Sleeping Dog

Late Saturday afternoon.  Dog sleeping.  Bored with the movie in the DVD player.  Meal didn't quite hit the spot.  Cold rain outside.  Friends all otherwise occupied.  Think I'll call my sons.

Son #2, called him first because he has weird work hours right now, and it happens to be the time he's usually up.  Left voice mail.

Son #1, voice mail: "To leave a message, press one."  Pressed one.  Nothing.  Couldn't leave a message.  I hanged up.

Now what?  This is a dangerous situation, idle hands and all that.  Bypassing deviant thoughts numbers one through four.  Maybe it's time to let my creative mind take over.  Concentrating.

Bypassing deviant thoughts number five through eleven.

Son #2 calls back.  He's busy.  Wish I were busy.  Everyone but me is busy.  What's that about?

Concentrating.

Go outside in the cold rain in shorts and a t-shirt.  Look around.  Nothing.  Look at the car.  No ideas.  Go back in.

What is this, writer's block?  No; writer's block is when you want to write but can't.  I tell myself that I should write, at least because I don't have anything better to do, but I really don't want to write.  Maybe I really don't want to do anything.

Bypassing deviant thoughts numbers twelve and thirteen.

Thirteen.  Now there's something to write about.  Unlucky number.  In tall buildings there are no floors numbered thirteen because of that.  Why was the last deviant thought numbered thirteen if people go so far as to purposefully skip that number when they number floors in a tall building?

Imagining myself in an elevator in my mind.  No thirteenth floor button.  I wonder about the button numbered fourteen.  Will it take me to a floor, a new deviant thought, or the same deviant thought I had that was numbered thirteen?  I decide I don't want to find out.

I have a fleeting thought about how they make movies as I look at the solid-blue screen left on the TV from when I stopped the DVD player.  If I dance around in front of it, can I later put in a background that makes it look like I'm dancing around in front of a waterfall or something?  Ah, that would be deviant thought number fourteen.  It was different than thirteen.  The scary thing is that I decided not to push the button.

Food.  Just ate, not hungry.  Dessert.  Don't have any, except butterscotch pudding powder, the kind you have to stand and stir for an eternity, because it tastes better than instant.  But it doesn't taste better if you never make it because you don't want to stand and stir for an eternity.

Besides, there's no milk.

Ok, then, go to the grocery!  Now we're onto something!  HA HA!  Get a dessert while I'm there, something really good, like one of those cheesecakes that costs as much as a whole bag of other groceries!  And get milk.

I remember my long grocery list.  If I'm going to go, I might as well get it all.  I'll be worn out by the time I get home with a trunk full of groceries.  Emotionally worn out, too, because of the grocery bill, fattened by several things like the cheesecake, each item a futile effort to comfort myself while in a comfort-less mood.  Then I have to carry them all in.  Then I have to put them away.  Well, at least the cold stuff.  Sounds exhausting.

Maybe I'm just tired.

Nap.  Not really sleepy.  Could probably sleep anyway.  Am I depressed?  One of the few things that ever depresses me is that I'm always wondering if I'm depressed.

Ok, that is most likely deviant thought number fifteen.  At least I'm moving up in the world.

plankton plantations whirl about my glass-paned face and rubbered head distant swimming shadows threaten or strike wonder eyes straining hoping the adventure will appear the treasure the bones a mermaid the Nautilus Johnny Depp that big-assed jewel from the old lady who was Kate Winslet falling past me love to float weightless weightless weightless

Guess I dozed off for a minute.  Maybe longer, it's darker now.

Dog still sleeping.