I've never been particularly fond of Sundays. Today was especially horrific because I had to get up at 7:30am. In my life, I don't ever want to have to get up before 9am, unless I have to drive someone to the airport, like I did today. My aunt, Pam, laughed once when I said that and said, "Tough. That's life. You'll have to start doing it sooner or later." I'm still striving to maintain an existence in which I can sleep until 10 every day.

My weekend was lovely. Full of friends and music and good food and my own bed. Lots of weird dreams and sleeping until 11. I bought a summer dress and I made a lasagna. I went to the beach at midnight and tracked sand all the way home and into my bathroom. I definitely smoked too much and drank too much. This is what my life is normally like.

It was strange to come back here, to Orange Co., today. Strange to have to sleep in that bed again tonight. It's really not a bad guest room. It's little and the bed is bouncy yet hard. A few years ago, shortly after my Dad had moved into this apartment, he finally finished redoing the room with new sheets and wall hangings and one weekend, when I had come to visit from New York, he had hung a sign on the door that said, "Claire's Room."

The strangest and most disconcerting thing about the room is that on the wall, over the bed, is a photograph of me and my parents which was taken when I was about seven years old. The photograph itself is not that strange - we look like a normal, middle-upper class, white family, perfectly posed. The strange thing is the size of the photograph: 3 1/2 feet by 5 feet. And the worst thing is that, when lying in bed, with the photograph hanging above me, I am facing two large mirrored closets. Hence, every night right before I close my eyes and go to sleep, I take a good long look at my family, circa 1984.

In 1984, when we had the photograph taken, the photography shop (which was in a large mall in suburban Atlanta) that developed the picture liked it so much that they asked our permission to blow it up and use it in their store as a model of their work. About ten years later the shop was going out of business and they contacted my father to ask him if we would like the picture. Why yes, I think that it would look lovely when, in a few years, my wife is dead and I am living in a small condominium in Southern California, I can hang it in a tiny guest room so that anyone who is sleeping there can be completely overwhelmed by it just before they drift off to sleep.

The hospice social worker is coming tomorrow to talk to us. My Dad is talking about having his pace-maker turned off. He had it put in six weeks ago.
11:13:03 PM     comment []