Just the facts

Instead of analyzing anything I’m doing with my life, or how things make me feel, I’m going to keep this entry simpler and just write about Saturday.

Up at 7:30, made breakfast for me and J, bagel with smooshed avocado paste, scrambled egg soft and moist, thin slices of a sweet tomato, a few crumbles of cheddar cheese, the last of the maple bacon, coffee on the side. She leaves at 8:45, I take my pills for cholesterol and anxiety, then I write until ten on OpenDiary debating what I will do with the rest of my day.

I change into athletic clothing and go to the local gym and work through my scheduled regimen: Biceps and shoulders and back and fifteen minutes of physical therapy stuff for my right knee. I’m home at noon. Shower, do my once-a-week extra grooming exercises, shave hair around ears that grow now that I’m in my forties, nostrils, other unmentionable places. J starts texting me around this time the way she normally does when she’s at work and either bored or overworked and needs to vent. Today it is overworked — there are a lot of patrons at the library and she can’t find the time to work on her children’s programming activities. I was going to write about how I feel about this and then I remembered that I am trying to just stick to the facts.

I have lunch, leftover macaroni and cheese and salmon from two nights ago, the last slice of bread from Panera. I notice my jaw hurts and there’s a very tender place where my lower right wisdom tooth used to be. I remember that it’s been hurting periodically all week and make a note on the whiteboard in my home office to call the dentist on Monday if I’m still in pain. Then, as usual, the mid-day exhaustion hits me. I lay down in bed, spread out over the top of the comforter, a pillow positioned on my chest that I can rest my phone on so it is at eye level. I feel my upper body get warm. I watch a youtube video that was so meaningless I can’t even remember here on Monday, just two days later.

Then there’s a ping from my phone, an email from my mom comes in and I read it. It’s an update on my brother, who lives with her. She finally talked to him — they barely talk even though they live in the same 1BR apartment together, she in the living room, he in her bedroom. She funds his life, he is 48 unemployed and essentially a deadbeat. He won’t talk to her without “an appointment.” Even though she is funding his life. She prepared a series of statements to send to him in an email and then decided to read it to him instead of sending it. In this letter she said reasonable things like

I would like to know how your job search is going

We need a better plan for our futures. You can’t stay here forever and your job search doesn’t seem to be yielding any results.

I may be moving in a year to be closer to J (note: that’s me) and when this happens what will you do?

I am concerned about how isolated you are, you don’t even leave the house to go get groceries or take walks.

Maybe reach out to J and see if he might help you with different ideas for employment since your current search is not panning out

Predictably, he went ballistic. He called her senile, said he doesn’t need help, said I can’t believe you would even suggest that J could help me.

My mom says she doesn’t know what to do.

I don’t know what to do either.

I fall asleep for half an hour.

I wake up, make an espresso, ignore the post-nap fatigue, get in the car, drive to Market Basket, wade through dense pockets of shoppers — typical Saturday volume — buy items for the upcoming week, buy extra items for a carrot cake: brown sugar and the good butter and cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar and baby carrots to save time on peeling even though they are often not quite as sweet. Jennie texts me the entire time — I text her back three times to keep her company, once in the parking lot before shopping, again an hour later after packing the car up, once more after getting home and unloading. No emergencies, she’s complaining about overwork some more.

At home I make the cake — soften butter and cream cheese using low power in microwave, whisk dry ingredients, combine everything, chop carrots in food processor, gently combine, spray pan, spread, bake. I make the cream cheese frosting as it bakes. I leave my phone on the kitchen counter and set my track list to Random as I work. I can only remember one song that came on, Routine by Steven Wilson. I sang the lyrics, long ago memorized.

Routine keeps me in line
Helps me pass the time
Concentrate my mind
Helps me to sleep

I clean: Unload the dishwasher, toss new things in there, wipe counters, put away kitchen appliances. I look at the clock and see Jennie will be home soon. I put a videogame on, Tunic, a newer game, a cross between The Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls. I play for half an hour and stop when the cake is done baking, then take it out to cool, put a load of laundry in. Jennie gets home, I greet her, kiss, hug, feel her warmth, she’s tired, she had a long day. She says it smells amazing in here and squeals oooh you made the cake

I say it’s not done yet it needs to cool so the frosting doesn’t melt everywhere on top of it when I get it on

But we can’t wait. We take out corner cubes, the best parts, the areas where the butter from the pan coating has worked its way into the edges and tastes almost burnt, complicating the flavors, light and airy sweetness mixed with something denser, darker, meatier.

J lays on the couch with me. I find that I want to be productive, keep moving, doing things, but she is exhausted from work. She does a thing when she is tired. I sit on the right side of the couch upright and she lays supine on the remainder of the couch, head on my lap but turned out, to the side, so she can watch television with my hand on her belly. We put on 30 Rock and watch the Valentine’s day episodes since we are finishing up our Valentines Day Week, which is a new thing I made up to justify spoiling the two of us in the evenings as the days dragged on. Halfway through the second one I realize she has stopped laughing and fallen asleep.

Something dark inside of me tells me to stop indulging in laziness (she’s sleeping! Now’s your chance to get up and do something productive!) but it is also nice to just sit with J’s sweetness.