My Yesterday: A Thousand Points of Dim (and One Song of Despair)

8am-ish: Bryan stands right in front of me at the bathroom sink. I ask him to please move and he says, "but I have to go to work. You don't need to get ready because you're not going anywhere." And he is right.
9 or so: I drop Zoey off at preschool and stop at the grocery store on my way home to buy milk. See! I think. I totally have places to go! People to see! I nod at the man unloading a pallet of cheese, my friend, my colleague even if I have chosen to come to Safeway at 9 on a Wednesday morning and he is working. Semantics. As I'm getting into my car in the parking lot I hear a woman calling, "Ma'am? Ma'am!" I turn around, thinking maybe I dropped something. "Can I see your receipt?" she asks. I paid in cash, carried my milk out sans bag. I do not have the receipt, I tell her. "I saw you walk from the back of the store. I need to see your receipt." It's funny really, that in the second between the first time she asked and this second time I still don't have the receipt. "Which check out stand did you go through?" I wave my hand in the general direction of the store, you know? The one in there? "I need to see your receipt." I think maybe I have stuffed a chicken breast down my pants without realizing it. I still don't have the receipt. We both stand there in the parking lot not knowing what comes next. As in most cases when I am faced with a question to which I do not know the answer, I get in my car and drive home.

9:30 ~ 11ish: I wait for the po-po to arrive at my house with a search warrant for dairy products. Did she get my license plate? I check my pants but still there is no sign that I have stuffed poultry in my drawers. Oh! And in the driveway I step in dog shit. (The carton of milk hidden deep behind the juice.)

Sometime later, who cares: I decide to take a nap. (When you're unemployed, naps are kinda' like Taco Bell: they seems like an excellent idea until you are finished, at which point you just feel bloated, greasy and dumb.) Halfway through my nap a shelf in my bedroom falls, ripping deep silver dollar-sized chunks out of the wall. This is the same shelf Bryan refused to put up for me when we moved in, saying the lath and plaster would not hold any weight. So I put it up myself. Blearily I look at what was once wall sprayed across the floor like snow. Like dandruff. I fall back asleep.

Sometime in the afternoon: I show Zoey the above pictures of Brigitte Bardot and ask her which one looks like mommy. She points to the one on the right. Somehow I know that simply because I asked her this question we are both going to need years of therapy.

All day long: Every time I check my email there is that annoying banner ad telling me that Obama Wants Moms To Go Back To School! For the life of me I cannot figure out why this ad shows a gif of animated shadow ladies dancing in front of a rainbow background. And while I am all for Obama and Moms and yes, even School (god, how I loved school!), one thing I am sure of is that I do not need more school, I need a job. Preferably one that does not have me dancing in front of rainbows, but, you know? If the pay was right?

But I'm fine. Really, I am. Because somewhere in this same world where people think I have shoplifted organic milk and the walls are falling down all around me, there is this: a cat enjoying a lollipop. I am fine.