A Red Leaf and a Red Face

I love the theme music to Route 66.
 
Today and yesterday were the first two days in a few weeks I’ve woken up feeling anywhere near normal.  Healthwise, that is.  Felt wonderful.  My laryngitis is going away, and I’m slowly getting myself out of the habit of whispering instead of speaking.  My energy dissipated very swiftly yesterday when I was out and about, however.  Came home and laid across my couch for a while and then felt better.  Today, I woke up very early for me, about 9:30 a.m. and made myself and William breakfast.  I like scrambled eggs, two of them, with american cheese melted over the top, and wheat toast.  Any other cheese, sumptuous as they are, melted over my eggs always tastes and feels ultra greasy to me and grosses me out.  I like fancier cheeses melted over anything else I melt cheese over, just not eggs.  William likes soft boiled eggs in the morning with toast.  I hate soft boiled eggs, but do not mind making them for him.  Used these immersion egg cups he gave me for this purpose, that are supposed to be for keeping boiled eggs in place while in the pot boiling, and easier lifting in and out of the pot, but I smelled burnt rubber a minute before they were ready.  I left them in, since the eggs would be ready so soon, and when I took them out, the smell of burnt rubber was overpowering.  Parts of their handles had warped a bit.  I had taken my robe off right before this, as I was very overheated in the kitchen, but was desperate to open the big sliding glass doors in the living room to try to get some of the awful burnt rubber smell out of the apartment.  I ran over, frantic to breathe in some clean air, hesitated for a brief moment before stepping in front of the clear glass, as I realized I was stark naked, peered out briefly and saw no one standing around out there, inserted myself in front of the glass and pulled the burglar bar up, unlocked the door and slid it wide open, feeling the cold air rush in against my body, inhaled one deep lengthy breath of crisp autumn air, made sure the screen door was securely closed so the cats couldn’t get out, and rushed away to the safety of obscurity.
 
Washed up from cooking and put my robe back on.  William got up shortly after and was excited to find breakfast ready for him.  Noticed the egg cup handles looking warped and then a hint of the rubber smell, but luckily, it didn’t affect the taste of his eggs.  We sat by the open screen door and ate, watched an occasional brown or mustard yellow leaf float down from a tree and blow around with the breeze a bit, watched an occasional chipmunk run noisily through the carpet of crunchy leaves on the ground outside and the cats gather entranced, turning their heads at the exact same times and the exact same angles.  It was peaceful.
 
Pulled on a mint green waffle knit sweater, soft and cozy feeling against my skin, and a pair of super high rise twiggy charcoal jeans.  Pink gingham keds with lime trim, light bronze lining the edges of my eyes and soft shimmery gold spread across my eyelids.  Lacquered my lips with a sheer bubble gum pink that has a hint of violet in it, a Dior Addict shade called Singulaire, hint of pink on my cheeks, and was out the door, William in tow.  
 
An older Jewish man in a tan track suit, looked about 60, was talking with a neighbor I haven’t met in front of my apartment building.  The neighbor walked up to his apartment just before we approached, and the older Jewish man stopped and asked William, "Now I don’t mean to be nosy or judgmental, but what does that shirt…" he peered closer, "sweater…sweatshirt mean?"  William was wearing a black sweatshirt with a giant Ace card on the front that had a large smiling red devil with horns and a pitchfork embroidered into the center of the card, a present from me for Christmas last year.  William answered, "It’s an Ace card, with a devil on it.  As far as what it means…" William searched in his head for an appropriate answer and I could tell he was having trouble finding one, so I flashed a smile and filled in cheerfully, "He’s a lawyer…He’s in touch with the dark side."  William laughed and said it was true.  The older man began gossiping about some of our neighbors, nothing racy, just asking if anyone had moved out recently, told us which ones had moved in recently, told us he saw this Asian woman on the top floor of our building giving her husband a haircut out on their balcony, and commented about how he often sits on his own balcony, which sits perpendicular to mine but one floor up, and just watches people.  To my abject horror, at that moment he gave me a lascivious smile and shamelessly looked me up and down my body.  I wondered if he’d seen me naked in front of the sliding glass doors a couple of hours before.  I can’t tell if I blushed or not, but my cheeks felt hot and I felt like I was.  I motioned toward the car for William and I to get going, but the nosy, possibly dirty, old man extended his hand out to me and introduced himself as Morris.  I shook it and we all introduced ourselves.  He then talked for what felt like forever about his plants he keeps on his balcony and commented that I seem to have trouble keeping plants alive for long.  This I know, and I told him I get absolutely no sunlight at any time of day on my terrace, and that I’ve never been good at taking care of plants, that I’m much better at taking care of animals.  He then told me he loves watching my kitties in the windows, and I thanked him, but began picturing him hiding out in a lawn chair behind all of his plants on his balcony with a pair of binoculars, just peering into people’s apartments all day.  Eventually, I found an escape from the conversation and was off on my merry way.  
 
Came home a little tired, but had enough energy to walk out and do something I’d been dying to do for weeks:  take pictures of some autumn leaves.  Walked around doing that for almost an hour, until I started to feel very cold and my memory card, still stuffed with all of the pictures from my vacation, was completely filled up.  I picked out my favorite leaf, a tiny bright red maple leaf I found on the ground, its vivid edges sticking out from under a bigger leaf, brought it inside and then Sullivan came over for the evening.  William and I have basically been on suicide watch all weekend, since after being married for three weeks, he and his husband Gil have decided to split up.  They’ve been living together for five years, but somehow, marriage was the catalyst for them to end things, or so it looks now.  Sullivan was threatening to kill himself all last week.  Our friend Lisa was spending time with him every evening this past week to make sure he was okay and try to get him through his rough time, but she had a trip planned for the weekend and asked me and William to take over while she was gone.  We’ve had him over a lot this weekend, and he’s been drunk almost the entire time.  He was sober today, and asked for some of my iced green tea instead of a cocktail.  He’s been trying to lose weight using these two little nodes he pasted onto the sides of his head, just above his ears.  They’re supposed to suppress his appetite when he presses on them.  When the pizza he ordered arrived, he frantically pressed on both nodes at the same time a bunch of times, and then proceeded to eat four huge slices.  We hung out for a couple of hours and he talked the whole time about wanting to have sex with basically every male and female friend of his, and then right before he left, he stood over my bowl of leftover Halloween candy and ate about ten fun size candy bars and a few little bags of M&Ms.  Stuck an orange jack-o-lantern lollipop in his mouth before heading out the door.  I guess those Frankenstein appetite suppressors don’t work.
 
I fell asleep on the couch with a billowy throw blanket on top of me after he left and napped for three hours.  Just before waking up, I had a dream that I wanted to take a shower, and I got in a shower at some gym and discovered there was a man watching me, so I left.  Then I was in this big van that had light grey plastic all over the interior, and there was a shower in there, and I wanted to use it.  I then noticed a woman sitting in the back of the van and hesitated, but came to the conclusion that I didn’t care if she watched, since it was just another woman, so I turned on the shower and stripped off my clothes, and then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the woman had somehow turned into a man, whose features I can’t recall in the slightest bit, who was staring and smiling at me and telling me it was okay for me to shower in front of him.  I woke up at that point and wondered why I’d had that dream, as I didn’t particularly feel sticky or physically dirty.  Then, I thought to myself, Damn it!  I’ll bet that was because of Morris and his binoculars!  Sullivan had also been telling me, right before he left, about how he loves to shower with the door open at his gym, kind of hoping someone will be daring enough to join him.  
 
Ugh, well I guess I’ll go shower for real now.