and started bleeding, Joe Schwarz came over and made sure nothing was broken.

Yes, somehow my aunt and uncle roped a congressman into coming to the wedding and then paraded him around like his presense was proof of their greatness.

You know, if I wasn't well-aware of the fact that I had a relative elected mayor of Three Rivers on the Socialist party ticket back in the day, I'd wonder where this stubborn strain of liberalism came from.

10/11/2005 10:21:00 AM  
Blogger Kat Coble said...

I give you until 45. At that point you will be more conservative than you ever feared.

10/11/2005 11:45:00 AM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

Ha, that would be hilarious. I'd be laying there on the night before my 45th birthday wondering if Sarcastro had any luck finding a hot Libertarian woman and the next day I'd wake up and be like "Well, damn, here I am."

10/11/2005 12:13:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Funny, except I'd be like 90 by then.

10/11/2005 12:19:00 PM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

That's fine. Old men love me. I'll come over, box up the last little bit of pink frilly stuff, and call your ex to come get it (when I'm 45, she'll still be a spry 33. I'm sure she'll be able to get that last box all by herself). Then we can spend your last years attending VFW fish fries and getting drunk on the back porch. It'll be good fun.

10/11/2005 01:18:00 PM  

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